Sit down all you like. Just don't chug a water bottle.
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00:00Making even the worst movie is nothing short of an absolute slug, because no matter how bad a good a script might be, the sheer feat of assembling a cast and crew to shoot a film is a tireless exercise in dogged perseverance.
00:13And due to the high-stress nature of filmmaking, it's not at all surprising that most successful directors have at least a couple of concrete rules for how their sets are operated.
00:22While these rules can be as simple and reasonable as the crew turning off their phones while shooting is taking place, sometimes directors insist upon slightly more peculiar, and yes, sometimes even weird, regulations.
00:35So with that in mind, I'm Josh from WhatCulture.com and these are 10 Bizarre Filmmaker Rules You Never Knew.
00:41Number 10, Steven Spielberg isn't present when the final scene is being shot.
00:45Though you'd certainly expect the director of Steven Spielberg's repute to be an entirely hands-on filmmaker, that's apparently not quite the case, albeit for an amusing reason.
00:55Now it's no secret that the shoot for his iconic blockbuster Jaws was a near disaster, filled with malfunctioning props, overlong shooting days, and an increasingly seasick and frustrated crew.
01:06Tensions were significant enough that Spielberg actually decided to not be present when the film's climactic scene, where the shark is finally blown up, was being shot.
01:16In fact, the director believed that the crew, who were bordering on mutinous by this point, were planning to throw him into the water when the scene was completed, and so he decided instead to take leave early.
01:27In the 45 years since, it's reportedly been a tradition for Spielberg to be absent when the final scene for any of his movies were being shot.
01:34Presumably being left instead in the capable hands of his first assistant director.
01:39Still, considering that Spielberg's reputation as a professional filmmaker quickly improved post-Jaws, he's probably safe from the wrath of his crew nowadays.
01:48Number 9, Martin Scorsese bans wristwatchers to heighten immersion.
01:52You don't get to be a director of Martin Scorsese's impeccable caliber without having a few hard and fast rules about how your set is run.
01:59Though by most accounts, Scorsese's sets are relatively harmonious places to be, he does nevertheless insist on one fascinating rule.
02:07Don't bring your wristwatch to set.
02:09Basically, Scorsese wants to cultivate his sets as a bubble of sorts, separated from the time and space of real life, whereby he can get the best out of his cast and crew.
02:19The idea is that people who aren't able to check their watches whenever they want are more likely to give themselves over to the vision Scorsese is trying to create.
02:28Still, you'll definitely want to wear a watch while sitting through The Irishman, wouldn't you?
02:32Number 8, Stanley Kubrick edited his movies with an army of cats.
02:37In addition to being one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, Stanley Kubrick was also unquestionably one of the most eccentric.
02:43An infamous perfectionist, he'd routinely put actors through dozens of takes, and occasionally more than 100, to basically beat the artifice out of them.
02:52He also insisted on shooting all of his movies in England to be free from Hollywood meddling, and reportedly never even watched his own movies once they were completed.
03:00But perhaps the strangest of the director's professional rituals involved allowing his many cats into the editing room to lay around while he cut his movies.
03:09A noted feline lover, Kubrick at one point owned as many as 16 cats, and in order to compensate for the time spent away from them while shooting, he'd routinely let them into the editing room, allowing him to enjoy quality time with his pets while also getting work done.
03:25And you know what?
03:26This should be standard across the board.
03:28Everyone should be allowed to bring their cats into the workplace.
03:31Number 7, Alfred Hitchcock's cameos were superstition.
03:35Though it's no secret at all that Alfred Hitchcock made sneaky cameo appearances in most of his movies, it was ultimately far more than a playful directorial signature for attentive viewers to look out for.
03:47Hitchcock himself stated that his cameos were initially strictly utilitarian, in order to ensure the screen was filled up during a given scene.
03:54But after audiences began to catch on, it became something of a compulsive superstition for the director.
04:00He said in a period interview, quote, later on it became a superstition and eventually a gag.
04:05By now it's a rather troublesome gag and I'm very careful to show up in the first five minutes or so as to let the people look at the rest of the movie with no further distraction, end quote.
04:15While he never outright declared his cameos to be good luck charms, the fact that he included them in 40 of his 52 produced movies, no matter how familiar audiences became with them,
04:25near enough confirms that he felt compelled to make a cameo no matter what.
04:29Number 6, Quentin Tarantino insisted the cast say hello to editor Sully Menke at the end of takes.
04:36While you might get the impression that a Quentin Tarantino set must be a high-stress environment at the best of times,
04:41the filmmaker nevertheless devised a sweet yet peculiar ritual for all of his productions until the release of 2012's Django Unchained.
04:49Tarantino would encourage his cast to say hello to his longtime editor Sully Menke at the end of a take,
04:54ensuring that some cute surprises were waiting for her when she was later shaping the movie in the editing suite.
05:00Sadly, this all came to the end with Menke's untimely passing in 2010,
05:04yet while cutting Django Unchained with his new editing collaborator Fred Raskin,
05:09Tarantino reportedly put up a sign reading WWSD or What Would Sally Do?
05:14Number 5, Charlie Chaplin always had a violin on set.
05:17It's noted that Charlie Chaplin played a bunch of instruments, but he loved the violin in particular,
05:23even featuring himself playing it in several of his films such as 1916's The Vagabond and 1952's Limelight,
05:30while also keeping one on set to establish the mood before shooting.
05:35Chaplin also famously played the violin for young Jackie Coogan on the set of his 1921 directorial debut,
05:41and apparently that wasn't a one-off.
05:44In the decades before film sets had massive stereo speaker systems which could pump sound throughout a set
05:49to get the cast in the zone, this was seen as a more personal touch.
05:54Number 4, Terrence Malick has a contractual stipulation that he can't be photographed.
05:59Terrence Malick is one of the most enigmatic filmmakers in the history of Hollywood.
06:04A famously reclusive director who not only avoids press interviews and award shows,
06:08but spent an entire 20 years away from the industry between 1978's Days of Heaven and 1998's The Thin Red Line.
06:16There are also curiously few images of Malick available online,
06:20a result of him literally having it written into his directing contracts
06:24that on-set photos of him cannot be published anywhere.
06:27Only in recent years with the advent of smartphones have set spies managed to snap pictures of Malick at work,
06:33and it wasn't until 2017 that a recording of the director's voice even made its way online.
06:38Save for a quick vocal cameo he made in his directorial debut, Badlands.
06:43It's this fiercely protective approach to his own privacy which has helped Malick cultivate such a fascinating aura of mystery
06:49over the last five decades.
06:51Number 3, Christopher Nolan bans phones, water bottles, and smoking.
06:56Quite the stink has been made about Christopher Nolan's on-set rules in recent times.
07:00After Anne Hathaway claimed that he didn't allow chairs on his sets,
07:03the reasoning being, quote,
07:05if you have chairs, people will sit, and if they're sitting, they're not working, end quote.
07:10This understandably caused quite the storm online before one of Nolan's spokespersons confirmed
07:15that his sets did indeed have chairs for the cast and crew, but that Nolan himself opted not to use one.
07:21The PR statement did, however, confirm two more things which are indeed banned from his sets, quote,
07:27For the record, the only things banned from Nolan's sets are cell phones, not always successfully,
07:32and smoking, very successfully, end quote.
07:35According to his Dunkirk stars Mark Rylance and Barry Keoghan as well,
07:38Nolan also bans the use of water bottles.
07:41Keoghan said, quote,
07:42They're distractions, the noise, they're like toys almost, playing around with toys, end quote.
07:48Number 2, Sergio Leone had the musical score recorded before shooting.
07:52One of the greatest filmmaker-composer relationships in history is unquestionably that of Sergio Leone
07:57and his recently departed collaborator Ennio Morricone.
08:01The two paired together for all of the director's movies from a fistful of dollars onward
08:05and developed a unique working relationship which operated entirely counter to the way most movies are shot and scored.
08:12See, typically film scores are created only after shooting has been completed,
08:16when the composer can see a rough cut of the film and tailor their music to the images that they're seeing.
08:21But this pair did things quite differently,
08:23with the director typically having Morricone complete the score before he'd even shot a foot of film
08:28and sometimes even before he'd actually written the script.
08:31This allowed the filmmaker to play Morricone's score during shooting and set an appropriate mood for the cast.
08:37And this certainly paid off dividends on the good, the bad and the ugly in particular,
08:41with the film's iconic Mexican standoff being perfectly timed and edited to the existing musical piece, The Trio.
08:47Number one, Steven Soderbergh doesn't allow open-toured shoes on set.
08:52Several years ago now, some of the world's most acclaimed A-list filmmakers answered an Empire magazine survey
08:58about their directorial habits.
09:01And upon being asked about their specific on-set rules,
09:04Steven Soderbergh piped up with a surprising, if-curt answer.
09:08Without elaborating, he simply quipped,
09:10While it's easy enough to appreciate the health and safety aspect of not allowing crew members handling heavy equipment to wear open-toured shoes,
09:19the bluntness of his answer suggests his order extends to every single person on set from catering through to the cast themselves.
09:27Again, though, he provided no further explanation beyond that, so who knows what he really meant, or why.
09:32So, that's our list.
09:33I want to know what you guys think down in the comments below.
09:35Do you know of any other strange filmmaker rules that they employ on set?
09:39And did you know any of these?
09:41Let me know, and while you're down there, if you could, please give us a like, share, subscribe,
09:45and head over to whatculture.com for more lists and news like this every single day.
09:49Even if you don't, though, I've been Josh.
09:50Thanks so much for watching, and I'll see you soon.