Fifteen Hours to go

It's getting closer. And I'm getting looser. For the first time ever I am not running around the day before the production like a madman. I'm not working with the actors. I'm trusting our work up to now.
Instead, I got a massage. I went to the bank to draw some more petty cash for the producer. I went to Freddy's to buy some long underwear for the boys. Something I already asked production to do, but since I was right there I thought, why not. I started looking for sizes and it was annoying me in short order. So I walked quietly away and let others help me.
I have a meeting with Jeff Harding the AD to go over the schedule and I have to stop by Gearhead to make sure the trucks are loaded as I would load them were I working today. I have to go pick up our M-16s (actual weapons) after dropping my children off for a sleepover.
I feel good.
Godard was right. I was lost on where to put the camera in one of my opening shots, the introduction of Private Naitani. I recited Godard's admonition. Sure enough something else was wrong, I was falling prey to surprise rather than tension and revelation. I wanted to show Naitani already stuck instead of showing him get stuck. The medium better serves suspense than surprise. Think about Buster Keaton and the banana peel. If they didn't show the banana peel before he falls, it isn't as funny.
It's like telling a joke -- without a good set up, the punchline suffers.

Wish me buona fortuna,
Signore Direttore

Forty Three Hours and Counting

Day 1 of 2's call time for But A Dream is in forty-three long hours.
Just back from a multivalent visit to our location. Actors, cinematographer, AD and art director in the same place for the first time. A very early time of day to meet at that.
Everybody is great - asking questions, sharing insights, filling me in on the work they've done so far. I have to say that as much as I love being the center of attention, it is taxing. Especially after but a few hours of slumber. I was Rip Van Winkle compared to the DP. Greg was on a shoot in Las Vegas and touched down at PDX at 2am. He was fine when we were out there but on the ride home he told me he felt like he drank a bottle of bleach.
My favorite part remains working with the actors. I love framing shots. Like I love cheeseburgers or sushi - tasty and a real treat. But I love working with the actors like I love my children. When I see my kids, I don't think about cuddling them or kissing them. It's just the way I respond to them. That's how it is with the actors for me.
I love watching them work as I love watching my children play. I love answering their questions as I do those of my little ones. I want to be as close to them as possible.
Today, Joey was having trouble staying on the mines. He would turn to Heath as they dialogued. I ran over and told Joey to focus on my fist. To let go of Heath. That if he took his eyes off my fist I was going to punch him in the face. He did it. He found it. I told him he was controlling my fist with his eyes. Just like he was trying to control his interaction with Heath by hanging onto him visually.
Joey was excited and not scared once the beat played through.
Not understanding our As If, Greg wondered aloud to me on the way home if Joey was going to show up on Saturday. Greg only heard the threat to punch Joey. He was not privy to our intimate work.
I'll accept a hug from just about anybody. It's nice. Oftentimes it's a juicy cheeseburger. But the last time my father put his arm around me in a sincere way, I felt it in every cell of my body.
I try to remember that when I hug my children.

Ciao,
Signore Direttore

The Master Says 017

Money is everywhere but so is poetry. What we lack are the poets.

Federico Fellini

The Three Conceits of Tommy Lee Jones

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada was a difficult film to sit through. I'm not sure why I didn't walk out. To say the film is stoic is a gross understatement. The lack of emotion lent itself to an overall mood of apathetic nihilism. If the actors and the filmmaker don't care about anything; why should the audience?
I like things that are left unresolved. I like stories that refrain from textual explanations. I willingly accept a few conceits in order to get to the bigger issues. I had no problem with Matt Dillon pulling Thandie Newton out of the burning car in Crash, for example.
But in Three Burials nearly every cut was a conceit. Now we're here. Now we're there. Now he's running away. Now she's in a motel room with the man her husband has killed in a flashforward and will kill again in a flashback. Oh, so it's just a coincidence that the ornery border patrol killed the Mexican (a goat herder, goat in Spanish is cabron. Cabron also means cuckold) with whom his bored and neglected wife recently had a tryst.
Having just gone through rewriting a single script with producers and agents for the past three years, I'm a bit resentful. Guillermo Arriaga seems to get away with things that I can't. He has been called the Mexican Tarantino for his temporal shifts. I enjoyed them in Amores Perros. I didn't see 21 grams. In Three Burials the jumps in time don't serve anything. The filmmakers are trying to create a murder mystery where there is none. You can't really say what this film is about in any tidy way. In the past I thought that was pure Hollywood horseshit to essentialize. But I don't think that so much anymore. An old fool by the name of Aristotle seemed to think unity of action was important.
Is this film is about returning a friend to his home after he's been murdered? Or about making another man pay for his sins? Or about making a man that doesn't believe in hell, believe in it? Is it a morality play? (Definitely) What are the consequences for Tommy Lee Jone's character? Where are the seeds of his moral ambivalence? How does he move from affable to cold-hearted? Why the blind man? Why the second scene with the blind man?
This last question offers a clue to the lavish praise and awards bestowed on the film and its makers -- there is much mythologizing in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. Critics and festival panels (French panelists especially) love mythmakers. There is plenty of symbolism - Melquiades as goat herder being one of the more subtle examples. Other symbols were far less subtle - the impotent sheriff, the border patrol officer masturbating, the mobile homes, the telenovela. The pack horse falling was brutal, hackneyed in its motivation and an inelegant rip-off of Bunuel's Las Hurdes.
Speaking of the symbol of the pack horse falling, I will concede that otherwise Jones handled poverty evenhandedly. I also enjoyed the way the Mexicans were presented - as full-blown human beings for once. Though the coyote was given a sympathetic point of view that I don't believe is in any way deserved by a man that earns his living preying on simple folk.
The coyote scenes were among so many moments where I said to myself, You've got to be kidding me.
After seeing a film like this I appreciate reading film critics for insights to which I might have been blind. In the case of Last Days, the critics helped me be patient with Van Sant's meditative film and to see its achievment. Reading that this film is one of the best of the year and even of the past decade, does not inspire deeper appreciation.
I love westerns. John Ford and Sam Peckinpah were certainly laconic and they told stories to support that emotion, where the lack thereof spoke volumes. Mentioning Tommy Lee Jones and his subtext-lite film alongside those greats is infuriating. As are the raptures regarding Ang Lee's direction of Brokeback Mountain.

Nobody ever raised a statue for a critic.

Viva
Signore Direttore

The Blind Leading the Blind

In preparation to direct a film or play, I make a rehearsal plan. It involves much more than a schedule of sessions to read the script together and block the scenes. One of the first things I do is conjure a metaphor for each scene. Last week I did my metaphor work for But A Dream. I wrote "The blind leading the blind" for Scene 2. When I looked at my notes a few days after that, I had no idea what activity I intended for the blind leading the blind in rehearsal. I let it go until the next day. Still nothing. We were on Scene 1 in our rehearsal, so I let it go again. Five-thirty this morning I open my computer to look at my notes before going to get the boys. There it is: "The blind leading the blind." I don't know what that means yet. Oh well. "Trust," I tell myself.

I know what the phrase means in a conventional sense, but I'm not interested in a literal reenactment. I needed to set up an activity that will allow it to happen between the two actors. I also had this quote in my head from one of the Flying Wallendas - "Being on the tightrope is living, the rest is just waiting." So there's two blind guys and a tightrope in my head. Not really making sense to my pre-dawn not-yet-caffeinated brain, so I let it go again. In the meantime, I get back to basics and have the boys move out across the park and back in the manner in which we've been training. They come back. I give them some notes on their movement then we do a variation that was closer to the given circumstances of BAD. It started coming together for me as we were working. "Okay, good let's go over to the playground area." I didn't know what we we're going to do, but instead of thinking about it, I started running and said, "Let's go." I was really letting go of it. By the time I was half way across the park I saw some bleachers by a baseball diamond and voila!, it all came together.

I had Joey close his eyes and stand on the diamond. Heath was next to the bleachers with his back to Joey. Heath had to maintain a field of vision to the front. He had to whisper instructions to Joey to get him around the backstop and up the bleachers without looking at him. In doing this we (re- )discovered that Joey is afraid of heights. His whole body trembled, but he kept moving.

But A Dream is about a soldier that can't take another step for fear that he'll step on a landmine. It's a reasonable fear in a minefield, but standing still in the middle of a field is not a soldier's primary objective. It's Heath's task to get Joey across the field. When Joey auditioned he was doing the dance of being too afraid to step forward. I thought it looked phony. When I saw Joey unable to climb those steps this morning, my judgment was confirmed: Joey acting scared and Joey scared are distinctly different.

So we moved on to a tightrope-like exercise -- crossing a narrow bench -- while covering one another. Joey did it without a problem. On the third run through I told him to stop halfway. Heath berated him, shamed him, reminded him of the mission. Stuck. "Tell him a joke, Heath." He does. Joey steps. Heath tells him another joke. He turns to me, "This is taking too long." "Sing a song," I direct. He does. Joey sings along and we're off the bench.

After rehearsal Joey told me, "You know when you're scared, you don't have to act scared, because fear produces more fear. All I had to do to be scared was focus on the fear I was actually experiencing."

Equipped with little else but a metaphor, we rehearsed the scene. What happened is exactly what happens on the page. There is no need to memorize lines. There's no blocking or practicing for performance to be done.
It truly is the blind leading the blind.

I love this shit.

Ciao,
Signore Direttore

Shot List

"If I don't know where to put the camera in a scene, something else is wrong." - Godard

This afternoon I meet with the DP to discuss a shot list. We've been throwing ideas about in passing conversations for the past several weeks. I have ideas and storyboards. More importantly, by allowing myself a producer's and a cinematographer's collaboration, I can think about this shot list in a way that I've never before been able.

Instead of thinking about the framing in a concrete, finished, result-oriented manner, I've been thinking about how much space I want to feel. Rather I want to push into or pull away from the subject. How much do I want the audience to breathe? How can I force perspective to allow these things? How can I use the frame to define relationships?

I'm also more open to camera movement than ever before. There's serious talk about Steadicam. If you asked me about Steadicam a year ago, you would have been the recipient of a tart diatribe.

I'm allowing Godard's watchwords to serve me. I'm not conforming a shot arbitrarily in order not to feel stuck or uninspired. I'm considering that my lack of inspiration may indeed be the result of some shortcoming in the writing or earlier blocking.

A friend that has completed a feature and is preparing her second confessed to me that she didn't know where to put the camera. In order to feel superior to her, internally at least, I preened that I didn't ever have that problem. That bit of self-deception could really endanger my work if I don't let go of feeling insecure that K. made a feature film and I haven't.
(Even though I deserve it more than her. Just ask me. In fits of shadenfreude, I reveled that her first film stunk. Ugh. That shadenfreude sure ain't pretty.)

A River Dertch,
Signroe Direttore

Terence Malick Nature Theatre

Yesterday we went out to Sauvie's Island for a rehearsal. The sun is rising much earlier than it was just ten days back. We missed the dawn, but enjoyed a vigorous workout under very sunny and cold weather. The primary thing I'm trying to communicate to the actors in our rehearsal at this point is that soldiers move without a lot of chatter or even visual eye contact with one another. It involves trust. Can't seem to get away from trust when it comes to human interdependence.

Actors tend to want to hold on to one another's eyes. In a combat situation this is especially perilous. Many times I observed Heath and Joey from the vantage of the enemy with ample opportunity to flank them or take aim on them while they focused on one another rather than their objective. Granted we're trying to acheive something in a few rehearsals that the military accomplishes in weeks of intensive training.

After our initial work of the day we broke for coffee and water. We observed a bald eagle soaring above us and sweeping close. Formations of geese flying. Thinking of Terence Malick, I mused on the possibilities of intercutting nature shots with the action of But A Dream. As I contemplated this aloud I noticed a lone tree across the way. Many small birds perched in dark silhouette in the tree's uppermost limbs. Another group of birds lighted on the branches and as they did so the first group took flight and moved on. This pattern persisted as several groups moved through just as soldiers move on the battlefield.

So wonderful to be able to show rather than tell.

It requires great trust on the part of a director to let go and see what will happen.
We've had several rehearsals and haven't touched the script.
I love it.
It feels as if I'm finding Fellini after all.

Affettuoso,
nc

The Master Says 016

It is a hard and difficult struggle to learn to draw well.

Vincent van Gogh

The Getting is in the Giving

When we put our attention on our fellow actors there is no anxiety. That is once we've learned to see and accept that whatever they are doing is indeed what is happening. And what should be happening.
Of course this is reflexive.
In life I find it much easier to accept in others what I struggle to accept in myself. Putting my attention on others allows me the opportunity to be more forgiving of myself.
When I focus on what I can get or what I want, I soon get sick in the stomach.
When I focus on others I am free.
Or at least as free as I can be.
Is that free enough?
Am I good enough?
Me. Me. Me.
Yikes.

A River Dertch,
Sre. Dir.

Munich - Bigger Than Life

As a cinematic experience, Munich was a tour de force of operatic camera work. I thoroughly enjoyed the ride. I had trouble with a few scenes particularly toward the end, but as always with Steven Spielberg and Janusz Kaminski, they've earned whatever conceits they choose to indulge by the sheer virtuosity in the greater scheme of the film.

In a telephone interview with American Cinematographer, Kaminski reflects that the task of re-creating historical events offers a cinematographer a range of possible approaches. Whereas Schindler’s List was characterized by a sober mise-en-scène and stark black-and-white imagery (see AC Jan. ’94), the approach for Munich was more “distanced,” says Kaminski. “We wanted this to feel like a movie, bigger than life. Our goal was not to simply re-create reality. The subject matter is too fresh, too relevant to what’s happening today. We wanted a bit of distance and didn’t want viewers to think we were doing a propaganda movie. Whereas there’s a clear knowledge of who the bad guys are in Schindler’s List, this film is more ambiguous, more complex. We didn’t want to make a simple moral statement.”

Some other things I loved about Munich:
Eric Bana's work. Compelling. Honest. Moment to moment he was absolutely there.
Ayelet Zurer. Beautiful. Free. Complex. Playing the wife of the far traveling hero ain't easy. Small part, yes. Small actor, no.
The colors. Greens and golds. But a Dream is to be gold, silver and green.
The light. Rich. Shadowy. Perfect.
Mathieu Amalric. He reminded me of a young Roman Polanski in Chinatown.
The shot on the Main River in Frankfurt shot in dawn's early light, the characters silhouetted in the fog. I spent many a night strolling along the Main with my first love long ago.
Geoffrey Rush.Nothing more need be said.

Magnifico.

Ciao,
Signore Direttore

The Gearhead – Peripheral Produce Production Grant Award

The Gearhead – Peripheral Produce Production Grant Award rewards filmmaking excellence, providing an independent filmmaker whose work best demonstrates the potential to undertake a production project beyond his or her normal budgetary scope.
The value of the grant award is Two Thousand Dollars credit applicable at Gearhead Grip + Electric toward the rental of Grip Truck Packages and Equipment, Lighting, Camera Support and Production Supplies for a future project.

I'm feeling like a proud papa as the initiator and author of this grant award and our sponsorship of the PDX Fest.

http://peripheralproduce.com/pdxff.php

Giving is fun,
Signore Direttore

Scout

Up at five today and out to Sauvie's Island with producer Neil Kopp and cinematographer Greg Schmitt for my upcoming short film, But A Dream. We plan to shoot the film as if it's happening just before dawn in the dreamy crepuscular light. Of course there won't be enough light at that time, but we wanted to see it with our eyes in order to apply some movie magic to later in the day for a similar look.

We had a blast. It was really great to spend the morning with two guys that love what they do that bring positive attitudes and extreme competence to the project. One thing I really apreciate is the lack of posturing and defensiveness I have often experienced with less experienced filmmakers.
I love making movies.

Ciao,
Signore Direttore

Process and the American Artist

Pretty high flying title, huh? Takes me back to the Ivory Tower. Whereas my friends in academe strive ever harder toward abstraction, I trudge toward the essential. Not very post-modern, but certainly adventurous. I do believe that after the French we buy into Post-Modernism more wholesale than any other national culture. I dare say that historically we embraced its tenets more readily than our amis. Simply put, our single revolution in which we became a republic predated the three it took the French by fourteen years.
By becoming a republic, the idea was that every boy, and girl (Thank you Geena Davis!), could grow up to be President. Quite different from hereditary monarchy. The seeds of this possibilty were sown by the Puritans. The Puritan's departure from the old world set the stage for so many cultural legacies in America. Least of not was the conceit that one could and should reinvent oneself. This was unheard of in Europe. And still is to a certain degree. In America, ambition became virtuous. Along with our Puritan forebears came many a forger, thief, con artist and philanderer. Process was tossed aside for bigger, better, more convenient, more profitable. Old world customs of apprenticeship quickly gave way to self-starting. Guilds and unions were disdained and the corporation (the idea that an incorporated business warrants the rights of an individual is really quite astounding) was born and exalted.
These are very broad strokes, I realize. Fast-forward to the present day. Combine the fruits of an ambitious couple of centuries and the legacy of self-reinvention and voila you've got a lot of people that want to be artists. And they want to be artists because they say they are artists. Their process involves little more than a declaration. Throw in some help from having watched a few films or perused a few websites and books (think non-fiction, Becoming a Master Artist For Dummies type books). Better still, many are armed with a reawakened conviction born in childhood that they always wanted to be a ( ). Funny that, since we all have grown up with television and have been inundated with entertainment and images of taking leisure.
I just spent the weekend with my eighty-three year old grandmother. She was born on a South Dakota farm. Didn't eat at a restaurant until after she had my father and didn't own a television until the 60s. A vanishing breed to be sure.
Anyway we seem to think we can just jump into things. We presume that self-will and ambition will supercede process. "I'll figure it out." "I'll have to see once I get into it." "No problem." Ready for a really good one? "Just Do It."
Poppycock and arrogance. Stuff and nonsense, as my British wife scoffs.
Don't get me wrong. It's a wonderful thing to live in a society so affluent as to afford the luxury to reinvent oneself. I'm just spouting off to remind myself and those I work with that though we have certain freedoms, we are not free from responsibility.
As aspiring artists we must deflate our ambitions and egos and find the starting point if we are to become anything more than poseurs or hobbyists. No shame in the latter, by the by. We must also remember that what we first assume to be the departure point is probably way ahead of our abilities. We must remain humble and teachable. We must be un-American.

God Bless America,
Signore Direttore

Two old geezers ...

... get together to brainstorm over what to get their mate for his 80th birthday.
Let's get him a girl, says one.
That's it, says the other, he hasn't had sex in years.
So they call up an escort service and have a girl meet them to check her out and pay her fee.
She arrives -- a lovely little thing, very curvy and sweet. They give her her fee and their mate's address then tell her to make sure to give him some real super sex.
Off she goes. She gets to the birthday codger's door and rings the bell.
He answers the door and asks, What do you want young lady?
She opens her coat, revealing her beautiful self and says,
Your mates sent me to give you super sex for your birthday.
The old fool says, I'll take the soup.

BaDaBump,
Signore Direttore

The Master Says 015

A shot should be like a line in a poem: self-contained, with its idea crystal clear.
Sergei Eisenstein

More Entitled Than Thou

I've got a bitter taste in my mouth beyond the lack of opportunity to brush my teeth. Would you ever consider going to a grocery store, filling your cart, taking that cart through the check-out, loading the groceries into your car and then on the way home phoning the store manager to tell her you think their prices are too high and that you expect a credit to your account but will not be returning the items refunded? Would you ever think to do that? No, you wouldn't. If you don't have time to go to Trader Joe's and just have to go to Zupan's in a pinch, you might cringe at the prices and vow to make more time for shopping. You might even comment on their high prices to anyone willing to listen. I really, truly doubt that you would ever expect a refund on something you purchased and expect to keep.

This is the nature of my job. I deal with Production Coordinators and Managers that want everything last minute, consistently sending their orders in at end of day for the next morning. I then work after regular business hours to supply them with an order form that states all prices clearly. They submit their order. I send them an estimate. I pack the truck and acquire any specialty items requested. Routinely they call back after they pick up the truck and begin their jobs and say it's too high and want to remove some items from the invoice. I've gone to great lengths to insure our rates are comparable to rental houses all over the country. Production supplies are not durable goods. By the time they pay for themselves, the profit window is very small before they have to be replaced. Since we're supplying equipment to production companies that are making commercials, you know selling things, I don't think it's out of the question to expect to make a profit on our end.

I have a problem with entitlement. These people are producing a television commercial. There were phone calls Sunday morning to me about this. I'm being disturbed to discuss saving some corporation/ad agency/production company a thouand dollars. On an average national commercial budget of 250,000, that's 4/10 of 1%.

No thank you. I don't want anything to do with this shit. Especially since part of my recent raise depends on that profit margin. Without a share in a reasonable profit, I'm an over-worked, highly stressed wage earner that gets phone calls from a poncy PM making his full day rate.
Are you working from the good of your heart on this mate?
Nuh uh. Seriously thinking of putting in the notice today.

Full of vim and vinegar,
Signore Direttore

Shout Out 002

This one goes out to Zachary Ray Sherman.

Zach sent me his version of a headshot -- xeroxed pictures of him and his infant nephew -- in response to a project I was casting. I told my wife at the time, I don't know whether to call him in and give him a spanking or send a limo to pick him up.

The things he has done for me and the friend that he has become are immensely appreciated and dear to my heart.

Thanks Zach.

Sincerely,
Your loyal friend Colonel Kurtz

The Master Says 014

The true artist is known by the use he makes of what he annexes, and he annexes everything.
Oscar Wilde

The Master Says 013

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Master Says 012

There are two ways of thinking about painting, how not to do it and how to do it; how to do it -- with much drawing and little colour; how not to do it -- with much colour and little drawing.
Vincent van Gogh

Film Gack

Gack is a new slang term for junk on local film sets. I don't like it, but it fits well regarding the movie titled Film Geek. Made by local indie veteran James Westby, the film -- NO! it is not a film, there is nothing vaguely cinematic about it -- rather, the moving picture proclaims a love for cinema, but insults it by its very existence. Westby has been around for a long time on the local scene and frankly I expected much more from someone so long dedicated to the medium. After all, John Pierson the Godfather of Independent film quoted him in his book, Spike, Mike, Slackers and Dykes. (A good read for the indie lover/aspirant.)
This thing he made is putrid. The lead character is a pathetic one-dimensional loser obsessed with film. Really he reminded me of the older brother in The Squid and the Whale (Not at all a putrid film) that honks about Kafka and other literary greats but hasn't actually read any of it. I thought to myself while watching Film Geek; how could someone so in tune with the beauty and nuance of so many cinematic treasures be so clueless about his relationship with the world around him?
Nothing was good about this film. Music, acting, cutting, lighting, camera work, writing, mise en scene -- all very amatuerish at best.
The friend that I saw it with, in an effort to say something positive about it, complimented the fact that Westby finished it. I wish he hadn't.

Calling em like I see em,
Signore Direttore

Audition

I have an audition for a national spot later today. Physical comedy. I was rehearsing yesterday. That is very hard work. How did Belushi, Dangerfield and Farley stay so fat? A few trips and falls and I was beat.
I called my friend Russell Stienberg in LA for some tips. He is a triple-threat song, dance and comedy man that would be the king of the borsht belt were it still around. He's making a pilot for Mtv based on this wacky alter-ego character he does -- Johnny Fayva. He actually paid me a confidence building compliment that I would probably do better than he does on these things because I'm so vested in playing the reality of situations and events, whereas he admits to being a slave to the schtick.
Going on auditions for these things is more than just getting a shot at the money. I don't have a lot of time to get involved in acting in theater or films. But to be on a professional set for a couple of days a year is very helpful in keeping my head out of the clouds when it comes to coaching. As if an architect put on a tool belt and joined the builders for a day.
Of course I've yet to go on the audition. It's very easy to get ahead of oneself. I look forward to the audition for much the same reason - it's very easy to coach the process, doing it presents another opportunity to heed my own advice. In the commercial world the audition is not as corrosive as it is in the film world. There are no rehearsals for commercials and commercials sell products; so why not cast the person that sells it in the audition?
As always, I will let you know how it goes.

Ciao,
Signore Direttore

The Asking Requires Great Responsibility

That's my attempt to infuse "Be careful of what you ask for" with more direct action.
I've found that I ask for things from people and the universe with the thought that they won't go for it. Or that they will, but I am asking them without considering my options. Not to say that getting what you ask for is always a terrible thing.
But if I have any personal integrity whatsoever, I do need to follow through on my part.

So it goes with my jobby-job. They gave me a considerable raise and I will be staying on full-time. I'm not apprehensive about it in any way aside from needing to be ever more mindful of my most precious commodity - time. In many ways I believe that I will be more respectful of my time with more demands on it. The extra money doesn't go that far, of course. Extra money is somewhat of an oxymoron. The raise does tie me to the performance of the business and profits me as the manager. Like most humans, I don't stay very focused if not invovlved more directly in what I'm doing. Raising the stakes as well as the salary.

My time at Gearhead has been good for me. In addition to providing support for my family, my attitude toward my studio has changed. I have been able to trust that the work is the most important. I can afford not to suffer fools. I've never been much for suffering them, but in my efforts to build a critical mass at the studio I would let some string me along with promises to pay or trade for tuition. I would grant this favor and then be resentful. No more. Policy is posted and exceptions, while still possible, are not easily granted. I need not to be an ogre about this. I can simply smile and remind them of the policy. This is easier said than done, but I'm working on taking responsibility for the terms I set forth. In terms of my approach, more demands on my time has motivated me toward greater diligence in creating my curriculum. As I've reported, I'm bringing Scene Study rehearsal technique closer to my approach as a director. I've assigned Ibsen and Tennesee Williams for the first time. I am going to lean toward such works in building a core of scenes. For one, I don't have to listen to all the hullabaloo about tracking plays down, as they are all in the library. In New York when asigned a new scene, we would walk to Drama Books or Sam French after class and that was that.
Another factor in assigning more stalwart works is to build a stock of material so as to know the material well and allow students to stumble through it as much or as little as I like. Just as they will discover new levels of awareness in their third and fourth reads, I and the students that have previously trudged through a particular scene will discover new levels of awareness on our fortieth and fiftieth reads. Such is the density of the great plays of the likes of Ibsen, Chekhov and Miller. Greater familiarity with these works is essential to actors (and directors) who hope to devote their lives to theater, and film; albeit to a lesser extent, though dramaturgy is of extreme importance to storytelling in any medium.

A year ago or so ago I was putting a crew together for London Calling. I didn't really know who to even call beyond a few names. Those that I did call were not very open to discussing an Indie rate. As a result of being at Gearhead, some of those same guys have commited to working on But A Dream for free.

Speaking of But A Dream, I need to take responsibility for some asking regarding casting. I've disregarded auditioning before. It is a colossal undertaking. I asked David to do High Desert Psalmist and then backed out of directing because that decision was one of the factors that betrayed my desperation regarding the project. As much as David might have been initially flattered and subsequently understanding that he wasn't ready to carry a film, I was still in the wrong. Once more I've cast someone prematurely. I am dreading telling this actor that I will be going with someone else.
I have the responsibility of protecting the hearts of the actors that are my friends and students. I mustn't be sentimental nor must they be thin-skinned, but by following customary casting practices I will save them and myself the unnecessary pain.

My bride is in New York with Baby June. I have Henry and Maisie. Today marks day thirteen of no rest. I am preparing to integrate a fitness regimen into my crazy schedule. I know that sacrificing an hour in the early mornings, and I do mean early, will give me more productive hours in later my days. That has been the case with the commitment I made to spiritual development and taking a seat at 7am to watch the sunrise. Setting the alarm an hour earlier some mornings to do yoga and pilates at 5:45 will likely yield the same results. Before my leg injury I could have just gone for a quick run in the mornings or during lunch. No more.
Being a responsible big boy hurts almost as much as missing a tendon.

Viva,
Signore Direttore

The Master Says 011

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius --- and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.
Albert Einstein

Bloody Social Mask

In class the other night I reminded the class that we do our best to get out from behind our social masks in the studio. That we speak from our hearts and our guts. That we look the world in the eye and tell it what we want. That we trust that whatever happens in each moment. That we give up our sophistication and our labyrinthine approach to inter-personal communication.
Later in class I mention the action to seduce in connection with a male student-actor. Snickers and giggles. Seduction can be ideological and many other things beyond sexual matters, I asserted. I gave an extreme example of white supremacy and a mundane example of the type of tea one drinks. Bristles in the room regarding the extreme example. (Would there have been laughs instead of bristles had one of the new students not been African-American? JB is Pacific Islander. JG is Asian-American. I am a Greek and an Honorary Jewish Texan. Our less marked non-Aryan presence may not have prompted disdain and fear of the mention of Nazis. ) I continued my discourse on other forms of seduction suggesting that I will charm C into a hearty Seig Heil. That really got the bristlers bristling. New student, JB nor JG didn't seem to bristle. Nor did I. (Funny thing, most Nazis I've known despise white liberals more than folks of color.)
Later in class, two students were doing a repetition and relating exercise. (I have all but abandoned strict Meisner work as it seems to promote getting it right.) I instructed the male to tell the female something he didn't want her to know. He said he didn't like her wedding ring. I know what he meant: that he thinks she's hot and wants her to be available. I know that it may have made her insecure about her engagement ring. His inability to say he thought she was attractive in a forthright manner may have caused her shame or hurt.
I didn't say anything. I kept my mouth shut not for pedagogical reasons, but because I feared confronting the situation. I hid behind my bloody social mask.


One amongst many,
Signore Direttore

Welcome to the Hurlyburly!

John William DiLorenzo III born New Year's Eve 2005 to Leanne and John DiLorenzo.
Salud!

The Days Are Staying Gray Longer

I'm not one to offer up the Seasonal Affective Disorder Blues, but wowza it's been 22 of 23 days of rain. Not your usual Portland drizzle, but rain so big it looks like backlit movie rain. Anyway, everybody I run into seems to be a little low energy.
I get up most days and take a seat where I can see the sun come up. The sky has been going from black to gray. A very Ansel Adams time of year, though I'm not seeing any clean white clouds in the sky to complete his zone system.

Last night in On-Camera we did a pretty neat-o exercise where we used those hard one word lines like Please, Yes and What. We got our direction, such as on the action or one beat after Action. We did different actions saying the same line: face-to-face, holding hands, shoving, hugging, straddling. Player B was instructed to take the first thing verbally from Player A's line. Player A, in turn, was directed to respond to Player B's reaction non-verbally. We covered it in a 2 and a CU.
I didn't see anybody take any chances or use the camera very effectively. Certainly that's why they're in class. Most notably, nobody asked for another take nor claimed to own their ideas or impulses. We have work to do.
Rather than assign a scene this month, we'll be going back to the simple one-line scenes and work on putting it through the lens. Being available is but a beginning on-camera.

I told my boss at the day job that I either need to work less yet retain my health care or make significantly more money. I think I'll be working less, initially at least. Which is just fine by me.

A River Dertchee,
Signore Direttore

The Master Says 010

The cats I like best are the cats that take chances.
Thelonious Monk

The Master Says 009

Whatever happens at all, happens as it should.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

Map :: Terrain

The map is to the terrain as the script is to the scene. We did an exercise in Scene Study the other night that explored the relationship between a map and the terrain it charts. A map of the four blocks surrounding the studio was given to each student. They were told to prepare a one to two minute presentation from the info they got off of the map. One by one they came out to where I had the camera set up. About half made up a monologue remotely related or faintly situated to the four blocks. The other half was divided between two who spoke of their experience at the studio and the two that gave a discourse on Portland and the transformation it is undergoing.
They were then instructed to walk each of the streets slowly and carefully, observing the terrain with all of their senses. They then returned to tape a second monologue. Each was more grounded beyond the ease of having done it already. However, few sought to do much in the way of really letting the actual terrain inform them beyond an intellectual experience with their senses.
There was no wrong approach. I had hoped for a more profound experience to be had, but I refrained from saying as much. Instead I let the exercise inform me of how in touch each of them is. I saw some growth in a few of them and a lot of fear in others. I was surprised by an apparent lack of sensuality in a couple of long-time students.
I'm exploring a new approach to the text this year. Loosely based on Stanislavsky, we will explore the circumstances and events of the text extensively through improvisation and active analysis before first reads. I have long done a form of this in my own rehearsals as a director, but for some reason I have not integrated it into my coaching. Until now.
We'll see how it goes. I am wary of essentializing, which will be a likely pitfall of the coaching method that isn't a problem in directing as I manage the so-called spine of the script in that case. As always I will adjust as necessary as we go through our in-class rehearsals.

Regards,
Signore Direttore

Hogmanay

Happy New Year!

Blogging in the New Year with a sleeping baby on my chest.
The first thing I wish to express to you and myself this year is a blessing from Jonathan Swift:
May you live all the days of your life.

Rehearsals commenced yesterday for But A Dream with Heath Lourwood and Joey Boyd. I brought their wardrobe but wouldn't allow them to put it on until they earned it. Just as Heath is playing a corporal, he will have to earn that rank. I instructed them on a few important aspects of military life. I would teach Heath how to prepare their uniforms and gear and expect him to instruct Joey. I would leave the room and upon my return they were to come to attention or parade rest and greet me according to my rank, indicated by my hat worn to the front or the rear. I made them stand at attention and answer questions, do pushups and explore the given circumstances. I tossed hand grenades into the room and taught them how to respond. With only movies to inform their knowledge of the military, I felt it important to challenge their preconceived notions. In Heath's case, I challenged many of his ideas about the character within our boot camp improv without having to discuss them. It served as an excellent introduction to the physical life. When I released them, I could see their bodies change back to the way they were when they walked into the studio. They really had become recruits. By my own physical response I could tell that I too had been hard at work.

I saw King Kong yesterday. I truly try not to be a film snob. To prove my point, I would have rather watched The Fast and the Furious again than see King Kong. I really tried to stay with it, fighting off judgment of the melodramatic, representational acting. At times I was rewarded, though mostly I was held prisoner by its oppresive length and lack of story.

David Millstone, my friend and student, is away at Shakespeare and Company's Month-long Intensive. He's giving an excellent recapitulation on his blog Notes On Acting. (Link at right) Every morning I've excitedly gone to his blog to read his latest post. I am blown away by the steps he's taking and the frankness with which he's expressing his experience. I'm inspired in many ways by his words.

I've some reading to do today. And I'd like to see another film. The Squid and the Whale or Breakfast on Pluto should wash my eyes and my soul of Jackson's Kong.

Viva,
nc

My Studio Runneth Over

2006 looks to be an exciting year at the Neal A. Corl Acting Studio, or NACAS as I've been referring to it privately. Naco is slang for a crude, uneducated peasant in the Mexican vernacular of Spanish. The feminine plural of that seems to be an appropriate name for the studio in some fashion.

Scene Study is at capacity and I've had to bring back the On-Camera class sooner than I hoped. I backed off of the studio a couple of months ago and refocused my commitment to it. I made it less about me and more about the work. I spoke of this problem with my attitude toward my directing work recently. The studio has always been about the work in theory. In practice however, I find that I must be ever vigilant about keeping the focus on the work. It is tricky to bring myself to it without making it all about me. So it is for actors as I reported in my previous post Don't Bring Me Down.

I make it about me in various ways. Am I earning enough money doing it? Is it for vanity or for love of the craft? Are my students worthy of my commitment? Is it in balance with my other ambitions and responsibilities? The answer I consistently come to is that I have something to offer and I continue to grow. I also realize that if I close the studio it is very unlikely that I will open one in the future. Teaching is something I do not wish to let go of impulsively. I'm entering my fifth year as an acting coach. Which is but a beginning. Quitting now would be short-sighted.

None of this pessimism is pressing at the moment for I am inspired anew by the quality of the work, the commitment of the current crop of actor-students and the new blood. Our work will continue much as it has over past years but with deeper focus and greater permission to take risks. It is my belief that it requires a tremendous amount of courage to be an artist of any ilk. I can supply or infuse courage no more than I can bestow talent. I can, however, create an environment that supports the development and emergence of both.
In addition to accepting the responsibility of that challenge I will be making some changes to the physical space and the curriculum.

To make room for everyone I considered moving to a new, bigger studio. I decided not to for a couple of reasons. Primarily, in order to devote the energy required to maintain the aforementioned spiritual and emotional balance I must conserve my energy. Finding, moving and recreating a new studio space is no small undertaking.
Even should I move into a bigger space, I can not give the personal attention that I currently strive to more than six scenes in an evening. I also realize that the intimacy of the current space helps to focus our attenion on the work at hand. There are no distractions nor is there any place to hide. Upon further consideration, I find what I considered one of my studio's weaknesses to be one of its strengths. Lastly, if you'll indulge a little wavy-gravy, those walls and floorboards have a certain memory. The studio has become haunted by our triumphs and our failures, our obduracies and our generosities. I have grown in that room as teacher, actor, director and human being. Likewise, I have seen that transformation in several actor-students.

I considered regaining the Green Room, which I let go of a few months back to curb my overhead. It comes at a fairly high cost for what amounts to a coat room. Instead, I've decided to invest in some lights and a light board. I am hanging a simple truss and will be requiring my students to consider and shape the light on their scenes. In doing so we'll be focusing on an important area of stage craft as well as defining the space better.

The other change of 2006 will be a two-part reading assignment each month. One of the readings is an assigned play. We'll start with Shakespeare. In 2006 we should make good headway into the Bard's ouerve. We'll start with the five tragedies, beginning with Hamlet in January and closing with Romeo and Juliet in May. We'll do some comedies over the Summer and the more popular histories in the Fall. I will give informal oral pop quizzes more to inspire participation than to evaluate scholarship. We'll devote some class time the final class of each calendar month to discussing that month's play. The second reading assignment each month will be to read a biography or auto-biography of the student's choosing. Teddy Roosevelt, Aretha Franklin, Jackson Pollock, Marlon Brando -- I could care less. We'll work that reading into a monologue presentation.

I'm looking forward to it.

Happy New Year and Thank You for being part of 2005.

Yours Truly,
Signore Direttore

The Master Says 008

Be of love a little more careful than of anything.
e. e. cummings

Holding the Frame

"I didn't think the actors held the frame in such and such shot. You were wide on your coverage and I trusted you had good reason for it. But I didn't get anything from the actors. I wasn't buying their interest in one another."
-- comment I received yesterday about one of my short films.

I had a few responses then and since that I'll share with you in the order they came to me.

a) American audiences can't stand to hold on a wide frame.

b) The actors, due to their lack of experience, were so intent on keeping all of their actions straight that they lost their focus on one another.

c) The lighting was flat.

d) I was too busy behind the camera, art directing and running the set that I let the actors down.

e) Taking angles on actors creates the illusion of depth on the two-dimensional screen. I shot them in flat profile.

f) Everything is the responsibility of the director even if it isn't under his or her control. Always. Always. Always.

I'll tell you what, I've sure gotten a lot from showing my work to people lately, as painful as it's been. I know: No pain, no gain. It's allowed me to consider and reconsider my choices and perspectives. None of this is news to me. But these things must be not be forgotten nor taken for granted.
An old timer once told me there is no one task in filmmaking that can't be learned in a few minutes. It's just that there are thousands of tasks that must be masterfully executed at any given moment.
I've been thinking a lot about how to make sure the actors hold that frame. Their inner lives are not entirely my responsibility, but be it theirs, mine or ours together, if it's happening I want to frame it for the best vantage.
I revisited Full Metal Jacket this afternoon and noticed Kubrick took angles on everything, every shot. Of course he did. A book of his photographs from his work at Look Magazine in the 50s when he was still a teenager was just published.
Something else really cool about the film - D'Onofrio has the hint of the crazy look in his eyes right from the start during the hair buzz montage.

Hoping you all had a Happy Christmas.
I'm on my back with the flu.

Ciao,
Signore Direttore

Reel Agony

Over the past couple of days I've been showing some working film professionals my films and music videos.
A few years ago I got together with my friend David Perez, aka Shadi. We showed each other our reels. His was impressive. He directed the Beastie Boys video shot in a salt mine in New Zealand as well as many other very cool, widely seen music videos. I, on the other hand, chatted all the way through my reel. Qualifying, justifying, annoyifying. He let me know my running commentary got in the way of his forming an opinion of my work. (Likely my sub-conscious intention.)
Point taken, Dave. Thank you.
Since then, I really try to just put the reel or individual work on without a word, unless it is indeed a rough cut or pre-sound sweetening, and let the viewer take it in. Which, I have to say, is agonizing. Ugh.
Yesterday I showed a film that I need to fix something in the transfer before I show it to people. I answered a very pointed question about one of the shots regarding the eyelines. He referred to the shot as the one with the crazy eyelines. I told him what I was intending to show in the shot. He nodded. And I second guessed myself about it for the next two hours. I realized in between fits of self-doubt that I am not allowing myself to be involved in a process with other filmmakers when I don't show something that I don't feel one hundred, or even seventy, percent about. I could take his input as something to take a look at or as the anitdote to the validation I'm apparently seeking when I make approval the be all and end all of showing my work.
About that crazy eyeline: it is a bit crazy, certainly unconventional. I know why I shot it that way. And I'm open to hearing a better or more effective means of communicating the intended disjointedness and separaration between the characters. But I have to get my work out there to have that dialogue.
That old business about being good enough is a real nuisance.
I truly doubted if this person would want to work with me after seeing the film I showed him yesterday. The thing is, that choice is his and so far he hasn't informed me that that's the case.
This morning I met with someone else and showed him everything I've done. After the first film, I stood behind him in silence. Waiting. Silence. Agony.
Wow. That was really cool, dude.
Thanks, but you can see how Honcho Studio Exec wouldn't see … BLAH BLAH.
I'm sick of it. I'm really sick of all this self-doubt and fear.
I'm making this about me and that is a problem. It's about the work and the work on my reel is done. I am going to be proud of it and learn from it. Or I am going to feel bad about it and resist growth. My attitude -- that's about all I can change. I am not going to reinvent myself in the next few months, at least not in any organic way, so I might as well enjoy the successes I have had. Which are plentiful, if not up to my own expectations.
I deserve more. I don't deserve this. I deserve more. I don't deserve this. I deserve more. I don't deserve this.
Clearly, being right-sized doesn't come easy for me.
Thanks for your support.

Merry Christmas,
Signore Direttore

Let's Go to the Movies!

A line from one of my favorite films. Can you name it?

Actually people are going to the movies less and less. Box office numbers are rising because of inflation, but bodies walking throught the door are decreasing by 1.1% annually. So by about 2036 we'll recall going to the movies fondly as we do things like smoking in bars and dancing cheek to cheek.

I've always enjoyed going to the cinema. Always. When VHS came out, I wasn't that into it. My mom rented a VCR to watch Mutiny on the Bounty. Which was cool, but the small screen really had to fight for my attention. The scale was lost. Televisions were often small with rounded screens, the images were cropped and dark. What many people saw as convenience, I saw as story interuptus. "Pause it while I go to the bathroom." That reminds me of students that tell me they read part of a script. Do you go see part of a play or a movie? Since televison and home video, I guess so.

Don't get me started on the creation of content to be viewed on iPods.

Theatrical release formerly counted for more than 50% of a film's revenue. Increasingly, the theatrical run is a form of advertising for domestic and foreign video sales. Foreign sales have grown exponentially in the past ten years. Further contributing to the move toward high-concept films.

Let's go to the movies! may soon become let's go to a film festival. While theatre attendance dives, film festivals continute to multiply and thrive. What I've often derided as money making schemes by the presenters and, or showcases of horrendous DIY films, may well be the preservationists of the sacred cultural act of going to the movies.

Viva la cinema!
nc

Papa Don't Preach

I've been losing sleep. But I made up my mind. I'm keeping my baby. I'm gonna keep my baby. Mmmm.

Don't fret, this isn't about baby June. She's well and safe and the least intrusive little addition to our family yet.
The baby I speak of is Original Glory. I got the next call yesterday. Long ago when I committed to this path, I naively thought that there would be The Call or this magic moment that success would come. What I've discovered over the years is a series of calls and meetings that all keep me moving forward, yet the supposed arrival I envisioned remains elusive. In that regard it is easy to let anticipation and doubt cancel out the good feelings I could enjoy after calls like yesterday's.
The literary agent at Gersh with whom I'm working called and left me a brief message. I've been at times anxious to call her my agent, alack she is not officially my agent at this time. I've been told that at the point that an offer is made, Gersh, and I, will determine whether or not they are to represent me. Anyway her message was, I have one note for you on Original Glory. Oh, here's a cool thing. I called back and said, This is Neal Corl returning a call from Sandra. Her assistant said, Hold just a moment please, Neal. And put me right through! If you've ever had to call an agent or studio exec and had to get past their gatekeeper/assistant, the fluency of yesterday's call was pure joy.
Anyway, she gave me the one note, praised the rewrite I delevered a few weeks ago and told me to expect some meetings in the New Year. Oh goody gum drops! Then the hammer dropped. Are you attached to direct? I hope so. (The answer is yes. The answer is not Maybe or I Hope So. The answer is YES. I'm keeping my baby.) Have you directed before? Yes, not a feature, but shorts andmusic videos. Can you send us your reel? Yes. It won't be right away, I want to make sure it's updated. Okay great. You have a happy holiday. We'll see in the New Year.
That's terrific; right?
It didn't turn out to feel so good for me. I was filled with doubts about my reel, remorse at not having done more and better work and the fear-driven idea that I would rather abdicate my choice to direct now than be denied by someone else later. I start thinking of how to get over. To be sure, directing a studio-financed feature film is not to be taken lightly. I can not speak with absolute certainty that I'm capable of accomplishing it.
But what is it that I preach? Oh, that the results are not up to me. That my job is to prepare to the best of my ability and to accept the decisions of those casting or financing the project. Wanting to be certain of the outcome is a form of tension. Tension is the enemy of the artist - a schoolyard bully just waiting to be tangled with. Do not engage the tension bully!

Dear Universe, please allow me to practice what I preach.

Ciao amici,
Signore Direttore

In One Eye ...

... out the other.
Too many films are no more than candy for the eyes. Even if a film is meant to touch our hearts, it too often plays but the strings of our sentiment, forgetting to trust our hearts to respond.
It seems the type of film that many see as the antithesis of the In one eye out the other variety is the film that makes its audience think. David Walker of WW is a big fan of this type of film. I don't think a film should make us think too much. Why do we have to figure everything out all the damn time? Dreams are not logical. Human behavior is anything but logical. Why then must a film be logical? Carl Jung claimed he was much more attached to his dreams and to his inner life than to the many awards and famous people he met and analysed. Fellini kept beautiful dream journals. Perhaps I digress.
It is difficult to let go of our disproportionate dependence on our visual sense. Acting students often get stuck in what I call the tractor beam. They sit staring at each other waiting for something to happen, thereby cancelling out most of their impulses.
Go ahead, let your eyelids droop for a moment and sense something different and in many ways more full.

A Big Pizza Pie,
Signore Direttore

The Master Says 007

Voici mon secret. Il est très simple : on ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.
(It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.)
The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Don't Bring Me Down

Stella Adler says that acting is at once all about us and nothing to do with us. I'm with her on that seeming contradiction.
Last night in Scene Study two actors were working on a scene from Cindy Lou Johnson's play The Years. I've assigned it many times over the years that I've been teaching and therefore know it well. I've even worked on it myself as an actor way back when.
One of the actors used herself very well. She even surprised herself a few times. She suggested her objectives to herself and then became suggestible according to both the given circumstances and the moment. She allowed it to be all about her and yet in the end it had nothing to do with her. In short, she brought herself up to the character.
Her scene partner, on the other hand, played one note all the way through. To his credit, it was a wonderful note for the middle third of the scene. When I gave him my notes during the critique, he stiffly defended himself that he was honoring his instincts. Poor actors always honor their instincts. They ignore the structure of the scene and bring their character and often the entire scene down to themselves.
Poor actors forget the second part of Adler's Paradox.

A River Dertch,
Signore Direttore

The Master Says 006

I think an artist, or any man really, has to face doubts and problems steadfastly. He has to accept his own war, as opposed to glossing over conflict by pacifying and calming it. I think that's what gives dignity to the mission of the artist, and to the mission of being a man.
Federico Fellini

The Master Says 005

I'm not going to bring peace but war to your souls.
Ingmar Bergman

Wonder - ful acting - land

Pardon the poor tmesis attempt. I watched Wonderland this weekend. The film by Michael Winterbottom about a family in South London. The life of John Holmes starring Val Kilmer is also called Wonderland. I am not talking about that Wonder - what all the f**king hype was about -land. Not at all.
Winterbottom's Wonderland is a tour de force of fine acting. Simple performances. Trusting the moment and the camera. Clearly established relationships and circumstances without the crutches of backstory exposition. Emotions expressed truthfully. Check it out.
The actors in this film may well have done the homework assigned by Uta Hagen -- identifying and understanding the given circumstances of the text. They were also capable of doing what Uta fails to deliver -- finding ways to suggest those facts to oneself and trusting one's own abilty to absorb that information without intellectual involvement and interference.

Ciao amici,
Signore Direttore

Why Actors Shouldn't Read Books on Acting

As an acting coach and director I encounter two things all too frequently. Actors visibly pausing to think before each line they deliver is the number one offender. The second is questions of which books to read on acting.
None! Acting is not an academic subject. Nor is it a wholly intellectual pursuit. What's more, there is no comprehensive book or method of teaching the craft of acting. Actor-Students in search of developing their technique approach a text with the goal of being a better actor. What's wrong with that? A lot, frankly. Wanting to be better creates a lot of tension in the actor. A lot of reliance on the brain. And since most actor-students are not yet versed in doing two thngs at once, all that thinking cuts them off at the neck. Instead of an actor or a player before us, we have a thinker.
Another problem with it is, it's lazy. But maestro they're showing inciative! Bollocks. They're looking for a way to evade the work at hand, for the easy way out. Yes, they need to read. Good actors are good readers, certainly. I'd venture to say that great actors are great readers. Do you know how many actors I've taught that could name, let alone have read, Shakespeare's five tragedies? Want to read a good book on acting? Try King Lear. Want to be a better actor, read the play out of which I just assigned you a scene. Harold Clurman claimed to read a text he was to direct five times before he gave it any conscious thought. I often discover that students read the text of the scene and merely skim the rest of the play or screenplay.
Tune in next time for The Limits of Uta.
Ah, it feels so good to be up on the old soapbox.

A River Dertch,
SIgnore Direttore

June Charles Corl

Born healthy and happy Saturday evening at about 7pm in our home.
Delivered by yours truly. What a thrill!
Mommy did a great job and is recovering well.

Grazie al universo!
Signore Direttore

Shout Out 001

This one goes out to my man Andrew Dickson.

If there was a better person that I could have met when I returned to Portland last year I'm not sure who it could have been.

Through his friendship and generous spirit I have come to know many of the people that I mention in my previous post.

Thanks AC!

Your loyal compadre,
Daddy Fool

A Trickle of Sweat

I'm sure you didn't drop in on my blog to hear folk wisdom, or perhaps you did as I seem to drop a good measure of it into the mix. Today's, and many a day's, admonition: Don't sweat the small stuff.

There's one of those indie film showcase events coming up. It's being put on by this woman that is pure hustle but, from my perspective, completely without professional experience and aptitude. She rings me every other day at my day job asking us to sponsor this event. She has managed to convince many of the other professional rental houses and production companies to join her for a sizable fee.

She was working as an indie film casting agent a few months back. I exchanged a few emails with her regarding a role I submitted for when I was doing a bit of acting in June. It was chrystal clear to me that she was pure bluster at the time. "You really should come out for this. No there's no sides, because so-and-so wants to get to get to know you. Oh you know how to do a cold-read without looking at the paper? Well, still just do a monologue. It doesn't matter if it's a little rusty. You just don't want to miss the opportunity to be seen by this director even if you don't get cast." I passed as graciously as possible. Then I saw some of this great director's work. Not as horrendous as one of the films that I've seen which is part of the showcase, but no where near great. Even for Portland.

Okay. Okay. She's full of it. At least one of the films being showcased stinks. So what? I don't know. Because of my position at my day job, I need to play nice. So I am. I politely put her off, telling her that we will try our best to attend the event, but that we are not in a position to be sponsors this year. There's another company in town that would be all over this, but she hasn't contacted them. Nor has she contacted me regarding my acting studio. DJ will be there, so you know it's going to be a first-rate affair. (Might as well fire off a couple more shots while I'm sniping.) Anyway, if she's so on it, why has she missed these other potential players?

I just can't bear to attend another one of these Portland Indie Film events. I'm doing my thing. And I'm feeling more secure in doing so without the affirmation or posturing of the more pretentious local auteurs.

I'm working on a new feature script that could go Hollywood or could be produced locally with some actors coming in from LA and NY. Neil Kopp, a very talented young producer based here, just agreed to produce Crudo, the short that Cassidy and I workshopped over Thanksgiving. Neil produced Old Joy, a feature shot here last summer, which just got into Sundance. Old Joy stars former student Tanya Smith. Greg Schmitt, one of the partners at Gearhead and a shooter that recently lensed a Tony Hawk commercial, has agreed to shoot the short.

So I'm going to stick my nose to the grindstone and keep typing away on my scripts. And saving my pennies so we can shoot Crudo on 35.

Ain't got no time for the small stuff.

Thanks for helping me work it out,
Signore Direttore

A Note to my Readers

Thank you all for reading this web log. It's my pleasure to write it as well as to hear your feedback. I've had some queries about passing it on to friends and colleagues. Of course, please do. It is published on the world wide web for all to see after all.
I've given up an internet connection at home. It's been great so far. So I've started writing entries and cut and pasting when I get to a WiFi spot.

Happy Holidays,
Signore Direttore

Capote and Cash

I saw both of these biographical films this past week.

A lot of folks claim to be a friend of Johnny Cash -- he was a man of the dispossessed after all. I sat on my dad's lap at one of his concerts when I was about four in Memorial Coliseum. When I went to Memphis I skipped Graceland in favor of Sun Records. (Dallas Roberts, a friendly acquaintance of mine, plays Sam Phillips in Walk the Line.) My wife is due to have our third child in the next few weeks. If it's a girl, she's to be called June.

I devoured In Cold Blood when I stumbled upon in it at the Goodwill for fifty cents sometime in the 80s. I knew of Truman Capote from my obsession with Warhol's Factory and my hipster's reverence for Breakfast at Tiffany's. If our child is a boy, he's not going to be called Truman. (Dashiell is the boy name on deck.)

I'm a sucker for both the bucolic gunslinger and the urbane sophisticate, having spent my years oscillating between the trappings of the preppy and the outlaw.

There really is no comparison of these two bio-pics. Walk the Line is all too embracing of the genre's conventions while Capote masterfully charts new territory, easily escaping genre classification altogether. Phil Hoffman both brought Truman Capote to life as well as told his story. Joaquin Phoenix was able to act only the physical life and voice of Johnny Cash. When telling the story of the Man in Black's inner life he was limited to a brooding stare and the conjuring of one mood after another.
Still, I don't care to see Capote again anytime soon in spite of its merits. But I've been singing Walk the Line all week long and thinking seriously of dropping another nine bucks on the inferior film.

A River Dertch,
Signore Direttore

Compassione (Actually pieta, but my pidgin Eye-talian sounds better)

A script note that I've consistently heard regarding Original Glory is; why does one character so devotedly follow the other? Why doesn't LBJ just go off on his own? Because he can't, that's why. It's said, screenwriting is in the rewriting, and I've had to find a way to satisfy the questions of producers and agents while not succumbing to the hackneyed devices that often explain the needs in a character's inner life.

I've been revisiting Fellini's La Strada lately and see a character far more despicable in Zampano than my own Johnny. (Has any other actor played two such notorious characters with names beginning with Zed as has Anthony Quinn as Zampano and Zorba?) Martin Scorsese points out the Franciscan elements of Italian neo-realism. The neo-realists had tremendous compassion for all the characters in their films, eschewing the black and white hats and hearts of Hollywood. I love to repeat the old refrain that 's there's a bit of good in the worst of us and a bit of bad in the best of us. As I love Saint Francis's admonitions that we seek to understand than to be understood and so forth.

Fellini is a far more masterful storyteller than I, of course. He does not kill his bad guy. Rather he kills his sweet Gelsomina, instructing on profound levels both Zampano and his audience with the death of an innocent. I didn't see that possibility in my tale, but I always knew Johnny had to die in the end. In an affirmation of my own humanism, I still have tears well up when I read the final scenes of Original Glory. Not bad, considering I've read them seemingly countless times.
I really have more compassion for Johnny than LBJ, because LBJ finds a way out and Johnny stubbornly thinks To Thine Ownself Be True is an epitaph rather than a call to arms. Pobrecito.

Ciao amici,
Signore Direttore

Something Yet to Discover . . .

Somewhere along the path I learned that a story needn't be told if the teller knew all there was to tell. Sometimes I confuse author(ity) with absolute expertise. As do many actors. Often I witness actors approaching the work with the determination to know absolutely everything about the character they're playing. That's really boring if you think about it. That's like hanging out with a know-it-all.
I'm learning to explore finding out more. In my life I don't know how I felt about things in the past. I know what I've done. The acts I've commited. The nature of memory prevents me from reliving my feelings accurately. I've rejected or covered many feelings of shame or grief in order to continue living. Of course those things don't disappear, rather they become part of the way I move and react through the rest of my days. I propose getting my hands dirty with those causes and conditions, particularly through physical recall. In doing so I hope to tell some stories that need no embellishment or qualification. The explorations may not draw conclusions in any explicit way.
But I will attempt to be truthful. I will reject logic. I will experience the reactions of others as they come up against the circumstances I set forth. I will discover new answers and new questions.
When writing this new short entitled Crudo (hungover in Spanish) I was telling of getting a blowjob in hopes of killing the pain in the main character's head. I paused as I set out to write the images in my mind in order to phrase it delicately. In a split second, I wrote exactly what I was thinking. It was so freeing. And now a few days later, it doesn't seem such a big deal. I wrote He smiles and tries to enjoy the blowjob.Not entirely PG, but hardly scandalous. In spite of my best efforts to rebel, I'm hopelessly middle-class at times.
Brrr.
Dear Lord, please let me come in out of the cold.
At the same time, I do think there's a large chuck of truth in the assertion that the best artists are non-neurotic.
A thing to discover: balancing the rejection of the bourgeois with an embracing of sanity.
That should keep me busy.

A River Dertch,
Signore Direttore

I'm Not Ready

When our son was about three we were someplace with a Santa Claus. He gasped and ran away from what could have been his first encounter with Saint Nick shrieking - I'm not ready!
I know how he feels. Funny thing is we live in a culture that doesn't care if we're ready for things or not. It seems to reward those that are willing to step up - ready or not.
Michael Cassidy is in town. We began rehearsals on a short that I've written for the occasion - something that is akin to the physical and inner lives he'll play should we ever get a greenlight for Original Glory. After reading the script, he expressed his trepidation towards rehearsal. It has been years, he said. His preparation on television shows and films has been a meeting with the director to inform the helmer how he's going to play it. Once that's done, it's a simple question of, Are you ready? The camera rolls after some blocking rehearsals and adjustments are made according to the results required. (The required results are determined much by the studio and producers rather than by the director in tv and big studio films.)
In spite of not having the opportunity to work very organically, Michael knows how to work. He forms his own ideas very quickly, translating his intellectual analysis of the text to action and behavior easily. He's very receptive to direction, especially sub-textual suggestions. At the same time, he admitted a tendency to want his scene partner's approval. I appreciated this bit of honesty during rehearsal, seeing it as an invitation to coach him as well as a willingness to experience the rehearsal in the moment.
Nice to walk away from a bit of work with such good feeling, looking forward to the next time.

Ciao amici
Signore Direttore

Me, Me, Me

How was Fellini able to make films so much from and about himself while appealing to so broad an audience? How did he leap so resolutely from the personal to the universal?
Perhaps, as Donald Costello asserts in Fellini's Road, by avoiding looking only inward. He knew that we must look outward in order to look inward. He did "not wait for the world to something for the me, to the me or with the me." asserts Costello. He listened to Saint Francis, seeking to understand rather than to be understood.
I suppose in that tremendously energetic creativity there was little time to get sick of oneself as I often do when my persistent self-seeking sings me, me, me.

a river dertch,
signore direttore

The Master Says 004

Making a film is something quite other for me than a simple professional fact. It's a way of realizing myself, and giving my life a meaning.
Federico Fellini

Behind the Green Door

Ever see that film? One of the classic porn films, film with a capital F, of the 70s. Nothing great enough about it to track it down, but the title is great and it's not near as graphic as modern adult videos.
I recall the title only because I'm becoming increasingly aware of what's behind things. What is this emotion about? What is behind this line of action or dialogue? Is there another way to see this? What will I find behind the green door?

My life is very full at the moment. Patience, diligence, delayed gratification, lowered expectations, slow and steady wins the race. Indeed.
I'm experiencing a bit of grief in many areas. I don't often allow myself to experience grief as I'm wary of making excuses for myself. My default is to become cynical and closed off to my own healing. As I keep my feet moving from early in the morning until late in the evening each day, I am trying more than ever to feel a little of the pain that I carry. Once I feel it for awhile, I'm trying to let it go and make the burden a little lighter. I want to put some of it into writing soon. Currently it helps to experience it more clearly without cynicism's cloak.

My heart is full of love for you at this moment.
Get it while you can.
Signore Direttore

Busy

I ran into a very old friend this morning on my way to the j-o-b. I saw him several weeks ago at the J&M cafe - a spot where many of my old loves and cronies tend to brunch it seems. He in his Range Rover looking over the $900 pickup I was driving today. He passed me his card - something to do with wine. He apologized for not having called - Busy, he said, while his eyes darted over the truck.

In high school I palled around with both the high and the low. The stoners, the merit scholars, the Deadheads, the Punks - I was a populist. I was interested in all of them and I preferred doing drugs and drinking to being in class. So while those bound for the Ivies, Cal and Stanford were in classes I was often getting high with the rabble. One morning I recieved an invitation to take bong hits in the new car of a knucklehead. With us was a merit scholar with a penchant for Leary and The Dead. There were quite a few kids that seemed able to mix drugs and scholarship - it was an either/or thing for me. So these three unlikely chums - the knucklehead jock, the hippie genius and the populist soc - went off to smoke pot in the knucklehead's new Firebird. He asked what we thought of the new car. I laughed - I drove a VW Rabbit and was strictly into Euro cars at the time. (Probably why my friend this morning couldn't get over seeing me in the old F-150) The hippie proclaimed, An automobile is simply an extension of one's over-inflated ego. Totally dude, replied the jock.

I like cars and I stay pretty busy. I fall prey to seeing cars as status symbols. It's weak, I know - I'm trying to break the chains. I bought a mini-van and a $900 pickup in the last year for chrissakes.
But being busy as a status symbol, or even as an excuse, is silly. I abhor people telling me that they're too busy. If it were a pissing match, I might certainly win. But I'm not talking about that. I thought I would leave that I'm busy crap behind in NY. But it's here in little old Portland as well.

So next time you hear yourself claim to be busy, stop for a sec and see if it's true. If it is, ask yourself if what is keeping you busy is that important. If it isn't, dump it and look at the sky for a few minutes or really listen to a friend.
It's so much better than BUSY.
And if you are busy, try expressing it in a different way, especially to those you love.
Sorry for the soapbox if you came to hear about the pursuit of filmmaking mastery -- I'm in a reconstrucion of my psyche phase.

What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?
nc

p.s. It's been a hell of a week - holding down ye olde grippe shoppe, moving house, teaching, producing Nick's film, etc. I didn't have time to read books, write or contact old friends, but I found some time for my family and friends, I watched some baseball and I squeezed in a little time each day for the development of my inner life.

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