Thanks for the question, Joe. I write AND I direct to elicit your engagement with the world my actors and crew are creating on screen. I hope to lock you in. Yes I want you to feel things but more so I want you to lean in and to ask questions. Sometimes it is not merely one emotion in a scene or sequence but several and they might be contradictory. I have learned this way of working from watching masters I admire. Some masters have been my teachers in person. Many more have been my teachers as I absorb their great work and dissect it. In practice, I write describing what I hope to see and hear. I hit carriage returns when I think I will cut to a new shot and then I type what I think I will see and hear in the next shot. It sounds quite simple and it is. I rarely use film terms like EXTREME CU or WIDE ON, etc. If it is a wide shot I see, I describe the trees and buildings (economically). The implication is clear. If it is a close up I imagine, I describe the light in a character's eyes or the way they told their head. When I direct, I don't expect all the things I wrote to be followed literally by my actors or even myself. Instead I expect myself to adapt my original intentions and plans on paper to take advantage of what is actually happening. That is not to say I abandon my intentions. It is like when you are driving somewhere. You make a plan on how to get there but then you hit traffic or a storm, or see a side road you want to explore. I feel I wouldn't be alive if I just stayed on my original route. So I adapt to what is happening. But I do this without losing the goal of where I am driving. If I am too hung up on getting things exactly as I imagined them alone at my desk, I risk missing magic that I could capture, magic that the light of the day might bring or my actor's instincts or they way they vibe with another character. So, I see writing as writing. But I see Directing as another pass of writing. And editing and mixing as a last pass of writing. If that makes any sense.
