conflict between DP and director

TimurCivan said:
Hehe... obviously by nap i meant "directing while asleep" is that better? jkjk

Clearly judging by marks work he isnt asleep on the job. I totally agree that the big picture is whats important, but isnt it up to the cinematographer to know the whole picture insideout and backwards as well? at least i think its equally important for me to really know whats going on. This way i can introduce the creative aspects of my job while bringing the directors vision to life.

Mark trusts me with alot during the shoots. The light is mine, of course he gets final say, but because he trusts my eyes, usually there is no conflict, he just says, "Yeah! yea!yea!yea!yea!yeaaaa!" excitedly, and we shoot. Also i usally story board the entire film, with detialed drawings. and from there he makes chages and builds a shotlist.
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Well, I think it's more likely that the DP will have a handle on the whole thing at the level that we work. But as the production gets larger and up to a real big Hollywood movie, the DP has his/her hands full just with the lighting and photography, I think. Like every other department probably has their hands full with their individual tasks.

But even still, with things like performance, when I am directing, I have likely worked out the performances before hand, so am not looking for a lot of input. I know how those pieces are supposed to fit in. Same with shot list. When I take your story-boards and turn them into pages of shot lists, adding a ton of details, it's because I am looking forward to the editing process and what we will need for coverage. Even if it looks like I am adding shots that don't make sense with the storyboards.
 
It depends really on the director's experience. In my point of view, I believe a good director has to know about DP ing, and about camera operation. A director has to know what can be achieved in therms of picture in order to ask for anyone to give him the vision. The Director is like a General. Respect comes from battle scars, experience and knowledge. A Director has to give the team a confident image, and must know what he's trying to achieve.

I had to fire a DP once. He was suggested to me as someone with "good experience". DO NOT HIRE ANYONE trough suggestions. See their CV's, talk to them, and see if you have a chemistry together. That DP was a smartass. Firing him was easy, tough. He didn't knew nothing about the HVX camera, didn't worked or studied the camera's specifications, and was incompetent. I took the helm and brought the boat home. Suffice to say, the project could have looked a lot better in the end, but I'm happy with the results. If I didn't knew nothing about DP, Camera operation, etc., I would be screwed, and the project would never be finished. Knowledge is power. And STAY COOL, and FOCUS. Show them who's boss. Know what you want. And try to communicate has much as you can. You must allow creative freedom to your DP, but you also must be able to tell him/her what you want. See if you understand each other.

I'm still to find the perfect DP to work with me. I would like someone that likes to use lots of natural lighting, is able to improvise on the go, and is creative. That would be ideal. Unfortunatelly, no such luck over here...

To conclude- In the end, Its your Baby. You're the Captain. Others either share your vision, or jump ship. Just make sure you know where you're going and how you're going to get there. SOmethimes the lower soldiers need to see you fire a gun, or kick someone's ass.

A small example: A Gaffer said the lighting wasn't possible in a certain manner. I grabbed the lights myself, putted in place, invited the gaffer to check out the monitor and he looked, surprised at the footage. This makes them confident about your judgment.
 
Barry_Green said:
Nobody should overrule the director's decisions. If the DP has a suggestion, s/he should make that suggestion to the director, so the director can evaluate it in context with the rest of the film and all other scenes, to make an informed decision on whether it will work or not. This isn't "micro-managing", this is recognizing that every scene, every line, every prop, every decision made has repercussions and ramifications on the whole project, and if things are changed without taking their overall consequences into consideration, they will have an overall negative impact on the project (which is quite the opposite of the DP's intentions, of course, but it's not the DP's job to know the overall consequences).
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Again, speaking from my little (now just 8 months) experience.
Barry, you said "recognizing that every scene, every line, every prop, every decision made has repercussions and ramifications on the whole project"
That's the point. But, what if you feel that when the product is finished, is something that only the director and the actors (non-professional) are proud of?

Barry_Green said:
Nobody wants the people on the crew to act like mindless meat puppets and/or robots. But they do have to all understand that their individual crafts are there to serve the greater overall goal, and that they do not have the knowledge or responsibility for those overall goals. Therefore their decisions and changes are subject to the director overruling them, which is the way it should be.
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Well, my main probem is that i think that a producer would'nt be impressed by those four shorts. I feel that they speak "amateurish", and not something at least semi-pro.
I was just reviewing one of them yesterday. It was shot almost all handheld; that was also my fault not insisting more in using the tripod; but the director wanted handheld. I like handheld, but i think that you need to use both, you need to balance what can be shot handheld to what can be on tripod (or any other support, i have a steadycam but for time and various problem we did not use them).
The latest scene is a shootout; one guy aginst three. The one guy wins, 'cause he said "i'm faster". This can be ok if the scene, the cuts are very fast, but that's not the case. The cuts beetween the three guys are too much slow, and in the end is simply not believable.

I fear that sooner or later, he (the director, that is a friend of mine) find someone (maybe a producer) that clearly don't like his products. That's why i'm tring to tell him to change (with the right kind of words), to became at the level you can find here on dvxuser.
 
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mik, if you want to direct, then direct. if you want to DP, then DP. But if you're not the director, don't tell him how to direct. If you don't think the quality of his directing is up to the level you require, then don't work for him. But either he's the director or he isn't and by trying to take control of the project you're just going to piss him off.

And some people either aren't cut out to be good directors (and this may be the case) or he may simply be developing a style that doesn't mesh with yours. But don't question his decisions, because if this was a pro shoot you would get tossed out on your rear end so fast.
 
First off, no one here can really make a call on this only knowing one person's side of the story. What if the director is a moron & can't express his vision, what if there is no continuity person & the DP is trying to save the show by picking up missing shots? The director is the boss to an extent of the actors, AD Dept and DP, that's it. No crew member outside of the Director & AD dept should be directing talent, except concerning safety issues. Unfortunately, most DPs have way more set experience than directors and know when a shot is and isn't going to work with the alotted equipment, time, budget. If you're too much of a primadonna to listen, that's on you. If the DP is not getting the shots you specifically want for no apparent or rationalized good reason, THEN FIRE HIM AND QUIT CRYING. Otherwise, thank him for saving your ass. The only reason this was a post is that you're afraid to ask for what you want, you needed encouragement from the masses. Is that how you Direct also? Maybe that's why the DP was "encouraging" you.
 
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^ Taking all the "what ifs," from amishjim's post above...

...then you just have to play Kif to his Zap Brannigan.

Which I have done, more than once, on some startlingly expensive projects.
 
Well, i was operating the camera. I did'nt say him how to direct; the suggestions were just a few occasional things.

Now i ask: have you bee in a situation where you where not happy with the final product; but the director or the work partner was happy and proud? You see that (short, feature, whatever) thing amateurish, he see it a professional level work. Did you think you can show this work (and not something you're really satified) to a producer or a more experienced director?

That is the situation i'm in. What do you do?

I'm sorry if you feel that i'm repeating things, but my english is not very good, so a single word can make a mistake...
 
Hell, a little indie project I worked on a few years ago, was so awful I didn't think they'd have the balls to even show it, anywhere.

And it's been winning prizes.
 
Sad Max said:
Hell, a little indie project I worked on a few years ago, was so awful I didn't think they'd have the balls to even show it, anywhere.

And it's been winning prizes.
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Hhahhahaa.
Yeah - you never know what people are going to respond to.
Over the years I've learned that as much as I might THINK I know how things are going on set - you never really do.
 
It was actually a reasonably well-run set. It's just the product coming off that set, that seemed so horrendous...
 
Sad Max said:
It was actually a reasonably well-run set. It's just the product coming off that set, that seemed so horrendous...
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I've spent most of my career thus far in the music business as a recording engineer, and I've been fortunate enough to work with quite a few big artists. One of my favorite stories is that when David Bowie finished the "Young Americans" album (late 70s), he and all the production team thought that the title song was the clear choice as the first single (I should add that I didn't work on that record, but did on the next one, "Station To Station", which is where I heard the story from Harry Maslin, who engineered both albums).

Anyway, when Bowie and crew submitted the finished album to the record company, they were shocked to hear that those A&R "bozos" had decided not to release "Young Americans" as the first single, but rather a song that everyone fron the production side, including Bowie, thought was a little "throwaway" track with no hit potential.

The name of that song?

"Fame"

It quickly became one of Bowie's biggest hits, ever.

Just goes to show ya...ya never know...:shocked:
 
These hard line opinions even from Barry are not correct. Different directors work with different levels of team management especially at the highest studio levels.

Many directors are interested only in the acting and story. They stay mostly out of the DP's way after having had many preproduction meetings and camera tests to plan looks as they relate to the story. Michael Apted is famous for this and frequently only goes to the shoots the principal actors are in.

Other directors are more technical and more hands on.

If you are having trouble on the set, then the director and producer have failed in preproduction to work out the power sharing ahead of time. If the director is dictating f-stops then a failure has already occured somewhere prior.

What this entire thread is missing is any enlightening information of the director's competence, experience and behavior. It's all bagging on the DP.

Several years ago I read an interesting story in a local Los Angeles production rag discussing how feature directors can't micromanage the department heads too much. If you are working with top talent you have to give them some space or you won't be able to hire the good ones.
 
Nearly the same situation again....

At the time of the previous posts we were toward the "it's a wrap" stage of our last short. I only see the final complet edit today. I must admit that is the best of our four shorts, but still there are the same problem: music that sometimes is too loud for the dialogs, out of focus shot (that's my fault, but if you see a out of focus shot, reshot it, if you can, or don't put in the final edit...) some sequences shot with another camera, and you can see the huge diffrence (XL2 vs GL1)...

But this time i have a dvd with the four shorts in .mpg version, so i can cut a few things and post here to see and get some responses.
 
Sproketz said:
These hard line opinions even from Barry are not correct. Different directors work with different levels of team management especially at the highest studio levels.

Many directors are interested only in the acting and story. They stay mostly out of the DP's way after having had many preproduction meetings and camera tests to plan looks as they relate to the story. Michael Apted is famous for this and frequently only goes to the shoots the principal actors are in.

Other directors are more technical and more hands on.

If you are having trouble on the set, then the director and producer have failed in preproduction to work out the power sharing ahead of time. If the director is dictating f-stops then a failure has already occured somewhere prior.

What this entire thread is missing is any enlightening information of the director's competence, experience and behavior. It's all bagging on the DP.

Several years ago I read an interesting story in a local Los Angeles production rag discussing how feature directors can't micromanage the department heads too much. If you are working with top talent you have to give them some space or you won't be able to hire the good ones.
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I don't mean to impugn Michael Apted, but IMO a director who isn't at the shoot isn't doing his job.

And I don't think you and Barry actually disagree that much. If a good director hires a good DP for example, it's just part of good teamwork to largely trust that person's talent, experience and people skills to do the job well. It's when artistic disagreements happen, and they almost always will to some extent, that the director has the final say. Any good DP will understand this. They won't get to be successful at a high level if they go to the mat on every disputed point with a proven director.

Every ship must have a captain...
 
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Trust, Mr. Spencer, you're absolutely right...

that is the key.

Every captain has a first mate, and it is their duty to follow orders and do what's best for the crew and the ship... it takes trust
 
Wow!!

Alot of the rules of making a film sound alot like general contracting.

A GC is incharge of the overall project. The GC hires sub contractor to perform various duties on the project based on there area of expertise.

But at no time does a sub have the right to instruct other trades on the project without the permission of the GC/Project forman.

Just simular is all. But I guess in the end its all business.
 
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