I believe everything has a purpose — in people, and in movies.

A director is something like a quarterback: dependent on a whole team around them, but ultimately the one who has to call the play when everything goes wrong, which it inevitably will. That means being decisive, trusting your own vision, and finding a reason behind every choice — camera placement, angle, lighting, the work done with actors — so that the audience interprets the scene exactly as intended. I love watching films with friends who aren't filmmakers and asking how a given scene made them feel, then going back to study what the director actually did to elicit that. Was it the cutting, a dutch tilt, the score, the blocking? Every element of a shot contributes to how it's perceived, and I find real pleasure in tracing a feeling back to the specific decision that created it. I listen closely to what my DP, AD, or producer bring to the table, but at the end of the day I need to believe in the purpose behind every shot before I commit to it.

Take the opening shot of my student short Double Shot: a tracking shot of a girl's boots walking down the street while her voice plays on a phone call, before we ever cut to her face. It's a small choice doing two jobs at once. Narratively, it withholds her identity while still telling us exactly who she is — kinetic, always moving toward something — which prompts the audience to wonder where is she going? Practically, the film is structured like a time loop, in the vein of Palm Springs or Groundhog Day, so I needed a clean, exactly-repeatable image to mark the start of each cycle. A shot of feet walking is precise and easy to match identically every time, in a way a fuller shot never could be.

Like every director, I look back and always see the things I'd do differently — she could've moved a touch faster, for one — but every choice in that shot, and in everything I make, has a reason behind it I can stand behind, and the audience’s experience in mind.