Like every other ultra-indie type, I've been involved in productions comprising dynamic (scattered) people. Cast are crew, crew are cast--an orgy of ambidextrous hermaphrodites. I recently heard a story about a fairly well-put-together production in which the grip made dialogue suggestions in the middle of a take, and the director passed them on to the actor. Hierarchy is non-existent, but that's not the point. The structural integrity of the production is such that an imposition of hierarchy would cause total breakdown. The pellmellism is the only thing holding it together--the dogpile of creative energies is inarguably self-sustaining up to a point, and sometimes good things come from it. Rock bands of great repute have managed world domination on this sort of thing. But even great bands break up because of hierarchy problems. Bono and his mates understand hierarchy: Bono is in charge. He could marry Yoko ten times over, and the band would stay together. Bono understands leadership so well that he's taken over countries big and small armed with nothing but a pair of sunglasses.

One of the supporting actors in this production asked me if he could discuss another project with some of the crew. I asked that he wait until the production had wrapped. The fact that he asked my permission in e-mail instead of casually mentioning the other project during a break on set attests to the atmosphere of dedication. I take a certain pride in this because it wasn't my doing--it wasn't the result of any Machiavellian constrictions I put in place. Wildly different personalities conformed to this ant-like toiling because they sensed its superior efficiency, not because I was despotic. No one missed a day. No one ever showed up late. I consider each member of the cast and crew a friend, but production wasn't recreation. Each of us manifested dramatically different characteristics when working than when socializing. This tone was established early, and I think everyone quickly saw it benefits.

I've always admired how Polanski defends his own curt, humorless approach to directing: Does a surgeon say, "Would you please be so kind as to hand me a scalpel?" No, he says, "Scalpel." I think there was an air of surgery about this production, and no one wanted to be responsible for organ failure.

At this point, when I set out to make a movie, I want the person whose badge says, "Shooter," not "Writer/Director/Editor/Actor." Fortunately, on this project, roles were fairly strictly demarcated. Some ultra-indie types will bristle at this: I was the director and in the interest of specialization I refused to appear in the movie in a role of any size. Two guys, Sam and Brian, handled sound equipment. Brian slept if it wasn't his turn at the boom. I can imagine some union jokes here, but why not sleep if your job is done? Setting up sound gear and holding a boom is probably the most grueling and thankless job on a set. Three guys (Chris, Casey, Basu) were shooters who cleaned lenses and white-balanced cameras when we changed locations. Their concerns were strictly related to the cameras. When they were shooting, they were sovereign. Occasionally each was assigned to shoot an actor one-on-one, away from the rest of the production unit. I didn't want or need to see the material being shot, or the actor performing. I trusted the actor and shooter as independently functioning components of the production--and this isn't just sentimentality on my part: in a half-hour of footage not a word or gesture passes between them, which indicates to me that they felt sovereign, equipped for survival, like members of different species gathering around the same watering hole, only peripherally aware of one another.

The biggest advantage to specialization on a low-budget production is this: the director doesn't have to micro-manage. Each person is able to focus on his or her area of concentration, and the result of that focus is that each person knows more about what he or she is doing than the director does. In my case this has become a necessary way to work. Collaboration presupposes the existence of people who wear badges with one clearly-printed word on them. Imagine that: to wear a badge with one word on it, and to care about that word above all else, to chant it as you fall asleep, to stake your life on it. Put the word around your neck as you roll out of bed, stare at it in the mirror while you're brushing your teeth. Wear the word while washing dishes, while shuffling down grocery aisles, while changing your toddler's diaper, until the word infects you, until you have irrevocably become the word. Imagine this word is "Runner." Imagine the simple clarity and power of that word. Ah, but athletes have an advantage. They specialize by default. If they diversify, they fail. Michael Jordan's baseball career is a nice object lesson.

I was such a stickler about specialization going into this production that I didn't want to shoot anything myself--though I love shooting. By the end, I shot probably fifteen percent of the material. Now that I'm in the editing process, I find that I shy away from my own camerawork. None of the cameras match in terms of shakiness, composition, panning rate and frequency, or focus-checking. Welles acknowledged something like this when talking about the various camera styles represented in Othello. He shot so sporadically, so whimsically, that he was never able to secure a consistent camera crew. Even within a single sequence, one sees material shot over several years in different countries by different people. If something coherent and unified emerges from such an undertaking, it's a testimony to the strength and conviction of the governing vision.