Director - Jakob Verbruggen

Jakob Verbruggen is a Flemish television and film director who has directed many episodes of The Fall, The Bridge and London Spy. The Fall is a British and Irish Crime drama based around a serial killer who is attacking young women, the local detectives have to work to find the killer before any more people are killed. The show follows the same murder through all the episodes and then is carried on to the second series. 

The Fall:

The are lots of voyeuristic shots in The Fall, for example this shot of the camera looking through a gap in a door opening. This makes it look as if there is someone is spying on the character or they are somewhere they shouldn't be. This also puts the audience in the scene as it puts them in the position of the person spying. 


The scenes located in the police stations are made to look very clinical, this is done by the bright white lighting and the plain, white walls. The scenes that show the killer, for example the murder scene in the first episode is very dark with little lighting, is uses the street lighting form outside and a small table lamp in the room, shadows created by the street lamps cast up on the walls of the bedroom.


I think the director chose to do this  to covey the tone and atmosphere of the scene, and by uses opposites to show the difference in the locations and characters. The ones in the police station showing that it is the place where the good people are and where they help people, the white lighting connoting innocence and the scenes where the lighting is very dark shows that it is dangerous and mysterious, a place that isn't safe and somewhere that the audience should be wary about what might happen, black connoting enigma and death.

The Fall - bedrooms scene where the murder is committed

The Fall - scene in the police station

London Spy:

London Spy is a British television drama starring Ben Whishaw and Edward Holcroft. 'A romance between an MI6 code genius and an ordinary man promises happiness. But tragedy strikes when the spy dies in suspicious circumstances, forcing his lover to pursue the truth behind his death.' - BBC Two

The director specifically choses shots to convey the atmosphere of the show. For example, this shot of Danny (Whishaw) and Alex (Holcroft) where their faces almost fill the whole shot makes the scene feel quite claustrophobic and uncomfortable, portraying how the characters might feel at that moment in time. I like that this shows tells the audience so much about how they are feeling because it means that they don not have to say it. It puts the audience in the position of the characters and really engages then in the story as they feel what the characters feel.

Jakob Vervbruggen's directing style has inspired me to try out different lighting styles and techniques for my productions in order to make the tone and atmosphere obvious to the audience. I also want  to make sure that I carefully choose my shots because in a scene, the right shot can covey lots of different emotions to the audience which then the characters don't have to say.