By: Jeremiah Birnbaum, President – San Francisco School of Digital Filmmaking

I believe that filmmaking is a team sport, with collaboration at its heart. The role of the Director is to lead this team in all creative decisions, guided by a clear vision of the movie firmly established in his/her head. Therefore, a central task of the Director is to find his/her vision. Once created and known, this vision becomes the bright light that cast and crew follow through the dense fog of moviemaking. But in practice, this “vision thing” is not so clear cut. In this blog post, I will contend that the Director’s vision is not something static. This VISION must be dynamic – learning and evolving through the process of making the movie. Adhering doggedly to a static vision, no matter how powerful, will result in poor work that neither takes advantage of the collaborative nature of film nor the creative journey of discovery a filmmaker takes.

There are three stages to making a movie: pre-production, production and post-production. In each stage, the Director’s vision changes and grows. Pre-production is where the movie is dreamed-up and developed. A single image or thought can be the spark that lights the flame of an idea for a movie. The Director’s job at this point is see the entire film in his/her head, an endless loop of pictures and sounds that whisper their meaning. We are haunted by the movie only we can see, until it reaches a point that it must be released. As we gather the pieces that will allow the film to be made – funding, cast, locations, crew, equipment – the movie in our heads sharpens and comes more vividly into focus. We nurture our nascent vision, breathing life into it, feeding it, making it strong enough to live through the arduous task of making it a “reality.” We are now primed and ready to start production.

In production, our vision hits the cold, hard wall of reality going 125 mph. We have a finite amount of time and resources to re-create the movie in our heads in front of the camera. The Director must follow his/her vision, but never slavishly. I believe that the Director must enter the production stage with GREAT curiosity. I do not adhere to the notion that production is merely the mechanical implementation of a detailed pre-production plan. YES, to detailed pre-production planning, and YES, to changing that plan during shooting. Production is a highly creative process and so much of what we discover about the film happens here. A line of dialog that works on paper, may fall flat in the mouth of your lead actor. CHANGE it. A scene you thought was critical to the story arc of your movie is found to be redundant when seeing it come to life. CUT it. A location is so beautiful that you decide to film the climax there instead of where you had planned. SHOOT it. Things change and your vision of the film matures and deepens. You are “finding your film” for the second time.

In the movie, “Men in Black,” the agents have special devices that erase your memory. This would be a useful tool for filmmakers as they enter the third and final stage of filmmaking – editing & post-production. Editors are born from this essential need for objectivity. They are virgin viewers. Editors don’t care what went into getting that particular shot or performance. They aren’t disappointed or elated depending on how accurately the footage matches the movie in their head. Editors only care whether that shot or scene, that piece of music or special effect, WORKS on DOESN’T WORK in the movie. The Director has a very hard job in this stage of filmmaking. He/she must find a way to bring their mature, evolved, full-grown vision into post-production and make it sit patiently in the corner watching, occasionally voicing an opinion, but mostly sitting mute and smiling a fake smile. But the Director’s vision is not abandoned, on the contrary it there the whole time, imbedded in the footage. Nothing is lost by setting your earlier vision of the film aside. The sights and sounds you captured during filming carry it for you. It is deeply rooted in the tone and texture of each shot. Now, the Director’s job is to LISTEN to the story held within the footage, allowing the film to take shape, and his/her final vision to appear. Michelangelo said, “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set it free.” This is the Director’s task, to find the angel. At this stage, the Editor and Director are midwives. The film knows what it wants to be, you are there to guide it into the world. And, if you’ve been successful in following the dynamic vision of your film, then once it is finished, there stands your VISION in a form that millions of people (we hope) will experience and share.

Jeremiah Birnbaum is a filmmaker and President/Co-Founder of FilmSchoolSF – a school that does filmmaking. He has been working in the entertainment industry for 24 years and has no other professional skills except his wickedly dry sense of humor.

Jeremiah Birnbaum

President

San Francisco School of Digital Filmmaking