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.

Art and Teamwork: Collaboration vs. Auterism

Posted on December 16, 2008

There are two pillar ideas that permeate this industry. The first claims that this is the most collaborative art, science, and industry mankind undertakes. The second is the celebration of the auteur. These seem somewhat mutually exclusive.

Collaboration vs. auteur-ism (yes it’s similar to autism, they both are characterized by parallel symptoms: they live isolated and can’t relate to anyone.) If you consider yourself an auteur, a renegade cavalier, you will quickly find yourself in predictable circumstances. If you have enough money and time, you can overcome your own hubris with sheer brute force of will (and pay others enough to put up with you.) But most filmmakers with this perspective will find ever increasing isolation and rejection. Therefore you must learn to efficiently work and communicate with others. Otherwise, all your movie making will have to be done by yourself.

Valuing the intrinsic perspectives and opinions of your peers will benefit your efforts. How? It’s simple:

Remember: the dp, gaffer, ac, even the grips all have more production experience than you. you can exploit their experience. They’ve seen it all before. That’s why they’re with you: so you can profit from their hard won knowledge. Listen to them.

Or, you can disregard them. You can abuse, reject, insult, berate, and cheat your crew, your co-workers.  Next, you will find yourself in the same position I have seen so many director in. If you make a big enough ass of yourself, they will eventually give you exactly what you’re asking for: plenty of rope to hang yourself.

These aren’t fast food workers. They’re not slack-jawed, pimply-faced teenagers flipping burgers. These are highly trained, thoroughly educated, world traveled professionals.  These are master craftsmen, artisans. Disrespect them at your own peril.

Your crew will quietly abandon you. If you ignore their suggestions enough, they will stop contributing.  They will now do exactly what you tell them to do. They will stop giving you what you need, and give you all of what you think you want.

But, it gets even worse. They will not only let you swing, but will watch you go down in flames. They can do this to you because they enjoy a unique perspective, an opportunity that you can’t see. This is what you crew can do to you: every team member, from both cast and crew, everyone from every level (even on down to a lowly PA or groundskeeper or security guard) will at least one one occasion throughout production, hold the fate of your film in their hands.

That’s right.

They will observe a moment where a problem with an obvious solution appears.  More than likely, they will be the sole observer of this growing problem. Furthermore, they will be the only one in the position to sound the alert. Finally, they will be in the best position to provide the antidote. All they have to do is exert a quantum of effort. Lift just one finger. They will then make an ethical decision based upon their perception of you: go out of their way just one degree to save you, or watch you burn.

Qualifications for leadership

Posted on December 15, 2008

I was told by one of my family members once that leadership is a trait that some people have and most lack. It’s not a skill that can be learned. Gee, I don’t know about that. I think one of the best traits of a good leader is the ability to learn to be a better leader, if not the ability then an obvious, public desire. Therefore, leadership may be a skill that can be acquired and learned through study and practice. The best ones owe their success to their ability to learn: that is, learning from mistakes, both theirs and others’. But, my favorite bosses were the ones who realized that their subordinates are not subjects from a fiefdom, not their property. They, as manager, existed to service the workers with the resources necessary to succeed the task at hand. To the workers go the glory and credit, thus, to the leader go the workers’ loyalty.

What do I try to keep in mind when I’m in charge?
I do not to ask of my people anything I would not do. I’m not going to stay cool or warm, dry, and comfy while I demand that they roll around in fiberglass in a blizzard/sandstorm/stampede.
I also try to know of every job and task they perform for the project. That means I’ve done my share of set construction, sewing costumes, hanging lights, audio monitoring, live switching, engineering, soldering, acting, dancing, singing, fighting, teleprompting, script notation, gripping, camera assist, loading, driving, dolly, jib, steady-cam, editing, graphics, floor management, animation, producing and directing. I’ve done just enough to appreciate how hard they work at these jobs for me.
I will not allow fool’s errands. I won’t waste any one’s time.
I will not permit injuries. No one need be sacrificed for my project.
Most importantly: Everyone gets credit and accolades. Because, very little of the mission was actually performed by me.

So, what are the basic qualifications to be a director?
You have to have some direct experience or significant knowledge of a few basic areas: acting, blocking, camera, light, editing, audience, distribution, management, story structure, elements of style, etc.
(No offense to the sound department. I left them off that list. It exposes my ignorance, bias and prejudice.)

 
It seems like a long list. But, I’ve worked with so many directors who had so little basic understanding of the industry.

 
My favorite is a cute, little, wrinkly, sprite who had acquired the position through social networking: she dated her way up the ladder (to put it politley.) She could not operate the equipment, didn’t know the difference between a jump cut and a cutaway, thought that alpha channel was a Canadian comic book, and absolutely knew she deserved to be in charge. I injured my back, knees, and feet working on her shoots. She forced me to ride in the back of a cargo van for three days on a shoot that took us through ten cities (you can imagine what kind of driver she was.) I watched in horror as good people were laid-off while she enjoyed political protection.

 
So, you know how resentful I am of people who are clueless of their own ignorance, ignorant of their stupidity, and stupid just because it’s in fashion.

 
That’s why I respect people who are strong enough to learn the necessities, wise to practice the requisites, and brave enough to defer to an expert.  They don’t demand respect, they command it. That’s why people are loyal to them. That’s why the team’s they assemble can build the best products and deliver services. That’s why their customers are as fiercely loyal as their employees.

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