In Defense of the Impossible

i - Midday

A producer tells me, just as we begin the next setup, that the best advice he’s ever received is simple:

 “The day starts behind.”

 By the sheer act of waking up, you’re already late.

 So how do you fix it?

 "Skip the first shot. Just cut it. Do that, and you’ll finish early every time.”

 ii- Before Lunch

It’s creeping in now. A little more tension in the air, a little more sharpness in voices. Too few shots have been crossed off, and everyone knows it. There’s no outright panic yet, but the signs are there—small, creeping things. The grips share quiet, knowing looks. A few curt exchanges happen between departments.

 It’s nobody’s fault. Not really. The day starts behind.

People have been working. Moving fast, hitting marks. The lighting has been set, adjusted, re-adjusted, then adjusted back. The product has been inspected, chosen, cleaned, then replaced with a different option. The background has been shifted left, then right, then back where it started.

 Upstairs, the clients have thoughts—mostly about things they approved in pre-production but have now decided to revisit. So choices are unmade and remade, and no one can do anything about it. 

That’s the job.

But now lunch is coming, and we’re in trouble. Some hard decisions will have to be made.

iii - Days Later

 The first shot of the day always feels impossible.

 It’s where vision and reality collide, and the collision is never clean. It’s ugly. A fistfight between what was imagined and what the camera can actually see.

 The first shot is where the director’s mind meets the real world, where a picture in the head has to become something tangible. It’s a wrestling match with light and space and the basic laws of physics.

 And it’s in this messy, frustrating moment—when the first shot is too ambitious and everyone is getting impatient—that you have to hold the line.

Because the first shot is the hardest, and not just because of time. It has the most working against it. The budget, the schedule, the clients, the realities of the set. All pulling at it, trying to sand it down into something passable.

But for the people who care—the ones who still believe in doing it right—the impossible shot is the only one worth fighting for.

iv - First Shot, Continued

 The producers pull the director aside. We’re behind now, and we still haven’t rolled.

The lighting isn’t right. The ice in the glass looks too round. Someone off-set doesn’t like how the background is sitting. There’s no more time for discussion. We have to move.

 It’s hard to defend something that seems impractical.

 But you should.

 Because once that first shot is finished, it sets the tone for the rest of the day. And there won’t be a second chance. Not now. Not with the clock looking like that.

v - Days Later, In Edit

 I remember getting yelled at once, when I was first starting out as a DP.

 We were shooting an athlete—a soccer player in full uniform. I checked the frame, and something was off. Looked down at his feet. Sneakers.

Not cleats.

 He’d left them in his car, five minutes away. Five minutes we didn’t have.

I let him go get them anyway. Because what kind of soccer player wears Jordans on the field?

 I took the hit for it. Got an earful about time and priorities. But I held my ground. Because someone would have noticed. Someone always notices.

Painters get praised for every brushstroke.

Filmmakers don’t get that luxury, but the rules are the same. Each frame—twenty-four a second—built on light and composition, each one a brushstroke in the larger picture.

~

Looking back, it’s easy to see why the first shot matters so much.

In the edit, everything falls into place. The choices made in those opening moments—the ones that seemed impossible at the time—set the course for everything that followed. The way shadows fell, the way highlights played across the frame, the way one shot cut to another.

The first decision shaped the second, the second shaped the third, and on it went. One long chain of cause and effect.

When you fight for perfection at the start, you set the expectation for everything that follows.

vi - First Shot

The crew begins the setup. The day starts behind.

And someone, somewhere, is thinking about the shape of ice, and it makes them choose a different soda.