ABSTRACT

Exploring aesthetic decision-making skills through active, critical interpretation of the screenplay, this book investigates the ways filmmakers translate a screenplay into a powerful film. Guiding the reader through the formal choices a filmmaker makes, this book encompasses all aspects of the filmmaking process, including directing, acting, cinematography, lighting, production design, sound, and editing.

Author Joyce illustrates how to apply aesthetics in a way that encourages creative thinking and stylistic choices, while emphasizing the importance of active decision-making to foreground the screenplay in the filmmaking process. Focusing on how films should be crafted stylistically from beat to beat, the book provides tangible footholds to assist filmmakers with the aesthetic decision-making process, empowering filmmakers to create films to resonate emotionally and intellectually.

Ideal for students of filmmaking and aspiring filmmakers looking to train their gut and hone their creative and aesthetic decision-making in the filmmaking process.

Additional online screenplay samples show how one singular story can be told with different emphasis and narrative perspectives.

chapter 1|7 pages

Aesthetics

chapter 2|7 pages

Respecting the Audience

chapter 3|9 pages

Story and Character

chapter 5|6 pages

Training Your Gut

chapter 6|5 pages

Developing an Evolving Aesthetic

chapter 7|13 pages

Engaging and Surprising Characters

chapter 8|5 pages

Applying Active Characters

chapter 9|9 pages

What's Your Point (of View)?

chapter 10|8 pages

Synthesis

chapter 11|6 pages

Post-Production Begins in Pre-Production

chapter 12|9 pages

Cinematography Without a Camera

chapter 15|8 pages

The Director's Responsibilities to the Actor

Consider Your Childhood Play

chapter 16|5 pages

Final Footholds

Your Call to Action