First let,s look at a few qualities of a director

We could say that a director has to have great communication skills.  We could also say that he or she needs the power to be able to manipulate actors and crew into doing his or her bidding.  Good directors are students of human nature. A Director should have lots of confidence in what they are doing.  This can become inspiring to the rest of the crew and talent.  Some film directors get the job done and everyone on set hates them, but they get hired again because they got the job done.  Some directors can get along great with the crew but don’t get hired again by the producer because the film was a dud. Let’s not forget the bottom line to the producer is whether the film made money or not.

As in any business your previous track record of successful productions is what you get hired for.  Hitchcock, John Ford, Roman Palanski, Spielberg, Oliver North etc., all great directors with great track records.

The pathway to becoming a great film director is not an easy one.  You must keep proving yourself one film at a time.  Winning lots of festival awards helps along the way in the beginning.  By the way, I’ve won my share of film awards both national and international and I can tell you that the more you enter festivals the greater your chances of winning a few awards.  All you need is one simple award, not a gold or silver or even a bronze, but just an honourable mention award.  Now you can honestly say you are an award winning filmmaker.

My advise to new film directors is to study not only the films by great directors but also books written by directors.  One book that I found with lot’s of depth into the character of a director was “An open Book” by John Houston.  As I recall there was a Clint Eastwood film about hunting liions in Africa that was a parady on John Houston’s life.

Here is one great tip I learned while studying film in Hollywood some years back and one that I have used several times on set.  It is simply this.  Every director on a film will come to a point where exhaustion and fatique have taken their toll on mind and body.  The twelve to 16 hour days, day after day can be brutal.  Suddenly, you don’t know where to go next with your shots, ideas or anything??? blank.  When this happens you simply turn to you AD (assistant director) and tell them to give the crew a 15 minute coffee break while you and the AD discuss things.  Now the crew is happy for the break and you as the director will not look like have lost it, because if the crew senses that you have, you will lose their confidence in a hurry.  All they know is that the director had another meeting with his AD.

I’ve been speaking here about theatrical films, but please take this advise and apply it to any type of film and video production work.  You can learn a lot more along with some good production stories of what and what not to do, in my book  “The Video Bible”, also comes with a great bonus gift. A number of high schools and colleges are using it in there media classes so it is certainly a good invesment. just click on the link below to claim your copy.

  http://www.barrycasson.com/the-video-bible

I would really appreciate your feedback on my site, so drop me a line.

Cheers,  Barry