Directing the Story by Francis Glebas

The Goal: Why Do We Watch?

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