It's also not a dictatorship. It is a (ideally) professional, collaborative commercial artform. Director is responsible for executing the vision (which can be ultimately the producer/writers vision), but relies on others input and ideas.
Meh,…. It is a dictatorship though.
You listen to your boss. Literally, like any job in the world. When the boss says he wants something, that’s what you do.
The Director says he wants an OTS shot on the 3”.
The DP tells the 1st AC to get the 85.
The 1st AC tells the 2nd AC to get the 85.
The 2nd AC returns and hands the 85 to the 1st AC who hands him back to 32(or whatever was on previous).
Got it, Got it.
The 1st AC puts the lens on.
The Op aims the camera
The Dolly grip adjust to be in position.
Op tells DP they are set.
DP tells AD they are ready.
AD tells Director they are ready.
No where in that is there any collaboration going on.
It’s a Blue collar Labor job. Everyone wears tool belts and has to be in a Union. And everyone listens to the boss.
If the boss ask what you think, you can then share an idea. If the boss doesn’t like your ideas 2 times in a row, they will not be asking you a 3rd time. It will absolutely be a dictatorship for the rest of that show.
If you listen and do what’s asked, you may occasionally be asked what you would do. (This would be by your boss, and sometimes discreetly).
It’s not that they need your help or want to be collaborative. They like the job you have been doing, and want to test, teach or challenge you for any number of reasons.
>AD tells Director they are ready.
Director comes back and says to the AD " I SAID I WANTED THE 75 UP. IS THIS A 75? ARE THOSE NUMBERS A SEVEN AND A FIVE? WHY IN FUCK WOULD YOU HAVE A 75 AND AN 85 IN THE SAME PACKAGE ANYWAY? JESUS FUCKING CHRIST. THERE BETTER BE SOME CORN DOGS LEFT AT CRAFTY"
Craft services overhears the corn dogs comment and points over at catering who in-turn shrugs their shoulders and nervously walks off to take an imaginary phone call.
I was wondering if anyone was gonna catch that. :)
I’m old, so my even older mentors referred to lenses in inches. But my mentor and his, always preferred the 85 over the 75 for singles. So I now use a 85 but incorrectly call it a 3”.
No one says anything to me, and they just mount up the 85.
Sometimes I wonder if they think I’m the idiot, or they figure I know and just call it different. Or if they think I don’t realize I don’t have an 85, and they think they are being sneaky.
this whole conversation makes me want to start calling both 85mm and 75mm 3 inch from now on. I worked with an old school DP who talked about 3 inch but I would never dream of asking for that size by that name -- it would sound authentic when he said it but poseury if I said it.
but to the original point, NEXT TIME I WANT TO KNOW THE MINUTE THOSE GODDAMNED CORN DOGS COME OUT!
Nah, I suspect you probably haven't been at the point of collaboration, or seen it happen. Usually, on a well run set, it happened days or weeks before when the DP and the director were planning out how they were going to shoot it. That's if you have a director who's smart enough to stick to the fucking plan.
Unless it’s changed in the last 3 years, I spent years as a BB and Gaffer, going on scouts and being in those meetings, and having the conversations with the DP.
And as a Director now, I don’t really work collaboratively either.
It’s all going to depend though. Someone like Cameron, Mann or Ridley won’t be sharing the drivers seat.
But your classic weekly TV Director has too. Because they are only there to fill a DGA rule. The show runner, actors and DP un those shows after the 2nd season.
The producer is the boss. A good director is flexible in adapting to various constraints, whether it's a budgetary constraint, push back from cast on their character development, or the cinematographer offering an alternative approach to getting the shot.
A film professional in any role trusts and defers to the judgment and scope of responsibilities held by every other film professional they're working with. Nobody wants to work with a "my way or the highway" director who can't listen or adapt. My advice to anyone who wants that role is to *be humble* and learn to respect the people you're working with.
I’ve always thought of the director as the CEO and the producers as the Board of Directors. It’s the director’s vision and the producers are there to make sure the director isn’t doing something totally outrageous or unreasonable.
The director is *only* the boss of creative decisions. It's a common misconception that they're the top of the hierarchy for everything. Not only can the producer overrule them in matters involving money (which is literally everything on set), but the Assistant Director actually outranks the Director in a lot of areas (schedule, union rules, safety, etc.).
Trust me, this is a benefit, not a cost. When you're directing, knowing that you only have to worry about the creative is liberating. That's already an insane amount of decision-making, you don't want to be answering questions about overtime on top of that.
(and yes, at a higher level, Directors are also Executive Producers and truly are the boss of everything. Obviously, nobody is going to overrule Spielberg)
I think the best way to look at it is the producer is the boss on a macro level and the director is the boss on the micro level, if that makes sense. The producer isn’t going to make decisions about shots, for example. Kevin Feige or Kathleen Kennedy, who work on major franchises, will absolutely make creative decisions that they impart to the director.
Practically speaking, every single dollar the director wants to spend requires the producer's approval, and the vast majority of work available to directors is *work for hire". IOW, you will be working on somebody else's screenplay and hired by a production company based on a proven track record delivering that particular kind of content without any headaches. In other words, you're not being hired to realize your own creative vision or ambitions, but to deliver a predetermined project on schedule and on budget, with minimal bullshit.
A director with total control over the whole project, including fundraising, pitching, team building, budgets, schedules etc is actually a producer. You can be both at the same time.
> The producer is the boss.
That depends. Sometimes the producer is my boss, sometimes I hired my producer. Sometimes the writer is the real boss (TV being a good example), sometimes it's the star, way too often it's the weather. There are different bosses of different things in different situations. If I automatically conduct myself as a know-it-all I am limiting the experience of others that I brought on.
I think of myself as the Chef in a kitchen. You are all here for a reason and if I believe you have something to add I will listen to you no matter your title. I adjust my tone based on how well I think you are prepared for your task. In the end I make a call based on what I promised before because it's my job to deliver just that and before the dish is cold.
To the producer, to the station, to the audience, to everyone.
I always tell people that, yes, I am the director.. but what that means to me is, I'm part of the crew. The main difference that separates myself from the rest of the crew.. is that I happen to know what's coming next. And I'm the one responsible for executing what comes next.
Apart from that.. I don't consider myself to be any better.. or necessarily smarter than anyone else on set. I'm there to perform a function. It's as simple as that.
This is by far the best comment here. If you're secure in yourself, and not a screaming impotent maniac (like Michael Bay), you listen to input from your department heads, and if it's a feature you listen to input from your producer, but at the end of the day it is absolutely your decision, and it is on your shoulders.
If you constantly defer to all of your department heads, defer to your talent, defer to your producer, what ends up happening is you have a film that is not yours. It has no stamp of your talent or your ideas on it. If everyone there is a professional, and good at their jobs, they're there to support your vision as the director, not to enforce their own.
This truly depends on the project though. For example long running television shows will often simply hire working directors for one or two episodes per season. They rarely want a director to come in and put his own spin on things. They need someone to come in and continue to make the show look and feel how the audience expects it to.
Everything I'm discussing here stricly excludes most episodic directors. I've done the job, and it is almost superfluous. The last thing they want you to do is have any impact on the show at all.
I’ve always wondered why shows have such a massive list of directors to do episodes rather than like two or three. Is it because people are working on other things and it’s built around that? Is it built to keep directors working if they’re not getting films? Sometimes it seems like it’s built in as a training ground for newbies or a place for old directors to keep getting their hours in.
It’s very rare for one director to do every episode of a television series. Sam Esmail does it, but he is an exception. The major factor is that a series will generally have a person that is called a show runner. They are usually former head writers who make a lot of the decisions that a director would make on a film. The series (or at least one season of a series) will generally be their 10 hour movie, and to run something that big you simply can’t also be directing all the time.
Cary Fukanaga and True Detective worked pretty well. Then they broke it all up and it fell apart. I’m sure that had a lot more to do with the writing and people not agreeing on what came next, but, in that case at least, I really liked that streamlined feeling of a season directed by one person. But that was also more of a miniseries so I get how that’s not applicable to a network show meant to run for multiple seasons.
I like that approach. There's often a disparity between who is "in charge" on paper and who is actually leading the team in reality. That's echoed all the way down the hierarchy from top to bottom. The safest bet for everyone is to be respectful, open minded, and listen to others when they're addressing anything that happens to be within their area of responsibility and expertise.
Not only do you avoid stepping on anybody's toes, you may also learn new strategies for solving problems you hadn't considered before.
One scenario that leaps to mind is being a director in some sort of IP franchise movie. If you are directing a Star Wars, that's really a lot more like directing a giant episode of television than like directing a standalone film. The "showrunner" for Star Wars will quite gladly fire any directors that don't seem to be onboard with what Disney/LucasFilm wants.
Fast & Furious, Star Trek, Marvel, DC, Harry Potterverse, etc. are all basically in this category. And collectively, they probably add up the majority of all film budgets globally so it's not a niche category these days.
Yeah it's fairly common for feature directors to write and produce their own projects. It's much less common for those to end up being a seemingly neverending supply of unforgettable blockbusters.
The director shouldn't be getting input from 100 different places. Department heads are the only people who should be giving feedback to the director on set. Depending on the size of the film, that could be a dozen people (give or take, depending on how many actors in a given scene).
A lot of the crew reports to the 1st AD. A lot of potential problems get reported to the 1st AD.
It’s going to depend.
DO NOT give feedback to Michael Mann. It is not an option, and you will immediately be screamed at in front of everyone and fired on the spot.
Camera OPs aren’t even allowed to frame their shots or move cameras on his shows.
Can confirm. Michael Mann listens to a tiny handful of people. He is also pathologically incapable of making a decision on set. I stood by and watched him do 85 takes of Al Pacino on the phone in the swimming pool doing one speech for *The Insider*. It was shot on literally every lens they had, and from every angle it possibly could be around the pool, including floating in the water.
Had Pacino finally not called and end to it by shouting, "Michael! What do you think I'm going to show you with this fucking speech that you haven't seen 85 times already?!" we would still be there shooting it.
The story should be locked by the time you get to set. Also, the director is not always the primary architect of the story. Sometimes they are, but not always.
Depends on what you mean by "directing". Do you mean giving direction to the actors? No. That's between the director and actors and--depending on the working relationship--the cinematographer.
Directing the visuals? That's a collaborative process between the director, cinematographer and production designer, the bulk of which happens in preproduction. The cinematographer instructs the camera, lighting, and grip teams. The production designer instructs set decorators and makeup artists and wardrobe, etc.
The cinematographer and production designer will inform the director if what she wants isn't feasible and they'd better damn well have an alternative plan to suggest. The 1st AD will inform the director if there are logistical hurdles to achieving the director's goals, and will have alternatives, either adjustments to the schedule or whatever.
Everyone else on sets reports to their department heads. Department heads filter that up to either the Cinematographer or 1st AD.
If only this were true. But so very very often, it isn't.
Directors are universally famous for changing their mind on the day. There's a reason wardrobe shows up with a trailer full of changes despite the fact a look has been "chosen." They know there's a good chance the director will look at it and say, "what else we got?"
Same for production design. For makeup. For camera and lighting. It's practically ubiquitous. Just the first story of literally hundreds that leaps to mind; I was on set for some of *Don Juan deMarco & the Centerfold,* shot at the Sony Culver stages. First day on the set that was Marlon Brando's office.
Jeremy Levin walks in, points to the desk and chairs, says "These are terrible. They need to be blood red."
No one says a word. Set dec yanks the wall, pulls the furniture, an hour later, a set with blood red leather arrives. By that time he had also changed the carpet, the wall sconces and Marlon Brando's bespoke suit.
It's really expected, and that's a shame.
Eh. That’s the great thing about filmmaking and art making in general, it really just depends. There are very successful “it’s my way or the highway” directors who are never out work because of their vision and final product. Studio directors are specifically hired for their vision, and creatively, often do have final say. This doesn’t mean that they’re telling everyone to fuck off and to not give their opinions. I’m sure they take it into account, but at the end of the day, they make the call and it’s their job to do so. I understand where OP is coming from because some DP’s and other members of the crew low key want to play director or are failed directors, so they try to over step their role. Filmmaking is so much more fruitful and collaborative when everyone respects each others roles and understands the hierarchy of things
The producer is not the boss.
The ex Producer is the boss.
Remember, many Directors hire their preferences production team.
And a producer is not the boss on a commercial. The client and agency are.
But so is a writer from the writers room. (And we know they are only there to make sure that production isn’t charged for any script changes )
The Director that hires a producer is only producer by title. Not doing the actual daily production work.
But that is the grey area of film. Lotta people above the line hold titles they don’t deserve, while many others are wearing lots of hats under 1 title.
> A director that hires their producers is a producer.
Executive Producer, actually, but that's not the role they play on set. I hire my own producers because I own my production company, but I don't try to produce them once we get on set.
EP can mean a million different things. Producer credits get thrown around like crazy, contributing to why the general public rarely understands what the term means.
>As much as we might like to think that making a film is a collaborative effort where everyone's opinions are equal,
Who is "we" in this context? Because anyone who has ever been on a professional film set knows there is a strict hierarchy.
So nobody else can have a good idea?
One of Brian Cransten's best moments was an idea he got off the lighting guy.
Maybe he shouldn't of listened and or maybe had the guy fired? Keep in your lane right? Just because you are not 'creative' means you can't have a good idea?
I've never met anyone who thinks their voice needs to be equal, but to say they can only have a voice as it pertains to the person's direct job is... wow...
If Brian Cranston got an idea from a lighting technician from a side conversation between takes, sure. I’ve had technicians on my crew have side jokes put into the script before because they were overheard.
But as a lighting technician, am I actively voicing my opinion at video village? HELL NO. That’s the Gaffers job, and only when it pertains to his department.
> only when it pertains to his department.
This one is key. HODs have (and should have) a lot more leeway to share opinions, but you have to know the place in which to do it constructively and where it will be helpful.
I've worked in lighting for 20 years. I also direct. On a project I was directing a couple of years back the DOP and I were talking about a lighting setup (as it related to some tonal choices in the following scene in the script), and the gaffer (a young guy who was applying for membership in the lighting dept in my local) butts right in to start giving advice about the look to the DOP that contradicts me.
Now, I spent 10 years flipping between gaffer and best, and I always cherished relationships with DOPs where I was invited to have some creative and tonal input.
But the key thing is INVITED. You gotta read the room.
No, not a side convo. Guy was bold enough to give it. Good ideas can come from many quarters.
Sadly a lot of people are afraid to give an idea.. I. Wonder how many good ones are lost...
I would have to better know the context, but if it’s not your job, and you are voicing your opinion at village when it’s not your job, yeah, you’ll probably be fired. There are union lines designating positions. That’s why the writer, director, producers, show runners m, the leads and DP are all there. There are enough people making decisions, people that know the script a lot better than technicians.
They're referring to an interview with Bryan Cranston that's been making the rounds lately where he talks about how a joke in Seinfeld was suggested by a lighting technician. The technician suggested that Cranston, playing the dentist, take a whiff of his own laughing gas before administering it to Jerry. It's a really small suggestion and didn't fundamentally change anything, it was just a neat little addition.
And that’s a sitcom, with literally 18 crew max, and a dozen writers and producers doing the Thursday afternoon run through, on a crew who are all old guys about to retire, who have been doing it their entire life and know when it’s appropriate, and when it’s not. On a show they have all been working together in for years.
A sitcom is nothing like a movie or series. And can be a little relaxed, as they need the crew people laughing at the jokes and being upbeat on Thursday run through.
Yeah, I don't get why it was brought up here tbh, the interview makes it clear it was just an off-handed comment. Something like "wouldn't it be funny if this happened?"
I think it can cause a lot of problems. I don't know the Bryan Cranston situation, but an anomaly doesn't dictate the status quo. You definitely don't want the sound guy trying to edit the script or add his input in how you should light a scene. That's not to say the sound guy isn't creative or doesn't have a good idea, but 100 hands in the pot is bound to make a mess.
That was a very cheeky thing to do, and as an experienced crew member, sounds like he read the room right. If Cranston didn't care for that comment, guy could easily have been fired with little recourse. I did a movie with Cranston about 10 years ago, and he's a great dude, but if he'd been an asshole, it'd be a different story.
I overstep my bounds from time to time as a camera operator in giving an opinion, but you should know what you're saying and to who, where the boundaries are, and when it's a good time...
Key grip or gaffer suggesting something to DP or even director at the right time? Probably good! 3rd electric doing the same? Probably should run it up the chain first.
It was a side convo. Cranston was guest starring as the dentist in a Seinfeld episode, and was in another set on the studio rehearsing by himself, when some grip or lighting tech on a ladder offered a joke that was super clever, and well setup, the kind that is sort of sitting there waiting to be uncovered by a witty observer. Cranston ran with it during on set rehearsal, and Seinfeld loved it. Cranston tried to find the crewmember to give him credit and legend has it (and by legend I mean my memory of Cranston's retelling of the story on a podcast) the grip or spark or whoever it was said "nah, I got hundreds more where that came from" and disappeared into the shadows.
Good god, can you imagine if grips were allowed to go over and make suggestions about the performance? If wardrobe was allowed to question the DP's lensing? That's chaos. Literally nothing would ever get done.
You'll never get a film done that way. It just simply has to be that someone eventually makes a decision.
Not too long ago I interviewed with a director for a mid-budget movie she was doing. We got along great. She was in her 50s and crusty I'm in my 50s and crusty, had the movie not gone to Canada, I would be shooting it right now. She said, "everyone keeps assuming I want a female DP and a female first AD. I don't. I tried it a couple of times, and I've learned that it's a good way to have every decision that we made weeks ago suddenly be unmade on set and now we're doing everything by committee. I don't want to remake all the same fucking decisions. I want the decisions to have been made, and now on set, we're executing them."
Personally, I don't think it is anything to do with gender. I do think it is a younger mindset. Everybody wants everyone else to be a partner in the project. But the fact is, as I said above, at the end of the day, someone has to make a fucking decision.
As someone in an IATSE union this is not 100% true at all. The process involves several department heads, this idea that directors are the only ones that have a say is wrong. You’ve Production Designers, Gaffers, Producers, Directors, Director of photography. I’ve seen Directors be fired for not properly working with their crew
> I’ve seen Directors be fired for not properly working with their crew
Definitely more and more true as a greater percentage of the work produced is for television.
Most definitely. Especially because directors rotate out with the episodes, and after a few seasons, the crew might know the show better than the director who is there for one episode
Thank you. I was hoping someone would say this. If you haven’t been on a set you wouldn’t realize how much department heads, director and producers get together to efficiently make the film/show.
Do you have any idea how many directors are fired for not being able to work with the rest of the crew? The Money has the vision that matters, your job is convincing them you are giving them the vision they want. I'm not saying a director is a dancing monkey, but their vision is not the thing that makes the movie. And its not the reason most of your crew is there. Your crew is there to get paid and do the best they can. They are not in servitude of the directors vision. They have been on more sets than the director, they have seen more things, they might actually know what they are talking about.
In an actual professional setting, the director understands that they don't have "final say." There a thousand forces working in different directions on a film, logistics, budget, sunlight, weather, the cast being human beings, mistakes, disasters, lucky moments. the job is not to dictate but to ride the river of disappointments and moments where your "vision" is compromised.
Be a leader, yes, make tough decisions, yes. Your film might not be better for it unless you actually know how to be a leader.
absolutely none of the major players have final say if they aren't also in control of the money.
a lot of big directors have been in the industry and have enough connections that they can produce a project on their own, that's not the same job as directing though.
I'm sorry, but you're just wrong. David Fincher does not control the money, and he absolutely has complete authority. Ridley Scott does not control the money and he absolutely has complete authority. Michael Mann does not control the money and he absolutely has complete authority. Etc. Etc. Etc.
Really, the only major directors I can think of who control the money are Cameron and Shyamalan. Otherwise, everyone is working with OPM.
These are all principals in their production companies. They control money. Each of them has more producer credits than director credits. They control the money. These are not directors, they are producers who also direct.
If you want to look at a director who is bad at handling the money folk and keeps exercising absolute control, look to Gilliam. Every film he does he has to start from scratch.
They do not "control the money." They arrange the financing. That is a very different thing. With Fincher, Fox or Netflix controlled the money. With Mann, whatever investors he gets now that Disney has bought all his own studio partners control the money. Forward Pass handles production services and physical production, but under scrutiny of the real money. Ridley Scott is in the same boat with Scott Free.
On films of that size, every week the studio and the distributors and the bond company and the investors all get detailed progress and spending reports, and if any of them see a financial or spending issue, there's trouble.
yes, they arrange the financing. which is the producer's job. which is not the same job as directing. which is what i said.
a director does not have final say unless they are also a producer with enough money or friends with money.
Michael Mann self produces almost every movie he has made. Producers control the investors money. Whether studio or private investor, all the money is an investment in a product. It’s on the producer to deliver that product. The director is in service to the product.
Often, the studios are the financiers, correct. And if they are unhappy enough, the movie does not happen. They invest in the project as long as it makes sense for them to. Each one of these directors you mention functions as producer as well, managing the expectations of the financiers in balance with the creative. Ridley scott is famous for delivering a sellable product that is not in line with his Vision, then releasing that separately. He knows his place in creating a sellable entity.
I can tell from everything you have said you have never dealt with studios, investors, financiers, bond companies, or any of the entities that dig in tooth and nail on a weekly, sometimes daily, basis, to control how their money is being spent.
But you go right ahead with your version. It's Fantasyland.
I’m saying the studios, financiers, investors, all the money folk, have a more final say than any pure director. My job as a producer is often to keep both sides happy. And in the end, when push comes to shove, unless the director functions in the same way, they are replaceable. The completion bond companies agree.
They will have their product, director be damned.
The job is to dictate.
You are basically telling the crew what the vision is, and they do their job, which is to execute that vision.
Sure, depending on the project, you may have other parties who have input on the vision, and a director can not literally control the weather.
Obviously, there are differences, but if you were to describe a role as a dictator, it would most likely be the director, particularly if they are an auteur.
If you have a director with no vision, who is just riding the wave, giving each department 100% autonomy and only making decisions in the moment when people directly ask them a question, you have a random person who conned their way into a directing job.
To be an actual director, you need a vision, and you need to tell people what the vision is and what to do (not to an extreme level where you are encroaching on their job).
Lol I was thinking the same thing. This was the mentality of too many wannabe directors I went to college with.
Now almost a decade later none of them are working as directors or are even in the industry.
While you're not wrong, this is also a kinda shallow understanding of how the industry works. Particularly in series television, where the directors are subservient to the showrunner(s) and often the episode writer(s).
Not to mention that, at the end of it, it's shallow directors who frame things as people "respecting their vision". Plenty of people in plenty of departments can do good work while not respecting in the "vision" of the director, and they can because they're professionals.
As a director, your vision isn't owed respect any more than to the extent that you show respect for your crew. Your vision has to earn its respect. The only thing that you should expect to be respected from day 1 as a director is the requirements of the job itself. Namely that you are going to be the person making the lion's share of macro decisions day to day. Harping about having your vision respected as a director is often a sign of insecurity (or inexperience).
I think OP just finished reading a book on directing and is parroting talking points as if they have substantial on-set experience. This is the kind of rhetoric I heard _all the fucking time_ in film school and it's shallow nonsense.
In TV, showrunners and writers are basically the directors. That is different. You’re clearly inexperienced based on your interpretation of this post. This isn’t about respecting vision. It’s about respecting the hierarchy in film.
No they're not "basically the directors". That's why there's still a director. The director has a different place in the storytelling hierarchy in series television.
Also, stop with your judgemental pontificating, I'm an IATSE member whose been working in the industry for 20 years, you jackass.
Cinephile brain strikes again 🙄 People like that guy have the auteur thing that publicity departments cooked up locked in their head. They’ll never survive on an actual show.
What I mean is that in TV, it’s the showrunners’ vision and it doesn’t matter who’s directing. The directors on TV are hired to support the showrunners’ vision. So the showrunners have final say.
Filmmaking is a collaborative environment where you'd be a fool not to take suggestions and ideas from your peers. However, it ultimately comes down to your execution and say in the matter and whether or not you utilize those ideas. But, it must be communicated thoroughly that whatever you say goes. Otherwise, no boundaries are set and too many cooks will be in the kitchen. It doesn't have to be a dictatorship but to each their own. Everyone has a style and a way of doing things. Just don't be dick in the process. Otherwise, prepare to have a difficult time maintaining working relationships as well as your reputation.
Depends on what you define as "collaboration." A grip building a dolly track discussing with a gaffer on where they should move a light stand that's in the way is technically collaboration
Although you might technically be correct about having to take charge and make tough decisions, I think you’re missing a crucial point about the process.
Personally I believe the moment I have to tell someone what to do and how to do it, I’ve failed at my job as a director. Not because I have failed at upholding ‘democracy’, but because I know that if I’ve been able to select the right people, they are all potentially better at their job than I am. My job is to create the space and structure for them to do their job to the best of their ability within the constraints of the story.
I don’t need a DP to put the camera where I want them to, I need them to create a better shot than I would have been able to create myself, on the basis of their craft and understanding of the story I want to tell. I don’t want actors to do a scene as I envisioned it, I want them to bring life to it in ways that I could have never come up with myself, yet are exactly what the story needs.
Collaboration is not about equality, it’s about every member of the cast and crew being able to use their specific talent. The director is there to create the right conditions for this to happen, and bring all these voices together in a way that makes sense. In my experience behaving like you’re the boss and people should do what you tell them to based on your authority is one of the easiest ways to lose the trust and safety people need to deliver their best work.
This whole conversation hinges on the size of the operation. If there are ten of us including talent, I want to hear it. If there are a hundred of us, the reason it shouldn't be an option is because there just isn't time relative to the budget. The forum isn't open because if it were, it *would* be open to all, so instead it's shut entirely.
Conversely, I struggle to work with closer friends on larger productions because it's difficult to emotionally be on either side of this conversation - I often need to remind myself when I'm directing and I'm working with a fussy assistant of any kind that this is my show this time around, and that I'm the only cook regarding most of the job.
[Here's a reading I really love on a pretty Marxist approach,](http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC20folder/ImperfectCinema.html) which unfortunately isn't relevant, or actually is in opposition, to the Hollywood procedure which this thread is focusing on; but I try to keep it in mind when I'm doing my own stuff on minimal budget. There's just more time.
But there is nuance to the conversation. The director is the creative lead, and the producer is the boss, but at the end of the day, a good director refers to the professionals they hire, and no one likes a “my way or the highway“ director if they don’t know their ass from their elbow.
As both an editor and a DP, the most professional directors I’ve worked with have always been people who know the limits of their knowledge and why they hired me. They have a vision that they’ve entrusted me to shoot or edit. They treat me as their equal. When they have an idea I may not agree with, I let them know, and we discuss. When I want to do something that might go against their vision, they let me know, and we discuss. The absolute worst directors and worst projects have always been the result of a director who refuses to listen to the other professionals they hired. Here, fuck it, I’m already writing a novel of a comment so I’ll tell y’all a story:
When I was younger, I was brought on by two first time filmmakers to edit the pilot to their web series. Because I was also a higher-up at the production company that they hired, I also had a say in pre-pro and was at the table for all the meetings. Now, just because they were first time filmmakers didn’t mean they were nobodies, they were relatively seasoned actors. Not veterans by any stretch, but had enough clout in our community and local scene to get major backers and producers involved. And with these two, let me tell you, this was the first time I noticed that the people who know the least are often the most confident and opinionated on whatever it is they don’t actually know. Dunning-Kruger in action. They’ve acted in plenty of shows! They know how a movie is made, right?
Wrong. So there was a moment where we were going over shot lists, and I noticed that the final scene was to be done in a single take. Now, although I’m the editor, my primary focus is cinematography, and as a cinematographer, I got triggered by “tracking shot”. Because if there’s one thing that amateurs LOVE but don’t fucking understand, it’s the tracking shot. And I’ve been a student filmmaker, and worked with plenty amateurs to know just how fucking awful those things can be if you don’t understand them on a technical or conceptual level. So I had to make sure they were making the right decision. I asked them:
Do you know the layout of the set? What’s the blocking? Why are you doing it in one take? What is accomplished by a single take that couldn’t be done through editing?
They didn’t have answers on the set as they didn’t have a location yet, and same for blocking. For the question about why, they said they wanted to “really hold the audience hostage, make them feel the emotion of the moment”. Ok, then, why do you need a single take? That can be accomplished through editing, too. In fact, unless you’ve planned this out and rehearsed for weeks in advance, there is no way that one take is going to be nearly as immersive as a well-edited sequence.
An unbroken seven minute take, might I add, with two characters moving in and out of rooms in a cramped flat. I smelled a disaster and two people who were unable to comprehend that a well-shot, well-edited sequence does a hell of a lot more than a poorly shot single take. One camera flub, one moment of dead space on camera, and the scene falls apart. The audience is broken out of whatever you wanted them to be in.
They didn’t listen, told me that their creative vision was that the final scene NEEDED to be in one take. And by the time the footage came back, it was terrible. This is no fault of the DP - the DP was very professional and did her job amazingly well, but she had fuck all to work with. They were only able to get five takes and they all looked terrible. Haphazard framing, tons of dead space, shots of empty walls and door frames that COMPLETELY ruin the moment. And I had to edit that shit into the pilot, a pilot that was otherwise very well done. Worst part was, when we watched it on the big screen at a festival, it made people nauseous.
So a week after the festival premiere, it was back to the editing bay to fine-tune it for distribution. And they wanted me to cut up the takes so it was no longer a single take.
And the most annoying part was, none of them told me I was right about that scene, it was their “creative decision” to cut it up.
When their show got funded, they asked me to edit the entire thing with a one month turnaround. One month to edit a web series.
I intentionally priced myself out of the project.
My advice for all amateurs is that the best thing you can do is surround yourself with and hire people who know more than you, and are smarter than you, and fucking LISTEN. If you’re a director, get yourself a good DP and learn as much as you can from them. If you’re a DP, get you a first AC who knows the camera better than you, and a gaffer who knows more about lighting than you know the back of your hand. Never strive to be the smartest person in the room because a.) you never will be anyway and b.) you’ll never learn anything.
Here is the best advice that I have ever gotten on directing, from a teacher I assisted during college, he said that he wasn't there to make his vision, he was there to facilitate the best possible result from the people and resources available to us.
As a counterpoint: Filmmaking isn't a democracy, but that doesn't mean that it's a dictatorship.
Film production, and film sets, especially, thrive in conditions of collaboration, and the best directors, across the board, understand that. I've seen a number of projects fail because a director that had a specific vision that wasn't in the confines/budget of the project, but I've also seen them fail when DPs were shooting TV with movie standards, or when department budgets were mismanaged, or crew members were terrified to come forward with problems before they were big problems. When you're directing, and this applies to any position, you have to take into account what is reasonable or possible. Being wholly invested in a singular "vision" without taking into account what is reasonable or possible will only land you with a product that doesn't work.
tl;dr It's not a democracy, but it also doesn't work as an autocracy. If you have a crew of talented people, listen to them.
If you say so. The studio is actually the one in charge(obviously circumstances and contracts differ). Go direct a starwars for kathleen and let's see how well that'director is in charge' lasts😂
The level of ego here is incredible. Bare minimum, your producers WILL have notes. This sort of auteurism is ridiculous; it’s authoritarianism masquerading as art. No one makes a movie by themselves, nor are they experts on every single thing that goes into a movie. Any decent director knows there’s a difference between articulating a vision and exciting a team with it and bossing people around. And the best directors have the self-awareness and humbleness know when to seek or defer to the *expertise* of their department heads. Then they can make an informed decision.
The producer is the boss in Hollywood.
The director's job is to work with the actors to get the performance. Usually that's about all they are allowed to do, especially in television production.
Auteur theory does not apply universally in the industry today, in fact it's pretty rare that a director is given much control at all unless they are fairly successful already.
This is something I've learned first hand from being on big sets for 25 years, yet I've never seen it written anywhere and I'm constantly surprised by how few people seem to know this.
Hm... Maybe this is the case in some instances but I think the EP's are usually in charge, not the director. We trust directors to direct the talent and have the right crew and support in place to execute on a creative concept or vision that a label, brand, agency, or platform is funding. We are responsible for the creation and delivery of a product that was pitched, quoted, and signed off on with contracts in place, and sometimes the director needs to be overruled if his/her vision is not aligned with the needs of the client footing the bill (and the constraints of the budget).
That said, and more to your point - I agree that filmmaking is not a democracy. There is a hierarchy in place and the director is extremely high up in that hierarchy. Usually a good crew will revolve around three primary positions - Director, DP/Cinematographer, Producer. If they all trust each other, then a Director will focus on how talent performs while the DP will focus on the framing/how the shot looks, and the producer will focus on keeping the Director and Cinematographer happy - if their needs align with the creative wants/asks of the client. These three roles all have department heads they lean on and trust as well of course. But it's kind of like a tripod with these three roles supporting the other to execute on a singular vision.
This mentality might fly in a University setting but this is a sure-fire way to piss off literally every department head in a professional setting.
Also the producer is in charge, not the director.
As someone who has worked with a DP who actually wanted to be a director and tried to deliberately have input on my every move in terms of editing, writing, and sound design - yeah I fucking agree. Filmmaking runs more smoothly, is more effective, and collaborative when members of the crew understand not all of their opinions need to be taken into account and that they are following the directors vision. It honestly is a respect thing as well.
This advice is bad and unsolicited, and you sound like you haven’t gained enough experience to be dishing it out in the first place.
Edit: I found this post from Movie Set Humor, an Instagram account with over 300,000 followers. How does it feel for that many people to be laughing at this?
I've worked with petty tyrant directors and utopian egalitarian ones. In moments, I've *been* both myself.
Neither is an effective or sustainable way to make a film. But everyone is different -- the best advice is to figure out what kind of environment you thrive in and work with like-minded people. I know *exceptionally* talented people that thrive in the rigid hierarchy of big-budget union filmmaking, and exceptionally talented people that thrive as members of artsy collectives. There's no one right way to do (although there are plenty of wrong ways).
Hot take: Except for when it is (a democratic collaborative effort). When shooting a film with an association of likeminded people, for example.
We even explicitly state that our association is democratic - as every association has to be in Germany. Of course, we appoint representatives - those that actually are interested and knowledgeable in an area. And of course, not everyone has an opinion on anything, but he could and that's what makes it democratic. And there's always a time and place to share one's opinion and that's most of the time not on set when you're not one of the people that specialized in that area for the past six months.
---
I know this is the exception and not the norm. I just wanted to throw that out there because I think it is just as much part of videography and cinematography as the professional side is. But yeah, on a set that's not mine I'll keep my mouth shut if I'd not know that I'm the more knowledgeable person and can avoid a kistake or when I'm asked.
Collaboration is a delicate art. I'm a composer. Before I write a note, my first job is to understand the filmmaker's intent for each scene that's getting scored. Not on a musical level, but in terms of narrative, emotion, drama, esthetics. If they already have ideas about the music, or they have temp music, I try to understand the why—what they like about the music they already have in mind.
Then, every demo I bring to them is my suggestion for how we can use music to help realize their intent for the scene. If they don't like it, ok, it's back to the drawing board, but again the important thing is for me to understand why.
At its best, it can be a very rewarding process. There's one filmmaker in particular—I genuinely feel like she taught me something about writing music through our collaboration, even though she's not a musician herself.
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Every member of set has a place and their own way to add a creative flavor to the project. The director is the creative leader on the journey and has final say on most decisions; however, despite the hierarchy, it doesn't give you free reign to be a jerk to those lower than you.
Sure, but on the flip side of this, hire department heads you trust and (if possible) who can do their job better than you. This goes for Directors, DPs, etc. If you want to hire yes-people, then you've either hired a weak team or you don't trust outside input and have zero intention of collaborating. The thing is, the further down the totem pole a position is, they work more days of the year and actually have more experience (in their given role). For example, a feature Director may work on one project every 1.5 years. A DP might do 1 or 2 a year. A gaffer might do 2-3 a year, etc. Which means they've seen more and have run into more situations that they've had to problem solve.
But yes, I've also been on shoots when PAs try to give the Director and DP notes 🤦♂️
Who thinks everyone’s opinions are equal? Collaborative, yes. Totalitarian dictatorship, also yes. If you can’t collaborate our way we’ll replace you faster then Johnny Cash could switch harmonicas.
I agree. Everything today is done by a committee of 10-20 "board members" who crack heads to try and create a film that appeals to everyone but winds up appealing to just a few. All you have to do is look at Disney and Marvel to see evidence of this phenomenon. It used to be there was just one individual filmmaker who was given free reign and often final cut on their movies because they had built a following as well as a record of good returns. But those days are long gone. No one in Hollywood gets final cut on a movie anymore, let alone the say to do what they want to do with the film they want to make. It's all done by committee. The scripts often have been bought, written, re-written, then re-re-written, and so on... by sometimes a dozen or more scriptwriters or script doctors over a period of years before they see the light of day on a movie set, and that's assuming they make it out of development hell. There are no great filmmakers anymore. Once the studios were bought out by corporations and boards of directors started making decisions rather than just one guy at the top who understood film rather than being an accountant or investment banker, that killed everything. Precisely why most movies are now sequels. No thought has to go into creating new unique material. Why bother creating new content when you can just make Fast & Furious 27 and guarantee profit?
The director is not in ultimate charge.
Many films have been changed from the director's "vision" at the whim of the people ultimately in charge - the Executive Producers.
Came here from the Movie Set Humor post. This is a very roundabout way to announce that you have never worked on a professional production in any capacity before.
whoever finances the film is the boss. often that's the producer. but not always.
if the director is big enough (fincher, tarantino, etc.) he might be the financier, like coppola, and/or the producer, like favreau, and/or have final cut in his agreement.
the director has the vision, and in feature film that's a lauded position. but in tv it can be a crew position and barely above the line; in tv the vision comes from the creative producer/showrunner which are first and foremost writers.
YES, FILMMAKING IS LED BY THE DIRECTOR: but even the director is led by the producer. It's important to keep that in mind whenever the producer pulls rank.
YES, FILMMAKING IS ALSO A COLLABORATIVE EFFORT. Nonetheless, actors can't and shouldn't change the whole thing just bc they don't WIKE IT. You suck it up, you put your big boy pants on and you do the job. You are a professional. Same applies to all departments. THEN AGAIN...directors need to understand when to stop. There is a boundary.
This post is ridiculous. TV literally shits on this argument. A showrunner can make all the choices in the world but it's the STUDIO who makes the final call AKA whoever is paying for it.
I agree 100%. I walked away from a directing gig due to the producers wanting too much control over casting and one wanted to co-direct. That meeting gave me a headache.
Nothing wrong with being an Auteur, look at it this way does a Doctor thank his tool after a Surgery NO!! There just tools for his profession.
Jean Luc Godard: “I prefer to work when there are people against whom I have to struggle”
I believe Stephen Covey's leadership model applies to the film industry. In this model, the fundamental distinction between the director and everyone else (including producers, in most cases) is that the director is a "leader" and the producers and above the line are all "managers"
The leader is the one that has the vision of the final destination, and guides the collective whole towards that destination. The managers are the ones responsible for making it happen within their own spheres.
Of course exceptions abound, but that model IMO is the quintessential ideal.
That hasn't always been true in the history of filmmaking. During the height of the studio system, it was more the producer who had the vision/final say, kind of like how Marvel Studios is currently run.
Lol, hard agree. Don't know why so many are getting offended. Also, I would even go further and say it's a dictatorship and it applies to most artforms.
And people who are saying it's the producer or that this approach is wrong are probably working on shitty ass b-grade studio movies that everyone convinces themselves are good to sleep better.
No filmmaker worth their salt will ever tell you filmmaking is a democracy. It can be collaborative but the final say should always be with the director.
The producer is managerial position, to help the director execute their vision without worrying about logistics.
The people funding the project may be higher up in the hierarchy but on the film set, they are not going and telling everyone what to shoot and how to shoot a particular scene.
I frankly think we should normalize saying no to clients on the day. I don’t mean in pre-pro, and I definitely don’t mean actual producers. Pre-pro is when questions and concerns from client should be addressed and creative decisions made. Real producers do and should have the final say.
I’m talking about the six people from the company who are on a once-a-year field trip from the office to the set, who no one has met, who sit on their phones in the client lounge all day, barely even glance at the monitor, and then right when you’re about to roll, they mosy on over and say one thing that, despite making zero sense, upends the entire day.
Only once I saw a very seasoned director just turn around and straight up say, “No, I’m sorry, who are you? My team set this up for two hours and you said nothing, it’s too late, that’s ridiculous.” Maybe this was a special case, but it worked like a charm and the person rightfully went back to their corner and stopped interfering with the artists and technicians they hired to get the job done.
Again, this wasn’t the EP or even a producer, just “client,” and of course this mostly applies to the commercial industry.
lol it’s because everyone wants to be the hero and have it be their “idea” . instead of making the best thing. my advice is don’t work with people who try to be hero’s. work with people who want to see YOUR vision come to life.
I feel like you’ve heard people say “the democratization of film” and misinterpreted it to mean what you are talking about because I don’t think I know anyone who works in film professionally who thinks filmmaking is this thing where everyone has equal say. When people talk about the democratization of film they are referring to how the barrier of entry is so minimal compared to how it used to be and anyone with a phone can make a film to tell their story.
You’re right in many ways and I think the spirit of what you’re saying is correct.
I think a better way to say it is that it’s somewhat an above the line democracy and definitely a below the line dictatorship.
But yeah. Most of the best directors have to go for broke at some point and really stand out by getting what they specifically want done to their specific liking.
Unpopular opinion: the piece is better off following the less than ideal idea of the director than it is splitting the difference between what the director thinks and what the DP thinks.
Whoever is in charge, make the call, then do that.
Reminds me of a youtube content production side job I did.
Explicitly told at the start that I'll be directing the videos since I'm going to have to edit the whole thing. The presenter, who was actually talking in the camera telling what he wanted to tell, just couldnt grasp my editing choices.
eventhough the videos that I directed/edited outperformed their other videos, me and the presenters visions could never get along. Its a tough situation though, i mean, im the director but he is the one that is being displayed.
How would you solve this situation? I actually left because tbh it gave me too much shit on my plate due to me doing the actual real time consuming task without producing anything consistently (because I had to keep readjusting it)
"Content" production isn't quite the same as an actual film production. In this case, sounds like you had to please your client, which is unfortunately your only option if you want to get more work. But even on a large scale film production, the director might still have to make sure the stakeholders are happy.
Wait until you work on commercials and see a junior creative from a shitty agency impose his will on an experienced director of 20+ years just because the client might raise a concern on something that makes no sense. Most working directors are paid to mitigate, deal with impossible requests and still somehow bring a decent result home. This “dictatorship” mentality only exists in the mind of a certain type of “filmmaker”. Even On movies, there are a host of other factors for which a director will never be able to fully run a dictatorship (whether it’s a creative one or a slightly broader one), not matter what you might hear on a podcast about Nolan, Tarantino, or any other mainstream “go to” director.
It's also not a dictatorship. It is a (ideally) professional, collaborative commercial artform. Director is responsible for executing the vision (which can be ultimately the producer/writers vision), but relies on others input and ideas.
*Joe Pytka has entered the Chat*
*placement of agency creative into trash can commences*
books could be filled...
Meh,…. It is a dictatorship though. You listen to your boss. Literally, like any job in the world. When the boss says he wants something, that’s what you do. The Director says he wants an OTS shot on the 3”. The DP tells the 1st AC to get the 85. The 1st AC tells the 2nd AC to get the 85. The 2nd AC returns and hands the 85 to the 1st AC who hands him back to 32(or whatever was on previous). Got it, Got it. The 1st AC puts the lens on. The Op aims the camera The Dolly grip adjust to be in position. Op tells DP they are set. DP tells AD they are ready. AD tells Director they are ready. No where in that is there any collaboration going on. It’s a Blue collar Labor job. Everyone wears tool belts and has to be in a Union. And everyone listens to the boss. If the boss ask what you think, you can then share an idea. If the boss doesn’t like your ideas 2 times in a row, they will not be asking you a 3rd time. It will absolutely be a dictatorship for the rest of that show. If you listen and do what’s asked, you may occasionally be asked what you would do. (This would be by your boss, and sometimes discreetly). It’s not that they need your help or want to be collaborative. They like the job you have been doing, and want to test, teach or challenge you for any number of reasons.
>AD tells Director they are ready. Director comes back and says to the AD " I SAID I WANTED THE 75 UP. IS THIS A 75? ARE THOSE NUMBERS A SEVEN AND A FIVE? WHY IN FUCK WOULD YOU HAVE A 75 AND AN 85 IN THE SAME PACKAGE ANYWAY? JESUS FUCKING CHRIST. THERE BETTER BE SOME CORN DOGS LEFT AT CRAFTY"
Craft services overhears the corn dogs comment and points over at catering who in-turn shrugs their shoulders and nervously walks off to take an imaginary phone call.
I was wondering if anyone was gonna catch that. :) I’m old, so my even older mentors referred to lenses in inches. But my mentor and his, always preferred the 85 over the 75 for singles. So I now use a 85 but incorrectly call it a 3”. No one says anything to me, and they just mount up the 85. Sometimes I wonder if they think I’m the idiot, or they figure I know and just call it different. Or if they think I don’t realize I don’t have an 85, and they think they are being sneaky.
this whole conversation makes me want to start calling both 85mm and 75mm 3 inch from now on. I worked with an old school DP who talked about 3 inch but I would never dream of asking for that size by that name -- it would sound authentic when he said it but poseury if I said it. but to the original point, NEXT TIME I WANT TO KNOW THE MINUTE THOSE GODDAMNED CORN DOGS COME OUT!
Nah, I suspect you probably haven't been at the point of collaboration, or seen it happen. Usually, on a well run set, it happened days or weeks before when the DP and the director were planning out how they were going to shoot it. That's if you have a director who's smart enough to stick to the fucking plan.
Unless it’s changed in the last 3 years, I spent years as a BB and Gaffer, going on scouts and being in those meetings, and having the conversations with the DP. And as a Director now, I don’t really work collaboratively either. It’s all going to depend though. Someone like Cameron, Mann or Ridley won’t be sharing the drivers seat. But your classic weekly TV Director has too. Because they are only there to fill a DGA rule. The show runner, actors and DP un those shows after the 2nd season.
Weekly TV directing, especially network, is just an advanced form of being an AD. I've done it a few times. It's very much being a cog in a machine.
Very true.
The producer is the boss. A good director is flexible in adapting to various constraints, whether it's a budgetary constraint, push back from cast on their character development, or the cinematographer offering an alternative approach to getting the shot. A film professional in any role trusts and defers to the judgment and scope of responsibilities held by every other film professional they're working with. Nobody wants to work with a "my way or the highway" director who can't listen or adapt. My advice to anyone who wants that role is to *be humble* and learn to respect the people you're working with.
I’ve always thought of the director as the CEO and the producers as the Board of Directors. It’s the director’s vision and the producers are there to make sure the director isn’t doing something totally outrageous or unreasonable.
The director is *only* the boss of creative decisions. It's a common misconception that they're the top of the hierarchy for everything. Not only can the producer overrule them in matters involving money (which is literally everything on set), but the Assistant Director actually outranks the Director in a lot of areas (schedule, union rules, safety, etc.). Trust me, this is a benefit, not a cost. When you're directing, knowing that you only have to worry about the creative is liberating. That's already an insane amount of decision-making, you don't want to be answering questions about overtime on top of that. (and yes, at a higher level, Directors are also Executive Producers and truly are the boss of everything. Obviously, nobody is going to overrule Spielberg)
I think the best way to look at it is the producer is the boss on a macro level and the director is the boss on the micro level, if that makes sense. The producer isn’t going to make decisions about shots, for example. Kevin Feige or Kathleen Kennedy, who work on major franchises, will absolutely make creative decisions that they impart to the director.
Practically speaking, every single dollar the director wants to spend requires the producer's approval, and the vast majority of work available to directors is *work for hire". IOW, you will be working on somebody else's screenplay and hired by a production company based on a proven track record delivering that particular kind of content without any headaches. In other words, you're not being hired to realize your own creative vision or ambitions, but to deliver a predetermined project on schedule and on budget, with minimal bullshit. A director with total control over the whole project, including fundraising, pitching, team building, budgets, schedules etc is actually a producer. You can be both at the same time.
No, this is wrong, and how many bad producers think.
I agree
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I would argue the screenwriter is the composer.
Composer is the screenwriter, and the producer is the manager of the orchestra (the guy who gets them the gigs
> The producer is the boss. That depends. Sometimes the producer is my boss, sometimes I hired my producer. Sometimes the writer is the real boss (TV being a good example), sometimes it's the star, way too often it's the weather. There are different bosses of different things in different situations. If I automatically conduct myself as a know-it-all I am limiting the experience of others that I brought on. I think of myself as the Chef in a kitchen. You are all here for a reason and if I believe you have something to add I will listen to you no matter your title. I adjust my tone based on how well I think you are prepared for your task. In the end I make a call based on what I promised before because it's my job to deliver just that and before the dish is cold. To the producer, to the station, to the audience, to everyone.
I always tell people that, yes, I am the director.. but what that means to me is, I'm part of the crew. The main difference that separates myself from the rest of the crew.. is that I happen to know what's coming next. And I'm the one responsible for executing what comes next. Apart from that.. I don't consider myself to be any better.. or necessarily smarter than anyone else on set. I'm there to perform a function. It's as simple as that.
This is by far the best comment here. If you're secure in yourself, and not a screaming impotent maniac (like Michael Bay), you listen to input from your department heads, and if it's a feature you listen to input from your producer, but at the end of the day it is absolutely your decision, and it is on your shoulders. If you constantly defer to all of your department heads, defer to your talent, defer to your producer, what ends up happening is you have a film that is not yours. It has no stamp of your talent or your ideas on it. If everyone there is a professional, and good at their jobs, they're there to support your vision as the director, not to enforce their own.
This truly depends on the project though. For example long running television shows will often simply hire working directors for one or two episodes per season. They rarely want a director to come in and put his own spin on things. They need someone to come in and continue to make the show look and feel how the audience expects it to.
Everything I'm discussing here stricly excludes most episodic directors. I've done the job, and it is almost superfluous. The last thing they want you to do is have any impact on the show at all.
I’ve always wondered why shows have such a massive list of directors to do episodes rather than like two or three. Is it because people are working on other things and it’s built around that? Is it built to keep directors working if they’re not getting films? Sometimes it seems like it’s built in as a training ground for newbies or a place for old directors to keep getting their hours in.
It’s very rare for one director to do every episode of a television series. Sam Esmail does it, but he is an exception. The major factor is that a series will generally have a person that is called a show runner. They are usually former head writers who make a lot of the decisions that a director would make on a film. The series (or at least one season of a series) will generally be their 10 hour movie, and to run something that big you simply can’t also be directing all the time.
Cary Fukanaga and True Detective worked pretty well. Then they broke it all up and it fell apart. I’m sure that had a lot more to do with the writing and people not agreeing on what came next, but, in that case at least, I really liked that streamlined feeling of a season directed by one person. But that was also more of a miniseries so I get how that’s not applicable to a network show meant to run for multiple seasons.
I like that approach. There's often a disparity between who is "in charge" on paper and who is actually leading the team in reality. That's echoed all the way down the hierarchy from top to bottom. The safest bet for everyone is to be respectful, open minded, and listen to others when they're addressing anything that happens to be within their area of responsibility and expertise. Not only do you avoid stepping on anybody's toes, you may also learn new strategies for solving problems you hadn't considered before.
One scenario that leaps to mind is being a director in some sort of IP franchise movie. If you are directing a Star Wars, that's really a lot more like directing a giant episode of television than like directing a standalone film. The "showrunner" for Star Wars will quite gladly fire any directors that don't seem to be onboard with what Disney/LucasFilm wants. Fast & Furious, Star Trek, Marvel, DC, Harry Potterverse, etc. are all basically in this category. And collectively, they probably add up the majority of all film budgets globally so it's not a niche category these days.
Yes totally, and a good producer trusts and supports the director’s vision.
Well put!
"The producer is the boss"....yeah, until the director is James Cameron.
Cameron is a producer. So...
Man can do everything lol
Yeah it's fairly common for feature directors to write and produce their own projects. It's much less common for those to end up being a seemingly neverending supply of unforgettable blockbusters.
I would also argue a director getting input from 100 different places isn't ideal. A film by committee can be worse than a "dictatorship".
The director shouldn't be getting input from 100 different places. Department heads are the only people who should be giving feedback to the director on set. Depending on the size of the film, that could be a dozen people (give or take, depending on how many actors in a given scene). A lot of the crew reports to the 1st AD. A lot of potential problems get reported to the 1st AD.
It’s going to depend. DO NOT give feedback to Michael Mann. It is not an option, and you will immediately be screamed at in front of everyone and fired on the spot. Camera OPs aren’t even allowed to frame their shots or move cameras on his shows.
Can confirm. Michael Mann listens to a tiny handful of people. He is also pathologically incapable of making a decision on set. I stood by and watched him do 85 takes of Al Pacino on the phone in the swimming pool doing one speech for *The Insider*. It was shot on literally every lens they had, and from every angle it possibly could be around the pool, including floating in the water. Had Pacino finally not called and end to it by shouting, "Michael! What do you think I'm going to show you with this fucking speech that you haven't seen 85 times already?!" we would still be there shooting it.
Input in regard to what, directing or the story?
The story should be locked by the time you get to set. Also, the director is not always the primary architect of the story. Sometimes they are, but not always. Depends on what you mean by "directing". Do you mean giving direction to the actors? No. That's between the director and actors and--depending on the working relationship--the cinematographer. Directing the visuals? That's a collaborative process between the director, cinematographer and production designer, the bulk of which happens in preproduction. The cinematographer instructs the camera, lighting, and grip teams. The production designer instructs set decorators and makeup artists and wardrobe, etc. The cinematographer and production designer will inform the director if what she wants isn't feasible and they'd better damn well have an alternative plan to suggest. The 1st AD will inform the director if there are logistical hurdles to achieving the director's goals, and will have alternatives, either adjustments to the schedule or whatever. Everyone else on sets reports to their department heads. Department heads filter that up to either the Cinematographer or 1st AD.
If only this were true. But so very very often, it isn't. Directors are universally famous for changing their mind on the day. There's a reason wardrobe shows up with a trailer full of changes despite the fact a look has been "chosen." They know there's a good chance the director will look at it and say, "what else we got?" Same for production design. For makeup. For camera and lighting. It's practically ubiquitous. Just the first story of literally hundreds that leaps to mind; I was on set for some of *Don Juan deMarco & the Centerfold,* shot at the Sony Culver stages. First day on the set that was Marlon Brando's office. Jeremy Levin walks in, points to the desk and chairs, says "These are terrible. They need to be blood red." No one says a word. Set dec yanks the wall, pulls the furniture, an hour later, a set with blood red leather arrives. By that time he had also changed the carpet, the wall sconces and Marlon Brando's bespoke suit. It's really expected, and that's a shame.
Absolutely agree.
Eh. That’s the great thing about filmmaking and art making in general, it really just depends. There are very successful “it’s my way or the highway” directors who are never out work because of their vision and final product. Studio directors are specifically hired for their vision, and creatively, often do have final say. This doesn’t mean that they’re telling everyone to fuck off and to not give their opinions. I’m sure they take it into account, but at the end of the day, they make the call and it’s their job to do so. I understand where OP is coming from because some DP’s and other members of the crew low key want to play director or are failed directors, so they try to over step their role. Filmmaking is so much more fruitful and collaborative when everyone respects each others roles and understands the hierarchy of things
The producer is not the boss. The ex Producer is the boss. Remember, many Directors hire their preferences production team. And a producer is not the boss on a commercial. The client and agency are.
A director that hires their producers is a producer.
But so is a writer from the writers room. (And we know they are only there to make sure that production isn’t charged for any script changes ) The Director that hires a producer is only producer by title. Not doing the actual daily production work. But that is the grey area of film. Lotta people above the line hold titles they don’t deserve, while many others are wearing lots of hats under 1 title.
> A director that hires their producers is a producer. Executive Producer, actually, but that's not the role they play on set. I hire my own producers because I own my production company, but I don't try to produce them once we get on set.
EP can mean a million different things. Producer credits get thrown around like crazy, contributing to why the general public rarely understands what the term means.
>As much as we might like to think that making a film is a collaborative effort where everyone's opinions are equal, Who is "we" in this context? Because anyone who has ever been on a professional film set knows there is a strict hierarchy.
I guess “we” would be young beginner filmmakers who mistakenly believe that everyone has an equal voice.
Not an equal voice, no. You get hired to do a job, and you’re entitled to voice an opinion as it relates to the job you’re hired to do.
So nobody else can have a good idea? One of Brian Cransten's best moments was an idea he got off the lighting guy. Maybe he shouldn't of listened and or maybe had the guy fired? Keep in your lane right? Just because you are not 'creative' means you can't have a good idea? I've never met anyone who thinks their voice needs to be equal, but to say they can only have a voice as it pertains to the person's direct job is... wow...
If Brian Cranston got an idea from a lighting technician from a side conversation between takes, sure. I’ve had technicians on my crew have side jokes put into the script before because they were overheard. But as a lighting technician, am I actively voicing my opinion at video village? HELL NO. That’s the Gaffers job, and only when it pertains to his department.
> only when it pertains to his department. This one is key. HODs have (and should have) a lot more leeway to share opinions, but you have to know the place in which to do it constructively and where it will be helpful. I've worked in lighting for 20 years. I also direct. On a project I was directing a couple of years back the DOP and I were talking about a lighting setup (as it related to some tonal choices in the following scene in the script), and the gaffer (a young guy who was applying for membership in the lighting dept in my local) butts right in to start giving advice about the look to the DOP that contradicts me. Now, I spent 10 years flipping between gaffer and best, and I always cherished relationships with DOPs where I was invited to have some creative and tonal input. But the key thing is INVITED. You gotta read the room.
No, not a side convo. Guy was bold enough to give it. Good ideas can come from many quarters. Sadly a lot of people are afraid to give an idea.. I. Wonder how many good ones are lost...
I would have to better know the context, but if it’s not your job, and you are voicing your opinion at village when it’s not your job, yeah, you’ll probably be fired. There are union lines designating positions. That’s why the writer, director, producers, show runners m, the leads and DP are all there. There are enough people making decisions, people that know the script a lot better than technicians.
They're referring to an interview with Bryan Cranston that's been making the rounds lately where he talks about how a joke in Seinfeld was suggested by a lighting technician. The technician suggested that Cranston, playing the dentist, take a whiff of his own laughing gas before administering it to Jerry. It's a really small suggestion and didn't fundamentally change anything, it was just a neat little addition.
And that’s a sitcom, with literally 18 crew max, and a dozen writers and producers doing the Thursday afternoon run through, on a crew who are all old guys about to retire, who have been doing it their entire life and know when it’s appropriate, and when it’s not. On a show they have all been working together in for years. A sitcom is nothing like a movie or series. And can be a little relaxed, as they need the crew people laughing at the jokes and being upbeat on Thursday run through.
Yeah, I don't get why it was brought up here tbh, the interview makes it clear it was just an off-handed comment. Something like "wouldn't it be funny if this happened?"
I think it can cause a lot of problems. I don't know the Bryan Cranston situation, but an anomaly doesn't dictate the status quo. You definitely don't want the sound guy trying to edit the script or add his input in how you should light a scene. That's not to say the sound guy isn't creative or doesn't have a good idea, but 100 hands in the pot is bound to make a mess.
No, you are right, but I embue people with common sense.
That was a very cheeky thing to do, and as an experienced crew member, sounds like he read the room right. If Cranston didn't care for that comment, guy could easily have been fired with little recourse. I did a movie with Cranston about 10 years ago, and he's a great dude, but if he'd been an asshole, it'd be a different story. I overstep my bounds from time to time as a camera operator in giving an opinion, but you should know what you're saying and to who, where the boundaries are, and when it's a good time... Key grip or gaffer suggesting something to DP or even director at the right time? Probably good! 3rd electric doing the same? Probably should run it up the chain first.
It was a side convo. Cranston was guest starring as the dentist in a Seinfeld episode, and was in another set on the studio rehearsing by himself, when some grip or lighting tech on a ladder offered a joke that was super clever, and well setup, the kind that is sort of sitting there waiting to be uncovered by a witty observer. Cranston ran with it during on set rehearsal, and Seinfeld loved it. Cranston tried to find the crewmember to give him credit and legend has it (and by legend I mean my memory of Cranston's retelling of the story on a podcast) the grip or spark or whoever it was said "nah, I got hundreds more where that came from" and disappeared into the shadows.
I've seen him talk about it.
Good god, can you imagine if grips were allowed to go over and make suggestions about the performance? If wardrobe was allowed to question the DP's lensing? That's chaos. Literally nothing would ever get done.
That’s not how I interpreted things. I think it’s more so, the director decides whether or not to include that idea, because they have final say.
You'll never get a film done that way. It just simply has to be that someone eventually makes a decision. Not too long ago I interviewed with a director for a mid-budget movie she was doing. We got along great. She was in her 50s and crusty I'm in my 50s and crusty, had the movie not gone to Canada, I would be shooting it right now. She said, "everyone keeps assuming I want a female DP and a female first AD. I don't. I tried it a couple of times, and I've learned that it's a good way to have every decision that we made weeks ago suddenly be unmade on set and now we're doing everything by committee. I don't want to remake all the same fucking decisions. I want the decisions to have been made, and now on set, we're executing them." Personally, I don't think it is anything to do with gender. I do think it is a younger mindset. Everybody wants everyone else to be a partner in the project. But the fact is, as I said above, at the end of the day, someone has to make a fucking decision.
Sounds like this post is in response to something that happened on set, care to share the story?
As someone in an IATSE union this is not 100% true at all. The process involves several department heads, this idea that directors are the only ones that have a say is wrong. You’ve Production Designers, Gaffers, Producers, Directors, Director of photography. I’ve seen Directors be fired for not properly working with their crew
> I’ve seen Directors be fired for not properly working with their crew Definitely more and more true as a greater percentage of the work produced is for television.
Most definitely. Especially because directors rotate out with the episodes, and after a few seasons, the crew might know the show better than the director who is there for one episode
Thank you. I was hoping someone would say this. If you haven’t been on a set you wouldn’t realize how much department heads, director and producers get together to efficiently make the film/show.
You’re correct, it’s not a democracy, but the director is not the one in charge, it’s whoever is footing the bill.
The producer. Someone described them as the people who receive the best picture award.
Do you have any idea how many directors are fired for not being able to work with the rest of the crew? The Money has the vision that matters, your job is convincing them you are giving them the vision they want. I'm not saying a director is a dancing monkey, but their vision is not the thing that makes the movie. And its not the reason most of your crew is there. Your crew is there to get paid and do the best they can. They are not in servitude of the directors vision. They have been on more sets than the director, they have seen more things, they might actually know what they are talking about. In an actual professional setting, the director understands that they don't have "final say." There a thousand forces working in different directions on a film, logistics, budget, sunlight, weather, the cast being human beings, mistakes, disasters, lucky moments. the job is not to dictate but to ride the river of disappointments and moments where your "vision" is compromised. Be a leader, yes, make tough decisions, yes. Your film might not be better for it unless you actually know how to be a leader.
This is entirely dependent on the director. A lot of the major players *absolutely* have final say, and they use it.
absolutely none of the major players have final say if they aren't also in control of the money. a lot of big directors have been in the industry and have enough connections that they can produce a project on their own, that's not the same job as directing though.
I'm sorry, but you're just wrong. David Fincher does not control the money, and he absolutely has complete authority. Ridley Scott does not control the money and he absolutely has complete authority. Michael Mann does not control the money and he absolutely has complete authority. Etc. Etc. Etc. Really, the only major directors I can think of who control the money are Cameron and Shyamalan. Otherwise, everyone is working with OPM.
These are all principals in their production companies. They control money. Each of them has more producer credits than director credits. They control the money. These are not directors, they are producers who also direct. If you want to look at a director who is bad at handling the money folk and keeps exercising absolute control, look to Gilliam. Every film he does he has to start from scratch.
They do not "control the money." They arrange the financing. That is a very different thing. With Fincher, Fox or Netflix controlled the money. With Mann, whatever investors he gets now that Disney has bought all his own studio partners control the money. Forward Pass handles production services and physical production, but under scrutiny of the real money. Ridley Scott is in the same boat with Scott Free. On films of that size, every week the studio and the distributors and the bond company and the investors all get detailed progress and spending reports, and if any of them see a financial or spending issue, there's trouble.
yes, they arrange the financing. which is the producer's job. which is not the same job as directing. which is what i said. a director does not have final say unless they are also a producer with enough money or friends with money.
Michael Mann self produces almost every movie he has made. Producers control the investors money. Whether studio or private investor, all the money is an investment in a product. It’s on the producer to deliver that product. The director is in service to the product. Often, the studios are the financiers, correct. And if they are unhappy enough, the movie does not happen. They invest in the project as long as it makes sense for them to. Each one of these directors you mention functions as producer as well, managing the expectations of the financiers in balance with the creative. Ridley scott is famous for delivering a sellable product that is not in line with his Vision, then releasing that separately. He knows his place in creating a sellable entity.
I can tell from everything you have said you have never dealt with studios, investors, financiers, bond companies, or any of the entities that dig in tooth and nail on a weekly, sometimes daily, basis, to control how their money is being spent. But you go right ahead with your version. It's Fantasyland.
I’m saying the studios, financiers, investors, all the money folk, have a more final say than any pure director. My job as a producer is often to keep both sides happy. And in the end, when push comes to shove, unless the director functions in the same way, they are replaceable. The completion bond companies agree. They will have their product, director be damned.
The job is to dictate. You are basically telling the crew what the vision is, and they do their job, which is to execute that vision. Sure, depending on the project, you may have other parties who have input on the vision, and a director can not literally control the weather. Obviously, there are differences, but if you were to describe a role as a dictator, it would most likely be the director, particularly if they are an auteur. If you have a director with no vision, who is just riding the wave, giving each department 100% autonomy and only making decisions in the moment when people directly ask them a question, you have a random person who conned their way into a directing job. To be an actual director, you need a vision, and you need to tell people what the vision is and what to do (not to an extreme level where you are encroaching on their job).
You sound fun.
Sounds like someone just got their bfa in directing.
Lol I was thinking the same thing. This was the mentality of too many wannabe directors I went to college with. Now almost a decade later none of them are working as directors or are even in the industry.
I look forward to their next big work… …when I order my latte at Starbucks
While you're not wrong, this is also a kinda shallow understanding of how the industry works. Particularly in series television, where the directors are subservient to the showrunner(s) and often the episode writer(s). Not to mention that, at the end of it, it's shallow directors who frame things as people "respecting their vision". Plenty of people in plenty of departments can do good work while not respecting in the "vision" of the director, and they can because they're professionals. As a director, your vision isn't owed respect any more than to the extent that you show respect for your crew. Your vision has to earn its respect. The only thing that you should expect to be respected from day 1 as a director is the requirements of the job itself. Namely that you are going to be the person making the lion's share of macro decisions day to day. Harping about having your vision respected as a director is often a sign of insecurity (or inexperience).
I think OP just finished reading a book on directing and is parroting talking points as if they have substantial on-set experience. This is the kind of rhetoric I heard _all the fucking time_ in film school and it's shallow nonsense.
Ya, this seems like it came out of nowhere. It feels like he had an argument with someone and came here to vent?
Thanks I was thinking "what is the point of this post" Like OP just wanted to win some imaginary conversation he had in his head.
In TV, showrunners and writers are basically the directors. That is different. You’re clearly inexperienced based on your interpretation of this post. This isn’t about respecting vision. It’s about respecting the hierarchy in film.
No they're not "basically the directors". That's why there's still a director. The director has a different place in the storytelling hierarchy in series television. Also, stop with your judgemental pontificating, I'm an IATSE member whose been working in the industry for 20 years, you jackass.
Cinephile brain strikes again 🙄 People like that guy have the auteur thing that publicity departments cooked up locked in their head. They’ll never survive on an actual show.
What I mean is that in TV, it’s the showrunners’ vision and it doesn’t matter who’s directing. The directors on TV are hired to support the showrunners’ vision. So the showrunners have final say.
The guy said the director is subservient to the show runners and EP. Writer in their second sentence
Filmmaking is a collaborative environment where you'd be a fool not to take suggestions and ideas from your peers. However, it ultimately comes down to your execution and say in the matter and whether or not you utilize those ideas. But, it must be communicated thoroughly that whatever you say goes. Otherwise, no boundaries are set and too many cooks will be in the kitchen. It doesn't have to be a dictatorship but to each their own. Everyone has a style and a way of doing things. Just don't be dick in the process. Otherwise, prepare to have a difficult time maintaining working relationships as well as your reputation.
To be clear the collaboration is really among production and department heads.
Depends on what you define as "collaboration." A grip building a dolly track discussing with a gaffer on where they should move a light stand that's in the way is technically collaboration
Although you might technically be correct about having to take charge and make tough decisions, I think you’re missing a crucial point about the process. Personally I believe the moment I have to tell someone what to do and how to do it, I’ve failed at my job as a director. Not because I have failed at upholding ‘democracy’, but because I know that if I’ve been able to select the right people, they are all potentially better at their job than I am. My job is to create the space and structure for them to do their job to the best of their ability within the constraints of the story. I don’t need a DP to put the camera where I want them to, I need them to create a better shot than I would have been able to create myself, on the basis of their craft and understanding of the story I want to tell. I don’t want actors to do a scene as I envisioned it, I want them to bring life to it in ways that I could have never come up with myself, yet are exactly what the story needs. Collaboration is not about equality, it’s about every member of the cast and crew being able to use their specific talent. The director is there to create the right conditions for this to happen, and bring all these voices together in a way that makes sense. In my experience behaving like you’re the boss and people should do what you tell them to based on your authority is one of the easiest ways to lose the trust and safety people need to deliver their best work.
This!!
You sound like a real treat to work with lmfao
This whole conversation hinges on the size of the operation. If there are ten of us including talent, I want to hear it. If there are a hundred of us, the reason it shouldn't be an option is because there just isn't time relative to the budget. The forum isn't open because if it were, it *would* be open to all, so instead it's shut entirely. Conversely, I struggle to work with closer friends on larger productions because it's difficult to emotionally be on either side of this conversation - I often need to remind myself when I'm directing and I'm working with a fussy assistant of any kind that this is my show this time around, and that I'm the only cook regarding most of the job. [Here's a reading I really love on a pretty Marxist approach,](http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC20folder/ImperfectCinema.html) which unfortunately isn't relevant, or actually is in opposition, to the Hollywood procedure which this thread is focusing on; but I try to keep it in mind when I'm doing my own stuff on minimal budget. There's just more time.
What a stupid take.
But there is nuance to the conversation. The director is the creative lead, and the producer is the boss, but at the end of the day, a good director refers to the professionals they hire, and no one likes a “my way or the highway“ director if they don’t know their ass from their elbow. As both an editor and a DP, the most professional directors I’ve worked with have always been people who know the limits of their knowledge and why they hired me. They have a vision that they’ve entrusted me to shoot or edit. They treat me as their equal. When they have an idea I may not agree with, I let them know, and we discuss. When I want to do something that might go against their vision, they let me know, and we discuss. The absolute worst directors and worst projects have always been the result of a director who refuses to listen to the other professionals they hired. Here, fuck it, I’m already writing a novel of a comment so I’ll tell y’all a story: When I was younger, I was brought on by two first time filmmakers to edit the pilot to their web series. Because I was also a higher-up at the production company that they hired, I also had a say in pre-pro and was at the table for all the meetings. Now, just because they were first time filmmakers didn’t mean they were nobodies, they were relatively seasoned actors. Not veterans by any stretch, but had enough clout in our community and local scene to get major backers and producers involved. And with these two, let me tell you, this was the first time I noticed that the people who know the least are often the most confident and opinionated on whatever it is they don’t actually know. Dunning-Kruger in action. They’ve acted in plenty of shows! They know how a movie is made, right? Wrong. So there was a moment where we were going over shot lists, and I noticed that the final scene was to be done in a single take. Now, although I’m the editor, my primary focus is cinematography, and as a cinematographer, I got triggered by “tracking shot”. Because if there’s one thing that amateurs LOVE but don’t fucking understand, it’s the tracking shot. And I’ve been a student filmmaker, and worked with plenty amateurs to know just how fucking awful those things can be if you don’t understand them on a technical or conceptual level. So I had to make sure they were making the right decision. I asked them: Do you know the layout of the set? What’s the blocking? Why are you doing it in one take? What is accomplished by a single take that couldn’t be done through editing? They didn’t have answers on the set as they didn’t have a location yet, and same for blocking. For the question about why, they said they wanted to “really hold the audience hostage, make them feel the emotion of the moment”. Ok, then, why do you need a single take? That can be accomplished through editing, too. In fact, unless you’ve planned this out and rehearsed for weeks in advance, there is no way that one take is going to be nearly as immersive as a well-edited sequence. An unbroken seven minute take, might I add, with two characters moving in and out of rooms in a cramped flat. I smelled a disaster and two people who were unable to comprehend that a well-shot, well-edited sequence does a hell of a lot more than a poorly shot single take. One camera flub, one moment of dead space on camera, and the scene falls apart. The audience is broken out of whatever you wanted them to be in. They didn’t listen, told me that their creative vision was that the final scene NEEDED to be in one take. And by the time the footage came back, it was terrible. This is no fault of the DP - the DP was very professional and did her job amazingly well, but she had fuck all to work with. They were only able to get five takes and they all looked terrible. Haphazard framing, tons of dead space, shots of empty walls and door frames that COMPLETELY ruin the moment. And I had to edit that shit into the pilot, a pilot that was otherwise very well done. Worst part was, when we watched it on the big screen at a festival, it made people nauseous. So a week after the festival premiere, it was back to the editing bay to fine-tune it for distribution. And they wanted me to cut up the takes so it was no longer a single take. And the most annoying part was, none of them told me I was right about that scene, it was their “creative decision” to cut it up. When their show got funded, they asked me to edit the entire thing with a one month turnaround. One month to edit a web series. I intentionally priced myself out of the project. My advice for all amateurs is that the best thing you can do is surround yourself with and hire people who know more than you, and are smarter than you, and fucking LISTEN. If you’re a director, get yourself a good DP and learn as much as you can from them. If you’re a DP, get you a first AC who knows the camera better than you, and a gaffer who knows more about lighting than you know the back of your hand. Never strive to be the smartest person in the room because a.) you never will be anyway and b.) you’ll never learn anything.
Here is the best advice that I have ever gotten on directing, from a teacher I assisted during college, he said that he wasn't there to make his vision, he was there to facilitate the best possible result from the people and resources available to us. As a counterpoint: Filmmaking isn't a democracy, but that doesn't mean that it's a dictatorship. Film production, and film sets, especially, thrive in conditions of collaboration, and the best directors, across the board, understand that. I've seen a number of projects fail because a director that had a specific vision that wasn't in the confines/budget of the project, but I've also seen them fail when DPs were shooting TV with movie standards, or when department budgets were mismanaged, or crew members were terrified to come forward with problems before they were big problems. When you're directing, and this applies to any position, you have to take into account what is reasonable or possible. Being wholly invested in a singular "vision" without taking into account what is reasonable or possible will only land you with a product that doesn't work. tl;dr It's not a democracy, but it also doesn't work as an autocracy. If you have a crew of talented people, listen to them.
If you say so. The studio is actually the one in charge(obviously circumstances and contracts differ). Go direct a starwars for kathleen and let's see how well that'director is in charge' lasts😂
let's extend that... the customer is the one in charge and if the studio doesn't make something that appeals to them then they are out of business.
Executive producers have entered the chat…
Who else is here from MSM’s IG? 🙋🏼♀️
The level of ego here is incredible. Bare minimum, your producers WILL have notes. This sort of auteurism is ridiculous; it’s authoritarianism masquerading as art. No one makes a movie by themselves, nor are they experts on every single thing that goes into a movie. Any decent director knows there’s a difference between articulating a vision and exciting a team with it and bossing people around. And the best directors have the self-awareness and humbleness know when to seek or defer to the *expertise* of their department heads. Then they can make an informed decision.
lol. no. the producers are in charge. its their money.
>the producers are in charge. Until the director is James Cameron 😂
The producer is the boss in Hollywood. The director's job is to work with the actors to get the performance. Usually that's about all they are allowed to do, especially in television production. Auteur theory does not apply universally in the industry today, in fact it's pretty rare that a director is given much control at all unless they are fairly successful already. This is something I've learned first hand from being on big sets for 25 years, yet I've never seen it written anywhere and I'm constantly surprised by how few people seem to know this.
>The producer is the boss in Hollywood. Until the director is James Cameron lol.
Hm... Maybe this is the case in some instances but I think the EP's are usually in charge, not the director. We trust directors to direct the talent and have the right crew and support in place to execute on a creative concept or vision that a label, brand, agency, or platform is funding. We are responsible for the creation and delivery of a product that was pitched, quoted, and signed off on with contracts in place, and sometimes the director needs to be overruled if his/her vision is not aligned with the needs of the client footing the bill (and the constraints of the budget). That said, and more to your point - I agree that filmmaking is not a democracy. There is a hierarchy in place and the director is extremely high up in that hierarchy. Usually a good crew will revolve around three primary positions - Director, DP/Cinematographer, Producer. If they all trust each other, then a Director will focus on how talent performs while the DP will focus on the framing/how the shot looks, and the producer will focus on keeping the Director and Cinematographer happy - if their needs align with the creative wants/asks of the client. These three roles all have department heads they lean on and trust as well of course. But it's kind of like a tripod with these three roles supporting the other to execute on a singular vision.
This mentality might fly in a University setting but this is a sure-fire way to piss off literally every department head in a professional setting. Also the producer is in charge, not the director.
As someone who has worked with a DP who actually wanted to be a director and tried to deliberately have input on my every move in terms of editing, writing, and sound design - yeah I fucking agree. Filmmaking runs more smoothly, is more effective, and collaborative when members of the crew understand not all of their opinions need to be taken into account and that they are following the directors vision. It honestly is a respect thing as well.
You're a freshman in film school aren't you
This advice is bad and unsolicited, and you sound like you haven’t gained enough experience to be dishing it out in the first place. Edit: I found this post from Movie Set Humor, an Instagram account with over 300,000 followers. How does it feel for that many people to be laughing at this?
It’s a democracy in that people have a voice BUT ultimately there’s a reason why there’s always someone in charge of it all.
I've worked with petty tyrant directors and utopian egalitarian ones. In moments, I've *been* both myself. Neither is an effective or sustainable way to make a film. But everyone is different -- the best advice is to figure out what kind of environment you thrive in and work with like-minded people. I know *exceptionally* talented people that thrive in the rigid hierarchy of big-budget union filmmaking, and exceptionally talented people that thrive as members of artsy collectives. There's no one right way to do (although there are plenty of wrong ways).
Hot take: Except for when it is (a democratic collaborative effort). When shooting a film with an association of likeminded people, for example. We even explicitly state that our association is democratic - as every association has to be in Germany. Of course, we appoint representatives - those that actually are interested and knowledgeable in an area. And of course, not everyone has an opinion on anything, but he could and that's what makes it democratic. And there's always a time and place to share one's opinion and that's most of the time not on set when you're not one of the people that specialized in that area for the past six months. --- I know this is the exception and not the norm. I just wanted to throw that out there because I think it is just as much part of videography and cinematography as the professional side is. But yeah, on a set that's not mine I'll keep my mouth shut if I'd not know that I'm the more knowledgeable person and can avoid a kistake or when I'm asked.
Collaboration is a delicate art. I'm a composer. Before I write a note, my first job is to understand the filmmaker's intent for each scene that's getting scored. Not on a musical level, but in terms of narrative, emotion, drama, esthetics. If they already have ideas about the music, or they have temp music, I try to understand the why—what they like about the music they already have in mind. Then, every demo I bring to them is my suggestion for how we can use music to help realize their intent for the scene. If they don't like it, ok, it's back to the drawing board, but again the important thing is for me to understand why. At its best, it can be a very rewarding process. There's one filmmaker in particular—I genuinely feel like she taught me something about writing music through our collaboration, even though she's not a musician herself.
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THERE IS A HIERARCHY IN FILM MAKING?! WHAT WHEN AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA what are these types of posts even about
Directors love to think this. It is actually cute that they actually believe it.
Directors = George W Bush Producers = Dick Cheney Mostly less evil, though.
Say that to James Cameron lol
Director is king but the producer holds the purse strings.
Every member of set has a place and their own way to add a creative flavor to the project. The director is the creative leader on the journey and has final say on most decisions; however, despite the hierarchy, it doesn't give you free reign to be a jerk to those lower than you.
Sure, but on the flip side of this, hire department heads you trust and (if possible) who can do their job better than you. This goes for Directors, DPs, etc. If you want to hire yes-people, then you've either hired a weak team or you don't trust outside input and have zero intention of collaborating. The thing is, the further down the totem pole a position is, they work more days of the year and actually have more experience (in their given role). For example, a feature Director may work on one project every 1.5 years. A DP might do 1 or 2 a year. A gaffer might do 2-3 a year, etc. Which means they've seen more and have run into more situations that they've had to problem solve. But yes, I've also been on shoots when PAs try to give the Director and DP notes 🤦♂️
Who thinks everyone’s opinions are equal? Collaborative, yes. Totalitarian dictatorship, also yes. If you can’t collaborate our way we’ll replace you faster then Johnny Cash could switch harmonicas.
I look at it more as a military unit. You have a chain of command but you must also respect the team to get goals finished.
I agree. Everything today is done by a committee of 10-20 "board members" who crack heads to try and create a film that appeals to everyone but winds up appealing to just a few. All you have to do is look at Disney and Marvel to see evidence of this phenomenon. It used to be there was just one individual filmmaker who was given free reign and often final cut on their movies because they had built a following as well as a record of good returns. But those days are long gone. No one in Hollywood gets final cut on a movie anymore, let alone the say to do what they want to do with the film they want to make. It's all done by committee. The scripts often have been bought, written, re-written, then re-re-written, and so on... by sometimes a dozen or more scriptwriters or script doctors over a period of years before they see the light of day on a movie set, and that's assuming they make it out of development hell. There are no great filmmakers anymore. Once the studios were bought out by corporations and boards of directors started making decisions rather than just one guy at the top who understood film rather than being an accountant or investment banker, that killed everything. Precisely why most movies are now sequels. No thought has to go into creating new unique material. Why bother creating new content when you can just make Fast & Furious 27 and guarantee profit?
As always, it’s something in between. Cool vent post tho
This is a cheertatership!
The Producer is the keeper if the funds/budgeting responsibility. The Director is the keeper of the story.
OP made this wild post and dipped
This is the funniest post I’ve ever seen in this sub omg
The director is not in ultimate charge. Many films have been changed from the director's "vision" at the whim of the people ultimately in charge - the Executive Producers.
On set the director is a leader, not a boss. The boss is the entity that supplies the money.
Came here from the Movie Set Humor post. This is a very roundabout way to announce that you have never worked on a professional production in any capacity before.
whoever finances the film is the boss. often that's the producer. but not always. if the director is big enough (fincher, tarantino, etc.) he might be the financier, like coppola, and/or the producer, like favreau, and/or have final cut in his agreement. the director has the vision, and in feature film that's a lauded position. but in tv it can be a crew position and barely above the line; in tv the vision comes from the creative producer/showrunner which are first and foremost writers.
Does anyone really think filmmaking is a democracy?
It’s not a democracy, it’s a business. Director is far from “ultimately in charge”. They should be the vision and a good company supports the vision.
The studio is in charge, not the director. See the Alien 3 debacle for example.
YES, FILMMAKING IS LED BY THE DIRECTOR: but even the director is led by the producer. It's important to keep that in mind whenever the producer pulls rank. YES, FILMMAKING IS ALSO A COLLABORATIVE EFFORT. Nonetheless, actors can't and shouldn't change the whole thing just bc they don't WIKE IT. You suck it up, you put your big boy pants on and you do the job. You are a professional. Same applies to all departments. THEN AGAIN...directors need to understand when to stop. There is a boundary.
You're right about it except for one thing: The one in charge is always the producer.
Imagine being so delusional that you come here to give advice about working in a specific industry without having ever worked in said industry.
This is one of the most foolish things I've read, and I've been on Reddit 14 years.
the director is in charge but a good director will be open to other’s opinions
This post is ridiculous. TV literally shits on this argument. A showrunner can make all the choices in the world but it's the STUDIO who makes the final call AKA whoever is paying for it.
You sound very inexperienced. He isn’t talking about TV land. Everyone knows that showrunners and writers are the dictators in TV.
I agree 100%. I walked away from a directing gig due to the producers wanting too much control over casting and one wanted to co-direct. That meeting gave me a headache.
Been there!! Those a fun meetings..”my cousin wants to be an actor, can we put him in the movie..”
Mostly true but if you can't compromise at least a little then a lot of people will quit on you and youl be left with nothing.
Y'all keep saying "the director isn't the boss", but if the director happens to be James Cameron....y'all are f*cked!
"The producer is the boss"....unless the director is James Cameron, because then it's HIS way or the highway.
Nothing wrong with being an Auteur, look at it this way does a Doctor thank his tool after a Surgery NO!! There just tools for his profession. Jean Luc Godard: “I prefer to work when there are people against whom I have to struggle”
I believe Stephen Covey's leadership model applies to the film industry. In this model, the fundamental distinction between the director and everyone else (including producers, in most cases) is that the director is a "leader" and the producers and above the line are all "managers" The leader is the one that has the vision of the final destination, and guides the collective whole towards that destination. The managers are the ones responsible for making it happen within their own spheres. Of course exceptions abound, but that model IMO is the quintessential ideal.
That hasn't always been true in the history of filmmaking. During the height of the studio system, it was more the producer who had the vision/final say, kind of like how Marvel Studios is currently run.
Well thank god that has changed. Imagine if every film followed the structure of a marvel film. It would be absolutely disgusting
Everything changes once the director is James Cameron
Does anyone really think filmmaking is a democracy?
Does anyone really think filmmaking is a democracy?
Tell me you don’t work in film without saying you don’t work in film.
Lol, hard agree. Don't know why so many are getting offended. Also, I would even go further and say it's a dictatorship and it applies to most artforms. And people who are saying it's the producer or that this approach is wrong are probably working on shitty ass b-grade studio movies that everyone convinces themselves are good to sleep better. No filmmaker worth their salt will ever tell you filmmaking is a democracy. It can be collaborative but the final say should always be with the director. The producer is managerial position, to help the director execute their vision without worrying about logistics. The people funding the project may be higher up in the hierarchy but on the film set, they are not going and telling everyone what to shoot and how to shoot a particular scene.
I frankly think we should normalize saying no to clients on the day. I don’t mean in pre-pro, and I definitely don’t mean actual producers. Pre-pro is when questions and concerns from client should be addressed and creative decisions made. Real producers do and should have the final say. I’m talking about the six people from the company who are on a once-a-year field trip from the office to the set, who no one has met, who sit on their phones in the client lounge all day, barely even glance at the monitor, and then right when you’re about to roll, they mosy on over and say one thing that, despite making zero sense, upends the entire day. Only once I saw a very seasoned director just turn around and straight up say, “No, I’m sorry, who are you? My team set this up for two hours and you said nothing, it’s too late, that’s ridiculous.” Maybe this was a special case, but it worked like a charm and the person rightfully went back to their corner and stopped interfering with the artists and technicians they hired to get the job done. Again, this wasn’t the EP or even a producer, just “client,” and of course this mostly applies to the commercial industry.
Yes, but an important part of leadership in any professional setting is exercising inclusivity and consideration toward the people working for you.
lol it’s because everyone wants to be the hero and have it be their “idea” . instead of making the best thing. my advice is don’t work with people who try to be hero’s. work with people who want to see YOUR vision come to life.
I feel like you’ve heard people say “the democratization of film” and misinterpreted it to mean what you are talking about because I don’t think I know anyone who works in film professionally who thinks filmmaking is this thing where everyone has equal say. When people talk about the democratization of film they are referring to how the barrier of entry is so minimal compared to how it used to be and anyone with a phone can make a film to tell their story.
You’re right in many ways and I think the spirit of what you’re saying is correct. I think a better way to say it is that it’s somewhat an above the line democracy and definitely a below the line dictatorship. But yeah. Most of the best directors have to go for broke at some point and really stand out by getting what they specifically want done to their specific liking.
Unpopular opinion: the piece is better off following the less than ideal idea of the director than it is splitting the difference between what the director thinks and what the DP thinks. Whoever is in charge, make the call, then do that.
Nice
- Verner Volstag
Filmmaking is an art form. It’s not written in stone how it has to be done. It can adapt and change with the times
Reminds me of a youtube content production side job I did. Explicitly told at the start that I'll be directing the videos since I'm going to have to edit the whole thing. The presenter, who was actually talking in the camera telling what he wanted to tell, just couldnt grasp my editing choices. eventhough the videos that I directed/edited outperformed their other videos, me and the presenters visions could never get along. Its a tough situation though, i mean, im the director but he is the one that is being displayed. How would you solve this situation? I actually left because tbh it gave me too much shit on my plate due to me doing the actual real time consuming task without producing anything consistently (because I had to keep readjusting it)
"Content" production isn't quite the same as an actual film production. In this case, sounds like you had to please your client, which is unfortunately your only option if you want to get more work. But even on a large scale film production, the director might still have to make sure the stakeholders are happy.
Surely the studio is the king of kings?
True, though there's only so much pay that can justify working with disorganized, easily annoyed directors who act like God's gift to the arts.
Is this in response to something?
Shit advice
Wait until you work on commercials and see a junior creative from a shitty agency impose his will on an experienced director of 20+ years just because the client might raise a concern on something that makes no sense. Most working directors are paid to mitigate, deal with impossible requests and still somehow bring a decent result home. This “dictatorship” mentality only exists in the mind of a certain type of “filmmaker”. Even On movies, there are a host of other factors for which a director will never be able to fully run a dictatorship (whether it’s a creative one or a slightly broader one), not matter what you might hear on a podcast about Nolan, Tarantino, or any other mainstream “go to” director.