Last Monday (10/29), the students learned about types of lighting. Today (11/7), they applied their new understanding of lightening to settings on the camera. Things like grain, zebra strips, exposure, aperture, white balance and iris all flew around the room. While I am typing this, I am actually being used as model for one of the groups. My paleness and light hair caused the group some difficulty which my supervisor found amusing. I then started taking pictures and was eventually handed a professional camera to jaunt around the room and record the day.
About halfway through the class, my supervisor had a professional lighting/electrician film professional come to the class. He brought his own equipment to class as well, which he uses on productions. The students then took the rest of the class to put together equipment, manipulate lighting effects with different tools and methods, and experimentation.
Today (11/14), the students began their first unit of Directing. They started with learning about how Directors are more ‘generalists.’ A sort of jack-of-all-trades, master of none, better than a master of one type deal.
In the 1950s-1960s, a new wave of auteur directors rose to prominence. This was the belief that the director is the primary author of a film and said film should reflect the director’s creative vision. Auteur directors were known for controlling every aspect of their films to a high artistic standard. Alfred Hitchcock was an example of an auteur director and he story-boarded every scene in the film. No scenes were filmed that were not necessary. Other examples include Truffaut, Kubrick, and Bergman. A modern example is David Fincher.
Terry Gilliam suggested filteur theory. This was the belief that a director must “filter” though all ideas regarding films from all sources on the set. This is a more collaborative method of film making and has rose to more prominence today over auteur directing. Directors should have the strongest idea of what the movie will look like and sound like and is primarily responsible for artistic execution of a film and being the decision maker. If the director’s clear vision is communicated well, the vision will inspire departments to think creatively. Vice versa, departments share their creativity with the director who then filters them to the final vision.
