Adam Somner, first assistant director, on Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Paul Thomas Anderson, Alejandro González Iñárritu, movies Black Hawk Down, War of the Worlds, The Wolf of Wall Street, The Revenant, and more

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,
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, since
Iñárritu and Chivo shot many scenes in one single shot. Adam is
currently working on Killers of the Flower Moon with director
Martin Scorsese. Find out even more about this episode, with
extensive show notes and links: http://camnoir.com/ep125/ Sponsored
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