Directions Unit: Masterclass with Farren Blackburn



Today we had a masterclass with the British award-winning director (film and TV) and screenwriter Farren Blackburn.

Blackburn won, in 2012, the BAFTA TV award for Best Drama Series for "The Fades", a British supernatural drama TV series. Thos opened doors in America for him. He then went to direct 2 episodes of "Daredevil" for Marvel/Netflix, he was the previous lead director on "The Interceptor" for the BBC. He has also been involved in the successful crime series "Luther", the adventure series and episodes of "Doctor Who"including one of their Christmas specials.

In the beginning, film making started off as a dream and he didn't think too much about it realistically,  but decided in the end to take a master degree in Film at Bournmouth University. When finished, he went on to becoming a trainee on a two-year contract with BBC, where he would meet new contacts and job shadow people. When the two years as a trainee was over he decided to leave as he didn't feel that staying at the BBC would help him making dramas and films.

Since Blackburn didn't want to be a runner he decided to broaden his experience by making low budget short films and even went so far as to take up acting workshops to learn how it is to be directed. In this he learned how to be both a good director and a bad director.  He would sit at home and watch films with the sound turned off to better focus on the directing, and not just depend on dialogue. To get in contact with the right people Blackburn watched the credits on a lot of films and shorts to see who had produced, which company was it for etc and make contact with them to show his work.













When having meetings to discuss new projects, Blackburn often uses mood boards to show how he wants things to look like and refers to different movies, but he never uses stills from movies to say exactly how he'll do it. Another thing Blackburn doesn't do is use shot-lists or storyboards unless it's something big, visual effect. "I know my blocking and I know my action. I know what I want when I go on the floor and work with the actors, but I'm also flexible if they have any inputs. The reason why I don't do shotlist and storyboards is to avoid being locked to a set up."This is very unique for a director, as storyboarding can be key. I myself will either storyboard or create a shot list just so I have a rough idea of what looks like what, and to avoid missing out on any vital visuals.

Blackburn said towards the end of his presentation that he doesn't think any director has a specific trademark or  signature voice.  He said: "I used to worry about that in the beginning of my career since I felt that I needed to have a trademark to be a director. But I think that trademark and that "voice" is something subconscious that you probably won't even know that you have before you have done loads and loads of work." He believes that a lot of your signature voice is portrayed in your work through your own character and what you are like as a person.

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