Directing the Story by Francis Glebas

The Goal: Why Do We Watch?

Why do we watch movies?

• live vicariously through characters
• learn things
• see spectacles
• see other worlds
• hear a good story
• escapism (from boredom)
• to be entertained

none of these necessarily tell us HOW to entertain.

1001 Nights of Entertainment

A fantasy setting is nice, but not a story.

Action, a power dynamic adds interest, but is not a story

Tension and conflict creates energy, but is not quite a story

The secret of storytelling is postponing the resolution of the tension - is delaying the story!

1001 Arabian Nights - a character delaying her own execution and helping the mad sultan by writing morals that couldn't be presented outright into stories- always

cliffhangers that kept her from being killed.

You have to watch a movie or magic trick twice to see how it works - you're immersed in the story the first time.

Come up with ideas using an unconscious search - ask questions, and see what your brain fills in - relax, no forcing, interfering, judging - sense of play.

Pledge that the audience will be rewarded for following along. Identifiable characters. Keep people guessing what will happen. Allow the audience more knowledge than the characters of what will happen.

What's at stake is nothing less than life and death

The story must be about something big, important, significant - even if the scope is small and local.

Show your audience what's at stake, don't tell - show WHY not just what your characters do what they do.

Prove that investing in the journey is worth it to your audience - by making it seemingly impossible for your characters (and yet they go anyway) - obstacle after obstacle.

Dramatization through Questions

Exaggerate the significance of events - they feel like life and death to the characters.

Simple dramas are made story worthy by interconnection through a sequence of cause and effect actions.

The characters have to get themselves into trouble then find ways to get out of it - presented to the audience in the form of questions and imaginative answers.

my note: wonder if that means we should present why getting them into trouble is the best solution they think they have at the time?

Critique: Is it too late to turn back?

Don't make the audience wait to see if something is going to happen - present backstory dramatically.

Entertainment Explained

Everything we do is to avoid pain and gain pleasure - biologically driven.

Watching a character learn to avoid pain through tension and conflict is learning - which is pleasurable.

Delayed gratification increases gratification.

Watch to feel good - to have an emotionally satisfying and meaningful experience.

Give the audience what they want - but not the way they expect it, so they are pleased by novelty and not bored.

Raw emotions on screen provoke reactions to those emotions, not the emotions themselves.

Bringing an audience on a journey to the place where they see why emotions are happening and empathize with them is story.

Aim for the heart by working at a structural level - all you have is pictures, words, sounds, music

What is the audience doing?

Think about the film from the audience's point of view - are they bored, confused, or engaged?

Second most important question besides "Why Do We Watch"

Reverse-engineering approach

Reverse engineer the audience - they aren't just watching! They're thinking through the movie in the mechanics of understanding not wordy thinking, starting even before they arrive to watch, based on their expectations for the show.

1. Bring their expectations and pay attention 

Have to present the story in a way that exceeds expectations

2. See the images clearly 

Design, composition, perspective, lighting

3. Reads the images, see characters things signs movement action symbols 

choose what to show and show how it's significant

4. builds a concept of the story and meaning in their head 

help them follow the story with sequencing and storytelling structure

5. Emotions arise out of meaning automatically 

identifying characters, story viewpoint, genres, narrative questions

6. Feel relief when the narrative questions close 

resolution, chekov's guns. Even a "we'll do it in the next movie" IS a resolution as they know we didn't forget it.

Promise to the reader: intuition illuminated!

Experience is a good teacher, but tactics and techniques are a good help rather than starting from scratch.

The goal of storyboarding skills is for them to disappear into the art of storytelling.

The secret of storytelling is story-delaying

And there are a lot of ways to do it.

Have to put your heart into the work - you want to move the audience.

Escaping boredom is universally funny because it's an unspoken truth - we want our lives to be exciting (we keep them boring to be safe)

Shows are a safe way to experience an exciting life for a bit!

Characters and people are made out of stories.

Points to remember: Why Do We Watch

• We watch movies to feel good - meet that need in your audience
• Make sure your story is about something that matters
• Aim at providing an emotionally satisfying experience for your audience, but work at the the structural level
• The secret of storytelling is story-delaying. Learn the different tactics to tease your audience by making them wait
• The next time you're at a movie pay attention to what experiences you are going through as you watch. Notice what triggers your emotions.

Common Beginner Problems

Points to Remember: Common Beginner Problems

• Make sure your story is character-driven by their desires
• Be aware of potential speaking problems that may bump your audience out of being "lost" in the story
• Remember the speaking metaphor: Clearly show one thing at a time
• Fight boredom by weaving interesting narrative questions that create dramatic characters in escalating conflict
• Fight confusion by focusing the audience's attention to one thing at a time as you tell the story
• Treat every shot as a close-up of what you wish to show the audience
• Make sure your images clearly show the story ideas that you intend to convey
• Aim at the heart by working at a structural level.

The Beginning Basics

Points to Remember:Beginning Basics

• Draw BOLD! Make your images easy to see as a billboard.
• Number your drawings
• Pitch clearly and passionately
• Storyboards are always a work in process. Start out rough and don't be afraid to throw away drawings. Keep at it until you find the image that best tells the story.
• Avoid relying on "talking head" shots. Tell the story visually. Invent visual devices.
• Watch the Wallace and Gromit shorts: A Close Shave and The Wrong Trousers as an example of great visual storytellign.
• Watch old silent movies to see how they tell stories without words.

Structural Approach: Tactics to Reach the Goal

Points to Remember: Drawing for Storyboarding

• Carry a sketchbook and sketch, sketch, sketch!
• Sketch some more.
• Draw the story
• Use gestures to help tell the story
• Learn to draw the essentials fast
• Try scenes a dozen different ways to compose them
• Film always says one thing at a time, and everything must relate to that one thing
• Draw the pose, not the parts. Don't blow it with too many details
• Draw verbs (actions) not nouns (names of things)
• Don't stiffen up your poses. Think diagonals.
• Watch the Disney aniamted classics for examples of great drawings.
• Watch Hayao Miyazaki's films such as Kiki's Delivery Service or My Neighbor Totoro for great visual storytelling and drawing.
• Study comic books for great drawing and visual storytelling.

What do Directors Direct?

Points to Remember: What Directors Direct

• A director must wear many hats:
  • magician
  • hypnotist
  • ventriloquist
  • cheerleader
  • psychologist
  • mediator
  • shepherd
• First and foremost a director directs the audience's attention and keeps directing it
• Change the pace so your audience doesn't grow fatigued. Give them a chance to catch their breath and give them some new scenery
• Misdirect the audience in order to entertain them. But make sure you are clearly directing their attention.
• Learn the gestalt principles and make them work for you
• Analyze the hierarchy of narrative questions, delays, and answers in your film.
  • Are the questions dramatically interesting?
  • Do they maintain dramatic tension throughout the story?
  • Would it be stronger if you moved some around?

How to Direct the Eyes

Points to Remember: Directing the Eyes

• analyze your compositions, exploring each design element at a time, as well as overall
• Design and composition principles apply to every level of film construction from single shot composition to the overall structure of the whole film
• As director you you are the conductor of the moving visuals.
  • You need to control graphic noise in order to make music.
  • Tone down graphic noise by lowering the contrast.
  • Punch up the contrast on where you want the audience to look
• Use composition to create visual drama
• Composition is subtext. It tells the audience how to feel. Make sure you know what you are saying
• Strive for visual clarity, simple but dynamic
• Experiment with moving the camera around to stage the best composition.
• Make sure each shot has a focus or center of dattention. Make sure this has the greatest contrast of value.
• Be aware of where your characters are in the frame and what their placement says about them.
• Use elements of your composition as arrows and pathways to direct the viewer's eyes
• Group and mass similar things to simplify your composition. Mass your darks together to avoid making the picture look spotty
• Weave your compositions with dark over light and light over dark
• Watch 300 to study its dynamic composition.

Directing the Eyes Deeper In Space and Time

Points to Remember: Time And Relative Dimension In Space

• Make sure to give your characters breathing room
• stage from a simple plan and use arrows like a football play
• Use camera movement and framing to help tell the story one idea at a time
• for beauty shots use telephoto lenses
• for dynamic excitement use wide-angle lenses to keep maximum movement through the frame. Shoot on teh camera's axis
• Use proximity to determine the level of engagement with your characters appropriate for the stage of your film
• Watch Lawrence of Arabia for a great exploration of screen space

How to Make Images Speak: The Hidden Power of Images

Points to Remember: Making Images Speak

• Explore all the ways images ask questions to get powerful narrative questions
• use semiotics to find ways to speak indirectly, thus engaging more participation from your audience
• Stack your connotations so that if you present one aspect, it will trigger the whole thing in the minds of your audience
• Everything speaks, it is impossible not to communicate. Remember, you have to teach your audience what the signs mean.
• Be sure to check out Daniel Chandler's book, Semiotics: THe Basics and his online seminar, Semiotics for Beginners
• Film is created like a dream. Slowly let it evolve layering significances and associations until you have a rich tapestry of signs

How to Convey and Suggest Meaning

Points to Remember: Conveying Meaning

• Restructure to cut out boring passages and expand scenes to draw out dramatic moments
• Tell the story through the juxtaposition
• Follow classical continuity editing-- keep the structure invisible
• Always cut for a reason
• Utilize different types of causality and create story delays with Murphy's Law
• Connect your shots logically as a sequence of causes and effects
• Use storyboards to plan good continuity in space and time
• Keep the pendulum swinging between hope and fear
• Watch Miracle on 34th Street and It's a Wonderful Life to study uplifting supernatural causality. Watch I Know What You Did Last Summer to see the darker side of supernatural causality
• Watch Back to the Future for its manipulation of time
• Use Murphy's Law to create great obstacles

Dramatic Irony

Points to Remember: Dramatic Irony

• Work out a chart of the key information. Map when different characters get to know this info and when the audience gets to know it
• Use the chart for ironic commenting on the story
• You, as director, control the flow of information about who gets to know what, when, where, how, and why. This applies to the characters and the audience.

Give your characters impossible choices.

• Evoke desires and fears in order for your audience to fully invest themselves in the story
• Watch Stranger than Fiction and Aladdin, and pay attention to how much more you know than the characters
• Shakespeare also used dramatic irony in structuring his plays. Study them.

The BIG Picture: Story Structures

Points to Remember: Story Structure

• Study your story in the script and storyboard stages, before you shoot.
• Chart out your stories as a mapmaker would. A director has to see the forest and the trees. Study your story with every kind of analysis:
  • the hero's journey and the plot curve for the big picture
  • character emotions and plot functions for the mid-level
  • narration and narrative questions for the micro level
• Watch:
  • The Fisher King
  • Starting OUt in the Evening
  • Groundhog Day
  • Star Wars
  • The Karate Kid

Aiming for the Heart

Points to Remember: Aiming for the Heart

• Find your theam and use it as your compass
• Discover what fantasy you are trying to fill for your audience
• We watch movies for many reasons but mostly to have emotionally satisfying experiences. This is your target as a filmmaker
• Work at structure and keep it invisible by giving the audience reasons to love and root for heroes and reasons to hate villains
• Engage your audience with close-ups; put them in the heart of the action
• Make your audience wish for things to happen and let them imagine how events might have occurred. This makes them guilty participants of their own pleasures.
• Present your audience with moral choices
• Watch The Man in the Chair for how it develops its theme
• Pay attention to how the music and color in films affect you