Who's your favourite Cinematographer or Director?

[Charles Papert]

That's a great way to do it if you have the time. Certainly for an action sequence, the more shot planning the better. The tricky thing about having a dialogue scene blocked out like that is that it can't account for what might happen on the day when the "realies" i.e. actors are onboard and the scene may play out very differently. It certainly depends on the experience of the actors, but just because it makes a better shot for Sally Jo to cross upstage and stand facing the camera while Jimmy stands full figure in the background, both actors might feel that the emotion of the scene plays more intimately with them facing each other. As a director you can still choose to play it either way, but being excited about the dynamic of the shot can sometimes blind one to the subtleties of telling the story (which is why there are so many beautiful looking movies that have no human core to them).

So yes, the more pre-production visualization that can be done the better, as long as one doesn't get progressively more attached to that particular version during the process!

[John Locke]

I'd have to go with "storyteller" directors like Redford, Pollack, and Lean. Seems today like taking a non-action storyline and presenting it in a beautiful, interesting way is becoming a lost art....or more likely, or it's just a situation where directors who want to make films like this can't get funding for them.

[Casey Visco]

In this months Maxim Magazine (not a film magazine, but the pictures sure are purdy)...they did a short interview with legendary producer Robert Evans.

He comments "...It cost $6,200,000 to make The Godfather. People had more autonomy back then, and marketing wasn't nearly as expensive, so they could take chances. Today the cost of making a film is so astronomical that Hollywood only goes with the safe things. If you had a hundred million dollars, I'd tell you to invest in just about anything other than the movies."

Evidently John, Hollywood just doesn't deem really great, intimate, non-action stories as "safe" any more...they are becoming a rare breed of film. So what are we stuck with...big action and 2000+ visual effects shots on every show.

Me? I'm off to the Woodshole Film Festival this week to check out some unsafe films ;)

[Nori Wentworth]

Wait a second. How did you get "Slash Rules!" as your title?

[Chris Hurd]

Nori -- Josh is a frequent poster. He asks a lot of questions, which is what this place is all about. I like the fact that he's getting a lot of mileage out of the boards. He gets a custom title due to his prolific posting abilities; the normal user ranking scheme didn't seem to fit him right. Hope this helps,

[Chris Hurd]

While I'm at it:

Favorites: Sam Peckinpah, Orson Welles, Sam Fuller, Robert Aldrich, Frank Capra, Preston Sturges

Oldies: Jean Vigo, Alexander Dovshenko

Newbies: Darren Aronofsky, Wes Anderson

Guilty Pleasure: Edward D. Wood, Jr.

;-)

By the way I'm gonna move this thread to "The TOTEM Poll" in a day or two unless Ken beats me to it.

[Martin Munthe]

Yes! Peckinpah! Love the guy. Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia is timeless. He seldom used less than six cameras on set.

I haven't figured this thing with storyboards out yet. Somertimes it's a great help and sometimes it is totaly in the way. It's easier to work with a stroryboard that is very loosely scetched than with one that looks like a retail comic book. Polanski never uses storyboards. I like his approach. He stages the actors on the set. Lets them play out the scene. He follows them closely with a viewfinder. Then he decides where to place the camera. He rarely uses more than three lenses (wide range) and he knows exactly what each lens respresents emotionally on a given distance. His ideal wouyld be to have only one wide lens. Limitations in optics prevents him to. I think this was also the way John Ford used too work. It's very old school. Very few of the old great directors used storyboards. Kurosawa used several oil paintings that represented the mood of the film. I think the old guys was more into intuition. Intuition is largely ignored today. It's a difficult craft that some people can learn. I think Spielberg has it. It would be nice if he dared to do a "loose" film in improv style. Like Cassavetes (another Fav director). Give him an XL1. Who knows? Mike Leigh doesn't even use a script.

[K. Forman]

When I was in school getting my A.S. in Graphics, my teacher required storyboards on some projects. That messed me up, because I hate doing storyboards. I would finish my project, then do the storyboard. Often, I change things on the fly. The time it would take to make changes to the storyboard, I could finsh the project.

Don't get me wrong, there are uses for storyboards. I just don't like them, unless I have to show someone else what I see. Everything I need is in my head...somewhere :)
Keith

[Josh Bass]

I see, I see. I wouldn't worry so much about it, but so far I'm still working with my chums as actors, and chums like to complain as they will. Long hours and such. A way to get my stuff shot quickly and correctly is what I seek.

[elusive_kudo]

Darius Khondji is such a visual artist.

Remember that dark, rainy, gritty feel of "7even"?