Faced with the infinite possibilities available to a creator, Ken Loach proposes having rules for oneself—self-discipline, a methodology. Take what serves you, and build your own method based on what resonates with you, for each work. I’m sharing his synthesis, based on my observations:
-Contrary to the industry standard, filming is done in chronological order. The protagonists do not know the script or the scenes until the last moment. They live their dramatic arc through their own life experience. If they are going to die, they learn it shortly beforehand. Everything that is part of the character’s past is filmed first.
-Improvisation is encouraged. The actors are constantly and closely observed, and anything that nourishes the characters and the narrative is incorporated. All intellectualization or discussion about the characters is avoided. Lived experience is promoted above all else.
-Through detailed research, the context is recreated as closely to reality as possible. The actors live the experience, and we document it, observe it. We avoid directly telling them what we want them to say or do; they are allowed to be and do what they feel in response to what happens to them.
-The camera as a human witness to events. The camera is never placed where a human being could not be. Lenses similar to human vision are used. Wide-angle lenses are avoided.
-The viewer is an observer present in the scene, placed in the skin of the characters, or rather, by their side. Long lenses are mostly used. Movement is created through panning, through the action of characters approaching or moving away from the camera, and through the precise use of handheld camera in the most dramatic moments.
-The goal is to remove everything that reminds the actors they are making a film: basic, natural lighting, and the fewest possible devices around them.
-The crew commits not to reveal the script to the actors, not to look them in the eyes, to be discreet, almost invisible, and not to interfere with their lived experience. Silence on set, respect for the actors, and their creative process as something sacred.
-A mix of non-professional actors and professional actors is used.
-Filming ideally takes place in real locations.
-People from the communities portrayed are included in the work.
-The camera begins filming discreetly; tail slates are used.
-Filming is done on 35mm or 16mm, and the film is physically edited on a Moviola.
-The crew and the actors of the film are united by a common cause. The battle is related to the theme of the film and is directed outward; there must be internal cohesion in the work and collaboration of the team. Several times a week, the entire crew watches projected footage created through their collective effort.
-The director is responsible for the visual narration of the film and for directing all of its technical and thematic aspects. The viewfinder is used to decide the best camera position. The use of video assist is avoided. Trust is placed in the cinematographer as the eyes that see, and in the sound recordist as the ears that listen.
-Cinema as a tool of political struggle. Cinema has a social utility beyond our own joy in creating. A cinema that seeks to give voice to the oppressed in society; however, victimizing our characters and our actors is avoided in every phase of the process, as well as in their portrayal. The goal is to empower them.
-Reflection on a specific issue is generated by reaching people’s minds through emotion, through identification with the characters’ dramas. Only a political-poetic motive of closeness, of empathy with the drama of the other, can justify it. The awareness that, in some way, the suffering of the other will become one’s own.
-Each character has their truth, their reasons for doing what they do. A dialectic is presented in its complexity; simplification, didacticism, and explanation are avoided. People learn through experiences, not through speeches. The aim is to create a life experience.
-The experience of creating the film becomes the film. An open attitude throughout the entire process. Awareness that the work comes to life in enigmatic ways.
-Listen attentively to the work. Be faithful to it in every phase of negotiating with the factors of time and money. Recognize what is essential and what is secondary. Everything is in service of something much larger than us: the film.