Eyes on Unit Production Manager David Witz

When a movie goes over budget or a location falls through, everyone looks at one person: the unit production manager. David Witz has been that person for 30 years, on Dunkirk, War of the Worlds, Mission: Impossible III, and Escape from L.A.

David calls himself the general contractor of a film set, the person who turns a director’s vision into a number and then makes that number happen. He breaks down what a UPM and a line producer really do, how he ground out the DGA qualification list, and how the biggest directors handle money: Nolan announcing Dunkirk would cost $100 million and cutting a whole country to get there, and Spielberg making War of the Worlds for scale and Witz building the budget off a bullet-point outline.

Then the war stories: a 1986 shoot in Barcelona where the office was bombed the week before cameras rolled and he carried $85,000 out of a bank in his jacket, Tom Cruise on a crane in a lightning warning, why production has left Los Angeles, and the real flyable Spitfire they built for Dunkirk because Nolan will not do green screen. His advice for the next generation: there is no single path, so learn everything.