A responsibility to entertain?

The poet once said “The least we can expect from art is to be entertained. The most we can hope from it is to be moved.” As a filmmaker, the thought works pretty well: create something that first entertains, but hopefully does it so well that emotions are engaged.

 

The sticky part comes when certain emotions, like hate, are aroused. Worse is when those emotions are aroused for the expressed purpose of inciting hatred or violence toward a person or group. I believe the term is “propaganda.” But sometimes even that tag isn’t so clear.

 

At the time it was made in 1934, Leni Riefenstahl’s Hitler-loving “Triumph of the Will” was hailed as a breakthrough in documentary filmmaking. Undoubtedly extremely talented, Leni was apparently pressured by Hitler to make the film, and made it she did. The film is now notorious as the greatest example of propaganda filmmaking in history, and Leni lived with that albatross her entire life, unable to make a movie after the war despite her prodigious talent. Was she at fault for glamorizing a monster like Hitler? Or was she merely doing the best job she could with her film? The argument about her continues to this day.

 

Like most of life, the responsibility of a filmmaker is extremely gray: those that deign to undertake a film risk offending, repulsing, and even angering some audiences, while at the same time engaging, entertaining, and even moving others.

 

No doubt, film is a potentially powerful weapon. We must choose carefully who to point it at.

The Video Generation.

There was no “Star Wars Kid” when I grew up: our childhoods were strictly our own and those in our immediate vicinity. I’m grateful that I get to tell you my story here, and fib as I see fit, although I’ll try not to:

 

I spent my first two years in college at Boston University living in the same dorm as the national champion hockey team, and most of my weekend nights standing in the snow after some genius hockey player thought it would be fun to pull the fire alarm at 2am. And 3am. And 4am. Film was not on my mind; survival was. And beer. And girls.

 

I became fully reacquainted with my creative self when I was accepted into the Horace Gregory Writing Program at Sarah Lawrence College; alma mater of Yoko Ono and Brian DePalma (at least one of which is creative). My classmates were the likes of Cary Elwes (Princess Bride, et al) and Sam Robards (son of Jason Robards and Lauren Bacall and a fine actor in his own right), and my teachers were the esteemed writers Grace Paley, Allan Gurganus, and Joe Papaleo. There were also lots and lots and lots of girls.

 

But while I showed my old films there (and had them stolen), I never made a film at SLC, even in the face of all that creative inspiration. I painted thirty paintings and wrote scores of short stories, but never made a film. Why? Because at that time, making a serious film was an expensive, complicated, and overwhelmingly daunting task (and we were very serious at SLC — so much so that it was fashionable to pretend you were Ernest Hemingway or Sylvia Plath: tortured, drunk, and constantly on the brink of the abyss. It went well with the berets and clove cigarettes).

 

You see, and I date myself here, video recording was not yet readily available to the masses: the war between VHS and Beta was just heating up. Remember Beta? A marketing war that Sony lost, despite a superior technology.

 

But shortly after I graduated from college, I bought one of the very first consumer video cameras: a gigantic shoulder-mounted affair (Sony again, I believe) that looked very professional (lots of useless buttons) and attached to one of the first “portable” VHS VCRs that fit in an equally gigantic shoulder bag that would permanently cripple you if you tried to actually use it, not to mention a battery that lasted a little longer than a Hollywood marriage.

 

When I bought it, I imagined that I would make instant movie after instant movie: no waiting for the drugstore to process the film, no projector melting the results. Nirvana: instant filmmaking gratification.

 

The reality of the situation was that the gear was so unwieldy that it was relegated to my living room and a tripod, where I used it to practice my presentations for the Manhattan corporate communications company I had joined in order to avoid starting in the mailroom of the ad agency for which I thought I was too superior (gimme a break, I was twenty). I still have some of the tapes. Works of art, not. Although I looked better in a bathrobe then.

 

Reflecting on this, I’m glad my life hasn’t been recorded in excruciating detail as this generation has. While I’ve been able to modify my true history in my mind as it suits me, today a fish story is as likely to be greeted with the exclamation “let’s go to the videotape!” as with a solemn nod of commiseration.

 

Today, there’s no such thing as legend, or convenient memory. Just endless reminders of our own embarrassments.

 

Just ask the “Star Wars Kid.”

Question: Is it a charm or a curse to be a celebrity?

When you boil it down, I believe the answer is that the only ones that’ll tell you it’s a curse are the celebrities themselves. The rest of us see the money and the attention (all KINDS of attention), and think it looks pretty sweet. This, in my opinion, is particularly true of filmmakers. OK, at least it’s true of me.

 

But the reason I think that celebrity is a charm for artists of all stripes is that it (probably) allows us to continue doing what we want to do as artists: emotionally, it gives us the the strokes we need, and pragmatically it funds the next film, or painting, or opera, or whatever. So we don’t have to wait tables. Or sell insurance. Or build a website (but not THIS website. Really. OK, most of the time).

 

But being a big celebrity isn’t easy, I’m sure. My one brush with mini-celebrity came at the CineVegas film festival, where my movie drew huge crowds for three screenings (just can’t understand how a movie about a poker player would do well in Vegas…), and I did several radio and TV interviews. Everywhere I went for that three days, people were coming up to me and asking about the film, or about future plans, or just to say hello. Frankly, it was traumatic. And not entirely in a good way. I would liken it to a very strong drug. That I would take again. Just not all the time.

 

My mother used to say that she was torn between being a Supreme Court judge and a stone in the road: meaning that she sometimes wanted her life and decisions to have tremendous impact on the world around her, and at other times just wanted to BE, existing in the flow of life with no expectations.

 

Me, too.

The Child is Father of the Filmmaker.

The first time I walked onto a set, it was to watch the filming of a “Lark” cigarette commercial at El Morro castle: I got to cue an actor by kicking him from a perch on a giant cannon. I was 8, I was living in Puerto Rico, and my stepfather was an art director at J. Walter Thompson.

 

It was exciting beyond description.

 

At 12, I got a Super8 camera and on the very first day employed my friend and two of our pets to make a tale of a fugitive dog sleuthed by his sibling and owner, edited entirely in-camera, including titles written on posterboard.

 

The feeling of anticipation waiting to get that film back from the drugstore was only surpassed by the horror of having the film catch in the projector and melt when I finally got to watch my epic.

 

By 13 I discovered editing, and used a little movieola to cross-cut between my father’s friend participating in an amateur car race and me and my friends crashing kid’s wagons and Big Wheels, which I displayed while playing Elton John’s “I Think I’m Gonna Kill Myself” on the record player.

 

I felt an indescribable rush as my Dad’s friend crashed his car at the end of the piece to gasps from the audience: my first surprise ending.

 

At 16, I discovered girls and friends and partying, and everything else just faded into the haze of hormones and pot smoke.

 

But every so often, right up until my junior year in college, I’d whip out that old Super8 projector and the big reel of films I’d spliced together, and enjoy a silent homage to my childhood and the pure joy of filmmaking at its most basic. Claymations, dramas, adventures, sci-fi (disappearing people, my lord!): it was all there. Sometimes there was even an audience.

 

Unfortunately, during that junior year, someone apparently liked the films enough to steal the projector and movies out of my room. It wasn’t a huge deal then, but now, if for no other reason than to go back and look at how ingenuously and energetically I approached every project, I would pay almost anything to get those movies back.

 

But perhaps they are better gone, growing in esteem in my mind and pushing me forward to my next film somehow.

 

At least that’s story I tell myself.

The Miracle of Audio.

One of the most miraculous things about making movies is how we are consistently able to trick the viewer into believing they are watching continuous action when, in fact, they are watching shots set up hours, or even days or weeks apart.

 

In High Roller, for example, there is a scene where Stuey (Michael Imperioli) wins the World Series of Poker, and Vincent (Michael Nouri) steps out of the cheering crowd to acknowledge him.

 

The funny thing is, the two shots in the scene were filmed a month apart, in two different cities. But put together it’s fairly seamless.

 

Why does this trickery work so easily? Well, luckily, the viewer WANTS it to work: the brain automatically tries to create logic out of chaos, which is why we’re able to change perspective so easily within a film.

 

But sometimes it doesn’t work: all of a sudden we’ll be ripped out of the story by something that just doesn’t let our brains believe the magic. Now, you’d think that it would generally be something visual that would do it, like a change in lighting or bad continuity (a glass is full, then empty, then full) or some acting faux pas. And sometimes it is. But in my experience, the most likely culprit is audio.

 

See, the subconscious mind is really the one looking for cues about the reality it’s experiencing, and sound operates directly on the subconscious. Further, the quieter the scene, the more important good audio becomes to maintaining the illusion. If you’ve made a film, you know what I mean.

 

Here’s a couple of considerations that might help you avoid an aural disaster:

 

Get a good mixer/sound designer on early

It’s been said that post-production starts the first day of production. It’s true, particularly with sound. Make sure to at least consult with a good mixer before you start shooting, particularly if you have an inexperienced location recordist. It’ll inevitably lead to a better mix.

 

Take the time to get good production sound

As a low-budget filmmaker, you’re probably going to move fast. Just make sure that the take isn’t just good for performance and camera, make it good for audio, too. Yes, you can do ADR in post, but it’s never as good as on location.

 

Don’t forget room tone

Consistent ambient noise, or “room tone,” is a critical and often overlooked element of a good sound mix for new filmmakers. Before you wrap a location, get at least thirty seconds of good ambient sound.

 

Subtle SFX are the mark of a pro

The first goal of a good location recordist is to get clean dialogue tracks, and screen out the rest. That means footsteps, door clicks, keys jingling (never mind tires screeching, punches, or gunshots) have to be added in post. The funny thing is, if a viewer registers one of those sounds when it’s not important to the scene, it’s been done badly. Restraint is the measure of a good effects track.

 

Embrace the split edit

One of the key tricks to manipulating a viewer’s brain is to overlap the audio track from one shot onto the next, creating a different edit point for the audio and video (ergo, split edit). This works particularly well with dialogue, and best when the video edit no longer always lands at the end of a sentence or at an obvious edit point. Once you get this one, things get a lot easier.

 

Of course, there a lot more aspects to movie sound: we haven’t even touched on music, which has a huge emotional impact on a film. But if you’re just getting into it, paying attention to the quiet moments will really reap rewards in the final mix.

How does an unknown indie filmmaker get marketable actors for a feature film?

People have asked many times how I got Michael Imperioli for “High Roller.” The answer is a combination of luck and hard work, and a little more luck. The first thing to do is to get your script in good enough shape to attract talent: actors are artists, too — they don’t ALWAYS do it for the money. The next thing to do is to RESEARCH: find out who represents which actors, where they live, who they know, what they’ve been doing lately, what kind of press they’ve been getting, and anything else in the six degrees of separation that you might use to get the script to an actor you desire. There are endless stories of how a name got into a film because of an obscure relationship. Next, get in the Hollywood pipeline, which can be done two ways: if you can afford a good casting director, they frequently have relationships that can get your script read, so by all means do that. The other way is to start with Breakdown Services (http://www.breakdownservices.com/), who will read and summarize your script for posting to every talent agency in the universe: and they ALL read the postings. Unfortunately, it’s a little bit of chicken and egg in that you’ll start by getting a BAZILLION head shots of actors you never heard of (although you’ll recognize a few faces), but once you get a name (and word travels fast, believe me), you’ll get a much juicier selection of head shots to work with.

 

The way it happened for High Roller, we had a casting director in Vegas named Ray Favero who happened to know Steve Schirripa (Anthony is our film and Bobby Bacala on the Sopranos) from his days as the entertainment guy at the Riviera casino. Once Steve read the script, he asked if we would be interested in Michael. Um, yeah. The funny thing is, having Steve on board really started the Breakdown Services avalanche, where we got Pat Morita and Michael Nouri.

 

In the end, if your film is good enough, you don’t need marketable actors. But it certainly helps open doors and get your movie seen by people who count. And that’s a big part of the game.

THICK SKIN, SOFT HEART.

“This is possibly the worst film I have ever seen.”

 

The above is an actual quote from a posting at IMDB about my movie, “High Roller.” At one point, a comment like that would’ve bothered me for quite awhile. But no longer. At least not in the same way. Because on my journey through the filmmaking jungle, I learned a few things. And I humbly offer them up to you now; particularly those who might choose to enter the most treacherous of emotional territories: the public creative enterprise. To wit, a feature film:

 

1. The only thing worse than being talked about is NOT being talked about.

Films, and all art, exist only in the presence of those who observe it. To receive a negative response means that someone took the time to respond. Your work was seen and registered. This is why you did it in the first place, right?

 

2. The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference.

As a follow-on to the above, getting a STRONG negative response means your work got to the viewer; it rankled them enough to generate emotion, which is the highest effect of art. If they then go out of their way to document that emotion, all the better. Further, I pretty much guarantee you’ll get positive responses with the same vigor. I did. Polarization generates controversy. Controversy stimulates publicity. Publicity, well, you know.

 

3. Everybody’s got an agenda.

You can pretty much take to the bank that anyone who really goes for your jugular has more issues with you than just disliking your work. It could be that your subject matter or point of view disturbs their self-image (I got chastised by some gamblers for refusing to glorify a legendary compulsive gambler), it could be a simple jealousy issue, or it could be something entirely unrelated to you (I found that one particularly vicious reviewer at a festival had been fired from the festival staff, and had hammered EVERY film shown there online). It should also be said that everyone that gushes over you should be measured at least as carefully, if not more so.

 

4.Criticism helps you grow.

If you can develop the appropriate filters for yourself, criticism can make you better on a lot of levels. First, even the most personal attacks generally contain a grain of truth worth considering. Blow off the rest. Believe me, it gets easier. Second, embrace those truly constructive souls who criticize with intelligence and sincerity. Get more out of them if you can, on your terms. Ask questions.

 

All of this is not to say that criticism isn’t difficult. It is. And because, as artists, we try to remain as sensitive to the world around us as we can, certain types of criticisms, well, they just plain piss us off. But an emotional response usually just makes one look like an ass. And worse, you let the bastards know they got to you.

So as you struggle with the opinions that blow around you as you create and exhibit your art, remember what Eleanor Roosevelt said:

 

“Do what you feel in your heart to be right–for you will be criticized anyway.”

How People Talk.

What is it about dialogue?

 

A few weeks back, I wrote an article about what I thought good acting to be. To be fair, however, it’s not always an actor’s fault if a line of dialogue rips us out of our fantasy world and screams “YEAH, I’M SCRIPTED! MOVE ON!” Sometimes we can, often we can’t. Further displeasure often ensues, because bad dialogue is a sort of betrayal similar to seeing the boom mic in a shot. It makes us aware of the magician’s trick that is film.

 

Very good actors often recognize these lines and fix them, and as a director (and perhaps writer), it’s important to let them do that. No doubt, if you have a good script supervisor, you’ll be notified of the alteration, but your charge is the sanctity of the meaning, not the words themselves.

 

Even better, make sure that the dialogue in your scripts rings true and natural before wasting any time on-set. Here are my dialogue touchstones:

 

1. Forget all the grammar you’ve ever learned: People don’t talk in complete sentences. They start in the middle of a thought and trail off before finishing. Interruptions are frequent. A character that is consistently glib better have a reason to be, character-wise.
2. People make logical leaps: Real conversations are infrequently linear, because people are impatient, unfocused, and think ahead. The best dialogue reflects this tendency, which allows conversations to move ahead much faster and convey much more meaning, particularly in the subtext (what the conversation is REALLY about).
3. Life is physical: With few exceptions, gestures are often far more powerful than words. Nods, winks, shrugs, and even silent stares can convey a lot more about a character’s internal workings than a fancy turn of phrase. Make sure you leave room for them in your scripts.
4. Avoid the speech: Unless your character is a litigator or a politician, speeches should rarely show their ugly faces. They’re incredibly hard to pull off, because in real life, people just don’t make them. Sure, you’ll be tempted to throw them in, particularly near the end to explain stuff, but, well, don’t.
5. Reading is not speaking: For some reason, dialogue that is read silently can seem very natural, but when read out loud, seems ludicrous. Try it with a novel. It’s exceptionally good practice to read your dialogue out loud as much as you can, even at the risk of sounding slightly crazy to those around you at Starbucks.

Best of all, listen. Go to a diner, bus station, or anywhere else you can eavesdrop on people living their lives, and try to absorb the conversations around you. If you’re really dedicated (or a member of the Bush administration), try transcribing one or two. I’m sure it’ll be a bit of a revelation.

The Beautiful Agony of the Subjective

“Objective art is meditative art, subjective art is mind art.”

 

According to Osho, the Indian guru, most art is subjective. That is, it is the active “psychic vomiting” by the creator of dreams, hopes, nightmares, visions, and anything else buried in the mind that is then imposed on the viewer, causing them, in turn, some sort of distress. A bad thing, Osho says.

 

Oh, if my art can cause distress, I am a happy man! Because generated emotion, as I see it, is the pinnacle of art. Forcing someone to laugh, or cry, or get anxious with what is ostensibly a passive medium (it doesn’t reach out and smack you with a brick, after all), is, to my way of thinking, a sort of miracle to be celebrated. So as a filmmaker, I seek it with every word I write, and every shot I block, and every tune I choose.

 

Conversely, objective art, says the guru formerly known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, comes from emptiness, silence, from meditation. It is only from this place then that art can be created that is universal and timeless. He quotes a Basho haiku about a frog jumping into an ancient pond. He does not reference Citizen Kane.

 

I suppose the reason that a great film can never be truly enlightened and “objective” in Osho’s vernacular is because agents are involved. Just kidding. It’s because movies NEED a point of view, whatever it may be. The stronger the better. Otherwise it just lies there. Like an ancient pond, I guess. And maybe that’s the point.

 

Then again, Osho’s followers were convicted of putting salmonella in an Oregon salad bar to sway an election issue in the 80’s.

 

Clearly, psychic vomiting wasn’t their only interest.

How do you make a low-budget project look big-budget?

(This entry cowritten by Larry Boothby, DP on “High Roller.”)

There’s no better way to improve the look of a project than by shooting it on film. Film has a much richer palette for a DP like me to work with, and in my estimation, still is the best way to shoot for a project bound for the big screen. Sure, high-def can look great, too, and is probably the way to go when you’re headed directly for TV (and won’t need to create prints for theatrical exhibition) and are very-cost conscious. But there’s still really nothing sexier than film.

 

Yes, film is expensive, but there are creative ways to get the most out of each foot you shoot. An interesting approach that my DP and I came up with when we shot High Roller was the “diagonal dolly.” Simply put, we set up dolly track diagonally across the line of action, allowing both a wide shot and a tight two-shot to be accomplished in the same take. In many cases, this removed the need for coverage, and added a lot of interest over a static camera. Another thing we did was stage scenes in depth, and allow the actors to work themselves toward the camera. Again, very efficient, even it requires a bit more planning for blocking, lighting and audio. Finally, putting a mirror in a scene offers a lot of opportunities to use reflections, which allows actors to work away from the camera and still capture their performances. Plus, mirrors are handy for bouncing light.

 

So if you’re looking to spice up your low-budget production, don’t dismiss film out-of-hand. It’s still the best-looking solution out there, and with a little planning, can be just as cost-effective.