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There’s a good story to tell behind my free film school directing curriculum. But first I’m plowing ahead with content.
Take a look. I’m always interested in feedback.
THE OBJECTIVE (PART ONE)
The four pillars of storytelling are character, plot, setting, and theme. Understanding every character’s choices and interpreting how they weave and connect and lead an audience through a satisfying story is the director’s job. I call it ‘the director’s contract.’
For directors, understanding characters and shaping a performance is critical, and it’s one of the toughest things to teach effectively in film school.
If student directors are working with prepared, dedicated actors and being authentically challenged in directing workshops, there are genuine lessons to be learned, as opposed to working with filmmaking classmates playing the role of the actor. Play-acting can only take you so far in building the necessary skills for sustaining a professional directing career.
Characters in conflict and the actions they choose to take in order to overcome the obstacles in a scene are the starting points for the actor/director relationship. Someone wants something. They have a goal, a purpose, an agenda, and this is covered in the catch-all term: objective.
It’s important to keep in mind that an actor can never play the whole film but only individual scenes. A character’s objective is the character’s want for each individual scene. Objectives provide actors with a through-line for the actions they choose in any given scene.
Every strong objective should fulfill the following criteria: it has to be active, it has to be specific, it has to be achievable within the scene, it has to be able to drive a character’s actions from beginning to end, it has to affect another person and require a response from them.
After decades of directing, as well as leading over 1,000 directing workshops, I can tell you that coming up with objectives is not easy, because objectives are not necessarily on the page.
A strong objective dwells in the subtext, and this needs to be explored by going deep into the script. An in-depth script analysis precedes a directing workshop and strengthens the dynamic relationship between actor and director. Preparation for productive workshops and rehearsals is imperative for actors, directors, and teachers.
More to come…
The teacher is responsible for the content of the course and delivering it in an engaging manner. They are the student’s partner in learning. Film school can be a vital and memorable experience when the instructor has a depth of knowledge, a command of the material, and the skills to connect with a class of creative individuals: these are fundamental requirements.
The teacher sets the standard of professionalism for their discipline, their course and their school. Fulfilling the industry expectations of a creative position in film production requires a broad knowledge of filmmaking skills and tools, along with other important qualities: rapport, empathy, confidence, stamina, leadership, and a sense of humour (to name a few.) The student benefits when they see these qualities demonstrated by the teacher and can apply them to their own creative process.
The teacher shapes the tone, pace and dialogue of the learning environment. They create the classroom experience for the student. In The Courage to Teach, Parker Palmer writes, ‘To educate is to guide students on an inner journey toward more truthful ways of seeing and being in the world.’ This is powerfully relevant for the 21st century film student, and a roadmap to great treasures for filmmakers and storytellers.
Like an actor, the teacher needs to be ‘in the moment.’ Workshops and screenings are a forum for the teacher to provide perspective and feedback to the student’s work — and this helps the student learn to filter criticism and develop their own critical point of view. A robust critique from a respected source, and the opportunity to then take it, test it, and potentially improve the work is what filmmaking, and film education, is all about: listening, communicating, and connecting ideas.
Film is a complex medium and needs to be broken down into bits and pieces. A good film seduces the audience. There can be many layers to its construction. So many, in fact, that a viewer is not even aware of how the tools of cinema are being used: lighting and lenses, music and silence, framing and editing. When everything comes together in an amazing scene, the filmmaker has achieved what the student must constantly search for: how to make the audience feel something.
The teacher provides evaluation. In that sense, they are the audience — but an audience of one requires constant vigilance. Grading creative work is an exercise in subjectivity, and it needs to be self-governed at the highest level. It also needs to be fair, consistent and transparent. When grading is thorough, straightforward and well-defined, it has greater substance and value to the student.
The teacher must be a mentor. A good mentor holds up a mirror for the student, and helps them to trust their instincts and value their imagination. This is where powerful stories begin. It’s not about what’s easy or hard, or right or wrong — it’s about what is possible. To succeed as a filmmaker, you need to go deep: the deeper the better. This is fertile ground.
Mentoring differs from the classroom or workshop setting. The mentor/mentee relationship must be built on a foundation of mutual trust and respect. When the student values the mentor, the relationship thrives. A mentor listens, suggests, and motivates: they generate energy.
They also know that procrastination and daydreaming are part of the creative process. Yes, progress is important — but inspiration and genius can strike in a flash at the most unexpected times and suddenly turn into a marathon of all-nighters.
Creativity is a personal journey, and conformity has never been a badge for the pioneers of artistic expression. Audiences need new ideas, new stories and new ways of being told a story. They want unique characters in original situations. They want to see relatable emotions rendered with superior artistry: this is what drives the entertainment industry.
When the film student taps the wisdom of a teacher who has taken the risks and chances that they plan on taking, it creates the synergy to push the envelope, think outside the box, and break new ground. Mentoring in this territory requires an innate understanding of the potential of the imaginative world.
Student filmmaking should be the front line for new voices. The innovators of tomorrow want to say, “Hey, look what I made!” today, and have it shine with the promise of what they can and will do in the future.
There’s not always a right way to do it or a correct answer in the creative fields; it is the searching and the willingness to explore and experiment that matters.
This is my final section [for now] on Frank Daniel, the Stanislavski of Screenwriting. In this last part of his farewell talk with students at Columbia, circa 1986, he touches on dreams, genre, character, Amadeus, and common sense.
He inspired many filmmakers: Terrence Malick, Paul Schrader, Jon Avnet, Martin Brest, David Lynch, Milos Forman, Jiri Menzel — and many more.
He was the first foreigner admitted to the Russian State Film School, and he became a sought-after educator: Dean of FAMU in Prague, instructor at Carleton College, Head of the American Film Institute, Screenwriting at Columbia, Artistic Director at the Sundance Institute, and Dean of USC School of Cinema-Television.
He manifested waves of creative film energy everywhere he went.
Speaking of the late Daniel in a 1996 interview, David Lynch said, “I am sorry to say he died not long ago, and I have to tell you that he was my only teacher. He gave much to other people, he helped many people. He was a noble-minded and non-egoistic man, and no one understood the art of film-making as he did. He understood it and truly loved it – his criticism was always constructive and never purposely offended anybody. He was open about saying what he didn’t like, but he did it in a way that would help you. And that cannot be said about most of the critics in USA. I am very sorry he is not here.”
{Kinorevue, July–August 1996}
THE LOST TAPES: FRANK DANIEL Q&A (pt 4)
Dreams and Nightmares
Q: What is the best way to deal with dreams and visions?
FD: Well it’s the same thing as dealing with emotions and thinking. You externalize it. For instance, dreams and visions can be used directly, as you have seen in many movies. You can demonstrate, you can perform the dreams, and if the intention and the main thrust of the story is based upon those dreams, and directly connected with them then there is no problem if they come true.
If you have a dreamer as the main character then obviously we must get into his dreams. How his dreams and his reality conflict with each other complete the story. It can be played on two levels; one is the dream, the internal stuff, and one is the reality around the character.
In 8 1/2, you have nightmares. It starts with one. Then you have a total daydream about Claudia Cardinale. The main character’s daydream is his belief that she will help him find a solution to all his problems. Then you have remembrances, of his childhood, Sarabina, school, etc. And then you have the realities, so there are four layers of story material. The state in which those different levels of dreaming are dealt with is distinct, and they are all distinguished from the reality. I don’t think Fellini was looking for some formula, he just relied upon himself and the characters and their own experience.
Real dreams and nightmares look different from our daydreams. So you just dig out the things that you know from your own experience. If they are your dreams, and if they are your demons, then they’ll look true, and everybody will understand them. How your mind operates is one of the areas that film should explore. Unfortunately there are so many clichés in the use of flashbacks and memories that it’s usually not an exploration but simple theft.
Thinking in Terms of Genre
Q: Do you classify thinking in terms of genre as part of critical thinking? That it’s not helpful, creative enough? That it’s not part of the analytical process?
FD: I don’t believe that ignorance is useful. Knowing about genres helps, one should know as much as possible, and to understand genre cannot hurt your writing. But if you start with a desire to write the genre story, you have eliminated part of your creativity, because you are actually giving up. You are putting yourself under a certain pressure.
Q: So at what point do you bring that into the process?
FD: If you get an idea for a western, because you know something that has not been told, then write it. Then, when you have written the story of yours, you can ask yourself all those questions like, did I steal it from somebody? You have to understand the basic techniques of humor if you want to write a comedy. But that doesn’t mean that you start repeating old stories, old patterns, old gags. I would like to write a screwball comedy. You ask: What do I need? A screwball character. Do I know any? When you get a screwball character, the story begins to emerge, and then the genre flows from that naturally.
Amadeus and Common Sense
Q: I’m confused about who the main character in Amadeus is. The story is about Mozart, but it’s more about Salieri.
FD: Amadeus is the main character. Salieri, the narrator in this case, helps to see the main character’s story with an additional irony, or additional insight, but you don’t identify with Salieri.
Q: To some extent you do.
FD: You identify with every character in the movie if you have scenes in which the main character is not present. At that moment it is somebody else’s scene, so you are getting into the shoes of a subsidiary character. If you have an omniscient point of view you can change your allegiance accordingly. You can be in the shoes of different characters, and if you use a subsidiary character as a narrator, or “a raisonneur,” a type of narrator, who is part of the action, and at the same time tries to figure out what the meaning of the main story is, sometimes you get into his shoes. You pity the character. You can feel compassion for him. But the main story, the main identification, is with the main character. Otherwise there is no unity.
Q: There is no what?
FD: Unity. Unity of effect, which is the major objective that we are after. All these things are common sense. This is not something that people invented, or created to come up with a theory, or a prescription, or whatever. It’s just common sense. What do you want the audience to feel? What should they know at this moment? What should be hidden from them? When should you reveal? Those are very simple questions. It’s a part of the craft. That’s why it’s not really mysterious. You can always find out, if you look at a script carefully, why it doesn’t work, and what’s wrong. A film is just a presentation, in action, of a story to create an emotional impact on the audience. So the characters must be in action. You cannot have characters just talking, because then you change the audience into listeners instead of viewers, and motion pictures were created because of the motion. That’s how movies differ from still photography, why Lumiere and Edison invented it. Action is the only tool that you have for painting characters. And action doesn’t mean only physical action. Action is a purposeful drive of the character towards an objective. It includes thinking. It includes feeling. It includes planning, remembering, doubting, hesitating, talking, asking, lying, dancing, singing, crying, laughing, whatever. Okay?
Good Luck!
Thank you, Frank Daniel, for sharing your knowledge, wisdom and experience. I wish I could have been your student, but you will forever be my teacher-in-absentia and an inspiration.
A quote from Frank Daniel’s obituary in the New York Times, 1996:
As final exams approached in my first year as a film student at the University of British Columbia, I condensed two semesters of class notes onto one page as a study tool.
(Okay… it was double-sided. And the letters were tiny. But it was still a single page.)
One side was dedicated to the purely technical details; the other focused on the artistic and interpretive aspects of visual storytelling. Everything was on the table for the exam.
The first word at the top of the ‘story’ page was theme. In the list of all the story terms – plot, inciting incident, climax, resolution, and so on – theme was the one that generated the most interesting discussions in class.
Understanding themes – primary, secondary and tertiary – is critical for a thorough script analysis and requires a commanding knowledge of the content, characters and overall action of the story. Identifying and stating the themes isn’t always easy or straightforward, but it’s essential for anyone hoping to take on a key creative role in the film industry.
I love script analysis. In my graduate directing class, I dedicate three entire lessons to various analysis strategies. When I work with filmmakers and students, theme is still at the top of my list. It’s surprising how many story questions can be answered, how creative choices can be improved, and how audience satisfaction can be enhanced when there is a clear understanding of the themes.
Frank Daniel, my teacher-in-absentia, offered excellent notes on the challenges of screenwriting. Here’s a transcript from his lecture discussion on theme:
“One of the most difficult terms to deal with — and to understand — is the term ‘theme.’
The theme — simply spoken — is the principal subject: the main aim why a story is being told. This specific purpose, eventually, becomes the resulting effect of the finished work and can be analytically deducted from it. It gives the whole its unity. It gives each part and each element its place and function.
But how should a writer apprehend it when he is beginning just to meditate over his future story? From what end should he approach this confusing matter when his story is barely emerging as a possibility? If you are writing a film story, think of your theme only as the final effect, of the resulting impact that the audience should feel when the picture is over. You are offering an experience – a visceral, emotional, almost physical excitation.
Tension and Release
That’s why the tension, its gradation, culmination and release is the ‘vehicle,’ the tool, and de facto form in which the theme materializes. It consists, therefore, from the realization of the dramatic situation. From the apprehension of whose story, whose predicament is going to be followed, displayed and participated in. From the aroused intent and the consequent empathy, followed by the resulting sympathy and continuous anticipation.
Full involvement in the main character’s conflict becomes a distressing uncertainty about the surmised development of the events and the gradual crystallization of the wish to see the fulfillment of the main character’s desire.
Ordeal and Craving
The sympathy with the protagonist’s ordeal and craving brings with it, simultaneously, the fear from the threatening destruction of this desire, scheming or dream. In other words, the theme becomes, in the story itself, the craving for the fulfillment, imperiled either by natural, social or psychological circumstances or, many times, by all three of them. The more specific and simultaneously humanly universal this protagonist’s craving gets, the easier it becomes to create the viewer’s sympathy.
But there can be a totally opposite case. Instead of a humanly positive desire for human fulfillment, a story can follow a depraved, accursed, appalling aspiration, evil coveting, anti-humane obsession, destructive or even self-destructive mania. The history of tragedy offers great examples of this type of ogre: Richard III, Macbeth, Medea…
The Audience’s Emotional Approval or Rejection
In essence, we see either the audience’s emotional approval, or rejection, abhorrence, and even repulsion, depending upon the nature of the dominant drive (spine) that carries the story from its genesis to its resolution.
If the drive of the main character is a desire for human fulfillment, from its lowest, modest forms to the most heroic ones, in other words, love in any of its appearances, the theme becomes the acceptance, and the approval of the main character’s objective and the emotional effect of the story — feeling joy, satisfaction, elation or sadness, anger, bitterness – depends on the outcome of the presented conflict.
If the drive, fixation, or fascination of the protagonist is any kind of destructive or self-destructive delusion, then the theme unfolds as a progressing disapprobation. It can take a form of horrified aversion, hatred or just derision and the final effect, again, depends on the outcome of the conflict: relief, anger, sadness, etc.
The Storyteller’s Position
The storyteller’s position, his philosophical moral stand, shows itself inevitably in the theme. There is always the dichotomy between what he or she sees as reality or delusion, creation or destruction — what’s presented as meaningful, and what’s shown as nonsensical, harmful or harmless.
From this realization it is easy to approach the basic structure of the cinematic or dramatic story: the protagonist craves for a humanly positive value. Othello — to take the most blatantly clear example — is love, giving oneself to the loved woman, trust, etc.
The Antagonist desires to destroy this value, i.e. to change love into jealousy and a feeling of disgust from female vileness. The story carries and contains us, necessarily, by the deception of the protagonist, of his temporary or lasting error.
It leads, consequently, to the obligatory moment of recognition, the horrifying realization that the deception has caused. If the scene of recognition precedes the ‘catastrophe’ (the tragic resolution), we have a happy ending. If it follow the catastrophic conclusion, then the end is obviously tragic.
Protagonists are almost always wrong. Their values are not clarified. The scene of recognition becomes obligatory and leads to self-recognition, self-knowledge.
It figures that for the strongest possible effect, it is much better when the viewer has a chance to realize that the protagonist is in error and when he expects, with suspense, the moment of recognition, we will have a chance to see other story patterns and realize how the specific tension in each one of them determines the structure of the story.
The Most Important Fact
The most important fact to keep in mind is that the theme is not a philosophical, political, moral, or any other ‘thesis,’ (or ‘premise’ as some people call it) but an emotional response – social, personal, or any other – a stand, an engagement of the whole human being for a certain human truth, displayed in a process of its affirmation in the conflict of the story.
One way of originating a story is to start asking – What is threatened? What’s being offended, exploited, smothered? What human values are being destroyed? What truth is getting silenced or smeared? What beautiful dreams are being thwarted, or ruined, or crushed? And how should we feel about it? Horrified? Sad? Appalled? Victorious? Triumphant?”
***
Film school is like eating breakfast: you don’t have to eat the whole thing to know if it’s going to be any good.
Over the years, I’ve done comparative research on numerous film programs and spoken with hundreds of students. Most complain of faculty and curriculum that failed to impress, or at least meet a reasonable standard that warranted the tuition fees, living costs and lost income in their pursuit of higher education.
It seems like nothing much has changed. As a film student in the 80’s, I heard similar complaints.
I was fortunate. Yes, I quit a few programs in my search for an authentic education, but I found a few great teachers in my journey. One was Dr. Joan Reynertson. I enjoyed her classes and respected her as an educator. She cared deeply about film education. In her office, we would talk about other schools and film programs, the big ones like USC, NYU, AFI, etc. (She had graduated from Stanford.) I had dreams of going to the best schools, but never had the money. Dr. J told me about Frank Daniel. This was the guy you wanted to learn filmmaking from, she said. He was regarded as one of the leading film educators in the world. That was 1984.
I never got the chance to attend a Frank Daniel lecture, but eventually I got a transcript – a bootleg transcript from a student who taped his last class at Columbia. This was how the underground network of film education worked in those days. This was way before the internet. Here is part one of that lecture.
First I would like to talk about the way we designed the program here at this school, and that will give you some understanding of why we did it the way we did. Scriptwriting, like directing, can be divided into two basic parts. One is the actual writing and the other is what’s usually called dramaturgy.
I had an interesting experience recently at the Sundance Film Institute where the seven selected filmmakers arrived for conferences with our seven script advisors. In about forty minutes the seven wizards, Waldo Salt, Frank Pierson, Tom Rickman, etc., made an assessment of what each of the seven scripts needed. And there was no real disagreement. Everyone knew what was wrong and what needed to be done. In just forty minutes all seven scripts were x-rayed and examined. Then the filmmakers met with each advisor separately and during those meetings there were about one hundred and fifty suggestions on how to solve the problems, and the suggestions of each of the advisors were totally different from the suggestions of the others. That’s why there is always ONE advisor assigned to help the writer sort out which suggestions best fit his intention, and this advisor stays with him for the six months before he comes and begins working on the project at Sundance — examining and shooting the scenes.
So that for me was a vivid demonstration of those two parts of scriptwriting. One part is dramaturgy, which is practically a scientifically defined discipline. It’s not difficult to find out what’s wrong with a script and to see how the story is built and what its needs are and which points need to be stressed. That’s the cerebral part of writing. The writing itself is for artists to do, and there are no rules, there are no ready made recipes that you can apply. That’s why in our program there are the writing classes and the analysis classes. In the analysis we deal with the dramaturgy, the scientific part, the theoretical, the cerebral, the rational inquiry.
Two Semesters of Script Analysis
You’ve all had two semesters of the script analysis so today we won’t talk about structure, acts, sequences, sub-plots, genres, style, etc. What I would like to stress is that: there is a difference between critical thinking and analytical thinking. For a creative person analytical thinking is a must. Critical thinking may occasionally be a little dangerous. If you start using critical thinking too early, you can get into a situation like one of the second year students for almost a whole year. He has read and studied theatre, dramaturgy and theory, and he’s a wonderful critic. But his critical thinking was fighting his creative thinking. His standards and the things he thought he could achieve were constantly in conflict. Nevertheless, I hoped that by the end of the semester he would have a finished script, and he did. He overcame the hyper-critical and self-critical thinking, and put together a complete first draft, something that in no time can be polished into a good, if not very good, piece of writing.
So that’s one thing to realize. Analyzing films, reading scripts, trying to figure out what makes the story move, makes the scene work, that’s a necessity. Critical thinking means that you apply certain standards and moral judgements and that’s a little bit different kind of mental activity. Fortunately our education stresses only the critical thinking. We are always learning how to do things right. We know that one and one are two, but with creative thinking, it can be eleven. It can be a couple. You have to look at things from different sides and angles, and free your mind, try things that nobody has tried before.
The Way Scriptwriting is Taught
The way scriptwriting is taught here, in groups and by reading aloud in class, is something that didn’t happen by accident. It would be much easier if you typed your pages and handed them in. Then the class would read them and make remarks. But that wouldn’t have the other effect that is necessary. The fact that you are sitting in the group and listening to different approaches means that you are constantly keeping your mind working. It begins in the first few classes when the assigned scenes are read in the class and you see how many solutions there can be for the same problem. And when you concentrate and follow what your colleagues are reading, you are actually working, because you have to imagine things, you have to see the scenes appear before your inner eyes. That’s an important part of the development of the art of the scriptwriter’s technique.
Besides, reading in class has another very significant purpose: it helps you to free yourself of your inhibitions, fears and anxieties. You have to perform in front of your colleagues. That’s also why the acting/directing class is added. It’s not to make actors of you, and it’s not just so you see what an actor can do for you. Of course the class is to let you hear how dialogue sounds when it is spoken, what can be left out, what can be expressed in another manner without words, but that’s just part of the class. The other part is that at the beginning of the acting/directing class you have to make fools of yourselves. You have to stand up in front of everybody and act.
Very Scary, Very Lonely, Very Difficult
I know that Brad Dourif’s class is not a truly pleasurable experience, but it gets you to develop step by step into professionals. You will always end with something that’s being shown, and you have to take responsibility for it. The sooner you start realizing it the better, because than you can start eliminating your inhibitions and fears. Writing is a very scary, very lonely, and very difficult job. When you face the task of writing one hundred and twenty pages, when you look at the pile of blank paper, you don’t believe you’ll ever be capable of covering those pages with scenes, dialogue, descriptions, and all that. But you’ll find that it’s not that much. Actually it’s very little. In fact you will feel that you’ll eventually need at least fifty pages more for all the ideas that you’ll have when the story begins to grow.
So that’s the reason you take the acting class.
***
I first drove into the city of Trail, British Columbia, in 1986. The huge smelter was roaring; the air was swirling with smoke: and the radio news was in Italian. I had lived in British Columbia all my life but I’d never experienced anything like this: I felt lost, frightened and small. I was a stranger here.
The smelter in Trail sits atop a hill overlooking the town. It reminded me of the Acropolis of Athens, but re-imagined as a post-industrial nightmare. Being curious, I signed up for a tour through the factory, venturing down into the bowels of the operation where hot molten steel was processed and poured. The guide spoke about the environmental damage to the surrounding area, the “heavy water” plant that contributed to the making of atomic bombs, and the fact that Trail was on Hitler’s top ten ‘hit list’ of North American cities.
I happened upon this notorious little town by accident. I was taking a different route back to Vancouver, returning from a film shoot in the mountain town of Nelson where I’d been a director-observer on Scottish director Bill Forsyth‘s film Housekeeping. I was enrolled in the Masters Film Production program at the University of British Columbia and I had a goal to make a feature film for my thesis. Driving through the streets of Trail, I knew I had found the setting.
I returned with my actors and crew in the summer of 1989. We shot black and white 16mm film and re-photographed every finished frame to 35mm. The result is rich and grainy, like looking at the world through densely-particled air. The Grocer’s Wife went on to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 1991 where it was recognized with a special jury citation for Best Canadian Film. In 1992, it was selected to open the International Critic’s Week at Cannes.
At a Q+A following a matinee screening at Cannes, a young French cinephile (who couldn’t have been older than 15) asked me ‘to explain the architectural intention of my compositions.’ I had done extensive research on this topic, but it wasn’t something I thought would translate in my film. I recounted my first impressions of Trail and how the smelter was built at a site that would have have historically been used for sacred religious architecture, like the Acropolis or Le Corbusier’s chapel at Ronchamp, France.
Religious architecture, in the Canadian context, diminished in scope and scale as the country expanded to the west. In Montreal, you see grand church steeples, domes and basilicas throughout the city. In Vancouver, the historic churches are few and tiny in comparison.
Western Canada was settled by the construction of the national railroad and the pervasive spread of industrial mechanization. Factories replaced churches as the center of towns; shift whistles replaced church bells; smokestacks replaced steeples. The absence of religious architectural landmarks and the re-organization of communities around machines changed the dominant values of society and created new psychological distortions: alienation, isolation and normlessness.
I could never truly capture my first impression of discovering Trail, but it had such an impact that I had to try. The Pacific Cinematheque will be screening a DCP of the 35mm print, courtesy of the National Library and Archives, as part of their History of Film in British Columbia program on April 3rd. Screening time and info.
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