As it turns out, I could care less
I fired an eight-year old girl.
It was the third day of production on The Movie, which had already endured freak rains, poison oak, rattlesnakes, bee swarms and a mountain lion. None of which could compare to this little girl.
The soon-to-be-fired pre-teen was a stand-in for our eight-year old actress. As a stand-in, her entire job was simply to reflect light and not be annoying. She failed.
She was über-annoying: a cross between Pippi Longstocking and Nellie Olsen. Whichever way I looked, she was there. While I was discussing wardrobe with an actress during lunch, Demon Girl pushed her way into the actress’s trailer, just for a look.
I promptly told the first A.D. that I wanted the brat gone. When she somehow showed up on the set after lunch, I clarified my earlier statement: I never wanted to see that little girl again, beginning immediately. A white production van arrived to whisk her off to whatever circle of Hell or Reseda had spawned her.
Was it really this little girl’s fault? Perhaps not. She was, after all, eight. Her parent-slash-guardian was alarmingly lax, considering the aforementioned rattlesnakes. And there’s a compelling argument that children should not be stand-ins at all. 1
But that’s not the point.
I offer this story of juvenile termination to illustrate the single most important skill I developed while making The Movie: I learned to care less.
It seems anti-social — anti-human — to argue for less compassion. But in order to direct the film, I consciously decided to harden my heart a little. And by Zeus2, it helped.
In ordinary life, I’m nice, to the point of obliging. I tend to treat people in my life like guests at a never-ending dinner party I got roped into hosting. I want everyone to be comfortable, yet at the same time, I secretly want them to leave.
I find myself apologizing for things completely out of my control, like the weather, or the incompetent baggage clerk at Newark.
A friend of mine, who is one of the more emotionally-intelligent people I’ve met, labels this behavior “over-functioning.” I take responsibility for things that I should better leave alone, and reverse-delegate tasks out of a skewed sense of fairness.
This is a questionable strategy for life. But it’s a flat-out awful strategy for directing a movie. A director’s first and only concern needs to be getting the story into the camera — damn the cost, fatigue, frustration and hurt feelings.
So I changed.
I decided that while I was on set, my only responsibility was to the movie, and my ability to direct it. With this philosophy in hand, many decisions became easier.
It didn’t matter why the little girl was annoying. It wasn’t my job to figure out what her malfunction was, or why her parent-slash-guardian wasn’t keeping tabs on her. The little girl was getting in the way, and thus, she had to go.
When the the focus puller tripped during a complicated Steadicam shot, Ordinary John would have insisted that he get checked by the medic. Director John didn’t. Mr. Focus said he was okay, so we kept shooting. I could see he was hurt, but that wasn’t my responsibility. He was a grown-up, and it was his decision. He could take care of himself.
The real test of this new philosophy came while we were shooting at my house. Normally, the presence of any stranger in my home sends me into full host mode. 3 But when it came to The Movie, I let it go. The house was just a location; the crew was just the crew; it wasn’t my responsibility to find more toilet paper.
The real surprise of my Month of Caring Less was that I found myself caring much more deeply about the things that actually mattered.
Without the background noise of a thousand little niceties, I could focus much more clearly on what I wanted to happen in front of and behind the camera. I could talk to actors about motivation in very precise terms, because all I cared about was their moment, not the long-simmering feud between the gaffers and the camera department.
To be clear, I didn’t become an asshole. I think.4 I only yelled three times, which is three more times than I would normally yell in a year, but well within guild standards. After the little girl, I fired three other crew members, not because they were bad people, but because they weren’t doing what I needed them to do for the movie. Which was all that mattered.
And now that we’ve wrapped? I’m probably a little less obliging, a little less eager-to-please. I expect more out of people, and am quicker to express my displeasure when someone isn’t performing.
Still, there’s no doubt I’ve gotten softer. As I recently wrote to that better-adjusted friend:
I’m worried that the theoretical actors and crew of my theoretical movie might feel exploited by a decision I don’t need to make for months if ever. This keeps me awake at night. Not North Korea. This. Bah.
Which, in a way, is fine.
I think part of being a writer, or an actor, is letting yourself feel things without judgment. A director leads an army into battle; a screenwriter leads characters into danger. They’re vastly different jobs, which require different temperaments.
But I’ll definitely keep part of the experience with me. After you’ve cared less, you recognize a certain dishonesty in a lot of what passes for sociability, and the opportunity cost of too much pleasantry.
For example, the first day of shooting, there was one crew member I was certain wouldn’t work out. He was uncomfortably weird and grumpy. Yet as I watched him work, I realized he was just really into his job. Essentially, he was doing what I was doing, putting the movie first and everything else later. He was too focused to be friendly. But he ended up being a lifesaver, solving problems in seconds that could have taken minutes.
So what did I learn in making The Movie? It turned out, I could care less. And both the film and I were better for it.
- I had asked about using an adult little person for a stand-in. Apparently, it’s not uncommon, but we couldn’t swing it in time. ↩
- In appreciation of Richard Dawkin’s The God Delusion, I’ve decided to stop referring to the Abrahamic God and start spreading the wealth to other mythical deities. ↩
- If I haven’t offered you something to drink within the first minute of your arrival, either I’m off my game, or I’d rather you leave. ↩
- I guess technically, I shouldn’t care if I did become an asshole. ↩
Articles
October 13th, 2006 at 6:02 pm
Am I supposed to care?
October 13th, 2006 at 6:16 pm
It seems you did become a little bit of an asshole (did you, or anyone, even try mentioning this to her), but that’s OK. You were the director, and that’s allowed.
In fact, it’s a given that someone (at least one) is gonna get fired, no matter what. I’ve even heard that some directors do this once at the beginning just to set the no-bullshit tone.
Not nice, but there it is…
October 13th, 2006 at 7:00 pm
Great post, I’ve directed a few student-y type shorts and have a really hard time extricating myself from the problems of who’s hungry, tired, feuding with whom etc. Any concrete suggestions on how to avoid this soup when everyone’s ostensibly friends and no one’s getting paid? Thanks
October 13th, 2006 at 7:00 pm
Herding standins is clearly the job of the second AD, on big pics the second second, but never the job of the director. She got loose and you noticed her. Not only should she have been let go after the second or third time, so should the person who was supposed to keep an eye on her.
The more movies I direct the harder I become. It’s normal.
And no John, not student films….Movies
October 13th, 2006 at 7:23 pm
In this world, in this industry, in this life, you will always be an asshole to someone, always. The sooner you can get over that the better.
October 13th, 2006 at 7:25 pm
“As a stand-in, her entire job was simply to reflect light and not be annoying.”
Aziz, light!
I think every director-to-be should watch “Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse.” Coppola really has that “no bullshit” thing down pat.
“After you’ve cared less, you recognize a certain dishonesty in a lot of what passes for sociability, and the opportunity cost of too much pleasantry.”
Your wisdom is like a pot of soup simmering on the stove, John. Comforting, and yet, I’m too much of a pussy to stick my arm in to see how it feels.
October 13th, 2006 at 7:28 pm
Nice post! I’ll blog it tomorrow on my site. I’ve had similar experiences, and it is a careful line to walk - at what point do you cash in your Nice Guy Chip and Get Things Done? That is currency that has to be verrrry carefully spent.
-mike
October 13th, 2006 at 7:34 pm
It’s good lesson for demon girl to learn. If she doesn’t behave, she won’t work much.
OTOH, if demon girl is running amuck, the second second or PA in charge of wrangling the background isn’t doing her job. Kids will run amuck. That’s their job. The AD or PA in charge has to lassoo them li’l dogies and keep ‘em in the corral.
There are some people - no names of course - who find somebody to fire right at the start, to let everyone else know that the people in charge mean business. So it is. Good guys drop like flies. *’s live to ripe old ages.
October 13th, 2006 at 10:36 pm
It’s the gig…big money, tight schedules, high stakes, and as director you have to set the tone and be the example, which usually means: if you get in the way or slow me/us down, you will be gone. It’s a finite timeline making a movie - you may never see a lot of the crew ever again. It doesn’t mean you have to be a screamer, but you can be an asshole.
October 13th, 2006 at 10:52 pm
And that’s why it was the best summer evar!
So W.C. Fields was right?
I can’t remember… is that a mis-attributed quote?
October 14th, 2006 at 12:39 am
I think of your story & imagine a circus clown sitting there with a cigarette in hand, watching a training video as he flicks his ash onto the piece of a paper a little girl is holding up to him for an autograph. . . . Not sure where this is coming from, but if you look at it, there’s a parable…somewhere. . . Laymans terms: I liked the insightful story. Thanks.
October 14th, 2006 at 12:48 am
You just know that that 8 year is going to go off and become soem super star who will make it her mission to ruin your career to get her revenge.
October 14th, 2006 at 1:49 am
I hate to leave posts back-to-back, but this is a question that I hope you can can give some personal feedback to. I was reading a couple scripts simultaneously & noticed a distinct style in the telling of the story & I was wondering if you had a preference for one over the other. The first is when the person is writing in a way in which they disappear behind the words on the page & you read it as you would see it on screen. For example, if there was a montage, they would type it out very simply, Montage - man crouched down behind the counter - woman holds a baby close to her chest on a plane - etc.. So the reader/audience is witnessing these events on a personal level. The other approach, using the same example, is where you are being told in a story form like way what is occurring with the use of pronouns. Montage - We see a man crouched behind a counter. Next you watch as a woman holds her baby close to her chest on a plane. I know that with this small example it’s hard to really notice a difference, but when you read an entire script that follows one of these formats, it is very noticeable & gives a very identifiable feeling or emotion to the story. I guess it depends on the atmosphere of the film & how you want it to be perceived, but I wanted to know what you thought. Maybe you like something other than this, maybe you could ‘care less’. & anyone else reading, let me know if you understand what I am talking about & your thoughts, I don’t think I’m coming off as clearly as I expected. Thanks.
October 14th, 2006 at 2:44 am
You bastard.
October 14th, 2006 at 5:02 am
By Þór, it seems like you´ve learned an important life lesson….now you are fully equiped to remake “Aguirre: The Wrath of God”.
October 14th, 2006 at 5:08 am
I think you were right in firing the 8 year old. The alternative, to have a talk with the 2nd AD and/or guardian and explain the situation and request they keep her under control would just turn out to be a major distraction and take precious minutes of your time. By firing her you delegate the job of explaining things and rectifying the situation to others.
The girl’s behaviour is perfectly normal for an 8 year old. It’s the parent or guardian who is at fault. He or she prolly thought the girl is so adorable that everyone on the shoot, director included, would love having her around.
October 14th, 2006 at 7:58 am
I used to manage the R and D department for a software company. I’m still good friends with some of the guys who worked under me.
The other day I was chatting to one of them, and I commented that both of us were very obliging people - we both tend to see the other side of the story in all cases, even when the other side of the story is clearly in the wrong.
My friend was startled. “You’re like the least comprimising, no bullshit guy I know.”
Something about clocking in, I went in to a mode that was different - intense, more a general, and less the host. I hadn’t quite noticed before, but this wasn’t software little league, not everyone gets to bat, and I made that clear.
Out of work, I was still a softy.
October 14th, 2006 at 9:12 am
Good lessons to learn. I’d just add from the other side of the fence that while it’s good practise to learn to be mean when necessary on set, it’s still the little pleasantries that keep a crew in good spirits.
: Nice when you can be, hard when you have to… or… Speak softly and carry a big stick.
October 14th, 2006 at 9:26 am
great post about summoning/creating a new facet of your personality to tackle a new task
i’d be interested to hear (down the road) if/how your new Director Personality influences your existing Writer Personality
October 14th, 2006 at 11:41 am
I tend to be a nice guy most of the time. My inner jerk sometimes appears during soccer games, but not without provocation. I’ll shrug off incidental contact, but if someone intentionally fouls me more than once, I’ll make an effort to foul them back about four times as hard. In every day life, I’m pretty polite. I don’t throw an elbow at someone if they block the aisle at the grocery store.
When it comes to filmmaking, I’ve only done no-budget shorts, though I’m in preproduction on a micro-budget DV feature. I’m firm with my direction, but I have to be accommodating since everyone works for free. On the “Slacker” DVD, Richard Linklater made a comment that during the making of that film, he had to put up with a lot of people showing up late or not at all. He said he was eager to make a film where he could afford to pay people so that he could start firing people. It’s hard to fire someone who is a volunteer. I’ve had to turn away friends who want to help. If they get in the way more than they help, I’ll ask them not to come to the location. I’m nice about it, so no one gets too offended, but I’m firm. Making the day is important even if there’s no money involved.
Since I’m not paying anyone, instead of firing someone on the first day, I’ll just strap on my soccer cleats and slide tackle someone from behind on the first day. (Just kidding.)
October 14th, 2006 at 1:37 pm
Not in the biz at all, but I think “The real surprise of my Month of Caring Less was that I found myself caring much more deeply about the things that actually mattered.” is a universal lesson.
There is so much in any job that we can’t control–so if you can let it go, what you can control becomes much easier.
October 14th, 2006 at 1:45 pm
It’s less a matter of what you do, but how you do it. Did you go through the proper channels to release her from her contract, or scream her off the set with: “You effin’ little &^%$@#$, I swear you’ll never work in this town again!!” The latter is being an asshole, not the former.
October 14th, 2006 at 2:15 pm
John, you asshole.
Actually, if you look at the matter more closely, most great directors are, or were, assholes. Hitchcock. Kubrick. Coppola. Gilliam. Friedkin. Cameron. Chaplin. Welles. Tarantino. All of them a bunch o’ a-holes. And it works. Because a director needs to be on top at all times.
Sure, there are a coupla highly talented nice guys (Joel Coen, Peter Jackson) and even more talentless assholes (Michael Bay), but overall, the above is correct.
Welcome to the club!
October 14th, 2006 at 8:29 pm
John, I really understand your post. Actually, you wrote the best description of what I felt a couple of years ago.
Ok. I’d been working as a writer for some years. Then I decided I had to direct a really simple short film. Three days shoot, should have been easy. Well, it wasn’t. It was hell.
And, after shoot it was even worse. I had to tell a longtime friend we weren’t using any of the music he wrote (even if the music was great). Had to tell an actress (who didn’t get paid, no one gets paid in shorts in Spain) that we weren’t using her voice over. Had to yell a couple of times…
When you’re a writer, you’re not exposed to a really dangerous thing which is… people. Yeah, people. Directing means directing people. We writers aren’t used to that. Most of the time we just talk to a guy on the phone, sometimes a director, sometimes a producer. Send our script. Get our money. End of the story.
Directing is something completely different. You may have to fire 9 year old girls or maybe hire complete assholes. Just for the sake of… The Movie. You kind of become the one who’s keeping the project’s integrity. It’s really ironic when… it’s your who wrote the script.
As you wrote, “directing and writing are vastly different jobs which require different temperaments”. Sometimes I think they even require opposite temperaments. Being a writer director is like switching from Dr Jeckill to Mr Hyde and then to Dr Jeckill again.
October 14th, 2006 at 8:52 pm
Well, they say in the army there are two kinds of officers… one that goes over the trench and says ” lets go guys, follow me” and the men do, because they know following is their best chance of survival..
and the guy who holds the pistol and says ” okay all you privates, over the top or i shoot your ass”
and they do, to avoid getting shot
both can work, but which is better??
i had 7 different restaurants/clubs, 50 employees each, and i always tried for the first one… but if people were deliberately fucking with me, they were canned
but i knew that the next alcoholic hired would be just as bad as the one i just cut loose…
so it really is the PROCESS, rather than the people…
how do you make a multi-billion dollar aircraft carrier work with 5000 people that average 19 years old and barely a high school education? process… training and more training… nobody screams or blames, just repeats the process so everybody is perfectly clear on what their duties are…
and if you are yelling, then whatever or whoever… has got you off balance and beat you…
now do you want a camera rig or a horse or an 8 year old beat you and get you all bent out of shape??
you don’t want to lose the innate authority you have as the guy-these-people-are-all-following-over-the-hilltop to make a kick-ass movie…. by melting down over some shit-ass camera malfunctioning?
michael bay can only act like the-asshole-he-is because he has the Money to… if he was a extra, he would be shitcanned 30 seconds into his first tantrum…
so is acting like an asshole just because you CAN make it an effective way of moviemaking/managing people?
my experience is the more of an asshole i was, the lower the productivity– and the less apt the staff was to do anything above the bare minimum they could get away with…
but thats just my experience …
October 15th, 2006 at 6:20 am
You can fire someone and not be an asshole about it. Because you have a job to do, it’s not an excuse to digress as a person, director or no. I had my first job as a director (2nd unit) last year. I’ve also been an extra before. Many times. Many,many times. I’ll never forget it.
October 15th, 2006 at 7:36 am
Jell, you had asked for any advice for films where you’re all friends and no one is getting paid.
One word: food.
And lots of it. Keep people fed and caffienated and they are much more likely to be happy. And not just pizza every day if you can help it, or else people will get slow after a while. You can often get a local sandwich place to donate food for a credit in the film, or maybe you could find a way to put their logo in a shot somewhere (this works in Boston, anyway, I don’t know about LA or NYC).
October 15th, 2006 at 9:39 am
I think for many directors with bad reputations for being assholes, their attitude comes more out of an insecurity that their movie is going to suck. The only way they feel in control is by throwing tantrums and yelling. I hear Spielberg is the nicest, most polite director in the world to work with, but that he’ll also fire your ass in a second if you miss your mark more than once. Being professional and expecting professionalism out of others doesn’t make one an asshole.
October 15th, 2006 at 10:35 am
I understand, but…
A good rule in life is -don’t fire anyone-
Maybe the rule is applied differently when that someone is an 8-year-old, but everyone has bills to pay and people to feed.
Maybe the rule is applied differently when the job is a one-month shoot, but allowing someone to find another job and resign lets them save their dignity.
Maybe the rule is applied differently in the entertainment industry, but getting fired is something that stays with you, and must be accounted-for every time you apply for your next job.
John, you owe me nothing. You owe the world nothing, but kindness and patience are so important. Read what Ken Levine said recently about Ted Danson. After reading that, I understand why Mr. Danson has another show on TV after Becker, which (sorry Mr. Levine) I didn’t really get. I thought that Becker would the the nail in Mr. Danson’s career coffin.
It sounds like IF someone should have been fired, it should have been the First AD, but you were lazy. S/he is the one who failed to keep the stand-in out of sight, after you made your wishes explicit. But it is easier to replace an annoying 8-year-old than an AD, isn’t it?
I accept that I may be the lone voice on this.
Please don’t get accustomed to firing people. I am sure that you weren’t an *hole about it, but that does not mean that you did the right thing, either. You don’t need to offer everyone a soda, but there is a huge difference between handing out refreshments and interrupting someone’s ability to pay their bills. Don’t “care” at all. Caring has no ethical value, but please remember that it is morally right to allow people to work.
October 15th, 2006 at 11:46 am
Fred,
You sound like your are not familiar with the biz of movie making. In most work arenas people don’t have jobs that affect as many dollars/minute as film making. If the film is all union, people are getting paid very good money and benefits to do a job. Enough, that they should be doing their job WELL. They mess up - it can effect the outcome of the entire outcome of a very expensive project.
It is morally right to do the best job you can for what ever you are getting paid - even if it’s nothing!
This ain’t “PC”, but nobody has a right to any job. It’s a bargain struck between the employer and the employee. An exchange of values - a contract. One party doesn’t deliver - the other party has the right to terminate the contract.
There is an antiquated term known as Work Ethic. It fell into disuse with the Socialist Revolution. It’s the reason Socialist countries collapse economically - something about money not growing on trees.
It all has to do with Nature requiring us to go out and look for food…and find it or die. What a novel concept!
October 15th, 2006 at 3:09 pm
I definitely needed to read this article. I, too, have to overhost everyone and am always asking “Are you okay?). I’ve just directed my second short (and am crewing up to direct my first short from one of my feature scripts) and I have learned the hard way that I can not be the nice guy on set.
I watch the actors and crew socializing with each other and laughing, but I don’t have time to join in–I have to make sure everything gets done. No more losing shots because the sound person thinks the shot list is excessive. Or not getting the performance out of the actor because I don’t want to push. I may not be well liked and people may not always feel great, but that isn’t my job.
Just writing this tears my heart out, but I have an obligation to the cast, crew, sponsors and investors to make the best movie I can. That’s my job. And then at the wrap party, I am the host again.
October 15th, 2006 at 5:49 pm
I’ve been writing about different directors and how they handle talent. (Rob Reiner, James Gray.) I don’t know if this is your first film and I can see you’re getting plenty of feedback. The only issue I see is your focus maybe being too tight. Terrence Malick was trying to finish Days Of Heaven. He was set to record the V.O. with the little girl. The little girl was waiting around for a few days and was being taught Bible lessons by her set teacher. Malick finally gets around to recording with the little girl - who at this point - is totally excited with the stories she’s heard. But Malick isn’t listening. He wants her to read from the script. She does. Between breaks she tells Malick a bible story. He stops her and points her back to the script. At some point Malick started listening. Because he re-wrote the entire V.O. to reflect those stories and that tone.
October 15th, 2006 at 7:33 pm
The saying is “I couldn’t care less.” If you “could” care less, you might be caring too much. But, then again, I could be wrong. Your post indicates to me that maybe you could care less because I detect a little conscience at firing an eight year old.
And that’s good.
Nick Borelli
October 15th, 2006 at 7:50 pm
Fred –
Film production isn’t like most jobs. Crews are assembled at the last minute for a short period of time — a day, a week, a few months at most. A film costs tens of thousands every day, and often you can’t go back to reshoot something that gets messed up. So if a person isn’t doing the job they need to do, they need to be replaced immediately.
Given how tight the labor pool was when we were staffing up, I suspect the people who got booted had new gigs within three days. Except the little girl, who went back to playing on the swings, which is probably for the best.
True: it’s the job of the AD and his staff to wrangle extras and stand-ins. But they’re not puppet-masters. They don’t have psychic control over people. The little girl was hired off a headshot because she looked somewhat like Elle Fanning. The AD’s did their job muddling through with her and getting a replacement out to Malibu as quickly as possible.
Nick –
Stop, and read the headline again. Maybe if you imagine “could” in italics, you’ll get the play on words.
October 15th, 2006 at 9:03 pm
Jell,
Having done a fair whack of student films & now working in features as nerd herder, I can hopefully offer some insight -
a) The work should be the motivation. You want to work with people who want to do good work (gasp work ethic gasp). It’ll take time to find these people, but there the ones you want to work with. It took me two or three years to pull a team of people together - and we all went on to work professionally together (and separately). IMNSHO, you’ll only find these people by working on other people’s sets - and showing how hard you can work. Dedicated people are attracted to other dedicated people - you want that culture.
b) Offload the little bits to someone else you trust - a “production mum” as we called them at school. Find someone who gets a kick out of making everyone happy, call them the unit manager, and let them run amock.
c) Get yourself a production manager early on. For producer/directors on short films, this is a must. They’ll save you so much worry and run interference for you on set.
d) Know - and I mean know - that your job is to direct the short and not worry about whether people are happy (because you have other people to worry for you). Focus on doing your job well and everyone else will follow. People will notice and be affected by it. You have to set the example.
e) Being on set isn’t fun. Just accept that most of the time your free crew probably won’t be having a good time. Its a good lesson for them to learn.
f) Be prepared to fire people, even though they’re working for free. Seriously. I nearly fired a director from a short film at school. He thought I was taking the piss (”How can you fire a student from a student film?) then he realised I wasn’t… and he lifted his game.
g) Be polite and courteous while also being firm. This has taken me a long time to learn and I’m still learning…
October 16th, 2006 at 9:14 am
Thanks for this post, John. This is definitely DEFINITELY a good one. I think I’ll print it out and stick it on my refrigerator.
I was on set some time ago and had a minor breakdown. The scene we were working on was incredibly intense and the actress had previously related to me a similar traumatic event in her own life. We were on-set, on take 13 well into the 14th hour of the day and she was having a hard time getting into the moment. I knew exactly how to get her there, but as I started to do so, my conscience got in the way and I could no longer morally justify bringing her into the moment. So, I let it go, let her dial in her performance and the scene suffered for it.
I’ve been having a hard time finding the motivation to pursue directing again, fearing that anything I do would be exploitative and wrong, but I think you may have just laid out the formula.
Thanks, John.
October 16th, 2006 at 9:16 am
Ha! You think you’ve got it bad, John? I fired my girlfriend of the time from her position as second female lead in a feature I was making. And I’d originally written the damn script for her anyway. We split soon afterwards. The incidents were related.
Nowadays, we’re friends - I even videoed her wedding for her. C’est la vie.
October 16th, 2006 at 9:30 am
i couldn’t find an email - but, this morning, was thinking about what i posted. I have worked with many directors over the years. Many. I know how hard it is to sift thru the daily decisions. You’ve got EVERYBODY suggesting something (like these posts) and your job is to stay focused. The directors I admire have a way of filtering real time information that, to me, is an astounding art in itself. And re-reading your post - maybe I wasn’t listening…..
You said - “Without the background noise of a thousand little niceties, I could focus much more clearly on what I wanted to happen in front of and behind the camera. I could talk to actors about motivation in very precise terms, because all I cared about was their moment, not the long-simmering feud between the gaffers and the camera department.”
October 16th, 2006 at 12:17 pm
My only writing pet peeve in the world:
you Could NOT care less.
If you could care less, then this thing isn’t the least carefree.
but if you are so without care, that you could NOT care any less than you do right now…
Then this is the least of all your worries.
October 16th, 2006 at 2:31 pm
ha ha ha
saw this quote today, from defamer….
thought it might fit in to the whole discussion….
Ron Meyer, a softspoken man, who didn’t even have a bad word for his former partner, the exiled Mike Ovitz, took the Methuselan Sumner Redstone to task for his spasmodic corporate governance with a well-delivered bitchslap, saying:
“I think the Tom Cruise thing was handled poorly … to make a statement — for Sumner Redstone — that Tom Cruise is not the type of person that (Paramount) wants to be in business with … frankly, I don’t understand it.”
Ka-pow! And all the Frestonians, to be sure, sprayed hot tears of mirth. Then, rebounding the bitchslap with backhand,
Ron Meyers [sic] added, “Being an asshole doesn’t get you results.”
October 16th, 2006 at 6:01 pm
First it’s hard not to be nice then it’s helpful not to be nice when writing the dirty bad guy. Personally, I am into Athena and Persepherone, we watch the giant gods fall. Don’t all writers have to become gods?
October 16th, 2006 at 8:25 pm
Again:
Yes, the phrase (cliché, actually) is “I couldn’t care less.”
I am specifically saying “I could care less” because the post is about how I learned to be less caring.
October 16th, 2006 at 10:03 pm
“Yes, the phrase (cliché, actually) is ‘I couldn’t care less.’”
–I believe that “I could care less” is also acceptable.
October 17th, 2006 at 11:56 am
K. That’s what I thought. The repeated use of could care less throughout the entry made me a bit unsure.
Nice post.
October 18th, 2006 at 9:00 am
Reader —
“I could care less” is often mistakenly used, but does that make it acceptable? Considering it means the exact opposite of the point you’re trying to get across?
October 19th, 2006 at 4:24 am
Coming from the UK, I’ve noticed that in the USA the phrase “couldn’t care less” has been pretty exclusively changed to “could care less” but with the same meaning. I agree with Andy that this is an inappropriate alternative (don’t get me started on the meaning of alternate) as it has almost the opposite meaning. However, language is organic and now Reader says it’s accepted.
So, John, forgive us if we didn’t get your play on words when some of us thought it meant the same as “couldn’t care less” and the rest of us just thought it was just another mistaken rendering of the phrase.
October 20th, 2006 at 9:44 am
I think the discussion below is helpful. As the the writer in the linked article explains, “I could care less” is not meant to be taken literally, and to me it does have more bite than “I couldn’t care less.” Elsewhere on the web, a writer suggested that the expression was similar to Yiddishims such as the sarcastic “I should be so lucky.”
BTW, I’m not a usage slob. I always use “alternately” and “alternatively” correctly, as well as “uninterested” and “disinterested”, and “continuously” or “continually” (sometimes I have to think about the last pair). I always use “judgment” or “call,” not “judgment call;” and I say “I can’t help” or “I can’t but,” not “I can’t help but.”
I can’t help wondering if it matters a lot of the time.
http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=19960610
October 20th, 2006 at 9:46 am
I thought I fixed the typo in “Yiddishisms” the first time around. Sorry.
October 20th, 2006 at 10:02 am
It sounds like you handled the situation with the little girl well, considering how unpleasant it was. You may have been short-tempered, but you weren’t abusive. Your post made me think of a comment I read on the web about a young woman director. Her crew had commented on how nice she was. Obviously, if she was able to be consistently nice and get the job done, that’s great, but I hope the fear of being thought a b***h wasn’t a factor. Sometimes you have to put your foot down and make people mad; women still get much more flak for that.
October 21st, 2006 at 3:49 pm
I disagree completely with the lady at the Random House site. Her explanation is tortured. The phrase doesn’t make sense as sarcasm, and I don’t think people use it as sarcasm. I’m sure people just dropped the “n’t” without thinking about it and most people don’t notice — they know the intended meaning. That happens often with figures of speech because the phrase becomes so common it is almost like a single word — so if you hear something pretty close you “get it”. I can think of lots of figures of speech where I know the intended meaning but I have no clue what the literal meaning is. (Like “dressed to the nines” — I have no idea what the nines are, but I know what the phrase means.) Anyway, just because we know what the speaker intended is no excuse for getting it wrong. So I’m putting my foot down and saying “I could care less” is unacceptable.
Otherwise, clever people like John won’t be able to make a play on words without all this confusion.
March 2nd, 2007 at 6:01 pm
I thought you were fine, and right on the money with the child. I mean — movies are SO EXPENSIVE, and time really is money, and it is a tension-filled creative task with hundreds (well, okay, maybe dozens) of people standing around for the director to make a decision. I don’t think you were out of line at all.
You are not there to make friends, all that counts is what ends up on the screen.
You should move to NYC where we are tough on the outside, and kinder (more “real”, not fake friendly) on the inside.