Eventually the thinking must end and the doing begin. The preparation is over, complete or not, and now comes the actual shooting. The person in overall charge, both artistically and managerially, is the director. The director may sometimes also be the photographer—a number of well known film-makers always shoot their own material, but this works best on observational documentaries where the main task is to capture the world as it goes by. In other circumstances, where the world has to be stopped to have its picture taken, the two jobs of director and photographer are more often than not done by two separate people.
There are only two jobs. There is no room for a third. In many productions, particularly those commissioned by large production companies or broadcasting organisations, the producer of a documentary may not be the director of the shoot. Under these circumstances, the producer may wish to attend the filming. If so, it is the producer’s obligation not to tangle the lines of communication and divide the leadership of the team by chipping in with instructions. When this happens, everyone gets confused and angry, not knowing whether to listen to the director or the producer. It is not unheard of for a director to walk out and leave the location under such circumstances, an action which has been regarded—at least by other film-makers—as justified. It has also been known for the photographer to refuse to continue work until producer and director decide which is to be in charge. Of course, particularly if there is a lot at stake, the producer may equally have the contractual right to send the director packing and take over the reins. None of these outcomes will improve the quality of the work. The proper course of action is for the producer to give notes to the director, who will then convey any necessary instructions to the person concerned.
If preparing for a shoot is a bit like organising a military campaign, directing the shoot itself is like a cross between managing a football team and conducting an orchestra. Neither manager nor conductor play. The director shoots no images, records no sounds, does not appear in front of the camera. Like the football manager, the director of a shoot is responsible for running the enterprise from the smallest detail to the overall strategy. At the same time, like the orchestral conductor, the director’s success is judged not by the excellence of the administration, but by the artistry of the result. This artistry is the product of the director’s vision, which must be transmitted to everyone at the location, the director’s enthusiasm, with which everyone present must be infected, and the director’s perfectionism, which must be coaxed, cajoled, or commandeered out of those who are actually doing the work.
There may be times, especially while shooting an ongoing event, when the director may feel that he or she is contributing so little, that the photographer is having to make so many of the decisions, that the value of being on location at all seems questionable. Though a natural feeling, this is an error. The director is the one with the vision of what is to be achieved and who will follow the work through after the filming. The photographer can respond only to the here and now. If the filming can take place successfully and the desired result can be achieved without the director’s constant intervention, it is merely a tribute to the degree to which the team has been persuaded to share the director’s vision, enthusiasm and perfectionism—as well as the luck of having nothing go wrong, having nothing unexpectedly change, and having nothing new turn up out of the blue.
The director is the one who carries the movie in his or her head, calling for and controlling the shots which will fit together, jigsaw-puzzle fashion, into the imagined sequences. This is a continuous and mentally quite strenuous process which never stops from first arrival on location to the wrapping up at the end: fitting the shots into the puzzle as they are achieved, changing the puzzle-picture to allow for pieces which don’t turn out exactly the right shape, adding new pieces and removing others in response to the picture’s changes. By carrying a mental image of the sequence, part filled in, part blank, the director will know from looking at it at any stage what has been achieved and what remains to be done.
Some film-makers protest that when they arrive on location they truly do not know what is going to happen. In pure observational work this may sometimes be true, war film photography would be an example—though those who shoot fighting footage usually know perfectly well what they are looking for. In other cases the director who says ‘I never know what the next shot is going to be’ is a director who is depending on luck and chance to make the film. It is not a very good bet.
The director is also the only person working on the shoot who is able to see the job from every angle. So that other members of the team can concentrate on their own tasks exclusively, the director must help to balance the needs and wishes of all the craft workers and contributors. A wise director will make sure that the preferences of someone being filmed are allowed for as far as possible without detriment to the image, that the quality of the sound is not compromised by the needs of the picture or vice versa, that all members of the team feel that their particular speciality is being taken account of. Maintaining the corresponding level of respect and authority will cost the director an effort. It requires the director to be the first to arrive at the location, the first to have an answer to every question, the first to give a response to every problem. It obliges the director to listen to every difficulty and suggestion and to respond to them all seriously and with care. It means that the director really must have complete mastery of the shooting day’s events and that he or she communicates the plan effectively to everyone working on the shoot.
The overall aim of the shooting day is to make it as easy as possible for all to do their jobs to the very highest standard. And, more importantly, for it to look that way on the screen. Problems of the filming process intruding into the shot material confuse the audience. Film, both for cinema and television, is an art-form in which the struggle of the artist for expression is not normally part of the content of the work—unless the struggle takes over and becomes the content. Documentaries have been made showing the fight of a film-maker or group to make a documentary about a person or institution which is opposed to the project and which puts every possible difficulty in the film-maker’s path. It can make a good story, but is usually not what the documentarist set out to achieve.
A film is always, in a sense, a record of a performance—a performance as much by those behind the camera as by those on the screen. For a performance to be convincing, it must seem natural, even inevitable, as if it could be no other way. The audience must forget the sweaty pain-racked dancer and believe in the dying swan. The actual achievement of the performance should therefore seem to be effortless. As a performance art, the documentary film adheres to similar ideals.
The amount of effort by the film-makers shown on the screen will reflect the context of the narrative. A shot from a hand-held camera jostled by demonstrators may be a positive contribution to the film, adding realism by relating the image-taking process to the event being shown. A jerky panning shot, caused by the irrelevant and unexplained fact that the photographer had to balance on a narrow ledge to get it, is not. Most film-makers try to keep the intensity and difficulty of their efforts off the screen and to make the resulting images seem effortless and natural, agreeing with Gene Kelly’s dictum: ‘If the audience can see how hard you’re working, then you ain’t working hard enough.’
The start of the shooting day will usually involve a quick look over the location to make sure that nothing has changed since it was last seen. Contributors sometimes believe that they can help the filming by making surprise alterations at the last moment. Tactful intervention can sometimes rescue the situation, like the huge, awful and distracting painting which has suddenly materialised on the wall just behind the planned interviewing position. Sometimes the change is irreversible, as when the large colourful shrubs in the garden which were going to make such an attractive background to the shot have been cut hard back ‘because they looked untidy’. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valour. Interviewing Prime Minister (now Lady) Thatcher, one director carefully placed a vase of flowers in the background, to help soften the PM’s image. Mrs Thatcher asked to see the shot in the monitor and proceeded firmly to remove the set decoration herself.
If the filming team comprises more than director, photographer and sound recordist, many directors begin the day by bringing everyone together: contributors, crew, production, to allow those who have not met before to say hello, for each to understand the other’s role, and to make sure that everyone knows the plan for the day and the aims of the filming. Only then does the real work begin.
Shooting will take place, shot by shot, throughout the day, with the director keeping the work going at a steady and methodical pace. At the very start of the day, the principal task is to bring everyone up to working speed as soon as possible; everyone always begins a new job relatively slowly. This is not best done by arbitrary command, but by letting everyone understand the director’s schedule for the day from the start, and by ensuring that it has collective assent. It is important for the director to be seen to be in control of the time factor, both at the start as well as subsequently through the day. Ideally the director needs to keep in mind an internal representation of the day’s progress, rather than to respond to events as they happen. It does not benefit the end product of the filming for the day to alternate between periods of lethargy and moments of panic. It may sometimes be hard to stimulate a tired team into renewed activity, but the attempt is preferable to the alternative: a mad rush to get shots in at the end.
Where the documentary is purely observational, a record of an ongoing event or situation, the film-maker’s intervention in the shooting process may be minimal. Director and photographer may effectively be the same person. In other circumstances, a more formal style of filming may be called for. The director will propose the camera position, the style of shot, and the action to be filmed. The photographer will then set up the shot in consultation with the sound recordist and any other crew members involved.
It is important for the director to allow the photographer and the sound recordist enough time to do their work. Impatience is natural when there is a lot to do and limited time to do it in. But, in spite of the temptation, the situation is usually not improved by constant anxious enquiries and urgings to speed things up. As long as everyone knows and understands the constraints on the time available for filming, an occasional reminder of the passing of the minutes is all that should be needed. Even more importantly, a thoughtful director will not constantly change his or her mind, altering the set-up before it is complete. Film photographers say that they find the greatest difficulty in working with directors who are not sure what they want. Sometimes, of course, change is unavoidable, but such cases should be rare exceptions.
When the shot has been set up, the director will want to know exactly what it is going to look and sound like. Some directors, working with a crew they know well, leave the details of the shot to the photographer’s and recordist’s judgement. Others prefer to look through the camera and listen on the headphones themselves, before the shot begins. Now that separate video displays are available for both video and film cameras, some directors prefer to monitor the image themselves directly, though there is always the danger that depriving a craft worker of autonomy may be interpreted as devaluing that person’s artistic contribution and may result in losing their motivation. One cameraman has said ‘It’s like having somebody else staring through your eyeballs.’
If the acoustic quality of the sound recording is crucial to the sequence, as it often is, most sound recordists are happy to let the director listen to the take itself on headphones. Many sound recordists feel undervalued during filming and ignored even afterwards. While the photography of a documentary often receives public critical acclaim, the quality of the sound recording almost never. This is perhaps a legacy of television’s ultimate origins in the silent cinema. Whatever the reason, it is certainly in strong contrast to the other major medium of popular culture, the recording industry, where producers and recording engineers are recognised as important artists in their own right. Yet film sound recordists know that without the right high quality sound, many kinds of images are valueless. A wise director takes the trouble to make sure that the sound is as carefully crafted as the picture. That means making an effort over microphone placement, particularly when working in stereo, as is now often the case, as stereo demands much more forethought about the way in which the shots are intended to be used.
Industry ritual is for the shot to be started by the director saying ‘turn over’ or its equivalent. When working with film, sound-vision synchronization is then established either with the traditional clapper board or with an electronic device. This records an identifiable moment which can subsequently be used to bring to the picture and sound into alignment. If a film shot must be started in a hurry, synchronization is often left to the end of the shot, where its unorthodox position is indicated to whoever will later do the synchronizing of sound and vision, by holding the clapper board upside down. This is known as an ‘end board’—and is often forgotten in the heat of the moment by even the most experienced director who will find his call of ‘cut’ overridden by the photographer’s call of ‘end board.’ Video requires no such marker as the sound and picture are recorded onto the same tape and the time relationship between them never changes. However, many directors find it useful to mark the beginning of each video shot with some kind of identification.
The director then waits for an indication that the camera and recorder are ready and running to speed—the photographer may call ‘speed’ or ‘ready’—before giving the cue for the action to begin. At the beginning of the day there may well be a few false starts as one or other member of the team jumps the gun and starts before everything is ready.
While the shot is being taken, the director will keep a careful eye on exactly what is happening in front of the lens, making a mental note of any continuity details which may be needed later. Often another member of the team—an assistant director perhaps, or the production co-ordinator—may take responsibility for this task. Whoever does this job, it is an essential one. If, for instance, a contributor is handling a prop, there must be somebody whose job it is to be able to recall afterwards exactly which hand did what, so that any further shot which needs to match can be sure to do so. When working with a video camera, continuity notes are perhaps not quite as crucial, since it is technically possible to run the tape back and look at the previous take. This wastes time, however, and many video-photographers are reluctant to wind the tape back, firstly to minimize wear on the master tape, and secondly because of the danger of allowing ridges to form in the flat side of the tape roll, exposing the tape edge to the danger of transport damage and consequent image or sound degradation. Where the shot is part of an interview, the aim may be to shoot the interviewer’s questions separately later, to simulate a two-camera set-up. In this case, careful note will also need to be taken of each question so that it can be repeated accurately later on.
If the filming is of an event or an unstoppable happening of some kind, at the same time as observing the current take, the director will also need to keep an eye open for what else is going on in the vicinity, so that the crew can quickly move on to the next shot. The photographer cannot be expected to know what is going on outside the limits of the camera viewfinder. Even under more relaxed circumstances, the director will constantly be alert to significant details in the scene—those details which can tell a whole story by themselves—for later use in building up the sequence. The aim is to avoid wasting time standing around while the director decides what the next shot is to be. The next shot should already be in the director’s mind as the previous one finishes. However, the director must resist the temptation, however strong, to urge the photographer on to the next shot before the last one is completed.
It is not always the end of the shot when the camera stops running. It may also be necessary to record a minute or so of the location’s sound atmosphere—free of action or dialogue. Such a track is usually needed in the editing process. The recording of an ‘atmos’ or ‘buzz’ track is often forgotten by directors but, luckily, most professional sound recordists will raise the issue themselves and ask for a minute’s silence on the set.
At the end of the shot, the director, by tradition, will call ‘cut’ or ‘end board’—ideally allowing at least ten seconds’ pause between the end of the action and the shut-down of the camera. The camera and sound recorder will stop and the photographer and recordist will check their equipment. If shooting on film, the camera will also be checked for ‘hairs in the gate’—black spiderlike defects on the edge of the frame, sometimes moving sometimes stationary, which are not usually hairs at all, but tiny slivers of celluloid produced in the course of slitting large sheets into narrow 16mm or 35mm rolls of film. Such a blemish usually demands a retake.
The shot will then be logged. This may be done by the director or, more usually, by an assistant. On film, the shot and take number will be noted, with a précis of the shot’s content. On video, the start and end time-codes will be included. Some film-makers who work only with video leave the shot listing until later. If delayed for too long—until the return to base from a foreign filming trip, for instance—this has the great disadvantage that important details, even the name of a contributor perhaps, may have been forgotten. If the shot listing is not done at the time of shooting, it is preferable to catch up with the work at the end of the shooting day, when events are still fresh in the mind. This necessarily involves replaying and viewing the shot material from the master tape, perhaps even through the camera, with all the drawbacks previously noted. It also considerably extends the working day for whoever is doing the logging as the only way to carry out the task properly is to run the video in real time. In general it is quicker and easier to make the record at the time of shooting.
Every shot will then be given a quick post-mortem—how was it for you?—from the photographer, the sound recordist and the contributors. The director will then decide whether to go for another take or accept the shot as it is. Many things can go wrong in taking a shot: there can be equipment problems, operational difficulties. Even if the shot is technically perfect, there can be failures in the content: something that was supposed to happen didn’t or something that was not supposed to happen did. The important thing is now to work out exactly why the shot didn’t work. Sometimes simply trying again will be enough to achieve what is wanted. Sometimes it may be necessary to change some of the parameters: the camera position perhaps, or the exact action required.
There is no point in plugging on bone-headedly with an impossible task. But equally, some shots do need three or four attempts before all the elements come together perfectly. When working with a presenter, it is not uncommon for a retake to be demanded to perfect some bit of action, or even to get the words out right without stumbling or forgetting. Some presenters are very quick at grasping what is needed of them and managing a perfect performance from the very first attempt. Others—and they include some household names—need a great deal longer. It has been known for one very experienced, very well-known presenter to need twenty-eight takes before words and actions all flow smoothly.
It goes without saying that most critical comments should be communicated by taking members of the team aside, rather than publicly announcing them. Directors’ notes to members of the technical team may often be given to the photographer, as leader of the film crew, rather than directly the individual concerned. Though it seems an inappropriately military metaphor for a peaceful enterprise like filming, many documentarists find that maintaining a ‘chain of command’ in a larger team can help the smoothness and effectiveness of the operation.
At the end of the shooting day, the creative part of the work over, the director reverts to the role of manager once again. Though it may be tempting to rush off immediately and relax after the continuous strain of the day, there are still a number of important jobs to be done.
Firstly written permission should be obtained from all those who have been filmed that the shot footage may be used by the programme maker for public showing. This is confirmation of what would otherwise be a purely verbal agreement, which must be in place for filming to happen at all, and helps to protect the film-maker from contributors who decide, late in the day, that they do not wish their contribution to be used. Naturally, at this stage it is impossible to tell precisely which contributors will be included in the finished work, so permissions should be sought from everyone who has featured in any significant way in the filming. The law is changing constantly, particularly in Europe, and there is a question over the extent to which people can claim the copyright in their own appearance. In theory it might be possible in some parts of the world for someone filmed coincidentally in the street to claim that using the shot is an infringement of copyright. But it is not reasonable to try to get permission from everyone present in a crowd scene, for example, so film-makers usually restrict themselves to the main players.
The permission is in the form of a short document: a ‘release form’ otherwise known in Britain as a ‘blood chit’. This gives the name and address of the contributor, the date and time of filming, the name of the produce or director and the working title of the film, and includes a declaration that the signatory agrees to the use of the shot footage for the purposes of documentary making. In some countries, the USA for example, a nominal sum of money has to change hands before the document has legal validity.
The next task is to make sure that the shot material is properly packaged up and prepared for sending to the right destination. If the shooting has been on film, this means arranging for the exposed footage to be sent to the laboratory for processing, with whatever special instructions are necessary for its treatment. For example, in difficult, low light conditions, film is sometimes shot knowingly underexposed with the aim of forcing it to a higher speed in the course of development. If this has been done, the rolls of exposed film will need to be carefully sorted with clear instructions to the laboratory included in each can. If shooting on tape, it may first be necessary to send the cassettes for duplication, viewing copies with visible time-code may have to be made from the master material, as may sound cassettes, if interviews or other sections of dialogue are to be transcribed.
Over and above these administrative details, however, there is the management task of bringing the filming enterprise to a satisfying end. This needs the same care and concern for the collectivity of the team as at the beginning of shooting. Like with a golf drive, or a tennis service, the conclusion of the stroke, the follow-through, is nearly as important as the preparation, as it exerts its influence back in time to affect the memory of the action itself as well as forward to affect the next occasion. The filming day may well have been an emotional as well as a physical strain on everyone concerned. There may well have been a great deal of pressure on all the participants. Tempers may have become frayed, antagonisms ever less carefully hidden. The director’s task now is to bring everyone down to an emotional even keel as gently as possible.
This is not just a matter of thanking everyone for their contribution, though most directors would be unhappy to let the day end without expressing their appreciation of everyone’s effort and skill. Nor is the end of the filming day a suitable occasion for an extensive post-mortem, even less for a barrage of recrimination. But it is worth looking to see whether any immediate lessons have been learned in the course of the work, both about technical matters and personal style. This consideration applies as much to the director’s performance as to the contribution of the technical crew. If there are things about the director’s style that makes it difficult to achieve the best results, it is as well for him or her to know it.
This is not just a philanthropic requirement, a gesture of goodwill to the workers. If the filming is to continue with the same team on the following day, the benefit of leaving the group with a positive attitude is obvious. Even if this is the last day, or perhaps the only one, there are good reasons for trying to bring the work to a close in a satisfactory way. The film-maker may have occasion to work with the same crew at another time in the future. Even if not, the television industry being relatively small and certainly incestuous, personal gossip is rife and reputations, justified or not, spread rapidly. Just as most film photographers would probably wish to be thought of as fast, stylish and co-operative, so would most documentary directors most likely hope to be considered efficient, pleasant and fulfilling to work with.