Skip main navigation

New offer! Get 30% off one whole year of Unlimited learning. Subscribe for just £249.99 £174.99. New subscribers only T&Cs apply

Find out more

Meet Mike Figgis

Mike Figgis introduces Week 3 of FutureLearn's Explore Filmmaking from the BFI and NFTS. Watch the video.
0.2
Hello. My name is Mike Figgis, and I’m a filmmaker. And I will be your host for week three, and the title that we’ve come up with is an Accumulation of Decisions. And what this is going to cover is the fact that filmmaking is a combination of many, many, many disciplines to do with the mechanics, really. Mechanics, you know, location, screenwriting, working with actors, camera movement, sound very important, editing, distribution. All these things which, if you take any one of those elements away, you have an incomplete film.

Mike Figgis is a filmmaker, photographer and musician. He began directing for the cinema in the 1980s, having worked as a musician and in the theatre. As a filmmaker he has continued to draw upon his musical and theatrical background: writing the scores for almost all his films and adapting several plays for the screen, including Strindberg’s Miss Julie (1999) and Rattigan’s Browning Version (1994).

His American work has included significant critical and commercial successes, particularly Internal Affairs (1990) and Leaving Las Vegas (1995). His films explore unconventional narrative structure and the potential of technological developments for smaller scale productions. He used Super-16mm to shoot Leaving Las Vegas and digital cameras for Timecode (2000), which abandoned editing and split the screen into four quarters, a technique later made famous in the TV series, 24.

Mike is also responsible for the Fig-Rig, a camera stabilisation device for smaller cameras, which is made commercially by the Manfrotto Group.

This article is from the free online

Explore Filmmaking: from Script to Screen

Created by
FutureLearn - Learning For Life

Reach your personal and professional goals

Unlock access to hundreds of expert online courses and degrees from top universities and educators to gain accredited qualifications and professional CV-building certificates.

Join over 18 million learners to launch, switch or build upon your career, all at your own pace, across a wide range of topic areas.

Start Learning now