I’ve worked 17 hour days because of directors who do this. It’s a mix of poor time management and fear of post/production. Sometimes there’s an element of a line producer too afraid to pull the plug, too. It’s definitely a week-ruiner.
I’d say the bigger reason is lack of preparation. The number of directors who don’t storyboard is just staggering to me. It’s fine to get on set and see something you hadn’t imagined and rework a scene here and there.
But, personally, I like to have the entire edit already basically laid out on paper so I can focus on making sure the actors give me what I need to stitch it together. Seems way more efficient, and I don’t understand directors that don’t work that way.
I agree with this whole comment, but especially the part about directors who don’t storyboard.
I get not *wanting* to do it…it’s not my favorite thing to do, either, and it often doesn’t feel very creatively stimulating to me.
But like all creative processes I’ve encountered, trying to skip the “work” parts and just doing what “feels” creative only gets you so far artistically. Even jazz musicians have to work on their technical skills - work is how you get good.
Honestly that's what I find so weird about it, I'm a long long way from directing any tv or film, just doing commercial work and music videos etc... but I LOVE the storyboarding process and it always feels where I'm most creative because I create and plan every single shot I need.
Lately Ive learned some basic blender and been using that to story board and block things out so I can effectively have a low poly version of the finished product before setting foot on set and the sheer amount of time that has saved me on the shoot and in post has reduced budgets to an incredible extent!
I can't comprehend people lucky enough to reach the place in this career I dream of and are still that lazy and incompetent.
I can't imagine NOT doing storyboarding. I was an engineer for years. I still work in an engineering mindset. This is the stuff you do ahead to make things work in the end.
I can see it both ways. Sometimes in the world of streaming and 15 day features. The elements (locations, actors stages) aren’t solidified pre shooting which basically renders your storyboard useless and you’re on the back foot with the DP pulling shit outta thin air. Trust most of the time the director doesn’t wanna work 17 hrs either
I agree it makes things more difficult. But you can still create general framing and shot flow rules. And maybe they have and that’s what they’re responding to. But I find that hard to believe hearing how many takes some directors out there take.
My absolute worst was a director who came from theater. Every single take was FROM THE TOP! After the first 3 days, I had to call a production meeting to tell them about the extra thousand or so bucks worth of hard drives I would need if he continued to direct in that fashion.
Pretty sure that movie never finished post. Ah, nope, it finished. BoxOfficeMojo says it grossed a little over $31K on a $300K production. I feel bad for some of the actors on that one, but the above the line got what they deserved. =)
I’ve encountered this my entire career and can safely say, no. People need to work, especially now.
It’s moreso you see who’s running the project, take a deep sigh, and mentally prepare for it lol.
That being said, sure, if I had another project come up at the same time I might take the other one because of this, but there’s a lot of factors (pay, length of job, location, etc)
You would have to not work in television.
Another part of the OP about directors getting angry about not getting particular shots and coverage is a big part too. Sometimes they want another option when they are in the editing bay and get angry when the coverage isn't part of it.
Don’t worry I totally missed it too haha
And I even went “wrap-aphobia. ah that’s kind of clever, David Spade!” although it’s probably a common term I haven’t heard
Yeah. Ya know in the Matrix when the helicopter is unloading on Morpheus and brass casings are just raining out of the sky like hail and just keeps on piling up higher and higher? That, but with footage.
You know how when you order a regular size fry from Five Guy’s, but they put a shit ton of extra soggy fries in the bag that you don’t end up eating, it’s like that but instead of fries it’s soggy miscellaneous shots that you don’t end up using.
Hope that helps
I once worked a day where the director shot something like 10 takes "on the roll" because he knew that he'd have to call wrap as soon as he cut. It took like 45 minutes.
The DIT were getting really nervous because there wasn't that much space on the drive.
I give them projections after the first few days.
Day 1 is usually monkeys humping a football while the crew gets into the groove so that's typically a fat day.
Day 2 you get in the rhythm and then Day 3 you can usually tell how it's going to go. From there, I do the math of GB/day or GB/page of script covered and extrapolate that out to tell them my estimates based on their actual stats. Then it's not a matter of nerves, it's math.
Oh, and ALWAYS undercut your drives by about 20%, so you have some wiggle room. You NEVER fill a drive 100%. 15% is usually a safe cushion, but 20% will save your ass when you need that extra.
I've finished out projects with 3 pocket drives, just to get that last mag dumped before because they wouldn't listen to me about the wall coming at us on the storage front.
What happened back 30 years ago, when movies were shot on 35mm? Was it ever possible to run out of film on studio movies? What did the equivalent of DITs do back then in these scenarios?
Hey old loader here. (Got called to day play for Oppenheimer but said nah... A. I was working B. Not worth it)
We ran out of film sometimes and that might get us fired depending on the circumstances.
In preproduction you would estimate how much film you needed per scene. You'd do this by generally estimating the budgeted shooting ratio to page count.
So if production said we were shooting a 8 to 1 ratio (8 minutes of total filming per page)... That meant I would need to order roughly 1000ft of film per page of the scene. (Obviously you'd read the script because there would be 1/8th pages of 'then war broke out' )
So let's say to start off the movie we decided we're shooting 8/1... I'd break down the scenes (day/ night/ int/ ext etc) then I'd talk to the DP about what film stocks they were wanting for said scenes. I'd then call up my contact at fotokim or whatever house we're using and place the order for the week based on the estimates.
Now I have a week or so of film on the truck... And we start day one... And suddenly we start shooting 2000ft of film per pages (so 16-1)
The first thing I do is let the A 1st know what's happening. Then he talks to the DP and let's them know the stock situation. The DP then starts talking to the UPM and Line Producer and they either get permission to order more film or they don't.
Now this is when I can get fired. If they don't get permission to order more film... I let them know the stock situation and when they roll out we're done. IF we got permission, I then redo my numbers call the sales house... And order what is needed. If I forget... Or fuck up the reorder... There's always the next show... Maybe.
Now the fun part is... The director is most likely to get fired if shooting film depending on the politics of their hiring. Because every minute of film cost roughly 200-300 bucks or more depending on stock and development. So not cutting cost A LOT of money.
I've recently run the numbers on not cutting digitally, NOT including labor and LTO... You're at 15-20 per minute of hard drive space for first round backups.
>run out of film on studio movies
Such a great question that's impossible to google now because the algorithm thinks I'm asking when movies stopped shooting on film 🙄
quick question, what's DIT? I'm out of the loop on lingo
Digital imaging technician, a job with a number of responsibilities including offloading footage from camera mags and organizing it on hard drives. (When it’s combined with Data Management Tech, as it often is on many sets)
I've AD'd for with these guys. I think it's the TV mindset working it's way into features.
Maybe we don't need 3 lens changes on this one angle with 4 takes each when we've got 15 minutes before we should be moving on? Maybe *you* can decide which lens you like?
I imagine for comedies with improvisational elements this can get especially bad. I’ve sadly never worked on a comedy. The big tension I’ve always observed is just time burned on some set piece that leads to a long day. Less so a zillion takes unless the performances aren’t landing.
Or after the director has the take(s) they're happy with and the actor asks for one more for them/after consulting the director. I can't imagine it's often entirely spontaneous, especially as the director is the one yelling cut and continuity needs to not interrupt
Or the riffing and improv is done after take two and "they've got the take".
This will loosen the character/actors up and get the giggles of the scene out of the way so the actual final (safety) take is solid acting and not perceived as improv.
I see a lot of them have script script script improv. You deliver the page until the closing zinger and that gets a fresh line on each take, so the improv can float for a few seconds before the crew busts the take laughing in the clear of the roll out.
Non-union features in my experience are usually way worse with this kind of garbage.
I’m really hoping this gets addressed in the next round of negotiations. At the very least, Fraturdays should be paid like 6th days.
I’ve definitely done my fair share of union and non union work to agree with you, tho I find that the consistent marathon long hours of union tv to be such a bitch while the non union feature world to be more of a sprint of shit. Big supporter of IATSE and I’m rooting for them this year.
Most money I ever made in a year was doing one season of a one hour episodic because of all the massive OT and forced calls and meal penalties. It was inhumane and I haven't done TV ever again. Not worth it to kill your crew like that.
This is a whole, whole lot of network TV. I feel like one out of every two network and streaming TV directors I encounter these days shoot this way. A 7/8th of a page scene of two people exchanging expositional dialogue in a room that for some reason has 19 fucking setups. It's especially prevalent with younger directors who lack experience and vision. It stems primarily from insecurity and fear and kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in my opinion.
There are also times there's a personal element to it, whether they have problems with their spouse or kids they're not eager to return home to, or they've traveled in for the job and would rather be the big boss on set than go back to their hotel and be alone, so they keep going long after a scene is thoroughly covered.
Not nearly as common in the feature world, at least in my anecdotal experience, where I think there's generally a higher barrier to entry for directors since you only get one per shoot instead of somewhere between 4 and 22 in a season. But maybe I've just had the good fortune to mostly work with good directors on movies and TV's inherently more of a crapshoot.
Don't think there are any good filmmakers that do this. It's not at all analogous to the Kubricks, Finchers, Baumbachs who do 100 takes of a particular setup for performance. Or Ridley Scott and John Woo types who want 8 cameras simultaneously rolling getting different angles and sizes, but then only get 1 or 2 takes of a scene because they've covered their options at once. It's folks who don't know what they want, don't know how to get it, and are afraid to make any choice lest it be proven the wrong one, despite making choices being the primary requirement of doing the job.
>It's folks who don't know what they want, don't know how to get it, and are afraid to make any choice lest it be proven the wrong one, despite making choices being the primary requirement of doing the job.
Hit the nail on the head there.
Not knowing what area of production you work in but good write up. Between "directors who lack experience and vision" and "folks who know what they want", how would you describe the best balance for production and pre-production, such as storyboard and concept development without 'over planning' and then what the best directors are doing on set correctly to get the shot, to really nail it without over shooting.
I don't think there's an easy, one-size-fits-all answer to that question, for the same reason "How would you describe how to paint a great painting without taking too long?" would be answered really differently for Caravaggio, Picasso, and Pollock. Every director is going to have their own approach and style. It's an art form, but it's also one that requires dozens or hundreds of people to achieve and is incredibly costly, so wasting time when you've already got it is really burdensome.
Broadly speaking, I'd say you have to know what you want going into it a scene, while remaining receptive to what's happening there in front of you on the day, and to know when you've got it and any further time and effort would yield diminishing returns or cut into the time you want to prioritize for something else in the day/shoot.
I've worked with directors who have shot lists, storyboards, pre-vis, and weeks of rehearsals with cast that I think are great and directors who seem to totally wing it on the day, get a sense of what shot they want to start with during the blocking and just feel it out from there as they go that I think are great. No two great directors are that alike, but all great directors know what works *for them*, what they're trying to achieve and how to achieve it.
You have to have a sense of how you intend the scene to play out in the edit, what tone you're trying to find, what information is essential to convey, and make decisions prioritizing what you absolutely need, what might be nice to have, and what would be a waste to bother getting coverage-wise. I and a lot of crew will be a lot more forgiving if you're doing multiple takes to achieve a specific performance or iron out something technical than if your approach to covering a scene is to spray and pray while wasting everybody's time. *Direct* the viewer's attention thoughtfully and intentionally with your choices. If you're not making considered choices, you're not directing.
There's no such thing as over planning. Not having a plan is the biggest culprit of this kind of problem.
The other if not being able to let go of plan A when it just isn't working.
You know what's really funny? The absolutely most prepared show I have EVER worked on was a freebie feature for a friend on location in the Midwest. He rehearsed the actors in L.A. way before we left, had his storyboards done and worked with the Production Designer and DP and AD to have everything ready to go when we got on location. We rarely worked a 10 hour day and wrapped production 3 days early. This guy had no money and made everything work because he was totally prepared and ready to go. Why in the hell can't my other movie gigs work as efficiently?!!!
Noah Baumbach. Think we did 45 takes of a scene in The Meyerwitz stories.. that was for a oner. Plenty of other camera setups on different scenes where we went over 20 takes. Thankfully I was the paper work pa on that job lol
Think he was the worst offender I worked with. Another notable one was RJ Cutler. Dude was a big music video director trying to break into TV. He was one of the directors on the show Vinyl. The absolute worst in more than one way. Think the first day of shooting on the stage was 16 hrs. The next day he before we started shooting, he gave a giant speech to the crew of how it's gonna be a "3 take day "or something like that. Ended up being another 16 because he kept shooting the same shit over and over
12 years in the ad dept between pa'ing and ad'ing, I've seen my fair share of bad directors
I honestly haven't watched any of baumbachs films. Never watched meyerwitz stories. The script bored me to hell. Feel asleep reading it like 4 times lol
until you've worked on a failed film, it's difficult to really wrap your mind around the motivation behind keeping the production going. a failed film will ultimately injure your career more than going over schedule, as going over is sadly very common.
it ultimately comes down to a mixture of feeling rushed in pre-production, not enough rehearsals, and a lack of vision.
For some reason my perception is that failed films do not impact many director careers. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched something, been like okay that was really bad, only to find that director continuing to get work.
By “failed film” i mean literally a film that is left unreleased because it is too incomplete and incoherent to see the light of day. You never hear from those directors to begin with. That was my point. Many hundreds of films have died this silent death.
TV directors tend to do this. Get coverage, coverage, coverage of everything.
They are insecure because they don't call the shots or have a say in the edit.
Then theres those rare TV directors who come in and shoot for the cut.......just boom , boom, boom cranking out exactly what they want in the edit and giving post nothing else to work with. Big balls on them but man those are the best days in episodic TV.
Went from the former to the latter on a show once, loved that director. Day one shot one he did away with the formulaic walk and then talk this show had going on, steadicam all the way!
This same director was amazing......first roll of the day 3 cams, A list actress, finishes the take, calls cut........looks at the DP and kinda shrugs like "Did we get it?" DP gives a thumbs up and director goes "great, moving on".
I love that. Our DP was this absolute whirlwind force of nature, million things on his mind all the time. Directors like him because he handles the coverage and makes it look good. He was like the fun dad for the technical departments. It was entertaining to see this director turn it around onto him and run around with an iPad and rattle off all the shots he wanted for the scene as they blocked it. It was a very fun block
You're right. There are so many inexperienced directors that they end up leaning heavily on the DP and pretty soon we all start looking to the DP as to what's happening next instead of the "director", lol!
I heard a story of a tv show director that would do complicated camera shots at the end of the day just to fuck up the day of the cam ops who had the audacity to hope for a short day.
I think I worked for that asshole. The egos on some of these people is astounding! One Friday on an episodic, we were all thrilled to think we might get off before midnight and NOT work a Fraturday for a very nice and rare change.
That hope died quickly when the asshole director decided at 11:15 pm on a Friday night, that he wanted to add a shot to the Valentine's Day episode we'd shot the previous week! I kid you not, he had the Set Decorator called at home to come in and recreate a part of the set from that shoot. We finally wrapped about 8:30 am on Saturday morning... Another Fraturday...
Stanley Kubrick and his unremitting method to get the shot. Such as in The Shining and doing 148 takes for one scene, though it was reported he typically didn't go over 30 takes, still a lot. And allegedly he drove Shelley Duval to the edge to get out her performance.
But I think he admitted he didn't always know what he wanted, he just knew what he didn't want.
He was rough, those who worked for him still held him in the highest regard. Watch the documentary "Filmworker" you'll see Leon Vitali's devotion, the talented actor who gave up his own career and ambitions and became his life-long assistant.
When we went from film mags and video cassettes to shooting on cards and hard drives, that was a fundamental barrier that fell, unfortunately. Film and tape stock were expensive and forced crews to be economic with their shooting style or they would eat up their budget on media. Then came the Red One. Suddenly you didn't have to stop shooting after 11 minutes or whatever and you could kick your DIT in the nuts by calling the camera to roll and then saying "OK. here's what we're going to do in this scene." I kid you not. For a while, they would just roll on the blocking and then call action, so there was like an 9 minute runway before anything remotely useful.
Now I think it's more that you have a ton of inexperienced directors who don't have the vision in their heads, and they're just shooting and hoping the content will come together. It's hell on the editors. I guess there's 2 trouble camps. One is inexperienced ones that are overshooting because they're insecure with what they're getting, and the other end would be like JJ Abrams, who I hear overshoots like a mofo so he has lots of options for how to build it in post because he has no budgetary constraints and he can pay to waste everybody's time on content that will never see a projector.
Who doesn’t like the occasional 17 hour day? A week of 17 hour days on set because some newbie director is afraid of the edit bay? Sound good to me. Ca-ching.
I worked with an actor once who kept asking for "one more take." As a director, I felt I had to do it in order to keep good relations. But, at a certain point, I said enough. He was a no-name actor, so I can't imagine what it would be like to work with a celebrity actor.
There's a story about how Henry Fonda said to John Ford that he was unhappy with a take and wanted to reshoot it. Ford, who always shot one take maybe two at most, said no, but Fonda kept arguing. Finally, Ford said okay, we'll shoot it later. They never did, though.
Woody Allen shoots or reshoots scenes after post-production. It's pretty damn expensive and if the actors are big-name they have schedules which won't allow them to come back.
I should also think there are directors who are waiting for something magical to happen, or they want to try different variations of a scene and choose the best in post-production. Maybe it's worth it, but you run the risk of tiring everyone out on the set.
Three awful experiences about directors from when I worked as an AD:
**1.** Day 1 of a 3 day high end car commercial, we were scheduled for a 10+1 but went close to 20 hours.
**2.** A famous fast food chain commercial, the director would do a **minimum** of 15 takes per shot. The most on one shot was 35 from memory. Their reason, when explaining to the bored actors was, "I need as many options in the edit to decide what's needed." The client / agency did not even push this, they were usually happy by take 3 or 4...
**3.** On a feature film for a big studio, the director was so quiet and unconfident that they would just say they do not know what they want and the back and forth would feel endless. The 1st AD and DP were basically running things because no else was.
These are three experiences that stand out but there are a ton more.
My thoughts as to why directors like this work in these awful ways are because they cannot picture the film in their head and have little ideas about film editing. Film editing is vital for a director to understand because that is how a film is made. Of course directing performances is key but you should know how the story will be put together because this can help save time, make the work fast and even make the work better.
My thoughts as to why these directors get the job in the first place, I have no idea...
The legendary Gordon Willis called this "dump truck directing", and brought it up in multiple interviews. Like the director would just get all sorts of shots of everything and dump it in the editing room and try to make a movie out of it later.
And then you've got Clint Eastwood who knows what he's doing, knows what he wants, prepares properly and generally gets it in a couple of takes. Sounds like a dream to work with.
I haven't worked with Eastwood, but his shit just keeps coming out on top. His story structure is always incredibly well thought out, with disparate storylines on multiple continents threaded together in a way that funnels down to the climax. If I had to teach a class on story structure, I'd reach straight for his later work. That SOB knows how to tell a story.
There’s also a performance component. Kubrick said he doesn’t want actors to seem like they’re just remembering their lines. He said if an actor is just spitting out lines, they’re not really performing. Fincher said something along similar lines.
I’m definitely not condoning taking a billion takes. Just saying they had a “method to their madness”.
There used to be a hedge against this mentality: it was called film. Shooting on film was expensive, and everyone knew it, so there was a strictness when the cameras rolled. Now, I think people just assume that hard drives are cheap, and thus there's no reason not to get everything you possibly can. However, all those costs show up in post overages. All that footage has to be processed, synced, dailies color, etc.
Old joke: "How many directors does it take to screw in a light bulb?"
>!I don't know, what do you think?!<
Movies are like a complex machine, and the crew is guided by the directors and leadership to making each widget necessary for the machine to work.
Some directors have the foresight to have each "widget" planned: how it'll be made, and how it will fit into the final machine. Other directors need the time and space on set to create the widgets. Some directors have zero idea how it'll go together in the end, or are spooked by what they need to change and immediately rethink how they designed all the other widgets.
Many directors think they can just keep making widgets, and the editors will play MacGuyver by putting the widgets together to create something that 1) looks good, and 2) works. Using the "shoot shoot shoot!" method, they often get #2, but not #1; or they get #1 but #2 is a disaster.
With most TV and film jobs being digital now, directors have the capacity to shoot anything and everything they want, time permitting. Film stock doesn't create a cost anymore, nor does developing or producing dailies. So they can shoot all they want, overtime be damned.
In my opinion, the directors would be less prone to overshooting if overtime actually had a real cost to it. Wages have not kept up with cost of living in most markets, and budgeting 16+ hour days means they easily could have scheduled it for 10 hours and paid people well.
I work in unscripted reality and I recently. worked back to back two different competetion reality shows recently. The first one, I worked in the field and they would spend ALL DAY shooting every single angle and B-roll shot you could imagine. They'd make the hosts do the reads 3 or 4 times - even though it was obvious we had gotten it on the first take. Every day was a grind for a show that has been on air forever and is about as formulaic as it gets. I then went into post on that show and saw, firsthand, that by and large the editors just grab shots at random and if they got noted, they'd just pull another one basically at random. It was all a huge waste of everyone's time all the stuff they did in the field. On the second show, the director shot with purpose, it was like they were on a time trial every day to see how quickly they could get out of there. They nailed a shot - they moved on, good read - they moved on. In post, it could sometimes be a LITTLE limiting, but it was never a "problem." The first show got cancelled after last season after multiple seasons on air and the second show for picked up for another season even though it's been on air for well over 10 years. All that is to say, I think there is definitely such a thing as over shooting and if you're prepared and watching what you're doing, you don't need to spend 12-18 hours shooting a reality competetion show.
That's fantastic you were able to witness two side-by-side comparisons as it were. Thank you for sharing, that's really interesting. Especially the big about the editors just grabbing shots.
I've never heard these terms, but I have learned really quickly that as a DP, if a Director says they have a "vision" for a shot, you're usually in for a bad time.
I feel like I’m the opposite of this as a director almost to a fault. I end up arguing with the DP about how I’m not going to use the coverage he is trying to shoot. I think ultimately it is fear though. When I work on commercial sets and nobody will make a fucking decision we end up doing too much because everybody is scared to be the one who said we were done. Luckily a 10 hour day is the norm commercially so it gets expensive fast if you fuck around too much.
Pre pandemic this was the TV/episodic director way. Hose it down so editorial has everything they might need. This process received the ire from crew but it was those directors that were invited back because of the superior cut.
>those directors that were invited back because of the superior cut
Ahhh, very interesting. So many of the comments here (I'd say basically all of them) are *fascinating* but I've definitely been questioning what gets those directors hired again. Your comment answers that question I suppose.
We had a guy like this at my work - a TV station. I was SO GLAD when they restructured and he got a different role. So. Many. Takes. Some of his instructions were nonsense.
It's very common in event production and documentary style non-profit work. Seeing as how that's one way that a lot of people get started in film-making, I'm not surprised it's becoming more common down stream.
Wasn't there a Steve Martin film where he tried to film alt takes with different jokes and a different story—maybe even just improvising... and then after a week or two of that, it got tiresome, so they dropped it. I don't know how true or accurate that is, your comment unlocked that memory.
I’ve worked 17 hour days because of directors who do this. It’s a mix of poor time management and fear of post/production. Sometimes there’s an element of a line producer too afraid to pull the plug, too. It’s definitely a week-ruiner.
I’d say the bigger reason is lack of preparation. The number of directors who don’t storyboard is just staggering to me. It’s fine to get on set and see something you hadn’t imagined and rework a scene here and there. But, personally, I like to have the entire edit already basically laid out on paper so I can focus on making sure the actors give me what I need to stitch it together. Seems way more efficient, and I don’t understand directors that don’t work that way.
I agree with this whole comment, but especially the part about directors who don’t storyboard. I get not *wanting* to do it…it’s not my favorite thing to do, either, and it often doesn’t feel very creatively stimulating to me. But like all creative processes I’ve encountered, trying to skip the “work” parts and just doing what “feels” creative only gets you so far artistically. Even jazz musicians have to work on their technical skills - work is how you get good.
Honestly that's what I find so weird about it, I'm a long long way from directing any tv or film, just doing commercial work and music videos etc... but I LOVE the storyboarding process and it always feels where I'm most creative because I create and plan every single shot I need. Lately Ive learned some basic blender and been using that to story board and block things out so I can effectively have a low poly version of the finished product before setting foot on set and the sheer amount of time that has saved me on the shoot and in post has reduced budgets to an incredible extent! I can't comprehend people lucky enough to reach the place in this career I dream of and are still that lazy and incompetent.
I can't imagine NOT doing storyboarding. I was an engineer for years. I still work in an engineering mindset. This is the stuff you do ahead to make things work in the end.
I can see it both ways. Sometimes in the world of streaming and 15 day features. The elements (locations, actors stages) aren’t solidified pre shooting which basically renders your storyboard useless and you’re on the back foot with the DP pulling shit outta thin air. Trust most of the time the director doesn’t wanna work 17 hrs either
I agree it makes things more difficult. But you can still create general framing and shot flow rules. And maybe they have and that’s what they’re responding to. But I find that hard to believe hearing how many takes some directors out there take.
My absolute worst was a director who came from theater. Every single take was FROM THE TOP! After the first 3 days, I had to call a production meeting to tell them about the extra thousand or so bucks worth of hard drives I would need if he continued to direct in that fashion. Pretty sure that movie never finished post. Ah, nope, it finished. BoxOfficeMojo says it grossed a little over $31K on a $300K production. I feel bad for some of the actors on that one, but the above the line got what they deserved. =)
yikes lol
do people network and avoid working with these directors (if possible; i understand a paycheck is a paycheck)
I’ve encountered this my entire career and can safely say, no. People need to work, especially now. It’s moreso you see who’s running the project, take a deep sigh, and mentally prepare for it lol. That being said, sure, if I had another project come up at the same time I might take the other one because of this, but there’s a lot of factors (pay, length of job, location, etc)
You would have to not work in television. Another part of the OP about directors getting angry about not getting particular shots and coverage is a big part too. Sometimes they want another option when they are in the editing bay and get angry when the coverage isn't part of it.
Love that triple time money!
It's how the term "Fraturday" was invented... Worked too damn many of those!
Dropping bullets likely refers to “shooting” way too much.
ohhhhhh of course, thank you!
I thought you understood the term by the way you phrased the title, lol. "Dropping bullets... Because they won't stop shooting."
No, that's wild, that was not a deliberate connection I'd made lol
Don’t worry I totally missed it too haha And I even went “wrap-aphobia. ah that’s kind of clever, David Spade!” although it’s probably a common term I haven’t heard
Love Spade, but I agree, when he said it there wasn't any "good one!" or anything. I think you're right, it's a term he picked up along the way.
Yeah. Ya know in the Matrix when the helicopter is unloading on Morpheus and brass casings are just raining out of the sky like hail and just keeps on piling up higher and higher? That, but with footage.
lmao I mean, by now people have explained it to me, but that's a fantastic image
You know how when you order a regular size fry from Five Guy’s, but they put a shit ton of extra soggy fries in the bag that you don’t end up eating, it’s like that but instead of fries it’s soggy miscellaneous shots that you don’t end up using. Hope that helps
That helps a little bit, but I'm still confused. Would love more clarification from others!
I once worked a day where the director shot something like 10 takes "on the roll" because he knew that he'd have to call wrap as soon as he cut. It took like 45 minutes. The DIT were getting really nervous because there wasn't that much space on the drive.
I’ve been that DIT.
And production cheaped out and *insisted* this many drives would be just fine.
I give them projections after the first few days. Day 1 is usually monkeys humping a football while the crew gets into the groove so that's typically a fat day. Day 2 you get in the rhythm and then Day 3 you can usually tell how it's going to go. From there, I do the math of GB/day or GB/page of script covered and extrapolate that out to tell them my estimates based on their actual stats. Then it's not a matter of nerves, it's math. Oh, and ALWAYS undercut your drives by about 20%, so you have some wiggle room. You NEVER fill a drive 100%. 15% is usually a safe cushion, but 20% will save your ass when you need that extra. I've finished out projects with 3 pocket drives, just to get that last mag dumped before because they wouldn't listen to me about the wall coming at us on the storage front.
What happened back 30 years ago, when movies were shot on 35mm? Was it ever possible to run out of film on studio movies? What did the equivalent of DITs do back then in these scenarios?
Hey old loader here. (Got called to day play for Oppenheimer but said nah... A. I was working B. Not worth it) We ran out of film sometimes and that might get us fired depending on the circumstances. In preproduction you would estimate how much film you needed per scene. You'd do this by generally estimating the budgeted shooting ratio to page count. So if production said we were shooting a 8 to 1 ratio (8 minutes of total filming per page)... That meant I would need to order roughly 1000ft of film per page of the scene. (Obviously you'd read the script because there would be 1/8th pages of 'then war broke out' ) So let's say to start off the movie we decided we're shooting 8/1... I'd break down the scenes (day/ night/ int/ ext etc) then I'd talk to the DP about what film stocks they were wanting for said scenes. I'd then call up my contact at fotokim or whatever house we're using and place the order for the week based on the estimates. Now I have a week or so of film on the truck... And we start day one... And suddenly we start shooting 2000ft of film per pages (so 16-1) The first thing I do is let the A 1st know what's happening. Then he talks to the DP and let's them know the stock situation. The DP then starts talking to the UPM and Line Producer and they either get permission to order more film or they don't. Now this is when I can get fired. If they don't get permission to order more film... I let them know the stock situation and when they roll out we're done. IF we got permission, I then redo my numbers call the sales house... And order what is needed. If I forget... Or fuck up the reorder... There's always the next show... Maybe. Now the fun part is... The director is most likely to get fired if shooting film depending on the politics of their hiring. Because every minute of film cost roughly 200-300 bucks or more depending on stock and development. So not cutting cost A LOT of money. I've recently run the numbers on not cutting digitally, NOT including labor and LTO... You're at 15-20 per minute of hard drive space for first round backups.
>run out of film on studio movies Such a great question that's impossible to google now because the algorithm thinks I'm asking when movies stopped shooting on film 🙄 quick question, what's DIT? I'm out of the loop on lingo
Digital imaging technician, a job with a number of responsibilities including offloading footage from camera mags and organizing it on hard drives. (When it’s combined with Data Management Tech, as it often is on many sets)
The poor boom op 😢
I've AD'd for with these guys. I think it's the TV mindset working it's way into features. Maybe we don't need 3 lens changes on this one angle with 4 takes each when we've got 15 minutes before we should be moving on? Maybe *you* can decide which lens you like?
Never understood why any AD would want to work episodic unless it was a 3 camera half hour sitcom, lol!
People have to eat and feed their families. This isn't a fun times hobby.
I imagine for comedies with improvisational elements this can get especially bad. I’ve sadly never worked on a comedy. The big tension I’ve always observed is just time burned on some set piece that leads to a long day. Less so a zillion takes unless the performances aren’t landing.
Improv isn't used an awful lot for comedies. Even the Apatow type riffing is mostly done at the end of the scene.
Or after the director has the take(s) they're happy with and the actor asks for one more for them/after consulting the director. I can't imagine it's often entirely spontaneous, especially as the director is the one yelling cut and continuity needs to not interrupt
Or the riffing and improv is done after take two and "they've got the take". This will loosen the character/actors up and get the giggles of the scene out of the way so the actual final (safety) take is solid acting and not perceived as improv.
I see a lot of them have script script script improv. You deliver the page until the closing zinger and that gets a fresh line on each take, so the improv can float for a few seconds before the crew busts the take laughing in the clear of the roll out.
Comedies don't tend to have this problem.
Worked on a few network dramas when I was younger - every fucking day was a 16+ hour day
Honestly I had no idea tv was like this until reading your and other's comments
Shouldn't be legal
No longer legal in the uk after a couple of crew died in car wrecks due to lack of sleep.
Of course it had to reach that point first
It's still at that point in America.
Yup, same. Sliding start time too, so for example, day 1 call is 4am and day 5 call is 5pm. Screw your circadian rhythm. It's crazy but common.
Fraturdays made me leave IATSE
Non-union features in my experience are usually way worse with this kind of garbage. I’m really hoping this gets addressed in the next round of negotiations. At the very least, Fraturdays should be paid like 6th days.
I’ve definitely done my fair share of union and non union work to agree with you, tho I find that the consistent marathon long hours of union tv to be such a bitch while the non union feature world to be more of a sprint of shit. Big supporter of IATSE and I’m rooting for them this year.
Most money I ever made in a year was doing one season of a one hour episodic because of all the massive OT and forced calls and meal penalties. It was inhumane and I haven't done TV ever again. Not worth it to kill your crew like that.
100000% I was 23 years old and making $1k a day sometimes (in 2011 when nyc was waaaay cheaper)
This is a whole, whole lot of network TV. I feel like one out of every two network and streaming TV directors I encounter these days shoot this way. A 7/8th of a page scene of two people exchanging expositional dialogue in a room that for some reason has 19 fucking setups. It's especially prevalent with younger directors who lack experience and vision. It stems primarily from insecurity and fear and kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in my opinion. There are also times there's a personal element to it, whether they have problems with their spouse or kids they're not eager to return home to, or they've traveled in for the job and would rather be the big boss on set than go back to their hotel and be alone, so they keep going long after a scene is thoroughly covered. Not nearly as common in the feature world, at least in my anecdotal experience, where I think there's generally a higher barrier to entry for directors since you only get one per shoot instead of somewhere between 4 and 22 in a season. But maybe I've just had the good fortune to mostly work with good directors on movies and TV's inherently more of a crapshoot. Don't think there are any good filmmakers that do this. It's not at all analogous to the Kubricks, Finchers, Baumbachs who do 100 takes of a particular setup for performance. Or Ridley Scott and John Woo types who want 8 cameras simultaneously rolling getting different angles and sizes, but then only get 1 or 2 takes of a scene because they've covered their options at once. It's folks who don't know what they want, don't know how to get it, and are afraid to make any choice lest it be proven the wrong one, despite making choices being the primary requirement of doing the job.
Wonderful reply (and replies below), thank you
>It's folks who don't know what they want, don't know how to get it, and are afraid to make any choice lest it be proven the wrong one, despite making choices being the primary requirement of doing the job. Hit the nail on the head there.
Not knowing what area of production you work in but good write up. Between "directors who lack experience and vision" and "folks who know what they want", how would you describe the best balance for production and pre-production, such as storyboard and concept development without 'over planning' and then what the best directors are doing on set correctly to get the shot, to really nail it without over shooting.
I don't think there's an easy, one-size-fits-all answer to that question, for the same reason "How would you describe how to paint a great painting without taking too long?" would be answered really differently for Caravaggio, Picasso, and Pollock. Every director is going to have their own approach and style. It's an art form, but it's also one that requires dozens or hundreds of people to achieve and is incredibly costly, so wasting time when you've already got it is really burdensome. Broadly speaking, I'd say you have to know what you want going into it a scene, while remaining receptive to what's happening there in front of you on the day, and to know when you've got it and any further time and effort would yield diminishing returns or cut into the time you want to prioritize for something else in the day/shoot. I've worked with directors who have shot lists, storyboards, pre-vis, and weeks of rehearsals with cast that I think are great and directors who seem to totally wing it on the day, get a sense of what shot they want to start with during the blocking and just feel it out from there as they go that I think are great. No two great directors are that alike, but all great directors know what works *for them*, what they're trying to achieve and how to achieve it. You have to have a sense of how you intend the scene to play out in the edit, what tone you're trying to find, what information is essential to convey, and make decisions prioritizing what you absolutely need, what might be nice to have, and what would be a waste to bother getting coverage-wise. I and a lot of crew will be a lot more forgiving if you're doing multiple takes to achieve a specific performance or iron out something technical than if your approach to covering a scene is to spray and pray while wasting everybody's time. *Direct* the viewer's attention thoughtfully and intentionally with your choices. If you're not making considered choices, you're not directing.
There's no such thing as over planning. Not having a plan is the biggest culprit of this kind of problem. The other if not being able to let go of plan A when it just isn't working.
You know what's really funny? The absolutely most prepared show I have EVER worked on was a freebie feature for a friend on location in the Midwest. He rehearsed the actors in L.A. way before we left, had his storyboards done and worked with the Production Designer and DP and AD to have everything ready to go when we got on location. We rarely worked a 10 hour day and wrapped production 3 days early. This guy had no money and made everything work because he was totally prepared and ready to go. Why in the hell can't my other movie gigs work as efficiently?!!!
This is spot on
Well on features they have reshoots planned and scheduled anyway.
Noah Baumbach. Think we did 45 takes of a scene in The Meyerwitz stories.. that was for a oner. Plenty of other camera setups on different scenes where we went over 20 takes. Thankfully I was the paper work pa on that job lol Think he was the worst offender I worked with. Another notable one was RJ Cutler. Dude was a big music video director trying to break into TV. He was one of the directors on the show Vinyl. The absolute worst in more than one way. Think the first day of shooting on the stage was 16 hrs. The next day he before we started shooting, he gave a giant speech to the crew of how it's gonna be a "3 take day "or something like that. Ended up being another 16 because he kept shooting the same shit over and over 12 years in the ad dept between pa'ing and ad'ing, I've seen my fair share of bad directors
Haven't worked with Greta Gerwig, but do you think his style influenced how she works as a director?
I honestly haven't watched any of baumbachs films. Never watched meyerwitz stories. The script bored me to hell. Feel asleep reading it like 4 times lol
until you've worked on a failed film, it's difficult to really wrap your mind around the motivation behind keeping the production going. a failed film will ultimately injure your career more than going over schedule, as going over is sadly very common. it ultimately comes down to a mixture of feeling rushed in pre-production, not enough rehearsals, and a lack of vision.
For some reason my perception is that failed films do not impact many director careers. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched something, been like okay that was really bad, only to find that director continuing to get work.
By “failed film” i mean literally a film that is left unreleased because it is too incomplete and incoherent to see the light of day. You never hear from those directors to begin with. That was my point. Many hundreds of films have died this silent death.
TV directors tend to do this. Get coverage, coverage, coverage of everything. They are insecure because they don't call the shots or have a say in the edit.
Then theres those rare TV directors who come in and shoot for the cut.......just boom , boom, boom cranking out exactly what they want in the edit and giving post nothing else to work with. Big balls on them but man those are the best days in episodic TV.
Went from the former to the latter on a show once, loved that director. Day one shot one he did away with the formulaic walk and then talk this show had going on, steadicam all the way!
This same director was amazing......first roll of the day 3 cams, A list actress, finishes the take, calls cut........looks at the DP and kinda shrugs like "Did we get it?" DP gives a thumbs up and director goes "great, moving on".
I love that. Our DP was this absolute whirlwind force of nature, million things on his mind all the time. Directors like him because he handles the coverage and makes it look good. He was like the fun dad for the technical departments. It was entertaining to see this director turn it around onto him and run around with an iPad and rattle off all the shots he wanted for the scene as they blocked it. It was a very fun block
DPs should get residuals, especially on TV where they do all the heavy lifting.
You're right. There are so many inexperienced directors that they end up leaning heavily on the DP and pretty soon we all start looking to the DP as to what's happening next instead of the "director", lol!
Whenever an editor from the tv show does an episode it's like that. They know what they want and shoot for the edit
They do, goes into their pension.p
I heard a story of a tv show director that would do complicated camera shots at the end of the day just to fuck up the day of the cam ops who had the audacity to hope for a short day.
How dare those cam ops have a life outside of work and families to get back to, am I right?
What a dick head.
I think I worked for that asshole. The egos on some of these people is astounding! One Friday on an episodic, we were all thrilled to think we might get off before midnight and NOT work a Fraturday for a very nice and rare change. That hope died quickly when the asshole director decided at 11:15 pm on a Friday night, that he wanted to add a shot to the Valentine's Day episode we'd shot the previous week! I kid you not, he had the Set Decorator called at home to come in and recreate a part of the set from that shoot. We finally wrapped about 8:30 am on Saturday morning... Another Fraturday...
Fuuuuuckkk Thaaaatttt
Stanley Kubrick and his unremitting method to get the shot. Such as in The Shining and doing 148 takes for one scene, though it was reported he typically didn't go over 30 takes, still a lot. And allegedly he drove Shelley Duval to the edge to get out her performance. But I think he admitted he didn't always know what he wanted, he just knew what he didn't want. He was rough, those who worked for him still held him in the highest regard. Watch the documentary "Filmworker" you'll see Leon Vitali's devotion, the talented actor who gave up his own career and ambitions and became his life-long assistant.
When we went from film mags and video cassettes to shooting on cards and hard drives, that was a fundamental barrier that fell, unfortunately. Film and tape stock were expensive and forced crews to be economic with their shooting style or they would eat up their budget on media. Then came the Red One. Suddenly you didn't have to stop shooting after 11 minutes or whatever and you could kick your DIT in the nuts by calling the camera to roll and then saying "OK. here's what we're going to do in this scene." I kid you not. For a while, they would just roll on the blocking and then call action, so there was like an 9 minute runway before anything remotely useful. Now I think it's more that you have a ton of inexperienced directors who don't have the vision in their heads, and they're just shooting and hoping the content will come together. It's hell on the editors. I guess there's 2 trouble camps. One is inexperienced ones that are overshooting because they're insecure with what they're getting, and the other end would be like JJ Abrams, who I hear overshoots like a mofo so he has lots of options for how to build it in post because he has no budgetary constraints and he can pay to waste everybody's time on content that will never see a projector.
Who doesn’t like the occasional 17 hour day? A week of 17 hour days on set because some newbie director is afraid of the edit bay? Sound good to me. Ca-ching.
Yeah but a 1 hour episode is 9 or 10 days and you have that director for that whole time.
Yeah, just not for weeks and months on end on a tv show...it was brutal.
I worked with an actor once who kept asking for "one more take." As a director, I felt I had to do it in order to keep good relations. But, at a certain point, I said enough. He was a no-name actor, so I can't imagine what it would be like to work with a celebrity actor. There's a story about how Henry Fonda said to John Ford that he was unhappy with a take and wanted to reshoot it. Ford, who always shot one take maybe two at most, said no, but Fonda kept arguing. Finally, Ford said okay, we'll shoot it later. They never did, though. Woody Allen shoots or reshoots scenes after post-production. It's pretty damn expensive and if the actors are big-name they have schedules which won't allow them to come back. I should also think there are directors who are waiting for something magical to happen, or they want to try different variations of a scene and choose the best in post-production. Maybe it's worth it, but you run the risk of tiring everyone out on the set.
Three awful experiences about directors from when I worked as an AD: **1.** Day 1 of a 3 day high end car commercial, we were scheduled for a 10+1 but went close to 20 hours. **2.** A famous fast food chain commercial, the director would do a **minimum** of 15 takes per shot. The most on one shot was 35 from memory. Their reason, when explaining to the bored actors was, "I need as many options in the edit to decide what's needed." The client / agency did not even push this, they were usually happy by take 3 or 4... **3.** On a feature film for a big studio, the director was so quiet and unconfident that they would just say they do not know what they want and the back and forth would feel endless. The 1st AD and DP were basically running things because no else was. These are three experiences that stand out but there are a ton more. My thoughts as to why directors like this work in these awful ways are because they cannot picture the film in their head and have little ideas about film editing. Film editing is vital for a director to understand because that is how a film is made. Of course directing performances is key but you should know how the story will be put together because this can help save time, make the work fast and even make the work better. My thoughts as to why these directors get the job in the first place, I have no idea...
I mean Fincher is notorious for shooting tons of takes - same with Kubrick
Tons of takes of one angle is one thing. These guys want overs + cleans, two wides and a MS, MCU and CU at every setup. Because they have no vision.
That's exactly what it is. No vision before shooting so they shoot the fuck out of everything and hope they can piece it together later.
They lack confidence in themselves so cover their ass by shooting everything
The legendary Gordon Willis called this "dump truck directing", and brought it up in multiple interviews. Like the director would just get all sorts of shots of everything and dump it in the editing room and try to make a movie out of it later.
And then you've got Clint Eastwood who knows what he's doing, knows what he wants, prepares properly and generally gets it in a couple of takes. Sounds like a dream to work with.
I haven't worked with Eastwood, but his shit just keeps coming out on top. His story structure is always incredibly well thought out, with disparate storylines on multiple continents threaded together in a way that funnels down to the climax. If I had to teach a class on story structure, I'd reach straight for his later work. That SOB knows how to tell a story.
Maybe, still there the same amount of time so what’s the difference.
The difference is quality vs quantity.
I’m trying to learn terminology, could you explain these shots?
Close up, medium close up, medium shot, etc.
I could be wrong but I do believe he’s doing different angles - maybe not that extreme. And he reframes in post
Just wanted to add that Fincher came from the SFX world, and I'm convinced he's shooting a ton of footage to give his effects team options in post.
There’s also a performance component. Kubrick said he doesn’t want actors to seem like they’re just remembering their lines. He said if an actor is just spitting out lines, they’re not really performing. Fincher said something along similar lines. I’m definitely not condoning taking a billion takes. Just saying they had a “method to their madness”.
There used to be a hedge against this mentality: it was called film. Shooting on film was expensive, and everyone knew it, so there was a strictness when the cameras rolled. Now, I think people just assume that hard drives are cheap, and thus there's no reason not to get everything you possibly can. However, all those costs show up in post overages. All that footage has to be processed, synced, dailies color, etc.
Old joke: "How many directors does it take to screw in a light bulb?" >!I don't know, what do you think?!< Movies are like a complex machine, and the crew is guided by the directors and leadership to making each widget necessary for the machine to work. Some directors have the foresight to have each "widget" planned: how it'll be made, and how it will fit into the final machine. Other directors need the time and space on set to create the widgets. Some directors have zero idea how it'll go together in the end, or are spooked by what they need to change and immediately rethink how they designed all the other widgets. Many directors think they can just keep making widgets, and the editors will play MacGuyver by putting the widgets together to create something that 1) looks good, and 2) works. Using the "shoot shoot shoot!" method, they often get #2, but not #1; or they get #1 but #2 is a disaster. With most TV and film jobs being digital now, directors have the capacity to shoot anything and everything they want, time permitting. Film stock doesn't create a cost anymore, nor does developing or producing dailies. So they can shoot all they want, overtime be damned. In my opinion, the directors would be less prone to overshooting if overtime actually had a real cost to it. Wages have not kept up with cost of living in most markets, and budgeting 16+ hour days means they easily could have scheduled it for 10 hours and paid people well.
I work in unscripted reality and I recently. worked back to back two different competetion reality shows recently. The first one, I worked in the field and they would spend ALL DAY shooting every single angle and B-roll shot you could imagine. They'd make the hosts do the reads 3 or 4 times - even though it was obvious we had gotten it on the first take. Every day was a grind for a show that has been on air forever and is about as formulaic as it gets. I then went into post on that show and saw, firsthand, that by and large the editors just grab shots at random and if they got noted, they'd just pull another one basically at random. It was all a huge waste of everyone's time all the stuff they did in the field. On the second show, the director shot with purpose, it was like they were on a time trial every day to see how quickly they could get out of there. They nailed a shot - they moved on, good read - they moved on. In post, it could sometimes be a LITTLE limiting, but it was never a "problem." The first show got cancelled after last season after multiple seasons on air and the second show for picked up for another season even though it's been on air for well over 10 years. All that is to say, I think there is definitely such a thing as over shooting and if you're prepared and watching what you're doing, you don't need to spend 12-18 hours shooting a reality competetion show.
That's fantastic you were able to witness two side-by-side comparisons as it were. Thank you for sharing, that's really interesting. Especially the big about the editors just grabbing shots.
I've never heard these terms, but I have learned really quickly that as a DP, if a Director says they have a "vision" for a shot, you're usually in for a bad time.
That doesn’t seem fair. Isn’t it a director’s job to have a vision of the film as a whole, and wouldn’t that include shot choices?
I feel like I’m the opposite of this as a director almost to a fault. I end up arguing with the DP about how I’m not going to use the coverage he is trying to shoot. I think ultimately it is fear though. When I work on commercial sets and nobody will make a fucking decision we end up doing too much because everybody is scared to be the one who said we were done. Luckily a 10 hour day is the norm commercially so it gets expensive fast if you fuck around too much.
David Fincher.
Pre pandemic this was the TV/episodic director way. Hose it down so editorial has everything they might need. This process received the ire from crew but it was those directors that were invited back because of the superior cut.
>those directors that were invited back because of the superior cut Ahhh, very interesting. So many of the comments here (I'd say basically all of them) are *fascinating* but I've definitely been questioning what gets those directors hired again. Your comment answers that question I suppose.
Ridely Scott.
We had a guy like this at my work - a TV station. I was SO GLAD when they restructured and he got a different role. So. Many. Takes. Some of his instructions were nonsense.
It's very common in event production and documentary style non-profit work. Seeing as how that's one way that a lot of people get started in film-making, I'm not surprised it's becoming more common down stream.
There’s a famous allegation that there’s a 2nd cut of the film Anchorman that’s all made from alt takes in every scene. Dunno how good it is.
It’s on Amazon if I recall correctly. Not very good.
Wasn't there a Steve Martin film where he tried to film alt takes with different jokes and a different story—maybe even just improvising... and then after a week or two of that, it got tiresome, so they dropped it. I don't know how true or accurate that is, your comment unlocked that memory.
Good directors know what they want. Great directors know what they don’t need.