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Job Responsibilities of a Director

A day in the life of a movie director can vary greatly depending on the stage of production and the specific needs of the project. However, regardless of the phase your production is in, the director has many job responsibilities. The Director’s Responsibilities During Pre-Production During pre-production, the movie director

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Learn to Direct Actors

All new lessons reveal how professionals direct actors on set for convincing, authentic performances. Lesson 1 Analyzing Character Characters, like people in real life, function on different levels. They often don’t say what they mean, are driven by their own ambitions, and are shaped by their past – whether that

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Shoot for the Edit

Believe it or not, the editing of a movie begins well before you shoot the first frame. Filmmaking is a tedious process of shooting a scene numerous times from many angles using only one camera, and it’s important to consider in pre-production, how these shots will be edited together. In

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The Actor’s Responsibility

We often think of the director as the master storyteller, guiding the cast and crew towards one unified vision.  While much of the responsibility of crafting this vision falls on the director, the line can be come blurry between the director’s work and the actor’s responsibility. For the actor, much of his

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Directing – It’s All In the Script

Although we all think of the director as exerting his or her influential on set, in reality the director’s work is mostly done well before hand in pre-production. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the complexities of production. From working with difficult actors, to fighting the setting sun, to trying

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How to Block Actors On Set

Blocking is the Art of Movement Blocking actors is one of the main responsibilities of the director. The term blocking refers to the actors’ movements on set. We like to break blocking down into two stages – macroblocking and  microblocking. Macroblocking are the large movements an actor makes– where does he walk, where does he

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How to Be an Effective Director in Post Production

Once a movie is complete and enters the post production phase, the director is usually exhausted and may be disappointed with the results of the footage. It’s rare in the independent world for a director to have achieved her exact vision due to time and budget restrictions. By this point

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Unlock the Most Powerful Acting Tool – Backstory

A play, story, or movie is nothing more than a short glimpse of a part of a character’s life in a moment of conflict. The audience does not have the luxury of knowing the character from birth, so personality and behavioral traits, quirks, likes and dislikes, and temperaments must be

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How to Direct Inexperienced Actors

As independent filmmakers, we need to use the resources we have available.  Often times, those limitations extend to actors.  While it would be great if we could afford to hire SAG-AFTRA actors from a top agency for our projects, the reality is that we are forced to work with amateurs.

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Filmmaking Techniques to Get Proper Coverage

The set is a busy, stressful place to work.  You’ve spent weeks, if not months preparing for each shooting day, and when it arrives you have to create art out of chaos.  There are a thousand things that can go wrong. Crew members call in sick, a breaker pops, location owners get demanding,

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