10 Bizarre Filmmaker Rules You Never Knew

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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 or

00:05good a script might be, the sheer feat of assembling a cast and crew to shoot a film

00:10is a tireless exercise in dogged perseverance. And due to the high-stress nature of filmmaking,

00:16it's not at all surprising that most successful directors have at least a couple of concrete

00:20rules for how their sets are operated. While these rules can be as simple and reasonable as the crew

00:25turning off their phones while shooting is taking place, sometimes directors insist upon slightly

00:30more peculiar, and yes, sometimes even weird, regulations. So with that in mind, I'm Josh

00:36from WhatCulture.com and these are 10 Bizarre Filmmaker Rules You Never Knew.

00:4110. 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

00:50hands-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,

01:00filled with malfunctioning props, over long shooting days, and an increasingly seasick

01:05and frustrated crew. Tensions were significant enough that Spielberg actually decided to not

01:10be 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,

01:20were planning to throw him into the water when the scene was completed,

01:24and so he decided instead to take leave early. In the 45 years since, it's reportedly been a

01:29tradition 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. Still

01:39considering that Spielberg's reputation as a professional filmmaker quickly improved post-Jaws,

01:44he's probably safe from the wrath of his crew nowadays.

01:48Martin Scorsese Bans Wristwatches To Heighten Immersion

01:52You don't get to be a director of Martin Scorsese's impeccable calibre without having a few

01:57hard and fast rules about how your set is run. Though by most accounts Scorsese's sets are

02:01relatively harmonious places to be, he does nevertheless insist on one fascinating rule.

02:07Don't bring your wristwatch to set. Basically, Scorsese wants to cultivate his sets as a

02:12bobble of sorts, separated from the time and space of real life, whereby he can get the best

02:18out of his cast and crew. The idea is that people who aren't able to check their watches whenever

02:23they 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?

02:33Stanley Kubrick Edited His Movies With An Army Of Cats

02:36In addition to being one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, Stanley Kubrick was

02:40unquestionably one of the most eccentric. An infamous perfectionist, he'd routinely put

02:45actors through dozens of takes, and occasionally more than 100, to basically beat the artifice

02:51out of them. He also insisted on shooting all of his movies in England to be free from Hollywood

02:55meddling, and reportedly never even watched his own movies once they were completed. But perhaps

03:01the strangest of the director's professional rituals involved allowing his many cats into

03:06the editing room to lay around while he cut his movies. A noted feline lover, Kubrick at one point

03:12owned as many as 16 cats, and in order to compensate for the time spent away from them

03:17while shooting, he'd routinely let them into the editing room, allowing him to enjoy quality time

03:22with his pets while also getting work done. And you know what? This should be standard across the

03:27board. Everyone should be allowed to bring their cats into the workplace.

03:317. Alfred Hitchcock's Cameos Were Superstition

03:35Though it's no secret at all that Alfred Hitchcock made sneaky cameo appearances in

03:40most of his movies, it was ultimately far more than a playful directorial signature

03:44for attentive viewers to look out for. Hitchcock himself stated that his cameos were initially

03:50strictly 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

03:58superstition for the director. He said in a period interview quote,

04:02Later on it became a superstition and eventually a gag. By now it's a rather troublesome gag,

04:07and I'm very careful to show up in the first five minutes or so as to let the people look

04:11at the rest of the movie with no further distraction. End quote. While he never

04:15outright declared his cameos to be good luck charms, the fact that he included them in 40

04:20of 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.

04:30Quentin Tarantino Insisted The Cast Say Hello To Editor Sally Menke At The End Of Takes

04:36While you might get the impression that a Quentin Tarantino set must be a high stress environment

04:40at the best of times, the filmmaker nevertheless devised a sweet yet peculiar ritual for all of

04:45his productions until the release of 2012's Django Unchained. Tarantino would encourage

04:50his cast to say hello to his long-time editor Sally Menke at the end of a take,

04:54ensuring that some cute surprises were waiting for her when she was later shaping the movie

04:59in the editing suite. Sadly, this all came to an end with Menke's untimely passing in 2010,

05:04yet while cutting Django Unchained with his new editing collaborator Fred Raskin,

05:08Tarantino reportedly put up a sign reading WWSD, or What Would Sally Do?

05:15Charlie 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

05:22particular, even featuring himself playing it in several of his films such as 1916's The Vagabond

05:28and 1952's Limelight, while 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

05:40directorial debut The Kid, and apparently that wasn't a one-off. In the decades before film

05:45sets had massive stereo speaker systems which could pump sound throughout a set to get the

05:50cast in the zone, this was seen as a more personal touch.

05:544. 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 awards shows,

06:09but spent an entire 20 years away from the industry between 1978's Days of Heaven and

06:141998's The Thin Red Line. There 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. Only in recent years with the advent

06:29of smartphones have set spies managed to snap pictures of Malick at work, and it wasn't until

06:342017 that a recording of the director's voice even made its way online, save for a quick vocal

06:39cameo he made in his directorial debut, Badlands. It's this fiercely protective approach to his own

06:45privacy which has helped Malick cultivate such a fascinating aura of mystery over the last 5

06:50decades. 3. Christopher Nolan Bans Phones, Water Bottles, 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, the 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 that

07:15his 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,

07:26quote, for the record, the only things banned from Nolan's sets are cellphones,

07:30not always successfully, and smoking, very successfully, end quote. According to his

07:35Dunkirk stars Mark Rylance and Barry Keoghan as well, Nolan also bans the use of water bottles.

07:41Keoghan said quote, they're distractions, they're noise, they're like toys almost,

07:46playing around with toys, end quote. 2. Sergio Leone Had The Musical

07:50Scar Recorded Before Shooting One of the greatest filmmaker-composer

07:54relationships in history is unquestionably that of Sergio Leone and his recently departed

07:58collaborator Ennio Morricone. The two paired together for all of the director's movies,

08:03from A Fistful of Dollars onward, and developed a unique working relationship which operated

08:08entirely counter to the way most movies are shot and scored. See, typically film scores are created

08:14only after shooting has been completed, when the composer can see a rough cut of the film,

08:18and tailor their music to the images they're seeing. But this pair did things quite differently,

08:23with the director typically having Morricone complete the score before he'd shot a foot of

08:28film, and sometimes even before he'd actually written the script. This allowed the filmmaker

08:32to 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

08:46musical piece, The Trio. 1. Steven Soderbergh Doesn't Allow

08:50Open-Toed Shoes On Set Several years ago now, some of the world's

08:54most acclaimed A-list filmmakers answered an Empire Magazine survey about their directorial

09:00habits. And upon being asked about their specific on-set rules, Steven Soderbergh piped up with a

09:06surprising, if curt answer. Without elaborating, he simply quipped, no open-toed shoes. While it's

09:12easy enough to appreciate the health and safety aspect of not allowing crew members handling

09:17equipment to wear open-toed shoes, the bluntness of his answer suggests his order extends to every

09:22single person on set from catering through to the cast themselves. Again though, he provided

09:28no further explanation beyond that, so who knows what he really meant, or why.

09:32So that's our list, I 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? Let me know and while you're down there if you could please

09:43give us a like, share, subscribe, and head over to whatculture.com for more lists and news like

09:47this every single day. Even if you don't though, I've been Josh, thanks so much for watching,

09:51and I'll see you soon.

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