Thoughts on Directing After Directing

Posted September 1st, 2008 at 10:41 pm by C47
Pensive Directing
Pensive Directing

I’ve only briefly mentioned the production of my thesis (the fictional one), and after having about a month to think it over, and finally seeing the dailies four weeks after filming (monthlies?), I have an idea of where I stand with the outcome.

Mainly, as directing goes, I had a blast. I know, it’s a cliche, film school was supposed to make me realize I truly love cinematography or editing, but sorry, directing still does it for me.

This film spent months in my head, whether actively thinking about it or just letting it sit in the back. So when it finally came to shoot it it brought a strange high seeing something that had been in my head so long transfer to reality.

Of all the films I’ve done, I knew what I wanted the end result to be the most with this film, which I think is very important.

My impression with directing is you have this vision of what you want the film to be - edited, scored, and all - and the challenge is to dissect it and figure out what you need, frame by frame.

Quick cuts? It’s not going to be quick on set. Suspenseful scene? It’ll probably feel so weird the actors will laugh.

In the midst of all the chaos on set, and an AD telling you you’re behind schedule and need to go, you have to keep referring back to that vision and checking. “Am I getting what I need? Will this work?” I think I got 90% there.

Of course it wasn’t all euphoric play time. There were a few hiccups. Minor things, you know, such as numerous locations falling through and having to rewrite a third of the script.

Or breaking one of the cardinal rules (no kids or animals) and getting a chihuahua for the gold-digging mom. Somehow we managed to find the chihuahua from hell. Little re-write to dog-less, gold-digging mom - problem solved.

After spending an entire day shooting the rewritten third and watching it, it now seems like the final scene was always supposed to take place in the school, where we shot, instead of the original living room.

The night before, when the suburban community banded together to keep me out of their living rooms, I said when the film is done and screening, we’ll say, “remember when the end was supposed to be in a living room.” And we’d all erupt into laughter. At least in my mind.

I think it’ll still happen. It’ll just be me who says the line.

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It’s Dailies, Not Weeklies

Posted June 24th, 2008 at 11:19 am by C47

he took her to a movie

In a perfect film set world (real world), you shoot for the day, send the film to the lab that night to be processed, return the next day, shoot some more, and then during lunch (or beginning/end of the day), you watch what you shot the previous day. These are called dailies, because you do it everyday.

If you didn’t catch my tone, there’s an element of the Film School’s system that bothers me. There are many reasons to watch your footage everyday - to make sure it looks like you want, the film was processed successfully, equipment isn’t ruining shots, you’re getting all the coverage. It’s common sense to check what you’re shooting instead of being in the dark, especially when millions of dollars are riding on it. The idea is that if some thing’s wrong, it’s a lot easier and cheaper to re-shoot it when you’re on location with an entire crew instead of bringing everyone back.

However, at the Film School, things are a little different. First off, dailies aren’t possible, and I understand that. The film has to be shipped off to Miami and it’s usually sent in batches at the end of a show (instead of the end of each day), so there’s no way to check what you’ve shot until long after you’ve wrapped. About a week later, once the film has returned and the Assistant Editor has synced picture and sound, everyone that worked on that movie goes to the Film School theater and watches the ‘dailies’ - about an hour of raw, unedited footage.

Having everyone watch dailies isn’t normal practice, but from a a learning perspective, it’s useful to connect how the set was lit to how that comes out on film. It’s also handy to see how the editor assembles the footage.

So I’m understanding that we can’t see what we shot each day. What I don’t understand is why such extreme measures are taken to ensure we don’t see the footage before the official ‘dailies’ screening.

We’ve always been warned about not watching footage before the dailies screening (though never given a reason), but when it’s your film or you shot it, there’s a great personal investment involved and a lot of anxiety, wondering if those elaborate shots worked or if the film even exposed (of course it did).

The footage from the thesis I was cinematographer on returned. I went to the post-hallway to pull it up, but to my un-enjoyment the folder was locked. In fact, all the folders from the films that just returned were locked. This was never done before. I would very much like to know if the 91 set-ups look good, and that I didn’t sacrifice quality for quantity.

The official dailies screening is this Friday, about two weeks after we shot it. Like the title says, it’s dailies, not weeklies. Kind of ridiculous, right?

Photo by entro_py
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