by Gil Bettman
PART ONE
WHY TEACH HOW TO DIRECT THE CAMERA?
CHAPTER 1
THE IMPORTANCE OF DIRECTING THE CAMERA
Ironically, a director’s ability to direct the camera and control the overall look of his film is not of paramount importance . . . in theory. The script is more important, because, as knowledgeable filmmakers of all stripes agree, a film can only be as good as the script. Never better. And the performances are also more important, because you need consistently excellent performances to put across the value of a script. Therefore, to insure the success of his film, a director must first produce a great script, either on his own, or in collaboration with gifted screenwriters. And then, he must find the best actors to play the parts and help them to deliver superlative performances. If he can do that, he can make a great film. The film does not have to look great to succeed. If you can hear what the actors are saying and you can see what they are doing, then you can make a great film.
There are many examples of films that succeed in this way. Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler was made with a professional crew, but on such a tight schedule and budget, Aronofsky and his DP, Maryse Alberti, had no choice but to scrimp on the look the film. They made a virtue of a liability and gave the film a very gritty, faux-documentary look, which helped the film work as a look at life in the raw. This same tactic of shooting a scripted film so that it looks like a documentary shot on the fly with a few lights and a handheld camera has been used successfully by many directors on their first feature film to disguise the fact that these rudimentary tools were all they could afford. City of God and Breaking the Waves are two such films that used the faux documentary approach and attained greatness, by virtue of script and performance alone.
So if one can make a great film by generating an excellent script and then guiding the actors so that the quality of the script is brought to the screen, irrespective of the look of the film, why write a book about how a director can give his film a great look by expertly directing the camera? Because everything stated above is true, in theory. However, in practice, if you are going to direct a studio movie today, your primary responsibility as a director is the look of the finished film, not the script or the performances.
This has had a trickle-down effect on all theatrical features. Even if you are going to direct a low-budget film with artistic aspirations, like anything made by Aronofsky, Campion, or Cuarón, giving that film the right look has recently become more important than at any other time in the history of filmmaking. As time goes on this will only become more true.
For the most part, this is because, thanks to changes in audience expectations, the look of most studio movies now eats up at least 80% of the 100 million-dollar-plus budget. Starting about the time Frank Capra quit directing major films because Glenn Ford had the clout to override Capra and cast his girlfriend as the female lead in Pocket Full of Miracles (1961), and continuing on up to the present, at an increasingly rapid pace, the studios and the stars have had a bigger say in exactly what goes into the final script. Unless you are an established writer-director with an impressive track record, like James Cameron or Paul Thomas Anderson, the final script of your film will be determined by committee.
So brilliance as a screenwriter or a collaborator is a sufficient but not necessary requirement of a highly successful director. A great writer, like Tony Gilroy, can still write his way to the top as a director. But those who almost never write — who work as hired guns like David Fincher, Ridley Scott, Michael Bay, and Danny Boyle — can now demand top salaries and land the hottest projects written by the most successful writers on the strength of their reputations as masters of the visual side of directing. This is strictly a matter of money. If a film is going to cost more than 100 million dollars and 80 (or even 50) of that 100 million is going to be channeled into the look of the film, then the studios, or whoever is funding the film, are going to protect their investment by hiring the director most proficient at putting that 50 million dollars up on the screen.
To attain that proficiency, a director is going to have to become a brilliant practitioner of everything I teach in this book. Unless he can write his way to the top overnight, like Shane Black, or Tony Gilroy, then he is going to have to fight his way up by directing low-budget or no-budget movies that make a splash with the critics or at the festivals like Jason Reitman or Darren Aronofsky. The aspiring director can use what I teach in this book to give his films the sort of high-energy look that audiences have come to expect, and that studios look for when recruiting the next hot young thing to ride the 100 million dollar tiger.
The money has also shifted the equation when it comes to the importance of directing actors. The advent of the 100 million-dollar-plus studio feature has fueled the rise of the movie megastar with a 10 million dollar price tag. Studios want to protect their investment by hiring proven actors with guaranteed appeal, like Johnny Depp, Will Smith, or Angelina Jolie, no matter what the cost. Actors who come with that price tag can deliver great performances on their own, with absolutely no assistance from the director. My directing mentor, Bob Zemeckis, has won the Oscar for best director. But if you ask him his secret for getting great performances out of his cast he will tell you, unabashedly, “When I want an actor to be happy, I tell him to be happy. And if he is too happy, I tell him, ‘Not that happy.’ How he does it is between him and his shrink, and I don’t want to get involved.”
Directing actors has changed a great deal since 1945 when Elia Kazan transitioned from Broadway to Hollywood and won the Oscar for best director two years later. In his autobiography, A Life, Kazan fully admits that he knew next to nothing about visual design. His ticket to the top was his experience as a theater director and his ability to get great performances out his actors. That was then. Today, if you visit the set of a studio movie, you almost never see the director coaching the actors. Most directors spend 90% of their time and energy huddled in front of the video monitor with the DP and the other department heads, because that is where the majority of the money is being spent. Furthermore, many crucial decisions that will govern the success of the look of the film cannot be made until the last minute, on the set. This is especially true when it comes to green screen, or action or crowd sequences. These crucial, expensive, last minute pieces of problem solving tend to suck up most of a director’s time and attention. The actors, by comparison, are a proven entity.
A director must understand everything taught in this book if he is going to make a studio movie and remain in control on the set. Again, this is because of the exorbitant cost of generating the big, high-energy look of most mainstream films. The cinematographer knows that his reputation as a first-tier shooter of studio movies is riding on his ability to give a great look to every film with his name on it. The same is true to a lesser extent of the First AD. If either of them senses that the director is the slightest bit insecure, or that his choices in visual design are not fully up to the task, then, out of self-defense, they will insinuate themselves as much as possible into the decision-making process. As a result, the finished film will not look the same as the film the director had in his head.
Visual design is always a collaborative process between the director and the cinematographer. According to the best-case scenario, the director and cinematographer challenge each other as equals, and ultimately synthesize their differing approaches into a superior collective decision. But for this to be the case, the director must be as good a shot maker as the DP. If he is the weaker partner, then the look of the finished film will not be his own.
Ironically, everything said above about succeeding as a director of studio movies is equally true for a director who is just starting up the ladder by making a low-budget or a no-budget feature. But in this case, the need for him to be a master of the visual side of directing arises not from the excessive amount of money lavished on the project, but rather from the dearth of funds available for low-budget independent films. Because when there is low pay or
no pay, it is completely possible that the director’s key collaborators, in particular the cinematographer and the First AD, may be incompetent. Or just minimally competent. This is especially true of the cinematographers. The talented ones rapidly put together an impressive demo reel and start commanding good money for their services. If a director is going to land a talented DP to shoot his first, no-budget feature he is going to have to get lucky and find that talented shooter before his star has risen. Otherwise, he will not be able to pay the DP’s rate. The same is true, to a lesser extent, of good First ADs and stunt coordinators. So, if the DP, the First AD, and the stunt coordinator lack talent, then, from day one, the director is going to have to take up the slack. If they cannot improve his ideas about the shots needed to give the film the right look, then he has to do it on his own. And that’s the easy part. The hard part is being able to filter out the bad ideas pushed on him by less than fully competent collaborators. This is directorial hell. I know because I have been there. And this is where I learned a great deal of what is in this book.
There is a school of thought among those who regard film as an art form that sees the rise in the importance of an energetic visual design as a bad thing. Given the number of big, bad, 100 million-dollar-plus movies made by the studios using this style, I can understand why some of the heads of the film schools in Europe where I have taught, and other like-minded individuals, might argue that the last thing an aspiring director needs to learn how to do is make films using this highly energized visual style; that this is the first step on the way to becoming a hack. In their eyes, there is something inherently crass about teaching directors the craft of shot making. Or as the head of the directing program at one of the four, elite, Scandinavian schools once told me, “I don’t understand why we should teach directors how to be cinematographers.”
To these individuals I would simply point out that many studio movies are bad because the scripts are bad. For all the reasons discussed above, the energized visual style is not the cause of the problem.
A director must learn to think like a cinematographer so he can give his films a highly energized look and communicate with his audience using the film language of the present day. This is equally true if he aspires to make art films or studio movies. If he cannot do this, his films will look unimaginative and dated. They may succeed brilliantly in the same way as the early films of Elia Kazan — on the strength of the script and performances — but their use of film language will seem archaic. They must break new ground in the visual realm as well in all other areas, if they are to be considered full, artistic triumphs.
This is why Lars von Trier shot Breaking the Waves with a camera that almost never stopped moving. And why Fernando Meirelles did the same in City of God, and Wong Kar Wai in Fallen Angels, as did Gaspar Noé and Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Alejandro Iñárritu and Alfonso Cuarón and Darren Aronofsky and Steven Soderbergh and Kathryn Bigelow and Christopher Nolan in their breakout films. None of these directors has gone on to become a hack. On the contrary, they are some of the most highly regarded practitioners of film as an art form working today. But when they set out to make the films that would launch their careers, they thought like cameramen and strained to come up with the cool shots that would best tell their stories. They had no money in their miniscule budgets for expensive moving camera platforms like cranes, jibs, or fancy dollies, but each still managed to make his camera fly like Tinkerbell by riding with it on forklifts and pickup trucks and skateboards. Somewhere along the way they had learned the lessons taught in this book and that enabled them to give their first films a contemporary, if not a revolutionary look. In this way, they were able to announce to the world that a new force had arrived on the scene that would push film as an art form to new heights.
CHAPTER 1 SUMMARY POINTS
● In order for a director to communicate with his audience using the film language of the present day he must know as much about shot making as the cinematographer.
● In order for a director’s films to be considered full artistic triumphs they must break new ground in the visual realm, as well as in all other realms.
● If you are going to direct a studio movie today, your primary responsibility as a director is the look of the finished film, not the script or the performances.
● Since the studios are now channeling up to 80% of the budget of their films into the look of the finished film, they are going to try to protect their investment by hiring the director who they deem the most proficient at putting that money up on the screen.
● On a studio movie, if either the DP or the First AD senses that the director’s choices in visual design are not fully up to the task, then, out of self-defense, they will insinuate themselves as much as possible into the decision-making process.
● On a low-pay or no-pay production, it is completely possible that the director’s key collaborators, in particular the cinematographer and the First AD, may be incompetent. If this is the case, then the director is going to have to take up the slack and perfect the visual design of the film on his own.
PART TWO
SHOOTING DIALOGUE SEQUENCES WITH A MOVING CAMERA
CHAPTER 2
WHY MOVE YOUR CAMERA?
OVERVIEW
The short answer to the question, “Why move your camera?” is to get work. Shooting with a moving camera has become the worldwide global standard for professional directors. Yes, some directors shoot with a mostly static camera, but they are a dying breed. When mainstream audiences around the world pay good money to watch a movie in a darkened theater, they want it to be energized by a moving camera. Almost everything they have seen on YouTube, on TV, or on the big screen that they considered worth watching was shot with a moving camera. As a result, this visually dynamic style has come to be thought of as the norm. Anything less energetic will look slow, dated, and somehow substandard. Those who are putting money into films do not want a product that looks substandard. They are not going to hire you to direct their film if you cannot bring it up to this global standard. So, your director’s portfolio reel had best have some great moving shots on it if you want to launch your career.
On the other hand, if you aspire to succeed exclusively as an art-house film director, choosing not to shoot with a moving camera could actually lend some artistic cache to your film, because by opting for this visual style you will clearly be choosing not to compete for the mainstream audience. If your film succeeds artistically on most other levels, this might be considered a wise choice. If you want to appeal to film critics, there is something to be gained in standing outside the mainstream. As I made clear in the last chapter, even if you shoot with a static camera, you can still make a great movie, but not one that breaks new ground in the visual realm.
Right now, the trend is to move the camera as much as time and money allow. And there are numerous, big-name successful directors who seem intent on continuing to push the edge of this envelope. The more money they have, the more they move the camera in ways that give more and more visual energy to each frame. James Cameron, David Fincher, Ridley Scott, Christopher Nolan, Sam Raimi, Peter Jackson, Michael Bay, and seemingly all the directors of the big-budget, tentpole, summer event movie lead this trend. As I argued in my last book, the huge box office success of Spielberg’s late ‘70s films, starting with Jaws, started the trend. But now, some of Spielberg’s most recent films, when compared to those of Michael Bay or some hot newcomer like Paul Greengrass or Alfonso Cuarón, seem almost a bit stodgy, or certainly not as self-consciously hyperkinetic. Suffice it to say that any young director trying to launch his career will enhance his chances of succeeding if he has some shots on his reel that prove that, just like Bay, Greengrass, Spielberg, et al, he knows how to make the camera fly around like Tinkerbell. This is recognized as the visual style of films that audiences most want to see.
WHEN DO YOU MOVE YOUR CAMERA?
There is a good, simple rule for determining when to move your camera, which i
s to say, when your film is best served by a moving camera. I call this Bob’s Rule, because it was first articulated to me by Bob Zemeckis. Bob hardly invented it, or discovered it. It has been followed by almost every acclaimed filmmaker dating back to the Lumière brothers. And with good reason, because the rule is based on the universally recognized principle that the story is the most important component of a film, and so everything else in the film — be it acting, art direction, music, lighting, sound, editing, or camera movement — should serve the story. You should move the camera whenever possible to add visual energy to the film, but only in a manner that enhances the story, or at least does not detract from it. Stated simply, all good camera movement is invisible.
Even those directors with the most energetic camera styles — the guys who ought to pay their cameraman by the yard — would be hard pressed to refute the underlying truth of this principle. Very few people would pay the current price of a movie ticket to sit in a theater for two hours and watch all the cool camera moves in the latest Dark Knight, Transformers, and Spider-Man cut together in a non-narrative fashion. The average individual goes to the movies to be transported in space and time into the lives of Bruce Wayne or Forrest Gump or Michael Corleone. They want to spend two hours in the dark experiencing everything that these mythic beings encounter in their fictional lives on screen — thrilling to all the impending dangers, tasting all the joys, enduring all the hardships served up in the course of those two hours. The story is the vehicle that transports viewers out of themselves, so I would argue that the extent to which this transportational effect takes hold of an audience is the extent to which a film succeeds.
