• Registered: 2010-06-13
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Topic: Help me understand directing please.

Ok so I just had my first class of film directing at my local community collage I joined in on for fun. However I felt something was really wrong with the approach to it the teachers took. Basically they gave us some actors and 1 page of a script with just the dialog in it and nothing else, and from that alone they told us to direct out the scene. Now call me crazy, but I just don't see how that is a useful exercise for learning Directors.

Maybe I'm totally out in left field, but with no characters, story, or ideas at all to work with how are we suppose to direct

Am I right or could someone explain to me what the point of all that was?

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  • Teague
  • Teague
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Re: Help me understand directing please.

Eh, it's not useless, just kind of tepid. The point was to see how creative you could get with the direction the scene took, and what all meaning you'd prescribe to some bland dialogue. It seems like the kind of thing you're supposed to have fun with more than the kind of thing that would teach you a life lesson.

Unless you needed the life lesson "directors can change the direction of a scene by the direction they give when directing."





"direct"

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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  • Eddie
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Re: Help me understand directing please.

You were basically told to create somthing in a vacuum which is kinda weird from a teaching standpoint.  Its more for students to go home and say "My first day I directed a scene!" so it can keep their interest.  Im sure you guys will go deeper into shot composition, directing actors, editing, et al as you go.  My wife, among other things, is a Licensed Massage Therapist, and her first day of School was teaching her how to give a 10 minute chair massage, for the much the same reason.  She obviously went on to learn much more, but at least that first day she came home motivated.

Eddie Doty

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  • From: Farmington, CT
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Re: Help me understand directing please.

Landporpus wrote:

Maybe I'm totally out in left field, but with no characters, story, or ideas at all to work with how are we suppose to direct

Bingo! The point of the exercise was to create all of those things with the materials given. Learning how to do that is very important when it comes to directing, even though you'll have those things most of the time.

"The Doctor is Submarining through our brains." --Teague

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  • switch
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Re: Help me understand directing please.

And to add to what others have said, the teach may want to see what your blocking skills are like as well.

Last edited by switch (2011-02-24 09:05:42)

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