What story to tell

EXAMPLE 1: A director is given a 600 page book to make into a two hour (120 min.) movie. Since the average rule of thumb is one page of a screen play = one minute on screen, the director chooses which scenes and story lines will best support the story that the director wants to tell and then proceeds to cut out 80% of the book.
EXAMPLE 2: In Tom Clancy's CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER, Harrison Ford's character Jack Ryan doesn't appear in the book until several hundred pages into the story. Of course, the movie was re-written and many characters eliminated so that Harrison Ford could be in the entire movie not just the second half.

How to tell the story that is told

EXAMPLE: The story says that a female character runs down a hallway in pursuit of a demon-like creature. How does the director show this scene? A head-on shot in slow motion? From behind at regular speed? An Eagle's eye shot from above? In shadows? Or perhaps, like the director of SILENT MOEBIUS, start with a shot of a puddle on the floor of the corridor, reflecting the walls and ceiling like a mirror presenting the illusion of looking up from the corner of the hallway. Meanwhile we hear the pursuing footsteps of the character (Kiddy Phenil) echoing. Then suddenly show her foot plunging into the puddle.
Every choice the director makes will influence the potential effect of each scene and the way in which these scenes build the overall effect of the film, TV show, etc. However, staging and esthetics are only one concern. Good directors also know the capabilities and limitations of the budget, the schedule, the talent (in animation this means the animators, and other artists), or of the medium (film vs. video, live action vs. traditional animation vs. computer animation). From my experience, I have found that these limiting pressures influence the picture a great deal, and possibly even the genesis for the unique directing styles of anime.
For an example from my own experience, in the RIAP short film, NO ENEMY BUT TIME, our heroine was to steal an injector from a nurse at an inoculation station. Not having the time, money, or staff to animate a great number of characters, I originally decided to show a long shot still (without animation) to establish setting and the characters in the scene. Then I cut to a close-up of the medical cart - only the nurse and one patient visible behind the cart from the waist up. The scene then showed the nurse give the patient an inoculation, this patient then leaves the scene as the nurse puts down the injector and begins prepare the next patient. Next, the heroine was to pass by in front of the camera, conveniently blocking the other characters still in motion, and the injector was to disappear as she passed. When the nurse reaches down for the inoculation the nurse was to do a take (facial and body recoil in reaction to surprise) to stress the missing injector.
Our animator, Son Bui, drew a lush, fully animated scene, with three levels of animation and nearly one hundred cels. The blue liner (AKA person who does shading effects), Kevin Chu, and our inkers, David Ho and Kevin Chu (yes, everyone had multiple roles in the production!) shaded and inked the entire scene. Unfortunately, by this time in the production schedule, I realized that with our resources the scene would not be painted until two weeks after our deadline for the release of the film!
Without any options for painting the entire scene, I was forced to re-think this scene to find some way of either changing it, or cutting it entirely. Since this scene was helpful to explain the following scenes, I felt the elements of our endangered scene needed to be preserved - I had to get creative.
Fortunately, I had recently seen John Woo's HARD BOILED, where slow motion and stills were used to heighten the suspense and set the atmosphere in a very effective way. Taking inspiration from this I developed the following solution:
First, we painted only five frames (all three layers) of the scene. Then, as originally planned I still cut to a long shot to start the scene and establish the setting. Next, I cut to black for several frames (we were on video, so 30 frames per second), and then white for a couple of frames. Then I cut to the first painted frame and held it for a few seconds before fading to black. I let the black stay on the screen for about a half second before I repeated the process (Black, Flash white, Flash on color scene, Fade to Black, repeat) for each of the other four painted frames.
This method allowed me to show the key elements of the scene with as little animation, and with as few of the painted cels as possible. The final result was not smooth animation. The scene was a bit jumpy and disturbing, but I felt that this was appropriate for creating tension for the scene to follow. Of course, I really had no choice, so all in all, I am satisfied with the result.
This decision, albeit forced, led to a definite change in the tone of that section of the film, increasing the tension and placing more of the viewer's focus on the stolen injector. Unfortunately, I cannot claim any grand vision - merely a decision forced by circumstance for that particular scene. Fortunately, I had planned most of the film a little better, so I was able to create a scene that was within an acceptable range of choices.
I think this is the best that directors on severely restricted budgets can hope for--after all, something always goes wrong somewhere. When I have that $35 million budget, perhaps I too will be able to make the perfect movie. However, I imagine with all that money to make anything possible, it will become more difficult to become creative and easier just to go with first impressions. Fortunately, and yet, unfortunately, I do not have to deal with this dilemma just yet.
There will be other opinions out there about what a director does, many coming from people who have more formal educations in film (I have none), but I think you will find that they only differ on the details not in the general spirit of what I have just presented, not that it matters much, since in practice the details for a director are different for each project. These discrepancies and many other sub-topics can be covered under the general heading of direction, but I am writing a column, not a text book, so they will have to wait until another day.
Fin.

--Chad Kime