Cinco de mayo

PALOMA

Having lunch in a little Mexican town called Cholula. Menu del dia which is
always a bargain. Four small courses and a drink for a buck. Lots of
students in this cafe. One dusky Mexicana with hips like two battleships
isn't being coy with her stares. You know how those things go. Her lunch
companion is my lunch companion’s teaching assistant.
We offer them a ride in our car. On the
way to the car I step off of the high Mexican kerbside to the dirt street
as she tells me her name. Paloma.

You have to say it like she said it. “P”'s are not aspirated in Spanish.
Put your fingers in front of your mouth and say p-words until no air
comes out. That's the spanish p. Soft and pretty.

Paloma
Hernandez
Gallardo

Very confident girl. The way she walked. The things she said. Si,
vamonos. She said when I asked her out.
No importa that I am a professor? No importa, she said. No giggles.
That Friday night I took her to Puebla, the colonial
city near the university. We had drinks in an old building lit only by candles and
torches. She told me to tell her stories. You are a writer, tell me your stories. I was shy to
talk about sex in Spanish back then.
All of my stories seem to be about sex. Since then I've made Cuban girls blush. I told
Paloma some of my stories. She listened. She did not blush. Or giggle. We walked around the old
city in the dark second world night. In the quiet of the thick-walled narrow streets I heard her say my name under her
breath again and again. That made me feel more triumphant than
sexual seduction ever did.

I seduced Paloma Hernandez Gallardo one afternoon after lunch. She came
to my office a few weeks after our date. She sat at my desk and looked at my writing. She read a few
lines aloud. Her English was pretty good. She giggled finally. I took my shirt
off. She gasped. ¿Por que? she asked, fearing all the pictures
and words on my body. I can't tell you she learned to appreciate them. Though
she continued to visit my office in the afternoon
to interupt my writing.

Paloma seemed like a woman in every way. Her hips and mind and lips. Her
hair was thick and dark and wavy and it seemed most of all like the hair of
a woman. Buy me a chocolate cake manana. It was her birthday, she said. The next day
Paloma turned sixteen. I only thought to ask her age after I saw the
way she ate that chocolate cake.

The Master Says 170

A writer ought to comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable.

Mark Twain

Made Crooked Bank Robbery

Another One Down

We finished Klepto today. Sean put the finishing touches on the sound effects and music. I did the titles and end credits. Jordan did a little color grading. We'll be putting it on DVD for the cast and crew in the next day or two. Then I'll put it on the shelf until a local festival calls for entries.
I'm kind of numb about it. In part because I'm quite tired from being up most of last night. Though I think there's something else going on, too. Like I don't want to get too excited about it. If I get excited about it and you think it's lame or just okay; I'll look foolish for being enthusiastic about my work. Playing it cool is what I do best. Back in the eighth grade my homeroom teacher wrote a little couplet for each student when we graduated. Neal Corl always leans way back in his chair as though he has nary a care. I would have preferred something about my love for basketball or my disruptive antics.
Anyway, I finished a film. That's progress.

Too cool for school,
Signore Direttore

BlahBlahBlah - HeroZeroZeroHero

I've never been a big sleeper. I know people that can sleep until three in the afternoon given the chance. Not me. Even when I was out and about and up past the sunrise, I was still up before noon. Since I've had kids, it's been even worse. If I pull an all-nighter, I'm still up around seven -- dehydrated and feeling hungover in spite of the fact that I haven't had a drink in years.
I often come to in this dry and semi-lucid state with a somewhat inflated sense of myself. A sort of euphoria that tells me I can conquer the world. Because I ultimately don't believe I will have any success, I exploit my manic perspective to envision grandiose fantasies. It's an optimism I am not accustomed to and try to squash as soon as possible. Whatever I have accomplished, I minimize and shortly thereafter fill myself with shame for having thought I might have come up with something that should even see the light of day.
My fear of success is evident in the many unfinished projects and mountains of insulation piled in and around my edit suite and office. I'm trying to change that dynamic. The solution is pretty simple - I show up for the work, I ask for help and I let go of the results. I don't do any of the former perfectly and I've learned that I don't have to. All I have to do is show up. Being able to do this is a big deal for me. I've encountered mucho resistance to it.
One of the projects I've been working on for the past year is Made Crooked. From the beginning, I was determined that for once I was going to embrace mistakes. I let go of the idea that I would make something even close to perfect. Hence the title, which came to represent so much more than my willingness to make something not perfectly straight. It was made crooked because I didn't tell the actors we were even making a film. It was made crooked because I knew the story I wanted to tell and yet it revealed itself to me through its telling. It was about a family, which brings to mind a leafless tree as well as a graphic diagram of lineage. It was based on a quote from Ecclesiastes, claiming that no man can make straight what the divine has made crooked by design. This brings to mind all the wonderful organic shapes in nature -- none of them rectilinear, all of them perfect. It was made crooked because as much as I wanted to make mistakes, I vainly knew I was onto something bigger than I had ever imagined. I selfishly and irresponsibly took the spoils, finding out just out made crooked I myself am.
When the dust settled, it seemed this magical film had some serious shortcomings. Nonetheless, I tarried on; after all wasn't that the point? When we finally sat down to edit it, It seemed that it was an irredeemable mess. There was no way it was going to cut together in any way close to my vision. So I gave up on it as a film, but was determined to use it as a valuable tool to improve my filmmaking. I really wanted to stamp my feet, point some fingers and indict myself for being a hopeless hack. There was a brief period last fall in which I resolved to give up directing and limit myself to writing. Thankfully I didn't want to cut and run without assembling the footage from our made crooked experiment in order to serve as a coherent record for all that had invested their time and energy in the project.
And special thanks to Cassidy for believing in my work enough to commit to a remake of Made Crooked. With that unexpected turn of events, the motivation to create a record for what we had done was even greater. I would use the original to rewrite the script and to prepare to direct a more experienced cast and crew with a much bigger budget. It would serve as part of our presentation to actors, crew and investors as well.
I've showed it to a number of people over the past few months. Jordan and I have gone round and round, frustrated and angry at each other. We would often lament how close it was -- if only this shot was better, if only we had done it this way, if only, of only, if only ... He thought there was a short in it. I was adamantly opposed to reworking it until I saw the story laid out for better or worse. Where's that scene? It's shit, completely unusable. Okay, forget it. Put a Scene Missing title card in its place. The scene missing card was put off. We were closing in on wrapping it up. We chose a few key scenes to print onto DVD and showed that to people. Positive feedback. Some yeah buts on my part in response. I don't want to make a film I have to qualify or apologize for. Blah, blah, blah. Hero. Zero. Zero ...
Looking at the calendar I realized we were coming up on the year anniversary of filming. I offered Jordan a little cash bonus to try to meet an April 30th deadline. Just finish the damn thing, it doesn't have to be perfect. As we toiled, we found ways to make it work. Suddenly there were no scenes missing. We didn't actually need every last shot to make it fire on all cylinders. We started to trust. And we even had fun coming up with solutions. Some things came together surprisingly quickly. Other things that seemed like they would take but a second became laborious. As the day became night, we chose and fought our battles well. As the night became morning I started to fall in love with the original Made Crooked. It was good enough. I started thinking maybe it could stand on its own, that we didn't need to remake it after all.
Then I came to after a few short hours of sleep and started thinking Made Crooked just might launch my career after all. If I ... and get so and so to ... and finish that ... I'll take a bunch of meetings and ...
Stop. Breathe. Do. The. Next. Right. Thing.
I'm going to take it easy today. A little time with Baby June this morning. Finalize the sound on Klepto with Sean. Henry has a baseball game this evening. I'll see how I feel about Made Crooked after I have had a full night's rest. I didn't go through all of this to revert to an ego-driven approach to filmmaking. All I have to do is show up, ask for help and let of the results.

See you in Hollywood!
Signore Direttore

The Master Says 169

I'm not religious, but I believe that what I have is a gift, and I respect it and live up to it.

Sugar Ray Leonard

April Short - Production Notes

Lumberjack Storytime - a young woman's personal fairy tale expresses her need to reclaim her sexuality.

I'm sticking to my commitment to shoot a short every month this year. I'm four for four. I'm tempted to say I cheated this month as it is primarily a scene I extracted from Made Crooked. But it did require a certain amount of reworking, rewriting and reshooting and I am going to give myself a break from my purist bullshit for once.
The lumberjack sequence we made for Made Crooked was pretty cool and I didn't want to see it go unseen. It needed something to help it stand on its own. A little context. So we came up with a little intro and an outro. And the voiceover needed to be tailored to what we actually shot. It was close, but I am so much happier with the rewrite and the dialogue Tara and I improvised.
We had to wait for Tara to come back to town to shoot it. It was good to see her and it made me miss having her around, especially now that we're shooting so much.

We're shooting Dangerous Writing in thirteen days over May and June. A feature will have to satisfy my monthly commitment for a couple of months.

Signore Direttore

April Short - Production Still

First Rehearsal - DW

Nobody knows anything and that includes me. I'm not saying that we're stupid. No way. No how. I will say that we are afraid. We want to know. We want to possess all the knowledge necessary to feel safe. It is fortunate that that is an impossibility. Nothing new is going to come out of our plans and preparations to protect our fragile egos. We can not feel truly safe until we allow ourselves to trust in one another, in the process and in the moment.
Last night we tried to do this. The we was a large - sixteen people in the room giving up their notions of feeling safe, each to the best of his or her ability. I appreciate the trust. It's comforting. It makes me feel good about the process as it is only through trusting in it that I am able to continue to show up to not know.
I didn't know how things were going to work out last night. I didn't have a master plan other than to get a bunch of people in the room together and let them know the origins of my ideas, share with them some of my previous work accomplished by not knowing and to discuss some basic logistics.
I didn't have anything up my sleeve. Though it seems my reputation as a bit of a trickster has some people wondering. I like the way that supports not knowing, though it was never part of a master strategy. I'm just following my nose, hopefully into the same unconscious competence that I'm inviting others to explore.
I certainly don't want to figure it out - I've probably said far too much about it already. I am grateful to find myself here. I truly enjoyed last night. I was excited to have so many different faces and minds in the room. To feel their abundant energies and to experience my own kaleidescope of responses. This is fun.

Signore Direttore

Light and Shadow 007 - Rembrandt

Busy Busy

7 - 8 - Sunrise Meditation Meeting
8-10 - Study SDX900 Goodman Guide
10-11 - Go to DTC for gear and chat with Don
11-12 - Brunch with Cassidy's at Doug Fir
12-12 - Office Depot for Printer Ink
12-3 - Create Shoot Schedule Dangerous Writing with Dennis
3-3 - Drop off HD monitor for rental to an Ad Agency
3-5 - Meet with Potential Composer for Made Crooked
6-7 - Dinner Interview with Key Crew member for Dangerous Writing
7-9 - Meet with Photographer to review stills from Blowing Up
9 - Blog about incessant meetings on busy monday or busy week
10 - Good Night

Principles

On Houston Street there's a place that sells caviar cream cheese. I had just driven from Kansas City to New York in twenty-four hours. I was tired but couldn't sleep. I met my friend at Russ and Daughters for bagels with caviar schmear. My friend owned a club where I promoted parties. It was a boite of the moment and we were making loot hand over fist. I had been away for over a week, which was a long time to leave the fickle club promotion business to chance. It was Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend. I was eating caviar for breakfast after flying across the country in the silver Mercedes I had gone out to Portland to pick up. I stopped in Kansas City to eat Thanksgiving dinner on a lawn chair in front of the television with my father and his wife. Life was good yet filled with that uneasiness common to young succesful people in New York City that eat holiday meals on tv trays when they go home -- I was waiting to be found out. How do you tell your dad that makes ten bucks an hour that you take home thousands of dollars a night hosting parties for celebrities and the pretty people that spend a lot of money to be around them? How do you tell the pretty people that you saw them on tv while eating Thanksgiving dinner?
In those days I wore custom suits tailored in a late 1930s cut -- high-waisted, double-breasted, pinstriped things of beauty. Spectator shoes year round. And a fedora to match. I was known to many as Big Daddy, Wiseacre, Two Caddy Daddy or any combination of the three. My suits cost more than my father made in a month. Each. And I had a closet full of them. I suppose that helped keep the pretty people off the scent that I was the son of a nobody. Maybe they wouldn't have cared. That was a notion I never considered.
Most nights I walked through the crowds projecting an air of mystery and danger, pretending not to notice the people that whispered to each other as they watched me pass. When I spoke to someone I leaned close and whispered in their ear. I had a group of male friends that dressed like I did. We greeted each other with a kiss on the cheek, acting like gangsters from another era. We put on a show that we seemed to believe more than anyone -- the suits, the hats, the shoes, the music, the dancing, the tattoos, the vintage cars, et cetera. I had two Cadillacs -- a 1950 sedan and a 1968 convertible. The Mercedes was my driver. Crazy to own a car in Manhattan? I had three of them! How's that for overcompensating?
The first night back at the club was a long one. I was tired from the drive and it turned out to be slower than usual because of the holiday. I didn't get the usual rush of adrenaline that a packed house gave me. I felt mortal. Which was no shape to be in for who was about to give me her attention. I don't remember how we got to talking, but we had met before and I certainly knew who she was. All you had to do was check out a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue to see a lot of her. I bought her a Lychee Martini. We chatted through that cocktail. When I noticed she was empty, I hesitated to offer her another for fear it would open the door for her exit. Any other night I would have given the signal to the barman and kept 'em coming on the slick and cool. But, as I've mentioned, I didn't have it that night. She might even have had to ask me to get her another drink, god forbid. Some way or another we got another drink in front of her and our conversation continued. I remember thinking there was no way I was getting anywhere with her but I was happy to get the free publicity. I played it real cool, so that it was obvious to anybody that saw us together that I was not hitting on her. I did that as a preventative measure to make sure it was easy for all to see I hadn't failed to woo her as much as not having had tried in the first place.
After the second lychee martini she told me it was too bad I couldn't leave and go somewhere else with her. I made sure she knew I didn't punch a clock and could leave whenever I liked. And away we went. Things we looking more optimistic than I had originally thought possible, but I was still playing it cool. However, my next move was sure to inspire envy as I crossed the bar to my partner and leaned to whisper in his ear of my early departure. He asked me if I was coming back that night. I could definitely say no because even if my next stop with Miss Lychee ended with a handshake, I was going straight home. For some much needed sleep as well as to aid the perception that my night was a success.
Back to the table, helped her into her coat and paraded out the door, stopping along the way for introductions and goodbye kisses to the fellas. Lots of twinkles in their eyes that night. We strolled arm in arm to the next spot. It was there that things turned a bit south. She started talking a lot about a guy that I knew -- one of the owners of the joint we were sitting in. He was there. Came over and chatted, bought us some Champagne. Nice guy. Good looking in a French sort of way -- longish hair, open-collared shirt. I got a straight razor shave and a haircut every Wednesday at a barber shop on St Marks Place by a barber called Danny. After the barbershop I went to see my friend David at a bar on First Avenue for the most perfect Bourbon Manhattan known to man. I wore ties. Always. So what could I say about this guy? We smoked different brands. I had nothing bad to say about him and it wasn't going to do me any good anyway. Besides it quickly became obvious she invited me to come along so she didn't show up at his bar by herself on a Saturday night. Something she had no problem doing at my place. I was ready to go, not so much so as to make an abrupt exit, but the writing was on the wall and my head needed to be on my pillow.
After not too long we left. She asked me to walk her home which was close by and on the way to my place. She invited me in. Things happened as they should for a romantic evening to progress. I was surprised, but I didn't show it. I had written the opportunity off and lost whatever energy I might have had, but this was the kind of thing that I couldn't pass up. I rallied and made like it was all part of the plan. I was as perfectly non-chalant as I imagined a man that routinely sleeps with super-models should be.
She slipped into something more comfortable while I made drinks. She played some music. We sat together on the sofa and sipped our drinks. We moved closer. And closer. We kissed a little. We put our drinks down. We kissed some more. We got really close. Something didn't feel right. I wished I wasn't so damn tired. She noticed my distraction, said something to me about it. What did she just say? I heard her, but I asked her to repeat herself. Maybe I was tired and I didn't her correctly. What's a matter, Frankie? That's not my name. You look like a Frankie, she cloyingly back-pedaled. I gave her an I'm not buying it look. That's what everybody calls you, she grasped at straws. No dice.
Had she been a random drunken girl in Kansas City and not a well known goddess in the big city, I probably would have let it slide.

The Master Says 168

I never came upon any of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking.

Albert Einstein

The Master Says 167

Is he related to something infinite or not? That is the telling question of life.

Carl Jung

The Master Says 166

I always entertain great hopes.

Robert Frost

The Master Says 165

A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

Albert Einstein

Sounds Like a Klepto

Finally making some progress on getting Klepto finished. I found a guy through Craigslist that's tackling it. Turns out that he's using my sound effects library exclusively so far. I would have gone out and recorded it all were it up to me. We'll see how it turns out doing it this way. Sounds pretty good so far.

Signore Direttore

The Master Says 164

I shall tell you a great secret, my friend. Do not wait for the last judgment, it takes place every day.

Albert Camus

The Master Says 163

I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.

Kurt Vonnegut

Light and Shadow 006 - Zurbaran

The Master Says 162

I'm always having the feeling that I don't want to do it [make films] anymore at all, that I'd like to take a break for a year or so, and then, when the first week of that year is up, I can't endure it anymore after all....

Rainer Maria Fassbinder

The Master Says 161

If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.

Abraham Maslow

The Master Says 160

My way of joking is to tell the truth. That's the funniest joke in the world.

Muhammad Ali

Light and Shadow 005 - Caravaggio

Word Count

It's rumored that the novelist Thomas Wolfe (Look Homeward Angel, et al) roamed the streets of New York at night shouting his word count for the day. I always remember that when I've had a productive day at the keyboard. "I wrote five thousand, two hundred and sixty-four words today." Some say the free-flowing Wolfe owes his career to his editor Maxwell Perkins, the great editor of the Lost Generation. All the more important since most of his novels were published post-humously. Anyway, I'm writing a new screenplay this morning about a writing teacher that preaches brevity. It didn't stop me from writing twenty pages so far today. I'd still be going if i didn't have to make lunch for my children.

Feels good. To get so much writing done in a morning. And to brag about it.

Signore Direttore

The Master Says 159

Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.

Mark Twain

Spring 2007 No-Budget Feature

Dangerous Writing: A creative writing teacher's encouragement to live and write on the edge leads to blurring the boundary between fact and fiction.

Shooting commences this month on another quasi-improvisational digi-feature. In full HD this time. We'll shoot no more than 10 full days and spend no more than $500. Should be fun. I'll keep you posted.

It's Called Gratitude

I've had a cold for the past couple of weeks. I got it when I was working non-stop and it still hasn't gone. Once I stopped the tough work of gripping and juicing, I have had time to think. Which is to say that rather than peaceful contemplation, I have been worrying and drumming up self-pity. I have no set work on my schedule, so I'm certain that I will NEVER, EVER get another day on set. Which means I have to COMPLETELY RETHINK MY LIFE.
My antidote to the despair of such thought is to do what's in front of me and to express my gratitude for all that I have. For one thing, I have a lot of writing, editing and producing work to do. I've been dying to have some free time so I could get to that. I've been writing this morning and I love the flow of new ideas. And becuase I wasn't working on a regional spot for a tire company, I also helped my son find some info on the interweb about navigating his Pokemon video game. I'm learning the exclusive language of his obsession and his eyes show me how much he appreciates it.
I've been feeling bad about adding anything new to my busy life, which has thwarted some of the excitement I'm feeling regarding an idea that is bubbling. I spoke to - ugh how do I say this: I want to refer to the producer that I'm working with instead of "my producer". I hate that. My DP, my Producer, my film. Me, me, me. I think I stumbled onto it: The producer that I'm working with. He and I spoke over lunch yesterday about my new idea. He's into it. Doesn't think it's a bad idea at all. Neither the pitch nor proceeding.
Here's the rub, I'm in an excellent place right now. My storytelling skills, directing skills and experience, equipment, contacts and resources are all in place to create, create, create. That's certainly something to be grateful for. Yet I'm letting something hold me back. Fear is the most likely culprit. Let go.
Let go of free-lanceritis. Let go of financial insecurity. Let go of bourgois concerns. Let go of self-obsession.
Allow yourself to embrace all the wonderful things in your life. (I'm talking to myself here, but if it applies to you, go with it) The magnolia blossoms, the daffodils and tulips, little league games, the people eager to work with you, the freedom and the tools to make films for next to nothing, a baby learning to talk, the many films that you have to finish and learn from and share, the beautiful city you live in, a beautiful and valuable home, many books and the time to read them, a beautiful daughter that tells you she loves you so so much fifteen times a day, perspective, meditation, spiritual growth ...
That's not all, but it's enough for now.

Grazie,
Signore Direttore

Light and Shadow 004 - Hopper

Light and Shadow 003 - Velazquez

The Master Says 158

Never mistake activity for achievement.

John Wooden

The Master Says 157

The writer should never be ashamed of staring. There is nothing that does not require his attention.

Flannery O'Connor

Light and Shadow 002 - Goya

Light and Shadow 001 - David

The Master Says 156

The best stories don't come from 'good vs. bad' but from 'good vs. good'.

Leo Tolstoy

The Liar's Club

My Uncle Zippy and I used to tell each other tall tales. We would be driving somewhere or watching television together and one of us would interrupt the silence. "Hey Uncle, did I ever tell you about the time I swam across the English Channel with a birthday cake on my head for the Queen?" He would get a twinkle in his eye and give a very sincere chuckle before launching into a retort that would top my opener. We'd go back and forth with that kind of cornball stuff for awhile until he would concede by saying, "My boy you are the president of the liar's club."
It was good fun. He was a fascinating man. Having spent most of his life in factories with other immigrants, he spoke a handful of languages. He was a living historian. We talked about the politics and social history of the 20s thru 70s all the time. And baseball, always hours of baseball. He could tell you the play by play of almost any game he ever watched live or on television. Once I took him to a game down in Oakland versus the Yankees. Ron Guidry was pitching for the Yankees. Zippy started talking about Guidry and Yankee pitchers back to the days of the Polo Grounds. Pretty soon he had about ten people ignoring the game and listening to his stories.
There were days that Uncle Pete wasn't at his best. Once in Reno we stopped at a gas station. We were done with the fill-up but Zippy wasn't back form the restroom as yet. My mom went looking for him. He was sitting in the front seat of someone else's car. Apparently when the owner climbed in behind the wheel, Zippy barked, "Who the hell are you?" My mom fetched him back to our car. At first I laughed, but it quickly became obvious that he was very embarrassed.
At his worst Uncle Pete would tell me he was dying. I mean you could really see that the pain of living was getting the best of him and he wasn't up for the fight. "I'm dying, Sonny. This is it." It would get me. I would choke back the tears and incite him to keep living. I'd ask him if he wanted to go to the hospital. "If you're dying, I'd better just take you." I'm not proud of that. At nineteen it was my best defense and it usually worked. Who knows how he really felt. For all the talking he did, he never mentioned his feelings.

nc

The Master Says 155

I think being funny is not anyone's first choice.

Woody Allen

Pola Negri

Many years ago, twenty to be exact, my mother and I travelled by car to Northern California with my Uncle Zippy. Zippy was 87 at the time. Always easy to remember his age as he was born in 1900. My son Henry was born in 2000 and is likewise easy to compute. We drove south on I-5 to Grants Pass where we headed west to the Redwood Highway. As we passed through the Redwoods, my mom bought one of those bears carved from a log. Zippy really liked it. It sat outside of the window next to his chair for the next several years.
A quick and dirty family history lesson: Zippy was my grandfather's older brother. They came to America from Greece when they were teenagers and later sent for their parents and sister. Even though they went through Ellis Island on the same day, my grandfather Kostas Kampras was given the name Charles Kampras while his older brother, Uncle Zippy born Panayotis Kampras, was given the name Peter Cambras. I grew up listening to stories about Uncle Pete that lived Back East. There was a photo of them together taken on one of the trips my grandparents made on the Greyhound after they retired. My grandfather was a very snappy dresser, he bought only the best. He was the raconteur of the family. I have a set of his headshots from the Twenties when he was trying to break into the movies. They're pretty awesome, he's got a few looks going: The Leading Man, The Gangster, The Gatsby and The Immigrant. In his old age he had a thick silvery pompadour and a silver moustache. He was slim and although only 5'7'' he always seemed very tall. Uncle Pete was a different story. He had a round head with a few strings of hair. I always thought he looked like a cat. Come to think of it, in my childhood dreams my grandfather was often a big cat. I always thought he looked like a lion. By the way, it's extremely difficult to edit all of the memories that are flooding me as I write. So in the photo there's my grampa, the suave gentleman I loved beyond anything, and his legendary brother. Except Pete doesn't look so impressive. He was kind of roly-poly and wore very loud mismatched plaids. I later learned his lack of sartorial savvy was not only part of his charm, but the result of his very practical frugality that was to benefit me for the remainder of my life.
After my grandfather died in 1979, my mom really wanted to go see Pete and his wife, Aunt Julia. She hadn't seen them since she was a little girl. My mother moved from Hartford to Portland in the early 1950s. So we went back there to visit these very old people that we didn't really know. They lived in a three family house in the Blackrock section of Bridgeport, what was once a lively comunity of immigrant factory workers. By the 70s it was very blighted. It was my first trip Back East, as I learned to think of the East Coast from my grandparents. My first impression as we drove from JFK up through the Bronx to I-95 was basically piles of garbage, fallen buildings and stripped cars, some of them on fire. When we went to Manhattan later in the week, there were crazy people everywhere that would just come up to you and start talking or yelling. I was terrified, but felt strangely at home. My aunt and uncle were very set in their ways and didn't know what to do with us. Pete loved baseball, especially the Mets, and that quickly won me over at age eleven. We talked a lot about baseball while we played gin for hours on end. We went back for visits when I was fifteen and eighteen. Aunt Julia died just after my last visit to Bridgeport. They never had any children, so my mother went to Connecticut to help her uncle. He was going to go into a nursing home, but my mother wouldn't let that happen. She brought him home to Portland. For that he called her Mrs. Calabash. Pete had a gift for bestowing nicknames. Back in the early days of television, Jimmy Durante closed his show by saying, "Goodnight Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are." Legend has it that the real "Mrs. Calabash" was a lady that Jimmy took a liking to because she made him feel at home on his travels.

Back to the Redwoods and the bear. Uncle Pete named her Pola after Pola Negri, the silent film star, who coincidentally, and unbeknownst to us at the time, died earlier that very month. I would say, "It's not a polar bear, Uncle. And he would say, "Not Pola Bear, Pola Negri." He had a charming way of speaking that made me want him to repeat things. He was old and his false teeth were loose in his mouth. Even htough he had been in America for seventy-some years his English was very accented and stilted. Whenever I brought a girl to the house, he always muted the television, leaned forward in his chair and took her hand in his. Oh how I loved the feel of his hands! You could hear him getting his teeth right in his mouth. Then he would clear his throat before he said, "Doll, you are the most beautiful girl my sonny boy has ever brought to meet me. Take good care of him, he's a good boy." Then when they would leave the room, he would whisper, "Bring em back alive, sonny!" He said the same thing every time. Once he gave me some advice. He said I was too much like my grandfather. Whenever he spoke about my grandfater he would say, "Charlie, my brother, your grandfather ..." as if I needed the clarification. He told me, "I see the girls you bring to meet me, sonny. They seem like nice girls, but they're trouble. Too much time in the looking glass and not enough in the kitchen. Your Aunt Julia was an ugly woman, but she was a good woman. In those days you wanted a woman that had the cherry. The girls Charlie, my brother, your grandfather was with, they didn't have it. They said they did, but they were lying. When Julia told me she had the cherry I believed her and she took good care of me until the day she died. Remember that."
I drove to San Francisco this past Sunday. I thought a lot about the many trips I took back in the late 80s, early 90s on that same road. I didn't enjoy the scenery in the same way back then. I was too distracted by the all those girls that liked the looking glass. Nor did I wear polarized sunglasses which make it all look so much better.

nc

Flying High

I am officially free from any obligation to my former employer. I gave notice over a month ago, but stayed around at their request to help them make the transistion. In the meantime I have been accepting freelance work. So I've been working six or seven days a week for the past four or five weeks. This week is no exception.
The thing is, I'm having a great time. I've worked the last few days on the rigging electric crew for Untraceable. I am so happy to transistion from managing the grip shop to working on set. I love being part of a crew and having a mission. It's very strenuous labor at times. Every piece of gear on a movie is heavy. Cable weighs a lot. We pulled up tens of fifty foot runs and wrapped it into coils yesterday. Everything around the west end of the Broadway Bridge. There were lights on the ground under the bridge, lights on the roof of Albers Mill, lights up in the top of the bridge. Of course where there's a light, there's cable and all the cable runs back to the generators. So before the rain had a chance to soak us from the outside I was drenched with sweat from the inside. I loved every minute of it. Especially working high up in the bridge in a condor lift for several hours last night. Definitely felt alive. I was up in the air with another guy, but we had to stay focused on the work we were doing and accomplishing it safely. So there was no chatter. Just work. Flying that high with the rain coming from every direction and being so focused mentally while being challenged physically made me so happy.

Molto Contento,
Signore Direttore

The Master Says 154

A woman is closest to being naked when she is well-dressed.

Coco Chanel

The Master Says 153

Art is only a means to life, to the life more abundant. It is not in itself the life more abundant. It merely points the way, something which is overlooked not only by the public, but very often by the artist himself. In becoming an end it defeats itself.

Henry Miller

The Master Says 152

I see in nature only forms that advance, forms that recede, masses in light and shadow.

Francisco Goya

The Master Says 151

I have a fine sense of the ridiculous, but no sense of humor.

Edward Albee

The Master Says 150

Films are light.

Federico Fellini

I Spy ...

with my little eye something with little pink flowers.

The cherry blossoms are upon us. They take my breath away.

I've been working up in Seattle the past couple of days. Coming home last night I drove out of Seattle at dusk. I was feeling ho-hum about the long drive when suddenly Mount Rainier popped into view. It was blue, orange and pink and made me grateful to be alive. I started singing at the top of my lungs. I could feel the blood coursing through my lips and tongue. I ran out of songs that I know all the way through after twenty minutes or so. There was no radio in the big diesel grip truck. The truck was too noisy to talk on the phone and traffic was just heavy enough that my full attention needed to be on driving. Night had fallen and I drove into it.

The Master Says 149

Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.

Howard Aiken

The Master Says 148

I learned never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.

Ernest Hemingway

The Master Says 147

The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure.

Joseph Campbell

The Master Says 146

Trust your own instinct. Your mistakes might as well be your own, instead of someone else's.

Billy Wilder

Another One Down

We shot March's short film, Blowing Up, today. It went well. I got tired going into hour ten, but felt no stress of note. Nice way to work. And work it certainly was, so I'm going to sign off and fill you in on the details later.

Thanks go out to Stephen Lisk as Floyd, Eric Stevens as Matt, Greg Schmitt as DP, Dennis Brenahugh as AD/Producer, Jordan Karr-Morse as AC/Camera Op, Brian Grubb on Sound, Brian Seidel as Grip, Tom as 2nd AC, Travis as PA, Ed as PA, SImon Hill as Stills/PA.

I did the writing, directing, producing, casting, set decoration, wardrobe and hair and makeup. I'll give myself credit for the writing and directing. And maybe for editing and producing, we'll see. The rest is just part of being a no-budget filmmaker.

We did a number of setups involving complex dolly moves that were half a page long. Things often went so well that we would go for a page to almost two on the takes. I liked what I was seeing and just let it continue. It was fun.

Buona Sera
Signore Dirretore

The Master Says 145

I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.

Pablo Picasso

The Master Says 144

I've been in beautiful landscapes where one is tempted to whip out a camera and take a picture. I've learned to resist that.

David Byrne

Deeply Weird Coincidence

Okay. This is strange. I'm making this short this weekend that draws on an experience of mine from about twenty-five years ago. I stole the cable remote from my friend's family. I stole it becuase ours went missing and I spent the money that my mom gave me to replace it. I've been thinking about it a lot recently.
Just now we got a phone call on our home phone. Not many people call on that line other than solicitors and parents from our children's schools. It was my friend from middle school and early high school. We haven't seen each other since high school aside from a random run in on Hawthorne fifteen years ago. She said she hasn't thought of me in years, but she had a dream about me last night and decided to look me up to see what became of me.
I'm here Wendy, mining my inner life's petty crime memories for film inspiration.

I'm sure it's just a coincidence.

nc

Concrete Knees

I was on my feet in a warehouse for ten plus hours today. My knees are vibrating from the unforgiving floor. My mind is equally dull.
We're making another short film this Saturday. Greg Schmitt is shooting it. Greg shot But A Dream. Dennis Brenahugh is producing. Dennis AD'd London Calling. Always reassuring when good people want to work with you again. Especially when they're not getting paid.
I was in the edit suite last night working. I'm doing that with more regularity. It's a bountiful time. And pretty darn exhausting, too.

¡viva!
signore direttore

The Master Says 143

I am stalking, as in the hunt. What a bagful to be taken home.

Walker Evans

Blowing Up

A salesman exposes himself as a petty thief on a friendly sales call.

This short is based on very similiar actions to Klepto. We're going to add dialogue, but keep it inside in a single location. We're also adding more sophiticated camera moves with a Fisher 11 dolly. I'm allowing more time and for a bigger crew. My goal is to focus on directing with emphasis on really looking for the moments and establishing and maintaining tone.

Bandwidth Exceeded

One of my producing partners provided me with a username to an incredible website that makes imbdpro look like kid's stuff. He warned me that it's going to be like crack for me. Problem is, I'm too exhausted to smoke crack. It's been a busy week. My goodness. I've been all over the place physically and mentally (somehow I'm staying grounded otherwise). I shot a short, worked crew on two films, worked my day job, took meetings on an upcoming project and put in a lot of time planning and networking for the imminent day job to freelance transistion. I even made it to a friend's opening on First Thursday.
Last night I put the baby to bed at eight and fell asleep with her. Guess I needed the rest.
I woke up this morning and knocked out a script for this month's short, Petty. I'm meeting with the producer later today. I'm going to try to be really hands off on this one. I'm going to let the producer produce it. And the AD do his thing and so on. Just direct. Weird, but very good practice letting go.
I've refrained from getting involved in anything at all tomorrow. A day of rest.
For the rest of this morning I'm going to try to summon the bandwidth to dig into studiosystem.com. We'll see if I get addicted.

¡viva!
signore direttore

The Master Says 142

I discovered that what's really important for a creator isn't what we vaguely define as inspiration or even what it is we want to say, recall, regret, or rebel against. No, what's important is the way we say it. Art is all about craftsmanship. Others can interpret craftsmanship as style if they wish. Style is what unites memory or recollection, ideology, sentiment, nostalgia, presentiment, to the way we express all that. It's not what we say but how we say it that matters.

Federico Fellini

The Master Says 141

There's no such thing as simple. Simple is hard.

Martin Scorsese

24 Hour Film People

Yesterday at 5 was our call time for Reflux. We got off to a rocky start but settled into some good work. We wrapped at 4am. I woke up yesterday at around six. Went to sleep at five the next morning, this morning. I slept in until nine am and then went to work as a grip on the Pander Brothers film, ID. We were released at eight thirty, totaling twenty seven and half hours of filmmaking with a brief four hours of sleep.

Buzzing,

Signore Operaio

The Master Says 140

When you're sent something and read it, either you can see it while you read it, or you can't.

Steven Soderbergh

Film Festival

Several things conspired this evening to air out a lot of old film footage. I have a few unfinished films to my (pending) credit. I've written them off and I've sworn them off. I've been nagged by them and shamed by them. But you know, they're all pretty good. Perhaps not as brilliant as I once hoped they would be. Once upon a time, I hoped only for superlative success. How else could I be good enough? I mean nobody would want anything to do with me unless I made brilliant films and took Hollywood by storm. Right?
You don't have to answer that.
We're filming February's short Saturday. It's called Reflux -- a man finds a few moments of self-acceptance in exposing a shameful personal experience. Or something like that.
Anytime soon I should be able to hold my own film festival. I feel the forces gathering to revisit and complete many past projects. And the new ones are coming along as well.

Stride On,
Signore Direttore

The Master Says 139

You can love someone for their defects and their differences from you.

Guillermo del Toro

The Master Says 138

Change in all things is sweet.

Aristotle

Two Weeks Notice

I gave notice at my day job yesterday. I have mixed feelings about it - I'm swimming in the sea between excitement and fear, lighting here and there on sadness. I want to say overall that I have very good feelings about it, but I think it's more accurate to say it is clearly the right time to do it and leave it at that for now.

nc

Dirty Old Man

I say that with extreme irony in reference to Peter O'Toole in Venus. Perhaps it speaks to my own weak character, but I found nothing dirty about the old fella's lust for the young woman. It was uncomfortable to watch at times. And I wouldn't have it any other way. Life is coming to an end for the old Lothario as he pays the price to touch youth once again. Much as in life, it is hardly as simple as that.
Venus is a beautiful little film that masterfully paints the nuances of being human. One of those movies that makes you hold your water for fear of missing even a moment. O'Toole was brilliant. Every word, breath, movement saturated with truth. Even sitting still in the distance, he brings life to the frame. And what beautiful frames, many like a painting. And the light, absolutely unsentimental. The girl was pretty splendid herself, rising like a contemporary Venus from the ugly coarseness and shallow self-absorption of watching daytime telly to become a beauty sensitive to the world around her quite worthy of the great man's love.
I have yet to see Last King of Scotland, but my heart if not my money is on Lawrence of Arabia for the Oscar. His eyes are as stunning as ever.

Go see this film.

Signore Direttore

The Master Says 137

The future you shall know when it has come; before then, forget it.

Aeschylus

The Master Says 136

You've got to find some way of saying it without saying it.

Duke Ellington

The Master Says 135

Being a screenwriter is not enough for a full creative life.

William Goldman

The Master Says 134

Excellence is not an act but a habit.

Aristotle

The Master Says 133

All the characters in my films are fighting these problems, needing freedom, trying to find a way to cut themselves loose, but failing to rid themselves of conscience, a sense of sin, the whole bag of tricks.

Michelangelo Antonioni

Checking In 2.13.07

I exchanged emails with a producer friend of mine about an upcoming project. He has extensive experience making films budgeted under $500,000. Something you and I might envy, but that has worn him ragged. His advice to me was to make sure our post- budget was solid going in, that "chasing finishing funds is a fool's errand". We weren't counting on finishing funds, but we haven't firmly researched and commited our post-production budget.

What else? I'm glad to have the last two weeks of chasing my tail with software stuff behind me. I dug into getting the edit suite a bit more organized and tidy last night. I think part of me likes the chaos that it's been. It's given me an excuse not to go down there. I'm beginning to practice letting go of the results more regularly, which makes editing more enjoyable and possible. I'm ready to remove the obstacles of chaos.
With some reluctance I've begun the search for a new assitant. I have a new perspective on the relationship. JKM spoiled me in some ways. He was very capable and I was too dependent on him, thus letting him run a bit autonomously. Which ultimately wasn't good for me as I tended to ... well, let's just leave it as I was too far from the details of how things were running. I've been forced by his departure to take good stock of the gear and the projects. In the past I've often relied on assistants to get me organized without starting them off with some structure. I'm focusing on setting up better organization.
Which is difficult because I'm flooded with inspiration right now. And my office is a mess from closing the acting studio and dumping it all in the big room.
As you might know, I've made the commitment to shoot a monthly short. Last month's project isn't finished, so I don't want to start something new and ambitious until I've brought that one closer to completion. Not finishing projects has been a terrible habit for me. I've been a bit stressed becuase I want to keep my commitment to creating a new short each month, but also mind my commitment to finishing things.
The other morning I did some journal writing. I stumbled onto something that was awesome to get out. It wasn't my intention when I sat down to write, but I think it's going to be the text for a very simple piece that can be shot in an evening.
I've also been thinking of filmmaking as folk art. Matt McCormick often refers to it as such. As does someone else close to me. It's a very liberating perspective.

Tonight I'm meeting with one of the actors from the Made Crooked experiment. He'll be the first person to see it aside from JKM and I. I've made another screening date with another cast memeber later in the week. I look forward to seeing it a few times with different people. I think it will be good way to absorb its lessons. I've been striving to treasure it as a very valuable resource rather than as a failed filmmaking endeavor.

A River Dertchee
Signore Direttore

The Master Says 132

The individual life is a dream.

John Patrick Shanley

Klepto Update

Even though I haven't posted about Klepto for the past two weeks doesn't mean I haven't been working on it. A software bug prevented getting a crucial clip into the project. I spent hours toubleshooting and surfing message boards until I discovered a solution. The workaround required software that I own but is missing. I arranged to borrow a friend's copy, but had to work around his schedule to get it. Aren't you glad I didn't keep you posted? I'm glad it's over.
The edit is now ready for audio.

Signore Direttore

ROAD - At long last

I finally got to see the fruit of our labor last night. It's been three and half years since we finished shooting. The film has been done for almost two years, but the producers have been reluctant to hand out DVDs until a deal was in place.
Anyway, I watched it. I liked most of it. It looked really good. The cinematographer, Antoine, was clearly talented and a great person to collaborate with. I thought the art direction was pretty good, if I say so myself. As with good hair and makeup, you don't notice it when it's good. As I watched certain scenes, I remember working so hard and then seeing it look so simple on screen. Which is good and a testament to my willingness to let go of some measure of ego at the time.
The perfomances were really good. Ebon was great as I knew he would be. He's a good actor and it was very good casting. Catherine was good, too. They won the Best Acting Award at the 2004 LA Film Festival for ROAD. The bit players - James Urbaniak, Jane Houdyshell, Peter Appel, Marty Zentz - were great. I saw myself in tow quick scenes. They happened so fast it could have been anybody.
Leslie, the director, clearly had a vision for the film. There is a nice tone through much of it. In the end, I don't think it delivers on its promise. Most films made for less than a hundred thousand rarely do.
For all of its ups and downs, I'm proud to have been a part of it.

It's playing on Showtime this month. DVD release comes later in the year.

nc

The Master Says 131

I went through a phase where I thought nostalgia was a bad thing.

Dario Argento

The Master Says 130

I mean simply to say that I want my characters to suggest the background in themselves, even when it is not visible. I want them to be so powerfully realized that we cannot imagine them apart from their physical and social context even when we see them in empty space.

Michelangelo Antonioni

Folk Wisdom 025

Don't overlook the wonder of the ordinary.

The Master Says 129

The directing of a picture involves coming out of your individual loneliness and taking a controlling part in putting together a small world. A picture is made. You put a frame around it and move on. And one day you die. That is all there is to it.

John Huston

The Master Says 128

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - and stay there, lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove lid again... but also, she will never sit down on a cold one any more.

Mark Twain

The Master Says 127

I tend to be attracted to characters who are up against a wall with very few alternatives. And the film then becomes an examination of how they cope with very few options. And that's, I guess, what interests me in terms of human behavior.

William Friedkin

That Never Happens

Checked my email just before lunch yesterday to find a message asking where to send a deferment check for a movie I worked on four years ago. Not only am I going to get paid some money I wrote off long ago, but the film is going to play on Showtime this month.
I've heard the film isn't great, but some good people worked hard on it and I'm sure there's at least some good stuff.
I was the production designer and had a very tiny part.

So check it out if you have Showtime.

It's called Road by Leslie Mcleave. It plays on Showtime Women on the following dates:

Tuesday 4:25 AM
Feb 10 6:30 PM
Feb 18 4:30 PM
Feb 21 10:30 PM
Feb 27 5:35 PM

The Master Says 126

This applies to many film jobs, not just editing: half the job is doing the job, and the other half is finding ways to get along with people and tuning yourself in to the delicacy of the situation.

Walter Murch

The Master Says 125

I'm very comfortable with failure. I'm very comfortable being the guy who disappoints people.

Steven Soderbergh

The Master Says 124

I really dig tall women.

Sam Peckinpah

Folk Wisdom 024

A young filmmaker can commit a lot of energy to a superior posture about the state of things - but my own experience has taught me that fashionable cynicism can cover the fear of what the real challenge is: doing good work.

Andrew Wagner

The Master Works 003

Heaven
2002
Tom Tykwer, Director
Krzysztof Kieslowski & Krzysztof Piesiewicz, Screenplay

The interrogation scene. Philippa (Cate Blanchett) has just learned she victimized others than she intended. The cold and determined woman introduced in the film's opening scenes crumbles. In the limbo of her uncertainty, she turns to Filippo (Giovanni Ribisi), the young carabinieri that has just moments before offered to interpret her testimony.
The scenes leading up to this moment use screen direction and motion to direct our eyes and carry characters upward to heaven, downward to hell, to the political left and right and, in the case of Filippo, smack dab in the middle. Philippa's turn to Filippo begins to restore her humanity. She was resolute in her descent until learning she had failed to eliminate her intended target. She links herself to the man in the middle and rises from hell to limbo.
Blanchett handles this moment expertly. It's in her body - every given circumstance explicated in the scene resides within her.
Ribisi is equally brilliant. He does his work with his eyes - they watch closely, the subtext and his inner life happening behind them.
In the final moments of the scene, Phillipa collapses. As she fades into her faint, Filippo watches and calmly alerts the prosecutor. When Philippa falls, Filippo immediately moves to help her but restrains himself and remains in his chair. It is quite apparent it is the last time he will sit dutifully still.

The Master Says 123

Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves; vanity, to what we would have others think of us.

Jane Austen

Requiescat In Pace

I spent the morning at a memorial for my friend Helen today. The first hour and half in a Catholic church and the latter part of the day at a potluck. I've shed a few tears remembering her today and over the past week since she passed away. She is truly one of those people that will live on in the hearts of many. Which makes her death less sad somehow. I'm not a believer in the after-life and all that heavenly stuff, but there's something eternal about Helen. She was one of those rare people that gave her love without expectation. Whenever I saw her she would stop whatever she was doing and give me a hug. She always asked me about my children with genuine interest. In fact, if I ever tried to gripe or gossip about anything, she would gently steer the conversation toward happier and gentler things. She never raised her voice, even if someone wasn't listening to her. If she was committed to what she had to say, she just kept on quietly until people started to listen.
There was a slideshow of her at the potluck. I stood with different friends looking at Helen in all the different phases of her life: her wedding day, school, Africa with the Peace Corps, at work, with family and friends at her home and in nature. She had the same easy smile in every photograph. She was a beautiful woman.
I'm a better person for knowing her, though I won't miss her because she gave a small part of herself to me to keep forever.

nc

The Master Says 122

I made mistakes in drama. I thought drama was when actors cried. But drama is when the audience cries.

Frank Capra

Feature Length Rough Cut

I just left an intense couple of hours in our editing suite watching a cut of our "shoot a feature film in three days without letting the actors see a script or even fully disclose our intentions to them" experiment. If you ask me if I like it, I really can't say. I have way too much baggage to come to any easy conclusion. I will say that the more I resist the pull of my various expectations and look at it as a record of the work that we did and the decisions that were made, it is a tremendously valuable on-going experience. On-going is key. Part of my unrealized expectations is my desire to be done with it. I wonder if that is realsitic. Perhaps it isn't a fair comparison, but am I ever to be done with my children? Surely not. My mother has been dead for nearly a decade and our relationship lives on. Why should I want to end it in the first place? Because it didn't manifest into an award winner? Because it didn't launch my career?

There is one scene that I really like. I didn't write it prior to the shoot. I came up with the idea in the middle of working and ad-libbed it. You can hear me feeding lines and questions to the actors in the rough cut. There's a lot of space in the performances and I think it's the most successful scene in terms of tone. I think had more of the scenes been shot in the way that I asked, there might be more scenes like this. Perhaps not.
Though JKM confessed that he was terrified throughout the shoot and gave up on my approach, deciding to shoot it as a documentary. He just told me this tonight, which was news to me that helped make some sense of things.
Over and over again, I learn that as a director you have to stay on top of your vision. Nobody else is going to do it for you.
Another thing that comes to mind as I watch this film is that I've got to work harder to give up trying to make things work and dig deeper into what I want to see and what I want and need to explore thematically.
There's a lot to learn if I am teachable.

Burning Eyes,
Signore Direttore

Nobody Knows Anything

I finished the rough cut of Klepto. I enjoyed doing it. I haven't enjoyed editing for a very long time. At first I thought it was because I'd done a better job shooting Klepto than I had earlier films. There's some truth in that, but it's not entirely the reason for my new found joy in the process. I'm learning to pay attention to my eyes -- what they really see rather than what I direct them to see. Usually what I direct my eyes to see has a lot to do with the logic of making things work in terms of continuity. Yet Walter Murch puts continuity on the bottom of the heirachy of an editor's concerns. I've known this for a few years but I couldn't let go of it when editing until recently. It requires a certain degree of faith. Editing is less mathematical than sensual, it turns out.
Or maybe not, because as William Goldman says, Nobody knows anything.
Yesterday I learned a few more things about the movie business that confirms my advice to the aspiring actors at my studio: Do this because you love it and for no other reason! For years many told me I was crazy to try to direct a script I'd written. Now it's hard to get people to get behind it becuase I've said I don't want to direct it. For a long time I thought it had to do with the nature of the material. It doesn't. It's just a bloody tough business to break into.
I'm not discouraged. I still want to see that film get made. Maybe I will. There's other stuff in front of me right now. Really awesome stuff that needs my atention. I'm going to pay attention to that and have faith that when the time is right, the time will be right.
Billy Wilder says he tried to make pictures that he liked and hoped others would like them, too. I was a very successful club promoter for a number of years in San Francisco and New York. Basically my formula came down to this: I threw parties that I would want to go to. So I'm going to stick to writing and making films that I want to see, and we'll see what happens.
One last thing. An acquaintance of mine has a film in competition at Sundance this year. When I heard the news I was both a little proud and a little envious. His film was reviewed a couple of days ago. Something to the effect that in Cannes people would have thrown stuff, but in America they just laughed at all the wrong places. Voila! Good-bye envy, hello shadenfreude! By the way, I'm not particularly proud of being envious or taking pleasure in his misfortune, it's just the way it is. For now.
Besides -- NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING -- and that includes me.

Umanemente,
Signore Direttore

The Master Says 121

I just loved playing a man who was unafraid of making an idiot of himself in the process of falling in love. I found that admirable.

Ben Kingsley

The Master Says 120

A filmmaker has almost the same freedom as a novelist has when he buys himself some paper.

Stanley Kubrick

The Master Says 119

Style is a fraud. I always felt the Greeks were hiding behind their columns.

Willem de Kooning

Klepto Assembly

In spite of a severe cold, NFL conference playoffs, our wedding anniversary and my only day off this week, I just finished the assembly of Klepto.
There's something there. Some nice shots and performances. It's all going to cut together. There was one shot that is unusable because the main picture car and some crew are in the background. It was at the end of the day. I was helping the actor hit a mark and Jordan was watching focus. The performance isn't quite right to boot - actor trying to concentrate on hitting the mark more than what's appening in the moment. So I just went to the next shot and kind of like it better anyway.
Overall, it's a very quiet film beyond the lack of dialogue. I am not sure if everything works, maybe it does, but at this point I opted not to get trigger happy. I'm not going to try to figure it out yet. I think this is the first time I've ever cut something where I just laid clips down without looking at transistions or what I had so far until I was at the final shot. Anyway, the response I had to the doubt I experienced at one point was that I'll do my best and listen to what others have to say about what works and what doesn't when the time comes.
Process. Process. Process. Assembly today. Rough cut tomorrow. Per gradi.

Pazientemente,
Signore Direttore

il universo apri

I'm feeling really good about the way 2007 is starting off. Moving on from the acting studio has freed up a lot more energy than I imagined. I'm collaborating with a couple of awesome, very accomplished people on a big project. I'll talk more about that when I feel it's appropriate. I'm excited about it, but I'm doing a lot of other things in the meantime instead of waiting for that to happen as I've done in the past.
Last year, I made friends with a very talented actor that moved here from LA. Recently we started hanging out again. He's such a great guy. And very funny. He's a good writer and has some very compelling stuff for which he's been looking for someone to collaborate. We've been having breakfast together a lot this week, just having laughs and getting to know each other. He addressed it more directly at breakfast yesterday. My first fear in these situations is that someone wants me to produce something for them. I'm a producer certainly, but more by default than ambition. I produce films in order to get my films made. Whenever I've worked as a producer on someone else's film, I've been frustrated to at least some degree.
Same with editing and art directing. And acting, though not as much if I'm having fun with the role. Anyway, at the end of last year I was trying to focus my attention solely on writing. I was thinking of giving directing up for awhile. I told a few people including the agency packaging OG. (Which, by the way, isn't helping it move forward any faster) Then I produced a short for someone. I was on set helping an inexperienced young aspirant and I was frustrated once again. I thought, why am I going to give up on directing? I've got the skills and the gear and the contacts and the ideas to produce a quality short in a weekend for next to nothing; why not do it for myself a few more times? Most of all, I have the passion for it. I love it and I can't deny it. Writing is cool. I'm pretty good at it. Maybe even better than I am at directing. But it's a means to an ends for me. I only write the stories so I can make them. Which brings me back to yesterday.
So he brings up the possibility of working together and I prepare for him to tell me he wants to direct. I did a pretty good job of putting that out of my mind as I listened to his pitch. It's always nice to listen to a good idea. There were elements of Beautiful Sunshine of a Spotless Mind. So we chat about that for a minute. Then he throws out another pitch for a different script. Also very good, sort of High Fidelity meets Permanent Midnight. The ideas start flying in my head. I hear a lot of directors say that they can't imagine directing something they didn't write. I don't feel that way at all. I like the tradition of the theater where writers rarely direct.
All this was very welcome and inspiring. I had yet to ask the question though. The moment finally came, What role do you want to play in realizing these projects? I just want to act, dude!, he said. That's all I want to do, he continued, I just come up with these ideas and write to keep from going insane waiting for my next gig.
I didn't walk away giddy, no not at all. I was perfectly calm because it just felt right. I don't have expectations and I'm comfortable with what we're both bringing to the table. Like the King said, Ambition is a dream with a V8. So many of my past collaborations have been a lot of talk about horsepower, but we've been running on six cylinders and a weak chassis. To make it worse, I've often been firing five of those cylinders. On projects where I am better matched such as OG, the hot rod is still idling in the garage. When she finally gets out, she's going to lay some rubber, but that day hasn't come.
Funny that I was hoping to run into S to ask him to act in one of my monthly shorts. I guess it's true that if we only got what we asked for, we'd be selling ourselves short.
I've also made another acquaintance with a potential collaborator. I went out on a limb and introduced myself to her and she responded very positively. She's a beautiful woman with a lot of charisma. I have an idea for a little texture piece we could make together the next time I go to LA.
In the past when the universe has opened up to me, I've often closed it down trying to keep it to myself. Or by asking even more of it than has been offered.

A river dertch,
Signore Direttore

The Master Says 118

I'm just like Fassbinder, ... but without the drugs and the whores.

Steven Soderbergh

Signing Autographs

I signed about fifteen autographs today. Yep. I'm a celebrity in the eyes of a class of fifth graders in Aloha. To be honest, remembering how excited those kids were to get the crew's autographs after shooting a segment of an educational training video in their classroom puts a new perspective on the past couple of days. It's pretty easy to get cynical about doing this type of work. I've been taking the possession of a hard-earned set of skills and a lot of expensive equipment for granted.
Those kids were so unjaded and very good little actors. I told them I should have been asking for their autographs. Which is kind of bullshit to have talked the talk instead of putting a pen and paper back in their hands.
The methods in the teacher training were sound and even insprirational. The content consisted primarily of strategies for more active reading. I certainly know some actors that would benefit from stronger reading skills. I learned a few thinks about pedagogy as well.
Anyway, it's good to account for the ease in which I fall into negative thinking.

¡viva!
nc

The Master Says 117

Ambition is a dream with a V8 engine.

Elvis Presley