21st-Century
Bard
The Making of Twelfth Night
Part 1: The Business of Film
- To show how creative ideas are developed and refined by the production team, and why 'ordinary' just will not do
- To understand who does what in the making of a film, and the different contributions of director, producer, actors, writers, and designers, and the sound, photography and lighting crews
- To explore the pressures imposed by a restricted budget on the making of a film and to understand the importance of careful planning
- And to throw light on the positive ways in which creative people respond to such restraints
- To understand how Shakespeare's drama continues to inspire people, and to allow for constant reinterpretation.
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Series Outline
The Making of Twelfth Night
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 1: Outline
Introduction
John Richmond, the Commissioning Editor explains why 4Learning is making a screen version of ‘Twelfth Night’: ‘Shakespeare is a permanent international figure whom people reinvent century after century’, he says.
Reinventing the Story
Tim Supple, the Director, Andrew Bannerman, the Screenwriter, and Rachel Gesua, the Producer, brainstorm different ideas for translating ‘Twelfth Night’ into contemporary terms.
Budgeting the Bard
While the script is being written, Rachel Gesau begins work on the budget. Money is tight, and creative ideas have to be costed carefully, to avoid financial disaster.
Casting the Actors
Tim Supple works his magic on the actors, getting the people he wants by inspiring them to want to work with him, even if he cannot afford to pay them well. The result is a talented multi-ethnic cast, all committed to the success of the film.
Hiring the Crew
Creativity and the ability to think logistically are the skills Tim Supple looks for in putting together Principal Crew (his ‘creative partners’), consisting of the First Assistant Director, the Director of Photography, the Production Designer, and the Lighting and Sound Engineers.
Scouting the Locations
The Principal Crew look at the practicalities of filming in each of the locations so that there are no surprises once filming begins.
Planning the Sets
But mainly this is a studio shoot, and we watch as the sets are developed from storyboard to scale models, to the finished build.
Staying on Schedule
As the filming begins we see how Director and Crew adapt to the pressures of a demanding schedule, constantly aware that time equals money.
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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.
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This programme looks at the pre-production stages in the making of ‘Twelfth Night’, as ideas are discussed,
budgets created, and the main participants are hired.
This disciplined, step-by-step approach to film-making challenges the notion that creative people are by nature
flamboyant and chaotic. On the contrary, the Director, actors and crew set about their work with military precision, planning
every element of the film in almost tedious detail, so as to leave nothing to chance.
The linking theme of all this activity is that money is tight but modest budgets often encourage ingenuity and
result in more imaginative film-making.
The Key Players
The actors who bring Shakespeare’s play to life on stage and screen are highly visible in the end product, but
they are only a small part of the overall team involved in the making of a film. Behind the scenes is a core team of experts
who bring their skills to bear on the production.
The Producer
Rachel Gesua, the Producer, plays a key role in this process. She is the first person to be hired - even before
the Director. Her item by item financial reports play a key role in deciding how and where the film will be made. She makes it
clear that she is willing to veto the Director’s ideas if necessary. She sees herself as ultimately responsible to the client
-4Learning - for keeping within budget whilst producing an outstanding film.
The Director
Tim Supple is revealed as a subtle Director who does not ‘direct’ in the traditional sense of giving instructions.
Instead he achieves results by communicating a creative vision and inspiring the actors and crew to respond. This team approach
clearly works, as everybody involved in the film speaks about their work with passion and commitment. Tim hires people whose instincts
he trusts. He describes his role as ‘the orchestrator, the conductor of everyone’s skills, the central point to which everyone works
with one shared creative aim’.
The Production Designer
Described by Tim Supple as ‘my most important creative partner in the pre-production phase’, Tim Pye, the Production Designer,
is the person responsible for the look of the film. He also has to bear the brunt of any budgetary restrictions, and the decision to
shoot most of the film in the studio means that he cannot rely on locations to provide the visual content: everything that appears within
the frame of the camera is put there by the designer.
And Shakespeare
Central to everyone’s creative aim is a shared love of Shakespeare’s play, and its rich layers of meaning. Far from
considering the play to be white, middle-class, middle-aged and dull, everyone involved in the film believes that ‘Twelfth Night’
is a play for today, with a gripping plot, capable of being reinterpreted on screen for a contemporary audience. The decision to
make this a multi-racial ‘colour blind’ film, using Black, white and Asian actors, might seem to be motivated by political
correctness, but is in fact a creative response to the play’s concerns with identity and expression.
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1 At one stage, the Director of 'Twelfth Night' considers
setting the film within the music industry. Taking this as the starting point, discuss how you would
flesh out the concept. In particular, consider:
a) Why would a music industry setting be appropriate to the play?
What speeches, images and themes in Twelfth Night make this an idea well worth developing?
b) What jobs do you think that 'Duke' Orsino, 'Countess' Olivia, the twins Viola and Sebastian, and the main comic characters
- Malvolio, Maria, Toby Belch and Andrew Aguecheek - would have in the music industry?
c) Which actors, singers and musicians you would choose to star in the key roles and why?
2 If you were the producer of the film, what concerns might you have about setting
the play in the music industry? In particular, consider:
a) What locations and settings you might use for key scenes in the play?
b) What might the choice of those settings imply for the budgets?
c) What steps you might take to minimise costs but still retain the basic music industry theme?
3 The Producer, Director and Screenwriter use brainstorming techniques to think of
ways to set Shakespeare's Twelfth Night within a contemporary setting. In brainstorming, everyone fires off ideas from the top of
their head - anything goes, no mater how silly or unrealistic. Ideas are written on a board, without discussion, argument or judgement.
Use this technique to think of other settings for Twelfth Night. Once you have lots of ideas, analyse the in more detail to ask
which ones have potential, bearing in mind the need for ideas about setting to arise from ideas within the play, rather than being
random or arbitrary. Clues from the play can be found in:
a) the name of the play
b) the plot
c) the characters
d) the language
e) the metaphors and recurring themes (for example, food, love, death, sound, excess, sea, revenge)
f) mistaken identity, the role of twins, boy / girl confusion and gender behaviour
4 Discuss the roles of the people who contribute to the making of a film. Discuss:
a) Who you think is the most important, and why?
b) What are the essential characteristics needed to be a good Director? And a good Producer?
c) What potential for conflict is likely to arise once the film-making begins?
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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.
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