Dear Friends of Hollywood Film Directing, Welcome to our new Blog site where we will be sharing with you ideas and insights into the world of film directing. Since my area of expertise is the Story, the Script and the Actor, I’m going to start with Story. Every film is an attempt to tell a …
Dear Friends of Hollywood Film Directing, I also welcome you to our blog. My passion is directing the camera. Directors used to leave this up to the cinematographer. But in the last forty years the tools for telling a story visually have become much more powerful, and all filmmakers need to know how to use …
We’re all storytellers. That’s why we’re in this business. True, there are many people in this business who are not in it because of the stories but because it is a business. There are widgets to be sold and they can make a lot of money selling them. But most of us are the widget …
It is a well known fact that the static close up is the money shot of a dialogue sequence. Yet novice filmmakers, like my students in the film school at Chapman, often forget this. They are too caught by the trend in contemporary film to shoot with a highly energized, constantly moving camera. All they …
If you are going to make it to the top as a director in today’s film industry you have to learn how to shoot with a moving camera. All of today’s top directors move the camera as much as time and money allow. In Avatar. Cameron never stops moving the camera. On your breakout film, you will not …
We’re all storytellers, each and every one of us. We tell stories all day long – at meetings, dinners, on the phone, taking walks – and even to ourselves. We post stories on Facebook and Twitter. We text our friends and colleagues. We live in a world immersed in story. And then occasionally we record …
When you are making your low-budget, no-budget breakout film and you decide to move the camera you want to design the shot so that it eliminates edits. In the final cut, the shot should play for as long as possible without a cut. It is easiest to do this at the beginning of the scene, …
In my last two blogs I explained why if you can learn to identify those moments in the script when it makes sense dramatically for your actors to walking and talking side-by-side coming toward the camera, you are well on your way to understanding how to design the best moving shot for a scene. A …
The Oscar nominations have been announced! It is all-Oscar all the time from now until the big night, February 26! You cannot escape it. Every media outlet is abuzz wondering, who will the 6000 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences pick to win the Oscars. Do you care? I used to, until …
The Oscars are upon us again. I’m looking forward to the debates, disagreements, surprises and disappointments that inevitably accompany the Academy Awards. The fact that we often disagree on the artistic qualities of the nominated films and performances is what makes Award Season so damn exciting. Today, I want to delve into one particular category: …
