{"id":733,"date":"2019-03-07T05:06:05","date_gmt":"2019-03-07T12:06:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/?p=733"},"modified":"2019-03-02T17:06:54","modified_gmt":"2019-03-03T00:06:54","slug":"directors-close-up-thrill-seekers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/2019\/directors-close-up-thrill-seekers\/","title":{"rendered":"Director’s Close: Up Thrill Seekers: Directing Dynamic Genre"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

With a new generation of critically acclaimed genre films making\nbig bucks and becoming indispensable internet memes, ever wonder why certain\nmovies just seem to keep you on the edge of your seat more than others? The\nfinal night of the 2019 DCU features a crack team of cutting-edge midnight\nmovie mavericks, whose collected works have shocked and thrilled millions of\naudience members the world over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Director’s Close Up: Thrill Seekers: Directing Dynamic Genres\u00a0
By Gerry O., KIDS FIRST! Film Critic, Age 16\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In the cloudy\nevening of February 27, 2019, Film Independent hosted the final panel of their\nmonth-long event, Director\u2019s Close-Up. The event featured many directors in the\nhorror genre such as Fade Alvarez (writer\/director, The Girl in the Spider\u2019s\nWeb<\/em>, Don\u2019t Breathe<\/em>), Drew Dowdle\n(writer\/producer, Waco, Quarantine<\/em>), John Eric Dowdle (writer\/director, Waco, Quarantine<\/em>),\n Aaron Katz (writer\/director, Gemini,\nLand Ho!<\/em>) and Daniel Stamm\n(director, Fear the Walking Dead, The Last Exorcism<\/em>). The panel was\nmoderated by Scott Mantz (film critic, Collider<\/em>). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These filmmakers\nhad no interest in monsters, giant bugs, ghosts, or ghouls. They all wished to\ninvest their time into a much deeper side of terror. Alvarez\u2019s Don\u2019t Breathe<\/em>\nmade the audience afraid to move or make a sound. Drew and John Dowdle\u2019s As\nAbove<\/em> causes viewers to feel claustrophobic, struggling to breathe and\nwishing for more room. While it may seem simple to terrify an audience, Stamm pointed out a fundamental crux\nof horror filmmaking:\n There is only a finite amount of methods to scare someone, causing a\ncompletely brand-new concept in horror to be a rare sight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Horror has also\nbeen the place for many directors with smaller budgets to undertake. Drew and\nJohn attempt to make their film like a business for investors. They illustrate\na detailed step-by-step plan that allows the film to have high chances of\nmaking a profit. Their strategy gives investors a clear end goal, motivating\nthem to contribute to the film. They did add though, that a smaller budget can\nperhaps make a film even more terrifying, since the crew cannot afford to\nactually show what causes the fear. Merely hinting at the presence of something\ncan greatly increase the intensity. Katz\nthought that dealing with a low-budget properly can make the film even more\nexciting and Stamm believed\nthat a micro-budget and no budget gives you true creative freedom to do what\nyou wish instead of running after investors. After receiving funding, all\nfilmmakers go through a lengthy period of pre-production, but the exact details\nof what should occur in pre-production differed between panelists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alvarez personally\nonly does storyboards if it works for the crew, such as a car crash that\nrequires careful planning and coordination. The Dowdles similarly both opt to\ndo them,  depending on what the scene has\nand they also added that they only show storyboards to department heads. Showing\nit to all the crew can lead to confusion if the director decides to skip or\nmodify a shot. Katz prefers a\ndifferent method entirely – overheads of the scene. He likes to go to the\nlocation where filming is taking place and see how the different shots of the\nscene work with each other. After planning and filming a movie, a filmmaker\nmust now complete the tedious process of editing the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

While most consider\nthe film to be fully put together in the editing room, Alvarez believes that\nediting can only do so much. Production and pre-production make the film. No\namount of editing can drastically raise the quality of the film. Drew Dowdle believes three films are being\nmade – one in pre-production,\none in production and one in post-production. Drew and John Dowdle added that\nyou cannot begin to think about sound design until the editing room. In horror,\nsound makes up at least 50% of the quality of a movie. Alvarez\u2019s Don\u2019t\nBreathe <\/em>and the year-old A Quiet Place<\/em> by John Krasinski demonstrate the power of\nsound. In both films, the audience becomes terrified of every noise that comes from\nthe screen. But this amount of intensity and fear only exists with masterful\nsound design and editing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The panel added\nsome important lessons for all filmmakers. Drew and John Dowdle stated that, \u201cas\na filmmaker, you cannot work on a film focusing on making money back, but must focus\non the craft of cinema itself.\u201d Stamm\nadded the important lesson that many indie and new filmmakers attempt to make a\nmovie look as close to \u201cHollywood style\u201d as\npossible. In truth, good films are those that stand out and look different from\nthe norm. The panel showcased the intricate art involved in causing fear in\nmovies and the many lessons to learn when trying to create a film. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Film Independent\u2019s Director\u2019s\nClose Up<\/em> series, as a whole, truly showcases the deep complexities of\nbeing the director of a film and how much goes into making each film we enjoy\non the screen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With a new generation of critically acclaimed genre films making big bucks and becoming indispensable internet memes, ever wonder why certain movies just seem to keep you on the edge of your seat more than others? The final night of the 2019 DCU features a crack team of cutting-edge midnight movie mavericks, whose collected works have shocked and thrilled millions of audience members the world over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[35,36,33,32,34,37],"class_list":["post-733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jury-updates","tag-aaron-katz","tag-daniel-stamm","tag-drew-dowdle","tag-fade-alvarez","tag-john-eric-dowdle","tag-scott-mantz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=733"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":739,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733\/revisions\/739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}