Director

“ Another extra will have too much makeup on. The director must know how makeup photographs, what its effects are with people of various complexions and under certain lights.
The extra will resent being sent back to the dressing room and told to alter his face. It is a reflection on his ability. Another case where diplomacy is demanded.
And so finally the director gets everything working smoothly. He gains the confidence of the star and the leading man. He shows the extras that he knows his business and is perfectly able to look out for it, without their assistance. ”

“ Too often the director becomes the self-appointed creator, interpreter and adapter, withholding complete knowledge of the play from the actors and remaking the author’s artistic ideas according to the mold of his own mental and emotional understanding, and the mechanical and material equipment he has at his command, or deems essential. ”

“ This inert theory continually requires the supplement of an especial consultation, and an empirical expedient. The director is a sort of supplementary soul for the soul, who, whilst this last is sleeping in its sublime sphere, is leading and regulating every thing for it in this miserable world below, which is, after all, that of reality. ”

“ The ideal screen story will, I think, always be written by the director or directed by the writer, the only difference here is in the words. The man who creates the mood of a story is the author of it, no matter by 226what name you call him. I have nothing but admiration for the director who can write a story or for the author who can direct one, but at present all directors without exception change and re-write every story they handle and there are one hundred and eight active directors in Hollywood. ”

“ The best scheme of things and one which is followed in many studios today is to have a director and a continuity writer work hand in hand not only on the construction of the picture story but also on the director's end of it—the writer acting in the capacity of supervisor and advisor to the director. ”

“ Just as we enter we see the director, a small curly-headed man, with a red punch face, ascending the stage by means of a ladder. He makes two low bows, one for the ladies and one for the gentlemen, and delivers himself of a grand oration, to excuse some small deficiences in his institution. At every third word he is interrupted by the cheers and remarks of the audience. ”

“ First of all, we must choose directors for the choruses of boys, and men, and maidens, whom they shall follow in the amusement of the dance, and for our other musical arrangements;—one director will be enough for the choruses, and he should be not less than forty years of age. One director will also be enough to introduce the solo singers, and to give judgment on the competitors, and he ought not to be less than thirty years of age. ”

“ Should the organization be willing to go a step further in seeking the aid of professionals, the services of a capable motion-picture director would go a long way toward the betterment of the final production. We believe it possible for an amateur with the dramatic sense, following the director’s method of work as outlined in this book, to stage a satisfactory picture without the services of a professional director. ”

“ So, then, it is of great consequence that the director should be prudent--I mean, of sound understanding--and a man of experience. If, in addition to this, he is a learned man, it is a very great matter. ”

“ Much in the matter of organization depends upon the number and ability and experience of those persons who are available, but the suggestions about to be made as to the organization of a staff are based upon the assumption that the director is a capable person, and his assistants at least willing to learn from him. As a rule, he will have plenty of material to work with.
The Director. The producer, the head under whose guidance the entire work of rehearsing [pg 10] and organization should lie, is called the director. ”

“ The fact that the average director refers to his continuity or rather somebody else's continuity to guide him is no reflection on his own ability. It produces proper balance in the work of picture making and the director knows it. He knows too that the art of picture making is no exception to the old rule that two heads are better than one. ”

“ I shall be a director who directs, a man who sets a dignified and pious example to the men and women who adorn the profession, coming as they do from all climes, and your pa will be the guide, philosopher and friend of all who belong to the grandest aggregation of talent ever gathered under one canvas, at one price of admission, and do not fail to witness the concert which will be given under this canvas after the main performance is over. ”

“ After a director has carefully composed a series of scenes so that the motions and patterns and textures and tones dissolve, from one moment to the next, in a rhythmical flow, regardless of how the story may have shifted its setting, we do not want some film doctor to come along and break that unity into pieces for the sake of a few jokes, or near-jokes, or for a few words of schoolroom wisdom or of sentimental gush. ”

“ It is the director who is more truly the picture maker than any one of his collaborators in the work. Ideally, he should prepare his own scenario, just as the painter makes his own preliminary sketches, and the fiction writer makes his own first draught of a story. Ideally, too, the plot should be devised by the director (who might then truly be called a cinema composer) , devised especially for motion pictures, and with peculiar qualities and appeals that could never so well be expressed in other mediums. ”

“ We hear much, and with good reason, of the value of directive intelligence. To be a director one must have good judgment. He who would successfully direct the labor of other men must first learn the art of successful labor himself; and he who would direct a machine properly must understand the principles of its construction, and be personally skilled in the arts of preservation and repair. ”

“ If this introduction of the director is essential to the end for which Ignatius framed his Exercises, in it we also find dangers. A director, whose aim is only the personal advantage of the one who is receiving the exercises, will be the faithful interpreter of his founder’s intentions: but in the case of one whose esprit de corps is unbalanced, the temporary and pecuniary advantage of the Society may be made of more importance than that of the exercitant. Another danger may come when minuteness of direction takes away the wholesome sense of responsibility. ”

“ To work in the Ince school of directing is, indeed, the luckiest thing that can befall a director. Instead of making him an insignificant employe, merely carrying out the work mapped out by the man higher up, it teaches him thoroughly all branches of picture directing so that when he strikes out for himself he is far better able to approach the excellence achieved by his former superior than he would be without such schooling. ”

“ And when a director proceeds to translate a work of his own from type to picture form he is filling both positions. However, the fact that he is creating in one of his capacities, doesn't mean that he is creating in the other as well. ”

“ One of the larger producing companies in the field today, which is constantly seeking new directorial talent, a company that is actually willing to pay intelligent men to learn the craft of directing, recently induced an author of national reputation to join its scenario department with a view of later becoming a director after he had become fully acquainted with the construction of manuscripts. ”

“ The injection of detail in a story is by right the work of the continuity writer. However, most of the directors that have been referred to here, as said, are either their own continuity writers or they exercise such close supervision or collaboration over and on their continuities that here at least the injection of detail is the director's duty. ”

“ I say, then, that a person who shall resign his soul to be wholly subject to one director will make a great mistake, if he is in religion, unless he finds a director of this kind, because of the obedience due to his own superior. His director may be deficient in the three requisites I speak of, [12] and that will be no slight cross, without voluntarily subjecting the understanding to one whose understanding is none of the best. ”

“ A most important step is the choice the manager is to make of a producer, or production director, on whom is to devolve the entire handling of all matters back of the curtain line from the day of his selection to the rising of the curtain on the initial public performance. He is well aware of the importance of this choice, and places his reliance only on a man known to be thoroughly experienced and competent in this line of work. ”

“ The director of three theatres, the editor of three newspapers and the contributor to many others, the promoter of schools and patriotic organizations, the participant in many political campaigns, the lay preacher of private and public morals, the chosen orator of his nation for all great occasions,—these are some of the characters in which we must view him to form anything like a complete conception of his many-sided individuality. ”

“ He selects these locations, being sure that the physical action of the story can be played in those he selects and then submits them to the director. If the director has a reason for not liking any of them, the location man must jump into his automobile and tour the countryside for suitable substitutes to his first selections. ”

“ The being a Director may be an object to the Directors, but not to Lord Clive. With regard to overthrowing them I have the interest of the Company too much at heart to attempt any thing of that nature, even if they should behave towards me in the manner which I hear some of them have threatened to do. In short, there are a few individuals whom I never looked upon as my friends, or friends of the Company. ”

“ Directors from the theaters, like the De Milles, and others of the men who learned values in the library and the university, know of course the folly of such childish story building, but in the great volume of production their share is small. In spite of this the big man in Hollywood is the director—they are strong men, tireless, and creative. ”

“ He who begins is in need of instruction, whereby he may ascertain what profits him most. For this end it is very necessary he should have a director, who ought to be a person of experience; for if he be not, he will make many mistakes, and direct a soul without understanding its ways, or suffering it to understand them itself; for such a soul, knowing that obedience to a director is highly meritorious, dares not transgress the commandments it receives. ”

“ The Stage Manager. As the director cannot always be present at every rehearsal, and as oftentimes two parts of the play are rehearsed simultaneously, it is evident that another director must be ready to act in place of the head. It is chiefly his duty to "hold" the prompt-book and keep a careful record of all stage business, "cuts", etc. At every rehearsal he must be ready to prompt, either lines or "business"—action, gestures, crosses, entrances, exits, and the like—and call the attention of the director to omissions or mistakes of every sort. ”

“ The problem narrows down to the temperament of the artist versus the temperament of the director. There is a difference; it is no use denying it. The director is ordinarily a man sensitive enough to understand human emotion deeply and to be able to recognize it, summon it, and guide it in actors. ”

“ Studio—In the term studio, we may include director, actor, stage carpenter, and interior lightings and effects. No one is more pleased with a simple and powerful story than [Pg 112] the director, and frequently no one has quite as much to say about the acceptance of the manuscript as this same highest-paid employee. It has often happened that even a bought manuscript of undoubted merit has never seen the light of the screen because there have been several difficult scenes to master, either mechanically or emotionally. ”

“ A director must also bear in mind—what is a fundamental principle of company management—that the funds of the company are entrusted to the directors for the objects of the company as defined by the company’s memorandum of association and authorized by the general law, and that they must not be diverted from those objects or applied to purposes which are outside the objects of the company, ultra vires, as it is commonly called, or outside the powers of management given by the shareholders to the directors. ”

“ One director being a kindly man, and desirous of rewarding him for his long service, ordered him to be given something more important than mere copying. So he was ordered to make a report of an already concluded affair, to another department ”

“ To teach the craft through the printed page is as impossible of accomplishment as instructing a steeple-jack in his trade through correspondence school. “A director must be born, not made.” This old adage, adapted to our present situation, is of a necessity partially false, inasmuch as at the time of the present day directors' initial birthdays there was no such thing as motion picture production. ”

“ A director, on the same principle, must not delegate his duties to others unless expressly authorized to do so, as where the company’s articles empower the directors to appoint a committee. Directors may, it is true, employ skilled persons, such as engineers, valuers or accountants, to assist them, but they must still exercise their judgment as business men on the materials before them. ”

“ Operator, director, administrator, manager of enterprises whose object is the manufacture, printing, distribution, or presentation of cinematographic films, director, director of photography, composer of scripts ”