A director should keep firm creative control over their movie because a movie directed by a committee doesn’t work, but there is a fine line between being in charge and paranoia fueled by insecurity. I was a grunt on an indie art house film in Los Angeles with a director that was high strung.
He was completely convinced that one of the actors was forgetting his lines on purpose to undermine him and that the director of photography was just waiting to take control of his movie. Creating that kind of vibe on a set only leads to problems. Cast and crew were no longer talking about the business at hand making a movie, but how absolutely paranoid this director had become.
It finally boiled over when a camera shot wasn’t working after numerous takes and the director went off into one of the most colorful profanity laced fits I had ever seen. I mean for a tirade it was a beauty to watch. Arms flailing, a prop glass being thrown against the wall, and everything else you would expect from a person who has lost control. “Why isn’t this working?” was the last thing he yelled. The 1st A.D. smartly told everyone to take five while things cooled on set. The director got himself back together and took another shot that didn’t work.
Production was losing daylight and had a lot of other scenes to shoot that day. The director of photography suggested a way the shot could work by using a different camera position and move to get the action. Right on cue, the paranoid director completely over reacted. He yelled something at the director of photography along the lines of, “I am the director and you aren’t going to tell me how to shoot my movie!”
The director of photography kept his cool and said, “Stop being so damn insecure. I’m here to make your movie, not mine.” The director never got the shot he wanted to work and scraped the scene from the movie. They let their insecurity and paranoia ruin cast and crew moral on set. Who knows if the director of photography’s suggestion would have worked? It would have made sense to at least give it go considering the other shot wasn’t working.
