Days 3-5: The Director Places the Camera — the Kuleshov Effect, Beats as Verbs, Casablanca's Duel of the Anthems, Mamet's Nail, and the Shot List

Not 'following the actors around for coverage': the director is the author, the story is told in pictures, and 'the location of the camera is the main job of the director... not the job of the cinematographer', who tells the story with light and look; the director makes the final camera call from an understanding of why. Directing is 'a technical skill, like learning a piano'; before the 1700s genius was external ('my genius wasn't with me on this one'), Elizabeth Gilbert calls creativity 'a paranormal experience' - a sanity-preserving frame. The operating rule: 'Every decision you make, every question from the crew can be answered with only the following: what is the meaning of the scene and what is the story about?' Ego decisions serve the image, not the audience - and worsen the image. Even Spielberg 'can't look at the newspapers.' Pressure lesson: film school after high-school awards felt 'like being hit by a truck'; better the worst player in the NFL than the best high-school artist; 'there are no problems, only solutions'; setbacks mean the environment is pushing you to grow.

'A person derives more meaning from two images juxtaposed that otherwise each on their own has no meaning... the meaning gets incepted into their minds. The film is actually being created in the mind of the audience.' Bottle on a rock; man aims a rifle; man fires and smiles - 'a man satisfied with his shot' though the bottle never explodes. Put a sitting dog where the bottle was: 'soulless dog murderer.' Kuleshov's experiment: an expressionless man cut against soup, a girl in a coffin, a woman - audiences saw hunger, grief, desire. Psycho never shows the knife land; Jaws barely has a shark. American 'cutting' vs French 'montage' = assembly - Dan prefers assembly: joining meaning, not removing. 'It is more powerful to tell the story in the cut versus telling it in the shot' - even spoken anecdotes are told in cuts (the drunk driver on Golden Lantern). 'Like a rollercoaster versus a Wikipedia description of one.'

Protagonist wants a girl's number: first beat 'to groom' - a reflection in a window, fingers through hair - which makes the viewer ask what he is preparing for; then to approach, to entertain, maybe to consider. Nervousness by cutaway (throat tightening, sweat), never by acting - 'Never do this. Do not rely on acting to tell your story'; an actor told merely to look off camera was praised as 'best actor.' No repeated beats ('to stall' after 'to groom' goes in a circle); Mamet's knife: cut bread, then shave, then kill the unfaithful girlfriend - escalate. Mamet's nail: 'the nail has to look like a nail to do the job of a nail... it can't look like a house.' 'You don't yell information, you yell action'; if a point needs narration it doesn't matter. No backstory (a crutch for not knowing where to start); no establishing character or location - 'character is only habitual action'; open on extreme close-ups so the audience wonders. If your mum keeps asking 'what's happening', the movie is functioning.

Set-up: Rick holds the letters of transit and is still bitter about Ilsa; the Nazis below start their anthem. Beats: TO INTIMIDATE - wide of the singing Nazis with Rick in the foreground, a pan to Louis who looks to Rick. TO TAKE A STAND - Laszlo snaps into patriot mode, descends the stairs; cut to the sad woman drinking; close-up of Ilsa watching him cross. Approval: Laszlo orders La Marseillaise (historically a call to arms against Austria), the band looks to Rick, Rick nods. TO INSPIRE - band plays, Laszlo sings, the bar stands one by one, Nazis react. TO DOUBLE DOWN, TO DROWN THEM OUT - the whole bar over the seated Nazis. TO REVOLT - the song ends, the woman screams 'Vive la France', the Nazis turn, 'good job, Laszlo.' The minor woman - one of only three extreme close-ups - mirrors Rick's arc (dumped by Rick, dating a Nazi, screaming defiance). Value: negative to positive, 'the Nazi song defeated by the entire bar.' Audiences credit acting; Bogart credited the nod.

From On Directing Film: a student wants a retraction of a grade - the through-line. 'Where do we start the story? At the inception of the problem.' Beats: to arrive early (a man walking the hall, trying a doorknob, sitting down - a proposed sunrise shot is cut: 'if we remove the sun, the story still works, so goodbye, sun'); to prepare; to pay homage; to present the case; judging the case - professor stamps the book, kid smiles and leaves, the class files in. Consecutive similar beats make 'the audience wiggle in their seat.' Production questions filter through the story: drape colour doesn't matter; the binder must be recognisable because it pays off 'to prepare.' 'You are the director. You decide what the story will be about.'

Built live in StudioBinder (~$25-30/month basic, ~$50 for full productions) and in Dan's free spreadsheet. Columns: scene number; shot number; a small uninflected description; shot size (wide, medium, close-up, extreme close-up, 'dirty' - out-of-focus foreground, over-the-shoulder); camera movement (truck = side to side, dolly = forward/back, pedestal = up/down on a Fisher dolly, jib or crane; static left blank); estimated time; optional reference image or storyboard (phone photos from a tech scout are fine), start time and prep time for light changes, lighting/sound/VFX notes with a V prefix on the slate. Vocabulary: a take is any time the camera stops and starts; a new shot when the lens changes; a new setup when the camera moves. 'Shot of a man's throat tightening', never the emotion.