movie making on my own

Live from Memphis had its Li’l Film Fest kick off party tonight. I’m really jazzed about this thing. To clue you in, Li’l Film Fest is a quarterly film festival held in Memphis, TN. Film submissions have to be five minutes or less, hence the li’l in the name. Anyway this year the theme is Memphis fact or fiction. You have to make a film revolving around a Memphis legend or else make something that sounds like it could be a Memphis legend. Fun theme if you ask me.

At the party tonight they released the secret ingredient. You have to include Riverboats somehow. However it’s not really a limitation ‘cause if you want, you can just have somebody come on at the end and say “man, dudes, I really love riverboats”. That’d be a nice random pot head comment, something from that odd character that breaks in a random moments to spew totally unrelated dialogue.

I have no idea what I’m going to do for this yet. However I’ve got six weeks to get something together. I’ll defiantly try. Well more than try, my camera will have to break for me to not give in something no matter what the outcome. This’ll be my first festival to enter and that just makes me oober happy. The winners of the festival, besides getting moolah, also get their film entered into the Memphis Indie fest. And that…well that’s just fucking fantastic. In all seriousness, fantastico.

Here’s the Li’l Film Fest website. If you live in Memphis defiantly check this out. Even if you don’t live here, there’s some cool and cute little shorts on their website from previous festival.

Oh and one last comment: the Live From Memphis studio looks bad ass. Really creative set up. It’s worth the drive to downtown just to sit in there and soak that atmosphere in.

Dog Day Afternoon directed by Sidney Lumet, is one of my favorite movies. I’m surprised it’s not more well known. To serve my growing obsession with it, I’ve compiled a list of some of the best things about it. Spoilers ensue below. Please don’t read unless you’ve seen the movie, or just don’t care about knowing the ending.

The funniest part:

“Sal, Wyoming’s not a country.”

Sonny comes up with the wild idea that he can use the hostages as leverage to convince the FBI to give them a get-away jet. He asks his partner, Sal, what country he wants to go to. Sal responds “Wyoming”. Perhaps this is a statement on the NY school system of the 1970s. A small bit of trivia, according to wikipedia, the real Sal Naturile was only eighteen. It might be that Sal said this quote in real life. The line would have been more believable coming out of a younger person’s mouth.

This part could also be a comment on how people in NYC seem to think that the country ends on the other side of New Jersey. To a New Yorker, Wyoming might as well be another country. Or possibly, and most probably, the line is just there to be really funny. Sal’s dead serious tone is great. He honsetly doesn’t know that Wyoming is part of the same country as New York City.

The most clever part in the dialog:

Sonny has called his female wife to tell her good-bye. She answeres the phone and launches into a monologue about how he’s been yelling at her lately and how much she’s in such disbelief that he’s trying to rob a bank. She just goes on and on and he tries to cut inbetween her speech with no luck. She continues to yammer on and he breaks and starts yelling and swearing just like she’s been complaining about. Her response to his yelling: to complain about how no one can communicate with him.

It’s clever because the screenwriters have communicated in a hilarious way the entire relationship of Sonny and Angela. She complains about him yelling and he yells because she just won’t shut up long enough to be told one sentence of information.

The most interesting film making choice:

The director decided not to score the movie. The only music is over the opening credits. When the opening credits end we find the music is coming through a car radio. On a commentary on the movie, the director says he did this to make the movie seem more real. The movie is based on realistic events after all. This choice makes the ending really cool. After Sal is shot and Sonny read his rights, he’s pushed against the hood of the bus and he’s looking around. The only sound is that of the plane engine. If there had been a musical score it would be going crazy with the ending movie swell. Instead the plane sounds are all you hear. The plane engine perfectly coveys what Sonny is feeling at the moment—white static. His mind is just fuzzed over with the horror of what’s just happened and how bad it’s all turned out.

Something random about this movie that is awesome

There are actual monologues. Seriously, the dialogue in most movies is so sparse. This movie proves that a little short monologue here and there isn’t bad for a script. It isn’t boring. When done right it’s gripping, hilarious, and awesome.

Leon, Sonny’s male wife, has this really great monologue when he first speaks to the cops. He tells of his experience at the mental hospital and what drove him there. He talks about how he goes to the hospital and immediately they begin shooting him up with things. “How are you suppose to get uncrazy if you are asleep all the time?”. This is valid commentary even in today’s society. Mental wards still have this method of just tranquilizing a patient when they come in. What exactly does that fix? It keeps them calm while they’re there, but what exactly are they suppose to do once they are in the real world again?

I edited up this old project I filmed on my brother, Charles, one day when I was bored. He’s a pretty good poet. He writes a lot of song lyrics. He doesn’t make any actual songs, but he writes plenty of lyrics. He has several notebooks full of them. Anyway, you lovely people on the web might like to check it out. the film

As far as my script, (the one we are calling River Untitled for now) , I’ve not been making much progress. Here’s the previous post I did on it, which has a summary of the script, in case you have no idea what I’m talking about.

I did do some location scouting, in part to try to jog my mind and the scouting helped a little bit. There is a park in Southaven that will work for a lot of the scenes. I took some pictures.
I’m thinking of using this pond as where River first talks to the demon. It was kind of creepy looking but that might have been a mix of the trash in it and the waning light.

Below are shots of the playground she stops at and the creek she lives in for awhile.

I managed to find a cool name for the demon. Aeshma. I found the name perusing the web. According to this webiste “In zoroastrianism Aeshma is the demon of rage and fury opposed to Asha Vahishta, the divinity of truth.” Pretty cool all things considered. The name fits the story perfectly, both because the demon is attempting to goad River into murdering her step-father and because its trying to convince her that’s the only way to take control, thus speaking to her a concept that is an affront to truth. There are other ways to deal with oppression besides shooting the oppressor.

One last thing, so you know, I decided to keep the character Matteo. If only because River needs someone to interact with besides a toy bear.

This is a personal thing but I thought I’d share my frustration. I was talking with my mother the other day. I’m looking to get a new job and her suggestions of things to look for are completely off the wall. She suggests trying to advance to something else hotel related and can’t understand my frustration with that. When I was talking to her it was just so odd because she couldn’t see to understand why I wouldn’t want to spend the rest of my life in the hotel industry. Um, hello? Artist. Admittedly, I’m more a bum than an artist because my production output of art related material is very low and sparse with big lags of empty space in-between. However, that’s something I’m working on.

I just couldn’t seem to get it through her head that, no, I had no interest whatsoever in finding a way to get to office level work for a hotel cooperation somewhere (I’m currently a front desk grunt). She couldn’t seem to understand that what I’m striving for isn’t so much an upgrade in pay as an upgrade in the emotional quality of the job. I’ve got this drive inside and I have to find someway to please it or I’ll go crazy. I’m more worried about my sanity than my pocket book, sorry if that’s not rational enough for everyone else. Owning all the hotels in the world has the emotional upping effect on me of zero. I’ve got to do something with meaning to myself. What meaning does art really have? I’m not sure. Shouldn’t I be out helping to save the world or something? Perhaps. I guess when you really look at it art is inherently a selfish sort of career path. If you make it in a creative endeavor it’s all about communication. It’s all just one big word game, or picture game, or perhaps sound game depending on whatever your fix is. And that’s the thing about artistic endeavors, it’s all about the fix. It’s a passion but a passion for what? Something that makes you happy. Anything else feels like a hamster wheel.

It might just be the passion itself that is the drawing effect. People want to feel passionate. It’s an instinct. It’s something primal deep down inside.

All this is not to say I don’t see reality for what it is. I know, it’s not all fame, riches, and glory and the truth of the matter is if you can qualify for a cubicle job and eleven dollars an hour then you are doing marvelous. Or at least better than me. What distresses me is being able to see the likely reality that my life will follow and then to be able to see what I’d like life to be and then to realize the huge gapping void in-between and that even all the hard work in the world might not fly me over that gap. This disillusionment drives me crazy and has for the last three years. Frankly, I don’t think I’ll ever fully cope with the disparity between the world we were promised as children and the world as humans have made it. However, that’s why artists do what they do, I think. It’s the fact that they can’t cope with the mundane reality we’ve built for ourselves. We need our crazy ideas and odd projects or we’ll go insane. That’s why it’s logical to be what we are and to prusue what we prusue.

So, I’m working on a script. It’s something I’ve been working with on and off for awhile. It still doesn’t have a title yet. I’ve dedicated myself to finishing it by the end of the month and then to start filming it by March. This way I’ll have something that’s actually interesting to type about on this blog. Here’s the run down of the plot:

The main character is an eleven year old girl named River. She lives in a home where her mother has recently died and her step-father, stricken with grief, has become neglectful and violent. She decides, due to the circumstances, to run away. She goes to campground nearby, a place she’s felt safe in the past, and sets up a makeshift shelter by a creek. While living there she meets a demon that lives in the creek. The demon argues that River should take control of her life. Why should she be the one ousted from her home when he’s the one that’s violent and unstable? The demon tries to convince the child that the best course of action is to murder her step-father and she leads her to a place in the creek where an old hand gun has washed into the mud. Also, while in the creek, River meets another child, Matteo. Matteo is the voice of reason and he tries to convince her she should go to someone for help. All River wants to do is stay in the creek and hide away. Then the cops find her, living there, and take her to the police station. She is uncomfortable with them and decides not to admit her step-father’s recent violent behavior. Thus, they send her back to the home with him. After another fight between them she is left with the decision of whether or not to shoot him.

As of right now, I pretty sure I’m going to end it with her shooting him quiet bloodily in the head. I see this as her journey from the victim into the attacker. She gains some sort of “control” by this, but at what price? Surely she won’t be very stable in the rest of her life having shot her step-father. However, I’m toying with the idea of just leaving it open. I’m not to sure.

The other decision I’m trying to come to is who voices the other end of the argument from the demon’s side. Matteo might work. As he is another child, it makes it less obvious that all these characters, the demon and Matteo, exist in River’s mind. However, since it’s probably pretty obvious from the get-go that the demon is possibly psychological, I might decide to have her toy bear be the voice of reason and cut Matteo out. River carries with her teddy bear, Nickolas with her when she runs away and she maintains a kind of commentary with the bear. As of right now, the bear never speaks back. Nickolas, does, however, have a voice box and there is a dream sequence in which the bear warns her of an approaching shadowy figure. So, I could have the bear speak the “good” side of the argument on what to do about her step-father. What do you people out there think? Nickolas or Matteo?

Mississippi Rose Lee

This is a short documentary style piece I did several months ago on my friend and former teacher Roz Wilcox a.k.a. Mississippi Rose Lee. She’s a Clarksdale, MS artist and blues singer.

So it’s been awhile since I posted last. Here’s something completely random for you, in case you might ever need to know. If you happen to have an analog video camera and it has AV ports (to hook up to the TV with the cord with the yellow and red ends) you are able to capture it’s footage into the computer. You will need a converter device that will take the AV information and turn in into the 1’s and 0’s the computer likes to read. There is a device called a dazzle that will do this that is sold by Pinnacle software. I’m sure there are other such devices by other companies, that just happens to be the one that I have and how I was able to capture the video from my old Super8 camera. The camera I have now has a firewire port (it calls itself an iLink but it’s the same thing) but my computer does not. The dazzle hooks up to the computer through a USB port and the camera hooks to the dazzle with the AV cord. There is some loss in quality going through the USB port but it’s better than having to sit around with two VCRs and edit linearly. Something I’ve never done but something I don’t feel particularly inclined to ever experiencing.

Now I was taught it in the classes I took but I completely ignored this tip while filming a short film with friends a few days ago. It’s very helpful to leave a couple seconds on a shot before starting the action. I ran into the problem that the dialog, which was being said off screen, sounded incredibly weird because it started right on the cut between two clips. So leaving a second of stillness or at least waiting a moment before saying the line would have helped a lot.

In class, the teacher had us wait ten seconds after pushing the record button before having the take begin. She said it had something to do with letting the video get up to speed. I think ten seconds is pretty severe and I never saw a need for that long a pause. I’m assuming the ten second rule she devised was just to cover you’re a$s in a rare event where something weird happens with the tape. However, all that aside, I’ll remember to leave a couple seconds on either end because it actually does help the clips cut together better. It would also make the cuts easier to distinguish between and find when editing later, especially if you are unlucky and don’t have a program that batch captures. Granted all this can be avoided (the waiting and the unable to edit something so that isn’t cra*) if you just plan adequately from before the get-go. So my other two cents for the day is to say that you can never plan enough when it comes to shooting a movie. If you are like me, you’ll never actually stick to your plan but it’s good to have it nonetheless.

I went to visit my friend Mary who lives five hours from me down in a small town in southern Mississippi.  While there we made a little movie.  This spawned forth from her obsession with the Jonas Brothers.  Project Jonas   

So, while reading up on tips about lighting they say always use at least 100 watt bulbs and there might be something to that.  From reading Rodriguez’s book, they used 250 watt bulbs in their first feature.  The lighting on our little “set” was three normal house lamps.  I think I put one of them too close to Mary cause it reflects off her cheeks a little oddly.  Which is weird that it does this because these are your average lamps with a 60 watt bulb in them.  Perhaps when using more wattage the lights are placed further from the subject.  It’ll be something to play around with as I do more little practise movies.

 We did another short movie on my visit that I’ve yet to edit.  I noticed from that just how much brighter it is during the day.  With sunlight, all I had to do was open a window and anywhere in the room was fine lighting for the camera.  However, with inside lighting we had to get 3+ lamps to get one small area to look even halfway normal to the camera and not incredibly red tinted.  I guess it shouldn’t surprise me, as the sun is a nice burning ball of fire some 100+ times the size of the earth.

If you are trying to learn an art form by yourself it’s important to not exist in an inner void.  Not that your journey should be controlled chasing purely after what’s successful, and in the film world success can be translated into “makes mega loads of money”.  There are a lot of stupid things in the world that make money.  The fall of capitolism would get rid of a lot of unnessary movies for sure.  Still, it’s good to have some handle on what’s happening in the world around you. 

Not all people have trouble with this inner void issue where you just live in your happy space and have no idea of the world around you.  I’m somewhat autistic (aspergers) so it’s a specific hurtle for me.  These are some ideas I’ve come up with to help fix this problem. One, read up one what’s hot in what you are trying to learn.  Since this journey of mine is going towards filmmaking, this is pretty easy.  I’m really bad at keeping up with current events so I subscribed to some movie blogs.  This is one that I like http://fusedfilm.com/.  There are hundreds out there.  Find one tailored to your interests or genre.   

The other, easy way to keep yourself from wallowing inwardly is to find and surround yourself with other creative people.  This will help you keep your sanity, if nothing else.  It’s also important to have a group of people that you trust the opinion of so that you can bounce ideas off them.  They in turn bounce ideas off you and through discussion you can come to ideas you wouldn’t have on your own.  Thus, is the efficiency of socializing and the whole idea that two minds are better than one. 

Hopefully you already have friends that share your interests.  Since I didn’t, except for one (and she’s more a writer than filmmaker), I put up a post on craigslist for people interested in starting an art group.  I thought this would be a good way to find other individuals.  I mentioned the idea of collaborating on a film but that it wasn’t necessarily confined to that.  This way you can meet all types of minds.  Music minds, visual minds, writing minds, the list goes on.  The more minds you can come in contact with the better.  So far only one person has responded to my ad and we’ve e-mailed back and forth a bit.  She was an art director for some student films several years ago.  She seems to have more of a handle on the craft than myself.  This is good.