Today I got to do something quite profound on my lunch hour. I picked Henry up from Kindergarten and took him to a sporting goods store to buy him a baseball glove. I got one for myself as well. We had lunch after that.
Perfect,
nc
Thursday, April 06, 2006
The Master Says 025
We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another, unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.
Anais Nin
Anais Nin
Tug of War
I'm wondering as I sit and ponder the idea of getting pulled in one direction by the Kazan quote immediately below and in quite an opposite direction in the opinions of the last crew I worked with. I don't think it comes down to absolutes. That's a new idea. Nor do I think I am as far removed from the violent struggle suggested by the title of today's entry as I would like to think I am. It would be quite foolish for me to think that I will soon be in harmony with a crew, that I will magically surround myself with sycophants. Yet I think it worthwhile to pursue a balance of preparation and sensitivity to schedule, while retaining the integrity of the director's primary task.
I'm tempted to start throwing the Kazan quote around the gaffers, grips and cameramen with whom I routinely work. I'm quite certain it would be anything but an invitation to discuss the virtues of taking one's time on set and feeling your way through subtle material.
They admitted to me that they had never worked with actors that got better as more takes were shot. In the commercial world, the first take or two is all you get before the actor has nothing left and starts pushing it out. I've seen this to be the case with inadequately trained actors. Even with that admission of seeing the actors go deeper under my direction, they remain convinced that I worked very inefficiently. I have to admit that it stings. I'm being careful of jumping entirely over to their way of thinking. Doing so would drain much of the life from the work. However, understanding that keeping the crew behind you through respecting the limits of thier patience, particularly when they are not getting paid, is essential to building a career as a filmmaker. In any case, I could certainly sharpen my previsualization, shot planning and set communication skills.
Stumbling across the Kazan quote the other day got me thinking in terms of vindication. I don't really need to be vindicated. Though I must admit that I really would like everyone to get together and love the hell out of me, praising my genius and hailing my body of work.
Back to the metaphor of this entry's title -- I'm not letting go of either side of the rope, I'm trying to let go of being the rope.
Ciao,
Signore Direttore
I'm tempted to start throwing the Kazan quote around the gaffers, grips and cameramen with whom I routinely work. I'm quite certain it would be anything but an invitation to discuss the virtues of taking one's time on set and feeling your way through subtle material.
They admitted to me that they had never worked with actors that got better as more takes were shot. In the commercial world, the first take or two is all you get before the actor has nothing left and starts pushing it out. I've seen this to be the case with inadequately trained actors. Even with that admission of seeing the actors go deeper under my direction, they remain convinced that I worked very inefficiently. I have to admit that it stings. I'm being careful of jumping entirely over to their way of thinking. Doing so would drain much of the life from the work. However, understanding that keeping the crew behind you through respecting the limits of thier patience, particularly when they are not getting paid, is essential to building a career as a filmmaker. In any case, I could certainly sharpen my previsualization, shot planning and set communication skills.
Stumbling across the Kazan quote the other day got me thinking in terms of vindication. I don't really need to be vindicated. Though I must admit that I really would like everyone to get together and love the hell out of me, praising my genius and hailing my body of work.
Back to the metaphor of this entry's title -- I'm not letting go of either side of the rope, I'm trying to let go of being the rope.
Ciao,
Signore Direttore
The Master Says 024
A good director's not sure when he gets on the set what he's going to do.
Elia Kazan
Elia Kazan
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Sycophant No More
The quotes below seem to contradict one another, at least for many years I heard their polarity. I think it is quite clear that there are distinct differences between a Cassavetes film and a Hitchcock film. Especially in the manner in which they were concieved and produced.
The danger with Cassavetes for me is much the same as with Mamet's manifestoes -- their iconoclastic bombasts prompt sycophantic behavior in me. Remember, I'm trying to leave the purist box unchecked.
Fact is, I love movies from both directors. I learn and am entertained by both. (In spite of JC's proclamation that he doesn't seek to entertain.) They were true to themselves in the making of their films. Hitch was neurotic and needed order. He found the yellow of eggs creepy and the red of blood comforting. John was a narcissistic drunk and needed chaos in which to justify himself. (I wish I knew something about him like the eggs/blood thing to keep this parallel sentence structure going. Oh well.)
In any case, I love their films precisely because they adhere so strongly to their own point of view.
What is my point of view?
More will be revealed.
On the path,
Signore Direttore
The danger with Cassavetes for me is much the same as with Mamet's manifestoes -- their iconoclastic bombasts prompt sycophantic behavior in me. Remember, I'm trying to leave the purist box unchecked.
Fact is, I love movies from both directors. I learn and am entertained by both. (In spite of JC's proclamation that he doesn't seek to entertain.) They were true to themselves in the making of their films. Hitch was neurotic and needed order. He found the yellow of eggs creepy and the red of blood comforting. John was a narcissistic drunk and needed chaos in which to justify himself. (I wish I knew something about him like the eggs/blood thing to keep this parallel sentence structure going. Oh well.)
In any case, I love their films precisely because they adhere so strongly to their own point of view.
What is my point of view?
More will be revealed.
On the path,
Signore Direttore
The Master Says 024
I'm full of fears and I do my best to avoid difficulties and any kind of complications. I like everything around me to be clear as crystal and completely calm.
Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
The Master Says 023
All my life I've fought against clarity -all those stupid definitive answers. Phooey on a formula life, on slick solutions. It's never easy. I think it's only in the movies that it's easy ... I won't call (my work) entertainment. It's exploring. It's asking a lot of questions of people ... A good movie will ask you questions you haven't been asked before.
John Cassavetes
John Cassavetes
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
The Master Says 023
I didn't have that much confidence. Maybe it looks that way. I'm glad it does.
Elia Kazan
Elia Kazan
Checking the Box
Over the past few weeks I've been trudging through a swamp of truths about myself and my abilities. It's been a taxing, though rewarding journey. I've given up some old ideas about myself and have therefore made room for some new approaches. As I've blogged, I've had to be careful not to fill in the blanks too quickly. While I can't say I have the patience of a saint, I have kept my eyes open as much as possible. I certainly haven't needed to completely reinvent myself. I have done a tremendous amount of work over the years and I have talent to be sure. Letting go of expectations and of waiting for others to legitimize my talent has actually helped me see my strengths more clearly. In fact the weaknesses that were so glaring to me a few weeks ago feel more like exciting challenges than sources of shame at this point.
I was listening to James Mangold speak about the beginnings of his career recently. He asserted that you can't wait for someone to tell you you're ready or that it's time. That call won't come, he says from experience. You have to write the film you want to make. If you write a film that is too expensive for an inexperienced director to obtain financing for, write another film. He was talking about genre pictures heavy on special effects primarily, however this is the trap in which I've been falling for years regarding Original Glory. I've actually complained many times as I've had the script accepted to prestigous markets and optioned by a production company that it's too bad I wrote this one first.
Boo hoo. Poor me that I wrote a story that I believed in and in turn inpired others to believe in enough to take a self-taught writer and help him develop the script, teach him about dramatic stroytelling and the business of making movies in the process and pay me for it. What a goddamn bummer. Bet you feel really sorry for me.
In realizing and admitting that I may not currently have the necessary experience to direct Original Glory, did I make it clear that Original Glory is the first complete screenplay that I've written, I have become willing and ready to write my second completed screenplay. Back when I finshed the first final draft of OG, I optioned a book to adapt, I signed a contract with a producer to adapt a novel he'd optioned, et cetera. I was ready! Then I learned what is meant by the koan that screenwriting is rewriting. That's when the producers at Ghost Robot, namely Zach Mortensen, took me to (re)writing school. All those other writing plans were put on hold. Thankfully, because I re-invented the wheel with Original Glory. To my credit, I wrote about what I knew and some amazing characters emerged. But I didn't know a thing about structure. Initially I took those notes with scornful scoffs. But when you hear the same thing from people making a living in the industry over and over again, it tends to break down the denial that you're a dyed in the wool genius. Gradually, over the span of years, I became teachable.
I've written over fifty drafts of Original Glory, not including somewhere around a hundred revised drafts. All the while I started a dozen screenplays. Do you think I started those screenplays any differently than I started OG back in '98? Hell no. I'm sure one of the reasons that not a one has written itself is a subsconscious fear that it will require the same amount of work as Original Glory. If I grafted ideas about events and people onto an arbitrary armature as I did with OG, it's likely that I would have to write fifty drafts again. If I were lucky.
There's a better way. There is more than one better way. Start earlier with the structure. From the beginning. Baby steps. Check the box as you complete each one. Follow directions. Ugh.
Don't you know who I am?
Here's what I'm doing differently:
Week 1
Day 1 - Write the title. That's it. Stop. Done for the day.
Day 2 - Write the theme. Do my best. Write a few. Be wrong. Trust the process.
Day 3 - Write the logline. Starting to get harder. I have it my head what I want to write about. Why can't I just start writing? Hard to stay with this part. But I wrote something that I could get me through to the next day.
Day 4 - Write the treatment. I wrote the beginning and the end as instructed. The logline was bothering me. Maybe because I didn't know whose story it was. I wanted it to be about the dad, because he is the one transformed in the end. I went back to the logline and reworked it. The process forced me to understand whose story it is.
Day 5 - Still working on the logline. Something is not quite right. I talk it out with a trusted colleague. Got it.
Day 6 - Rest and reflect.
Day 7 - Outline the middle of the treatment. Go back and read the plan of action. Something about five pairs of uh oh's and oh shits and two oh my gods in every good movie. Resistance to this was strong. Fucking formulaic bullshit ... So I tried it. It was hard. I mapped it out. I deleted, cut and pasted, rewrote for a long while. I labored. Guess what? It helped me develop the tension, the rhythm and the structure. The story is not more formulaic as a result -- it's stronger. I better understand where we (the characters and I) need to go.
All the while during Week 1, I was telling the story to myself and others. Trying out the logline. Suffering blank looks. Fighting the urge to type FADE IN:
I took a class a long time ago that asserted typing FADE IN: was the first thing to do when starting a screenplay. I wholeheartedly disagree.
Week 2
Day 1 - Finish the treatment. Several prose pages amassed under my flying fingers in a very short time last night. Maybe this following directions crap works.
Day 2 - Write an outline. I'll get to it at lunch.
I tell actor-students to get off the fence about whether they're an actor or not. Check the box, I tell them.
I'm checking the box today.
Screenwriter - check.
Director - check.
Hyphenate - check.
Purist - it's hard, but I'm going to leave this box unchecked for now.
A River Dertch,
Signore Direttore
I was listening to James Mangold speak about the beginnings of his career recently. He asserted that you can't wait for someone to tell you you're ready or that it's time. That call won't come, he says from experience. You have to write the film you want to make. If you write a film that is too expensive for an inexperienced director to obtain financing for, write another film. He was talking about genre pictures heavy on special effects primarily, however this is the trap in which I've been falling for years regarding Original Glory. I've actually complained many times as I've had the script accepted to prestigous markets and optioned by a production company that it's too bad I wrote this one first.
Boo hoo. Poor me that I wrote a story that I believed in and in turn inpired others to believe in enough to take a self-taught writer and help him develop the script, teach him about dramatic stroytelling and the business of making movies in the process and pay me for it. What a goddamn bummer. Bet you feel really sorry for me.
In realizing and admitting that I may not currently have the necessary experience to direct Original Glory, did I make it clear that Original Glory is the first complete screenplay that I've written, I have become willing and ready to write my second completed screenplay. Back when I finshed the first final draft of OG, I optioned a book to adapt, I signed a contract with a producer to adapt a novel he'd optioned, et cetera. I was ready! Then I learned what is meant by the koan that screenwriting is rewriting. That's when the producers at Ghost Robot, namely Zach Mortensen, took me to (re)writing school. All those other writing plans were put on hold. Thankfully, because I re-invented the wheel with Original Glory. To my credit, I wrote about what I knew and some amazing characters emerged. But I didn't know a thing about structure. Initially I took those notes with scornful scoffs. But when you hear the same thing from people making a living in the industry over and over again, it tends to break down the denial that you're a dyed in the wool genius. Gradually, over the span of years, I became teachable.
I've written over fifty drafts of Original Glory, not including somewhere around a hundred revised drafts. All the while I started a dozen screenplays. Do you think I started those screenplays any differently than I started OG back in '98? Hell no. I'm sure one of the reasons that not a one has written itself is a subsconscious fear that it will require the same amount of work as Original Glory. If I grafted ideas about events and people onto an arbitrary armature as I did with OG, it's likely that I would have to write fifty drafts again. If I were lucky.
There's a better way. There is more than one better way. Start earlier with the structure. From the beginning. Baby steps. Check the box as you complete each one. Follow directions. Ugh.
Don't you know who I am?
Here's what I'm doing differently:
Week 1
Day 1 - Write the title. That's it. Stop. Done for the day.
Day 2 - Write the theme. Do my best. Write a few. Be wrong. Trust the process.
Day 3 - Write the logline. Starting to get harder. I have it my head what I want to write about. Why can't I just start writing? Hard to stay with this part. But I wrote something that I could get me through to the next day.
Day 4 - Write the treatment. I wrote the beginning and the end as instructed. The logline was bothering me. Maybe because I didn't know whose story it was. I wanted it to be about the dad, because he is the one transformed in the end. I went back to the logline and reworked it. The process forced me to understand whose story it is.
Day 5 - Still working on the logline. Something is not quite right. I talk it out with a trusted colleague. Got it.
Day 6 - Rest and reflect.
Day 7 - Outline the middle of the treatment. Go back and read the plan of action. Something about five pairs of uh oh's and oh shits and two oh my gods in every good movie. Resistance to this was strong. Fucking formulaic bullshit ... So I tried it. It was hard. I mapped it out. I deleted, cut and pasted, rewrote for a long while. I labored. Guess what? It helped me develop the tension, the rhythm and the structure. The story is not more formulaic as a result -- it's stronger. I better understand where we (the characters and I) need to go.
All the while during Week 1, I was telling the story to myself and others. Trying out the logline. Suffering blank looks. Fighting the urge to type FADE IN:
I took a class a long time ago that asserted typing FADE IN: was the first thing to do when starting a screenplay. I wholeheartedly disagree.
Week 2
Day 1 - Finish the treatment. Several prose pages amassed under my flying fingers in a very short time last night. Maybe this following directions crap works.
Day 2 - Write an outline. I'll get to it at lunch.
I tell actor-students to get off the fence about whether they're an actor or not. Check the box, I tell them.
I'm checking the box today.
Screenwriter - check.
Director - check.
Hyphenate - check.
Purist - it's hard, but I'm going to leave this box unchecked for now.
A River Dertch,
Signore Direttore
Sunday, April 02, 2006
The Master Says 022
Many of us achieve only the semblance of communication with others; what we say is often not contingent on what the other has just said, and neither of us is aware that we are not communicating.
Desy Safan-Gerard
Desy Safan-Gerard
Saturday, April 01, 2006
The Master Says 021
The poem is a little myth of man's capacity of making life meaningful. And in the end, the poem is not a thing we see --i t is, rather, a light by which we may see -- and what we see is life.
Robert Penn Warren
Robert Penn Warren
Un poem 001
dear juanita
i
from you
all the things that the letter said were true
it was over we could both so clearly see
you from
me
in a car
driving through chicago in the hazy summer
i remembered those yellow bicycles
in sacramento and milan
where the wedding pictures were taken and
left in the bottom drawer of a desk under the window
you told me to jump out of one morning
i wasn't awake
pale yellow mercedes
one hundred and eighty kilometers per hour
falling asleep at the wheel
talking about abraham lincoln
explaining him to you
how fucking strange
that someone didn't know who he was
you disappeared
when i found you in a cafe
quietly flirting
with the entire room
you laughed at me
for worrying
i got you back
in the shower
before you moved in with the priest
and before you fucked shelby
he told me one morning
in a sacramento dive bar
the last city in which i ever saw
either of you
unlikely sister cities
milan and sacramento
i was living in san francisco
stole a car one night
a convertible
1965 Buick Special
white with a red interior
needed somewhere to go
your mother told me, allesandra
she needa college
no marry my allesandra
she needa college
she said that over
and over
while you were upstairs
with your little sister
it was seven am
hadn't seen him since milan
he called when he moved
back to the states
he called here the states
such the expatriate male model
that shelby
he said he would look me up sometime
but i looked him up first
at seven am
in a stolen car
i went running in naples
after we drove down from milan
to meet your family
she needa college
she needa college
running through my brain
running through your filthy naples
the shower was great
until rebecca reached inside the curtain
and let go of
that bird
i took him downtown
and made him
drink wild turkey
he told me he knew
about the bird in the shower
he asked me if i knew
about you two
he said he was sorry
but that he couldn't
help himself
you were so
beautiful
birds make greek boys like me
panic
too many omens --
aunt catherine
athens 1974
so many candles
i got scared
her wrist i pulled
into the shower
the bird flying around
her clothes wet
they came undone
and i
and she
and the bird
i could tell
that you were the
absolute conquest
of his life
we went swimming
in his pool later that morning
i asked him if he ever met
your little sister
he said no
then you don't know
about the bird in the shower
now do you?
it was so clever
the way you returned
my letter to me
crossing out your name
at the top
replacing it with mine
alex
the name that you gave me
your father showed me what you
wrote in the margins of his
dictionary
when you were
a little girl
crossing out my name
at the bottom
and writing yours
juanita
the name you gave yourself
in its place
i especially admired
the lack of a post-script
neat and clean, no fuss
that was you
juanita: god's gift to men
just like it says
in your papa's
dizionario
i
from you
all the things that the letter said were true
it was over we could both so clearly see
you from
me
in a car
driving through chicago in the hazy summer
i remembered those yellow bicycles
in sacramento and milan
where the wedding pictures were taken and
left in the bottom drawer of a desk under the window
you told me to jump out of one morning
i wasn't awake
pale yellow mercedes
one hundred and eighty kilometers per hour
falling asleep at the wheel
talking about abraham lincoln
explaining him to you
how fucking strange
that someone didn't know who he was
you disappeared
when i found you in a cafe
quietly flirting
with the entire room
you laughed at me
for worrying
i got you back
in the shower
before you moved in with the priest
and before you fucked shelby
he told me one morning
in a sacramento dive bar
the last city in which i ever saw
either of you
unlikely sister cities
milan and sacramento
i was living in san francisco
stole a car one night
a convertible
1965 Buick Special
white with a red interior
needed somewhere to go
your mother told me, allesandra
she needa college
no marry my allesandra
she needa college
she said that over
and over
while you were upstairs
with your little sister
it was seven am
hadn't seen him since milan
he called when he moved
back to the states
he called here the states
such the expatriate male model
that shelby
he said he would look me up sometime
but i looked him up first
at seven am
in a stolen car
i went running in naples
after we drove down from milan
to meet your family
she needa college
she needa college
running through my brain
running through your filthy naples
the shower was great
until rebecca reached inside the curtain
and let go of
that bird
i took him downtown
and made him
drink wild turkey
he told me he knew
about the bird in the shower
he asked me if i knew
about you two
he said he was sorry
but that he couldn't
help himself
you were so
beautiful
birds make greek boys like me
panic
too many omens --
aunt catherine
athens 1974
so many candles
i got scared
her wrist i pulled
into the shower
the bird flying around
her clothes wet
they came undone
and i
and she
and the bird
i could tell
that you were the
absolute conquest
of his life
we went swimming
in his pool later that morning
i asked him if he ever met
your little sister
he said no
then you don't know
about the bird in the shower
now do you?
it was so clever
the way you returned
my letter to me
crossing out your name
at the top
replacing it with mine
alex
the name that you gave me
your father showed me what you
wrote in the margins of his
dictionary
when you were
a little girl
crossing out my name
at the bottom
and writing yours
juanita
the name you gave yourself
in its place
i especially admired
the lack of a post-script
neat and clean, no fuss
that was you
juanita: god's gift to men
just like it says
in your papa's
dizionario
Thoughts on a Friday Night
Watched Thumbsucker and Belle Epoque tonight. Belle Epoque is a sexy farce, Spanish, not so great. Thought Thumbsucker was pretty good. It was relatively dismissed by critics. I certainly didn't find it riveting, but the acting was pretty good. Low key and truthful. I know a lot of people that worked on it. Which isn't that big of a deal. I normally read the credits of any film I see, recognizing names from other films or even a friend now and again. But I know about twenty of the folks that worked on that one.
What else?
Designed a t-shirt for the acting studio.
Fantasized about shooting this Rope-esque film on 35mm. Three takes for a ninety minute film at .42 a foot for recans of Fuji works out to about ten grand for film stock. Not in the cards right now.
Had a long chat with David about Pendleton. (Which isn't Rope-esque at all) That was encouraging and exciting.
Someone sent me a manifesto of sorts regarding making low budget films as we were about to go to lunch. I brought it along and checked our ideas against it. It made a good point for shooting on film and using name actors. However I asserted that we didn't have to follow that because we're not trying to break into Hollywood with this film. We're making a film to get better at something we love doing. We don't plan on making our money back. What a relief.
Painted the interior of our front door just a few minutes ago. When my wife used to work in Japan every couple of months I would stay up and rearrange our loft in NY. Henry would wake up to a new environment, sometimes not so happily. The first time I ate mushrooms I experienced that when Dan Eccles's step-sister came into the room and moved a guitar. "Put it back! Put it back, now." We used the word tangent a lot that night.
Cancelled my rough cut session tommorow with Melissa Henderson, the editor, because I didn't have time to adequately prepare. It's not like me to refrain from pushing for something. I'm really trying to take it easy. Aside from painting the door (which really wasn't that difficult) I've done exactly that today.
Tomorrow I'm going to put a little time in at the studio, but lounging as much as possible this weekend is the plan.
I belong to a fellowhip that proclaims, We relax and take it easy. For the longest time I thought that was some lazy bullshit. Lately, I'm starting to get the hint.
Buona sera,
nc
What else?
Designed a t-shirt for the acting studio.
Fantasized about shooting this Rope-esque film on 35mm. Three takes for a ninety minute film at .42 a foot for recans of Fuji works out to about ten grand for film stock. Not in the cards right now.
Had a long chat with David about Pendleton. (Which isn't Rope-esque at all) That was encouraging and exciting.
Someone sent me a manifesto of sorts regarding making low budget films as we were about to go to lunch. I brought it along and checked our ideas against it. It made a good point for shooting on film and using name actors. However I asserted that we didn't have to follow that because we're not trying to break into Hollywood with this film. We're making a film to get better at something we love doing. We don't plan on making our money back. What a relief.
Painted the interior of our front door just a few minutes ago. When my wife used to work in Japan every couple of months I would stay up and rearrange our loft in NY. Henry would wake up to a new environment, sometimes not so happily. The first time I ate mushrooms I experienced that when Dan Eccles's step-sister came into the room and moved a guitar. "Put it back! Put it back, now." We used the word tangent a lot that night.
Cancelled my rough cut session tommorow with Melissa Henderson, the editor, because I didn't have time to adequately prepare. It's not like me to refrain from pushing for something. I'm really trying to take it easy. Aside from painting the door (which really wasn't that difficult) I've done exactly that today.
Tomorrow I'm going to put a little time in at the studio, but lounging as much as possible this weekend is the plan.
I belong to a fellowhip that proclaims, We relax and take it easy. For the longest time I thought that was some lazy bullshit. Lately, I'm starting to get the hint.
Buona sera,
nc
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