Get the skinny on The Ultimate Filmmaker Competition and the final

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Filmmakers Alliance
Magazine
Spri ng 2010
INSIDE: Get the skinny on The Ultimate Filmmaker
Competition and the final projects, Vidyut Latay shares
her tête-à-tête with the elusive world of the deaf in India,
Octavio Warnock-Graham interviews Ted Hope,
Rob Nilsson challenges Quentin Tarantino, and MORE....
Filmmaker’s Alliance is a non-profit collective dedicated to supporting independent filmmakers in Los Angeles.
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The F.A. Officers
Executive Director
Amanda Sweikow
President
Jacques Thelemaque
Social Director
David Andrew Lloyd
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Mission Statement
Filmmakers Alliance (FA) is a community of film artists dedicated to the advancement of true independent film through
community action. FA provides a unique mutual support system through which members share time, energy, expertise,
equipment and, most important, creative support for one another’s film projects from concept through distribution.
We work together to restore humanity, authenticity, diversity, originality, intelligence, relevance, personal vision and
emotional resonance to American Cinema.
FA facilitates a unique mutual support system where members share time, energy, equipment and, most importantly,
creative support on one another’s work from concept through distribution. Support is facilitated via monthly meetings, screenings,
seminars, discussion forums, writers groups, labs, workshops, staged readings, and our website.
In This Issue
The F.A.
Magazine Staff
Editors Note. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Amanda Sweikow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Amanda Sweikow
Editor
Collectively Speaking. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jacques Thelemaque. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Warren Davis
Cain DeVore
Copy Editors
Erin Isaacson
Issue Designer
Ted Hope Interview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Octavio Warnock-Graham. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Beyond Silence (A Tête-à-tête with the deaf world). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Vidyut Latay. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Glory at 10 a.m.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rob Nilsson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Top 10 Monetization Tips or
Why It’s Ok To Charge For Your Digital Content. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Marcelo Lewin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
To contact the editor
of this magazine email:
amanda@filmmakersalliance.org
The Ultimate Filmmaker Competition — The Finalists. . . . . . . . . . . . . Amanda Sweikow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Robert McKee Is A Pompous Ass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . David Andrew Lloyd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Cover Art
Amanda Sweikow
Hillel Chaim Smith
Cinema Charlatans. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cain DeVore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2
Editor’s Note
By Amanda Sweikow
This past year seems a blur, filled with
the struggle to stay positive, to stay afloat
and to try to navigate through these rocky
times. Rocky, largely because of the
unstable economy, whose effects have
been seen in all aspects of filmmaking from the giant studios all the
way down into our relatively small
filmmaking community. This past
year, participation in Filmmakers
Alliance seemed at it’s lowest. Not
because people weren’t interested,
but because many of our members
were unable to afford to make new
films, many lost their jobs or had
spouses who lost their jobs and now
had to work twice as hard, and many
whose creativity was simply zapped
due to the stress and fear of losing
their job or worse yet their home.
Yet, we recently experienced
something that puts all of these
concerns in their proper perspective - the tragic loss of an amazing
woman, Daria Finn. Daria was not only
FA Board Member and FA Productions
Co-President Liam Finn’s sister, she was
also a great help and supporter to the FA
community. She was an unforgettable
woman to anyone who had the pleasure
of meeting her. She would zip into town
from New York ask what our goals were
and work tirelessly and selflessly until
they were achieved, or well on their way
to being achieved, and just as quickly zip
back to New York. Never asking for a
thing in return. Daria was a motivator,
a strong guiding force to many and I like
to think that, even now that she is gone,
she is still guiding us. Her too-short life
should serve as a reminder to us all of
how precious life is and how it needs to
be lived - every moment of it - in pursuit
of your dreams and helping others in the
pursuit of theirs – because you never
know when it’s going to end.
So, I’m dedicating this issue to Daria
and calling on everyone to dedicate this
year to Daria. Let’s make 2010 the year
we all work together to achieve our
dreams.
The articles in this edition
reflect exactly that spirit; from our introduction of the 5 Finalists of The Ultimate
Filmmaker Competition – FA’s quest to
find a great project to produce and help
make one filmmakers’ dream come true Jacques’ Collectively Speaking where he
discusses how in these changing times
filmmakers need to ban together to create new systems and find our own way;
more echoes of collective support as Ted
Hope discusses the new responsibilities
of filmmakers and how it’s more important today than it ever was to be innova-
Amanda Sweikow
Executive Director, Filmmakers Alliance
tive and forge new paths and to support
one another in doing so.
We also have an inspired article from
filmmaker Vidyut Latay on her experience shooting a documentary about a
deaf community in India; brilliant filmmaker Rob Nilsson challenges Quentin
3
Tarantino to abandon his façade and to
grow up, to take on the challenges of his
age and to be the artist he really could
be; and Marcelo Lewin tells us why it’s
okay to charge for our digital content and
offers10 tips on how to make it happen.
And, as usual, we have our regular columns: Cain DeVore’s Cinema Charlatans
reflects upon an amazing celebration and
the importance of community, and David
Lloyd’s Writers Block column – but
beware on this one parentaldiscretion is advised.
We hope that you’ll read it from
cover to cover and walk away motivated to go out and live your filmmaking dream - forging new paths,
creating amazing art, and helping
others out along the way!!
Collectively
Speaking:
The Times They
Are A-Changing....
Sorta....
By Jacques Thelemaque
2009 was a tough year for a lot of
people I know, both in and out of the
filmmaking universe. And ever the optimists, my friends (filmmakers and not)
are looking at 2010 with bright eyes and
rosy cheeks. But no matter how much the
sun begins to shine on us, what it illuminates will look much different than it did
in the past.
I wrote awhile back that change is
the only constant in life and should be
passionately embraced by creative types
- especially filmmakers. Although cinematic story-telling - meaning the types
of stories told on film - has not changed
all that dramatically in the last 100 years,
so much around filmmaking has indeed
changed substantially and is changing
even as I write this. Most recently, new
ways of funding films (crowdfunding/
crowdsourcing), new types of films being
made (webisodes, interactive), new formats (affordable 3-D), new tools for making films (hand-held high-res HD, high
end home post systems) as well as the
means for distributing films (via online
distribution and alternative screenings)
have all evolved rapidly and show no
signs of slowing down.
And the economic pressures of 2009
made the past year a particularly watershed year of change. When money begins
to dry up in the usual spots, that’s when
change becomes most accelerated. And,
sometimes, that change is challenging.
I’ve seen countless venerable film organizations and festivals cut way back
(or, sadly, go on hiatus). Many production companies, film vendors and related
businesses are also suffering or have
shuttered their doors completely. And of
course, many film projects have stalled
indefinitely as their funding dried up and/
or melted away. Given these economic
realities, innovators shift the paradigm a
bit by introducing ever-more accessible
tools, methods and processes to service
the ever-resiliant filmmaking community. And those who can exploit these
new resources and embrace the paradigm
shifts will flourish. And those who cannot, will.....I don’t know...teach.
But with all of this change afoot, there
are two things that have not changed and
do not seem likely to change for a very
long time to come:
1. Filmmakers make films.
2. Audiences watch films.
Now, I know this seems ridiculously
obvious and basic. But I state it like this
because there are some basic realities
that are lost in light of all these changing
times and exciting (sometimes necessary)
new bells and whistles. The basic realities need to be embraced in the face of
the doom and gloom predictions for both
Jacques Thelemaque
President, Filmmakers Alliance.
independent film as well as the theatrical
movie-going experience.
Fact 1: Sundance submissions are
up a whopping percentage. Their short
film submissions reached a record 6,092
films. Their feature submissions (doc and
narrative) reached 3,724 films. Clearly,
economic meltdowns do little to stop
filmmaking activity.
Fact 2: Theatrical viewership - that
means the number of distinct tickets sold
as opposed to total box office receipts
(which might only reflect higher ticket
prices) - are up significantly over last
year. Actually, it’s higher than it’s been
since 2004.
Fact 3: Filmmakers need each other
more than ever (I made this one up) .
Clearly, the dots are somehow not
4
being connected. How can there be so
much supportive technological innovation, so many films being made, such
a huge potential audience and yet indie
filmmakers don’t seem to be getting their
films seen (and indie filmmakers aren’t
making a dime)? There is definitely some
missed and missing connections. What
will connect the dots, then? Answer: the
indie filmmaking community, plain and
simple.
Filmmaking, from concept to distribution is an extremely complex and
collaborative process. Even before the
landscape began to rapidly change, it
was difficult for any one filmmaker to
stay on top of the process. And, sadly,
even indie filmmakers can be frustratingly protective, competitive and otherwise non-supportive so that emerging filmmakers are constantly having
to re-invent the wheel. This is partially
why we started Filmmakers Alliance. But
even at Filmmakers Alliance, where we
obviously work with a lot of filmmakers
and have built a thriving, long-standing
community, too many filmmakers are
still reluctant to offer open support and
guidance to each other (although so many
clearly are amazing at this).
But in tough economic times or rapidly changing circumstances OR BOTH,
filmmakers need more than ever to figure
things out together. They need to push
past their fears and jealousies and recognize their amazing strength in numbers.
With filmmakers sharing resources, tools,
contacts, information, energy, talent and
more, it turns us into a single powerful unstoppable force. Instead of being
competitive with each other, indie filmmakers need to see themselves as one big
giant studio. When Paramount releases
it’s slate of films, they don’t compete
with each other and the studio doesn’t
jealously guard resources of one film
from another. It figures out a way for
ALL the films to be as profitable as possible - knowing there is audience enough
for all the films to perform well. When
indie filmmakers band together they can
create everything a major studio has and
more - a development process, a production team, a distribution and marketing
force - as well as provide each other with
cast, crew, sets, technology, equipment,
legal support and everything else that
goes along with developing, making and
distributing a film.
Perhaps this is just a utopian filmmaking fantasy of mine that may never
completely come to fruition - although
clearly it happens in small ways every
day. But maybe, it is simply that filmmakers don’t know where to go to create
this connectivity between them - to turn
their mutual interests into a dynamic and
powerful infrastructure. We thought we
had the answer in Filmmakers Alliance.
And we truly did, but, perhaps, in too
limited a fashion. Now something bigger, more accessible, more expansive and
better suited to today’s technology needs
to emerge. Well, filmmakers, you’re in
luck. That space is being created as
I write this. It is being developed by
many people - some in concert with each
other, some having no idea yet that they
will be enveloped by the much larger
community “mothership” that is coming together. Hold on filmmakers! The
opportunity to be a part of a much larger
community that will nurture and sustain
you throughout your filmmaking lives
is close at hand. But the full potential
of that opportunity will only be realized
if YOU PARTICIPATE. As I have said
many times on many different occasions, you only get if you are willing to
give. But if you give anything at all, you
always receive back ten-fold. When the
opportunity to connect and share presents
itself to you, I urge you to grab it and
invest in it fully and then allow yourself
to reap the rewards of a powerful, unified, singular force.
And while this unified, collective energy can powerfully address the mechanics
of filmmaking, it can also inspire the aesthetics of it - allowing an aesthetic revolution to keep in step with all of the technological evolution. In fact, I’m hoping
that all this technological evolution will
eventually support an aesthetic revolution. I say aesthetic revolution as opposed
to evolution because I’m not even sure
how much farther, aesthetically, cinema
can go and still be called “cinema”. But
what I do know is that there are still far
too few films that fully utilize all of the
distinct, subjective properties of cinema.
I feel we still have a long way to go
5
before bolder, more original, more truly
cinematic filmmaking finally becomes
more the norm rather than the anomaly
that it still is today. But through filmmakers inspiring and supporting each other,
we can move closer to that possibility.
Again, despite changing times, trends,
technology, etc., the broad, undeniable
facts are that filmmakers still make their
films...and people still watch them.
Neither of those things will change anytime soon. And as long as those basics
are true, there is an opportunity - especially with all these amazing new tools
and technology - for filmmakers to build
an audience, make some money (even if
modest) and carve out a life for themselves as truly independent filmmakers.
But we need to support each other more
than ever. And the space for that to happen most dynamically is on its way. I’m
asking you now to be prepared for it...to
be ready to participate in it...to be ready
to unify as a single voice, so that we can
express ourselves artistically as many
distinct voices.
Ted Hope
Interview
By Octavio Warnock-Graham
Every year in mid August, Filmmakers
Alliance holds VisionFest, its annual
award show, screening, and celebration.
The award presented at the event is called
The Vision Award. It is traditionally given
to a filmmaker who has a strong personal
vision, or whose work holds meaning and
contributes something important to the
independent film world. Hopefully both.
Traditionally, the recipient has always
been a director, as it’s the director who
is usually credited as being the singular
visionary (a film by So and So). Since
VisionFest is held at The Directors Guild,
and they are one of the presenting sponsors (along with Canon and Filmmakers
Alliance), a director always seemed the
appropriate choice.
2007 was the only year that we gave
multiple Vision Awards. One went to
Laura Dern—for Acting, and the other to
the Polish Bros.—Mark and Michael—for
directing.
Yet, the times…they are a changing,
and with the times independent film is
changing. Filmmakers Alliance is changing as well. Today more than ever, people
are realizing that it takes a whole team,
sometimes even a whole community to
make a film. There are many visionaries
on a film team, and many contributors
that deserve more credit.
So, this past August, we chose to step
outside of tradition and honor not a
director, but a producer, an extremely
talented and influential producer, who
has become a guide and leader through
these changing times—Ted Hope.
Many were initially surprised, especially the DGA. Yet, that surprise quickly
turned to awe when the audience watched
Ted’s reel and realized how many personal, original and groundbreaking films
he has been a part of. That awe quickly
turned to respect and inspiration after
Ted’s speech.
We set out to interview Ted Hope
before the event. With Ted being in New
York and FA being in California, one
of our members, Gina Levy, contacted
a local New Yorker, Octavio WarnockGraham, to conduct the interview for us.
What follows is the transcription of that
interview.
The Interview
Octavio Warnock-Graham—OWG:
How does it feel to receive the Vision
Award?
Ted Hope—TH: I am very excited
to go to Filmmakers Alliance and to be
given this award. The folks that have won
it previously, all being directors, all being
directors of really unique bodies of work,
are folks who have been inspirations to
me. Its like…thank you. I am glad I am
invited to that party. When Jacques called
me and said they were interested in doing
that, I was, ‘Really? You sure?’ (laughs)
You sure you don’t want to give it to a
director?
And what is really nice about it, in
terms of acknowledgement, is that…I
am a Filmmaker. I may not be the person
that’s calling the shots in terms of what
the shots are. I may not always be the
one that initiates every project. But I put
Ted Hope and Alan Ball at VisionFest 09
so much myself into my films, as every
filmmaker does.
I have always had issues with things
like “film by” credit, because I observe
on all of the sets that I am on, with a
whole host of collaborators. I know that
our movies don’t come together unless
basically, all the people are there, in all
different capacities, who are putting their
6
blood and sweat and tears into getting this
movie made and seen. You know both
aspects of it.
So, I have been speaking, kind of
vocally lately, about how we have to recognize the full process of collaboration
that goes on in the creation, production,
distribution, marketing, and consumption
of films. And I think all of that is a part of
what a filmmaker is.
So, for the Alliance to extend the definition of a filmmaker beyond a director,
to include a producer, all of the producers
that I know, I think are quite thankful
for it.
OWG: What do you feel right now
about what you have done, and what are
you planning to do?
TH: I feel incredibly lucky and privileged to have been able to make so many
movies, with the caliber of collaborators
that I have been able to work with over
the last twenty years. I feel really fortunate that I started making movies when
I did. And I have to admit, that I think I
drank the same Kool-Aid like the rest of
the industry, in believing that this would
go on forever. And there was always a
way of just saying, okay we will put a
good movie up and they will come.
I also feel fortunate that I have been
able to work along side so many people,
who are able to look and see clearly that
that’s not continuing, that we have tried to
change things and work that much harder
to bring the audiences in to our films, and
at a much earlier stage.
What’s really exciting for me about
working in independent film in this day
and age, in this coming new era of it,
is that I think the line between what we
once called art and commerce, or content
and marketing, both of them being what
I would call false divides, is now being
recognized precisely for what it is—a
false construct.
Instead, now recognizing that both of
those things, whichever one you are looking at—art and commerce or content and
marketing—are so linked that there is no
reason to separate them. The marketing,
the poster, the trailer, or however else
you extend it—a social network dedicated
to your film, is the initial point of entry
that many people have to your narrative.
The more that you can service that, both
before and after, the more involved that
story will be and the richer experience
that audience will have.
7
I would like to think that you could
take a large portion of my movies, put
them next to each other and see a bigger
picture, a bigger story, about the world
that we live in. In that same sort of way,
our ability to continue to tell stories, and
frankly, my feelings and attitudes towards
it, along with a lot of other peoples and
their abilities to come around, depends
on our willingness to be responsible for
the economic success or failure for our
films.
If you want to tell challenging stories,
if you want to have a diverse group of
creators and audiences, we have to recognize where those numbers and limits
are. Not be excessive in how we choose
to do it, but really kind of balanced. And
we will be rewarded for that by a chance
of, not just coming up to bat once every
seven years with a new movie, but hopefully on a really regular basis, advancing
that dialogue with that audience on how
our stories are told.
You know, we have been making movies for 100 years, and we have been telling stories in exactly the same way, and
thinking that the biggest experiment we
can do is maybe shuffling the order of
beginning, middle or end.
The fact is, we now have access to a
lot more of the process. It used to just be
the content and the production that we
as filmmakers were allowed in on. Now
we have access to the discovery portion
of that story, the marketing, the distribution, the dialogue that we have with the
audience, and that is going to completely
change things. Particularly for the filmmakers, who are willing to engage in that
for which I would raise my hand. I would
like to do that.
OWG: Can you talk a bit more about
your personal connection to that development of the industry?
TH: What’s really exciting about the
changes that are taking place in the industry right now, is first, born out of a lot of
negative factors. But if we look a little
deeper at that, I think we start seeing
really powerful and positive opportunities
for all of us as filmmakers.
It’s no secret that the acquisition market for finished films has dried up. The
ability to get a distribution slot has been
greatly reduced, and the ability to get our
message out through traditional media
means has been greatly reduced. But it’s
also no secret that the tools for telling
our stories, that their cost and our access
to them, has come down tremendously.
That the ability to reach audiences ahead
of time and to engage with them through
the internet, social networks and through
general grassroots outreach, has become
more and more sophisticated and acces-
8
sible to all.
I have been making movies for about
twenty years now, and I go to film festivals on a regular basis. And I would say
that, historically speaking, year in and
year out, I see two or three new filmmakers who I look at and say that they are
going to have a big long career making
movies. And I would have to say that
generally, I have been right in saying who
those people are.
Last year, instead of seeing two or
three films, I saw over eighteen films, all
made for under a million dollars, by first
and second time directors, who I felt like I
could look at and say that these filmmakers are going to have world renowned,
long term careers, making really interesting stories.
That’s not an accident. That’s not like
a blip. Right? That’s a systematic change
that comes from those things, from lower
cost of production, greater access to distribution channels, and I would say a
greater understanding of film history.
You know, one of the benefits of being
able to see any movie any time, wherever
you are, the positive fall out is that people
are becoming more sophisticated in their
story telling modes.
We recognize that when we are making a movie, we are not just competing
against all those other people who are
trying to get their films into all those
film festivals. We are competing against
the whole history, those hundred years
of cinema. Because, of all those films,
that’s still the choice. Am I going to
watch a film by Bergman or Antonioni?
Or am I going to watch the new film by
Shawn Baker, Antonio Campos or Kelly
Reichardt? You know, like those films are
all there, and we have to figure out…how
do we prioritize our movies in the public,
in the audiences mind?
The fact that for a long time the film
industry looked at cinema as a singular
product—whether it was the movie or the
DVD—it was still that 90 minute entity.
The opportunity, even in that outdated
medium of the DVD, was never even
tapped. The potential of different things
that we could do, were still kind of following the status quo of what was being
done. Twenty chapters on a disc, one
limited form of commentary, maybe some
additional content.
But filmmakers now, have grown up
in both the age of ubiquitous videos that
brought about a much greater acceptance
of a wider aesthetic, and the age of gaming, which brought up a whole other form
of participatory culture.
The filmmakers who are aware of the
current battleground, in terms of copyright and fair use and repurposing content, look at things in a much different
way. The filmmakers that have come of
age during the internet, during the time of
the social network, all see different ways
of how stories can unfold and be told, and
that’s really going to lead to a tremendous
amount of change.
We have to recognize that we now
have a whole other host of tools and
it’s the new filmmakers, the filmmakers
who are just beginning to make movies
that actually “get it”, in a way that mainstream industry doesn’t. They know how
to engage audiences in a much different
way than the storytellers did before them.
All of these tools and devices are things
they are bringing to the table when they
choose to tell a story. They no longer
recognize a movie as being limited to
that 90 minute to 120 minute time frame.
They recognize the ubiquitous nature of
content. That their work is being judged
alongside of a whole history and time
spectrum of other people’s work.
Someone said to me that cinema is still
cinema whether it’s a line or a cube. And
that’s where we are living now, in times
when cinema has turned into a cube, and
our point of access can come at many different places along the way.
The way we engage in it is much
different than ever before, and it’s no
longer just the fact that the filmmaker is
directing us or leading us. As audiences,
we now have an opportunity to participate in a much different way, and that’s
completely going to change the game for
filmmakers everywhere. Either we take
that challenge or we don’t. To me, that is
tremendously exciting.
OWG: Do you think a lot of innovations have partially come from the fact
9
that a lot of independent filmmakers have
to be more creative about trying to find
ways to make their films be seen?
TH: The independent sector of filmmaking has always been the ones that
innovate. We’ve always had to take on the
challenge of where do we find the money?
Where do we find the audience? How do
we get our movies seen? Whereas the traditional media, the corporately controlled
media, has been able to kind of rest on the
pleasure of controlling the gates, and the
flood back and forth. That’s changed.
Cinema is no longer a game of control. It’s one of access and dialogue. The
independent sector can afford to be much
more innovative. It’s a necessity.
When we made a film like The
Wedding Banquet back in 1993, I had
done a lot of research on the Avid. No
narrative feature had been cut on the Avid
quite yet. I thought of it as a money saving tool. I learned right away that it was
actually the creative tool. It allowed us to
really consider things in a much different
way, and it was freeing.
It was the same sort of thing that we
got early on, trying to put together one
of our more “out there” projects that we
called Love God, by Frank Grow. We
got Sony and Apple to team up together
and to help sponsor us, and we did one
of the first films that originated on video,
and they did a film-out to kind of test the
technology. All of that innovation always
came out of necessity.
The fact that now you can’t trust that
you could bring a great film to a major
film festival, walk away with a distributor and access to an audience, requires us
as filmmakers to say beforehand, before
we start filming—how do we access the
audience? How do we bring them to us?
How do we engage them? Corral them?
Move them? And that’s changing how
everybody works right now. We have to
be that innovative.
OWG: You gave a keynote speech at
the Film Independent Filmmakers Forum,
so let’s talk about that. I was wondering if
you could summarize those ideas a little?
And if any of your thoughts have changed
10
on that since you spoke that day?
TH: The news and the everyday reality that filmmakers have lived over the
last eighteen months have kind of hit
the same beat over and over again—that
companies are closing, funding is more
difficult, too many movies were made
for a while, what are you going to do?
At the same time, we have seen lots of
interesting experiments and “play” via
technology.
In November of ’08, when I gave that
speech, I don’t think probably more than
5 % of the audience would have known
what twitter was. And I would bet that
at least 50% of that audience is now on
twitter. How to turn that into a storytelling
tool, is an interesting challenge.
11
But getting back to what I was mainly
talking about in that speech, is that we
have to work together, we have to share
information, we have to recognize that
the job description that we all hold as
filmmakers just had a whole lot of new
stuff added to it. And we can’t do it alone.
We have to work with others to do it.
At the same time, it has opened up a
wider range of content, a greater accessibility, so that people from different
walks of life can actually say that I know
where the audience for this film is. I know
how to reach them, and I think they will
respond to the story.
It’s more difficult than it was to drive
out a financial plan for your movie, and
convince somebody of its legitimacy—
that you will actually be able to go out
and retrieve this money. But it is just as
difficult for you to do that, as it is for
that guy who has got his MBA and has
worked in the entertainment sector for the
last fifteen or twenty years, because none
of it is working, and that’s a tremendous
opportunity.
I think we have more freedom to tell
a wider range of stories, and a greater
necessity, than even when I gave that
speech, than we’ve ever had before. The
need to innovate to take risk, to tell different types of stories in a different way,
to stir things up, to make a lot of trouble,
has never been greater. Right now, that all
looks to me like good business, not just
foolish self-indulgent behavior. It looks
to me like good business that will set the
future for all of us.
One of the really exciting things that
has transpired over the last nine months,
is that filmmakers now recognize that it is
irresponsible to just simply make a movie
and bring it to a film festival and hope
that someone is going to come along.
People recognize that the prize winning film at Cannes, or the film that is
made by Lars von Trier (certainly one
of most exciting filmmakers of the last
15–20 years), don’t get acquired for any
large sums anymore. Whether they have
genre content, or movie stars in them,
or not.
There is no pot of gold waiting for
you. And if that’s the case, then why are
you going to surrender control of your
movie? Shouldn’t that investment be fortified by spending a little bit more time in
figuring out where my audience is? How
do I bring them to my film? How do I get
people behind it?
At the same time, when I start to talk
to both people in the business and people
who just love movies, they also recognize
now that they have a responsibility to
culture in a way that they didn’t before.
If you see a movie that you like, you better be on facebook or twitter, telling your
thousand friends and followers to join up
12
and to support this movie.
I think we’ve started to see the initial seeds of that really start to sprout
in a good way. Time will tell what it
becomes, but I know that I have seen
some plans and proposals of different
ways to approach things, and solve problems, and that kind of new infrastructure
is starting to be built.
OWG: Any specific things that attract
you to particular projects, when you
decide to produce them?
TH: I get attracted to films and filmmakers in a host of different ways. Really,
the first thing is something that feels
fresh. I have seen a tremendous number
of movies. I love watching movies. I have
read a tremendous amount of scripts. I
like readings scripts, not quite as much as
watching the movies. In the last sixteen
hours I have seen three films—some new,
some old, some American, some foreign,
nothing that was a major motion picture.
To engage in the long term effort that
is required to get a movie made, or to get
the movie right, then to get it made, and
then to get it out there and seen, I have
to really believe that my affection for the
piece will continue to grow, and I will be
working with somebody that I see as a
true collaborator.
I have to trust and really believe that
there will be an audience that will feel as
strongly as I feel about the project now,
when the film is completed. That it will
get better and then people can amass
around it.
What is that? I think it isn’t something that actually simplifies things, but
it makes things more complex. I am not
the same thing that “my demographic”
is. I know I don’t always respond in a
predictable way. I know that my interests
sometimes don’t make sense when lined
up next to those other interests. I know
that when I meet somebody and I get to
talk to them, they are far more surprising
than I would ever guess by the car they
drive, the clothes they wear, where they
went to school, the income bracket, color
of the skin, race, orientation, any of those
things. They are unique, deep, complex
individuals and that’s what I like my
movies to be about—things that inspire
us to live in a full way.
I wish there was more time in the day
to do that. I wish there was more time
in the day to live my life as richly and
deeply as I would like to. But movies are
able to do what I think no other art form
is able to do, and that’s help us to understand a person that we otherwise would
have no connection to, and help us to
understand the most difficult choices that
we have in life.
I like movies that are about the world
that I live in. Which doesn’t mean they
have to be set in the time, but they help
me understand the world that I live in. I
like to be entertained. I don’t like to be
talked down to. But movies can deliver us
a much more expansive feeling towards
this universe and the people that we
know, and it delights me to no end.
OWG: Do you have specific plans for
how you see yourself impacting the future
of independent film?
TH: I never really have a clear plan
about what I would like to do in the
independent film world, other than make
good movies. I joke, with all sincerity,
that I want to make movies that will either
change the world, or change the state of
cinema. I am willing to do movies that
finance those two revolutions at the same
time.
Frankly, I would be really content if I
just got to make another movie sometime
soon, and that’s how it’s always been.
I guess I speak a lot to my friends and
family about needing to get beyond this
idea of one movie at a time, and that we
have to embrace the concept of an ongoing conversation with our audience. But
really, I just wanna keep making movies.
I think it’s a fantastic art form. What I
mean by a movie does change over time,
but I just want to keep making them.
OWG: What do you think of organizations like Filmmakers Alliance? What
role do you think they can play in independent film’s future?
13
TH: Organizations like the Filmmakers
Alliance are so crucial at this time. As
we have talked about, the job description of making movies has increased
ten fold over the last year. We have to
collaborate, and by collaborating I mean
curate other people’s work, support other
people’s work, share information, all of
those things that sometimes feel like…
wait a second…I have got my own work
to tend to.
My work is so related to your work.
If I don’t share with you what I have
learned, if I am not able to get access to
what you have learned, we are not making progress. The only way we push that
rock up the hill, is we all get behind it,
and keep running and pushing and pushing and pushing and push some more.
The phrase independent film has
always been so inappropriate. It is not
independent. We are completely dependent on each other to get our work made
and get our work seen.
The only way that we will be able
to do that, and continue this healthy
output of film and film consumption,
is by participating in organizations like
Filmmakers Alliance. Joining, sharing
the information that we have, providing
the support, and helping get each of our
works seen and appreciated.
The End.
Beyond Silence
(A Tête-à-tête with the
deaf world)
By Vidyut Latay
“For the first time in my life I realized
that I was ‘Hearing’...I was yearning to
hear someone talk, I wanted to hear at
least some sound…the silence was deafening!”
I flew down to my home country India
in the summer of 2008, to shoot a documentary about the deaf community in the
city of Mumbai (Bombay); a documentary that would peep into their everyday
lives, aspirations, and challenges.
“Ideally I want my whole family to
be deaf,” said a deaf girl in her early
twenties. Vicky in his mid twenties also
opined the same. A young couple, Sunil
and Shweta, would have loved their
two and a half year old daughter to be a
‘Deaf’ girl instead of a ‘Hearing’ girl, but
they are hoping their second child to be
‘Deaf’. The young Indian Sign language
instructor, Sujit, wants the entire world to
become deaf, for at least a day!
Shooting a film about the deaf community in the city that never sleeps
- Mumbai - was in itself an interesting paradox for me. But I was keen to
explore their life ‘Beyond silence’ amidst
the ‘noise’ around. I am a first time independent documentary filmmaker, who set
out in the monsoon season of Mumbai,
June 2008-Aug 2008, to shoot this feature length film. My crew included me,
my cameraman, Ajay Kashyap and interpreter Vidya Iyer from Mumbai. My
long time good friend from the television
and film industry in Mumbai, Rinku
Dhamecha offered the production support. This project was planned as a part of
my final creative project at San Francisco
State University.
I landed in India on 7th June and
started with the pre-production on 9th
June. From there on it was a journey that
was fascinating and intriguing filled with
surprises, excitement, anxiety, at times
frustration, and yes of course, immense
satisfaction and joy too.
Even before my plane landed at the
Mumbai International Airport, heavy
rains started splashing the windows of
my aircraft. It was 2:00am, and the flight
had already got delayed because of the
bad weather. The normal air journey to
India from California takes around 22-23
hours, and because of the delay, my air
travel had gone into its 25th hour!!! I was
losing my patience. Tired, I sat inside the
plane looking helplessly in the ‘darkness’
outside the window. I could not have ever
imagined such a ‘teary’ start for my first
independent project. But I had no right to
complain. I had decided to do the project
in the peak monsoon season (June-Sept)
of India. Amongst many other things,
Mumbai is famous for its crowd, and
monsoon. And I had planned now to fly
half way across the globe to embrace
both. What a timing indeed!
My interpreter, Vidya Iyer, with whom
I had communicated for the past four
months while working on the proposal
and research, took me to her institute,
The Ali Yavar Jung National Institute
of Hearing Handicapped (AYJNIHH).
She was a ‘B’ level student of the Indian
Beyond Silence director Vidyut Latay
Sign Language Studies at the institute. It
was late evening, very gloomy, Mumbai
was getting beaten by heavy rains, and
my heart was beating fast too. I was a
bit nervous about getting to the actual
doing of things. It’s a strange feeling, but
all this while for about 4 months, I was
thinking, planning, and imagining this
day. Believe it or not, this was the first
time I was actually going to meet deaf
people. I had never had a personal interaction whatsoever with them throughout
my life. What??? Well yes, I had only
seen them around me, a few times while
in India. Bollywood definitely was a window at times to peep in to their lives. But
14
I had never taken this conscious step to
actually go and meet them. Forget about
shooting a film with them, my major concern at that moment was, how am I going
to “talk to them”?
Within no time, I saw myself amidst
fifteen young people who were very
busy ‘talking,’ but there was absolutely
no sound, forget noise! After 10 minutes or so that silence was deafening! I
was yearning for somebody to talk, as
in make some sound..... It was a second
level Indian sign language class where
all the students were ‘Hearing,’ (this is
the term used by the Deaf in India to
address non-deaf people), but were communicating only through “signs.” For
the first time it occurred to me that I am
‘Hearing’!
The sign language students around me
were curious to know about the topic.
The answer was pretty simple.
India has arguably the largest deaf
population in the world, around four to
five million, but the number of interpreters can be counted on fingers (arguably
less than 10)! Sign language is still not
an officially recognized language by the
government. The country has no captions on television, no instructions for
deaf people at public places, no TTY, no
instruction through sign language in deaf
schools and no deaf college or a university for deaf people. All in all, deaf are
foreigners in their own country without
their basic rights!
While studying in San Francisco, I
saw an interpreter signing an address by
the President of the university. In all my
28 years of life in India I had never ever
witnessed any scene like that! This experience was truly new and intriguing for
me. I was a bit disturbed and very inquisitive at the same time to know more about
why India had no acknowledgement of
this language and the community called,
DEAF. That was one of the trigger points
to take up this topic.
My first few days were spent only
in getting to know them, as in knowing
the various members of the deaf community, interacting with them regarding
their everyday challenges, aspirations,
agonies, and lifestyle. I started shortlisting the candidates for my interviews
as well, depending on their backgrounds
and experiences. It was just fascinating
to choose and decide about the content
of their individual interviews. To be hon-
est, I was awfully confused in deciding
who should be picked and who should be
dropped. Each and every individual I met
had some amazing stories to share.
Simultaneously I started preparing on
the production front. Before even going
to India for the shoot, I was aware that
my communication with the Deaf was
possible only through an interpreter. I
thought it would be all fine. But within
a week I realized that not knowing the
sign language could be a serious impediment in getting the desired answers from
my subjects! On the other side, I felt that
my ignorance about their language and
culture would help me in my objective to
have a ‘peep in their lives,’ intensifying
an outsider’s perspective.
I was also a bit jittery about my deaf
subjects feeling conscious and awkward
in front of the camera. To my utter surprise, the deaf community did not have
an iota of discomfort in the presence of
the camera. I have seen most hearing
people get conscious whenever a camera is put on their face, but for all the
reasons unknown, the deaf people were
amazingly at ease with the camera….the
camera just didn’t bother them! Could
their dependence on the visual sensibility
be one of the reasons? I wonder!
My cameraman had never shot anything like this before; he was excited to
be onboard. My main contact person and
also the content expert was my interpreter, Vidya.
I used two cameras for the project:
PD-170 and a GS 500. After arriving in
Mumbai, I discovered that the city is not
the same as it was two and half years
back when I left it for good. The terrorism threat has left no corner of the world
untouched; like many metros around the
world, Mumbai had also been a target
earlier, being the world’s second most
populous city along with the commercial,
financial, and entertainment capital of
India. The city is under heavy security
regulations today. Most crowded public
places like the railway stations, beaches,
parks, etc prohibit using professional
cameras without permission!
The only way out was to use a camcorder 3CCD GS 500 in such places.
Nobody cared about whether it was a 3
CCD or a 1 CCD, just because it was
‘silver’ looking, I could get away a zillion times by saying that I am making
15
just a home video or taking snaps . The
PD-170 camera ‘the black professional
camera’ would attract lot of attention. So
we avoided that in public places. I had no
money to pay for permissions. So the PD
was out of question. The PD camera was
primarily used for indoors; interviews,
etc. Also in terms of matching the footage
from both the cameras in the edit, the PD
and the GS 500 came pretty close.
I did not carry any sound equipment
with me because I did not have any
deliberate sound! Barring a few ‘talking’ interviews, most of my interviews
were shot in Indian sign language. But
here was my next challenge... how was I
going to know what they spoke during the
interviews, how was I going to take a call
if the interview was good/bad/average?
So this is how we decided to operate: I
conveyed the question to my interpreter
in English/Hindi, and she explained it to
the deaf subjects through signs. After my
interviewee had understood the question,
he/she would answer it again in sign and
then I would have the interpreter summarize it for me on camera. The summarization of the interview was to just facilitate
my understanding about the content of
their signs during the shooting of the
interviews.
During my first interview I had resorted to on-the-spot interpreting, but India
has twenty one official spoken languages,
and though the country has a single
Indian Sign Language, the ‘dialectic’
version of sign languages, is equivalent
to the dialects of the spoken language.
These dialectic versions of the sign language often pose a tough challenge for
the interpreters. Also I intended to have
the natural sounds in the background
during their interviews to establish the
location, situation and general look and
feel of the city. This was perhaps the most
important reason. So I got all my video
interviews interpreted again by my interpreter, just for the audio purpose. Later,
while editing, I matched the time codes of
the audio files with the video interviews
for the subtitles.
This documentary uses subtitling all
throughout. I had initial plans of using
the voice-over of the interpreter over
the signed interviews, but personally I
feel subtitles can actually lead to lot of
reading while watching the images. I
have always found reading subtitles a
bit agonizing after few minutes; moreover, to remain true to the content and
the essence of the sign language, I used
only subtitles and not the voice-over.
Along with subtitles, the documentary has
caption cards inbetween the visuals to tell
the story. Narration is purposely avoided
to emphasize storytelling through images
only. The only purposeful sound is the
use of humming on the end credits by
singer- composer, Dr. Salil Latay. The
humming track is again used to intensify
emotions conveyed beyond words and
beyond silence.
With regards to the production, some
of the other challenges were; adequate
lack of space and lighting conditions. Our
interviews were shot mostly in people’s
houses and in the Ishara Foundation; a
private non-profit educational institute
that teaches English language to young
adults through Indian Sign Language.
Much to my surprise and paranoia, I
found on the very first day that the walls
of the Ishara foundation were painted
with dark blue color paint! Most of my
B-roll was shot in that one room painted
in blue. This place was very small and
always filled with students, instructors
16
and the staff. The houses that we visited
to shoot with the interviewees also did not
have the best lighting conditions. I had
no extra budget planned to rent expensive
lights for both indoor as well as outdoor
shooting. We resorted to shooting mostly
in the daylight. But more than a couple
of times we had to shoot very late in the
night. For those times we used a very
basic tungsten-halogen light. Most of the
shooting for the documentary used the
hand held camera technique. Reasons:
lack of space and simultaneous occurrence of events. I used only a single
camera that was one of the main reasons
to use the hand held technique.
I found that my research was in sync
with my actual observations of the deaf
community. One of the most important
revelations was that there lies an extreme
polarity between the hearing and deaf
communities in India. The hearing people
feel that deaf people are handicapped and
are keen to make them ‘Hearing.’ The
Hearing parents and the school teachers
want deaf children to learn to lip read
and ultimately talk like ‘normal’ hearing
people.
Deaf people, on the contrary, feel that
17
they have every right to maintain their
deaf identity and are proud of their ‘deaf
hood.’ They hope to give birth to future
deaf generations and want acknowledgment and recognition for their language,
culture identity, and choice within the
larger hearing society. They hated hearing
aids and cochlear implants. The discrimination and marginalization of the minority
deaf community at the hands of the majority hearing world is termed by deaf people
as ‘Audism,’ (discrimination against deaf
people because of their inability to hear),
which according to them can be compared to ‘Racism’.
In 1910, George Veditz described
‘Deaf’ as “first, last and for all time, the
people of the eye”. This aspect of deaf
life was seen during the shooting of the
documentary. While conducting day-today activities in the hearing world, deaf
subjects were not scared to travel, or ride
vehicles, because they were confident of
their visual sense. According to them, the
eye contact was extremely important for
them in their communication too. Even
during the video interviews, most subjects found it impossible to look into the
camera and sign. The eye contact with
the interviewer was absolutely necessary
for them.
One of the most striking features of
their community is that whenever a deaf
person meets another deaf person, he/
she is first curious to know whether
the other person is ‘deaf/hearing’. The
world for them belongs only in two parts,
‘Hearing’, and ‘Deaf’. The boundaries of
religion, country, caste, color do not exist
for them.
My two deaf subjects, Sunil and
Shweta could lip read and talk, but they
both chose to sign and not talk during
the interviews. According to them, it
was against the ethics of deaf culture to
talk! Out of all the ten deaf subjects I
interviewed, only two had deaf families.
Barring them, all had hearing families.
The interviewees spoke about their communication problems with their parents
and hearing siblings. They also mentioned that their parents’ reluctance to
communicate with them in sign language
made them stay outside the home for long
hours.
A deaf girl’s parents were awfully
worried about her marriage, and lamented
that her prospects of getting a ‘normal’
(hearing) bridegroom are minimal. Heena
(deaf girl), on the other hand was sure
of getting married to a deaf boy only.
Hearing parents hoped for a miracle to
happen and make their children hearing.
I had mixed observations regarding this
18
idea during my interactions with deaf, as
well as, hearing parents. A widow mother
(herself deaf) of two deaf children in their
mid-twenties, wanted at least one ‘hearing’ child to help her in communicating
with hearing world. On the other hand,
another deaf couple, who had a hearing
daughter, wanted their second child to
be deaf! The hearing daughter is already
proficient in sign language!
During the shooting of the video, I
observed that all deaf subjects were proud
to be deaf and wanted the opportunity
for making independent choices like any
hearing person. According to the deaf
people, there are ‘imagined’ problems in
the minds of hearing people while recruiting deaf people for jobs. The hearing
population is unaware of the capabilities
of deaf people due to sheer ignorance and
lack of interest in understanding them.
Government’s apathy and lack of will is
one of the many reasons for the poor situation of deaf people.
But the Indian government’s apathy towards deaf people has ironically
helped the country in preserving deaf culture. According to Sunil Sahasrabudhe,
Director of Ishara Foundation, the
Denmark government sponsors cochlear
implants for deaf people. Therefore, the
deaf population in Denmark is decreasing
day-by-day. The Indian government, on
the other hand, does not encourage any
such measures, which helps deaf people
to maintain their ‘deaf hood! ‘
Deaf schools in India have adopted
oral methods only. Even media and public places lack a deaf-friendly environment. TV channels and films do not use
captions. There are no interpreters at
railways stations, hospitals, banks, and
in government offices. The only way
for deaf people to connect to the hearing
world is through text messages on mobile
phones. Deaf people heavily rely on
mobile phones. One of the interviewees
in the documentary even said that he
cannot imagine his life without mobiles
anymore.
But the hallmark of Indian deaf culture
is Indian sign language. The introduction of Indian Sign Language (ISL) has
empowered the deaf population, at least
in the urban societies in India. However,
the awareness and spread of ISL is still
in its infancy in the country. The government’s lack of will and support to make
sign language nationally recognized and
give it an academic status in deaf schools
and colleges keeps the language beyond
the reach of deaf people in small cities.
People in the majority hearing community, too, do not have awareness about
ISL. This divide between the deaf and
hearing community offers very limited
avenues of progress and development
for the deaf people. As an ISL instructor
said: deaf people can progress only if they
compete within the deaf community.
Conclusion
Beyond Silence is a documentary that
is made with an intention of understanding the perspective of the deaf people
in India. India, a country with a population of around one billion people, lacks
the basic infrastructure and social consciousness to accommodate the “voices”
of deaf people. This documentary is
made with an intention of understanding
these hidden voices in their own “words,
language, and culture.” It is a humble
attempt to acknowledge the existence of
a living, competent, and thinking deaf
community that has the ability to communicate “Beyond silence.”
I could observe through the process
of making this documentary that these
people just expect one thing from the
larger hearing community. ‘Live and Let
Live.’ They do not ask for any special
19
favors, but are very vociferously ready to
fight for their rights. Having interpreters
is their right, and they want the government and the public to support it. Sign
language is their mother tongue and they
want their own families, teachers and
society to accept that. The Indian Sign
Language (ISL) is the most important
characteristic of the Indian deaf culture.
I hope the exhibition of this documentary helps the deaf community in India
to strengthen their fight for their basic
rights, like the recognition and adoption
of sign language in schools and in the
society, awareness about deaf culture and
motivating the entertainment media in the
country to adopt captioning.
My attempt has been to capture the
real emotion that lies in the thriving deaf
population in the city of Mumbai. They
are all set to establish the first ever deaf
college in the country in the year 2009.
There is a long way to go, but at least
the march has begun. The documentary,
Beyond Silence, is an attempt to capture
the essence of their struggle, perseverance, and indomitable spirit.
(www.vidyutlatay.com)
GLORY
AT 10 AM
By Rob Nilsson
From time to time, I’ve rushed to
my keyboard to put down thoughts that
brim up. I could have viewed an amazing
sunset, a woman whose special ambience shook my spine. It could have been
a great conversation with a friend, or an
argument with an enemy. I could have just
seen a film by Harutyun Khachatryan,
an Armenian filmmaker with a lesson
for this Internet age. And now I’ve just
come from a movie, Quentin Tarantino’s
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, the first
commercial screening I’ve ever gone to
at 10:00 AM in the morning.
First, I was assailed in the dark. With
movie trailers. As always, they trumpet
the bad news in crushing surround sound,
most of them plugging horror films.
Or action films, where awful fates
are visited by bad guys on disposable
fall guys, and heroic good guys take
righteous revenge. These revenge
fantasies tunnel into our secret
dream lives, where eons of weakness and humiliation foliate. And we
cold cock the bully who turned our
third grade into hell, finish off the
grinning sadist who enjoyed making
us squirm in front of a girl we were
too much in awe of, garrote the more
successful colleague who crowned
his advantage with condescending
and excruciating glee.
Then came the feature attraction.
Later I talked to Tom Bower about
it and he nailed what I thought was good
about it. Lengthy engagements between
opponents, verbal ones, well matched
enemies with ultimate stakes on the line.
There were two or three, one when a Nazi
Colonel, (Christoph Waltz), confronts a
French farmer, (Denis Manochet) and
coerces him to give up the Jews he is
hiding from the SS. Another is the show
down scene in the bar where a British
agent in disguise, (Michael Fassbender),
and a German officer (August Diehl) play
cat and mouse with the German language,
leading to a typical Tarantinoesque Grand
Guignol of stylish violence.
And these conversations, these jousts
of clever linguistics and dramatic confrontation take their time to develop. A
good lesson. Let people talk to each other.
Watch for the smallest “tell”, the moment
of successful riposte set against the dart
which nicks composure, and leads to the
collapse of a well fortified argument, the
consequences of coming one word, one
clever phrase, short. So far so good.
Then I thought of Elem Klimov’s
film COME AND SEE, Soviet Union,
1985, working the same historical
thread - Jews, peasants in the face of the
Einsatzgruppen death squads of Belarus
in World War II. I thought of other
films including SHOAH, THE NIGHT
PORTER, SOPHIE’S CHOICE. No matter how well or poorly they’re done, they
mingle the sickly smell of rotting bodies
with murders for ideals, pogroms in the
service of lofty aims.
In fact, I don’t really believe there
is any other kind of massacre. Did the
soldiers who murdered the Lakota Sioux
at Wounded Knee think they were doing
“Come and See” by Elem Klimov
wrong? Did the Hutus think the Tutsis
didn’t deserve it? Did the pilots of 9/11
think it was a desecration of religion
and decency to cook themselves and
thousands of others to ashes in the Twin
Towers? They all have a cause: Hitler,
Stalin, Mao, Danton, Pol Pot, Osama
bin Laden. Those who have something
greater: empathy, a love of justice, humility…they don’t make it.
I think there are many humans who
enjoy killing others, just as there’s another class of people who get a secret frisson
making or watching movies about it, or
reading novels about the horrors we visit
on each other with such peculiar relish.
I think it’s rare that someone kills without a special experience, a secret wish
20
composed of a shattered, crazy quilt of
impulse fused into napalm - hot catharsis.
And I don’t think this is something arcane
and rare. We all have it. Completely
blocking it out, encourages its orgasmic
resolution. Completely indulging in it
does the same.
You read about this in the writings of
the Marquis de Sade or George Bataille.
You see it in movies such as REALM OF
THE SENSES and IRREVERSIBLE.
We are indebted to the writers and filmmakers who refuse to dismiss this dark
secret with moral outrage. Most of that
turns out to be hypocrisy. We should be
grateful to the people who expose this
Darwinian realm hidden in the heart
of homo sapiens, and other, supposedly
more “natural”, therefore more innocent,
species. They are telling us a valuable
truth. We need to face it.
Elem Klimov did that for us. His
film shows the horrors committed by
the Nazis as they advanced into the
Pale, and the Partisans who left their
farms and business places to oppose
them any way they could. The barbarism of the Einsatzgruppen cannot
be shown without bringing up our
innate fascination with dangerous
cruelties that we need to sublimate
in time to express them in response
to Art. This is the safety valve great
artists offer. It doesn’t cure us. It misdirects our resentments and rage into
channels where we can learn who we
are, rather than live out who we don’t
want to be.
There are many parallels between
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS and
COME AND SEE, Klimov’s film.
In COME AND SEE the Germans herd
the inhabitants of a Belarussian village into a barn and incinerate them.
INGLOURIOUS herds Nazis, including
Hitler, into a movie theater, and using
nitrate film as tinder, burns him and his
stooges to ashes. At the end of COME
AND SEE, the young farm boy protagonist empties his rifle vicariously into a
picture of Hitler, as the history of Fascism
marches backwards in old newsreels.
In INGLOURIOUS, Brad Pitt carves a
swastika into the forehead of a German
Colonel, who is about to escape to the
West with his stimulus package of political immunity.
Back to the loud, abrasive and inhuman movie trailers I had to sit through,
in order to view INGLOURIOUS that
Saturday morning at the Bay 16 movie
theaters in Emeryville, California. I don’t
think it was an accident that they pummeled our senses with gratuitous violence
prior to the main attraction. And equally un-accidental are the trailers for far
more humble art films, which precede
COME AND SEE when it comes to the
Roxie Cinema every few years or so.
Then I am among the 20 people in the
audience, ten of whom are my friends.
I just read that INGLOURIOUS is the
top grossing film in America right now.
I think you know what I’m getting at.
Two films exist on celluloid today
and sit in the same kind of metal film
cans, which over the years have held
films as various as THE BATTLESHIP
POTEMKIN and PEE WEE’S BIG
ADVENTURE. But that’s where the
resemblance ends. Regardless of the
package they come in, we evaluate
films according to the experiences they
provide. One kind of film tries to provide
insight and catharsis in the Greek sense:
providing “restoration, renewal and revitalization for living.” For this type of
film we have to lean forward, to grasp, to
learn. The other kind of film entertains
and expects no more of us than to lean
back, and the softer the seat the better.
Both films, Klimov’s and Tarantino’s,
bring up questions about the violent
human race and its preoccupations, the
horrors we commit because we can’t free
ourselves from them.
One film looks at the world and takes
human suffering seriously, while contrasting it with joy, the dreams of youth,
expressions of the power of nature, and
an honest assessment of who we are when
our blood gets the better of us. The other
looks at cinema and games us with cagy
film reference, exploits the pain of Nazi
victims and of those who live in daily
terror of Taliban-style fanatics, numbs
us with stylish violence, and promotes
a teenager’s video game love of abstract
gore and vacant mayhem.
One of these filmmakers is dead, but
has left behind one of the few sublime
masterpieces of world cinema. The other
has seen COME AND SEE, and has dishonored it with his wise guy American
arrogance, taking on tragedy with the
tools of a two-bit cartoonist.
But it’s not Quentin Tarantino I resent.
Neither Stalin nor Mao were punished
for their crimes. Both died in their beds.
Hitler chose suicide to escape the death
he deserved. So why waste energy clubbing an empty bag?
The bigger truth is that Tarantino IS
us. He is the embodiment of the infantilization of Art we have been encour-
“Inglourious Basterds” by Quentin Tarantino
aged to believe in since the misunderstood antics of Duchamp, and the perfectly understandable and childish ones
of Warhol. That’s in the plastic Arts. And
in cinema, it’s our star system leading to
our money system, which is the parasite
in our digestive system from which we
excrete the cheap glamour, the violence
without consequence, the fake simulacra
of a dangerous world drugged on kiddie
pornography, which chickens out at the
end and refuses us even the tawdry reality
we pay for.
Tarantino may not like it, but he is
speaking to a part of us, a sacred, mysterious part best addressed in Art, the only
cathartic force I know powerful enough
to save us from extinction. Except that
he refuses to take on the responsibility.
He shows talent in two or three truthful
scenes. Then he abandons us to a jokey,
box office driven, creature features conclusion, which leaves neither inspiration
nor insight. After the popcorn and licorice, we are left dyspeptic and exhausted
after a fast food orgy of stylish violence.
When is he going to grow up?
I challenge Quentin Tarantino to
abandon his façade. I encourage him to
make films which play in the highest
of American traditions. Let him show
his undeniable talent in the tradition of
the Transcendentalists, our Whitmans,
Emersons, Thoreaus. Let him reflect his
knowledge of our Cinema Verite art21
ists, the Maysles, Fred Wiseman, the
D.A. Pennebakers. In narrative fiction, he
knows the pioneers of the real cinematic
bottom line led by the Master of “the
way things seem to be,” John Cassavetes.
Why should he continue as the roué infant
terrible of grind house, when his body
has gone ahead and reached maturity
without him?
I’ve met Quentin Tarantino and
found him a good guy. I refuse to take
him at the value he seems to place on
himself. I challenge him to grow up, to
take on the challenges of his age. Today
we see a country struggling to find
itself. The everyday man and woman
deserve artists with talent. But they
need more. They need an American
Elem Klimov. They need an artist who
doesn’t smother us in irony and cheap
sneers. They need an art which calls us
out to be real, to question everything, to
accept nothing at face value, and to
pursue the most complete expression
and embodiment of what makes us the
human animals we strive to transcend. I
challenge him to get serious. We need
him as he could be. I am horrified by
what he has become.
22
Reprinted from New Media Insider
(digital newsletter) Issue 9,
December 14, 2009
Top 10
Monetization Tips
or Why It’s Ok To
Charge For Your
Digital Content
Written By Marcelo Lewin
You know you want to charge for your
content! Go ahead. Do it! What? Are you
afraid you will lose half your audience?
Don’t worry about that! You won’t lose
half your audience; you’ll lose at least
two thirds of them. But that’s ok, because
you only want to keep the people that
will pay for your content, not the ones
that want everything for free.
Is this a hobby for you or do you want
to run a real business producing real
content and getting paid for it? If you
do, then you need to start taking content
creation seriously and stop giving it all
away for free.
Having said that, there are ways to
keep those “freebie only” people and
monetize content at the same time. Read
below to learn my top 10 tips for monetizing your digital content.
Tip #10 – Think And Act
Like A Media Company
Create your content professionally.
Think about your audience. What do
they want? What do they like? Where
do they hang out? How can you reach
them? Think of possible sponsors when
creating your content. Who’s the right
company to sponsor this content? Think
of partnerships. Think about syndication.
Think about diversification of content
(build a portfolio of web videos, podcasts, blogs, social network content, etc.)
Don’t think of yourself as a video shooter
or blog writer or podcaster. You are a
media mogul creating content distributed through various means (web videos,
podcasts, blog articles, etc.) Are you well
known in your industry? Celebratize
yourself through your content!
23
Tip #9 – Build Your
Audience
Without an audience, you don’t have
a company. The most important thing
you can do is engage your audience.
How do you engage your audience? You
need to know where they hang out. Once
you know that, you can participate in the
same networks they do. Don’t just post
a Facebook status update or a Tweet and
think that you are reaching your audience.
Make sure you engage them in the right
place using the right tools. Slowly build
an audience that will find value in your
content and are willing to pay for it.
Tip #8 – Produce Content
That People Will Like
When creating a video, don’t just
shoot it. Shoot it right. Use good lighting techniques. Use good audio. Make
sure the story (whether it’s a how-to, a
narrative or a customer testimonial) is
engaging. When doing a podcast, think
about the format and keep it consistent.
When writing, make sure it makes sense
and it’s value added. In other words,
produce content that is both professional,
entertaining, informative and will attract
both audiences and sponsors.
ip #7 – Identify All Your
Media
Are you already producing web videos? How about podcasts? Have you written any blog articles lately? You can monetize all of those by figuring out who’s
your potential target market for each of
them and identifying sponsors that are
willing to reach that audience.
Tip #6 – Identify Your
Audience
Do you really know who’s visiting
your website? Can you describe who’s listening to your podcasts or watching your
web videos? You need to start gathering
real data about your audience members
including demo data, geo data and social
data. You need to identify their “pains”
and see if your content is addressing a fix
for their pains.
Tip #5 – Try Out All
Revenue Models
Don’t be afraid to try everything. Get
sponsors for your podcasts. Go ahead and
create a “freemium” version of your podcast (extra episodes you charge for on top
of the free ones you offer). What about
charging for ad space in your newsletter?
Go for it. There is money in that. Have
you thought about “sponsored Tweets”?
They are controversial, but everything is
open now. The key is to not be afraid to
experiment and try out everything.
Tip #4 – Price Your Content
Accordingly
If you price your content too low,
people won’t pay for it because they think
there is not enough value in it. If you price
it too high, they just won’t want to pay for
it because they can’t afford it. How do
you know the exact price? Experiment.
There are no standards currently for pricing digital content (although many people
are hard at work trying to come up with
them).
Tip #3 – Track Everything!
If you are serious about your media,
then you need to track everything about
it. From video views, to the number of
unique listeners, to how they engage with
your media (do they watch the video half
way and drop out? Do they skip your ads,
etc.) The more you track, the better it is
for you and for your sponsors. A great
website to use for tracking is Google’s
Feedburner.
Tip #2 – Approach
Sponsors
You don’t have to wait until you have
10,000 visitors or listeners before you
approach sponsors. You can approach
them with as little as 500 to 1000 audience members. The key to getting spon-
24
sors is really knowing your audience
inside and out. Also, sponsors love when
you have a very focused (niche) group of
people watching your videos or listening
to your podcasts because they know who
they are targeting exactly.
Tip #1 – Don’t Be Afraid To
Charge
If you act like a media company, you
will be able to charge for your content
(directly to your audience members or
indirectly through sponsorships, advertising, etc.). It’s ok to charge. Your content
is worth it.
Well, that’s it. These are my top 10
tips for monetizing your digital content.
I hope this article has inspired you to
take the leap to charge for your digital
content.
If you are interested in learning more
about how to monetize digital content,
feel free to take our free (yes free…but
we monetize it by getting sponsors)
Monetizing Digital Content webinar
(http://www.centerfornewmediastudies.
com/webinar-monetizing-your-content/).
We also have a Monetizing Digital
Content group (http://www.linkedin.com/
groups?home=&gid=2456853&trk=ane
t_ug_hm) in LinkedIn and of course, you
can always follow me on http://Twitter.
com/NewMediaDude for new media
related tips.
The Ultimate
Filmmaker
Competition
— Meet
The Finalists
By Amanda Sweikow
Last January (can it really be a year
ago already?), submissions opened for
Filmmakers Alliance’s first ever Ultimate
Filmmaker Competition. The goal was to
find filmmakers with talent, determination and original vision with a passion for
filmmaking as a way of life and award
one of them with the ultimate prize – his
or her feature film fully produced and
distributed. Basically we were (and still
are) sick of seeing crappy films get made
and wanted to do something about it - like
find a great one to make. So, naturally
we thought a competition would allow
us to gain access to a decent amount of
scripts in order to do so.
And, that’s what we thought, that
we’d get a decent amount. Boy, were we
surprised. Surprised, and quite frankly a
wee bit understaffed. We had an unbelievable amount of submissions, there
were so many ideas out there and going
through all of them took more time and
energy than we ever could of imagined. We were fortunate enough to have
an amazing team of people and community on board to help and, thanks to
them, we survived the grueling process
of narrowing the contestants down round
after round. Which brings us to the last round of
judging, which was indeed the most difficult, as every single one of the 22 SemiFinalists had not only worthy projects
but also made these awesome and well
produced interviews with themselves,
which you can view online at www.
ultimatefilmmakercompetition.com. So,
it became personal. Now, we were choosing not only a script, but an individual
as well. But somehow we did it and we’ve
come a LONG way to get to the point
today where we proudly announce our 5
Finalists. It has been quite an interesting journey for us as an organization
and for me, personally, as the facilitator
and co-creator of it. Most of the filmmakers have been grateful, kind, patient
and understanding, and when interacting
with them it makes all the hard work and
sleepless nights worthwhile. And then there are the OTHER types
of filmmakers—those who have NOT
been so easy to deal with. I do not want
to turn this article into a sour rant, but I
would like to ask anyone who is reading
this to please give people and organizations the benefit of the doubt. Especially
if it is the first year of a competiton or
festival or other event. If some kind of
glitch has occurred—i.e. perhaps you
have not received something that you
were informed you would; or perhaps you
were expecting more than you received
(though more was never promised)—
please just ask nicely what is happening
before you assume the worst. Because there were (and perhaps still
will be) things to work out as we mature.
And, unfortunately, we found ourselves
on the receiving end of some nasty, bitter, resentful and just plain mean emails.
And in nearly all of them, the filmmakers had assumed the worst – that we
were just a scam wanting their money
or wanting to steal their ideas, and they
were always WRONG. Plus, approaching people with kindness is usually the
quickest and best way to get your problem resolved. I mean, really, who wants
to help a jackass?
Okay, Enough of that. Let’s talk about the quality of work
we received. Over-all, there seems to be
25
just as many bad ideas out there, as there
are good ones. It’s like the film universe
has it’s own Ying and Yang. Some days
you want to slit your wrists with the
edge of the page you are reading because
you just can’t believe there are so many
unfortunate souls out there thinking they
had great, filmic ideas. Some days you’re
laughing your ass off at the lack of clarity
and apparent insanity of some wouldbe filmmakers. And other days, you’re
extremely overcome with HOPE for the
future of independent filmmaking - in
awe at how many great ideas and talents
there are out there waiting to be discovered.
In all honesty, this has really been an
amazing experience and we have been
fortunate enough to meet dozens of wonderful filmmakers. Filmmakers who are
now part of the Filmmakers Alliance
community (or will be as soon as we
launch our global website sometime later
this year). And we are proud to introduce you to 5 of them, our 5 Finalists in
The Ultimate Filmmaker Competition:
AMIE WILLIAMS
— “Jua Kali”
Amie founded her own production
company, Bal Maiden Films, in 1992,
graduating form UCLA’s MFA program
in Film Production at the dawn of the
“digital revolution.” Taking advantage
of these new technologies, her awardwinning work has focused on giving
voice to the margins, exploring new ways
of telling stories, and developing projects
across many cultures. From labor unions
to African women’s micro-finance collectives, AIDS orphans to environmental
truckers, Bal Maiden Films is interested
in driving creative ideologies shaped for
the unique challenges facing a world in
constant flux. Never content to stay put
when there is a rally, protest, election, or
uprising to follow, Amie has been excavating stories from Siberia to Soweto,
Tokyo to Nairobi, crossing borders,
building bridges and pushing boundaries, as well as her art to activate dialogue
and debate.
Her credits include NO SWEAT,
(2006) about bad-boy clothing manufacturer American Apparel, which recently
premiered at the AFI Film Festival and
was broadcast on KQED and Current TV;
FALLON, NV: DEADLY OASIS (2004)
about a childhood leukemia cluster, an
ITVS-funded film broadcast on PBS; STRIPPED
AND TEASED: TALES
FROM LAS VEGAS
WOMEN (2001), broadcast on Canadian television; ONE DAY
LONGER: THE STORY
OF THE FRONTIER
STRIKE
(2002);
and
UNCOMMON
GROUND: FROM LOS
ANGELES TO SOUTH
AFRICA (1994). These
films have won numerous awards, including the International
Documentary Award,
a National Endowment
for the Arts Media Grant, the SONY/
Streisand Award for emerging female
filmmakers, Pioneer Fund, Paul Robeson
Fund, and the John D. and Catherine T.
MacArthur Foundation.
Prior to her film career, she lived and
worked in Kenya as a teacher and healthcommunications consultant for the Ford
Foundation and CARE, International and
recently founded the non-profit organization, Global Girl Media, which nurtures
the voice and self expression of young
girls in under-served communities and
developing nations with a goal to inspire
and empower a future generation of
female “citizen broadcast journalists”
around the world to speak out about
the issues that affect them most. www.
globalgirlmedia.org.
On her projects themes:
As Nicholas Kristoff wrote in his
landmark book, Half The Sky, “Changing
the lives of women and girls in the developing world can change everything…the
world is awakening to a powerful truth.
Women and girls aren’t the problem;
they’re the solution.”
I lived and worked in Kenya as an
English teacher in a rural girls’ high
school in the late 1980’s. It was a beautiful place, surrounded by tea fields, a
time in my life I always recall whenever
I am in need of a direct infusion of hope.
This was the late 1980’s, when the AIDS
epidemic was just beginning. Back then,
none of us could have predicted the devastation that this disease would eventually have on the world, let alone a young,
vibrant African girl. I knew this girl, her
name was Grace. She
was one of my students.
This script is based on
her story.
Fast-forward twenty years. I am back in
Kenya, just after the
national presidential
elections. Everything
around me is burning.
Daily reports of people chased from their
farms, being attacked at
roadblocks, the country
is imploding. The sense
of hope and promise
embodied in Grace
seems to have vanished
overnight. Kenya, once
the “beacon of Africa,” had fallen into
darkness.
Yet as I navigate the slums and back
alleys of Nairobi where JUA KALI
HARSH SUN is set, the kids I meet are
industrious, cheeky, determined to make
the best out of their collective tragedy.
They don’t see themselves as victims at
all, they just want peace, and even more
important, jobs.
There is this recurrent theme of recycling the broken and discarded to redefine one’s identity, to make the best out
of what limited resources are available,
captured in the Swahili phrase: JUA
KALI, which has many meanings, from
HARSH SUN, to the small-business arti26
san/entrepreneurs fashioning something
out of nothing on the side of the road:
pots and pans, furniture, plants and flowers. Grace at first refuses to adopt this
credo and instead sets out on another
path. She wants answers to why her
mother died, why she is denied an education, and why she is forced to live a lesser
life as a result. She dreams of becoming
a writer because she realizes no one else
will document her story.
On the competition:
UFC: Tell me about the competition
process and your experience in it thus
far?
AW: I was thrilled to be part of
the UFC Competition and even more
impressed with the caliber of projects
submitted. I cannot describe how amazing it feels to have made it this far and
that JUA KALI touched so many people.
I think the Internet voting phase drove
me insane, but that was good training for
the level of insanity that is sure to come,
as I move forward with this project.
UFC: Have you learned anything
about your project or yourself during this
process?
AW: Getting in touch with all the
people who helped me shoot the practice scenes during the Film Independent
Directors’ Lab, and reaching out to all
my Kenyans friends who have been there
to help in so many ways (I know many
of the kids in Dandorra Slum hit the
Internet cafes in droves) this reaffirmed
for me how many people are behind JUA
KALI succeeding. I also got to know my
fellow semi- finalists and saw their work
online... We started a flurry of mutually supportive emails to each other, so I
think the competition has sparked a great
spirit of of camaraderie among struggling indie filmmakers--sorely needed in
these tough times.
UFC: Anything you’d like to say to
potential investors or audience that may
be reading this?
AW: “Out of the world’s 130 milllion out-of-school youth, 70% are girls.
-- Human Rights Watch
I’ve been making documentary films
for over 15 years, many of them shot in
Africa, where I lived in the late 1980’s,
teaching at a rural gitls’ high school in
Kenya. JUA KALI (Harsh Sun) is my
first feature script, and is loosy based on
a student I taught there, Grace. She was
my brightest student, and her love for
learning was truly amazing. So many of
my students were desparate for an education. Unfortunately, so few of them could
afford “the luxury” of school fees, especially if they lost one or both parents to
AIDS, which is what happened to Grace.
She left in Form Three, a year shy of
graduation, to care for her siblings.
JUA KALI is the story of one girl who
refuses to let circumstances determine
her fate. It’s not so much about an AIDS
orphan but rather a story of a young,
vibrant African girl who finds strength
and love under the harshest of suns, to
help make her dream come true.
I firmly believe that real stories, about
real people in difficult life situations
provide a rawness and intimacy often
lacking in mainstream media.
I never knew what happened to the
‘real’ Grace, but somehow by making
this film I hope others like her will draw
some encouragement, and who knows?
Maybe she’s off making a film somewhere about a crazy ‘mzungu’ (white)
teacher who agreed with her, all those
years ago ...”when all you have is your
voice, you just have to yell even louder.” BENJAMIN BATES –
“Walrus Eating Baloney”
Benjamin Bates grew up in the desert
of Arizona out near Queen Creek as one of
seven home-schooled kids. He then went
on to work with youth
programs and performing art groups, traveling
to the Samoan Islands,
Singapore, Indonesian
and even Texas. He
went on to write, direct
and produce several theatre productions, which
led him to decide to get
more experience before
making the jump into
film.
While at college
Benjamin again produced and directed two
more theatre productions before graduating with a Theatre degree in 2000. He has
spent the last 9 years helping his family
start an internet company in Arizona,
while writing scripts on the side. Walrus
Eating Baloney is his first finished feature script. He now spends his time
waiting tables at a hipster Lebanese res-
taurant, maintaining the internet business
and working odd film and art projects.
On his projects’ themes:
On the surface the themes of “Walrus
Eating Baloney” seem to be about the
deaf culture, people dying of Alzheimer’s
and the concept of loss. Underneath, this
story is really about how people perceive
what’s right in front of them. I have specifically written a film with almost no
spoken dialogue and characters that are
off the normal film map. I want the audience watching “Walrus Eating Baloney”
to realize they’re not seeing anything
new, just seeing things they’ve never
noticed or had access to before.
I have tailored this film’s story to be
between two deaf brothers who use sign
language (with subtitles) and an old man
dying of Alzheimer’s, who uses only
grunts and unintelligible sentences. I
have specifically worked the conversations and plot into a faster-paced story,
where these characters continually mess
with anything and everything they can
find.
As for John Henry, an old man
dying of Alzheimer’s, I have written
his character so that it runs contrary to
what’s normally portrayed in films about
dimensia or Alzheimer’s, or old people
for that matter. Rather than be depressing, I have made him fit completely
with these two brothers, Ezekial and
Jeremiah, for the short
time they are together.
He’s funny. From the
minute they find him,
he constantly gets into
trouble, smokes weed
with them, drinks their
beers, steals odd objects,
unties other people’s
dogs that they’ve left
for a minute or two.
He’s more charming
than he is depressing.
This film is not about
Alzheimer’s. It is not
about the deaf culture.
It is about seeing something for the first
time that’s been right under your nose
your whole life.
On the competition:
UFC: Tell me about the competition
process and your experience in it thus
far?
27
BB: I’m new to this experience. I’ve
been working as hard as I can to stay in
this competition. I’m happy to be in the
top five, but I think the hardest work is
yet to come.
I started this process by writing in a
lonely room with a computer, but to get
through these rounds of this competition,
it’s taken help from almost all of my
family and friends. Filmmaking is community. The sooner I get on board with
that idea, the better.
UFC: Have you learned anything
about your project or yourself during this
process?
BB: Shooting that test film, I had
intended to co-direct this film with a
really good friend an accomplished photographer, Jeff Newton. After one day of
shooting, he and I both agreed it was my
vision, and I became the sole director.
That was massive. That saved us so much
potentially wasted time, and probably
saved our friendship.
I’ve also learned patience. My brother
Daniel and I have been working on this
story for over six years. I was gung ho
ready to shoot it last year after the IFP
grant, but my intuition said to wait. Now
we have a deaf actor who’s played in
some prominent films who found us and
is talking about coming on board. Other
cast and crew is coming out of the wood
work here in Arizona, and we’re now
in the top five with this competition.
Whether we win or not this is going to be
an amazing project.
UFC: Anything you’d like to say to
potential investors or audience that may
be reading this?
BB: Look, we’re trying to do something totally different, make a completely
entertaining and cutting edge film with
almost no spoken communication. Please
have patience, and even if you don’t contribute financially, root for me and my
slowly growing crew in spirit. What we
intend to create is a hunger in a younger
audience for more creative film projects.
DOUGLAS CHANG –
“Chaography”
Douglas Chang has spent much of his
career bridging the worlds of public television and independent film. He directed,
produced and co-wrote the narrative feature film Absent Father, about “a typical
teenage girl who gets impregnated by
God, only to find He never seems to be
around when she needs Him.” The film
premiered at the Dhaka International
Film Festival in 2008 and was nominated
for best feature at the Religion Today
Film Festival in Trento, Italy. He has also
played an integral role on two PBS shows:
as supervising producer of “P.O.V.”, the
acclaimed documentary series; and as a
segment director and associate producer
for “City Arts,” a groundbreaking art
and culture series, where he worked with
some of the world’s most prominent
artists. From 2001 to 2003, he served
as programming director for KCET, the
flagship PBS station in Los Angeles,
reaching the second largest public television market in the United States.
Doug has also contributed to numerous documentaries as a writer, producer
and/or unit director, including the recent
films “Latinos ’08,” “The Jewish People:
A Story of Survival,” and “Jerusalem:
Center of the World,” all broadcast
nationally on PBS. He has acted as an
advisor on many more.
On his projects’ themes:
In “Chaography” (a word I coined to
mean “the mapping of chaos”) I wanted
to explore what freedom really means to
people, using jazz as a
mirror for the choices
we make in our individual and collective
lives. Given the delicate line jazz walks
between structure and
spontaneity, its tension
between group dynamic and free expression,
jazz felt like a perfect
way into this subject without getting
preachy or didactic. I wanted the film
to balance playfulness with provocation,
just as I find in most of my favorite jazz.
The subject also provided me with the
inspiration for some formal experimentation, encouraging me to adopt a looser,
more nimble style of storytelling which
engages with the subject as jazz musicians might approach a song cycle like
Charlie Mingus’ The Black Saint and
the Sinner Lady or John Coltrane’s A
Love Supreme. I’m a firm believer that
form and content work together, and that
a film – or any work of art – gets richer
when the process behind making it is part
of what it has to say.
My personal impetus behind mak-
ing the film goes back to high school,
when I discovered some old jazz albums
in my parents’ stereo cabinet. I started
playing them and asking my father questions about them. Turns out that while
in college, he had worked as a bartender
at a club called the Jazz Gallery, where
Coltrane premiered his quartet and Monk
was practically known as the “house”
pianist. The stories and characters he
described fascinated me, as did the music
itself, and I found myself wanting to
know what was driving all this immense
creativity. Clearly much of it was connected with larger social changes taking
place: these, after all, were the years
1959-63, when the civil rights movement
was in full swing, and jazz was often
cited as one of the places where black
“freedom” was being best expressed.
But I always thought I heard another more impenetrable mystery behind
the music, something that derived from
the artists themselves and could not be
reduced to simple social or political
generalities. This is often what I detected
in my father’s stories – these irreducible details which defied categorization.
They also seemed to hint at a side to
my parents that I didn’t normally see.
Theirs (and by extension
mine) was, on the surface, a fairly straightforward tale of a family’s
middle class struggles in
America, but when illuminated by contact with
the jazz world it revealed
a new facet: the yearning to find one’s voice
amidst a wilderness of
other voices.
Which leads me to the film’s larger thematic concerns. I’ve long felt
that Americans have gotten so used to
using the word “freedom,” we seldom
bother to ask ourselves what we mean.
“Chaography” suggests that freedom can
mean different things in different contexts, and asks us to consider under what
conditions it flourishes or wanes, and at
what cost. Is freedom ever superseded
by the greater good? Can it be exercised without impinging on someone
else’s freedom? What is its relationship to choice? If its goal is to create
a meritocracy, what happens to those
who fall to the bottom rung? If its goal
is equality, who or what manages the
28
competing forces? How do we balance
it with our responsibilities and commitments to other people? Which makes
you freer, having less or having more?
What, in the end, do we really want from
our freedom? And is it possible for each
of us to want different things without
wrenching our shared community apart?
By exploring these problems in an artful
and entertaining fashion, I hope to spark
new and deeper ways in which we can
express our freedom, both as artists and
individuals.
On the competition:
UFC: Tell me about the competition
process and your experience in it thus
far?
DC: The competition’s been a fantastic experience. It’s been exciting throughout, challenging and humbling in the
best sort of way, both in terms of what
you required of me and what I learned
about other projects in the competition.
Whenever I’m in close contact with fellow independents I’m always inspired
by their depth of commitment. So to see
the videos produced by my fellow semifinalists was, on your part, an inspired
touch. For me, the contest came at a
perfect time: I’d been working on putting this film together, but having your
encouragement and—not insignificantly—your deadlines in my sights, I think,
gave me just the kick in the a-- I needed
to get it moving forward. Thanks to the
UFC, this project became “real” far sooner than I think it would have otherwise.
UFC: Have you learned anything
about your project or yourself during this
process?
DC: Making the interview video, with
your vague but daunting call to “be creative,” allowed me to test some ideas I
had for the film. In the end, it made me
feel more confident that I was aesthetically and thematically on the right track.
I’d deliberately not tried to compete on
a technical level, just shooting the video
on my personal camcorder and editing it
from home, hoping the material would
come through from the way it was presented. I felt both relieved and proud
when it came out the way it did. The contest also forced me to think more carefully about the structure of the film: I’d
never before written a treatment of the
sort you requested in the Quarter-final
round. Once I’d condensed the script into
that format, I saw all sorts of connections
that helped me revise the final draft of
the screenplay. And although I was, like
some of the other Semi finalists, initially wary of Twitter and its sidekick
Facebook, preparing for the voting part
of the contest really did help me refine
the way I presented the film and taught
me things about getting word out to the
public.
Feedback from the Quarter-finals
also helped me recognize a perception
problem people had with my previous
film. Without the larger (metaphysical)
context of the story, people seemed to
expect something like gritty neo-realism
from it. I realized I had to change the
sample clip to address that missing element. They may still find it awkward or
unnatural, but I won’t concede that it’s
lacking in boldness.
UFC: Anything you’d like to say to
potential investors or audience that may
be reading this?
DC: If you can, please watch my video
interview. As low-tech as it is, it’ll give
you a better sense of what this film could
be than anything I say here. And please
rest assured that I can pull together great
results on limited budgets.
JAMES PONSOLDT –
“Refresh, Refresh”
James Ponsoldt was born and raised
in Athens, Georgia, received a BA in
English from Yale, and an MFA in
directing from Columbia University’s
Graduate Film Program (where his
thesis film, “Junebug and Hurricane,”
which starred Janeane Garofalo, won the
Student Choice Award for Best Film and
played at festivals internationally).
Ponsoldt’s short films and debut
feature as a writer/director, “Off the
Black” (which premiered at Sundance
‘06, starred Nick Nolte, Timothy Hutton,
Trevor Morgan, and was theatrically distributed by THINKFilm), have played
at more than 100 festivals worldwide,
including Sundance, Tribeca, Stockholm,
Clermont-Ferrand, and Edinburgh.
His screenplay, “Refresh, Refresh,”
was developed at the Sundance
Screenwriters Lab (with Atom Egoyan,
John August, Howard Rodman, D.V.
DeVincentis, and Ron Nyswaner as
advisors), received the Lynn Auerbach
Screenwriting Fellowship, was a finalist for the Sundance/NHK International
Filmmakers Award, included in the
Hampton’s Screenwriters’ Lab, Film
Independent’s Fast Track program, No
Borders at IFP’s Independent Film Week,
and was selected as the only U.S. project
for the 2010 Cinemart at the Rotterdam
Film Festival.
In September 2009, an adaptation
of Ponsoldt’s screenplay for “Refresh,
Refresh” was published by Macmillan
as a graphic novel (http://us.macmillan.
com/refreshrefresh).
In addition to being a regular contributor to “Filmmaker” magazine, Ponsoldt
29
is currently adapting the novel “City
of Refuge” for acclaimed producer Jeff
Sharp (“You Can Count on Me,” “Boys
Don’t Cry”) as well as the novel “Pyres”
for Andrew Fierberg (“Secretary,”
“Keane”).
On his projects themes:
“Refresh, Refresh” is a story about
war orphans.
Not literal orphans, but emotional
orphans – specifically, teenage boys
whose fathers are driving on explosivelined roads in Iraq and Afghanistan, their
lives constantly at risk, fighting a war
they don’t understand, across the world
from their children, who are growing up
without them.
“Refresh, Refresh” explores absence
and the psychic repercussions of violence
on families and small, seemingly peaceful communities whose parents are called
to action. When any major war is being
waged, the entire world becomes a battle
zone – even though the battles are often
far from home.
The boys of “Refresh, Refresh”
are filled with anxiety born from their
fathers’ absence. With each day the boys’
fathers are away, the fantasies of them
returning home as heroes morph and
warp into fears of a darker reality. These
anxieties soon develop into resentment,
which leads to anger, and then inevitable
violence.
The Iraq war is a lesson in economics:
impoverished Iraqi civilians are suffering
just like working-class Americans that
serve in the military (and enlist for complex reasons that are as much economic
as patriotic). The wealthy and elite – in
any culture – do not feel the same sting
of war as the poor. When the poor suffer
the most, when children lose their parents
and will grapple with the consequences
for the rest of their lives, how can we
believe that a war is “just”?
“Refresh, Refresh” is a story of boys
who believe they’re men.
These boys live near a Marine reserve
base in the rugged high desert of central Oregon, shadowed by the Cascade
Mountains – an area that geographically
resembles Afghanistan and northern Iraq.
With gorgeous and exotic terrain, this
is an economically crippled area, and
the communities are emotionally fractured because their fathers are fighting
overseas. With the fathers absent, but
wives and siblings remaining, the boys of
“Refresh, Refresh” are forced to fill the
void by pretending to be men.
“Refresh, Refresh” is a film about
victims of circumstance. Everyone in
the story – not just the protagonists
– is a victim of circumstance. Even
Corey Lightener, the military recruiter
who shadows the three boys, and Seth
Johnson, the bully that torments them,
suffers because of the war.
The children – and their families –
who populate the story didn’t ask for this
war, but have inherited it. Their town
deals with a high level of unemployment, and most of the men who signed
up as Marine reservists – never intending
to fight in an actual war – would still be
working in poultry processing factories
if they weren’t deployed to Iraq. The
military offers them the greatest opportunities – in terms of salary, insurance,
education, and ability to see the world.
In my telling of “Refresh, Refresh”,
I will be honest, unblinking and unsentimental – almost like a documentary.
Yet I will expose the humor, hope, and
humanity of the boys who are just trying
to live and – while it might seem surprising – have a good time. These are boys
and regardless of the world’s political
climate, they still like to laugh.
It isn’t my intent to editorialize about
the Iraq War, or offer condemnations of
the politicians who led (and still lead)
America into battle. That would be too
simple. I’m more interested in fundamental questions regarding violence: Are
we born violent, or do we learn violence
from our fathers, our communities? If we
learn violence, is it possible to unlearn
it?
On the competition:
UFC: Tell me about the competition
process and your experience in it thus
far?
JP: I’ve been genuinely moved by the
work of the other filmmakers -- they’re
all so talented, so committed, and there’s
been a real spirit of camaraderie. We’ve
all exchanged supportive e-mails and I’ll
be really excited for whoever winds up
being the ultimate winner. That being
said, I hope -- and believe -- that each
of the filmmakers are so determined
that they all will make their features,
regardless of how they
fare in the competition.
Filmmakers Alliance
did a fantastic, bangup job in selecting such
a diverse and talented
group of filmmakers.
UFC: Have you
learned anything about
your project or yourself
during this process?
JP: I’m not competitive when it comes to
filmmaking or the arts.
I want to see as much
work as possible made,
and especially challenging, bold, inventive
work -- from a diversity of voices. So...I
guess I hope to champion and support
the careers of as many filmmakers as
possible in any way I can. Filmmaking
requires allies, collaborators. I need other
people’s support for “Refresh, Refresh,”
and potentially they’ll need my help
for their films. It’s the real and necessary interdependence of filmmaking that
makes it unique from the other arts; I’m
proud to consider myself part of a filmmaking community.
UFC: Anything you’d like to say to
potential investors or audience that may
be reading this?
JP: I’ve always approached “Refresh,
Refresh” from a humanist perspective,
genuinely believing that if I tell a simple
story well -- in an entertaining manner
30
-- then the inherent politics will come
through (in a way that doesn’t hit anyone over the head). “Refresh, Refresh”
is a story about teenage boys -- sort of
goofy, sometimes immature, but genuine, and not wise beyond their years -who find themselves growing up without
fathers. So the process of getting older
and exploring sexuality and violence is
colored by their desire to make up for
the absence of their fathers. Boys need
daddies. It’s a universal story.
** AUDIENCE WINNER***
MAX LANMAN – “What
Would John Do?’
I’m a 21 year-old filmmaker from the
San Francisco Bay Area, currently finishing my senior year at Yale University as
a Film major. Growing up the with four
brothers (two older and two younger),
I have come to appreciate being the middle
child. We each have a
very competitive spirit,
and have always challenged each other —
either in jokes, when
we one-up each other,
or in sports, school, or
the arts— each brother
wants to be better than
the next, and the best in
the family at something.
My parents have had
a positive influence on
all of us in pursuing our
individual interest, and
for me this has really
strengthened my approach to filmmaking. I’ve learned to take any opportunity I
can to better myself or to move my career
forward, and to create opportunities for
myself by working hard and being proactive. I am a big proponent of the “School
for Hands On,” the idea of learning your
craft through experience. This has been
my approach to honing my filmmaking
skills, and in the process of doing so, it’s
allowed me to expose myself to a broad
variety of different filmmaking. Some of
my experiences include shooting: several short comedy sketches, a few short
dramas, a couple of short documentaries,
a few music videos, a comedy music
video, a corporate sponsored viral video,
a half hour situational comedy show,
live music, acoustic sessions, and most
31
recently a 33-minute short dramatic film
called “Walter’s Happiness,” which you
can see scenes of in my reel.
On his projects themes:
My script, What Would John Do,
the story of two best friends and their
adventures in Mexico helping people
in the small town of Santa Ines. Patrick
Wilson takes us through the story of his
lifelong friendship with John Marshall,
whom he believes could be Jesus Christ
reincarnated.
The thematic elements of my film are
largely based around religion, with most
of the story directly dealing with religion.
I didn”t write the script to parallel specific events chronicled in the Bible, but
there are inevitably going to be parallels,
whether or not I intended there to be. One
of the major themes is the embodiment
of Jesus Christ— which I intentionally
left a mystery. Whether or not John is
Jesus reincarnated or not, to me, was
unimportant in developing the story. But
I wanted to highlight John”s actions and
his character with this potential, to make
the audience draw comparisons.
I want the story to be exciting and
entertaining in every moment, but to
generate a conversation about religion.
For me, this means the discussion of religion’s purpose, specifically the purpose
of Jesus Christ today as well as his purpose when he was alive. John’s actions
might not fit the criteria for purity, and I
didn’t intend them to— but he is a clear
leader with strong moral values. One of
his greatest characteristics is that he is
proactive about developing an understanding of the world, a moral code
through real life experience. I intended
to contrast this idea with the textual/
literal worshipping that takes place in
Patrick’s church at home and at the
church in Santa Ines.
On the competition:
UFC: Tell me about the competition
process and your experience in it thus
far?
ML: The competition has been an
incredible adventure so far. It began
when I first heard about the contest while
in Brazil last summer. I managed to fire
off my application from a small hostel in
the nick of time, and remember thinking,
“This is the super lotto for filmmakers. It’s worth a shot.” After making
the preliminary Quarterfinal round, I
32
was ecstatic. That is, until I googled the
other Quarterfinalists and realized I was
up against some real industry pros, not so
many undergrads like myself. I tried not
to be discouraged and just went for it—I
worked hard on my treatment, and was
hoping that my story was original enough
to catch some eyes.
Months later I found myself jumping
on my bed and screaming like a 5-yearold girl when I found out that I made it
to the top 25 Semi-Finalist round. In the
meantime, I had been working on my
script for a few months. By the time I
was announced to the Semi-Final round,
I had already battled through the first
draft, which was an epic battle of its own
(see: H1N1 Flu). So I felt a little bit
more comfortable, but still found myself
making some last minute tweaks. Then
when it came time for the public vote, I
decided I needed to rally the troops with
some self-sacrifice— so my brothers
made a Facebook event promising that I
would cut my hair into a bowl cut if people voted me to the Final round. People
seemed keen on this I guess. I had
friends of friends who were inviting
their friends to vote for me. Now I’ve
got my work cut out for me in this final
round, and a helmet of hair to go to war
with it! (Youtube: “Max Lanman Bowl
Cut”)
UFC: Have you learned anything
about your project or yourself during this
process?
ML: I’ve certainly learned a great
deal about my project, and even more
about myself during this process. I had
been working on the concept for a while
before the script came to fruition, and
this contest really guided me through the
writing process. I truly developed my
approach to screenwriting over the course
of this competition, and the deadlines
were essential to me, both in terms of
keeping pace but also knowing it would
end. I realized that deadlines I set myself
were good, but deadlines that could mean
my dream come true were even better. I
learned that writing a script , while in
college means two things: first, you can’t
have a social life until the first draft is
done— second, your dorm wall makes
a great storyboard. I’ve learned that no
matter how hard you’ve been told it is to
finish a feature length script, it’s much
harder than that, that the ideal health
condition for writing a feature is not the
Swine Flu, and that using your dorm wall
as a storyboard makes you look like a
schizophrenic.
UFC: Anything you’d like to say to
potential investors or audience that may
be reading this?
ML: So far I’ve had a handful of different people read my script, and everyone seems to really enjoy it. For me to
make it this far in the contest, I’d like to
think it’s because of my story. Unlike
my competitors, I’m not a decorated
filmmaker and I don’t have any experience in the industry yet. I was excited
about my story while writing it, and now
it’s been validated in my selection by
the FIlmmakers Alliance. The best part
about the feedback I’ve received so far
is not just that people enjoyed it, but that
they enjoyed it for different reasons.
I didn’t write it with any genre in
mind, or any movies to model it off of—
and my hope was that this would help me
tell a better story, and I think it delivers
just that; it’s real, grounded, but fresh
and exciting. It’s an adventure, comedy,
romance, drama, all in one. My goal was
to write a film that’s both entertaining
and thought-provoking, that makes you
laugh, cry, and grip your seats, but also
gets you talking and thinking about different political and religious issues we
face today. I plan to provide you with a
film that delivers on all ends.
This is the ideal festival film because
it can be produced on a low budget but it
has the potential for mass appeal. I think
the religious subject matter alone is controversial enough to generate buzz. To
me, though, it’s just another part of the
greater story being told. I’d be happy to
provide you with the script, a treatment,
or answer any other questions you may
have.
Now, after meeting the 5 Finalists
and reading about their projects, I’m
sure you’ll understand why—regardless
of all the hard work that facilitating this
competition has been - we can’t wait for
the next round.
We also hope you’ll stay involved to
find out who becomes the winner of the
first Ultimate Filmmaker Competition
and that you’ll be around after, to help
support that film when it’s made.
In case you are interested in finding out
more about our 22 Semi-Finalists projects
feel free to contact them directly:
The Strongman – Alex Fournier
fournieralex@hotmal.com
763-226-4285 Jua Kali – Amie Williams
Www.balmaidenfilms.com
Amieswill@gmail.com
310-559-7065
Walrus Eating Baloney - Benjamin
Bates
www.walruseatingbaloney.com
benjamin@batesbrothers.com
480-215-0345
Tel Aviv Syndrome - Daniel Lir
www.dolcefilms.com
daniel@dolcefilms.com
917-907-2169
Chaography – Douglas Chang
Passion Play Projections/Scrap Metal
Films
duckchang@hotmail.com
301-906-0943
The Virgin Club – Hilla Medalia
Hilla@knowproductions.net
917 650 0084
Refresh, Refresh – James Ponsoldt
jponsoldt@gmail.com
Flown – Kathleen Harty
ksrharty@gmail.com
The Cabinet – Katie Carman
33
katiecarman@gmail.com
The Skylark – Keith and Blake
Hamilton
Keith Hamilton
Keith@thehamiltonbrothers.com
323.397.0670
Blake Hamilton
Blake@thehamiltonbrothers.com
718.775.6361
Flyfishing In America – Lisa
Moncure
wetlandsonline@mindspring.com
213-712-3448
Two Bricks Short – Matt Brown
hollywoodinfidel@gmail.com
Alexandria – Matthew Reichman
reichman@mrc3.com
What Would John Do – Max
Lanman
Max.Lanman@gmail.com
Meadowlandz – Moon Molson
moonmole@mac.com
Bare – Natalia Leite
natalia.acl@gmail.com
Transgalatic Zoo – Nathan
Blackwell
squishystudios@gmail.com
Flowers For Albuquerque – P.
David Ebersole
Contact Agent at APA: Ryan L. Saul
rlsaul@apa-agency.com
310.888.4229
The Impossible New Language –
Peter J. Darchuk
www.peterdarchuk.com
peter@peterdarchuk.com
310.707.5487
The Kitchen – Philip Buiser
Two Penguins L.A. philip@twopenguinsproductions.com
www.twopenguinsproductions.com
917.657.7953
Extension – Stephen Lyman &
Claire Wong
Contact: Stephen Lyman
http://confoundedfilms.com
stephen@confoundedfilms.com
646.263.6554
Jar By The Door – Tamika
Lamison
www.makeafilmfoundation.org
baobabt@aol.com
323-273-9954
Robert McKee Is
A Pompous Ass
By David Andrew Lloyd
Strutting across the stage like some
scholarly version of Mick Jagger, Robert
McKee force feeds his cult followers with
insidious Hollywood propaganda about
f--king formula and structure. “F--k this,
f--k that,” he yells at his lemmings plucking down $545 a head to hear him rant.
“You’ll do it my f--king way,” he bellows, “or you’ll die in a swirling abyss of
self pity, as your garbage gets trashed by
every studio in this f--king town.”
If that’s your view of McKee, then
you may have seen Adaptation,
but you obviously have not taken
his intensive 3-day Story Seminar.
In his lecture, McKee clearly
points out that he’s not teaching
form, he’s teaching function. He
sets forth principles to guide the
artist, not an absolute roadmap to
lead your script off the cliffs of
mediocrity. On the contrary, he’s
on a crusade to encourage writers
to pursue the highest level of “surpassing quality,” because he hates
“the f--king crap Hollywood hacks
force down our f--king throats.”
Just like you.
You’ve certainly read countless writing books, and maybe
even McKee’s Story, which, for
better or worse, some people compare to a college textbook. When
you hear him speak, though, you
feel as if Aristotle fell from the Heavens
to offer personal insight into his Poetics.
Of course, neither McKee nor
Aristotle would allow such spectacle to
occur, because both oppose the convention known as deus ex machina (Divine
Intervention). Although we all learned
this literary device in high school, McKee
points out that the Greek Masters, with
few exceptions, created such powerful
stories they didn’t need such help from
the Gods at Olympus. This explains why
the creations of Euripides, Sophocles
and Aristophanes survived, while the
uninspired works of their contemporaries
perished.
Yeah, hotshot, let’s see you top the
ending in Oedipus Rex.
This is simply one of the lessons
McKee’s student learn as their guru
speaks uninterrupted for eleven hours a
day (except for breaks and an occasional
cell phone, which costs the offender $10
if it rings in “my f--king class” as McKee
makes clear in the beginning).
You’ll also learn that the art film
directors you idolize and emulate began
their careers perfecting story structure. In
fact, Altman first wrote for Bonanza.
F--king Bonanza? Are you f--king
joking?
McKee even settles the eternal question, “Which is more important - story
or character?” Aristotle ranked story
first, character second and spectacle
(the Greek version of car chases and
explosions) dead last behind setting and
David Andrew Lloyd
music. Just as Aristotle refuted many of
Plato’s theories, McKee boldly contradicts Aristotle.
Story does not surpass character.
“Story is character,” the guru preaches,
“and character is story.”
So now you can quit fighting about
this with your friends at the Urth Cafe,
and start arguing about more meaningful
matters such as determining the greatest
quarterback in NFL history.
Simply put, Casablanca is merely a
B-movie thriller without Rick, and Rick
could barely sustain a short film if his
angst didn’t motivate his monumental
decision at the Act III Climax.
One carries the other.
After two and half days of insightful
lectures, McKee offers a six-hour, scene34
by-scene analysis of Casablanca to close
out his seminar. It’s quite a treat, even if
he doesn’t offer popcorn.
As McKee leads you through the
subtext and imagery of this masterpiece,
you truly understand why Casablanca is
considered the greatest film by so many
critics, except for a few misguided snobs
who mock its importance at cocktail
parties.
Oh, sorry, that was me.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always
enjoyed the film, but I didn’t fully understand the scope of its appeal. Casablanca
had action, betrayal and humor. It also
had a powerful and intriguing love story
for the ladies. So, if some of you guys are
wondering how Titanic could generate
billions of dollars in revenue, ask
your girlfriends. They didn’t go for
the spectacle.
Although the steamy windows in
that car scene were a nice touch.
Watching a film with such a
well-versed scholar as your cinematic tour guide helps you notice
subtle aspects of the writing (and
filmmaking) that could boost the
level of your own script.
For one, you’ll learn that the
inciting incident of the main plot
occurred 40 minutes into the film –
so f--k Syd Field!
Secondly, you’ll discover that
the writers absolutely did know the
ending before they started shooting
the film, despite Ingrid Bergman’s
claim to the contrary. Due to unique
circumstances, the director neglected to tell her or anyone in the cast,
except Bogie, so he could get a more
honest performance.
The story and subplots were so intricately woven that the writer’s treatment
was 250 pages. Longer than some novels.
Although McKee doesn’t suggest
anyone needs to go to that much trouble
developing their script, this does drive
home the importance of story. Most professionals spend more time working out
the details of a film’s structure than they
do actually writing the script. Amateurs
do the opposite, and then wonder why
their third act falls flat.
If you’re looking for interesting trivia
you can use to impress (or irritate) your
friends, McKee offers several interesting
tidbits. For example, Casablanca was
based on a Broadway play that was never
produced. Ronald Reagan was selected to
play Rick and the original script was so
banal that Jack Warner slated the film as
a B-movie.
Then the Epstein brothers came
aboard. Julius and Philip Epstein were
apparently inspired to greatness by the
lyrics in the play’s song “As Time Goes
By,” which the composer wanted to drop
from the picture. Fortunately, the producer was able to appease the composer
by informing him that any re-shoots
would be impossible because Ingrid had
started filming another project – and had
cut her hair.
Another classic saved by a Beverly
Hills stylist!
If you still think McKee is a pompous
ass, you may be right. Who can say? As
McKee points out in his own lectures,
nobody ever knows what lies beneath the
surface. The subtext often obscures the
actual text.
However, if he is, then he’s exactly
the sort of ass you need to kick you in
the ass.
He’s the drill sergeant who gets in
your face and down your quivering, little
throat, so you’ll survive in combat. He’s
the football coach who tortures you like
Lombardi, so you’ll have the energy
and determination to score that winning
touchdown in the final seconds of a
championship game. He’s the passionate
film director who screams like Christian
Bale to extract a performance so compelling the actor isn’t even aware of their
own potential.
And we all know how vain actors can
be.
Contrary to popular belief, Hollywood
is not Hell. Many talented writers (and
hacks) make a decent living. It’s not
purgatory either. Despite the insanity of
“those idiots in the suits,” good movies
manage to escape, even from the studios.
Hollywood is a battlefield, and, to
survive, you need ingenious tactics and
superior firepower. So stand up against
the War on Mediocrity, Soldier; and
accept McKee as your general and his
wisdom as your ammunition.
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Now get off your lazy ass – and start
bombing the f--k out of this town. (Leave
no studio exec standing!)
- THE END David Andrew Lloyd is an awardwinning writer, who has sold several
scripts When he learned the writers
of UP took McKee’s class three times,
he said, “Fuck! No wonder it was so
fucking good!” For info on Lloyd’s
6-week screenwriting course, visit www.
abcscreenwriting.com.
Cinema
Charlatans
By Cain DeVore
Let me set the scene for you. I walk
up the crowded stairs of my old haunt
of a house, tucked into the Hollywood
hills. The sound of music and humanity envelopes me. When I get to the top,
standing in my entryway, I literally say
out loud, “Wow.”
So many people. So much food and
drink. So much spirit pulsating to the
celebration of the night.
Most of the faces I knew. Some I did
not. Didn’t matter. All had arrived to
bring in the season, and to raise several
hundred glasses to Jacques’ and his twin
brother Andre’s 50th birthdays, as well
as to Amanda’s 30th.
The endless entirety of the Thelemaque
tribe was there, as well as the equally
impressive Sweikow clan. The love was
palpable. The smile all around was a
plaque of happiness. No one was spared
the contagion.
There was also a small army of filmmakers there, as FA showed up in force,
tagging our holiday party onto the backs
of these auspicious birthdays.
There were actors and musicians, artists and poets, hot rodders and lawyers,
and moms and dads - the reasons why all
the others can exist at all.
There was even an off-duty LAPD
officer (Amanda’s brother-in-law Keith),
who woulda’ been there no matter what
he did for a living, but who was willing
to stay late and talk to his brothers in
blue if my neighbors had called ‘em in
on us.
They did not. I invited my neighbors. And some of them were here, too.
One, Teri, who lives in the actual Chef
Boyardee house across the street (also
built in 1926 by Franz Herding) was
invaluable to setting up the party space,
providing outdoor and indoor candlelight, theatrical drapes, floral arrangements, the cabaret seating, and even
vacuuming and mopping. Now THAT’S
neighborly.
It was an actual happening. A perfect,
intimate, 300 to 400 person anniversary of the bash that occurred here for
Jacques’ 40th ten years ago.
Back then the house was referred to
as Casa de Coco, after my old earthquake damaged wire fox terrier. It is
now known as Casa de Catfish, after my
ridiculous Boston terrier.
There was an open mic with performers, and a roast by Sean Hood, fellow
founding FA member, who like me, has
witnessed the entire 16 year journey of
FA.
There was a DJ, Duncan O’Bryan. He
was, appropriately, an extension of family
– the grown offspring of Karyn “Lucy”
O’Bryan – both mine and Jacques’ dear
friend for over 20 years. Duncan is now
a full-grown man, spinning old school
discs. He’s also a filmmaker.
There was a dance floor with cabaret seating by the fireplace And the
truly remarkable thing was that everyone
Founding FA Member, Cain DeVore.
actually gathered there and listened.
Everyone focused on the scene, on the
creative journey of honoring our own.
And everyone eventually danced.
It was pretty out of sight, as my dad’s
beat jazz-heads woulda’ said back in the
day. It was pretty perfect.
And the other remarkable note of this
night was that everyone was encouraged
to bring food and drink, and everyone
did. Really good stuff. And all that
helped with ALL of that food, Berda
especially, and anyone else that stepped
in to help Jean, who was slammin’ cocktails and libations behind the bar, are to
be commended, for it was an unnatural
marathon of consumption.
There was a conga room in the den
downstairs, and the drums were playing for many hours on end, the players
changing like an evolutionary chain of
percussion.
The drums too were listening. A
drum circle can often hear only the
narcissism of each individual drum, the
player lost in his self-conscious need to
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be heard. But on this night, the players
let the drums speak through them.
Jacques got lost in them for over an
hour. Although I was spinning around
hosting, I too stopped in for a sweet set.
Some of my dad’s drums were being
played. I’m sure that he and some of the
ancients that have passed before us were
listening in.
There were sub-scenes and sub-worlds
going on. When the rains stopped, smokers were enjoying the stone and mudsoaked courtyards respectively. There
were small bands of dissidents hanging
out in the mid-50’s Airstream trailer,
as well as people later having sex in
the 1950 Boles Aero trailer on the back
40. There were ear-witnesses, as well as
clear evidence to support this part of this
huge party’s new mythology, discovered
there the next morning.
There were also stories of more sex,
in 2 of my guest rooms. Learning of this,
some people said, “Gross. Did you burn
the bedding?” And then some people
said, “Kool. Epic party.”
I tend to lean on the side of epic, with
some immediate, next day quality time
with my linens and washer and dryer.
I mean...the last guests arrived at
3:38 am and the last post-coital guests
troddled down my driveway and up my
stairs, to take the walk-of-shame to separate cars at 6:02 am. That’s gotta be sure
signs of a successful party, right?
And one of my favorite quotes about
the bash is this, written by brother Fitz,
who I know many of you met:
“The band from Scotland Glas-Vegas
were blown away.
They came to the store yesterday at
closing and hung out with Su. They have
TOURED the world and have never been
to a party like that. Thought they were
just in movies or always over exaggerated. Now they know, and will spread
the word from one side of the world to
another.”
And what has any of this myth building
got to do with filmmaking? Everything.
First off, as the Scots recognized...it’s a
good story. But more important - it has
everything to do with community. Our
community. And family, all gathered to
create something that a seasoned rock
band with world tours in their caps, had
yet to experience, yet to believe in, and
had even lost faith in. For that, we should
all be very proud.
Plus, we need to document these
events. We need not lean too heavily on
the young Scots to keep our history alive.
To tell our stories. That’s our responsibility as members of this tribe of filmmakers. As individual cogs in the wheel of
an engine of creativity, that only we can
keep running and churning into the next
decade of film.
But we cannot do it alone. Therein
lies the secret sauce of the delicious stew
of our alliance. FA thrives most when
we join together to support a continuum
of single visions, rather than crawling up
and into them, to hide out from our collective promise.
So, we celebrate the end of another
successful year in the life of FA, the
end of a decade, and the culmination of
3 lives, a house, many films, hundreds
of sketchbooks, thousands of scripts, 13
years of writing for this magazine-once
news letter-now and always a filmmakers journal.
And it was a chance to honor the two,
without whom Filmmakers Alliance
could not currently exist as we know it –
Jacques and Amanda.
Happy birthday, Jacques. Happy birthday, Amanda.
It was epic.­
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