AMPI Advanced: Directing Workshop was led by Jonas Rothlaender and took place in Design Museum Helsinki. It focused almost entirely on the very foundation of cinema: How can I express what I want to tell with (moving) images? And (how) does the audience perceive or understand it?

Cinema is the only art form that is working without any kind of sketch or draft of the finished piece. But often, after we finish a film, we realize that certain things don’t work or are perceived completely different then what we aimed for. Therefore we might re-shoot certain scenes or do screenings with a test-audience in order to express what we really want to tell. Sometimes we’re able to fix these problems and sometimes not. Film usually is too expensive to have the freedom to experiment.

In our workshop, we wanted to explore the freedom of re-shooting a film in order to understand better what we can do to better to express ourselves in our work.

The goal of the workshop was to have every participant shoot two versions of their short film within the week of the workshop. The participants were asked to write a script for a 5-minute short film that can be produced in one day of shooting. Each one of them was entirely responsible for the planning, producing and finalizing the film/exercise. The topic of films was My biggest fear.

The participants had individual appointments with Jonas well ahead of the workshop in order to discuss the script, give feedback and recommendations. During the week of the workshop, they shot and edited the first version of the film. Afterwards, they discussed and analyzed it thoroughly so that they could re-shoot the film with their takeaways and feedback from Jonas and the other participants in order to shape what they wanted to express with that film. Later, they presented the second version of the films and discuss the changes and the final outcome.

Participants: Támara Aalto / Daniel Mayer / Leandro Lefa