Directing is mostly two jobs: deciding what the film is, and making it possible for other people to do their part well. Very little of it is standing behind a camera looking thoughtful.
Know what every scene is about
Before the day, write one sentence for each scene: what does this person want here, and what is stopping them? If you know that, you can answer almost any question an actor asks you. If you do not, you will find yourself saying "just do it naturally", which is the least useful sentence in film-making.
How to give a note an actor can use
A good note is playable. It gives someone something to do rather than something to be.
- Instead of "be angrier" — try "this time, you have already decided to leave".
- Instead of "more emotional" — try "you are trying very hard not to let her see this".
- Instead of "that was wrong" — try "that was good, let us try one where…".
- Instead of "say it sadder" — try "she is not listening to you".
Give one note at a time. Three notes at once produces a performance where the actor is visibly remembering instructions.
Watch the actor, not the screen
This is why having someone else on camera matters. If you spend the take staring at a small screen checking framing, you are not watching the performance, which is the only thing you are uniquely there to judge. Trust your camera operator to tell you if the frame was wrong.
Running the day
- Say what is happening and when. "We are doing the kitchen scene until about one, then breaking for lunch, then the hallway." People relax when they know the shape of the day.
- Rehearse once without recording. It solves blocking problems for free and lets everyone find the rhythm.
- Announce the roll clearly. "Quiet please — rolling — action." Slightly theatrical, genuinely useful: everyone knows precisely when to stop moving.
- Say what you got. After a take, tell people what worked before what did not. It is not flattery; it tells them what to keep.
- Know when to stop. Performance quality usually peaks around take three or four and declines after. If it is not working by take six, change something — the line, the blocking, the note — rather than repeating.
- Say thank you, out loud, to everyone, at the end of the day. Most of these people are there for free.
Things will go wrong
The location will be double booked. Someone will not turn up. It will rain. A neighbour will start drilling. This happens on every film ever made, including ones with budgets larger than a house.
Your job in that moment is not to fix it perfectly, it is to decide quickly. Everyone is watching to see whether the day continues, and a confident second-best decision is worth far more than a perfect one arrived at forty minutes later. This is what the cut-down shot list from step 3 is for.
Directing an accessible set
- Ask everyone, before the day, what they need. Ask in writing, ask privately, and ask as a routine question rather than a special favour. "Is there anything I should know to make the day work for you?" gets better answers than "do you have any special requirements?".
- Believe the answer and do not ask for justification. Nobody should have to explain a diagnosis to be given a chair.
- Schedule breaks and take them. Announce them. A break nobody feels able to ask for is not a break.
- Give notes where the actor is. Do not make someone cross a room to hear a direction. Go to them.
- Make it easy to stop. Tell the whole cast and crew at the start: anyone can call a pause at any time, for any reason, and nobody has to say why. Then honour it the first time somebody uses it, visibly and without irritation. That first time sets whether anyone ever uses it again.
- Do not direct people about their own disability. If an actor is disabled and the scene involves that, ask rather than instruct. They know how it works; you are guessing.
- Support workers and interpreters are crew. Feed them, brief them, put them in the schedule and thank them in the credits.
Watch it back before you wrap
Before anyone goes home, watch one take from each scene with headphones on. It is the last cheap moment to notice that the microphone was off, the focus was on the wall, or a whole angle is missing. Reshooting five minutes before wrap costs five minutes. Reshooting next week costs the whole day again.
Before you move on
- You have one useable take of every shot on the list
- You have watched something back from each scene, with headphones
- Nobody left the day feeling ignored or pushed past their limit
- You have everybody's name spelled correctly for the credits
- The footage is backed up before anyone goes to bed