Commercial Directors are a Pain in the Ass

It’s true, they are.

I spent over two years working in production companies where my chief objective was to help the director reps get these butt-wads work. As an aspiring director myself, this is a lot like wanting to race cars and having to give the drivers enemas instead.

Back in the early to mid-nineties anyone who had a video camera and a possie of idiot skater friends that could do a kick-flip got signed to shoot commercials, music videos (when this was still a viable occupation), and films. Thus began the fortunate careers of Spike Jonze, Mike Mills and every other tool who had any connection whatsoever to the Coppolas.

Unfortunately for me, that time has passed. Aspiring directors with reels that are slicker’n shit must content themselves with the grunt work of the dying commercial industry as we know it.

Most commercial directors who make a living at it have been on the job for the past 10 years; some of them over 20. A general rule applies to these people: the longer they sit in the director’s chair, the more incompetent and entitled they become. They know as much about directing as the security guard at the mall knows about DNA analysis.

One of the directors at a company I worked for had issues, as so many of them do. He was prone to flashing his favorite two guys in production (as well as, on occasion, the entire office) his dick, balls and ass. No one knew from whence he cultivated these proclivities, though prolonged exposure to Greek life in college was the suspected environmental culprit. Anyway, one day he came in and, without further ado, dropped his drawers, deposited a phat load into theses guys’ waste paper basket, pulled up his pants (without wiping!), politely handed them his spoils and went about his day.

It wasn’t until jokes about defecation of character circulated throughout the building that he was deemed a risky liability and let go.

The moral of the story? Don’t put up with directors’ shit unless you want it in your goddamned lap.