To be read by anyone considering
attending the Mackendrick on Film seminar
at the London Film School
One of the dilemmas is that many students – not all – feel that there
is some secret set of rules to follow, and if you follow them you get
it right, and they get angry with you because you won’t give them
the rules. There are no rules. There never were and there never
will be, because each circumstance is different and each director
works entirely differently.
Alexander Mackendrick
May 2012
For the past decade I’ve been working through the archives of film director and teacher Alexander Mackendrick. This research has yielded the book On Film-Making: An Introduction to the Craft of the Director, a collection of Mackendrick’s notes to students that is used at film schools around the world, and Mackendrick on Film, the educational “illustrated lecture,” which over the years has been seen on campuses and at film festivals worldwide. A second book, Words on Pictures: The Interviews and Writings of Alexander Mackendrick is in preparation.
After producing such quality work as The Ladykillers, The Man in the White Suit and Sweet Smell of Success, Mackendrick retired from the industry and spent two decades teaching his craft at the California Institute of the Arts near Los Angeles, where he guided students through the disciplines he called “dramatic construction” and “film grammar” (“the narrative and visual devices that have been developed through inventive direction and performing during cinema’s short history”).
Mackendrick’s written body of work shows him to be one of the finest teacher of narrative film who ever lived. Designed specifically for students, his many student handouts are masterful studies of the two primary tasks confronting the film director: how to structure and write the story he wants to tell, and how to use those devices particular to the medium of film to tell that story as effectively as possible. Devoid of obscurantism and refreshing in that they concentrate on the tangible, rather than abstract and theoretical concepts of cinema – never over-intellectualising the ideas at hand – his many pages of notes to students are full of perennial truths, and reveal that Mackendrick had the talent not only to make films, but also to articulate with clarity what that process involved. It’s been said that the thousand techniques are inferior to the one principle. What Mackendrick gives you are the principles.
Mackendrick on Film – featuring archive interviews with Mackendrick and new interviews with former students and colleagues, alongside footage of him at work in the classrooms and studios of CalArts and clips from a host of films – is the basis of this four-day workshop. Each section will be screened, after which we’ll talk about what we’ve just seen and heard. Throughout our time together, I’ll be clarifying and expanding upon what we’ve been watching and listening to, in part by referencing various authors whose work strongly influenced Mackendrick’s own ideas. Although Mackendrick’s book is a primer on the job of the film director, approximately two-thirds of it deals with screenwriting and story structure. The fundamental idea here is making sure one’s story is in good shape before filming it.* When the grammar of cinema is touched upon during the workshop, it’s always intimately connected to story.
To get you up out of your seats, on day three of the next workshop (to be held at the London Film School in February 2013) an experienced teacher of improvisation, alongside three actors, will present a series of exercises that demonstrate in practical terms Mackendrick’s ideas about dialogue, story structure and character development. While students are very much encouraged to take part in these improvisatory exercises, participation is optional. Much can be learned merely from observing others in action. Over the years I’ve come to believe that one carefully calibrated improvisation class can be worth a hundred books on screenwriting.
For even more adventurous folks, a fifth day can be spent, in a smaller group, studying your own work (the “script surgery”). By sitting around a table with your fellow students, applying the principles of dramatic construction and film grammar to your own films and scripts, you’ll not only start to understand those principles more fully, but also see what works and what doesn’t work. Clarity is all too often lost as ideas – worked through, sometimes for years, in your mind – find their place on the page and screen. In one recent session, a student was perturbed to learn that while he fully understood who one of his central characters was, we around the table offered no less than four differing interpretations of this figure. He went back to the drawing board in the knowledge that his story, while entirely comprehensible to him, was, in fact, severely lacking.
Is any preparation required? It’s important you look at the structural breakdown of Mackendrick on Film, which includes a series of questions you might consider. If you’re attending the “script surgery,” think about what elements of your own work you’d like to bring along, for example a short film or script, or perhaps a scene from a full-length piece. You’re also encouraged to find Mackendrick’s book and read it carefully. However, don’t be concerned if you haven’t done so before we meet, as Mackendrick on Film stands on its own. I do recommend that you take a careful look at the book after our time together (you’ll be given a copy during the long weekend), as it will consolidate many of the issues under discussion. You’re also advised to dig into material on this website, where I’ve placed the introduction to On Film-Making alongside a number of handouts you won’t find in the book.
Throughout Mackendrick on Film I can promise you no “revolutionary new paradigm” of dramatic construction, no “ground-breaking new technique.” Instead, what this workshop will give you is a clear articulation of the fundamental principles that govern all successful examples of dramatic construction, and have done so for thousands of years. There is no attempted re-invention of the wheel here. Therein lies the strength of Mackendrick’s methodology. Anyone who has read through a fraction of the many books out there about screenwriting will inevitably conclude that they all say more or less the same thing (in varying degrees of articulateness). There’s no doubt in my mind that Mackendrick’s explanations of the principles at play in any good piece of drama make more sense than anyone else’s.
James Mangold, director of Cop Land and Walk the Line, and a former student of Mackendrick’s at CalArts, had said that “What he gave me – and every student who spent time with him – was a set of tools that to this day I use when writing and directing.” In this respect, Mackendrick’s teachings (and, indeed, all coherent teachings on this subject) are remedial in nature. These five days will help you develop ways to isolate and understand the mistakes you might be making. Remember what Mackendrick said about teaching film: “I’m not sure I have any answers. If I do have anything it’s an instinct for how to organise the questions. In other words, all you can teach is the learning process. You can’t teach the answers. You can only teach the technique of phrasing questions.”
In the prologue to his book, Mackendrick writes: “Having established that teaching the rules of film-making is not possible, I will now, with the help of these notes, attempt to do just that. What this really means is I will explain to you as best I can my own method of film-making, the one that suits me. If I bully you into trying things my way, it is not because mine is the only way, or even the best way. Certainly it will probably, in the end, not be your way. But I suggest you make a real effort to follow my formulas as a temporary exercise. Not to ‘express yourself.’ Not yet. You can do that as much as you like, later. So put aside your hunger for instant gratification and creativity, at least for long enough to understand some basic ideas and practical pieces of advice that you are perfectly entitled to discard later. Anybody who wants out please say so now.”
Similarly, I ask you to bear with me for five days. Watch. Listen. Ask questions. Read Mackendrick’s book. And you’ll have saved yourself a year of film school.
Email me with any questions.
Paul Cronin
paul.cronin@thestickingplace.com
