various verbiage

Let’s start w/ the Mechanics:
a) Focus. Can you see their eyes (or most-important eye), CLEAR & CRISP
-there’s no fall-back; everything else can be blurred, but NOT the eyes…

b. Light. Can you SEE what’s important, & it’s picked-out clearly
-Key: can i pick-out the salient details
-Fill: are the surroundings lit too, (keeping) the most-important stuff from being too harsh
-Rimmed/Backlit: is the most-important part ‘framed’
…not necessarily (exactly) like a ‘Studio’ shot
…but otoh– if you can get that ’sense’ in a ‘live’ shot, you’re doing great

c. Motion/Direction. Are our eyes PULLED to the most-important part of the image??
…& this same thing works for moving shots or static too:
-> is the most-important thing, MOVING.
-static shots: from physically moving, ‘capturing the moment’
…them ‘holding-still’– but can you see their ‘interest’, do their thoughts move…
…& if it’s a flower, can you see how it (has) moved, eg towards the sun?
…& if it’s a building, can you see how light moves across its surface?
-motion shots (ie. filmmaking):
…if the key Player isn’t moving, then move the camera: even the (slightest) of Push-In’s
…or cut-in to CU, SCU, ECU…
…it can even work w/ a jump-cut [or even CinemaScope: cf Gandalf & Frodo's intercut ECU's when deciding which fork to take, inside of Moria, "Fellowship"]

.
…but most-important of all:
Does the Moment Tell a Story.

-Beginning, Middle, End
-Who, What, Where, When, Why, How

The Best shots are “Character-Moments”
-they tell us something about Who They Are
-they tell us something about What they’re Thinking
-they tell us something about How they Feel

.
…& here’s a few of my Favorite Tech Tricks:
1) ‘Pin’ the auto-focus to the center-point.
-that’s where the spot-meter is…
(you can always zoom-in, 1/2-press the shutter to set exposure & focus, & zoom-out, change framing, etc…)
-> “Always Expose for what’s in Focus”
…& let the rest blow-out or get crushed, no-problem…

2. Shoot Long, & as-Open-as-possible
-maximize your bokeh!
-ie, f/4 maximum! Borrow a 50mm f/1.4 lens, & see what “really cool backgrounds” does for your shots!
-> “lots of bokeh” = “instant Production-Value”
…if nothing else, it means “this shot wasn’t taken with a consumer camera”

3. Shoot Burst
-ppl’s expressions change fast; so maximize your chances of getting the shot
…you can always delete extra shots later…
…invest in several 4GB CF cards; heck they’re $35 now(?!)

4. Put the ‘most-important part’ on a ‘Golden Mean’ point
(…ie, the ’square within a square’ of the viewfinder):
-WS: the person’s figure
-MS: the person’s face
-CU: the person’s eyes
-ECU: the person’s (most-important) eye
…for more about the ‘Golden Mean’, check out Bare Bones Camera Course for Film and Video by Tom Schroeppel

5. Shoot CMOS !!
…CMOS renders facial tones much, much better than CCD
…CCD’s just don’t blow-out or crush nearly as ‘creamy’; they always look a bit ‘crisp’, ‘digital’… ie, “posterized”.
-easiest test? shoot a face, in a dark room, by candlelight.

.
…oh & BTW?
…if these Shots were’re talking-about are of my Daughter?
-fuckkit– i’m taking a TON
…& i won’t have any kind of discrimination–
…b/c i can see so much in her Look, in her Thoughts
…& each tells a Story, a Story i really care about

…so sorry about that

WHOAAAA!
“300″ *rocked*!!!
…they got the martial-stance/worldview *right*
…they got the training *right*
…they got the martial arts / fighting *right*
…they got the battlefield dynamics *right* — even *better* than LOTR
…they got the politics *right*
…they got the religion/fight-the-gods *right*
…they got the existentialism *right*
…& they even got the relationship [strong-female] *right*

…basically, they respected the Warriors:
-what they believed,
-what they stood for,
-how they lived, &
-how they died.

…iow, it’s not about personal glory; it’s about doing what’s *right*.
…so, so-what if they were a little silly re. the ‘reason vs. eastern mysticism’ part; i’ll spot them that, & they gave me 3 sex scenes & 3 decapitations. DD

…as far as the filmmaking itself, I found the following instructive:
1) the Project started w/ a *great* story: the absolute *Classic* martial story
2. -then- got some great writing & imagery from Frank Miller
3. [but] the Director ignored Miller, -&-
a) pumped-up Gorga, & made her a main character
b. gave Leonidas a son, which made him human
c. created several totemic images, including the ‘Villager Tree’ & ‘goodbye in the wheat-field’

hmmmm.
so Yes it’s true– a writer who also writes core imagery is an auteur (ie, Miller)
-but- he still can be (successfully) re-written, & the story taken to the next level.
…which isn’t usually the case; most times an auteur is re-written, ugliness (& hackdom) ensues.

So yeah– as a long-time martial artist, I really appreciated the care the filmmaker(s) took to get the martial sensibilities right… from physical fighting-form to the mental philosophy. But even the CGI VFX was superb, very much a ‘character’ in the piece, shifting (styles) from scene to scene to augment the storytelling. And finally the storytelling itself was perfect: sparse, direct, like a gut-punch… but (knew) enough to slow-down occasionally, & ‘ease’ into the character scenes.

& finally– Re the IMAX experience (or rather, IMAX projection of a 1:1.85 film)– hm. Bright, new print? Great. Lots of loud speakers? Fine. Large projected print at the upper curved screen? Dunno… this wasn’t ‘IMAX’; it was just ‘big’. (Real IMAX films are shot from POV of lower-third of screen, & biased inwards left/right as well, so all the surrounding imagery creates the IMAX ‘immersion effect’.) I’m wondering– my Toshiba widescreen at home has a ‘fake anamorphic’ mode which digitally stretches the farthest left/right to create the surroundings… while leaving the center-cut the same. Maybe if something similar was done here(?)

…all I know is I saw LOTR in a widescreen theatre at the Metreon, & the experience was v. similar… but cost 1/2 as much. I know that H-wood is trying desperately to get us to come-out to the theatres, but charging $15 for ‘fake-IMAX’ isn’t doing it for me. ‘Real’ IMAX is amazing, & well-worth the cash…

If they really need more ‘eyeballs’ in the theatre, ‘buying seats & eating sugar’, then maybe they need to provide something a lot more compelling… hot & cold running blondes, perhaps?

So the Academy, in its infinite wisdom, decided to ‘finally reward’ Scorsese. Fine… let’s just call this one for “Raging Bull” & “Taxi Driver“, & be done with it. And bonus– maybe he’ll stop whining, stop appearing as “incessant film authority” in all those retrospectives, & start working on an actual film 1/2-way as good as those 2 above. Yeah right.
And btw, so much for all those elaborate Price-Waterhouse shennigans re. ‘guarded briefcases’ w/ their ’secret tabulations’… B/c there just ain’t no way you get Coppola, Spielberg, & Lucas all together to hand-out an oscar, if it ain’t going to Scorsese. Sheeeze, why not just get the ladies from “Deal or No Deal” & be done w/ it; at least they’re waaay better to look at, & seem genuinely compassionate when ppl blow huge deals & go-home w/ peanuts…

But hey– right outta some kind of Howard [no 'K'] Stern’s wet fantasy, we had the parade of those ladies from lesbos:

• Ellen (of course)
  
• Melissa Etheridge, -aaaand-
• Jody Foster!!!

Hottt!
But Oscar ’07’s best moment, has just gotta be when “Departed” took-home the brass ring. Based, as announced, on a 2002 “Japanese”[sic] film, which Scorsese always claimed he “didn’t see” yet somehow imitated so slavishly…

Um, can we all just agree that, if the “Best Film of 2007″ is just a thinly-disguised remake of a very recent, emminently watchable foreign film… then maybe Hollywood hasn’t just suffered from “runaway production’ (ie. Canada, Romania, New Zealand). They’ve actually outsourced their creativity as well.

All Hail you auteurs of “Foreign Cinema”– for you’re making the films we’ll be watching tomorrow, & not just subtitled & hidden in grimey art-cinemas & on the waiting list on Netflix. And for all you purveyors of off-shoring, who keep pointing at H-wood saying “the US still provides the entertainment of the world”… well, reality-check, bitches.

Man that guy can bitch.

For such a self-titled scholar, you’d think he’d somehow forgotten this little list of genius auteurs who never got an Oscar… Charlie Chaplin, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick and Orson Welles. What true filmmaker wouldn’t kill to be listed in their company?
Scorsese absolutely, no-question, should have got his Oscar for “Raging Bull”. Or before for “Taxi Driver”. But you know what? That’d never happen– directors never get the gold for their early films, unless they’re an ‘actor-director‘, or writers who had help or had famous fathers). Instead, like some kind of interminable macabre high-school prom/homecoming court, the “most important award”[sic] in filmmaking is really just a popularity contest. With a couple of guidelines: the film(maker) must be popular. The film can’t tank. The film must never cover new territory, but rather (re)do something that was done before, w/ a bit more opulence, and/or a somewhat edgy twist. And oh yeah, killing Jews never hurts; after a lifetime of making popcorn movies, it’s telling to note that when Spielberg decided he wanted that golden statuette of his own, even he pulled-out the ovens.

So there’s the quandary– Scorsese hasn’t made a decent film in 25yrs. He tries re-make after remake, getting progressively more ostentatious & blood-thirsty. But at least he kept to remaking old films.

But now comes “Departed”, or its real name: “Infernal Affairs“.

Remaking an old film is not at all like making an original film… just like adaptation is nothing like working from an original script. The adaptation already has a built-in audience; we already know that the characters ‘work’, that the story is moving, & the ending is solid. And similarly with a re-make, we know the entire film works, from story to casting to the shots & the music(!) Really, all you have to do is “not f*** it up”. So why re-make? (I mean, other than for the $$, which I’ll give Scorsese the benefit of the doubt about). Usually, it’s b/c the film has been forgotten, the actors on screen aren’t familiar, &/or the setting/milieu looks anachronistic on video.

But “Infernal Affairs” was none of these things.

The film was made in 2002. It starred a virtual “Who’s Who” of top actors in Southeast Asia. It boasts the talents of Christopher Doyle, one of the best cinematographers working today (consider: “Hero“, “In the Mood for Love“, etc, as well as most of the best of War Kung-Wai’s films). The story is very contemporary, layered in shades-of-grey, while exposing-from-inside facets of asian culture other films promise but never deliver… & for all that is edge-of-your-seat thrilling from start to finish. Like an asian “Heat“, but with even more interesting supporting characters.
So why remake? Simple- Scorsese was looking for a ‘paint-by-numbers’ win, & he landed it. Yet, there must have been part of his (now slumbering) auteur sensibility, if not pride, leaking thru– when questioned about lenses by Doyle, Scorsese blew him off, saying “I’ve never watched the film you made”. Funny, in the “Departed” trailer alone I counted 5 exact duplicate shots from “Affairs”. Or how about when Andy Lau, star of “Affairs”, asked Scorsese for a bit part? You-know, give him 2 lines for his SAG pass & help him cross-over into the H-wood market? It’s not like he can’t act or something; he only carried the picture head-to-head w/ Tony Leung, one of the best actors working today (in Asia or West). Nope, Scorsese blew-off Lau completely, as well. I guess Mr. S couldn’t fit-in an Asian in his Irish New York gangland drama (boy, that sounds familar; I wonder if there were any butchers or planes involved).

You know what? Scorsese already got the highest filmmaking award– the Palme d’Or for “Taxi Driver”, & well-deserved it was. Scorsese already has the words “eminent film authority” wallpapered on his forehead, popping-up as he does in every single retrospective for the past 10yrs, like some kind of demented Ebert who actually once made a watchable film (unlike Ebert’s own contribution to filmmaking). So how many more accolades does the guy need?

All I can say is– for God’s sake, give him the damn thing already. He’s no longer an auteur, no longer has taste, & doesn’t even have originality. I can’t imagine what he’d do if he loses… maybe steal re-make “It’s a Wonderful Life”, in black & white w/ extra blood, a la “Sin City”.

Fellini once noted “you only get 8″, but he was able to scrape-out an extra “1/2″. Scorsese should quit pretending he cares about ‘film’, & go bask in adulation teach in some hoary film academy which churns-out Sundance-wannabes. Or produce Michael Bay & Bret Ratner explode-a-fests. But for the love of God, quit stealing true auteur’s work… it’s beneath you, Mr. S. Please don’t leave me w/ a bad taste when I pull-out your old work; you really were something, once.

Wow… for whatever reason, just right about the time I completely give-up on H-wood… out comes something pretty excellent to watch. Last time that happened to me was ‘93, & when out came “Tombstone” & “Carlito’s Way”… which I watched in a single afternoon, sneaking from theatre to theatre, & basically walked-out amazed.

This time, it’s:

• District B13
• Crank
• The Protector
• Fearless

…which, you must admit, only includes a single US film, but hey.

What makes a Great Action Film?

Fantastic action is an absolute must. Stuff flies around, main guy has a passion that is pure, & leaves no stone unruffled gettin’ to it.

Reason for action. Anyone can drive a car fast or knock someone silly; our guy has gotta be ruffling shit for a purpose. “You killed my father” is not-bad… but how about spending some time reflecting on ‘what it means to be’. Dare we say… ‘profound’?
-and-

The Take-Away. If you’re walking-out going “whoa, that rocked”, that’s good. If you’re walking-out going “whoa, that rocked”, but inside you’re quiet… & the next day you’re still ruminating… that’s great.

Truly Great Action Films:

• Apocalypse Now
• Blade Runner
  
• Runaway Train
• Heat
• King of New York
• Seven Samurai
• Hero
• City of God
• Bullet in the Head
• The Killer
• Terminator
• Alien
• For a Few Dollars More
  

Basically, it can be done, people. And why bother? Because faaar more ppl will watch City of God than ever watched Seventh Seal… & I’ll bet were profoundly moved by it more. B/c writing a densely-symbolic allegory is one thing… but to do the same, w/ real-life, living, breathing characters… that’s mastery.
Films aren’t just sausages, & ‘deep meaning’ doesn’t have to be imponderable & subtitled from the French. Jeesh– I dare you to read the subtitles in District B13… you won’t have time.

It all began so very easily to understand– life moves at 24fps, & that life is Good.
But then “Bonnie & Clyde” happened, & we got to see death in slow-motion… repeated, from various angles, in overlapping action. We got to wallow in it, & it made it ‘hyper-real’. So much so that riots happened, & the film was nearly banned.
But, of course, soon every film did that. Until the ’slo-mo’ death scene became not just a hackneyed, expected effect… but it actually became the opposite of what it intended. Instead of emphasizing, ‘punching-up’ death, it instead became a distancing mechanism. By slowing-down, circling-around, seeing the action in repeating layers… we were pulled-out of the diegetic world, & instead were essentially reminded that we were watching actors on a screen, “covered in ketchup”.

So how to make Death meaningful again?

Play it at full-speed.

Anyone who saw Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket” in the theatres remembered the stark end of Part1– fatty salutes, whips the M1 into his mouth, pulls the trigger, his head flies back, & fades-to-black. All 1 continuous motion, boom & he’s gone. I remember a nervous shudder running thru the theatre seats… “did that just happen? holy shit”.

Mann takes that one step further in “Vice”. Crappy film, completely lost-touch with what made the original series great (attitude, clothes, & fast vehicles were secondary to a passionate sense of Sisyphus’ian morality)… but Does Action Right:

Death comes point-blank, no-hesitation, & no slo-mo or repeat/overlapping shots. Lady cop wastes the baddy; Foxx gatts the Big Boss.

And better– Mann does the same thing to sound. No ‘cannon-hit’ enhanced pistol shots; no fuscillade of machine-gun fire. Instead, the final shoot-out has the sporadic, quiet pop-pop which real M16’s & AK-47’s make.

And you know what? Since it’s so rarely seen or heard, reality actually is more impressive than Hollywood glamour.

Nicely done, Mr. Mann. But please– from “Heat” to “Collateral” to “Vice” is a precipitous drop; can we have a more “Heat”-like film already? Please?

My screenwriting teachers have always practiced ‘tough love’, & my fave writer-on-screenwriting is Goldman.
What they suggest is Asking:
1) What’s Happening, &
2) Why [should] I Care?

…& keep asking that, from the first page on. Flip it open to any page, & if the 2 answers aren’t immediately obvious, then there may be issues in need of attention.

Classic Structure is:
Act 1 ends w/ “Hero up a Tree” (with a tangible Want he must achieve… & best if it leverages the idiocyncracies of his Character)
Act 2 ends w/ “Point of No Return” (he’s already overcome increasingly impossible hurdles; but now he has to *truly* commit)
Act 3 climaxes w/ “He got [the tangible something], or He Didn’t”.

* Anything that doesn’t fit that thruline must be ruthlessly purged, or morphed into one that does.
* Any scene which has only 1 purpose must be rewritten
- (eg, backstory PLUS plot setup PLUS character-dev PLUS ’something important happens’ PLUS *surprise*).
- My fave example: the final confrontation between Rutger Hauer & Harrison Ford in “Blade Runner”. But damn near every scene in “Silence of the Lambs” does multiple things too.
* & the Ending must be a Surprise, but Justified. Which means to me: Yes the guy gets the girl, but Not the way we expect, & she’s Not quite completely what he had in mind. Kinda like getting “3 wishes” in Dungeons & Dragons– wish for gold, & you get it… in the form of a avalanche that suffocates you.

Finally– “complex characters, & simple story. Or the reverse. But never both complex at once”.
Which is why “Something About Mary” or even “Dumb & Dumber” work; very straightforward/simple characters, in a world increasingly complex. Mary can be (accidentally) creative in her hair products, or even have a ‘heart of gold’, but she can’t have an emotional transformation. And neither does our hero… what he ’succeeds’ at is steadfastness. Whereas “Annie Hall” has some funny set-pieces, but overall leaves tons of room for Woody to have an emotional transformation… his ‘pitfalls’ are all in his head, not in the scenery.

There– 1 yr of Screenwriting Classes, in 1 ‘post

Wow!

It’s been far too long since I’ve last shot a production, lemme tell you.

So, I’m just back from shooting a live concert, my first in months (at The Avalon w/ an HVX200 in DV50 mode & 2x 8GB P2’s… Yeah!)… And I hadn’t realized just how much I’d missed shooting.

So why’s that? Turns-out, shooting touches-on a terrific constellation of skills–

• creative: where are you gonna point the camera
• analytical: how do you maximize your effectiveness on-set
• leadership: how do you get everyone pointing in the same direction
• communicative: how do you get the picture across w/ a minimum of confusion
• intuitive: how do you ‘fix’ stuff that could/just/might-happen, before it happens?

-and-

• kinesthetic: how do you schlepp all that gear, then shoot all those hours, & not be bed-ridden for a week?

…& then when you’re done, w/ any luck, you’ve got something that looks cool, & entertains (& maybe even inspires) others.

Ah yes… so someone remind me why I schlepp code for a ‘living’, again?

hey– why is Galactica sucking so bad? they even pulled the “Alias
Error”: Season Finale– “…One Year Later…”, ie. completely jettisoning the previous plotlines, not to mention character development (love that the ‘nice sweet schoolteacher’ has become a ice-cold “throw ‘em out the airlock” b*tch. Nice move there for a ‘prophet’).

The miniseries was so incredible.. & now each character is in a rut, & the only ‘humanity’ anyone is displaying is by those 2 Cylons (but they’re hot… hmmm).

I suppose i can stand the character inconsistencies,
fragmented/discarded storylines, low-tek special effects (hey Zoic: low-res cgi shaky-cam & cheesy models looked really cool in ‘Firefly’… b/c the show’s entire look was low-rent & cheesy– the frickin ship was supposed to look like ass! But here in ‘full-on polyester uniform’ville of Galactica, those super-saturated & blown-out crispy digital effects just look like bad circa-80’s Video Toaster)…

…or how about the utterly underutilized character-actor cameos, such as Bill Duke & Dean Stockwell. This is unconscionable– just watch “Predator” (the Sarge) or “Blue Velvet” to see what those two gentlemen in particular can do, when given great scripts & excellent direction. Instead, they’re brought-in, get to ham it up a little, & are then summararily blown-away. You got these guys to play throw-away parts in throw-away plotlines? What were you thinking?!! Just think of Bill Duke as a Cylon overlord… or Dean Stockwell as a mad prophet whose madness eerily parallels the Prez’s. These would be memes that resonated across the entire series, let-alone multiple episodes. Instead, each are whacked, & even that is poorly-written. Consider: a den of thieves, hardened criminals loyal to their boss, & they get cowed by Daddy’s Boy ships away from his backup? Are you kidding me?? Or better– let’s casually destroy the balanced characterization of the prez, & make her a cold-ass killer by whacking Stockwell… w/o even grilling him for information!What a waste.

…or how about all the deus-ex machina’s? Poof, exeunt prez’s cancer. Poof, let’s find habital planets (& worlds chock-full of tillium), just when we need them! Er, I suppose the writers don’t read their own previous scripts, eg. when both habital planets & tillium reserves were described by Adama as “extremely rare… like a needle in a haystack”… & Tie grunts “like a needle on a beach”. I guess it was a beach of needles…

But anyway– I’ll let all that go, or try to… but how about all the huge technical oversights? Excuse me– isn’t this a frickin’ science-fiction series???? Can’t they even get the geeky bits right? Do they think their core demo (dorky, bespectacled geeks w/ photographic memories for myriad, inchoate, parsnickity details) won’t miss a little something like: HOW THE FUCK CAN A BRAND-NEW BATTLESTAR & VIPERS MANAGE TO NOT GET INFECTED BY CYLON VIRII?!!! Especially when every other one was waxed w/in 1hr at the start of the war?! Has anyone ever ‘explained’ that? Don’t tell me “Pegasus” doesn’t have huge networked computers; their control room is like 1/10 the size of Galactica’s. ARRRRGGGH!!!
Let’s imagine The Writers: “Er, um, look-away, look-away; let’s have Starbuck screw-around & get drunk again.” (Which, as a friend pointed out to me, is quite an effective plot-device. But anyway…)
On a more positive note, Number Six has posed naked all over the web, which is very good advertising. Remind me, when i Run a Show, to cast hot ladies willing to get naked. It’s called “Production Value”

I think my v. fave sci-fi ever is “Firefly”. Get the dvd’s from Netflix,
& watch in the correct order (ie, not the Fox-broadcasted mis-order)… Because: “Joss Whedon Knows Character Development”… & he even includes his obligatory “Hot Teen with Superpowers”(TM).

I’m not a rabid fan, ‘browncoat’ or whatever… but I’ve seen the series 3 times now (the film ‘Serenity’ is not that great), & still like it… whereas i don’t ever plan to watch Galactica again.

What a shame… all those Wasted Opportunities… all those wasted dvd-r blanks…