On directing film
by David Mamet · first published 1991
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Calling on his unique perspective as playwright, screenwriter, and director of his own critically acclaimed movies, House of Games and Things Change, David Mamet illuminates how a film comes to be. He looks at every aspect of directing—from script to cutting room—to show the many tasks directors undertake in reaching their prime objective: presenting a story that will be understood by the audience and has the power to be both surprising and inevitable at the same time. Based on a series of classes Mamet taught at Columbia University's film school, On Directing Film will be enjoyed not
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…give a chance to subvert expectations per se) is cutting between shots in movies. The audience inherently tries to deduce the meaning of going from one image to a second. David Mamet has a great book, 'On Directing Film', that is not very long and talks about the shot transition version of this in great detail. You can use the ideas there and expand it to three to get into the ideas I've talked about above.
on “Things I learnt doing stand-up comedy” ↗…vanilla WoW, to a certain degree. Much of the feedback from the game came through interaction with your surroundings[2] and you could always choose a different quest line). [0] http://www.amazon.com/On-Directing-Film-David-Mamet/dp/01401... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_montage_theory [2] The first time you see a glowing plant you realise there's something called herbalism etc.
on “StarCraft: The past, present and future” ↗…in theatre (well, the closest my college had). I focused a lot on Mamet. It's easy to take his approach overboard. Mamet is a playwright, and plays are a different medium than film. In fact, his book "On Directing Film," covers it: theatre is about the present moment between characters, film is about the juxtaposition of images. Mamet has spent most of his life writing rather than directing, and look at his credits…
on “David Mamet's rules of drama” ↗