deMYTHifying Film Directors

Yell at your cast and crew.
Have tantrums.
Sleep with your lead actress.
Wear knee high boots.
Carry a whip.
Yell through a bullhorn.
Have your own chair on the set.
Always stand by the camera.
Don't listen to anyone.
Wear a cap.
Wear dark shades.
Be very stubborn.
Be aggressive.
Be turned on by everything.
Use your actors' personal conflicts within the scene.
Push everyone until they are exhausted.
Yell at your cast and crew.
whoops said that already...


So is all this true about film directors?
No, and yes.
This is what people expect from movie directors. There are/were directors who yell (otto preminger), many very meticulous (david fincher, ridley scott, stanley kubrick), exhausting the amount of takes (kubrick, fincher, alejandro i.).
Rumors of cracking whips, wearing high boots (cecil b. demille, von stroheim), push your actors to the limit (lars von trier, kubrick). There are directors who do things that are judged to be useless and ridiculous.
But until one directs a movie, from start to finish, can't really say much. The amount of responsibility and the large amount of details that are looked upon by movie directors is enough to make anyone pull their hair out and quit.
But in the end are movie directors really obssessive, tricky, stubborn, aggressive, tantrum filled monsters?
Do they really just sit in their directors' chair and yell 'action', 'cut' all day and night and then go home and start it all over again the next day. Are directors late a lot of times so they feel special being waited upon?
Do they have big egos, with no respect for actors/actress' and treat extras like crap?
Do they really do business this way?
Many times there are methods to their madness and at the moment almost every one is against the director but in the long run they see he/she was right all along. I'm defiantely not making excuses for the various 'outrageous' things film directors do. They each do what works for them and the movie.


The late great film director Sidney Lumet was asked on the Charlie Rose show 'what is it that people don't understand about film directing?'  and Sidney looks at Charlie and says 'Everything'. :-)


To be there on the set in the mist of the controlled choas, and see the large amount of work put into making a great movie will open ones' eyes to why a director is who he/she is...


Its been said it's the greatest job in the world, but with it comes a price and a large responsibility that can stress any man or woman out. This I know first hand.


Film directors are who they are not based on the mountains they face but how they react to those mountains.