Film technique and film acting : the cinema writings of V. I. Pudovkin (1954)

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76 PUDOVKIN to be shot. Suppose the director to be concerned only in making an industrial film (the work of a factory, large workshop, or institution), a subject which would appear to consist only in the fixation of a number of processes not requiring his interference as director, even so his work consists of something more than the simple setting up of the camera and shooting the machines and people at work from various angles. In order to finish up with a really filmically clear, editable representation, the director is, with each separate process he shoots, inevitably compelled to interrupt and interfere, guided by a clear perception of that editing sequence in which he will later project the pieces on the screen. The director must introduce into his work the element of direction, the element of a special organisation of every action shot, the goal of which organisation is the clearest and most exact possible recording of characteristic details. But when we go on to the shooting of so-called " dramatic " subjects, then naturally the element of direction, the element of organisation of the material to be shot, becomes yet more important and indispensable. In order to shoot all the essentials of the filmic representation of the motor-car accident, the director had many times to alter the position of his camera ; he had to make the motor-car, the chauffeur, and the victim carry out their separate and essential movements many times. In the direction of a dramatic film very often an event shown on the screen never had existence as a whole in reality. It