If Batman was running around happy he wouldn't have a job  by now!!


Every day my mentor keep saying to me,"the day i stop learning ,is the day i want to be put down in my coffin".
Last week our guest director  was the Tv drama director"Mark Defriest" who was absolutely fantastic,he told us about what a director does since he take the script ,and how he should be as a director and about his relationship with the others.and he told us about his own experience in the industry. and i guess by that we learn the most. because you can teach us what is written in books for ages but when it comes to applying, people go wrong or right.and here is where we can benefit from other people's experience.

That Passion everyone keeps talking about, how does it come? how do you feel it? how do you know you have it?

Mark said last week something very substantial which is when you are doing loads and loads of work and  you are not minding it then you know your passionate about your work.
and since you have a passion for your work always give your best "near enough is never ever enough".



The most important thing in the production is the "story" then the "performance" then the "camera" or the way you shoot it.

and since the story is the most important thing it should be well written so if BATMAN WAS RUNNING AROUND   HAPPY HE WOULDN'T HAVE A JOB BY NOW!  so the director should spend a lot of time on reading, understanding and developing the story and the characters  so he can have a clear and a well built vision before start concentrating on the performance.

the relationship between the director and actors should be so good on set and no one else should get in between even the producer in case of problems, they should solve, and make the relationship strengthen by themselves, to get the best out of each other. 

i guess that is one of the things that we need to do ourselves ,"we need to apply it" to know exactly what they mean.


Mark's visit made me think about a lot of things, for example: how important the ego is to every director and how it can make no one want to work with you.

How directing feature and Tv are similar yet they are so different to YOU. this is something that always got me, i used to say i like TV directing , and Chris Scully use to ask me, how is it different than feature?…..uummmmm
 well its not different if i am talking about drama of course. News directing is different maybe that is what i had in mind.so they are different but it depends what i am talking about!


Anyways i've learnt a lot on that day ,hopefully i'll apply it correctly!


That's all for now…………………………….A bientot 

                                         Subjective /Objective




Righto so it was another monday morning where i struggle to wake up , then i see that i think Asperger kid on the bus treating the kids so badly like every day, where sometimes i feel like slapping him on the face , but i look at his friends or the kids and they treat him like he did nothing. so they probably have known him for a while now and they know his issue.which is fascinating.
then on my way walking to Tafe  I see this old man , washing the garbage bin with soap like every monday,which really makes me speechless , the way he cleans it, like he is cleaning his own coffee cup that he drinks from everyday!!i keep thinking of him as an character out of a movie, he cant be a normal person.

Then i arrive to tafe and chris gives us a lecture about what a subjective and what an objective shot is ,and everything that happened with me in the morning felt like it happened ages ago!

Aaaanyways i understood that the word subjective comes from the word subject!! so as long as we have the subject in the shot showing his feelings or reactions of what he is doing, then we have a subjective shot.

and when we don't show the identity or the reactions then its objective ,  objective is coming from the word object! so can you see what's going on there!!?

i thought it was simple as that ! so i was so exited to shoot my assessment SUBJECTIVE style and i came up with this:

After shooting i realised that their is more rules to subjective=subject , objective =object.

in mine you can see that i shot from the camera's point of view in some shot, and that is like telling that there is a third person there without telling who he is! so that is wrong , i should have shot it from the other person's point of view.

in another shot i had an OTS shot which is also wrong , because that as well ,will be the camera's point of view then and not the second person ,since we can see his shoulder.and what i should have done is shoot it as the second person point of view.

it would have looked better if the first person was looking directly to the person and not where he is looking in the video , it doesn't look like they are sitting the way they are sitting, when he is looking toward the left.



well i guess that's the point of the exercise is to learn from them ! so that's  2 extra rules! if the camera was a third person then the shot is objective.so no OTS or dirty shots!



That's all for this week ,ah well tomorrow is monday i get to see all my morning characters again! A bientot.


 

                                                           
                                                  It all came clear!!




In the last few weeks , we've been talking about the character background and character objectives, and how to pick the right word for the character objective, and we've heard the sentence active and not passive soooo many times by our lecturer , when choosing the objectives.

and it was an annoying exercise for me personally to find the right word really i though one or two objectives are ok , and the actor will get it from there NO BIGGIE.

until the lovely actress Rhoda Lopez gave us a visit last Monday , and she read and acted the script we were working on for the last two weeks with us . and there it was; everything came clear to me!

The actor have to know:

•  Exactly what's going on in the scene.the director have to give clear directions and not about every single tiny detail in the shot , otherwise he wont be giving the actor a space to act. 
• The character objectives.they have to be specific and not general, to help the actor understand the character more.
• Character background and the relationship between the characters, which helps him get more into the mood,so they know how to act/react in the scene.   
• How he did  perform after every single shot, which make him give more or perform better in the later shots.
• He should always get told what is going on set, or in the shot, and get asked if he was ready or not, if it wasn't form the director ,it should be from the 1st Ad.

Directors should know:

• That no one know or can see their vision except them, so when giving direction they have to describe it as close as possible to their vision , so they can get what they want.
• That no one can work with an uptight person, what if it a boss for a whole crew, stressing the actors over small details in the scene , will make them forget their lines, not work properly, waste time, and work with the director again.the director have to be openminded.
• That the actors cannot see themselves on camera, therefore he has make sure he/she inform how they did even if it was good.
• That if an actor gave a suggestion about a shot(the way of shooting it, adding a prop…etc) and it made absolutely no sense to the story  , make sure you don't shut them down and say it was horrible!! 
• Never ever rush an actor!  

At the end  i want to thank Rhoda Lopez for coming,  because what she thinks was another day of acting, was an incredible lesson for us.



That's all for tonight ………………. ciao 

                       Director's Statement
what is it?
well a director's statement is a document that the director should give to the producer(s) after reading the script.
why?
so they would know what the final product would look like.
what does it include?
basically the director's vision of the film,how it is going to look like,concept statement. he needs a treatment, background work and a directional approach to the project.
it can be broken down to :

1. story:how does he like to deliver it, who is the target market,the genre, the period of the story,any changes that he likes to add or subtract.
2. themes:film theme 
3. vision: which is everything that has to with what we are going to see on the screen(performance,vfx,cinematography, post sound, editing,…..etc) 

How do we differentiate a good from a bad statement?


Good statement   :       

1. is the one that has visual references in it.               
2. has a reasonable length.
3. shows that you've done some research before you've written it.
4. cover all sides of the film in it.

Bad statement:

1. if it was bad written(that will take a lot of credits from it).
2. if it has too many references(then there is no originality to your film)
3. if it was very long(then no one is going to read it) or too short ,(that shows that you are not into it).
4. if you haven't done any research before writing it, which your statement will be a bunch of opinions, because there is no facts to prove it.

im looking forward to write my own statement but let's wait and see which film it is going to be!

That's all for this week……………………….AU REVOIR!

                                     
                                  Cast


Choosing the right cast: how and what to do?


Choosing the right cast is very important, because as Joseph Ashton told us last week  "they are the show" so if you don't have the right cast "you don't have a show."




I am doing stage managing atm at the camelot cinema, and when i am backstage after i checked that all the actors are ok i start watching the play from backstage.  sometimes when things go wrong,for example forgetting a line , saying the wrong line, getting out of the wrong door, holding the wrong thing, actors are able to fix it straight away without anyone noticing.for example adding a complete new line and it looks and sounds completely natural because they know their character very well.


that's a sign that you have the right actor out there on stage.




But how do you  know that you have the right one before hiring him/her?


CASTING is the word. it all starts there and it all ends there.


the director is the person who does it, he has to be open minded about it, and take all his time with the person to make sure he is the one , at the end it is an investment! sometimes an actor get called twice and three times until he gets the role.


The director have to test all the actor's ability and strength,

•  which means his intelligence , if  he discusses the script with him, if there is anything about the character he doesn't get.
• he needs to check his acting skills of course , and to do that he needs to give him the space, another actor to read the script with him, otherwise he wont feel it and then wont be in the mood of acting.
• check their physical ability, and it should always be recorded and get different angles as well. because what we think of some people  are photogenic, sometimes  on camera they look the complete opposite.
• the need to perform , check their resume,what they've done before,if they can do it or not.

you have to cast the relationship as well as the role, and the ability if you personally  as a director can work with him/her or not. this could be done over a cup of coffee.you can discover a lot about the person because most  of the stress would be gone because they don't feel as if it is a job interview anymore and they can open up, and you can see the real them, and you can evaluate whether they are the right one or not.

you have to know though that on the casting day they are going to be very nervous so the very couple of minutes might not give their best or you might say that's the one. but you must offer them water , chat a bit with them to make them comfortable just to loosen up a bit.

and as i said before directors have to be open minded on the day and not expect actors to do exactly what they've imagined in their heads.at the end it's all about creativity!

That's all for tonight...........................................Au revoir

                                                   Breaking a script # 3


After last weeks class i drew a  line on my left hand side of my book and i wrote next to it scene action  and on the right hand side i drew a line wrote next to it  unit action , but i really didn't  know what to write in them. i kew that i have to write the scene in the first one, easy , but what about the second one how do i know the units exactly ?

This week's lesson made so much sense, because of the exercise we did in class,  of corse practise makes everything easier.

So every time we have a psychological change we have a beat , and sometimes the scene action and the unit action can be the same.

i always thought , i cant wait until we start learning on set , how we deal with actors, hods etc… until last week when i saw how important to break down a script , where you see the  full objectives of the actor
: super,overall, scene and unit , you break down the scene action and unit action .

the way you break it is important , cs  it is the way you see it , which is the way you are going to deliver it to actors  , ACTORS CAN'T ACT AN ESSAY! i think it is pinned in my head now from the amount of times that our lecturer said it ,use active verbs and not passive.
but really think about it , how would an actor act conflicted, sad or annoyed?



That's all for this week ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Au revoir

                     Breaking down a script 2 

Before i start i just want to say that i hate to say or to talk about exactly what happened in class , cs then i just feel like a robot! to say what film we watched and what sentences exactly we said!! then im a robot!! or a parrot.

Anyways in any screenplay there is a lot of scenes and in every scene there is actions(scene actions) . and in every scene there is units(beats)  that they have their own actions(unit actions).

.what is a beat?

A beat is an emotional or psychological action of a character in a scene, so every time we have an emotional change we have a beat .

.why do we break each scene by scene?

each scene have a beginning, a middle and an end,and we do break it one by one  to have a better understanding of the the whole story,characters,and actions so we can  deliver it better to the audience.

.why should we know the beats, beat by beat?

so we can tell the story efficiently by knowing the characters well enough ;and what they are doing in this unit of this scene.

                                                           Link of this week

As usual after doing my researches for this week i discovered that there is something called a beat sheet  that we should use, where we should state the locations, characters, conflicts,and twists of this story in this sheet ,to know more about it visit the link below:

                                         

                                      http://www.craftyscreenwriting.com/excerpts/TV03.html

I hope it all made sense to you, cs that's all for this week,,,,,,,,,,,,,Au revoir