When One Head Is Better Than Two

A candid moment for actress Kelly Sullivan (Jina)

I'm usually very scared when I'm approached by a hyphenate to work on their film - the producer/director. I wonder how they're going to handle it when I need to have them sign a check while they're on set trying to direct, or when I have to get their signoff or opinion on something that will not add value to the screen, but will definitely fuck us if we don't take care of it. Often the experience isn't pretty. I've had arguments over the cost of bagels.

But I recently found myself in a similar situation, and, probably due to hubris, I figured I could handle it. I could walk the producer/director tightrope. I'm still not sure I've pulled it off - I often worry that I've been too worried about producing to be as effective a director as I could have been. But it is possible, and with some sweat and initiative, it can even be enjoyable, to wear two hats.

Trading Space For Time

In military tactics, there's a maneuver called trading space for time. You send a fast, light force up against the enemy, then retreat ahead of them as they advance, harassing them then running out of their reach. By the time they hit your main forces, they've been demoralized and depleted.

Independent filmmaking works in a similar (though hopefully less bloody) way. Without a huge budget to depend on, you need to spend a lot of time in prep, chipping away at the problems of getting locations, signing up vendors, raising money, finding cast and crew, etc. If you wait until just before you start, or count on being able to hire your buddies at the rate they promised you six months ago, you will inevitably burn through more cash than you want to and probably achieve suboptimal results.

So if you're the producer and director, start early. Do your line producer's script breakdown, and director's script analysis, as early as possible. You may have to do some of this work over again if you do a rewrite down the road, but that's okay. You'll be able to answer the 'big picture' questions:

• What are my characters' arcs in each scene, each sequence, in the whole script?
• How many locations?
• How many script days?
• How many characters?
• Special props/action/effects?
• How many shooting days does it look like I'll need?
• How are my characters' choices reflected in dialog vs. nonverbal (image/action/sound/wardrobe/makeup/hair/editing)?
• What can go wrong?

You will never know the complete answers to these questions. But getting some initial answers now will enable you to write up a shooting schedule, a budget, a scene-by-scene 'beat sheet,' and some creative notes to pass on to your department heads.

Leaning On Others

I had to lean on the people around me more than I would have if I'd had a full-on partner, especially during preproduction. My attorney, casting director, DP, and production sound mixer heard me bitch a lot. Since most of them had known me for a long time I think they were okay with it. (At least I hope so). On the other hand, I believe it gave them an opportunity to contribute more to the film creatively than they might otherwise have had. This is a very good thing. Your crew will almost always know more than you about their specific area. They've probably solved the problem you're facing before, and can find their way to the solution faster than you can.

Staying Organized

There's no real secret organization sauce. But if you're constantly looking for things, forgetting appointments, and leaning on other people to keep your life together, you had better find a system that you can work with. Nothing erodes people's confidence in their leader faster than seeing that the boss can't find the map, never mind the road. And since much of your job consists of communicating with others, it's also critical that your system be understandable by more than just you. That's the real basis for the seemingly endless paperwork that accompanies filmmaking - production reports, callsheets, sound reports, camera reports, lined scripts, location directions, crew and cast contracts, and even the script format itself.

Recognize and Contain Your Obsession

It happens to every director: you get fixated on something that you think is critical. My obsession was over some smaller props (paperwork, crayons, some other odds and ends) that had to look absolutely 100 percent right. Other directors I've worked for had a specific shot they insisted on (and which completely screwed up the schedule to shoot). Maybe you wanted a location to look just like the one you grew up in. Or you have a line you think is so important you'll shoot 50 takes until your actor gets it right (or he bites his tongue and chokes on it). As a director, you are completely convinced that the audience will not get your film if this ONE thing isn't right, and you will drag the entire budget and schedule (and your precious prep time) down to get it onscreen.

Guess what: in all likelihood, the audience isn't even going to register this ONE thing - assuming it even makes it into the final cut. Audiences overlook gaps and fill in details all the time. Use that to your advantage as a producer - push your director-self past your detail obsession (I realized I had to stop when I kept going on ebay to buy more crayons).

Be In the Moment AND The Moment After That

As a director, your focus should be on what's unfolding in front of you on set, in the rehearsal space, or in the editing room. As a producer, you should be thinking at least one step ahead, and preferably several.

To deal with this I did my producer's prep in the morning when I woke up, and when I first arrived on set. Then I tried to stay in director mode until lunch. I leaned a LOT on my PAs, giving them petty cash and problems to solve. They were awesome.

At lunch I tried to think about the schedule, reshuffle the day a bit, then I got back into director mode until wrap. Often I dropped off my DP, Ben Wolf, on the way home, so we both had a chance to talk over the ups and downs of the day. I often got some ideas from talking with him about the next day. At night I tried to slip back into director's mode by reading the sides and my scene analysis notes just before going to bed.

The main idea here is to not try to do both jobs at once, but do each one fully, when it makes the most sense.

Give It Up

At a certain point, despite your best efforts, your director and producer selves will clash in a big way, and you'll have to make a decision that could cost you big bucks but save the film. My personal opinion is that the director should be allowed to win in this scenario. You can often find more money in the budget, or cut back on something else, or (worst case) raise more money. But having 3/4 of a movie that's on budget doesn't benefit anyone.

The trick is that you can only play this card once. On Found In Time I scheduled a over-ambitious day - combining soundstage work with a big chase scene. Stunts, set building and dressing, extras. Needless to say we went into OT. But there came a point where I just had to let it go, or we wouldn't have gotten the material we needed to make those scenes work. I ended up cutting back on a few other things for the rest of the shoot, and recouped some money through prop returns.

Okay, next time I'll get back to post production. But to sum all of the above up, the key things to being a director-producer are: do your prep ahead of time, stay organized, and get good people to work with you.

Breathing In During Post

Many thanks to the folks at the recent New York City Film and Finance event 'Eyes on the Film Festival' for providing valuable insight into the festival programmer side of this discussion.

There's always a lull in the post-production process, and it usually appears somewhere between picture editing and sound post. Typically the end of picture editing is marked by somewhat arduous, anticlimactic chores, to get the OMF and Quicktime files ready for your sound designer and composer. You might also be getting various comps and elements ready for the visual effects artist, and, depending on what you shot on, going back to your camera masters to conform for your colorist.

And then... there's very little to do. All the people that you're working with will need time and space. After thinking mechanically and technically for a few weeks, it's time to start looking a couple of moves ahead again. Which is where I'm at now.

How Do You Know You're Locked

Before you deal with any of what I've just described, ask yourself: are we really picture locked? It's worth taking some time before answering that question. There's really no magic formula. Dan and I watched the film several times, all the way through, then made minor changes after each viewing. I could tell we were close because the changes kept shrinking in scope. Sometimes a small change can make a big difference - a few frames left in can let a moment breathe, a few frames cut can trim the dead space out of a scene.

One way to gauge whether a film is locked is to look at your dissatisfaction with the film. Is it based on things that you can change in picture, is it because you don't like something that you can still fiddle with (like an audio or music cue), or is it due to factors absolutely beyond your control/budget? If you keep coming back to a performance or a moment you never got in production that you can't synthesize in the edit, then you're probably ready to move on to sound post (or you're headed towards further reshoots).

Another way is to look at the flow of the film - the moments within the scene, and the transitions between scenes. If you can allow yourself to relax a little, and not hang on every cut or word of dialog, are you still entertained by the film? Do you feel unsettled by a cut, or does it all seem to flow by smoothly? If you feel that it's all pretty smooth, then you're probably done.

Getting Back To The Big Picture

At a certain point, you have to throw your post schedule out the window. Not that you shouldn't be striving to finish the film in a timely way, but the film becomes the boss. And in a larger sense, the budget is as well. I've been lucky enough to snag really excellent people to work on Found In Time for very modest rates, in part because we understand that if a better paying gig comes along they'll have to take it for a little while. As long as the film isn't moldering on a hard drive for months on end, I think it's a fair way to work.

So while the film winds it's way through post, you should start thinking about what you need to move the film forward once it's 'done.'

• Press Kit: This should include a PDF with cast and crew bios, a synopsis of the film, photos (see below) some happy production stories, and ANY reasonably positive press you may have gotten during production.
• Photos: If you didn't grab stills on set, get the best-quality frame grabs you can. You'll need a set of 300dpi TIFF files for print, and a set of 72dpi JPGs (high quality) for the web.


• Short Teaser: This should be about a minute long and can contain rough audio and temp score elements (as long as the audio isn't completely awful). The idea is to deliver some sizzle, but not much steak - give the audience a taste of the film.
• Full-Length Trailer: Somewhere between two and four minutes long. You'll want to hold off on creating this until the sound post and color correction are further along. Uncorrected audio and picture can make a trailer unwatchable or at the very least unprofessional looking.
• Key Artwork You should at least be thinking about this at this stage. It's okay to send out sharpie-inscribed DVDs in sleeves for festival submissions (some will argue that even here better packaging helps). But for handing out to press, industry, producers reps, and even (who knows) selling a few units directly, you'll want to put together a central, iconic set of artwork - title logo, poster shot, and tagline that you can base a campaign around. Mock up a poster, one-sheet, DVD face and wraparound sleeve cover in Word or (better yet) InDesign or Photoshop. Print a few out at home to see if they're pleasing to the eye, before dropping money on a print run.
• Pitch: You probably developed this during the developing and financing stages, but revise it to reflect the film you actually made. Can you explain the film in one minute/three sentences or less?
• EPK: This can (and usually does) include all of the above, plus behind-the-scenes footage and/or interviews with key crew and cast members.
• Get on the Web - Build Your Site, IMDB, and Withoutabox Goes without saying. Also start getting people on your emailing list, or weed out the deadwood from your existing one.

As you can see, this is a lot of work to tackle. But now is the perfect time to do it, while the film doesn't require as much of your attention.

The Bigger Picture

When you're doing all of the above things, it's important to figure out what the story of your film - as a product - is about. It's difficult to think in these terms, especially if you're the creator. It's like trying to justify your child to a bunch of strangers. But it's essential in order to create publicity materials that are enticing and organic to the story. Think of it this way: people have a LOT of choices - perhaps too many - and limited time and attention spans. Why should they choose to plunk down their hard-earned dollars on your film, rather than another (or watch tv or a webisode, or play a video game, for that matter)? What is special about your film?

The easiest way to tackle this is to ask yourself some questions: Who is your film good for? What films is it like? What films is it not like? Do you have niche appeal - for example, do you have a film that tackles a specific issue or fits a specific genre?

Look at the ad campaigns for films that are similar to yours. Is there a common graphical element, something that separates them from other films? It could be a typeface (I remember in the 80s horror films often had red, dripping titles), how the photo elements are arranged, or the tagline ("this time it's personal" or "the girl is out there"). Perhaps the trailers had similar music.

The trick is to stand out from the crowd, without pushing producer's reps, festival programmers, and sales agents out of their comfort zones. So while you're looking OUTWARD at other films, you need to also look INWARD at your own project. Is there an iconic image, scene, or even line of dialog that captures what you're trying to say? This will (hopefully) supply you with the inspiration to craft a publicity campaign that highlights the uniqueness of your work, while retaining the conventions of the genre your film is in.

While you probably did a version of this work early on during the financing stage (so you could put it in your business plan), the film that's in your hands now is doubtless very different from the one you set out to make. So you'll need to reappraise and readjust your artwork.

Graphic Language

Part of how you get people to respond positively to your DVD cover or poster rests on your ability to command the language of graphic design. It's similar to, but not the same as, the language of film. It's too big of a discussion to get into here, but if you don't have a good print/web design sense, or if you don't really know the difference between CMYK and RGB, work with someone who does to create your media.

Last point: for DVDs that are going out to reps, agents, and festivals, you're better off eschewing graphics for readable text. Whether you handwrite on your DVD or have them printed, make sure you include the title, your name, phone number, email address, total running time, language, sound type (stereo, 5.1), the DVD type (region code), the video type (NTSC/PAL), year completed, and whether it's in color or black and white. This may seem like common sense, but I've gotten a LOT of screeners over the years that lacked this information, which forced me to have to hunt down the missing information from the press kit or email. So I'm already in a bad mood by the time I start watching the film. And I'm not even a festival programmer - they watch thousands of Da YEAR generally.

Working With Your Editor, Part 2

Because pictures of cats are always good to post

In the last entry (wow, that month went by too fast) I talked a bit about the alchemy of editing and the director/editor relationship, and got as far as the rough cut. This time around I'd like to talk a bit about how to get from the rough to the final cut.

The Dead Spots

As I mentioned before, I have a hard time going back to the big picture after a screening. I get caught up in the atomic structure of the film, especially the dead spots. I'm always afraid of boring the audience, or myself. My first instinct was to cut cut cut. Dan never lost his sense of the big picture. He warned me about cutting too much too soon, because we ran the risk of losing the moments that were buried in the middle of the dead spots.

He was correct. The first thing he did after the rough cut was to simply go through the film and trim out small bits from many of the shots. This meant cutting a few frames from the head and tail of a series of shots in a scene, to keep the tension from flagging. Sometimes it meant getting out of a scene a little sooner (again, just a few frames). Sometimes it meant starting a scene a little later, so that the actors were already warmed up or in the frame. These small changes can make big improvements, without requiring you to rethink the work as a whole.

Just by making these kinds of cuts, Dan trimmed about six minutes out of the film. The result was much, much tighter. During this time I made suggestions but mostly stayed out of Dan's way (at least, that's what I recall). I started working on putting rough F/X composites and titles together, and thinking about music.

When To Bring the Music In

On Caleb's Door, I started working with a temp score only towards the very end of the picture edit. Dan suggested bringing music much earlier into the process. This made a lot more sense, particularly given the somewhat extreme state of the character's realities, and the pacing of the chase/action scenes in the film. Also, as Dan said, a shot that seems overly long without music can sometimes seem fine with it.

Fortunately, we both found common musical ground. Dan's a big fan of Egyptian music, and I'd been thinking about a scoring around a particular instrument - the oud. The oud is a stringed instrument that produces a very bluesy sound, and in some musical forms plays a role similar to that of a guitar in rock music. So we started dropping in temp tracks from an Egyptian composer he's worked with, and I looked at a bunch of different sources, including artists like Stellamarra, Rabih Abou-Khalil, and others. The initial idea was to use a Middle Eastern theme to underscore the idea that that this film was taking place in an altered version of New York.

I should tell you now, DO NOT GET TOO ATTACHED TO YOUR TEMP SCORE. Chances are that unless your composer has specifically written it for you, that you're not going to be able to afford it. I've seen it happen more times than I care to recount. The record labels and publishers are only too happy to give you a great deal on a festival license, because they know that you'll be back once a deal is on the table. At that point they're counting on you being in a terrible bargaining position - you'll cave into the time pressure to deliver the film to a distributor (before you see any money) so you'll ransom your cats or your unborn grandkids to pay for the score, rather than lose both money AND time to on a sound remix.

How Often To Meet

On Found In Time Dan and I generally met a couple of times a week. My 'homework' in between meetings was to put together rough F/X composites and titles, and pick out temp tracks. Having things to do in between meetings helped keep me from getting too obsessed. During the actual sessions we'd drop in my temp material, look at cuts that Dan had made, and run the film through (usually from start to finish). We focused a lot on the first half-hour, since that was the most problematic part of the film.

We generally worked for three or four hours during the week, and then a longer session on the weekend. Working this way, we averaged about one cut of the film per week. With each cut we got closer to the target running time - about ninety minutes. We stopped and talked a lot during the process. Not just about the film, but about life, love and film. Far from distracting us, these chats strengthened our working relationship, and helped me get over my anxiety and deal with the film in smaller chunks.

The Feedback Screening

After about nine weeks, we had a feedback screening. It's an important part of the process, but the feedback should not be taken too literally. There are two important factors: inviting the right people, and taking the right attitude.

You want to invite people who will give you honest, direct feedback, and are willing to get specific. A mix of film and non-film people is good. A small group is better than a bigger one.

The right attitude to take is to be open to everything, to withhold your defensiveness and feedback until after everyone's gone. The best response to criticism is 'can you elaborate on that' or 'that's really interesting. What else?' No matter how ridiculous the suggestion or feedback, look at the person and try to take it seriously. You may know out of the gate that what they're asking for is impossible - you can't afford reshoots, you don't have the material, it would create too many problems in the third act. But what they're responding to is a real problem that may have a solution that IS within your reach. Plus, these people are spending their precious time with you, so do them the courtesy of being polite and encouraging.

What you're looking for are patterns. If one or two people have problems with something, then they may be more perceptive than everyone else, or they may have differing tastes than you. But if everyone has issues with the same scenes or characters, then you have an actual problem that needs to be addressed. Often good sound design and music can get people more involved in the story - watching a fine cut without corrected sound is a lot like looking at a really great sketch for a painting. Adjusting the pacing can solve a lot of problems.

What became apparent to me was that the first act was too slow. It took too long to get into the story, and Chris's problems were over-commented on. So this is where Dan and I concentrated our efforts over the next two weeks.

In the next blog entry, I'll talk about the transition from picture to sound editing, and how best to think about your score.

Working With Your Editor

Probably one of the knottiest relationships you'll ever have is with your editor. Who did what? Who's idea was this cut? After a few cuts it's nearly impossible to tell. This is not a bad thing. It's like having a very close older sibling. He always knows what you're doing, where you've been, and what you're trying to hide.

I've edited (a little bit) for other people, and tried to edit my first film (with the predictable result that I had to hire an editor to get myself out of the hole I'd managed to dig). For Found In Time I didn't want to go through that again, and so began my journey with Dan Loewenthal.

Finding The Fit

I interviewed several editors, and all of them were quite good. I liked their reels, enjoyed their company (that's a biggie), and felt they all had good insights into the film. So what stood out? What was the deciding factor?

Well, there wasn't one single factor. But experience was part of it. Dan has edited features, docs, infomercials, music videos, shorts, television shows - pretty much everything. He's also worked in a lot of different genres, beginning with action and horror, but including drama, documentaries, comedies. I felt that Found In Time needed someone who had eclectic tastes and wouldn't be scared of challenging material (we often shot under very intense time pressures, resulting in less coverage).

Another factor, harder to define, was the sensibility. I prize working with people for whom the work comes before the ego. Don't get me wrong - a healthy ego is a very good thing. But it's also good to know when the story is right and your ego is wrong. That's a challenge for me (as I suspect it is for most writer/directors). My hope is that by working with people who are better at listening to the story rather than their idea of it, I'll rise to the occasion.

Trust

Trusting your editor is key. A lot of directors don't like to give up their precious moments, the ones that cost a lot of money or time or effort, even if they don't translate. Or you have a favorite line that just never came out right or didn't mean what you think it meant two years ago when you wrote it. The editor is in the room to lend a fresh perspective to your story. Let him or her do that.

Getting Ready For Editing

The best thing you can do is get organized. I've covered this in detail in the past (see (http://www.foundintimefilm.com/2010/11/art-of-slogging.html)), but here's a very brief overview: have the footage synched, logged, and labelled. Make sure the script supervisor notes, shooting script, camera and sound reports (if any of those were done on set) are in a binder, along with callsheets, production reports, and any inspirational/technical/writing notes you want to write up. Any wild sound, stills, miscellaneous/second unit footage, should also be included. Basically, your editor should be able to just edit, without wondering where the hell the footage is.

That First Cut

If you're the director and/or producer, the best thing you can do once the editor has all the material is go away for a few weeks. You're tired, you have no perspective on the footage, and you probably have obligations (your rent, family, friends, squeezes, pets, your next project) that you've been neglecting for far too long. Call or email if you must, but unless the editor wants you in the room, you're better off not being there.

After a few weeks (less if the editor was starting during the shoot), you'll have the most horrible experience related to the film (at least until you see it in a crappy theater with an out-of-focus projector and blown speakers), the rough cut screening. It's best NOT to have too many people in the room for this - no cast, crew or friends/family, the minimal number of producers, the editor, and the director. You'll see the difference between what you thought you shot and what you actually shot.

Here's how to survive and prosper in the rough cut screening:

• Watch and take notes. Interrupt as little as possible.


• Look for dead spots, where nothing is going on and there's no point in continuing the shot or scene.
• What's completely out of place? It could be that a scene has to be excised or moved because it interrupts the narrative flow rather than helps it along; or that a performance that seemed fine on set doesn't work as well as you'd hoped.
• What's surprising - in a good way? The footage can sometimes reveal something wonderful that you weren't expecting or didn't notice on set.


• What's the obvious next move? Sometimes, the best way to tackle the second cut is to start with the easy stuff.

I find it almost impossible (most of the time) to work out the "big picture" after seeing a screening. I have to go back to looking at the film atomically, one shot after another. Dan is a lot better than I am at keeping the larger narrative structure in his head. I think this combination is also key - if you and your editor can compliment each other's sense of scope.

Moving Past The First Cut

In the next entry I'll talk about how we moved past the rough cut and went through the rest of picture editing.

2010: The Year In Movies

I realize that it's nearly February 2011, and we should be looking forward. In fact, I'm working on another entry about the editing process. But in the meantime, I figured this would be my last chance to talk about movies I saw in 2010. Rather than do a "best of" article I figured I'd just talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly, and maybe even dig out some general themes.


(NOTE that I said MOVIES I SAW, not necessarily movies that CAME OUT in 2010. This gives me quite a bit of latitude. Hey, it's my blog.)

SHREDDING BODIES

It seems like 2009 was the year of the armored body. From Avatar to Surrogates to Terminator: Salvation to District 9, our heroes found themselves inside of various tougher, more agile bodies. By contrast, regular bodies began to look weaker, more fragile, like big bags of blood just waiting to be microwaved, ripped and riddled full of bullets. The year just past continues that trend: Repo Men Jude Law and Forest Whittaker hack, slash, and cut their way through flesh to repo the artificial organs that their clients have defaulted on payments for. In Daybreakers vampires are variously burnt, decapitated, exploded, and torn apart as they turn human. Centurion takes the sword-and-sandals genre to new heights of gore. Kick Ass features some very disturbing violence. And so on.

What is going on? I don't know, but I'll take a stab at it. Images of ourselves in media have always oscillated between all-powerful (see the cave paintings in Lescaux) to fragile (much of DaVinci's work). The current emphasis on the fragility of the body may reflect our own aging (at least in the U.S.), our anxiety over the fate of the species, and the feeling of helplessness many of us have in the face of political, economic and social disasters.

It's no coincidence that three of the movies I just cited are very political. In Repo Men, the dominant force is The Union, who are like an insurance company, hospital, bank, and drug co. rolled into one. Can't afford an organ transplant? No problem, just sign up for a payment plan - with 20 percent interest. Can't make the payments? Don't worry. One of our repo men will take it back. You might die in the process, but that's life, right? In Daybreakers (a really, really good film, by the way), vampires are the dominant species - except that in their greed, they've pretty much wiped out their food supply, and so are now tottering on the brink of starvation. Starve a vampire and he turns into a cannibal bat. Over-dependence on scarce resources coupled with short-term greed... sound familiar? Centurion (perhaps the oddest of the three) is set against the backdrop of a long, drawn-out war between the Picts and Romans in Britain, with backstabbing and extremism on both sides.

RESIST ADULTHOOD AT ALL COSTS

Many of the men I saw onscreen had opted out of growing up. Greenberg, Cyrus, Enter the Void, Due Date, Kick-Ass, Blue Valentine, Splice, Iron Man 2 feature men acting like petulant children or refusing to grow up. Even Inception and Shutter Island, it could be argued, are centered around adult men who are still, on some level, playing games rather than facing up to painful loss. I'm not sure what this means either. It's possible that Gen X men are finally growing up, or that we see that growing up doesn't mean the same thing it used to. It could be that maturity, as defined by our parents and grandparents, is a rather defeatist and ultimately fruitless way to look at life. Growing up often means giving up.

OVER-COOKED AND UNDERRATED

So here's a quick look at the most overrated and underrated films of the year (IMHO). This doesn't mean that the films were good or bad; in some cases, the overrated films were excellent. It's simply that they don't live up to their hype or aren't nearly as clever as they'd like to think they are.

OVERRATED

The King's Speech: I liked this film a LOT. I thought it was a humane, engaging portrait about someone who I normally could care less about (the royal family has problems? boo hoo). The performances were wonderful, the chemistry between Colin Firth, Helena Bonham Carter and Geoffrey Rush was great, and the struggle it represents is one we can all relate to. But in humanizing the King, it fails to politicize him. Apart from the obvious class differences between Rush and Firth (played for laughs, mostly), an opportunity to investigate the deeper complexities is left on the table.


Enter The Void: this is a case of brilliant technique married to a juvenile sensibility. Gaspard Noe is the kid in class who can draw amazing, life-like penises. The craft of the film is amazing - the overhead travelling shots, the mix of sophisticated effects and handheld camerawork, the removal of the subject from the screen altogether in the last third of the film. But it's empty of ideas, save for a rather junior and over-literal understanding of karma and reincarnation that, in turns, masks a very traditional, conservative mindset. It revels in its juvenile qualities - ooh, look, full-on sex! Drug use! Gore! A microscope-level view of a penis! It's also misogynistic, homophobic, xenophobic, and, worst of all, boring. But the camerawork, editing, soundwork, and effects deserve some real study and appreciation - the mechanism of how the story is told is something that opens new doors.


Inception: This is a wonderful heist film, that just happens to take place in someone's head. It has a solid cast, some wonderful (and very organic) effects, it doesn't waste a second of time, and it builds the tension in a way that should be studied by filmmakers everywhere. But, it's not as complex as everyone's making it out to be. It's overly structured, with thin characterizations, and the dream world is in some ways exceptionally dull. Its conception of gender is rather old-fashioned (the dark heart of the main character is a woman). I really enjoyed this film and feel it deserves more attention at the Oscars than it will get, but in some ways it's a big-budget b-movie.


Shutter Island: I found this film gripping, and the performances, setting, and use of dream imagery really, really well done. But again, where is the ambiguity? Where is the breakdown of structure? In Goodfellas, Mean Streets, Kundun and even Bring Out the Dead, Scorcese made me care about distant, unsavory or otherwise normally unreachable characters. In Shutter Island, I failed to connect with DiCaprio's character, even after spending much of the film in his head.


Black Swan: As with Enter The Void, you have great technique married to a juvenile sensibility. If you want a meditation on the intersection between dance, identity, and madness, see the remastered The Red Shoes, which Swan cribs liberally from. If you want to see the disintegration of identity in the face of sexuality, see Fight Club. If you want to go beyond duality altogether, see Paprika. It was a fun film to watch, and had some great touches, a fantastic sound design, and featured a really good use of effects.

UNDERRATED

Daybreakers: A vampire film that manages to cram about three movies'-worth of ideas into a crisp, lean 90-minute ride. Good performances, some sly political commentary, and complex characterizations (no one in the film is completely good or bad). What's not to like?


Cyrus: I'm NOT a mumblecore fan. I applaud their DIY attitude, their willingness to experiment and just 'shoot their damn movie,' but I could never relate to the results of their efforts. But perhaps because of the cast, or the story, I rather liked Cyrus. It also has something to say about gender roles, and about men of all ages who are still negotiating the process of growing up.


Splice: A gene-splicing film that's really about the horrors of parenting, a monster movie where the monsters aren't the obvious ones, and a creepy movie where the creepiness is psychological rather than physical. An examination of gender roles, parental responsibility, and the commodification of the flesh are all on the table here, but not in any kind of boring, polemical way. It falls short in many ways (some of the characters are a little too stock) and it could have been longer, but it's definitely worth looking at.


Broken Embraces: At first glance, these film seems like a bit of a mess; part memoir, part mystery, part director-drag statement (the main character is a blind director). But on another level, it's about much more - the blind spots we all have in our hearts, the things we hide from each other, the small things we only notice later. The theme of watching, hiding, touch, and how what we don't see shapes our identity as much as what we do, make this a more interesting film on second viewing.


Kick-Ass: I'm not really sure why I like this film. Perhaps because it never does exactly what I expect it to do. I often found myself laughing and recoiling at the same time. It rather confronts us with superhero fantasy in a way that's refreshing, exciting, and somewhat revolting. And it features some winning performances and well-shot and well-edited action scenes.


It's a Wonderful Life: I saw this at its annual screening at the IFC Film Center, just a few days after seeing Enter the Void. Capra touches on many of the same themes - the imagined life, karma, the web of interconnection between people - but does so in a much more sophisticated and involving way. It doesn't flinch away from showing the cost of heroism, nor does it short-shrift the miracles that are possible in everyday life (something it shares with both Ikiru and The Bicycle Thief). It's a more adult, and less-square, work than it's generally thought of.

Old Films

In Understanding Comics, Scott Mcloud talks a lot about the process of making art. Often the 'new kid on the block' is just putting a new spin or glossy coat over deeper, older territories and structures that were explored by the previous 'masters.' I have to agree. Many of this past years' films were clearly built upon (and in good cases, expand) the territory mapped out by Hitchcock, Ozu, Kurosawa, Hawks, Capra, Carpenter, Sturges, Tarkovsky... the list goes on and on. If the old studio system had flaws (and it certainly did), it also had its virtues, and it established within a very short span of time most of the major genres, syntactic elements, and styles that we still work with today. So in 2011, go see some old films! Many can be streamed on Netflix, so now you have no excuse. :)

Musing on Filmmaking in 2011 And Beyond

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! In many ways, the first year of the 10s was a marked improvement on what I've earlier called the decade of the suck that preceded it. Really? How is that possible? The economic recovery everyone seems to be talking about is more of a mirage than a reality. My older friends - who would be happy to work - are being forced into early retirement. My younger friends are climbing deeper into debt to stay afloat. Friends my age are spending their hard-earned savings (if they have any) taking care of aging parents and grandparents, thanks to the hospitals, nursing homes, drug companies, and insurers whose sole mission seems to be to gouge the elderly and their families at every opportunity. The ripple effects of all this will be felt for the next twenty years, here and across the world.

There is hope, however. While the half-measures put in place by our government are just that, they're better than nothing. For every step backward, we seem to take 1.5 forward.

Similarly mixed news pervades the film industry. DVDs and box office revenues are not being replaced dollar-for-dollar with streaming/online (and probably won't be in the future). But the DSLR came into its own as a viable production camera this year. In fact, technologically we're at the point where you can pick up just about any piece of gear or software and create something worthwhile - provided you have good skills to begin with. The tools are our friends, not our obstacles.

On the other hand, I feel that 2010 will be seen as the beginning of the end for the studio system as we presently know it. Bad debt, an unsustainable business model, and top-heavy management are leading them all to the brink. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Taking the broad view, this is only the latest of a series of shakeups that have both threatened and energized the industry since its inception. Edison nearly choked the industry with his draconian demands for a piece of the pie (since he had the patent on most of the film equipment made up to that point). His attempt at monopolizing the industry backfired, with the best and brightest American producers relocating beyond his long arm - to Hollywood. Television and the breakup of the studio system in the 50s led to the "new" explosion of good filmmaking in the '60s and '70s.

The consolidation of the industry over the last twenty-odd years, and its takeover by companies not necessarily interested in media production at all, was responsible in part for the rise in independent filmmaking (since it's easier for them to buy a film than make it on an indie budget). But it's also led to the weakening of the labor guilds and unions, the near-disappearance of the "b-movie", and the development of an unfair business model - everyone's a freelancer, and profits rarely go back to the media creators. The pursuit of the "tentpole/high concept/four quadrant" Holy Grail has also meant the watering down or outright abandonment of intellectually stimulating films or filmmakers.

But that brings up an important question: will film as a medium survive the contraction of film as an industry? The short answer is yes. Consider it in light of other media:


Like jazz, film as a medium has adapted to new forms and paradigms, and embraced change as its modus operandi. Once films were only seen on really large screens; now they're seen on everything from IMAX theaters to iPhones. Filmmakers have incorporated sound, color, and new styles of editing, storytelling, acting, lighting; new technologies for production and post; new methods of distribution, promotion, advertising; new sources of funding, education, and training... this indicates a medium that's still growing and finding new ground to cover.

The upside of the low cost of production is that you don't have to go out and raise a fortune to make a movie. It's possible (though not easy) to make a film for not much more than it costs to put on a play or write a novel. You can take bigger creative risks. There's no guarantee that anyone will see your masterpiece, but then again, there's no guarantee anyone's going to read that novel on your hard drive either. If the profit margins for film fall in line with book and magazine publishing, the big economic powerhouses may sell off their film distribution companies or shut them down. They'll take their football and go find another industry to make them gobs of money. But the distributors that stay in the game will be doing so because they genuinely like making and promoting films.

Okay, so filmmaking will continue. And distribution will continue. But can we make any money at it? (Are we condemned to day jobs for the rest of our lives?) Will it become a fine art, essentially something done for its own sake? Will it become regionalized like theater (Broadway, off-Broadway, community, touring, etc.)? Or will it fold into television and webisodic forms - will a new medium emerge that combines film, tv and web formats? This last seems less likely in the short-term, given how the internet and television have staked out their domains. But written epics, poems, and bardic news/storytelling were once separate mediums. They have all contributed to the rise of the modern play and novel forms.

Perhaps in the future we'll have features that are short, webisodes that run long, episodic television that can be of varying/irregular lengths. Novels don't have a page-count limit; albums are no longer bound by LP limitations; fine art is contained by whatever canvas size the artist deems necessary. Removing some of the economic pressure and incentive for filmmakers may actually open up the medium for more interesting forms. If you can make it cheaply enough, and do it well, you can find an audience. Writers, fine artists, poets, playwrights, and sculptors are used to dealing with small audience numbers. These forms show no sign of dying out. Perhaps film is headed in the same direction.

Personally I find this both very hopeful and rather depressing. Hopeful because I feel that there are a lot of stories that deserve to be made into movies, and now maybe at least a few of them will get made. But one of the reasons I chose film over writing was because it seemed easier (relatively speaking) to make a living at it (no day job). The idea that I'm going to continue to have to work multiple jobs for the rest of my life so I can pursue my "work" is not a very heartening one. And what about the poor private equity investors and producers out there, the unsung heroes (and often close friends/family members) who've invested time/energy/money/love into these projects that will no longer have any hope of coming close to recouping? And do we really want to make $50K movies once every ten years for the rest of our lives? Is that a sustainable model?

I suppose what you're getting from this screed is that I have no idea what the hell is going to happen next in the world of film production and distribution. Well, you're right - I don't. But I'm hopeful. Which is more than I could say a year ago. So that's something, right?

What I Learned On My Summer Vacation

... or, some details on what went right and what went wrong during production. This will necessarily be a short blog entry; in the future I'll go into more details on some of these points.

What Went Right

The Small Crew Size: I've worked with crews of 30 people, each of whom were getting paid very little money, and consequently tended to be less experienced. This necessitated adding more shooting days to the schedule. I decided to go the opposite route, hire more experienced people, pay them a little better, and have a smaller group overall and fewer shooting days. It should be noted that I did hire a number of interns, all whom did excellent work. But because we had experienced keys, I didn't need the same level of infrastructure to manage them.


The Five Day Week: I think that shooting a sixth day is basically a waste of time, unless it's absolutely necessary. Since most people are getting paid a day rate, and you're probably not paying full retail for gear and locations anyway, why put yourself through a sixth day of shooting when you can use that time to organize the following week, or maybe, I don't know, get some sleep?


Starting With the Hard Stuff: During our first week, we shot about 36 pages. Nearly our entire cast worked the first week. We shot a number of long scenes with some very tricky stuff going on (five people talking and moving around). We had very little control over the environment, and had some bouts of inclement weather (though it wasn't as bad as it could have been). But by the end of the first week, we had a tightly knit cast and crew, and shot an incredible 36 pages in only five days. Also, by putting the crew through their paces, I also got a sense of how they worked and what the pattern of the day would be.


Scheduling Actresses Later: Whenever possible, we tried to schedule scenes with actresses for later in the day, so that we wouldn't be waiting on hair/makeup and wardrobe. This put a little less pressure on Ghislaine and Janis, and let us get our first shot off a little faster.


Block Shooting Some Scenes: There were several points where we decided to shoot out an angle for all the scenes, then turn around, rather than cover a single scene at a time. This works best, obviously, when you only have a few angles you can shoot a given set of scenes from, or where there's supposed to be a visual similarity between scenes. This saved us a lot of time relighting and repositioning.


Staying In One Place The First Week: Our first week's work was in one location - the vendor street, which happened to be (in real life) the corner of Davidson and Burnside Ave in the Bronx. We had a wonderful holding space, the Davidson Community Center. Being able to stay in one place and get organized, while also shooting a lot of challenging material, was crucial.


Starting Prep Early: Everyone says that production is determined by preproduction, but it's very true. We started location scouting in April and May; locking down locations, vendors, and crew in June; casting in July and August; analyzing and breaking down the script in March and April... the truth is that if you don't have a lot of money, you HAVE to take the time to figure out the shoot before you get on set.


Switching Caterers a Lot: We switched our caterer several times during the course of the shoot, which worked well because it meant not getting bored with one cuisine or another.

WHAT WENT WRONG:

Trying to Bite Off More Than I Could Chew on the Stunt Days:
We went into overtime on both days that we had stunts, and ended up owing some footage on one of the days that we didn't make up until the last day of the shoot. When tallied together, the OT overages (on the crew, cast, and locations), combined with the additional day that I had to hire one of the cast for, nearly equaled another day of shooting. Lesson learned!


No Key PA: This was a painful position to eliminate during the budgeting process, but I couldn't figure out how to squeeze it in, especially as other costs started to rack up. The problem is that without someone a little more experienced to kind of run the other PAs, a good chunk of the job fell on me. That's not a bad thing - sometimes I think directors could use to be a little more in touch with everyone in the crew - it was sometimes very distracting.

This is not to take anything away from the PAs; they worked their butts off and took a lot of initiative.


Not Enough Good Vegan Options: I should have worked out better vegan options with each of the caterers. Some delivered good options, others didn't get it. The vegans in the cast and crew were very easy-going but they didn't have to be. Next time I'll get it right, guys!


That's it for now. I will try to post one more piece before the end of the year. If I don't, then have a great new year and a happy holiday season!