Someone had asked me in a comment to chat about my favorite directors. I’ve never spoken on this in the past because I’m kinda weird when it comes to doing the whole “your favorite filmmaker” thing.
This is a tough question because I don’t really have a favorite director. I appreciate so many different directors for different reasons. It’s really tough to narrow it all down to one person.
Also, I go through phases where I study different directors for different reasons.
It makes more sense to talk about what directors I studied by phase.
Starting with when I first started filmmaking.
As a NEWBIE
When I started learning about film. I loved the usual George Lucas – for the star wars franchise. Spielberg for obvious reasons, dudes body of work is legendary, David Lynch, for his bizarre visions. Stanley Kubrick, the godfather of film.
I admire their work but I don’t identify with these guys.
By identify, I mean I couldn’t see myself or my values as a filmmaker reflected in them.
I loved their movies but I could never see myself making them. As a newbie, I identified with filmmakers like:
Mike Nichols
Mike was known for being an actor’s director. He could pull really great performances out on any actor regardless of their experience level. he’s the guy who did the graduate, classic. He had a background in theater and improv. I’ve always been interested in getting great performances. he was someone I could learn from Closer was my jam. Love that movie.
Ingmar Bergman
Ingmar Bergman manages to capture so much texture and emotion in his movies. All of his films feel very personal and distinct.
Cries and Whispers is my fav. It’s very dark, very powerful and personal.
The Seventh Seal is studied in film schools everywhere.
He was famous for his use of close-ups, depicting the struggle with morality, loneliness, and existential questions. Some of his films are almost like philosophical debates.
He had this super long uninterrupted closeup in Winter Light. I don’t remember how long it was exactly but it felt like a good 10 minutes and it still worked. He made some bold choices.
Spike Lee
I got into spike for obvious reasons. Not too many us doing it on that level at the time. For me, he represented what’s possible being a fellow African American.
There are more now but when I started, eh not so much.
Malcolm X, Inside Man, Bamboozled, were all my jams. So many classics, too many to name.
Color and race relations aside Spike has a very distinct voice. Hate it or love it, you know when you’re watching a Spike Lee film. I love that about his work.
Chan-wook Park
I love me some Chan-wook Park. For those who aren’t familiar he’s a Korean director. His earlier movies we’re just bat shit crazy.
He’s one of those directors whose work I admire, but I would never make the type of films he makes.
I really love the way he moves his camera, the angels, the shots, the production design. The attention to detail.
Lady Vengeance, Oldboy, Thirst. All very wild yet beautiful films.
MAKING A FEATURE PHASE
I need to preface this. Making a feature film is incredibly stressful and terrifying.
If you haven’t seen the documentary I made on how I shot UNSOUND my first movie: Making UNSOUND, you should check it out.
You’re about to spend loads of money you don’t have, in most cases and time. I found it more beneficial to study directors who pulled off other low budget features.
Jurassic Park is cool and all but studying movies like that aren’t going to help me make a no-budget feature film.
Vin Diesel
I studied Strays, Vin Diesel’s first feature film. I talked about STRAYS before on this channel. Vin Diesel wrote, produced, and directed and starred in his first feature film and shot it for 40 grand.
I probably watched that film 10 times. I broke down the shots: just the texture, the blocking.
Again these are all things that I could do for my budget. That film was a huge inspiration.
Last I checked, both the film and the behind the scenes featurette are on youtube.
Shane Carruth
I studied Primer Shane Carruth’s first feature. This was made for $7,000 grand. A sci-fi film for $7,000. That’s practically pennies people. It’s unique, it’s textured, well-directed. It did well at the festivals, launched his career. The behind the scenes featurette is loaded with goodies.
Bellflower
Evan Glodell’s Bellflower was also a huge inspiration. Very edgy, very stylistic film. They even built their own camera specifically for the film. You wouldn’t believe that film only cost like 15k. amazing accomplishment
I saw this film 6 months before I started shooting UNSOUND. I got to meet the cast and crew in person. Again. another film that’s showing me what’s possible on a small budget. (green room)
p.s. I don’t advise anyone to go out and rack up $30 grand worth of dept to shoot a film. it’s incredibly irresponsible, but also if you wanna make it happen, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
Robert Rodriguez
El Mariachi was a big one. Also made for 7 grand. Watched that a few times. Read the book Rebel Without a Crew*
*Affiliate link
POST FEATURE PHASE
After shooting UNSOUND. I looked at filmmaking through a whole different lens. I learned so much about myself as a filmmaker, storytelling. There are a lot of things I’m happy with but it’s not perfect. One of my biggest regrets is the lack of atmosphere.
I was so focused on telling a great story and I think we did that well but I never felt like we reached that visceral level of filmmaking. when a film has that almost hypnotic quality.
Part of it was I could only do so much with my budget, but that’s also something I need to work on. I found myself studying more lyrical directors like:
Nicolas Winding Refn
Drive is a prime example of a film that has a visceral quality, part of it’s the music, part of it’s the pacing. a number of things give it that quality.
Kar-Wai Wong
I studied Kar-Wai Wong‘s films. He’s another lyrical director. His films aren’t so much about what happens, but how it makes you feel. most of his films are meditations of love, but again, he has a visceral quality to his work.
Kar-Wai Wong has a unique fluid production process, He basically has a bare-bones idea of the story, shoots and allows his actors to improvise on the day. He shoots his films almost like a documentary and when he feels he’s shot enough then he cuts the film.
Barry Jenkins
Love me some Barry Jenkins. Moonlight has that hypnotic visceral quality in my opinion. I was just blown away by that film. I knew about Barry before Moonlight, back when he did Medicine for Melancholy.
And funny enough. After making a low budget feature I’ve become an even bigger fan of the Mumblecore genre.
In a nutshell, the Mumblecore movement was basically a bunch of filmmakers in the early 2000’s made these crazy no budget dialogue-heavy movies at around the same time and it became a thing. Most of these movies, use a lot of improv, some are scripted, and there’s usually not much of a plot. Some directors associated with this genre are:
- Mark and Jay Duplass
- Aaron Kats
- Andrew Bujalski
- Lynn Shelton
- Gretta Gerwig
- Joe Swanberg
- Barry Jenkins
The two biggest things that draw me to the genre are.:
- Great performances from actors with little to no experience
- Producing films for little to no money. I really like working with actors and I love making films but I hate how expensive the process can be.
After going $30 grand in personal debt and spending 7 years on one movie. I got burned out on the classical filmmaking model. The get a crew and find money thing. It’s a huge undertaking because you wind up having to wear like 20 hats. I need a break from that.
I just love shooting. I’m happiest when I’m on set. I hate fundraising. I hate asking people for money. There has to be another way to make movies.
These mumblecore guys and gals were making movies the wanted to make for next to nothing. Granted there are limitations to what you can do with next to no money, but you get to just focus on making films without the money part.
When you lower the budgets, you lower the risk, you get to keep making films, improve your skills, and eventually work your way up to a point where people want to invest in you.
Almost all of these filmmakers who started off making movies for 100 dollars, 1,000 dollars 5,000 dollars, they’re all doing big things in Hollywood or Netflix now. I’ve studied a ton of mumblecore movies. some notables you should see if you’re interested:
- The Puffy Chair by the Duplass brothers,
- Mutual Appreciation by Andrew Bujalski.
- Quiet City by Aaron Katz.
- Medicine for Melancholy by Barry Jenkins
Just look up Mumblecore. There’s a ton of them.
NOW
Who’s work am I currently into?
- Jordan Peel
- Denis Villeneuve
- Ava DuVernay
- Ryan Coogler
Like I said. really tough to name a favorite. There’s so much you can learn from everyone else’s process. I feel like if you limit yourself to studying one or two people you’re doing yourself a real big disservice. There are loads of peeps I haven’t mentioned too many to stuff into one post.
There are a lot of problems facing new filmmakers, I talk about the biggest one that single-handedly causes most filmmakers to throw in the towel. If you haven’t seen that video I think you should check it out. Here’s a link right there.
As usual, thank you for reading, keep hustling and DBritt out!!!!