Tom Kingdon - Total Directing: Integrating Camera and Performance in Film and Television

This book is an introduction to directing narrative screen drama. It aims to serve the potential feature film director, the independent filmmaker, the director of television series, as well as students making their college (or school) projects. Although an introduction, some practicing directors may also find it an interesting, and occasionally provocative, discussion of their craft.

What distinguishes this book from other texts on the market is that it integrates both actor-direction (working with actors) and technical-direction (working with camera, audio, and the crew). Almost a century has passed since the principals of modern acting were codified, and still some professional directors have only the sketchiest idea of how to direct actors. For these directors, a movie or a television program is primarily a technical exercise. I believe that if screen drama is to progress beyond its current obsession with mundane reality, if it is to refresh and reinvent itself, it has to empower actors and place the fundamental director- actor relationship at the heart of the process.

I have spent many years in British television, film, and theater, working as a stage manager, an assistant director, and a director. I have also spent years studying the system in the United States. This book describes the successful practices I encountered in both counties, and reflects an approach to film and television programmaking that is primarily industry-oriented. I am not concerned in this book with the fascinating issues that surround experimental work or any work other than narrative drama. Budding Kenneth Angers, Harry Smiths, and Stan Brakhages will find little consolation here. However, the book does try to accommodate the work and concerns of such filmmakers as John Cassavetes, Jean-Luc Godard (in his narrative mode), and Mike Leigh, all of whom are especially preoccupied with performance and how it is captured.

This book also reflects my many years of working with students, trying to discover the best approach to teaching directing. It broadly reflects my classroom approach, which addresses performance issues first and technical matters second. As with students, I encourage readers of this book to learn what the industry considers good practice before evolving their own styles. I offer some very specific suggestions about the way certain things should be done (such as marking the shooting script). Having considered my approach, readers are encouraged to develop their own. A tension between contemporary industry practice and innovation will always exist. I cannot teach innovation, but I can suggest a methodology that may be used as a foundation for creative individuals to build upon, adapt, or thoughtfully reject. One has to learn a discipline in order to unlearn it.

I present topics in this book in the order followed by any film or television projectpreproduction, production, and postproduction. Although I have found that a few students adhere to the big-bang theory of production, whereby a production magically explodes into existence in an act of improvisation on the day of the shoot, nothing could be further from the reality of filmmaking. Even directors known for improvisation, such as Cassavetes and Leigh, spend many weeks refining their scripts and working with their actors before commencing production. I have tried to present preproduction as the most creative stage, full of the research, discovery, and exciting decision-making that will define production and postproduction.

The following pages include examples from my own experience (often presented as sidebars). I hope that these will give readers who may not have worked on a professional project a taste of the realities of production.

Finally, I have tried to define technical terms when they first appear, but please note that they are also collected in the Glossary at the end of the book.