More about filmmaking

Sorry I haven't posted for a long time. These musings are something I've been thinking for a long time.

When we set out to make a movie, we have an idea what should it be. We have an idea what the story is about. In a perfect situation (and of course, those happen VERY rarely), something draws us to the story, we are inspired to make that movie. And that inspiration should be sent by the director to the rest of the crew, particularly the actors and the cinematographer. But what are we really making movies about?

Matt Dillon said once that a director has no moral obligations. Films are about entertainment. I beg to differ. A director has a moral obligation, but not to the audience. His job is to entertain them with no stops pulled, indeed. But his obligation is towards the film's characters. I believe that if we stand by that obligation, it will be easier to inspire actors and the crew. Except doing a fun piece, or not always so fun (some of the best thrillers/dramas around are shocking to the audience on certain levels), but gripping, we are telling a story about certain piece. Personally, I wouldn't pick a project with undeveloped characters. I want them to be as real as it gets and when we make what looks great on paper into real people with their emotions, aims and actions, we see that this is what our work is about. Unless one is Michael Bay, who, with notable exception being possibly The Rock, makes nothing else than randomly edited handsome shots of buildings and/or people blown up in various fashions, what drew us to the story were the people that the story is about. We have to tell THEIR story, make them live.

It looks very easy, doesn't it? Especially for me, a person who never really made a film yet. In my most recent post I've been quoting Ridley Scott a lot, mostly because I really look up to him and admire his working method. How do I know it? Through making-of documentaries, through his DVD commentaries, where he's very candid about his process. I never saw myself as a visual director. While I admittedly see shots and whole scene (also hear them!) in my head, I never thought of a visual style for a movie. Yes, of course, some particular ideas do appear when you prepare a story in your head. Some movies will work only with dolly shots and/or steadicam setups, some may use only pans and tilts, some have to be made hand-held for one reason or the another. I am not talking about that. There are thoughts I honestly haven't ever thought about before seeing the directors in action in those making-ofs. It's not about setting a tone, through specific lighting, color choices (where production design comes in really handy, thanks to Michael Mann's commentary to Heat I realized how it can define a character). It's about thinking about everything. Great directors helped me realize that planning is the key. Ridley Scott goes on location hunting, personally supervising the process. Michael Mann makes direct plans about where each little building should be. People working on Heat described preparations for the shoot-out on streets of LA as planning World War III. What you need to have in your head is the direct design (architectural, urban) of the location and who is where, when and where can we put the cameras to shoot it. Defining a visual style, through it, makes the work more comfortable to actors. I knew the intellectual and psychological aspects of the movie. I understand the characters, their aims and hope to make them three-dimensional, but never quite thought of the visual language behind those aspects.

Everything can put an actor in character and everything can be something to build a character on. I've heard of actors knowing their characters after dressing in the costumes. I've heard of actors who got their character by merely learning their distinct accent. The atmosphere of the scene is in the air right on the set. The looks, the light. And again, Tom Hanks recalled that when they were shooting the Omaha Beach landing for Saving Private Ryan, they weren't really acting, when the cameras were rolling. The explosions, everything around them was so real, that their reactions were genuine. Genuinity, naturality, that's what we aim for, but only in context of a specific convention, which you can read in a good script. For a movie like Saving Private Ryan genuine war terror and training is the key. In Heat actors went through shooting and tactical training. which helped them get into character. This shows one of my favorite things about filmmaking, that I never fully realized. Sure, when you write a script, you have to know the subject matter. You're not gonna make a war movie ending with a karate duel between FDR and Emperor Hirohito and not only because Roosevelt was confined to a wheelchair during the war (not to mention that he died before it ended). The research there is necessary, because we strive for some sort of realism. Even if we make the most absurd comedy or purely surreal drama about dreams, when we set a convention, define the language of storytelling, we have to be realistic in boundaries of the convention, even if we are completely aware of breaking all the boundaries before. That's what makes the first Matrix such an amazing film. Breaking rules of the real world and pure unrealism when it comes to stunts was built into the convention from the beginning. That's what filmmaking is really about. You have to know your boundaries and good research is what helps one know where they can break it.

Filmmaking

OK, so I want to be a filmmaker. But what is REALLY filmmaking? Much more than just looking in the camera on the set and talking to everybody pretending to be wise and know everything about the characters, no.

I believe that directing films is about creating worlds, convincing worlds we are immensed in. When I define it in such a neat formula it seems effortless. Anybody working on a film (that is not including me, yet, I base it on documentaries I saw) knows that this work is extremely difficult and stressful. I appreciate actors and every member of the film crew, because they not only devote the film to a certain fixed (that is director's) vision of a film and if a director is sensible enough, he is able to go beyond his fixed vision and listen to his cast and crew. And this good director earlier managed to make his cast and crew care enough for the story depicted in the film or any aspect of it (namely, characters), that everybody knows that the aim is to make the best film possible and the remarks they give to the director are what they believe is good for this very aim. Director isn't the wisest man of Earth, even if, as said by Ridley Scott, he is the God of the movie. Of course he is - he creates the world! But still, this god is also a human and as a human being, he can be wrong. This also demands a lot of security from the filmmaker (something what I'm working on myself), so he doesn't feel that ANY remark given by other people on the set is against his vision.

Ridley Scott, one of my masters, truthfully said that you really make three movies during the period in which the film is made. First "director" is the writer, who makes a movie on paper. The emotions, the characters, the personalities, the drama - everything is already in the script. Second movie is made on the set, where some things in the script are bound to change, some things change due to sheer reality - you can't make all the neat shots you planned, because the atelier or the location simply may not allow them. And you must adapt, right there! A film director is said to make the biggest amount of >responsible decisions of all the jobs in the world. Also, he deals with people and little things based on the human factor, do make a change. That's what I believe. Third film is created during the editing, because you can make thousand of movies from the same material, all depends on the chosen shots - the information you decide to give or not to give.

All decisions, while made quickly, must be made with a lot of thought. The quality counts, not the quantity. That is, even the best have made bad films. Spielberg did Hook (far from perfect, sorry), Ridley Scott did GI Jane and Hannibal. Nobody is perfect. And being imperfect sometimes may be an asset.

Another concern for the director is his cast and crew. They give themselves, emotionally and time-wise, to the director and that demands a lot of respect. Whether they give you your best it depends really on you. They are people and they need inspiration. I hope I will be up to this job, because it all sounds so easy and really is one of the hardest jobs ever...

My dreams

In one of my recent discussions with Liri, and some discussions with other friends, I came out to be a dreamer, but only a dreamer. Only now, when I'm 24 and the year has just started, I started to do everything to seriously pursue my dreams. For those that don't know it, I want to be a film director. Hard job, I know, and the more I know about hardships of it, the more I want to do it. It's a big challenge.

I posted a rough outline about plans to become a filmmaker, again, thanks to Liri, and decided that this year I will film something good enough to post on youtube (though not too coherent storywise maybe), next year a more serious short movie and by 30 I will debut as a feature filmmaker. I do have some projects I could pursue as my first. And I do have a talented actress, whose name I mentioned at least twice in this post ;). Yes, guys, I stand for it that Liri Sheridan is a big talent and deserves her breakthrough.

But aside from that. What are dreams really? I know that in some cases, dreams are the only reasons that keep people alive. I do know such people and I think it would be unfair and disloyal to them to share their names on a public blog. Definitely though, dreams give us power. They give us the rhythm we live with. Sometimes we quit them, because they seem unreal. I don't want to sound like the oh-so-popular positive psychologists, but what we believe in becomes our reality. I could refer to other psychologists here, even social psychologists, like Elliot Aronson, who speaks of it a bit in his classic work Human - A Social Being. I decided to fight for my dreams. I am looking for my weapons and preparing for the struggle. But it's worth it. And you know, knowing that there are a lot of people who believe in me, yes, they do!. Knowing that makes me want the job anymore and believe I will pull it off!

Thanks everybody!

Hello!

Hello guys and gals.

The title of the blog may be some of the nicest phrases and metaphors for just life. It's a title of a Rilo Kiley album and song and I want to thank my great friend Liri Sheridan, whose blog you may read here, for letting me know of their existence. It's a great band, even if their last album (Under the Blacklight) isn't the best. The frontwoman, Jenny Lewis (yes Liri, she RULEZZ), made up for it with two really cool solo albums - Rabbit Fur Coat (with the Watson Twins) and Acid Tongue.

Here I will write about my own ups and downs, or to use the name, take-offs and landings. It's life, real life and I hope that what I want to do here will make some sense and maybe make some of you think :). Positively of course!