The annual Virginia Film Festival offers more than just movies to the local community. Not only does the festival screen over 100 films in just five days, on Saturday, it also held a series of panels led by industry professionals. These panels allowed Charlottesville locals, University students and festival go-ers to glean practical insights from people working in film, including long-time director Rob Spera.
Spera’s panel “The Unspoken Language of Film Directing” explained and rectified common misunderstandings in directing and provided a unique perspective from a seasoned professional. From beginning as an actor in his early-20s to directing episodes of prominent TV shows like “Criminal Minds” and “Supernatural,” Spera has always been motivated by his passion.
“My single most important objective is to make sure that I have the same passion at 72 that I had at 22,” Spera said. “I gotta make sure that I’m as alive and as excited and joyful about the work as I was when I first started.”
His book “FILM/TV DIRECTOR'S FIELD MANUAL: Seventy Maxims to Change Your Filmmaking” evolved from a short-form list he kept in his binder to refer to before shooting. The book has a variety of maxims that provide actionable tools simple enough to be incorporated into one’s work the next day. He described some of these maxims during his panel, explaining that they are not rules, but tools to help a director’s filmmaking. Writer and filmmaker Taylor Gurley commented on the value of having a professional such as Spera come and speak.
“Any time you get to hear someone speak about their process, especially someone that has 20 years of experience, you're going to learn something that is beyond your understanding or confirms things about how you would approach something,” Gurley said.
Spera began his panel by clearing up general misunderstandings about how performances are directed on camera. He argued that the idea that directors alone pull amazing performances out of their actors is rarely the case. Instead, directors must utilize visual aspects with tools such as camera angles, light, blocking and production design to create a scene which allows audiences to feel emotions without being explicitly told to feel.
“For the most part, we’re actually building a frame around the actor to support them with visual storytelling, to make sure that the subtext is communicating and the emotions are generated,” Spera said.
He went on to list several examples of this technique, starting with a personal anecdote from his own directing career. Spera described a moment where he was directing two young actors for a movie. The first time he shot the scene the performances were terrible, so he decided to shift the camera angle rather than talk to the actors. Once he raised the camera angle, the whole scene was transformed.
“We ran the scene again, and it was like I had Meryl Streep and her twin sister on stage without ever talking to them,” Spera said.
Through this, Spera challenged preconceived notions surrounding the directing process, explaining that actors cannot be relied upon solely to tell a story, they were merely 1/8 of a director’s tools discussed.
“The actor is one thread. Just one, in a larger tapestry,” Spera said.
He went further, explaining that a bad performance is rarely the fault of the actor and that a director should be reluctant to give actors too much feedback, as that can hinder the emotions portrayed on screen.
Spera then showed specific film stills and dissected how their present visual components established subtext and added to the emotional equation. His examples were diverse, from discussing framing choices in Agnès Varda’s “Cléo from 5 to 7” to exploring the inclusion of a carousel in the background of Celine Song’s contemporary romance “Past Lives.” Throughout his panel, audience members were very engaged, including second-year College student Maggie Rhode who said she appreciated the time taken to explain the stills.
“I liked looking at the Hitchcock still,” Rhode said. “I learned about not just the acting, but everything that goes into the editing.”
Spera often asked for the audience’s interpretations and opinions, which gave the panel an intimate feeling that emulated a classroom setting, which is fitting given his role as a teacher outside of his directing career. He has taught at the American Film Institute Conservatory for 20 years and developed his own program, which he now teaches through online master courses. He ended the panel with a Q&A which gave the audience an opportunity to ask questions about the specifics of his lecture.
People in attendance also expressed an appreciation for VAFF hosting these panels in general, as they deepen the festival-going experience by providing a way to understand the filmmaking process deeper. Gurley shared her thoughts on the value of panels.
“You can see a movie any time on your laptop and your TV, at a Regal Cinemas. But it's very rare that you get to actually listen to people talk about the process of filmmaking and how they approach it,” Gurley said.
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