Continuing from my last entry, as I was figuring out how to produce my little indie film, I also now needed to find a director. One that would understand, as the scriptwriter, what I was trying to communicate … and how to do that, as that was certainly key to realizing my cinematic vision. Now for the search …

It was exhausting, searching for directors, setting up appointments, and then meeting with a number of them. Trying to push my vision out to them and not being happy with what I was discovering was much more difficult than I realized. I became frustrated after several weeks of not really getting anywhere with it. Meaning, none of them were getting it … my conceptual vision. Until a light finally came on in my head … but I was a bit insecure about what I was telling myself. Had I heard myself right? Hey … you can do this! Huh, I can?

This seemed a bit far out to me at the time. I had fallen into producing because I had no other choice. Is that how I was going to fall into directing? Hell, that required a totally different skillset. One I wasn’t sure I was prepared for. So, I decided to push my boundaries and to find out.

First, let me go down memory lane a bit. Back in the late 70’s, early 80’s, I was involved with an organization called ACMC (Austin Community Movie Company), which was basically a small little film school in Austin that also did a few of its own productions, mostly shorts. It’s where I took my first screenwriting classes. But also to enhance my writing I decided to take some acting classes. And no, I had no acting ambitions. This was purely to help my writing, which I believe it did.

Anyway, progressions that grew out of the acting classes was me volunteering to run the video camera during the classes. Most of the scene performances were recorded and then critiqued. What this allowed me to do, was watch how different directors directed different actors. Without realizing it at the time, that let me learn about the nuances of directing before I had any real use for it, or any inclination to pursue it.

So now, fast forward to my possible directing debut, as I embarked on a year-long journey to educate myself on what it actually took to direct, and if I had the chops to take it on. I took numerous classes on anything related to directing and wound up directing several shorts, as well as taking acting classes for directors to understand what actors went through. That opened up a whole new area of creativity inside myself, one that again sparked my imagination like writing had first done so many years before. But I also realized that this directing world could very complex with all kinds of traps here and there … yes so many facets to it all.

But for me, it essentially came down to three different worlds of focus. The players’ performance, the camera work, and the world created by the production design. I tried to give each are equal balance, but in the end that was not possible. I tended to lean more on the acting performance more than anything. Without that, the other things didn’t matter. I of course would consult with the Director of Photography and the Production Designer within their areas of expertise, as I would to lean on them some when I felt it was called for. And I also learned that I worked well with actors, which I think came about because of my writing background.

And so in 2007, during this discovery of the intricate directing process while directing my first feature film, I realized how well it fit with the writing process. Obviously, they are two totally different activities and processes, but in the end I learned that film directing was certainly a natural progression from writing a screenplay. And I didn’t really figure that out until I went through that whole involved progression. I wish I had learned that sooner, and didn’t wait until I was over 50 to direct. It was the most fun I’d ever had, as well as the hardest I had ever worked.

But I was ready to jump into the fray once again!

JAD