Let’s take a look at the stages and aspects of a movie that filmmakers are involved in…

While a filmmaker may be the chief creative voice behind a project, no movie is made without a team effort. Filmmakers need to coordinate with various departments, from wardrobe and makeup to production designers in order to ensure there’s a unified intent and aesthetic behind the film.

Before the glitz and glamor of premieres, accolades and awards, filmmakers always start at the beginning, with the ideation of a story conceit. Filmmakers don’t necessarily have to be writers (although many are); their first responsibility is to interpret the words of a script into the creative vision for the movie.

Their job is to conceptualize the entire cinematic experience from its inception. This means digging into a story’s themes, tone, mood, pacing, plot twists, emotional beats, character arcs, and visual style that will best serve the movie’s narrative.

Filmmakers direct and guide the cast through every moment of the movie. They help actors find their characters and coach them through their scenes, ensuring the on-camera talent is staying true to the film’s intent and their fictional personalities. Filmmakers need to be supportive but also firm, as too much or too little direction can lead to problematic performances.

In essence, filmmakers help actors find the truth not only in their character, but in the scenes as well – everything ultimately contributes to the overall tone and theme of the film.

While the director of photography oversees the camera department, it’s their job to execute the filmmaker’s aesthetic vision to the screen. Filmmakers work closely with the director of photography (the DP) and their crew to create a distinct, unique and signature color palette and style for the movie.

Ultimately movies are a visual medium and stories are best told through images. Decisions such as camera angles, composition, framing, color palate, and lighting are all carefully designed and planned out in a collaborative effort between the DP and filmmaker.

A filmmaker’s job is nowhere near over after filming is completed. Post-production is an enormous, crucial step in the filmmaking process, and movies are often made or broken in the editing room.

Filmmakers will typically guide their editors, adhering to thorough, precise, and detailed standards. A film’s pace, tone, performances, and even entire plot can be altered in the editing room and filmmakers need to be present for every tiny, detailed iteration. Additionally, they oversee visual effects, sound design, and color grading, ensuring a seamless final product that aligns with their creative vision.

Marketing campaigns for films are often creative endeavors, so it would stand to reason that filmmakers are also heavily enmeshed in this stage. They’re typically involved in the creation and/or approval of promotional materials like posters, trailers and press kits.

“When we tell a story in cinema, we should resort to dialogue only when it’s impossible to do otherwise. I always try to tell a story in the cinematic way, through a succession of shots and bits of film in between.”¹

Sir Alfred Hitchcock, also known as the “Master of Suspense,” is one of the most renown filmmakers of all time. The director of such landmark films as PSYCHO and VERTIGO, he’s considered one of the most influential figures in cinema.

One of the most iconic scenes in motion pictures occurs in a motel bathroom in Hitchcock’s PSYCHO. In the film, protagonist Marion Crane has made off with some stolen money. She stops at a motel, speaks with the proprietor, and then takes a shower where she meets a terrifying end when a knife-wielding maniac enters the bathroom. The scene is a masterclass in suspenseful filmmaking, as close-ups, rapid edits, screams, and music coalesce into an unforgettable sequence that never ceases to leave audiences stunned and terrified.

“The best director is the one you don’t see.”²

A brilliant and versatile filmmaker, there seemed to be no genre Wilder couldn’t master. As the artist behind THE APARTMENT, SUNSET BOULEVARD and DOUBLE INDEMNITY, he left his mark on cinema in countless ways.

One of cinema’s most resonating and sobering conclusions comes at the very end of Wilder’s SUNSET BOULEVARD. The film, which is the tragic story of a washed-up screenwriter who becomes entangled with a delusional former silent film star is one of the greatest satires and statements on Hollywood ever put on film. In the final scene (spoilers!), the silent film star shoots and kills the struggling screenwriter in a rage of jealous madness. Soon, her house is swarming with police, journalists, and photographers. Norma, by this point, fully disconnected from reality, believes that the attention is for her big, much-awaited return to the movies. As the star descends the staircase towards the waiting crowd, the audience is haunted by her final line of dialogue, which encapsulates her spiral into insanity.

“There is nothing that says more about its creator than the work itself.”³

Like Hitchcock, Kurosawa is considered one of the most influential filmmakers of all time. With classics like SEVEN SAMURAI and RASHOMON, his style had an enormous effect on Western cinema, yet was uniquely distinct from it.

Kurosawa’s SEVEN SAMURAI is the story of villagers who hire seven samurai to protect their homes from a band of bandits. The film, considered by many to be the first truly great action film (and one of the greatest movies of all time), is filled with terrific character moments, emotional payoffs, and groundbreaking action. The final battle, a sprawling, extended sequence that takes place in the rain, is rife with innovate cinematography, breath-taking fight choreography, and strategic depth. It’s a sequence that has influenced action for decades to come. Kurosawa’s precise editing and incredible staging put the movie years ahead of its time.

“A film is – or should be – more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what’s behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.”⁴

While the majority of films Kubrick directed are adaptations of novels or short stories, his work manages to eclipse almost every medium. He covered a wide range of genres, from the science fiction landmark 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY to the dystopian crime film A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. His meticulous attention to detail elevated the work well above his peers.

Perhaps no sequence time jumps in cinema so effectively and memorably as the one in Kubrick’s 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. The iconic scene, which happens at the end of the “Dawn of Man” sequence, depicts the first time a group of hominids learned how to use bones as tools and weapons. The sequence culminates with the one hominid’s realization of the power the bone holds. It’s essentially the beginning of human technology. The scene ends when the hominid throws the bone into the air, it tumbles upward, and that’s when the film cuts to the distant future, to a shot of an orbiting spacecraft. The transition uses images to connect the beginning of human technological advancements to its future explorations.

“The camera was my pen. I wrote my stories through the lens.”⁵

The most commercially successful director in history has made more than his share of landmark films. Covering a wide range from JAWS to SCHINDLER’S LIST to SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, Spielberg has time and again pushed the limits of filmmaking to bring some of the most unforgettable stories into focus.

In E.T.: THE EXTRA TERRESTRIAL a film packed with striking, storytelling visuals, and an iconic score, a plethora of moments stand out. But the film’s most iconic scene comes halfway through the movie, as Spielberg uses every filmmaking tool in his arsenal to transport his audience directly onto Elliot’s bicycle and across the moon with ET. The sequence is as thrilling as it is informative, teaching the audience about ET’s skillset through showing, rather than telling. Have a look at the Across the Moon sequence.

“If the film isn’t suspenseful, i.e. the pressure cooker situation of what’s going on in the movie, if that’s not part of it, if the threat of violence and the temperature isn’t always going up a notch every scene or so, then the movie is going to be boring. It’s not going to work.”⁶

Although his films are often characterized by pop culture references, snappy dialogue and stylized violence, Tarantino’s work goes far deeper than that. He’s managed to change the cinematic landscape by breaking rules and inventing new ones when he made PULP FICTION. He’s continued on, rewriting ways to make movies and world history itself through his movies.

Tarantino has always been outspoken about his love for cinema. KILL BILL was his two-part love-letter to Japanese samurai and action films. Through frenetic camera work, versatile soundtrack, and vibrant set pieces, he elevated a revenge tale into a dizzying work of inspired art. In this, the climactic showdown of Part One, Tarantino gives audiences a relentless, adrenalized action set piece (arguably the greatest action scene the director has ever done) that gets the audience’s blood pumping while also holding true to character.

“You’re never going to learn something as profoundly as when it’s purely out of curiosity.”⁷

Christopher Nolan has become one of the most important filmmakers to study due to his incredible storytelling acumen coupled with his precise cinematic technique. From MEMENTO to THE DARK KNIGHT to OPPENHEIMER, he always finds ways to elevate the genre and give his audiences something new.

In a film that plays with perception and reality, Nolan brings it all together in a dizzying sequence that exists as a dream within a dream. The perfect synchronization of choreography, stunts, camera work, and compelling narrative coalescences in this mind-bending how-did-they-pull-this-off scene that requires multiple viewings to be fully appreciated.

“Here’s my philosophy in life: If there’s a fire, you put it out. If there’s a flood, you fill sandbags and you build a dike. You roll up your sleeves and you get to work.”⁸

Considered one of the greatest visionaries of all time, Cameron manages to reset the cinematic bar every time he makes a new film. From his early work in TERMINATOR to TITANIC all the up through AVATAR, Cameron is constantly pushing both the technological and storytelling envelopes to deliver audiences something they’ve never before experienced.

In the 1986 pulse-pounding, sci-fi action film “Aliens,” Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) returns to the planet LV-426 with a team of marines. There, they discover a human colony overrun by xenomorphs, the deadly creatures Ripley encountered in the first film. After escaping the planet, Ripley makes it back to the escape ship with a few cohorts, one of them being Newt, a young child Ripley has taken on the role of surrogate mother for. Just as we think they’re safe, the Alien Queen emerges for one final battle, pursuing Newt. Ripley refuses to stand idly by as the massive creature attacks, so she suits up in a power loader and fight backs, but not before delivering one of the movie’s most indelible lines of dialogue. Watch it all here.

“The question is: Where would it get you if something that’s a little bit ambiguous in the movie is made clear? It doesn’t get you anywhere.” ⁹

To call Joel Coen (who until his most recent film collaborated on all his movies with his brother Ethan) a filmmaker of quirky movies is to miss the point entirely. The Coens have a unique ability to work in almost any genre and then subvert the expectation for said genre. From acclaimed works like FARGO and NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, they’ve proven to be trailblazing marvels of the filmmaking profession.

NO COUNRY FOR OLD MEN is a masterwork of filmmaking, stripping down storytelling tools to their essence. The movie tells the story of a hunter named Moss (Josh Brolin) who stumbles onto the aftermath of a drug deal gone wrong in the Texas desert and subsequently finds himself pursued by a remorseless hitman name Chigur (Javier Bardem). In one (of many) particularly tense sequences, Chigur tracks Moss to a hotel and a game of cat and mouse ensues. Watch the scene, paying particular attention to the way sound design and wordless images build an almost unbearable tension.

“There’s a little thing on your shoulder called intuition and it whispers in your ear. Everyone has that, there is a voice telling you to do something. Most people ignore it – but you must listen to it. I do it every day, all day.”¹⁰

Ridley Scott is a filmmaker who has also managed to cross genres with great success, leaning heavily into stylized aesthetics and rich atmosphere across his many diverse, dramatic films. BLADE RUNNER and BLACK HAWK DOWN are two marked cinematic achievements that couldn’t be more different.

The dinner scene in Scott’s ALIEN is famous for its nerve-wracking tension, cutting-edge effects, and the jarring twist we’re discussing here. The scene starts with the crew of the Nostromo having a casual meal, celebrating the recovery of Kane (played by John Hurt) after an alien parasite had attached to his face. The relaxed atmosphere creates a stark contrast to the horror that is soon to unfold, making the subsequent events even more disturbing. Everything takes a horrifying turn when Kane begins to choke violently. The scene climaxes when an alien “chestburster” explodes from Kane’s torso. Via Scott’s craftsmanship, the moment is gruesome, terrifying, and resonating, leaving an indelible mark both on its audience and the cinematic landscape. Fun fact – the cast reportedly wasn’t informed exactly what was going to happen during the scene and as a result, their shocked and horrified reactions are all genuine.

A filmmaker’s role is a blend of artist, technician, and visionary. They navigate the complex landscape of storytelling, using a diverse skill set to bring narratives to life. Getting the job done requires a good collaborative sense, a tough skin and a clear vision.