This was my first time to be the director for the class exercise. It was a challenge and taught me a lot about the collaborative work. 

Robin provided two short scripts and divided us into two big groups. It is a good idea that we would switch in the halfway to film both scripts which gives the chance to watch different interpretations. I always choose not to be the director in precious exercises because I am a bit scared I couldn’t handle the situation and don’t prefer to make all the decisions. However, other group members nominated me and I thought it was the time to have a try. 

The editing suite drama needs to be filmed on two locations. We went to communicate with the tech counter and decided to go to building 9 first. After all the equipments were set up, here came the first decision: where do I want the camera to be placed? My original opinion was to film from the third person perspective. Patrick will sit at the left back corner while the camera is at the right side, and when he slides to open the door, the camera would follow his movement to the door and focus on Matt’s face. Jackson and Aria suggested that we could do a reverse shot from each character’s point of view which was also good. Finally, we tried both ways. This was a bit problematic that we didn’t have time to discuss all these details which meant we needed to do it during the filming. Sometimes when my group members demonstrated their thoughts, they were already directing. It’s definitely not saying that they are doing my job, on the contrary, I felt I hadn’t done enough. The reflective point is that I should feel more confident to make decisions and listen to good suggestions at the same time. While moving back to the tech counter, I was picturing the following scenes in my brain and the second half filming became much better. 

Another point I would like to improve is the communication with the camera operator. If I haven’t had a completed idea or my instruction is not clear, Nate would be very confused about what he needs to do at the moment. Otherwise, if he has his own idea, he sometimes doesn’t explain too much. Further, we were using handheld which meant I couldn’t see the image during the actual film. This is our first cooperation so that we don’t have the tacit understanding. From the more practical perspective, we could both express our thoughts in detail to reach an agreement.