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Alexander Payne: Machinery of filmmaking mars ‘intimacy of a shoot’

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Given all the moving parts involved in making a motion picture, it’s inevitable that things will go wrong and bad days will be had. When that happens, it’s up to the director to get things back on track.

At this year’s third annual Envelope Directors Roundtable, filmmakers Alexander Payne (‘The Descendants’), Stephen Daldry (‘Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close’), Martin Scorsese (‘Hugo’), George Clooney (‘The Ides of March’) and Michel Hazanavicius (‘The Artist’) shared some of their setbacks and off days with Times film reporter John Horn.

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Payne groused about the logistical nightmare of shooting on the water: ‘For a nice little scene of a couple people spreading ashes,’ he said, ‘it’s like we call out the damn National Guard.’

Daldry recounted a time when David Kross, a young actor in his previous film ‘The Reader,’ broke his arm shooting a stunt that didn’t even make the final cut of the movie. Fortunately, though Kross was initially expected to be out three months, ‘He was back the next day,’ Daldry said.

Some days, Scorsese said, ‘you don’t have the spark. Something is lost.’ And, he added, ‘you know it.’

To hear more about the directors’ mishaps, and how they dealt with them, watch the video below. And check back for more clips from the Directors Roundtable throughout the week.

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— Oliver Gettell

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