JUNE 25, 2006
"INDEPENDENCE DAY" DIRECTOR BLOG, PART III
So, the prep process was great and all that decision-making was excellent, but then I had to make my shot list ... this was the tough part for me. It's where you really have to do your homework and that's kind of where I was: "Aw, man! Now I gotta do all this homework on my hiatus!"
I told myself I was going to take the first week of hiatus to go to my house in Connecticut, see some of my friends and family and let all that had transpired kind of disappear for a little bit. After that, I decided I was going to take the next two weeks to do the shot list.
Then I started sitting down...
Doing a shot list is pretty tough, because a lot of it's configuring these diagrams of how you're going to set camera and where you're going to put the dolly track. Sometimes I'd say, "This would be a great spot for a crane shot," and then my line producer would tell me, "Well, you get a crane for one day and that's it, because we're not going to pay for anything more. And it's not a hothead crane, it's a ride-able crane so you can put a steadicam operator up there."
That changed the whole dynamic of the shot. So you have a lot of things come up like that where you have kind of a wish list in your head of what you'd like to do with something, and then there's the reality of what you're working with in the budget of the TV show.
When setting up these shots, I realized that I wanted to keep the camera moving. Static shots with a locked-off camera and one head talking to another head, I just don't find as interesting. So, I wanted to keep the camera moving, I wanted to create an arc through the storyline.
I wanted it, at the start, really laid back. Two guys are hanging out in a car, talking, going on a road trip and eventually get stuck in traffic. There was really nothing going on. Then, eventually, as things start to unfold, things get more and more intense, leading up to this big crescendo car crash.
It was fun for me, trying to create that arc, and to try to get everybody on board, to expand beyond what we normally do on our show.
We also had a script that they felt was short. Great! That was awesome that it was short, because usually our show just clips along too quickly, sometimes, and doesn't allow those moments to breathe. When someone says something to someone else and it changes their state of being, we just move past it so quickly that we don't allow the camera to rest on that person to see how he's affected by it.
So, I started setting up my diagrams and doing my shot list and I got the first two days done. Wow, I actually had my first two days of seven days of shooting finished. This was a good thing. So, I kept rolling along and I got up to about the fifth day and I realized that I still had two more days to go.
At that point, I went upstairs and said to my girlfriend at the time: "I'm so done. I'm totally, totally unprepared for this. I want to just blow it so badly right now. I'm going to be exposed for the fraud that I am. I have no clue as to how I'm going to pull this off." She said, "I think you're going to do fine, baby."
So, I went and took my shirt off, and I went downstairs and put on some loud music and I hit the heavy bag for about a half an hour, worked up a good sweat. I took a couple of deep breaths, and then I sat back down at the table and I finished of the next two days.
The next day or maybe the day after, I went to breakfast with Shawn Piller. He got a cup of coffee and he looked over the shot list. He went, "This looks pretty good, this looks good, that's good, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yeah, OK. I think you're in pretty good shape." I looked at him and said, "You're kidding me, right?" And he goes, "No, really, seriously, I think you're in good shape." I was like, "Well, he says I'm in good shape, I guess I'm in good shape." So, the next day, we went up to start shooting.
