What's a director's vision and how can I get one? (Part 1.a subparagraph ii)

I want to make another point about that stuff I said back on March 12th about how humankind deals with the discovery of extraterrestrial life. Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Neil Blomkamp, and Barry Sonnenfeld were all drawn, for one reason or another, to the same material. Just in time for their movies to come out when the public wanted to see them.

Think about it.

What that means is that these directors all happened to be on board with the story two to three years before the audiences were ready for them. They had to be. It takes years to make a movie, from the time it's written through its development, shooting, post-production, marketing, and release.

The genius of Spielberg, I'm convinced, is that he wants to make what people are going to want to see two or three years before they even have a clue that they want to see it. And it's not just Spielberg, although he's probably the most consistent.

Remember 'First Monday in October'? That came out just after Sandra Day O'Connor became the first woman justice on the Supreme Court. Want a freakier one? How about 'The China Syndrome'? Twelve days after that film was released, Three Mile Island melted down. The producers couldn't have asked for better PR for the movie. Suddenly, everybody needed to see it.

By the way, I don't think Spielberg –– or any successful filmmaker –– knows how he knows. He's kind of like Wayne Gretzky, who could only explain why he was so good by saying, "I just skate to where the puck is going to be." Something just gets under his skin. It has to. How else could you work that hard on something for two, three, sometimes four years?

Here's the bottom line on material: You can't know. You can't know what's going to resonate with the fickle public any more than you can project what the Dow Jones Industrial Average is going to be on May 13, 2012. So don't try.

Find the material that speaks to you. If you're lucky, it'll speak to an audience as well. If you're not, at least you won't have spent years of your life pretending to care.

What's a director's vision and how can I get one? (Part 2.b)

There's more to interpretation than narrative style. In fact, interpretation is a huge area –– arguably the thing that truly defines a director.

Interpretation covers everything from the look of the film to the way a line is delivered. It's the pacing of a scene, the shirt an actor wears, how much rain is falling on a window, the music that plays (or doesn't). It's who shows up to work on the set and how they're treated.

Directing is interpretation.

Here's the thing, about interpretation. A lot of directors –– especially when they're starting out –– try to act like they think directors are supposed to. They wear black clothes, act like assholes, give their film a "look." They design shots to be "interesting," art direction to be quirky, performances to be unusual.

Don't.

I mean it. Don't.

Forcing your work to be more interesting is an admission that you don't think you're inherently interesting. And you are. Really.

Or you're not. But if you're not, you're not going to be able to fool people into thinking you are, so don't even try.

Interpretation –– meaning your vision –– is about doing what's right. There's one right place to put the camera, one right way a line should be delivered, one right piece of music to emphasize the dramatic content of a scene... Your job is to find it. Create it. Make it.

This isn't a moral judgement. It's a taste thing. It's what works best for you.

You may admire Tim Burton, but you're not going to be him. And even if you could, I'm sorry. That position is already taken.

Be you.

Got that?

What's a director's vision and how can I get one? (Part 2)

You know what's neat about last year? 'Avatar' and 'District 9' are essentially the same movie: Humans discover aliens. Wielding power over aliens, humans exploit and dehumanize (I know, but what word are you going to use there) said aliens. A single human, whose mission is to further exploit said aliens finds himself becoming one of them, and as a result develops sympathy for their plight, ultimately helping the aliens to throw off the yoke of their oppressors.

Or, to put it the way I categorized things in my last two blogs, they're both stories about how humankind deals with the discovery of extraterrestrial life. And they're both coming-of-age stories with a ton of special effects.

Both films were nominated for Best Picture. And both made a lot of money at the box office (okay, so one made a lot of money and the other made a FUCKING SHITSTORM OF MONEY.)

You get the point.

Anyway, they're clearly not the same movie, so how can they be the same movie? I'm glad you asked. It's the second part of what makes up a director's vision.

Interpretation.

In broad terms, James Cameron created a conventional cinematic piece (when I say "conventional", I'm talking about its narrative style), while Neil Blomkamp made a movie that looks like a documentary.

'Avatar' takes place in the future; 'District 9' takes place in the past. Even the settings are light years apart.

Same story, different interpretations.

Neat, huh?

What's a director's vision and how can I get one? (Part 1.b)

You know what I said about how the material you shoot makes up a big part of your "vision?" There are actually two parts to the material part. There's a) "What's the movie about?" which is what I went on about last time, and b) "What kind of a movie is it?" which probably should have come first because it's both broader and more categorizing.

Oh well.

Comedy directors do comedy. Action directors do action. Horror directors do horror.

Put the two parts together and you have a pretty good idea what kind of film you're going to see (or make). A comedy about how mankind confronts the end of the world ('The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy') is going to be different from a horror film about how mankind confronts the end of the world ('I am Legend') is different from an action film about how mankind confronts the end of the world ('Mad Max').

This is particularly poignant for me because I work mostly in commercials, where there's really only one part to the material part. The part about what kind of a movie (commercial) it is.

It makes sense if you think about it. Commercials are mostly about one of two things: saving money or getting laid (I'll get into that in a later post), and it really doesn't make sense to go, "Oh, Brian? Yeah, he's drawn to spots about getting 10% off."

In commercials, if you're considered a comedy guy –– as I am –– you're not really sub-categorized any further than that. Comedy guys do comedy. And have a really hard time getting invited to do special effects, action, food, cars, or any of the other categories. (Those are commercial categories,by the way. You might have noticed that there aren't a lot of horror, caper, thriller, disaster, spiritual, tragedy, heartfelt drama, coming-of-age, slasher, western, rom-com, or woman-in-peril commercials.)

Where was I? Oh yeah. The material.

The material you shoot goes a long way to determining your vision –– as it's ascribed to you. Not just by audiences, but also by agents, managers, financiers, and studio execs. So be careful. It makes sense to do comedy if you're working in commercials because so many commercials are supposed to be funny. But only if you don't mind being a comedy director.

Once you're categorized, it's hard to break out.

What's a director's vision and how can I get one? (Part 1)

I've been talking to a lot of people lately about vision –– that nebulous quality that defines your work, separates you from your competition, and makes you worth vast sums of money –– and I've come to the conclusion that there are two aspects to a director's vision.

The first part is the material.

The easy way to think about this is to ask, "What's the film about?" 'ET', for instance, is about how humankind deals with the discovery of extraterrestrial life. (So are, by the way, 'Avatar' and 'District 9', but we'll get to them down the road.)

The material you're drawn to is a huge part of defining your vision. Back in 1980, Spielberg could have easily been working on a film about –– oh, I don't know, how humankind deals with the discovery of a hugely powerful religious artifact... oh wait. He was. That's 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'.

As long as we're talking about Spielberg, let's see if we can find a pattern. There's 'Jurrasic Park' (how humankind deals with the discovery of prehistoric life'), 'AI' (how humankind deals with the development of artificial intelligence), 'War of the Worlds' and 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' (how humankind deals with the discovery of extraterrestrial life –– again)... Hmm. When you break it down that way, you start to get a pretty good sense of the stuff that floats Spielberg's boat.

I think it's fair to say that Spielberg is attracted to stories about how humankind deals with events that have the potential to change history.

His vision.

I know, I know, there are a lot of ways to parse what a film is about. Just go with me on this one. And, yes, I'm cherry picking. But you get the point.

Some directors, it's pretty obvious what gets them going.

Mel Gibson is drawn to stories about heroic characters who are utterly destroyed by powerful bad guys ('Braveheart', 'The Passion of the Christ', 'Apocalypto'). Krzysztof Kieslowski rarely veered away from dealing with great cultural themes ('Trois Couleurs', 'The Decalogue'). Ingmar Bergman was hung up on death. Until he, well, died.

Others, well, hey. They have mortgages and ex-wives to support.

Or they have something else that unifies their work. Another aspect of vision I'm going to get to in Part 2.