British Kinematography (1951)

150 Vol. 18, No. 5 THE DIRECTOR'S PROBLEMS Ken Annakin* Read to a joint meeting of the British Kinematograph Society and the Royal Photographic Society on November 24, 1950. FILM making is a co-operative art and the director's function is to act as a liaison for all the ideas which come from all sources during a production, both on the studio floor and during conferences before. In the first instance the director has to read the basic simple outline of the story and allow mental pictures to pass through his mind. He acts as a kind of sieve, sorting out what appears good and what he thinks bad. Only one man can say what shall finally appear on the screen, and that man is the director. The picture will, therefore, reflect his outlook on life and his way of seeing things. This is the factor that makes each director's work recognisably different. Preplanning Production In the pre-production period I make small working plans on the left-hand side of my script. This gives me an idea of the basic set I shall require. This is then discussed with the art director, who adds his own ideas and states what is economically possible in properties, according to the amount of money he has at his disposal. In working out the shots it is necessary for me to draw on my technical experience, in order that impossible and time-wasting tasks are not set for the camera and sound crew. The microphone has to be kept close to the artistes during dialogue and the lighting cameraman has to provide " holes " in his lighting plan for the microphone to drop into, where shadows will not be cast visible in the picture. After a while this type of consideration should become automatic to the director. The technique with which films are made should be completely unobtrusive. The audience should never be able to comment upon specific camera movements ; this de tracts from the story. What the camera does should appear to be most natural and be the inevitable thing for it to do. Scripting There are usually good reasons for alterations from a story written first as a novel. The characters have to be established visually rather than by description. In the case of W. Somerset Maugham's story, " The Colonel's Lady," the dialogue could be. transferred almost intact to the screen, but certain cuts had to be made from the original conception in order to condense the film to the allowable footage. In passing, I would like to say that the short story is the ideal medium for a film director to work on, for it is usually short enough for him to keep the whole story easily in mind throughout the shooting. It always allows for full and warm characterisation because the plot is usually simple. In my opinion, it does not matter whether a story has been specially written for the screen oi whether it is a classic, so long as it lends itself to being told by the camera. The stories of Somerset Maugham invariably do, and his dialogue is the most speakable of any screen-writer I know. The Production There are certain subterfuges which assist in keeping down production costs. The backprojection plate used in the train journey in " The Colonel's Lady " was taken from the library. The action when the train stopped at the station had to be matched with the plate. A back-projection plate usually loses quality, and it is necessary therefore, to avoid dwelling too long on such a shot. To assist the cameraman's difficulties of focus the director always tries to keep * J. Arthur Rank Organisation, Ltd.