By Forris Day Jr.
Any parent knows how hard it is raising kids. Children go through stages of loving you and hating you. One day you are the best thing since sliced bread, the next day they can hardly stand to look at you. You, as a parent, must stand tall and control the drama of your child making unreasonable demands. The child believes the world is all about them and they have their own ideas on the way things are going to go down. You must acknowledge them when they do well and try to guide them to the desired result when they are misbehaving. Believe it or not being a parent is a bit like being a director on a film.
“I’ll Be In My Trailer” written by Director John Badham and Writer Craig Modderno is a book filled with tales, horror stories and solid advice. The main story is told by Badham as he relates events from his experience on his many films including “Saturday Night Fever” and “War Games”. He covers many topics from auditioning, rehearsing, filming to post production. Right out of the gate he tells of working on “Saturday Night Fever” and an instance where John Travolta refused to do the scene, so he went to his trailer. Pretty ballsy for a 22 year old but Travolta was an up and coming star at the time so he could call the shots. Badham had to figure out what to do quickly as the sun would be coming up and 60 crew members were standing around doing nothing. How did he solve the problem? The answer is in the book.
You will learn how to treat actors and crew, what you should do once the film is cast and what to do on the first day of shooting. Badham offers firsthand stories of problems he encountered and how he solved them, or didn’t solve them in several cases. The stories are fun to read and you can feel the pain Badham must have been feeling at the time. It’s always tough when confronted with a situation which seemingly has no possibility of a happy outcome. Using his many years of directing he offers solutions to many problems you may encounter on the set of your film. Big budget films have many of the same hurdles with people that small or no budget films have. People are people.
Mixed throughout the book are little snippets and words of advice from other directors and actors including James Woods, John Cusak, Roger Corman, Mel Gibson and many others. These little stories offer a broad view on filmmaking through the directors eyes and the actors eyes. It helps you see that there are indeed two sides to every story. You could pick up the book and flip to any page and enjoy these stories.
The book is used in film schools throughout the world so that alone is a testament to how valuable the information contained in it is. That aside, it is a great read for any film buff who wants to enjoy some fun stories and see what it is like on a film set. Any filmmaker who wants to direct should read this as it has information on solving problems that you just will not get in any other book. The overall lesson I took away from reading it is stay humble, treat people right, respect other people’s opinions and feelings and you will be on the right track to creating a great film. Even if your film isn’t great you at least will end a up with happy cast and crew. A wonderful book every filmmaker and director should check out.
Rating: 8.5/10 -“Make movies not war”
