From Jerry Lewis' The Total Filmmaker

What follows is pasted from a pdf readily and freely available on-line. It is for a book that is out of print, a well-respected publication of Jerry Lewis about movie-making, mostly transcribed from recordings of his classes. I THE HUMANITIES OF FILM I'll tell you what I did to become a film-maker. I had this drive and I was curious. Of course, I was already a Jewish movie star and that helped get me on the lot. But in front of the camera, acting like a movie star. Not behind it~ Then one day at Paramount, long ago, I was missing. They found me crawling around up on a catwalk over the sound stage. I had to know if the catwalks, where the electricians and grips do things and sleep, were made of two-by-fours. Were they built on a temporary basis? How did they hang them? Next day, when I had a nine-o'clock shooting call, I was in the miniature department at eight, watching thirteen inch submarines being photographed for a Cary Grant picture, Destination Tokyo. I had to understand why that submarine looked full size on the screen. They told me to go over and see Chuck Sutter in the camera department. I was friendly with all the technical guys. Chuck showed me a twelve-inch lens and then showed me how they utilize it in the tank. Well, I didn't understand how they got the right dimensions on the sky and sea backings around the tank. It made it all look so real. Chuck sent me over to the transparency department to look at the backings. "Well, where do these backings come from?" "Well," some guy says. "They soot ' em, Then I went upstairs to see the artwork. It was almost nine-thirty when the assistant director found me. He requested, politely, for my ass to get back in front of the camera. Before the day was over, I was looking at generators out behind the recording building. Yes, generators! I'd heard about them. "How do they work? Where do you plug that in? 'What does that do? Who turns it?" Then I found out there is such a thing as an electrician. I shook his hand and bought him cigarettes. "Tell me things!" When I found out that all he did was throw a switch, I took back the cigarettes. Day after that, I saw the assistant director on the phone. "Tomorrow's call is ..." And I saw the penciled sheets. "Well, who's he calling?" "Oh, he's calling down there, the production department." I spent weeks in the production department. They could never find me. Or I was by the camera. "Why does that turn? How does it turn to what? Where does he get the pictures they make? Why does it see people in that part, but when it turns over, I see no people? I see a black thing. What's moving? That part in front is what? It's a glass piece? A prism. Oh, I see. And why does that boom go off and I can't step off it unless they give me permission because it will swing up. Well, why does it do that?" "Well, it's counterbalanced." "With what?" "Mercury." "Oh, mercury. I see. Well, why does he push it? And why doesn't the other guy?" "He can't. He's not in that union." Laugh! Hollow! Lights? "You have got to have all those lights?" "Yes. " "Why?" "Because you have to have four hundred footcandle." "Footcandle? You have candles you bring in with your feet?" "No, that's a light measurement." He's serious and so am I. So in about three years of that kind of running around I learned a little. It is not unlike medicine. The mystery of medicine, trying to cure and fix and find out the why, must he to doctors what film is to film-makers. They cannot start working their mystery until they have much more technical information than they ever really need. But it's there to be called on. Then the intangibles! What are they? How many? Can I teach the intangibles of film-making? Not really. Maybe the only answer is: How do you touch another man's soul? It might develop from that. Sit down and say, You're dealing with lovely human beings. Each one of them is an individual. Each one of them in his own right a lovely, important- to-someone human heing. Some will behave like turds, but you must try to understand why. As a film-maker, you will find them influencing your actions. Perhaps the key to the intangibles is intuition. Old instinct. Rut the touch question when dealing with people is: How do I know when I'm human enough? I'm going to use a word wrong because that's the way I want to use it, letting the language purists make funny noises and feel superior. The word I'm talking about is humanities. There is a great deal of confusion between humanism, which means a cultural attitude, and humanity, which really means a kindly disposition toward your fellow man. Well, for me the word humanities refers to the last definition-that important thing, that feeling of warmth and love and kindly disposition toward your fellow man, the way you look at him, feel about him, treat him, respect him and relate to him. No matter how you slice it, the most critical aspect of making films is dealing with people. Whether you think he's a hero or an occasional creep, you must have a rooting interest for the next guy and his reason for being on that sound stage. He's the key to your technical instrument. He can help you to be very good, or he can sabotage you. There are many technical-minded people, some hrilliant, in the industry who can't get a job. The ones who function best seem to be very human. They might not he as well qualified as the super-technician but they bring a tremendous insight to the material and its projection. So I maintain we're dealing in a humanities area just as critical, in its way, as open-heart surgery. I don't care how much technical information you have stored away, you blow the picture when you hlow the human end. Everything is going for you-beautiful setup, marvelous cast, wonderful sets, crew, et cetera. And then someone says, "Good luck. It's your first day. It's nine o'clock. Make your first shot." "Wha-wha-wha-wha!" Here he comes now! Here is Ray Milland and there is Ann Sothern! "Ah, Miss Sothern, I saw you on television and you were pretty shitty. Now, here's your first shot ..." Forget it. It's over. Burn the set. Forget it. "Mr. Milland, you look a little old tor this part, but we'll see what we can do." Out! It's over. Actors will kill for you if you treat them like human beings. You have to let them know you want them and need them; pay them what they want, but don't overpay them; treat them kindly. Give an actress a clean dress and see that she gets fresh coffee in the mornings, and other little spoon-feedings. She will kill for you. I once worked for a director who had a personality like Eva Braun's. I was doing a scene, a fall, and told him to forget the stunt man. "I'Il fall downstage. You're in a close angle and you're low. It'll be a rough cut for you. I'll do the fall." "Okay, great!" I wasn't doing it for him, really. I wanted it to work. Although in the end I suppose I was doing it for him because he'd have to cut the film. So I did it. "Perfect," he said. "Cut! Print!" He proceeds to the next setup while I'm cocked down with one leg hanging. The son-of-a-bitch didn't say "Thank you," or even nod his head. Just "Perfect." He lost me with that one scene, and never got me back. I did my funny faces, and took the money; wished him good luck, and lied about that. I guess I hurt myself, because the comedian on the screen wasn't very funny when the film was released. Frank Tashlin, on the other hand, was great at handling Jerry Lewis the comic. He has a feeling for people. Very possibly I learned more about the humanities of making films from Frank than I did from everyone else combined. He was a caring director. I realize that I am basically a miserable bastard on the sound stage. It comes from trying to be a perfectionist. If the toilet seat is left up, I faint. It's like Queeg and "\%0 ate the strawberries?" "Who left the toilet seat up?" To work for this kind of maniac, you have got to be some kind of dingaling. Yet I get the good dingalings film after film, and the rewards are great. I consciously root for them, and that is what it is all about. The relations with crew are not much different from the relations with actors. A strong feeling, for good or bad, n1l1S through a crew. They are as adult as I am, and as childish. They like to be "made-over" a bit. You are going to walk by a grip or electrician? What the hell is wrong in recognizing him? I've always done it, not so much for their comfort, but selfishly for mine. I'm more comfortable not hVing to turn my head away. If I don't know his name, I'll say something: "What right do you have to be working here, you dirty, lousy old ..." It is a wild goddamn but very understandable thing. You take a guy who is yawning away, and then suddenly make him special by saying, "How's it going? The first day's tough, right?" And he answers, "Yeh, but what the hell?" All of a sudden he's a tiger. "Hey, can I give you a hand here?" If a grip walks past me and says "Hi," but doesn't add "Jerry," I act offended, and it's not all acting. "Hey, how come I know your name, but you don't know mine. I'm the movie star." It works. I want that personal relationship. For years I've had a thing in my operation that I call fear extraction. The first thing I try to do with a new member of the staff is extract the fear that insecurity, God and Saint Peter handed down. 1 try to do it simply-tell him that I care, that I don't want to hurt him, that I want him to excel, to be happy. Then I'll be happy making what I love best, film. It works, too. One night on The Ladies Man I had to wrap up a sequence or it would have cost an additional hundred thousand. The crew knocked off at eight o' dock, went to dinner, and then came back to work until three in the morning to finish it. Two days passed before the unit manager told me that the J 16 technicians had all punched out at eight o'clock, and had dinner on their own time. They contributed the time between nine P.M. and three the next morning. Had they stayed on the overtime dock, it would have cost something around $50,000. That's a pretty good example of rapport, and the humanities. It doesn't happen often in this town called Hollywood, hut in this new day of making films, it will probably happen more. Everyone will be the better for it. There are other examples, of course. Rossellini fell in love with casts and crews, and told them so. He took trite scripts and developed fine films out of love, and the labor of love. That love magic enters into it big. The funniest part of creative people, particularly people who love film, is that they get up in the morning and can't wait to run into somebody to hug. A hug does not have to be embracing a male, so that the cops pick you up. A hug is in the voice; a hug is in the spirit; a hug is in the attitude. Kibitz or tease someone to put him down for a second! It only takes another second to let him know it wasn't meant to be unkind. If there isn't rapport and communication, those love magics of film, then the technical information isn't worth a damn. Hugs, kisses and happy talk don't mean I favor playtime on any set. If there's someone I don't like, I have to let them know why; then see how well I can function with him on a human level. Otherwise, one of us will sabotage. There will be shmucks midst all the hugging. They take advantage. There is always one who doesn't understand honesty when it is laid on the line. He'll try to undermine. Get rid of him! Save some sabotage. But care must be taken not to let that experience start you off wrong with the replacement. The past screwing has to be forgotten; the humanities pulled in again. Part of what's wrong with the film industry in America is a couple of goddamn greedy unions and some crew types protected by the unions. But what film-makers, new and old, always have to remember is that there are usually I 16I men around who are willing to kill for them. They will gladly assassinate as long as there is rapport. Humanities go beyond cast and crew rapport. Those who are loving film-makers don't hope another producer's picture will go down the drain. Sam Goldwyn doesn't do that. Louis B. Mayer, who was the murderer of the world in business, didn't do it. Mr. Mayer once told me, "If you don't want that picture I make to be a smash, you're stupid. Your coming attractions might be playing with it." The people who don't root for another guy's film are the ones who are fearful their own product will bomb. If there can be thirty other film-makers in front of their own demise, it won't be such a bad fall. If they had confidence in their own work, the first thing they'd do is pray for the next guy's work, because he keeps the theaters open. I could be shooting on a sound stage on Vine Street when a film like Funny Girl opens in New York. Should I worry? Absolutely. That theater may fold if Funny Girl goes on its ass. Then where will I go with mine? That's healthy thinking. Additionally, I just happen to be a rooter. But Hollywood is a pretty strange place sometimes. For instance, I took out a full-page ad in a trade paper to congratulate a certain studio for making a certain film, simply because I could take my children to see it. I said, "Bravo for making a good film." But I didn't hear from the producer, didn't hear from the studio. Dead silence fur boosting their picture. I had rooted in vain. Now I take the trouble to call attention to what I do. It is no longer a nice thing, but rm spelling it out in the future. In contrast to that studio's behavior, I remember going into Abe Schneider's office at Columbia. He runs that studio and is a man of dignity and taste. Very excited, he said, "Look at what Funny Girl did!" He should have been excited at the box-office figures. It was a Columbia film. But then he added, "The business is churning. How the West Was Won, Metro. Warner-Seven Arts, Bonnie and Clyde. Did you ever see figures like that?" The film-maker who really has the ball park, with the bat and the ball and the ground rules, loses none of his strength or integrity by dealing in humanities on the set as well as throughout the industry. He doesn't have to. If he knows his job, he doesn't need to slam a fist down and yell, "Coddammit, this is the way .. ," It never gets to that, because he is honest with himself, with those around him, and he cares for the product. He'll lick the face of a man who can make an important production contribution. I suppose what I have been talking about is simple, decent human behavior. But it is the most complex thing around. Some of it can be cut through with a hug and a smile. It is that tangible, intangible basis of it all-the all-meaning relationships with actors, crews, executives and the public.

Anthony Robbins - Motivates you in 20 minutes TED Talks

story pitching

Regulating Behaviour, Total Freedom, and Blame

A question was asked on a Facebook link to a blog about conservatives pushing the idea of dressing modestly and so on to reduce the risk of rape. The friend who posted it asked, "Somebody please explain why women should change how they dress and live and men can't stop committing rape?" So I tried to answer that with the following. ______________________________________________________________________________ Why do we presume to speak for rapists? And to what extreme should people be encouraged to live "dangerously" ? Should you feel free to leave your drink unattended? Should you neglect to bring friends to a club to watch each other? If I ever have a daughter I'll be advising she practice defensive driving because there are idiots and half-asleep and texting people on the road. That might make me square or controlling to some. You could argue that if you change your dress or party ways the proverbial "terrorists win." And that may be true. Clubbers are in another world from me, lousy music and too much volume for a useful conversation. People feel sexual liberation is paramount, but that's where it gets into informed choice. If you want to live in a log cabin where bears roam, then maybe keep a gun. If you want to stroll Detroit at midnight alone in a bikini that still has cash tucked into it from the strip club, because you are so sure of the humanity of all men, hopefully the police will find you before anything happens. An lone rapist is likely too cowardly to approach a confident woman, and may prefer to home-invade an old lady, but gangs or swarmings happen and people still play "knock-out" and even if you have the "right" to cross a street on green it's still wise to look both ways before stepping off the curb because bikes and cars can lose control. I can sit here with my Princess Leia Yavin battle map desktop and say rape is 100% unacceptable and the victim is not at fault, and my opinion won't matter. But if I am working a security detail and someone wants to enjoy the extreme sport of swimming in a shark tank, I'm going to say no and reason with the person capable of reason rather than lecture a shark after the attack. _________ After being challenged on the above points __________________________________________________ You did ask, whether with irony or not. Any guy going off to prison thinks there is a chance he will be over-powered and raped. Someone from Now magazine wrote that off as "homophobia," but he would have to start clearing out his desk if he referred to a woman's fear of rape as "heterophobia." The "big bad wolf" speech as you call it is at least not CRYING wolf. I recall one day years ago clicking through channels Geraldo and Oprah both had a rapist on. Geraldo's approach was to say to the live satellite feed screen the rapist was on, "You disgust me, sir !" to a round of cheap applause. Oprah was seated beside her guest-rapist and asked information about his process - that he watched for patterns of behavior; one victim habitually left her back door open while taking garbage out to the curb, so he used that as the moment to slip in so when she locked up he was already inside with her. So rapists telling "their side" actually has been done. It's the difference between banging one's head against the wall in willful ignorance or being aware. Brian DePalma made two movies about the same premise, Casualties of War and Redacted - the one guy in the unit who does not participate in a rape. We can't help asking what would I do? Is there a solution? How often does that happen? If I were a ranking officer, would I pep talk the troops with my personal view? It would be: See these movies and know this. If you rape, you are the enemy, not a soldier on my side. No friend of mine is a rapist either, so the loyalty card won't play. Anyone complicit in it would also face court Marshall. I guess RoboCop had the ideal answer to rape, as Ellen page in Hard Candy. But a true rapist watching the latter may conclude only, "don't let your would-be victim pour the drinks." PEER PRESSURE, however, will not play out like a PSA where the guys ask why the wife has a black eye and admonish an abuser with "that's not cool, man." It's clearly hard enough to persuade sane, civic-minded people with reason ("Now we have freedom AND responsibility, baby, yeah!" to quote Austen Powers) without believing that reason and logic will reach a rapist. Maybe one who has remorse, like the Oprah guest, will say something useful. But it is pure folly to count on control from those defined by loss of control or a psychological compulsion to exert temporary dominance over someone else. There IS a shark out there, Mayor Vaughn. Close the beaches.

Star Trek Continues E01 "Pilgrim of Eternity"

My childhood (and ahem, teen) bedroom wallpaper !!

Haven't seen this wallpaper pattern in 28 years.  What a blast of nostalgia.

Strange thing to take me back when I can watch the movies any time,

but this exact wallpaper was on a third of my upper bedroom wall near my

window long enough that it was a taken-for-granted part of my environment.

The transitions of life.

Can't Complain

A meme suggested giving up complaints for 24 hours. I agreed. Out of faithfulness to the meme, I will continue to put a positive spin on what I say. Tomorrow I am to improvise a bit of a shoot in a park so I've been thinking of general ideas. I suppose it is meant to be me talking about movies to a bored listener on a bench. I guess I can rant. There is a certain built-in conceit that maybe someone will find it amusing or useful. It's my hope to keep it happening. We will be recording proper sound, which I have not done for about 10 years. And it has been 20 years since I graduated Humber and a directing instructor left me with the inspirational question, "So you're going to pass yourself off as a writer-director?" And it is 30 years since I directed my first video at age 16. These numbers are somewhat intimidating. I will either be a successful writer and director or I will be a failed writer and director, but in any case that is what belongs in my obituary. I have been working, meanwhile, as a security guard and I feel that the research for my film or play on security has just about concluded. I think I can see the end in sight for that project. I have still managed to keep my soul. What am I randomly thinking about today? I went to a Comedy Bar event last night, had a beer and greeted Sketchy the Clown For Mayor, who got enough votes to win the competition. Today I went to see a Fringe play about the Robert Ford who killed Jessie James, its many asides reminding us that it is not to be confused with any other Rob Ford. I had a swim, and enough coffee, invested some time on the inter-net, and now I am in a caffeine daze deciding whether to focus on a script I need to finish. I can't and won't give up on the movie thing. That is already too big a part of who I am. It isn't like the character in Adaptation who one day says, "Done with fish" and starts collecting plants instead. ********************************************************************************************************** Is a video of myself ranting to the screen more effective than, say, text blogs like this? Maybe. But I'm not always of a mind to flap my lips. I think it is usually best to keep opinions close to the vest. Spike Lee said "Those who know don't tell and those who tell don't know." So is he saying that he doesn't know if he is telling us this? I think the message I get from someone has to do with what stock they own. It is only natural to try to boost that stock, what they have and what they are. A director with an A.D. background may say it is vital to be an A.D. before rising in ranks to director, even if the good ones will be encouraged to remain A.D.s. As I see the immediate future stretching out for me, I don't see myself starting out with the Director's Guild of Canada as a P.A.(Production assistant)/A.D. and then going to 3RD AD, 2ND AD, and finally First A.D. . Assuming I don't drop the ball in that capacity. One can be a talented director without being an effective Assistant, or a brilliant and vital A.D. but a mediocre director. If you are young, you might insist that a director of anything exciting and hip should be young. If you are a musician, regardless of talent, you might say that rhythm being so vital to filmmaking and editing a director or editor must also be a musician. Robert Rodriguez at least says that, "everybody has music in them" and has suggested people can use programs that allow experimentation and print out sheet music even for non-musicians to take a stab at their own scores. That is at least generous of spirit. If a director is female, she might be focused on the message of the seeming need for more females to be hired as directors. If you are old, you might want to see more interest in older or more experienced directors. Objectively, there is little to any of it. As a viewer, I might be fooled into praising a movie that simply has good performances because the cast is talented, or responding to a story that has content that pushes my own personal buttons regardless of whether there was anything special about the way the script was written or the way the director presented it. But the movies I love most could not have been directed by a piker, or simply "covered" by rote. The co-ordination of actors, framing, movement, and everything that goes into the best movie direction is what makes me take notice enough to look back at something over and over again and appreciate a touch of cleverness and confidence in what we see and from which angle at which moment. Raiders of the Lost Ark, Back to the Future, and much of Tarantino's work stand out. Some say the director's work should be invisible and not showy, but for the general audience there will be an unconscious feeling of assurance that they are in good hands while someone who is a filmmaker and/or obsessed by cinema and its machinations will appreciate the joins - whether or not they are noticed upon first viewing. A movie where the director's job is merely to "get out of the actor's way" would not appeal to me. The director directs the attention of the audience, picks each person up and allows them to see what small item is the most important thing in the world and whether the moment is steady as a rock or subtly shaky. There have been times I have built a house on quicksand without knowing it. It is a team effort, but I now that if I am going to feel the journey was worth my while expectations have to be disclosed and the storyboard must be the common frame of reference; usually if I'm not somewhat on edge over a detail being correct then I am on vacation and coasting and ultimately taking false credit. If the crew is happy to be directed by me, then they are the right crew. But tomorrow I have few if any firm expectations. I used to go to a party and organize an improvised movie, a horror premise or soap opera we could all watch edited-in-camera at the end of the night as a goof. But while I would still do that, I would feel it wasteful to approach a serious project that way. A movie should be more fun to watch than to make. And if I am so keen to appease every collaborator's impulses at the expense of my own instinct, the end product will be a monument to failure, compromise, and chaos. I would prefer it to be by design and not a mystery. I can bet on myself, and on people who also believe in what I am doing.

Far from over-Frank Stallone - directed by Sly

I wonder what the average Sly Stallone fan thinks of this movie.

Much of it falls into the "so bad it's good" category.



It's not without entertainment, and the song is pretty good, but if someone buys this

expecting the typical Stallone subject matter they will be in for a shock.



The "Satan's Alley" production seems kind of overblown, but I assume that is

the world being depicted.



I had seen a headline about a politician "Far from Over" and it reminded me of

this tune by Sly's brother.  The only reason I have this on DVD is that it came

with Saturday Night Fever.  I think the fact that in the original movie Tony Monaro

(Travolta) has a Rocky poster on his wall is the reason Stallone ended up directing

this sequel.

Mark Hamill interview on set of Star Wars

Conservative Pundits Demand Bill Nye Stop Bullying Them on Climate Change