Directions | Farren Blackburn

Today we were lucky to have a visit from Farren Blackburn, who has directed for Daredevil, Doctor Who, Luther, and many more series'.

I found Farren very interesting to listen to, as he had a lot of experience in working with producers such as Steven Moffat - being a fan of Doctor Who and not a fan of Moffat, I was particularly interested in how Farren described his experience with working with him.  I was surprised at how Farren was left only two weeks of a six week schedule to run through the script and find locations etc.

Farren also showed us a clip from Daredevil that he directed and I loved how it was shot: using a single slow panning dolly shot to show so much action really resonated with me.  He explained that they cut out a section of the car that the camera was in to make room for the camera operator AND the sound person which surprised me and highlighted how difficult this sort of shot can be to achieve.

Overall, Farren seemed to be a very down-to-earth guy and it was refreshing to meet a director with so much work to do to be so laid back, which eases my nerves about directing my own work somewhat.  I found the whole talk very insightful and could probably have sat and listened for another hour or so.