Film and Television Director, Self-Employed

Marty Elcan, E-L-C-A-N. No one spells it like that. And I worked primarily as a first assistant director, in film and television, but occasionally get the opportunity to direct, which is even more fun. As a first assistant director, I'm in charge of making the production happen pretty much. It's my job to make sure everything runs smoothly. That means, first off, I get the script. I break it down, scene by scene. All of the elements that are required. Then schedule the show. And all the locations. All of the scenes that are shot at the same location go together as much as you can. Go by actors' availability. If it's day exterior scenes, you want to put those at the beginning of the week. Night exterior scenes at the end. If actors have makeup, you know three hour makeup, you don't want to finish with them one night, and start with them the next morning. All these elements that have to come together, to make the most efficient schedule possible, and then you go on location scouts. And you find the locations that work for your schedule. A lot of times, my schedule dictates where you, like if you have one scene in a bedroom, and everything else you're shooting is in a restaurant, then you might want to either find a house nearby, or maybe there's a room in the restaurant that you could use for the bedroom. So the schedule is constantly shifting, depending on location availability, what works for the schedule, you really try to make it the most efficient schedule possible. And then, during prep, you're having all the preparatory meetings, like if there's a big stunt, you bring all the people in, whether it's special effects, the stunt guy, you know, the director, all the elements, you work it all out, so it's as safe as it can possibly be. Or if there's special makeup, you have meetings. Or wardrobe, you go through all the story days in the script, and figure out the wardrobe changes. I mean, it's like all the prep meetings that you could possibly get to make it run as well and efficiently as possible. And then one the set, I'm the one saying, Okay quiet on the set. I call for the rehearsal. I call rolling, I call cut. My job is to make sure that everything is absolutely set. The lighting is done right when the actors are coming out of makeup. So that we can shoot. All the director has to do is say, action. Basically is my job.