Thread by @nycscout

Heard a great story on set recently from a producer. Seems that decades ago in college, he was in a film course listening to his professor drone on about the artistic complexities masterfully imbued in a particular shot by a famous director. Except, he wasn’t buying it.

As far as he was concerned, the shot was purely practical, and the director never intended 1% of what the professor was ascribing to him. Which is what he wrote in his final paper, for which said professor gave him a D.

Fast forward a number of years, and the producer is now out of college and working on one of his first movies being made by, coincidentally, the director in question.

Midway through production, he goes right up to the director's trailer, knocks on the door, apologizes profusely for disturbing him, but says has a question - namely, was his professor correct or full of shit.

And the director says "Of course he was full of shit! When we did that shot, we were racing against the clock, and did the camera set-up in the quickest way possible! There was no artistic intent whatsoever!”

So now, evidence in hand, the producer finds the time, goes back to his college, heads to the film department to confront his professor, and....

Learns the guy died a few years ago.

Moral of the story? I'm not exactly sure, but I’m going to go with life is short, and you probably shouldn't take it all that seriously -- especially opinions about movies :)