How To Be A Film Director With Pictures

Try to count at least 15 mistakes in each film you watch. Look for acting errors, editing errors, storyline continuity errors, etc. Develop your awareness of storytelling as you watch films. Try watching movies with the sound off and pay attention to how the story unfolds through images as well. Or, you can also listen to the dialogue, soundtrack, and other sounds in a film to see how the story unfolds through what characters say. [1] X Research source

Write your own screenplay or work with a friend who writes. Get a group of friends together on the weekend and shoot scenes for a short film. Over time, you can edit the scenes together using a program like Adobe Premier. Making short films will force you to start learning the technical aspects of directing. You’ll need to know how to edit, write, and do everything else, too. Making your own short films will give you a chance to wear multiple hats and develop different skill sets.

Try to learn the lingo of actors. For example, you can learn about different acting strategies or techniques, such as classical acting and method acting.

For example, if two people are having an argument in a scene, how would you position them? What camera angles would you use? What kind of lighting would you use? What sounds would be in the background?

Although highly competitive, NYU, USC, University of California at Los Angeles, AFI (Los Angeles), and California Institute of the Arts are some of the top schools. Several well-known directors have attended these schools, such as Spike Lee, Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone, Ron Howard, George Lucas, John Singleton, Amy Heckerling, David Lynch, Terrence Malick, Francis Ford Coppola, and John Lasseter. [4] X Research source

If you’re in film school, look into internships. If you’re not, check your local Craigslist, get in the know with the creative types in your area, and offer to be of service. If you’re amicable and trustworthy, people will want to work with you again. And the gigs will get bigger and better each time. A production company is more likely to give a chance to someone with five years of production assistant experience over some kid fresh out of film school. Try to find a production assistant job or another entry level production crew job and do your best.

Attend industry events, such as mixers, conventions, parties, premiers, etc. Introduce yourself to people and try to develop good relationships with the people you meet. Offer to help out on future projects or invite others to work with you.

Some of these gigs will pay well and you may even enjoy the work, so don’t turn down a directing job just because it is for a commercial and not a feature length film.

Sundance receives 12,000 submissions per year, so it is competitive. You may want to start smaller and work your way up. [5] X Research source Just make sure you meet the deadline and formatting requirements![6] X Research source Quentin Tarantino’s “Reservoir Dogs” was discovered at Sundance Film Festival and Steven Spielberg stumbled upon a then unheard of film called “Paranormal Activity” at a film festival.

Information on your educational experience An accompanying resume showing your experience to date Your contact information Clips that also show your skills in editing, writing, animation and cinematography A list of film festivals participated in and awards won Miscellaneous experience – music videos, commercials, animated shorts, TV shows, etc. Stills and storyboards showing your process

Keep in mind that you may have to deal with some really frustrating situations. Imagine that your producer calls you and tells you he doesn’t like the scene you filmed at 5 AM in the middle of Nowhere, Kansas to get the exact perfect shot at the golden hour. The actress changed a few of her lines to give her character more depth and the money’s gone. You’ll spend the entire night reworking the script to make room for something that can be filmed tomorrow at the studio.

A large part of an agent’s job will be to negotiate your “gross points. " This is a fancy term for however much money the movie makes, you get X percent of it. When a movie makes $100, it’s not that big of a deal. But imagine if your next movie rakes in $1 billion! Those gross points matter and they matter big time.

Maybe not for you, but for the average Joe on the street, directors aren’t seen as the amazing film visionaries they are. It’s the actors that make the movie. So when it comes to the public, you’ll go unappreciated. And when it comes to your crew, it’s no different. If your movie is bad, your producers will blame you. If the actor is upset about how their hair looks, they’ll blame you. It’s a cycle you’ll, best case scenario, grow to tolerate.

In most cases, you must be hired by a signatory company to be eligible. Or you make it big out of nowhere. [9] X Research source The initial fee is a few thousand dollars and you pay minimal dues beyond that. It’s completely worth it, especially if the projects are not constant.

In pre-production, you’re translating the script into a movie. Something visual. You’re figuring out all the logistics, the casting, and the real nuts and bolts of it all. This is arguably the most important. [10] X Research source In production, you’ll be doing what everyone pictures directors do. You’ll let the actors know what you see for them and how you want the scene to play out. However, you’ll also be on a massive time crunch to paint a masterpiece. It will be chaotic, but also thrilling. In post-production, you’ll sit down with editing team and piece it all together. Make sure that you develop good relationships with your editors to ensure that you are on the same page. In post-production, you’ll also figure out the music and all the other finer points to draw it all together.