A review written by: Lee Sonogan

“Not all images are there to be eaten, consumed like fast food and forgotten. That’s important to remember. We’re not mass manufacturers. We’re trying to be filmmakers.” — Martin Scorsese

One of my goals this year was to complete a course and after discovering Masterclass I currently have done three. When I saw that Martin Scorsese had a class teaching film making I knew I had to do it. As my current scripts grow, I did these Masterclass’s assignments while developing a short film. With watching over 4 hours of footage at first I was blown away what he had to offer.

Being my second completed Masterclass, I knew my short film script could benefit from it. As I completed each video, I did an assignment from the workbook on so many topics/ subjects related to the process of making films. Each chapter was full of so many great quotes that I could and will reference in the future. From Scorsese’s perspective, he is able to teach interesting techniques and methods through examples through his own body of work.

All video names of Martin Scorsese Class:

1. Introduction
2. Beginnings
3. Martin’s Education
4. Discovering Your Process
5. Channelling Your Influence
6. Developing Your Style
7. Directing &Technology
8. Finding Your Story
9. Working With The Script
10. Casting Actors
11. Directing Actors
12. Locations
13. Production Design
14. Costume Design
15. Understanding Cinematography
16. Shooting Low Budget Films
17. Working With Crew
18. Editing Part 1
19. Editing Part 2
20. Colour
21. Choosing Black and White
22. The Importance of Sound Design
23. The Power of Music
24. Promoting Your Film
25. Scene Discussion – Barry Lyndon
26. Scene Discussion – Out of the Past
27. Scene Discussion – Jules & Jim
28. Scene Discussion = Vertigo
29. Scene Discussion – 8 1-2
30. Finding Your Way

“There was a desire and a need to really not rest until I was able to express these thoughts and these stories on film.” – Martin Scorsese

As you see in the above list this class covers everything about movies. Martin was a video creator before anyone used digital cinematography. He used an analog medium using film stock which would be way more difficult to shoot and edit. My favourite chapters in the class were Discovering Your Process, Channelling Your Influence, Shooting Low Budget Movies, Colour, Choosing Black and White, The Power of Music, Promoting Your Film.

Is Masterclass worth it? Yes, if your motivated to learn from someone who is great, learning the skills from scratch or lack of the research skills where you cannot find the information you are looking for. Martin Scorsese is definitely great and is worth the watch just to see how he did things for his excellent movies. Plus, the class comes with an appendix which lists all resources you could want from Scorsese himself.

“There’s just you and the thing that sparked you to make the film. You and the spark: in the end, they’re one in the same. You guard that because it’s precious. Now it’s time to get to work.” —Martin Scorsese

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