FilmmakerIQ.com » Directing

12 Key Traits of the “Indie-Friendly” Director

John P. Hess — Thu, 17 May 2012 16:50:48 +0000

If you’re looking for a studio quality, I can tell you I don’t have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you.

I’ve now worked with twenty different directors on mostly low-budget indie projects–some of whom I’d like to work with again and again; others, never again. By now, I can tell when a director is lying, even if he or she doesn’t realize it–”it’ll be 70% handheld,” “we can just run and gun it with a skeleton crew,” “all I need is an extra half day for second unit stuff.” Yeah, right. Most of the director foibles I’ve dealt with are due to inexperience and will likely resolve themselves with time. But sometimes, I wonder if some people just weren’t meant to direct–at least not low-budget indies.

So what are the traits that I think make a director “indie-friendly” (and more generally, “producer-friendly”)? Besides the usual traits that all directors should have–passion, confidence, focus, a high E.Q., a collaborative spirit, a sense of humor, the ability to command respect, an openness to feedback balanced with decisiveness–here are the traits that are especially important when working with limited resources:

1. Fast Writer

I’ve worked mostly with writer-directors, which offers an efficiency that’s often missing when the writer and director are different people. So much rewriting is done not just during development and prep, but also during production. Some of my directors have had to rewrite whole scenes minutes before shooting them. There is probably a lot more production-directed rewriting in the indie world since we are constantly trying to figure out how to stretch a budget. Development periods are also a lot shorter for us because they have to be–typically, no one gets paid during development; we only get paid if we’re in production. As such, it’s nice to work with speedy writers who can discuss, digest, and incorporate notes quickly to produce a shoppable draft.

IFP.org | Read the Full Article

Director’s Round Table with Tarantino, Jackson, Cameron, Bigelow, Reitman and Daniels

John P. Hess — Mon, 14 May 2012 22:07:46 +0000

Film directors Quentin Tarantino (‘Inglourious Basterds’). Peter Jackson (‘The Lovely Bones’), James Cameron (‘Avatar’), Kathryn Bigelow (‘The Hurt Locker’), Jason Reitman (‘Up in the Air’), and Lee Daniels (‘Precious’) talk about the toughest scenes they’ve had to film for a movie.

The Two Take Minimum Theory of Filmmaking

John P. Hess — Mon, 14 May 2012 21:35:32 +0000

J. Ott asks for a second take and explores why you should almost always shoot a second take even if everything is perfect the first time around. How many takes do you generally ask for?

An actor expects two takes, minimum. There are some exceptions. I believe Sidney Lumet advised directors to do only one take of some unimportant shot, early on in a shoot, to show the crew they should always remain vigilant. Steven Spielberg has said he doesn’t like to rehearse actors in front the camera, since the first time is always the most spontaneous. But of course that’s just a preference, and he still does as many takes as he needs to get the right performance.

You would expect indie films to have fewer takes. I have heard of footage ratios as low as 4:1 — for every one minute you see on screen, four minutes were shot. You only get that by being very very careful what you shoot. The inexpensiveness of digital recording compared to film has flipped the equation. Now there are probably more indie films which depend only on 1/100 minutes being worth watching (and plenty of bad minutes get in).

Making the Movie | Read the Full Article

Steven Spielberg – “Listen to the Whispers”

John P. Hess — Wed, 02 May 2012 21:42:01 +0000

Steven Speilberg talks about how he found his way into settling on a career in Directing.

The Assistant Director’s Conundrum–”Sloppy” Filmmaking Versus “Good” AD’ing

John P. Hess — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 18:14:10 +0000

Know the difference between rushing to “make the movie” and rushing to “make the schedule”.

So, what is the difference between sloppy filmmaking and good assistant directing?

If you’re a fellow assistant director, or even a fellow filmmaker, you may or may not have ever been caught in a situation where you’re saying to yourself something along these lines: ”Well, we made our day, but in making our day, did we actually make a movie?” As in, a “good” movie.

Every show, whether it be a feature, a commercial, a TV series, an industrial…EVERY show has its own pace, and there are many variables that determine the pace at which any particular show moves–the size and experience of your crew, the style and working process of the director, the work ethic of the actors, your budget, the complexity of the scene of the movie in its entirety, the style of the show (period pieces tend to DRAG) what format you are shooting on (some digital workflows are time VACUUMS), etc, etc, etc (I’m sure we could let this list go on forever)–but, as an AD, it’s your job to be able to feel out the pace of the show and be able to move it along at its most efficient gait. Sometimes it’s a fine line…

Michael S. Chandler | Read the Full Article

5 Leadership Lessons from James T. Kirk

John P. Hess — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 18:07:08 +0000

What can we learn from the swaggering captain of the Enterprise? Well a lot about how to lead and effective team…

1. Never Stop Learning

“You know the greatest danger facing us is ourselves, an irrational fear of the unknown. But there’s no such thing as the unknown– only things temporarily hidden, temporarily not understood.”

Captain Kirk may have a reputation as a suave ladies man, but don’t let that exterior cool fool you. Kirk’s reputation at the Academy was that of a “walking stack of books,” in the words of his former first officer, Gary Mitchell. And a passion for learning helped him through several missions. Perhaps the best demonstration of this is in the episode “Arena,” where Kirk is forced to fight a Gorn Captain in single combat by advanced beings. Using his own knowledge and materials at hand, Kirk is able to build a rudimentary shotgun, which he uses to defeat the Gorn.

If you think about it, there’s no need for a 23rd Century Starship Captain to know how to mix and prepare gunpowder if the occasion called for it. After all, Starfleet officers fight with phasers and photon torpedoes. To them, gunpowder is obsolete. But the same drive for knowledge that drove Kirk to the stars also caused him to learn that bit of information, and it paid off several years later.

In the same way, no matter what your organization does, it helps to never stop learning. The more knowledge you have, the more creative you can be. The more you’re able to do, the more solutions you have for problems at your disposal. Sure, you might never have to face down a reptilian alien on a desert planet, but you never know what the future holds. Knowledge is your best key to overcoming whatever obstacles are in your way.

Forbes.com | Read the Full Article

How to Make Sure You’re Ready Before You Walk on the Set

John P. Hess — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 10:00:19 +0000

As a filmmaker, be it as a producer or director or both, you are like a captain of a ship. Once the production day starts and the ship has left port, everyone will be looking to you for guidance and direction. Nothing will sink your project faster than indecision – an issue that can be mitigated with proper pre-production work.

In the world of independent filmmaking, it’s easy to assume that more money can make any problem go away. But most filmmakers–independent or mainstream—will readily admit that nothing derails a project faster than being unprepared before the production begins.

It’s tempting to think that the $20,000 budget that you’ve scraped together through loans, personal savings and credit cards—and possibly an illegal act here or there—will trump readiness. It’s not true. So many films don’t get made because of poor planning, or just assuming that you can make it up as you go. Granted, it’s much easier to shoot now with digital as opposed to film, but it should be fairly obvious that you can’t just turn on the camera and film until the battery dies. Because the work that you’ve put in during pre-production will help in post, when you’re editing, looping sound, or trying to figure out how the boom ended up in all of those shots.

—Film Slate |Read the Full Article

Francis Ford Coppola On Risk, Money, Craft & Collaboration

John P. Hess — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 10:10:23 +0000

Ariston Anderson interviews Francis Ford Coppola (“The Godfather”, “Apocalypse Now”) on how to bridge the gap between distribution and commerce, screenwriting, and directing great actors.

How does an aspiring artist bridge the gap between distribution and commerce?
We have to be very clever about those things. You have to remember that it’s only a few hundred years, if that much, that artists are working with money. Artists never got money. Artists had a patron, either the leader of the state or the duke of Weimar or somewhere, or the church, the pope. Or they had another job. I have another job. I make films. No one tells me what to do. But I make the money in the wine industry. You work another job and get up at five in the morning and write your script.

This idea of Metallica or some rock n’ roll singer being rich, that’s not necessarily going to happen anymore. Because, as we enter into a new age, maybe art will be free. Maybe the students are right. They should be able to download music and movies. I’m going to be shot for saying this. But who said art has to cost money? And therefore, who says artists have to make money?

In the old days, 200 years ago, if you were a composer, the only way you could make money was to travel with the orchestra and be the conductor, because then you’d be paid as a musician. There was no recording. There were no record royalties. So I would say, “Try to disconnect the idea of cinema with the idea of making a living and money.” Because there are ways around it.

—The 99% | Read the Full Article

Tarantino Directing Bruce Willis in Pulp Fiction

Dennis — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 10:20:15 +0000

In this clip provided by Lions Gate for the Blu-ray release of Pulp Fiction,Tarantino directs Bruce Willis on set; Willis likens Tarantino’s directing to theater work.

Here is another behind the scenes clip of Mia (Uma Thurman) and Vince (John Travolta) dancing in the twist contest.

The Terry Gilliam School of Film: 10 Tips for Directors

John P. Hess — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 09:42:55 +0000

The visionary director of Brazil and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and Monty Python animator Terry Gilliam offers 10 tips for the Directors of today:

1. Growing up is for losers.

As a child, I always drew funny creatures, funny characters. But I think the trick is not to grow up, not to learn to be an adult. And if you can maintain the kind of imagination you all had when you were babies, you would all be wonderful filmmakers. But the world tries to make you grow up, to stop imagining, stop fantasizing, stop playing in your mind. And I’ve worked hard to not let the world educate me.

— Filmmaker Magazine | Read The Full Article