My Feature Film Directing Hell: Act 3 and Climax

A series about how I ended up co-directing a disastrous feature film

PREVIOUS EPISODES

My Feature Film Directing Hell: Act 1

My Feature Film Directing Hell: Act 2

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Act 3 and Climax

THE SHOOT

In previous articles, we’ve seen how dysfunctional my working relationship with my co-director Cacia was before even the first shot was canned—and how unprepared and irresponsible the production team was. Believe it or not, at first, when we started shooting, things went smoothly.

As a matter of fact, the camera guys, the lighting guys, the AD guys, the sound guys—these were as good a film crew as you’ll ever get, and they worked damn hard.

For me, out of loyalty to me. That’s incredibly humbling. None of these guys cared for the film and all disliked Cacia, but they still worked as if their life depended on it for the entire shoot—like myself. A proper lesson in fact, and a token of friendship. That film didn’t deserve it, but if you lead by example and fight, people follow you. The fools!

Some people are just incredible. Remember the still photographer who’d had that car accident? He was not only doing his job with an arm in a cast but had also decided to help the camera team. He acted as a semi assistant camera and semi grip! With one arm! It’s amazing to see someone lay down dolly tracks and level them with a broken arm, but this guy did it for the entire shoot.

Of all the nasty things one can expect from an indie film, catering is often one of the worst. Yet, since the shoot was in France, the crew had somehow concluded that the food would be nice. Wrong. The caterer was a French, sweaty, bald, and tattooed ex-convict who only served raw salad and salami. All I remember from this guy is that he had this huge salami with him in his fridge and would just slice some and put it on plastic plates for us. He got fired midway through the shoot after serving raw bacon (and salami) at breakfast.

FOOTSIE-GATE

The only actual moment of note in week 1 was soon to be called ‘Footsie-Gate’.

It happened during an extremely long scene that we shot in a restaurant with an 80-year-old English actor who had worked with Antonioni. A fantastic actor, who on his first day after being greeted by the first AD, looked up wearily and said in a deep baritone, “I have just been hit by a tremendous tiredness.”

That scene involved never-ending dialogue, and what I remember vividly is that during these pages and pages of unnecessary dialogue, some footsie action had to happen under a table, followed by a slap on someone’s knee, and it made no sense geographically. We spent three hours on the footsie, trying to explain to Cacia why it wasn’t working. The 80-year-old actor even snapped at some point (his first scene of the movie) and said to Cacia, “You don’t even understand what you wrote in your own script,” which I thought was legendary of him after being there for less than 3 hours.

You can see how impossible it is for Cacia to slap the 80 year old’s knee by mistake while trying to hit her boyfriend’s…

TOMATO-GATE

Tomato-gate involved the two leads in the film (who were seeing each other IRL by that point), somehow desecrating the statue of Jeanne D’Arc in the middle of the town by throwing tomatoes at it. It was a random scene with no symbolism, no connection. Cacia just found it cool.

Imagine a small town in France. The only thing they have in that town is their statue, and we spent four hours throwing tomatoes at it in front of a puzzled and shocked crowd. Luckily for them, it turned out to be almost impossible for anyone to hit the statue from below; it was quite small and high. So, we kept buying more cases of tomatoes, and the entire crew tried it. Three hours again on a shot of a tomato hitting a statue, which in the film looks anticlimactic by the way as it happens once or twice, and we barely see it. We did litter the town square, though. How did they let us do this? People are just too nice in the countryside; do this in Paris, and people will murder you.

WEEK 2

Week 2 started with a massive clash between me and Cacia. It had been building up, and everyone was aware by then of the tension. The stuff she asked of me, the way she spoke to me in front of everyone, was getting unacceptable, so I started talking back. From that point on, we were fighting in front of the crew and actors. What a nightmare. But the first argument was the worst. I have no recollection of it. Just my friends told me it was horrible, and everyone felt sorry for me.

Amusingly, right after the mega clash, me and Cacia... Had to give an interview to Arte, a Franco-German arty TV channel. The interview is excruciating to watch; you can see us barely looking at each other, furious.

Oh yes, I love the film, yes, yes…

GENDARMERIE-GATE

Imagine 10 elderly French actors and their spouses turning up on an indie film for their first scenes. Now imagine the same thing but the location has no power, no water, and no toilet. Yes, you read right: production did not think of water or toilets! It was just beyond anything… My levels of embarrassment were through the roof; I felt like it shone a terrible light on me, as some of these actors were legends in my country.

French people will know…

But these actors took their revenge, oh yes they did. The scene was 15 pages of dialogue between the ten of them, and not a single one knew his lines. At the start, they barely understood or managed to speak English, and the text was entirely in English. Besides, it was a never-ending ramble of pseudo-intellectual references mixed with bizarre slapstick jokes. We ended up having to wave papers with the beginning of each line to the main actor... In the film, you see him looking off-screen before every line… Unbelievable. He had something like 100 films under his belt. What madness.

That moment marked my surrender, recognizing the inevitable disaster ahead. Until then, I harbored hopes for a miracle, but once the actors started...

Photo by Daniel Spase on Unsplash

WEEK 3

Week 3 was an entire week of night shoots. This sounds like nothing, but a full week of not seeing the sun, getting up at 5pm, and shooting all night really takes its toll. I think people lost all connection with reality during that week. That, the isolation, the alcohol at night… Everyone sleeping with everyone. It was all unhinged by then. Me, well, while I wasn’t sleeping with anyone, I was barely sleeping at all, but for other reasons. I was haunted by the race to find solutions, to make it work, to do my job somehow.

MOUSE-GATE

In one scene, a dead mouse was needed, and we knew production was worried about this. At some point, between shots, the DOP and I were stunned when we saw a poor prod assistant going to talk to everyone in the crew one by one while holding a bizarre large paper bag. We inquired and yes… It was a live rat. They hadn’t found a dead mouse as they left it for the last minute and so they had gotten hold of a rat from a farmer. The girl was looking for someone to kill it instead of her.

I remember the third AD snapping and saying something along the lines of “Alright , fucking give it to me , I’ll drown it” and my DOP replying, “Darling , if you drown this rat, I’m heading back to London in the morning.” We won, the rat lived, and we forced production to find a bloody dead mouse from a pet shop. I don’t know how Cacia and the exec managed to convince people to do all this crazy stuff. I think once things get crazy, people lose track… Which leads me to one of the most absurd episodes of all…

FOX-GATE

Another scene required seeing an animal’s insides; it was a tricky one, and we hoped to use the same mouse, but , long story short , we couldn’t. Production was running around trying to find a solution. Everyone became so obsessed with this problem that one night my first AD came back to the hotel room we shared , furious and depressed. I was like, “What’s up man, what happened?” and I think his reply was something like, “I’ve just picked up a dead fox that got smashed on the road, I’m so pissed.” He had found the carcass of a dead fox and, in his desperation and insanity as the only man that stood between production and disaster, he had actually picked it up with a rubbish bag… Brought it back… And hid it in a flower pot just outside the entrance to the hotel! I’m crying with laughter just remembering this.

He also had truly lost the plot by then; I told him to move the fox away from the flower pot, we couldn’t just keep it there, we would trigger an epidemic. Eventually, and thank God, we didn’t have to use that dead animal. Production design created something with an industrial chicken.

WEEK 4

Coming off that mad night week, we were all on a different planet. And the very next day, we had to shoot a complicated scene in an open-air market.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

MARKET-GATE

I never thought, based on the script heading: EXT. BUSY MARKET - DAY, that when I’d turn up that morning to the set, there would be nothing. Like… NOTHING AT ALL. It was unbelievable. We were rolling the camera one hour later for a busy marketplace scene, and our location had no extras, no stands, not even an apple. Of course, since our main producer was in London, phone calls were made, and, as often in disaster teams, the blame game started. Production assistants shifted blame with “But I told you...” until it landed on the least experienced, unfairly blamed for the absent marketplace design.

To be fair, the production team was past it at that point. To give you a sense, we had this alcoholic production manager. The PM is supposed to be everywhere on a film and facilitate these sorts of things. Once my first AD was looking for her everywhere, she wasn’t on set. He found her sitting on the terrace of a restaurant, drinking a pint… The PM! While we were shooting lol.

I wasn’t even angry at that point; I remember laughing, sitting on the dolly and smoking cigarettes with the DOP, telling everyone that we’d shoot whenever production was ready.

Miraculously, and I must say that was the most amazing feat of film production that I have ever seen, our French fixer whipped up an entire market in less than three hours. We were late, but in that time, she had brought over thirty locals, stands, fruits and veg, vehicles. It was unbelievable. Once again, people pulling miracles for a bunch of complete assholes.

STUNTMAN-GATE

In a scene requiring a hanging, we enlisted a professional fight coordinator for safety amid firearms and stunts. Despite precautions, a Belgian ‘stuntman’ playing the hanged man turned alarmingly pale and collapsed, having hyperventilated into unconsciousness. Onlookers, including the panicked coordinator, feared the worst. Though he recovered, the ordeal was terrifying.

I could share more anecdotes, but I think you get the idea…

THE WRAP

That we completed that film without anyone dying or getting more seriously hurt was an achievement in itself. But back then, my main angst after the shoot was whether or not I’d take my name off the film altogether.

The dilemma stemmed from my certainty of not being paid if I withdrew. With existing tales of unpaid crew, this fear was grounded. I wished for financial stability; money can compel foolish actions. Yet, it was also about principle. After enduring daily hardships and striving to salvage the project, the thought of them profiting at my expense felt wrong.

During my hesitation, post-production began, forcing close collaboration with Cacia, which inevitably soured. She rejected significant edits I suggested, opting instead to tweak minor details and replace takes to look better…

Consulting my film school teachers, they advised against removing my name, suggesting I could “bury” the film instead. Believing it doomed to fail, I stayed on, ending up only in the end credits. Despite the film’s failure—a detail now seemingly trivial—I never received the final cut due to a fallout with Cacia. I’m left with just a work-in-progress version, revisited occasionally, like probing an old wound.

I wonder why this experience has harmed me so much. It might not show because of my slight wry tone, but I’m an idealistic person, and until that film, I had always worked on projects I loved and led. It was my first real confrontation with reality, a form of coming of age, albeit a tragicomic one.

You also have to understand what a first feature means for a filmmaker. It’s a bit like your first lover; it’s something you dream of and romance. Of course, I don’t consider that film my first feature, but I’ve always wondered if it had ever hurt my chances at one. It’s been ten years, and I have done more shorts and commercials but never another feature. I’ve never had a shot at doing my own thing, and to me, it’s hurtful. I wouldn’t want this experience to have damaged my dreams, especially for such an insignificant sum of money.

Ahh, money… How I wish I had enough back then to say no. But I can’t remake history. I took the film, I fought and perhaps should have quit. Perhaps I fought the wrong thing, but there’s nothing I can do about it now.

Now, I’m more cautious. It may seem naive, but some individuals are far from nice. The film and art industries attract unchecked egos, a realization that has sharpened my wariness.

It’s odd. The basic premise of my Substack is that I don’t cheat; I just speak my mind, and I don’t want to care too much. Yet in doing so, I know I expose my inner thoughts and fragility to many people, to the open, where people like Cacia, like this exec, are trying to build their little empires of vanity.

All I’m hoping now is that I will eventually bounce back from this and find catharsis in the entire project by making another feature. Then that experience will make sense, as it would have prepared me, reinforced me. I’ve already moved on and gone back to more love projects, including my most successful short to date. Yet that elusive feature…

I know a lot of you have suggested writing something about the experience. Others have suggested potential lawsuits that could be aimed at me if I did. I think I need to think about it. Maybe I could romanticize this, turn it into something a bit different but still thematically linked? I’m not sure. I have plenty of ideas for features, but I’m not that well connected, so it always takes time for me to get projects together, plus I’m a Frenchman in exile; it’s complicated.

Either way, I hope you enjoyed the full series of posts on this. As always, please let me know in the comments, and know that somehow, sharing this with you has helped me move on in some way.