Directing the Story: Professional Storytelling and Storyboarding Techniques for Live Action and ...

837 Pages·2013·46.64 MB·English

by  Glebas, Francis

Directing the Story

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Directing the Story

Professional Storytelling and
Storyboarding Techniques
for Live Action and Animation

Francis Glebas

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Table of Contents

Title
Copyright
Preface
Acknowledgments

1 The Goal: Why Do We Watch?
2 Common Beginner Problems
3 The Beginning Basics
4 How to Draw for Storyboarding: Motion and Emotion
5 Structural Approach: Tactics to Reach the Goal
6 What Do Directors Direct?
7 How to Direct the Eyes
8 Directing the Eyes Deeper in Space and Time
9 How to Make Images Speak: The Hidden Power of Images
10 How to Convey and Suggest Meaning
11 Dramatic Irony
12 The BIG Picture: Story Structures
13 Aiming for the Heart
14 Summary: Recapitulation of All Concepts
15 Analysis and Evolution of the Scheherazade Project
16 Conclusion: Now We Must Say Good-bye

Bibliography
Index
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Focal Press is an imprint of Elsevier
30 Corporate Drive, Suite 400, Burlington, MA 01803, USA
Linacre House, Jordan Hill, Oxford OX2 8DP, UK
Copyright © 2009, Francis Glebas. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Permissions may be sought directly from Elsevier’s Science & Technology Rights
Department in Oxford, UK: phone: [phone], fax: [phone], E-mail:
Printed in China

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Preface

Welcome all who wish to learn the secrets of making movies. This book is really the
documentation of my trying to learn the real secrets of what makes movies great. When I
began teaching, my students gave me feedback that they had never heard of a lot of the
things I taught. This surprised me and I decided it was necessary to get the word out.
Beware though that once you open these pages, watching movies will never be the same
again.
The classical Hollywood style … asks that form be rendered invisible; that the viewer see only the presence of
actors in an unfolding story that seems to be existing on its own; that the audience be embraced by the story,
identify with it and its participants. Unlike montage and the long take, the continuity style was neither theorized nor
analyzed (not by people who developed and used it, at least); its rules were developed intuitively and pragmatically
through the early years of filmmaking. The continuity style developed because it worked, and its working was
measured by the fact that it alowed filmmakers to make stories that audiences responded to with ease and with
desire. They liked what they saw and wanted more. We stil want more.1

In my review of the literature, the classical Hollywood style was never fully analyzed,
until now. So what is unique about my teaching? I began by asking myself what it is that
the audience is doing when they watch a film. I then proceeded to create strategies to
address this when making a film. Here’s what the viewers do:
1. First, they pay attention to the screen.
2. They perceive what is being shown and identify what things are.
3. Then they read the signs as characters are performing actions. They are following
the story and starting to identify with the characters they like.
4. Then they start to make connections as to what it all means.
5. Then they guess what will happen next and where it is leading.
6. Then they worry about the characters and the outcome, continually adjusting their
hypothesis according to new information provided.
7. Finally, when the film ends, they should feel the emotional closure of surprise and
vindication that it ended the way they thought but not in the way they expected.
What is very interesting is number four. Once the audience starts to connect the pieces
of what the story events mean, they start to feel emotions. This was an amazing
discovery: Meaning automatically evokes emotions!
Francis Glebas
Phd. in Fantasy
Reference
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1. Hill, J. and P. Gibson. Film Studies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
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Acknowledgments

I could not have created this book without the generous help of my many mentors and
guides. I would like to thank Dr. Alwyn Scott, Dr. Felisha Kaplan, Dr. Marlene Kasman, Dr.
Elena Bonn, Dr. Milton Erikson, Anthony Robbins, Gregory Bateson, Jacques Lacan, Slavoj
Zizek, and George Lakoff for teaching me how to think. My fellow artists Ed Gombert, Bill
Perkins, Dan Cooper, Fred Warter, Vance Gerry, Walt Stanchfield, Sterling Sheehy Jean
Gillmore, Larry Scholl, and Dante Barbetta for teaching me to paint and draw. I would like
to thank all my students who have taught me while I was engaged in teaching them. I
wish to thank all those who gave me opportunities in the film business: Michelle
Pappalardo Robinson, Donovan Cook, Norton Virgien, Mike Gabriel, Eric Goldberg, Kirk
Wise, Gary Trousdale, Roger Allers, Rob Minkoff, Kathleen Gavin, Tom Schumacher,
Sharon Morill, Roy Disney, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Charlie Fink, and Tom Ruzicka. I would
especially like to thank Ron Clemens and John Musker for believing in me when I was just
starting out. The following people gave me opportunities to teach and develop the
material for this book: Jack Bossom, Tenny Chonin, Alex Topeti, Ed Oboza, Pam Hogarth,
Kristin Bierschbach, Alegria Castro, Peggy Van Pelt, and Toni Pace.
In making this book a reality, I wish to thank my editor, Georgia Kennedy, and the crew
at Focal Press, Chris Simpson, Lianne Hong, and Dennis Schaefer. Nancy Beiman read the
material with a fine-tooth comb and helped me clarify concepts and take out the “fluff.”
She would probably tell me to cut this part. Toni Vain helped give the book a vision in its
very early stages. My film editor, Ivan Balanciano, worked with me as I experimented
with learning different editing approaches. I would like to thank the students who helped
clean up some the illustrations: Jessica Dru, Aernout Van Pallandt, Karen Yan, Rajbir
Singh, and Joan LaPallo.
Finally, I especially wish to thank my friends and family for believing in me and
teaching me how to live and love: Doug, Joan, Toni, Tatty, and my parents. A great
thanks and love for my wife, Carolyn, and son, Ryan, for going on this journey with me.
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