Value of the Director

[Nick Griffin]

While I’m not as blunt about who’s in charge as Malcolm says he is, I leave little doubt as to how the process works. Nowhere is this more true than in interviewing talking heads. The client can provide questions either to begin the process or supplement our first draft of them, but the interview portion is mine and mine alone.

I also ask to be the only person in the room during the actual interview but if they insist I limit it to one person who must stand or sit directly behind me. The reason for this, and just about everyone understands it when I explain it, is to prevent what I describe as the “Tricky Dick Nixon look” of eyes darting back and forth because the interviewee is checking the reactions of multiple people in the room. The only thing that creates is lots of unusable footage.

It’s also important for me to build a relationship with the interviewee so that their focus is on just me and my questions. And I also rarely stick to just the pre-written questions. Often the best responses come from a discussion and the re-asking of the same question approached in a different way.

This must be a simpler process for me because while a grip can help set lights, I don’t want or expect him to be in the room during the interview. I also have the boom mic on a stand or a lav mic on the talent that, once set for volume, doesn’t require much adjustment. And one final thought, as the one who will be doing the edit it’s much easier to know when you have what you need versus when to re-ask or re-approach a question.

[Andrew Rendell]

It is the Director’s job to ensure that what you need in the edit in order to tell the story gets filmed and in the edit must oversee how the story is conveyed, taking an overall view when the craft people are consumed by their individual details.