A Chapter In The Adventure

I hope that by now you all have gotten to the two readings from William Goldman this week. If you haven't read either of these books and you are at all interested in film, (which I assume you all are or why would you be taking this class?) do yourself a favor and run out and get both of them. It's a fascinating look inside the business of Hollywood movie making, with a focus on how to tell a good story, and then write the screenplay. And Goldman is one of the best in the business. He has a great sense of humor, is jaded just enough to make it an interesting read, but not so much as to scare you off from the business altogether. Anyway, I think it was far more enjoyable than some of the previous texts that we have looked at, so think of it as a bit of a break from the more heady stuff.

I chose these readings largely because I think they are insightful, particularly for those who are still learning the craft of visual storytelling, and I didn't want you to be totally bored at this point in the semester, so I thought you might like a break from the high minded theoretical stuff. The first one comes from his earlier book, Adventures In The Screen Trade, which he wrote in 1983, shortly before writing the screenplay to The Princess Bride. I love this story of how he got started because it is so perfect the way he sets it up, and really is significant for anyone just starting out as you all are. The way he tells it, it seems that for him to have gotten into the film business at all is almost like an accident. It just sort of fell in his lap, and when it did, he was so unprepared for it, that he found himself in an all night bookstore in Times Square in a panic, just trying to find a book, any book that could show him something about writing a screenplay. Hell, he didn't even know what a screenplay looked like, much less how to write one. And 40 some years later, he's still at it, with a pretty nice list of credits to his name.

The second reading, from the more recent sequel to the first book, Which Lie Did I Tell? More Adventures In The Screen Trade, gets into the nitty gritty of what actually goes into the screenplay. This is the more technical part, but I think Goldman does a nice job of not getting bogged down too much in details, and focuses more on plot, character development and structure. We'll be looking at these two scenes this week in class, one from Fargo and the other from Chinatown, so that you can get a better sense of how things translated from the page to screen. I think just from reading you can see how important structure is when trying to lay down not just dialogue, but also the visual cues necessary to actually commit that story to film. I don't want you to concern yourself too much with the specific format of the screenplay when thinking about you own upcoming projects, but I do want you to be familiar with layout and technique so that you can incorporate some aspects in your own writing.

We'll also be looking at a couple examples of short films to give you a better sense of how other filmmakers have managed to tell a compelling story in only a few minutes time. It is a challenge, but it all starts with a good idea. So make sure you are thinking about some possible projects that you might want to do for your short fiction piece.

A Montage of Ideas

This week's reading comes from the notes of perhaps the most famous director to come out of the Soviet school of the silent era, Sergei Eisenstein. Other filmmakers employed techniques of montage, but few had such well developed theories about its effects. His writings elaborated on the technical approach that he took in creating his heavily cut sequences and the meaning behind them.

Today, montage has taken on a different meaning altogether. It is no longer thought of as analytical or symbolic, but most often as a tool to condense time or to present a lot of related information in an organized way, such as introducing a series of characters. For the Russian filmmakers like Eisenstein however, the approach was much more developed. It is not simply breaking down a scene into a series of shots, but it is about unifying each element to give greater meaning to the whole. His view is that as a filmmaker, he must find a way to place his audience in the frame of mind viewing his film that he had in making it.

Eisenstein relates his ideology to the paintings and theories of Leonardo DaVinci. For DaVinci, there was an almost scientific method to leading a viewer's eyes from one part of the canvas to the next so that they took in the painting not all at once, but in a sequential order that he felt led to a more complete understanding.



If we look at Eisenstein's use of montage, he found ways to integrate multiple storylines within the framework of a battle scene, beyond just the violent clash between two opposing sides. His most famous example of montage is the Odessa Staircase sequence from The Battleship Potemkin, which we will be looking at this week in class. It is a frantic scene filled with utter chaos, but somehow Eisenstein manages to weave in the struggle of individual characters from the child who is shot by a soldier and then trampled by the crowd and the mother who desperately tries to reach him, or another mother with her infant in a carriage, precariously lingering near the edge of the staircase. There are many other characters that Eisenstein focuses on at various points, even briefly, and through this, he is able to humanize the tragedy, rather than just create a scene filled with violence against nameless, faceless, masses.



I think it is also important to note how Eisenstein views the importance of the actors role in creating this realistic portrayal for the audience. It is interesting to me, because I have always thought of the Russian style as being stylized as opposed to realistic. But for Eisenstein, his method was a way of creating an ultimate realism by bringing all of these disparate elements together, and thereby giving a more complete picture to his audience. I thought it was particularly illuminating the way that he described his approach to a particular scene and thinking of the mindset of the characters in that instance, their expressions and gestures, as well as the sights and sounds that make up the atmosphere of the location. Once again, it goes back to finding that connection with your audience, so that they are experiencing the film through the same process that you went through in making it.

Most of all, I want to drive home the point that there is a significant thought process behind editing a film. It is not just about what seems right, but rather there should be thought put into why each shot is used in the order that it is laid down and how it moves forward the sequence and ultimately the film as a whole.

The Spectrum of Extremes

I have been continuing to return to looking at films by certain directors, somewhat unintentionally in this case, although I often do find that it is a useful study to look at a series of films by a certain filmmaker in order to see running themes or stylistic tendencies. The same holds true for certain actors, or even writers, etc. This week I watch two films on very opposite sides of the spectrum, the first, a comedy geared toward a younger audience, Superbad, and the second, a much more serious political art-film called Before Night Falls.

When Superbad first came out, it looked like it had some good moments from seeing the trailer, however it struck me as one of those movies that gets a slick treatment for the trailer, and then you go to see it and find that all the good material was packed into that short preview. After having seen The 40 Year Old Virgin and more recently, Knocked Up, I figured I would give this one a chance, mainly because of Seth Rogen's involvement as a co-writer and actor in the film. It seems to be a pattern with films like these, that I have a preconcieved notion about a director or actor, or writer and his or her work, and so I avoid watching it because I hate to waste my time, or even to admit that saw it, in part because it is popular. It's one of those film-snob kneejerk reactions "well, nothing by that director could be any good".

I must say that once again, I was proven fairly wrong. In many ways, this film was slightly more on the sophmoric side than some of the aforementioned films. And its appeal was to a much narrower audience, mainly aimed at teenagers and early twenty-somethings, but I think that anyone who has been through high school would relate to at least some of the humor. There were a few moments where I found myself bursting out in laughter, which is always a sign of a good comedy, rather than one that just has you quietly thinking, "oh yeah, that's funny".

First of all, the young actors that are cast possess considerable talent, and fit the roles quite well. Micheal Cera in particular has a subtle quality in his performance that strikes me as both understated and unflaggingly realistic at once. Having seen him just recently in Juno, I see him as an actor whose range and ability will only increase as his career moves along. I also loved the scenes with Seth Rogan and Bill Hader, who played the inept cops that drove around Fogell's character all night. I think there is a mixture of good writing and good ensemble work between cast and crew that know each other well enough to bring out one another's strengths.

Overall, I would say that Superbad failed to live up to the standard set by some of the work that Rogen did previously with Judd Apatow , but nonetheless, it did not fail to entertain.

I also made a return to the work of another filmmaker this week, that of Julian Schabel. You may recall a few weeks ago, I expressed the contrasting views I have of Schnabel, but having realized that my prejudice was rather unfounded in any legitimate basis, I decided to take a look at his reflection on Cuban expatriate writer Reinaldo Arenas, Before Night Falls. There are many reasons to compare this film with his more recent work, The Diving Bell And The Butterfly. For one, both are set in a foreign country, however in Before Night Falls, he chooses to have the characters speak English for the most part, of course, with Spanish accents. I have never understood this. If a character would speak Spanish, then why not have them speak that language? Does he think that the portion of the audience that does not speak Spanish will be too bothered to read subtitles? It's rather silly, because there are certain moments where Spanish is mixed in, and even some French is spoken, but for the most part it is in English. I just feel it dilutes the authenticity of the film a bit, and besides, how does one decide, oh this line should be spoken in Spanish? In Diving Bell, he chooses to have the characters speak their native tongue, which to me is a better choice, though I will admit, it is not my favorite way to experience a film. It does distract somewhat from what is going on in the film, but it's not a significant factor in the overall experience of the film.

Stylistically, this film is not nearly as inventive as Diving Bell, but it is still rather well staged. Both of them being about writers, I think we do get a sense of the passion felt by the artist for his work. I think that the desperation at times and the ultimate tragedy of their situations are handled equally well in both. Both characters are also imprisoned, one by his unusually rare medical condition, and the other is hemmed in throughout his life by his inability to express freely his ideas and his desires, while at other times quite literally being imprisoned. And finally, both succumb to health problems, with their lives being cut short at a time of intense creativity.

Overall, I enjoyed the film, purely from a standpoint of the storyline that followed the characters, but I did find at times it was hard to follow. There were crucial moments where I actually rewound a few times and listened to a particular line to hear it better, but still could not decipher it. This is where it becomes particularly problematic for an actor to speak in English with an accent. It is harder to understand than if they did not use an accent, and there is not the benefit of subtitles to make the message clearer. It's a small, but not insignificant point.

Decoding McLuhan

I realize that this week's reading was another one of those that might have made your head hurt a bit, but I think there are some worthwhile points in there to consider, so it is worth the effort. I should point out that Marshall McLuhan is among the seminal writers and critics on the subject of media culture, from print and advertising, to film, television, and radio. He was a real visionary, and I'm sure if he were still around, he would have plenty to say about the digital age that we now reside in, and of course the influence of the internet.

I think one of the more interesting ideas that he introduces in this piece is that each medium is a rethinking of something that came before it. Television is indebted to radio, as radio is indebted to the telegraph, and so on, and so forth. I think it was rather interesting how he mentions the notion of portable film projectors in our future, keeping in mind that this article was written in the early 1960s, when video tape was still in its infancy, and even that was hardly portable. But in a way, he foresaw today's technology of ipods, smartphones and other portable media devices.

I think that his most salient point is the allusion that he makes to what he refers to as the literate audience. We take for granted certain aspects of film language that we carry with us, just because we have watched so much. But if you take an audience that has never seen a film or never watched television, or perhaps even looked through printed material, we would realize that these skills of interpretation are not innate. Consider the case of the Lumiere short that I mentioned last week, The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat. This is widely considered the first film ever screened for a public audience, and so one might imagine the fascination and even shock that they experienced beholding this technology unlike anything they had ever experienced. The story goes that upon seeing the projected image of a train moving toward them, many of those seated in front of the screen got up in a panic, running for the exits for fear that it might actually come through the screen and run them over. This anecdote may well be apocryphal, but the point remains that these were untrained eyes that were viewing a new spectacle. 

As McLuhan  points out, these things may well seem obvious to us today when we consider basic film structure and storytelling technique, but can the average person really elucidate why something is shot or edited the way it is? Probably not. But they would likely be able to discern something that is not edited or shot well. So it is important for those of us who wish to make films and to better grasp how to effectively use the medium to really make an effort to analyze and break down what we are looking at, rather than just taking the experience for granted.

Is Spring Coming...Ever?

Four of the most welcome words this time of year to my ears are "pitchers and catchers report". It means of course, baseball season is about to begin, and also that spring is just around the corner. This is much needed news in the doldrums of February (the most depressing month of the year if you ask me). There is a sense of renewal that comes with this, from the standpoint of new growth, the old, crusty, sooty snow gets washed away and then there is the hope that this year the Mets won't suffer another implosion and miss the playoffs. A bit too optimistic? Maybe. Talk to me next October.

I figured this was a good time to dust off an old baseball themed flick, Bull Durham. It's interesting, because though I was born in '79, I am really a child of the 80's, and yet I can't help but feel this was one of the worst decades for film. It's a decade that was filled with all the of the self-indulgence that Hollywood could manage, but with none of the grandeur. It produced its share of catch phrases ("E.T. phone home"), top 40 hits ("Footloose") and pop-culture iconography (The Back To The Future series), but little substance. Bull Durham falls into this category to a certain extent.

It's an enjoyable enough movie, particularly watching Susan Sarandon's escapades as she seduces a young Tim Robbins, and later Kevin Costner. Mostly, the thing that is kind of great about the film is that it captures pretty accurately a lot of the gamesmanship and business of baseball at the minor league level, which for a baseball fan, is fun to watch. The dialogue, in particular the repartee that takes place on the field during games gives an inside appraoch to what would normally be inaudible to an audience watching an actual game unfolding from the stands or on TV. There are some clever moments here, such as staging a conversation between Costner's character and Susan Sarandon's while in a batting cage with ball being flung in between them at a substantial pace. It's an otherwise pretty predictable storyline, and isn't particularly imaginative in its staging.

It's not what I would call a classic by any means, but as baseball movies go, it's not a bad one. It's not Field Of Dreams (made just a year later, also starring Kevin Costner), Eight Men Out, or The Natural, but worth a look nonetheless.

Now, if the Mets can only put together a classic season, we might have something.

Outlining the Outline

Hopefully you all had a chance to read the chapter from Alan Rosenthal's book on developing a structure for your documentary. I think there are useful points in there. Some examples are more in-depth than I expect you to get, but nonetheless, applicable to what you are doing. I wanted you to see some excerpts from a script that employs the split column method of placing the sound elements on one side and the visual elements on the other. I haven't typically worked this way, but it is a good example of how to visualize a piece in the planning stage as well as during the process of assembling elements that have already been shot. 

I think one of the most important points to make is that all films, whether they are fiction or non-fiction must have a well defined structure. I think the point that documentaries need not be dry and boring was well taken too. This is all too often the perception because some of the worst examples of "documentary" are the ones that are most prevalent. Turn on the History Channel and you are likely to catch yet another formulaic rehashing of some newly discovered footage of B-52s over Germany during WWII. Not that there is anything wrong with historical documentary or films about WWII, but they can be done in a much more interesting and less predictable way. I think that the popularity of reality television is evidence enough that people hunger for real stories, though this is hardly and example of something "real" or even truthful. Documentary can be both of those things if the time is taken to make it the right way, and it can also be wildly entertaining.

I have spent so much time in class on documentary in part because it has been my main working method, but also because it is the perfect entry point into working with film or video. You can be as creative as you want to be, borrowing elements from other genres, while still being loose in your approach, with some room for less than perfect production values. Also, there are just so many different approaches to documentary to explore. After all, the first films that were made in the earliest days of cinema would qualify as documentary in the purest sense, that is, the "actualities" of the Lumiere brothers (the image above is from one of the more famous examples, The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat). And more than a century later, we are still discovering new ways to explore this working method.

The important thing is to find your own working methods, no matter what type of films you want to make. So be as creative as you can working on this first project, but have a solid plan in place. The more you plan, the smoother and more enjoyable the process of shooting will be.

It was just like in the movies!

Needless to say, it has been a busy, and interesting week. I hope you all got some things done having had last week off from class unexpectedly. God knows I didn't. Let's just say when someone is negligent, runs a red light and broadsides you in a vehicle, no one is standing by waiting to make the hellish process that you were unwillingly thrown into any easier or more pleasant. Not to get into the personal details of my life, but I have been thinking during this process of dealing with my wife's accident how much of life we relate through the experience of movies. 

How many times do we have something dramatic, like a car accident happen to us and without having the words to effectively describe it, we say "it was just like in the movies"? What better way to capture that moment than to relate our experience with something so familiar as what we all have viewed on a movie screen. Immediately, we know exactly what is being described. It all happens so fast in the reality of our lives, we don't even have the time to take it all in. It's almost as if the film versions of our lives give meaning to the reality and allow us to process what is otherwise unknowable. 

At the same time, watching something on a television screen or on a computer or in a movie theater can never compare to the real thing. Working at a TV station, I have shot probably hundreds of accident scenes, many of them fatal. I have seen hundreds if not thousands more on TV. I've watched You Tube videos from security cameras that have captured that actual accident, and of course have seen it dramatized countless times in films. But those experiences pale in comparison to witnessing one. I actually had this experience walking out of the Dryden Theater last year. A car had pulled out in front of a motorcyclist, and with no time to react, the motorcycle struck the car and the driver was thrown from his bike. I heard the screech of tires and crash while looking down to unlock the door to my car parked probably 20 feet away, and  looked up in time to see the guy hit the ground and witness the commotion that followed. Fortunately, the guy suffered only minor injuries, but it got my heart pumping, and I'm used to being around this sort of thing. Come to think of it, it was just like in the movies.

Speaking of movies, I did manage to catch a pretty good flick called The Visitor just the other day. It was a really poignant film that dealt with this whole debacle that our immigration system is, but not in the typical straightforward way you might expect. It began as story about a middle-aged white college professor whose wife has died and children have grown up and moved out of his posh Connecticut home. His conservative lifestyle of teaching and lecturing and writing scholarly books and papers bores him. A trip to his apartment in New York for a week-long conference brings about a series of events that changes his life. When he arrives, a couple is staying there, having sublet the place, unbeknownst to him, and he walks in on them, the woman in the bath, the man angrily accosting him. And in that heated moment of misunderstanding, he pleads "I have keys! I have keys! This is my apartment!" in the threatening face of this stranger with clenched fists. It's another one of those rare moments of panic that many of us will encounter at some point in our lives, but we can only relate by saying, it was just like in the movies!

Ultimately, the man allows the couple to stay while they figure out what to do next. Without spoiling the rest of the story, they become involved in one another's lives in a way that is fulfills this character's life more than the money and prestige that teaching or writing books has brought him. He becomes so engaged in the struggle that results from their immigration status that he goes to great lengths to help them, though there is no way for them to repay him. But we see through his own transformation that he is paid back richly by knowing that he can at least try to help right an injustice. The approach could not have been simpler and more straightforward as far as the way that it was shot and edited. The camera generally was very static, allowing the interactions of the characters to drive the story. Nothing spectacular happened within the film. There were no elaborate CG effects, costumes, makeup or even a lot of added music. It was a very ordinary sort of story, but with an extraordinary message. Watching a film like this is evidence enough that if you have a great story, you don't need to be flashy in your approach to make it transcend the typical fare. The realness of the characters and their interactions make it work. And of course, sometimes just as art imitates life, we relate to art because of what we have experienced in our own lives.

Another Disappointment

I guess when you watch a lot of movies, you're bound to be disappointed once in a while. I have always enjoyed the work of Wes Anderson, from the early days, with Bottle Rocket, to one of my faves, Rushmore, and then the very enjoyable The Royal Tennenbaums. But it has been the law of diminishing returns for this very talented, and rather celebrated young director. I just caught his latest work, The Darjeeling Limited, once again, with high expectations. Big mistake.

It was beautifully shot, as his films always are, by Robert Yeoman, who Anderson has worked with on all his prior films. The setups are meticulous and the look is consistent, which clearly is the advantage of working with the same director of photography on each project. His films are always cleverly written, and intriguing in the approach, as well as imaginative in the devices that are used to develop characters. In this case, the film takes place in India, and much of it on a train, so it is both exotic and a throwback to a different time from the get go. Several of the usuals make appearances, such as Bill Murray, who appears at the beginning and end of the film, though I don't believe he has any lines. Also included in the cast are Owen Wilson and Jason Schwartzman, who both seem to work perfectly within Anderson's framework.

I think one of the downfalls of this film was that it tried to be too clever, and though the plotline had promise (a journey film, particularly one with brothers reconnecting after a long absence is always a good choice) it fell flat because there was a real lack of story. Perhaps even more than a lack of story was the lack of motivation for the characters actions. They just didn't seem believable to me. I kept thinking, if they are so irritated with one another, why did they bother going on the trip in the first place? And then at the end, they suddenly are close as can be? It just felt forced.

Before I end, a word about lighting. Watching today's Hollywood films, even low budget productions, the lighting is not something you necessarily notice. And that's a good thing. It's like editing. It is necessary to make a film work, but it should be seamless and therefore, not evident or distracting from the telling of the story. We don't typically walk into a room and say, 'wow the lighting in here is fantastic!' We don't notice it, unless the lighting is bad or in some cases, overpowering. The same is true with film and video, though it is much more of a challenge because the camera does not record things the same way our eye sees them. Something to be aware of and to strive for in your work this semester. Hopefully this week's reading helped with that. We will be talking more about it in class, but as you watch films this semester, look at how scenes are lit. Look for motivated and unmotivated lighting sources. Look for shadows that distract. Look at the different styles from different eras. If you watch film noir from the '40s or '50s, and then compare it to today's films, you would find stark differences. Also, look at everyday lighting, from how rooms in your homes are lit, to different places you go, to outdoor lighting conditions at different times of day. Notice how bright or dark it is and what kind of light exists there. Consider how you might want to light the space if you were shooting a scene there. If natural light is involved, consider how you could use it to your benefit.