Werner Herzog on Shooting Too Much Footage
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ต.ค. 2024
- Excerpt from a 2017 talk with Werner Herzog.
Herzog talks about not shooting coverage and being selective when shooting a film. He also mentions being appealed by young filmmakers who shoot too much footage.
#wernerherzog
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He's right about valuing people's time too. 14 hour days are insane, especially to produce something mediocre. Your crew will love you and give better work even with a 10 hour day.
this.
In the UK the longest standard day is 11hrs, 10hrs shooting + 1hr lunch. We do not customarily do any overtime on top of this standard day. If it is required in exceptional circumstances, the line producer will normally go around the set and ask each department if they consent to working the OT, and if you are not able/do not want to for whatever reason, there is absolutely no obligation to stay and work. I did a tv drama last year where 85% or more of the schedule was composed of 9hr 'continuous' days. 9hrs shooting with a running 20min lunch break. So we did 8am-5pm. Unbelievable what it did for the work-life balance and morale of the crew, especially those with children etc. Confident directors who don't overshoot, and proper planning from all above and below the line makes it possible.
I really depends on the type of film that you are making . For instance Werner Herzog has very small crews of just a few people and he does not build sets. So shooting in a place that you only have to "Dress" and having a small crew allow quick shooting . If however you are shooting say, a period film with huge sets . Hundreds of Costumes and wigs and with special effects sequences or stunts, you ARE going to be there for 14 hours every single. There is no way of getting around that in these cases.
@@DanMcCaffrey99 Sounds much more doable. I've found the film world in the US is cult like. They expect you to set your life aside for the film. I've had friends lose their friends and family because they spent too much time working, as well as fall into terrible health. All for pretty lame projects too.
@@Valkonnen Have shifts of 7 or 8 hours for the crew and plan proper breaks for your actors when they are not needed. Make sure they were fully rehearsed without costume and sets the day before. If you can't afford two shifts of crew, should you be filming at that scale? Why destroy people's health?
Taking pride in not torturing people is so refreshing to hear from a director.
True! This is the best vision about directors that I've seen.
I don't think most of the other directors would see it as "torture" if everybody agrees and is getting paid.
i mean if you end up with 550h of rush for a feature length film, he's not wrong, you'll have to choose and you'll never be sure if you make the right choice, rather than planning out your shots in advance and sticking to it
Well that is what film editors are paid for. Although in general it’s a question of sifting through alternative takes to identify the one that works best in context, rather than sifting through coverage footage.
@@losttango I believe no good director trusts a hired film editor. A good director has the film already edited in their head. They only needs an editor to do the manual work.
@@rainerwernerfassbinder3659 true
@@rainerwernerfassbinder3659 Well Coppola had "The Godfather" edited down to around 90 minutes before Robert Evans made him put about as much footage again back in and most people would regard Coppola as a good director. My guess is that you have very little first-hand knowledge of film production. In general film is a collaborative process and many if not most films are 'written' in the editing room almost as much as at the scriptwriting stage. (Obviously in collaboration with the director but many editors are given a free hand and work alone much of the time). There are a few exceptions like the Coen brothers and apparently Herzog, but it's rare.
@@losttango It's not a question of one or the other, it's a question of one or both. Directors who shoot coverage still shoot just as many takes. It's why many scenes that should only take a quarter of a shoot day end up going on for the whole day. And it does all come down to either a lack of vision or insecurity. Either the director doesn't know what they want so they just shotgun it and hope they'll hit something, or they don't trust their own instincts and so will shoot the thing they actually want and then will shoot a bunch of worthless stuff "just in case."
Ridiculously long hours and films going over budget are huge problems in the industry, and both could be helped immensely if these kinds of directors learned how understand their own vision and then trusted themselves enough to commit to it. Of course, studios definitely share the blame here too. Reshoots due to executive influence are another reason why films keep going over budget. And in the TV world, with how fast turn around needs to be, there really isn't a lot of time for a director plan properly, so shooting coverage is really the only option for the majority of scenes.
The essence of his point has value. Shoot with intentionality. Make sure you know what you are trying to do and then do it. His point is that young filmmakers that don’t know what they’re doing are waiting for the film to reveal itself in all that film they’re shooting but it won’t.
However Herzog is an absolutist with his filmmaking philosophy and a lot of it is terrible advice unless you’re making movies just like he does. I watched his masterclass and it was similar. He said he never does rewrites, he just writes the script and it’s done. Well that works for him but not for everyone. Most writers will agree that writing is rewriting until you polish something to perfection. Coppola shot 1.5 million feet of film for apocalypse now, one of the greatest films ever made. Herzog couldn’t make that movie. Maybe he’d make something totally different and also interesting though. THere’s many styles of filmmaking and it’s important to listen to every great filmmaker’s opinion with a grain of salt because another genius auteur will say the opposite.
Herzog made Aguirre.
@@akimdemianenco what’s your point? Are you trying to compare it to apocalypse now?
Coppola has also spent an entire career since trying to edit out the magic of Apocalypse Now with varying degrees of success so I don’t feel like that example has the weight you would like it to have
@@AighthandleBut the original film wouldn't've been made without that coverage. That's more a problem with constantly going back to a finished project than with shooting a lot. Also Coppola isn't the only example, David Fincher also shoots tons of coverage for his films, as he likes to have more freedom in the edit.
@@Aighthandle Irrelevant to the quality of the original film. It's just an example of extreme excess in shooting, but sure, take your pick of hundreds of other masterpieces that have been morphed later in the edit. I love herzog, he's always interesting, but he's far from the be all end all of technique, especially visually. Film students really going to go, 'oh i don't need coverage because herzog doesn't.' Like no, you're not herzog, go shoot coverage. Better advice is young directors should edit their own movies, that's the quickest way for you to learn what you forgot to shoot.
I know exactly what he's talking about.
I started shooting film photography and a roll + development cost around 20$ so every photo had to count.
I carried most of that philosophy into digital photography : "think before shooting" and i have very little waste.
I've seen other people who shoot 100 photos to save 1 good photo .....
Agreed. At a recent event, with business people talking to an audience the photographer next to me was shooting bursts of 10fps for the entire 20 minute presentation. 🤦♀️
@@Realist-m9c Great.. now he has 11.999 photos to delete :D
When we had film rolls, for every 12 pictures, 6 where good. For every 24, 6 were good. From every 36... 6 good shots. Now, digitally, for every 360 pictures... 6 are good. Hehe.
I’m so pissed we never got Werner herzog as Ernst Stavro Blofeld in James Bond, and we never will. He was superb as The Zec in Jack reacher 2012, and that’s without mentioning his superb filmography.
Well, we'll always have Julien Donkey-Boy.
Bro dropping sage filmmaking wisdom and the audience just laughing like it’s a comedy club.
They're NPCs
Takeshi Kitano said something like that too ...
imo, 'covering' comes from school, not from experience ... fear of security, I mean ...
Do you have a link to Kitano talking about this? I recall Omar Epps, I believe, talking about how shocked he was at the speed that Kitano moved through a day's shooting schedule on Brother.
@@Dexter1128 Not sure, maybe I read it in an old magazine, when we discovered TK in France (first through 'Sonatine' I think, then I watched and recorded 'Violent Cop' on TV...) maybe I heard it in the documentary Jean-Pierre Limosin made about TK ... collection "Cinema de notre temps ( = ... of our times) "
you will have fear and insecurity, too, when you see a shot you want but you do not have the footage, or you find a fault in the shot you intended to use, and now you have to set the whole scene up again. Same for photos. What kind of person would risk having to redo a whole scene vs adding a camera or two? idk. someone a little cocky? someone willing to compromise their work? a super-genius who never makes mistakes or misses an opportunity? I am not a super star at anything. There will be mistakes and I will be glad if they do not cost me a terrible amount of time and effort to fix.
I don't think the people laughing actually understood him
I don't do film, but I fancy myself a "competent" (not gifted, not an auteur, not pro-grade) amateur still photographer.
One of my earliest instructors told me, "every time you aim your camera at something, have a plan for that image - think for a moment about what you INTEND to capture, don't juist capture something just because it happens to pass before your lens."
I used to do large format film photography and sometimes I’d go out and shoot for an entire afternoon and come back with 6 exposures total. That kind of process teaches you intentionality. I made every shot count.
I would take a similar approach when I do still photography now. Over the course of 20,000 photos in my early 20s I really only care about 50. Wish I had learned it sooner.
Can’t disagree more. All i hear is “I know what I do” “I edited this film in 9 days” “ I don’t shoot more than x hours” “it should be done in the way I do it”. Pure arrogance.
There is no correct way to make a movie or any kind of art, each one has its own process and way of doing things. And saying others don’t know what they are doing because they don’t do things as you do is a very arrogant and ignorant thing to say. There are lots of artist that make movies shooting a lot of footage and then making the magic in the editing process, such as the great terrence malik, and lots of people love his movies. So you saying that from the start every thing has to be planned and figured out? Then there is no room for new and beautiful things to happen, it’s more like instructions to build a car. I don’t say that his process is not valid, but there are many other ways of doing things, and those aren’t valid or invalid, are just different ways, but instead he is saying that his process is the valid one.
Art is not an standard process that you manufacture like a machine. It is a process of discovery and learning, so there is nothing wrong in not knowing exactly every little thing you want just from the start. No one knows everything, no one knows has to do each little thing. Maybe you come up with better ideas in the middle of the process, but your are throwing them away because it was not planned. In trying new things, exploring and taking risk with things you didn’t now how to do is where the magic happens. How are you gonna learn and improve if you always stick to the things you made from the beginning? His words sound more like a mathematician that of an artist. It doesn’t look natural to me, it looks more like a standarization of a product and being rigid and not open to discoveries and new things. And in my opinion, that is against art.
In art and many times in life, things should not be this exact way or that exact way, each one makes it in their own particular way that makes it unique.
Nothing wrong about his way of making movies, I just thing it is damaging to young artist to hear that things have to be in a specific way and judging people because they have a different way of doing things
Pre-production is key. If you know what you’re walking into and what story you’re trying to tell then you don’t need the excess. I’m certain Herzog does copious research and preparation for his projects.
Damn Right.
Few have considered what it is they have to say worth saying, and how. Pointing a camera at something, anything is much easier.
So dumb and egotistical for him to act like his way is the only way to do it, especially when many, many directors make films that look better and are better in general than his. I don't even believe he never shoots coverage, he just doesn't consider it coverage when he does it
why are they laughing for? Such stupidity.
Hey Werner, fancy meeting you here on the You Tubes
"No guys is very serious" lol
An audience of laughing sycophants
Nervous laughter from a crowd with terabytes of coverage
@@BarneyOram sycophants of whom?
They're laughing coz they think he's joking. And he doesn't understand why they would think that. They're the same people who will go back and still do coverage.
Very similar comments from Robert Rodriguez in the directors commentary for El Mariachi. You have to know every shot you want before you start, so you are wasting nothing. Especially if you have only $7,000
I work in obs docs and there's such high shooting ratios, 500:1 sometimes more. His philosophy may not apply to this kind of work. I wish it would - trust me 14 hour days are not fun! But how does Werner expect to capture life happening? Life isn't selected. Your own life gets put on hold, when adventuring in the lives of others and if you're not trawling the ocean with a big net, and for a long time then you're not going to snag those gems in the first place. Interesting to hear other's thoughts.
I think it’s just a matter of respecting an individual’s process.
People love to create this fallacy where perfectionist filmmakers are abusive and have no idea what they’re doing shooting so much but that’s precisely why you edit. His line about 99% of it being mediocre, yeah like no shit Sherlock, why do you think they did it again?
You’ll never hear Kubrick, or Fincher, or Cuarón, or Malick talk shit about the Clint Eastwoods of the world for shooting fast. But for some reason other directors get so upset about anyone else shooting 300-1 ratios. It’s so bizarre.
You’re not the AE, and you’re not sitting through the 6-7 hour first assembly. Just wait for the Final Cut and relax.
There’s a reason Fincher’s editor won back to back Oscars and have been nominated for 6 of his last 7 films. Filmmaking is editing. Even “one takes” are almost always edited with invisible cuts.
This is soo true, Grizzly Man had 100 hours of footage from the Grizzly Man archives and a AE did all the work setting up everything for him before hand.
@@FirstActuality not everything that’s cut is “mediocre”. There’s tons of directors that work fast on set but have 4-5 days of rehearsal for each shooting day. The fact that some directors shoot while “rehearsing” is not wasted time nor “mediocre” it’s just a different process.
I´ve read that Hitchcock´s editor in "Rear Window" put all of the leftover footage into a single film can and gave it to Hitch as a gift. He was that economical. But I think it depends on the style of the filmmaker. Guys like Kubrick or David Fincher are famous for shooting many, many, many takes to get exactly what they wanted.
Groupthink is wild. Why are they laughing? lol
Learn to edit! Seriously, after spending years editing short films and corporate videos and a bunch of smaller projects, when you start to Direct something yourself, you actually start to edit the film in your mind on set. Suddenly you realise what you need absolutely and what is either unnecessary or "would be nice to have if we have time". The other thing is, once you learn how to edit, THEN learn how to be a DOP. You'll start cutting down on shots because the editor in your mind will be saying "why do we need to cut to this when we can just motivate the camera to move over here?" So honestly, learn to make a movie backwards.
Take this with a grain of salt Herzog is a force, not of masterpiece films
A drama serial can be conceived, shot, released for two seasons on Netflix, canceled, brought back, and canceled again in a matter of hours. What director today knows what he's doing? Herzog comes from a bygone era when media was deliberate and coherent, and today's gyatt skibidi rizz concept of screenwriting probably makes zero sense and has zero meaning to him.
I have this coworker that somehow always stays cool when stress levels are high for the rest of us for whatever reason. It’s not like he doesn’t care or that he’s lazy. He just seems to magically avoid it.
I never understood how he did this until one day, during performance review season where we work.
Every time performance reviews happen I would get stressed out and complain to him about how hard it is to get a promotion or a raise that outpaces inflation.
He nodded, paused for a moment, and said this: “If you want a raise you have two choices: You can work harder for longer and hope your boss notices and is also feeling generous, or you can work smarter for shorter hours and get a guaranteed higher effective wage.”
Work smart, not hard. Work won’t love you back, folks.
be selective, do what you really need for the screen, that's great
People laughing is so uncomfortable when he’s essentially saying how fucked up modern filmmaking has become…
It's likely a language barrier thing, he doesn't realize the comedic timing and phrasing of how he's saying it. I think part of when he says "I know what I am doing" he means, "I know what scenes I came to shoot today", and he doesn't need to fiddle around trying a bunch of different shots, he just gets the ones he's there to do.
He lets aside the fact that great movies sometimes comes out of the mixing od random footage. He speaks like each seconds is planned, like an accounting job.
lol this is the opposite of David Fincher, it all comes down to the film style of the director, for Herzog movies this works well, which is a very specific kind of film, this approach would not work at all with a David Fincher movie for instance, a lot of times you find a film in the edit and the more you have to work with the better the movie can be.
" a lot of times you find a film in the edit"
I agree...although, it makes for a loooong edit. ;)
Fincher shoots 100s of takes. Not coverage.
@@srinivaschilukuri-o4m he shoots 100s of takes with multiple cameras which provide multiple parallel coverage, that way they can cut in some closeups to emphasize stuff in a scene (and other techniques), you can see this in behind the scenes of the social network and in the killer, he deliberately gives himself and the editor a ton of material to work with, because he comes from a VFX background, so he adds a lot of polish in post production. So yes he does get both a lot of coverage and a lot takes.
Awesome channel. Thank you for ur efforts in uploading
This dude made Fitzcarraldo which in that movie 3 people died
To anyone who watches this, don't think that this has to be the way things are done. This works for him. Other directors shoot tons of footage which works for them, and they also know what they're doing (Kubrick, Fincher, Triet). Take all the advice you see and apply it to yourself and then forge your own path.
@renoir4964 It doesn't really matter who he was taking a pop at, my point still stands.
"You know you’re working with a master when they place the camera once, know what lens they want and regularly wrap early." - That's not true, tell it to David Lynch, Justine Triet, or the 1000's of others who don't work like that. There is no one way that is the "best" when it comes to filmmaking and it's a simplification to think so.
It’s a great goal for all filmmakers to aim for. It’s efficiency which values the time of others and the budget. The more you have to roll, the less likely you know what you’re looking or how to find it.
@@benhowling5258 I agree in part with your first two sentences. but the rest is subjective, and I'm not going to restate my points because you're commenting on them.
THANK YOU. There is a lot of value to what Herzog says here, but efficient shooting is only one part of good filmmaking. Fincher will tell you that multiple takes improves the resulting product, and no one take is ever perfect. Kubrick will tell you that perspective is everything, and limiting yourself to one take will place unnecessary limitations on you in editing. Lynch will tell you that the director's vision is one step on a dynamic journey to a finished product, and opening up opportunities for actors to get creative with their performances through multiple takes (often multiple takes with substantial changes to the scene) will enrich the end product.
And yes, Spielberg would tell you that even if you could get a shot 5% better on the second take, it's not worthwhile. Good enough is good enough.
They all make valid points. But there is no one right way to make a great film.
@@TheSimianDeity yeah but don’t confuse marketing and branding with film school. It’s not in Fincher’s interests to admit that in the edit he discovered that he got the shot/performance he was after on the 2nd take and the other 40 after that were a pointless waste of time, because then cast and crew wouldn’t endure the process in the future. Even then, the level of improvement from one take to another is completely subjective. Time and money are objective.
Why is the audience laughing? I’m thinking they are the filmmakers with 1000 hours of footage and don’t know how to edit it.
I think you are right. He is giving out invaluable wisdom and people seem to be laughing like "Oh WH, you're so silly!"
Shooting a scene 20 different ways and "finding it in the edit" tells me someone never had a VISION for their movie. All he's basically stating is that he already knows what he WANTS to SEE, and that's all he shoots. Not only is it more economical, it doesn't waste everyone's time and goes by faster.
Ummm who do you think is a better director Kubrick or Herzog?
@@therealpeopleofvancouver completely subjective question - and sorry to deflate your expected response but I feel Kubrick was the most over-INDULGED director in history. Fun fact - Spielberg says that if he doesn't get what he's looking for by take 6 he's not gonna get it.
Clint Eastwood will often shoot the REHEARSAL and IF he LIKES it will move ON.
Take your pick... Which method is "the best"...?
If you say Kubrick, you're trashing Spielberg and Eastwood...
@@thundering1 art is subjective 100 percent. Would never shit on anyone as I've made feature films and respect the hard work it takes to finish a project. But ol Werner loves to shit on other styles and is toxic for young people coming up to hear.
@@therealpeopleofvancouver see, that's not what you asked. Can't bring in the "he's toxic" complaint when the question was for ME to pick "who is better". When my answer amounts to NO ONE CAN DECIDE THAT because you have examples all over the place of different personal methods that obvious DO work - so you CANNOT pick ONE because it denotes "better THAN".
Even Ridley Scott has said multiple times that if you need to do 90 takes you don't know what you're doing - and no one's calling HIM toxic.
Next time, if your entire point is you don't like him and think he's toxic, then just say THAT. Everyone reading THAT comment would simply nod in understanding, and be thinking, "Yeah, I can see that."
Though not a film maker, I have always follwed it somewhat closely. I can relate as a photographer though. I learned photography in the mid-80's and did it professionally at vasrious times. I loaded my own film carts from 100 foot film stock cans to save money. In those days we had to learn to be frugal AND thoughful about each frame. Now in the digital age I shoot WAY more frames and the result is a little bit of benefit but a lot of post work. I'm not saying is better than the other, I'm saying economy and thought are valuable, and sometimes boost creativity.
In the 25 years I worked as a grip on features and tv series, there were only a couple of directors who had that kind of self-knowledge (not confidence, but comprehension): one was John Frankenheimer. Say what you will about his later films, mostly crap scripts, he would not use a video monitor, he knew what a 28mm vs a 35mm lens, anamorphic or not, would cover and he was very specific about the shot. Sitting in a blacked out tent watching a screen--and I don't care how large that screen is--has become the norm, but it is no substitute for sitting under or beside the camera and FEELING the performance, and knowing what the camera is getting. Trust the camera operator and DP, that's why you hired them. Trust the video tech person doing the exposure. Your job as a director when the shooting starts is to inspire, to lead, to confirm. Not to watch tv.
It's true. Young filmmakers don't know what they are doing. Neither did Werner Herzog when he was young, but he learned through his craft and here we are.
About not doing one single hour overtime during all his career, I call bs.
I do like how he mentions film versus digital photography. I've been a hobbyist photographer. I felt I could take a few good pictures but most of them seemed rather flat mediocre and I really couldn't understand why. A couple years ago I picked up film photography as a fun experiment and that limitation of set exposures and really having to understand the strengths of your chosen film roll forced me to slow down and really focus on what I wanted to show in a scene. I do not think you need to specifically go to film to understand this, but just setting a forced limitation on yourself in some way really makes you think instead of just snapping away.
If we all thought this way about life, we would all have great stories like Werner. Very well said
Werner Herzog has a photographic memory, which helps. Also If you are an editor, and know editing very well, then it is the most helpful aspect to know when actually directing.
are you making stuff up? Ecstatic truth?
@@vornamenachname594 Are you a bot? What do you mean 'ecstatic truth'? And no, what I've said is true.
Lmao yeah if you believe everything people say tons of people have a photographic memory. Yawn. Grow up.
@@Chillllllbruh So are you watching this video of Werner Herzog because you believe he is a liar and you want to let other people know that? Because there's actually plenty of evidence that's google-able for what I've said, unless you prefer to believe nothing but your own thoughts?
Yes he is making stuff up, this is what immature people do to their idols because they see themselves in them.
There is no public evidence or credible sources confirming that Werner Herzog has a photographic memory.
I actually used a couple of tools to scout the internet for this answer and no sources have been found. We really need to het rid of unregulated and unlicensed comment sections and social media, bad idea to give every lunatic a broadcast channel in the first place.
In the world of synthesizer and electronic music there is a similar problem. People us Digital Audio Workstations and simply never finish anything, tweaking away all of the magic if they even *do* finally release a track/album/tape whatever the case. The response to this by some in the scene is to use modules and devices without patch memory and to work "DAWless" (Digital Audio Workstation-LESS) as a way of preserving the exploratory and experimental nature of finding sounds and songs without the backup recorded versions and endless content pumping out. The work and quality of the work is preserved by not having a parachute of endless versions on Virtually Endless Storage. As Werner said so much more economically. I just wanted to share a real life situation that I think is closely related.
I studied fashion and I see similarities there also. People who don't know how to make choices often get recognized for doing a ton of work, be it embroidery or pleating or whatever, but the thing ends up looking like a mess(to me).
Dawless = Analog 😂
If modern filmmakers shot on celluloid, they’d go broke.
It also explains why modern movies are so bloated and bland. No action movie should be over 100 minutes but most nowadays are over 2 hours, and a lot of times over 150 minutes, all because of shooting on video and so they can get more watch minutes on streaming services. At least horror moviemakers still mostly keep their movies at 90 minutes long.
So Grizzly Man is a great film, but is mainly done with footage from the guy in the film. Producer Erik Nelson had begun work on developing a narrative television special based on Treadwell's life and career. However, during a chance encounter with German director Werner Herzog at the Jackson Hole Wildlife Festival, Nelson was persuaded to turn the project into a feature-length documentary and to give Herzog directing duties. With the project being developed as a documentary, they contacted Jewel Palovak in order to use Treadwell's archival footage. After her friend's death, Palovak was left with control of Grizzly People and Treadwell's 100 hours of archival footage. As his close friend, former girlfriend, and confidante, she had a large emotional stake in the production. He had multiple assistant editors to help edit all the footage and to say blah blah blah about digital footage, someone still has go through all 100 hours of footage first. Obviously not him and for him to take all the credit is hilarious. Never debating that his films aren't good, but they are good because of a team of people not just him.
Its not a lesson that needs to be learned by film.
Its a lesson that needs to be learned for practically every endeavor, technical or creative. No amount of crap will ever build up to something good. Be careful, be deliberate and be cognizant of what you want to produce.
Werner, I only shoot 60 mins worth of footage for a 90 minute film. Step your game up. Dude just out here wasting time and hd space! Talking about 6-8 hours for a two hour film!
Part of the problem is so called 'directors' nowadays don't do enough or any pre-production. They see the directors on set saying "yes," and "no," and think, "Oh that's the job!" They don't see the director creating their shot lists, going over the script to see what visuals can be enhanced with other visuals to create layers of subtext etc...
How can even find what you need in 550 hours of film? Even if you watch it for 10 hours a day straight, its 2 months, just watching without pause.
He doesn't mention that it starts with really understanding what the story is from a storytellers perspective, and what must be included and why. If you know that, then he is right. If not, coverage is your friend. Woddy Allen doesn't shoot coverage either and only a take or two max.
I see the same with still photography. The other day, there was a professional photographer on the campus I work on. He was taking a photograph of a member of staff standing still on some stairs. He was shooting at 10fps or whatever machinegun-rate his camera did, and probably took 20 frames of each of three slightly different poses. Sure, take a few of each version in case your subject blinks or flinches, but shooting 50+ versions of it just creates more work later on when you have to sort through the mess.
For those aspiring filmmakers, please know, Werner Herzog is neither a master stylist nor masterful storyteller. Some of his films have strong craftsmanship, particularly earlier fiction like, KASPER HAUSER and AGUIRRE: THE WRATH OF GOD but his docs are particularly slapdash and often downright sloppy with unconvincing yet humorous, sometimes lazy narrativizing, same for the narration. His advice can be taken as absurdist comedy from someone who proclaims with the authority of - paradoxically - a non-practitioner. Herzog’s work would have benefitted from his spending more time editorially on the majority of those 70 films. He’s always been funny, driven, and committed, however, his obsession hasn’t been the actual craft of and the engagement with the language of cinema that his speech would suggest. Still love him, though.
I don’t think it’s always a matter of “they don’t know what they’re doing.” Not to say that’s not a factor. But if shooting coverage, WITHIN REASON (and not as a crutch), is part of your plan, accounted for, and/or part of your style of flow, then, more power to you. The keywords being WITHIN REASON. Other than that, I’m with Herzog on his points.
So very well said.
As a photographer I’ve learned over the years that the system that suited me the most was to shoot only what I needed.
For anyone who is a perfectionist is much more efficient and meaningful to focus on 10, 20 or 30 pictures that are really good than trying to sort through 500 pictures for anything remotely good. So, I definitely agree with Mr.Herzog.
I agree that shooting with intention and having a vision is key. I also feel that making a "genuine" documentary requires you to capture moments as they unfold. I'm not talking about the lazy spray and pray technique where you shoot everything and then pray later on that a story unfolds in the edit. You never know what someone will say or do. Media cards are cheap. Werner has his style and that works for him. There are a lot of other amazing documentary filmmakers who approach shooting ratios differently.
That's why you make storyboards: the cheapest and quickest way to figure out pretty much exactly what you want and need. I bet young filmmakers disregard the value of storyboards because they've never had to consider the cost of film. Back in the day you HAD to learn to know what you want.
Digital also costs you money - not as much - but when they roll like headless chicken it does. Each hour can be 1-2Tb, say 200 dollars at least, that's 3.3 dollars per minute. And people are very relaxed these days with rolling endlessly.
This stuck: "You can not find any gems in an ocean of mediocracy." I think there are two viewpoints. Shoot as much as you can because setting up the scene or location did cost so much money. Or shoot as fast as possible with a goal in mind and save the money and time everybody is wasting. I do understand to be careful and for safety shoot angles and whatnot but the time and energy wasted these days is insane. I have been on set where we were shooting a whole day of 10 or more hours. All kinds of angles, special camera movements through the background actors. Camera through the flames and a shattering window. All cool and what ended up in the actual show was 30 seconds, one small shot. Another scene: Church on Christmas with choir. 300 background actors, giant lighting setup. 10 trucks of stuff. Filling the church with people and filming this scene of maybe 10 lines in 5 angles. What ended up was a small view of the main actors. Everything else was wasted money. The budgets are way too high.
I disagree with both his process and his rational. One doesn’t have to overshoot and waste time, but one also doesn’t have to have this absolutist perspective that itself disrespects the process and the effort that everyone gives to a project. His way works for him, but that doesn’t mean it’s the right way. Digital media is free compared to film. As both a photographer and filmmaker I see too many young “artists” being way too precious about their takes . The great advantage of digital is being able to shoot everything and discover your style and technique. Culling 2000 photos or 20 hours of footage on modern computers is trivial.
Everybody works differently. I agree with Herzog, but some other great directors like Kubrick did it differently and after watching Kubrick’s films, I don’t think there’s a person in the world that can say that he didn’t know what he was doing, regardless of whether you liked his movies or not.
Sounds all great and wise but the way he made Fitzcarraldo still baffles me. That was NOT movie making that was just a mad man battleing and petting his ego at the same time. Any filmmaker putting the film over his ego would have done it quicker, less dangerious and going for faking it instead of the ego driven journey to pull a real ship over a mountain. The whole production overall was driven by madness and him being the captain. Dont get me wrong, i still appreciate his work.
I imagine an important part of this is not being f**ked over by the producers. This is probably easier if you are Werner Herzog.
Did he do more than one Netflix project?
This is how I run large projects and my engineering team that I supervise. We finish on budget with no craziness and no overtime. People are more focused, satisfied, and do much better work when you focus on creating an environment where things go well.
This is what’s so nuts to me. I have worked in all sorts of jobs where it’s just running and gunning and it does not work. I remember working in a functional Trader Joe’s in the US and they lived by the simple “do it right the first time and you won’t need to have time to do it again later.” Worked on a really dysfunctional team in a life insurance company - in contrast - that required someone to manually commit a change to over 2,000 to 5,000 SSN records monthly because they were just letting a client get away with mediocre calculations on premium. Ignoring that silliness I was able to work with engineering and develop a batch job in the mainframe to have it run overnight automatically with a macro that took 5 minutes to prep the records for batch entry. Yes it would be nice to get after the REAL problem, but I got the team back 40 hours a month that gave them a chance to actually work towards some other more pressing problems.
Almost chillingly efficient person with ingenuity. He should have been a politician or something.😮
The entire time I was out in LA, I was saying exactly this. I would tell people they didn't know what they wanted if they were wasting time with coverage. You know you're never going to use that wide shot, why waste the time? Know what you want before walking on set. Granted, I learned how to shoot on film, and we were only allotted X amount of rolls for our films in school, so I learned very early on that every extra shot might mean you don't get a vital part of your film, so that was a wonderful lesson. But all the people after me shooting digital just waste everybody's time. It's such a breath of fresh air to hear someone of his stature talk about it.
I wish I had recorded the Q&A with Herzog at the Aero Theater in 2014 after Bad Lieutenant where he talked about not allowing his DP, or anyone, to look through the camera viewfinder or a monitor. He said if you have a 50mm lens, you should know where the camera is positioned, what exactly will be in the frame. It blew my mind hearing that.
Herzog is a legend, he's always fascinating. All these dumb arses laughing at him are probably the people he's talking about.
This is the same for programming! When we had limitations in memory we had optimized programs. Now with almost limitless memory we have crap for programs including the operating system!!!
I think the awkward laughter was mostly not out of disrespect, but more >> holy fk, awesome, I'm embarrassed for my sins
He might sound somewhat arrogant, but I think he absolutely has a point. The purpose of a director is to have a vision. He has a clear vision and shoots that vision. Obviously he has been successful. I think saying "they don't know what they are doing" might be a little oversimplistic. I think the interviewer said the right word, "insecurity." Its not even necessarily a bad thing to shoot a bunch of stuff "just in case" but it just is a real thing. If he is so good, he doesn't need to do that, then its just a credit to how good he is. Not necessesarily an insult to anyone else.
This man is a complete genius.
The number of people laughing is really damning, especially when he talks about trying to find gems in "a sea of mediocrity"
Sometimes though this overshooting coverage comes from Studio Execs. On The Terminator, James Cameron was criticised by the brass at Hemdale because he shot no master shots for the Tech Noir scene
great advice for students; be brilliant immediately
So what's coverage 🤔
Explain to me guys
Sounds like agile software development....
The videos of this channel are very well-picked. Nice job❤
I disagree. So many great films are great because they were tinkered with and scenes were swapped out or removed. Im sorry but idk who this guy even is. I just know he was in star wars . I think he was in SW.
okay but wtf is "coverage"?
"You cannot find any gems in an ocean of mediocrity". Oof. So many languages, and the man decided to speak facts.
On the flip side, we don't all enjoy the *luxury* of full creative control, Werner. Sometimes there are clients and agencies and studios and labels involved. And trust me, a good percentage of the time they are going to want to change _everything_ in post production. There will be big pivots. So in those situations it's extremely helpful to have a diversity of coverage and b-roll because it gives you more options to work with when the client wants to completely transform the project. OR have unique material to use in trailers / social assets. Or to spin the project off into multiple deliverables, extend things out.
Must be nice though lol 😂
That's the difference between art and entertainment though right?
Yeah thas why he's talking about Cinema
"I dont shoot coverage, i know what iam doing" werner herzog uber mensch.
I think Krazy Klaus would disagree.
“Into the Abyss” is a must-watch documentary!
Editing 500 to 600 hours of footage sounds like an editing nightmare.
I want to take this advice, but his work is so mid
Why are people laughing when he's not joking? So weird
He's right - they don't know what they're doing
Sound guy kept leaning on the laugh button at random intervals.
Listen to those facetious superclowns, did they pay to see this dude? They should sue their parents and teachers.
One of the greats 👌🏻😎
No coverage and also the eaiest director to work with by all accounts.
Werner is the most honest and funny of all directors
thats the guy who interviewed huey freeman about obama
he doesnt have one film thats atleast average, yet he thinks hes a master. a guy who is self thaught, and bad at that, wants to teach others how to do things right. wow.
I wonder what his opinion would be of Apocalypse Now...if memory serves, Walter Murch said the unedited negative weighed 3 tons.
Kubrick one the greatest directors to ever live, shot sooo many takes and coverage to get it right. What would he say about him I wonder?
@@therealpeopleofvancouver Well early Kubrick did do Paths of Glory and Spartacus... I would guess he was a lot more disciplined back then.
@@therealpeopleofvancouverhe would probably say that students shouldn't try to emulate Kubrick in that way, since he was one of a kind. I think Herzog's advice is more useful to forming a good attitude and good habits. Obviously when one is an experienced director one can break the rules, but relying on coverage is like having training wheels he seems to be saying.
in fairness getting coverage is kind of secondary when you get eaten by bears
The audience keeps laughing but he is not joking lol
Modern film makers for the most part are pretty forgettable.
Good video content, clickbait thumbnail. There's no discussion of firearms, so why put it in the thumbnail?
@@asailijhijr lol it's just a picture of Herzog with a camera, shooting on location, and the person pointing at his face with a gun is probably an actor. So it is thematic.
Sounds like his #1 fan has been with him since day 1
Every sentence spoken by Werner Herzog is a gem