Think your boss is bad?

Back when I was in high school and college* I was a huge theater geek. I was an actor, I did set design/light design, I helped with props and costumes, I stage managed...but what I really did was direct. Directing a theater production is incredibly difficult because it is really hard to communicate your ideas correctly without seeming hyper-critical or obsessed with minutae.

During the three years of undergrad when I was doing theater** I either directed or assistant directed about 11 shows and a bunch of other smaller scene-stuff. During this time, I pretty much learned that I wasn't really a terribly good director. Mostly because I didn't have enough time to put in the work it needed but also because I lacked the serious training in how to do it.

But when I saw this "behind the scenes" footage of David O. Russell directing Lilly Tomlin in I Heart Huckabees, I felt a lot better about myself. I may have not been the best, but I never yelled at people like that. Maybe there's hope for my movie career yet!

Next stop...Hollywood!

* But not so much in grad school. For some reason business schools don't really provide a lot of support for extra-curriculars except those involving fund-raising.
** No directing freshman year, in fact I basically took off the whole year from theater.