Best directors you've worked with

[Justin Hayward]

I think I first heard the joke from David Mullen that the only entry level jobs on a film set are P.A. and director. Of which I've been both. People can certainly argue that crew people have worked on more shows, but if they've never been in the hot seat, they have no idea what it's like to be under the scrutiny a director has to deal with. Like Richard said, we have to take all the blame for everyone's job. That's what our job is, overseeing everyone else's job to the best of our ability. I've been on both sides of the coin and I promise you a director's job is a hundred times more stressful than than a paid crew guy that has one specific job to accomplish on that day, then moves on to something else tomorrow. Nothing against them at all. I need them. But they have one thing to do, and I have a thousand. It's harder than you think.

[Guest]

But they have one thing to do, and I have a thousand. It's harder than you think.

 

Well that's it exactly, even the DOP as busy as he is, only does one job he only needs to be an expert in one area. I've yet to see a DOP at a casting session, or do re-writes on the script. The director has to know most everything about everyone's job.

 

The director is also with the project a lot longer than anyone else. I am always telling crew, this shoot is 8 weeks out of your life, it's two years out of mine.

 

R,

[Max Field]

The thread was called, "Best Directors You've Worked With."

 

Not supposed to be a crew bitch-o-mony and gripe-a-mony.

 

Maybe we should have a new thread, "Worst Crews You've Worked With," and ONLY credited directors can comment.

 

Or maybe coming across a "great" director, featuring the qualities Satsuki spoke of, is such a rarity that everyone took the flipside option that the OP suggested. Talent doesn't grow on trees.

[Satsuki Murashige]

I don't think such qualities are that rare in the industry, really. But it's usually someone with at least a few years of production and life experience, so you don't typically meet these folks when you're first starting out with your peers. Unless you happen to be one of the lucky ones who get their break on a large union set.

[Robin R Probyn]

Richard..a director is only as good as the DOP.. thats an empirical fact ..

[Guest]

Richard..a director is only as good as the DOP.. thats an empirical fact ..

 

Yeah I'm gonna have to categorically disagree. But you are of course entitled to your opinion.

 

R,

[Vivek Venkatraman]

I completely agree with Satsuki's post but since im still a student film-maker here are some amazing qualities that I have seen in the directors that I have worked with -

 

1 - Knowing the story and having a vision for every second of the story.

2 - Knowing what to do in off camera time and space to acheive the desired effect in the films time and space or atleast collabarating with people to make this happen

3 - Not being a dick

[Rakesh Malik]

Two directors that I've worked with stand out in particular. One was actually a pretty bad director when I first started working with her, but I kept working with her because she had a lot of vision. She just wasn't good at conveying what that vision was, both to me and to the actors, making it rather challenging to get what she wanted from the shoot. However, she's also one of those people who cares about as well as respects the people she works with, and has learned a lot; while she hasn't learned much about how to light a set, she's gotten a LOT better at explaining what she is trying to accomplish with a shoot, and her couple of films have been great to work on. The last one is still in post, the previous one was quite well received locally (got a jury nomination for "best short" for one local film festival). She takes a lot of inspiration from classic filmmakers.

 

Another has worked with me on probably something like a dozen projects now, though only a few as director. He directed the first feature film that I shot, and that was our first big collaboration. He goes his best to take care of his cast and crew as far as keeping our working days reasonable, saving the really long days for when we really need them (like when we have a particular location for only one day). He's also seasoned enough that when we're short on crew, he can jump in and assist with lighting and that sort of thing, which nearly backfired once when he was doing sound while I was operating the camera handheld with a shoulder rig, and I was using the battery as a counterbalance. He was looking over my shoulder to see the viewfinder, not accounting for how far the battery extended behind me when I did the whip pan... and accidentally gave him a good wallop on the jaw... on the take we ended up keeping. It turns out that since I didn't pause, you couldn't see the bump in the final footage.

 

Anyway, he and I quickly established a working relationship where I was able to get a solid sense of the style of what he wanted. We ended up using footage shot during rehearsals as our reference, like they were storyboards. He always had a very clear idea about what he needed in order to get the piece we were working on to fit into the edit, and I had no trouble figuring out how to light it. He's working on raising funds to pay for some pickups; hopefully we'll be able to get it into the festival circuit this year.