Word Press Blogs

http://cinematruth.blog/2020/09/05/mission-statement/ Here are a few links to my own blogs elsewhere, for what it's worth. http://cinematruth.blog/2020/09/04/leverage-and-support/ http://cinematruth.blog/2020/10/13/friday-the-13th-2009-or-12th-movie/ http://cinematruth.blog/2020/10/13/raise-a-little-hell/ http://cinematruth.blog/2020/10/10/some-halloween-viewing/ http://cinematruth.blog/2020/10/09/crawl/ http://cinematruth.blog/2020/10/09/the-it-girl-and-her-grown-up-self/ http://cinematruth.blog/2020/10/06/john-carpenters-the-ward/ http://cinematruth.blog/2020/10/06/the-third-black-christmas-2019/ http://cinematruth.blog/2020/10/03/generations-and-rick-moranis/ http://cinematruth.blog/2020/09/26/in-praise-of-the-eighties/ http://cinematruth.blog/2020/09/06/look-at-these-damn-shorts/ http://cinematruth.blog/2020/08/29/perceptions-of-screenwriters-or-directors/ http://cinematruth.blog/2020/08/21/audio-the-fault-in-their-star-wars/ http://cinematruth.blog/2020/07/31/an-old-youtube-channel-is-back-up/ http://cinematruth.blog/2020/07/17/letting-a-screenplay-go/ http://cinematruth.blog/2020/06/09/internalized-or-imposed-knowledge/ http://cinematruth.blog/2020/06/07/twitchy-twitter-tribes-and-fans/

Still Having Flashbacks: Part One

If I kept busy I might have less time to stew over the would-coulda-shoulda where a more aggressive or enraged proactive choice might have been made. We hear a lot about scandals involving abuse by successful movie people and I can't help thinking what if the "sexual" aspect was removed and there could be a devastating scandal for people simply being assholes? Then I might have some war stories and a few names to toss into the abyss. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Ed was a guy who didn't show up to help edit a Super 8 assignment in college while I waited in the library, so after I ended up having to edit it myself he snuck into the post-production class and removed my reel from the crew bin and arbitrarily snipped frames from either side of each splice to render it unwatchable before handing it in to the instructor for screening the next morning to my horror. That act of vandalism left me shaken. I had directed that short and had it fine cut. One frame either way made the difference between "Hey, cool!" and "Huh ???" I certainly complained at the time but I'm haunted by the irrational idea that I could have campaigned to have that vandal removed from the course. But if I were to go back in time of course the smart thing would be to take the film reel home with me and hand it in to the teacher at the screening instead of following the letter of the plan and putting it were it was vulnerable - with the editing equipment in out crew bin. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The next year, Ed again had too much to say about a documentary I directed. I had written and storyboarded it in order for the crew to access equipment and then someone else was allowed to direct because of a rule at the moment against writer and director being the same person. But then that director was absent for medical reasons and the crew asked me to step in. I followed my storyboards which included a swish-pan-transition between a police station and a Guardian Angels office (this gimmick is seen on Batman or multiple times in Some Like it Hot - a fast pan away from something and a fast pan to something else can be cut at the blurriest frame to make it seem like a single pan). I nicely asked Ed (who was "camera operator" if he knows what a swish pan was and he was affronted and said "Yes," and then I could tell by his movement that he did not so I again politely took a stab at it and made the shot. The next day the other director was doing the office of the Guardian Angels and I did have to question her on one issue - reminding her that the pan was necessary as part of the swish transition and again I was able to get that done. The director also asked me - in addition to the storyboards - to type up an editing guide so the editors knew the order of shots and any special instructions. The editor accepted this and said he understood and had my number if there were any other questions. Then we show up in Post class and he screens a rough cut that doesn't even use my swish transition but uses Ed's meandering wrong pan and I have egg on my face instead of vindication. So I ask out Crew producer Sean if I can cut back in the unused transitions and he agreed. The next day is like a wake - busybodies are saying I have transgressed by re-editing. Later, they have to admit that my swish pan worked exactly as described and other edits as well and I am invited to direct the next assignment which is the drama. But this was a trial by fire. Ignorance almost won. Still, at one point Ed tried to bait me in the cafeteria by saying, "I don't think movies need directors." I forget what I said back, but the right answer is that some people would agree and it may depend on the kind of project but EVERYONE agrees that NO movie needs an incompetent crew member. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Ed's brother seemed like a friendlier person. Neither of them attended a class reunion years later, but I did hear that his brother ended up living across the street from a friend who had acted in a number of my projects. Unfortunately, over the years badmouthing had ripened into outright false history and mischaracterization so there might have been some derogatory mythology created by one brother or the other and passed along. I have been told that to top that off a woman I debated movies with on Facebook had such a meltdown that she decided to then badmouth me to the actor or his wife and I haven't heard from them in two years. So a little bit of misinformation is the gift that keeps on giving. It was likely for the best that these brothers did not show up at the reunion. They have oddly accumulated a fair number of credits on imdb.com which can add that extra seasoning of irritation. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ They say the best revenge is living well, so I hope I can redress this by actually clawing my way into the light at some point. At first glance my own problems don't seem like something to complain about. I wanted to write movies and so I have spent many years doing that. I wanted to direct the features I have written and have taken whatever steps I could toward that end. It is still an ongoing process. A few of my energies may have been misdirected, since the farther away I get from a simple shoot the more uncreative work has to be done. The one thing I know now that I didn't know a few years back is that a power struggle has to be anticipated and guarded against. That is almost a sub-category of Murphy's Law. There are a hundred ways to allow your leadership to be undermined. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ A college instructor I had for screenwriting and directing once asked me near graduation what I planned to do and I mentioned some screenplays I intended to write and direct and he said, "So, you want to pass yourself off as a writer-director!" That is a moment I turn over in my head, a typical mind fu*k. NO!!!! I don't want to PASS myself off as anything!!!! I plan to WRITE my screenplays and the DIRECT them !!!! Over the years the mind-fu*k has actually worked, because I pathologically resist any co-writer and insist on sketching storyboard panels of any shot and making sure I design any scene transition to fully feel authentic ownership of my directing, as opposed to people just arbitrarily covering a scene or letting someone else choose a shot. I would still rather be right about a shot than easy-going and loose. If it is worth doing, it is worth doing right. Meanwhile, I have also done a lot of b.s. goofing around that is not intended to go onto a reel. I have to get my passion back after a few set-backs have used up some of my stamina. It's at the low ebb that the traps of the past and fights I didn't fight fully come back to haunt me.

Weighed, Measured, and Found Crazy

The bad guy Count Adhemar in A Knight's Tale says to the hero William, "You have been weighed. You have been measured. You have been found wanting." Naturally, in the end, William's friends turn these words against Adhemar. The scene resonates with me due to my own insecurity and my long held ambition to make a mark as a writer and movie director. There are a couple of faces that spring to mind as being the sort of disgusting self-styled snob who would go so far as to try to mentally sabotage those of us who have specific goals to achieve. ```````````````````````````````````````````````` Someone running a screenwriting group ostensibly for writers to read and comment on each other's works in progress might be motivated primarily by the need to be the focus and the decider, perhaps pushing what might be called the dogma of Syd Field and Robert McKee format even in a culture where many different storytelling styles might be aching to get exposure and might not survive adaptation into the presumptive blockbuster streamlining. I can say that I have more memory of abuse from those communities than useful feedback. If anything, time can be wasted following the alternate rabbit holes of random opinions given without focused consideration. The preference is for feedback to come from people whose own work you admire and who will look at a draft as indicating what it is you care about and from that how well you are serving that concern. I made the mistake of being candid about my night job, due to the need to travel there after each monthly meeting instead of joining the rest or the writers for a beer. I had a security guard job. If someone chooses to look down on that, they ignore the fact that it did allow me to read screenplays and give considered notes on them. In the realm of sharing notes with strangers, online outlets like Zoetrope.com and Triggerstreet.com were somewhat useful and at least you could tell something about the reviewer by the willingness to rite more than 200 words and the specific relevance to the manuscript at hand. Nothing against the study of Syd Field's Screenwriter's Notebook for example or Story by Robert McKee and various other books about writing but these should be part of a Recommended Reading list and not sources for generic go-to comments to pass off as thoughtful coverage. ```````````````````````````````````````````````` If someone is a toxic person, even though they might appear to believe in the most humane left-wing ideology their fascist heart can be exposed by the tactic of attacking the individual speaker and assigning a pathology to them instead of engaging the arguments with logic and without the expectation that your "facebook friend" is the enemy. Even if it is disguised as a teachable moment, that can tend to be so crass that it is a slap in the face. ```````````````````````````````````````````````` The tricky trap is that there are some who believe or push the principle wherein the mental instability or trauma of a small percentage of those reading or following must set the tone and limitations of what can be said and how it can be said for fear of "triggering" them. While we all might have compassion for someone's trauma, this has escalated to the level of the victim as ruler. If one makes any complaint, he or she will be accused of "playing victim," yet complaints often do have to be conveyed one way or another. If someone has legitimate claim to vulnerability or victimhood, however, it is not a workable situation to stifle and censor all thought that fails to placate that person. ```````````````````````````````````````````````` I don't find it necessary to name names. If someone wants to be an idiot and say that I have spoken out about his/her actions, that is out of my hands. But the principles are more important than the personalities. ```````````````````````````````````````````````` Someone asked for volunteers for a project in her back yard. I responded with an e-mail and mentioned I have a camera I can bring. This was agreed. I was to document. I happened to bring two cameras, the second one being capable of shooting tape for an hour unbroken. So while walking around documenting the volunteer work, I allowed this person to frame up each or three camera positions - each one running an hour - that might be used as part of a demonstration. So I spent some time over there. As essential as the three hour-long shots might have been, there had been no effort to secure this for the project outside of my randomly showing up. As well thought out as the presentation might have been, this person then was not able to firewire onto a capture card of the computers on hand. Documentation of the volunteers on my other camera was easily imported. But I left my camera overnight so more attempts could be made to capture video. When that failed, I returned to pick up my larger camera and I spent another four hours trying to capture and also burn discs. Two discs went fine, but the third shot had some glitches and I wanted to know if I should persist. I e-mailed that there were two discs that turned out but not in full 1080 HD, only DVD quality. I also sent via Facebook a similar message and uploaded sped-up files of all three shots to indicate what was done, noting that at high speed I could be seen waddling around fast and that might be a distraction. I got NO RESPONSE as to the next step from this genius. Do I drop off the two good discs or try to get something out of the third? I had discovered that my camera playback/record heads needed cleaning if I was to record anything again. I looked into taking it in to Canon in Mississauga to get the lens cleaned and heads cleaned. (Turned out that exercise was horrible because Canon workers there won't make money from cleaning lenses or heads, only for a deposit over $300.) Time passed as no phone calls, e-mails, nor Facebook messages were answered. I did my distracting and anxiety-filled back and forth with Canon and their techs trying to scam me. And before I knew it, I was hearing indirectly that the presentation that had been planned never happened. I had gotten through by phone only to be told my timing was strange. I did not press to find out what this meant, and only then did I learn the thing was a bust. I had no indication as to whether I was expected to do more than I had. I had not spend five hours at a semi-friend's place and four more at mine working on that as a prank. There is only one communication style that is worth anything when you have deadlines and specific things that need to be done: Direct, clear communication with a specific intention. There is nothing between the lines in a non-response. There is only disrespect and perhaps madness. ```````````````````````````````````````````````` Ove the course of a year, my only communication to this person was two supportive notes (along with other people) on Facebook threads. One was about being small after being big for a while, and I said, "You are big." The other was about the Netflix series Sense 8 the Wackowskis did. I commented like someone else that even if their content might seem to message-driven and can be a bit much they know how to direct. Finally, a crazy falling out happened (if there was anything to fall out) because I commented on a linked blog that was factually weak. It was complaining about "the male gaze" driving movies and in its three cited examples it included Fifty Shades of Grey and neglected to mention that its director Sam Taylor-Johnson was a woman and that the novelist who had control over the project was also female. It also jumped through hoops with diagrams trying to prove that the geometry of the framing in Mad Max: Fury Road forced the movie to be more respectful to women.... neglecting to mention that Imperiator Furiosa and the whole movie was the product of writer-director George Miller and his 70 year-old male gaze. If you like the heroine of that flick, thank her maker. ```````````````````````````````````````````````` It did not help that a guy I had unfriended a year previous for abuse chimed in for some virtue signaling to throw shade on the ignorant sexist (me). The only lesson I learned from that back and forth and the following morning was as follows: If your Facebook account is beeping whenever someone posts, don't procrastinate about disabling that function. Don't let others and their random input drive your day. Also, make your point and then leave any conversation. There is a tactic some use in which they widen the scope of a discussion beyond the specific item for which you have an opinion. The wider the umbrella, the more disrespectful it is to clarity and the finer points. By the end of it, you can end up with your name all over the page and people seeing remarks out of context. This is baiting. The imbecile who chimed in also lured me to address side-issues and then the next day deleted his own remarks and left mine hanging without context. My own direct message to the owner of the page asking what was really going on was not answered. So I could see the value of my remarks: nothing. I deleted each of my posts. When the owner of the page realized this, there was a manic attempt to paraphrase the discussion with multiple highlights of my name - again to restore the vulnerability of my name being all over the page and this time with less context. I could have sent a printscreen or frame grab to Facebook with a complaint of harassment. That might have been the wise course of action. Instead, the person unfriended me. ```````````````````````````````````````````````` There was some back and forth in Personal Messages trying to get to the bottom of it all, and finding only spin and a completely false recollection of something from 15 years prior. Of the project, the only mention was one of being grateful for my help, although it is doubtful how that could be anything more than ironic. I was told this person likes me but that on Facebook I was a terrible person and a troll. I began to correct the errant memory that had been referred to from the year 2000, and got back a rambling and hyper mess of words telling me not to communicate again. My only response was to go a step further than unfriend and actually block this individual, which I should have done to my shade-thrower the year before. ```````````````````````````````````````````````` I have posted commentary tracks to a few of my short films on youtube, and I started with one for the short that was mentioned from 2000. The sound quality and picture were both murky once I posted it, so I took another stab at it. But because the first version included an allusion to this individual walking from the location, I got indirect feedback on it. The first time around, I had a prop - a VHS tape - and I mentioned something scandalous the self-righteous protester shot which had aired on TV. I had nothing to show from it, but I flipped up the tape guard and pointed at the half-inch tape and said, "There's the nude shot" or something to that effect. The second time, I could not find the tape prop so I let it go. I got an automated e-mail in an account that only a few people knew, advising that am instagram account had supposedly been started by me and that my name was something other than my own. There was a picture of a little boy on the fake account and some message like "I have a podcast." ```````````````````````````````````````````````` When some people get indirect they can be very creepy. I also received a mess of Facebook friend-requests from accounts that seemed fake, like a little girl I did not recognize whose parents I did not know and that was filled with professional-looking photos. Many fake accounts were like dating ads. I had to actually block some so that they would not automatically follow me. I was told that both my troll and this person I had recently blocked were conspiring together to send me these annoyances and also going after the page for my planned film. So their attacks did have quite a great deal of bashing me by name. I know that it caused one friend to stop replying to me (on matters unrelated) and his wife to unfriend and block me. I can only imagine the range of evil slander that has been spread - and over what? If I could anticipate that sort of enemy being killed, I am not sure that I would make an effort to stop that. I look forward to the obituaries of even that mundane level of adversary. ```````````````````````````````````````````````` My generation was raised on Norman Lear, Princess Leia, Mary Tyler-Moore, the Bionic Woman and Murphy Brown. Yet, we are likely to be called sexist for not being excited about the 2016 Paul Feig version of Ghostbusters. There are people who will "other" you and shun you for disagreeing with a sub-issue despite genuinely holding many of the same values. No matter how it is spun, it really may just come down to assholes in sheep's clothing. And mad, mad, mad vindictive jerks cloaked in the flag of decency.

Looking Back at Big Babies

Recently decided to capture and upload the full version of Big Babies that was cobbled together in 2004, and I found it holds up better than I had expected and better than I had heard. The opening prologue discussion has an energy to it, although I did get a tweet from The Projection Booth asking, "does anything every happen in this?" which is a trade-off of front-loading some character development. The main body of the short may not allow the characters to be as accessible. I will eventually continue my plan to record a commentary track which I'm sure will set the world on fire. Funny how remarkably few views a new video an get. I have heard of algorithm working against a video, but I may have to explore that - a subject of zero interest, except that it would be nice to disprove the theory that someone has hacked my account and is reducing exposure to it. As for the subject matter of Big Babies, I don't carry it around so much. What I like is the glibness and whimsy of it, whether or not I would approach the same taboo type of topic again.

Big Babies from William La Rochelle on Vimeo.

Film Appreciation: Directing

10 Thoughts on Directing Movies

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 1. Be the first to say it is "just a movie" or "First World Problems" to get that nonsense out of the way. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ http://s.hswstatic.com/gif/movie-director-6.jpg _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 2. With money tight, is it worth paying hundreds of dollars for a directing workshop without exploring the information and tutorials available for free on-line and on DVDs ? _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ https://www.instagram.com/lilyinapad/?hl=en _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 3. Is it true that "Once the script is right and the casting appropriate, ninety percent of the director's job is done" is has the job just begun? Some films and many TV shows use directors only as guests and already have the script in place and the cast already attached or established. The director may have to initial each page of a script to ensure it is all shot. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ http://67.media.tumblr.com/b78ca5314f53b8754bff183a55a92311/tumblr_mh95s3iewL1rovfcgo1_1280.jpg _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 4. Is Wernor Herzog right in saying that "storyboards are for cowards" or is Roger Corman right that especially directors starting out with respect for everyone's time should prepare storyboards and/or pre-vis? Does it matter that a storyboard "implies a cut" or is it up to the director to decide the psychological use of the frame, a move, and the displacement impact of an edit? _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ http://www.tribute.ca/images/videos/ruba-nadda-inescapable-6016-300x226.jpg 5. Do you aspire to the Auteur Theory or is Peter Farrelly right that, "If you come off like you think you are Stanley Kubrick, the crew will make your life hell" so it is better to tell them to save you and you know nothing? _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ http://media.gettyimages.com/photos/film-director-quentin-tarantino-is-photographed-for-shortlist-on-7-picture-id173215132 6. What part of a director's duties could be delegated before the directing credit feels fraudulent? _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Martin_Scorsese_by_David_Shankbone.jpg _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 7. How do you honestly develop a reputation for a style or even competence without establishing a vision in advance? _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ http://static1.purepeople.com/articles/3/13/44/43/@/1348944-la-realisatrice-jane-campion-62eme-950x0-2.jpg _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 8. Is important to have a social issue as your masthead or is the language of directing itself enough to draw fans? _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ http://www.trbimg.com/img-56567b8c/turbine/la-ca-mn-conversation-spike-lee-chi-raq-interview-20151129 _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 9. Is it better to work independently or join a union, paying for workshops between clocking set hours as PA/AD, third AD, second AD, and First AD, giving yourself years to climb a theoretical ladder to Director? _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ http://images.fanpop.com/images/image_uploads/Sofia-sofia-coppola-562139_395_480.jpg _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 10. Will you have time to schmoose and drink with the right person to get a job, or will you be focused on developing your craft? And must you be a musician or actor or stand-up comic as a prerequisite for directing or is that the advice you will get from a director who is a musician, actor or stand-up and wants to psyche you out? _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ https://www.nyfa.edu/student-resources/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Francis-Ford-Coppola.jpg

Film Directing as Political Football

If movie directing is becoming a political football, it must be what we call soccer. The goal here will be to diffuse outright falsehoods being promoted. 1. The CBC has already committed to hiring women for at least fifty percent of its positions for directing TV shows. 2. If a script is submitted for funding to the Canadian Film Center or any other entity in Canada, there is an opportunity to indicate gender and visible minority. http://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/entertainment/lack-of-canadian-female-directors-a-political-issue-researcher-says-1.3071157 3. In TV especially, the writers/producers have more say about the content of an episode than the guest director of an episode. So it is false to assume that power resides in the director to turn a scripted lesbian triumph over the patriarchy into a hard-edged macho cop show that condones racism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDHqDEa1ed4 4. There is a "get the job done" work ethic in Assistant Directors, and a "never miss tiara Tuesdays" crew-service perspective that is of great human value on a set but does not have any relationship toward that person directing the audience through the frame once elevated to the job of "Director." Some comedy directors I enjoy keep it simple, keeping the cast in focus while they improvise, but there isn't much room for directing as an art form, by which I don't mean "fancy shots" (a term I hate) but the most appropriate shot for each beat or transition. https://youtu.be/3FOzD4Sfgag?list=PL2w4TvBbdQ3sMABf317ExCob_v6rW2-4s 5. Even though it may be true that having a "beer with the right person" or being "the kind of person people want to have a beer with after a long shoot," may result in getting hired as a Director on a project, it is questionable whether or not that is good news for the craft. Who has time for a beer after each shoot day, and even if that means the wrap party, it is movie lore that Steven Spielberg skips the last shot and wrap party on everything since Jaws - initially out of fear the crew would prank him or get revenge for a long shoot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8q4X2vDRfRk 6. The argument that a writer or director must have empathy certainly is valid, but it is more important that the material is presented in a way that engages empathy and it is nearly impossible to tell just how much "empathy" any ambitious person in the film or TV business actually has. If that refers to male empathy for the plight of women who are not employed enough as directors, that is a First World Problem anyone can identify with who does not have that job. Many women hate Woody Allen because of his personal life and the writings of Mia Farrow, but some of the best acting roles for women have his name on them. Some of us might weep in life only when watching a movie or play or reading a book but in life respect ourselves and others enough to put up layers. As the line goes at the end of The Madness of King George, "I have remembered how to seem." So an actor or director feeling something is not the same as an audience feeling it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqFd_niDWA4 7. It has been said that, "Once the script is solid and the casting is appropriate, Ninety percent of the director's job is done." As vital as those aspects are, for the sake of evaluating a movie director, I would focus only on that remaining ten percent which makes as much difference as the microscopic difference of an extra chromosome at conception makes to the grown adult that results. Coppola talks about "performance" meaning the way a director presents on the set as only half of the actual directing and the other is preparation or vision. Being a social butterfly isn't part of it. Coppola has also said that, "A dictatorial reputation comes from the fact that an experienced crew after a while can do certain things by rote" and introducing something new can meet resistance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1D2_bovy20 8. There is little difference between having no script and having no storyboards. Unless the point of excess dialogue is to eat up time and be able to claim a huge number of pages have been covered on a given shooting day. For most of us who are slowly developing projects, there is time to do what we only need time for: sketch the shots to see the movie, how to visually introduce characters, what we need to see and what is more powerful without being focused on. The argument that storyboards "imply a cut" and may cramp the style of the editor may be something to discuss when choosing an editor. Or assistant editor who can be elevated to full credit after the fact and circumvent any politics. For low budget, storyboards respect the time crunch. A look book may additionally be provided to the art department but it is secondary. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egwLenvNG0E 9. Anecdote: In a system where the statistics for women in film where far worse than they are now, in the Nineteen Nineties, Ruba Nadda was publishing poetry and making shorts with her sisters using a Bollex and 16mm film and spending her wages from Ontario Hydro to send prints to festivals overseas. She made a feature on black and white 16mm, another in colour, took a producer's course at the Ontario Media Development Corporation, and cast Arsinee Khanjian in her next feature which became Sabah. Atom Egoyan became her mentor. Christine Vachon became executive producer of her next few films. When people talk about influencing cinema to be more diverse, all they have to do is look at Christine Vachon's producing credits or read her books like Shooting to Kill. That's a producer with a voice and ideology that is rare. It comes from an individual and her own networking, not imposed from the top down with false expectations. https://www.facebook.com/The-Adventures-of-Porno-the-Clown-1561237830831389/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel 10. Do some Canadian productions put ideology before aesthetic? When Vincenzo Natalie submitted Cube to the Canadian Film Center Feature Film Project, it would become its biggest success but there was resistance to it because of the attitude, "This isn't the kind of thing we do." In other words, a major statement of visual invention almost didn't make the cut because it wouldn't blur together with small character pieces that pretty much all blend together. I had the pleasure of working on a CFC feature called Clutch toward the end of their shoot in 1998, and made a point to see the film when it was released. There were quirky elements, and it is the last CFC film to date I can remember finding and watching. I have tremendous respect for Norman Jewison's directing. I have And Justice For All, Moonstruck, and Fiddler on the Roof. I respect In the Heat of the Night, and got to see Jewison speak before a screening of Hurricane at the former Bloor Theater in Toronto. But even with my own politics leaning to the left (not leaning so far I topple), buzz words like story and character can ring hollow if over-shadowed by mission statements. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfZYVLRoPTo

Blade Runner Transitions

Inventory

"For all her careful inventory of wires, cables and connections, there is a screw loose that is not accounted for." -- official psychological assessment of _________________ See my blog on trolls and the definition - official versus crazy definition - to get an idea of the person of which I speak here. I left out one of the things this person said in her last missive. She said that I was "addicted to negative excitement." I would say - were we talking - physician heal thyself. /////////////////////////^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^#################### I'm not sure how graceful it would be to lay out all of my medical history to demonstrate how unappealing "negative excitement" is to me, and it seems like something you hear 12 step program people talk about. I have however already blogged or posted in the past about an aneurysm I survived around the end of 2011 with a coil procedure at St. Michael's in Toronto. My scans show that there is one branch filled with coil to block it and another branch with just one thread of coil as a lead which they have to monitor now just once a year and I am encouraged to watch blood pressure is the most likely issue that can cause it to leak. Even when I prepare a film project or something else that involves a certain measure of stress, I want to be as organized as possible to avoid a disaster or misunderstanding 100% of the time. The square peg is my storyboarded movie and the round hole it goes into is the nearly zero amount of money in the budget. Meanwhile, I pay the rent with the same basic security job I've had for 14 years which from time to time involves a knack for keeping calm and managing stress and de-escalating a situation that might be brewing. So, no. I don't seek negative excitement. If I take the time to read something in my news feed and something strikes me as left out or not being said, that's when I'll fill out the space for comment beside my face that appears under the link or post. /////////////////////////^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^#################### Some people have a shockingly childish response to having anything questioned, and instead of engaging in a sane and constructive manner they might choose to view any question or fact-check as popping their balloon. If someone posts an article singing the praises of Caitlin Gender... I mean Jenner... I can leave that sort of thing be. I would know to not even bother clicking on the article to read it, so I will not have invested any time and won't have anything to say about it, having never watched a Kardashian reality show or any spin-off. I recall maybe one article about Sense8 the new Wackowski series. Another guy in the thread said he thought it was beating people over the head with its politics and agenda, and I commented that his remark is the only thing that might give me pause but that Lana and her brother Andy can direct and their skills are the reason I will watch. This one simple remark may be considered by the person praising the show to be an example of "troll" post by her poor definition of it. If a show is preaching to the converted at best and bashing people over the head with an over-ripe subtext or surface-text, that can indeed count against it. I'm a bit worried that there might be a pocket of people who are very vocal who are political first and willing to throw craft and art under the bus for the sake of pushing a social trend. Arthur C. Clarke's book Childhood's End has a section called The Golden Age in which society has gotten rid of its ills and concerns and conflicts but art is bland if not non-existent. We do live in a world where inequality is a fact of life and there are bullies. The difference is who is jockeying for those dominant positions. /////////////////////////^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^#################### I find even when I have been in the middle of a fight as the third person, in the cross-fire, my nature is to be the luke warm water that attempts to not be touched by the nervous energy or agitation of the others. I think even if there is "chemistry" with a woman on a date, my nature to diffuse tension is still there and it has caused the false read that I am not excited. It's a difficult thing to work around. I strive to remain in the centre of the wheel of life where there is less violent movement. Some people - especially performers or those truly addicted to excitement - are willing to stay on the outer rim of the wheel where the ups and downs are extreme. Any risk I take has to be fairly well calculated, and after some naive risks in the past I am even more likely to get things in writing and make sure nobody has unspoken expectations about a project or what might happen. I am likely to publish some of my journals and recollections of things going wrong in filmmaking, and maybe something separate about what goes wrong in security, although the latter might just be my movie about security guard work. I agree with the idea that what you are most afraid will happen already has, and so there is no point in fearing it. Most stress can be unexpectedly caused by people reading you as too calm (because you are managing stress) and taking it upon themselves to try to shake you up. Sometimes this can be anticipated and a preemptive conversation might avert an escalation. In any case, if you have no legal recourse when the smoke has cleared it might be best to calmly seek extra-legal recourse. If you can. Some of us don't have the compartmentalization to be as cold blooded as necessary. But I still try to keep my cool.

30 Years a "Director"

2014 marked 30 years since directing the first video short I had aired back in 1984. I may be repeating myself, but since it is unlikely that the reader has combed through all my blogs, this won't likely seem redundant. It cycles around in my head anyway, so it all remains current. Ten years in, it was 1994 when I graduated the Humber College three-year program in Film and Television Production. Ten Years after that was kid of a pivotal year, 2004. By then I had started over somewhat and I had a Bravo!Fact short Klepto the Clown and an Ontario Arts Council Emerging Artists grant for my 22-minute short musical satire Big Babies. I had joined the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT) in 2003 and had taken over that year as instructor for LIFT's Directing Actors For the Camera course, which was an interesting experience I embraced; I ended up calling some of the students back for a free additional class once the camera actually became available. Would have been handy in the actual two-day class. 2004 also involved some fallout from taking someone at her word and not yet understanding the pitfalls of collaboration that may be unique to one unfortunate case. I took a workshop in Legal and Business Affairs for Filmmakers and Producers, but it would have been more handy a year previous. Everything must be in writing in terms of what is expected and what volunteers are agreeing to. It's not enough to say here is the square peg of a movie I plan to make and here is the round hole of money I plan to spend. I can pat myself on the head for being right in the abstract, but I would have preferred to anticipate and protect myself better. Sometimes people avoid bidding on a job offering to volunteer for work that a production can't afford to properly reward anyway. I also that year spoke out and let myself be the lightning rod for criticism when I questioned the founders of a film troop raising money ostensibly for the group and then deciding to spend it all on one of their own personal projects without subjecting it to vote. Money can be a real monster. Those funds were earmarked for at least four unspecified shorts to be voted on by the collective. Time has healed most of those wounds, but I'm sure at least one ally of my adversaries then went on to actively badmouth me and continues to be a dreadful person. 2004 is also the most recent date for a directing credit I have on imdb.com. I finished out that year with a barium enema and colonoscopy, appropriately enough, the results of which were apparently mishandled and lost -- which I did not discover until a year of inquiries passed and 2006 began. 2006 brought the passing of my dad from cancer and a loss of interest in a screenwriter's circle at LIFT and also the drowning death of Roberto Arigenello at LIFT who had been such a community-binding figure there. A couple of years passed where I continued renewing my membership, but I was not as active with the group. It also changed locations, which seemed to mark the new era even more firmly. Flashback to 2005 which contained one dialogue-heavy script that I let someone else direct, which turned out okay once the chore of editing finally fell to me, and a mind-reading adventure feature that I tried a few times to shoot with Super 8mm film and which I recast and re-started at least 3 times. Having our own cameras and editing software can be the difference between one or two years. 2005 also brought my diagnosis of type-two diabetes, which explained bouts of sleepiness. I continued to get short films and videos accomplished over the next few years and used some night shifts to evolve my screenplays and other writing and storyboard sketches. Without that. I might have been in limbo. 2014 has meant some progress and closure to writing projects and a sense of new energy and focus. An aneurism from late 2011 did not put me down for good; instead, it might have goosed me into improving projects that had stalled. It put off some work that might have gone into improving a 2010 short The Fashion of the Christ, which is currently still having its audio replaced due to my mistake of using the built-in mic of my Canon XH-A1. At this point, I need to get momentum and a sense of mission again. Movie writing and directing are not a "hobby" for me. They are my vocation. I still have a job insecurity, but if that erodes my identity then I'll be dead in the most significant sense. Life in 2015 as I enter the forth decade of my relationship with movie-making it has to be more than an unrequited obsession. In October of 2013, a directing workshop I paid to attend frankly stated that "people get hired to direct if they are the sort of person the producer wants to have a beer with after a shoot." That seems evident by much of the TV we see, and by the apparent new normal where storyboarding is rare and the cinematographer may be coming up with the shots (or calling them). If this is the case, I'll continue to be the odd man out. I like and respect storyboarding and I say it's okay that the "cut" is implied or forced by it. The frame and the cut are critical tools of the director, and merely to "cover" a scene in "real time" is just not interesting or cinematic. Hypocritically, I will end up doing a feature this year -- which will indulge in what Hitchcock called, "Pictures of people talking." But even that will contain a few careful cuts or moves that might make it more than the close-ups, overs, and establishing shot that will carry the bulk of it. I've transferred some updated copies of my footage from Klepto the Clown, Big Babies, and a film short from 1994 this past year for the internet and posterity in general. There was a 2014 20-year reunion of some of my Humber classmates. They seem to be doing well and most of them still keeping a foot or more in the movie industry. I feel like I have a toe in it. Another issues that caused reflection was that a screenplay I wrote for during my time at Humber for an independent filmmaker (around 1991-1993) was produced in 2011 and released in 2014 without giving me proper credit for co-writing nor any money. I still have to sit down and air my grievances about that, which I should have done during Festivus. Meanwhile, I have tried stand-up comedy for the first time, and though I don't know if it will be a lifestyle or craft that I cultivate, I can if it helps position me or goose me with my movie-making. But even visiting home for the holidays I am reminded how it can be an effort to even coral family members to co-operate with a short. Even reaching back to original resources can be a stretch. It is just so easy to put things off that maybe there is nothing wrong with being a nag and beig willing to inconvenience people. There are qualities I took for granted in my youth which can be replaced all to easy with neurotic second-guessing and self-negating faux etiquette. There will be people who accommodate an idea or a prank or a project. The point is to keep looking and maybe cast the net wide.

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.

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.

Writer-director

Over Easter, I had beer with a few high school friends. It's the kind of thing where you expect to account for the last 20 or 30 years of your life. Even though the broad strokes are already known. Graduated from Film and TV Production at Humber, did a lot of volunteering and being unemployed, and kept writing and making my little movies even while taking on a job as a security guard, which I thought would be temporary. ************** Some helpful and supportive thoughts and ideas were offered. I won't mention one business plan which might easily be used by others. But along with that came the opinion that a person has to decide whether he/she is a writer or a director. I keep remembering what one of my instructors said to me as graduation approached and he asked what I planned to do. He asked, "So you're going to pass yourself off as a writer-director." Since this was someone who might still be able to mess with my grades, I must have said something polite instead of, "Better than passing myself off as writing and directing instructor." He must have failed upward because he became head of the department. I could have also said, "Yes, I'll pass myself off by writing a screenplay and then directing it; that will surely fool people into thinking I am a writer-director." :):):):):);):):):):) What I have been seeing typically for years is that many directors develop their own projects. If they have found an already written screenplay, it is considered a draft and they will want to "work with" the writer or just walk away. It is like the old joke of producers or executives lining up to take their turn pissing on a script. It's not like I have people lining up with excellent scripts for me to direct. But I have participated in readings over the years and given detailed notes on many scripts. It is enough to know that you either click with something or you don't. I may not have time to see every story idea through to completion. I have too much in my inbox anyway. I have directed another writer's work and the process was the process. Once a script is ready, it can basically be locked. Especially after group readings and storyboards have drawn out possible areas of improvement or necessary tweaks. All of my own scripts go through that process. And once I have drawn it out and had to meditate on each beat of the story or of a scene, I can relax as long as everybody else is open to actually looking at my plan rather than just trusting the whims of the day. ________________________________________________________________________________________Being the writer and the director does not mean that I do "everything." I have had a few people offer me scripts to "produce" which they would want to direct, but that is like hiring me to do many of the chores I only reluctantly do for myself or for which I have waited years to delegate. I would be the wrong person to finance a film, given that it is mostly guard income I survive on. But I have had to do just that many times. Even if you get a producer, you have to have that awkward talk about whether you both understand the duties and responsibilities of that post. If suddenly the director has to recover funding that had not been properly locked down while a project is near or in progress, that could be a disaster. If you start revising a script because it has to be done with no resources, you are wearing the producer had and Murphy's Law is not co-writing and co-directing. There are a lot of opportunities or windows to shoot something I have let go by because now I am not as naive and certain of my destined path. But for me it is a matter of keeping an eye on the expected final result. A compromise on one end of the time-line will have its result on the other end. Each crew member is important. Each is a link in the chain. ________________________________________________________________________One logistical snafu and nothing can nor should be shot without the necessary element. I have in the past accommodated people leaving early from a big shoot and I've had to shoot around them to disguise the fact that they were not present. At that point, the best shots for those moments may be lost. Except that I was in the habit of doing storyboards and it helped the re-organization considerably. What may be lost is subtle. A room full of people has a certain energy. At this point I've caught on to how certain shots can't be easily achieved in reality. Even a 360 degree pan of people might not give the smooth other-worldly mood necessary and build viewer confidence in the project. So those elements become part of preparation. Too much emphasis these days is on simply "covering" the content of a scene, and assumes that it is two people talking. I am going to blog about this in more detail. But on the subject of writers handing over their scripts to a director, each project is its own. If I have written a stage play, I am oddly open to someone or several someones directing and re-staging it however they like. Perhaps because of the expectation that plays will be remounted or go on the road indefinitely. A movie is rarely remade. Even if it seems like the Seventies and eighties are being raided constantly for remakes. Also, part of my interest in directing a script is its potential for necessary invention and use of cinema language. So many movies are just master shot, over shoulder of everyone, close-up of everyone, and the scene from top to bottom. Flipping a burger. In those cases it seems like the director's role is merely symbolic or a matter of reviewing whether the actors are sticking to the plan from rehearsal or casting discussions. Jon Favreau has said that often studios would give him storyboards and say "just shoot this." Or he has hired the animator from Samurai Jack and the first style of Clone Wars cartoon to "direct" on paper the movements and framing of a battle in Iron Man 2. To be honest, the proper application of cutting and shooting is the key to my love of movies. MANY articles and interviews I've studied pay lip service to storytelling and visual elements but then run a camera merely recording conversation - as Hitchcock said, "pictures of people talking." Ironically, I am poised to do something that simple perhaps just because I have no production team and nothing to pay them so I will be writing like the wind and confining everything to the simplest location for the sake of. . .well not just savings of money but the Aristotelian unities of time, place and conflict. Then at least I won't be doing my "first feature" when I tackle the larger project I have been developing. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________I would LOVE to have a decent income. I would LOVE to have more of my titles from the past 10 years on imdb. I envy an enemy of mine who was savvy enough to start a film festival and once it was recognized by imdb simply put her own film titles up there - even at least one I know to be some sort of inside joke (a so-called doc that isn't anything more than an interview of her boyfriend). Much of my play and my passion has gone into preparing projects that at least were my own and/ or had an interesting element. I would be doing more for other people, but in my nerves I feel I am out of place in that capacity. If you advise anyone else on directing you are pissing up a rope. Everyone thinks he or she can direct, so this may not be unique. I won't co-write the work of others, so the idea of working on someone else' script to direct is not on the immediate horizon for me. Maybe after I've gotten my stuff out of my system. Most projects I should have done in my twenties or thirties. I know how sane I felt immediately after completing a film shoot in late 2003 and my brain felt more free to write. I got a lot of good work typed up, and some that still needs to be fixed up. I would certainly give certain scripts to another director and let them stage them and even cast them while I am directing one of my other scripts. As long as I'm not expected to pay for the pride of being a writer-john. I haven't given in to the vanity press. For now all I can do is be thankful for the people who have taken an interest in what I am doing and have helped. _______________________________________________________________________________You know, as I recall, the Canadian Film Center had its Feature Film Projects that as a rule only budgeted for an individual to be paid for one of the positions he or she held. This meant that it made great economic sense for the writer to also be the director. I know that if I were merely surrendering a script I would consider my job done. It would be all over but the compromise. So better to have me doing something, actually directing. As a producer I would be a liability because there are producer-minded people who could be going to bat for the project. You need a load bearing member of the team to be the producer. Obviously the cinematographer and first A.D. are essential. People expect a producer to be production manager as well. There are many positions that I have occupied, but the only one where I feel I am actually the best for the job (for the money) is writer-director. Even then, when directing it is to an extend acting if the scope is large. I wouldn't want some pip squeak wandering along and sizing me up and trying to spread dissent in the ranks. George Roy Hill was much like a general. Apparently so was Milius (who is recently featured in a great doc by Chop Shop). But I tend to be more quiet and hope to plan enough in advance that we don't miss anything. It is a cause for concern that I have not climbed up the imaginary ladder of the DGC for be a PA/AD, then a 3rd AD, then a 2ND AD, with payments and minimum numbers of hours on set in between. Unless I get in straight as a director, I might have to forget about union shoots. I can't be playing that game at age 45. I pretty much have to stick to what I am doing. ___________________________________________________Every now and then you will see a directing credit like Vincenzo Natali on Hannibal that you recognize and you can settle in and watch more carefully, but for most shows it just seems arbitrary who comes in to direct. The shows have good image quality, so the shooters know what they are doing, but I think it will only be taken as a grouchy position to evaluate the quality of TV directing or movies at least in an open forum. I need to be doing this more often, though I have no love of logistical tensions and politics. I feel like I am getting back into it and starting over each time. I keep seeing posts (by female directors) saying there are not enough female directors. I can understand someone boosting the stock of something they've got. But the one thing definitely needed is more excellent directors and a better image for directors. There is clearly an impatient view of directors by and large and a perception that they are all doing something by rote that is so standardized that they are redundant. Whether it is me or someone else, we need to see the DIRECTING evaluated as directing and not so much for content and politics. Some films are more fun to watch than others. The writing is often a meandering mess, which might make it closer to life but also makes the proverbial natives restless. Anyone can do it, so why am I merely wasting my time blogging on a Saturday when my time and my ind are my own? I am either hyper-ambitious, or hyper-apathetic.

Filmmaker Commentary Tracks and their Usefulness

They say listen to people who are doing what you want to do. So I’m surprised that it is in fashion to disrespect the opportunity provided by the better DVD commentaries. I don’t buy a DVD generally unless there is a commentary. They can be long, but at least like radio or a podcast you can listen while doing other things. Here are a few samples. Control – distinguishing between the actor’s “journey as a human being” as opposed to honoring the character and function of the story. David Fincher commentary on various films Ridley Scott – commentary from Thelma and Louise is very worth hearing Beyond these, I’d recommend Aranovski’s commentary for Requiem for a Dream which gets into the why of some shot choices. For example, it would not have occurred to me that in a restaurant dialogue scene the person with more depth and background behind him/her has the “authority” in the scene. Nicholas Meyer (Wrath of Khan) gives good commentary on his disks, Frank Darabont’s commentaries on Shawshank, Green Mile and The Mist are very informative, any movie on which Walter Murch was editor or sound he might have a separate commentary for his own discipline, The Conversation, for example, which breaks things down more than the director commentary. Writer/actor Emma Thompson has her own commentary on Sense and Sensibility which is more worthwhile than the director’s track for Sense and Sensibility. If you only have time to hear one commentary on Citizen Kane, choose the Roger Ebert version which is very informative and especially useful to film students. Roger Deacons the cinematographer from Fargo gets to provide its only commentary track, but he lets you know how the shots came about and his process with the meticulous Coen brothers as well as the truth about the “true story” card at the beginning. Some directors do embrace commentary tracks for the sake of posterity and use the time efficiently, while others admittedly seem to recline and wax nostalgic with actors and may not have screened the film in years or planned an approach to the track nor had anything to get off the chest. Haskell Wexler Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Audio Commentary is very detailed, best listened to if you are already familiar with Mike Nichols’ first feature but the descriptions by Wexler are detailed enough that you can imagine the set-ups and situations explained.

Pet Peeves - film and ads

I had in mind a topic to blog about which had nothing to do with what is now the first pet peeve on my mind. First, I'm sure some insufferable boob is going to say, "If you don't like ads there is nobody forcing you to use the website." That is the kind of remark that deserves a slap in the head with a dead fish. I finally make my way to google and blogger and click "create new post" and lately what I get is a blank screen with nothing but an ad banner and at the bottom a "send feedback" button which I may have use for. If I want to actually see where to put my subject line and the body of my blog entry I have to click refresh. This I find out purely by experimenting. When I sign into a hotmail account, I see at the top an indication like, "a password is not enough," which looks like the name of a philosophically horrific song raising money for internet stupidity. To circumvent that I have to highlight the address bar and either go to another site or type hotmail again and then I am in. So I'm learning two things from msn in that case: They want to force me to give them a phone number or credit card or some other perhaps false verification of identity for an account I have had for 13 years (which is something I don't respect) and the security of their stupid system can be gotten around (which I also can't say I respect). I have heard that something on the horizon will replace hotmail accounts entirety, but have received no alerts and it may have merely been hype for the new service. Some of us have records of hotmail messages archived in such a way that there would be a loss if they were deleted. I don't know how to fight these things without seeming naive. What I had in mind was to talk about filmmaker pet peeves. Mainly the way that aspects of production are played off without context. An actor brags, "We don't need to use monitors or video assist. The camera man can do that. And I don't like the director looking at a monitor during the take. He should be looking at me." Or somebody says, "Oh, out director doesn't bother with storyboards. He just makes up his mind as we go along. That keeps it all fresh. he doesn't need the crutch of storyboard sketches." There seems to be nobody responding to those kinds of sound bytes, and so they are taken at face value. This drives me nuts. About the actor saying a director should be looking at him/her during the take, the actor is important but so is context and perspective. Even if the director is ONLY concerned about the actor, the lens and the lighting and the way the actor is framed and frankly whether a moment within a take is actually IN FRAME at all are all elements of that. And the actor's job is largely concentration. If the reality of the director standing there in his/her eye-line and staring at them is important, that actor has problems ACTING!!!!!! There IS NO director between action and cut, only your character and whatever other fictional person should be imagined there. Furthermore, the director has to sign off on the shot. It is nice if other people do to, but the director HAS TO be able to give the minimum direction of YES or NO. The director can sign-off blindly and take the cinematographer's word for it, but chances are the cinematographer might not be operating the camera either and if HE isn't using a monitor to at least see how the lights interact with the scene then it would come down to the camera operator's sign-off. However competent or extraordinary each member of the crew may be, the director should WANT to be the person who signs off. Especially because there may always be one detail that shouldn't be taken for granted and he should have to take responsibility when it comes to edit and there are no surprises about something being there you don't want or something missing that should be there. About the storyboard, this is not spelled out enough. The kind of storyboards to avoid are the ones that a studio might give to the director of a tent-pole film and say "just shoot this." A good storyboard for s similar size film might be Paul Verhoven's personal storyboards for Starship Troopers which depict the shooting plan pretty much as it emerged on screen, and with the added benefit that he happens to be an excellent draftsman so the illustrations are true to the subjects. Whether it happens all the time or not, I like the idea of the director drawing each frame within a shot and having a plan. If a movie were 100 pages of screenplay, I estimate that two and a half weeks of 8-hour days could be spent on the director doing the first pass of thumbnail storyboards for a feature. That is thought and time and close regard of the scenes that will not be spent during the high tension of making the movie itself when time is of the essence. Plans can be modified or adapted as circumstances change, but having done storyboards makes a person mentally prepared for how to use the camera as visual reinforcement to contain the relationships and moments of the story. They can also help narrow down locations. If someone expects to be a beggar and not a chooser with locations or sets, they might compromise the best way to shoot a scene. For example, being unable to get the camera far enough away from the actors to blur out the background because the location is too confined might be something that they are willing to compromise or it might be an argument that can be defended persuasively with storyboarding (and with pointing to the sketch and explaining "this is the character and this is scribble is the blur because he is isolated from others and should have his own focal plane"). The camera (except in faux documentary style which I dislike) should not be playing catch-up with the actors. There is nothing unusual about giving the actor the edge of the stage and the confines in which he/she has to work. Sometimes it will be just their hands acting in close-up, sometimes just the face, and sometimes head-to-toe body language. The actor's requirements include technical competence. They can certainly bring something to the table, and may have a better-motivated start position or an idea of how to be introduced. But even those are best as early discussions instead of last minute so their implications can be applied throughout the story and not as a whim or as a concession to a star's ego. If you are lucky, Samuel L. Jackson has a character-motivated way to first show his religious character in Black Snake Moan, in a prayer-like position leaning on a vehicle. If you are unlikely and actress doesn't feel like wearing the hat the movie is named after and scenes that have already been done with it have to be abandoned, as detailed in "Claire's Hat" the bootleg documentary by Bruce McDonald. I'm sure there are other examples but those were the ones I had to get off my chest today. In case anyone is reading.