A good director is a great communicator with taste. A good director knows just enough about a lot to make sure the actions look real. A good director is a good writer. A good director has an open mind. A good director allows his/her actors to play (if they’re good actors). A good director is a good editor. A good director has an open mind. A good director is a good producer and has discipline. A good director doesn’t limit his/her imagination. A good director has an open mind.

Having been a fly on the wall of arguably the most successful director of all time, so much has come into perspective for me. Steven taught me more than he’ll ever realize. I like to call it Spielberg U. and SS was that professor who just did his thing while the students in his class tried to keep up. I think you learn what you need to learn in situations like that. You take away something that you can uniquely own and it’s different for everyone who might be a director, writer, or producer.

Actors love working with Steven. I think it’s because they trust the hell out of him in sort of a blind way. They’re all so happy just to be in a Spielberg film and they know it won’t suck, so they give him their best work. All the way down to the PA’s, everyone on a Spielberg movie set works their asses off. Back to trust…actors need to feel safe. I love to encourage my actors to experiment when appropriate. You never know what gems will sparkle with a little curiosity, love and trust. Huh, sort of sounds like sex. I digress…

No matter what, a director can’t shut out the possibility of there being a better way to play a scene than what was in his/her head. The script is the blueprint and assuming that great pains were taken in finalizing and locking the words on the page, those words need to be attempted, recorded, shot. But one of my favorite things in the world to do is to throw the words out entirely. I’ve learned that good actors are really good writers when they want to be. After all, they need to sell the words their being forced/paid to recite. So, hell, give the actors a chance or two to play around and make some shit up. Vince Vaughn is one of our most talented improvisers in Hollywood and remembering some of the hilarity that ensued behind the scenes between Vince and Jeff Goldblum on the set of The Lost World, it dawned on me that if left up to the actors, a totally different movie would be seen and heard. So embrace it, I always say.

Okay, back to Spielberg. Watching SS work, I learned that economy of dialog, action and coverage makes for an interesting, believable, and visual storytelling style. So I suppose that’s one way to describe my style–emphasis on visual. Though our styles are different, those qualities are universally desired and the right combination of them allows the audience to get sucked in and not realize it.

…Just a few thoughts about directing.