First Time Director. Gil Bettman

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ