You might have heard Tarantino saying: “It’s not your job to create a vision, but it’s your job to have a vision”.
The vision Tarantino is talking about is a director’s vision. It might sound like a stuck up term and especially when websites state it is a Director perspective of unique interpretations of a film production,but also don’t mix it up with a Director’s statement which is something else.
Hi Filmmakers, I am Chung Dha, I am an award winning short film director. I’m gonna explain what a Director’s vision is and why it is important to have.
What is in a Director’s head
A director’s vision in simple terms is what a director sees in their head. It is the same as envisioning the movie in their head and knowing how each character should look like, what the color pallets should be used, the framing of each shot and more. They are the Director’s creative choices on how the film is telling the story to the audience.
Creating a vision
Going back to what Tarantino said about creating a vision. Creating a vision is the job of your cast and crew. The main thing is that you have a vision of how the movie looks in your head, but the only skill you really need, is to be able to explain what you see in your head to others, so they can do their job to create your vision, as you don’t need to know how to make a jacket, but know how the jacket should look like and with which color, the stylist will either search for such jacket or make it for you.
How to get a Director’s Vision
But how to get to your director’s vision as this might be easy for certain directors while might be a lot more work for others.
So the easiest is to just read the script and already envision how each scene is played out, know how it all should look like and what methods to use to convey the story to the audience. Though not everyone is naturally gifted with a high level hyperphantasia as there is a spectrum to it. Same goes for the people’s personal taste, not everyone’s director’s vision would result in a good movie.
Example of myself when I write a script I can see the film playing in my head and just write down what I see. Also if the shot written isn’t working as I wanted, I can on the spot visualize other alternative angles quite fast and not need to waste time searching for the shot. I know my director’s vision has changed over the years as working and writing different genres of films, researching a lot of things on movies, but also searching film techniques and writing essays on films to learn how to improve myself by learning from the mistakes of others.
Learn visualise in your head
However there are also people who can’t imagine what their movie lookslike by reading a film script, they might need to start training their brain by looking at other director’s visions.
Not only to just watching movies or behind the scenes interviews, but questioning the reasons and motives behind every creative choice, why did they choose this camera angle or movement, why did a certain shot evoke your emotion without someone’s facial expression, nor dialogues telling you how to feel. But also how two movies with the same story can have a large contrast between both director’s visions and especially when they both have the same scenes, you should question why one is better and able to convey the story to the audience better. By learning this, you can just know how to make scene choices and have a library of knowledge in your head to retrieve and imagine the vision you need.
Write your own film script and see if you can see your film in your head of how it is playing out and if you already know how the movie should look like. Then start writing out a shot list for your film script, just read your script and think how to frame your characters, may it be a wide shot, medium shot or a close up. Just imagine what will make sense, how it evokes different emotions with different framing. And not just be writing a standard shot list order of establishing wide, to medium then to close up. As there can be a more distinct way how you can show a certain scene or shot for specific moments.
Aphantasia
However if you still can’t visualize at all, you might have “aphantasia” and not be able to visualize thoughts. Your brain understands the words more and concepts behind them, but am not able to imagine how it would look like. Directing with aphantasia is possible, but it takes more time to develop the director’s vision correctly.
A cheat would be to rely on copying famous director’s visions, but the downfall is that more often they choose the wrong director’s vision and it actually clashes with the film script, as they are unable to visualize how wrong the combination is. To avoid clashing styles, it is better to watch more films and research films with similar genre or story as your film script, to find a director’s vision that actually matches well.
It is also difficult for the crew to work with a director with Aphantasia without knowing this issue, as the crew shouldn’t bother with trying to explain why something is better as the director often has difficulty to understand the difference, which often causes a lot of long discussions and delay, while the better way is to just show the difference to them or just film the alternative shot, so they can either approve or disapprove it without taking too much time wasted on discussions.
Though a Director with Aphantasia can work, but instead of truly directing your crew and being able to explain the vision you have and want to achieve, you are more likely just there to approve the visions of your crew.
But the most important part of the director’s vision is knowing what is good storytelling and what is not. Someone with Aphantasia might be a lot stronger with dialogue and even if the film isn’t visually appealing, the stronger dialogue and story can give it a better edge.
