Film Courage: What's the most stressful part of making Hollywood movies? David F. Sandberg, Filmmaker and YouTuber PonySmasher: The first one is
stressful party is just the time of it that I realized coming here because you
know when you're making your own stuff you can take all the time you need and
like you can continue another day or whatever so coming here was the first
time I was working on under a real schedule and you know the first ad would
put up all these things like this okay here's the schedule for this is this
enough and I was like no idea I've never made a movie like if I was making a no
budget short that's plenty but yeah then you realize how long
things take with just lighting and everything and it was very stressful
just because I didn't know right away that's like if we don't get this today
then this scene is out of movie so I would rush and like oh right we made it
right on the under the wire but then I found out that you know if you don't get
it that day you can shuffle some things around and get it another day or what we
did on LIGHTS OUT movie always we asked the studio for another two days or something
on another day and they were like sure and we could get it so it's not like I
realized that it's more flexible than I thought it was I thought it was very
rigid like if you don't get this then it's gone so it's it's the stressful
things have been time and also sometimes you know if you show up and set and you
don't really know what you're doing like if you haven't had time to think about a
scene or something beforehand you show up on sets like everyone is
they want to know what we're doing and like you don't even know so you have to
like fake it like try to come up with stuff on the spot which I actually kind
of like doing like on lights out I was sitting with my first movie I was super
prepared and did all these storyboards and then animatics and everything I
could just to prepare and then you it never turns out that way anyway because
oh the location doesn't actually allow that or we're out of time for this we
have to come up with something on the spot so you know on Annabelle: Creation
my second movie I was like I'm not gonna plan all that stuff let's just show up
on the day and get out in the moment with like the DP
and the actor so it's like okay let's see how it feels when you go over there
and okay and then we can put the camera here and that was a much more pleasant
experience to just having fun and figuring out on the day but I I don't
think that's for everyone cuz yeah sometimes it can be a little scary when
it's like you show up and you don't really know what you're doing beforehand
but I like that and then you know one should Sam which has a lot of visual
effects and big action sequences we had to do previous you know these when
animatics and things which you know a movie like that you have to do that but
again it gets kind of boring because once it comes time to shoot it you've
already been watching the sequence for months before in previous form so you're
already kind of tired of it and when you're shooting it's just like picking
off the pieces it's like you have this board set up with okay we're doing these
frames today and oftentimes they're very out of order which is not fun for the
actors either because they're not really sure where they are in the process and
you're just doing these little pieces up yeah you do this and then we cut you
know so for me I yeah I've really leaned into and really like coming up with
stuff on the day but it's it's it's weird it's kind of a you kind of need a
combination of you you have to plan things out but then come up with things
on the spot it's sort of a in some ways you have to do both in movies and how
was it for you to almost stop yourself or maybe you didn't have to but when
something needed to be moved or changed you were maybe used to doing that
yourself yeah and then oh wait a minute there are
people to do that I can't I'm not allowed to touch that yeah I mean yeah I
come in here just camera stuff was like instead of me explain one you just give
me the camera and I'll do it or editing as well it's like that was kind of weird
because I'm so used to editing myself and that was like oh like can they just
grab the mouse I mean you can you know if you want to but you have to get
comfortable with just explaining what it is you want and sometimes
you know you just explained the feel you want rather than yeah cut on that frame
and then this frame and then the editor can you know sometimes surprised he was
like oh that was actually cooler than I thought but yeah you really got that
feeling that I was after and that same thing with cement ography and acting and
everything like it's it's it's fun when you're like sometimes you're not too
specific and then you get surprised of like oh that that was even better like
that's great so have you had to learn the art of delegating was that hard for
you yeah a little bit just because you'd like to have control
over everything and I mean I'm sure Sam especially that was the first time
working with a second unit because on a movie like that you have so much action
and stuff that it takes has so much setup you know like we had this big
ferris wheel that fell down like that took a whole day to set up so main unit
does that that's all they're doing that day so you have to have a second unit to
shoot all these action II bits and to me that was like well I want to shoot that
fun stuff you know and then it was and then
whenever someone else is sort of directing as well it doesn't turn out
quite the way you had in mind so it was not very healthy but on Shazam Movie I had it
scheduled so that we shoot main unit during the day for a while and then
second unit which you doing tonight so I could go to that too and sort of hang
around there and make sure it turned out the way I want it because yeah which is
not very healthy you need to sort of give up some control I guess but it but
it's hard because especially when it's fun like action stuffs like whoa no I
want to shoot that so yeah I don't know I mean I hear some directors like
Christopher no like yeah he doesn't have a second you know he wants to shoot
everything and he's Christopher Nolan so he can do that but yeah I'm still
working on it
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