Good stuff from Patrick this past Monday on directing and how important it is to be the leader, troubleshooter and decision maker. It’s a subtle art that requires juggling many things at once and being flexible yet decisive so that everyone on the set knows what’s happening and what’s expected. We reviewed some of the recent issues that we were encountering with our upcoming shoots and discussed how some tough situations were handled. Good learning experience for all.

I also started reviewing my footage from my shoot last week. The exposure and sound were good, as was the acting, but the position of the actors in the frame was not ideal and I learned a few good lessons about what to look for when setting up the frame. (Good to make these mistakes now and learn from them.) Although we spent some time on this in earlier classes with typical booth scenes, where the actors face each other, my set was a little different with the actors side by side. One of the interesting things about shooting a side-by-side dialog is that all the shots have both actors faces in the frame, which requires less editing and potentially fewer cuts. This also enables the viewer to focus on either actor, giving the effect of a more natural dialog.