Research: How to become a successful film Director on the example of Guillermo del Toro
It's no secret that in order to become successful in any field, you need two things - hard work and talent, as well as a little luck. My future career as a film Director, which I would like to devote myself to, is not an exception to the rule, but rather confirms it. On the other hand, someone will just look for a simple article, such as from Ty Leisher (2016) "17 Practical Tips for Becoming a Successful Film Director". However, this article will not be able to help much for the reasons that it contains banal phrases that can not always help a particular person and the implementation of them ideas. Therefore, I would like to discuss one of the most talented and unlike other filmmakers, as well as analyze his path from an ordinary film lover to the winner of the Academy award for the film The Shape of water (2018).
The first thing to note is that Guillermo was born in Guadalajara, Mexico and mostly spoke Spanish rather than English, so he would not have been able to immediately start making movies in Hollywood because of the language and cultural barrier. On the other hand, Guillermo was rarely hindered by the cultural barrier due to the special specificity of his films and the genre he uses.
The second thing is that Guillermo was moving towards his dream - to become a Director of fantasy films gradually. He moved to the United States after coming of age to study makeup and special effects with dick Smith, who was considered one of the best professionals in his field (he is known for his work in the film the Exorcist (1973), The Hunger (1983) and others). In this case, the decision was influenced by the fact that upon returning to Mexico, the young Guillermo had less responsibility for his work, but received more experience in film production.
After this experience, Guillermo decided to create a full-length film, Chronos (1993), which tells a modern-day vampire Saga. At the time, the Director was 29 years old, and the film received incredibly high ratings. Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan wrote in his review of the film (1994), "Cronos surprises with its sophisticated and energetic take on a fairy tale straight from the crypt." It is worth noting that the Director made the right choice and time to start his career as a Director-screenwriter, he was able to gain a very large amount of experience over the course of ten years, when he was engaged in makeup and special effects, but always looked at his dream to shoot his own movie.
The success of the debutant, who immediately received several prestigious awards, did not go unnoticed in Hollywood and a few years later, the company Miramax invited the Director to shoot the film Mimic (1997). However, the film received average ratings from critics and audiences, and Guillermo was disappointed with his work with the Studio and decided to return to Mexico. Fortunately, this did not affect Guillermo in any way and a few years later he shot a new horror film in Spain, the Devil's Backbone (2001). The film was super-successful, critics wrote laudatory reviews, and the filmmaker established himself as a very strong Director with his own special style, as well as special attention to makeup, which is always at the highest level in del Toro films.
After a while, Guillermo changed his attitude to Hollywood and tried it a second time. This time, the success did not leave the filmmaker and every film that he made was successful both at the box office and among the ratings. Especially noteworthy is pan's Labyrinth (2006), which was the first film in del Toro's career with Academy awards. The film was nominated in 6 categories, but received only 3 technical Oscar statuettes, leaving Guillermo without the main award. Later, he continued to make high-quality films. As a result, after many years of hard work (it took almost a year to create the appearance of the creature) on the film the Shape of Water (2018), Guillermo received his well-deserved Oscar for best Director, which is very likely not to be the last.
Summing up the above facts from del Toro's career, we can note several main features. First, he has a very perfect command of his style, in which the main characters are like monsters. He is a very good visionary, thanks to his work on makeup and special effects at the beginning of his career. If you review all the author's films of Guillermo, the viewer will never be able to criticize the visual part of his monsters or creatures, rather, on the contrary, the audience will be able to find out more information about this creation. Secondly, Guillermo is a very hard-working Director, each of his author's work required a lot of effort and time to write a script, make the characters ' faces, and so on, but the film Director never produced a film that looked at least at some point unfinished (for example, the work on the film the Shape of Water lasted almost seven years). And finally, it is important to note that he went to his dream from childhood and went to it correctly, not in a hurry, gaining experience and when the knowledge was enough, he began to create his masterpieces
References:
LEISER, T. (2016) 17 Practical Tips for Becoming a Successful Film Director. Weblog [Online] 11th July. Available from: https://medium.com/musings-by-ty-leisher/17-practical-tips-to-becoming-a-successful-film-director-27fbb4a7611c [Accessed 28/07/20]
KENNETH, T. (1994) Movie Reviews : ‘Cronos’ Alive With Charms Eternal. [Online] Los Angeles Times. Available from: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-04-22-ca-48876-story.html [Accessed 28/07/20]
The first thing to note is that Guillermo was born in Guadalajara, Mexico and mostly spoke Spanish rather than English, so he would not have been able to immediately start making movies in Hollywood because of the language and cultural barrier. On the other hand, Guillermo was rarely hindered by the cultural barrier due to the special specificity of his films and the genre he uses.
The second thing is that Guillermo was moving towards his dream - to become a Director of fantasy films gradually. He moved to the United States after coming of age to study makeup and special effects with dick Smith, who was considered one of the best professionals in his field (he is known for his work in the film the Exorcist (1973), The Hunger (1983) and others). In this case, the decision was influenced by the fact that upon returning to Mexico, the young Guillermo had less responsibility for his work, but received more experience in film production.
After this experience, Guillermo decided to create a full-length film, Chronos (1993), which tells a modern-day vampire Saga. At the time, the Director was 29 years old, and the film received incredibly high ratings. Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan wrote in his review of the film (1994), "Cronos surprises with its sophisticated and energetic take on a fairy tale straight from the crypt." It is worth noting that the Director made the right choice and time to start his career as a Director-screenwriter, he was able to gain a very large amount of experience over the course of ten years, when he was engaged in makeup and special effects, but always looked at his dream to shoot his own movie.
The success of the debutant, who immediately received several prestigious awards, did not go unnoticed in Hollywood and a few years later, the company Miramax invited the Director to shoot the film Mimic (1997). However, the film received average ratings from critics and audiences, and Guillermo was disappointed with his work with the Studio and decided to return to Mexico. Fortunately, this did not affect Guillermo in any way and a few years later he shot a new horror film in Spain, the Devil's Backbone (2001). The film was super-successful, critics wrote laudatory reviews, and the filmmaker established himself as a very strong Director with his own special style, as well as special attention to makeup, which is always at the highest level in del Toro films.
After a while, Guillermo changed his attitude to Hollywood and tried it a second time. This time, the success did not leave the filmmaker and every film that he made was successful both at the box office and among the ratings. Especially noteworthy is pan's Labyrinth (2006), which was the first film in del Toro's career with Academy awards. The film was nominated in 6 categories, but received only 3 technical Oscar statuettes, leaving Guillermo without the main award. Later, he continued to make high-quality films. As a result, after many years of hard work (it took almost a year to create the appearance of the creature) on the film the Shape of Water (2018), Guillermo received his well-deserved Oscar for best Director, which is very likely not to be the last.
Summing up the above facts from del Toro's career, we can note several main features. First, he has a very perfect command of his style, in which the main characters are like monsters. He is a very good visionary, thanks to his work on makeup and special effects at the beginning of his career. If you review all the author's films of Guillermo, the viewer will never be able to criticize the visual part of his monsters or creatures, rather, on the contrary, the audience will be able to find out more information about this creation. Secondly, Guillermo is a very hard-working Director, each of his author's work required a lot of effort and time to write a script, make the characters ' faces, and so on, but the film Director never produced a film that looked at least at some point unfinished (for example, the work on the film the Shape of Water lasted almost seven years). And finally, it is important to note that he went to his dream from childhood and went to it correctly, not in a hurry, gaining experience and when the knowledge was enough, he began to create his masterpieces
References:
LEISER, T. (2016) 17 Practical Tips for Becoming a Successful Film Director. Weblog [Online] 11th July. Available from: https://medium.com/musings-by-ty-leisher/17-practical-tips-to-becoming-a-successful-film-director-27fbb4a7611c [Accessed 28/07/20]
KENNETH, T. (1994) Movie Reviews : ‘Cronos’ Alive With Charms Eternal. [Online] Los Angeles Times. Available from: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-04-22-ca-48876-story.html [Accessed 28/07/20]
BAUER, P (2018) Guilermo del Toro. [Online] Encyclopædia Britannica.
Available from: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Guillermo-del-Toro [Accessed 28/07/20]
IMDB (2020) Shape of Water. [Online] IMDb.com
Available from: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0000000005580390/ [Accessed 28/07/20]
IMDB (2020) Guilermo del Toro Bibliograpgy. [Online] IMDb.com
Available from: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0868219/bio [Accessed 28/07/20]
I am still unclear what this post is in relation to - we spoke in tutorial and you need to do the work that was set in each class and then when we meet on wednesday I need to be able to sign of your project from ideas and research you have posted here
ReplyDeleteWe have meeting today to sign off your project and you have added no posts - please add posts prior to our meeting as you are now very behind
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