Uncle John’s Unsinkable Bathroom Reader (75 page)

Responsible for the tone, pacing, and overall vision of the film, the director has the job of taking what’s in the script and translating it to the screen. While his or her primary duty is assisting the actors in their delivery of lines, the director is also usually the last person to sign off on every aspect of the production, from preproduction to the final sound mix. In many cases, especially within the studio system, the producer or the studio can usurp the director’s power in an attempt to make the finished product more marketable and more appealing to a mass audience, which is why many experienced directors prefer to take on the producing duties as well. Still, it is the director—not the producers—whom the actors and crew rely on to keep them all on the same page.

Often the director’s closest collaborator, the DP is responsible for the film’s composition (how everything appears in the frame), its color palette, and how light or dark each scene is. Some directors are very specific about how they want the film to look, meaning
that the DP simply executes their orders, while other directors are more focused on the acting and give the DP creative license. Either way, DPs are in charge of making sure that the cameras, lenses, and film stock are available and in working order, and see to it that the film is processed after every scene so that the director can review the
dailies
. (Two terms that are often intertwined are the director of photography and the
cinematographer
. If both are listed in a movie’s credits, it is usually the DP who oversees the camera crew and the cinematographer who is in charge of the composition and camera moves for each shot.)

Reel-Life Example:
Wanting their 2000 comedy,
O Brother, Where Art Thou
?, to look like a “fable,” directors Joel and Ethan Coen charged DP Roger Deakins with the task of creating a sepia-toned look, complete with yellow trees and amber skies. One big problem: they were filming in Mississippi during the summer, when the trees were green and the skies blue. After trying various photo-chemical processes—including bleaching the film—Deakins realized that the look couldn’t be achieved through conventional means. Result:
O Brother
marked the first time that an entire film was digitally colored. The process took two months to complete.

Did it work?
Yes. Critics and audiences loved the quirky film; Deakins was nominated for an Oscar. More praise: Robert Allen of the International Cinematographers Guild wrote that “historians will look back on
O Brother, Where Art Thou
? as a milestone.”

Movie sets are chaotic—hundreds of workers, each in charge of a specific task, work on different scenes simultaneously, often out of sequence, most not even aware of the storyline. Here are those whose job it is to keep the chaos in order.

• Assistant Director.
If you were to visit a movie set, you might mistake the AD for the director—they’re usually the loudest, barking orders and yelling “roll” and “cut” while the director sits quietly in a chair looking at a monitor. That’s the AD’s job—to let the director stay focused on the story being told. The AD must always stay one step ahead, so when the time comes for the cameras to roll, everyone and everything is ready to go. The AD sets the day’s schedule and prepares
call sheets
, a list of which actors are needed for the scenes being shot. In addition, the AD relays instructions
from the director to the other department heads, including the
1st AD
and
2nd AD
, who do the same thing for the AD that the AD does for the director. Their most important job is setting up and directing the extras.

• Production Coordinator.
Responsible for maintaining the schedule and making sure the cast and crew are fed and have accommodations while on location.

•
Location Manager.
When a huge film crew takes over a location such as a small town, a city street, or a tourist attraction, the location manager obtains all required permits, heads up the security department, and keeps the locals happy. (On some productions, the location scout stays on as the location manager; on others a separate person is hired.)

•
Script Supervisor.
Responsible for
continuity
, the script supervisor views every single take of a scene—which can begin on location and continue weeks later on a soundstage—to ensure that the lighting, props, hair, makeup, and costumes don’t change drastically between takes. The script supervisor also notes when what’s been filmed differs from what’s in the script.

•
Costume Supervisor.
In charge of the
costumers
, who see to it that the actors’ clothes are always in the desired condition. This sometimes requires “aging” a new garment so it looks worn in. Along with the
hairstylist
and
makeup supervisor
, the costumers are in nearly constant contact with the actors—from seconds before the cameras roll to seconds after they cut. On special effects films that require prosthetics, this can be a very large department with many skilled craftspeople working around the clock.

•
Production Assistant.
Basically, they’re gofers, ready to do anything that needs to be done. They may run a broken doorknob back to the prop department, or make sure the producer gets his half-decaf double latté with two sugars and no foam. On big-budget movies, each of the principal cast and crew members gets their own PA.

This group must work together as if they are a single person, because it only takes one little goof to cause the entire scene to be re-set (extras and all) and the shot done over.

•
Clapper-loader.
Loads the film stock into the camera and also
claps the
slate
(or
clapboard
) before each take (on larger productions, separate people are hired for these jobs). The original use of the slate was to sync up the audio and visual for editing, but with digital technology this is no longer necessary. Still, the slate remains, mostly as tradition, but it does contain necessary information—the scene and take numbers and the date and time.

•
Camera Operator.
Whether following the action on foot with a steady-cam or perched up in a crane zooming out for a wide shot, the camera operator must have not only extensive technical knowledge of the cameras and lenses but a creative eye as well. Larger productions have multiple camera operators.

•
Focus Puller.
Because a movie is designed to be projected on a very large screen, it is essential that the lenses are focused perfectly. The focus puller sits beside the camera and adjusts the focus, based on predetermined calculations. Along with the AD, they arrive on set early to rehearse the upcoming scene, or
block
it, with stand-ins to determine focus and camera movements.

•
Grips.
Led by the
key grip
and including the
dolly grips
, this crew of strong backs is in charge of setting up and breaking down all of the production equipment, including the cameras, cranes, and
dollies
(small train tracks for shots that require the camera to follow the action). Grips also set up the lighting system, which includes the lights, huge diffusers and reflectors, and heavy fabric used to
tent out
windows to keep out extraneous light.

•
Gaffers.
Working closely with the grips, the gaffers are the onset electricians. They make sure that the lighting systems, cameras, dollies, cranes, fans, rain and wind machines, and video playback monitors are all wired correctly. Because of the enormous amount of power needed to run the equipment, gaffers must be experts, making sure that no fuses blow, which would delay production.

•
Best Boy.
This can be either gender and is divided into two categories:
best boy grip
and
best boy electric
, working as an assistant to the key grip and gaffer, respectively. Larger productions have multiple best boys. Their duties are often determined by what’s needed at any given time, be it unloading equipment from a truck or finding a larger fan because the director wants even
more
wind.

•
Location Mixer.
Although very few sounds (footsteps, breaking glass, traffic, etc.) recorded on set in modern feature films ever make it to the final cut, most of the dialogue does: It must be recorded
clearly so that the editors, sound designers, and actors can reference them later in postproduction. The
boom operators
stand just outside of the shooting area holding long microphones over the top of the action while the location mixer monitors the scene with headphones.

•
Second Unit Director.
The
second
unit films any shot in which the principal actors are not needed, such as a close-up of an object, an explosion, crowds, or background scenery. On a larger production, third and even fourth units may be necessary.

•
Leadman.
In charge of the
swing gang
, the construction crew that builds and breaks down the sets. Next come the
set dressers
to add in objects such as furniture and wallpaper, as well as matte paintings (photorealistic murals used to convey distant locations) and green screens (monochrome curtains that will be replaced digitally in postproduction). The swing gang is already gone and working on the next set when the crew arrives to film.

•
Stunt Coordinator.
Not only choreographs the stunt performers for any shot deemed too dangerous for the actors, but must ensure the safety of the actors when they insist on doing their own stunts.

•
Wranglers.
In charge of any nonhuman performers.

•
Still Photographer.
Takes pictures for various purposes: framed photographs that will end up in the movie, promotional photos for advertising, as well as reference pics to aid in continuity.

•
Caterers.
Provide all of the meals for a legion of hungry people.

•
Transportation Coordinator.
In charge of getting the principal actors to and from the set each day as well as assembling a convoy of semitrucks—and sometimes airplanes—to transport the equipment to the location.

Reel-Life Wrangling Example:
On the set of
The Shawshank Redemption
(1994), animal trainer Scott Hart set up a shot in which Brooks (James Whitmore) feeds a maggot to his pet crow. Per requirement, a Humane Society representative monitored the shoot to see that no animals were harmed—and deemed the scene “cruel” to the maggot. The only solution: They had to wait for the maggot to die of “natural causes” before the shot could be filmed.

Most of us are suckers for a sales pitch that promises to make us smarter, slimmer, better-looking, or richer—it’s human nature
.
That’s probably why these guys were so successful
.

F
ROM THE COMFORT OF YOUR OWN HOME
In 1948 Albert Dorne, a well-known and highly paid American illustrator and advertising artist at the time, came up with a home-study program to teach wannabe commercial artists to draw, paint, illustrate, and cartoon. He called it the Famous Artists School (FAS) and enlisted eleven other “famous artists” as founders. “We’re looking for people who like to draw,” they confided in full-page ads in magazines and newspapers. “If you have talent, you can be trained for success and security. Find out with our FREE ART TALENT TEST.” And the ads, put together by a high-powered New York advertising agency, showed photos of the FAS’s biggest selling points: the twelve famous illustrators who were also the school’s principal shareholders, surrounded by the tools of their trade, looking prosperous, contented, and friendly.

Dorne was born in poverty in 1904 on New York’s Lower East Side. He quit school after the seventh grade to support his mother and three siblings, slaving at menial jobs while longing to become an artist. Working in an artist’s studio and teaching himself to draw turned his life around; by the time he was 22, Dorne was earning $500 a week (a huge sum in the 1920s) doing magazine illustration, and he went on to become one of the highest-paid, most sought-after illustrators in America. Throughout his career, he took an interest in younger artists. Art was Dorne’s way out of poverty, and he wanted to share it with others. But he also saw that sharing his enthusiasm for his craft could be a way to make money for himself.