Locations, story boards, directing and a blast from the past

Day started with Robert Mandel and Stephen Lighthill going over the dramatic and practical implications on a story and how that feeds into location scouting. The key thing always to remember: 'it begins and ends with the script - it has nothing to do with you' When Robert Mandel started at the AFI he had never touched any equipment, unlike today, when most people have shot a movie be it a professional production or most like an 'independent film.'


Jeff Bierman - our DP for 'She Cried Alive'


Clark Childers - one of the screenwriters.




Lunch in the 101 working on storyboards.

Afternoon session with Robert Mandel on Directing. Prior to being appointed Dean of the AFI Conservatory he worked actively as a Director - credits include: Prison Break, Lost, the X-Files and the feature film F/X and the Substitute. In the class Robert said to get the most out of the AFI 'make demands on yourself.'

We did an exercise designed to 'audition extras'. The class was split in half, one side as observers the other as 'actors' - Robert Mandel then asked the actors to start to imagine being at a sports match, he slowly built up the vision adding factors to play off such as temperature, life and death ie you have bet your last dollar and if you loose 'caput' - it took around a good 15 minutes. Over time I was drawn to watch a couple of the students more than the rest - these would be whole you would possibly select.

After a clip of Tom Berenger in the 'substitute' we went through the 5 Ws:

1 - Who - outlook, ethics, economics, religion etc
2 - Where - rules of the game, realism, magic realism etc
3 - When
4 - What - objective/obstacle
5 - Why - motivation

With the key being to answer 'How?'

Couple of other things came out of the session:

Higher the stakes the richer the conflict. Two characters same objective - boring story.

If its not personal it won't mean much to the audience.

Can't play the obstacle, you must play the objective.



Blast from the past - Kennedy Taylor - three years above me at Rendcomb - was at the AFI studying Directing and now works primarily as a 1st AD though through his fluent knowledge of Japanese (the Tokyo section of 'Kill Bill') he has a number of other businesses on the side. Had a great catch up session talking about Rendcomb, the AFI and subsequent jobs. Kennedy has had a fascinating background, working for many years out in Japan. He is now married with two children, his wife being from Tokyo. The two work together translating Japanese films into 'American'.