Yo teach! Learn about staging with a legend at the Lightbox

When he’s making a film in Toronto, Guillermo del Toro likes to show his affection for the city by giving master classes at the TIFF Lightbox on film technique. His previous talks, always well attended, have included discussions of the movies of Alfred Hitchcock and gothic romance.

“Every time I make a movie I try at the beginning, middle or end to do a couple of master classes at TIFF,” del Toro said. “I did it for ‘Nightmare Alley,’ I did it for ‘Crimson Peak’ and I did it for ‘Pacific Rim.’ And I’ll do it at the end of this shoot.”

He’s talking about “Frankenstein,” the Mary Shelley horror story adaptation he’s currently shooting in town. At a date still to be determined, he plans to return to Toronto later this year to give master classes on staging, an essential part of filmmaking he feels is often overlooked.

“I would love to do a master class on staging for film, which is one of the things I think is important for people to understand,” del Toro said. “From the directorial professional point of view, that’s one of the things I value in other directors, when somebody’s good at staging. “It’s the nerve centre of storytelling, the staging with the camera and the actors. And once you are aware of it as an audience member, you start appreciating the brush strokes and the compositions that lie in the art of ‘painting’ a movie. “It’s about where the camera is, where the actors are, what is the vantage point and what is the disadvantage? The most famous staging vantage point is that shot in ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ where Ruth Gordon is half visible, half hidden by a doorway. Every time you see the movie, the entire audience in the theatre leans in toward that door.

“Staging is a marriage of elements in front of the camera; it’s scenes or actors and cameras moving or not moving to get the point across.”