Direction

short example

Introduction

It is not so easy to explain what direction exactly is, mostly because the borderline to the other disciplines in filmmaking is a rather blurred one. The main purpose of direction is to make all those different aspects harmonize to each other to form a well-functioning film. The term "well-functioning" just means that it is tried to achieve the highest possible impact on the viewers. How this impact may look like depends on the goals of the work. For most films or series those goals are basically the same, though. There are just differences in the emphasis on each of the goals. Here are the most important ones. Some of them are surely trivial:

The director and the writer could impossibly do all that work alone. Therefore they are dependent on the support of no less important co-workers. For example beside others someone for the camera, one for the layout, an art director (whatever that is) and three animation directors contributed to 'A Little Princess Sara'. I will not plunge into the difficulties of analyzing who exactly does what. Instead, a more general approach will be used. The following pages want to show that directing can be not only a mere job but also a high art, especially as far as this series is concerned.

The journey begins with some introductory examples and leads on from that page, but for a better overview I have included a small table of contents.

  1. Some examples
  2. The three-dimensional dilemma
  3. To tell a story
  4. Parts of the whole
  5. Forgotten anything?


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Taro Rehrl (e-mail), 1998-09-20, 2002-08-17