Directing: How to be meaningless. 

“Framing and editing determine the eye-path of the viewer.It might not be too much to say that what a film director really directs is his audience’s attention.

In this sense it is secondary that he tell the actors where and how to stand and move, and how quickly, slowly, loud or soft to play the scene. Equally secondary are his suggestions to the cinematographer about where he wants the camera to be placed, whether it should move or not, what needs to be included and (just as importantly) excluded in a shot. All such directions are ultimately means to another end: manipulating the perceptions of the film viewer.

Direction is a matter of emphasis. In telling a story, the task of the director is to emphasise what is significant by under-emphasising what is less so. The actors’ performances, the camera’s coverage of the performances, and the film editor’s reconstruction of the se during post production: all are designed to make certain things more significant than others to the audience.”


- ‘On Filmmaking’ by A. Mackendrick [2005]

Image: Acclaimed Director, Alexander Mackendrick, date unknown.