Advanced Directing Performance Lab

Catalog description

This course is a lab designed for directors with films entering into pre-production, for students intending to direct a feature after graduation or for students looking to deepen their craft. The Lab requires that students have a completed draft of a short (for an Advanced Production class), or a feature length script (completed or in progress) or a script from a produced or unproduced project by another writer. Students begin with performance-based script analysis and choosing two to three substantial scenes to rehearse and then move on to casting those scenes. The directors will then begin the rehearsal of their scenes in collaboration with their actors and with the consultation and oversight of their instructor and the feedback of observing students. The objective of this lab is multilayered: 1) To fully explore the dramatic content of their story through character and the event of each scene. 2)Through research and imagination, to create a detailed conception of place for the playing area. This creation of place would include props and wardrobe. 3) Evolve organic blocking of each scene so that a shot list can be evolved based on the actual scene as it is performed rather than a conceptual idea of the scene. 4)To insure that, by doing this detailed work on the performances of the film, the production time is more productive and efficient. Detailed rehearsal will discover many more dramatic possibilities of the material, build character and relationships, discover effective dramatic blocking and uncover any weaknesses within the material before the film goes into production.