What a director does

[yagfxg33k]

On my first film, I worked closely with my producer. She was there during casting - During location scouting. She was the one that I discussed all of ther logisitics of the production with. I looked at and discussed every line item in the budget and production schedule. I added and removed items with the producer.

With regard to the DP, I storyboarded the entire film. Every shot. Every angle. I used Lightwave to do this and then using all of that I was able to animate it and make a previsualization of the entire film. I then went through the animatic of the film with the DP and we added and removed things where appropriate.

The DP made the shot list from my animatics. On the set, I knew what the first couple of setups were but after that I depended on the AC to manage the list so that when I called for the next setup they let me know what it was in detail.

I think that how you work as a director is a very personal choice. What works for one won't work for another. Some directors are not visually oriented yet make competent films with a good DP taking that aspect of the production.

Robert Rodreguiz is the DP and camera operator and editor on his films. I also edit my own material.

 

[brianluce]

My opinion is that there's no set answer because the relative technical expertise of individual directors varies greatly. Some very good directors are basically acting coaches and don't know squat about photography--other directors are ex-dp's (I think joel schumacher was a dp...). The less a director knows about tech stuff, the more dependent he'll be on the dp.