Cross & Crescent

David Waters (Elon 1993) was in high school when he received the nickname “Muddy,” after the great jazz musician Muddy Waters. Unlike most school nicknames, his stuck.

“If some directors or assistant directors heard of me as David Waters, they’d say ‘Who?,’” laughs Waters. “Even Tom Cruise called me Muddy on the set of ‘Mission Impossible III.’”

While Waters has some musical talent as a pianist, his true abilities lie on the silver screen. Serving as second assistant director for the December 2006 movie “We are Marshall,” Waters is perfecting the art of working on the sets of blockbuster movies.

Finding His Passion

When Waters was selecting a college, he knew he wanted to get away from his home outside of Boston, Massachusetts, and to learn to live independently. He had visited family in North Carolina many times while growing up, so he had a connection to the state. He visited Elon and knew it was the right fit.

Waters started college as an English major. A fraternity brother named John Marsh (Elon 1991) was in communications and got him interested in video and films.

“Marsh would come home and edit videos,” remembers Waters. “Soon he was showing me how to edit. It was fun, so I switched majors.”

Following graduation in 1993, Waters went to Wilmington, North Carolina, to begin his career in films; a profession he admittedly knew little about.

“My first round of working in the movies was really a flop, because I didn’t take it seriously. I was still in the college ‘having a good time’ mode.”

After a couple years of small film jobs, Waters decided to get serious about his career in film.

“I moved back to Wilmington and did an internship on a feature film,” says Waters. “I was a prop assistant. But more importantly, I met a bunch of good people and learned a lot.”

Through those positions, he decided to set his sights on joining the Directors Guild of America, formerly known as the Screen Directors Guild as an Assistant Director.

To join the New York DGA, he worked 600 days as a set production assistant. This allowed Waters to work anywhere in the United States — anywhere except Los Angeles, California because there are additional requirements.

It wasn’t until he worked as an assistant director on the films “Miss Congeniality” and “About Schmidt” that he was able to gain the additional 150 days as an assistant director needed to transfer his membership to the Los Angeles DGA.

Climbing the Show Biz Ladder

There are three assistant directors on every movie: first assistant director (1st AD) second assistant director (2nd AD) and a second second assistant director (2nd 2nd AD). Just like set production assistants joining the DGA, assistant directors have to qualify before moving up to a higher level with greater responsibilities.

Waters is currently a 2nd AD. He has completed the 500 days needed as a 2nd AD in order to move up to the role of 1st AD.

In his role as second assistant director, Waters is responsible for the daily call sheets. He lays out all of the work for the next day, including actors’ schedules, who’s working, who’s not working, departmental needs, transportation needs, props, and all other aspects of the shooting day. He has to have all of the next days schedule completed and passed out in time for company wrap at the end of each day.

“I also deal with a lot of agents, managers, and actors directly,” explains Waters. “When someone is hired, I call their agent. I call them directly and tell them what we’re doing.”

The key to Waters’ job is organization. He claims he would be a mess if it weren’t for his Palm Pilot and trusty pocket day planner.

Waters says he is interested in running the sets and being the first assistant director, and may also be interested in special effects makeup someday.

“It would be a great second career,” says Waters. “Right now, where I am is pretty good, so I’m going stick here for a little while longer.”

The Power of Marshall

The most recent movie release Waters worked on was “We Are Marshall.” Waters was the second assistant director.

“It was just an amazing story, a more powerful story than someone could write,” says Waters, referring to the 1970 plane crash that claimed the lives of 75 Marshall University football team players and staff. “It destroyed a community, so being able to win the first home game the next season in the NCAA Division 1 playing freshman is pretty much impossible. It really was a miracle.”

The crew shot the film in the town of Huntington, West Virginia, where Marshall University is located and Atlanta. Huntington provided the obvious location shots while Atlanta provided the football stadiums for the game shots. Atlanta had several old high school stadiums that more closely matched the college football stadiums back in 1970. While the tragedy occurred more than 30 years ago, everyone was still kind of touchy.

“It had been a long time since the incident,” says Waters. “While shooting the film we would run into people all the time who still had a lot of memories or were affected by the tragedy.”

It was especially difficult to obtain permission to shoot the plane crash scenes. The film crew built a lifelike replica of the historic wreck — with smoke, rescue crews, and all — located near the airport.

The model wreck was so lifelike, inbound pilots had to tell their passengers that it was not a real plane crash. The production crew also used the local TV News shows and local papers to inform the community that their set was not real.

To further increase the movie’s authenticity, the crew and actors worked with many of the players and staff who were responsible for rebuilding the football team after the 1970 tragedy.

“The first meeting when assistant coach Red Dawson met actor Matthew Fox, the guy who was playing him, was great,” recalls Waters. But it was interactions like this that helped make “We are Marshall” so special.

“Doing a movie like ‘We Are Marshall’ was a little different than shooting a regular feature, because it’s so sports heavy,” says Waters. “We basically had to organize a huge football program in a short amount of time. To pull it off, we brought in a football coordinator Mark Ellis who has his own team and trainers and specializes in movies and television.”

Elon Founding Father

Starting off in college, Waters wasn’t the fraternity type. His friends didn’t like fraternities either. But one day, they decided to start their own group — their own fraternity. Waters and 35 others became the founding fathers of the Elon (Delta-Pi) chapter.

While the idea of starting their own fraternity was sounded fun, making it all the way to receiving a charter proved to be a lot more work than first anticipated.

“When you’re not in a fraternity, you really don’t know what to expect and how involved it will be,” says Waters. “Once we got into it, creating a Lambda Chi Alpha chapter turned out to be pretty complicated.”

Creating a new fraternity is somewhat like creating a movie. Both require many individuals to come together in a short period of time for a common goal.

Perhaps Waters learned some of his networking and organizational skills in the process. He served the colony as vice president, ritualist, and social chairman. It was these roles that Waters believes changed his whole college experience.

“Instantly, you have a whole bunch of people you can rely on and fall back on,” remembers Waters. “It’s a great network to have when you’re in college and obviously when you’re out, too.”