Peter Markham

Martin Scorsese once turned to me on the set of GANGS OF NEW YORK and asked "Am I telling the story?"

He's asking me!!!? I thought, wondering how I was to reply to a filmmaker who bowls me over with his mastery. Upon reflection, I came to see that even Martin Scorsese takes nothing for granted. He'd collaborated with his writers. He'd read the pages over and over. He must have known them off by heart. And yet... he still had to challenge himself to faithfully understand their story and bring it to the screen. He knew how he was going to shoot the scene, but he was asking himself (more than he was asking me, I suspect), whether he was shooting every element of the story he needed to tell.

I realized later that in asking me this question, he showed how even a master must also be a student. Masters know the questions they need to ask and they aren't afraid of asking them. So often, knowing how to do something is not about having ready answers, taught you by teachers who themselves were taught them, but about knowing the right questions to ask, and not being afraid to consider answers that can be different, even contradictory. In this way you become not only a true student, but you learn to become your own teacher. And you discover your own answers!

I believe there is an aspect to teaching filmmaking for the Director that cannot be delineated in any curriculum in any school, namely the reaching into the inner life of the student to awaken, motivate, and inspire filmmakers to be themselves and to discover the stories they need to tell. This I know I do. It's evident in the list of my notable alumni and in their range of sensibility, voice and approach across the spectrum of Film, TV, and now the Web and VR, from the commercial and popular to the more individually artistic and innovative.

I do not tell you what kind of movie or TV drama you should be making. That is your choice, for you to decide, whether drama, comedy, "genre", or a combination or none of all of the above. It has nothing to do with any sensibility, taste or preference I may or may not have.

What I do is help enable you to understand how you can make those choices of yours work through the rich and exciting resources of Storytelling Craft, Visual Language, and Directing Craft.

I do not prescribe a hard and fast formula for ease of achievement. The world is full of recipes we are told to follow. I give you instead frameworks for your creative process. Together, in my classes, we explore what works, why it works and how it can work better. We ask the questions you need to learn to ask, and we learn how to go about finding the answers that will work for your film.

Whether you are a student at film school, or you're a student on your own, whether you have just one short under your belt or you're a seasoned professional, my books offer you a new approach. Please take a read of them:

THE ZEN OF THE DIRECTOR: MIND AND PROCESS FOR THE FILMMAKER (Sticking Place Books)

THE ART OF THE FILMMAKER: THE PRACTICAL AESTHETICS OF THE SCREEN (Oxford University Press)

WHAT'S THE STORY? THE DIRECTOR MEETS THEIR SCREENPLAY (Focal Press/Routledge)

"Peter Markham is a passionate, rigorous, devoted, and (most importantly) mischievous teacher. I cherish my time as his student at AFI, and count myself fortunate to now have this comprehensive guide to refer to."

Ari Aster, writer-director of Hereditary and Midsommar