This is really difficult:
I have gotten rid of Adam Wingard simply because, I may love his work in The Guest (2014) and You're Next (2011), but he is essentially still a fairly fledgling director who doesn't have enough of a trademark style to use.
So it is down to 2 Directors:
Alfonso Cuaron and Nicolas Winding-Refn
This is so difficult! I would ideally love to use inspiration from both, however they are very distinct from each other. Also the rules are to choose one director.
Cuaron is a well established director with quite a few pieces of work from which to understand a style and trademark of his. My trouble at the moment with using Cuaron is that it would be a challenge for whoever is my DoP (Probably Plamen as we have chatted about it already) as it would require doing long takes using the fig rig. Realistically this is something I am thinking that I maybe want to save for myself to do in the realms of cinematography.
I had an idea that I could do one of Cuaron's long takes with a fig rig and myself on rollerblades, however Plamen informs me he is not too adept. This is the reason I would possibly like to save this for myself to attempt, but I think I will get the opinion of my tutor first.
This clip from Y Tu Mama Tambien shows Cuaron's bold use of the camera, the way he will follow an actor instead of using cuts as often as other directors might.
Winding-Refn is currently one of my favourite directors due to his amazingly stylised shots used especially in a night time setting. He is a Director that uses tracks a lot moving the camera slowly most of the time. One thing that really stands out for me is the use of music and sound in his movies, he uses moody, dark and sometimes terrifying music (recently teaming up with Cliff Martinez) as well as harsh and from time to time unrealistic to the situation sound design. So if I am to do Refn I will have to focus on sound and lighting as something important of his style.
I think this clip perfectly epitomises Refn's use of lighting as well as music to create a mood in his films. Also on another note Refn's films have a lot of gratuitous violence in them as demonstrated here.
I have to mention as well especially in this film his stories are a bit confusing and don't really make sense, but they are visual journeys.
FINALLY DECIDED
Possibly made this a bit more difficult than it should have been, but I have finally come to a decision. I thought I would get a couple of opinions about my last 2 and so after the advice to pick Alfonso Cuaron, I decided to ignore that and choose Nicolas Winding-Refn.
