The Film Director's Craft

The Film Director's Craft is a discussion contemporary film directors with a focus on what directors do (how they run rehearsal, how they talk to actors and creatives, etc) rather than on what they create. The goal is to talk to contemporary filmmakers whose techniques may be more current and collaborative than the 20th-century hierarchical model of directing that is still emphasized in some film programs and in pop culture mythology. This is not primarily a discussion of filmmakers' content, representation, themes, style, or personal biography -- there are plenty of good resources for that. It is a discussion about the nuts and bolts of how they work -- the things someone might learn from following them in a shadowing program, which very few young filmmakers get to do. Interviewer Rachel Carey is a filmmaker and the director of 2019's narrative feature Ask for Jane. She has taught the Film Director's Craft as a seminar course at Yale University, and teaching the course made her realize the lack of good interviews with contemporary directors about hands-on craft questions.