What does a film director do? What does the director do? Who is this profession suitable for?

Directing as a profession.

The art of directing was born simultaneously with the emergence of entertainment art, and the profession itself, as we understand it now, was finally formed by the end of the 19th century. In Russia, directing is associated with the opening of the Moscow Art Theater in 1898, and its outstanding representatives at that time were theater directors - K.S. Stanislavsky and V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko.

In Ukraine, the emergence of directing as a profession is associated with the names of M. Staritsky and M. Kropivnitsky, the founders of the first professional theater in 1882.

Directing did not stand still, it was in motion, in creative search.

Thanks to such extraordinary and bright personalities as K.S. Stanislavsky, V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, V.E. Meyerhold, L. Kurbas and many others. other talented masters, directing became independent and formed independent creative directions in theatrical art, while the director received a leading role. The director, from an initially unnoticed theatrical assistant on general issues, gradually turns into a full-fledged “owner” of the creative process and the entire stage. Today in the theater, in cinema and on the stage, in mass holidays and performances, the director is a leader who leads the entire creative team.

IN AND. Nemirovich-Danchenko succinctly and clearly defined the nature of directorial creativity:

1. A director-interpreter, because he shows how to play, so he can be called a director-actor or a director-teacher.

2. The director is a mirror who reflects the individual qualities of the actor.

3. The director is the organizer of the entire performance.

Thus, the director is both the organizer of the creative process, and the teacher, and the creator, and the first viewer - this is how some of his main functions can be briefly defined.

The complexity and specificity of a director’s professional activity lies in the fact that it is essentially a broad-spectrum activity and includes four interrelated areas that operate in inextricable unity:

Organizational and managerial;

Social-psychological;

Psychological and pedagogical;

Artistic and creative.

Each of them involves practical, creative and theoretical activities. Director-teacher V.A. Nelly identified the main qualities of a director:

The director must be a progressive person, an innovator, a son of his people and his era;

The presence of tact, endurance and high culture;

Comprehensive knowledge;

Poetic imagination;

Good taste, subtle taste in music, language, sense of rhythm;

Knowledge of drama, its technique, theory and history;

The director is the head of theatrical production, hence knowledge in all the details of the theater and its organization, technology and auxiliary means;

The actor is the main figure in the theater, its center and basis, so the director must know the actor and his work well;

To be a psychologist, to try to penetrate into the “life of the human spirit” in order to accurately and poetically create real life on the stage;

Be a natural person. While reading a play, “feel” the work and see it revealed on stage;

Drama is the art of action. The main quality of a director is the ability to note, capture the content of events, the ability to see different segments of life in which memory is manifested, which would preserve different types of action with which real life is filled;

Inexhaustible imagination, ingenuity, resourcefulness;

Strong will, clarity of perception, creative direction and the ability to foresee the result, i.e. the ultimate goal towards which creative efforts are directed;

Director- this is the person who produces the film, manages the filming process or rehearsals, if we are talking about the theater. More precisely, directors on the set some: the main director is called production director, his closest assistants are simply directors. In both cases, the basis of his work is.

Today, many people dream of becoming directors, because the profession is becoming more and more prestigious. Famous masters of their craft receive awards and bonuses, walk on the red carpet, give interviews, and communicate with the best actors and actresses. However, the director's job was not always like this. At the beginning, at the stage of the emergence of the profession, the director was developing the script, working with the actors, and managing the filming process. But times have changed and imposed more and more new responsibilities that make the profession interesting and difficult at the same time.

What does a director do?

Now, in order to become successful in his business, a director must have a keen sense of quality ideas, amazing scripts, the timing of the film’s release, and the needs of the public. He looks for funds, interests investors and producers, selects actors and crew, and manages the process of creating and editing the film. There are gradually becoming fewer and fewer barriers and restrictions as the range of director's responsibilities grows.

Domestic specialists differ in many ways from Western ones, since Hollywood directors do not recognize those who put themselves above the rest. Therefore, they do the maximum amount of work, making every effort to ensure that the picture is of high quality and successful.

After their first success, domestic directors often become arrogant and refuse to fulfill certain duties, as a result of which they quickly lose popularity. Only a select few workaholics and true talents are still interesting to viewers.

Working rights and responsibilities of the director

The director's responsibilities include coordinating the entire process of making a film, so it is he who receives awards or suffers complete collapse if his film fails. The director’s work requires complete dedication, since the specialist not only carefully selects the script, adapts it to his vision and attitude, that is, creates, selects the optimal cast, which will be the ideal embodiment of certain images, and finds an approach to each of them.

After the end of the filming process, the director’s work does not end, since he is obliged to control the editing, sound and special effects. The latter often play a decisive role in the quality and popularity of the picture. Only after all the work has been completed and the film has been released can the director consider his work completed and expect praise or criticism from specialists and ordinary viewers.

A typical director's job description includes rights and responsibilities, and usually also contains a clause on the responsibilities of the parties to the contract. The job responsibilities of a theater director, for example, include developing a repertoire, staging performances, and organizing educational work. Drawing up cost estimates and a cash flow plan is also often entrusted to the director.

In general, the functions of a director represent a set of responsibilities of a good manager, and directing as a profession implies appropriate thinking and excellent organizational skills.

Concept and implementation

Concept and implementation are the two pillars on which modern directing stands. Many directors describe their ideas in great detail; some, on the contrary, believe that improvisation is the main trump card of practical directing. Of course, it is foolish to underestimate the importance of the preparatory stage, but the history of directing says that the most important working moments still take place on the set. This could be a theater stage or a film studio. Undoubtedly, without actors it would be impossible to realize all the richness of the director's imagination.

The main functions of a director include working with actors. Of course, ideally, the creative understanding of the director and actors should completely coincide. However, in practice, one can more often observe a situation where they either strive to meet each other halfway, or what the director does cannot be called anything other than the active imposition of the only correct point of view.

Sometimes even eminent masters do not consider it necessary to hear the opinion of the executor of his “most serene” will. But what the director does is create characters. It cannot be carried out without bypassing the soul and creative potential of the actor.

In accordance with the classical principles of directing, the following components of the plan (the basics of directing) are distinguished:

  • creative interpretation of the script;
  • description of characters;
  • determining the features of acting;
  • rhythms and tempos in the temporal aspect of the work;
  • spatial solution (the so-called directing space);
  • decorative and sound design.

In conclusion, it should be noted that timely and thorough performance of the duties of a director will make a true master out of a diligent beginner.

In the era of digital technology development, when we can no longer imagine life without television and radio communications, the profession of director remains one of the main ones in the media industry, although it often remains behind the scenes.

In order to become a director, ordinary training is not enough, a person must have an incredible ability to influence people, contributing to their moral and spiritual development, must be able to find an approach to everyone who is on the set, not to mention the burden of responsibility that lies on the shoulders , since in case of failure all the stones fly at the director.

Profession director - pros and cons

Among the advantages of the profession, one can note the opportunity to reveal one’s creative potential; on the set, the director has all the authority to show a picture of exactly his vision.

Among the disadvantages, the main one is the difficulty in finding a job.

Using the databases of vacancies on the Internet, we can conclude that the profession is in demand only in places where television and radio companies are concentrated.

For the Russian Federation - these cities: Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan.

At one time I had the chance to talk with one of the directors of the Zvezda TV channel. During the conversation, I learned that in order to find a job, he had to give up everything and go to Moscow, but again, this is not an obstacle for those people who are ready to devote their whole soul to their favorite business.

Director's responsibilities

  • The beginning of any filming, of course, begins with the selection of a script. Without a good script, it is impossible to film a good work in principle, so such seemingly simple work, on which the success of the project depends at the initial stage, falls on the shoulders of the director.
  • Working with producers. The producer, as we know, is involved in selecting actors, creating conditions for filming and other details that may affect the implementation of the task. Without a successfully established tandem of director and producer, it is difficult to talk about the success of the work.
  • Direct supervision on set. In principle, many people are familiar with the profession of director precisely from backstage format videos, when the main person on the set speaks into a megaphone, directing the ongoing process.
  • The work of a director is comparable to the work of a top manager of a large company; you need to manage the entire process as a whole, so it is almost impossible to list a complete list of responsibilities.

Profession director - salary

Payment for a director's services depends entirely on experience and portfolio.

Here amounts can start from 20,000 rubles, ending with high percentages of box office receipts.

DIRECTOR

director in cinema, a film director who leads the creative and production work on its creation. The director determines, on the basis of the script, the ideological and artistic concept of the film and brings it to a holistic embodiment, directing the joint work of the actors, cameraman, artist, composer and other participants in the production.

The most important moment in the initial stage of a director’s work on a film is choosing a script or participating in its writing. The director's plan can completely predetermine the creation of the script's plot, so some major directors constantly (for example, C. Chaplin, A. P. Dovzhenko, R. Kler, I. Bergman) or, when necessary, act as the authors of the scripts for their films. Many masters of directing art prefer to collaborate primarily with one screenwriter (V. I. Pudovkin with N. A. Zarkhi, Yu. Ya. Raizman and S. I. Yutkevich with E. I. Gabrilovich, J. Ford with D. Nichols, V. . De Sica with C. Zavattini). In cases where the director accepts a ready-made script for production, he either interprets it from the point of view of the general direction of his work, his capabilities and aspirations, or uses it as a basis for working on a new theme and style.

After working with the screenwriter, including a detailed clarification of the concept, necessary amendments and finalization of scenes, the period of writing the director's script begins.

Despite the fact that various clarifications may arise during the production process, and much will be decided by the method of improvisation, it is the director’s script that largely determines the artistic quality of the film. As a rule, the director creates this script with the participation of the cameraman and the artist, since they, therefore, contribute to the extent that the specific embodiment of the plot on the screen is predicted and “seen” in advance. The director's script is also called an "editing script", because it prescribes the editing structure of the entire film and the editing developments for each scene. The director's script also outlines the footage of the episodes and all individual frames, the nature of the lighting of various scenes, the necessary elements of the setting, the location of the filming camera, etc.

The director's script is a kind of film score. Carrying out to a certain extent the functions of the production and technical “project” of the film, it is at the same time important as an expression of the creative concept, which foretells the theme and style, atmosphere and rhythm, precise emotional sound and specific meaning of the future film.

Many prominent directors define the meaning of a director's script differently. Some (L.V. Kuleshov and Claire) tend to ensure that the film in all its details is completely and finally predicted “on paper”; others (F. Fellini) allow significant changes in the script data that arise through improvisation during filming.

The preparatory period occupies a significant place and time in the production of a film. At this time, actors are approved for main and secondary roles, locations for location shooting are determined, sketches of sets and costumes are developed, cost estimates for film production, etc. This also includes preliminary rehearsals with actors (practised by some directors).

The filming process includes filming on stage and on location, which are the most labor-intensive for the director, as they sometimes involve complex expeditions, depend on climatic and weather conditions, etc. As a rule, each frame is shot with takes (that is, more than once), and sometimes in different versions so that the director can choose the best shots that most closely correspond to the original plan and tasks assigned to the actors.

Before the end of filming, the editing period begins: while viewing the filmed material, the director comes to the final determination of the structure of the film and all its constituent elements. Together with the editor, the director finds the exact duration, sequence and rhythmic relationship of various shots and episodes, in some cases even coming to a new solution for the composition of films as a whole. The editing period, which is completely completed upon completion of filming, includes shading (that is, scoring) of the film: sound recording of dialogues and noises, for one reason or another, not recorded or poorly recorded during filming, as well as music composed for this film by the composer or selected director from one source or another. This work ends at the re-recording stage, when the entire necessary composition of sounds is brought together by the director and sound engineer, in precise combination and correlation.

The production of the film ends with the creation of a so-called reference copy, the artistic and technical quality of which satisfies the plans of the director, cameraman, and sound engineer.

The director's profession and the amount of director's work in developed film production require a division of functions between: 1) the production director, 2) the so-called second directors, to whom the director can transfer management of certain areas of the production (for example, working with actors) or the filming of certain scenes, based on the general concept, 3) assistant directors, providing the necessary assistance to the director in his various creative functions. See also .


Cinema: Encyclopedic Dictionary. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia. Ch. ed. S. I. Yutkevich; Editorial team: Yu. S. Afanasyev, V. E. Baskakov, I. V. Weisfeld and others.. 1987 .

Synonyms:

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    DIRECTOR-R- M. French manager of actors, acting, performances, assigning what to give or stage, distributing roles, etc. Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary. IN AND. Dahl. 1863 1866 … Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary