Director vs. Filmmaker

Often the two get lumped together, but there's a difference between a director whose primary responsibility is getting performance from actors and a filmmaker who is striving for an aesthetic.

Jeremy Kagan, for instance, is a director. It is pretty amazing the performances he is able to get out of mediocre actors in our directing classes. If you're a USC student interested in directing and haven't seen it, it's pretty damn impressive. It'll make you understand what a director does.

On the other hand, you have a guy like Brian DePalma whose films are distinct and a lot fun to watch, but you realize if you seen his ouevre, he doesn't direct actors, he just lets them do whatever they want and he does his camera thang. Sometimes it works great - Scarface and sometimes is works poorly - Blow Up.