Rushes and the Art of Auto-Compression
Its been remarked (by Coppola I think) that a movie will never be as good as your rushes but never as bad as your first cut.
Perhaps that's why I'm always scared when I watch the "rushes" of something I've directed (or shot, as I used to do) for the first time. I'm always worried that they're going to 'look' (in a broad sense, including performance and storytelling) like crap... and that is all to which the resulting movie will ever amount.
Now, I'm not talking about dailies, and perhaps Coppola wasn't either. Dailies are useful and allow you and your crew to make adjustments and change your plan of attack over the course of a shoot. Problems can still be fixed; performances can be finessed; story points made more clear. I'm a problem-solver, its part of what I love being on set, and rushes are a key component of that. However, I get frustrated when I can't solve something and I get really cranky when I can't even conceive of how to solve a problem...
Which is why when I watch all the rushes back-to-back for the first time, usually to log the footage and confirm print takes, I invariably find the process depressing. There's a crushing finality to what you've got - what you are watching are your raw elements and that is what you have to work with. Its like 'Well, I screwed that up and that up... oh, and that too'. And it takes a while for a wholistic vision to emerge - the creative problem solving of editing hasn't sunk in yet.
This is why I prefer to watch the complete rushes by myself. Its an intense experience, and I get super-sensitive. There's nothing worse than watching a performance and thinking 'hmm, I hope I pushed for another take of that, cause that was 90% of the way there' and then find that you moved onto the next shot. If you've managed to get a bit of a roll-in, its bad when you hear some really dodgy direction you've given the talent. "Oh man, why did I say that? Of course she was going to react like that!".
On set, I find that I'm working instinctively and unable to over-analyse performances. I can (and must!) be able to do simple adjustments to help the actor find a scene or become real... but when you decide that 'wow, that's gold' its an instinctive reaction... A least in the experiences I've had, which have not 'benefitted' from immediate playback of the video tap. Not that I think watching back performances in the environment of a set would be completely conducive to a getting a good feel of a performance; it has to be something you react to emotionally when you're in 'the zone' of a take. Y'know, that space that directors go when they're watching a movie unfold before them. That weird world where you're paradoxically suspended in a singular moment and accelerated through all the possibilities of what you're trying to make. For me, the ritual and rhythms of a set allow me to enter that 'takezone' - and I'm not sure if watching back a take after its been shot would allow me to enter that space. Instead, I'm concerned I'd become 'distracted' with that kind of hypercritical self-censorship which Cassavetes always wanted to avoid.
Hindsight is, however, the worst form of bias - and the easiest thing to do is criticise the performances you've managed to capture. The real trick is knowing what would have worked to change those performances at thetime. Its very easy, particularly for non-directors, to criticise a performance and immediately assume that saying something like "I want you to not think about your lines" to an actor would work. Or simply pointing out the problem would be useful. Being aware of problems is easy, knowing what to do to solve them is the real craft of directing. There are NO hard and fast rules when directing actors - like everyone, they're unique people who react differently to different things. One actor may respond favourably to a direction like "I want you to not think about your lines" while their co-star may become self-conscious with the recursiveness of thinking-about-not-thinking-about-their lines. One of the hardest things to learn is how to deal with different actors... to suss em out... to work out how you should direct them... what gets them in the moment, living beat-by-beat.... There's problem some people out there who have a knack for it, but I'm not one of them. Its not my strength as a director.
Which is why, as depressing as watching rushes are, I find thats its one of the most invaluable experiences you can have as a director... its like watching your shoot back and being able to assess take-by-take your actual craft, or lack thereof, of directing on set. You can see if your directions actually made a goddmn difference to the performances. Maybe that is why I don't like watching back rushes? Because I'm afraid of what I'll see? At the same time, its that very fear which keeps me wanting to make films... I'm driven by my own self-doubt. Fucked up.
Wow. Thats the most gratuitous piece of blogging I've done in a long time. Sorry guys! :)
[Edit 2 of this - I really should proof read before I post!]
Perhaps that's why I'm always scared when I watch the "rushes" of something I've directed (or shot, as I used to do) for the first time. I'm always worried that they're going to 'look' (in a broad sense, including performance and storytelling) like crap... and that is all to which the resulting movie will ever amount.
Now, I'm not talking about dailies, and perhaps Coppola wasn't either. Dailies are useful and allow you and your crew to make adjustments and change your plan of attack over the course of a shoot. Problems can still be fixed; performances can be finessed; story points made more clear. I'm a problem-solver, its part of what I love being on set, and rushes are a key component of that. However, I get frustrated when I can't solve something and I get really cranky when I can't even conceive of how to solve a problem...
Which is why when I watch all the rushes back-to-back for the first time, usually to log the footage and confirm print takes, I invariably find the process depressing. There's a crushing finality to what you've got - what you are watching are your raw elements and that is what you have to work with. Its like 'Well, I screwed that up and that up... oh, and that too'. And it takes a while for a wholistic vision to emerge - the creative problem solving of editing hasn't sunk in yet.
This is why I prefer to watch the complete rushes by myself. Its an intense experience, and I get super-sensitive. There's nothing worse than watching a performance and thinking 'hmm, I hope I pushed for another take of that, cause that was 90% of the way there' and then find that you moved onto the next shot. If you've managed to get a bit of a roll-in, its bad when you hear some really dodgy direction you've given the talent. "Oh man, why did I say that? Of course she was going to react like that!".
On set, I find that I'm working instinctively and unable to over-analyse performances. I can (and must!) be able to do simple adjustments to help the actor find a scene or become real... but when you decide that 'wow, that's gold' its an instinctive reaction... A least in the experiences I've had, which have not 'benefitted' from immediate playback of the video tap. Not that I think watching back performances in the environment of a set would be completely conducive to a getting a good feel of a performance; it has to be something you react to emotionally when you're in 'the zone' of a take. Y'know, that space that directors go when they're watching a movie unfold before them. That weird world where you're paradoxically suspended in a singular moment and accelerated through all the possibilities of what you're trying to make. For me, the ritual and rhythms of a set allow me to enter that 'takezone' - and I'm not sure if watching back a take after its been shot would allow me to enter that space. Instead, I'm concerned I'd become 'distracted' with that kind of hypercritical self-censorship which Cassavetes always wanted to avoid.
Hindsight is, however, the worst form of bias - and the easiest thing to do is criticise the performances you've managed to capture. The real trick is knowing what would have worked to change those performances at thetime. Its very easy, particularly for non-directors, to criticise a performance and immediately assume that saying something like "I want you to not think about your lines" to an actor would work. Or simply pointing out the problem would be useful. Being aware of problems is easy, knowing what to do to solve them is the real craft of directing. There are NO hard and fast rules when directing actors - like everyone, they're unique people who react differently to different things. One actor may respond favourably to a direction like "I want you to not think about your lines" while their co-star may become self-conscious with the recursiveness of thinking-about-not-thinking-about-their lines. One of the hardest things to learn is how to deal with different actors... to suss em out... to work out how you should direct them... what gets them in the moment, living beat-by-beat.... There's problem some people out there who have a knack for it, but I'm not one of them. Its not my strength as a director.
Which is why, as depressing as watching rushes are, I find thats its one of the most invaluable experiences you can have as a director... its like watching your shoot back and being able to assess take-by-take your actual craft, or lack thereof, of directing on set. You can see if your directions actually made a goddmn difference to the performances. Maybe that is why I don't like watching back rushes? Because I'm afraid of what I'll see? At the same time, its that very fear which keeps me wanting to make films... I'm driven by my own self-doubt. Fucked up.
Wow. Thats the most gratuitous piece of blogging I've done in a long time. Sorry guys! :)
[Edit 2 of this - I really should proof read before I post!]
posted by stu willis at
7:10 pm
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