Direct THIS!
I'm taking the directing course this semester, and I think I've pinpointed what I don't like about courses which attempt to teach creative activities, like directing or writing. The majority of the textbook covers a sort of cautionary "Beware of bad ideas" mentality. I understand that there are no rules when it comes to directing, but a hint might be nice. It seems to me (and I might be missing the point) that if your ideas are good then your piece will work, and that seems like all this textbook can offer. There are a few ways to test if your ideas are working, but how does that help if you can't come up with any ideas in the first place?
This is why I'd be a terrible teacher. I hate it when I can get something but someone else can't. Especially if I came up with it. "What do you mean you don't get it? What is there not to get?" Is it wrong of me to expect a lot from the audience? Seriously, because I don't know. Should I take the approach that nobody knows anything that I'm doing on stage, just to be safe? Fuck.
Screw it.
posted by Phinneas Q Jacksmith @ 10:16 a.m.
3 comments
3 Comments:
As far as I'm concerned, the real value of such courses is that (in theory) they force you to try, fail and perhaps succeed at a number of activities, while attempting (in theory) to put you in the mindset that all of the above is okay, which you wouldn't get outside of the classroom setting if, say, you're new play opened and closed in one night.
They can, of course, also teach theories, approaches, or suggestions that have worked before, but most of them skimp out on that and leave you to flounder.
Not much help I can offer you there; I am in two such courses with the smiling, energetic, cryptic Confucius of the English department right now, and I'm taking comfort in the fact that even if he can't help us at all (likely), he at least seems to have meditated deeply, researched and prepared himself to discuss the writing process with people who may be frustrated as hell with it by the end of the course. But can he teach it? We'll see. I'm doubtful.
As for your comment...
"Is it wrong of me to expect a lot from the audience? Seriously, because I don't know. Should I take the approach that nobody knows anything that I'm doing on stage, just to be safe?"
I'd say it depends on your audience. It sounds pandering and cheap, but you can probably get away with as much experimentation and assumed reference points (ie. will they recognize if you're working within a tradition, or countering it, or referencing a particular playwright you admire, etc.) as you like if you're aiming it at an audience of a similar background to you. If they are and they still don't get it, their eyes and ears are closed and there's nothing you can do. If they're not..beats me; have a nice long chat with yourself, I guess.
Anyway, file this comment under "useless," because you still have to direct something by the time you've finished reading it!
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hm-I tried to make links work in my last comment to be clever. No such luck.
Remind me to get you to watch the special features on my Fraggle Rock DVD, they talk about how Jim Henson was as a director, and why his style of directing worked so well for the Muppets and Fraggles.
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