Rough Week aka Why I Don't Like My Director of Photography Anymore

EXT. FILM LOCATION IN THE WOODS - DAY

TOM, the director, carefuly, expecting the worst, approaches his Director of Photography. We'll call the Director of Photography DEREK. Because that's his name.

TOM
Um, Derek, do you think maybe we should shoot this scene
from this side, so we can see the sad lonely cabin behind the little boy
as he stands there sad and alone watching the little girl drive away?

DEREK
(pissy indignant tone of voice)
You want to take two extra hours to shoot this? Fine. Sure.
(shouting out to his crew in a
pissy indignant tone of voice)
Okay, everybody, move all those trucks, clear all those
lights, we're going to the other side, the rest of the crew, take
an hour break!

TOM
(desperately trying to be conciliatory)
Derek, Derek, I was just asking the question, all you have to
do is tell me it'll take two extra hours...

INT. THE CABIN - NIGHT

TOM carefully approaches Derek who has just given his lighting crew instructions that seem time consuming and not entirely logical.

TOM
Derek, I'm just asking the question, wouldn't it make more sense
to cover the whole scene in this direction before we turn everything
around and shoot the other way?

DEREK
(pissy indignant tone of voice)
Oh, well, you seem to have your own plan, so just tell me what
to do.

TOM
Derek, Derek, you've made forty movies and I've made three, I'm
just asking for your expertise.

Derek stares at Tom with quiet passive aggressive venom.

******************

And I started out loving him. And I know how things got to the point they've gotten to. The first time he started pulling this shit, very early in the shoot, I should have taken him quietly aside and said "Derek, do not pull that on me, I think you are an artist and a brilliant DP and I couldn't be happier that you are here, and the crew loves you too, we're going to make a very nice movie together, so just cut the crap, okay?"

But I didn't. Just like I did with my mom and my older brother when I was a kid, I played appeasement. I played Chamberlain at Munich over and over again thinking that would buy peace in our time. With both mom and bro I finally stood up for myself, shockingly late in life, and you know what? I now have truly great relationships with both. But with the DP on a movie you don't get a three decade learning curve. You get days to get things right. Aieeee.....

That aside it was a good week until yesterday when we went into a frightening soul-twisting HOUR AND A HALF of overtime. I think the studio is going to come and take away my house for this one. It was a grim one thirty in the morning drive away from set last night after shooting a very fast two-shot version of a scene that Derek and I (in our harmonious earlier days) had planned to do in six glorious and dramatic shots.

On top of his aliens-just-took-over-my-DP's-body personality, he routinely takes two hours to get the first shot on interiors and an hour on exteriors. Those times should be half that on a 19 day schedule and since he has done countless brilliantly shot 19-or-20-day schedule movies I don't understand why this is happening. We're getting 20 setups a day and should be getting 35.

So anyway the Derek thing built up and built up and last night I lost it on a portion of the crew. At least I did it quietly so the actors wouldn't hear. I was bad, gentle reader. I used the F word more than once. It happened because I suddenly realized a scene that we should have been shooting wasn't on the schedule--not Derek's goof, of course--and that if we didn't get it right now we simply wouldn't get it. So God sent me an instant and really very nice solution to the problem that could be implemented right in the scene we were shooting without changing hair, makeup, wardrobe, lighting or anything. I ran and got the page from the script, put it in front of my two wonderful actors, quickly told the camera operator to just start shooting, no time or desire to run to the camera tent and consult with Derek, and the actors pulled it off brilliantly and just as I was going for take 2, to make sure it was absolutely right, I get sternly called to the camera tent by the producer and various department heads wanting to know what I was doing, how could I do this, nothing would match, yadda yadda yadda, and when I tried to say, "come on, we're getting two hours worth of work done in five minutes", they kept going at me with questions and "calm down" (those words are Bic lighter to gasoline for me) and... well... I had a lot of apologizing to do after wrap.

Interestingly, Derek had vanished from the camera tent before I got there, though I had heard him on the walkies a second before saying "I have no idea what he's doing" in a "don't come complaining to ME about this debacle" tone of voice a second before.

But I got my scene. I got my scene.