Directors Tell the Story Read online

  Actor turnaround

  By SAG and AFTRA agreements, actors are given 12 hours off between completing work on one day and beginning work on the next day. This is called turnaround. So if you finish one day at 7:00 p.m. with Actress A, you can begin with her again at 7:00 a.m. the following day. But if she needs two hours at the beginning of the day in hair and makeup, then the crew call (time of day when the work begins) would have to be when that precall work in the hair and makeup trailer is finished, at 9:00 a.m. If that happened every day of the week, you would be starting your day on Friday at 5:00 p.m. and working through the night. So the 1st AD will try not to end on Monday and begin on Tuesday with the same actress. This sort of thing is a particular challenge on a show with one main lead who is in most of the scenes. Multiply this conundrum by the number of actors in the cast, and you can see that it’s quite a jigsaw puzzle. Appreciate the organizational skills that your AD must have to juggle all this.

  Company move

  Every time a crew has to pack up their equipment and move from one place to another, it takes time. And time is money. A company move from one stage to another generally requires a half hour. If you have to load everything onto the trucks and move across town, that could take two hours or more. And that is two hours you are not shooting, when you’re trying to complete your scheduled scenes for the day. Two hours of overtime could cost a production company anywhere from $15,000 to $75,000 (or more), depending on many factors. So when putting a shooting schedule together, the 1st AD will try to consolidate company moves by putting all of one location together, then all of the next location together, and so on.

  If there are individual scenes in multiple locations, the best thing would be to try to find them all in one basic area, so that base camp (where the trucks park) doesn’t have to move. The equipment could be loaded onto stakebeds (smaller trucks) or the crew could roll the carts to each location. (Equipment is always stored on handcarts that can be wheeled short distances.) On the ABC show Brothers & Sisters, Bethany had one location day in South Pasadena that was a good example. The scenes in the script were a baby products store, a coffee house, an interior college president’s office, and an exterior (night) Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. All were shot within two blocks of each other, and the work was completed in under 12 hours. The baby products store and the coffee house already existed in proximity, and the company created the interior set inside the lobby of the nearby public library, whose steps also served for the night exterior scene. A company move would have rendered that day unshootable.

  Amount of work

  The 1st AD will divide the shooting days into groups of scenes he thinks can be accomplished in a 12-hour day. The factors taken into account include the speed at which the crew works, the stamina of the actors, the physical demands of the space, and the number of shots planned by the director. If it all adds up to more than can be done in one day, then there are two choices. You can either take more than one day to shoot at a location (perhaps it will be scheduled for numerous days) or you can go to the writers and suggest moving the location of a scene. What you cannot do, as a responsible director, is think that somehow it will just turn out all right. You have to plan during your preparation time how you will make the day, that is, complete the scheduled work on time and on budget.

  Important note: More characters require more shots, which require more lighting, which requires more time.

  For example, if a script has 11 pages in a restaurant over 5 scenes, that does not seem like a doable day (within the 12 hours). So you might suggest to the writer that one two-and-a-half page scene be relocated to somewhere else. That would make it four scenes, eight-and-a-half pages. That’s still a lot. How many characters are in each scene? If it’s only two, that might be possible. But if it’s more than that, the complications increase. More characters require more shots, which require more lighting, which requires more time.

  On a TV schedule, you can usually shoot a maximum of eight pages, though the salient factor is really the number of scenes (and therefore, the number of setups, or individual shots, for each scene) and not page count. If you have more than 25 setups planned, then the day is probably overloaded. When you go to a writer to say, “This day is unmakeable,” the most constructive thing is to propose a solution. Look at your other shooting days. Is there one that’s lighter to which this orphan scene might be moved? Could the scene be moved to a standing (already existing) set? Or could it become a different type of scene and still accomplish the scene’s objectives? For example, could the characters have left the restaurant and finish their conversation walking up to the front door of their house? As long as the intent of the scene remains the same, it is often possible to move locations. Doing so sometimes forces the writer and director to think more creatively about this particular area of production problem solving, which makes for a better show in the end.

  Day or night

  The top of every call sheet (the day’s schedule and its requirements) lists the exact time for sunrise and sunset because, though film people think they’re in charge of everything, we have not yet figured out how to control the sun. If you have three scenes of exterior day work and one of night work scheduled, you’d better make sure to complete the day scenes before the sun goes down. (You can, however, shoot interior night scenes during the day by blacking out the windows.) The 1st AD will estimate how long each scene might take to shoot and schedule it accordingly. But if there’s a miscalculation, or it takes longer to shoot than you anticipated, you’ll be in a mad race to light a scene with the sinking sun, counting down the moments until you’re forced to concede to a greater authority.

  The intuitive

  When putting a schedule together, the 1st AD has to take into account this final aspect, which generally has to do with the effort and impression a scene will make. Often, you’ll want to start with the meat of the day (the biggest and hardest scene). As the saying goes, “You’ll be shooting Gone with the Wind in the morning and Dukes of Hazzard in the afternoon.” You’ll take a lot of time shooting an important scene, and the less important one is done at the end of the day in a single, uncomplicated shot as you’re running out of time. The director and the 1st AD will discuss which scenes hold special meaning and which may be more complex than they seem. Although the 1st AD can take into account what is on the page, he can’t read your mind. If you plan a particularly difficult shot or you think it will take longer to achieve the performance you’re looking for, you need to let the 1st AD know so that the appropriate amount of time is scheduled. Peter Weir shared a story about this in an interview in the DGA Quarterly.1 Talking about his movie Fearless, he recalled a moment that stood out for him as he read the screenplay. “There are two men flying on a plane that’s in trouble, that’s going to go down, and one of them, the Jeff Bridges character, says to his partner, ‘I’m going to go forward and sit with that kid up there.’ And then the script says, ‘He moves down the aisle and sits beside the boy.’ It’s maybe an eighth of a page. That was the line that struck me…. When we came to schedule it, I told the AD I wanted half a day to shoot it, which I think was a bit of a surprise. It’s always hard to speak about what interested you in a piece, because it’s often something unknowable. It’s the nonintellectual, the unconscious that’s most important to me.”

  The other intuitive part of scheduling has to do with making a good impression. When the producers (and studio, and network) see the dailies (the raw, unedited footage) of your first day of directing, you want them to see scenes that are dynamic with good performances. But you know that on the first day, you won’t yet have a strong working relationship with the actors because you’ll just be figuring each other out, not quite yet committed to trusting each other. You also won’t yet have the kind of working relationship with the crew that allows for shorthand communication and a shared vision of the way you shoot. So those first scenes need to be ones that have strong energy but are not overly ambitious or overly interpretat
ive. They need to be fairly straightforward yet creative. And of course those first scenes need to fit all the other requirements, too, like having available actors and sets!

  The shooting schedule lists all the elements needed for each day of shooting. But it is also broken down into more succinct documents that characterize particular needs. The one-liner is a short version of the shooting schedule that lists the scene numbers, the page count, the scene description, the actors needed, and what script day it is in the continuity of the story. (A story may take place in a short time span such as one day, or it may take place over many years. All department heads need to have the same understanding of when the daybreaks are, to plan accordingly. If it’s script day 3 in scene 22, the lead actress should not be wearing the wardrobe from script day 2, scene 21, if the daybreak was at the end of that scene.) The day-out-of-days (DOOD) is a chart that specifies which days of the schedule each actor will work. The AD may also generate a special needs chart, which shows what special equipment or personnel must be ordered for each day (that the company does not normally carry, like a technocrane or a choreographer).

  Creating a One-Liner

  Even though this is a 1st AD’s job, try creating a one-liner for a movie you know. Using the script, describe each scene in one short line. Group together scenes that are in the same location or set and have the same actors. Look at the page count for each day. Could that day be made? If not, divide those groups of scenes into the number of days required for shooting. Don’t forget to be aware whether it’s a day scene or a night scene. How many days of shooting do you think the movie required? In what order would those scenes be shot, according to your one-liner?

  While you, the director, are spending your nonmeeting times of the prep period blocking and shot-listing, your 1st AD is spending that same time creating the shooting schedule and arranging for the logistics of making that schedule come to pass. But the rest of the prep time is spent together, as you go on location scouts, walk the sets, and attend meetings. (However, the 1st AD is not present for casting sessions.) You will have conducted dry runs of any big set pieces, that is, a large event in the script that requires special advance planning. For example, if you have a scene with a big car crash, you might ask the art department for a scale model of the location and use toy cars to plan your blocking and shot placement. (Don’t laugh! That works really well, as it’s a physical/tactile way of “seeing” the set piece before you have to shoot it.) The 1st AD will gaffe (arrange) anything you need—whether it’s assembling people or toy cars—to make your prep the most thorough it can be.

  You and your 1st AD will get to know each other well during prep and develop a relationship that fosters a strong connection during the shooting and production periods.

  YOUR RIGHT ARM WHILE SHOOTING

  For a one-hour episode, you have seven days of prep. For a TV movie or small feature, you will have three or four weeks of prep. But the day eventually comes when it’s time to begin shooting. You and the 1st AD have made everyone aware of your intentions, and everyone and everything has been scheduled and arranged. If you have done your prep well, you are ready for any foreseeable difficulties. You know how you intend to shoot the script; you have broken down the script for story and character; you know the whole thing inside and out. You are ready, and your 1st assistant director is there to help you begin.

  What is important to know now is that the 1st AD is in command of the set, by virtue of being the one to give instructions. We could use a military metaphor here and say that you, the director, are the general, and the 1st AD is your lieutenant, the one who communicates your desires.

  Just as the 1st AD runs the meetings in preproduction, the AD also runs the set during shooting. That means the 1st AD will call out what’s to be done and the crew and cast will react accordingly. So the first thing that happens on your first day is for the AD to call out (both loudly and on the walkie-talkie radio), “First-team rehearsal.” The first team is the actors, and the second team is their stand-ins, the people who stand on the actors’ marks (or locations) while the set is being lit. We talk about this more in Chapter 13. What is important to know now is that the AD is in command of the set, by virtue of being the one to give instructions. We could use a military metaphor here and say that you, the director, are the general, and the 1st AD is your lieutenant, the one who communicates your desires.

  The 1st AD is the troubleshooter, to whom all departments report regarding ongoing work flow and the obstacles to it. This includes you, the director. If you are facing any difficulties, it warrants discussion with the 1st AD, so he may act as your sounding board and/or your “bad cop” to make things happen. This strategy allows you to continue to be the “good cop” and function as the nurturing leader you are.

  So when you are ready for rehearsal, or you want to speak to someone specifically, or you want to begin shooting, you communicate that to the 1st AD, who then in turn communicates it to the relevant parties. Although it may seem dubiously roundabout—why not just call it out yourself?—it’s actually more streamlined. The AD has the radio and can tell the entire crew with one command what you want, and it’s important for the AD to know what’s happening as you think of it, because everyone else will ask him. It’s the way the power structure is set up, and it’s effective.

  During the shooting day, the 1st AD is always on set, right by the camera. The 1st AD is aware of everything that is going on and is the point man for all communications, including that from the producers. The 1st AD will make the producers aware of shooting progress or lack thereof and be included in discussions about how to make the day. The 1st AD is the troubleshooter, to whom all departments report regarding ongoing work flow and the obstacles to it. This includes you, the director. If you are facing any difficulties, it warrants discussion with the 1st AD, so he may act as your sounding board and/or your “bad cop” to make things happen. This strategy allows you to continue to be the “good cop” and function as the nurturing leader you are.

  The 1st AD is your assistant. And just as you have people above you (the ones with the money; the showrunner/studio/network) and below you (those whom you direct), within the power structure, so does the 1st AD. He reports to the unit production manager (UPM), who is responsible for the day-today operations of the crew, with direct supervision of those below the line. On a production budget, there is a literal dividing line. Above the line people (and therefore, costs in a budget) are the producer, writer, director, and actors. Everyone else and their equipment are below the line. The UPM is in charge of maintaining operating costs per the budget below the line. The UPM is a DGA member, as are you and the rest of the directing staff.

  Although productions are shot without being a DGA signatory, it is not recommended for any professional production. The DGA provides a framework for your protection, with legal agreements binding the producing company to abide by negotiated rules. These rules keep you and the rest of the DGA members (and consequently, the rest of the crew) safe from physical risks and poor working conditions. The DGA also negotiates salary minimums and provides health insurance and pension benefits. When you are working with a DGA staff, you know they are well trained in all aspects of production and will capably assist you in every way to achieve a creative final product done in a professional manner.

  The 2nd AD needs to be someone with strong attention to detail and a facility for communication. And she is rarely on set, due to the intensity of pulling tomorrow’s call sheet together.

  The 1st AD is, in turn, assisted by the 2nd AD, the 2nd 2nd, and production assistants (PAs). The 2nd AD is always looking toward the next day’s shoot, preparing the call sheet, which lists the call (beginning of the day) time, the scenes to be shot, and the personnel and equipment required. See Figure 5-1. This means a lot of time on the phone (in all its incarnations, especially texting) and communicating with the production office. The 2nd AD’s initial preparation is taken from the 1st AD’s shooting schedule and then
augmented by whatever daily changes are made due to shifting circumstances (somebody got sick, the director dropped a scene from yesterday, ordering a third camera, etc.). The 2nd AD needs to be someone with strong attention to detail and a facility for communication. And she is rarely on set, due to the intensity of pulling tomorrow’s call sheet together. At the end of the day, she also completes the production report, which is an accounting of what took place: which scenes were actually shot, who worked, what equipment was used, how much film/tape/digital memory was expended.

  FIGURE 5-1 The front side of a blank call sheet.

  The 2nd 2nd AD is in training to move up the ladder; this job takes place primarily on set. The 2nd 2nd helps the 1st AD set background, which means placing the daily hires of “extras” or “background artists,” who populate the frame to create the human environment of the film. They are the people in the theatre seats surrounding the principal actors or the office people rushing by as the leading lady walks with her leading man. The ADs tell them where to start, where to go, and what “job” they’re doing. For example, a background artist in a lawyer’s office set will be instructed to walk from point A to point B carrying files and a coffee cup and to play the part of a harried underling who is late for a meeting. In short, walk fast, look like you belong there, and arrange to be on camera consistently from take to take when the principal actor is saying a specific line. The 1st AD is in charge, but the 2nd 2nd does the first pass at setting background, training to do it well by the time they are promoted through the ranks to become a 1st AD.