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ОглавлениеCHAPTER 1 | PREPRODUCTION
Soaking Up the Atmosphere
Yes, preproduction is a picnic compared to production! Preproduction is the honeymoon. Production is the day-to-day grind of a difficult marriage. As a first time director, or a neophyte director, you're going to be a little nervous, but relax. You should be pinching yourself to make sure you are not dreaming. Nobody gets to direct without chewing glass for the privilege. Some just have to chew more than others. It is a well-established fact that for every available directing position there are dozens if not hundreds of individuals equally capable of expertly discharging the responsibility. The fortunate ones who manage to claw their way over the herd, slip through it, or somehow remarkably stand out from it, have got to congratulate themselves. It doesn't matter if they are going to get to direct a feature film or an infomercial. In their own world, big or small, they have made it to the top. There is no way they could have been anointed the chosen ones without an extraordinary effort, for — with a few exceptions — the director is king.
Because you are the director, you are going to have to be Solomon: a fount of knowledge, imagination, and reason. From now until the project is shipped, everyone is going to be hitting on you for answers. You are going to have to come up with more solutions to more problems than you ever imagined existed. You had better be a take-charge person, the kind who gets off on dispensing wisdom and likes being challenged. Otherwise you had better get out of the directing game.
I'm that kind of take-charge person. I like being the boss, so for me, preproduction has always been a blast. I am not fatheaded. It doesn't become a director to be so. I have my doubts about myself, as probably do all those who aspire to a career in the arts. Still, there has always been a part of me that thought I should be king of the world. Such is human nature. We all embody many contradictions. But I would guess that there is a little bit of that arrogance in everyone who aspires to direct. When you are the director, you get to be king of your own little world. Your producer, the bonding company, the investors, or the studio are the power behind the throne. They don't have the guts or the energy to direct. It can be a dirty, thankless job, so they have hired you to do it. A line producer whom I worked with on Knight Rider confessed to me that in his youth he had been a director but had given it up, because “You wake up in the middle of the night. You drive millions of miles to the location. As soon as it's light you start working. You work and you work and you work. Then, you look at your watch, and it's 10:00 a.m.! The guys at the studio are just getting in to work. You can have it!”
But almost all those standing behind the throne, in their heart of hearts, think they are a director, and a better director than you. So they will meddle in your business and second-guess you, especially if you are a first time director. But for whatever reason, they have put you on the throne, and when you stand on high you call the shots. As a first time director, many of the crucial decisions will not be left solely up to you — especially those that impact the budget. But if it's purely a matter of taste and doesn't dramatically affect the budget, it should be your call. If it is your movie, it will be a better movie. It won't become a mishmash of what you want to do and what those who stand behind the throne want. For better or for worse, it will hang together as a coherent reflection of your vision and taste, and if you have any talent, then it will be a better film. Or at least so says a guy named Frank Capra. If you don't believe me, read his autobiography, The Name Above the Title. In fact, don't even think about becoming a director until you have read that book.
Preproduction is a blast because now you finally get to be king of your own little kingdom and work with your capable minions on planning a great military campaign. I am not particularly partial to war, but I compare making a film to a military campaign because, once the shooting starts, it always feels like it's matter of life and death. Of course, nobody actually dies, and only the greatest films have any impact on history. Making a movie is probably more comparable to building a bridge, but it's your bridge, and, for some reason, you always tend to approach it the same way Alec Guiness did when it came to building his Bridge on the River Kwai. Your film, in the big scheme of things, may be of no more consequence than a bridge, but it always feels like Guiness' bridge — like something worth fighting and dying for, so when you take it on you are well served to gird yourself as if it were a War of the Worlds. The beauty of preproduction — the most delightful aspect of planning this great military campaign — is that everyone you are working with is certain that it is going to be a great success. You are going to win every battle, conquer new lands, and come back heroes. The powers behind the throne always have their doubts. But I have always found film crews and film support staff to be almost universally positive, energetic, and resourceful people. They have to be, otherwise they could never put up with the hours, the working conditions, and the stress. When I was directing rock videos, my favorite production manager wore a T-shirt that said it all: “Sleep is for beginners.” My experience has always been that the level of dedication of the average film crew is right up there with firefighters, though they do have to get some sleep. (Although a producer from the Philippines once asked me to direct a feature for him in 12 days, working 20 hours a day.) But what I love about that T-shirt is the attitude behind it. To me it says that if you want to make movies, you have got to be willing to sacrifice in some way to get the job done right.
The director sets the tone of the workplace. Stay positive, because you are going to need every bit of optimism to make it through the battle ahead. Be your own best cheerleader. Exude confidence. Take all the positive energy film people bring to the workplace and jack it up even higher. There is no such thing as going into production with too much hope and optimism. You want to plan for every contingency, but you had best go in feeling like a winner.
Bridge an the
DecisionsAlec Guiness! Decisions!
Throughout the preproduction period you are going to have to make dozens of decisions every day. This book is not going to take you through all those decisions, because my experience has convinced me that anyone smart and capable enough to get themselves hired as a director can make all the decisions he needs to make in preproduction simply by relying on good taste, reason, and common sense. If you have the force of personality and the poise to get hired as a director, you ought to be capable of vamping convincingly whenever called upon to make a decision that you are incapable of making because you lack some piece of hard knowledge or technical expertise. Whenever such a moment arises, every director has the prerogative to put the decision off until tomorrow, think about it, and come back with the answer. Take advantage of that prerogative; get a reprieve until tomorrow, and then simply get on the phone and download the missing bit of expertise from a friend or an associate who is knowledgeable in the field. This method has never failed me either in preproduction or postproduction because in either, you should have the right to put any decision off until tomorrow. Once on the set, there is no tomorrow.
Yet it is wise to anticipate such occasions. If you are going to direct a film which relies heavily on some realm of filmmaking that you are new to — whether it's something as old hat as song and dance numbers or stunts, or something as cutting edge as 3-D CGI graphics — then before you ever set foot in the office, study the nuts and bolts of that process so you can walk the walk and talk the talk. Most of these specialty realms of filmmaking are best learned through observation. Get hold of a director who is in the middle of doing a stunt film or a film that's heavy on CGI and tag around after him for as many days as possible.
You are not actually expected to know everything going in. Everyone — both the money people and your minions — would certainly prefer that you did, because it would take the burden off them. If anything goes wrong, there will always be someone to blame: you. The general assumption is that you are so smart and such a fast learner, you will pick up everything you need to know in a couple of days, if not a couple of hours. This position presumes a great deal, but such is the burden of a director. Bob Zemeckis (whom I will quote throughout this book, since I know him well and I think he can safely be cited as an authority on directing) has a saying: “The director is responsible for everything, even that which he has no control over.” Again, the beauty of the saying lies in the figurative interpretation — the attitude. It challenges the director to step up to and face his burden. If you want to be king, and have everyone look up to you and obey you as if you were a god, then you had best seem to have the power of a god. The director should never be heard laying blame or making excuses. It is not his place. He should have anticipated everything and made all the right decisions. Even if disaster befalls him, he should have had a back-up plan that saves the day. If everything comes up lemons, he makes lemonade. If the situation was truly beyond his control, it's not for him to say. His collaborators should be the ones to step in and let him off the hook.
Work, Work, Work
For a first time director, this burden of appearing infallible is even greater. Without the mandate of a proven track record, he is going to have to work that much harder to instill confidence in everyone around him. Yes, you may not be expected to know everything going in, but from the minute you land your first directing gig until the minute you step on the set, you should do all in your power to prepare yourself to make every one of your decisions well-informed. There is an old Hollywood saying which best expresses the logic behind overestimating what is expected of you as a first time director: “You are only given a couple of chits in this business. You've got to make every one of them count.” You've had to chew glass to get this first directing gig, so make it count. Prepare and then prepare some more. There is no such thing as being over-prepared.
As I pointed out in the preface, because you are not, as yet, a bankable director, your breakthrough directing gig is going to inevitably be a day late and a dollar short. The bean counters are going to force you to make do with a little less of everything, and that includes preproduction time. None of your principal collaborators or the crew will be put on salary until the last possible minute. This means that you, as well as all your staff, are not going to have enough time to adequately prepare before you start shooting. Since the director is responsible for everything, you, all by yourself, will have to compensate for the fact that your support staff are going to be flying along by the seats of their pants. The only way to do this is to work tirelessly day and night, weekends and weekdays, from the moment you even think that you might land this directing job until the first day of shooting.
Even though you are actually starting too late when you first come on board as the director, the start of principal photography will seem to be an eternity in the future. The natural inclination will be to put off making final decisions. Don't. Start nailing anything down, provided it won't cost you real money if in the end it does no Because more than anything else,t come to pass. Half of what you nail down will have to be ripped out, but half will stay. As the start of production nears, and it seems as if almost every important decision has been left until the last moment, you will be very glad that you finalized any chunk of business early on.
Filmmaking is a collaborative art. So it follows logically that in filmmaking, relationships are everything. Some of the most crucial relationships for a first time director are with those individuals who precede him onto the project. Generally speaking, the producer, if he is not going to act as his own line producer, will hire a line producer and perhaps even a Unit Production Manager (a UPM) before he hires a director — if he's smart. Why? Because more than anything else, the producer wants the line producer and the UPM to make the movie for the money in the budget, and to squeeze the most out of every dollar in the pot. The line producer and the UPM are the budget watchdogs. They are in charge of the money side of the film. (Ideally, you are in charge of the creative side.) It is impossible for them to do their job well unless you cooperate with them. If you are too artistically inclined to respect the constraints of the budget, theirs is a lost cause. The only way they can relax and do their jobs well is if they can trust you to be the kind of director who can fit the square peg in the square hole — who can make the movie for the money he is given.
I have always found that those who are just expeditors — namely the line producer and the UPM — will not venture into your territory and impinge on your creativity, if you do not venture into their territory and impinge on their efforts to stay within the budget. And the converse of this axiom is also true. If you seem to put your creativity ahead of their budget, then they will put their budget ahead of your creativity. Avoid this situation at all costs. Their reputations — their ability to get hired and rehired on a regular basis — are almost solely dependent on their ability to bring the movie in on budget. It is human nature that they will strive to preserve that reputation at all costs. Sure, they want to make a well reviewed, well received film. But more than that, they want to work again. Beware! If, in the course of trying to realize your artistic aspirations, you threaten their budget, then you threaten their very livelihood.
Many first time directors, myself included, are determined from the day they are hired to make a film that is so amazing, so stellar, so earth-shattering in its brilliance, it will immediately catapult them into the top tier of living directors. That is an admirable ambition and one that the first time director should hang onto it with all his might. He will need that purpose to power himself over some of the huge obstacles he is going to encounter on the road to making a film which succeeds just enough to get him hired to direct a second film. The problem with this towering desire to become the next Spielberg or Tarantino is that it becomes so overpowering, the first time director is ready to sacrifice anything and everything to make it happen, including the budget which the line producer and the UPM hand him when he comes in for his first day of work. He does so at his own peril.
The first budget and schedule that come out in preproduction are never the last. Everything constantly changes throughout the preproduction period because you keep revising your game plan. The day-out-of-days changes, the schedule changes, and the construction costs go up and down as shoot days on practical locations are swapped with work to be done on sound stages. If you have inadvertently put the line producer or the UPM in an adversarial position, the next time they revise the budget and the schedule they will give you less of all that you wanted more of. And if you fight back, the next time you will get even less. If you keep it up, when you start shooting, they are going to be breathing down your neck. They will force your first assistant director (1st AD) to work against you, instead of for you. They will consult with you about your production needs in a cursory way or, even worse, they will start dictating to you what they are going to dole out in time, money, and material. This attitude will keep you from making the film you want to make. Whatever they unilaterally decide to give you will in fact not really be tailored to what you actually need to realize your vision. So, in the end, you will be able to do less artistically.
From the day you start to work, show the utmost respect for the budget. Study the budget and the schedule in the form that relates most directly to you: the production board. If you do not understand how to read “the board,” talk to a director friend who is an expert, and learn how — immediately. It is boring work, not very glamorous, but you have got to do it if you want to realize your vision. Unless you are a science nerd or a policy wonk, the budget and, to a lesser extent, the “one-line” schedule, will confuse you a little. When you get confused, take notes and then ask the line producer or the UPM to explain whatever you don't understand. Let them clarify the logic of the way they have structured their guidelines. Everybody likes to talk about what they do best, so by asking these questions you ingratiate yourself with these key players. More importantly, you give them the impression that you are the kind of director who will tailor his artistic vision so that it can be realized for the money in the budget.
If you have nurtured these key relationships throughout preproduction, then when you start shooting, the line producer and the UPM will feel that they can take you at your word. You have done yourself a huge favor. If they trust you, they will give you enough slack in the reins so that, when disaster strikes (as it inevitably will), you have enough room to wriggle out of trouble. If they don't trust you, they'll keep you on a short leash and when disaster strikes, they will limit your options for rectifying the problem; your chances of recovering successfully will be compromised. You will end up even more over budget, as well as less successful in realizing your artistic vision, than if you had been allowed the freedom to create your own solutions.
When I was fresh out of UCLA film school and working at Universal Studios as an associate producer on McCloud — certain that any day I would get a break and be tapped to direct an episode of Marcus Welby, M.D., like the great Spielberg or the lesser known Randal Kleiser (who went on to direct Grease and have a long and successful career as a feature director) before me — if I had read any of the above, I probably would have rejected it all as overly cautious and artistically unambitious. At that time, I remember I had once heard it said, “The only reason a director gets fired off a picture is if his dailies aren't good enough.” I think whoever made this point to me backed it up by noting that Spielberg, who had just finished shooting Jaws, had spent 120 days and some astronomical amount (at the time), like $10 million, to complete the picture — even though the initial schedule and budget gave him 60 days and half the money. Whoever was watching the dailies, probably Sid Sheinberg and Lew Wasserman, had loved every day of them, and wisely decided to let Spielberg finish the picture at his own pace, spending whatever it cost to get it done the way he wanted. Young and arrogant as I was, I was inclined to believe that the best way to catapult myself into the top tier of working directors was to shoot artistically or technologically inspired footage on my breakthrough directing job (whenever it came along) and trust that the producer, the studio, and whoever was paying the bills and could fire me, would be so impressed with my directorial virtuosity, they would let me complete the picture — no matter what it cost.
Any first time director who thinks he can get away with this kind of fiscal irresponsibility on his breakthrough directing gig is going to be digging himself an early grave. Jaws was not, by any means, Spielberg's first directing job. He got his break on the TV show Night Gallery. After that, he directed a special episode of the fore-mentioned Welby, an episode of Columbo, and another half dozen episodes for Universal Television. He was a “very good boy” and did all these shows on schedule and for the budget. But the directing job which made almost everyone stand up and take notice and say, “This kid is a director, a talent!” was the TV movie Duel, starring Dennis Weaver. With Duel, Spielberg established that the innovative way he set up and moved his camera enabled him to make cinema, in general, and action, in particular, more visually dynamic, more hard-hitting and suspenseful than it had ever been done before. He also shot Duel on a shoestring budget in record time. All of the old studio hands, the UPMs and the line producers whom I later worked with as a director on BJ and the Bear and Knight Rider, could not stop marveling at how he had gone to the Mojave desert with a scaled down crew made up of a bunch of journeymen Hollywood technicians and come back, in something like 15 days, with an undeniably brilliant film in the can. Yet his earlier success on Welby, Night Gallery, and the other episodic TV shows were the priceless chits with which he had built up enough credibility as a director. By the time he took on Jaws, he was the hot young thing. It had become accepted that he could take a script and turn it into a blockbuster piece of entertainment. So he went ahead and blew his budget on Jaws and survived to work another day, but only because he had already broken through and established himself as a bankable director.
I cannot think of a single name director in Hollywood who was not a model of fiscal propriety on his breakthrough gig. Even those who, as their directing careers progressed, became notorious for always falling behind schedule and going over budget — such as James Cameron, Francis Coppola, or Stanley Kubrick — all, when they were young and starting out, played by the budgetary rules. Cameron did it on Piranha and again on Terminator. Coppola did it on Finian's Rainbow. Kubrick did it on The Killing and Paths of Glory.
There is another path. Many directors of note were chosen to direct their breakthrough films the same way that Napoleon became the Emperor of the French Republic — they anointed themselves. They actually had more of a right than Napoleon, because, unlike the French Emperor, their breakthrough films never would have happened if they had not made them happen by raising the money themselves. In most cases, they also wrote the script (which is another way in which they made the film happen). This cadre of directors includes almost all of those who are thought of as independent and artistically gifted and inclined: Spike Lee, Jim Jarmusch, John Sayles, Robert Townsend, the Coen brothers, Doug Liman, Whit Stillman, Neil LaBute, Robert Rodriquez, Kevin Smith, Todd Solondz, John Paul Anderson, and whoever else is going to break through this year at Sundance.
Generally speaking, these directors were the producers of their own first films and so were the power behind their own thrones. In most cases they hired all the production staff — the line producer, the UPM, and the 1st AD — and worked together with all of them to craft the budget. These circumstances made it unnecessary for them to forge a successful working relationship with the budget watchdogs. In reality, they had to act as their own budget watchdog. If they had gotten careless and spent too much money on the first half of their film, there would not have been enough money to finish. If the film had not been finished, it never would have made its way into a festival, never would have won a prize, never garnered glowing reviews, and never been distributed in theaters. In short, it would not have done what it was intended to do: launch that director's career. Instead, it would have ended up being an exercise in futility.
With this sword hanging over their heads, most of these gifted directors were able to sacrifice their artistic aspirations to whatever extent was needed to stay on schedule and under budget. This is not surprising. It was very much in their interest to do so. Very few first time directors get a second chance if they cannot get into the mindset of being a budget hawk. It is fundamentally irrelevant whether they do so out of necessity — as in the case of all the directors who raised the money themselves — or whether they do so naturally or out of common sense, as in the case of those first time directors who were picked up as a hired gun by a producer or a studio. In either case, they had to show respect for the budget.
Producer and Director – ‘Til Death Do Them Part
The director's relationship with his producer is rarelyFrom day one Pedro trouble-free. This is especially true in the case of a first time director, because, more often than not, the producer is a wannabe director. So if the producer wants to direct, why doesn't he just go out and raise the money to make his breakthrough film and then direct it himself? The answer holds the source of all the trouble and strife between producers and directors: Most producers are wannabe directors who lack the confidence to direct. They know they can sail and they want to sail across the Atlantic, but they are not quite sure they can make it all by themselves. So they hire the director. The director is perfectly capable of sailing across the Atlantic all by himself. In some cases, he has actually done it — once, twice, even a half a dozen times. If the producer would just let the director do what he has hired him to do, they would both make it to port safe and sound.
It rarely works that way. Most producers want to direct so badly, they have to “help” the director, even though the director does not want or need their help. The worst of the wannabe director-producers have no taste for the dirty or difficult part of directing. They tend to let the director do all the grunt work and get everything moving in one direction, whereupon they step in and second-guess him and tell him he has to move in the opposite direction. The worst of them will do this every step of the way. Every pivotal creative decision the director has to make, the producer is likely to either veto outright or dabble with to suit his fancy. And it is all perfectly unnecessary.
The hell of it for the director, especially the first time director, is that he has to let them muck about and get in the way. The reason for this was made abundantly clear to me over and over again by the Spanish producer who hired me to direct my first feature film. It was a little low budget rock ‘n' roll love story which, when it was released briefly in this country, was called Crystal Heart. It actually enjoyed a long run in the Spanish-speaking world, where it was known as Corizon de Crystal. The producer, I'll call him Pedro, was a semi-articulate but fairly bright businessman who at one time had been the heavyweight champion of Spain. (He had the physique and the flattened nose to attest to his accomplishments in the ring.) He and his business partner were actually funding this million-dollar venture themselves. There was no studio, no bank loan, no investors. All the funds to make the picture were coming out of their own bank accounts.
From day one Pedro did not let me take creative control of the picture. For starters, the script desperately needed another draft. It was a love story that conveniently omitted the process by which the boy and girl fall in love. Boy and girl meet. They have a little spat. They make up and, the next thing you know, they are in love. I tried desperately to convince Pedro that this little omission required a little rewrite. He equivocated. He stalled. He entered into negotiations with the writer. The negotiations fell apart. Then I offered to do the rewrite myself for free. But it was too late. Pedro declared that we were too close to the start of production and a rewrite would complicate the preproduction process and generate overages. When I tried to convince him he was cutting off his nose to spite his face, he wo uld pick up the script and wave at me for emphasis declaring, “Dees eez de script. We shoot dees.” When I protested one time too many, he reminded me, “”Oooh, but Meester Bettman, eez so seemple. Eez myyyyyyy mooonie, eez myyyyyy mooovie!”
And he was 100% correct. He was writing the checks. He was going to call the shots. Determined artist that I was, I continued to fight with him, sometimes openly, in front of the crew. The Mexican sound mixer, Manuelito, took pity on me and tried to clarify the futility of railing against the producer's droight de seigneur. One day he took me aside and counseled, “Con dinero, baille el pero” which loosely translated means: “If he's paid, the dog dances.” This was very wise advice that I was just too young and full of myself to heed. I kept on fighting with Pedro, which simply compounded the situation. The problem with the love story in the script was a real one. I was right to see it and right to want to correct it. But once Pedro had told me in no uncertain terms that he had made his final decision to leave the script unchanged, it was stupid of me to continue to fight. It was a battle I could never win. By entering into it, I had much to lose and comparatively little to gain.
When I started out as a director, I was inclined to fight with producers over creative directorial decisions for the same reason that I was inclined to fight with line producers and UPMs over budgets. If anything came between me and the fulfillment of my ambition, I was going to attack it. Again, such passion is useful. Nobody becomes a successful director without it. But, as a first time or neophyte director, you should never risk one iota of whatever trust and goodwill exists between you and your producer. You must quell your desire to make that stellar breakthrough film if you run even the smallest risk of getting into an adversarial relationship.
When you get into a disagreement with the producer, it is usually because he trying to do your job for you. He is trying to “help” you sail the boat, by making a key creative decision about the script or the casting or the art direction or the mis en scene or some other realm of creative endeavor. Unless you are very lucky and happen to land a truly imaginative and gifted producer, his decision is going to suck.
And yet you are going to have to pretend that it's great, or somehow, miraculously, trick him into changing his mind. If you are a trickster, if you are adept at manipulating people into doing things you want them to do without being up front about it, go for it! The goal is to avoid being confrontational. If there had been some way I could have gotten Pedro, all by himself, to arrive at the decision that the script needed a rewrite…if I could have made him believe that it was his decision, the decision would have been implemented. We would have made a better movie.
As a first time director, the only way for you to get ahead with your producer is by getting along. Without the money, there is no movie, and the producer brings the money to the table. But there can still be a film, even a fine film, without you as the director. The producer always knows this dirty fact.
The harder you struggle against the producer's right to meddle in the creative decision-making process, the more frequently and the more vehemently he will assert that right. I found this axiom out the hard way with Pedro. I was too inexperienced to recognize the irrefutable logic of “eez myyyyyy mooonie, eez myyyyyy mooovie!” When Pedro refused to let me rewrite the script to clarify exactly why the boy and the girl fall in love, I simply went ahead and did it, and then talked the male and female leads into playing it the way I had rewritten it, rather than the way it was in the script. In retrospect, I'm amazed that I was naïve enough to think that I could pull this subterfuge off without Pedro detecting it. His English was self-taught, and somewhat spotty. I guess I was hoping that this would keep him from picking up on my little rewrite. I hoped wrong. He figured it out and was furious.
The next day on the set, after we had finished shooting, he drew me aside into a quiet, darkened corner for a little tete à tete. We were seated opposite each other. He leaned in close and lowered his voice for emphasis and told me, “Meester Bettman (pause) what chu do today…(long pause) EEZ SHIEET!!! EEZ SHIEET, WHAT CHU DO!!! My partner see deece…E SAY I CRAZY HIRE CHU! !!!@@@@! !!!!!”
That became his constant refrain. It seemed like practically everyday he told me in so many words that, in his mind, what I had done up until that point, “Eez shit!” All the same, he never fired me. I kept on coming to the set, day after day, and doing what the director has to do.
But when the picture was wrapped, Pedro shut me out of the editing room. I was banished from the entire postproduction process. When I called him to protest, he told me, “You no need come to the editing room. I do everything.” All in all, the postproduction job did not hurt what I had done, nor did it help. I am certain that the picture would have played better if I had had a hand in the post. But enough things had been done right on the set, so that, even though all the pieces were put together without much inspiration, the picture sometimes almost takes flight. The post was a missed opportunity.
Crystal Heart was distributed in the U.S. by New World. It had a very brief run on the coasts and then folded. Pedro had much better luck distributing it internationally, especially in Spanish-speaking markets. Amazingly, about a year and a half after the last time Pedro informed me, “What you do today eez shit,” I had lunch with him and he asked me to direct another picture for him. It was a boxing movie called Fist Fighter. Or “Feeeast Fiiighter” as he would say, drawing out the vowels with anticipatory relish. When I politely declined, he actually begged me to do the picture. What this proves is that we both had provoked an intense conflict and had driven each other mad with anxiety throughout the production of Crystal Heart for no good reason. If we could trust each other and anticipate working together in a constructive fashion on Fist Fighter, we could have done it a couple of years earlier on Crystal Heart. If I had known then what I know now, when Pedro pronounced “dees eez da script!” I would have said, “Okay. Fine. Whatever you say.” By trying to sneak another version past him, I put him on the defensive and incited a conflict that ultimately hurt the film more than the revision of the script ever could have helped it. Yes, he did not fire me. But I had poisoned the well. I had threatened Pedro's authority. His response was to rattle my cage about everything and anything. After that, it became impossible for me to do my best work.
You have a great deal to lose and not much to gain by alienating your producer. As the director you get to sit on the throne and act like the king. Still, the producer is above you. He is god. And no king, in his right mind, ever defied god and came out ahead. If the wisdom of the Old Testament can be boiled down to one line, I would say that line would be, “Respect the Almighty, even when he deals with you capriciously or unjustly.” As a first time director, that is how you have to treat your producer.
One way to make sure you have a productive relationship with your producer is to socialize with him as much as possible. Do whatever he suggests that you do together, right up to having sex with him. Sex overcomplicates matters and can do more harm than good. Common sense dictates against it, but, under the right circumstances, even sex, or something like it, is worth engaging in with your producer if it's certain to solidify your relationship.
The validity of this truism was borne out in the best preproduction experience I ever had with a producer — one which I would hold up as model to be replicated as often as possible. It was with a British producer I will call him Reg. He was a founding partner of one of the first little production companies to get a start in rock videos and then move into producing high-end commercials and feature films. We got started on the right foot and built up enough momentum so that we did not start to feud until the last day of production. This was because Reg came on the project after I had already sold it to the record company and band. Through a series of fortunate coincidences, the Vice President of Promotions at Warner Records, Jeff Ayeroff, took me into a pitch meeting with the band, Chicago, without a clue as to what I was going to try to sell to them. All he knew was that I had followed his instructions to listen to the cut, Stay the Night, and come up with a concept for the video that featured a wall-to-wall car chase.
I came to the pitch meeting so completely over-prepared I even had gone to the trouble to have a storyboard artist who was a buddy of mine storyboard the entire pitch. Having never done a rock video before, and wanting very much to get into that game, I recognized that meeting for what it was: one of those rare chits you get offered to get ahead in Hollywood. So I made sure if I was going to miss out on this opportunity, it wasn't going to be due to lack of preparation. Hence the storyboards.
The band and their manager loved the storyboards and the pitch, and so I got the gig. Ayeroff and Warner Records then contracted with Reg and his company to produce the piece. This made Reg the only producer I ever came to with the project and the money in hand — probably one of the big reasons why Reg and I got along so famously all through preproduction. Because I was on the project before Reg, and because Warners and Chicago were putting up their money to have Reg produce my idea from my storyboards, I had more status and clout than a director usually has on his breakthrough gig.
But even taking that into consideration, my relationship with Reg was exceptionally harmonious. To a large extent I think this was because Reg had a kind of an English schoolboy crush on me. I don't mean to imply that Reg was gay. A touch kinky, maybe, but by no means gay. The whole time we were in prep, Reg seemed much more interested in getting together with me to party than in working on the video. In the office, he was polite and charming in a coy, Brit-like way. He had dated Madonna briefly and clearly could not avoid giving himself a little ego boost by dropping her name and telling stories, out of school, about their little fling. Ironically, it turned out I was something of an old friend of the actress who he was sleeping with when we were prepping the video. I will call her Sally. She was a tall, strong, fresh-faced Valley girl who was one of the seven lady truckers whom the TV network guru of the hour, Fred Silverman, had added to the cast of B.J. and the Bear in the second season of the show. Silverman's theory was that their collective cup sizes would give some lift to our sagging ratings. It did not work. The show was cancelled after the second season, but in the meantime, Sally and I had had a lot of fun flirting with each other when I directed the show. When I was prepping Stay the Night, it seemed as if, at least once or twice a week, Reg would call me up late at night when he was with Sally. They always seemed very high on something. They would be laughing and making wisecracks and between the jokes and the giggles, Reg would let it drop that we should all get together. I would look at my watch. It would be almost midnight, if not later. “What, now?” I would ask, slightly incredulous. “C'mon, don't be a party pooper!” they would shout.
I never went, but I should have. Never pass up an opportunity to socialize with your producer, or for that matter, with any of your key collaborators on your break- through directing gig. The stars, the DP, the UPM, the line producer, the department heads, even the studio people or the bonding company — hang out with any and all of them at every available opportunity. Do whatever you need to do to get loose and have a good time with them. It doesn't matter if they want to play croquet or footsie — as seemed to be the case with Reg and Sally. Play their little game, because it is money in the bank. We humans are all naturally inclined to be much more patient and trusting with those that we like. If they like you, or if they think you are funny, or if they respect you for your intelligence or your uncanny ability to recite the batting averages of the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers, then, when you are working to bend them to agree with you on some matter which could significantly improve your movie, like a story point or a casting decision or the choice of a location, instead of feeling threatened and going on the defensive, they will try a little harder to see it your way. Nothing could be more valuable. A little friendship can go a long way in getting your key collaborators to work with you and allow you to realize your vision. If you have some doubts about the validity of this truism, read Budd Schulberg's immortal tale of the importance of schmoozing in Hollywood, What Makes Sammy Run? Yes, it was published in 1941, but it is still as accurate as if it had been written yesterday.
Even if you find that you have nothing in common with the higher-ups or your key collaborators — even if you find them, for some reason, loathsome and despicable, turn on the charm! Make them like you! If this groveling is beneath you, if you are such a Boy Scout and an honest Abe that you cannot artfully dissemble in order to ingratiate yourself with people you secretly despise, you are going to be at a distinct disadvantage in the Hollywood film business. The simple fact of the matter is that in Hollywood relationships are everything. No sane person with a significant amount of experience in the business would deny that. To a great extent your success will be determined by the extent to which you can charm everyone and get them all to like you. On your breakthrough directing gig, this axiom is especially true when applied to your key collaborators and those above you who have the power to make or break your film. In America, the culture of the workplace demands that working relationships be non-confrontational. In Hollywood, relationships are everything. The combined weight of these two truths is what leads me to tell every film student in every class I have ever taught that the best training for the film business they can get while in film school is to find a classmate who they loath and detest and then make that classmate like them. It won't be fun or easy, but as Zemeckis used to tell me whenever I would start to whine about the difficulties of getting ahead in the film business: “If it were easy to get in the club, Gil, everybody would be in the club.”
Crewing Up
Though making a film is like fighting a war, it can also be compared to building a cathedral. As the director, you should be the driving force behind the construction of the cathedral. So you, as director, could be likened to a bishop who has convinced a king to put up the money to convert your vision into a physical reality. In this context, the king is the producer or the studio. The writer is the architect. He draws up the plans. The cinematographer is the head mason. The line producer and the production manager are the construction bosses. But the actual building is done by a myriad of laborers, most of them stone masons of one sort or another. Although you, the director, are charged with the responsibility of making the cathedral a work of art, the actual work is not done by your hands. As anyone who has studied the glass or the stonework of any great cathedral can tell you, to a large extent, the beauty of the whole is dependent on the beauty of each individual part. The cathedral could never be considered a work of art unless all those on whom the bishop depended to carry out his vision — from the architect down to each individual stonemason and glass worker — was, in his own right, a great artist.
I have always found that the first time director buys himself some very valuable insurance if he makes some key contributions to the process by which the crew for his film is hired. Sometimes this is not an option. In episodic TV, the series usually is run by the producer and/or the star. They hire the crew for the duration of the series. The directors rotate in and out every second, third, or fourth show. Under these circumstances, the director is a kind of queen for a day and the cinematographer may actually run the set. Hollywood or New York directors who work out of the country or out of their home state (unless they do so on a regular basis) are not going to know crew people in Texas, Canada, or the Philippines.
But my experience breaking in as a rock video director and then later as a low budget feature director in Los Angeles taught me that those who were hiring the crew, whether it was the producer or the line producer or the UPM, were always happy to have me lend a hand when it came time to hire all the department heads as well as all the “little people.” The logic of this approach is undeniable. Most of the great directors who are so thoroughly bankable they get everything they want to make a film — who never have to compromise on anything — never compromise when it comes to hiring department heads and/or crew. They know that their film will not be great unless they get great people on their team to attend to all the details that they cannot attend to. The director is responsible for everything, but he cannot actually do everything. He has to delegate. All those directors who have the power to do so, delegate strictly to those whom they know they can trust. As a first time director you will not be given this kind of veto power over the crewing- up process. But you should do your best to have as much influence as possible.
Since hiring crew falls under the job description of the line producer or the UPM, they always have a roster of their own people to draw from. But if their people are good (and you better hope that they are), then many of them will be working and unavailable. Or they may not be willing to compromise and accept the wages of your budgetarily compromised film. Under these circumstances, suggestions are usually welcomed. To this end, I have always saved all my crew sheets from every shoot I ever worked on. And if I had the good fortune to work with any crew person who was a standout at what he did, whether he was a PA or a cinematographer, I have always entered his name and phone number in my Rolodex, under his job title.
As soon as you come on board as the director, sit down with whoever is hiring the crew and casually suggest that you go over his choices for the department heads: the director of photography, the art director, the editor, the wardrobe department head, the hair and makeup person, the prop master, the special effects man, the stunt coordinator, and the graphic effects designer. Try to feel out how open he is to your suggestions. He may welcome your input or he may be completely opposed to it. Whichever, follow his lead. Yes, crewing up is important, and a first time director can only help his cause if he provides some key input into the process. Yet it is definitely not so important that the first time director should risk getting into an adversarial relationship with the line producer or the UPM or whichever one of the higher-ups is doing the hiring.
In almost all instances, the director participates in the hiring of the cinematographer. This only makes sense. The harmony and efficiency of the production is almost entirely dependent on whether or not the director and the cinematographer can get along with each other as human beings while collaborating as artists. Truly, it is as if the cinematographer and the director paint a picture together. The director must rely on words to tell the cinematographer what to paint. The producer and the higher-ups would be buying themselves some very cheap insurance guaranteeing that their set will be a happy and productive place if they hire a DP with whom you, the director, have collaborated with successfully in the past. You have got to hope that they understand the special nature of your relationship with the DP, and will respect your wishes when it comes hiring time. If they can't, or don't, politely and persistently try to enlighten them. If they are beyond being enlightened, after a week or ten days, you have to give up, even though your relationship with the DP is arguably more important than your relationship with the producer.
As a rule, successful cinematographers get ahead by getting along. Their careers are not going to flourish unless they have the people skills to amicably resolve differences of opinion between themselves and the many different directors — all with different work habits and personalities — with whom they are going to have to collaborate on their way up the ladder. Pedro never even introduced me to the DP on Crystal Heart. He just told me his nickname, Vasaleo, which means vaseline in Spanish. The nickname said it all. This guy was as smooth as they come. He was cheerful, completely unflappable, flexible, always full of ideas, but ready to incorporate mine. I had no trouble working with him, and it was to Pedro's credit as a producer that he knew filmmaking and Vasaleo well enough to know in advance that this would be the outcome.
If the producers are so incompetent they are going to force you to work with an intractable DP, this is going to be the least of your worries. If they blow it at this important juncture, then it is (tragically) more than likely that they are going to make bad decisions in two other areas that happen to be much more crucial to the success of the film: the rewriting of the script and the casting of the actors. Unfortunately, there is very little you can do to remedy this situation.
CHAPTER 1 | SUMMARY POINTS
• As a first time director, many of the crucial decisions will not be left solely up to you — especially those that impact the budget. But if it's purely a matter of taste and doesn't dramatically affect the budget, it should be your call. If it is your movie, it will be a better movie.
• The director sets the tone of the workplace. Stay positive, because you are going to need every bit of optimism to make it through the battle ahead. Be your own best cheerleader.
• The director is responsible for everything, even that which he has no control over.
• The director should never be heard laying blame or making excuses. It is not his place. He should have anticipated everything and made all the right decisions. Even if disaster befalls him, he should have had a back-up plan that saves the day.
• Prepare and then prepare some more. There is no such thing as being over- prepared.
• If you are going to direct a film which relies heavily on some realm of filmmaking that you are new to — whether it's something as old hat as song and dance numbers or stunts, or something as cutting edge as 3-D CGI graphics — then before you ever set foot in the office, study the nuts and bolts of that process so you can walk the walk and talk the talk.
• As a first time director, you should never risk one iota of whatever trust and goodwill exists between you and your producer. The only way for you to get ahead with your producer is by getting along.
• Very few first time directors get a second chance if they cannot get into the mindset of being a budget hawk.
• The director is responsible for everything, but he cannot actually do everything. Crew up well and delegate.
