MY PHILOSOPHY ON TEACHING CINEMA AND TELEVISION
Hello! Thank you for visiting my site.
I want to tell you a little about myself and the way you can go about learning your craft, and about how you need to continue to refresh and learn as you voyage through your career. Martin Scorsese once turned to me on the set of GANGS OF NEW YORK and asked “Am I telling the story?”
He’s asking me!!!? I thought, wondering how I was to reply to a filmmaker who bowls me over with his mastery. Upon reflection, I came to see that even Martin Scorsese takes nothing for granted. He’d collaborated with his writers. He’d read the pages over and over. He must have known them off by heart. And yet… he still had to challenge himself to faithfully understand their story and bring it to the screen. He knew how he was going to shoot the scene, but he was asking himself (more than he was asking me, I suspect), whether he was shooting every element of the story he needed to tell—and how he was shooting them.
I realized later that in asking me this question, he showed how even a master must also be a student. Masters know the questions they need to ask and they aren’t afraid of asking them. So often, knowing how to do something is not about having ready answers, taught you by teachers who themselves were taught them, but about knowing the right questions to ask, and not being afraid to consider answers that can be different, even contradictory. In this way you become not only a true student, but you learn to become your own teacher. And you discover your own answers!
I believe there is an aspect to teaching filmmaking for the Director that cannot be delineated in any curriculum in any school, namely the reaching into the inner life of the student to awaken, motivate, and inspire filmmakers to be themselves and to discover the stories they need to tell. This I know I do. It’s evident in the list of my notable alumni from around the world—from over 22 years of teaching the art of the filmmaker—and in their range of sensibility, voice and approach across the spectrum of Film, TV, and now the Web and VR, from the commercial and popular to the more individually artistic and innovative.
Wonderfully, when I left the AFI in 2018 these alumni created a book, From Nietzsche to Beyonce: the Tao of Peter to celebrate my teaching approach.
I do not tell you what kind of movie or TV drama you should be making. That is your choice, for you to decide, whether drama, comedy, “genre”, or a combination of none or all of the above. It has nothing to do with any sensibility, taste or preference I may or may not have.
What I do is help enable you to understand how you can make those choices of yours work by means of the rich and exciting resources of Storytelling Craft, Cinematic Language, and Directing Craft.
(Many of these aspects I also explore further in my books for Focal Press/Routledge and Oxford University Press.)
I do not prescribe a hard and fast formula for ease of achievement. The world is full of recipes we are told to follow. I give you instead frameworks for your creative process. Together, in my classes, we explore what works, why it works and how it can work better. We ask the questions you need to learn to ask, and we learn how to go about finding the answers that will work for your film.
Whether you are a student at film school, or you’re a student on your own, whether you have just one short under your belt or you’re a seasoned professional, my courses offer you a fresh approach.
I look forward to meeting you and working with you.
Peter Markham
Former Directing Head, AFI Conservatory
Sundance Collab Advisor-in-Residence
Rising Voices Program Educator
23 years of Filmmaking Teaching
I have always sought to respect, nurture and facilitate the individual vision, sensibility and talent of the students with whom I work. I believe it is the job of the teacher to make the student the filmmaker they need to be, not to for them to become a clone of the teacher. I believe the teacher needs to listen as well as speak, so they may best serve the needs and aspirations of the student, revealing to them the tools and resources that will take them forward.
MORE FROM AFI CONSERVATORY DIRECTING ALUMNI
Asaph Polonsky
Writer/Director (ONE WEEK AND A DAY — Gan Foundation Award, Cannes Critics Week)
“He’s a teacher I’ve learned so much from about filmmaking and storytelling. I remember talking to him about ONE WEEK AND A DAY. His advice and perspective on every small detail and also looking at the big picture is really what helped me with my work and I take from him into the future material I’m working on. (Gan Foundation Award, Cannes Critics Week).”
Drake Doremus
Writer/Director (LIKE CRAZY — Grand Jury Prize, Sundance)
“He is a fantastic observer of the human spirit and I learned a lot from him. He’ s a fantastic teacher. Whoever gets the privilege getting to study under him and learn about cinema, cinema history, and humanity — they’d be very lucky to do so! “
Joel Novoa
Writer/Director (ARROW, DAY OF RECKONING)
“We are starting principal photography in two days and I found myself this weekend doing audience beats and character beats like we did in your class. Not sure if you know, but every work I have made after AFI I always use the "Markham Formula". It is my best tool to be able to acquire creative authority over the film and have my editor, cinematographer, p.d and sound guy on the same page with me.”
Amy Wang
Writer-Director (SLANTED, THE UNNATURAL — Gold Young Director Award, Cannes Lions, 2018
Screenwriter — CRAZY RICH ASIANS 2)
“He’s an amazing teacher. He told me so much about story, about character, about structure. “
Dean Israelite
Director (PROJECT ALMANAC, POWER RANGERS, LITTLE WING)
“Great filmmakers have always understood that they need an appreciation not just for the craft of the medium but for the art too — Peter Markham teaches you both. Listen closely!”
Dubois Ashong
Director (WHERE THE WATER RUNS — Winner, Jury Award, Blackstar Film Festival 2018)
“... if there has ever been an educator in my life that has completely changed me it is you. From my first day on campus, you became the educational bar that I strive daily to obtain. You are selfless, empathetic, persevering, and utterly talented at molding young minds and pushing them towards greatness.”
WITH FILMMAKERS AND STUDENTS IN BEIJING
Internationally Recognized Classes
As well as teaching AFI Conservatory “Fellows” from all over the world — North America, Central and South America, Africa, Asia, Australasia and Europe, I have recently taught sessions in China, and attract filmmakers from across the globe to my online courses. I have enjoyed being a lead instructor with Sundance Collab, as well as being an educator with the Rising Voices program.