Week Six

DIRECTINIG

The producer offered me the directing role and I accepted. It was difficult at first trying to function without my laptop. But the supplier guaranteed that it would arrive this week. I’m relived to say it did and only a day later then promised.

This time around I undertook a lot more responsibility behind the scenes. I chased up the producer for details of meetings with performers and script progress. I wanted all the nuts and bolts of the projected laid out in front of me. Things didn’t really unfold like that. We held a production meeting on Monday. Which I attend during my lunchbreak from work. Sadly, not everyone from the team could be in attendance but we made significant progress nonetheless.

I broke up the lyrics to the song Jolene and assigned different shots for each camera. I was hesitant to use the handheld camera in the studio set up. I mentioned my concerns to the producer. As I wanted to be cautious of breaking the 180-degree rule with two performers on stage. I would have been happy using just the three cameras, but I wanted to ensure that that was a role for everybody on the production team. 

Against my better judgement, I planned out a shot list including all four cameras. I though that if we had to use the handheld, then we might as well try and use them almost exclusively for close-up shots. The only reason to have a handheld camera is to utilize a range of motion not capable with a tripod.

On the day, we decided to keep camera two static, so it didn’t have or need an operator. What we should have done was scrapped camera four altogether. But hindsight is a disturbingly wonderful thing. The first two takes went well, despite a few communication errors. For example, I asked the floor manager to move the performers to stage but they didn’t hear or respond. The executive producer then asked me to ask them to move. As they were sat talking just off shot when they could just as easily be sat on scene chatting whilst we get all the equipment prepared. I already knew this and had already asked for them to be moved a few minutes before I myself was asked. After giving another prompt to the floor manager, the performers moved on scene. We made the two adjustments recommend by our producer and began rehearsing for a live broadcast.

The executive producer wanted to change most of the shots on camera four, opting for a wider angle which was beautifully composed framing one of the performers silhouettes in the background. Yet, all the combined changes to the shot list at the last minute effected our sense of rhythm and perhaps to some extent our confidence as well. We were running out of time and as such were not permitted to live broadcast directly. Instead, we, the production crew were relegated to the role of audience. Which as director is entirely my fault. 

Maybe I should have fought against changes and kept things exactly as we had rehearsed and gone through during the previous two takes. We were just developing a sense of rhythm in time with the music and the lyrics. Now we have the off-site shoot scheduled for Saturday with a second shoot in the recording studio booked for Tuesday morning. Hopefully the production and post-production work will go according to plan before Thursday’s session.