ABSTRACT
There are many who imagine the director’s job is restricted to directing the actors, that above all it is about getting good performances. There are those would go on to say it’s about deciding how to shoot those performances, in the process “covering” the action of a scene adequately so that its footage will cut together. Indeed, although most filmmakers acknowledge the task of bringing the screenplay to the screen, they perhaps do not entirely appreciate the nexus of dramatic construction and filmic discourse-by which the author mean the visual and auditory language of cinema and TV, the tone, the rhythm, the aesthetics, the manipulation of time, and the nature of a film’s address to its audience. Specific films are referenced in order to illustrate specific points. While it is recommended that the reader go on to watch those films, they will not need to have seen them in order to understand the points made within their particular context.
