If you want to gain a whole new appreciation for film as an art form, just go out and try to complete any minor project with a group of strangers. Get 10 people together. Of the ones who bother to show up, at least two will be the type who would rather die than compromise. So, now imagine trying to get several hundred people on the same page, and doing it under a tight deadline, with millions of dollars at stake. We're thinking these examples will actually make you feel better about the shit people argue about at your job ...

6 The Shawshank Redemption Was Delayed Due To Controversy About Killing A Maggot

Columbia Pictures

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Every movie that involves animals in any way is required to hire some people to monitor the production to ensure that the animals aren't mistreated. This is a pretty good rule -- it's what ensures that filmmakers aren't hitting a sedated bear with a Taser every time it fails to bite Leo DiCaprio's skull in exactly the right way.

20th Century Fox

"NO, NOT THE FACE, GODDAMMIT!"

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But then, you have what happened behind the scenes of The Shawshank Redemption. According to the DVD commentary, the filmmakers hired a representative of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) to monitor the filming because one of the characters keeps a baby bird in his shirt pocket. This was back in the day when it was still cheaper to shove an actual baby bird in there instead of later constructing one out of CGI.

Fortunately, the ASPCA representative was fine with the bird, but, after being brought on to monitor the production, she had one other major issue that nobody could have predicted: In one scene, the character finds a maggot in his food and feeds it to the bird in his pocket. The ASPCA forbade them from shooting this scene because it technically involved cruelty to an "animal" -- the animal in question being the maggot that they bought from a bait shop.

Columbia Pictures

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Pictured: an unconscionable manifestation of intolerable evil. Almost.

According to the representative, the only way that they were permitted to shoot this scene as intended was if they used a maggot that had died of natural causes. So, the filmmakers were forced to delay production, standing around a bucket full of live maggots, waiting for one of them to have a heart attack or something before they could legally feed it to a bird on camera. But, what if the bird would have preferred to eat a live maggot, dammit? Did you even ask?