Attention to detail
Saturday, June 28th, 2008It always amazes me when I think about the kind of detail required by some jobs.
I’m watching a movie right now (O Brother, Where Art Thou) and am amazed by the level of detail that the people that make these movies think through. There was a scene where the boys steal and eat a pie. They use newspaper to hold the pie and at one point the Everett (George Clooney) character throws his paper into the fire. The top page talks about the TVA finalizing the plans to flood the valley where the boys are headed. Then the fire burns off the top page revealing the second page which has an article asking, “Soggy Bottom boys are a sensation — but who are they?”
God, who thinks like this? Who visualizes a movie and works though that detail? That’s a brain I would like to engage!
When I watched The Darjeeling Limited I did some background reading about Wes Anderson and thought to myself that this is a guy I’d like to meet. That kind of brain can conceive of a movie from the higher story to every turn of phrase. When I read a Wired interview with Ron Moore, the writer of Battlestar Galactica, he talked about directing an episode and the additional creative ability it gave him:
Wired: You just directed. What was that like?
Moore: It was tremendous. It was an amazing experience. I approached it with a fair degree of fear, like, wow, I’ve never done this, do I know what I’m doing? Will I look like an idiot? And I just tried it. But I have a cast and a crew that made it easy for me, and I enjoyed it, and I directed something that I’d written. It was a thing I’d never done, which is, you write a script and you play the movie in your head as you write it. At least I do. And one of the first things you have to lose in this business is that movie, because it’s never going to be that way. You write the scene and envision them coming in camera left and sit down on this line, and then you watch the dailies and they come in camera right and stand through the whole thing. You just have to let go of that. You’re handing your script over to other people who interpret it and realize it, and when you’re directing, you can realize that. You can make the film I’m trying to make in my head. And yet you’re still free to play around with it and the actors bring stuff and change stuff, and there are still surprises. But you can actually create what it is you’re trying to achieve. That was great. I really enjoyed it, it didn’t freak me out. I was calm. I made my days. I saved money.
I liked it. I liked being the guy who had to answer all the questions. I liked people coming up constantly and asking, should it be this or should it be that? It’s that. Should we go here or there? Go there. Why are we doing this? This is why were doing this. What does this line mean? This is what the line means. Do you need coverage on this guy? No, I don’t need coverage. I liked that. It was energizing and fun.
Well… this is the kind of thing I think about on a Saturday.
(one update as of 6PM… I originally called them the Foggy Bottom Boys. Sigh. Apparently MY attention to detail is sorely lacking. 
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