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In Preparation of a movie
Offered by Rodrigo Brum On Thursday mornings from 10:00 am to 12:30 pm and evenings from 5:30 to 8:00 pm |
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Inspired by Roland Barthes' The Preparation of the Novel, this course intends to explore the first movements someone needs to make in order to start a movie project. Through wanderings, notations, drawings, rehearsals, and proposals, each student will prepare a range of materials to support their ideas in order to start shooting. There is no need for any previous knowledge related to movie-making since it is an introductory course. Neither is our goal to apply a method. Our task is to create a space for work where each student will find the tools to develop their own method in the direction of making a movie. We will also analyze movies that are related to our question and filmmakers' processes.
Required Readings:
Aristotle. Poetics
Barthes, Roland. 2010. The Preparation of the Novel. Columbia University Press
Bresson, Robert. 1975. Notes on the Cinematographer. Gallimard
Calle, Sophie. 2015. Suite Vénitienne. Siglio Press.
Kazan, Elia. 2009. Kazan on Directing. Penguin Random House.
Kuleshov, Lev. 1974. The Rehearsal Method. In: Kuleshov on Film. University of
California Press.
Kurosawa, Akira. 1981. Something Like an Autobiography. Berkeley University
Press.
Lumet, Sidney. 1995. Making Movies. Alfred Knopf.
Mamet, David. 1991. On Directing Film. Viking Press.
Rodriguez, Robert. Rebel without a Crew. University Press of Mississipi.
Movies (not required for class, but related to our course):
The Cameramen (Buster Keaton, 1928)
Amator (Krzystof Kieslowski, 1983)
Passion (Jean-Luc Godard, 1982)
Purple Rose of Cairo (Woody Allen, 1985)
La Ricotta (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1963)
Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1950)
Barton Fink (Joel Coen, 1991)
Caro Diario (Nanni Moretti, 1993)
Eisenstein in Guanajuato (Peter Greenaway, 2015)
Fitzcarraldo (Werner Herzog, 1982)
Schedule:
Class 1: The viewer: The maker
What are the differences between someone who loves cinema, as the
member of an audience, and someone who decides to make a movie?
Reading:
Bresson, Robert. Notes on the Cinematographer. 1975. Gallimard
Screenings:
Be Kind Rewind (Michel Gondry, 2008) [excerpts]
Cinema Paradiso (Giusepe Tornatore, 1988) [excerpts]
Class 2: Notation, wanderings: writing and walking as a research.
For a moviemaker, walking around is a good way to find scenes, locations,
dialogues and characters. But if walking is a great method to inspire,
notation is an important resource to capture an idea. In Chekhov's
Seagull, for example, Trigorin - the well-known writer - is always carrying
a notebook. In the end of Act II, while talking with Nina, he sees the dead
seagull and writes down an idea for a short story.
Readings:
Barthes, Roland. 2010. The Preparation of the Novel. Columbia University Press
[excerpts] pg: 90 - 93 and 245 - 257
Benjamin, Walter. The Flaneur. In: The Arcades Project.
Calle, Sophie. Suite Vénitienne. 2015. Siglio Press
Screening:
Lisbon Story (Wim Wenders, 1994)
Class 3: The idea for the movie.
Eureka! The idea captures you. Once you have an idea, you feel authorized
to start. There are many ways to start: a screenplay, research, rehearsals,
an ambience. What matters is to find an efficient way to develop the idea,
giving it a body.
Reading:
Aristotle. Poetics.
Screening:
Who's Camus Anyway (Mitsuo Yangimachi, 2005)
Class 4: The first images: pictures, videos, drawings and storyboard.
There are many ways to develop an imaginary for a movie. We will
analyse different strategies, such as the drawings made by Kurosawa
before the start of shooting or the graphics that Alain Resnais developed
for Last Year at Marienbad. We will also do some exercises to create the
first images for our movies, discussing the process in class.
Reading:
Kurosawa, Akira. 1981. Something Like an Autobiography. Berkeley University
Press.
Class 5: The project
The project is the plan or the strategy to accomplish the idea for the
movie. It is a document that should answer as many questions as possible
about how to execute the idea. If written, it also can be a relevant material
to apply for grants or to find collaborators.
How to write a project? Each student will write a project for their movies,
inspired by the examples that will be shown in class.
Class 6: Crisis
You don't have the equipment. You don't have money. You don't have a
crew. You don't have a screenplay. You don't know how to start. You are
not sure about your idea.
The crisis is a well known component in the process of making a movie.
We will discuss different scenarios of crisis, how to overcome or accept it,
as well as investigate cinemas that are created from it or are structured by
a permanent state of crisis.
Screening:
8ó (Federico Fellini, 1963)
Class 7: The locations, the actors.
Wong Kar Wai says that first of all he finds the locations. Hong Sang Soo
likes to get drunk with his actors before casting them for a movie.
Auditions to find actors. Walkings to find locations. Between the actor and
the character, between the location and the scenario: the alchemy between
the fiction and the real conditions.
Screening:
Opening Night (John Cassavetes, 1977) [excerpts]
Class 8: Rehearsals
Lev Kuleshov and the ideal space to rehearse a movie. Reharsing with the
crew. Rehearsing with actors. Digital era: rehearsing and shooting at the
same time.
Reading:
Kuleshov, Lev. 1974. The Rehearsal Method. In: Kuleshov on Film. University of
California Press.
Screening: Salaam Cinema (Mohsen Makhmalbaf, 1995)
Class 9: The crew
Cinema is a collective effort. We will discuss how to deal with a group of
people, taking in consideration the structured roles that each one needs to
perform in order to shoot a movie, and also the politics of friendship that
needs to be established for a smooth shooting routine.
Reading:
Rodriguez, Robert. Rebel without a Crew. University Press of Mississipi.
Screening:
The Monsters (Pedro Diógenes, Guto Parente, Luiz Pretti and Ricardo
Pretti, 2011)
Class 10: Before shooting
Godard often worked composing the day's script in a car on the way to the
set, borrowing lines from a newspaper, the radio, or a book at hand, and
even whispering lines into the earpieces of his actors. This "open method"
is also true for filmmakers like Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who keeps
the process open until the last minute before shooting. Others, like
Francis Ford Coppola, prefer to have everything planned (even the
smallest details). Each student will present for the class their plans for a
first day of shooting.
Screening:
La nuit américaine (François Truffaut, 1973)
Required Readings:
Aristotle. Poetics
Barthes, Roland. 2010. The Preparation of the Novel. Columbia University Press
Bresson, Robert. 1975. Notes on the Cinematographer. Gallimard
Calle, Sophie. 2015. Suite Vénitienne. Siglio Press.
Kazan, Elia. 2009. Kazan on Directing. Penguin Random House.
Kuleshov, Lev. 1974. The Rehearsal Method. In: Kuleshov on Film. University of
California Press.
Kurosawa, Akira. 1981. Something Like an Autobiography. Berkeley University
Press.
Lumet, Sidney. 1995. Making Movies. Alfred Knopf.
Mamet, David. 1991. On Directing Film. Viking Press.
Rodriguez, Robert. Rebel without a Crew. University Press of Mississipi.
Movies (not required for class, but related to our course):
The Cameramen (Buster Keaton, 1928)
Amator (Krzystof Kieslowski, 1983)
Passion (Jean-Luc Godard, 1982)
Purple Rose of Cairo (Woody Allen, 1985)
La Ricotta (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1963)
Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1950)
Barton Fink (Joel Coen, 1991)
Caro Diario (Nanni Moretti, 1993)
Eisenstein in Guanajuato (Peter Greenaway, 2015)
Fitzcarraldo (Werner Herzog, 1982)
Schedule:
Class 1: The viewer: The maker
What are the differences between someone who loves cinema, as the
member of an audience, and someone who decides to make a movie?
Reading:
Bresson, Robert. Notes on the Cinematographer. 1975. Gallimard
Screenings:
Be Kind Rewind (Michel Gondry, 2008) [excerpts]
Cinema Paradiso (Giusepe Tornatore, 1988) [excerpts]
Class 2: Notation, wanderings: writing and walking as a research.
For a moviemaker, walking around is a good way to find scenes, locations,
dialogues and characters. But if walking is a great method to inspire,
notation is an important resource to capture an idea. In Chekhov's
Seagull, for example, Trigorin - the well-known writer - is always carrying
a notebook. In the end of Act II, while talking with Nina, he sees the dead
seagull and writes down an idea for a short story.
Readings:
Barthes, Roland. 2010. The Preparation of the Novel. Columbia University Press
[excerpts] pg: 90 - 93 and 245 - 257
Benjamin, Walter. The Flaneur. In: The Arcades Project.
Calle, Sophie. Suite Vénitienne. 2015. Siglio Press
Screening:
Lisbon Story (Wim Wenders, 1994)
Class 3: The idea for the movie.
Eureka! The idea captures you. Once you have an idea, you feel authorized
to start. There are many ways to start: a screenplay, research, rehearsals,
an ambience. What matters is to find an efficient way to develop the idea,
giving it a body.
Reading:
Aristotle. Poetics.
Screening:
Who's Camus Anyway (Mitsuo Yangimachi, 2005)
Class 4: The first images: pictures, videos, drawings and storyboard.
There are many ways to develop an imaginary for a movie. We will
analyse different strategies, such as the drawings made by Kurosawa
before the start of shooting or the graphics that Alain Resnais developed
for Last Year at Marienbad. We will also do some exercises to create the
first images for our movies, discussing the process in class.
Reading:
Kurosawa, Akira. 1981. Something Like an Autobiography. Berkeley University
Press.
Class 5: The project
The project is the plan or the strategy to accomplish the idea for the
movie. It is a document that should answer as many questions as possible
about how to execute the idea. If written, it also can be a relevant material
to apply for grants or to find collaborators.
How to write a project? Each student will write a project for their movies,
inspired by the examples that will be shown in class.
Class 6: Crisis
You don't have the equipment. You don't have money. You don't have a
crew. You don't have a screenplay. You don't know how to start. You are
not sure about your idea.
The crisis is a well known component in the process of making a movie.
We will discuss different scenarios of crisis, how to overcome or accept it,
as well as investigate cinemas that are created from it or are structured by
a permanent state of crisis.
Screening:
8ó (Federico Fellini, 1963)
Class 7: The locations, the actors.
Wong Kar Wai says that first of all he finds the locations. Hong Sang Soo
likes to get drunk with his actors before casting them for a movie.
Auditions to find actors. Walkings to find locations. Between the actor and
the character, between the location and the scenario: the alchemy between
the fiction and the real conditions.
Screening:
Opening Night (John Cassavetes, 1977) [excerpts]
Class 8: Rehearsals
Lev Kuleshov and the ideal space to rehearse a movie. Reharsing with the
crew. Rehearsing with actors. Digital era: rehearsing and shooting at the
same time.
Reading:
Kuleshov, Lev. 1974. The Rehearsal Method. In: Kuleshov on Film. University of
California Press.
Screening: Salaam Cinema (Mohsen Makhmalbaf, 1995)
Class 9: The crew
Cinema is a collective effort. We will discuss how to deal with a group of
people, taking in consideration the structured roles that each one needs to
perform in order to shoot a movie, and also the politics of friendship that
needs to be established for a smooth shooting routine.
Reading:
Rodriguez, Robert. Rebel without a Crew. University Press of Mississipi.
Screening:
The Monsters (Pedro Diógenes, Guto Parente, Luiz Pretti and Ricardo
Pretti, 2011)
Class 10: Before shooting
Godard often worked composing the day's script in a car on the way to the
set, borrowing lines from a newspaper, the radio, or a book at hand, and
even whispering lines into the earpieces of his actors. This "open method"
is also true for filmmakers like Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who keeps
the process open until the last minute before shooting. Others, like
Francis Ford Coppola, prefer to have everything planned (even the
smallest details). Each student will present for the class their plans for a
first day of shooting.
Screening:
La nuit américaine (François Truffaut, 1973)
الترجمة في الطريق
Rodrigo Gratacós Brum is a Brazilian philosopher and filmmaker. He holds a MFA in Film, Video, New Media and Animation at the School of The Art Institute of Chicago and a MA in Philosophy at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. He is a member of Observatório-Móvel (observatoriomovel.com), an artist collective based in Florianópolis, and a member of Khôra, a research group on contemporary philosophy based in Rio de Janeiro. In 2018, he will be living in Cairo working on a documentary about the architect Hassan Fathi.
رودريجو جراتاكوس بروم مخرج أفلام وفيلسوف برازيلي. حاصل على ماجستير في الفنون الجميلة في الفيلم والفيديو والميديا الجديدة والتحريك من مدرسة الفنون من جامعة شيكاجو ودرجة الماجستير في الفلسفة من الجامعة الفيدرالية في ريو دي جانيرو، وهو عضو في مجموعة بحثية في الفلسفة المعاصرة تدعى "الخورا / الفضاء" وتتمركز في ريو دي جانيرو. سيعيش رودريجو في القاهرة خلال عام 2018 من أجل العمل على وثائقي عن المعماري حسن فتحي.
