Whenever I meet anyone who wants to direct movies, I look at
them like “where did the world do you wrong?”
The ones who enjoy it, should get a job at a S&M bondage
house, because you just can’t process torture. Or you enjoy it. I like to think
people who jump into it love storytelling. Hell, I do too. It’s not that part.
That’s perfectly sane. It’s the one part where you start to make the fucking
thing.
I was listening to Don Cheadle on Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show,
and he talked about his time making the Miles Davis movie (in my hometown of
Cincinnati). It kicked him hard what it meant to deal with a low budget movie.
He explains that as an actor, you just think things happen. When the logistics
kick in, you realize the tidal wave of self-doubt, compromise and constant
questioning answering that comes with moving an army over a hill. His take (as
told to him by his agent)…making movies is a plane you know is going to crash
land, just realize how many parts are left on the plane when it comes down, and
hopefully enough people survive. That’s coming to terms with a very awful event
and celebrating if survival is the ultimate goal. Why do you think cast and
crew wrap parties are so heavy in booze? Cheadle proceeds to tell the story of his first rough cut of the movie. Where he just lost it. No coverage, nothing worked (in his mind), just disaster. This was cut BEFORE the movie even stopped shooting. The next day, he laid in bed, unable to move. Angry and upset that he made something he felt was a disaster. You can tell people they will love their dailies and HATE HATE HATE their rough cut, but it isn't until you sit in a dark room by yourself, where you REALLY feel it. It's awful. I'm sure with years of experience, the pain dwindles, but still...it's awful feeling.
The other thing mentioned in the podcast is Woody Allen’s
take. Once a movie is a “Go” start by backing up the dump truck of compromise.
Whatever is in your brain cannot fully be realized on screen. It can and it
can’t. Sometimes it’s better, most of the times it’s worst. Because you lack
the time, equipment, talent, location, fill in the blank here, because that ALL
comes into play. The ones who’ve been doing it this long have the experience to
move on with the catastrophic event of telling a story. From the inside out,
we’re usually the ones who are too dumb to stay down. The more hilarious part
of this is that we’re usually celebrated if something that resembles a plane ends
up at the terminal. Our beat up…on fire…missing wheel plane for the world to
look at, and stand in awe of how we managed to walk away.
Did I ever mention the time, on my first movie on film school? The stupid fucking actor brought his dog and proceeded to be combative to every suggestion I made. My roommate, at the time, had to drag me to the set the next day, because I had to finish it. It was ugly. Did I mention we shot it in my apartment?
This is the glitz and glamour of making movies.
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