21st-Century Bard
The Making of Twelfth Night
Part 2: The Language of Film

Aims

To understand the role of the Director of a film and to see the way that he communicates his vision
To understand the different contributions of Production Designer, Camera and Lighting Crew, Costume Designer and Choreographer
To explore the way that each of these specialists has interpreted ‘Twelfth Night’, and the vision that each individual brings to the film
To witness the processes of turning raw ideas into a collaborative project that remains faithful to Shakespeare’s drama
To see the interplay of planning and spontaneity in the making of a film.

These four 25-minute documentaries explore the production of 4Learning’s ‘Twelfth Night’, from initial idea to finished film. Packed with insights into the way that films are made, the series also challenges the common perception of Shakespeare as dull, dated or elitist by showing how ’Twelfth Night’ inspires a young, talented and multi-cultural team of film-makers and actors.

In the style of a fly-on-the-wall documentary, we follow the team through each stage of the planning, filming and editing of the film. As people describe their jobs, wrestle with the creative challenges and confide their concerns, we build up an immensely rich and detailed picture of lives dedicated to film and the skills and temperament necessary to succeed.

But we also gain in knowledge and understanding of Shakespeare’s achievement as we become absorbed in the process of transforming an Elizabethan stage play into a twenty-first century film. From his own deep and intimate knowledge of ‘Twelfth Night’, we see the Director going back to the play again and again as the source for the themes, the verbal and visual images, the dramatic tensions and the emotions around which the film is constructed.

Watching these documentaries not only sends us back to the film with new eyes and new awareness, but also back to Shakespeare’s work with a renewed respect for his craft and achievement.

Programme 2: Outline

Introduction

What sorts of people work in film and what exactly do they all do? In a series of interviews with the leading members of the 'Twelfth Night' crew, we learn about the diverse jobs and skills that are involved in the making of a film.

Designing the Production

Drawing inspiration from the Forbidden City in Beijing, from Japanese and from Minimalist design, Tom Pye, the Production Designer, creates sets for 'Twelfth Night' that suit each scene whilst maintaining one overall aesthetic for the film.

Working in Set

Steadicam, Boom, Gaffer, Focus Puller and Grip - abstruse names, but as each person explains his or her job, we discover what an essential role each one plays in the making of the film.

Designing the Costumes

David Beckham and Princess Diana helped inspire the design of the clothes worn by Olivia and Orsino, says Costume Designer Jemima Cotter.

Choreographing the Action

Vincent Keen, Stunt Co-ordinator on the film, shows how to make fight moves frightening and realistic.

Painting with Light

Understanding different types of light and film stock and breaking the story down into individual shots - these are skills that can only come through long experience, says the Director of Photography, Gavin Finney.

Shooting the Location

The unpredictable elements in location filming can be used to advantage to add grit, energy and reality to the film's look and feel.

Realising the Vision

As the different collaborators focus in on the shoot, there is a magical moment of shared concentration that leads to the perfect take.

Curriculum Relevance

This series of programmes gives students a firm grounding in the basics of film grammar and film analysis as well as consolidating their knowledge of ‘Twelfth Night’ as a text and as a staged drama. It has a major English, Drama and Media Studies focus, pitched for GCSE, AS and A level as well as SG and NQs usage. The series is also useful in guiding students towards the different options available to people seeking a career in theatre or film-making, whether as an actor, director, photographer, costume or set designer.

England and Wales

This series can be used to support English at Key Stage 4. In particular the following can be developed:

Speaking and listening
Drama: Students will appreciate how the structure and organisation of scenes can contribute to dramatic effect. They will evaluate critically the performance of ‘Twelfth Night’ featured in the programmes.

Reading
Students will be encouraged to understand the author’s craft. They will experience an aspect of English literary heritage. The programmes offer many opportunities to reflect on how meaning is conveyed in texts containing moving images and sound.

At GCSE, the series supports the course work requirement of the major examination boards to study pre-1914 drama.

Media Studies
The programmes provide an ideal means of developing students’ understanding of film. There are opportunities to examine aspects of:

image analysis
film grammar
camera movement
editing
lighting
sound
deconstructing scenes.

The programmes support the WJEC syllabus requirement to compare media texts, including historical texts.

Scotland

English

The programmes will support English at Standard Grade and NQ levels and should prove an ideal tool for meeting the coursework needs for an extended piece of written work on a media text or contributing to a coursework assignment on a literary text.

Media Studies

The programmes will support the study of the following:

Institutions - how production of media output is organised
How technologies shape the production process
Representations of people, places, events and ideas.

Intermediate 1 and 2 - Media Analysis

develop critical understanding of texts
foster enjoyment and aesthetic appreciation of media texts
enable students to communicate knowledge and understanding of media texts
encourage use of production knowledge and understanding of analytical activities
encourage use of analytical knowledge and understanding in production activities.
develop a structured and evaluative approach to production work
enable students to communicate about planning, production and evaluation stages of media production
appreciate freedom and constraints surrounding production
encourage the integration of production knowledge and understanding in analytical activities, and analytical activities, and analytical knowledge and understanding in production activities.

Higher

provide students with knowledge of the practices which lead to the production of media texts; of the institutions which produce them; the audiences who interpret them; and of the relationship of these three factors to each other.
provide a knowledge of the detailed technical terms related to the chosen medium.
develop technological and non-technological skills appropriate to a chosen medium.
provide intellectual stimulus and challenge, develop academic rigour and foster enjoyment of the subject.

Northern Ireland

Information to follow.

Background

This programme builds on the idea that film-making is a creative collaboration involving an extraordinary diversity of people and skills. The Director, Tim Supple, says that channelling all these people and their skills into a shared act of creativity is what makes film-making such a joy.

As the programme unfolds, the people who make up that creative team talk about their role, explaining how they came to work in film, what their job entails, what personal qualities they bring to the task, and how they respond to the challenges inherent in Shakespeare’s play. Over and above specific technical skills, each person emphasises the importance of teamwork, and of having the right personality and temperament to work creatively with each other.

The linking theme of all this activity is that everyone has to work as a cohesive unit to see the vision through - or as Tim Supple puts it: ‘a film is made by everyone all at one time’.

The Production Designer

Tim Pye, the Production Designer, was introduced in the first programme as the person responsible for the look of the film. In explaining this role further he talks about his background and his love of a job that combines drama, painting, sculpture and three-dimensional design. He explains his task as ‘creating a playground for the Director to work in with the actors’.

Helping him achieve this is a team of specialists: the carpenters, plasterers, painters, prop makers, prop buyers and set dressers who create the specific environments against which each scene of the play will be acted out and filmed.

Thematic ideas arising form the play are discussed to show how they inspired the sets, such as the contrast between Orsino’s world of light and Olivia’s world of darkness, and the hints in the play of buried or hidden emotions that are viewed through iron grilles.

Choreography, Cameras and Lighting

‘Twelfth Night’ is constructed, like any other film, from short scenes shot from different points of view, using different angles and at different distances from the actors and props. As the Director of Photography talks about his work, the programme shows how different shots are planned and created - from the close-up of a knife that helps to intensify the sense of tension and drama between characters, to the spare and gritty feel of location filming using hand-held cameras inside the hold of a ship or in a market. Commenting on this role, Tim Supple says: ‘He frames the story and gives it visual poetry’.

Actors and Directors

The actors’ job is to draw the audience into the drama and emotion of Shakespeare’s play, and make us feel as if we were witnessing spontaneous real life events. The programme shows how the Director achieves convincing performances from his actors. Using his deep knowledge of the play, Tim Supple helps his actors get to the roots of the scene by asking them to think about how they got there, where they have come from, what they are doing and why.

Activities

1 Having viewed the programme, discuss:

a) whether you would like to work in film and why?
b) which of the many jobs involved in film-making you would prefer and why?
c) whether some jobs more popular with the members of the group than others, and if so why?

2 One of the participants in the programme says that ‘all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds, with all sorts of skills work in film: what is important is temperament and character’. Discuss:

a) what you think this statement means, and whether you think it is true, based on the evidence from the film
b) what sort of temperament and character is needed to make a good Director, Set or Costume Designer, Stunt Choreographer, Director of Photography and actor
c) whether you think that gender is relevant: do you agree or disagree with the statement that some jobs in film are best done by men and some by women, and why?

3 Watch parts of ‘Twelfth Night’ again and discuss as a group what aspects of the film (eg set, prop, costume, lighting, camera framing or shot type) you now understand better as a result of having seen ‘The Making of Twelfth Night Part 2: The Art of Film’. What do you now notice that you didn’t see before? Do you think that the visual ideas in the film arise naturally out of the words that Shakespeare wrote, or have they been brought in from outside the play - and do you think it matters?

4 After watching ‘The Making of Twelfth Night Part 1: The Business of Film’, you were asked to think of ways to set Shakespeare’s ‘Twelfth Night’ within the music business, or within an alternative contemporary setting. Taking a scene from ‘Twelfth Night’, work as a group to flesh out your ideas by thinking through:

a) what the set would look like
b) what movements the actors would make as they spoke their lines
c) what the actors would wear
d) what props you would need
e) what shots and camera movements you would use to film the scene.

In thinking about these questions, are there words, phrases, metaphors or ideas within the play or within this scene that you especially want to draw out and reflect in a visual counterpart?

Links

This web page contains links to other websites that are neither controlled nor maintained by Channel 4 Television. Channel 4 Television is not responsible for the content of these sites and does not necessarily endorse the material on them.

website-archive.nt-online.org/extras/timsupple.html

National Theatre website profile of Director Tim Supple, which suggests other sides to his character and directorial technique to those we see in ‘The Making of Twelfth Night’.

www.filmmakers.com/

This website, designed for people who work in films or who wish to do so, has fascinating and opinionated articles on a range of subjects including the role of the Producer, Director, Photographer and Lighting Engineer, Screenplay and Actors.

www.shakespearemag.com/spring97/12night.asp

‘Shakespeare Magazine’, aimed at teachers and Shakespeare enthusiasts, contains a review of another film version of ‘Twelfth Night’, made by the renowned theatre director, Trevor Nunn. It shows how a different Director has chosen to transfer the play to the screen and reveal the contemporary relevance of Shakespeare’s work.

www.guthrietheater.org/pdf/twelfth.pdf

This 68-page study guide from the Guthrie Theater in Minnesota is full of comments and insights from critics, film and theatre directors responding to Shakespeare’s play. It has an especially good set of discussion questions, as well as a timeline of Shakespeare’s life, a synopsis of the play, and extensive glossary. Adobe Acrobat Reader is needed for access.

21st-Century Bard The Making of Twelfth Night Part 2: The Language of Film