The director is the one responsible for overseeing and controlling creative aspects of a film under the producer. They will often direct the film into their certain vision, guiding the looks, emotion and decide what the audience gains from the experience. They will decide the majority of camera angles, lens effects and lighting with the help of the crew. They turn the script into a shot by shot sequence.
They will also coordinate the actors moves and lines appropriately. They are usually very creative people with a confident vision of the production and be very familiar with all aspects of production, including the technical side.
'There are the main creative force in the making of films, television, plays and shows'
Directors do not work a regular work week. During the making of a movie, a film director may begin work in the early ours of the morning and work late into the night. Television directors may start even earlier. The work is strenuous and requires a great deal of time and dedication. Directors may be unemployed for long periods. However, the opening of the production can offer a great deal of satisfaction.
Our first task set was to produce a chase scene. We were given one hour to film it and limited time to edit it together. It was to be roughly a minute long. My team consisted of me, Alex Duthie, Tom Hughes and Danny Duckworth.
Pre Production
First of all we chose our roles. I volunteered to be the Director and the team was happy with that so I was the director. Alex and Tom both were both confident from the start they wanted to be actors so they were our two actors, the chaser and the runner. Alex was the runner and Tom was the chaser. Danny was then happy to be the camera man and had some experience of filming before.
We also had a quick brainstorm session to decide a rough plot, script and some parts of the chase sequence. We decided to make it a bit of a comedy but also make it fast paced and entertaining. We all worked well as a team doing this and there were no disagreements. We then made a very short production schedule. We also decided on a good soundtrack to use, being 'Duel of Fates' from Star Wars, The Phantom Menace.
Production
We knew we had very little time to film so we tried to get as many shots right first time as we could. If there was a dodgy shot, we would agree to do it again and sometimes I told the team to do the same shot but slightly differently, so we could choose the best one. The lack of time stressed us out a bit and we very rushed, but I kept calm and knew we would finish just in time. We finished with a few minutes to go and then we went back and filmed another shot again. We didn't encounter many problems, but one big problem was one of our shots had a mirror in which we didn't foresee as we did not check out the location beforehand, which would clearly show the cameraman, so we changed the shot around a bit.
Post Production
We tried to edit the shots together as smooth as possible and changed it around a lot to fit the soundtrack well. The two actors edited it together and I had a little experience editing so I helped edit it together as well.
All in all I feel we worked very well as a team and was very happy with our performance working under pressure. I feel the team roles were well suited to our abilities. Below is our finished product.
