Why I Teach Filmmaking Differently

What Matters, and What Doesn’t

With New Filmmakers (Photo: Meiyi Art Education)

Why do so few posts in social media filmmaking groups ask questions about story, about world, about character, about their representation on the screen, the forms this can take and the ways in which these can work? About the emotions a movie conveys, the thoughts, fears, wants, questions, suspense, conflict, joy and pain? Why should there be a preponderance of inquiries about this model of camera or that, this microphone or that? Why only the most naïve assumptions about ideas and story development? (I have an idea. Hey! Where can I find a proper writer?—Better to find an improper writer, yourself perhaps, or do you have only an idea but no story?) Why do these groups tend to devolve into mere jobs and crewing boards, into technology boards rather than forums for the creative exchange of questions and explorations as to what lies at the heart of film and tv: namely story, emotion, the human soul among other human souls, with itself, in the community, out in the world, then the means of conveying this—the language of the moving image in its multiple permutations?

Do novelists discuss their keyboards or computer screens? Are the best guitarists obsessed only with their Fender Strats and amps or do they care more about the notes they play, and how they play them? Picasso said that critics discuss theory while artists discuss turpentine but went on to talk about so much more than paint thinner. Anyway, isn’t this contrast false? Are theory and production the sole alternatives, courses in film studies and classes in film production polarities to exclude all else?

Doesn’t art have to work in some way before it can be distributed? And shouldn’t we discuss the different ways in which this can be achieved?—not a matter of going about theoretical analysis but pursuing the thoughts that inform the practice. Are we theorizing when we think about what the filmmaker needs to focus on as they create their film or are we dutifully exploring our art and craft? Shouldn't we be keenly aware of the domains in which a film comes to life, for example, and of how we might undertake to make each of those realms work to the best effect? Shouldn’t we reveal the nexus between dramatic narrative and its manifestation on the screen?

Let’s put aside the platitude about “overthinking” (ever the caution from the populist)… Let’s at last start to think!

My approach contrasts with filmmaking pedagogy in general, which I see as insular, limiting, and too all-embracing—a one-size fits all affair. I developed it during my time teaching in a graduate directing program that I came to head for eight years, and in the period since, working as an independent educator. Testament to its effectiveness might be measured by the success of some of my alumni, also taught by my estimable faculty colleagues of course: Ari Aster (Hereditary, Midsommar), Duke Johnson (co-director Anomalisa—Venice Film Festival Golden Lion), Asaph Polonsky (Gan Foundation Award—Cannes Critics Week), Zal Batmanglij (The OA), Eva Husson (Nominee, Palm D’Or—Cannes), Sam Esmail (Mr Robot), Drake Doremus (Sundance Grand Jury Prize), Amy Wang and Asher Jelinsky (both Gold Awards—Cannes Lions), Mattson Tomlin (Mother/Android), and the top three places in the Student Academy Awards won by students under my supervision TWICE—something never achieved by any other film school. I could go on…

How then does my approach differ from the norm? Here are some of the ways:

1. It distinguishes creative filmmaking from film production, procedure, workflow, manufacture, industry, and distribution.

2. It focuses on story, storytelling, and the language and what I call the practical aesthetics of the moving image. (Forget the style vs substance cliché! Time to integrate!)

3. It explores the language of the moving image, not the grammar.

4. It sees a movie as coming to life in FOUR PRIMARY PLACES:

a. The world of the story.

b. The planarity of the screen.

c. The hearts/minds/guts of the audience.

d. Its resonance in memory.

5. It incorporates references to the arts, literature, and philosophy, as well as to film and tv.

6. It seeks the crucial questions, not dispensing the ready answers.

7. It promotes creative Voice over prospective membership of any moviemaking club, over training the filmmaker to talk, think, assume, be like everyone else.

8. It understands story, screenplay, casting, preparation, shooting, editing and post-production as one organic, integral process.

9. It sees preparation as formulation and progression, not simply time spent readying for the shoot.

10. It teaches the effectiveness of the contradictory alliance and interdependence of function and mischief.

The following represents my approach well:

I had a professor at AFI named Peter Markham, who I really loved, and he said that filmmaking at its best is really mischief-making. That really stayed with me. That is exactly how I feel. Ari Aster. Toronto Sun. June 2018

I take inspiration from these two quotations:

1. The only interesting ideas are heresies. Susan Sontag.

2. The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions that have been hidden by the answers. James Baldwin.

I remember, how on Gangs of New York, on Stage 5 of Cinecittà in Rome, Martin Scorsese would walk from the video village to the set to give notes to the actors, and then back again—with eyes down, seeing no one, following in the footsteps of his assistant who would clear his path. For him it was as if the machinery of production, the camera, lights, dollies, tracks, ADs, set PAs, the entire crew, the cavernous stage itself did not exist. There was the film only, in his mind, in front of the lens, in the cutting room ahead, and finally on the screen before an audience and within their emotional and cognitive engagement. With every step he took, the “Fellini Stage”, its walls, its accoutrements, and its population melted into thin air as the fiction he was creating—increment by fastidious increment—came to life. I recall also his chuckles, his joy in the sheer mischief of it all. The invention, the wit, the freedom from common thinking. And I remember too his unremitting rigor, even if once, when an extra was injured, he was the first to stop the shooting, raise the alarm and ensure that help was on the way—dedication to one’s art need not preclude kindness or humanity.

For me, coming up as an AD provided a different experience. As a 1st AD and production manager I could schedule a film, lock down a location, run a set, anticipate a scene’s coverage, know the framing of a shot simply by knowing the chosen lens, direct the background action, anticipate and solve problems, and generally facilitate the process of physical production—but I was a million miles away from the film, its story, characters, and world, and from their representation on the screen. Only when I came to direct, and still later to teach, could I begin to pierce the membrane of the filming process to engage fully with the nature of filmmaking itself.

It is through this contrast in my career and what it revealed to me, together with what I came to see as the creative needs of so many of my remarkable directing students, that my approach to teaching filmmaking came about. Perhaps it’s not even so much teaching as working with—I don’t pass down tablets of rules or wisdom but together with the student, search for and dig out the questions and challenges that inform the effective vision, articulation, and execution of the story and the film.

It’s not about the set, the crew, the gear, the paraphernalia, about technical know-how, the culture of production, the camaraderie, the sense of belonging, the professions, the careers, the daily grind or the yearned-for glamour.

It’s about the film and the thinking that goes into it…

Peter Markham March 2021

Author: What’s the Story? The Director Meets Their Screenplay. (Focal Press/Routledge)

https://linktr.ee/filmdirectingclass