User talk:Hlongstreet

X Files is back for a six episode mini on Fox.

As the director of episode 3 in 1993, "Squeeze" was one of the most popular episodes of the run... I've been thrown under the bus for thirteen years now by the executive producer/creator as well as various producers and writers and even two actors from that episode. Their loyalty to Mr. Carter is not a surprise however I'm going to state actual facts from that shoot and postproduction of "Squeeze"

1. Pre-production... script problems. I inform Mr. Carter that the script has problems. He acknowledges same but doesn't want to tell his writers and asks me (I have many writer credits) to fix the problems, he doesn't want to confront his own staff. I make changes... subsequently he ties that can to me, not him.

2. Production... Gillian is talented, but green. In addition to fixes I made... it becomes obvious that the long technical dialogue given her is overwhelming. I decide to cut the dialogue down and shoot in shorter segments. It helped her performance a great deal and obviously further angered the same cast of characters that have been trying to bury me over this episode.

3. Special effects and footage that doesn't work... Going in I was told that my first unit would shoot all BUT the special effects. A second unit would shoot the special effects to be cut in to my film. Oops, the special effects unit had problems and NEVER had any footage for me to look at and it was impossible for me to shoot heads or tails to scenes to match film I never saw.

4. Film style... this is subjective but fair to say I know how to shoot BUT...day one shot one...Mr Carter show us and tells me how he wants the first shot to be shot. First he is in violation of the Directors Guild of America working rules (one director). Second I explain that his request would be "crossing the line" and when edited the actor's "looks" would be wrong. He evidently didn't understand or care or trust what I told him. I resolved this problem by shooting the scene his way and then shot it the correct way which of course is what made the final cut.

My style is to shoot the master then full or selective coverage as the scene seems to dictate. When I was finished, Mr Carter and possible others obviously wanted more coverage in some places. That's disturbing but their prerogative. I hate scenes that become mostly talking heads... boring and not very creative plus it's nice to save the closeups for dramatic emphasis... obviously not a concept embraced by the people who insist I was replaced on shoot. No folks I finished the show BUT they wanted reshoots(read closeups) where I didn't. They were obligated to contact me and ask if I wanted to return to shoot more coverage. Ouch, I declined. They then were in their rights to bring in another director to get their coverage.

5. Talk about missing scene... Don't recall unless it was scene I took out when doing script editing. No complaints while I was working.

6. Actor complaints... Maybe legit, but not voiced to me while working. I listen to actors and work with actors. I never felt compromised in this area and sorry if they felt that and chose to speak out later or wanted tp join the director bash.

7. Final product... not counting special effect shots which I had nothing to do with, I think at least 90% of the finished episode is my work and I'm proud of it. The bashing can go on forever... still I have to wonder why they chose to use a piece of my film from this episode in the main titles for the first five years of the show. What, did I just get lucky?

Harry Longstreet Hlongstreet (talk) 20:02, 22 January 2016 (UTC)