Urban Movies Rise With Solid Direction
turn into on of those possessive relationships where it all goes bad quickly if you go along with it.
I was working on a shoot film in Los Angeles with a director that was wired pretty tight. He asked me once if any of the cast or crew said things about him behind his back. Of course they did. That’s what people do. Of course I lied like people do in that situation and said no. He was completely convinced that one of the actors were forgetting their lines on purpose to undermine him and the DP was just waiting to hijack his movie all together. He was wrong. They were talking about what an absolutely paranoid hard on he was.
It all came to ahead when a camera shot wasn’t working after numerous takes and the director went off into one of the most colorful profanity laced fits I had ever seen. I mean for a fit it was a beauty to watch. Arms flailing, a prop glass being thrown against the wall like a child, and everything else you expect from a person who lost control. “Why isn’t this working?” was the last thing he yelled. The 1st A.D. smartly told everyone to take five while things cooled on set.
The director got himself back together and we took another take that didn’t work. We were losing daylight and had a lot of other scenes to shoot to make the day, so the DP suggested a way the shot could work, by using a different camera position and move to get the action the director wanted. Right on cue, the paranoid director completely over reacted. He told the DP to piss off he. He was the director and wasn’t going to let him hijack his movie. The DP cooly said, “stop being so insecure. I’m here to make your movie, not mine.” The director blew off the suggestion without a second thought. He never got the shot he wanted to work and scraped the scene from the final cut. Who knows if the DP’s suggestion would have worked? It would have made sense to try it considering the other shot wasn’t working.
It was a different story on another shoot all together. A friend of mine was directing his first feature. He didn’t have a lot of money, but he brought on a DP with a resume an arm long and for the lead this hot B list actress that had some slasher movie credits. He invited me out to visit the set. My friend was a director with energy and drive to spare. He knew exactly what he wanted from everybody on the set. He gave the DP detailed notes, his shot sheet, and they had already gone over in detail the story-boards my friend drew up himself before shooting began. My friend was in total control.
I was looking over his shoulder into the monitor during the crucial shooting of the final scene of the film. He had the actress in this amazing bikini being chased by a knife wielding killer. After the first take there was a problem. The actress ran slower than the actor playing the killer. On the next take he told the actress to speed it up and the actor to slow it down. Still didn’t work. My friend watched the playback with the DP. Then asked the DP what he thought would work to get the shot. The DP got the shot to work by changing the blocking and moving the camera. My friend got the shot and the ending he wanted because he was secure enough as a director to utilize his DP, not neutralize him.
Those two experiences really gave me some perspective on getting through directing a movie. During CONSIGNMENT I ran into a major problem that threatened to cost us shooting a crucial murder scene. We had been working all night and instead of chasing daylight we were trying to beat it. We had a shooting scene that had to be shot before the sun came up, we had about an hour of night left, and there was no option to push the scene. We were losing that location for good after we wrapped. After a couple less than stellar takes I turned to my DP Royce Dudley. We have to make this work, we can’t lose this scene I said. I took the actors through a last minute rehearsal without rolling on the camera to see if I could cover the scene a different way. Royce stood back like he did sometimes watching. After the walk through rehearsal he said, “I can get your scene” and he did. Thanks Royce!
On the IN WITH THIEVES shoot I brought back an actor from CONSIGNMENT I really enjoyed working with named Jerome Hawkins.
I write and direct my own movies, so I get really involved in not only the action, but that the lines are delivered the way I want them. So here we are shooting a scene, when Jerome tells me he’s really feeling adding something to a line, keep in mind this movie is my baby, but I felt his vibe. I gave him one take to run with it his way. The line he added to close the dialogue was great. We added it to the script and kept it in the movie. Did I feel he was under-minding me? No. I was secure enough as a director to let an actor I respected contribute creatively to the movie.
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