Special Episode: A tribute to Adam Somner, Assistant Director, Producer for Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Paul Thomas Anderson, Alejandro González Iñárritu

We were incredibly saddened by the loss of 1st Assistant Director
and producer, Adam Somner. You can hear his fantastic energy,
enthusiasm and entertaining storytelling as a guest on The
Cinematography Podcast. Here we have re-posted his 2021 episode in
memorial and tribute to his blockbuster career. He will be greatly
missed. The job of the assistant director is to work in concert
with the director and the DP to get everything done on a movie set.
As a 1st AD, Adam Somner is trusted by the industry's top directors
to anticipate their needs, motivate the crew, figure out the
schedule, and drive the entire production forward to finish each
day on time. He finds the best way to keep everything moving
smoothly on set is though humor, high energy and uniting everyone
as a group, persuading people to do things on the schedule and
timeline needed to complete the job. Adam's father, Basil Somner,
worked for MGM Studios in England, and through him, Adam got a job
as a runner/production assistant at age 17. He began working on
movies in the late '80's, like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,
Superman IV, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? He worked under many
assistant directors, observed how they took charge on set, and
decided he was really interested in becoming an AD. Adam has worked
on eight Ridley Scott films to date, as well as several of the late
Tony Scott's films. He was first hired on a Ridley Scott film as a
third assistant director on 1492: Conquest of Paradise and White
Squall, then moved up to second assistant director on Gladiator,
(with DP John Mathieson) where he learned how to manage a huge crew
of extras and background action from the 1st AD, Terry Needham. On
Black Hawk Down, Adam was promoted to first assistant director for
the second unit. Black Hawk Down was shooting in Morocco, and the
second unit was responsible for most of the helicopter sequences,
with lots of moving parts and extras, involving real Black Hawk
helicopters and real U.S. military soldiers. After Black Hawk Down,
Adam got the call to begin working with Steven Spielberg on War of
the Worlds, where he quickly learned to read Spielberg's mind and
keep an eye on the details. He's worked with Spielberg on ten films
now, including Munich, Lincoln, and Ready Player One. A 1st AD is
responsible for coordinating most of the background action. Adam's
ability to work on big sets with lots of action, extras and special
effects led director Paul Thomas Anderson to hire him for There
Will Be Blood, and Anderson has since become a personal friend.
Adam finds Anderson's on-set approach to be very thoughtful and
measured. Unlike the action-heavy films Adam has worked on, he knew
it was important to keep the crew and background actors quiet and
subdued on Anderson's films with heavy dialog, such as The Master
and Phantom Thread. For The Wolf of Wall Street, Adam was thrilled
to work with director Martin Scorsese. Scorsese and cinematographer
Rodrigo Prieto had Adam sit in during their preproduction
shotlisting process, so they were all thoroughly prepared. Scorsese
loves shooting scenes with complex background action, and Adam
delivered. He carefully rehearsed all the extras in different
stages of panic as the brokers watched the stock market crash. For
the famous in-flight orgy scene, Adam wasn't totally sure how he
wanted to deal with not just one sex scene, which is hard enough,
but several at once. So he decided to hire a choreographer to help
rehearse and plan all the action, making sure each background
player knew exactly what they were doing and taking care that
everyone was comfortable with their role in front of the camera.
Adam was excited to work with Alejandro González Iñárritu on some
of Birdman, and as the 1st AD on one of the may units shooting The
Revenant, where Iñárritu and the DP Emmanuel Lubezki “Chivo” wanted
everything shot and rehearsed during magic hour. Rehearsals were
incredibly important on both Birdman and The Revenant...