The three core principles of filmmaking (collaboration, emphasis on story and character, and problem solving) might be thought of as the superstructure of the filmmaking process: no movie happens without them. Now let’s turn to the “construction crew”—the people who actually get the movie made. These are the people you don’t see, the people who are not the actors, yet it is these people whose viewpoints and actions determine the overall experience that filmgoers will enjoy—or not enjoy, as the case may be.

As student filmmakers, you will frequently have no choice but to take on many of these jobs yourself. On most of your initial projects, you will certainly handle multiple creative, managerial, and logistical roles simultaneously. Still, the viewpoints brought to the filmmaking whole from these distinct spots on the horizon remain and are crucial to the final product. You will need to learn what these roles are and either how to assume them yourself—by thinking the way these craftspeople think when working on a production—or how to collaborate successfully with those who do. Most likely, you will end up with a combination of the two.

With that said, here is a look at the important filmmaking roles and the corresponding viewpoints that go along with them.

Producer

The producer brings all the elements of a film together and supervises all the people. Producers are responsible for the creative outcome of the movie and for accomplishing it on time and on budget. In your school, you may be your own producer, or a classmate may take on the job. In the professional world, major productions frequently have multiple producers due to the complexity of the work and the responsibility of raising money for the film. Indeed, it is difficult for any one producer to have the expertise, time, and resources to manage all the many complex areas of a multimillion-dollar production by him- or herself. But even at that level, there are usually one or two producers responsible for the entire endeavor. No matter who is filling this role, the producer’s viewpoint is wide, encompassing everything in the five basic phases of any movie’s life cycle: development, preproduction, production, postproduction, and distribution/marketing. (See Producer Smarts: Congratulations, You Are a Movie Producer!)

Writer

The writer imagines the story and its characters, and transforms them from mere ideas into a tangible, physical screenplay that can be shared with others. You might be your own screenwriter, or you might work with a classmate in crafting the script. The writer’s viewpoint is all about the people on-screen and what happens to them: the narrative and its actors. A well-written screenplay is the lodestone from which all creative ideas will flow when producing a movie.

Director

The director is the most important single individual on a film set, as it is primarily the director’s vision that is represented in the final product. Directors select the script they want to shoot; choose the actors and primary creative collaborators; and make countless key creative, technical, and logistical decisions during the filmmaking process. The director’s viewpoint is both immediate and long term: it’s about making minute-by-minute choices that achieve the best result in service of what the completed movie will look like.

Editor

The editor assembles the film that has been shot, finding the best way to tell the story and convey character by selecting images and sounds and placing them in a specific order designed to enhance the emotional impact of the director’s creative intent for the material. Editing is the only craft that is unique to movies; it had to be invented for filmmaking to take place. The editor may be thought of as the “second writer” of the movie, after the screenwriter, and is frequently considered the director’s single closest collaborator on movie productions. The editor’s viewpoint is immensely practical; he or she must work with what images and sounds are available, crafting the best film story possible.

Image and Sound Crew

The artists who create what you see and hear belong to many different professions: directors of photography, production designers, sound designers, camera and sound crew, visual effects designers and supervisors, animators, music composers and supervisors, and many others. Although their specific tasks and how they are executed vary, their overall agenda is uniform: to design, capture, and create the visual imagery and sound experience of the movie. Their viewpoint begins at the conception stage—What should this look and sound like?—and extends through the actual accomplishment of the look-and-sound vision, down to the finest details.

The Audience

The difference between this course and a media studies or film theory course is that we are guiding you to make movies that people will want to see. We believe that you are always making your movie for an audience, not for yourself. No matter what your role on the film, you must always think about the audience and how you are communicating with them: Will they understand what you are trying to say? Will they relate to the characters? Will the story make sense? In a professional production, the audience will watch the movie on screens across the world; for this class, your audience may be your instructor or your fellow students. The audience’s viewpoint is the prevailing one in all filmmaking, and the audience’s judgment is the ultimate arbiter of a film’s success. Therefore, although your audience may have nothing specific to do with the physical production of your movie, they are included in this section to remind you that their viewpoint and emotional response are important things for you to evaluate while you are making your film—very possibly the most important.

Beyond the six key viewpoints, every film has certain limitations imposed by the context in which it is being made. For this course, your limitations will be set primarily by your instructor: you will have a deadline, and you may have to make your film in black and white or color, obey a time limit, use only certain equipment, or be limited on whom you are allowed to ask for help. Even at the movie-studio level there are restrictions, which frequently involve running time, rating, casting, release date, and budget. We’ll call these limitations, collectively, oversight. At the same time, oversight provides you with guidance, expertise, and resources; without the benefit of your school, for example, you might not have the camera or lights with which to make your movie. The point of oversight is to set boundaries and allocate resources for any production within the context of those boundaries.