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Movie director facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts
Jury Cannes 2014 2
American director Steven Spielberg with Sri Lankan filmmaker Chandran Rutnam in Sri Lanka

A movie director is a person who helps lead the making of a movie (or film). They take care of the artistic things in the movie. They give instructions to the actors and direct the people that work on the movie.

Directors give many of their responsibilities to other members of their movie-making team (called a movie crew). For example, the person who is responsible for the lighting is told by the director what style of lighting he wants and he then creates the lighting for him. It is common for movie directors to work closely with a movie producer. Movie producers are people who control the non-artistic side of movie making. For example, they control all the money that is used for making the movie.

The amount of control a director has in creating their movie is different for each director. It is most common for directors to have some control, while the rest of the movie-making is controlled by the movie studio (the area where the movies are made), and by the people who pay for the movie. This was very common for American movies made in the 1930s to 1950s. During those years, the studios used many different directors for making a single movie. There are a small number of directors who are given complete control over making their movie. For example, Stanley Kubrick, Jean-Luc Godard, Steven Spielberg and James Cameron are all movie directors who had a great amount of control in making their movie.

Famous directors

Fritz Lang et Curt Courant
Fritz Lang directing a movie
Agnès Varda at Guadalajara Film Festival
Agnès Varda, being honoured at the Guadalajara Film Festival
Ingmar Bergman Smultronstallet
Ingmar Bergman examines a sheet of film, during work on Wild Strawberries.
Akirakurosawa-onthesetof7samurai-1953-page88
Akira Kurosawa on the set in 1953

Images for kids

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Director de cine para niños

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