18
19
Summer
2013
friend I’d made on Stardust asking if I
wanted to come and do a week ‘locking
off’ (standing in a perimeter around the set
shouting ‘rolling’ and ‘cut’) on a film she
was working on. It was ‘The Dark Knight’.
After a week of staring open-mouthed
at Batman and the Joker, I was hooked.
I started working as a floor runner and
nearly starved my first year, as most do.
But I scraped by, and began to establish
myself as a good Runner, working on
‘QuantumOf Solace’, ‘Adulthood’ ‘The
ImaginariumOf Doctor Parnassus’, ‘Wolf
Man’ ‘The Boat That Rocked and ‘Never
Let Me Go’ in the first eighteen months
of my career. I subsequently was offered
a job as a stunt Third Assistant Director
on the last ‘Harry Potter’ film and through
this began specialising as a Stunt AD,
working on ‘Pirates Of The Caribbean 4’
in the same capacity, and then onto the
soon to be released ‘World War Z’. I now
work as either a Floor Second Assistant
Director, working directly for the director
and the 1st AD running the set, most
recently on ‘Kick Ass 2’ and currently on
‘The Fifth Estate’, or as a Crowd Second
Assistant Director; casting, budgeting and
organising the extras and stunt performers
on a day to day basis in an administrative
capacity, most recently on ‘Gambit’ and
‘Cuban Fury’. I have had the honour of
working with some truly incredible actors
Film
and directors; Jonny Depp, Brad Pitt,
Michael Fassbender, Dame Judi Dench,
Jim Broadbent, Philip Seymour Hoffman,
Keira Knightley, Geoffrey Rush, Carey
Mulligan, Bill Condon, Dustin Hoffman
and Christopher Nolan to name but a few
– and to have worked in such a passionate,
charged, perfection driven industry such
as the British film industry is, has been a
dream come true thus far.
It is also a cut-throat, brutal, competitive
and unfair workplace, as many freelance
professions are, and I cannot begin to
recollect the number of four am starts,
missed social engagements, missed
mortgage payments and times spent
standing shivering in the pouring rain
waiting for an actor to get into their car
before I could go home. Yet it can also
be an incredible, diverse, vibrant and
unique workplace and one I love. I was
determined to add practical ‘nuts and
bolts’ know-how to my creative training,
and being an Assistant Director has
taught me these practical skills more
thoroughly and cogently than any degree
or drama school could possibly have
done. It was always my ambition to write
and direct, and through contacts made
working on smaller independent projects,
I have directed music videos, produced
short films and recently I have had a
television series I wrote, inspired by plays
and playwrights I have always admired,
optioned by a production company: it’s
currently being transposed into a feature
film scheduled to be shot later this year.
Being an AD has given me a capacity for
organisation, practicality and work ethic I
never had before and has handed me tools
and opportunities I would never have
otherwise had. And it’s been a hell of a lot
of fun.
Vaughn Stein (left) as Creon in Antigone, 2002
On the set of
World War Z
with Brad Pitt
