Directors Tell the Story Read online

  THE PSYCHOLOGICAL UNDERPINNING

  The main point here is that it is only the director—no one else—who says when it’s time to begin. And therefore, ipso facto, you are in control. It’s a pretty great feeling when you say that one little word and everyone jumps to do his job. But don’t let it swell your head: just as the actors are being judged while they perform, so is the director. After you say “Cut,” will you then say “Print it”? Or will you ask for “One more, please”? You are not the only one observing the take and deciding whether it’s worthy. Though it is up to the director to decide when the intent of the scene and the shot has been achieved, everyone around you will also have an opinion. The writer, the producers, the cast, and the crew will be judging you on your judgment. Do you know when to say, “Cut. Print it. And check the gate,” or do you keep filming and do a lot of unnecessary takes that may inflict an emotional toll on your actors? Or do you say, “Check the gate,” and everyone around you thinks you didn’t pull the best out of your actors or your crew? (When a film camera is used, each frame of film is exposed separately as it is held in the camera gate. You “check the gate,” because sometimes a sliver of film is shaved off, creating a hair in the gate. Checking the gate used to be a way of making sure what you just shot is acceptable. Now that there’s no literal gate; it’s just a way of saying, “We’re finished with this shot.”)

  A large part of the director’s job is the judgment required to know when to check that gate. As you watch the scene, you are simultaneously tallying mentally whether the actors are achieving the intent of the scene and whether the shot is both visually telling the story and being executed perfectly by the crew. And you are expected to render that judgment right after you say “cut,” all the while knowing that everyone else around you also has an opinion.

  Directors with huge egos may not recognize or care that they are being judged as well. And perhaps it’s not relevant, in the sense that the director’s word is law and the set will fit itself to the director’s instructions. However, it does become relevant when the faction supplying the money questions the director’s judgment. Even if the studio head (or financier, or network executive) isn’t physically present on the set, he will hear about it.

  Every set is its own little world, with factions and politics and tempers and alliances. Because it is a large group effort, that is natural, human interaction. And the buyer, whoever it is, will hear of and/or observe the director’s ability. We’ve all heard of directors being fired. It happens. The director is not the final authority unless she is supplying the money as well.

  As you watch the scene, you are simultaneously tallying mentally whether the actors are achieving the intent of the scene and whether the shot is both visually telling the story and being executed perfectly by the crew. And you are expected to render that judgment right after you say “cut,” all the while knowing that everyone else around you also has an opinion.

  But it is a trap for a director to take the opinions of others into consideration. How many times have you discussed a movie with friends and you all have a different opinion? The same thing happens when you are watching a scene unfold in front of you. Everyone has an opinion, but it is you, as the director, who says “Cut, print, check the gate.” And the only way for you to do that is to follow your own creative vision—20 people (either on the set or viewing the finished product) will have 20 different opinions. And the fundamental reason that you were hired as the director is for your creative vision with the integrity to see it through. That means you have to listen to your own intuition, your own “gut feeling.” If you start thinking, “Oh, the producer won’t like that,” or “The network executive said they want the show to be edgy/soft/action/character-driven, so I better do this a different way,” you are lost. You are lost as the artist you were hired to be.

  Every set is its own little world, with factions and politics and tempers and alliances.

  The fundamental reason that you were hired as the director is for your creative vision with the integrity to see it through.

  HARNESSING THE MAGIC

  Let’s say that you are following your instinct and you don’t want to say “Cut … print” on one take. What you want to do instead—because you’ve noticed that your actor is just warming up at the end of a take—is go through the whole scene twice (or more) without cutting. You want to capture the magic that the actor is bringing to the material by allowing the actor to maintain her emotional point of view. (When you say “Cut,” it’s like the guillotine coming down. Suddenly, it’s not about the actor’s emotional state, but about the 1st assistant cameraperson’s worry that the shot wasn’t in focus, or the wardrobe assistant dashing onto set to fix an errant collar.) Your main job is to tell the story through the perfection of performance.

  A big part of your job is to get a great shot. But if you’re shooting a middling performance with a great shot, you still have only middling film. So you want to keep rolling and allow your actors to stay focused on their point of view. What do you do? You instruct the 1st assistant cameraperson to make sure that he has a full mag, that is, as much film as possible in the magazine, which is generally 1,000 feet. (Or, if you’re shooting digital, you ask, “Do we have enough (memory) for two?”) You tell the actors you’re going to keep rolling. And when they’ve finished the scene for the first time, you say quietly to all, “Still rolling … reset.” And when everyone on both cast and crew sort of “rewind” back to their original positions, you say again, “Action” and start again, without having cut between takes.

  A big part of your job is to get a great shot. But if you’re shooting a middling performance with a great shot, you still have only middling film.

  Take 1 is generally to get the kinks out of the scene; by take 2, all aspects of the scene should be accomplished beautifully. Your actors are in the groove, and the shot is playing exactly as you designed it.

  So print it. Give the actors some feedback by approaching them in person (not shouting from the monitor) and having a short and intimate conversation, using the vocabulary we discussed in Chapter 10 to give them an adjustment. Then go one more time (or two) for editing choices and move on. You have a limited amount of time in which to shoot a lot of material, and you need to know what you’re looking for and be decisive when you see it. To review: in current episodic drama, a script is generally around 52 pages, and you have 7, 8, or 9 days to shoot it, depending on the budget. Most shows do about 25 to 30 setups a day, that is, separate shots. The call time, or beginning of the day, is usually 7:00 a.m. If the production takes an hour lunch, you are expected to wrap (finish) in 12 hours, or by 8:00 p.m. If the production caters lunch and the break is for half an hour, you’re expected to wrap by 7:30 p.m.

  At the halfway mark of the day, at six hours, it is required by law and union agreements to give the cast and crew a meal break. If you are in the middle of a shot at that time, and you think you just need a little more time, the 1st AD can announce, “We’re going into grace,” and you continue to shoot. However, the grace period is only 12 minutes, and you cannot change anything about the shot once you’ve rolled into grace. If you need a little more time than that, and it will save time later, the production manager may authorize a meal penalty. This is a half hour of additional time, but the cast and crew are paid extra for it. An example of saving time later would be if, by going into meal penalty, you completed one direction of a scene, and would be planning to turnaround after lunch. If instead you still had one shot remaining in the original direction to be shot after lunch, you would probably be an hour behind by the end of the day. And every minute counts. If you go past 13 hours, the crew and cast need to be fed again. It’s called second meal; generally the crew chooses to eat and keep working without actually breaking.

  These are long days, and they get longer if the director is indecisive or overly ambitious. The job of the director is to tell the story brilliantly but remain on time and on budget. That bears repeating:
the job of the director is to tell the story brilliantly but remain on time and on budget! That means knowing where to spend the time and where to compromise because you were hired to make the day. You have a certain number of scenes to shoot within 12 hours. If a particular shot (or performance) is crucial to your storytelling, take whatever time is necessary. That’s important, and it’s following your creative vision. But if you know your most important scene is one you’re scheduled to be filming in the afternoon (it’s listed that way on the call sheet), don’t get bogged down in a less important scene in the morning. Prioritize. Know where to spend extra time.

  Everyone who works for you, both cast and crew, looks to you to not only create beautiful film but to do it efficiently as well. And the producers would add, “Don’t forget to do it on budget, too!”

  Everyone who works for you, both cast and crew, looks to you to not only create beautiful film but to do it efficiently as well. And the producers would add, “Don’t forget to do it on budget, too!”

  Remember that every single element in the frame is your choice and requires your approval. So right before you roll, take a moment to really look at what is in the frame (because, boy, you are sure going to be looking at it endlessly in editing). See if your actress’s hair is perfect. If not, ask the hairdresser back to pat down those flyaways. Look to see whether some background object, like a lamp, appears to be protruding out of the actor’s ear. If so, ask the on-set dresser to move the object around until the framing is better. Pay attention to the set dressing: is it all logical, make sense, and help you tell the story? Double-check: is the wardrobe for each of your characters in differing color palettes, and is it appropriate? Does the wardrobe need to be aged, rather than looking like it was purchased yesterday and has never been worn? You can do this last-second review while the 1st AC is running the tape (ascertaining that the shot will be in focus) and everyone else is making their final preparations. You don’t have to make a big deal out of it, but you do have to do it. It’s part of “the buck stops here” mentality, and even though there are departments that supervise each of those elements, approval ultimately rests with you.

  Also check (during the second team and background rehearsal) the human elements of your frame aside from the actors: that is, the extras. Though the 2nd AD sets background, you should make adjustments to suit your vision. So you may have people crossing close to lens, called a foreground (fg) wipe, which helps make the audience feel like the camera is intimate and subjective and in the midst of the scene with the actors. If you have a wide shot holding multiple actors without foreground crosses, it will feel like proscenium staging, as in a theatre, where the action is happening in front of a removed audience. You should also observe the background artists: are they helping you tell the story? Do they have the right attitude and point of view? Is someone overacting, or worse, walking around like a zombie? (Obviously, that’s okay if you’re shooting The Walking Dead.)

  So you have the perfect frame, you do a couple of takes, and you’re pretty happy. But there’s one thing you want to fix, either in front of or behind the camera, so you may ask for a pickup, rather than going from the top, or the beginning. A pickup starts the scene somewhere in the middle to achieve the element you believe is missing, whether it’s a performance note or something that could be done better on camera. You’ll say, “Print that, please, one pickup.” Your AD will say, “From where?” And you will tell everyone the cue, or script line, that will begin the pickup. Sometimes when you make this announcement, the actor may ask for an extra take from the beginning, because they feel they can’t just jump into the performance in that spot. That’s okay too, especially if the scene requires emotional depth. But there are some actors who are never satisfied and always want another take. It is up to you to navigate the subtext of what they are requesting. It’s important to honor your actors’ creative vision as well, but remember that you are the person running the set.

  Sometimes you think that although the scene is good, it could stand a little extra energy and some further editing choices. At that point, tell the actors “I’ve got it,” meaning the scene is complete, but “Let’s do one more for fun.” (Some directors prefer to say “for shits and giggles.”) Generally, this take gives the actors a sense of freedom and they lighten up (from the huge responsibility of getting the scene right) and are able to discover new things in their performance and literally have fun. Or, occasionally, you think the shot is complete, but when the gate is checked, there actually is a hair there, or there’s some other obstruction (like a minimal actor/prop mismatch) that forces you to go for one more take. In our experience, this is a gift. This unpredicted last take somehow captures even more of the magic. Never regret it, but embrace it. It’s always worth it.

  Once you have finished shooting one angle of the scene—you’ve printed three takes, you know you have the performance and the shot exactly as you wanted it—you proceed to the next shot in which the camera is looking the same general direction in order to conserve lighting changes. The DP will be instrumental in helping you determine which shots should be done in which order. After you’ve completed every shot in one direction, you’ll call out, “turning around,” which your AD will repeat on the radio. This signals to everyone that the next setup will require more work. The set dresser will probably need to move furniture, the grips may do “wall in, wall out” to reconfigure the set by moving the wild (movable) walls while giving more room to the camera, and the electricians will get instructions from the DP and gaffer about relighting in the opposite direction.

  ONE DOWN, FOUR TO GO

  So let’s say you’ve shot your first scene of the day. You have checked the gate on all of the shots that were designed in prep, prepared in rehearsal, and executed by cast and crew during the shooting. Hooray for you! Now you say, “Moving on,” or “We’re on the wrong set,” or “Let’s rehearse the next scene.” Your AD will announce that via the radio, and everyone will mark the first scene off on the call sheet. One down! Now you probably only have four more scenes for the day! And the process repeats itself. By following this pattern, you eventually find yourself near to the end of the day. At that point, your AD may announce that the next shot is the Abby Singer, or the Abby.

  The Abby Singer shot is named for a wonderful gentleman, now retired, who was an assistant director at the beginning of television in the 1950s. He was known for his high energy and eagerness to complete the work, and would often announce to his crew that it was “this shot and one more.” So the second-to-last shot is called the Abby Singer, and crews all over the world know that when the AD makes that announcement, they are almost finished with their day. Both Mary Lou and Bethany worked with Abby in his production manager capacity. He was on Major Dad, which was Mary Lou’s second directing job, and Abby was also on St. Elsewhere, which was Bethany’s first. Abby seemed to know everything there was to know about production, and he cared deeply about the finished product. His was a great example of the passion that film people bring to their work.

  Paint a picture for them with words and let the crewmembers contribute their expertise and help make your vision come alive.

  Passion fuels a set. The actors are passionate about what they do, or else they wouldn’t do it. There’s too much rejection and too little remuneration for the vast majority of them. But your crew is passionate about what they do, too. You have to know all the technical stuff we went over in Chapters 7, 8, and 11, but your DP and your crew will know it way better than you. It is not necessary to tell them exactly how to accomplish a shot. What you want to communicate is what you are looking for. What do you want to see? What is your creative vision? Paint a picture for them with words and let the crewmembers contribute their expertise and help make your vision come alive. That is why they are there. They are also creative people, and they want to be useful. They want to make the film special, too. They want to add their talents to yours; together, you’ll create something that you could not do on
your own. Filmmaking is not a solo act. It is collaborative, in all the best ways. And at the end of day, you can celebrate that collaboration with the feeling of satisfaction that abounds when your AD announces, “This is the martini shot”—the last shot of the day—right before you wrap (end the day).

  Sequencing the Commands

  Write all the things a director (or the 1st AD) says that we mentioned in this chapter on index cards with one phrase per card. (You can also do this for the code words to say to actors in Chapter 10.) Now place the cards in the correct order, sequencing them so that you use all of them. Make duplicate cards for the phrases you will say many times a day (“Action,” “Cut,” “Turning Around,” etc.). Do you see why knowing the director’s vocabulary is essential to keep things running smoothly on the set?

  Your job is to provide not only the creative vision but also the environment in which everyone can do their best work. Your actors feel safe because they know you will not let them look stupid, so they give their best. Your DP is inspired by your ideas, and adds or subtracts light to create a visual tone. Your camera operator and crew, the sound crew, all the departments—they want to follow you, the leader, and give their utmost in service to making this script come alive in the most profound way. So you will pull them in and welcome their talents and contributions.