Bearing Standards

Posted on December 31, 2008

I used to be a staunch critic of certain conservative academic philosophies. A certain university in Texas had a reputation for not allowing underclass students to work in production courses until they had fulfilled a large number of prerequisites. These classes were unpopular because they dealt wholly in theory.  Back then, you could get away with that kind of approach. Equipment was still expensive and complicated. It wasn’t ubiquitous on every laptop, like today. I can’t picture them having the same curriculum these days, with every incoming freshman with hundreds of hours of content on their own Youtube account. (The university that I was attending in north Texas had a steady stream, an impressive exodus, of disenfranchised production majors from the other university in Texas.)

There’s something to be said for giving your customers what they want. College is the place to make mistakes. You, as the student, are the executive producer, you’re paying for the production, you should get to succeed or fail on your own terms. That’s what you’re in college for, to screw up. You do it there so you don’t do it in the field. Your own mistakes are the most valuable of lessons. I know I’ll never professionally repeat the disasters I was responsible in school.

But, you can’t know how to break aesthetic and technical standards until you’ve first mastered them.

That’s the question: aesthetic and technical standards vs. creative license.

Conversely, I’ve known too many artists who won’t take any chances.

My favorite discovery is mixed colors for three-point lighting. The producer I was working for just didn’t get it. We had a 2k broad hung as a cyc-light left over from a previous shoot. We turned it around in an attempt to use it as a back light. It was too strong. The technical backlight-to-key ratio exceeded the 2:1 aesthetic standard for industrial videos. It happened to be hung in the grid on a dimmable circuit, so I suggested dropping it’s power ten to twenty percent to back the harsh edge off. That’s when the producer contributed the only technical input he was aware off: “That will warm up the color temperature!” He protested. (I avoided getting into a semantics argument over the difference between the aesthetic definitions of warm vs. cool lighting that contradict with the technical spectrum wavelength terms defined by kelvin temperature measurements.) I did point out two issues: Where is it written that the key, fill, back, and background lights all have to be the came color? You identify daytime indoor lighting near a window by the bright blue wash. It gets harsher and more golden closer to dusk or dawn. Furthermore, as the client/talent was in makeup and due on set any moment, we don’t have time to rehang that light. Could anybody pass the Pepsi challenge to identfiy the one to two hundred degrees lower Kelvin color temperatures that the ten to twenty percent drop in voltage the dimmer would produce? No? Then shut up if you don’t have anything productive to contribute.

Sometimes you just have to do the opposite of convention. Just for a change, just to see if it will work, because sometimes it does. It just does. And you’ve succeeded in channeling inspiration and achieved artistic creativity. You’re a hero, an artistic god.

And when it don’t work, then it’s something to remember. A bar tale for the ages. America loves a spectacular failure just as much as a heroic success. Everyone still remembers Vinko Bogataj’s agony of defeat. That could be you.

Phreaks and Geeks

Posted on December 30, 2008

I’ve worked with a lot of weirdos over the years.

Off the top of my head, here are some of my most memorable:

The producer who would hit me with his script to cue a graphic change. I was serving graphics for live satellite broadcasts. We all had scripts in fronts of us, we knew what to do without prompting. But he felt it necessary to pace behind me, swatting me with a rolled-up script each for each moment it was time to change to the next slide or lower third, etc. In a two hour show, we had hundreds of graphics cues.

I had another director during live broadcasts who would give me a verbal cue for graphics changes… a second too late.  I finally had to put my fingers in my ears so I couldn’t hear her. That way I could concentrate on my timing without her distractions. Later, I would wear headphones just to listen to program feed for the cues.

Another thing she did was to torture me when Iwas floor director for her broadcasts and pre-tapes. She kept wondering why the shots didn’t match between program and preview.  The engineers repeatedly told her that the preview monitor CRT was dim and dying , but she kept demanding that I adjust the lighting or exposure.

I had a director who though we should light for an F5. The broadcast was utilizing three actors and four cameras on a  1600 square foot set. Our most powerful instruments were a handful of 2k scopes, broads, and Mole-Richardson Jr. fresnels. The equivalent lighting plot we normally used, with our 1k instruments, netted and F-stop between 1.8 and 2 (depending of the focal length.) If we had twice as many 2k instruments, we could have made it to 2.8, maybe. I tried to halve the light plot’s subject to instrument distance. That would have got us to 4. But, he proceeded to make fun of me when that lighting plan invaded the wide shot’s composition. He couldn’t be persuaded that it would not work. After several vain attempts, we ran out of time and went with the original lighting design. Of course, it worked just fine. Even though it was physically impossible to achieve, he blamed the failure to reach an F5 on me. He was never able to justify why he wanted more light. When I asked about greater depth of field or brighter long lens shots, he still couldn’t provide an answer. To me, that indicates a profound lack of knowledge about light and optics.

Another director would eat and snack. The smacks and crunches heard over our headsets would irritate other crew members, but I didn’t really mind.

Another would, for some reason,  duplicate all of our show’s graphics. We would spend most of the previous rehearsal day creating new Chyron graphics from product still-stores we’d shoot. He insisted upon this practice, even thought the client brought in their catalog for us to scan still stores from.) Also, the client would provide slides ready made for the broadcast with appropriate copy. His intent was to use both. Thus, he would then get confused about which graphics to serve. Then he’d order up thewrong ones, and we’d constantly be behind the script.

I’ll never forget the director who would get high with his DP before shoot.

Or the one who was deaf, but didn’t inform anyone on his crew.

The one on steroids.

Guerillas in the Midst

Posted on December 29, 2008

I love the smell of desperation in the morning. It smells like… freedom fries.

Guerrilla filmmaking. Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose (Except the second mortgage I took out on my house to finance this film.)

I’ve expressed my love of shoestring micro budget projects and the flexibility and creativity they afford.

There’s several conditions that you have to get used to.

You have to get used to rubbing elbows with the unwashed, the low-brow groundlings, the serfs. You have to realize that there’s nothing wrong with working with amateurs. A good director can motivate, train, lead. It doesn’t matter if you’ve dug up your crew from Craigslist or the street corner. If they’re students or vagrants, you can get something done with them, as long as you communicate with and respect them just as you would a seasoned professional. Feeding them helps too.

If you’re hungry enough, no logistical obstacle will dissuade you.

My favorite realization was the fact that all films can expand or contract. All  projects have scalability, wherein you can appropriately raise or lower the production values, schedules, and concepts, according to your available resources. Just be selective about which shots, scenes and sequences can afford extra attention, that is, which are your set pieces. The rest will have to be leaner. Sure, call it a Gestalt approach to production management: not that form follows function, but resources dictate form. I’ve designed whole projects around what talents, tools, and facilities my collaborators could provide.

Of course, there’s plenty to be said for artistic integrity, sure. We’ll go ahead and put that on your tombstone, pal. You have fun following your ethical guidelines. Have a blast stroking your moral code. But , eventually, you’ll get bored and hungry enough to get up off your ass. You’ll see that there are opportunities you have to comply with. There are chances to work that you cannot pass up (aside from the usual survival reasons: food, shelter, fire, water.)

Oh no. But your career, your precious pristine career. Shut up ya big baby! You have to compromise. If he hadn’t done that silly Pringles commercial, we wouldn’t know who Brad Pitt is.

Steven Tyler said “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.” Stretch yourself. Learn something new. Learn a new piece of hardware or software, get in shape. I jumped out of a plane.

I’ve seen so many talented artists refuse to work under any circumstances other than what they deem perfect. Meteorological, astrological, political, fiscal, demographical; their tastes and standards were impeccable. Which, of course, means that the climate conditions are never met, so they never do any work. Let me repeat that. They never do any work. Is it because they would rather be doing nothing than anything? I’m not asking for snuff porn. I’m not asking them to dance around all day, outdoors, at noon, in a giant foam costume, in August, in Texas. Just a few hours of work and fun. I’ll even bring the beer. It’s like recycling, alternative energy, or the economy. If everyone pitches in a little bit, the result is enormous.  T.E.A.M.: Together, Everyone, Achieves, More.

Christmas

Posted on December 25, 2008

Each year, Lori and I get back from her parents house on Christmas Eve around nine o’clock in the P.M. We spend thirty minutes to an hour getting the kids in bed and securing their slumber. Then we wrap stocking gifts from Santa. A bottle of wine and a movie fill the time. Then we shoot a short film about Santa’s visit to the Massey house. Somewhere between two and three A.M. we post the project to DVD in Rachel’s stocking and crash into bed. Tomorrow’s another wonderful Christmas morning watching Dad prance about in a red suit and white beard.

A New Project

Posted on December 24, 2008

From the 15th through the 19th of January I’m leaving for New York city. My friend Charles Statham is performing in a one-man musical about himself: 3 Dames Make a Queen. The writer/producer Angela Gant (another of my life-long friends) has asked me to shoot one weekend of performances for the purpose of producing a… Well, I need to find out exactly what their intent is. I hope over those five days we might be able to Guerrilla style a feature. Chicago meets Once. Why the hell not?

 

This will be my Spring project. As for the summer, I have an idea…

What You Wish For

Posted on December 23, 2008

Several years ago, I was working as a technician in a local studio when a new group of producers was hired to replace others that had “moved on” (Some of them had been “promoted to customer” as we liked to say. It was a good house cleaning.)  Another technician expressed dismay at being passed over for promotion (he was even brought to tears!) He told me that all he wanted to be was a producer there. I wasn’t Santa, and he wasn’t a cute intern on my lap, so I couldn’t give a chit about his opinion otherwise, except for one thing. I refrained from bringing up the facts that he was younger than me, had less education, less experience and less seniority than me (and, therefore, wasn’t entitled to a promotion before I was.) What I did wonder is, why? Why would you want to be a producer here? Here of all places. All we did was cheap industrials, shooting meetings and speeches, VHS training videos, and duplication. Occasionally there was a cool project, a documentary, commercial, out of town seminar in an exotic city. But, all those projects were cock-blocked by the senior producer. Nothing cool was ever left for the groundlings (They didn’t do that much business.) So, why? Of course that was a rhetorical question. He had no real answer. He hemmed and hawed. I didn’t press him. But, we all knew the answer:  he only wanted the big chair. Since he had no tangible skills, knowledge, or talent, it didn’t matter where he sat. It didn’t matter what kind of crap he put his name on.  As long as he was schmoozing and telling jokes and charming clients and flirting with actresses, he didn’t care. As long as he didn’t have to climb a ladder to hang a light, monitor an audio meter (much less be required to know the difference between VU and PPM), or coil a cable, he was in charge. What he wanted was the fantasy: PA’s and interns bringing him coffee, meetings with clients, crew following his orders, an office with his name on the door. He didn’t see that this business plan, his preferred career path, would lead him straight into being another of the exact same useless, clueless, talentless producers we had just fired.

If Only the Good Died Young

Posted on December 22, 2008

Massey Max 2 from John H. Reynolds on Vimeo.

Back in the Summer of ‘08, John Reynolds and I shot this Max Stallings concert at the Granada in Dallas. This is the single from the album we cut into this video.

Leagues of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Posted on December 22, 2008

I’m fond of what Shakespeare had Polonius say, “Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel.”

I’m loyal to my friends and colleagues for a reason: they make it easy. They’ve proven to me time and again why they’re my compatiots.

I especially enjoy our bonds of fealty because they teach me the better side of humanity. They have a superhuman ability to be able to put up with my faults, and they do so with dignity and patience. I’ve insulted, berated, yelled at them, thrown tantrums, walked off sets, shut down. I’ve caused accidents and been responsible for fatal flaws in projects. They’ve had to haul me to the emergency rooms, mopped up my blood and puke, consoled distraught parents and lovers I’ve destroyed. They were true friends to me when I couldn’t be one to them. But what makes me appreciate them is what happened afterward. Later, when I apologized and made amends, those I could still work with and be social with, we had stronger relationships because of it. I haven’t been too afraid to apologize when I’ve made an ass of myself. They make me strong enough, brave enough.

I practiced their generosity on others who would abuse me. It was the test of our friendship. I’m still devastated when it fails. When I fail. When they would betray me, I would then attempt a reconciliation with the best of intentions. They would pay lip service to our negotiations and then we’d fall straight back into the same destructive patterns that led to our conflict in the first place. Eventually, we couldn’t work together anymore.

It reminds me of a specific lesson in Karma I watched one director experience. This director was so powerful, had cornered the market so thoroughly, he could afford to abuse and disdain his casts, crews, and clients. When the market contracted, he couldn’t understand why he was unable to call in a few markers. More, than that, he wanted free work from them (work that was designed to promote him, not them.) He had no band of brothers. No loyal friends he had supported and promoted. I doubt he learned the life lesson.

That’s what your core troupe of merry men is for. To propel each other as part of the whole, one for all and all for one, into larger adventures, grander success. Conversely, you need them and they need you, for shelter and sympathy against calamity. You can’t do it alone. Call on your friends. Adventure and adversity breeds endearment.

At this level, Momentum is success

Posted on December 18, 2008

Consumption isn’t production. You don’t develop any skill at any portion of media production from watching. Sure, you can learn a lot from observing the process and products of your peers, but only in context, stark juxtaposition against your own experience. That, of course, is the chief word: experience.

My old acting professor gave me this widely held mis-perception: “You too can be a great actor, all you have to do is watch enough television.”

 Stephen King repeatedly relayed his exasperation at people who would express a great desire to write and be a writer, and would then ask him how it could be accomplished. His answer to them: write.

Ron Howard said to Tom Hanks, “Don’t be afraid to shoot.”

It’s true. Shoot anything. The budget doesn’t matter, the format is irrelevant, the content, cast, location, the medium; all of it doesn’t factor as long as you’re working. Working is doing, doing is learning, learning is being a fim-maker. The least you could be doing is a worth a million times your empty words, your useless bragadocious machismo.

The water coolers across the globe resonate with loud conversations the amateur brilliance of people like Derrick Comedy, Waverly Films, Good Neighbor, Poykpak, Fatal Farm, Olde English, Brittanick, hell anyone on superdeluxe, stumbleupon, funny or die, college humor, and the youtube de jour.

These artists are loved and respected contributors to our national identity. 

Compare that to the work of  other… voices who elicit… different opinions from the audience:

Who’s career would you rather have? Collum A: Friedberg and Seltzer’s, Boll, Emmerich, Schumacher, Dugan, Carr, Bay, Levant, Shankman, Brill, Robbins, Ratner, maybe the Wayans?

No, clearly you’d prefer Collum B: Apatow, Anderson (the other one), Lynch, Scorsese, Cohen, Soderbergh, Morris, Cronenberg, Lee, Linklater, Fincher, Boyle, Scott (the other one),Van Sant, Nolan, Cuaron, Bird, Reitman, Wright, Greengrass, Eastwood, Forster.  

Who would you rather be? 

Well, right now you can’t be in either category. (By the way, why would you be content with being either a fraud who produces nothing but hot air or one of the sell-out hacks who’ve plateaued and crashed?) Anyway, thankfully, there’s a third option. So, why sit there as a loud mouthed jerk with no reel, when you could be an American garage troupe viral video a la mode darling.

It was Benjamin Franklin who said, “Never confuse motion with action.” I saw that sentiment bastardized in the most cynical motivational poster. It was hanging in some douche-bag’s office. it said, “Never confuse motion with success.”

I need to disagree. Any momentum at the independent level constitutes success. Go get some.

Motion Pictures

Posted on December 17, 2008

Talking heads. Interviews! Jesus Christ, 20/20, Barbara Walters! Who in the audience still cares about Chatty Kathy? Yak, yak , yak! 

I remember when I grew to dislike the talking head. We were held hostage for thirty five minutes at my graduation while the honorary doctorate recipient and guest speaker yammered on incoherently and we all lost our buzz. That was the last time I paid any attention to someone flapping their gums. (Nowadays, at least there’s a game on every phone to occupy you.)

The talking head. Only Erroll Morris can pull it off (and he had McNamara!) Sure editing can save you. Keep telling yourself that. Yeah, editing can make anything coherent and efficient and amusing. For example, just look at jump cut montages of George W. Bush’s malapropisms. That’s entertaining and informative, for about a minute. Beyond that, it’s completely devoid of real, valuable content.

The cutaway to B camera won’t save you either, no matter how much the crew strays into frame (Hi, mom!)

They’re called motion pictures for a reason. Something should happen. Make something happen.

Unless you’ve got Stephen Jones talking about his father, or Tom Cruise laughing maniacally, or a Russian anchorwoman stripping to the financial report, your talking head needs help: B-roll, graphics, animation, re-enactments, expository subtitles/lower thirds. Come on! Exploit the medium!

It wouldn’t be a cliche if it didn’t have a mote of truth: Show it, don’t say it.

I first realized this while attending a performance of City of Angels (the Broadway musical, not the Nicolas Cage movie, you vulgarian.)

Rene Auberjonois plays the producer. His first act song “ The Buddy system”:

“Movies are shadows: they’re light, they’re dark.

They’re faces ten feet high. Close of of him. Close up of her.

Cut to close up of husband watching close up of her watching close up of him!”

“I would never cannibalize or repair a single hair or phrase of your amazing opus.”

“Don’t cling to the words to which you gave birth. Remember how many a picture is worth. The odds are a thousand to one, so get used to it.”

“In motion pictures, words are carved in marble.”

My first film, The Runner Stumbles, was an epic. No script edits from the original play. We did the whole thing! No segue montages, no ligature intra-scene footage. TRT clocked in at two hours! My most horrific moment was at the premiere. I had edited the monologues as one shot. One cut. One take. Not even a reaction shot or an introductory/closing wide shot. (I was also lazy in the shooting: not even a zoom to raise the dramatic tension.) Being a theatre major, it was instinct. I had been trained (read: brainwashed) to honor the author’s vision at the expense of the world. Most importantly, I used the monologues as a way to expedite the post process. We were running out of semester. The premiere deadline was breathing down out necks. So, keeping the monologue moments as one shot, it jumped us forward three or five minutes in to the future of the film/script and saved us a few hours work. I was 24. I should have known better.

It was horrible. In a full length, two act play there are about six important monologues. Every single time, once the monologue started, the scene turned so flaccid and rank. All tempo and dramatic energy just fled the screen.  It literally turned cold in the room. Sure, the actors did their best. They were amazing. It’s just not theatre, where you can do that. I should have exploited the medium. (Eight months later, I saw Kenneth Branagh make the same choice in Hamlet, so I don’t feel so bad. But, at least he moved the camera. Some examples of that choice’s success: Rene Zellweger in ‘Down With Love’, Matthew McConaughey in  ‘A Time to Kill’, Kevin Costner in ‘JFK’. But, in those films, it was only done once, as a device to aid the climax.)

There is a school of film-making, Anthropological, that strives to make no decisions about the content, subject, or audience expectations. It records the event from start to finish, one camera, no cuts, no graphics, etc. There’s much criticism against this style, but it has it’s uses in creating valid primary sources for history research.

It reminds me of a story one of my instructors told me in grad school. The producer said,”no B-roll.” She didn’t want to waste any of the precious 16mm film on shots she thought they wouldn’t use. They were following a Cuban beat poet in Miami. Later, they took the him back to Cuba to shoot the subjects of one his poems (You know, since it was about his barrio, beauty shots of the location would seem to be the main goal of the trip. ) But no, she continued in her assertion that B-roll was not needed, derided MTV quick-cut editing, etc., yadda…

You know the end of the story: months later, against the deadline, they had to go back to Cuba. The grant money was all spent, so she had to fund this excursion herself. The punchline: now, it was the rainy season.  Continuity between the interviews against the B-roll was non-existent.

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