Director's Statement

Directors Statement:

This blog entry will form my Directors statement. In which I will be breaking down my production and explaining each creative decision in relation to the following catagories:

• Casting

• Locations

• Production/costume design

• Sound design

• Camera approach

• Mood/tone/visual style 

• Editing

For this project I was tasked with choosing a particular director to research and emulate. After considering variouse options I soon settled on the "master of suspense" Alfread Hitchcock. He has a huge number of films that I could have chosen, I knew the film Psycho very well, but being perhaps his most famouse films, I instead opted for the well known, yet slightly underated film "Vertigo" since I had a wide variety of scenes (dialouge based and non dialouge based) that I could recreate while bringing my own take and style to them. 


After picking my film and my chosen scenes (I chose to recraete teh meeting between Gavin and Scottie as well as the gallary scene, since both were prime examples of how hitchcock, blended blocking, lighting dialouge and soundtrack in perfect balance.) the next thing to think about was casting. 

I put out an advert on two different websites; "Casting Call Pro" and "Star Now" so that I could get a large and mixed pool of responses, but ultimately "Casting Call" proved to be the most effective. I received a reasonable number of responses to my add and I was able to successfully cast one of my roles this way. However It proved more effective for me to email actors directly. This way I had a little bit more controll over who I cast, since I could look at actors head shots before messaging them to see if they fit the part. I was also able to watch a variety of show reels to see who could give the best performance and eded up selecting my cast based on a mixture of theese two elements. 


When it came to choosing my location I thought about my requirements carefully. I refered to my research in to "Inside No.9" where the director stated in an interveiw that it i sless about the spce, and more about what you do with it. I contatced a number of local locations and went to scout the ones I thought would fit my scene best. I eventually settled for a medium sized space for both parts of my scene, this way I had the room to move and block characters to be on multiple levles and create a tightly knit environment but not so big that dialouge and atmosphere were lost in the space. 

Talking to Steeve Finn I learned that as a Director you are often thrown in at the deep end and have to adapt to your situation. So when in my firts location I ended up having to move  loads of chairs so I stacked them up on one side of the room, this way they were mostly out of shot but when they were seen I framed the camera so that the location remianed as beleivable as possible. And in the second location there wasn't a painting that matched the one in my film so I encouperated the books and windows present in the location, in to my scene so that the narative still made sense. 


In terms of production design I put careful thought in to this. Looking at all of Hitchcocks films and analysing his directing style I knew he was known for elabourately detailed set design. While I couldn't get it exactly the smae as when the film was made (since it was set in the USA) I was careful to make it as authentic looking as possible. I sent my actors detailed reference images of the costume and props they would need. When filming I was careful to remove as many clues to modern times as possible, and added subtle details like fountain pens glasses of water etc. todress and fill the scene a little more and give it an authentic feel. 

When it came to camera approach, our modern cameras are capable of a lot more than those used durign Hitchcocks time as a director. So to acount for this I tried to keep things as raw and realistic as possible. I went mostly handheld with my shots as hitchcock would have done since tripods and dolly's would be too heavy to move around everywhere. From looking at shows like black mirror and stranger things (which are great at creating suspense) I found that tracking characters and keeping them as the main focus is a great way to build tension since you only see what i want you to see and are left to wounder what will happen next. So I tended to stick to the 180 degree rule and only use reverse shots when necessary. Ocasionally using the blocking of my characters to establish a new space that the camera could operate in (Hitchcock is known for breaking or bending rules such as the 180 degree rule so I atempted to emulate this once or twice).



To create an effective suspenseful mood and tone I tended to stick as close as possible t hitchcocks style but added some modern influence. When Hitchcock was filming lighting equipment was not as efficient as it is today meaning a lot of light was lost in wide spaces. Becasue of this I tended to stick to natural lighting as it created a realsitic and beleivable atmosphere. But from analysing shows like "Black Mirror" and looking at the behind the scenes of "Inside No. 9" they demonstrate that lighting is often most effectivly used in close up's so that you can pick out the details on a characters face and create a different atmosphere depending on what filters you used. As a result I used a yellow tinted light on several of my close ups to symbolise the mental fog/deterieration of my characters (Hitchcock used blue light in his film as a metaphore for transformation, but following that thought it proved more visually effective to use a yellow tint).

Durign the edit is where I really got to generate a suspenseful atmosphere with my choices of shots and effects. I intended to use more wide shots than close up's since research suggests re establishing thespace is key for creating tension between characters. While Hitchcock was renowned for his film scores, they wearn't present in every scene, as a result I often replaced music with effective sound design. Ensuring a buzz track played at all times was a tip I picked up from my workshops with Steeve Finn, and looking at contextual sources I found it useful to enhance natural sounds e.g. cars footsteps clocks etc. while ensuring they are backgrounded (slightly muffled) but present at all times. I also encourperated some Rhythmic editing techniques which is esential for scenes where music has a large presence, I made sure to cut at exaclty the right time while limiting the audinces view as the music built up just as hitchcock would.