With my film being picked, it made sense that I was put forward to act as the director for this film. I’m very happy with this decision as this is the most likely route I want to go down post-uni. Being the director would be great experience and something I was very much looking forward to. Not only was I able to expand my knowledge on other areas of production. As I would have a say in each ‘department’ of pre production, this meant I could learn about other roles that I may have not attempted at before which would gear me up in the future to be a more well-rounded filmmaker.
Being the director, I had the most responsibilities out of everyone in the crew. Even though I had ‘won’ the panel over, I still had to get everyone on board with the idea. I felt like the type of director I am helped with a lot of this process. I’m fully aware that I don’t have the most knowledge on all the areas of film so I was more than happy to see what people thought about different sections. For example, I don’t know much about the technology side of filmmaking so not only will I gain experience of being a director. I’ll vicariously learn as others learn. I guess you could describe that I was going for a more ‘approachable’ director rather than a Stanley Kubrick-esque dictator director. A benefit of this was that I hope the crew would feel more included in the project
I wouldn’t say that I am directly inspired by other directors. I feel like directing is one of the hardest jobs to be consistent (not talking about consistently bad). I believe Wes Anderson is one of the most consistent directors; he found his style and has perfected it. Not only in live action but also crossing said style over to animation flawlessly. This concept of finding that style and ‘nailing’ it in every project they carry out is something I really strive to achieve and I hoped that this film could be the start of something. What I envision a director to be is the person takes up responsibility of the whole production. Even though there are producers, the director has to motivate the crew to get the film to completion. So they, themselves have to be motivated for the project. Another way I see what a director’s role involves is that they must be the sort of the person that has all the answers to questions about the film. This meant I had to know everything about what was required for the film. This is where the decision that I was also going to be writing the script was going to help out.
The screenplay is obviously an integral part to a film. Not only can a script be used in the most literal sense to be used directly in a film but they can also been used to either assist or actually be the pitch for when trying to acquire funding for a project. I had actually written the very first scene for my pitch to try to give the general sense of what the film was going to be like for the panel. This meant that from the very beginning I started to know pretty concisely how I wanted my film to go. This can tie back in with having the role of director as if I was confidence with what I wanted for the film then I could give more definite answers when a member of the crew asks me a question about the project. In a way, the pitch had helped out with writing the scripts. I learned more about the type of feedback I was going to get from each character. I didn’t want the father to be the ‘enemy’ of the film, he was just a person who thought he was doing right as he is just repeating the mentality that he was brought up with. This is why throughout the script the Father is always trying to reason with Kenny. I did this as it can be frustrating when you watch a film a person acts without motivation. If you were to ask said character why they did a certain action then they wouldn’t be able to answer. Personally, this doesn’t make sense. This is why that whenever the characters acted or agreed to something, there was reasoning behind it. That reasoning could either be something obvious or something that has been hinted. But it’s there regardless.
If you were to find more about me as a director or scriptwriter can I suggest looking at my CWBP folder.