Gonthar
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- Jan 19, 2020
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You probably all know that leaders are people who are usually taller than the average, because they impose more respect and people follow their orders more easily. I've worked on over a dozens of movies as an extra and noticed this very interesting thing: while most movie directors aren't very tall or imposing, they can handle a movie set without any problems through their first assistant director(1AD). Most directors I've seen were actually pretty short, some of them looked quite nerdy or were shy, but their 1AD was always a tall, strong guy with a powerful voice and remarkable presence - a pure alpha male. From movies or documentaries, most of you probably have the incorrect notion that the director is the acting boss on a movie set, yelling orders around, and handling every aspect of filming, while in reality this is pretty far from the truth. The director supervises the whole process but he usually gives orders to his assistants, who then handle everything. The 1AD is actually the acting boss on the set, yelling and giving orders to people, shouting things like: "Quiet on the set! Lights! Sound! Camera! Action! Cut!", while the director saves his energy for creative purposes and simply approves or disapproves the way things go.
Scenes with extras are more complicated to shoot, you can have hundreds of people on a set who need to be guided, and if the director is an unimpressive, wimpy, scrawny guy and starts to tell extras what do to, most people will be like:" Who the hell is this guy and what does he want?". However, if the orders come from a huge,imposing man, most would immediately obey, without even questioning who that man is and what his role is on the movie set. Sometimes, after a scene was shot, the main actors, the director and his crew would go to film in another place, while a "second unit" would appear to film additional footage, like establishing shots or close-ups of extras. Most of the time, the second unit was lead by some nerdy, pimple-faced, fresh out of film school guy, who had no authority and really struggled to get extras to follow his orders - without a strong leader, many extras would simply drift away from the set: some would go to smoke, some would go to the bathroom, others would go to a nearby store to buy snacks, etc., while the young guy will yell desperately: "Hey! Where are you guys going!!!? We haven't finished yet! Stay here!".
Scenes with extras are more complicated to shoot, you can have hundreds of people on a set who need to be guided, and if the director is an unimpressive, wimpy, scrawny guy and starts to tell extras what do to, most people will be like:" Who the hell is this guy and what does he want?". However, if the orders come from a huge,imposing man, most would immediately obey, without even questioning who that man is and what his role is on the movie set. Sometimes, after a scene was shot, the main actors, the director and his crew would go to film in another place, while a "second unit" would appear to film additional footage, like establishing shots or close-ups of extras. Most of the time, the second unit was lead by some nerdy, pimple-faced, fresh out of film school guy, who had no authority and really struggled to get extras to follow his orders - without a strong leader, many extras would simply drift away from the set: some would go to smoke, some would go to the bathroom, others would go to a nearby store to buy snacks, etc., while the young guy will yell desperately: "Hey! Where are you guys going!!!? We haven't finished yet! Stay here!".
