Learn what it takes to have a wonderful life making movies from one of the great American directors.
With this week’s Filmmaking Tips column falling on the Fourth of July, I figure it has to focus on someone associated with America. The best choice, of course, is Frank Capra, director of many movies involving Americana and the American Dream and what it means to be an American. His most iconic works take us across this country or to the nation’s capital or to Anytown, USA. They star all-American actors, such as James Stewart and Gary Cooper, and America’s sweetheart actresses, including Jean Arthur and Claudette Colbert. Capra wasn’t born in America — he emigrated here from Italy at age 5 — but he will always be one of the most significant filmmakers in American cinema. In honor of the country’s birthday, I’d also like to honor the man who offered these six great filmmaking tips:
Start Trends
One of the quotes attributed to Capra without a source is: “My advice to young filmmakers is this: don’t follow trends, start them.” I believe he said it even if I can’t find its origin, because there is this answer to a question about following trends, from a 1975 interview collected in the book “Frank Capra: Interviews“:
The easiest way to go broke is to follow a trend. You’re bound to go broke and you should go broke. You’re taking someone else’s material and trying to top it. But this is what the businessmen are looking for; they’re trying to find a way to capitalize on a hit, so if The Godfather is a tremendous hit, a lot of little Godfathers are made that lose their shirts. The Godfather started a trend. Now if you want to make a success, you start anew, you go against the grain. And be irreverent, be an individual. If everybody’s making tragedies, you make a who-done-it.
Have Courage
In the below interview from 1977, Capra names the one thing you need to make movies:
Be Quick
In a 1983 conversation for the San Diego Film Society, Capra had this to say on what it takes to be a director:
The ability to make quick decisions. Everybody’s asking you questions, “Where do I put this?, “How do I play this scene?” Problems have to be solved and you have to be able to solve them immediately. If I take a penny and toss it, I’ll be right in predicting it 50% of the time. In show business, if you’re right 50% of the time, you’re ahead of the game. It doesn’t matter if you’re not right all the time but you’ve got to make those snap decisions, fast! It’s got to be intuitive.
In that aforementioned 1975 interview, he was asked if he’d ever make another movie. His answer relates to the above:
I still know how to make a movie. But I’m not as young as I was, and in movies you have to be able to make decisions fast enough. At my age you spend time thinking about the decisions you make, you slow down a little. And I know that I can’t make the films the way I want to make them, the way I think they should be made.
Speed Up
“There are no rules in filmmaking. Only sins. And the cardinal sin is dullness.” — attributed quote.
Capra is mostly known as a comedy director, and these days it’s understood that exaggeration is one of the foundations of the genre. That includes the idea of picking up the pace beyond what is natural and realistic. In the video below from 1982, among a number of tips about filmmaking, a retired Capra explains how he discovered that having the actors speed up their action and dialogue made for greater entertainment. Note how he says this is one way to make movies, not the only way.
What We’ve Learned
Capra was a proponent of auteur theory before it was a theory, and while it’s been argued that he had less control than he claimed, he still believed a director should be the sole voice of a film. And he should use that voice and the medium for a great purpose, to communicate some sort of positive message and to be a leader of trends. That all takes guts and courage, and the job takes intuition over logical thinking. Sure, Hollywood and filmmaking in general has changed a lot since Capra’s heyday of the ’30s and ’40s and even since most of his tips were given in the ’70s and ’80s, but most of what he had to say still rings true.
The article 6 Filmmaking Tips from Frank Capra appeared first on Film School Rejects.
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