Blog site for the production company Sunspot Pictures consisting of general industry opinions, production experiences, writing/shooting tips & tricks, intros, events, and notes on business & networking.
For most professions, you can make a strong argument for and against micro-management; but when it comes to film, an effective director is not a micro-manager. He or she should not and can not get too absorbed by any one of their responsibilities on set, or else all other elements will be in danger of drifting from the director's vision. This is one of the most important lessons I've learned on the job.
It can be a hard habit to break for an independent director. Not too long ago, even though Nick and I had an experienced AD on set, I kept running out of the video village to chase down and re-arrange the background actors. I didn't even notice what I was doing until Trina reminded me: "Use your AD!" -- "Whoops! You're right!"
A director is responsible for so much at the same time -- in real time -- bound to a schedule that sprints but never exhales -- responsible for things like,
Making sure all elements of production are consistent with his or her overall vision -- acting, lighting, camera movement, set design, sound elements, costume, SPFX;
Contextualizing shots and performance in real time;
Extracting believable performances from the actors;
Quality control;
Strong creative guidance;
Captain the set and motivate the crew;
All this while paying close attention to what Martin Scorsese describes as "knowing exactly what you want and being able to change it according to the circumstances, or taking advantage of something more interesting. [...] Being able to know what is essential, what you absolutely can not change, mustn't change, and what you can be more flexible on."
It's a minor miracle any movie gets made, but for a movie to be made well, a director must focus clearly on all aspects, made possible only by a crew that can be trusted with the details -- a script supervisor, 1st AD, DP, Production Designer, Costume Designer, great actors (not to mention a magnificent UPM making it all possible).
The trap is getting absorbed in a single issue because any one of these components is lacking or completely missing. It's a perpetuating problem. Thought given to that continuity problem that a script supervisor should be concentrating on, is a thought that could have been some amazing visual that will never be improvised. Focus on an actress that needs extensive coaching on set, is focus distracted from other actors who need less coaching but coaching nonetheless. -- The difference between a mediocre scene and good scene, a good film, and an inspired film are overlooked mistakes and details, and great ideas that never had a chance to be imagined.
Use the resources you've got and do pre-production right to avoid these distractions. Take the time to find the right crew, crew you can trust to focus on the details, while you focus on the bigger picture. Hire actors you can be confident in; collaborators who aren't just there to do exactly what you say (but will do what you say if you ask nicely). As Clint Eastwood says, 95% of his job is simply picking the right actor -- I'm sure the same goes for his crew.
Low budget independent filmmakers often take pride in wearing all the hats. They see AD and script supervisors as luxuries. Why not just work a little harder and save on budget? But until you fully utilize these roles, until you trust your crew; you'll bend over backwards, but you won't fulfill your full potential as a director or make your film the best film that it can be.
Your head is in the minutia, in the scenes, the characters, the dialogue, the setting, the visual charisma of the thing, and then someone asks you "So what's your movie about?"...
For a screenwriter (and just about anyone else hocking their Hollywood wares to People of Influence) the place where unbridled belief in one's self meets the wrecking ball is the pitch. Ask that ultra-confident filmmaker how he or she feels after that pitch. Either the listener was unfair and mean, or that filmmaker is at the onset of an existential crisis... maybe both.
"I know," you console them, "talent is what really matters."
Of course it does. But how does talent help when you're pitching to the most disinterested person in the world? (Who you will inevitably pitch to).
Me, and almost everyone seeking some fated place in the film industry will say talent trumps everything. It relieves the swelling, relieves the itching, and it relieves the pain. It brings a Cinderella element of fairness and order to the process. Here I toil and nobody sees that secretly, underneath it all, I am indeed a princess. The only problem is everyone who says this assumes they have that talent, so in spite of a limiting statement like "talent above everything," everyone must have talent.
We're not walking bags of haloed talent, we're storytellers. Screenwriters, producers, actors and directors alike. Regardless of the medium or the historic era, story-tellers tell stories to people, and fundamentally this takes guts and bravado; interrupting someone's attention and commanding their imagination with the power of your technique, your style and your personality, until hopefully they thank you for the experience. It's an illusion to think that you have the luxury of anonymity in the me-space of the darkened corner of your room behind your desk. You're a storyteller mate, act like one.
So your head is in the minutia, in the scenes, the dialogue, the setting, and then someone asks you "What is your movie about?"
Scenario #1:
Uhhhh... (You're using this time to remember some semblance of a pitch you've put together.). -- ok -- you've got something. And you begin sputtering, but their eyes are already dead. They no longer care. Most of all, you haven't lived up to your image. They see the truth of the thing, and they're wondering if she's such a story teller, why can't she tell a story? -- maybe that's what they're concentrating on while you're playing hopscotch with your plot.
Scenario #2:
You start reading some script you've developed in your head with pinpointed, monotonic accuracy. The listener senses an advertisement and they tune you out. They try to contort their face with half-hearted interest, busier thinking "Holy shit, this person is actually trying to pitch me right now... I can't believe this is happening. Are they embarrassed?" than they are actually hearing anything you say.
A storyteller is a leader, and leaders lead with confidence. If guts and bravado are the traits of a storyteller, confidence is his mark. A lack of confidence distracts attention away from the story. Confidence leads the listener into thinking whatever this guy says must be great.
What do I mean by confidence? Take Scenario #3:
You're prepared and you're not reading a script. Now your listener is the problem, because your listener doesn't give a damn about movies and they really don't give a damn about your story.
Why pitch someone who clearly isn't interested?
--How is it any different than hitting line drives and loading up the bases when you're already down two outs? Or any different than trying or even doing well in the face of a hard or unlikely situation? It's Tiger Woods playing his greatest first round at the Masters when everyone wants him to fail, and everyone expects him to do poorly because he really ought to be playing distracted. But he's not distracted. He's MORE focused. Imagine if that's how you pitched?
That's where impressions are made, where Cinderella stories are born. Embrace the disinterested listener. Lead them. Don't let them lead you to soft spoken timidity, embarrassment, or shamed apologies. Lead with your confidence! They won't do the work for you, nor should they.
Know what movie your movie is. Don't hesitate to be a storyteller. Act like you're in control and they will follow. Leave the talent for everyone else.
A good movie can never be credited as anything but the sum of its equally important artistic contributions. For those of us making independent films; whether it be shorts, features, web series or scene studies, it's important to understand where and how our budgets and production value can be stretched for FREE by simply utilizing smart film making techniques. A scene filmed one way might feel cheap, but filmed another way feels dynamic and up on par with the best of Spielberg or Scorsese. Of course, this means all sorts of thought and planning must precede the actual production.
A saying I have found myself repeating when meeting with new Directors and DP's is, "the script is for the actors, the subtext is for the camera". What I mean by this is: the way a scene moves, the way the colors and exposure and geometry of the environment lead your eye is something of great importance when it comes to connecting with characters and emotion in any movie. It is beyond me how any director can forsake this and leave it all in the hands of the DP because, as much as having your actors nail their lines, it's all tied into the telling of the story.
Roger Corman, bless his heart, was able to develop a style of shooting that allowed a production team to make a movie faster than anyone else. Shoot your master, get your coverage in a couple over the shoulders and maybe a closeup or two, and get out.
And why not? The actors are saying their lines and hitting their marks, the props are being manipulated, the sets are full of texture and detail, and in the end -- one might say that everything printed in the script has come to life. It looks like we have ourselves a movie!
The problem is just that, every word of the script is here and nothing more. There's no importance, something lacks in Corman's movies, that's why they call 'em "B" movies.
Whether they realize it or not, people watch films to be placed in the center of the stories we tell; they want us to take them away, absorb them in our drama, excite them through our action, depress them in our failures, and uplift them with our triumphs.
It's up to us as directors and DP's to use every tool at our disposal in uncovering the core beneath the ink on the page, to illustrate the human pulse which courses through every scene and every moment of our films -- THAT which continually drives the audience to this emotional connection.
So what are we talking about here? We watch movies and mostly forget that the way they are presented -- the angles, colors, lighting, and motion of the camera are NOT set in the script, nor is the blocking. No two people read scripts the same way. A dolly push for one director or DP could be a smartly blocked wide shot for another. So how and why do we shoot the way we do?
I can recall the first movie I shot as a DP. Leading up to the production, all the "rules" and musts that I'd absorbed over the years from film professors and self proclaimed movie buffs suddenly began climbing out to the gooey surface of my brain. "Don't EVER use a zoom", "keep the camera moving", "stay on one side of the line"...
They spoke of motivation prompting movement, and I thought I knew what it meant... So I dollied the camera when characters walked, jibbed the camera when they stood or fell, and never once did I touch the zoom control on my lens. I even tried the always moving Michael Bay shots for one scene. What I ended up with was a very nice looking, but incredibly meaningless first film.
What nobody helped me to understand is that blocking is a huge key to this puzzle, not the only key mind you, but a big one. The more complex we block our characters, the more EVERYBODY has room to become creative. Nobody explained that while you do want to keep your camera on one side of the 180 degree line, it's fully possible for that line to move, to change with new characters entering the scene, to EVOLVE with your blocking and by design -- actually MEAN something.
Take this scene from Scorsese's Cape Fear for example. Here Nick Nolte explains the trauma and fear he's feeling as a result of ex-con Max Cady stalking his family; followed by the big reveal that he knows just why Cady is doing it -- and Nolte is to blame. (I'm speaking only about the first scene in the video below)
Now, the blocking is not complex per se, but it easily could have been two men sitting across from one another at a desk. And if it were, if we lost that amazing tracking shot that ends on Nick Nolte's face filling frame, would we feel the same as we do when we watch it as it is? Would we have the innate understanding of the weight of what Nolte is saying if it were just a couple of mediums, wides, and a closeup from across a desk?
There are many things going on in this scene. Scorsese uses dolly pushes on the senior lawyer to establish the scene and accentuate the solutions this man is trying to provide, giving us an "Ah! The answer cometh" feeling, and assuring us he is very much on Nolte's side. Note that the two characters are staged at far ends of the room in the first wide shot we see.
The conversation is casual, boiler plate, and the distance reflects this. Once Nolte begins to explain that things might not be so simple, Scorsese starts his first blocking move.
Here, the blocking serves to help us as the audience FEEL that the conversation is shifting. Whereas a moment ago we were accustomed to the straight shots and dolly pushes between two men talking shop, this shot and its brilliant blocking now moves the characters, the conversation, and the camera in a completely different direction -- subverting our comfort. This shot tracks with Nolte, closing the distance between the two men as the information his character reveals becomes more intimate and dangerous.
We tilt down to catch the lawyer's response, Nolte's chest intimidating the left side of the frame and giving us a very uneasy feeling as he closes in on the lawyer's space. We finally tilt back up to Nolte's face, now in an extreme closeup as he reveals the hearing for his restraining order is in ten days.
Take a look at this frame. What is happening here? First, Scorsese and his DP really know how to shoot a face! In this frame dominating shot, Nolte is larger than life. His creased, bespectacled mug gives us the impression of a man with decades of experience, a serious contender -- not someone who'll take his family being threatened lying down. We are well inside his personal space as he shares a very guarded and personal secret he's kept for 14 years. They've managed to choose just the right angle and just the right lighting to give us a portrait of a man both intimidating and intimidated at the same time.
How do they do this? In this final frame, we are still feeling the overpowering presence Nolte has over the lawyer, but the camera is at a high angle, generally used to weaken a character's perceived position. One man towers over another, but the man who's not even there towers over both. Here established, Max Cady's presence dominates the entirety of the film.
The look on his face tells us Nolte knows a restraining order won't do a damn thing, the shot has become a window into this subtext.
Again, think about this moment. If we were watching this from a wide, or a medium shot from any other angle, if the blocking had not allowed for the motion of the scene to help us "feel" that something was amiss... would this riveting performance have the same impact? My point here is that no matter how strong the acting, it's shooting these moments with the right subtext that gives them power, even ft it means using a zoom.
Now we find ourselves in a whole new world. "How can I move the camera to do for my scenes what Scorsese did for his?" This is dangerous territory, because once we start learning about moving our cameras, it sure is hard to stop. What works for one scene, or one film for that matter may not apply to another.
There is no easy answer for what visual fertilizer a scene requires to flourish. Martin Scorsese has a heavy touch, Clint Eastwood has a light one... David Fincher is somewhere in between . Each of these filmmakers are precise, effective, and completely different, but their success as filmmakers comes because they know their material and they fertilize the seeds of their films just right.
It helps to remember, sometimes when you water your own seeds, you end up with a tree -- other times you end up with a shrub. The point is, no matter the watering, the seeds will always grow to be whatever it is they were meant to be, so don't try to pile on the fertilizer -- you'll just end up killing your plant.
In summary, the most important "rule" I've learned as a filmmaker over the years is there are no rules, simply suggestions, all of which boil down to you -- the director -- giving the audience what they want.
The question becomes, how do you know what they want?...
Clint Eastwood has often said that rather than instructing his actors precisely how they should move and react in a scene, he likes to allow them the opportunity to enter the scene and do what they feel most comfortable doing. Allowing the scene to "unravel" he'll follow the actor, and let the camera go where it will go.
From the screenwriting side of the canvass I found myself in a similar situation. It's act 2, everything's coming together, a torrent of material ballooning in my head, waiting to get out, accumulating, building pressure while it waits behind process. Process tells me to stop. Calm down. Review the notes and the structure, make sure you don't miss anything, and for that matter, run through all the notes all the way through the end just to make sure you don't burn past some important details you'll have to kludge back in later. I go through the notes, and I'm quickly overwhelmed. There's too much! How will this detail even fit with that one? How do I change course in the script so I can fit this in later?
I get up, pace around, use the bathroom, run down stairs, shuffle through the pantry, come back up. I put on the Charlie Rose Clint Eastwood interview included on the Mystic River blu-ray. I watch 2 and a half minutes and turn it off. I am wrestling an invisible bear.
Finally I click on the Final Draft file and start typing and a leak springs. It gushes out. 1 page, 2 pages, 4 pages -- the details take care of themselves systematically, because when you're on the ground, in the moment, in the scene -- this ought to follow this, and you ought to try that out here because there's an opportunity there and you should take it. The structure goes up and the extraneous wood doesn't get used.
Now this doesn't mean it's all right or perfect, or that notes and proper structuring doesn't have it's place. After all, the ideas aren't all just waiting on the edge of the plank waiting to jump in the script. You have to remember them to get them out. But sometimes when there's so much inside, waiting to get out, the best solution is to find the frayed end of that massive ball of string, and simply start unraveling.
