Hello, Sixty, My Old Friend

“Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

The hope was that the search for a good quote for turning sixty would offer something unique and clever, so imagine my horror when most that I found online were dull and uninspiring. 

Bad enough that the fear of any artist is that not only is the "spark" gone, but that it will never come again. Never. No spark.

"You are not turning 60. You're just turning 20 for the third time." (Pretty random. Why not 10 for the 6th time? 30 for the 2nd time?)

"Celebrating he 39th anniversary of my 29th Birthday" (More fun with numbers. And, if we want to carry the Jack Benny joke, why not the 21st anniversary of my 39th birthday."

And, the dreaded....

"Keep Calm You're Only Turning 60."

Nothing is more like nails on a chalkboard to me than the misuse of the British Government's poster at the outset of World War II. This one doesn't even rhyme!

Neil's Young's "Old Man"? Not exactly on point.

"You can't be 60 on Sugar Mountain." Switching 60 for 20 doesn't make any more sense than those bad "Keep Calm" quotes.

I could have gone with Neil's "Better to Burn Out than to Fade Away," except I've been there and done that - five years ago when I turned 55! (Neil seems obsessed with age, doesn't he?)

And that's the point.

As my AD of many years once said to me in a cab after a long day, "JB, it's a young man's game." He's in his forties, and I met him when I was in my forties, and I felt old then.

The exuberance of youth is visible everywhere in film, from the emergence of ideas that come from developing minds, to the strength that comes with youth that helps move all that gear and keep you going on long days, to the beauty of youth that is so sought after in front of the camera.

Especially on low budget indies, where budgets do not always allow you to hire seasoned professionals in every position, there are constantly young people coming taking on jobs for the first time.

I've been one of the "old guys" for about the last twenty years now, so sixty is not likely to be much different than they have been.

Yes, the long days feel longer, and the early calls seem to come earlier, but the process is gradual. Monday -the day after my birthday - will not be a Dorian Gray moment. I don't expect to look in the mirror and be shocked that I look older. That happens already on those early mornings.

The blend of young people on set and those of us with a few more years is exciting. It's part of the magic, at least for me.

I try not to be that "get off my lawn" guy, or the guy who keeps telling you how we did it in the old days.

I'm not always successful at those two above, but I like to think I have enough mindfulness to at least see that I'm doing it when it comes up. The most important thing is that I keep on listening. That's important for all of us. Zen mind is Beginner's Mind. Always be the student.

David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross may have offered us the ABCs - Always Be Closing - but, our lesson is to Always Be Listening. Always Be Learning. Somehow, ABLs is not as alliterative.

I've just started prep on a movie where the director/producer is about a year older than me. We have a lot of years between us, but as it's an Ultra Low Budget movie, we will be relying on a lot of younger people to keep it going. He is also a teacher, and a mentor, and I'm really excited and looking forward to the experience. A fire a number of years ago has limited his mobility some, but certainly not his ability. I'll be proud to walk along side him with my cane (which I've used since in my thirties - so that's nothing new).

When John Huston was directing The Dead, his health had deteriorated, and he was in a wheelchair and had the aid of an oxygen tank. Asked if he was embarrassed, given the reputation he had gained as an adventurer in his rugged youth, he said that only vanity would have kept him hidden in his current state.

"I don't like the part of being bound. But I've never discovered an answer to that question of what does freedom really consist (of). If you aren't fettered by one thing, you're fettered by another."

"I'm not hungry or thirsty. I'm not lovelorn. I'm just at the end of a piece of plastic tubing. And we're all hostages in one way or another." 

As for the spark, I had the opportunity to do a page-one rewrite of a script that I was set to direct, until it got postponed.  That was only a month or so ago, and it's some of the best writing I've done in a while. It was done in a short time, and that came with the craft, the experience.

I was on the phone the other day with "The Ex," who regular readers know is a lot wiser than I am. "Well, I turn 60 on Sunday," I told her.

She passed that mark in August.

"Yeah. The thing about turning sixty is it's better once it's over. You spend all this time thinking about it leading up to it, and, then, when it comes, it's not a big deal."

Seems the spark isn't gone with her, either. Many bows, Maureen, for offering me the quote I was looking for.

Wondering what this post will look like when I turn seventy!

When It's Not About the Money - Part 2 - For The Love of the Game

[T]he job of mass entertainment is to cajole, seduce and flatter consumers to let them know that what they thought was right is right, and that their tastes and their immediate gratification are of the utmost concern of the purveyor. The job of the artist, on the other hand, is to say, wait a second, to the contrary, everything that we have thought is wrong. Let's reexamine it.

-David Mamet in a Salon Interview

There is a common truth about the producer in theater and in film. They are salesmen. They are salesmen that sell art, but they are still salesmen.*

Mamet knows art, and he knows salesmen. He writes great characters who are obsessed with money, and in interview after interview, he distances artists from salesmen and talks disparagingly about producers and the film and theater business and how it's all about the money.

His film producer in State and Main, Marty Rossen (played by the wonderful David Paymer) is a petty little man who cajoles when he can, and threatens when that doesn't work. Or as his producer says in Speed the Plow

"Life in the movie business is like a new love affair; it's full of surprises and you're constantly getting fucked."

The Coen Brothers give us Jack Lipnick in Barton Fink, who alternately woos the titled writer when he thinks that will work, but offers him this when it doesn't:

"I run this dump and I don't know the technical mumbo-jumbo. Why do I run it? Because I got horse-sense, Goddammit. Showmanship!"

And that may be what separates producers in film and theater from other salesmen. Deep down, they are showmen.

The Producer's Max Bialystock uges his new partner, "When you got it, flaunt it!"

But he knows there is no art without commerce.

"Don't forget the check-y," Max tells one of his elderly suitors. "Can't make plays without the check-y."

For some of us, it makes us feel cheap. I have never been good about having my hand out for the check, which is why, in Part 1, I talked about how I never liked that part of producing. This, even though I often describe being a line producer as being a glorified accountant. I'm okay with counting and watching the money, but not collecting it.

Someone has to do it.

The previous post - When It's Not About the Money - was going to be a one-off. However, as often happens after I publish, I woke the next morning to the realization that there was an entire side to the story I had not told. It was not a part of that article, so I didn't edit it. It was a follow-up.

What I have seen in my new-found position of working with people who are good at raising money is that there is a side of the salesman many don't see, and that's the love of the product.

In the past few weeks I have seen producers as salesmen at work, and what I walked away with was how seamlessly they blended art and commerce.

Doug is a theater producer, and if you looked up a theatrical producer in a dictionary, his picture would be there (maybe without the big cigar).

When I first met him for coffee in a hotel bar, he immediately broke into his spiel about his current musical, complete with flyers and cards and props from the show that he carried in his bag, a bag that was seemingly as bottomless as a magician's hat and had whatever it needed.

Then, he played his favorite song from his the new musical he is raising money for on his phone for us. A few seconds in, his face lit up, and it lit up for real. The snake-charmer charmed by his own tune.

When he talks about his current comedy - a hilarious piece he was kind enough to take some of us to - he beams. "I've seen it a number of times now," he says. "A day in the theater never fails to cheer me up."  He offers a satisfied sigh, and you know he truly loves it.

When I sat with Marc, the director and producer for a film we may be able to help get funded, he, too, had all the marketing and social media angles covered, as well as potential tie-ins to his very clever movie about the lottery. Once he talked about the scenes from the script, though, he lit up. He could see the scenes right before him, and that was not about box office or grosses, but seeing a dream come to life.

My producer friend Trevite says of herself, "I'm a closer." She is good at making deals and not shy about making sure investors deposit the checks. While she says she doesn't like being on set (she has the LP and PM and AD for that) the truth is that she has a hand in every side of the creative process, and not afraid to get her hands dirty to make things get done. I got to see the rough cut of her latest feature, and it looks great - not great for the small budget they had - but great like I would have enjoyed it if I had paid $15 in a theater for it.

Maybe that's the difference between producers in theater and film and other salesmen. The dream came before the money, and the dream was not about money but the work. "Whereas money is a means to an end for the filmmaker, to the corporate mind money is the end," says Robert Redford.

This is what separates them from the Willy Lomans, whose boss tells him, "The only thing you got in this world is what you can sell."

A few years ago, I was line producer on a true art film, so much so that I can't give you a simple description of the movie. The screenplay was based on an existential novela and was, if possible, even less commercial than the book. The producer and I had lots of issues with how each of us work, but I never stopped admiring her for raising over $600K for a film I could not describe by a first-time feature filmmaker.

That is certainly talent.

Sometimes I wonder if those of us in the arts embrace the fact that "artist" is the word that most comes to people's minds after the word "struggling" is not just a way of us justifying our lack of financial acumen. The work should be the badge of honor, not the poverty.

Later this week, I will learn if my marriage of these two worlds lands a script and two filmmaker friends that I very much admire their funding. If so, we will be shooting in the Fall. That will make it all worth it.



............

Many people know one of my favorite "poor artist" speeches is by Bill Murray in "Tootsie." Here is a little bit of it.









*As with the term "actor," I use it for both genders.

Plaster - Part 4 - Who Let the Dog Out?

"I don't know what her problem is. She takes her shirt off to do a voice-over. The country could draw her tits from memory."

-State and Main, David Mamet

While Plaster was never completed, it was not without it's memorable moments.

You would think that for a film not to finish, it had an incompetent crew, but nothing could be further from the truth. Charlie, the DP, did an excellent job, and our grip and electric department was led by a gaffer who is now a premiere DP in her own right.

As an AD, Susan was just the ticket. Exactly as I expected, Jean-Baptiste was enticed enough that she could get away with things that a male AD never could have accomplished. 

One of my personal favorites was how she would find Jean-Baptiste when he disappeared from set, which was often. He was under the misconception that the director was only needed when we were actually rolling or for brief descriptions of shots that he wanted.

If he was not to be found on set, it was a good guess that he was off releasing tension with his "assistant." Susan took an unusual approach to finding him; she would bark into the walkie. When he first asked what she was doing, she said it was the easiest way for her to find a dog.

Jean-Baptiste took it as a compliment, indeed; I think he took it as her flirting with him. She knew that tension would keep him on enough of a "leash" that she could make sure he was around when she needed him. Definitely not a tactic you'll find in the DGA guide - but it worked.

If Susan was the good cop, I was definitely the bad cop on this shoot. The opportunity to direct a feature is a privilege; to watch someone squander it was infuriating. His indecision made things harder for everyone, and when he made decisions, they often were bad ones.

For novice directors, the phrase "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" becomes a mantra. They have seen creative directors use unique shots, and think it's all about crazy shots. As anyone who has worked in the business knows, innovative shots still have to serve the story. Weird shots done for the sake of looking different are just a sign of an amateur.

Together, we all tried to help Jean-Baptiste see this, but there was a limit. 

One day, while Charles was taking a break, Jean-Baptiste described a shot to Susan and I that, well, definitely left an impression. He definitely wanted it hand-held, and from the POV of someone in a rocking chair. The shot would start with the camera operator in a squat, looking up at the subject. From that position, he would "rock" back and forth, then get up and follow the subject. 

This was all with a heavy 35MM Panavision camera. It would be difficult with a steadicam; it would take one of those Russian Olympic weight-lifters to pull off with the Panny camera we had. The move would be shaky enough; the rocking back and forth, on a big screen (remember, we were shooting on 35MM with the intent of distributing in theaters) was likely to physically make the audience sick. Besides, we asked, how would we cut with a corresponding single from the standing subjects POV?

That, Jean-Baptiste had not thought through, but he knew he wanted it handheld and moving as well. Susan and I contained our laughter until, that is, we left the room to describe the shot to Charles. I can still see Charles standing there, eyes wide open in amazement, as Susan and I described what Jean-Baptiste wanted. Because neither Susan nor I could contain our laughter, Charles thought we were pulling his leg, so we got to see his reaction again as Jean-Baptiste explained it to him.

When Charlie tried to explain the physical problem, not to mention the editing problem, Jean-Baptiste was furious that we were being "insubordinate." He insisted he would do the shot.

While we relished the idea of watching him fall over under the camera, we had a safety obligation to him - and to the camera. When he insisted, we said we would show him only if the ACs could keep their hands on the camera the entire time. Jean-Baptiste squatted, and we lowered the camera. The ACs never let it out of their hands, but as soon as most of the weight was on him, he fell over. Of course, the ACs held onto the camera, so it neither fell on him nor fell to the floor.

A series of events such as this one left us behind schedule, and my patience with Jean-Baptiste was getting thin. After a blow-up with him on the street outside the housing project where we were filming, I spoke to the producer, Joey, and insisted that he stay on top of him on set, as I was not about to fight him to make his own movie. Joey agreed, and it was here that Joey started sharing that it was he, and not Jean-Baptiste, who was in control of the money, that he was calling the shots. I wasn't so sure.

After our adventures in casting, I  knew the scenes with our hot, busty Latina would be challenging. I worked out the nudity clause with Jean-Baptiste and Joey separately from the actress, who we will call Carla (not her name). We assured her that she could wear a flesh colored thong, as we would not be seeing that region. The scene started with her in a shower, she throws on a sexy kimono, and then winds up in the arms of one of her "dates" as they bounced around the room. 

As a producer and AD, I absolutely love the fact that SAG requires a nudity clause. In years previous, directors would tell an actress that they would show one thing, only to pressure an actress and change that on set. There is a lot of pressure on any actor/actress to please the director, and that often led to awkward situations. With a nudity clause, there can be no misunderstanding. I make sure the clause is quite detailed, to the extent of being downright clinical.

Hey, I have no problem with any degree of nudity. I did a film where two men had to appear to make love, and we spent quite some time describing genitals, positions and angles. I just want both parties to agree.

The nudity clause makes it fair for both parties. I always tell performers that if they have reservations, tell me when we are working on the clause, not on set where everything will stop. I respect performers; I expect them to respect our time on set as well.

Additionally, as anyone who has worked on set knows, any time there is nudity and/or a simulated sex scene, the set should be closed to minimum personnel needed. That number can vary - especially if there is dolly work, etc. but should never be more than needed. Additionally, "video village," where there is access to a monitor, should only be for those who need to be there during takes (lighting and art folk may need it during set-up).

Common sense - and common courtesy - are the basic rules.

Carla was a talented, trained actress who had a lot more assets than just her buxom figure. Jean-Baptiste didn't see the role as anything more than a "hoochie Mama"

Charles and I did all the right things to make her feel comfortable, and, along with Susan, made sure that as soon as we cut, she had a robe. Charles would take time showing her on the monitor what was and what was not in frame.

On a professional set, most crew have been through nude scenes, so everyone  tries to make it go smoothly, keeping respect for talent in mind. 

So, Susan, Charles and I had set a good tone as we worked our way through the coverage, when somehow, the ample amount of skin we were seeing was not enough for Jean-Baptiste. In the middle of a take, he starts shouting out one of his keenest directorial flourishes: "More tits! More tits"

Well, that was clear enough.

Thankfully, Carla was a real trooper, and just started laughing. It broke the tension for all of us. She stood, arms on her hips, wearing just the thong, looked at Jean-Baptiste and said "is this enough for you?"

She was in her early twenties, and her maturity was refreshing. One day at lunch, she came up to me and thanked me for, along with Charlie and Susan, watching out for her. We laughed about it, and, all these many years later, she and I are still good friends. Yet another example that good things can come from even the worst projects, and to always be your best.

There is much talk about women and nudity in film, but it has been my experience that men have much more of a problem with nudity. Carla was doing the scene with an actor a good fifteen to twenty years older than her named Richard.He had a long track record as a character actor on films large and small. 

For all of her nudity, the only thing we saw of Richard was his butt, and not even all of that. Still, there was barely a take where Richard would not ask us what we were seeing, and if it was okay. You would have thought that he was the one being fully exposed. One of my lasting images from that shoot was Carla trying to make Richard feel better about the nudity.

Lest I suggest that we only did nude scenes, there was a scene with a well-known actor that moved all of us, but not before a predictable problem. More on that in Part 5.

1994 - The Wonder Year: The Ones That Got Away - Pt.1 - Divorce and Clerks

Getting older brings many things, and most of them, let me assure you, aren't good.  One of the few exceptions is perspective.

It was only on my recent viewing of Kevin Smith's Clerks in Central Park that I got to thinking of what a pivotal year 1994 was for me on so many levels, but especially for my career. Over the next few posts, I will try to put that year into my new-found perspective.

Much as the era most people refer to as "the Sixties" actually started late in the Fifties, and probably ended somewhere around 1971 or so, if you are speaking about a mood and a time rather than a series of dates, the films and events I'm going to discuss started before and ended after that year.  Still, 1994 was the axis around which most of the events spun.

On a personal level, it was the year of my final separation from my wife, Maureen, though our amicable and non-contested divorce came years later. We separated once earlier, and gave it an earnest second try.

I've spoken before of the difficulties of this business on relationships , and it would be easy for me to blame the long hours, the time away, the uncertainty of the next gig and the set temptations for the failure of our marriage. However, the success of some relationships I know in the business suggests that a split was not set in the Heavens, that, as Shakespeare's Cassius suggests, "The fault (Dear Brutus) lies not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings."

We underlings in this business, and in the Arts in general, tend to have certain personality traits, so many of the things we can blame on the business is actually more a symptom of the business attracting a certain type of person.  I hesitate to generalize us all, but some of the priorities of our friends - stability, a comfort in the status quo, the desire for certainty in our future - are surely not our priorities.

All adults are, in one way or another, just big children; we just seem to indulge the big kid more.  That often means a willingness to eschew the comforts of a "normal" life for the occasion thrills and constant new adventures our profession brings.  It's okay if we get a little less sleep tonite, Mommy, if we can hear the end of that story (or in our case, provide the ending to it). Fine, Daddy, we'll clean out the car (or the back of the grip truck) if it means we get to go on that road trip (or play with that new piece of equipment).

As for me, the time spent dealing with difficulty with my legs before my operation left me feeling like a kid who had been grounded and then given a reprieve. After years of worrying, I was free again, and probably had a sense of invincibility that should have faded with my Youth.  This led to me "celebrating" my good fortune in many ways, some of which were less than healthy, and more than a few of which were unfair to a wife who had suffered with me.

A simplistic way of looking at marriages that succeed is that they are either between mature adults who understand the sacrifices needed to make a relationship work, or between two people who never leave their adolescence and are completely ignorant of what a great relationship, and not one based on need, can be.

Unfortunately, Maureen was a responsible, mature adult.

I usually say of other failed marriages that they can't possibly be one person's fault, that they both share the blame to some extent; not true in my case, where I was the one who was missing the boat.

As this blog covers my life, it's impossible not to mention the break-up here.  In the interest of those who would rather only deal in film history, I won't go into more detail.

Immaturity, however, is not always bad in our business; hence, my re-think of Clerks (which was released in 1994)  after watching it the other day.

I have often thought every great "first work" has a portion of naivete thrown into the mix, and Clerks is a great example.  By all rights, Clerks should never have seen the light of day, no less garnered the level of success it enjoyed.

Cinematically, it isn't.  Truly, there is hardly a shot that wouldn't have caused most cinematographers to be dismissed.  I know that Smith was very much influenced by another B&W film that seemed to be as series of stills, Stranger than Paradise, but, for me, the comparisons in terms of quality stop there.

The story is pretty simple, and the dialogue breaks every convention of screenwriting wisdom; namely, show don't tell.  Smith tells and tells and tells.

From a business stand-point, hoping that a B&W film with no names and a director with no Hollywood connections would get a distributor, no less become the darling of Sundance, seems beyond idealistic to whimsical.

For all of that, Clerks is a very special movie and a great achievement, and we are better off today because it did "make-it."

Clerks has been reviewed so often that offering another review here and  now would be silly.  Let me just say that Clerks, upon second look*, is nothing short of a modern Samuel Beckett film.  Smith hears a voice rising from the mundane chatter of these Jerseyites much the way Sam Shephard and David Mamet heard that voice rise from cowboys and petty thieves, respectively.  It's almost as if Smith had one of those devices they have at the UN, where words foreign become ideas familiar.  While we originally hear "Blah, Blah, Blah" we eventually hear truth, comedy and, yes, beauty.

I did not, um, always feel this way.

There is irony that, when it came out, I rejected Clerks altogether. As a production person who fashioned himself in the model of a previous generation of cinematic revolutionaries, and also a lover of classic Hollywood films, this seemingly amateur work, well, insulted me.

Yes, that is the right word, insulted.  How dare Kevin Smith make a movie this way, and why were all the industry intelligentsia buying into it, nay, celebrating it?  Didn't they realize that this signaled a death knell for the industry and cinema we loved?  How many more "kids" would go out and shoot their own version of home movies and pass it off as "art"?

If this argument sounds a tad familiar, it is because many, like myself, now use similar phrases when describing the "digital revolution."  At least a part of the comparison, and the resentment, comes from the fact that both Clerks and some of the current digital wonders have driven budgets downward, and that has had a negative impact on our living today much as it did in the wake of Clerks.

Those who were not around when Clerks was released, and feel that the current digital trend will necessarily ruin our industry, need to know that the spate of calls I got in the wake of Clerks to do a "no-budget" movie were similar to the calls I get today.

Clerks was brilliant, but an aberration.  There are not a ton of "Clerk-like" movies that came in its wake, though there were many pretenders, much as Mamet and Shephard, and, on a more pretentious level, Beckett have had their pretenders.  There is only one Kevin Smith; thank God we have him, and thank God he broke the mold when done.

I certainly don't think the digital revolution is an aberration, but I think that, as people tire of the more simplistic elements of current digital fare, the money that was spent processing film will go into other areas.  Of course, I dearly hope there is always a place for movies shot on film, and the hunger among aficionados for vinyl and the love of celluloid suggests there will be a place for both.

In any case, it makes no sense for us to extol the virtues of an indie cinema that makes room for new voices, only to decry as blasphemes those whose voices we don't quite get at first listen.

It was, then, a mix of irony and hypocrisy when I later regretted not taking an opportunity to work on Smith's  Mall Rats.  I get a call one day, and the voice at the other end of the phone says "Hi. My name is Kevin Smith. I am directing a movie called Mall Rats (it may have had a different working title)"

I had gotten many calls from directors making their second movies, and many of those first movies were artistic and commercial failures. Still, the voice at the other end would usually rattle the title off with pride, and then be filled with indignation that I had not heard of their "epic."

Now, there was no one in the film world, indie or otherwise, that didn't know Kevin Smith, and his success with Clerks. Still, when he continued with "I made a movie called Clerks," it was with the sincere humility of someone who had not let the instant recognition go to his head.  From what I hear from friends, and from interviews I've seen, Smith still has that humility.  He certainly has not lost his self-depreciating sense of humor, which is part of what makes him so wonderful. Success had not gone to his head or his budget, as he was offering $400 a week, modest for a production manager even at that time.

I regretted it at the time, and I regret it even more now, but I never made that meeting. I was working on another project at the time, and the time overlap just would not work. Something in Smith's voice was apologetic for the low rate, and I assured him that was not the problem, and it wasn't.  While I was making more on the other project, and that rate would have been very low for me even then, I respected Smith's tenacity enough that I would have gladly worked for him.

If nothing else, I knew his next film would get released, and I was getting a little tired of being the "King of Unreleased Movies."  What would it be like to work on a movie that the Indie Big Boys were willing to get behind?

Alas, I would never find out.  I never walked away from a project to do a bigger project - and I had that sort of offer before - and I would not this time.

All these years later, I am still guiding movies with a hope and prayer toward the Promised Land, and Kevin Smith is still fighting the good fight, even using self-distributing in it's current form.

The more things change......



* A very talented friend, Wayne Wilentz, writes a blog called On Second Look, where he does just that, take a second look at movies he saw some time ago.  It's a good practice, and a very good blog.

Beginners Mind, Beginning Again - or the Great Reboot

If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few.

Shunryu Suzuki-roshi, Zen Mind, Beginners Mind

After my operation and the frustration of not working while recovering, I was anxious to get back to work, and this time, really put my focus more on film.

My degree was in Dramatic Literature, and I had never studied film, and was starting to feel a little behind the curve on film sets.  I had worked my way up through every job imaginable in theater, and that was what made me so confident.  In film, I was on the production side, and always dependent on people with more technical knowledge.  With this new opportunity, I went back to NYU and took their Six Week Intensive, as well as a screenwriting course. 

Remember what it was like to be a freshman, the excitement of being on campus for the first time?  Being back on the campus of NYU, walking past students in Washington Square Park, but older now, all those feelings came back to me.   Even NYU’s ugly purple logos looked good to me.

I took a number of things from those few short weeks. 

One was our next to final project.  They would choose two scripts, and then split the class up to shoot two versions of each script.  In one night, I wrote a story of a bookie that desperately looks to collect money owed him.  It was, to be kind, homage to David Mamet.  Hey, it was a class project and we had little more than one night to write it.  I love Mamet’s style, the way he invents his own language that is a slang that we think we know but we don’t.

One of my favorite examples of Mamet’s dialogue is from American Buffalo:

"Lookit, sir, if I could get a hold of some of that stuff you were interested in, would you be interested in some of it?"

The other students loved it, and it was picked as one of the projects to shoot.

The catch was that whoever wrote the script could not direct it.  I am thankful for that to this day.  Watching someone else interpret my work gave me insight into the collaborative process of film, and respect for the fact that the written word is only one stage of the process.  One scene brought this clearly into focus.

The scene was one where the bookie goes to a priest who owes him money.  Yes, in my scripts, even the priests were a little shady.  The priest gives him a small part of what he owes.  The bookie is frustrated, but says to the priest “OK, Father, well, if you can’t pay me, at least pray for me.”  I think I wrote the dialogue a little better than that, but I don’t quite remember it verbatim right now.

One of the directors was French, and in his interpretation of the scene, he didn’t change a word of dialogue, but the action of the scene was different.  We open on a close-up of the bookie saying those same words, but, when we go wide, we see that he is holding the priest’s face over a steaming hot pizza.  He lets the scared priest go as he walks out angrily.

I never conceived of the scene this way.  It was my words but it wasn’t my scene.  It was better; much, much better.  I can’t tell you how much this has helped me not only as a writer, but as a producer working with first-time writer/directors .  The auteur in the independent film world is much lauded, but the collaborative process and the ability to bring others’ creativity into your vision makes for a better tapestry and more energy.  One of the great ironies of filmmaking is that it needs to be one person’s clear vision, but it also needs others input to achieve that vision. 

Then there is the issue of taking credit.  We had two German girls in the class, and they could not have been more different.  One was very serious and studious; the other, a model who wanted to be a filmmaker who could not be more flighty.  Stereotypes come from somewhere, and they both represented their own stereotype; the serious, unsmiling German and the ditzy model.  They were friends, and the serious one would sometimes admonish the model to be more serious, to which the model would reply, “Oh, don’t be so German.”  When you’re cute, you can get away with a good deal.

Writing something in English was difficult for them, and the more serious one asked if I would help them write the script they were to submit for the final project.  I forget how many final projects were chosen, but there were few, and if you wrote the project, this time you did get to direct.  I had written my own project – this one better than the last, and had the time to work with them on their project, which was more abstract.

Of course, their project was chosen, and mine was not.  No good deed…

It wasn’t entirely disappointing, though.  Once again, I got to learn a skill I would not have if I had directed, which was editing.  This was old school – you know, where you hung up strips of film?  You’ve heard about it, I’m sure.  I’ve edited on Final Cut, and, no, I wouldn’t go back to cutting film, but it did force you to make harder decisions.   This was the first time I learned a sense of pace and timing.  Overall, I would say it was a very satisfying experience.

There were other good things that came out of that class.  Our teacher, Thierry Pathe, had a very down-to-earth approach to filmmaking, which I always related to better than complex theory.  Sadly, Thierry passed away in 2002.  I also met a few people I would later work with, including someone who would become a great friend, Chris Kelley.  See, I gave his full name, so you know that good things are to come about him, and, indeed, we would work on a number of projects together for more than the next ten years.