Chatty Directors

[Mark LeBlanc]

Here's another topic. How often do you guys encounter a director who talks throughout the scene. And I mean, ALL  the freaking time?  I'm on a show with a young director. I offered Comtek on day one, he turned it down. All during takes he steps on actors dialog giving direction. The worst was today when he repeatedly stepped on a line, then did the same in the reverse. I asked to get a Wild Line, but heard the dreaded. Don't worry we got it in one of the "Pieces".. HA.. But, what we did get Sounded good!!

[old school]

It is his film. I worked w a great guy who was very successful who always said, "just looking for pieces"... On one level, his, this was/is true about making films....

CrewC

[Richard Lightstone, CAS]

"Ranger14"

(Please reveal your real name if you could, it makes communication so much more personal.)

Are you saying that despite the non-stop chatter of your Director you still got every line clean? If so, what is the problem?

I'll speak for myself here; I would try to talk to the director to let him know my concern about getting clean dialog. I might even ask him if he plans on a lot of ADR since he is talking over the actors lines. I'd try to help him in understanding what is needed for the editors.

If he ignores my suggestion, then I would try and speak to the picture editor and let him know my concern. If the editor acknowledges the problem, I would suggest he speak with the director to explain his point of view.

If nothing works, then I would have a choice to make; bite the bullet and keep working as best as I can, or quit because I believe that the overlapped dialog is unmanageable and therefor my work ethic is being compromised.

The choice is all yours too.

RL

[Guest BobD]

My favorite line....

'It's not my movie"  SO, let them do what they wish...  especially after being told.  I personally would never mention it again..

All you can do is politely let them know. The more and longer I do this job, the less I fight for them...  At some point, they need to fight for themselves. It's their film...

[old school]

I think the point is we are hired to record the directors movie, not teach him/her the technical craft. At his/her pay grade, they should know this already. R L's path is correct, and BobD's POV is the reality. There is no magic to recording good sound for picture, only hard work with cooperation. Good luck.

CrewC

[cmgoodin]

Early in my sound career I was mixing a dramatic short film for a British director.

It was a war film and we were outside all day in punishing conditions as the actors were scrambling up and down hillsides while they deliver lines of dialogue.

The director was quite chatty and would constantly direct all the action during the take shouting... :  "you're running.  you're running... you're tripping... you're stumbling... you're running...'' Etc.  Of course this was trashing all of the sync sound effects and overlapping most of the few and far between scripted lines.

I politely informed him that we would like to keep the track clean so we could use all the complex effects of the soldiers scrambling up the rocky hillside.  He continued to to call out directions throughout the next take even though the actors clearly knew what he wanted and needed no direction as they were trying to act during the take. 

When it came to take four without him heeding my suggestion, I had an Idea... When the director called "Roll Sound" instead of just shouting "Speed" I continued to narrate my job saying:  "I'm rolling.... I'm Rolling....  The tape is moving across the heads... The take up reel is revolving...  the tape is still rolling...  sound is being recorded....  we still have speed.....  continuing to roll....".  etc.  The director shot me dirty look then began to smile and said O.K.  O.K.. I got the message.  He was quiet during the takes for the rest of the shoot. 

------Courtney

[Sean McCormick]

Outstanding.

Early in my sound career I was mixing a dramatic short film for a British director.

It was a war film and we were outside all day in punishing conditions as the actors were scrambling up and down hillsides while they deliver lines of dialogue.

The director was quite chatty and would constantly direct all the action during the take shouting... :  "you're running.  you're running... you're tripping... you're stumbling... you're running...'' Etc.  Of course this was trashing all of the sync sound effects and overlapping most of the few and far between scripted lines.

I politely informed him that we would like to keep the track clean so we could use all the complex effects of the soldiers scrambling up the rocky hillside.  He continued to to call out directions throughout the next take even though the actors clearly knew what he wanted and needed no direction as they were trying to act during the take. 

When it came to take four without him heeding my suggestion, I had an Idea... When the director called "Roll Sound" instead of just shouting "Speed" I continued to narrate my job saying:  "I'm rolling.... I'm Rolling....  The tape is moving across the heads... The take up reel is revolving...  the tape is still rolling...  sound is being recorded....  we still have speed.....  continuing to roll....".  etc.  The director shot me dirty look then began to smile and said O.K.  O.K.. I got the message.  He was quiet during the takes for the rest of the shoot. 

------Courtney

[soundtrane]

LOL!!

[mikewest]

A polite comment "Overlap" is what I often shout after a take.

A polite discussion with a director also clears my responsibility.

Did a job last weekend where the 1stAD (a good friend) was directing

on my big Anchor bullhorn to put a crowd of 500 extras in place during action.

The old adage  " I press record button and invoice"

mike

[Marc Wielage]

When the director called "Roll Sound" instead of just shouting "Speed" I continued to narrate my job saying:  "I'm rolling.... I'm Rolling....  The tape is moving across the heads...

Courtney, you definitely have b@lls of steel!

--Marc W.

[Mark LeBlanc]

Richard,

Changed my profile, I'm Mark...  We are working with a precocious 6 year old who's really nice, but take to folding her arms and pouting for a bit so when we do roll it's rush to get the "Pieces".  My body of work does not match the level of many of you here, so when I found out who is mixing the movie in post, yea I want to take it up a notch, or two.. OR Three. In my sound report I've noted that the director can be heard talking over much of the scene and will speak to the editor this week to make sure he checks other takes for clean lines..

[chriskellett]

In addition to Richards excellent suggestions, I have had great success with enlisting the Script Supervisor in helping me with on set "overlap".  If nothing else, make sure that the comments are noted on their notes as well in the "cover your butt" mode.

[Philip Perkins]

How about talking through the take, AND playing copyrighted background music at the same time--my fave!

Philip Perkins

[Noah Timan]

A friend once told me a story about a boom operator we both know and used to work with.  They were on a shoot where the director would not only call out direction throughout the shot, but also offer a running commentary while the camera was rolling: "Great!"  "Brilliant!" "Nice!" and all that sort of thing, of course stepping all over the dialogue.  Finally on one take, as the director was carrying on and on, the operator left the actors and swung the boom microphone right over the director's head at the monitor.  When asked what he was doing, he said, "Sorry, I was taught to put the mic in front of whoever's speaking."

I wouldn't recommend it, but the story did give me a good laugh....

[Thomas E. Allen Sr.]

I wouldn't recommend it, but the story did give me a good laugh....

Noah, had my boom man do the same with a DP who was always "Getting a jump" on the next scene/set. My boom man thought I was nuts for doing it but the end result was that it worked. It drove home the point that on that set the only person who talked while the camera was rolling were the actors. From that point on the Director (a very old friend now) started asking me if sound was good after every take he wanted to print and if it wasn't we did it again.

Tom 

[John D Matthews]

Mark, sounds like a fun shoot.. How were the locations? I'm guessing pretty shitty for sound.

[Malcolm Davies Amps CAS]

Come on CM Goodin Name Names.

Malcolm Davies. A.m.p.s.

[bcopenhagen]

the director would not only call out direction throughout the shot, but also offer a running commentary while the camera was rolling: "Great!"  "Brilliant!" "Nice!" and all that sort of thing, of course stepping all over the dialogue.

Worked recently with two colleagues, a DP and director who have that terrible habit.  It was an abstract shot of people's hands on a railing and feet going up and down a high school stairwell.  Once I got the AD dept to stop wrangling the background out loud  ("OK send two... ok, you three... now 1"), I turned my attention to the DP and director, and said, "Are you guys done with this shot?"  "No, one more minute...", they both responded, lost in picture world.  I looked at both of them and said, "Then shut up!"

Had we not been working together for 10 years and running, I might have been more politically correct.

I haven't gotten around to the other thread about calling cut, but I also get fidgety when "Cut" is not the word used.  Instead, it's "Great" or "Nice".  As Murphy's law has it, that kind of finish is usually accompanied by a relevant sound effect.

Grumble... Grumble...

-Brian

[Jan McL]

Have had even very experienced directors and video villages speak too loud during takes. Forgetting we're rolling and continuing cell phone calls is one thing, but...figured if they were talking during the take, it had to do with related issues, and that something about the performance required adjustment, meaning that take would in all probability not be used. I give them -- and they deserve -- the benefit of the doubt. Find that strategy not only less stress-producing for me, but it improves my attitude about the experienced take-chatty generally.

With a less-experienced individual or group of individuals, it depends upon whether we ever get a take with clean dialog. If we eventually do, I see no problem with that. If we never get a good take, I make them aware of problematic exclamations and leave it at that.

Talking over FX shots? Who cares? While I'd like to get 'em myself, the foley people need work too.

-- Jan

[MatthewFreedAudio]

I mixed a feature last summer where we had two extremely rare WWII airplanes.  One of the airplanes was a P38 Lightning and I believe there are only 6 still flying in the entire world.

We did a handful of shots for bombing runs, bullets, actors, etc. The AD, DP, and director kept shouting directions through all the shots.  This was understandable and I knew we were getting some additional fly overs for camera and sound.

Time came for those fly overs and by this point all of the producers were around, friends family, neighbors, stray dogs, neighbor's cat, etc.

I gave a stern announcement to everyone that absolute quiet was needed (because the AD seemed to think all planes sound the same so we didn't need the sound).

We never did get a full take of approach, fly over, and exit without EVERYONE hooting and hollering about how exciting it was! 

I also did the post audio editing for this movie and I barely squeaked out enough audio from the different takes to make it work. But, if they had used about one more second of planes in the visuals we would have needed to hire the planes again just to record audio (which I would have loved to do!).

[Simon Paine]

I had a director who asked me to mic him up once. I laughed thinking it was a joke, but he explained to me that with the use of multitrack recording equipment, he wanted to be able to whisper into his mic any notes for editorial or himself onto an iso track that he could listen to in real time with the take, later on. The monitors were far enough away and he was considerate enough to make sure he always whispered into the mic for it not to be an issue with getting clean sound.

He has been the only person I've worked with who worked like that, but it was an interesting idea. And he knew enough about sound mixing to understand that it could be easily achieved with a mutlitrack setup.

He was also savy enough to make sure he turned off his mic between takes to avoid any inadvertent recording of conversations.

[soundtrane]

Seems like most of these directors can't see the film "in their heads". Or don't deserve to have a mixer on board. Work ethics...

[Mark LeBlanc]

It's been over a year since my original post and find it interesting to revisit the subject.  To the original post. 1. When the director wasn't talking over the dialog it sounded quite good. We were in very quite locations far from busy streets and such. 2. I feel a bit vindicated that the film is still being edited almost a year since wrapping. Now a year older, it will be difficult to match any dialog needed from the the now 7 year old. I heard from the folks who were going to do audio post but declined sighting more time was needed than originally thought..

My last feature wrapped this past weekend had a different issue. In addition to not calling CUT (Previous post) he keep telling the actors to tighten up the dialog and "Close the gaps".  I was listening back yesterday to some of my tracks and confirmed what I thought on the day.  He has severely limited how he can cut scenes because the actors were stepping over each other's lines. No big deal minus the fact that they were changing their dialog so words from one take when you try and crossfade/overlap with another take won't match because the wording will be changed.

The common thread between these two projects were producers with no control over the actions of the director.  I now just make notes in my reports and ask scripty to do the same then email my report/concern to those above so when they have to go back and ADR the scenes "Don't blame the sound guy"!!

[studiomprd]

"  It was an abstract shot of people's hands on a railing and feet going up and down a high school stairwell. "

" I feel a bit vindicated that the film is still being edited  "

" listening back yesterday to some of my tracks and confirmed what I thought on the day "

" producers with no control over the actions of the director.  "

give me a break...

as BobD said last year:

it is their movie...

we do the best we can, or what they want, and move on

[John Steigerwald]

it is there movie...

*their