21st-Century Bard
The Making of Twelfth Night
Part 3: The Language of Film

Aims

To understand what the Director aims to achieve during the post-production phases of a film
To look at each of the individual post-production elements of film-making - editing, sound, music, colour mixing and blue-screen design
To explore the range of technical options available to the Editor and Director and understand how choices are made
To look at the power of music, sound and visual imagery to create additional layers of emotion and energy within the film
To ask how Shakespeare might respond to the infinite possibilities of film if he were alive today.

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 3: Outline

Introduction

How faithfully does Tim Supple's film version of 'Twelfth Night' reflect Shakespeare's original play? In a series of interviews with the Director, Screenwriter and members of the cast, we discover that every visual image in the film derives from something Shakespeare wrote on the page.

Adapted for Film

We learn that Shakespeare's original has been cut and scenes moved around, but none of his words have been changed. Instead, the Director has rigorously sifted the text to remove the scene-setting lines that are essential on stage but that can be conveyed visually on film. The aim is to make Twelfth Night work cinematically and to ensure that the dialogue does not 'overstay its welcome'.

Character, Action, Dialogue

Watching the Director at work, we discover some of the differences between stage acting, where projection is all-important, and screen acting, where ideas, emotions and thoughts can be conveyed through visual metaphors and subtle facial expressions.

Crafting the Screenplay

Andrew Bannerman, the Screenwriter, explains that 'Twelfth Night' is rich in layers of meaning that encourage bold and daring action and visual imagery – not a reverential approach.

Delivering the Dialogue

Members of the cast demonstrate the techniques they use to bring out the meaning of Shakespeare's densely complex poetry and make it sound naturalistic.

Subplot and Character

Analysing Act 2 Scene 3 in detail, the Director, Tim Supple, explains one of the underlying themes of the play: the confrontation of Sir Toby and Malvolio dramatises the social and political conflict between old Catholic and new Protestant England during the reign of Elizabeth I.

Screenplay to Film

Everybody involved in the production speaks admiringly of Shakespeare's eternal themes and love of a strong story, convinced that he would have been a film-maker if he lived today.

Curriculum Relevance

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.

Background

This programme focuses on the role of the original text in the transformation of a stage play into a film. Two key themes emerge: that Shakespeare's original was to be realised as fully as possible and that nobody wanted simply to present a play on film.

Shakespeare's original

Director, Screenwriter and Cast all speak admiringly about Shakespeare's craftsmanship. These people are in the same business as Shakespeare. Their love of Shakespeare is derived not from academic study but from practising Shakespeare's craft - they are his heirs. The characteristics of Shakespeare's work that they particularly value are:

his precision: there are no redundant words or wasted lines
his use of vibrant visual images
the universal and timeless nature of this themes: love, hate and jealousy
his love of a good story
his desire to tell that story in a way that has most impact
the poetry and musicality of his language
the richness of plot, subplot, metaphor and meaning
the sheer magic and daring of his plot.

From play to screen

With all of these qualities, it would be folly to tamper with Shakespeare, so the challenge facing Tim Supple and his team is to translate the play into a contemporary film idiom. As the Screenwriter and actors talk about their work we discover that all the clues they need are contained within hakespeare's poetic, image-rich language. Film can show what can only be described on stage, so whilst Shakespeare can give Olivia speeches that express her grief, film can evoke emotion and add extra layers of complexity that perfectly complement Shakespeare's text -- for example, when Olivia sees the discarded possessions of her dead brother and father in the basement which Sir Toby, Feste and Sir Andrew Aguecheek have turned into a drinking den.

The skill of the Director and Screenwriter lies in deciding how far to go in visualising the language of Shakespeare. As one of the actors says, Shakespeare often condenses massively complex thoughts into one sentence. The Screenwriter, Andrew Bannerman, warns that unravelling all the cross-currents in Shakespeare's work would lead in too many different directions. The Director makes choices based on his profound knowledge of the play, which Tim Supple likens to an endless pool in which you find something new and different every time you dip into it.

How actors act

A third strand in the programme examines the craft of acting, and how actors go about delivering their lines. As the actors discuss the differences between stage and film delivery, the Director encourages them to think their way into the part, by asking questions about the character. Each actor has his or her own approach to the task: some talk of practising different voices and inflections until they find one they feel is right for the part. Others mock what they see as a stylised 'Shakespearean' manner of delivery.

All agree that Shakespeare's language - deliberately heightened and couched in verse of ten syllables to the line - sounds naturalistic and spontaneous once you allow the natural rhythm of his verse to come through.

Activities

1 Select a scene from 'Twelfth Night' (for example Act 1 Scene 5 lines 233-281) and discuss as a group:

a) what lines you would cut, and why
b) what visual references you would take from Shakespeare's words
c) given that there are so many different metaphors in this dialogue, discuss which ones you think are the most important for the overall development of the film and the themes of the play
d) discuss how you would film this scene: what would be the setting, what would the actors do?
e) once you have made your decisions, you might like to compare your version of the scene with the version that appears in the film.

2 One of the actors says that the poetry and music of Shakespeare's language helps you speak the lines. Another says it is the meaning that is most important - if you follow the thought or intention, you will find the words that are the most important. Looking at the same scene from Twelfth Night, decide which of these two views are true - or are they perhaps saying the same thing? To help you decide, try the following experiments:

a) Two members of the group should be the actors and read the speeches out loud as naturalistically as possible; two others should mark the text with a pencil to show which words the actors naturally stress and where they naturally pause.
b) On a separate photocopy of the text, read the speeches and discuss which words are the key ones in terms of carrying the meaning of the speech.
c) On a third photocopy, read the speeches with an exaggerated rhythm iambic pentameter rhythm (de dum, de dum, de dum, de dum, de dum), and mark where the stresses fall and where Shakespeare breaks this rhythmic pattern.
d) Now compare all three versions and look for patterns, similarities and differences. How would you explain what you see? What do you think Shakespeare meant by interspersing verse and prose in this scene?
e) Now act the scene out loud again: has the delivery of the lines improved, and if so, which method of understanding them proved most helpful, if any?

Links

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.

21st-Century Bard The Making of Twelfth Night Part 3: The Language of Film