Director - Atonement | Workshop

In this workshop the first thing we learnt was blocking and how useful and major it is to block out where every crew member will be within a shoot. It's the directors choice to place the crew members in specific places in order to get the right shot. The first thing you should do, before shouting action and start filming, is make sure everyone is present and put them in the places they should be. Once that is done, the director must make sure that the lights are where they should be and that they are on, the actors are stood or sat where they should be, the sound people are ready with the boom mics and the camera is in the correct place.

Within the workshop we also learnt about the different type of two person shots you can have; we experimented with these and saw how they looked through the camera. We tried a tight behind the shoulder shot as well as a wide one and saw how the difference could effect the tone of the scene. We also experimented with the different directions the actor could come in and what camera shot it should be. Through this we found that every angle and direction the actors are sat or come into the shot from could change the tone of the scene.

We then watched a scene from atonement and analyse the way it has been filmed and what tone the different shots created within the scene. We were then given the task to recreate this scene and we would take turns to direct it in the way we wanted. I worked with Nisserin, Ellie and Ellen and I was the camera operator for Nisserin's video and the model for both Ellie and Ellen's videos.

When it came to me directing the scene, I decided to pick several different camera shots and film the whole scene in every shot. This was done so when it came to editing it, I could watch all of the shots and choose which ones I wanted to use and where I wanted to place them in the sequence. I made sure that every shot was different and that they the audio matched up with the mouth movements.

I'm happy with the outcome of the video and I found this workshop very useful in learning the skill of being a director.