Major Production Unit: Research - Directing Research

Having researched into how to direct and communicate to actors, I looked into a different part of directing: the visuals.

To begin: I watched some of the films listed in my Director's Statement (Birdman, Heat, and La Haine) to see how the Directors shot their visions. I focused on camera angles and ways to tell a story visually rather than using dialogue to force it.

One sequence in Heat shows the protagonist driving down a motorway after a suspect, the use of quick edits of the road, passing traffic and rushing noises create a disorientating and confusing effect to create a sense of the fast speeds he is driving at.



A couple of weeks later The Revenant was released which was directed by the same person who helmed Birdman. I went to see the film and noticed that several scenes consisted of the protagonist making their way through some woods cautiously. I paid close attention to these sequences as Grit contains a hunt that takes place in Scene 36 and was curious to see how Iñârritu created tension through the framing and sound.

Tom Hardy in The Revenant (2015)
http://www.comingsoon.net/movies/news/611517-the-revenant-still-not-done-shooting-dicaprios-character-says-almost-nothing

In Grit there are several scenes with three interacting characters, framing a three-shot is something I wasn't entirely sure about as it becomes very easy to cross the line. Birdman tackles this scenario and I made note of how to potentially achieve this.

Still from Birdman [Iñârritu, 2014]

By making the triangle more compact, the camera can get closer in and make the shot seem smaller than it actually is. With three people in one shot, the frame can get busy but the smaller triangle helps with establishing space between the characters and if the camera stays on one side (like it does in the scene the still is taken from) then the line will not be crossed.

On top of visual research, I conducted some written ones to find more on the process and responsibilities of directing.

http://filmg.co.uk/files/downloads/Directing-Resource-Notes.pdf

In Directing: Film Techniques and Aesthestics, author Michael Rabiger explains the process of filming a take:

Directing: Film Techniques and Aesthestics [Rabiger, 2013]