Should I have this project be in a foreign language in this case?

Oh well, it's just that since I am the director I feel that a lot of the decision making falls on me. When I posted projects to get opinions on before, that I directed, and people asked why certain decisions were made, and I said it was the producer's decision, I feel like I got reactions, like that was a cop out answer. So I thought maybe I wasn't taking enough stake therefore?

As for what language the host speaks, in the project he does talk about his time growing up in Vietnam and his experieneces, so if he speaks Vietnamese instead of English, perhaps it will identify with a Vietnamese audience, and that will be a narrative reason to use that language instead?
 
I don't think I've had an emotional investment in anything I've been involved in for my whole life. I've been in the entertainment BUSINESS all my life. You strive for excellence, but all too frequently the product is mediocre. I learned to not let it worry me by the time I was 30. When something turns out real good, you get a good feeling for a short time, but often the next project looming puts a stop to that. People often talk about the buzz, or the adrenaline rush and stuff like that. Never happens to me. Every project goes into one of three piles in my head. The great ones, worth remembering. The terrible, dire ones, also worth remembering and then the biggest pile by far. Those mentally labelled OK, and forgotten about.

I also subscribe to splitting jobs into ones to consider when your input was good/bad but the actual project was the opposite. These are the ones where you could use a bit of what you did in self-promotion, with some images or audio that really show what you can do, but he the project itself was dire. I found some stills a few days back and suddenly realised then end product never happened when the producer did a runner with the money. The pics look great, but the public never saw any of it. I have never in my life seen anything that moved me towards an emotional response that I can remember, apart from a fairly common squirming, embarrassing feeling. The best ones make me feel proud to have been involved, but emotion? None I'm aware of!
 
Not even that movie you wrote (or whatever it was) years ago?

I think by "emotional response" people mean being passionate about something to the point that it upsets you if it goes to hell ("I had these great ideas but the producer/director said 'nah let's do this way crappier thing instead'"). Not in the sense that one of your corporate video projects brought you to tears to the point where you were responsible for Kleenex's stock rising several points.
 
First of all, most people who got into this crazy business were probably motivated by the joy of watching movies. That's there somewhere no matter what corner of the industry you labor in. Otherwise, why not go to dental school?

Second, doing your best work as a DP or a producer or an editor or whatever requires some spark of creativity that won't happen without a bit of investment and caring.

Sure, you can pound out a run-of-the-mill project without firing too many neurons and I do that all the time. But I think that working that way diminishes your capacity to push yourself and fire on all creative cylinders. Which is an obstacle to making your best work, snaring higher-end clients and projects, and certainly to making your kickass passion project. Because you are conditioning yourself not to care.
 
I would say that the emotional involvement changes when you direct, compared to the technical jobs. You may have been working on a project for a number of years, trying to get it into production with a producer. Of course, there are other productions on which the director is just the hired help, working for a few days or weeks, so there's less involvement, although they want to do a good professional job. On documentaries, you can become involved with the subject(s), although how much will depend on their story and their character. With some you're trying not to get too involved because they're pretty dark characters.

If the host, although he sounds more like the subject, speaks a lot less fluently in English letting him speak Vietnamese may be the way to go. It may depend on where you wish to show the film and the target audience, but if he's speaking in broken English you'll lose most audiences, unless you've got great visuals that tell the story.

The producer's role varies, in TV they are much more involved in the creative side than in feature films. Regardless, there can creative clashes and power games, so you need to have thought out why you're doing something.
 
I do care, but I care about things I have control over, no more. My best income generator - moving image wise was 3 minutes of pictures of the graves in Northern France, accompanied by music I wrote that was used for 6 years when satellite broadcasting first took off (no pun intended). It was just slow travel of thousands of identical war graves, with sad music and it got played every year on Poppy Day. It would appear on different channels but was always somewhere. I understood why people found the thing poignant or emotional, and why the music supported it in creating those feelings but it never got to me.

I suspect it really just is me and I'm not quite normal here?

I find myself mid-project thinking about issues in the middle of the night and by morning I've got a plan, but little sleep. I really care, but I'm unable to do it at an emotional level, but just 100% practical. I think I can predict other people's emotional responses reasonably well, but factual vs art projects just don't matter. They're judged by me on complexity, which although impacts on cost, generates interest - so for my gratification, technically complex jobs are better. I get something from successful problem solving. When I am production managing, the smooth running, well received ones I forget. I see pictures and cannot even remember which year and sometimes would have sworn I wasn't even involved. The ones where there were massive problems that we solved I remember for ever with satisfaction. I get angry when things prevent proper execution of ideas - I suppose that's perhaps as close to an emotional response I get, but satisfaction is the common end result. I guess this solidness and even approach is why up to this year, my diary has been full and steady. I look at the other creatives I work with and see similar things. Some have blinkers - their inout and only theirs in important. Others are in permanent wide angle, seeing everyone's contribution as a kind of 'whole'. Apart from the luvvies, who do emotion at the drop of a hat - even whooping for joy when they've had poo (seriously), the production team rarely seem to be emotional people at all - lots being very much like me. Working with the wholly, immature, mega hyper youngsters is so draining.

Oddly, the band I'm in demonstrates it in a similar way. I'm a comfy performer, I don't get stage fright, I don't run to the loo before going on stage like many of my band mates, and I am quite happy ad-libbing to an audience with just a quick "Paul. tell them about ......" When we need to fill. I find it slightly amusing when you look at a festival full of people all jumping around as you play. The big gigs - which for us would be perhaps 3-5 thousand crowds are great fun - but when we come off at the end, the other three are buzzing, and all I think about is where is the food? I'm kind of detached from it. I've just completed another opera project, and this time it was German love songs - Strauss and Brahms stuff. I knew it was about love, as "Leiber" seemed to feature quite often. All I can say is that I thought it was a nice piece, bar that strange bit in the middle. My first outing with the client showed her passion and absolute need for perfection - so the final approved edit was V14, and this was to fix hair issues - takes with slight hairage changes between them that I couldn't spot so replacing clip 23a with 23b because the hair caught the sunlight slightly better. My attention was down to lip-sync, not hair.

I don't think I've had an emotional response from any movie ever, bar just one - when I was a child - and it's stuck in my memory ever since. Disney's Dumbo. I remember crying. Never since. Perhaps it damaged me as a child and I should claim for mental distress?
 
ahalpert said:
most people who got into this crazy business were probably motivated by the joy of watching movies.
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I would agree that most people who get into it are movie buffs. But they burn out quickly. The ones who last are a different sort, more like Paul.

A loan officer told me something like half of small businesses fail in the first couple years. I bet the failure rate in the video sector is even higher, for this very reason, that people (like me) get into it for the love of the art, but our romanticism is ill-suited to the cold, mechanical decision-making that a business requires.

Otherwise, why not go to dental school?
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Most of the people I know who were lasting a long time were in it primarily because they wanted to be their own boss. Instead of wanting to fulfill their dream of becoming intertwined with cinema, their love was with entrepreneurship. They might have become dentists, since dentists can be independent operations, and the business is lucrative. But I think it takes a special kind of person to poke inside people's mouths all day. So these entrepreneurs probably considered a variety of businesses, like opening their own dry cleaners. They landed on videography because maybe they kind of like photography, or kind of like electronics, or kind of like going to a variety of events, and they kind of don't want to go to school for four more years. There was nothing very special about it, just certain factors that tilted the decision.

I'm talking about the middle-class tier: weddings, events, corporate.

The famous craftspeople in Hollywood, high-end commercials, music vidoes, and television, may very well be passionate about cinema. For them, I think it was luck (I mean besides talent, because many talented people never make it). Also many of them are remarkably more self-promoting than I feel comfortable being. Ever watch an interview of Ridley Scott?
 
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Personally, the projects I've been most invested in were my own short films and a few things I've DP'd for other people that were creative/movies.

In my own everyday work, yeah, it's hard to get super pumped about being a grip and moving stands and gear around, or running a prompter, regardless of the project it's on. But you don't need to be "invested" to do well at those things.

However, I'd think to be a successful producer/production company you would HAVE to have passion/investment in your projects. I know I couldn't get super excited about writing a script/scouting/planning every aspect of a corporate video about some drilling company's new rig, which is why I'd make a terrible corporate producer. Same as a DP. I would think you'd have to really love art/cinemtography etc. to put the time in to learn all the skills and become familiar with the huge body of knowledge it takes to do that job well, even if you're working on something "cold and unfeeling" like commercials, etc. I think it just takes way too much focus (pun intended?), discipline, and yes, some creativity to treat simply as a job.

Perhaps some people can still do a great job without that passion. Seems like it'd be tough.

I was talking with a sound guy and I said "well you must have some passion for sound." He told me "nah, not really, I just something to be neurotic about and this fulfills that need." So I guess that works too.
 
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Oh well I guess I could just have the attitude of put the project together quickly, deliver it to the person and be done with it... However, I am told I need to get better at filmmaking so I therefore feel I should do my best of course as well...
 
The decision in this case isn't an emotional one, it's just practical. If a person's English isn't good enough to effectively tell their story for an entire documentary letting them use their first language is am option. It's not unusual for subjects to use both languages during a documentary, depending on the circumstances (e,g. using English in conversation with Canadians during everyday activities).

It's something to be discussed with the producer, who may or may not agree, they may want it to be all in English, but when the decision is made, go with it. This is the dealing with people aspect of filmmaking.
 
Oh okay thanks. What is the best way to bring this up? I don't want to make it sound like I am insulting the host, or the produce since it's a passion project of there's but how do you tell them that the English isn't good and to just not use it, without them taking it the wrong way?
 
JimS2 said:
Oh okay thanks. What is the best way to bring this up? I don't want to make it sound like I am insulting the host, or the produce since it's a passion project of there's but how do you tell them that the English isn't good and to just not use it, without them taking it the wrong way?
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Ryan, what decisions are you making on this documentary? You say you’re the director... how are you implementing that?

And your friend who is the producer... what decisions are being made as producer?

Who is conducting the interviews? Who is choosing and setting up the locations?

You need to answer these questions. To be able to answer these questions. I’m curious who is making which decisions here because that can ultimately shape how you approach your original question.
 
Oh well I was making the decisions in the footage I shot, and the choices of shots I have done so far in the interviews. However, the producer is choosing the b roll, and so far I am letting him stick the narration script he wrote, it's just that he is having trouble with the English.

Hpwever, should I make any changes to his narration script if that's better? As to what decisions the producer has made, the whole thing was his idea, and he gave me the location, some money, and had ideas for the tone and direction of the piece.
 
JimS2 said:
Oh well I was making the decisions in the footage I shot, and the choices of shots I have done so far in the interviews. However, the producer is choosing the b roll, and so far I am letting him stick the narration script he wrote, it's just that he is having trouble with the English.
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So you aren’t the director. You’re basically acting as the DP.

But I’m confused... are there two producers? The one who hired you and the one who is struggling with English?

JimS2 said:
Hpwever, should I make any changes to his narration script if that's better?
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So the person struggling with English is writing and reading from a VO script? What kind of documentary is this? And again, who is the one conducting the interviews (who is asking the questions)?

If the struggle with English is occurring in a VO script, then at some point that script should be edited to smooth out the problem areas. This doesn’t change the meaning of what he’s written, it just corrects grammar and syntax where needed. But you aren’t the director here, so the best you can do is talk to the producer/director about your concern.

JimS2 said:
As to what decisions the producer has made, the whole thing was his idea, and he gave me the location, some money, and had ideas for the tone and direction of the piece.
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You still don’t understand what a director does, because you aren’t doing it. Again, you’re acting as a DP (I use that term loosely), and the producer is actually a producer/director (not unheard of in the documentary world).
 
Oh okay, but I was planning the shots, as well and I thought that the director plans the shots, and shot list, etc, not the DP. I am doing the interview so far. But since I was the one telling the person what to do in front of the camera, I thought was directing, unless I'm wrong. The other guy is more of a producer, compared to the one who is on camera, speaking about himself. We are interviewing him based on a script he wrote, if that makes sense?
 
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JimS2 said:
Oh okay, but I was planning the shots, as well and I thought that the director plans the shots, and shot list, etc, not the DP. I am doing the interview so far. But since I was the one telling the person what to do in front of the camera, I thought was directing, unless I'm wrong. The other guy is more of a producer, compared to the one who is on camera, speaking about himself. We are interviewing him based on a script he wrote, if that makes sense?
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So you’ve gotten into another project where there are actually multiple people directing. The director sets the “tone and direction” (from your earlier post), which is what the producer has done here. And why are you asking the interview questions? Doing that and operating the camera (and I assume sound as well) at the same time is asking for trouble.

You really need to read up on what a director does, and what a director of photography does.

But to your original question: you need to speak with the producer, but this really becomes a post issue now that you’ve shot a bit of the project. Just use English subtitles and be done with it. That’s not at all uncommon for English-language documentaries where someone is still working on English as a second (or third, or fourth) language.
 
Oh okay thanks. Yes I know the difference, I was just willing to cross over in certain duties for them :). But I don't have to give myself a director credit then if that's best.
 
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Sounds like you’re giving yourself titles to make yourself feel more important.

You will film him and if the producer/director has the budget or feels the need he will have English subtitles added after the video is complete.
 
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Ive never understood why titles are so important. If you do a role, maybe an industry standard title fits. However, in so many productions nowadays people multi task and the proper titles don't fit. I often think the biggest difference is producer/director vs director. I much prefer the director to be able to make decisions that have cost implications. I hate it when the director comes to me about running over time, and I know the producer won't sanction overtime, and I have to stop a director mid flow. A quick eye contact with the director/producer and a tap of my watch gets the imperceptible nod, and we drift into overtime seamlessly. That's so much nicer than having to whisper in an ear that we need to stop in five minutes, finished or not. If I was a DoP working for Ryan and he kept interfering in my role, I'd be pretty fed up with the job. I wonder how many real DoP's sign up for the nex project. Frankly, assigning a cameraman the title DoP explains a lot. I've never considered myself worthy of that title.
 
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