Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

For a feature film, I feel that I cannot direct the entire thing myself and that I need another director to direct some of it. I was advised before not to have a co-director because it's a bad idea, but is can I have some sort of second in command director, or I am I stuck directing the entire movie myself, and that's the best way to go?

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

Don't confuse a second unit director with a co director, they are different animals.

For example, second unit directors shoot action scenes or other material not being shot by the main unit. They are not involved in directing the main unit, although they may do pick up shots that the main unit couldn't get.

They are not a second in command, they'll have a second unit crew with them and will be commonly working away from the main unit. They can be specialists in film certain types of scenes and will fit in with the overall style of the film, so that it fills in seamlessly with that shot by the main unit.

They're not there to hold your hand as you direct.

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

If it's too much to direct an entire film you shouldn't do part of it. It be like asking if you could write half a novel and hire someone to finish the rest. A recurring theme to all your questions is how should you circumvent your limitations on almost every aspect of this film.

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

Well I guess I feel I need more hired help rather than take on so much of it myself. I would like to have a second in command of some sort, rather than be the only command myself.

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

We've done this before at least twice Ryan. We have told you the problems, pointed out the conflicts and you can't seem to get it. Our advice is exactly the same as it was before.

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

Oh well I wanted to know how others do it or how do they get around the conflicts. I feel like if I have other people working with me, than this can possibly work too.

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

Ryan - we've done this. I don't even need to go and find them. We told you that a second Director, as in somebody to assist you is perfectly fine when the primary Director knows what they are doing and they need assistance because of scale or time. We also told you that if the second Director is strong and the First Director is weak, or uncertain, or inexperienced, or other than perfect in multiple skill areas, it is a disaster, because the second Director (not, as said above second unit Director) takes over, eating into what the real Director should be doing. Time and time again you've demonstrated your inexperience and often bizarre methods - if you get a strong director to assist, they will quickly take over. If you block them, they'll clear off. To be a better Director, you need to learn to cope with the role - not give it away because it's too tough.

In your topics you want to be the chief cook and bottle washer - you want absolute control, you want to Direct, script write, shoot, camera op, sound op, editor and colourist. You don't like giving roles away - you try to micromanage everyone, and frankly you can't even tell somebody who wants you too use ridiculous equipment no - you pop up on a forum and ask how to do it? This is silly.

You cannot do everything - it is impossible. So you look at your pool of cast, creatives and crew and pick people for their strengths. If you find an excellent Director - let that person Direct. If you can fill all the roles bar say sound recordist, then that is your job - and leave the others to theirs - with the Director running the ship. So far, you've made it clear you want to do everything and you don't have the skills.

Here - in this topic, you seem to have realised you are a poor Director, so want somebody else to help? If they are good - as in better than you, give them the job and you doing something else. What is wrong with a Ryan Elder Production with somebody else directing it?

You cannot share the job - you're not able to communicate well with other people, so sharing a role for you would be very stressful. You would resent every decision, because they would probably just decide there and then. You would have to go off and research and start two or three topics to ask us, then ignore our advice and mess it up.

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

Oh I didn't want to do all the tasks before I just felt I had to fill roles before such as editor and color grader to save money on my projects. But I do like hired help and want someone else tod to the cinematography and shooting, and production sound. I can record sound effects in post to save money if I have to.

I am open to the idea of someone else directing and I just produce, it's just when I asked other filmmakers opinion on this before, they said it was too risky, and that I would be giving up too much control to one person with my money, cause the director is too much of a job to give away entirely, if that is a fair point?

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

It depends if you want to be a producer or a director. It's not a control thing, the producer's job is to get the funding, usually it's not their own money.

It's mot risky if you have the right director for the production.

However, you don't really seem to have qualities required for either job at the moment.

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

Oh okay. I could try to develop those qualities if that's best.

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

If? Ryan - I cannot believe you don't know your weak areas, we've been shaming them off for quite a time.

If you wanted to be a surgeon - there is no way you'd practice on me. If you want to be a Director, you need experience, drive, initiative and a strong gut reaction to what is the right thing to do. You need to get others to do what you want if it's behind your own skills. You've not really progressed very much have you? You've been planning one project for over three years and others nearly as long. You will still be planning when Brian and I are no longer on the planet!

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

Oh okay well it's hard to progress when I do not have the money to keep hiring a team so many times to do a project on. So it's hard for me to practice directing people, when I cannot afford to pay people for a project very often. I can do the whole no budget thing again, but I never like the results, because I do not spend the money on having better production as a result. But I could abdicate directing and give it to someone else if that's best, and just be the funder, and editor and color grader if that's best?

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

Why not just produce, and get in the best people for each discipline - then your movie would be really good. What is the old phrase? Pay peanuts and get monkeys?

When my normal clients shut the doors for Covid - I had no income, so had to get off my bum and do work I'd normally have not touched. Not remotely interesting or satisfying, but it put food on the table. I'm long passed being impressed, or hoping for a break - so I took the quite poorly paid stuff. Surely this kind of video product is the kind of thing you could take on. Maybe a couple of decent amateur actors, and some pieces to camera. Stone chippings in 5,10 and 30mm sizes, delivered to your door, or uPVC double glazing, or pressure vessel safety testing, or industrial washing machine wash in the bag safety services for covid safety - mega dull, boring and dull - but they utilise camera, sound, lighting, actors, script and direction - which I did either on my own, or with somebody to assist on one. DO half a dozen of these and you'd learn much - especially as they're all fixed fee budgeted - so working out the price and then not over-running is pretty critical to make a profit. They're hardly going to be on my CV, bit for your Ryan, this kind of stuff would get you busy and gaining experience. I live in a small coastal town - you surely have more opportunity than me?

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

I could do that perhaps. Should I be on set though as producer to see how things are going?

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

In my example - I did the entire things myself.

If you are doing your thing - then as producer, yes you should probably be there so you know the state of play. Real producers are rarely that involved.

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

Ryan, asking us if you should hire a second director when you clearly don't have the money is silly. Commercially viable productions hire a second director not because the 1st can't handle it but because time is more important it frees up the 1st to concentrate on the important scenes while the second can do less involved secondary scenes with supporting cast.

In my opinion your chances for a commercially successful movie or career in this business is zero. If you have a mundane job and enjoy these projects as a creative outlet that's fine. If you were able to, I'd suggest dropping all these pretenses, rules, over planning , grandiose ideas and just film the dam movie.

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

I can shoot the movie, I just want to make it the best it can be of course and need to plan what I am doing exactly, vs. who I hire to do other things though. I feel I also need opinions on what I am doing is right as the director. If I have an idea for an actor to do certain thing, or an idea for a certain type a shot, I am allowed to ask members of the crew and cast if they feel that is a good way to go, or do I have to be the one with all the right answers, and the only right one is mine?

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

People on set want to be lead, they don't need a perfect plan or the director to make the all the "right" decisions. If you have confidence you should be able accept feedback and opinions from your cast and crew, and come to your own decision. You seem to be indecisive, inflexible and overly reliant on other people's opinions. For over a year we have feed you a steady diet of answers, and to what effect? I think very little.

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

Oh sorry, I took a good amount of the advice on here, and thought it was good. Sorry if I gave the impression that I did not.

I guess it's hard for me to know the right decision to make when having to choose between which card in a bad hand, if that makes sense. I am not sure which problem to pick that will be the least problem.

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

I'm not sure it's about picking cards, it's more about knowing how to play the game in the first place.

These days you can make films on very little money, but you do need to have the skills to put the thing together, it's to be expected that you'll make mistakes along the way, but this film sounds more like you're bitting off more than you can chew at the moment.

If you don't have the budget, the mantra of hiring people comes over as rather poor reasoning.

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

Oh okay, well I think I have the budget, I just wanted someone to work with the actors and the dramatic performances while I work with the crew on the more technical things. Or at least I feel I would do a lot better that way. But I didn't think the budget was the problem necessarily, just wanting to hire more help.

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

I know a number of feature films that have had similar budgets to yours (or higher) and none of them paid people. Although on one feature a couple of actors were working on a fully funded feature film, which the producer shooting at the same time, on which they had a lot of down time (for which they got pard) and they were happy to get starring roles in this very low budget feature.

The above situation is very much the exception and whole thing was put together very quickly, The people involved were also very different to you.

In the case of co director, it usually works the other way to the one you're proposing, the more "technical" person is brought in to co direct with the writer. Examples being "In Which We Serve" when David Lean (then a film editor) was selected by Noel Coward to help direct that film. In "Performance" Nicolas Roeg handling the visual aspects with co director and writer Donald Cammell dealt with the other aspects.

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

Oh okay, thanks for the information, that's good to know. Well I was told before the the acting was bad in my projects, so I thought if someone else could direct the performances, who is more of an acting expert, than I can concentrate on directing the picture as a whole, if I just had a specialist who could work in that area, and I would work with that specialist, if something like that could be arranged.

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

You seem to have missed the important part, it's the writer who deals with performances from the actors.

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

Oh why is it the writer though?

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

Er, well - the writer imagines the story the actors are trying to get across, so he is the ideal person to really see if the characters in his head are realised by the actors. Are they angry enough, believable enough, real enough - and he can guide them through their performance. A theatre Director often does this as part of their role, because in theatre, the Director usually knows the play inside out, but in movies, the Director role is kind of the captain of the ship, with specialists in the key officers roles, so the writers monitor everything and change their script as the production develops - often re-writing as the cameras roll. The Director gets the job of being the 'glue' making sure it all fits!

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

Oh okay, but do writers have experience in working with pulling performances from actors though normally? I just never seen the writer do this on the shoots I worked on so I didn't know that...

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

In honesty? Good ones usually do, less experienced ones don't. So you make sure you have an experienced Director who can direct people when you have a non-physical writer. In a way Ryan, it's you who has to look at these things because you know the people involved. In my theatre work, I am NOT a director - in fact, I hate it and I'm not comfy doing it, but I have had to do it when things go wrong. One of my favourite theatre Directors is a movie Actor - A guy called Simon Delaney - his Directing theatre style relies on his ability as an actor - he knows when they give the right performance - and he can function really well on a movie set, taking direction, and instinctively knows what the character's would do - the Director just sort of points him at the set and it works. A Director used to actors like this would get very frustrated if they all had no clue - so much time would be wasted on nuts and bolts. I think you know all this - as we've done it before.

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

The writer will know the characters and story better than anyone else, so the actors will know this is something they can tap into it.

Writer/directors are not unusual, writers just wanting to direct the camera shots are very rare.

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

Oh well I thought that someone who has more experience in getting good performances out of actors would be better than a writer who does not, unless I am wrong...

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

A writer won't put themselves forward as a director if don't want to handle the actors.Being a writer first is a one of the routes into directing, many of the A list feature film directors started out that way.

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

Oh okay, but in my case, should I hire someone else to work with the actors on the performances then and I direct that person more so?

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

No, you either let someone direct or you direct. If you don't have the confidence for the job don't do it.

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

I get the feeling that Ryan was hoping to get confirmation for what he wants to do, hire a second to direct the acting.

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

I could get someone else to if that is best and I just do other jobs like funding, editing and color grading, if that's best. I would want to be there for the shoots though, just to make sure everything is going well and getting done on time, or at least see the footage on a day by day basis to make sure.

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

It's not up to us to make this decision. It's something that you need to decide.

If you don't feel ready to direct a feature film, directing more shorts to get more experience would seem like the way to go. I know directors who made quite a few high quality shorts before making the leap.

Writer/producer isn't unusual..

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

The question you never ask but hover around, is what are you good at. You never tell us. You want to do this, you want to do that, but often you recognise you are no good at some things, but STILL want to find a way to keep that role.

Yesterday I had to do plumbing. I hate plumbing. I have zero talent at plumbing. I have the tools. I know how to use them. I’m quite good with my hands and I understand how it works. I changed the tap. It leaks. The leak is coming from one compression joint. Other pipe work is in the way. I think one extra half turn will sort it but the pipe is old. Will it break? Do I have the spare hardware to fix it? Will my wrench fit the older non-metric hardware. Will the valve that I’d need to shut off actually close? Should I try that?

No. I have given my friend the phone number of a real plumber. It will cost her, and it has cost me in my own personal satisfaction. I know I am a crap plumber. I know my limits and reached them. I would not go on a forum and get help because I know any advice would push me over my limit.

Like this topic, it’s about knowing your limits. Ryan, your questions show you’ve reached that point. You are not able to function in your chosen role, so sort it.

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

Oh okay, it's just I don't have the money to direct shorts if I want to use that money for the feature.

But I cannot direct and just fund it perhaps. I was told I was good at editing and color grading so far and those were my best quality so I can just do that as well as fund it.but I was told I was not going at producing and to find someone else to do some of that with me I think.

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

Like Paul said and what we keep saying. You seem incapable of accepting your limitations and the difficulty of leading a film production. It's a complex and expensive process not many people would want to take on.

You obviously like film making so do something that is related but doesn't involve making a feature. Creating a Youtube channel or vlog where you cover local film making in your area or do movie reviews. Maybe you can offer to film free behind the scenes shorts of other movies. If you did well you could turn it into a business.

Re: Is hiring a second unit director a bad idea?
 

Oh well, I wanted to make films with fictional narratives in though, and wasn't really interested in blogs or things like that. That was my interest. But I was willing to abdicate directing duty and pass it off to someone else, so is that not accepting limitation, since I was advised not to direct it? I was advised on here not to direct and give it someone so aren't I following the advice?