Good vs. Bad directing

It seems pretty obvious to me the difference between good acting and bad acting, as well as good writing and good directing.

What has always eluded me is how to tell the difference between good and bad directing. My way of telling bad acting is this: If in a movie there is an actor who is usually good (preferably more than one) that gives a tepid, lifeless performance, that is a sign that the direction is bad.

Example: Revenge of the Sith (Samuel L. Jackson, Ewan Mac Gregor, Natalie Portman, the voice of James Earl Jones—all are typically great talents).

What else do you look for?

Shit pacing. Stupid compositions.

...I don't know.

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Everything that's been said, really. There are a few other things like music choice that always jump out at me, though they aren't always under the director's control.

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All that's been mentioned plus tonal problems; non-sensical elements which jar, or which fail to contribute to the plot in a meaningful or useful manner; casting and blocking choices which dilute/adulterate the message being portrayed by the script or the scenes so far. Good direction enhances the nature of the script, empowers performances which serve the story, and creates interesting and ideally original discourse around the film.

It's easier to judge direction in a filmic capacity than a televisual one — directors get far greater control in the latter than the former. On TV, the writer is god, and can theoretically turn up on set and halt production completely if they feel something's being done incorrectly. It happens quite often, actually.

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Some of my criteria for judging direction:

• the shots: are they typically static, conforming to basic angles, or dynamic, perhaps giving the film a sense of "identity?" Whichever is true: do these shots fit the tone of the script?

• the timing: does the film go from one event to another haphazardly, or does it give some time for lines and images to sink in?

• figure movement: is everything blocked naturally, or is movement confined to a few "significant" things per scene, moving only in order to advance the action?

Directing involves controlling about 5 different things: shot placement, staging of the scene, actor performance, the approach of the story/interpreting the script and editing (both the footage and the music together). No director is perfect at all of it, but some manage to hide the area they are the weakest by focusing on their strengths. Often the shot placement and how it is edited manages to make the staging look more impressive than it is (if ever on set you'll be surprise how stilted and awkward fighting choreography can look when not viewed through the camera, not much has changed in that regard since Shatner karate chopped enemies in Star Trek).

George Lucas is famous for bad dialogue (part of the script) and giving little direction for his actors. But it is impossible to not see how imaginative the Star Wars universe is, he handles the imagery so well.

In good directing, a flow needs to be found between the actors, dialogue and pacing.

For example, I will compare movies featuring the same actors and writers:

• Swingers - starring and written by Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn, directed by Doug Liman. The actors and dialogue are there but there is no pacing and the film looks amateurish in places. Pacing has been a problem in Liman's work, as he spends much of his time either boring the audience or forgetting essentials. (Another Liman film with problems is Mr And Mrs Smith, were there is hardly any story in the two-hour run time and none of the characters are remotely interesting. The editing is also extremely choppy due to the cutting of an hour and a half of actual plot.)

• Made - starring and written by Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn, directed by Favreau. A huge improvement. Favreau knows the flow of actors, dialogue and pacing and understands the skills to good directing. Unlike Swingers, Made doesn't look amateurish at all and Favreau's work looks like the work of a pro (it also helps that Favreau had been around sets longer than Liman had as Favreau had appeared in many films before directing Made while Liman's previous work was a forgotten DTV film).

edited 17th Dec '11 12:31:48 AM by Buscemi

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Exactly how much control does a director have over the plot/script of a movie?

Much more than the writer does. You've heard of the Auteur Theory, right? There, the director is considered the sole artist of the film (ignoring the writers, composers, cameramen, set designers, etc, etc) and makes everything his or hers.

Also, directors get incentives such as gross points, final cut privileges and control over rewrites and casting decisions. The writer does not get any of that.

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It varies depending on the particular movie. There is legal issues involved, some directors are brought in with a "no rewrites" clause that means they can't change the script in any significant way (although how a plot point plays out is still up for interpretation). In those cases they are just people with an assignment to make the movie and tell the story within the budget, which is far more common in the television circuit because the pace and scheduling doesn't allow for script fighting.

Other times they are directly in control of how the script is developed, even though they may not receive a writing or story credit for their efforts. Writers in particular are rarely given a free-pass to write any script, it is about writing what they are told to write.

Though certain writers are given more leeway than others — Diablo Cody, for instance, or JJ Abrahms — but that's usually because of specific close and long term interactions with the director that's allowed them to develop their own specific voices.

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Though Abrams started as a writer, it was his work as a producer that got him creative control. For example, he had very little to do with Lost (Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse did the majority of the work on that show).

And if you compare Star Trek to Super 8, the latter's main weakness lays in Abrams' writing (where he didn't have Lindelof). Star Trek had Lindelof as producer and was a great movie.

edited 18th Dec '11 1:30:41 AM by Buscemi

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It's kind of hard to describe good directing, but I know it when I see it.

SPATULA, Supporters of Page Altering To Urgently Lead to Amelioration (supports not going through TRS for tweaks and minor improvements.)

Good example there with Lucas. Take a look at A New Hope versus the prequels. In the originals there was much, much less emphasis put on the dialogue and character interactions. When they were interacting they tended to be highly emotional. Now look at the prequels. First of all they are much more focused on dialouge and character interaction and when they are discussing things they are often in much more subdued or calm situations. The first movie played to his strengths with evocative imagery, fast pacing, and action. The prequels were dropped squarely in the middle of his biggest weaknesses and it showed.

I've picked on it, but Transformers 3. Michael Bay is by all accounts a genius when it comes to orchestrating large SFX heavy shoots. He's also got the U.S. military on speed dial. He can turn in a movie like Transformers 3 on time and on budget where as most directors would be absolutely lost trying to manage that kind of shoot. However, look at the non SFX points. Plots that make no sense, horribly paced movies that take you from pulse pounding action with lots of tension to domestic slapstick in a single cut, actors turning in utterly ridiculous voices, and so on. Personally, I'd like to see Bay in a Producer's role coordinating everything so that someone who understands everything else about movies can make them while Bay does what he's good at, blowing shit up.

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The first thing i notice when judging a director is the pacing. I can let a lot of things go, but when the pacing is too frantic or two slow, it just breaks a movie so completely. we have a lot of average directors nowadays - they are not bad, they just follow the same traditional rules while filming, making their movies look exactly the same generic fusion of common staged shots. They are just following the dotted lines of filming - that is why i enjoy directors like Woody Allen so much, because they have a somewhat different style that escapes from the norm.

What i think normally makes me hate a movie is not so much its director, but the screenplay. If the movie has a shitty screenplay, it will probably be shit, and there's nothing a director can do to save it. i usually care more for who wrote/adapted the movie than who directed it.

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There's one particular kind of bad director who is very easy to spot: they're the equivalent of that relative who will photograph you over and over again until she gets exactly the right posture and smile out of everyone in the shot, which by that point can best be described as "blandly murderous". The actors who go through their treatment sound very thoroughly rehearsed, but you can tell they're not really in their characters' shoes.

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I think good cinematography at least can be described as "when every single shot in the film could be taken as a still and hung on the wall as a piece of art in it's own right".

SPATULA, Supporters of Page Altering To Urgently Lead to Amelioration (supports not going through TRS for tweaks and minor improvements.)

Me, too. With few exceptions, I generally care a lot more about the plot/screenplay of a movie than the acting or directing.

You are too dismissive ob a director's job. A good director can do wonders with a bad script, just as a bad one can ruin a good story. Remember, it is his job to set the mood of the movie, the feel if you want, and that can mean a lot.

edited 21st Dec '11 1:16:37 AM by eX

I used to not really care about good directing either, seeing the script and acting as the only important things. I did admire great directors and thought the likes of Kubrick and Lynch were the only ones to really be enchance the film, and also knew that really bad directing could ruin a film. But mostly I just thought that tv style directing would be fine for most films.

The past few years I've changed my mind, directing really is a crucial part of the film. Still not totally convinced by the autuer theory, I feel that although it is true for most films it doesn't necessarily have to be that way. The theory is more of a self fufuflling prophecy than anything.

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Tha's the reason Joss Whedon has stated that no one will direct any of his scripts anymore but him. But as far as I know, his script for Buffy The Vampire Slayer was largely intact (with the exception of the climax), they just treated the film as a straight horror comedy and ignored the metaphorical undertones.

@eX i agree with the importance of the director, i just think people might ignore the director (unlesse is they are famous) but they never remember the writer, which is a shame. the way i see it, if you have a solid screenplay, the director have to be pretty bad to ruined it. but if your screenplay is awful, not even a genius will make it good - maybe decent and watchable, but not good.

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If movies actually marketed things with writers's names I might actually remember them.

SPATULA, Supporters of Page Altering To Urgently Lead to Amelioration (supports not going through TRS for tweaks and minor improvements.)

What's that saying?

"You can make a bad movie with a good script, but you can't make a good movie with a bad script."

"Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person that doesn't get it."

I really like this thread, all the opinions are fascinating.

Just thought I should mention that some directors of photography are given more control over the shot than others. In some cases, a trusting director will allow his DP to do all the framing and shot setup. Even though this is really rare, it raises even more questions as to what defines a director.

For instance: If a director leaves all the management to his producer, all the scripting to the writers, all the shooting to the DP, the lighting to the grip, the actor directions to a coach, and editing in the hands of his editor, has he really directed a movie at all?