What directors should I study?
Here is some :
Steven Spielberg
Tarantino
Geroge Lucas
Peter Jackson
David Lynch
Kubrick
I know more but can’t remember now.So recomend me please some you like and tell me how you learn.
For example when i watch movies i look for acting(facial expressions),lighting,camera shots and layout and in animated movies of course everything from modeling to lighting.Also i see making ofs as much as i can and i watch documentaries on my favourite directors.
cheers
first of all yourself, if you’re doing it in order to become a director yourself.
knowing where you are and what you can do yourself is one of the important things as a director because you need to project yourself on your entire team to put them on your level.
it also benefits from watching less experienced directors, try to see what mistakes they made and try to learn from them
that and kim ki-duk 
Hi
No. 1 on your list should be the master technician himself, Alfred Hitchcock. All his movies are worthy of study, but the ones that belong in every Film Directing 101 syllabus are: Rope, the Birds, Rear Window, and take your pick of The Birds, Vertigo, Psycho, North By Northwest. Not that I’m saying these are his best movies, just that they’re distinctive enough to easily learn from.
Speilberg is good too if you concentrate on his action adventure films, especially the early ones e.g. the Indiana Jones movies, Duel, Jaws, even the Sugarland Express. Over time, most directors become less and less interested in the technicalities of storytelling and concentrate more on the drama, which mainly means the actors’ performances (script, editing and music apply here as well but aren’t so relavant in this dicussion). Oh, and look out especially for Spielberg’s 1941, an overindulgent sideshow of a movie but a virtual text book of director’s tricks. I probably watch it 3 or 4 times a year (yeah, I secretly love it).
The only George Lucas movie you can learn much from is American Graffiti, with its distinctive narrative flow and use of music (now much copied). The Star Wars films are actually very “standard” when it comes to direction, not that this is necessarily a bad thing (hell, one of my favorite directors is Clint Eastwood, the epitome of Director Lite, and the maker of some the best films of recent years), but the more flashy and ideosyncatic the direction, the easier it is to identify technique.
Also look out for early Coen brothers movies; Raising Arizona, Blood Simple, Hudsucker Proxy (this last one is a bit of a stinker).
But in actual fact, for the real beginner, I think the most valuable resource is probably TV. American TV dramas are good because 1) they’re easily available and 2) they are usually very well made from a craft point of view, despite the fact that they’re made very fast and very simply. This is a good thing, because it shows you how well the basics can serve you in getting your story across. If the story or acting is crap, all the better, because then you won’t be tempted to get sucked in and distracted by them.
Good point, but I nominate Michael Bay films as worthy of analysis. They really are crap; but why? Well, that’s another topic, all I’m saying is that there are valuable lessons there about what NOT to do.
TC
well … i was refering more to filmschoolstudents, B-movies etc realy
some Michael Bay movies are crap because of the content of the story, but the way it is portrayed and filmed is usualy very professional. you can learn a lot about how to make a movie for the big audience.
It’s not because something isnt your style that it’s a bad movie.
You will have a lot to search… And you will learn how to choose a best style for what you need to say.
Beggining of american cinema:
D.W. Griffith - Birth of the Nation (1915)
Sovietic Montage:
Sergei M. Eisenstein - The Battleship Potemkin (1925)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_montage_theory
German Expressionism:
Robert Wiene - The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_expressionism
French Impressionist
Jean Epstein - The Fall of the House of Usher (1928)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Impressionist_Cinema
Italian Neorealism:
Roberto Rossellini - Rome, Open City (1945)
Vittorio De Sica - Bicycle Thieves (1948)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_neorealism
French New Wave:
François Truffaut - The Four Hundred Blows (1959)
Jean-Luc Godard - Breathless (1960)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_New_Wave
For now that will help you a lot.
OK, I misread your post and interpreted it as a desire to learn about directorial technique. Instead it seems you wanted people to post lists of their favourite directors. This is not the discussion for me, I’ll back out now…
TC
Well,
You are very arrogante!
This is not my favourite directors. This is a list to understand what the directors nowdays are doing and why. This why I put some links about every movement.
Tim Burton have been used the same dramatic style that German Expressionism.
Martin Scorsese used the techinics of Sovietic Montage in Gangs of New York.
And so on…
You don’t need to watch theses movies. You don’t need to understant nothing at all. But the next time that you watch a Clint Eastwood’s movie, you probably will not understand why did he put the camera here and not there.
Some of this movies are very boring. (The Battleship Potemkin is a good example). Its very hard to watch the whole movie. But, do you remenber the stairs sequence from Untouchables. It is a reference from The Battleship Potemkin. All the great directors knows a lot of cinema history. If you want to be a good director, you will need a lot more than that.
Thanks for all
I know a few aspiring directors that really struggle with the concept of having to understand the history of films to make a film.
But a better man than myself once said that being a competent filmmaker is like being a clockmaker. You have to be able to pull films apart and put them back together again if you want to make a new one that’s worth anything.
It just occurred to me that I’m probably not adding anything to the discussion, but still… I like that concept and I thought I’d share it.
I’m studying Pan’s Labyrinth for Guillermo Del Toro
He’s a great filmmaker, his film won Oscar for best Cinematography and was picked by Peter Jackson to direct The Hobit.
that’s not the only reason, but I really like his work!
Also, I’d Study “A Very Long Engagement” for Jean-Pierre Jeunet
and “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” for Julian Schnabel
and surely, the master of all, Peter Jackson. I suggest you buy his extended triology, I learned alot about filmmaking by just watching the detailed making in his DVD’s
Peter jackson really put alot of effort on making those DVD’s, you can easily tell but just watching some of them.
Read a book about filmmaking, cinematography and the process of the film in general, watch the DVD’s, try to link them together, make your own understanding.
But the end, it all depend on which kind of movies you are interested to make. Each genre got great directors.
Can you give me a link to those dvds please? I want to pruchase them,but don’t know what dvds you mean,lot of stuff on the net…
here they are
http://www.amazon.com/Lord-Rings-Picture-Platinum-Extended/dp/B000654ZK0/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1205149494&sr=8-1
they contain the extended trilogy ( with scenes that weren’t shown in cinema) plus the very detailed making of Lord of the rings
to me, they are worth every penny!
How could anyone miss Kurosawa!!?
And I’d go with most of FBerlim’s list (even though it might take a little more patience to sit through some of them). The 400 Blows is absolutely amazing!
And I always loved the cinematography in Ingmar Bergman’s films. You can learn a lot, and I really mean A LOT, from his films about composition, lighting and what not.
To know more check out www.sensesofcinema.com and go through the great directors database. There’s tons of information and recommendatons.
As an amateur director and “self-taught student” myself, I must say I adhere the most to Steven Spielberg.
His work is described as anti-elitist, his messages and chosen themes sometimes derided as “infantile”, “imaginative workouts”, and more spectacle…pure popcorn.
If that were all there is to it. It’s easy to do spectacle (see: Michael Bay)
But behind all that in Steven lies a serious determination in EVERY Spielberg film to SAY something to the audience.
That…as well as a seemingly sniper-accurate instinct for what themes will be
interesting, entertaining and “popcorn” enough to reach the widest possible audience for that message is why I love him so much as a director.
If the mark of a great director is how successful he is, then look no further than Steven Spielberg to form the foundations of good, meaningful, and marketable workflow.
For example when i watch movies i look for acting(facial expressions),lighting,camera shots and layout and in animated movies of course everything from modeling to lighting.Also i see making ofs as much as i can and i watch documentaries on my favourite directors.
Michael Bay… He didn’t get picked by Steven Spielberg to direct Transformers for nothing.
Ridley Scott
Tony Scott… True Romance, Crimson Tide (both written by Tarantino)
Oliver Stone
Brian DePalma… especially Scarface (written by Oliver Stone) for acting, and the rest for directing technique
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