The Director’s POV — cover

The Director’s POV

A Compilation of Notes from Thirty Years of Film and Television Direction

Cary Thunderstone  ·  Canoa Publishing

Forthcoming

Thirty years of notes off film and television sets, written on the back of call sheets — what to do when the day is too big, how to cover a three-hander in three positions, which question unlocks an actor playing a mood instead of a want. Some of it worked out in the doing, much of it caught from ADs, designers, showrunners and other directors. Not a theory of cinema: a gathered notebook, unfolded, still meant to be used one page at a time on a bad Tuesday.

You come into a party that is already in progress and you take charge of it. — Chapter 2

Digital editions will be DRM-free, sold here directly.

What this book actually does

Every chapter explains the thinking and then ends with On the day — the original notes in their own imperative, so the book works the way the notes worked: opened fast, one page, decision made, back to the floor.

It also refuses to pretend it knows where everything came from. Documented craft is cited. The numbers that sit in the notebook with no source — pages, setups, what two hours of overtime costs — are printed as unattributed rules of thumb, not as industry fact. And the stories the trade tells about itself get checked: Abby Singer was a real man and the term is his, “mit out sound” has no documentary basis at all, and the book prints the difference.

Inside

28chapters
5parts
14diagrams drawn for it
193pages

Part One — The Person

  1. The Creed
  2. A Party Already in Progress

Part Two — Prep

  1. The Script
  2. Casting
  3. Colour and the Designer
  4. Location Is a Character
  5. The First AD and the Arithmetic of the Day
  6. The DP
  7. Choreography First, Then Geography
  8. The Shot List
  9. The Tech Scout

Part Three — The Language

  1. The Sizes
  2. The Moves and the Glass
  3. The Line
  4. Eyeline and Distance
  5. The Triangle

Part Four — The Floor

  1. The Shape of a Shooting Day
  2. Actors
  3. Seven Code Words
  4. Comedy
  5. Safety
  6. Tactics for a Day That’s Too Big
  7. Act Ins and Act Outs

Part Five — After

  1. Editing
  2. The Creed, Again

Reference

  1. A Glossary of the Floor
  2. Notes on Sources
  3. Bibliography

About the author

Cary Thunderstone has worked in film and television for thirty years. He is the author of When Did I Become African?, Bacchanal and Made in Canada.

The rule that runs his research runs this book too: say where a thing came from, or say that you do not know. Where a number here is his rather than the industry’s, the page says which — and a chapter at the back sets out what was checked, what was corrected, and what is still unattributed.