If the director falls ill, production stops. David K. Irving shares practical ways directors and crew can keep their health during a demanding shoot.
Danger lurks round every corner. If the director falls ill, production stops. This is not true of any cast or crew-member. Directing is physically demanding and not for the weak of heart. It requires stamina and a good pair of shoes. Usually energetic, excited and feisty, the director is on set everyday. No one has more energy and bounce to their step than the director, who has been preparing to realize the film for a long time. The production can limp along with temporary absences of the lead actor, wardrobe mistress, key grip, assistant director, or the producer. Actors can be shot around, crew-members can be replaced and the producer may be absent for days at a time. So it behooves a director to get in shape and stay that way because if the director gets sick, so does the schedule, the budget, and so on.
If, however, the director’s absence is due to a serious illness, injury, or death, then the company shuts down while a replacement is sought.
There exists a phenomenon in the film industry I term “director’s disease.” Inexplicable maladies strike many directors during shooting and just as mysteriously disappear when the show wraps. Although many veterans suffer, first-timers may be the most susceptible to director’s disease. Physical ailments seem to attack the human body during moments of stress and weakness. The first few days of a film shoot may be the most stressful, and it is after expending so much energy in this first wave of shooting a director might succumb to weakness and possible ailment.
Elia Kazan once said a director must be like a baseball outfielder. He was referring to the fact that directors are on their feet all day long, so they require good legs. Standing around can be enervating. Poor shoes can sap a director’s strength. This is not the first thing that runs through a director’s mind when first asked to direct a picture, but it should be on the list somewhere. Steven Spielberg on legs: “Before a picture the best thing to do is to go to the gym. There comes a time, I swear to you, a time comes when your legs don’t work – they’re jelly. Your mind is very sharp, but you can’t get your body to respond. But you’ve got to pour it on six days a week, twelve hours a day.” Stamina and endurance are directing necessities. There exists a direct correlation between the energy of the director and the material shot. As pictures are shot out of continuity, it behooves a director to maintain an even pace so the shot material will not fluctuate with the director’s own energy levels.
I will not go into detail on the ailment with which I am most often afflicted, but I will use Jean Cocteau to illustrate the point. Cocteau was an inspired artist, painter, poet, author, sculptor, playwright and filmmaker. He was truly an artist who felt compelled to suffer for his art wearing his maladies on his sleeve.
Cocteau made the classic film Beauty and the Beast at the end of World War II. The French government and his financial backers had a difficult time supplying the company with the necessary materials with which to make the film. Electricity was intermittent; equipment was difficult to procure. They could only provide black and white 35mm film stock though Cocteau had wanted to shoot the film in color.
These are typical entries in his diary during the making of the film:
Aug. 26, 1945. I have had to add daily visits to the doctors. As a result of sunburn and bad mosquito bites, I came back from my holiday with two carbuncles on my chest. This afternoon I was almost drunk with fatigue and I got muddled up. My poor head could no longer recall the continuity of the shots.
Undoing my dressing I noticed I have a small boil coming. All that I ask is that the boil doesn’t get bad before I finish shooting the exteriors.
I go to bed utterly exhausted, and so thin that a woman journalist declares: “His face is made of two profiles stuck together.”
Directors, along with principal actors, are required to have a physical examination prior to shooting for insurance purposes. The shooting schedule is grueling for a director and a physical examination gives the producers an idea of the director’s fitness. Unfortunately, most physicals are cursory; so it behooves directors to be responsible to the production company in analyzing his or her own physical stamina. A responsible director would not knowingly take an assignment if unfit.
B-12 shots are a common first line of defense against weakness. These shots are administered by the company physician on the first day of principal photography and each week thereafter if need be. There are inoculations one must have should the film require travel outside the United States. Something as common as tourista can fell even the most durable director. One should be cautious about the food and water in foreign lands.
A regimen of healthy diet, proper rest and regular exercise is the best preventative medicine against illness during a shoot. It is advisable to have written into the director’s contract any specific requests to maintain good physical and mental health during the shooting of a film.
Sample perks or riders to a director’s contract might include:
- Access to a gym
- Special dietary requirements available at lunch
- Laundry service
- A driver
I’ve itemized these particulars because they are not “industry standard” or DGA boilerplate givens. And, if you do not ask for them, you will not get them. To have to do laundry on your day off, or bring in your own yogurt to eat at lunch, takes time away from your rest and concentration.
Just as important as physical health is emotional health. A positive frame of mind is necessary to direct a film. Depression, cloudy thinking and irrationality go hand in glove with fatigue, poor diet and lack of sleep. Probably the most debilitating physiological factor is fear. Fear of failing, fear of not making the pages, fear of not commanding properly. The industry is rife with stories of directors arriving on set only to have the director of photography ask, “What’s the first shot,” and then darting to the toilet to throw up. Fear is natural. Vomit if you must, but then muster the courage to perform the task at hand. As Cocteau rightly noted: “I was frantic, which is exhausting.” Unless you find a way to handle your fears, anxiety, and panic, your directing skills will crumble into dust.
To be sharp, fit and focused and to maintain the energy required of a director over a 10 to 15-hour workday, proper sleep is imperative. A restless, fitful, or short sleep can cause a director (or anyone for that matter) to be cranky and make bad decisions, which can in turn adversely affect the look, meaning or pace of the overall film.
Proper sleep is mandatory. Orson Wells is quoted as saying a director should, “Always get more sleep than your actors.” Directors who can cat nap are lucky. With periods of down time common on movie sets, a director can retire to a quite place and recharge his or her batteries. Do not hesitate to change your hotel room (if possible) to avoid sleeping on a heavily trafficked street, next to a school or playground. Keeping a window open allows fresh air in the room, but it also allows noise from outside, not to mention mosquitoes and other menacing vermin. This is particularly important should the company be working nights or splits. Changing sleep patterns from night to day can challenge even a healthy person.
The director is consulted as to the schedule of the production. Shooting “nights” is often required as night: exterior cannot be duplicated on a stage. Switching the schedule from day to night photography is often done over a weekend, so the call time for Monday starts at sundown. Unless one shoots an entire week at night, switching back to day photography can be complicated. An interesting option is to shoot splits, half days and half nights. Splits require a call time of noon and a wrap around midnight. It is a schedule easier on the health of the cast and crew.
It helps to have a hobby. Film directing, the whole film business, is all consuming. All work and no play make Sally a dull girl. Hollywood in particular is so swept up in the fast pace and mercurial nature of doing business that everywhere you go, from a restaurant, a party, an elevator or car wash, the subject of conversation is invariably the movies. What film did you see last night? Did you finish your screenplay? Is that director seeing anyone else for the part? Why did she shoot her film digital? Who will be the next president of SAG? How did that Norwegian boy break the MPAA code?
It is not healthy to be so embroiled in movies at the exclusion of everything else. A director has to have all the answers, so time should be dedicated to the pursuit of interests other than the navel gazing associated with movies. Reading books is a good thing. Newspapers other than the trades are full of stories about the surrounding world. Museums can be enriching. Drawing, for example, is an activity that exercises the shifting of thought patters from left to right brain. Tennis keeps one fit.
The family is the bedrock of a director’s persona. Do not neglect them just because the entertainment business is quixotic. Sometimes travel or scheduling makes it difficult to maintain a family life during production. If feasible, blend family time into the production.
Robust health is so vital to a director. Health influences and permeates the psychological considerations. A robust director controls the pace better, commands with more authority, and is able to communicate with clarity. The entire focus of the project is funneled though the director and the results reflect that passage. 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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