Homing In On Fellini

We started shooting Dangerous Writing yesterday. Without getting ahead of myself or becoming too self-conscious, it appears that I am getting closer to working like my virtual mentor. Weeks ago, I laid in bed musing on the fourteen most interesting faces and voices that I knew. I imagined them in a room together. Instead of putting words into thier mouths as the master would have done, I trusted them to come up with dialogue far more unexpected and immediate if I conjured the right given circumstances. They didn't let me down. I have been saying things like listen, put your attention on the other person in the scene, stay alive even when you're immobile, trust your impulses, et cetera for a very long time. Yesterday I said some of those things to a room full of people and then I walked back to camera and hoped like hell it would happen during the fifteen minute take or the five minute take. Most of the time it did. Or it progressed toward it in layers. The producer and the DP were chirping in my ear about how flat everyone was getting. But I had a bigger issue that I had to get across through the leading actor in the scene. I wasn't going to get the rest of the cast buzzing in their seats until it was time. But I didn't tell anyone that. I didn't snap any nasty "I know!s" or "let me work!s". I just kept hammering away at my objectives, trusting that we would get where we needed to go.
Fellini trusted his producers and camera men. I do, too. That's part of the reason I listened to them and tucked their observations away until it was time to address them. In another more profound instance, the producer was instrumental in preserving my vision yesterday. We were getting close to lunch and we didn't have a complete take of the fifteen minute scene I was trying to shoot in one take. A fifteen minute take that gets fourteen people and a baby into the room and introduces each of them, with a uniquely compicated camera move. As one of the crew guys (always reliable sceptics) said after we wrapped, It's a tough way to go. It is a tough way to go, but we were getting close. But not close enough, so I started to employ the Plan B I had tucked away. I shared with producer and DP where I thought to make the cuts and break the shot into three. DP was nodding like a fiend. Yes, yes, yes, he panted (What makes those guys so conservative?) God bless the producer as he sputtered, Sure you don't want to try one more? I think you got it.
Ah, sweet music to my ears! We went back into the room and voila, four more takes. All of them usable and only ten minutes into meal penalty. About which no one griped or even seemed to notice.
The same guy that said it was a tough way to go, asked me if I got what I wanted. Yes, I did. And I suppose I should have said so as simply as that. But, I said I don't know. I'm not the type to fall in love with what's on the monitor. I'm not the type to fall in love with a rough cut. I have to come to terms with things over time. I feel good enough to move on to the next scene. I'm also starting to feel okay about making a crappy film. That's why I'm willing to try it the hard way. I'd rather fail doing something ambitious than something safe.

Grazie,
Signore Direttore