Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Anyone ever worked on a set with Michael Bay before?

Jens Jakob Thorsen said:
"I've never found screaming to make someone into a better focus puller, or a better dolly grip, or a better actor.
Click to expand...

Oh Yeah? :wink:

pacino.jpg
 
Ever since 89 I have been in so many sets that I can't even remember them all what I do remember however, was that in several of them the screaming was so bad that they were always people crying on the set, (not just females).

I did fallen in Love with the art of Directing more then I had imagine, but I knew that when come the day that I would direct, it would never get to those screaming contests.

I have deep respect for people and what they do, at the arts are hard in off without some one screaming in your hears, and umiliating you in front of the rest of the crew.

I recently had the pleasure to get my Directorial Debut, and yes it was likely the smallest crew you had ever seen on a set, ( me and Blair) but talking and to your crew and talent is so much better then screaming, and at the end of the day you do still walk out of the set with friends, and leaving a happy crew and talent with a Job well done.


I might had only my first shot at Directing with "GARBO" , and just a 7 minutes trailer teaser, but I did however maintain a position as Director of operation of some of the largest Restaurant and Clubs, as well as been a Chef in large kitchens, never screamed at any one, and always got the absolute best out of every one.

"DON'T SCREAM AT PEOPLE, NON EVEN WHEN THEY ARE FAR AWAY AND CAN'T HEAR YOU, JUST USE THE CELL PHONE INSTEAD"


ciao
 
toolizcool said:
Well, I guess my question can be reversed and asked this way. Why are other crews in Hollywood so slow? I was on set for this short film, Grandma, directed by Natalie Portman and Adam Kimmel as DP (for the upcoming New York, I Love You movie). I just remember them taking such a long time to set up. Natalie didn't exactly help. I remember her just sitting on the side, talking on the cell, waiting for Adam to set it up. It seemed like she did almost nothing, camera-wise. Not exactly what I like a director to do/have.

I'm not sure if it's even possible, but I bet you the crew would work way faster if you paid them per shot or per setup, instead of per day.
Click to expand...

It sounds to me like you are pretty new to this having quoted one short as your experience before suggesting that people work like they are in a concentration camp - Firstly 70-100 setups a day is impossible on a single camera shoot where any degree of finesse in terms of coverage, blocking or lighting is involved. Typically on a 12 hour you can expect up to 30 standard setups if the lighting is quick and the director has been clear about his intentions. This will slow considerably for nightshoots (lighting dependent) or interiors that are not studio rigged (Crane, Steadicam, Macro and elaborate Dolly shots also notwithstanding). As a workflow - typically the director and cameraman discuss a shot and the director waits while lighting occurs, props are reset (if required), tracks etc are set up. If, as a director, you feel like helping you could consider what shots you could get from this camera position/lighting setup and save coming back to this position later. Or maybe you're suggesting Natalie should have lifted the dolly?
 
I know a Focus Puller who worked on several Michael Bay Films - according to them his screaming is all bark and no bite, and although he does push his crew and get more setups then most he doesnt get 70-100 set ups a day every day; it all depends on what he's shooting and where he's shooting. Listen to what JTM said - he is very wise.
 
I related to David Mullen's post--about screaming really having no benefit. I do note that a lot of successful directors are tyrants, but have also worked with producers who screamed at writers, and I firmly believe it did nothing to get better results. In fact, although the producer in question wasn't screaming at me, I felt much less inspired to do the work--at the very least I was distracted to a degree from the creative tasks at hand. I've heard Scott Rudin is a big screamer. Still...the list of tyrannical directors seems to be long: David O Russel, James Cameron, even Kubrick seemed like a "silent screamer" from interviews I've seen (he could be very cold and critical). Maybe it's just too stressful a job? Or maybe it takes that kind of personality to break out of the pack. And happy working conditions don't seem to be a priority in the film business. It's not like any work place in any other industry. You're just sort of supposed to be happy to be there no matter what the conditions, and there's a feeling that if you can't take the screaming, go get a job at a bank. I find that sorta too bad.
 
Tom said:
Being a director is very similiar to being a field-grade military officer, IMO.
Click to expand...

Hmmmm. Seems a little different to me. Selling ideas (or Tide, or Budweiser, or your movie, or whatever) is one thing. Having the lives of hundreds of young men in your hands is something else.

That really is the point. Those people who think it is (and should be) like the military make me laugh. Is selling cereal really that important? Is making a film really THAT important? To compare it to war seems ridiculous.
 
Well, maybe not in terms of whether it's life and death. However, the hierachy or "bureaucracy" in a film crew and the chain of command in military units do have their similarities. In fact, Bay himself, who's worked with actual people in the military for his movies, has talked about how military people respect the structure of a film crew, since it reminds them of their structure. Maybe you can think of things this way: The director of a movie is the equivalent of a CEO in a company. The producers are the board of directors. The DP, production designer, editor, and composer are the vice presidents.
 
Also to note when you hear setups...that typically means cameras. So 70 setups in a day with 3 cameras is realistic. If they where doing 70 setups with 1 camera, that would be impressive.....
 
Yeah, the company structure makes more sense. Good analogy.....

Still no need for screaming though, unless the director has a terrible crew. As David said, why scream at a good focus puller? Why scream at a GOOD technician? If he is surrounded by people who are bad at their jobs, or lazy, then sure, some screaming may be needed.

But let's all admit it. There are some screamers who just scream for the sake of screaming....and that is just uncalled for....and completely lame.
 
Just FYI, field grade officers (Colonels, Generals, etc) do not scream. In fact, most of them are very cool customers. I wasn't comparing directors to drill sergeants. Drill sergeants are more like 1st ADs. :)
 
Just curious. On feature films, what's the usual ratio of the amount of raw footage shot and the final cut (for an action, drama, comedy)? I heard that Pearl Harbor had about 300 something hours of raw footage, and the final product was about 3, making the ratio 100:1. Bay talked about having an excess of raw footage to choose from in post. He said he enjoyed having lots of choices.
 
Most of the medium budget movies, it's around 20:1 for something shot on film, more like 30:1 to even 60:1 for stuff shot on digital. For smaller indie movies, it's more like 7:1 to 10:1 for film projects and double or triple that for digital projects.
 
Wow, so I guess 100:1 is way more than the average feature shot on film. Then again, a Michael Bay/Jerry Bruckheimer film is no average feature (at least in terms of budget/resources. I'm not really arguing for or against the artistic quality or anything).

No wonder Bay's movies look so good. He's got so much footage to choose from. If you could pick the best shots or pieces of a shot, with a 100:1 ratio, I would imagine something would turn out looking great. Although, I'm pretty sure Bay has a natural talent at making shots look good regardless with his background in the highly visual field of high-end commercial directing. Not to mention, he works with the one of the best, if not the best CGI company in the world (ILM), and some of the best editors, color-correctors, etc.

One of my really good friends who's currently an amateur filmmaker shot a piece with the final product being an hour long. He said he used 17 one-hour mini DV tapes. I thought that was a pretty impressive amount of raw footage he got down.
 
toolizcool said:
Wow, so I guess 100:1 is way more than the average feature shot on film. Then again, a Michael Bay/Jerry Bruckheimer film is no average feature (at least in terms of budget/resources. I'm not really arguing for or against the artistic quality or anything).
Click to expand...

Action pictures usually shoot at a much higher ratio, in part due to the amount of overcranking used. A shot done at, say, 72fps is using 3 times the amount of film as one done at 24fps. This adds up very quickly. Action pictures also utilize a lot more coverage for stunt work, and require a lot of "pieces" in order to make them work. The shooting ratio for an "average" narrative drama is considerably lower than for an action picture.

One of my really good friends who's currently an amateur filmmaker shot a piece with the final product being an hour long. He said he used 17 one-hour mini DV tapes. I thought that was a pretty impressive amount of raw footage he got down.
Click to expand...

One hour television dramas (actually about 43 minutes today) usually expose about 2 hours of film each day of an 8 day shoot, primarily due to the common use of 2 cameras (and partly due to less experienced directors) these days. So you can use that as a guide.
 
I'd rather have it and not need it than vice versa. If you got the time and money, go for it. Get down as much footage as you can. In all my films back when I was a student, I never said to myself, "Man, I wish I didn't shoot so much. There's too much footage for me to edit and play around with." I have however said to myself on many occasions, "I really wish I had shot that" or "I wish I got this from another angle". In film, what's the worst that could happen if you shot something that ends up not being good-looking or doesn't work for whatever reason, you just don't use it in the editing. All you've wasted is some time and money, and if those two are something you have more than enough of, well...there you go.

Yeah, nothing burns up film faster than shooting raw footage in slow-motion. When I was younger, I would do 64fps excessively on my little Bolex 16mm, and the spool would run out way before I wanted it to. I remember the first ever "film" I made when I was a kid, I had a ratio of about 4:1 or 3:1 where I used a lot of slow-motion and had a $100 budget, all of which I used for the 3 packs of film ($25 a piece) and $20 to my friend for gas money, since I felt bad I was burning up fuel in his car for my little movie.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top