Who calls the shots?

[Jonathan Spear]

FADE IN

 

INT. MAXWELL FILMS PRODUCTION COMPANY - STUDIO C - NIGHT

 

MICHAEL OXBIG, 26, the studio's hot new director sips his cappucino while two USC grads rub his tired feet.

 

The crew is noticably fatigued from the seemingly endless day of shooting interiors.

 

As the actor and actress prepare for the 6th take of the hot and steamy love scene, STEWART PIDASOLE, the film's D.O.P. and the gaffer conduct an illustrious symphony of lights and shadows to add depth and warmth to the scene.

 

OXBIG suddenly shoots up from his director's chair, spilling hot java all over his minions.

 

OXBIG

No no no! Too warm! Too fuzzy!

This isn't love..it's sex! I want raw lust!

The couple hasn't seen each other in years!

 

PIDASOLE rolls his eyes. He motions for the gaffer to 'wait a sec' and walks towards OXBIG.

 

PIDASOLE

But that's just it, Mike! They're in love!

They haven't seen each other in years!

We need to set an appropriate mood!

 

As the director and DOP continue arguing, the two USC grads look at each other and smile.

 

USC GRAD (TALL)

Betcha didn't think you'd be working for Mike Oxbig!

 

The shorter of the two nods his head slowly and smiles broadly, revealing several missing teeth.

 

USC GRAD (SHORT)

Bet -you- didn't think you'd be workin' for Stu Pidasole!

 

FADE OUT

 

<_<

 

anways...

 

my question is this:

 

As far as the creative control on set is concerned, does a cinematographer have an equal say in matters with the director?

 

Have any of you had any problems on set with issues of creative control?

[David Mullen ASC]

Sure, there are always creative conflicts, although it is more efficient to cover the issues in prep than on the set with everyone staring at you. But it is not unsual for a director to say something like "I want this scene darker"... And the DP to respond "Don't worry it will be..." or "Oh, really? Because the script says..." etc.

 

I've made changes to lighting or camera set-ups at the request of the director. Ultimately, the director is in charge, not me -- I work for him (or her.) But that doesn't mean I won't stand up for something I believe in, but I have to be able to convince the director.

 

It only gets bad when a director starts to micromanage your job; it's one thing to tell you that they want the scene moonlit or candlelit or bright & sunny, it's another to tell you what f-stop to use, which type of lamp, etc. It's the DP's job to use the tools to create the look that the director wants, not for the director to tell the DP how to use those tools.

 

But there are no rules, really. If a director doesn't hire a DP whose opinion and skills he respects, then things get ugly on the set.

[Jon Allen]

It gets especially frustrating in post when you have both your boss and a client looking over your shoulder while you're experimenting with different cuts on the computer.

Granted, the piece is for a client, who in turn, is the executive producer- but not necessarily creative-minded, and will begin to micro-manage your editing. I've never gotten to the point of saying "Look, you've hired me to do the best work I can, leave me alone and stop telling me how to do my best work."

I usually just let them talk through their issues, then when they're gone I do it right- I haven't had a complaint yet.

[Brad Grimmett]

I've been in situations where the director and D.P. weren't communicating with each other, and it hindered me as an operator. I was doing steadicam in the desert, and the director would walk me through the shot in rehearsal, specifically stating the framing he wanted. I would pick up the camera to do a take, and right before we rolled the D.P. would completely contradict everything the director said....telling me how HE wanted the shot. At first, I did the shot the way the D.P. wanted it because I thought that they had made that decision together. Of course, after the take the director would tell me how the framing was wrong and that it wasn't what he wanted and so on..... This happened a couple of times before I finally said, "Before we do another take you guys (the director and D.P.) need to figure out what you want. I can't do what you both want because it's always different." I was bracing for a possible confrontation, but surprisingly it worked. Apparently, it never occured to the two of them that they needed to agree on the shot before we shot it. After that I didn't have that problem anymore.

So yes, there are sometimes problems with creative control. Sometimes the biggest problem is that every crew member thinks he/she should be directing. I recently had an art director interupt a conversation I was having with a director to critique my operating. He didn't even understand why this upset me. :blink:

[Nathan Milford]

I had an editor (a man of great experience but bad judgement) waltz on the set of a shoot I was Gaffing. The editor had the ear of the director (a woman of little experience... and bad judgement). By the end of the night the editor was moving my lights! The DP was operating and the editor would occasionally tug on the director's arm and change the framing. The director just let it happen.

 

I was absolutly fuming! But I was a good boy (but not the best boy. har har) and let the D.P. know how I felt (he felt the same) and he talked to some suits and I never saw the editor again, untill I had to sit next to him in the theater during the opening.

 

The guy never really understood why my crew and I were very cold and bitter to him...

 

Boggles the mind really. I'm sure he'd be upset if I started puntching keys on the ol' Avid... "Oh, I think this would cut into my reel better..."

 

- nathan

[DavidSloan]

@TSM: who hires who?

 

Ultimately a director should know the script better then anyone else and his job is to create, what he feels to be, the most appropriate interpretation of the script. I don't know about you, but I don't generally find most DPs I know caring that much about the script. This is not to say that they are bad, because some of them are VERY good, but I'm surprised if they've even read the script more then once.

 

DPs get off on lighting, but the director sees the total picture: from editing to sound design, to lighting, to delivery of the acting, etc... This is evident when you watch films by people like Tarkovsky, Kubrick, Antonioni, Scorsese, Godard, etc... even though these directors switch DPs they still retain the same visual style and mood throughout their ouevra because THEY are the ones responsible for the final product, and everyone is there to support their vision. At least good, passionate directors operate this way, I don't know or care about the shitty ones.

Edited November 30, 2004 by DavidSloan

[David Mullen ASC]

Considering that I've drawn the storyboards for a number of the features I've shot, I'd say that I was definitely familiar with the script. On many of my films, I sit down with the director every day for a couple of weeks in prep and read through every scene on the script and discuss possible ways of shooting it. And I have worked with some directors who actually didn't know the script as well as I did (not the writer-directors, of course.) I did two features last year; one where I storyboarded the whole film and the other where the director and I created a shot list for the entire script during prep which I then typed up. The first week, I rearranged the list by shooting day, but after that I gave my master shot list to the director's assistant to breakdown by schedule.

 

If you find that most DP's don't care much about the script, you've been working with the wrong DP's.

[Jonathan Spear]

"I don't know about you, but I don't generally find most DPs I know caring that much about the script. This is not to say that they are bad, because some of them are VERY good, but I'm surprised if they've even read the script more then once."

 

:(

 

Then what's the point of it all?

 

Knowing the script, story and ambience of the project is the =key= to good cinematography and to making a good film.

 

That's why I posted my question in the first place. It seems like a 'good film' is one where the DP, director, producers, screenwriter, crew, actors and actresses are in sync with each other.

They turn a simple 120-page booklet into a living breathing thing.

 

Then all that's left is to capture it on film.

 

Each project, be it a commercial, music video, short or feature should be a labor of love shared by the entire production team.

 

Filmmaking isn't about 'getting things done on time for the bosses', making money and being famous. It's STRICTLY about telling a story in the most convincing way possible.

The DP should be as interested in the script as the actors themselves.

[Jonathan Spear]

"It only gets bad when a director starts to micromanage your job; it's one thing to tell you that they want the scene moonlit or candlelit or bright & sunny, it's another to tell you what f-stop to use, which type of lamp, etc. It's the DP's job to use the tools to create the look that the director wants, not for the director to tell the DP how to use those tool"

 

Do most of the directors you've worked with have a fairly decent understanding of the technical aspects of filmmaking such as camera operation, lighting, grip, etc. - or are they more focused on the actual acting, scene blocking and shot choreography?

 

Does a director need to know his way around a camera?

[Brad Grimmett]

I don't know about you, but I don't generally find most DPs I know caring that much about the script.  This is not to say that they are bad, because some of them are VERY good, but I'm surprised if they've even read the script more then once. 

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

What?! I've never worked with a D.P. like that. Every D.P. I've ever worked with is VERY familiar with the script. How could they ever get through a pre-production meeting without being familiar with the script? It would be a bad D.P. that wasn't familiar with the script front to back.

[Chris Keth]

Considering that I've drawn the storyboards for a number of the features I've shot, I'd say that I was definitely familiar with the script.  On many of my films, I sit down with the director every day for a couple of weeks in prep and read through every scene on the script and discuss possible ways of shooting it.  And I have worked with some directors who actually didn't know the script as well as I did (not the writer-directors, of course.)  I did two features last year; one where I storyboarded the whole film and the other where the director and I created a shot list for the entire script during prep which I then typed up.  The first week, I rearranged the list by shooting day, but after that I gave my master shot list to the director's assistant to breakdown by schedule.

 

If you find that most DP's don't care much about the script, you've been working with the wrong DP's.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

I've never worked professionally (I'm in school still) but I was about to say something to, " I should hope that [David's post]."

 

 

Everyone in any position that has any say in the final product should be familiar with the script. Otherwise, how would they suggest paths to what the director wants to achieve? Context is very important.

[DavidSloan]

OK. Here is an example-we were discussing DPs that get fired from a job, in a different thread. These guys didn't have the time to spend on a rigorous pre production schedule, or read the script 50 times over. They were called in for the job, on the fly. Do any of those films look bad? Aliens, Titanic, what about Days of Heaven? Wexler had to step in midway when Nestor had to leave for Europe. My point is, a DP needs to know how to light, and light well. So long as he has a basic background of the scene and knows if it's night or day, that's all the info he really needs. Every other interpretation thereafter is subjective. So yes, I do have friends that DP who when they recieve a bad script they won't read it rigourosly. Esp when they have little off time between jobs, and their dailies still look amazing. Sure it's nice to analyze character and ambiance and all that, but when you just stepped off a 4 week feature and will start another one in 2 weeks you need to know practical things as opposed to why Mary is crying in the bath tub because daddy smacked her.

 

Not everyone has the luxury of doing 2 features per year. Some of us still pull in $100 a day.

[David Mullen ASC]

I never said I made a lot of money doing only two features a year...

 

Even a DP who is brought in at the last minute, if they are any good, are going to make creative decisions based on the needs of the story. This isn't like commercials where the only point is to make the product look good. You HAVE to be familiar with the script to develop a visual plan, if only for simple continuity issues like making this scene look early or late evening and the next early morning so that it makes logical story sense -- many scripts are vague about times of day. But it goes way beyond that.

 

Now if you are replacing a DP, you may be inherenting the former DP's visual game plan just to maintain some consistency to the footage, but that game plan is based on the script. Of course the visual approach is worked out between the DP, Director, and Production Designer. And this plan guides every choice made thereafter, in locations, costumes, etc.

 

And of course the director has ultimate authority. But that doesn't mean that telling the story visually through composition and lighting is something that the DP isn't much involved in, that all they do is "light things to look nice." That's a pretty gross simplification. Personally, I wouldn't even take a job if that's all a director expected from me, to just add some professional gloss and make the actors look good. Our discussions on everything, from how fast to move the dolly, to how high to put the camera, to how the light should fall in the room, are based on the story needs. I'm more than a technician -- I'm a visual storyteller.

 

I worked on one film where the director would just find shots in other movies he wanted to copy but had no idea where to use them so it was MY job to read the script and come back and say "well, in this scene, the man is feeling more isolated and he's about to leave his family two scenes later, so that dolly move you wanted could go here because..." It was like reverse engineering.

 

Sometimes, because of my memory skills, by the time we are shooting, I'm much MORE familiar with the scenes than the director, even though we talked through the whole script. But this only happens on the films where I have some real prep time. I'm about to start working on a film where the director has been preparing this story for years; he's even storyboarded the whole movie twice in that time, himself. So here is a case where I have to learn the script as well as he does just to talk with him on the same level.

 

>My point is, a DP needs to know how to light, and light well. So long as he has a basic background of the scene and knows if it's night or day, that's all the info he really needs.

 

You're talking about worse-case scenarios. This is not how a DP usually works. It's certainly not how I work nor the DP's I admire like Storaro, Willis, Daviau, etc. You can't say "I only care about the great directors" and then compare that scenario to ones where the DP has the least amount of prep or input. Why not talk about the greatest director/DP collaborations, like Bertolucci/Storaro or Bergman/Nykvist? These are all cases where the DP's were heavily involved in designing the look of the movie with the director. You think even with Kubrick it was a case of hiring a DP at the last minute and saying "it's a night scene -- light the set nice!"? He DRAINED his DP's of all their creative and technical ideas. Cameron once called Kubrick a "brain vampire."

[Guest fstop]

Any idea why Dick Bush and Caleb Deschanel were originally fired from Aliens and Titanic (respectively), David Sloan?

 

on Aliens, first week of shooting, they were filming the marines walking into the now alien inhabited power station. It's a night time exterior. Cameron specifically wanted the hard practical lights atop each marines helmet to illuminate the scene, spotlights puncturing the black unknown. Bush saw the sequence as being lit by the big ambient light outside, sidelighting the entire set in soft light. Who was right? The script called for a nightime interior. Bush couldn't support Cameron's vision or the way the director and the designer Peter Lamont had devised the picture, pallettes and motifs. Bush's work was still good looking, but he wasn't shooting Cameron's film, nor did he care about shooting Cameron's film. Adrian Biddle replaced Bush and did everything as he was told and then some.

 

Deschanel originally wanted to shoot Titanic in muted colours, whereas Cameron wanted from the start very saturated hues that would work a nice contrast with the lower key action sequences in the other half of the movie (that still had and developed the saturation with the CTB ice). Russell Carpenter replaced Deschanel and worked his ass off to catch up with Cameron's vision.

 

You can light really good looking interiors/exteriors, daytimes/nighttimes, etc. without knowing the tone of a film/script inside out and while isolated they may look good, that level of uninvolved hack work will make the film look flat, even if independently they are the best looking shots in the world.

 

However, if you know a script inside out you have the know how and awareness to push artistic licence and make subtle differences between your night and day scenes- you can cut off light to emphasise dramatic points, use an unconvetional lens at just the right point that's the difference between someone who lights abused Mary in the bath with the prettiest looking practicals and kickers and someone who lights Mary seen at her most vulnerable with the empasis on the horror of the story.

[John Sprung]

Do most of the directors you've worked with have a fairly decent understanding of the technical aspects of filmmaking such as camera operation, lighting, grip, etc. - or are they more focused on the actual acting, scene blocking and shot choreography?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

First time directors can range from experienced DP's moving up to theatrical directors without a clue about film. Flexibility in working out the relationship is the key.

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[David Mullen ASC]

What's odd about that story about "Aliens" is that the night exterior (when the Marines run up to the door outside the compound) ultimately wasn't lit with just the uniform lights -- in fact, it looks like a heavily overcast day exterior in the rain, or dusk, not pitch-black night. Besides, why even build that set, the row of buildings, the giant door, the landscape background, the sky backdrop -- and only have some helmet lights illuminating the shot. You could get away with a much smaller set if that's what he really wanted.

 

And now that I remember it, it WASN'T a night scene -- because after the crash when they are stranded, they watch the sun going down and the girl mentions that they have to get inside because the aliens mostly come out at night.

 

I think the story must be about the INTERIOR when they first enter the compound -- THAT'S mostly lit by the uniform lights.

 

(update)

Oh, I see that you are referring to when the marines enter the power station, not the compound -- but that's also before sunset, plot-wise.

 

I believe it was Deschanel who asked to leave "Titanic" (a script that he loved), not for creative reasons, but because Cameron was such a screamer. Anyway, Deschanel shot the whole modern sequence and Cameron didn't reshoot it, so he must have liked it, and Deschanel didn't get to shoot the period scenes (there was a break in production), so it seems unlikely that Deschanel was attempting to shoot the movie in a different style than Cameron wanted. By the time a big-budget film like that starts shooting, basic stylistic questions like that have already been worked out in a battery of extensive tests, with the director approving or disapproving basic things like film stock, filtration, printing. The later conflicts are more related to speed of production, dealing with technical problems, and basic human interaction problems when dealing with difficult scenes -- and how individual shots are lit. But at that stage, I don't think Deschanel could have or would have tried to slip some soft, desaturated look past the director's attention. Unless they agreed on that look in prep and suddenly Cameron had an about-face.

[DavidSloan]

Guys, I agree with what you're saying 100%...I'm just pointing out that in reality this isn't always the case. People hop from job to job and don't have time to immerse themselves in the script, a la Storraro. We can always look to the masters for examples of the best possible work: Willis, Storraro, Alemendros, Wexler, etc...but how many DPs are those guys?

[Guest fstop]

What's odd about that story about "Aliens" is that the night exterior (when the Marines run up to the door outside the compound) ultimately wasn't lit with just the uniform lights -- in fact, it looks like a heavily overcast day exterior in the rain, or dusk, not pitch-black night.  Besides, why even build that set, the row of buildings, the giant door, the landscape background, the sky backdrop -- and only have some helmet lights illuminating the shot.  You could get away with a much smaller set if that's what he really wanted.

 

And now that I remember it, it WASN'T a night scene -- because after the crash when they are stranded, they watch the sun going down and the girl mentions that they have to get inside because the aliens mostly come out at night.

 

I think the story must be about the INTERIOR when they first enter the compound -- THAT'S mostly lit by the uniform lights.

 

(update)

Oh, I see that you are referring to when the marines enter the power station, not the compound -- but that's also before sunset, plot-wise.

 

I believe it was Deschanel who asked to leave "Titanic" (a script that he loved), not for creative reasons, but because Cameron was such a screamer.  Anyway, Deschanel shot the whole modern sequence and Cameron didn't reshoot it, so he must have liked it, and Deschanel didn't get to shoot the period scenes (there was a break in production), so it seems unlikely that Deschanel was attempting to shoot the movie in a different style than Cameron wanted.  By the time a big-budget film like that starts shooting, basic stylistic questions like that have already been worked out in a battery of extensive tests, with the director approving or disapproving basic things like film stock, filtration, printing.  The later conflicts are more related to speed of production, dealing with technical problems, and basic human interaction problems when dealing with difficult scenes -- and how individual shots are lit.  But at that stage, I don't think Deschanel could have or would have tried to slip some soft, desaturated look past the director's attention.  Unless they agreed on that look in prep and suddenly Cameron had an about-face.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Re: Aliens

The EMPHASIS was certainly on the burned out shafts of helmet light dominating the ambient light, strict instructions by Cameron that Biddle followed but Bush disgarded completely. You certainly get that feeling in the scene without neccesarily having it as tiny pools panning across a pitch black wall, a giant contrast to the 20K through a diffusion panel overexposed sidelight Bush had illuminating ALL the action as the dominant, primary source washing out the helmet lights in the process.

 

Clearly Cameron and Bush had their own ideas about where and when the ambient moon/sun light should travel across the planet to emphasise certain points addressed in the script.

 

Re: Titanic

The Nova Scotia Deschanel stuff was shot soft and pastelly (certainly looks like a different pallette to me and the bookends don't need visual continuity with the main story) and the creative conflict is well documented. In one of the Cameron biogs there's a quote that says Cameron was after someone who would get his vision on the screen and not simply "wow" him. Russell Carpenter the film's eventual DP was also quoted with being very disappointed in not being asked originally to shoot the film following the Cameron/Carpenter double act True Lies and T3D.

 

 

David Sloan,

 

I think luck and applying experience by way of luck are big saving factors for those "real world not always the case" scenarios. This is obviously the reason why pigeonholing exists and DPs experienced in a certain style a director is after (applicable to both form and content) are brought onto a new project from scratch or replacing a DP to give the filmmakers "that look", recycling their familiar work in the process.