First Time Director. Gil Bettman

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СКАЧАТЬ extraordinary effort, for — with a few exceptions — the director is king.

      Because you are the director, you are going to have to be Solomon: a fount of knowledge, imagination, and reason. From now until the project is shipped, everyone is going to be hitting on you for answers. You are going to have to come up with more solutions to more problems than you ever imagined existed. You had better be a take-charge person, the kind who gets off on dispensing wisdom and likes being challenged. Otherwise you had better get out of the directing game.

      I'm that kind of take-charge person. I like being the boss, so for me, preproduction has always been a blast. I am not fatheaded. It doesn't become a director to be so. I have my doubts about myself, as probably do all those who aspire to a career in the arts. Still, there has always been a part of me that thought I should be king of the world. Such is human nature. We all embody many contradictions. But I would guess that there is a little bit of that arrogance in everyone who aspires to direct. When you are the director, you get to be king of your own little world. Your producer, the bonding company, the investors, or the studio are the power behind the throne. They don't have the guts or the energy to direct. It can be a dirty, thankless job, so they have hired you to do it. A line producer whom I worked with on Knight Rider confessed to me that in his youth he had been a director but had given it up, because “You wake up in the middle of the night. You drive millions of miles to the location. As soon as it's light you start working. You work and you work and you work. Then, you look at your watch, and it's 10:00 a.m.! The guys at the studio are just getting in to work. You can have it!”

      But almost all those standing behind the throne, in their heart of hearts, think they are a director, and a better director than you. So they will meddle in your business and second-guess you, especially if you are a first time director. But for whatever reason, they have put you on the throne, and when you stand on high you call the shots. As a first time director, many of the crucial decisions will not be left solely up to you — especially those that impact the budget. But if it's purely a matter of taste and doesn't dramatically affect the budget, it should be your call. If it is your movie, it will be a better movie. It won't become a mishmash of what you want to do and what those who stand behind the throne want. For better or for worse, it will hang together as a coherent reflection of your vision and taste, and if you have any talent, then it will be a better film. Or at least so says a guy named Frank Capra. If you don't believe me, read his autobiography, The Name Above the Title. In fact, don't even think about becoming a director until you have read that book.

      Preproduction is a blast because now you finally get to be king of your own little kingdom and work with your capable minions on planning a great military campaign. I am not particularly partial to war, but I compare making a film to a military campaign because, once the shooting starts, it always feels like it's matter of life and death. Of course, nobody actually dies, and only the greatest films have any impact on history. Making a movie is probably more comparable to building a bridge, but it's your bridge, and, for some reason, you always tend to approach it the same way Alec Guiness did when it came to building his Bridge on the River Kwai. Your film, in the big scheme of things, may be of no more consequence than a bridge, but it always feels like Guiness' bridge — like something worth fighting and dying for, so when you take it on you are well served to gird yourself as if it were a War of the Worlds. The beauty of preproduction — the most delightful aspect of planning this great military campaign — is that everyone you are working with is certain that it is going to be a great success. You are going to win every battle, conquer new lands, and come back heroes. The powers behind the throne always have their doubts. But I have always found film crews and film support staff to be almost universally positive, energetic, and resourceful people. They have to be, otherwise they could never put up with the hours, the working conditions, and the stress. When I was directing rock videos, my favorite production manager wore a T-shirt that said it all: “Sleep is for beginners.” My experience has always been that the level of dedication of the average film crew is right up there with firefighters, though they do have to get some sleep. (Although a producer from the Philippines once asked me to direct a feature for him in 12 days, working 20 hours a day.) But what I love about that T-shirt is the attitude behind it. To me it says that if you want to make movies, you have got to be willing to sacrifice in some way to get the job done right.

      The director sets the tone of the workplace. Stay positive, because you are going to need every bit of optimism to make it through the battle ahead. Be your own best cheerleader. Exude confidence. Take all the positive energy film people bring to the workplace and jack it up even higher. There is no such thing as going into production with too much hope and optimism. You want to plan for every contingency, but you had best go in feeling like a winner.

      Bridge an the

DecisionsAlec Guiness! Decisions!

      Throughout the preproduction period you are going to have to make dozens of decisions every day. This book is not going to take you through all those decisions, because my experience has convinced me that anyone smart and capable enough to get themselves hired as a director can make all the decisions he needs to make in preproduction simply by relying on good taste, reason, and common sense. If you have the force of personality and the poise to get hired as a director, you ought to be capable of vamping convincingly whenever called upon to make a decision that you are incapable of making because you lack some piece of hard knowledge or technical expertise. Whenever such a moment arises, every director has the prerogative to put the decision off until tomorrow, think about it, and come back with the answer. Take advantage of that prerogative; get a reprieve until tomorrow, and then simply get on the phone and download the missing bit of expertise from a friend or an associate who is knowledgeable in the field. This method has never failed me either in preproduction or postproduction because in either, you should have the right to put any decision off until tomorrow. Once on the set, there is no tomorrow.

      Yet it is wise to anticipate such occasions. If you are going to direct a film which relies heavily on some realm of filmmaking that you are new to — whether it's something as old hat as song and dance numbers or stunts, or something as cutting edge as 3-D CGI graphics — then before you ever set foot in the office, study the nuts and bolts of that process so you can walk the walk and talk the talk. Most of these specialty realms of filmmaking are best learned through observation. Get hold of a director who is in the middle of doing a stunt film or a film that's heavy on CGI and tag around after him for as many days as possible.

      You are not actually expected to know everything going in. Everyone — both the money people and your minions — would certainly prefer that you did, because it would take the burden off them. If anything goes wrong, there will always be someone to blame: you. The general assumption is that you are so smart and such a fast learner, you will pick up everything you need to know in a couple of days, if not a couple of hours. This position presumes a great deal, but such is the burden of a director. Bob Zemeckis (whom I will quote throughout this book, since I know him well and I think he can safely be cited as an authority on directing) has a saying: “The director is responsible for everything, even that which he has no control over.” Again, the beauty of the saying lies in the figurative interpretation — the attitude. It challenges the director to step up to and face his burden. If you want to be king, and have everyone look up to you and obey you as if you were a god, then you had best seem to have the power of a god. The director should never be heard laying blame or making excuses. It is not his place. He should have anticipated everything and made all the right decisions. Even if disaster befalls him, he should have had a back-up plan that saves the day. If everything comes up lemons, he makes lemonade. If the situation was truly beyond his control, it's not for him to say. His collaborators should be the ones to step in and let him off the hook.

Work, Work, Work

      For a first time director, this burden of appearing infallible is even greater. Without the mandate of a proven track record, he is going to have to work that much harder to instill confidence in everyone around him. Yes, you may not be expected to know everything СКАЧАТЬ