What Does a Director Do?

What does a director actually do?

So first off, although I wrote and directed this ad, it was produced by the production company Sparkhouse and the very talented team there, not by my company. So just want to give credit where credit is due before diving in to the main topic of this post.

OK, so right… what does a director even do? For people who are not working in the video production or film industry, I’m sure many of you have wondered what that title actually means. This will definitely be an abbreviated answer because as you might have guessed it’s a huge job and responsibility. But I’m confident it will be helpful to those seeking to learn more.

Think about it this way, the director guides the project creatively from beginning to end. Usually the director is hired by a producer or production company to helm a project. They typically answer to the producer and build a team to work alongside them to deliver a product.

So in pre-production on this ad, I worked on casting, props & wardrobe, the shot list, the shooting schedule, and picking a shooting location. I worked with the producers, the production designer, actors, the Director of Photography, among others to complete this process.

On the shooting day itself (a.k.a. production) we had a crew and team of about 20 people working a twelve hour day to bring the story to life. My job as director was to collaborate with the team to fulfill the goals of the client. For example, when one of the producers came up to me and said, “Hey Eric, we need to get a close-up of the hardware.” I said, “Great. Let’s do it. Rock N’ Roll.” I like to keep things fun on set!

So then I talk to the Director of Photography and the Production Designer and some other members of their departments to figure out — how can we get the best possible shot of the hardware? A starting consensus is arrived at, we get to work, refine, refine, refine, record, cut, and “MOVING ON!” announces the 1st Assistant Director.

A huge part of the job during production is also working with the actors. The soft skills involved in helping them feel comfortable. Also, knowing how to speak to them in order to get the performance the client is looking for, and NOT just saying useless things like “FASTER!” or “smile more” or “give me some more emotion.” Although, I might have been guilty of saying things somewhat similar to that… at times… in the past…

Lastly, the job involves not being a jerk or a dictator. Ultimately, my job is to have a vision and be able to effectively communicate it to everyone working on the project at every step.

Which is a nice segue into the last step of the process — post-production. Here I’ll work with the producers, the editors, the motion graphics artist, the sound designer, and the colorist to create the ad from the footage we captured during production.

As a director, I have worked in each of these post-production roles and know how to communicate with them. It requires a technical understanding of their process and using correct terminology so that everyone is on the same page/headed in the same direction… and that is the client’s direction.

I am then sent a rough cut and I give notes. Tick, tock, time passes and I receive another cut to review. I give more notes. Eventually, we call the cut final and then it moves to a sound designer and it’s color graded and motion graphics are added. I’ll give notes on those processes. When I feel confident we’ve delivered the product the client wants, then it is sent to the client for their review and approval.

To boil it all down to a simple way of thinking about it — usually the director is the creative leader of the video production team and the producer coordinates all the logistics.

Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or are interested in upping your video production “game.”

You can also learn more about video production by following my LinkedIn page or by visiting my website. Thanks for reading!