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A Walk in the Park

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.

Mask Scare

social media traps

Popular Misconceptions

Actors are most often the people interviewed in promotion of a movie and actors are usually the most entertaining personalities. Audiences may persist with the idea that movies are made up by actors. It may even get to a point where some actors - if not all - believe that hype. They may think of themselves as Will Farrell, or the cast of a Christopher Guest production, made up of the top comedy names that may not embrace a script. But the craft of a screenplay and serious regard for the written dialogue have suffered over time. There is so much money and politics involved that a screenplay that itself would make a fascinating movie might be compromised for no reason other than competing egos insisting on pissing into the soup. If I have written a screenplay, I really have no genuine interest in trading out my dialogue for someone else's variation. That is by no means a formula for success. Improvisation as an exercise might be great for getting actors some stage time in the theatre, but it is like watching a first draft be written on the fly and it is more of a sport than a final product. There is a halting and self-conscious quality to it. I would rather have someone say no, they don't like a script, than have a mutiny in the middle of a shoot or find out there are undisclosed expectations. Best to provoke the truth, and it can be VERY difficult to pry the truth out of actors who might actually like to be part of a movie - any movie - for experience. Then there is the perception of directors. People from theatre may be in the habit of throwing shade at the term director by referring to a progression of excellent shots as the "cinematography." Frankly, I would rather make a movie with no dialogue at all which demands visuals carry the attention than an all-diaogue film that becomes rote pictures of people talking. In the latter case, the only reason to proceed would be if I like the dialogue and to protect it from arbitrary or political deviations. I can see people with a clear measure of success and status who I can't quite envy because I discover that their writer or director credits should have an asterisk beside them. There is a terrible trend toward looking at the term writer or director in film and saying, "yeah, yeah, nudge, nudge, wink, wink." I once had a Humber College instructor ask what I plan to do after graduation and I mentioned directing my scripts He said, "So you want to pass yourself off as a writer-director." And to this day I am agitated by the cynicism of that comment. I'm not interested in co-writers or co-directors or de facto co-directors or de factor co-writers.

Wedding of Jessica and Justin