K.C. McLeod – a film-school comrade and Bushwick neighbor – has been a part of Oh, Sophia from the very start. Along with Gabe, Lina and Lipica, K.C. has read every single draft I wrote and watched every single casting tape. I couldn’t imagine going into production without him and thankfully when the time rolled around, K.C. was free and willing to A.D.
On American film sets, an A.D schedules the shoot and makes sure that everyone sticks to that schedule. It’s a pretty monumental task, as is. Throw in boom-opping, stunt driving, directing B-roll/extras/animals/dancers, fixing a typewriter, providing lunch-time entertainment, providing anytime entertainment and making it rain and you almost get an idea of what K.C. did on our set.
Pretty much everything. Enjoy his blog post!
“On the Nature of Underwater Cameras (and their Relation to the Filmmaking Process (Particularly that of Micro and/or No-Budget Films) as a Whole)”
by K.C. McLeod
As an Assistant Director, or AD, one’s role in a film production is that of “facilitator;” that is to say, an AD has no one specific job, but rather, a job composed of various tasks that allow other crew members, each with more specific roles, to perform their required duties in order to get the film, proverbially, in the can. Historically, this position was the final stepping stone towards becoming a director because, historically, a director served the same utilitarian purpose: coordinate the actions of the “talent,” don’t get in the way of the stars, and let the producers take the credit.
Of course, directors are no longer thought of as glorified production coordinators. Following my time as an AD on Oh, Sophia, I am tempted to say the time of ADs as “facilitators” is also over. To borrow, with apologies, from the phrasing auteur theory, this is caméra sous-marine theory: underwater camera theory.
I recently had the opportunity, as an Assistant to the Director, to be on the set of a marginally big budget (~$35 million) feature during the shooting of a sequence involving underwater photography. Excluding the actor, the stand-in, the wetsuits, the coast guard boat, the pilot of the boat, the EMT on the boat, the hot tub for warming between takes, the hot tub technician, and the driver of the truck that towed the hot tub to set, the scene was remarkably personnel and equipment heavy: two camera operators, an underwater rig resembling the helmet of late 19th-century diving suit, a special 35mm camera that could fit inside this rig, the camera operator’s scuba equipment, a surfboard to rest the rig on when the camera operators surfaced, and a surfboard wrangler to ensure it remained out of frame during a take.
Oh, Sophia also features underwater photography. The effect was achieved approximately so: the DP purchased a ~$200 underwater video camera, the DP changed into a bathing suit, and the DP waded into the water with the actors and shot the scene.
This is not to craft an oversimplified argument as to how mainstream productions are hampered by unnecessary rules, regulations, union representatives, etc., while indie productions flourish in the unregulated utopic rule of a creative invisible hand. Union rules and safety regulations exist for very real reasons; it was less than a year ago that a crewmember died on an NYU student film shoot, perhaps the most free-form sets of all.
What the disparity in the shooting of these two scenes does illuminate is that the AD’s role is changing, and that it is changing because films are changing. In the first situation, our big budget film, with a few dozen individuals needed to capture the simplest of scenes, constant rehearsal was the AD’s modus operandi. Any unpredictable element was – out of necessity – rehearsed out of existence. In the case of Oh, Sophia, the camera just rolled, the actors leapt into the water, and that was our first take.
Did it work? Of course not.
We needed multiple takes. Actors and wardrobe had to dry out. Our DP came close to freezing to death in the water when a late summer chill took over the night.
But when we did get it, the scene was still alive for everyone. And it wasn’t just the water we shot in this method. We upended the maxim “Measure twice, cut once” in favor of “Rehearse half, shoot as much as you need.” The sheer amount of unpreparedness on camera is Oh, Sophia’s strength; even more so, it is its core. Film history is replete with stories of actors breaking character in a scene and the result being used in the final cut because that is some of the strongest material, and it’s true. Real life is endlessly compelling in a way the most finely crafted films can only approximate. When Picasso said, “Good artists copy, great artists steal,” he was not referring to works of other artists, but rather to real life. With Oh, Sophia, we were able to create an environment exploding with those moments where the artifice of film drops away, where actors could just be, all with our insistence on just going, just yelling action, just announcing we were ready long before we were and before anyone could protest.
In the scope of the profession, I did a pretty lousy job as an AD on Oh, Sophia. I spent my time discussing shot composition, actor’s performances, and the emotional flow of a scene instead of making sure we made first shot on schedule, that we broke for lunch on time, and that our progression through setups minimized the number of times we needed to relight. But maybe a task-master or a clock-watcher of an AD is not what best suits a production any more.
Directors used to be glorified technicians. Actors used to vamp on screen with the intensity of a theatrical performance. Dialogue used to not sound like the way people actually spoke. Stories used to always end happily. Now, with the completion of Oh, Sophia, the question is:
What is the next “used to?”
