Creating images begins with the script, then the budget. David K. Irving explains how directors find inventive, affordable solutions for difficult shots.
Creating images for the screen begins with the script. It dictates the nature, style, intent and effect of the image. Second to the screenplay in determining an image is the budget. Balancing one’s vision of the script with available resources requires the director and his or her crew to be inventive and nimble.
Shots are created in either production or post-production. If an image is required on set, such as a television clip with the main characters, the sequence may need to be shot during pre-production. Many films are created entirely during production with no reliance on images generated in post-production. Other films require additional photography in post-production to enhance and/ or create shots.
Because the pressure during the shooting period is so great to make the pages, directors are prone to consider “fixing it in post.” While many aspects of the filmmaking process can indeed be fixed (negative scratches, muddy sound, and optically enhanced digital imagery), it behooves the director to shoot as much principal photography as possible during production.
An issue with the phrase “fix it in post” is that funds may not be available. Films are expensive and unpredictable, so the possibility exists that a director may discover that money allotted for post production expenses, such as score, ADR, miniatures and opticals, have been compromised. Using budgeted money from post to ensure making it through principle photography is known as “robbing Peter to pay Paul”.
There is a great deal to be said for theatrical versus optical photography. For one thing, there is no generation loss on the stock. And while magical images can be created in the digital realm, they come at a steep price. A big effects movie is by its very nature an expensive endeavor. Each shot that employs green screen, digital matte work, and even color correction, is expensive. Working on a tight budget, one would be wise to devise a way to shoot a sequence during principal photography, if possible, rather than post.
The pre-production period is invaluable to a director. A plan is devised that will determine when and how each shot will be taken all through the many weeks of principle photography. During brainstorming sessions with key crew members, the approach to each sequence is discussed and an artistically yet fiscally responsible solution is discovered. The solution to a difficult shot or sequence can easily be solved with buckets of money. With pointed deliberations, however, an inexpensive solution may be found that fulfills the director’s vision.
Such was the case in a sequence from a film I directed called, “Sleeping Beauty.” In this live action 35mm film, a scene called for eight fairies to attend a banquet dinner where they would bestow their gifts on the King and Queen’s newborn daughter.
The director’s image of fairies should match that of the audience. To give the actresses an ethereal presence I knew I would use slow motion photography, mechanical wings, colorful costumes and lustrous lighting. For the dance sequence in which they bestow their gifts, I planned to stage them so they would be the only ones in frame allowing me to film them at 96fps. But there was one shot, a wide angle of the entire banquet room that called for the fairies to be in the same frame as the King, Queen and their fifty guests.
During pre-production, we dedicated hours of deliberation to this wide shot. At one point, we imagined the fifty-two actors moving very quickly, the fairies moving in normal motion and shooting the sequence at 48fps. I knew in my heart that organizing fifty-two actors to “act fast” would look odd. Each suggestion put forward became more and more expensive. The option to digitally insert eight ethereal fairies and “fix it in post” was on everyone’s lips. But by sticking with the problem we eventually arrived at an acceptable, effective and inexpensive solution. Teeter-totters.
The actresses hired were dancers by trade. Putting four planks under their table, with a common fulcrum point, the actresses used their toes to delicately push themselves up and down, thus giving the illusion they were hovering in their places rather than sitting. This solution meant we could film at 24fps.
Balancing the screenplay with the budget is a director’s challenge. When the budget is fixed the only fluid element with which a director can manipulate the image is the script. Listen carefully to your material. It may dictate solutions for shots that cost little but enhance the story more.
Terry Gilliam said of the Monty Python’s first feature film effort, “When we were doing television, we always had big ideas. We did a lot of parodies of films and film directors. I think we were all frustrated by the limitations of the little screen. So, when we set out to do an epic, we wanted to have scale, we wanted to have horses. Of course, we didn’t get horses, we got coconuts. The success of Holy Grail is due to the fact we didn’t have the money to make a mediocre epic. Because given the time and the money, we would have been mediocre. But because we didn’t, we had to come up with silly ideas, which in the end, proved to be much more interesting.”
David K. Irving is a film director, writer, producer, and an Associate Professor in film production at New York University. He has written and directed dozens of documentaries, and his feature directing credits include Night of the Cyclone, C.H.U.D. II, The Emperor’s New Clothes, Sleeping Beauty and Rumpelstiltskin.
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