ENG196 Film Studies: Directors Michael Dembrow, Instructor
KEY PERSONNEL IN A FEATURE-LENGTH FILM
PRODUCER: The person exercising overall control over the production of a motion picture and holding ultimate responsibility for its success or failure. Ideally, a producer should be a combination of shrewd businessperson, tough taskmaster, prudent cost accountant, flexible diplomat, and creative visionary. But producers vary widely in personality, in the extent of their authority, and in the degree of their involvement in the various phases of production. Typically, however, their job begins long before the start of production and does not end until long after the film is "in the can." Their involvement begins where all films begin, with an idea or the acquisition of a promising property.
Whether the producer has chosen the idea or the property or was assigned one by a studio's executive producer, his/her responsibility is the same: to guide the development of the property into a successful motion picture. S/He may be assigned a screenwriter or choose one or several from the studio roster or from the free-lance market, or, if s/he happens to be one of the rarer breed of producer-writers assign herself or himself to the project. If the screenwriter is someone else, the producer discusses the outlines of the story with the writer (there may be more than one), and together they work out a treatment, which is a plot outline, forty to fifty pages long. The treatment is submitted to the studio heads or financial backers for approval. Given the go-ahead, the writer now begins to write the actual screenplay. Normally the writer will submit portions of the screenplay to the producer, several pages at a time. They will hold frequent conferences, which might or might not result in rewriting.
Meanwhile, the producer proceeds with the selection of a director. Again, the director may be assigned to the project by studio management. Preferably, s/he will be selected by the producer, whose decision is usually influenced by the director's proven skill with the specific type of film at hand (action, drama, comedy, etc.). Producers who can also direct or directors who also produce (Hitchcock, Welles, Hawks) are at a great advantage: they can maintain the fullest possible control over their films. When there is a separate producer and director, they confer on the various creative and technical aspects, from the general approach to the theme to such specifics as the desirability and extent of location shooting and the choice of film stock and technical crew. The uppermost factor in the producer's mind is the limitations of the budget, whether these are set by the studio or by herself if she is an independent producer. Her goal is to achieve maximum quality at a minimum price tag. This budgetary concern governs her position regarding such important decisions as the selection of cast (stars, feature players, extras), studio versus location shooting, the elaborateness of sets and costumes, and the duration of filming.
Once the actual shooting begins, the prudent producer removes herself from the set to allow the director freedom of action. But she must not let control leave her grasp. She keeps abreast of the daily progress in production and ascertains that the director and the crew are functioning smoothly in adherence to the timetable and within the boundaries of the budget (she might have one or more assistants who remain on the set in her absence). She must be available at all times as a troubleshooter, in case of personality or labor conflicts on the set, or if some unforeseeable technical problems arise during shooting.
Once shooting is completed, the creative producer becomes involved in the postproduction phase of filmmaking. His functions would normally include supervision of the editing, scoring, sound effects, dubbing mixing, opticals, titles, and all other steps that must be taken before a film is ready for release. During the shooting and postproduction, the producer will already have begun to arrange distribution of the film. When all is done and the film is "in the can," he may take the film on a trial run--sneak preview--and, depending on initial reaction, may call for additional cutting and tightening of the film or even for the reshooting of sequences. He remains with the film throughout he exploitation stage, coordinating the distribution and participating in the planning and execution of the publicity campaign for the initial release and eventual reruns in theaters and on TV.
In the past the majority of
Along with the gradual disintegration of the traditional studio structure, which began in the early Fifties, there has been a growing trend toward independent production. Today's typical producer is not a salaried studio employee but an active partner of a studio or distributor or whomever else might have raised the money to finance his picture. Indeed, today the major purpose of the studios is to arrange financing for independent producers in exchange for distribution percentages. The contemporary producer is often an agent, a "packager" who invests in the acquisition of a property, persuades a director and stars to commit themselves to his project, then offers the entire package to a financial sponsor, in return for a cut in the profits.
Today's producers are often the directors or leading stars of the films on which they work, for financial reasons and/or to assure control over the project.
Producers have rarely been the dominating presence in films made outside the
DIRECTOR: In films, the director is the person responsible for the creative aspects, both interpretive and technical, of a motion picture production. In addition to orchestrating the action in front of the camera and guiding the acting and the dialogue, the film director controls camera position and movement, sound, lighting, and all other ingredients that contribute to the final look of a motion picture. In carrying out the task of transforming a screenplay into a film, s/he supervises a versatile crew of artists and technicians, each responsible for his or her own area of specialty but all answerable to the director, who has the final word on all aspects of production during filming.
Directors enjoyed a good deal of creative freedom during the early days of the cinema, through only a few, such as D.W. Griffith, took full advantage of that freedom. However, as the film business grew into an industry, the efficient, but restrictive, film studio system robbed most American directors of such essential components of artistic filmic expression as choice of script, cast, cameraman, and editor. While European directors continued to work with a certain measure of independence, the average American director of the late Twenties became a studio employee with a producer or production supervisor looking over his shoulder during filming; producers also made the all-important decisions of the final cut--the final decision on which filmed material would be left out and which retained.
Certain directors with strong personalities and impressive box-office track
records-like John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger,
and Billy Wilder--managed to maintain their creative independence within the
studio system. But the typical
Under the studio system, most directors were inter-changeable, and little of their personal mark could be detected in the final product. In most cases, it was easier to identify a film's "look" or its thematic preoccupations as the product of a certain studio than as the work of a particular director. It is not surprising, therefore, that only a relatively few directors were known to the general public by name and that for so many years the film's stars, not the director, were the main attraction at the box office.
The late Fifties saw a gradual elevation in the status of the American director as a result of the decline of the monolithic studio system and the growing attention of critics, particularly French critics, to the work of many previously neglected filmmakers. The critics began to consider directors as authors ("auteurs"), with recognizable bodies of work. Followers of the "auteur politics" (or "auteur theory," made famous in France by the film journal Cahiers du Cinema and in America by Andrew Sarris of The Village Voice in the Sixties) analyzed a particular director's body of work much as a literary critic would look at the work of a particular author--looking for consistencies in style and theme from work to work by the same director. The growing sophistication of film audiences in the Sixties and the increasing interest among students of film as an academic subject also contributed to the emergence of the American director in the Sixties and Seventies as the real star of many films whose name above the title often now carries more weight than the name of the actor playing the lead.
Today, the strongest directors are actually producer-directors, in some cases writer-producer-directors, and even actor-writer-producer-directors, but even now it rarely works out that way. Usually, the director is hired by a producer at some early stage in the project to execute the production of a film. He may or may not have been involved in the choice and development of the story, though he usually works on the final shooting script with the writer(s and producer. The director may or may not be involved in the postproduction stage of a project, the all-important phase of editing, in which final determinations are made about the shape, meaning, and pace of a film. The greater the involvement of the director in all phases of production, the more acceptable is his or her claim for "authorship" of the film.
All the directors we are studying in this course are "auteurs" in this sense.
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: The director's right-hand person, s/he performs the function of a foreman on the set. The "A.D." is responsible for "the call"--summoning the actors and crew to the right place at the right time. It is also his/her responsibility to keep the production moving on schedule and to maintain order and discipline on the set. It is the assistant director's voice that pleads for "Quiet on the set!" and orders the camera operator to "Roll!
Creatively, the assistant director is generally responsible for crowd
scenes, hiring and organizing the extras and preparing them for the scenes to
be filmed. S/he will frequently take actors and crew to do location work while
the director remains in
The assistant director often has one or two second assistants, known as "seconds."
SCREENWRITER: The person who writes the film script, either alone or as part of a team. In the early days of cinema there was little need for screenwriters--the films were short and the plots tended to be simple and stereotyped; most were written by the director, or even by the cameraman or actors. By 1910, as films became longer and budgets went a little higher, writers began to be hired, initially as gag writers for comedies. As stories became more complicated, they began to write "photoplays" and to compose title cards for the silent pictures.
The arrival of sound eliminated the need for titles but created a demand for
experienced dialogue writers, who were at first recruited mainly from the
Many writers tend to specialize in particular aspects of screen-writing. Some are especially good at writing dialogue and may be brought into a project for just that reason. Some are "idea artists," who are best at coming up with film treatments--the script outline in paragraph form which summarizes the plot of the script-to-be. Some specialize in polishing or "doctoring" other people's scripts, putting the final dramatic touches on scenes that for some reason aren't working; this doctoring is often done after shooting has begun and problems arise. Not all screenwriters possess the visual imagination and technical know-how to write final shooting scripts, complete with detailed camera directions for cameraman and cast; a specialist will often write this final version. Thus, many screenplays are a result of a collaborative effort by two or more writers, with the director or producer participating to one degree or another. Often, only the principal one or two screenwriters are given credit for the film.
Like directors, some screenwriters can be considered "stronger" than others, keeping more of their original vision intact in the final film. We can see patterns in the body of their films, even when the films have been written for different directors. This is especially obvious in the first drafts of scripts, the versions written before the other collaborators become heavily involved. In most cases, after the first draft the writer tends to write for the director, bending his or her style to the requirements of the particular director.
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: The person in charge of lighting a set and photographing a film. Also known as "first cameraman," "lighting cameraman," or "cinematographer," he (still rarely she) is responsible for transforming the screenwriter's and director's concepts into real visual images.
In the early days of cinema, camera work was handled by one man, who not only operated the camera, but often also developed the film and printed it in the laboratory. But as the art of film progressed and grew in complexity, the duties of the cameraman became more specific and his contributions to the quality of a film more vital. Many of the technical innovations credited to director D.W. Griffith originated with his cameraman, Billy Bitzer, or came about as a result of the close creative partnership between the two men.
The modern director of photography does not physically operate the camera. This is done by a "camera operator." Others in the crew under the director of photography are the first assistant cameraman, also known as the "focus-puller," and the second assistance cameraman, also known as the "clapper boy" or the "loader." This leaves the director of photography free to deal with his main responsibility--creating the appropriate mood, atmosphere, and visual style of each and every shot and sustaining these qualities throughout the entire film.
The director of photography's involvement in a film begins some time before the actual start of production. The DP is usually consulted by the producer and director about a variety of technical details, including the choice of film stock and laboratory. S/he normally scouts the proposed locations with the location manager to ascertain their suitability and to determine the type and number of cameras and lighting equipment that may be needed for shooting. The art director and set decorator consult him on the placement of lighting units and camera riggings in every set. Once shooting begins, the director of photography is second in importance only to the director.
Working closely together, the director and the director of photography determine the camera angles, setup, and movement for every shot. The latter then selects the proper lens and filter that will best achieve the former's concept of the shot, determines the exposure, and sets up the lights (the actual placement of the lights is the job of the "gaffer," the chief electrician) to achieve the particular effect desired. The camera operator takes over from there. Later, the director of photography joins the director in viewing the daily footage to evaluate his earlier work and make necessary adjustments for future shooting. At the conclusion of production, the director of photography supervises the production of the first print in the lab to assure that it has the desire degree of brightness and the right color tone.
ART DIRECTOR or PRODUCTION DESIGNER: The person on a film crew ultimately responsible for every aspect of film decor and set construction. His/her duties range from designing and preparing all studio and outdoor settings to the acquisition of all props required by the script.
The art director may dominate the visual quality of a film, and the caliber of his/her work often determines its mood and atmosphere. This is one of the most complex jobs in filmmaking, requiring knowledge of architecture and design, a good grasp of decorative and costume styles of all periods, graphic ability, business acumen, and a working knowledge of everything concerning film production, including photography, lighting, special effects, and editing--all must be taken into consideration when designing the set.
The art director provides a visual translation of the script. Everything that surrounds the action in front of the camera, in the foreground as well as in the background, is the art director's responsibility, including the choice of costumes, which s/he coordinates with the costume designer. The art director is also responsible for the authenticity of architecture on location and may be required to supervise the construction of a fake building, a street, or a whole town.
Recently there has been tendency to substitute the title "production designer" for "art director," especially with large-scale productions, while the set designer's title has been upgraded to "art director."
During the Golden Age of Hollywood, the art directors were among the most important people in the studios. In fact, the reason that each studio tended to have its own unique "look" was that each was dominated by one art director's style.
COMPOSER: At first, most screen scores were arrangements of existing compositions, but by the mid-Thirties original music was being composed for the majority of American and European feature productions. Many of the early "original" scores were innocuous pieces of background music designed to interfere as little as possible with the action and the dialogue and to function simply as adhesive material to strengthen the film's continuity. Composers became very skilled at manipulating and enriching audience response, especially at moments of sentimental or suspenseful action; in lower-quality productions this tendency degenerated into the blatant and exploitative practice known in the trade as "Mickeymousing."
However, as composers came to terms with the specialized requirements of film music, and filmmakers came to accept the film composer as an essential member of their creative teams, the emphasis in film scores shifted from the functions of sketching a background and setting a mood to those of an integrated element in the total effect of a motion picture. Some of the best film scores have resulted from the involvement of the composer in the early phases of production and a close collaboration between composer and director. This is especially true in films where the characters will be singing or will ultimately seem to be moving to the rhythm of the music on the soundtrack.
Advances in recording technology in the Seventies has made the role of the composer increasingly important in the subtle creation of mood and atmosphere. Composers have become especially skilled at blending together original creations and popular music used to establish the setting of the story, most often using radios or records.
THE EDITOR: In motion picture production, the person responsible for editing a film. Working behind the scenes, away from the glare of publicity and the glamorous surroundings of the film set, the film editor is an unsung member of a motion picture's creative team. Yet the success or failure of a production may hinge on the quality of his or her work. Sharp film editing can make a mediocre production look good and a good production look even better. Conversely, sloppy editing can undo a solid script and even negate fine efforts by the director, the actors, and technical crews.
The individual contribution of an editor to a film varies from situation to situation. Some editors with proven skills are given a great deal of autonomy and creative freedom, while others execute their craft mechanically under precise instructions by the director or producer. Sometimes, when working on a high-budget film, an editor may become involved in the preproduction stages of a project and may be invited to attend the actual shooting of some complicated scenes, but normally his or her role is confined to the cutting room. That role may be great or small, depending on the state of the footage shot.
Certain directors prepare their scripts and shoot their films with such meticulous care that there is little left for the editor to do but exercise technical expertise, manual dexterity, and a sense of precise timing in following the director's plan--the editors of Alfred Hitchcock's films are cases in point. Frequently, however, the editor is called upon to bring to the production not just his or her professional skill but also objective judgement, personal taste, and a capacity to articulate vaguely defined directorial intentions by selecting, arranging, and pacing miles of filmed footage into a unified narrative whole. It is not uncommon for an editor to correct or cover up in the cutting room errors or omissions committed during the filming on the set. But in the final analysis, film remains a director's medium, and the editor can only react to the material, which has been conceived and shot by the director. More often than not, the finished film reflects the personality and temperament of the director rather than the editor. The editor's role, however, is especially important in documentary films, where not everything can be pre-planned-- the documentary filmmaker will explore a situation in depth, shooting a great deal of film, then create a script with the editor during editing. For that reason, director and editor are virtually co-creators in the documentary tradition.
Some directors like to work regularly with the same editors, and many such relationships have lasted for decades, especially with "strong" directors. Such close collaboration facilitates communication between director and editor and probably results in saving of time and the avoidance of cutting by trial and error, as the editor learns to anticipate the director's intentions.
Editing has traditionally been one of the few movie crafts wide open to women, most likely because the position involves little contact with he male-dominated technical crews, but also because it requires manual dexterity rather than brawn; it was early regarded as more proper "women's work."
Whether the editor is male or female, it is difficult to detect a consistent style in the cumulative work of any editor, for, after all, the most he or she can possibly do is manipulate existing material and tell a story in the best possible way. But the quality of an editor's work can be discerned by such details as the smooth matching of action, the creative use of dissolves and fades, and the general flow of the continuity. Most editors say that the best compliment one can pay an editor is tell her that her editing is invisible: an editing job is considered successful when it goes unnoticed on the screen. Ironically, an editor invests weeks or months of intensive work to achieve the impression that she has done nothing at all. Some directors, on the other hand, prefer their editors to use a more “in-your-face” editing style, for emotional impact and/or to remind the viewer that this is a work of art, not “reality.”
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