Career Paths: Director

POSTED BY Wesley Scoggins, 30 June 2008

Welcome to the first edition of a new series i'm going to be writing called "Career Paths". Every so often, i'm going to cover a different way to forge a career in a different part of the filmmaking industry. Whether you want to be a Screenwriter, a Cinematographer, a Visual or Special Effects Artist, a Editor, a Sound mixer, a Gaffer, or whatever, i'm going to do some research, maybe do a few interviews with people in the industry, and put together resources for you, the reader, to be able to follow and start forging your own Career Path.

These aren't going to be the only way to get yourself started and on the right track, and I could very well do multiple articles on the same profession from different approaches, so if this plan doesn't work for what you want to do, wait around, and I might tackle the situation from a different direction.

But onward, This week's feature, DIRECTOR.

So you want to be a Director? If you feel the desire too, I say go for it, no one should hold you back from your dreams. But you're going to have to be prepared to understand what you're dreams are going to cost your sometimes. You're going to work hard, desperately hard, sometimes you're going to get up, fueled only by cheap instant coffee, and spend 18 hours straight doing some mundane task, in a dark room, alone, and you're going to feel like you aren't getting anywhere for sometimes many many years. While many directors get lucky and get noticed early on, many other directors haven't gotten their "breaks" until they were already in their 40's or 50's, some even older, some were only recognized Post-Humously. So if you want quick instant recognition for your work, become an elementary school teacher, it's quicker, easier, and the pay is usually better.

You're not only going to have to sacrafice your time in many cases, but you're going to have to become dedicated to it, this is going to be a life style change, you might have to spend a lot of time neglecting your friends and family for no obvious gain in a project you're working on.

Being a Director requires no real writing skills, but it requires plenty of people skills, and an appreciation of writing is mandatory. You don't need to be able to write (most directors don't write their own stuff, there are many famous Writer-Directors, but Spielberg for example hasn't written practically anything he shot himself, he would come up with the basic idea or concept, but he has writers that he works with, one of the only Screenplays he's actually written himself was Poltergeist, which while that movie was great, he didn't DIRECT it.) but you need to be able to READ, reading comprehension cannot be overstated, being able to VISUALIZE the script you're working on is one of the most important things you must learn in the profession.

To get started as a director, you need to start working on a portfolio of visual work now, commercials, music videos, short films, experimental work, feature length films, everything you shoot should be organized, and you should pick the best of the best and create a reel tape.

Find some friends that have lots of story ideas, but know nothing about Cameras or film production, and offer to help them, shoot some of their work, send it off to a few festivals, if you like working with them, and your styles "mesh" then you have just created a working creative team.

If you don't know anyone who writes, see if your local university offers any creative writing classes, preferable ones focused on Film or TV Writing, see if they offer any Film Classes, you'll find like minded people in those places.

Go to local Live Theaters, it would be easy to find Actors, and writers at these places, post up ad's on their walls asking for actors and writers to contact you, talk to them, see what they want to accomplish, see if it melds with what you want to accomplish.

Put up ad's at the local Universities, talk to local businesses for possibly advertising opportunities, you feature their business or their products in your film for a fee, etc.

You need to start saving up money, building up contacts, putting together a creative team, accumulating equipment (cameras, lighting, sound equipment, gels, props, etc.) and finding actors.
Find places that offer local live music, bars, clubs, etc, and ask them, or put up ad's, for any local bands to contact you if they need a music video produced. Do the same at Music department of any local Universities (if any have Music programs). Creating Music videos is a great way to get started, they are usually short, so they require considerably less money and time, but let you understand what its like to work with a crew, work with actors, organize effects, diversify shots, and especially help you understand the relation and coherence that is created from a synthesis of music and image, that is a very important filmmaking basic. Also the experience you can gain from editing a music video is very useful in developing your own style. Do the same at local playhouses and University drama departments for anyone that might need help with film short films. Do the same with local businesses asking if they need any help with Commercials.

Do all of these things can help you start assembling a portfolio, and establishing local contacts that you can use to springboard your own larger projects, after you meet a few local actors, there you go, you have people in your film, after you've met a few local writers, you have a creative team to help you flesh out your ideas, after you've met a few local bands, you have someone you can ask to score your film, after you've worked with a few local businesses, and they like the commercials you've shot for them, you've got potential investors that can help you raise money for your own personal larger projects.

Then like I said, it's just a matter of working hard, creating your own work, then organizing everything you've done in a portfolio, submitting to film festivals regularly, visiting there, networking with people, having your portfolio ready to submit to any interested parties, being able to submit your video portfolio to potential employers, such as larger advertising companies, etc.

So you'll need a lot of personal relations skills, you'll need a lot of oral communication skills, public speaking, you'll need to be well read, you'll need to understand every step of the filmmaking process, you'll need to be able to budget very well, you'll need to have a rather developed knowledge of visual and artistic basics, like color, composition, balance, and how to relate those concepts to something you can replicate with film, and physical lights. You'll need to understand all of the technical aspects behind operating a camera, have a good sense of editing, dialogue, acting, while you won't always need to be an expert in ALL these things, you'll definitely need to have a sense for them, and be able to distinguish between whats good and bad.

If you have those skills, or this sounds like a fun career path, go for it, but remember, it's a saturated market, people get work based on their background, so the more good work a person has done, the more good work he or she gets offered, it's highly competitive, and mathematically, you'll most likely fail. So if you've got nothing to fall back on, no friends and family that believe in you, i'm not saying you will fail, but it's highly likely. Having the support of friends and family, and not having your first film being a failure (as it most likely will be, not saying it will be bad, but it's rare that you'll make a film that will get the studios knocking down your door the first time out of the gate) being the end of your career, are important things you need to balance into the equation.

Anyone can be a Director, but it's far more difficult to cultivate a viable career out of Directing, not impossible, but you've got to be willing to work hard, and crawl up from the bottom, and you need near superhuman determination and focus.

If you are prepared to do some proverbial suffering for your art, if all of these sound like you, like things you want to do, or things you would be good at, congratulations, you are on your way to becoming a director, and with any luck, and plenty of determination and hard work, you can begin to foster your own career, and hopefully begin to get your work noticed.

Good Luck!