August 2008

In our third session we talked about how to interpret a script as a director. We had been given an excerpt of Alexander Mckendrick's 'On Filmmaking' to read and mull over during the week, which included an exercise that demonstrated how to read between the lines and create background to justify or explain a character's actions. After talking about the importance of creating conflict and therefore drama, we did a 'blocking' exercise, based on Mckendrick's example script, in order to see how best to position actors in a scene. We spent the last part of the class re-writing well-known stories in a way that was plausible and dramatic.

This weekend we had a two day editing workshop, on which we learned the basics of Final Cut Pro. Our tutor, Marvin, is a seasoned editor and obviously knew his stuff: there was a lot to learn and I found it a bit overwhelming, since the technical side of things is not my strong point. We were given lots of little exercises to demonstrate the uses of different tools and talked about different editing styles. By the end of the second day I felt like my head was overfull of information and that a lot of it was not going to stay in there for very long – so I am going to need to practice a lot to make sure I don’t just forget everything! Even though I have never been very technically adept, towards the end of the workshop I could see how rewarding it will be to be able to edit my own material and am looking forward to developing this skill.

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Christos Constantakopoulos

(From Story to Screen In Eight Weeks) is currently producing his first feature film, directed by and starring award-winning Greek actor Nikos Kalogeropoulos.