The Director Dream
Last night I dreamed that I was directing a movie. The dream started en medias res (do all dreams start that way? probably, but in this one, I felt like I'd been dropped into the scene); I was standing on a patch of ground outside a house, and there was a film crew behind me. On the large covered porch of the house were several actors.
I'm not sure how I knew it, but I knew that the crew didn't have much faith in me. They didn't seem to think I was qualified to be a director, or that I knew what I was doing at all. I wasn't sure that their distrust and lack of faith was misplaced, as I wasn't sure what I was doing there or if I could manage the situation, either.
I walked over to the porch and addressed the actors (can't remember what I said), then called for the cameras to roll. I watched the scene unfold, and thought to myself, "these are either the worst actors ever, or the script is the worst ever—or both." The scene was terrible: Long, meaningless, ill-delivered. I watched in horror, wondering when it would end, forgetting that I had the power to yell "cut!"
I thought I heard a voice in the distance say "cut", so I turned toward it, and, not seeing anything, yelled "cut!" myself. It turned out I wasn't imagining things; it was one of the technicians in a trailer who'd said "cut". He came out and told me that we were about to lose the light. I said "OK," and that we should go again right away.
Just as we began shooting again, we did indeed lose the light—it became pitch black incredibly fast. The dream sort of became more confused at that point; I remember trying to feel my way to the porch, and I ended up on the outside of a small room with glass walls (like a conference room in the center of an office building), watching the actors from outside. The room was well-lit, but where I was standing remained pitch black, and they couldn't see or hear me.
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