How To Direct Your First Movie

Film-making isn’t exactly the easiest of the arts to learn. Learning to direct one’s own feature-length production can be just as daunting as teaching someone else to ski uphill on snow that’s knee-deep at the top.

What makes directing a movie so complicated is that it’s a series of moving parts and no two parts are alike. That said, a handful of skills can be utilized to make your films a success.

The art of directing a film is akin to acting - at least as far as understanding your audience, and bringing your vision to life with confidence and clarity.

Like acting, directing can be broken down into a set of skills. To get the most out of this series, the basics of film-making, for beginners, will be discussed as well as one specific skill that every movie-maker should have.

This will ultimately lead to the development of a skill that can be used to direct your next feature film. Without further ado, let’s delve in.

Anatomy of a movie

To make any movie, you must have an idea, a script, locations, actors, and crew. All three of these categories are formed by the stages of making the movie.

A movie is made through the process of pre-production, production, post-production, and finally, distribution.

The usual scenario in the world of feature-length movies is the creation of a script, pre-production, and casting.

Then production takes place and the script is adapted to the location you are using (more below). Then production and post-production takes place.

Finally, distribution takes place and the movie gets its life. If you take these steps, you will have a movie that has been done the correct way.

The art of directing

Directing is, essentially, running a film. In fact, if you take a step back, and think about the process, that is exactly what it is. What you do as a director is you try to “make the people” in the movie do what you are asking them to do.

This requires a whole set of skills and an overall experience in the art of directing. There are no real “easy” movies. Every movie is difficult, as long as you are doing your job right.

Principle #1: Communication

You may be thinking, “I’m a talented writer, and I have an awesome script, but directing is hard, and I’m just not capable of directing a movie.”

Let me tell you that you don’t have to be a master writer to make movies, you just have to be the best performer, and the best team player you can possibly be.

You are the director, and, as a director, you have to be the most important person on the set. You are in charge of hiring your team, and you are in charge of making them feel comfortable with what you are asking them to do.

This is where communication comes into play. Your team is likely a bunch of people who know nothing about your world, and even if they have read your script, there is no way they will understand it the same way you do.

It may be that you need to be a producer on the set, if you are starting out.

It is important that everyone involved in the project, from the crew, to the cast, to the executives, knows exactly what is going on, and, ideally, they all feel empowered to make decisions.

Don’t confuse “feel” with “know.” Show respect to everyone on the set, and they will show respect to you. Without trust, communication will not be there.

To properly explain what is going on on the set, you must know exactly what everyone is doing. If you are calling people on the phone and not being visible, you are not doing your job as a director.

As a director, you must be accessible to everyone on the set. You need to constantly monitor your team, and in order to do this you need to know what they are doing. People need to know what the director needs in order to know what the actor needs.

They will respect you more if they know that they can come to you with any questions they may have about what you are asking them to do.

Dealing with the talent

One of the hardest things about directing is dealing with people.

As a director, you are going to have to talk to your actors. You will have to convince them to do what you want them to do.

How do you convince them? Well, the best way to talk to your actors is to teach them. By teaching them, you can let them understand what it is you want them to do, and then they will do it.

This is how you will teach them to believe in what you want them to do, and then your actors will believe in your vision for the film.

On a set, you will have to be present on a very high level. You must always be clear, and you must always speak to everyone as if they were a part of the film.