Class #1: Directing Creatures (Stan Winston School Diary #2)

A great first class while you are getting hands on with the creature design itself, this class is geared towards film directors and the puppetry/FX creature directors leading the rest of the puppeteers on crew. As I discussed with diary entry #1, I love how these courses go right to what you need to know for work. No studying history of cinema facts you don’t need. No essays. Right to it!

The Directing Creatures class goes over:

• scene blocking

• portraying your creature in the best way on screen

• working with the puppeteers, director of photography, and second unit crew

• getting the best performance out of your humans inside monster suits

• making the creature realistic as a filmmaker, using film examples from films the staffers worked on, such as Alien 3

My university setup would have dragged this class material over probably six weeks of two classes weekly. Here you get everything packaged into an hour. Have your notepad ready.