9 - 5

For the past several years I've avoided a day job for the purpose of devoting time to filmmaking. There were periods during which I enjoyed substantial income from freelance work and other endeavors, but I've consistently been the type of grandiose fool that presumes the highest weeks' income to be the average. I never dealt in seven figures, but I was hanging in the sixes and I completely understand how millionaires go bankrupt. I have avoided bankruptcy, but I am penniless.
While the wine flowed and the roses bloomed I invented a path for myself that was a shotgun approach to building a career as a filmmaker. I was all over the place. I thought directing commercials translated into features. i thought writing prose was no different than writing for the screen and the screen no different than for the stage. I thought directing actors and coaching actors was the same thing. In my best estimate I would say I spent a third of the time inventing and reinventing the path, a second third of the time agonizing about things not happening fast enough and comparing myself to others and the final third of the time was divided between creating and shameless self-promotion.
I'm mentoring someone presently that insists on making the same mistakes. Often I let myself wallow in the pity that no one showed me the way. My experience with this apprentice teaches me that perhaps I neither sought out the input nor listened to it when I heard it.
There's an old refrain that none of us likes to hear - Don't quit your day job. I never had one to quit until now. Funny that. I thought that once I got to this place - optioned screenplay, packaging deal - it would be all aboard the gravy train. It's only getting more difficult.
The 9-5 is helping.
So, based on experience, I would echo that old refrain. Until the contracts are signed and the check is on your hand, don't quit your day job. And if you don't have one, think about getting one.
I want to be cautious here so as to not project my woes onto unsuspecting and perhaps undeserving others. First of all, I want it both ways. To be an artist and to live in luxury. I put the cart before the horse over and over again. I throw money at things and plan later. I seek the easier, softer way of doing things. Worst of all, I've done a lot of work for the purpose of seeking recognition.
Currently I make less in a month than I once did in a week or even a day. Yet I can pay my bills. And I know what it takes to conceive, manage and complete a film. It's far more simple and far more difficult than I ever imagined.
Having a day job eliminates the need to expend energy plotting and scheming the way that I did while I was looking for the quick score. I don't have any extra money to throw at half-baked projects, so I have to have a plan. Since I don't have time to do it all myself I have to hire a producer to manage the project, something I should have done from day one. As for the recognition seeking, I know that if I do my best work and put it out there, it will be recognized or it won't. That part is really out of my hands.

F**K

August Wilson died at 60.
That pisses me off and makes me sad.
And, as when anyone dies under the age of 70, it scares the bejesus out of me.

I love Fences and Two Trains Running.
He was a tireless writer and a great contributer to the American Theater.
May the man rest in peace.

¡viva!
nc

The Master Says 003

One should really use the camera as though tomorrow you'd be stricken blind. To live a visual life is an enormous undertaking. I have only touched it, just touched it.
-- Dorothea Lange

The Master Says 002

The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self.
-- Albert Einstein

Wabi

The origin of the term refers to the separation and isolation from society of the hermit or monk.
Indeed, wabi is literally poverty, but it came to refer not to the absence of material possessions but to the non-dependence upon material possessions. The material world is that which is interpreted and conceived of by the intellect (largely ego in my opinion). The intellect serves mainly to abstract information or to interpret information that has already been abstracted. Wabi is a divestment of the material that surpasses material wealth. Wabi is simplicity that has shaken off the material in order to relate directly with nature and reality. This absence of dependence also frees itself from indulgence, ornateness, and pomposity. Wabi is quiet contentment with simple things.
Nothing lasts. Nothing is finished. Nothing is perfect.
All of the beauty and knowing in life is not "out there" to be discovered, but instead is right here in this moment - right before our eyes. In the book Wabi Sabi Simple, Richard Powell shares that “wabi sabi is a way of life that appreciates and accepts complexity while at the same time values simplicity.”
Powell concludes, "To accept these realities is to accept contentment as the maturation of happiness, and to acknowledge that clarity and grace can be found in unvarnished existence."
This all reeks of Pragmatism. Cassavetes was a big fan of William James and Pragmatism. The only problem with studying philosophy is its innate dependence on abstraction and intellect. Great for the Ivory Tower, not so for the stage.
So give me a stage where this bull here can rage …

Also looked at a lot of Dorothea Lange photographs today. So beautiful. Talk about being devoid of material. Nobody got no shoes!

A river dertchee,
nc

Bated Breath

Last night in my scene study class, two students were in the later stages of working on a scene from Suburbia. It was wonderful. They were talking to one another. They were alive head to toe, reacting to one in another in the simplest of ways - sliding over on a bench to invite a sit-down, subtle but fully alive furtive glances, bumping shoulders. It's always a good sign that after seeing various students work on a particular scene over the years, I wait with bated breath to hear what they might say next.
It's especially encouraging to watch fine young actors let go of their bags of tricks and patiently discover new ways of playing a particular set of given circumstances. In doing so, I believe each found tremendous subtlety and dimension.
I look forward to seeing what they do next. A swell place, too, as I appraoch one of those months when half of my regular students are not going to be in class for various reasons. With a small studio like mine, that means I pay the rent and earn less than a clerk at 7-11.
So thanks to those that are open and growing for bating my breath.

And thanks to the boys at Gearhead for gainful employment, further easing the sting of reduced studio revenue.

Ciao,
nc

The Writing is on the Wall

Public schools in Georgia are closing for two days next week to save gas. I suppose when education results in complete dependence on fossil fuels, it makes absolute sense to shut the schools down.
Our supreme leader truly is crude.

Went to a performance of Portland Taiko last night. I didn't like it. I thought it devoid of what Lorca called duende, roughly translated as feeling. Arbitrary banging. Arbitrary banging of simple rhythms by smiling white folks getting cultural. Some sort of reverse minstrel show. A Left Coast version of Stomp. About half of the performers were of Asian descent, many Japanese. Obo Addy and several Ghanians came out for the final number. It was only then that I felt anything anyplace other than my ears. The Africans were the real deal and I couldn't help but think that the Taiko folks were blessed and cursed to be sharing the stage with them. Of course there was a standing ovation. As our babysitter pointed out when we got home, put a person of color on the stage, the darker the better, and the crowd will stand and cheer in Portland.
Of course they'll ask them to live in blighted areas until they get around to gentrification, pushing them out of the way until they need cheap housing or to be entertained.

It's a crazy world. Which is no news at all. The writing has been on the wall all along.

Con amore per umanita,
Signore Direttore

This Side of Paradise

The title of the first of F. Scott Fitzgerald's few complete novels, much more minor than Gatsby, but closer to home for me as I devoured the books of The Lost Generation in my teens. Its protagonist, Amory Blaine, looked up at the spires of Princeton assuring himself that he would surely do better in school next year, but knew deep inside of himself that he would not. And in fact, did not.
Was he being honest with himself that some things are not meant to be? Or simply rationalizing his lack of effort?

I've had a few students argue about objectives lately, claiming that a character doesn't know he or she won't succeed as they pursue his or her objectives. In short, that they are always in it to win it. Maybe I'm just a fearful doubting Thomas, but I think desire is almost always plagued by a measure of doubt. If not, where would the tension come from? Surely not the other person. My battles within have always been more epic than those without.
I find it far more involved and nuanced to witness a character check his or her own doubts about his or her objective against the other/s/ in a scene.

Just got the phone call I've been waiting for since Tuesday. I'm the new manager at Gearhead Grip and Lighting. I start Monday. A set schedule. A paycheck. Healthcare benefits. Paid holidays and vacation. Things I've never experienced. I'm excited.

My theory is I'm surrending to win. I'll keep you posted.

Fono ai noi,
nc

The Dispassionate Gardener

Saw The Constant Gardener yesterday for my Monday matinee. Having forgotten to wear my watch, I checked the time on my cell phone around an hour into it and every ten minutes thereafter. I was bored and anxious for its anticlimactic denoument to come so I could go.
The exhaustion of my patience with the film coincided with the end of the jump in time segments, which ultimately I found very arbitrary and therefore tedious -- just as the director settled into telling the story it was too late. I suppose the jumps in time were thought necessary to fill in all the backstory. I may have known it was adapted from a John LeCarre novel prior to seeing it, I'm not certain. I did say to myself while watching it, Oh this story is intriguing, but I'd rather read about it in a john LeCarre novel. (If I ever read those types of books.) I just didn't find the backstory all that necessary. The wife of a quiet, well-peered diplomat is very active politically. She spends a lot of time with a native Kenyan doctor helping the poor. A pharmacuetical company is up to no good with the help of the British government. Shadow agents eliminate the bleeding heart wife when she gets too active in her discovery of evil doing.
That's a good set-up. I don't need to know she has always asked too many questions going back to meeting her husband at university. I can see that in the way she handles herself with the poor, the Kenyan doctor, her husband and at a diplomatic social function. I don't need to see them fall in love in a flashback. I'm not so cynical as to believe they might well have been in love to have gotten married in the first place. For all the the first hour's attention to backstory, it makes the sudden introduction of the wealthy cousin in the third act feel more like movieland than reality. Though I liked the jump in time juxtaposition of his eulogy and the gardener's final earthly moments.
For a film that does a good turn in showing the shanty towns and the suffering of the African poor as well as offering some truthful though often, dare I say, too understated performances, it shrinks from allowing reality to unfold before us with any patience. Think of the power of the long take in such dire living conditions. The fast cutting really worked in the director's film, City of God, precisely because the world it was depicting depended on fleet-footed survival. We were given the chance to sneak a peek into a world that doesn't allow Peeping Toms.
A note on the preformances: Rachel Weisz was great. She had conviction and compassion and showed great courage. All of the supporting roles were well played, though F. Murray Abraham suffered a sliding dialect and the manner in which the Kenyan doctor's eyes lighted on the heroine was exactly that -- mannered. I found Ralph Fiennes far too understated. He hit some wonderful notes of realization that reflected his inner life and his character's temperment and class at key moments. However, if the film hoped to show a man awaken to a less distanced relationship to the world, I think the actor failed. Though he may have failed, he is not to blame. As always the buck stops with he or she at the helm. In this case, the director didn't give his leading man and his audience a chance to watch the gardener's garden grow.
All that said, I appreciate that the film was about human beings. Unfotunately, the view of humanity was obfuscated by frantic cuts, desaturated images and too much backstory and exposition. I never groaned, I just got a little bored at times as the story went in one eye and out the other all too self-conciously.

I predict Phil Hoffman will be accepting a gold statuette from the Academy next Spring based on the trailer for Capote. Wow.

Pasta and Bagels,
Signore Direttore

Kentucky Windage

There are three ways to hit a target with a rifle - blind luck, Kentucky windage and zero the sights.
Blind luck is a wily devil, betraying its beneficiary sooner or later, especially if it coincides with beginner's luck. Blind luck is particularly troubling when one has a run of it and believes it an indication of a talent that requires no further training.
Kentucky windage involves firing a shot and adjusting to the sight's inaccuracy until "a little to the left and a squirrel tail lower" hits the mark. Of course this method must be adjusted any time the distance to the target moves. Sure to be the case in a live action scenario.
Zeroing the sights takes a little longer. Set the front and rear sights to mechanical zero. Fire at a target at 25m and first adjust the front sight for elevation and then the rear sight for windage and elevation until all rounds strike within 4cm of the target center. The weapon will be set at battlesight zero for up to 300m. For longer range shooting, a second zero can be set and marked as necessary.
What I'm trying to draw is a parallel to preparation for the actor. I find that most actors tend to rely on blind luck and Kentucky windage. When we practice contacting ourselves and opening our instruments, setting ourselves to mechanical zero, rather than rush into practicing for performance, we stand a better chance of having more accurate use of ourselves.

A River Dertchee,
Il comandante

Corragio

There is very little I feel compelled to report this week.
Classes were great -- new faces and new energies. There is a certain desperation that emanates from many aspiring actors. One of my tasks as a coach is to interpret and react to it accordingly. Becoming an actor of any measure requires a great deal of courage. Like talent, I find that courage is an innate attribute. It comes out with diligent exercise, but can not be taught. I run into problems when I make assumptions or sweeping assesments about the level of courage in the studio in any given class. Even with small classes, I often find it difficult to adjust to and encompass six to ten hearts. I suppose the best thing I can do is speak from my own heart and experience, thus being as courageous as I am capable.
Much like staying close to oneself as an actor -- if it is yours and in the moment, it is always the best you can do.
Oh, to practice what one preaches.

Ciao,
nc

Nella terra dei ceichi …

… the one-eyed man is king.
The winner of the Best Actor Award for the 2005 Filmerica Challenge is yours truly.

How about them apples?

Buona sera,
Signore Attore ahem Direttore

Second Guessing

To say my first encounter with second guessing occured within the last decade would surely be false. Just as we sometimes hear something many times, there comes a point when we really understand it. Perhaps when our receptors are ready or when the strength of the transmission signal is irrepressible.
Such was the case with second guessing. I had just started studying with Cay Patten in New York. I felt immediately at ease with her during our interview. She was not the touchy-feely, new age teacher I had when younger. She was a New York intellectual. And a fat Greek lady, just like my mother. Anyway the interview went well and she admitted me to intermediate scene study. I was happy not to start in the beginning class, yet nervous. Especially when I saw a couple people in the lobby wearing national tour jackets from shows.
One of the show vets was an actor called Steven. In one of my first classes Steven was making a salad in his scene. Or he was going through the motions of making a salad. Every question Cay asked him about the salad, Steven answered with a defense of his choice, citing his (mis-)interpretation of Cay's input rather than an answer to her simple questions. Finally she had enough and told him she was finished with him. Not just for the day, but forever. She told him he was never going to be a good actor if he second guessed clear, simple direction.
I thought, Yes!, she's absolutely right. I further deduced that good actors don't second guess impulses. Just like people don't second guess the sunlight of the spirit, except when our neuroses get in our way, of course.

I optioned Original Glory to a producer with limited experience and we went through a long phase of development during which the script improved in some ways and died in others. I've always had a hard time pitching the script. It is not a high concept script for one. But the plot covers a lot of ground. To get from A to Z, I've had to leap over certain plot developments, expecting the audience to jump with me.
It seems that readers in Hollywood all stumble at those junctures. They say things like, I don't feel you earn the murder of the father. Or, He makes a phone call for help and then he's thirty days sober.
My response is usually something along the lines of, I don't really want the audience to be concentrating on the details of the plot, I want them to go on the journey with the characters.
Those with money need plot points. They need structure. They need a package that they feel is marketable. In the past, I've second guessed this. Resisted it. Judged it.
I've been seeing it differently of late. It's giving me a lot of freedom. I realize that what people are objecting to is the structure of the script. They love the stories and the characters and the physical world that I've created. But I've packed too much into its 100 pages. I've spoiled them. If I rewrite it using only the first act, they'll miss the ending or something in the second act. I've created this smorgasboord that incites gluttony.
I realized this after hearing the same feedback for years on this project. The first producer I worked with belabored the details, when I should have gone back and simplified the structure. Recently, I watched a few films that are similar to Original Glory with a careful eye toward plot development. If I were to shoot my film and expect it to come in around ninety minutes, it would be a ruthless whirlwind. While I want it pack a wallop, I want the story to be able to breathe. Think of spaghetti westerns -- three or four gunfights and a lot of quiet space between them.
In developing the script a couple of years ago I killed a lot of darlings in order to make room for more plot devices that still aren't working entirely. No more second guessing Hollywood.

I read Mark Medoff's great play, When You Comin Back, Red Ryder? Teddy, the outlaw, is ruthless, raw and honest. Every moment counts. It's like Shakespeare -- no need for stage directions. Reading it, I recalled the rawness of the characters in my script before all the second guessing under the guise of polishing.

I spoke to Michael Cassidy about this with some trepidation a couple of days back. He had just watched Peckinpah's The Getaway and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia.
Once again, we were on the same page.

In the past, I've always been anxious to do the rewriting on Original Glory. Seemed there was always a deadline, real or imagined. I'm sitting back on this one. Gonna let it simmer. Gonna figure on where I want to start and where I want to finish. Then I'm gong to write a logline. Then I'm going to work up an outline. I'm going to let it come to me.
I'm not going to second guess it.

¡Viva!
signore direttore

Almodovar

As far back as I can remember, I've been self-concious. As I have tried to move away from self-obsession, the culture has increasingly embraced it. Not all of the independents have been co-opted. Pedro certainly has, yet he continues to stay true to his original vision.
I recall seeing films by Scorcese, Almodovar and Jarmusch in the 70s and 80s having no idea who the filmmaker was. By the early 90s, just after Resevoir Dogs came out, I saw a poster of Tarantino in the window of Django's, his name emblazoned across the bottom.
(Nostalgia can be a slippery slope, I'm experiencing a flood of sense memories regarding Django's.)
The fare in those early days of independent cinema was meager in between the feasts. One of those feasts -- a double bill of She's Gotta Have It and Down by Law at the Clinton Street -- still offers a bit of nourishment. Another film, largely forgotten, that I loved: Patti Rocks. Mamet's House of Games was another favorite. Oh, how I loved Almodovar -- the colors, the quirky stories, the awkward and twisted sex. So rich. The themes and situations at once totally alien and yet all too close to me. I lived in Europe from 1985 to 87, ages 17 - 19, experiencing many more situations out of the films of Almodovar and Jarmusch than of Hollywood's.
I suppose I'm blurring the lines between indie, small studio and foreign films in terms of financing, but the heart and soul of the films are akin.
It was while living in Germany, West Germany in those days, that I discovered Fellini. A friend gave me a VHS copy of Amarcord for my 19th birthday. Mike Gallo, a former high school English teacher and writer for a small-town paper in upstate New York, was my sidekick and mentor in those days. It's a long story how he ended up in the Army, but thank goodness he did. He saved me from the philistines. The last time I saw him he was in graduate school in Sacramento. I showed up at his door at 7am in a stolen convertible, drunk and eager to add fuel to my fire. He indulged my escapades in a dive bar, bought me lunch and sent me on my way with a copy of The Ginger Man. Yikes.
Gallo and I were very unpopular at the armed forces movie theaters. We loudly mocked sentimental tripe like The Color Purple and Platoon. Eventually we were 86d after getting caught drinking beer during one of the latter Rockys.
I found a link to Almodovar's site, where he keeps on online journal. I'm so glad he's exalted and appreciated. His films are just as good, if not better than they were when nobody knew who I was talking about as I blathered on about his genius.

John Peirson's book, Spike, Mike, Slackers and Dykes is a good read on the history of independent film in that era.

As I recall those films, the details of the theaters and my companions all spring to life in my memory, shutting out the pain, confusion and hurlyburly of the rest of my life at the time. Many of us have these things that chrystalize our memories so -- my friend Dan Eccles has it with music. He recalls at once the melody and the record jacket or concert. It is in his bones. His fingers move as if on frets and his the lyrics start in the back of his neck.

I leave you with a roll call:
Matt Van Vlack, Clinton Street Theater, Cinema 21, Bleecker St Theater, Spike Lee, Please baby baby please, Sarah Posey, Ara Vallaster, The Red Vic, David Lynch, Koin Cinemas, The Fifth Avenue, Siesta, Matador, Mamet, Sujata Kakar, Mala Noche, The Castro, Drugstore Cowboy, Slackers, Hollywood Shuffle, Tampopo, Sex, lies and videotape, Laws of Gravity, Adam Trese, Roger & me, The Thin Blue Line, Carl Scott, Din Johnson, and many more…

ciao,
nc

The Greeks called it Hubris

There are three cases of arrogance on my mind today.

The most immediate is of the naive variety. Just sat through the beautiful afternoon indoors for a casting session for Nick Peterson's film Yellow, a musical. Actors came in and sang along with a recording and then read sides. Two were well prepared and two were not. One of the ill prepared was a student of mine. A student on partial scholarship. A student I passionately recommended to Nick. I wonder what the point of showing up to an audition unprepared might be. Could it be that the actor thinks of it as an opportunity to meet and greet the filmmaker or casting director? Or that by simply showing up they'll be cast based on their good looks and winning ways? My student will be called back. Unfortunately, in my opinion. He sings well and he is a good actor, his talent certainly came through. Though not nearly as well had he put an hour into preparing for the audition I set up for him more than a week ago.
My money is on the other two guys. Both of whom are non-actors, by the way. It helps that they are musicians, most particularly for this film, but it's their charisma combined with their preparation that's winning them near the kiss.

The second instance of hubris I experienced this weekend is of the harumph variety. I suffered through Ridley Scott's commentary on the Thelma & Louise DVD. Clearly he's a man of considerable talent and accomplishment. Knighted by the Queen. A member of both the American and British film academies. Indeed.
"My genius is caah-sting, you see. When the actors are well caahst, they know what to do and I can concentrate on things like this shot." A night travelling shot of Louise's T-bird passing a truck on the highway. A shot that tells us nothing. Totally arbitrary.
I quite wish he would have let us experience a shot of Geena Davis's face when she's about to get raped. That way we would have felt what she felt as it was happening, instead of seeing insert shots of her panties getting pulled down. (Which leans more toward eroticism than violence if you ask me.) Had we experienced the imminent threat of violation with her in the parking lot, the moment that Thelma stops Louise from second-guessing herself later in the movie and reminds her "He was hurting me." would have had much more of an impact.

The other case of excessive confidence that comes to mind is David Walker's film reviews in the last two issues of WW. The exact position of film critic for an alt-weekly is in question. Certainly we expect a little sardonic zest, wit and hipness in such a rag. Though, is not the job really about letting us know -- in a hip, witty and zesty sardonic fashion, of course -- if the film is worth a sawbuck and two hours of our time? Surely we do not expect Film Comment nor Cahiers du cinema. A little film crit is welcome for the cinephiles, sure, but let's serve the common WW reader. Well lately DW has erred not in the over-erudition of his criticism, but in subsuming the reader's knowledge and going straight for the kill. (Or in the case of a local film on which he toiled as associate producer, straight for the fluff job.)
First the fluff. Eight paragraphs or so qualifying his review of the film, two paragraphs of plot summary and a paragraph excusing the poor craftsmanship of the filmmakers. He claimed that the film showed the promise of digital video. I thought promise requires more than getting some people together to make a movie with no thought toward composition, lighting, sound or story development. Dear David, I would have appreciated a heads up that the film stinks and it's not worth my time, let alone my money.
Then the kill. "John Singleton is a no talent hack." Though DW loves Hustle & Flow, as do I, which wouldn't have gotten made had not John Singleton put up his own money to produce it. DW's review of H&F is a good example of why he is gainfully employed as a film critic, by the way. "Someone should pay Rob Schneider to go fuck himself." Does Deuce Bigleow European Gigolo really incite such vitriol? Sky High: "Super-stupid family-friendly comedy that…" DW doesn't have a family and doesn't have to endure family films. But I do and after seeing the super-stupid moron-friendly film DW fluffed earlier in the day, Sky High seemed like the Wizard of Oz later in the evening. Dear David, Sky High was well worth our $12 and the two-hour roundtrip out to Newberg to see it at the 99W drive-in.

I would write a letter to DW c/o WW, but I'm practicing restraint of tongue and pen. Lest I wind up fodder for an arrogance posting in some blog.

Ariverdertcheeee,
Signore Direttore

A Movie I'd Like to See Remade

I'm not a fan of remakes normally. But I am a fan of auteurs. And of good stories. So when I read and, or see a good story poorly told I like to think of ways it could have been improved.
I've been watching and reading road movies this week. Last night's film was Thelma and Louise. Ridley Scott was the wrong director for that film. It's hopelessly slick and lifeless. Since it can't be remade in the past by any of my heroes of the 70s, it will have to be remade in the future.
There was an article in the NYT this week about the studios admitting better movies need to be made. Michael Bay's The Island didn't make any money -- boo hoo. This is good news for auteurs -- since the studio biggies are failing to bust blocks this summer, movies by Miranda July, Jim Jarmusch and Craig Brewer are all tracking long theatrical runs.
At times the acting in Thelma and Louise was a commentary on the themes and plot of the film. I blame the director for that. Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis both did a great job as far they were allowed to take it. Brad Pitt, Mike Madsen and Harvey Keitel were all very good as well. However, if the camera isn't there to record the inner life of the actor, there isn't much an actor can do about it. The objectivity of the camera work in Me and You and Everyone Else We Know would serve the tale of the ladies from Arkansas very well.
Gus Van Sant likes to remake films. The quiet lurking of his recent films would set a wonderful tone for Thelma & Louise.
I don't really care who helms the remake as long as it's gritty and human and the humor comes from our collective difficulties with sexism and chauvinism instead of the one-note spin and visual cliches under Scott's direction.

Buona sera,
Signore Direttore

Cento metro di Federico

A friend told me today that I'm a hundred yards from the finish line, and like on any tough terrain, it's the hardest part of the journey. Well thank you, friend, for the comforting words. I'm not sure that I buy it, but I see the wisdom in his analogy and I am comforted by it.
It is the journey and not the destination that interests me, I'm nearly always pleased to recall.
There is a tendency at times like this that I'm tempted to look only forward and back, ignoring the present.
A friend is going through chemo, my aunt is moving back to the awful small town in Ohio that she spent the last five years trying to get away from to try to get her cheating husband back and poor W is suffering a 36% approval rating.
Meanwhile, my wife is beautifully pregnant, my children are healthy and happy and I just returned from a bicycle ride on a beautiful summer evening.
Repeat after me:
Slow and steady wins the race.
Slow and steady wins the race.
Slow and …

Ciao amici,
Signore Direttore

Between a diamond and a sapphire: luxury problems part uno

Today's my birthday.
I met with the storyboard artist first thing this morning. So very nice to see images of the ideas that have been kicking around in my head for so long. I would love to board the entire film, but there's a lack of funds available for such work at present. That meeting was interupted by a phone call from 323. The secretary - Neal, I have x on the phone.
X is an old friend that I got in touch with to go over what I am doing with The Gersh Agency. She's extremely busy these days developing a bunch of tv stuff for one of the networks. She and her company have been all over the trades the past couple of weeks. I am grateful she took the time to return my call. Unfortunately she told me the same old thing that I've been hearing for years -- don't try to direct this film, get out of the way. Don't do anything, just wait for them to come round.
Meanwhile, I'm looking around my house for things we can sell. I'm considering jobs as a custodian. Maybe moving the family into a one bedroom apartment. I got number three on the way. I've been working toward this for years. I'm not holding out to direct because I think it will be cool. I'm ready to do the work of a director. If David Fincher or Sofia Coppola wants to direct this, I'll step aside, all too gladly. But I'm not going to get out of the way for somebody that flatlined some lame picture nobody has ever heard of.
At the same time, I'm talking to someone making fifteen-k a week to play Playstation in a trailer on the set of a studio movie who is complaining about how lousy that is and how he can't wait to make this film with me. He's telling me to hang in, that I'm his only hope.
I'm not whining about this. And truthfully, there's really nothing I can do. There's no offer on the table to give the film up to another director. There's nothing except regular news that the script is slowly working its way up the food chain. Nobody is saying, here's the deal. I'm might ask Gersh if there's some re-writing work or some such thing available to hold me over. But I'm not sure if that's even appropriate.
I am grateful to be in such a difficult place. They may well be nice problems to have, but that don't make 'em easy to solve.

Pasta and bagels,
Signore Direttore

Storyboards

Had my first session with a storyboard artist this morning. It was very exciting to think about the film in visual terms from shot to shot. I discovered that I have developed a fluency of cinematic language. That I have strong ideas about where to put the camera and why. It's very exciting.
There are varying opinions on the use of storyboards. Roman Polanski feels they stiffen actors. I don't agree. As an actor I like to know the director has thought carefully about the placement of the camera. It helps me feel supported in order to go deeper with my work. It's my opinion that actors play better to a camera carefully placed rather than letting an actor go and trying to catch it. I suppose in comedy that's the way to go, but with drama I'm all for detailed mise en scene.
Seems the Italians are some of the most fluid when it comes to actor-camera symbiosis. Think Bertolucci, Leone, Fellini, Rosselini. Last Tango in Paris is a great example of intense inner lives of actors in a film with complex actor as well as camera blocking. I'm sure the source is the Italian cultural legacy of commedia del'arte and opera.
The storyboard artist said Original Glory reminded him of The Last Picture Show. I liked that movie, but I felt it was very distant and cold emotionally. The black and white photography was beautiful, of course, but it certainly contributed to the muted emotional tone of the film. The acting was very good, I could only hope for a cast so great.
I think where storyboards can pose potential problems is when directors are determined to shoot specific shots in spite of what might be evolving out of the story and the contributions of the cinematographer and the actors, not to mention the production designer. I have used them a bit in my last couple of short films and I think the films have been better because of it. As I've studied film over the years there have been theories, like Polanski's denouncement of storyboards, that have appealed to me, but I find that in practice I'm forced to abandon them. I used to want to be the next Cassavetes or Scorcese, but now I just want to be the first Neal A. Corl. To do that I have to find my own way, taking and leaving from those that have mastered the craft through trial and error. Trial and error on my own dime, when it comes to seven figure budgets, there's a very reasonable expectation on the part of the investors to have a solid idea regarding the vision for the film.
Ultimately, as a first-timer, it would be foolish for me to not do everything I can to show potential producers what my vision is for this film.

Ciao,
signorre direttore

No mas

I'm sure Roberto Duran made it further than round two when he uttered his famous surrender, but I won't be making the family picnic today for round three of my high school reunion. Enough is enough. The picnic host fondled my derriere and threatened further assaults should I complain too loudly. He may well have been joking, but he's off his rocker. I watched him demonstrating the obscure form of martial arts he studies to some other classmate later in the evening. Too much money isn't good for you. Keith Reddin writes in Brutality of Fact - If you have money, it's eccentricity. Since I know this fellow has never worked a day in his life as well having sat around the dinner table with his kooky clan many times, I'm calling a spade a spade - He's mentally ill.
He's not the only reason I'm begging off. I taught class yesterday morning, then went to a pig roast hosted by some college friends. (Whom, at large, I prefer to my high school friends.) I'm reserving my energy for Andrew and Susan's wedding this evening.
All was not miserable. I faced the fear that's been creeping up on me for the past few years. I let the discomfort exist without dulling the pain with evasion, intoxication or embellishment. I reconnected with a couple of great old friends that I was looking forward to seeing. One of whom's spouse is an organizer of the Bend Film Fest and knows my pal Andrew Dickson. Always a good thing when the good people in one's life have come together outside of your influence.
My wife has been working all weekend and I'm daddying in addition to all the other stresses.
We're off to see the penguins march.

Ciao bella,
Lincoln High Alumnus #92848y529

Ultimate Folly

Last night was the reception for the twenty year reunion of my high school class.
I kept my mouth shut for the most part, but as I made my way through the evening I marvelled at how little I had to say to these people and my utter lack of nostalgic yearning. Gone were the intense feelings of inadequacy that were chronic in those days. Many quietly expressed their anxiety of being there in my ear. Which I shared absolutely. My tension however had more to do with the shame that I feel regarding who I was rather than who I've become. I've got further work to do as a human being, but I am pretty gosh darn proud of who I am, particularly in the face of who I once was.
I would venture to say it is my ultimate folly whenever I think I'm not good enough and seek to overcompensate. High school was the heyday of such insecurity to extremes that were more Abel Ferrara than John Hughes.
The night was light on fodder.
On the ride over my friend and I mentioned an old classmate. Divorced I'm sure, Dave surmised. Of course the supposed divorcee was one of the first I ran into. After telling him my vitals, he shared his - single, no kids. Oh, you're not divorced? He laughed, not knowing the extent of our predetermination, of course.
There was something else, but I've lost it for now.
Oh, it involved the same guy. He was across the room with a group of people that I was seeing at once now and twenty years in the past. Suddenly he put a cell phone to his ear and I was like, What's that?, for this millisecond.
A similiar thing occurred in Memphis about ten years ago. Peter and I were having breakfast in this downtown cafeteria that hadn't been painted since the 60s let alone remodeled. There was a burly maintenace man with a graying flattop and monochrome work clothes. I'm imagining the garbage strike and segregation, projecting an intense Dixie racism onto the fella when his beeper went off and catapulted me twenty-some years and a Constitutional amendment forward.

Tonight's the big night. I wish men still wore suits. Now when I wear a suit, people can't help but say - What's the occasion? I tried from 1991 to 1998 to endure and ignore such queries, but our casual culture wore me down.
I bring up the suit, because without it as an option I'm at a loss as to what to wear to appear both smart and casual without looking like I've given in to middle age nor trying to hold onto my youth. Maybe I'll dress like a cowboy.

Second to the folly of Bad Lieutenant insecurity in my life's history is the chronic skirt chasing for which I was notorious. Of the first hundred or so names in my black book, a good forty or so were present last night. Let's just say that I'm all too glad to be married and no longer subject to that insatiable master. Most of them I just want to give appropriate space, i.e. polite smiles as I slide past. And perhaps, given the opportunity, offer a sincere apology for my whirlwind antics in the past. There are a few fellas obviously on the prowl and I am so grateful for my immunity from the clutches of that cliche.

Could it be that I've grown up?
Il mio dio.

To quote myown Senior quote:
I was, I am and I now know I will be.

A river dertchee
Signore Neal A. Corl
Direttore di cine

FPS Folly and more

29.97 to 24 to 23.98 to 29.97 to 30 frames per second 2:3:3:2 pulldown AA BB CC EE AE

Somebody come over here and put me out of my mumbojumbo misery please.

Here's a link to a good article about the viability of DV as a prodcution resource.
It's a little outdated, but the core of the info remains vital.

http://journalism.berkeley.edu/program/courses/dv/cookbook.html

I gleefully cancelled my subscription to Oregon Film Casting Society today.
I've yet to see a casting call that was not viewed earlier on Craig'sList or the Oregonian call board.
My just in case continuation was resolved by my decision to return to my hiatus from acting and to excuse myself from playing politics in the local scene.

Let me say it loud, let me say it proud: I am not an actor!

There are those actors as well as aspects of the craft and process that I adore, but I am a director.
And that's that.

No more hyphens!

SIGNORE DIRETTORE

Last Days

I walked downtown, over the Hawthorne Bridge, last night to go see Last Days. It was a beautiful night. My old friend Peter arrived from New York on his motorcycle and it was great to walk and talk with him.
I missed Last Days while it was still up at Cinema 21. Regal Cinemas is vile. The advertising for NBC television and their inane in-house entertainment news program The Twenty is maddening. If I wanted to suffer that shite I would stay home and watch the little screen.
Fox Tower may be the place to see art house cinema in Portland, but the quality of the prints, projections and the projector noise from the projection booths is maddening. I had to leave a screening there the other week due to a serious focus issue that went unresolved after multiple complaints. The other sheep sat there squinting in the dark.
Gus Van Sant's latest film has been regaled as visionary and masterful. While viewing I had to struggle to stay awake. Boring doesn't equal bad, however. Thank goodness some critics out there proclaimed its genius, otherwise I might have given up on it. In spite of my attention to filmmaking as an artform, I did come of age and still live in this culture of Hollywood fare. Taylord Hackford's bios of musicians go in one eye and out the other, leaving no aftertaste, but they do meet my expectations of sensational storytelling.
Last Days avoided the sentimental grid that Kurt Cobain's life could easily chart -- the abandoned young daughter, the megalomaniacal wife, the hordes of flannel clad fanatics and worshippers. Instead, Van Sant stages the quietest of passion plays. Aside from a trite confrontation by a record exec played by the stunning but wooden Kim Gordon, the daughter is excused from the manipulation of our heartstrings. We did not have to suffer Courtney. The band was in their own blur, avoiding the usual expository histrionics. Lukas Haas was genius, though a great deal of my praise is for his hipster Jerry Lewis specs.
Sentimentality and judgment were remarkably absent.
The camera did not linger on the tragic beauty of Blake/Kurt. Most of the time we saw only the curtain of his greasy locks. Michael Pitt played the physical life and murmurings of a doped genius perfectly.
The camera work was beautiful. Capturing the physical presence of Pitt, and to some degree Asia Argento, much like Wong Kar Wai's famous shots of women from behind as they lean forward, creating unique organic forms within the formal composition. The reworking of time through multiple perspectives courageously portayed the mundane nature of mental and spiritual disintegration. As Christ reportedly said upon his death, Many will be decieved.
Harmony Korrine's cameo was retarded. And the superimposition of Kurt/Blake's ascension was pushing it.
My viewing partner mused if the mumbling wasn't some sort of subtext indicating the lack of substance in Cobain's words.
Given Gus Van Sant's prediliction for beautiful young men and youth culture, I sincerely doubt that.

Trying hard not to decieve,
nac

Kismet

Some wonderful kismet was in the air yesterday.

#1 - When showing Polar to a friend and fellow filmmaker he noted that perhaps the visual problem (in an otherwise nice little piece of filmmaking) was a frame rate issue. And therefore solvable. Hurray!
Makes sense as my editing experience went on hiatus in 2003 before 24p DV hit the streets. I was excited to salvage the film as I decided after putting the film in a mailer to meet Monday's deadline for NWFVF that I didn't want to submit it due to the visual strobing and blurring.

#2 - Just after learning the problem was frame rate related, I received an email stating that the submission deadline has been extended two weeks.

#3 - Mike Cassidy called relating that Lit Agent Sandra Lucchese at the Gersh Agency loved Original Glory and will be in contact soon.

#3 was kismet in the sense that I really need to stop sweating the small stuff and stay focused on the bigger picture. Since moving to Portland I've been somewhat obsessed with gaining status within the local scene. I've met some great local folks - Nick Peterson, Greg Schmitt, David Walker, among others. I've also met a lot of insecure, desperate wannabes that bring out all of my own wannabe sludge.
If I want to be a wannabe, I can always ignore where I'm at, no matter what I've acheived. Or I can want to be exactly where I'm at, celebrating the years of hard work that I've invested in getting to this juncture, and focus on the next task at hand, status be damned. Which is getting Original Glory ready for production. I'm sure as producers are attached further rewrites will be asked of me. Until then I'm taking my hands off the typewriter and picking up the megaphone.

It's a scary and exciting transition. I wrote the outline for OG in 1998. A one hundred and fifteen page prose treatment, fifty-four screenplay drafts and countless revisions later I can finally let go of the evolution of the story and begin to think of it in more realizable terms.

Polar as a title isn't working for me after all. Pretty really sums it up. Shari Menard's performance is stunning. She was in that Blazers spot last year playing Jenga with my man Andrew Dickson and ex-Blazer (officially as of this afternoon, functionally since two seasons ago) Derek Anderson. She totally disappeared in that scene. Well, she's not disappearing off the screen now.

Joey Boyd turns in a solid perf (-ormance - reading too much Variety) as well.

I'm thinking of postponing any more acting for the time being in order to concentrate on prepping OG.

ciao,
signore direttore

Polar

The short film I've been working on as Pretty is now known as Polar.
I'm nearly finished, the deadline for NWFVF is Monday.

There are some shots of the actors swinging at a playground. The angle I chose to shoot them and the speed that they're swinging presents some problems visually. I tried to chop it down to minimize the swing shots, but the story was weakened. I almost fell prey to putting the visual look first. Maybe it will make this short more polished looking, but I'm not going for polished in the long run. Especially at the expense of the story. I did a little digital blur effect to simulate more natural movement and had I not mentioned it, I'm not sure there would be any notice taken.
Takes courage to let things be and to trust that my best, provided it is my best, at any given time is good enough.

There's a little sidebar interview with Lalo Shifrin in The Oregonian A&E section's Film Freak.
He says he always tells himself whatever project he's working on is the best film in the world.
That seems wise. And nothing like an easy thing to do for someone like me.

Too often I'm lamenting what I didn't acheive as I'm cutting a film. As if it's the last film I'll ever make.

sinceramente,
neal a. corl

La Gioia

Just returned from a film shoot. I had a small part as a detective. Really basic lines of dialogue and only half a page total for the one scene. I looked it over a couple of times and did not have much inspiration. It wasn't bad at all, just very plain jane. What I did have was a certain degree of confidence in my ability to be in the moment and have fun with it. The director and DP set up a cool shot and let us work. He told us what he liked and stayed pretty clear. Indeed my instincts kicked in -- we did a couple of takes, I found some good stuff, everybody laughed and said great job, I signed a release and said my goodbyes.
I am somewhat ashamed to admit that I need to remind myself prior to such engagements that I have been asked to come down and contribute as an actor and nothing more. I am not a producer nor director nor any other of the myriad hats I wear at any given time on other projects.
To suit up, show up and shut up is a true joy.
I have nobody to resent, no remorse to suffer, no inventory to take. I can simply look forward to the news that the film is screening at some point in the near future.
This is the first time in a long time that it's been this clean.
I think I'm finally ready for a fresh start to clear the way for more inspired work on all fronts.
Thank goodness.

Ciao
signore direttore

200 or so hours later …

The 72-Hour Film shoot went reasonably well. We drew classic film as our genre and we decided that meant Film Noir. There is a poll on the Filmerica Challenge website listing Classic as the genre least hoped for by far.
I was unable to stay clear of writing duties. The writing corps failed to produce anything coherent by hour seven, so the director asked me to take charge. Half an hour later we had a rough draft. And home I went to a puking child that kept me up for the few precious hours remaining of the night.
Our rehearsal process was nil and the head writer that had been shoved aside was now the AD. We clashed. It was ugly. Then we moved on. I liked the improvisational nature of the acting as I used takes to discover the writing and the character and story. Aislinn, my co-lead was great. I was supposed to seduce her, but her actual boyfreind had been cast in a supporting role, so I found myself tentative with that objective at times. I didn't feel much light in my eyes and the camera always seemed very distant. When I saw the film later on, it was as I feared. Wide. Way too wide.
They used two cameras. My theory on two camera shoots is it makes filmmakers lazy. As an actor I don't know which camera to play to. Likely why TV acting is so broad and general. Two cameras might be cool for closeups, but the lighting takes so long, might as well just turn around. As a director I like one camera closeups so I can give actors that need more time off-camera duty. As an actor I like to work in an up tempo rhythm, so I love to go first on the closeups.
There were some folks I really enjoyed working on the project. Some grew on me, some wore on me. One woman in particular still occupies a bit of space in my brain. Overall, it was a good experience. It could have gone a lot worse.
It's screening next Sunday at the Hollywood Theater at 6:30pm. I have a deadline Monday for something else I'm working on, but if I'm not pressed I'll probably go see my mug on the big screen.

We finished Pretty this week as well. Joey and Shari did a great job. I'm logging and capturing the footage right now. A lot of good stuff. There's a few things I'm not crazy about, but overall it's going to be a fine little film.
My children were in it. They were great. Henry had a couple of lines. He hit his mark and delivered his lines very consistently. I was quite proud and amazed. I allotted a lot of time for them, but they were in and out. Good thing too, because we had another unexpected problem that cost a fair bit of time.
Sometime in the first part of the day, Jack hurt his back and left me to finish the film by myself with the actors and the sound guy. It was very exhausting, but I set out to work with a small crew. A very small crew.
As we wrapped that schoolyard location, the police arrived. There had been a complaint that it seemed as if I was shooting scantily clad women in front of the school for the opening of a porn film. Shari was hardly scantily clad. I laughed it off with the cop and went on my way.

I have a small part in David Walker's feature, Uncle Tom's Apartment, this weekend. A racist cop.
Hey did I ever tell you the one about the …

A river dertch.
Signore Direttore

72 hours from now …

I will have another completed film credit to my name. We recieve our instructions from on high as to what genre and other specifics we are to include in our project that must be postmarked by Monday.
I think I'm opposed to this manner of working, but I've decided to check it out to speak from experience rather than conjecture. I've signed on as the leading man, so the impact should be lessened. Truthfully, I see it mainly as an exercise in patience. That strikes me as quite ironic, since the time frame is so precisely limited. The team/crew is very inexperienced, though in my experience filmmaking, especially digital filmmaking, doesn't attract the humble. There's usually a great deal of posturing and self-assurance. I have to admit I've swaggered unjustifiably myself. Ho-hum.
I really like the director, Jack Dahl. He is actually quite humble and level-headed. I wouldn't have agreed to this were it not for Jack. I want him to have a good experience. Therefore I want to behave myself. I wish it weren't a concern. Though I suppose I'm grateful that I know it's a concern and that I won't be at the complete mercy of my character deficiencies.
I have but one job to do -- act.
My goal is to do that job without informing the director and writers of their ignorance at every juncture. What a pompous ass I can be!
I really, truly hope that I can refrain from contributing unless directly asked for my input. It's such a chore to chime in and judge and silently scorn.

I'm also in the midst of making a short film of my own called Pretty. I hope to complete by the August 1 deadline for the Northwest Film and Video Festival. It's going okay. I've chosen to work with a minimal crew. I think we're one person short for it to work effectively. We had some sound issues the other night that completely overwhelmed me. Delegating that next time around. I'm finding it conflicting to work efficiently, cinematically and to offer the actors freedom. I've been guilty of moving the actors around quite a bit as I'm trying to tell the story visually/in the cuts. It's a more commercial style, but the goal is to balance that with some masters and 2 shots where the actors have a lot of freedom. I love Cassavetes, but it's quite dull cinematically for the most part.

Got to go,
nc

Fodder and Folly

I have been remiss in relating the fodder and folly of a filmmaker's quest for mastery. My apologies. Truthfully I have not experienced much in the way of folly. Though I am off to a rehearsal for a new short short that I've written and am directing. Pretty Trendy Boy meets Hard Core Girl -- The tender beginnings of an unlikely relationship. And I agreed to act in a 72-Hour film project as well as a small role in David Walker's latest digital feature. Oh, I'm meeting with a photographer for headshots later today. Acting is weird, actually I'm cool with acting, it's the being an actor that weirds me out. It continues to feel alien to me in spite of so many years with it. I do enjoy it. I did a scene from Annie Hall with an actor-student last night that was a lot of fun.
In terms of fodder, I saw Miranda July's film and was very impressed and moved. There's a girl that has a hope chest which reminded me of my hours with the Montgomery Ward catalog at the age of five, planning and preparing every detail of my someday family. I went to Pendleton and saw my paternal grandmother and my father. Yeah. Boy. That's quite a journey, well beyond the 200 road miles. Sure to be some fodder in there. I did have my father killed by my best friend in Original Glory.
I read somewhere that true art is never auto-biographical. Though Fellini was absolutely exploring himself in his films.
Back in the day cinephiles and moviegoers divided between Fellini and Antonioni. I see the differences clearly, but love them both. My clear choices have yet to emerge. Favorite is an impossible prospect for me to consider. I might venture to say red is my favorite color, but I'd hate to commit to that. There's a lot of great colors out there.
You know Jung was in his seventies before he was able to extend the hand of friendship to himself.
Hopefully I'll live that long.

ciao,
signore direttore

Il operaio fra gli operai

I believe that translates as the worker among workers. I'm fully prepared for it to be idiomatically incorrect as I do not admit to being fluent in Italian (nor English for that matter).

When I began this blog a few long weeks ago, I considered the fodder and folly to be wholly external. It was the world that was presenting annoying commonplace obstacles to the realization of my genius. Don't think for a minute that that arrogance is lost on me. Though it was entirely lost on me until very recently, a gross shortcoming for which I am trying to humbly account. I can't tell you exactly what happened, let's just say as I bent over the pond I couldn't stir the water in such a way or tilt my head to get the reflection I needed, so I took a lingering glance at what was really there. I didn't like what I saw and I acknowledged that it wasn't the first time that I saw such utter selfishness.

Rather than a complete retreat, to which I've consigned my life many times, I decided to stand firm and face truth's reckoning. I must not be seduced by the thought that this was some white light transformation, the flicking of a switch between dark and light. It is rather a reostat, moving from the dark to the dim. Dim to the solipsistic is very bright indeed. In the dimness, I see not a self-centered vision of, "Ain't in grand the wind stopped blowing", to genuine faith that, though I have but a tiny idea of the true brightness I seek, trudging forth will slowly bring a luminosity heretofore unimaginaed.

The lofty prose is befitting. Deal with it. Please. I would appreciate your patience. I need to learn patience. I need to learn a lot of things. Principally that I don't know everything. That you have something to teach me. Fellini learned from Rossellini. He wrote for him and even acted in The Miracle. My initial thought is that I too must find a worthy master to whom I will apprentice. Not a bad thought, but with what amounts to a fairly pessimistic outlook, I'm not sure anyone but a legend would suffice. Problematic to be sure. If I change my perspective ever so slightly, I could perhaps recognize that Fellini likely made the world his master and learned from it with true genius as is evidenced in his most humanistic work. So how did an ogre like me choose Fellini?

Admittedly, I simply like the way Finding Fellini sounds. I think the term Felliniesque, like surreal, is a giggle in its overuse. I absolutely admire the truth of his discovery and reconciliation of the external and the internal. His images are brilliant. Maybe too there's a humanist inside this oversized bulk of flesh. I hope so.

Yesterday I worked on a commercial as an actor. I fought symptoms of sabotage along the way. I managed to avoid it this time. On so many film sets, I have either disappeared or been the crazy-maker, judging the skills, talent and efficiency of all. I went into this one eager to have the experience. The experience of being a principal on a low-budget, though national, commercial. Of working in Portland. Of being directed by someone that did not initially impress me. (Who turns out share my exact birthday, August 23, 1967)
Of being a worker among workers.

Here's out it went. I showed up on time. I found the AD and said hello to the client, director and producers. I went to wardrobe. They weren't ready for me so I went out to set. I said hello to the DP, to whom I am acquianted. He was chilly and I couldn't help but think it had to do with me. He couldn't possibly be stressed and preoccupied with the task of shooting a commercial. I sat and chatted with the craft services girl about Glasgow, where my wife was born and this girl had lived for six years. I saw the lead actress arrive with Starbuck's for the director, producer and client. I saw her act like a star. I stopped myself from voicing my disdain out loud. I got called to wardrobe. I hated the initial options. I made a face to the director. A face that said, not my choice, but whatever you want. It was a tight sleeveless number that made me look like a "bear" marching in the gay pride parade. Remember Philip Seymour Hoffman's shirt in Boogie Nights? I was glad the client didn't like it. I changed clothes in front of the client. I let myself be looked at. It was the wardrobe they were judging. I was clear on that. But it didn't come easy, I have to admit. We did our blocking. I liked the woman playing my wife. She was a good actress. I worked with her. I acknowledged her talent and let it support me. Again I'm afraid I must admit that my first inclination was to assert my talent. I judged a lot of things. I fought myself a lot. But I put a good face on it for a change. It felt good to be a professional. And I didn't have to lurk about announcing it all goddamn day like the surly prick I've almost always been in the past.

I have an audition for a student film at the Art Institute today. A short. A zombie short, no less. Can you believe it?

I'm still waiting for somebody to pinch me.

Ciao amici,
nc

Naturalmente

These past few days I've been wondering if I should succumb to a more conventional occupation to support my family. I've asked myself if the path I'm on is tenable and wise. If I should perhaps reassign my filmmaking aspirations to the realm of hobby.

There has been much self-examination. Attempts at a thorough inventory of my achievements up to now. Their viability as a demonstration of sure-fire talent. Assessment of potential profit of future projects. Consideration of methods and skills. Direct questioning. Cross-examination. Re-direct. Re-cross. I was moving toward closing arguments. Finalizing an assessment along the lines of dedicating an hour a day to screenwriting, a weekend every other month to directing and one night a week to teaching scene study. The rest of my hours dedicated to making an honest living with regular paychecks and health insurance.

Before I go off half-cocked in pursuit of real world legitimacy, perhaps an evaluation of my skills that I've built in all my years in the entertainment world is in order. I booked a job on a commercial as an actor next week. Should I try to get representation and more work as an actor? The money can be quite good and it might generate more interest in my acting studio. The fact is these gigs are few and far between, especially for a big lug like me. Besides I don't really want to run around trying to get jobs on corporate industrials. Nor do I want to do theater for very little money working for directors that I don't respect and that I'm fairly certain I could do a much better job than he or she. It may be hard to believe that I'm not putting it down, but, truly, I'm just expressing my lack of interest in such endeavors. Seems like a giant step sideways at best. What about doing some assistant directing or producing, maybe even some directing? The woman directing the commercial spot I'm in has done no more than direct a few short films. I tried to do some commercial work in NY. In the end I decided that I was better off focusing my energy on developing my chops with actors and writing. This is a smaller market certainly. I have a meeting with a local insider later this week to discuss potential commercial production opportunities locally. We'll see.

I presented a co-development opportunity to an actor friend today for a low-budget thriller to be shot in the next summer or two. It seemed as good a place as any to direct my focus for the next several months.

And then, an hour or so later, I got a phone call. Naturalmente. It was Michael Cassidy. He was short of breath. "I've got good news." Music to my ears. Of course he has good news. Why else would I be subjecting myself to such a survey?
His agent Larry Taube read Original Glory. He likes it. He says: It's quirky. The writing is excellent. What do you want me to do with this, Michael?
Michael says, I want to be in it and I want the writer to direct it. Larry says, Let me see what I can do. Tell Neal to have a list of all the actors he has in mind for the lead roles and that I'll call him next week.

Gulp. Somebody frickin pinch me, please!

This past week's scrutiny has been incredibly humbling. I'm going to need humility in spades to patiently proceed with the task of doing all that I can to prepare for the production of Original Glory, knowing full well that there is a long uncertain road ahead. There is no guarantee that this film will get made. However, until they stop returning my calls I'm acting as if it's going to get made. I'm not going to write any checks, legal tender or otherwise, that I can't cash, but …

But what? Let's just say I'm going to do my best to keep my feet on the ground and my head in the clouds.

i nostri cordiali saluti,
signore direttore

Convalescence

I was going to start this by claiming the master is at rest. Though the only master associated with this blog is resting in eternal peace. I, the journeyman, am at rest. The weekend didn't prove as restful as hoped, though it was productive. I really tried to take the days off, but as usual it didn't work out.

I ran into an old friend that I hadn't seen in nearly twenty years. A running buddy in Portland and California in the late 80s. We were unstoppable. A ghost appeared when I saw him. Whenever I have contact with one of those ghosts it's as if I'm somehow vindicated. Like all the wild stories and anecdotes suddenly have a witness.
See, I was telling the truth.
Ask him, he was there!

J said he blocked most of those stories out when I shared the witness idea with him. I could see the shame in his eyes as he searched mine for the depth of my memory. Oh buddy, he said, we had some crazy times. I feel compelled to hold J's hand through his shame.
Someone told him along the way that we did wrong. Probably one of his three wives. Or all of them. He's cloudy and conflicted, but the love is still there. J was my happy-go-lucky, always ready with a joke, up for anything mate. He jumped on many a grenade and asked me to do the same. No bickering or wrestling for the upper hand. He was always generous with his, You're the man, now check this out's. He had my back.
Wild. J was in the room, car and bed on so many entries into the late 80s virtual black book - Eugene Hilton Psychos, Connie in Vegas, Palm Springs Princess …
He had this Jeep. We would roll down Sunset, Broadway or Haight, stop the Jeep, smile and the most we ever had to do was say, Get in. Vegas, Palm Springs, Santa Barbara, SF, Portland, LA -- we were there taking names. I remember looking over at him night after night, sharing smiles as the girls piled in.
I think in a lot of ways the spirit of the relationship of the main characters in Original Glory is much more based on J and I, than D and I.

I wrote an outline of some new material this weekend. Realism in the tradition of Richard Yates. I suppose I must remember that neither Easter Parade nor revolutionary Road ever made it to the screen. American movie audiences want epiphany, redemption and transformation. So do I, but I also savor staring at the face of naked truth. Writing this i have the answer to the question that I was about to pose. The premise of my new story is that no man is an island or the individual life is not a dream, it's a nightmare.
Glenn has failed to develop relationships to the extent that even his dying mother would rather go into a Convalescent Home than live with him. He prepared his exurban apartment for her arrival only to find she won't be moving in. The next twenty-four hours of his life reveal just how cut off he is from everyone around him and ultimately himself.
I have my only regular blog reader, David Millstone, in mind for Glenn. I definitely want to workshop it with him. I say that more as a precaution to committing to making the film, than any doubts about David.
Glenn works as a hotel desk clerk, so as a no-budget guy I'm trying to stay away from all those, Can I get a hotel to let us shoot?, thoughts. Sometimes no-budget filmmakers get so hung up on getting a location that they forget to ask if it's even necessary to the story. Like, what are they trying to say about things with an element like a location or character. In this case I want to show Glenn in uniformed service of people. There are other ways, but hotels sure are anonymous in their profferance of intimacy. I'll have to put my producer's hat on when the time comes.

Come to think about it, my old buddy J would be an awesome producer. He could sell snow to Eskimoes. I found out that he started the SAG-Aftra agency here in town. They send all of their clients to another acting coach, but J said he had to go down there this week and he'll see what he can do for me.
Funny how the world works. I needed to take care of some nagging car issues and I run into my old pal J R. He takes me down memory lane, has some valuable contacts and gets my back on some car haggling. Oh yeah, I no longer have a big comfy truck and a sporty little wagon for the wifey, but a mini-van to be shared by the growing family.
Oh, the irony of buying a mini-van from J.

The Grouch and the Brainstorm

Something has come over me. I've had this realization that it may not be worth killing myself to make movies. If I'm overwhelmed all the damn time; how am I going to do masterful work? I'm very likely not.
Going to try to have a bit of fun.
Let go of the judgment.
Work shorter, but more concentrated hours.
Regard the details highly while choosing my battles wisely.
I was having coffee this afternoon and missed a call regarding a credit on a film I worked on that is soon premiering. I didn't do my usual freaking out that I missed an important call. I was having an important coffee. So what, I missed a conference call.
I have a feeling that the producers are not going to honor our verbal agreement for some odd reason. Don't think they would have conference called me to tell me they're sorry for taking so long to get back to me. Anyway, the thought of getting cheated sends me reeling for awhile. Yet it just isn't worth it. I doubt the film is going to be that good anyway. I know what I did. I have other credits on the film and points on the elusive back-end. I took the photo on the poster. And then some.
In the end, the grouch is just not who I want to be.
Do I want to be right so much so that I'm miserable?
Not really.

Sleep well amici,
Signore Dirretore

Stare fermo

Standing still, waiting to hear from The Gersh Agency about Original Glory's packaging potential. I did dream the night before last that Larry loved it. Comforting to know my subconscious is rooting for me. Larry T, the agent that I've sent it to was instrumental in getting both In the Bedroom and Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind produced. He represents Tom Wilkinson. And my man, Michael Cassidy. There are two roles for Mr. Wilkinson in this. Funny story about Tom and Larry: Larry told Tom he had to do Eternal Sunshine. Tom read it and said he didn't get it. Tom lives in England and prefers to fish rather than work on average films, but he trusted Larry and did Eternal Sunshine. It wasn't until the premiere that Tom went to Larry and said, I got it now. Thanks, that was brilliant.
I looked back over this just now and saw that I had transposed some letters in Glory, spelling a clipped version of Gilroy. In 1990 I dated identical twins from Gilroy, California. One of them, Marsha, was Miss Gilroy and went on to be a finalist for Miss California in 1989. Gilroy is the Garlic Capital of the World. Their father was Sherriff. We never met. In fact the only time I was ever in Gilroy was upon returning from living in Germany in 1987 with my Italian girlfriend Allesandra that went by the name Juanita. Obviously quite another story. Marsha's twin, Martha, rode a motorcycle and rejected beauty pageants. In spite of their differences, they were inseparable and they liked to share. They called me and invited me to take them out one night. Nicky's BBQ was the Wednesday night hotspot in SF at the time. My friends BBQ Brad and John Essen spun rare groove 60s and 70s soul. Every other night of the week it was a soul food joint for the surrounding housing projects.
I rolled up on the big sunburst orange BMW R90 that I had the time with both twins behind me on the seat. There was the usual line down the block. We walked right in, as I did everywhere in those days. We got some beers and said hi to Brad and John. Brad and Marsha had a thing not too long after that, in fact. Anyway I remember standing in the middle of the dance floor with the twins dancing on either side of me. Identical twins. This dude that I didn't know came up and asked the girls how they knew me. They told him, he said cool and bopped away. Later we sat in a booth together. They were staring at me, whispering and giggling. They told me that they were deciding who got me first. My life from 1985 to 1998 was like a movie that immature men would slobber over and try in vain to make their reality.
I'm grateful that I don't try to revisit those years. For all the fame and fortune there was a lot of pain and suffering.
Alas, I'm still standing.

A River Dertchee…
nc

In All Fairness

I don't want to edit myself, but I do want to be accountable. My comments regarding the two fellows I'm mentoring have been bothering me. It turns out, the director of the short is very concerned with his son's health. I gave him my support and told him that it might be best to postpone his shoot until he's able to give it his full attention.
As for the other bloke, I remembered that I sent him a link to this blog at one point. I can only say that I didn't intend for him to read my comments about him when I posted them. I've said as much to him, though certainly no where near as brazenly.
There's likely some ethical transgression I'm commiting with my public airing of my frustrations with students/apprentices even if I don't name names.
I will be more conscientious in the future.
For now, I choose not to censor myself in this blog.

With some measure of humility,
nc

Pessimism -- A Mighty Tool

Ciao amici,
Americans are great dreamers. the optimists of the world. We want something - we dream it, will it, build it, buy it and, or steal it. We're entitled. We are masters of self-invention and re-invention. Our forefathers took great chances, seizing the opportunity to exploit resources and cultures, to make our destiny so abundantly manifest.
We now live in a culture of consumers. We do not clear forests or raise cattle as much as we buy gear and declare ourselves artists. We dream of making art. We affirm our vision with affirmations of self. We can do it.
What is that about? How does one give herself the illusion of the ability to create masterful work so readily? I don't think she does. Not truly. That's why there's so much dreck out there. I think every time one of us makes a film that isn't great, we have succeeded in two things only: lowering the bar and fortifying the cult of individual personality. Both very dangerous prospects, in my opinion.
Am I suggesting no one make films? No. I am asserting that an affirmation, a DV camera, some borrowed funds and a lot of "passionate" people on your crew do not substantiate a well prepared and supported attempt at creating something worthy of objective consideration. Optimism affords the novice the opportunity to toss his hat in the ring. Optimism allows the aspirant to tell herself, I can do this. That's great. I love living in a society and culture so wide open that so many of us have the opportunity to try new things.
Unfortunately, optimism also creates an attitude that one doesn't need training, experience or talent. That he or she will just get a camera and shoot it. They'll get some actors. They'll write a draft of a script. Subsequent drafts will be to correct typos and to make it funnier. Add some comic relief. (Oh boy, don't get me started) Rehearsal will consist of the director (oh how it pains me to grant them the use of a title for which I am working so hard) getting excited to hear and see their words and ideas performed. I do not trust this process. It is fraught with ego. You have a writer that knows nothing of dramatic structure and has no cinematic vision that has had this thing in her head for months or years, or worse yet, the old: We wrote this in two weeks! There she is, just full of hubris and anticipation waiting for you to perform. It's wrong. In so many ways.
The optimistic filmmaker is blinded by his expectations. Maybe an actress finds something really incredible, but needs a little time with it to let it become her own. The optimistic filmmaker doesn't understand anything but his expectations and pushes for the result he envisioned right away. Or the words of a scene are loud and clear, but none of the subtext is coming alive. Or the actors are just sitting and talking in every other scene and there will be nothing for the editor to cut and will be forced to use wipes and fades. As this film is being shot, morale wanes because the actors are being pushed around by someone's vision that soon reveals itself to be specific only in its egocentricity.
The pessimistic filmmaker knows what can go wrong and prepares for it. She knows that the actors are collaborators and she enlists their talent and vision. She knows they need time and to feel supported by her vision. She knows that the film has to cut together and prepares her shots with an experienced Director of Photography. She knows her vision must be developed, tested and tried long before she calls Action and wakes the Beast. She knows what the Beast looks like, his strengths and weaknesses. The Beast loves structure and preparation. Good scheduling, budgeting and casting. Without the forementioned, the Beast eats your days. The Beast gossips. The Beast loses and breaks equipment. The Beast destroys locations. The Beast creates tension in the cast and crew. But give the Beast a little structure and you can mount up with your entire cast and crew. The Beast will carry you home.
I'm working with a couple of first-timers right now. One of them thinks he's shooting a short in two weeks. He has a location. One of three. He has a script. He has one actor of three. He has one crew member, yours truly. (I said I'd shoot it for him and mentor him in the process) I sat down with him weeks ago and told him how to get started. I gave him names and numbers of actors I thought might be good for it. I gave him a storyboard program. I called him yesterday to find out what's going on. He's taking the weekend off, because his son kept him up Thursday night.
The other fellow has a little more going on. He's a good writer with a great script. And I think he has cinematic vision. I'm playing one of the leads in a workshop scene for him. He tells me I'm amazing, that I'm incredible. I appreciate that, but it doesn't make it any easier to suffer through his plodding, muddled rehearsals. I just want to keep doing the scene, because I dread his lack of feedback or the incoherence of it. Supposedly, I'm some sort of producer on it. There's been talk of working together beyond the workshop. For now, I think I'll stick to helping him with the use of my studio and giving him feedback on his directing in exchange for a full producer credit. (I'm still waiting for that deal memo) I suppose it's more my issue than his, but I am not sure I like this arrangement. I'm getting praised for being an amazing director and yet I'm standing by and watching someone struggle mightily at the helm of a very promising project.
Another reason to love Hollywood. There's no sentiment. Sure the movies are sentimental and often unwatchable. It's not about art, it's about marketing movies. Can this movie make money? With so-and-so in the lead and you-know-who co-starring it will get distribution and marketing. Can the guy that wrote this script direct so-and-so and you-know-who? Not a chance. Do the execs say, Aw shucks he really wants to, let's give him a shot? In a word - NO. For all my acting coaching and training and vision, I am going to have to fight for my life to get to direct my first feature that's financed by a studio.
I've worked with first-timers. One movie went to Sundance, got panned (deservedly) and opened for two days in NYC. The DVD releases sometime soon. Another is not finished after two years. The budget has soared. They owe everybody, including me, thousands of dollars. No one I know will work for the director again.
I know my cynicism and pro-Hollywood take makes all the indie filmmakers out there furious. Before you hyperventilate, please tell me of some great films that didn't find distribution. I've been to film festivals far and wide. I've suffered through more indie screenings than I can count. If you make a great movie, it is going to get distribution. If you write a great script, it's going to get optioned.
If you write a script that doesn't get optioned. Rewrite it and try again. This idea that you'll cut out the middle man and make it yourself -- Wake up from that spell. Even if I were to self-produce a $30,000 film, I would get the script out there before I decided it was worthy on my own. Why make it for 30k when you could get 300? Why self-distribute? Go ahead and reinvent the wheel while you're at it.
If you're making exprimental art films, this DIY attitude makes perfecct sense. If you just want to make a movie that's really important to you and you are happy to show it three or four times locally, this can-do optimism is awesome.
I'm talking to the folks out there that dream of being the next Robert Rodriguez. By the way, be careful of what you wish for. Even if you could follow in his footsteps, do you admire his filmography?
DIY is seductive. I was under its spell myself a few weeks ago. It happens to me every year or two. I hear all the talk of this one or that making a five thousand dollar film. All of the 5k and under local films I've seen are dreck. All of the 200k and under local films I've seen are dreck. I've spoken to many of those filmmakers. They express resentment that no one has stepped to distirbute their films or give them the money to make another. Based on what? That they grabbed a hold of the Beast's tail and somehow made it to the end?
I think I'll stick to my guns and continue to patiently develop my craft. I'm a Brother of Cinema, remaining chaste for my Lord until the time is right for me to wed.
So, in the interest of my purity, please don't hand me a script and tell me that you wrote it in two weeks. Please don't hand me a copy of your finished film and tell me the budget or that you shot it over a weekend. And whatever you do, do not invite me to the 48-Hour Film Fest.
High and Mightily,
Signore Direttore

Pop Quiz

Please answer the following questions with a simple yes or no.

1. Would you know a great script if you read it?

2. Have you ever raised money for a dream?

3. Can you make people believe in you?

4. Are you anal and meticulous?

5. Is saying no easy for you?

6. Are you ready for an emotional marathon?

7. Are you really creative?

Going Home

In an hour or so I will lift off the tarmac at Burbank and be but two hours from touching down into the loving arms of my family. Los Angeles has always been veryvery good to me. This visit being no different. I had lunch with an old New York friend that's in the business yesterday. After molto sushi, we went up into the hills to see his house. Oh my. Breathtaking. He lives with a princess, his common law wife is a member of the Austrian royal family. I do not envy his life or his home. He has my respect and my perspective. His father-in-law is the head of a network and many other things, yet he auditions for roles and pitches projects and works to realize his dream of being a working actor on interesting projects like the rest of us. He stresses about taxes, mortgages and his daughter's Montessori tuition. He still takes acting classes.
Being in LA makes the business less abstract. The individual life is a dream, says John Patrick Shanley. We are all connected. The haves and the have-nots, the royal and the pedestrian. We do not live in isolation even if we isolate. Certain things make the world go round. Walking around Los Angeles this week ( I walked for miles, avoiding the car at every opportunity) I found a certain clarity. I want to be a working director, yes. Though never at the expense of my relationship to my family and community.

ciao los angeles,
nc

Did this happen to me?

After a long day of trying to see past personalities yesterday, I tried to go to a movie.
There was a time when I would go see everything. The cinema was my church. I'd see a second-run double bill and sneak into a third movie later that same day. This started when I was ten. My mother ran off with her biker husband to Arizona and my dad was bartending at some tavern on SE Powell. I was shacking up in a little travel trailer in his girlfriend's parent's backyard out on SE 82nd and Flavel, otherwise known as Felony Flats. When my mom came to her senses and returned to Portland, she was working three jobs and I was almost six feet tall, so it made sense to people that I was wandering around Portland by myself on TriMet going to movies.
I liked it all -- Bruce Lee, Richard Pryor-Gene Wilder escapades, Rocky I, II and III, teen movies, Scorcese (though I didn't know him by name and that he made two of my late 70s favorite at that age). Name a movie released between 1977 and 1992 and I probably saw it on the big screen. Xanadu, check. Midnight Run, check. Heavy Metal, check x3. My Bodyguard, check. Gallilopi, check x3, Fort Apache the Bronx, check. Raging Bull, check x4, Wolfen, check. Good Guys Wear Black, check. We could go on.
Some movies fascinated me so much that I stayed in the theater and watched them a second time. Blues Brothers, Flashdance, Diner and The Jerk are some of my single sitting-double views. I did this at my third or fourth visit to the Westgate in Beaverton (I lived in NE Portland) to see Star Wars in 1977. There were lines circling the parking lot and there was strict crowd control. I was told I had to leave for the next showing. I concocted an elaborate tale of vomiting in the bathroom for the second half of the movie and I'd already called my mom to pick me up in two more hours…
I didn't really know I loved movies. I just went to the movies a lot. And I acted them out by myself and at school. Playing Travis Bickle to my fifth grade class provoked a meeting with my mom in the principal's office. I played Rocky and Grease out alone at home afterschool for hours, days and months on end.
I ordered soundtracks from Columbia Record Club and never paid the bill. I'd forgotten so much of this until now. Whew.
I travel down memory lane for many reasons, one of which is to substantiate my love for going to the movies. But I got to tell you, I don't go much anymore. There's nothing to see. Nothing I want to spend two hours and eleven dollars on. (I'm in LA, remember.) It's not the money. $5.50 an hour for entertainment is a great deal. I understand the economics of the inflated popcorn and soda prices as well, I'm happy to support the movie-going experience completely. But I don't want to squirm and sigh and curse to myself as I'm held prisoner by relentless stylized tripe for two hours. I went through that with Danny Boyle's Millions the other night.
So I'm searching for a movie. I'm ready to drive out to Pasadena if need be. Nothing. Na Da.
Until I hit the Sunset 5, which is right down the street and I'm not sure how I missed it in the first five minutes of my search. A movie called Dallas 362. The storyline jumps out at me and sounds familiar. I smile and then I panic. It's remarkably close to the tagline of the film that I'm trying to get made. Click. Click. To the homepage. Set in Texas. Two friends. An older mentor. Quick. Quick. I've heard of this shit happening. No way. No way it's happening to me. I'm reading the list of producers. No familiar names. Production companies. No crossover. Okay. Okay. Maybe it's not happening ot me. Let's watch the trailer. Phew. Very different film. I'm going to go see it today. It ends tomorrow. Only opened for a week here. Didn't open in NY. I don't read Variety every day, but I do read indiewire daily and I keep my ear to the ground for projects like this. It got by me as well as the producer in New York that has had it for the past year.
I meant to talk about that relationship in Lealta… as well. His option on Original Glory expired yesterday. (I don't waste time) Great guy. Smart. He helped me develop the script a great deal, but he wasn't ever willing to put it out there for some reason. I could have just let the option quietly expire and pursued these new opportunities unencumbered, but I called him and reminded him of its expiry and what was cooking on my end. I gave him the opportunity to fight for it. He didn't.
He did, however, express regret at not being able to have it both ways.

like a big pizza pie,
signore direttore

Lealta spells loyalty

Buona sera, amici…
Today, oh boy. We had our first sit down with a potential sponsor regarding Original Glory. The plan was to ask this person to see the viability of the three of us. Someone who is willing to say, We need someone to get behind these two young and promising actors and this unknown yet talented director.
We sit down at our table at the designated meeting spot in Studio City. She arrives. Smiles, handshakes, lots of eye contact -- so much sizing up. Great characters. What's the story? I didn't get a chance to read the whole thing. Well on page fourteen Johnny kills LBJ's father. She agreed that was indeed an inciting incident. The next thing she says is I'll do whatever needs to be done to help you get this made, but Zach is in and the other guy is out.
Meanwhile, Michael is in New York having a similar meeting more or less simultaneously where he hears the same story, though it's he that's in and Zach that's out. The good news for Signore Direttore is that I'm apparently in.
The Studio City meeting proceeded to include casting the actor that I've had in mind since I typed FADE OUT. two years ago.
What did I do? Did I sell out Michael? Did I jump at the opportunity to meet with the A-lister I've been mentally courting for two years? No. Signore Direttore has integrity. I told her I have an agreement with Michael and Zach to pursue this film together and that I would have to get back to her in a few days. She respected that yet was a bit shocked, it seemed. I enjoyed meeting her and I hope to enlist her enthusiasm and resources in the future.
I was sick to my stomach and I still am. I phoned Michael when I got home and heard about the NY meeting.
I can see clearly that I am going to have to make a choice between the boys in the next week or so. I think I know what my choice is going to be. As I've prepared the actor that is probably going to have to step aside, it's like ripping someone's heart out. "You have to understand, I love you but I'm not ready to be together right now." Ugh. It feels like that. That don't feel so good.
I sure would like to have it both ways. It doesn't seem as if I'm ready for that privilege.
Ugh.

nc

Deathbed of a Hyphenate

Andrei Tarkovsky (Andrei Rublev, Solaris) referred to filmmaking as sculpting in time.
To be perfectly frank, I feel as if time is sculpting me these days. This getting pushed around, molded, shaped, reworked and reformed by my long, busy days has taken its toll. I've chosen a path that is often easily and necessarily muddled. The film director is a cinematographer, a film editor, a screenwriter, a producer, a production designer and a composer. We are scupltors in time -- light, actors, sets, wardrobe and sounds our medium. Is there a director that simply directs the work of the aforementioned specialists? Certainly. Though if he or she is accomplished, I am confident that they possess masterful knowledge of all aspects of filmmaking.
Where does that leave me? Where does one begin when days begin at dawn after sleep interrupted by subconscious dreaming of storylines, production strategies, rehearsal development and end with late night phone calls with actors, editors, writers, producers and my assistants? This is not working 9-5. No bankers hours for the aspiring auteur.
After each of these interactions I proceed to the next meeting or task while the editor goes to the park with his kids, the actor goes to the golf course and the writer goes to dinner with his wife.
I had a meeting at the Open Studio with the writer and supposedly producer of High Desert Psalmist. I was working on that film twelve-plus hours a day last week, pitching a film that wasn't on paper. He and I were discussing the possibilities of the story he'd written. Many were signing on based on my integrity and vision without reading a script. I told myself that if the writer couldn't deliver soon, I would do it. Why not add writer to lead actor-director-producer-editor? I'm angry at myself looking at that last sentence. One hyphen is pushing it. Four? Five? Give me a break. That's ridiculous. It's been done. Sure it has, and sometimes with excellent results. More often it's a short-sighted desperate attempt to succeed in an unsupported environment.
He was begging off, just as he had done when I told him he needed to up the resources of the production for me to get involved as an actor. He took the easy road and hired me to direct. Then he suggested I produce it, based on my experience. He was relying very heavily on my writing skills as well. I'd suggest clear direction for the opening scene and he'd ask me to hold his hand. Screenwriting is rewriting. I've written over thirty drafts after what I thought was the final draft on one of my screenplays. Being an artist is knowing what works, what doesn't and how to amend it until it's successful.
I put my foot down on the fifth hyphen and it turned out to be the demise of my involvement.
I felt absolutely desperate after he left. Trapped, hopeless and uncertain of any measure of success. I decided that my gut was trying to tell me something. After discussing it with a couple of trusted souls, I tendered my resignation the following morning. Not once since have I felt an opportunity lost.
Quite the contrary, Michael Cassidy is keen on getting one of my scripts, Original Glory, produced with him and Zach in the leads and me in the director's chair.
Before I get to take the helm, I have to polish the script and ready it for the cold, hard journey across the desks of Hollywood's power brokers. At least I'm past the gatekeepers this time. Should Michael's agents like the script as much as he, I will have to produce a line item budget.
One of these days I want to kill the hyphenate. For now, I'll continue my climb up the ladder with all my hyphens at my disposal.

ciao,
signore dirretore

Semplicità

This afternoon we're hosting an Open Studio at the neal a. corl acting studio. There has been an enthusiastic RSVP. It should prove to be quite interesting. I'm excited, but I also feel as if the studio is deserving of the attention.
I'm looking forward to letting it happen as it needs today. We'll see.
I don't want my expectations to get in the way. The work we do is simple and sometimes it's difficult for us to realize and trust that simplicity is sufficient. At first glance it seems like we're not doing anything. Yeah. That's the point, isn't it? We try to not do anything but be in the moment. Which, if you're a fan of Jonathon Livingston Seagull ...
With the wrong interpretation it becomes mannered. If we can believe that we can be in the moment for no other goal than to be in the moment, we can experience release from the tension caused by concentrating on the results. That's what the work prepares us for and where it leads us.
I met with Michael Cassidy, Zach on The OC, last night. What an awesome kid -- charismatic, smart, savvy and kind-hearted. He commited to High Desert Psalmist in the role of Goliath. He asked me a flattering yet puzzling question: Neal, what are you doing in Portland directing a tiny movie like HDP?
I told him that the career path for directors is much different than that of actors and that rather than try to create opportunities in the typical short-sighted ways of most indie wannabes, I've concentrated on preparing for the opportunity that I believed would come.
I honestly don't know if HPD is that opportunity, but I know what needs to be done to prepare to make a good film and I know that I'm ready to formulate and execute the plan to do so.
There's more to relate, as always, however time for leisure writing is quite limited.
ciao,
signore dirretore