Werner Herzog Says You're Shooting Too Much Footage, and He's Probably Right

In a 2017 talk with the International Documentary Association, the incomparable Werner Herzog said something that will probably make every filmmaker wince a little.

Young filmmakers shooting 550 hours of footage, he said, made his heart sink. "They don't know what they're doing," he said.

But, seriously, we get both sides. There's nothing like the feeling of being with your editor and realizing you just don't have the specific shot or moment or those few extra seconds you want. But there's a point at which it becomes a hindrance.

Herzog has spent years doing more with less. For Into the Abyss , a nearly two-hour documentary about capital punishment and the ripple effects of a triple homicide, he shot roughly six to eight hours of total footage, according to his own account from that same IDA talk. That's an almost absurdly tight shooting ratio by any standard, and especially by documentary standards, where ratios of 100:1 are common in the digital era. He called it "the correct ratio, as it should be."

Herzog's longtime editor Joe Bini, who NFS heard speak back in 2016, described Grizzly Man as one of his favorite documentaries they made together—a film Herzog said in the IDA talk was edited in roughly nine days.

Most filmmakers aren't operating at Herzog's level, obviously. But the principle he's pointing to doesn't require his credentials to apply. It just requires a little thinking before you roll.

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Digital Cameras Didn't Create the Problem

The explosion of cheap, high-quality digital cameras changed filmmaking in a lot of great ways. It also gave everyone permission to stop making tough decisions on coverage.

Shooting coverage is now a default for a huge number of productions, and the implicit logic is, "Eh, we'll figure it out in the edit. The camera's rolling anyway. What's the harm?"

The harm, per Herzog, is that you end up with an ocean of mediocrity.

"You cannot find any gems in an ocean of mediocrity," he said in the IDA talk. "So, they're doomed."

That's blunt, but it's not wrong. More footage does technically give you more options. It also gives you more noise, and then it gives you an edit that takes months instead of weeks, costs more money, and still might not save a shoot that lacked intention from the start.

Before digital, this discipline was enforced by economics. Herzog worked nights as a welder in a steel factory to fund his early films. Every second of 35mm stock costs real money, especially once you factor in the lab, the dailies, and the development. You learn very quickly what you need on screen, because you are paying for every frame out of your own pocket.

That constraint is mostly gone now. The question is whether you can impose it on yourself anyway.

Coverage as a Security Blanket

There's a revealing anecdote in the IDA talk. When Herzog was shooting Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans with Nicolas Cage, his crew grew nervous that he wasn't getting coverage.

So Cage stepped in, called the team together, and told them they were working with a director who knew what he was doing.

"And that silenced things," Herzog said. "I do substantial things without panic, without allowing any extreme pressure on me."

The crew's anxiety was about the absence of a familiar safety net. Coverage is how many filmmakers manage uncertainty. You shoot more angles than you need because you're not sure which one will work. You keep the camera rolling because you're afraid of missing something.

Good pre-production can address much of that fear during the planning stage. A solid shot list means you're not improvising your coverage strategy under pressure. A DP who comes in prepared already knows which angles really matter. You don't need to be twisting yourself into pretzels trying everything.

We will say, however, that Herzog has railed against some preprod tools.

"I do not use a storyboard. I think it's an instrument of the cowards," he said in his MasterClass.

Maybe you hate them too, which, okay! You do you. But we still will advocate for some level of preparedness. Herzog is more interested in spontaneity when it's available to him, and when it is, he doesn't let himself get pressured into making choices that rush or compromise his vision. He just gets what he needs.

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The Edit Starts on Set

For a 2025 CBS News profile of his process, Anderson Cooper joined Herzog in the edit suite. The director watches all the footage from a film in a single sitting, exactly once, marking shots with exclamation points as he goes.

"And when something has three exclamation marks, it means, 'If this is not in this film, I have lived in vain,'" the filmmaker told CBS.

That system only works if the footage is selective enough to hold your attention for one pass, and obviously, you wouldn't want to do this with 500 hours of coverage. On set, it's important to develop the skill of editing as you're shooting—what do you already have, what are you missing? How will it all cut together? It's not about rushing through production or skipping coverage out of impatience. Arrive on set with a clear enough picture of the finished film that the footage you shoot maps directly onto it.

What This Means for Directors

None of this is an argument against getting coverage. By all means, get your coverage, as long as it doesn't put you wildly behind schedule. There are scenes that genuinely need it, directors who work improvisationally by design, and productions where pickups aren't an option.

However, there is a difference between strategic and reflexive coverage, and many filmmakers never stop to ask which one they're using.

In his MasterClass, Herzog told the audience, "Do not shoot much coverage. I do not shoot coverage. That's one of the things on my set—one camera, and I shoot a scene three, four, or five times. And that's it. If it doesn't function after five times, there's something wrong with the dialogue or with a scene, and you better quickly rewrite something."

The question to bring to set is, "Do I know why I need this shot?" If the answer is fuzzy, maybe take a beat to evaluate your direction.

Know what you're there to capture, get it, and stop.