Zombie Room

Photo by Tarja Jakunaho

Having just returned from Australia after finishing the shoot for my first professional feature film Iron Sky, I thought I’d take a second of your time and share some of the experiences I had within the last three and a half months and 40 shooting days to you who are interested in shooting a film somewhere in the future. I’m talking here to directors, but I’m sure people working in other positions might find something helpful here as well – if nothing else, reading this might make it easier for you to understand us, the directors, who are usually lost and hopelessly sad creatures on the set.

Working as a first-time director without a film school basis, walking into the set was a bit strange experience for me. I had never visited a real set, and I had only a vague idea on what the people on various positions do. So suddenly, I had people who I had no idea who they were asking questions I had no answer to. I’m really lucky to have as good First Assistant Director as I had (Peter McLennan) who was out there, really helping me out, and such a great Director of Photography as Mika Orasmaa is to make my life a bit easier. They both understood I knew nothing, but helped me through. The first three days were the worst, I made all the possible mistakes during those three days, but after that I started to learn more about the physics of the shoot, and that’s what I want to talk to all you first-time directors here.

PRE-PRODUCTION

Pre-production meeting at Frankfurt.

Pre-production is crucially important time for every filmmaker, and out of every second you have actually available for a proper pre with Director of Photography, First Assistant Director and other heads of departments, you should use them wisely to think through, inspect and tinker with every smallest detail. Because, as a director friend of mine told beforehand – if something can go wrong, it will. At least, you should be prepared to it. It’s clear you can’t prepare yourself for everything, so one of the best ways to try to leave a bit of air everywhere, to fix things as they fall apart.

BLOCKING AND SHOOTING

Blocking through a scene (Photo by Tarja Jakunaho)

Blocking through every scene beforehand is important. After the actors know what they are supposed to do, and the camera knows where to begin with, and where the key moments take place, it’s relatively easy to repeat the scenes over and over again. Ideally, you would have the possibility to rehearse the scenes beforehand with the actors, as clear as possible, but never lock yourself to what you come up within the rehearsals, because when coming over to the set, you find so much more possibilities and a huge load of problems that completely change whatever you’ve rehearsed. So rehearse, but keep an open mind when walking into the set.

Blocking the scene on the set – whether it’s based on rehearsals, or doing it cold turkey – is good to start before the actors arrive. Discuss it quickly through with DOP, or VFX supervisor, and with First Assistant Director, to make sure there’s nothing you didn’t take in account regarding lights, camera/crane angles or the lack of green screen, that could be fixed easily by just taking the action back few steps the other direction. That is because changing directions during the actual blockthrough gets confusing, and eliminating every bit of confusion beforehand is really important.

Photo by Tarja Jakunaho

After a quick walkthrough of the scene with heads of department, it’s time to clear the set, hold the work and get the cast in. Be prepared to give a bit of time for this – in many cases, this is the first time the actors walk into the set, and it takes a bit of time for them to familiarize the place. This usually takes the form of fooling around with some setpieces, doing something unexpected and just basically strolling around, asking questions and trying to understand more about everything. See, for you as a director you will already be very familiar with every small bit of the set, but for the actors, they’ve imagined the set in one way and whatever kind of set it is going to be, it definitely is different from what they’ve thought it to be. When the actors are familiar with the set, it’s so much easier for them to start inventing things, creating life to a dead set and bringing the characters alive in that surrounding. No matter in what kind of hurry you are, give the actors a bit of time to get familiar with everything, and you’ll get much better results on their end as well.

The actual blockthrough works – at least on my experience – quite well in three stages. First – it’s a readthrough. Just let the actors read through the lines, and let them wander around the set a bit more. The idea of the readthrough is to understand the approximate length of the scene, spot how the actors are going to perform and to find out possible problems in the first place. It’s quite possibly the first time you actually hear the dialogue, and depending on how precise you are with sticking to the script’s dialogue, you might want to make some notes about lines that don’t work very well. But – and this is important – DON’T start solving these issues at this stage. Now, you need to move.

Stunt action (Photo by Tarja Jakunaho)

Next, based on the readthrough, it’s time for a walkthrough. Tell the actors where to stand, who to talk to, how to approach the scene, where they can go and where not, and then let them do it once or twice, just to get an idea of the space they’ll be using. The walkthrough is usually also the biggest possibility for you to screw up things quite easily – so keep your script supervisor next to you. Make sure you don’t create any huge continuity issues at this stage, issues you won’t realize how big they are until they become actual problems when shooting. Just keep an eye on what big changes there are going to be – someone taking jacket off, someone lighting a cigarette, someone placing an item from a place to another – these issues are things you’re locked to, so make sure that’s what you want. Because once it’s been rehearsed that at this point she has a cigarette, it’s there, but if you at later stage realize that she can’t have the cigarette in another place, you’ll have to get rid of it somehow, which means possibly one or two more shots. Not to say it wouldn’t be worth it, and that’s what film is – constant action, motion, people doing things – just make sure that’s what you want, and try to realize the continuity issues it might bring up and then decide if it’s worth going for or not.

After the walkthrough, you’re going to properly block through the scene once or twice. This is as much for the actors as it is for the camera and the lightning department. You’ll watch as the actors perform the scene – almost like in a theater stage – and give the DOP (and you) the possibility to find the best angles and the best camera moves, and make some markers on the floor and/or walls for the actors, and then you’re good to go. As soon as you’re done with blocking the scene, leave the set as far away as you can. Let the departments begin their jobs, lighting the set, moving the crane, placing the green screen, and walk away with the actors…

Ready to shoot (Photo by Tarja Jakunaho)

Because – and this is usually one of the the most important moments of directing at least in my opinion – the post-block 20 minutes you have with the actors is the time to jump into problems of the text. If some action didn’t feel right, you have time to work on it. If some bit of dialogue just sucks, you have time to discuss it. If the actors have questions, you have a possibility to answer them. If someone has a completely different approach to the performance that you’re looking for, you have time to address this.

This 20 minutes is basically for you and the actors to get everything out of the scene before the cameras are rolling, because after that you’re on the set and you only have time for 3-4 re-takes per shot, which is usually just to fine tune the performances, and changing the big master action is not an option anymore, not without changing everything completely.

In short – don’t rush the blockthrough. Rushing it lands you in to even more problems, more time and more stress on the set. Solving the problems during and after the blocking makes it easy to repeat the same action from different camera angles, focusing on different actors and pieces of performance depending on the angle and the lens you’re using.

When starting to shoot, it’s good to know your actors. What you want is the best performances, but some actors are better during the first few takes, and some actors get better after they’ve familiarized themselves with the action and dialogue and other actors. So when planning the rhythm of the closeups and angles, always think where to start. Sometimes, it’s good to start with closer coverage, but usually I find it best to start with wide master shots, where you don’t see in too much detail the actors’ faces – this gives you time to rehearse the action as well, realize what’s wrong with performances, and start fixing them as you go into closer coverage. It’s a process, and once it’s clear and you know how it works, it’s quite straightforward. First do the wide masters, then pick a direction depending on your actors (the ones you know are better in the first few takes) and go tighter, tighter and tighter until you change the direction. Leave the pickups the last, because you either might find a way to grab that little bit of action as you shoot a direction, and if not, it’s usually good to use the main energy of the actors to the performances.

FILM MINUTE

Faster! Faster! Faster! (Photo by Tarja Jakunaho)

One of the biggest misconceptions on the set is something I call the Film Minute. It means the time it takes to fully accomplish one task. Usually, when you ask how long it takes from anyone, they’ll say “it’ll only be a couple of minutes”. It’s important to understand what does it mean, so here’s a little multiplier chart for you to understand what certain expressions of time mean:

Multiply film minute x 5:
* Camera Department
* Props Department (stand-by)
* Costume Department (stand-by)

Multiply film minute x 10
* Visual Effects department
* Stunt department

Now, as a director, what do you care? It’s the First Assistant Director’s job to keep up with the schedules – that’s true. But in the end of the day, it’s only you who knows what’s really relevant, what’s worth the time and the effort when looking at the big picture, what’s not. So, for example, if you want to have some sparkles on the scene, you might want it just because it looks nice, or because it establishes an important electricity malfunction which will be later used in the storytelling. 1st AD won’t know the importance of the one little thing, especially if it’s something you’ve come up at the set quite quickly, so it’s up to you to determine will it be the worth of the time it takes. Because, in the end of the day, it’s all about the coverage – you either have the coverage you need by the end of the day to edit the scene together, or you don’t. If you don’t, you go overtime. And the overtime is the thing that’s gonna kill you. Trust me.

So understanding Film Minutes is also director’s job, and even though your job as a director is not to micromanager things – there are departments for that – you need to have a good grasp of things.

The reason why Film Minute is never accurate is because of few reasons. First, every head of department makes things sound a bit easier than they are. It’s not because the lack of experience or because they’re just evil people, it’s because the other departments. There’s always unprepared requests coming from you – as the director – or from the DOP, or from the actors, and all this takes more time than prepared. The other point reason is usually that if something is changed, it usually needs rehearsals, new markers on the ground, new eyelines and so on. And especially, when you go into issues that have to do with electricity, safety, fire or stunts, there’s always the safety factor, the rehearsal and re-rehearsal factor and so on, which usually flows to other departments as well. So, basically Film Minute is usually quite accurate – if you work alone on the set. But whenever you’ll get a Film Minute estimate, remember that it’s just an estimate from one department – other departments usually will have their say on things as well.

And this, of course, is again not your job, but the First Assistant Director’s job to translate the length of the operation or request to you in realistic time, but before even giving a request, it’s good that you have an understanding on how long things will take, just to be on the same page. Remember – whatever you request out of the blue will usually cost money and time, so always be careful to request for things you are sure you want.

LANGUAGE ON THE SET

Photo by Tarja Jakunaho)

As a Finn, it’s hard to remember that you have to be more polite than is natural to you when working on the set with actors and the crew. In Finland, we don’t have a very good equivalent for the word “please” – which itself is short for “if it please you” – and we’re not used spreading compliments and excessive thanks around as much as we should. That’s just the basis of Finnish language – closest to really being polite, we do use T-V distinction, which in short means we talk of a person in plural, which sounds ridiculous in English, so we can’t even use that. But that’s no excuse – people on the set are used to better manners than Finns usually are especially when talking in foreign language, and that’s something we need to adjust to when working in a non-Finnish set.

This means, keep your ears tuned to how the people treat each other on the set. They do use words like “would you be so kind”, “please”, “sir” and “thank you” much more frequently than we Finns would. We had some feedback from the actors and the crew of our lack of pleases and thank-yous, and first we were a bit laughing about it but started to realize that the way we work does make us sound much ruder and much more assholes than we actually are, and I did learn to try to enhance my politeness whenever working with a non-Finnish crewmembers and/or actors. The words are “please”, “thank you” and “sir”. With these three additions to your normal English when working in a high-pressure environment – like a set usually is – you’ll come across more efficiently. Trust me.

SHOOTING IN GREEN

Studio before the green screen is up (Photo by Tarja Jakunaho)

Shooting in studio is a world of it’s own. It’s contained, controlled and a bit boring. Boring, because at least in our case we didn’t have any full sets on the stage – mainly floor, railings and some equipment that were important for the actors to interact with. Everything else would be created later on with CG, so every corner of the studio is surrounded with green screen. For me, as a director – and as quite an experienced director when it comes to a full-CGI-created sets like we had mainly in Star Wreck – it’s easier since I know every set and at least approximately know what kind of surroundings there will be created with a computer. But for everyone else working on the set, especially the actors and the Director of Photography, it’s really helpful if you spend a little bit more time with them to explain what’s supposed to take place in the green screens around you, what it looks like, and create some markers on the screen to give an idea where several objects or points of interests are. It’s still hard for the actors to really jump into the green screen set, especially if the actors are more used to traditional sets, so printing out whatever concept art – or even just some reference pictures – you might have of the set is going to be extremely helpful for them. Even better, if you have a 3D-environment on your laptop of the set with you, it’s very good, especially when planning the shots with DOP and other heads of department.

Green around the Moon (Photo by Mika Orasmaa)

But sometimes it might also be a good idea not to describe in too much detail what there is around them. Because the problem is for the actors that if they don’t really experience the space around, see the things moving around that are just dots on green screen, they have to imagine it, and they have to play it out loud, sometimes too loud for the camera. Udo Kier, when I was explaining him one of the sets, said he didn’t want to know too much. The set we were in was a huge hangar in the Moonbase, but Udo wanted to play it like it was his living room. He didn’t want to know of the marvels around him – in the end, he was playing the Moon Führer, and everything around him was blatant, boring and way too familiar to be marveled by his character, and this – not looking around, not paying attention to huge Moon Nazi stuff happening around, provided a performance that had more nobility to it.

So, when working on a green screen set with the actors, be careful how much information you feed up to them, and in what form. Sometimes, less is more. But take the time it needs to place good markers to whatever things you need, otherwise you’ll find actors looking around into completely wrong directions at same thing, and that’s just stupid.

Green Men (Photo by Tarja Jakunaho)

WATCHING THE MATERIAL

The Monitors (Photo by Tarja Jakunaho)

One of the things you need to be extremely careful with is showing the material to the actors during the shoot. Many people would like to see what they’ve just shot, but it’s not always a good idea to show material – actually, the less they see themselves on the screen, the less they have anything else but you as the director to trust upon, and the more they trust you, the better their performances will be for your film. That’s the general theory which I found good to follow. The best way that I found working for me is to create an environment where the actors trust 100% on you, and no other reference, and if they require to see the material, do show them that only to grasp the continuity or a bit of action, not the performances.

SCHEDULES

First page of the last callsheet

Last, but not least – let’s talk about schedules. Although it might feel a bit strange to jump on and take part in the scheduling from the first draft of the schedule on – do that. I didn’t, I had never seen a proper schedule before, and I didn’t pay too much attention to it. This attitude will backfire. Also, when working with the schedule, don’t fool yourself. Things take a certain amount of time on the set, and there’s usually nothing you can do about it. You can’t rush a stunt coordinator to do his or her’s job faster – if they are pro, they will do things efficiently, but their main concern – and your’s, too! – is the safety. And it takes a certain amount of time. So if you – sitting before your computer months before the shoot, looking at the schedule – go like “naah, we can do at least 30 shots on this day” – you’re fooling yourself. It’s good to remember that normally, you’re able to do 10-25 shots, depending on various factors. If you’re doing a well-contained drama scene with few actors, only dialogue, you might be able to cover 25 shots in a day. If you have a bit of action – someone slapping someone, someone falling etc, – it’s probably around 20. But if you have anything more than that, the number goes down. 15 if you have action with harnesses, or stunt doubles (not because the stunt doubles wouldn’t be effective, but because there’s makeup- and costume change etc ahead) and so on, and 10 if you have anything big like explosions, fire or other practical major visual effects.

It’s good to keep this in mind when preparing for the schedules, because it helps nobody if you’re not realistic with planning. Because, in the end, what you need is the required coverage, the required action and the required takes – if it’s unattainable, you’ll go overtime. And if you go overtime, your producers will hunt you down with machetes and chop you to pieces. Not to mention entities like Completion Bonds and so on. So, whatever you do – take your time really being realistic with schedule planning with your DOP and 1st AD – and even after that rehearse, use all the possible pre-production time you can ever have as effectively as possible and then you should be on the safe side. If you’re an experienced director, and walk on the set without having done pre or rehearsals, you’ll fluke it up. Either you’ll compromise the coverage – which usually means the scene doesn’t work – or action – which means the scene is boring – or takes – which means the actors act badly. And none of these things are what you want to do. You want to do a good film, and the best way to do one is by being realistic, no matter how boring it is.

AMA – ASK ME ANYTHING

So, here goes the first dump of random advice I mustered from my brains. I’ve done two AMA’s (Ask Me Anything) on Reddit, if you’re interested to hear more of my experiences, check them out. The first one is from the last night before the first shooting day in Frankfurt, and the second one just after the final wrap party of the whole shoot, in Gold Coast.

You can also ask questions in the comments section below.

Oh, and welcome back to Zombie Room. We’ve been silent for apparent reasons for quite some time, but now we’re back!