Judd Apatow I took photos of every possible angle you could have sex in, but then on the day, all of it goes out the window. There’s only so many places you can put the camera for that activity.

Seamus McGarvey We did have rehearsals and to make the actors feel comfortable initially, look at how we might photograph the sex. Also, that suited the first few sex scenes, to have a slight awkwardness to them; the camera would be more at a distance. In the Red Room, when things heat up a little bit, that was less choreographed. Sometimes we would use a remotely operated camerahead so the actors wouldn’t have an operator leaning in.

Adrian Lyne You try and create a situation where there are possibilities. I’ve always thought that sort of grabbed sex is more fun than that statuesque sort of bedroom stuff. So in “Fatal Attraction,” the scene where they [have sex] over the sink, I knew it had humorous possibilities because there was plates and cups in the sink. If you don’t get some humor in, the audience will laugh at you, because they’re nervous watching it.

Jean-Marc Vallée There was no specific choreography, but there’s a way of setting a tone. Restricted crew, it’s just available light where we can move 360 degrees with the camera — this is the intention, and let’s see where it goes from there. [In “Wild”] it wasn’t specifically planned for this guy to take Reese [Witherspoon], to turn her on her back, and take her from behind, but it just happened as we were shooting. And [in “Dallas Buyers Club”] with Matthew [McConaughey], at one point he had a threesome, with two girls in this trailer home with his friend watching him, and he was on fire.

Do you ask for nudity, and then worry about covering it up afterward?

Lyne That’s the best way to do it. [In “Fatal Attraction”] I always remember when Michael Douglas is trying to carry her over her to the bed, and he couldn’t get out of his pants, and he’s having hysterics laughing. And he was naked — well, he had his shirt on. We noticed in the cutting room literally one frame where his testicles were visible. You couldn’t cut it out — it’s very, very brief. [Laughs] I hope Michael will forgive me for saying this.

Image Ruth Wilson and Dominic West in “The Affair.” Credit... Mark Schafer/Showtime

Treem We have actors on our show who have varying relationships to nudity; people have things they will and will not show, and we have to respect that. We had to create sex scenes that looked like we weren’t trying to cover body parts when we were. And — this was a discovery for us — sometimes the sexiest sex scenes, we shot very tight, only the actors’ faces.