D S 9/16/24 D S 9/16/24

Reframing, Slow Going, and the Essence of Something

It has been a minute. Actually, it hasn’t really been that long as previous gaps have been between entries. I’ve been trying to stay on top of writing while moving across the country, and during a new job. I am just not the kind of person who can wake up in the morning before work and write, but all of that may need to change. I’ve been saying for too long that I need a set time to write, an appointment I keep with myself. And I understand that not everyone does that, but I really don’t know how I’m going to be writing consistently otherwise. I come home from sitting in the office all day and I’m drained. I’ve been squeezing writing in, instead of having that consistent time. And I understand that’s the way it is sometimes, but I’ve really got to try and put the hours in if I can do it.

Writing for any time at all is a joy. It means something to be able to do it, even for a brief time per day. I wrote for 15 minutes last night. Instead of berating myself for not writing longer as I used to do, I’m going to reframe my thinking and say at least it was a good 15. I got the software open. I got my eyes on a project. And I feel like partly due to this reframing, I’ve the left the purity of the doing and the sparks of creativity and inspiration intact where I’ll be more inclined to open my software again and spend a longer time writing the next time I get the chance.

At this rate, though, completing my next script is going to take three years. And that happens sometimes, but I’d really like to be able to knock out another first draft of something by the end of the year. I’ve been working on the same page of something for two to three weeks. It’s an action scene, so I’m refining the action lines, taking a break, and going back to something else, refining it again. And I feel like I’ve been getting closer and closer to what I’m really trying to say. But this is taking a long time. I feel like I can see most seasoned writers reading this and shaking their heads, not surprised.

To sort of change the subject, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the essence of a thing. Whether through taking pictures, editing, or screenwriting, I feel like what I’ve been trying to capture is the essence of what I’m seeing or feeling; the gleam that compels me to capture that thing in the first place. For example, when taking pictures, this will often involve adjusting the frame or the camera angle before I snap the photo, to eliminate details that aren’t relevant to the quality of the scene that’s compelled me to point my camera and click.

If I’m captivated by the façade of an old Victorian house, maybe the façade is all I need to take a picture of. Maybe I don’t need the walkway, the hedges, and the mailbox in the shot. And then it’s like, what about the façade compelled me to take the picture? The weathered look of the walls? The masonry? The color of the building? How can you capture the excitement of that feeling and convey that in an image?

What has helped me take better pictures is the question of what I’m taking a photo of and why. I always try to ask myself that when I’m captivated enough by something to stop and take a shot. It’s the moment where I can’t put that feeling into words, but a detail of something sparks my attention, and I’m like, ooooh. And I stop and I take my camera out and I really try and assess before I take a picture of the thing. And I ask myself, “what are you taking a picture of, and why?”

|I’ve found a lot of it comes down to subjectivity. I like the way something looks. But taking the time to stop and assess what made me take the picture has been important. That step has allowed me to refine my vision, to be in touch with things I like as a photographer and person. I’ve found I appreciate pops of color. The presence of light in certain surroundings, how it adds depth, richness, and mood to settings. But I don’t think of any of this when I take a picture. I just think, “oooh, that looks pretty!” Any insight happens with reflection after.

I hope I never lose this enthusiasm. It’s my inner five-year-old coming out. And say what you want about allowing your inner child to run free when you’re an adult, but her joy and curiosity has helped me keep my eye to the lens and snap hundreds of pictures over the course of two and a half years, and I’ve discovered a new relationship to the world as a result.

D S 8/23/24 D S 8/23/24

Part I: Stories are Weird / Part II: Indecision is Human, Isn’t Helping

Part I: In the middle of packing to move from one city to another, I took some time out to do some narrative brainstorming. I thought I’d write a story that caters to the talents of certain members of this writers’ group I’m a part of, as we all act out the parts in each other’s pages before we give feedback and critique.

I spent the past hour or so trying to crack the nut of this image that I saw, of a wealthy man lighting a cigarette in a nightclub, the flame of the lighter illuminating his face, the point of view being that of a woman at the bar, who feels stuck in her life. This image and its point of view is not the most original, but I’ve been wanting to write a film noir told from a female point of view for a long time. I had this image and the feeling of it in my head, and the relationship between this wealthy man and the female protagonist. I had the setting, a fancy restaurant, though it could have also been a nightclub. And I was trying to nail down the cornerstones of this story for more than an hour, putting backstory into place for the female character, going through the world of this setting, but something just wasn’t working. I had interesting elements and themes, but there was a point where I couldn’t go any deeper in terms of turning these ideas into a coherent whole. And I kept treading the same ground, to this house music that I like to write to sometimes because it’s good background noise, only to realize that the most interesting part of this image I was seeing, and the opening I’d developed around it wasn’t the wealthy man, or the relationship with the female lead at all. What was most interesting was the fact that the wealthy man was hitting on the female protagonist, and she was enjoying how he made her feel, only for the female protagonist’s long-time, straight-edged boyfriend to come back from the bathroom and realize he’s interrupted a connection between them. So now my writing spider-senses aren’t focused on the wealthy man at all, they’re focused on the kind of dynamic the protagonist and her boyfriend have, what the drive home between them might be like, what kind of life she feels she has with this guy (or doesn’t), if she so readily falls for the allure of this wealthy man at the bar.

I had thought this story would lead me in one direction, and now due to this one idea I’m somewhere completely different, in a completely different dimension from where I was, like Super Mario who’s gone through a portal and now he finds himself in a video game level that wasn’t previously on the map.

Stories are weird. They are so weird. They are my X-files basically (I still haven’t seen the show, but I hope the metaphor sort of makes sense). Following these ideas just takes me into completely uncharted, unanticipated territory. But right now, I’m not necessarily excited by this, and I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not. I feel like I used to be excited by these detours, and the unexpectedness of where such epiphanies would take me. And now I’m just like, man, I’ve got to do more work.

But here’s the thing, and this may sound completely stupid. I can’t imagine myself stopping. Every time I think about stopping (which I’ve done in the past) or quitting, I start to feel literal pains in my chest, like my heart is collapsing. I still think I enjoy it very much. There must be a way to reconnect with this work, with the joy and spontaneity that led me to be excited by this act of creation in the first place, and feel like it’s less of a grind.

I feel like multiple creative people have talked about the taste-talent gap, where you spend years doing work that doesn’t quite achieve the vision you had for it as you continue to refine your skills and creative voice. But what about the transition from being overjoyed at the process of doing something to continually bumping up against how difficult it feels? And I’m not sure how I went from being stoked to sit down and write about my spaceship in a cave (the basic plot of my first script ever), to feeling like … the screenwriting process isn’t what it used to be when I started out. I feel it’s not so much about creative spontaneity anymore and sailing on the purity of an idea as it is about refinement, the reworking of a sentence and dialogue until you get it right to achieve the ultimate clarity of your idea and its maximum effect on an audience.

The thing is I feel like there’s merit in this.

Part II: A day or so after writing this, I acted out a couple of the scenes I was working on, and it was tremendous fun. And I started thinking about how I could ever quit writing in the first place. I feel like there’s this idea I have embedded in me that if I somehow get discouraged, it means I’m not cut out for this. That’s where the real sadness comes from, not so much the struggle itself, but from how my brain interprets the struggle to mean that I’m inadequate and I’ll never get to the point where I can execute my ideas.

I also feel like I interpret stories of other people’s early and easy success to mean that I shouldn’t be doing this either. Why is screenwriting so hard? Why is creating compelling images and scenes so difficult? Does that mean I’m not cut out for this? Is this like someone who’s bad at math and science wanting to be a doctor?

In lots of pursuits, you’re going to go through setbacks and bumps in the road. The lack of belief in myself is making it harder. It’s making me feel the impacts of the rough stuff more, and my defensive shields are taking a longer time to repair (I just visited Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland the other day, so that’s where my head’s at). I can’t control the rejections and stuff, but the lack of belief – I feel like that’s on me. I know we’re not made of metal either, but I feel like self-belief is so crucial to success, or at least to be able to continue what you want to do.

I’ve decided I haven’t been writing enough. I’m better after the mental health issues I had last year. Back then, if it came down to pages or taking it easy if I wasn’t feeling that well, I’d do the latter. No artistic progress or crackpot line is worth the added stress. But if this is what I want to do with my life and I’m in a better position to make it happen, then I need to do it.

D S 6/3/24 D S 6/3/24

Some Good Releases this June

It seems that a handful of well-regarded films that appeared at festivals in 2022 and 2023 are finally making their way into the wider world this month. Directly from Wikipedia, here are the films that have caught my attention (will be released in theaters, unless noted otherwise):

Am I Ok? (June 6 on Max)
Directed by Tig Notaro and Stephanie Allynne
Written by Lauren Pomerantz
Starring Dakota Johnson, Sonoya Mizuno, Kiersey Clemons
and Jermaine Fowler
Note: Appeared at 2022 Sundance Film Festival

Late Bloomers (June 7)
Directed by Lisa Steen (directorial debut)
Written by Anna Greenfield
Starring Karen Gillian, Margaret Sophie Stein, Talia Balsam, and Jermaine Fowler (Hmm.
I hadn’t heard of Fowler before doing research for this entry. At least I’m aware of him now.
Looking forward to seeing his work).
Note: Appeared at 2023 South by Southwest

Tuesday (June 7)
Written and directed by Daina O. Pusić (directorial debut)
Starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Lola Petticrew, Leah Harvey, Arinzé Kene
Notes: Appeared at 2023 Telluride Film Festival. Also, I saw this film at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival last month. The film stayed with me long after I left the theater. I hope it gets some kind of groundswell support, because I don’t know if even the most enlightened movie publicity savants would know how to market this. But maybe I should leave it up to them, and not worry about it. Anyway, at least three people cried in the theater in Minneapolis when it screened, myself included. Would highly recommend. Julia Louis-Dreyfus plays against type, but that was really a bonus for me in what turned out to be an impressive debut.

Ghostlight (June 14)
Directed by Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson
Written by Kelly O’Sullivan
Starring Keith Kupferer, Dolly de Leon, Katherine May Kupferer
Notes: Appeared at Sundance 2024, Seattle 2024, and Minneapolis-St. Paul 2024, and I’m sure will be seen at other festivals this year. I think it says a great deal that this film was picked up by IFC and is showing at so many good festivals — in Closing Night slots, no less. The directing team are the creative minds behind 2019’s Saint Frances, and I’m really interested to see the jump they’ve made from their debut to this movie, which looks considerable.

The Bikeriders (June 21)
Written and Directed by Jeff Nichols
Starring Jodie Comer, Austin Butler, Tom Hardy, Michael Shannon, Mike Faist (what a good cast, says brain)
Notes: Premiered at Telluride last year. I remember it was also at Mill Valley, but I couldn’t make the festival. My instinct is to trust Nichols to make a good movie with his eyes closed after being impressed with the quality of his first three films. A movie of his hasn’t been released in seven years (not since Midnight Special and Loving were released in 2016), and I’m excited to see a work of his that looks to be close to his roots. Also, this movie is a mid-sized budget drama that’s still a rarity these days, which will make it more interesting to see how this film does).

Kinds of Kindness (June 21)
Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
Written and Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, Efthimis Filippou
Starring Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley
Note: An anthology film, it premiered at Cannes in May, where Jesse Plemons won the award for Best Actor.

Fancy Dance (June 21 limited; June 28 on Apple TV+)
Directed by Erica Tremblay
Written by Erica Tremblay and Miciana Alise
Starring Lily Gladstone, Isabel DeRoy-Olson, Shea Wigham
Notes: I saw this at Sundance in 2023. Just now the film is getting a wider release? I suppose this is better than getting dropped into obscurity on some streaming platform with little fanfare (like what happened with Cat Person, which I still don’t understand as someone who also saw that film at the festival). But why the long route for this film to get to market? Anyway, this film is made with heart, and I’m a big fan of Tremblay’s, especially as she’s been so generous with her advice and time on social media, and Lily Gladstone in a pre-Killers of the Flower Moon performance is a bonus.

Janet Planet (June 21)
Written and directed by Annie Baker
Starring Julianne Nicholson, Zoe Ziegler, Elias Koteas, Sophie Okonedo
Notes: The second A24 release on this list along with Tuesday. This premiered at Telluride (which apparently slayed with its lineup last year), and was also at the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Film Festival, but I didn’t see it when I was there. Baker is a Pulitzer Winner and MacArthur Fellow, and I feel like the movie has to be at least above-average if it’s got the backing of A24.

Thelma (June 21)
Written and directed by Josh Margolin
Starring June Squibb, Fred Hechinger, Richard Roundtree, Clark Gregg
Notes: Premiered at Sundance this year. I had someone who saw this film at Sundance tell me this was really funny, and appreciated that this film was a counterbalance to the usual “trauma and drama” in the festival’s lineup. I take this as an immensely good sign, and if I had the time, I’d probably see this as a double feature with Nebraska. Also, does anyone remember when someone told June Squibb to F-off on Mean Tweets? The fool!).

Daddio (June 28)
Written and directed by Christy Hall
Starring Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn (the only two in the cast)
Notes: I had the good fortune of reading the screenplay from the 2017 Blacklist (it’s still available on the general interwebz as of today). Although I’m curious to see how the idea will translate to a movie, including whether Johnson and Penn’s chemistry can pull this off, the Black List screenplay established Christy Hall with a really strong voice. Like, really strong. Hall’s been on the screenwriting and playwrighting scene for a while, and helped create the really solid Netflix show I Am Not Okay with This. I’m looking forward to Hall getting wider recognition, and seeing how she translates her movie to the screen (especially as a first-time director who wrote the piece).

D S 4/30/24 D S 4/30/24

Limbo

Speaking of which, I saw the movie at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival last week, and I really liked it. Director Ivan Sen (who also wrote, edited, and composed the score for the movie) did a lot with a film that was clearly on a budget. But that’s the thing — the movie feels far bigger than it is without losing its heart and soul thanks to what Mr. Sen was able to accomplish. The film competed for a Golden Bear at the prestigious Berlin International Film Festival, and since then has been slowly making its way around the United States. While I know sometimes films that critics laud don’t have the same reception with the general public, I truly believe this is a movie that diverse audiences can enjoy.

I’d like to say in this brief update that while I’m not satisfied with my output on this blog over the past six months, the entries I’ve made in the meantime are better than nothing. Initially, I made a goal of writing one entry per week, whether a blog entry or an essay. But I’ve come to realize that writing these blogs with the kind of thoughtfulness I strive for takes me a long time. There’s an essay I’ve been working on that I’ve stopped and started over the past six weeks just because it’s gotten so long, and with life and everything else and my recovery I just haven’t been able to finish it. I think what’s going to happen is I’m just going to have to extend my timelines for these pieces, because I’d really like to keep writing.

There’s something I want to briefly touch upon in the time that I have. I’m starting to realize that doing the work of something you believe in isn’t necessarily easy. And it may not always be rejuvenating in and of itself, either. At a time where it seems like the movie business is up in the air, and there’s talk about whether feature films will even last as a medium beyond the decade, you can start to question yourself investing so much time and energy into something that’s seeming less and less relevant to daily life. In addition to being a hell of a lot of fun, movies can introduce you to new ideas and experiences, and inspire empathy and understanding. They’re powerful tools for engaging with the way we live. But if less and less people are interested in films, and studios can only find the room in their budgets to greenlight remakes and blockbusters that seem to make a subdued impact with audiences … though as I say this, new movie Challengers is all over social media, and Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire has grossed half a billion dollars as of this week. So maybe the death of the movies is greatly exaggerated.

Look, if the medium ever does die, or becomes something unrecognizable from what it once was, without the soul that made it so terrific as a form of engagement, I don’t want it to go by the wayside with me saying that I didn’t do anything to prop it up and celebrate it while there’s still enough general interest.

Bringing things full circle, the trailer for Limbo is below:

D S 4/10/24 D S 4/10/24

It’s Like Squeezing a Drop of Glue from a Clogged Elmer’s Cap

Does anyone remember what I’m talking about? Do you remember how in elementary school you’d try and squeeze some glue from one of these, only it’d be impossible when the glue would get stuck to the cap and it would get all crusty, and then you’d try and squeeze some glue onto your paper flower or whatever and then the cap would be backed up and getting anything out of the tube would be impossible?

I’ve had the most productive few days of writing I’ve had in a while. But I just feel … backed up. I’m trying to write with discipline and rigor. I’m trying to get in at least six hours a day. I’m not working, I have no excuse. That’s the way I feel anyway. And I think a part of me knows well enough to just sink into the creative space I’ve made for myself with whatever time I’ve allotted to write during the day and just go with it. But this other part of me, the residue of trying to do this during constant turmoil in my life for the past seven years, is like: “now you’ve gotta perform!!! Now you’ve gotta produce! Lay down some ingenuity on the page!!! Do it nao!!!”

I’m tired. Part of the issue is my brain may just be scrambled and over everything as a result of everything that’s happened. You know, is work ever fun? Like, if this is work, maybe I’ll just automatically recoil at anything I do over the course of regular hours. I feel like this doesn’t bode well. How can I get burned out from doing this before even officially starting?

I have been secretly stalking (in a refrained, considerate, conscientious sort of way) this filmmaker whose body of work I have been drooling over in terms of its heart, humor, honesty, truthfulness, and ingenuity. Not to mention that this guy somehow has been tapping into the media of my childhood with what seems like such effortlessness. But I feel like, minus the pandemic element, this short is where I’m at right now.

Credit to Philip Thompson

I hope I’m giving proper credit to someone else’s work. I believe this is okay to post as it’s on Youtube and Vimeo and NoBudge and other places. Also, if posting it here allows two additional people to see it and get familiar with Mr. Thompson’s body of work, awesome. I hope this guy gets his own keys to the kingdom at some point and gets to make an actual television show that blows people’s minds.

Back to my original point: I feel burned out. I feel depleted. I have another writing session I have to do today whether I feel like or not, and a part of me is like: “I’ve got to produce something, again? I just produced something yesterday! I just produced something two hours ago!” And that’s not good. It should be about the process, not about the end-game. But I’ve come to find out I’m a very results-driven person. Like, extremely. And as a result I’m just like miserable, all the time. Maybe not miserable as much anymore, but if the end-game isn’t perfect, it’s cause for getting kerfluffled. Whereas I feel like if you’re a process-oriented person, I feel like you have a tendency to be a lot happier because it’s about the doing, the moment, the adjustments, the flexibility. Anything that’s part of the doing is the right thing.

Am I cut out for this? Am I cut out for this work? Can you do this work if you’re not cut out for it? Should I be doing it? Again, I feel like it’s important to chronicle these conflicting thoughts and the self-doubt to show future artists who might also be doubting themselves that this process is normal, and isn’t indicative of future success/limited prospects and shouldn’t stop you from making art if you want to. It shouldn’t stop you from making that thing if you feel it’s really important.

I’m feeling less burned out after listening to the first Jellyfish album while blogging. I think it’s weird and wonderful and cool. Thanks to Clay Pigeon for playing a song of theirs one morning.

D S 3/30/24 D S 3/30/24

Overdue for an Update

It’s going to be brief, but better than nothing!

1) Worked on a scene from a pilot today. Two characters with goals. How do they go about achieving their goals truthfully under the circumstances? I first learned about the intersection of goals, truth, and circumstances in a community college drama class. In my screenwriting courses, I remember talking about things like emotional needs and stakes and conflicts, but never about behaving truthfully under a particular set of circumstances, which is such a core component of character behavior, and writing as a whole. I would like the audience to believe how my characters act so that they can identify with and empathize with them, and not be taken out of the journey of the film.

2) I’m trying to make a short film of my trip to New York in January. I shot footage of my arrival at the airport airport because I thought it would be a good ending. I was so convinced that I was going to put a different, fresh take on my trip at the time of shooting the footage, and it would be seen in the video. Well, I went over the footage I had shot at the airport yesterday, and realized that it didn’t fit with the rest of what I had shot in New York, like, at all. It was like experiencing some weird, alien appendage I was planning on attaching to this other thing with pieces that so organically fit together — so I deleted everything I shot at the airport. All of it. Didn’t look back. It was just funny how I thought that at the time that what I was shooting would give the film new dimension, and then this material couldn’t even be used after going through all of my clips. Whatever; that’s just sometimes the way it works.

3) I’m reading the pilot for the first season of True Detective and it’s just unbelievably good.

D S 2/10/24 D S 2/10/24

On Writing

The title is kind of a joke. I have the book next to me by Stephen King, but the thing about Stephen King is he’s a professional. Still, I’ve been doing a good amount of writing this past week (at least for me), and I feel like I’ve been completely wrong about the process.

When I started screenwriting, and thinking I wanted to do it for a career, the creativity of it was what gripped me at first. Putting settings and characters on the page that were only in my imagination. You’d think up an environment and some banter between apocalyptic space pirates or gunslingers, write it down, and boom. It was no longer in your head anymore. And in a way, that made it real, at least to a small extent.

Writing, the actual process of writing, is no longer distinguished by the sweeping bursts of creativity and imagination I experienced with my first screenplays. Those bursts are actually very few and far between. Back then, it was more important to get the sentences on the page, to paint a picture with words, however the words sounded. Even though in screenwriting, it’s really about the visuals, moments, and feelings. You’re writing for a visual medium. The words I believe are important, but they’re secondary to the feelings, scenes, and story. Coming from a world of novels, it took me a long time to figure this out.

I’ve been trying to write every day, for better or worse. And what I’ve discovered the process of writing to be (again, at least for me) is something more akin to manual labor, with fixing a leak or changing a tire, rather than a sweeping burst of inspiration. In my experience, you spend much of the day dealing with problems, and finding solutions to these problems through tinkering and creativity. But creativity has less to do with an endless flow-state than it does with micro-mechanics of details and language. You reread a scene that’s flat and add an emotional beat to it, and that one beat adds a new, vital dimension of feeling for the reader/audience. With your scene direction, you condense words, drop sentences, add more precise language, with the goal of describing the essence of an action, image, character, or moment, so your reader can truly understand what’s happening and how a character feels and be immersed in the story, and
without unnecessary words hindering the flow of the read.

And the solutions to screenplay issues aren’t always obvious. I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking up how to improve the story. And when I say thinking, I mean throwing a bunch of ideas at the wall, or staring into space vacantly. I typically have to write out a lot of words and develop ideas that don’t work, before landing on a thought that leads me in a fruitful direction. But the bearing of fruit typically doesn’t happen without many, many minutes of feeling like I’m getting nowhere. This feeling used to give me a lot of anxiety — you’ll wonder if you’ll ever get to that good idea (what if you can’t figure it out?) — but lately, I’ve been rolling with it. The Feeling of Getting Nowhere is as much a part of the writing process as finalizing a screenplay. And I’m grateful for being able to understand that this feeling isn’t and shouldn’t be a reason to panic. It’s something to work with and work through.

D S 12/6/23 D S 12/6/23

Attacking

Maybe attacking is the wrong word. But I remember a time when I’d run from a writing problem. If I couldn’t figure something out, it meant I was a bad writer and I didn’t deserve to do this. As you can probably guess, my thinking was messed up.

This afternoon, I didn’t know what to write for this pilot I’m working on. So I typed some of the most basic dialogue and action lines you’ve ever seen. Using whatever verbs and nouns came into my head, however vague and ambiguous. Typing as many words as I needed to without brevity in mind. And I got to a point where I feel like I nailed down the action, got an idea of what the characters were doing, how the characters would be feeling, what needed to happen, how the story would move forward. Again, I just had ideas, but not focusing on the words so much as the ideas allowed me to give this story some kind of foundation for later.

Later, I went back and attacked one of the scenes. Maybe attacking is the right word. I tightened up the wording, concisely nailed down the emotional responses and character actions, described the creature that’s a cornerstone of this scene using the most visceral wording I possibly could, and really thought about how I wanted to describe him to make him terrifying for an audience. And that’s when I felt like I was working, being productive.

The first hour in the afternoon was comprised of me sitting there, banging away on the keyboard, not feeling very inspired. The second hour was where all my ideas came, when I felt creative and focused. But it wouldn’t have happened without that first hour.

D S 11/21/23 D S 11/21/23

Writing and Stuff Redux

Redux means brought back, or revived. I never knew that. I feel like I’ve seen the word redux on a VHS box and never knew what it meant, only that it was associated with movies. Weird.
This is going to be a short entry. I got totally stuck on how to move the story forward in a pilot I’m working on, but just kept typing and stayed in the chair and thought of an idea that I’m satisfied with. One thing I can say after writing screenplays for so long is that now creative solutions that feel natural and authentic to the story come much faster whenever I get stuck. I can think of honest dialogue, find the small details in a narrative situation or setting to latch onto that can open up new pathways for the characters to take. And I may find out later such decisions may not be the most optimal or compelling choices, but that’s okay. At least I’m experimenting. At least I’m writing and participating in the process, instead of getting frustrated with myself, with getting stuck. You’re going to get stuck sometimes, and that’s okay.
It’s 3 a.m. I should go to bed. I’m still reading Gone Girl. I’ve been reading the script for weeks — sometimes I read these things very slowly because I really want to take them apart and see what works, how the writer pulled me into the story. I’ve read countless screenplays over the years thanks to the miracle of people putting them on the internet (for free!) to read. Their availability and the time I’ve had to really examine them has been essential to my development as a writer of screenplays.

D S 11/16/23 D S 11/16/23

Writing & Stuff

I am really close to finishing the first draft of this latest screenplay. It’s an indie dramedy about a radio station pulling off a make-or-break fundraiser to avoid bankruptcy. It’s nearly 180 pages. I can’t even tell you how the screenplay got so long.
Part of my writing process is to edit the screenplay during the first draft, rewriting what I did yesterday to get me into my work today (which is a quote I stole from writer Scott Frank). Simpsons writer John Swartzwelder writes his scripts all the way through as fast as he can. I used to think that there was a right way to write a screenplay from first draft to the final version. But I think part of the fun and the work of doing this is figuring out your own process, how you specifically create and refine a story.
One of the things I like most about working on screenplays is the process of refining sentences to communicate the story as clearly as possible on the page. Sometimes this comes down to removing a few words from a sentence, changing a verb to a stronger one to better channel the emotion and context of a scene. For example, I’m reading Gone Girl this week and one of the action lines in Scene 219 of the shooting script is “Amy is wielding the remote.” Gillian Flynn could have simply written “Amy has the remote”, but in the context of the scene and with who Amy is as a character, the word “wielding” just says it all. It adds a whole new dynamic to everything, communicates volumes without being obvious. Flynn’s word choice and sense of humor in this screenplay is part of what makes Gone Girl so entertaining, on the page and on the screen.
The past couple of days when I’ve started my writing time, I really didn’t want to get into it at all. I just got this feeling that I wanted to run away from the chair and do something else, anything else. I used to follow that feeling, but now I force myself to sit at the desk. When that happens, the first few minutes of writing are really hard, but I’ve found that I eventually relax and then the process becomes organic and fluid. Even if I’m struggling to think of a line or the next step in a scene, it all feels like part of the process.
When I was writing the final pages of the screenplay last night, I was struggling. It felt like work. I used to have a bad habit, which I think I don’t do as much anymore — but during big moments or key scenes in the screenplays I’d write, I felt so much pressure to write them perfectly, or with such captivating dialogue, that I’d ultimately get away from truth of what was happening. I’ve actually found trying to tap into the truth more effective than trying to write the perfect or most captivating line or whatever in these instances. Movie moments can still have a lot of impact even when the characters are speaking casually, as long as they’re speaking from the heart.
I hope the above makes sense. I am so tired. I got four hours of sleep last night and I’ve been yawning every seven seconds while writing this blog.
In other news, I am still unemployed. I’ve been searching for production assistant jobs to no avail for months, but I’m now unsure as to whether that’s the best path for me. I would take any production assistant job on any kind of narrative film set to get production experience. You can so learn so much from the bottom up, but I haven’t been able to get any work. I’d really, really like to get a couple more sets under my belt before I shoot my next film (if I shoot my next film), but I honestly don’t know if that’s going to happen.

D S 11/9/23 D S 11/9/23

Productivity Ramblings

3:41 a.m. My stomach is still recovering from the bout of food poisoning a few weeks ago. No more chocolate for a while.

I just finished watching the special features for All About Eve (remember those?). Now I’m watching the commentary for The Hustler. I’ve been trying to watch pre-1970 movies lately, and now I’m at the age where I feel like I can finally appreciate them, instead of thinking: “A black and white movie? Boring!” I know not all pre-1970 movies are black and white, but you get the idea.

Can I say, the staging of the camera and actors in The Hustler is pretty wonderful? Look at this composed shot:

The Hustler, Paul Newman, staging — Look at the camera placement relative to where the actors are. I’m not only talking about the actors in the foreground either. There’s a symmetry that I really like, that somehow works for the shot. I really want to figure out how to stage the camera and actors with the same kind of fluency for the sake of the story. For the record, I stole this image from the Wonders in the Dark website (but I’m assuming they got it from somewhere else).

And as I finish writing this, I hear 1st Assistant Director Ulu Grosbard on the commentary say that he felt “very strongly” that [director] Robert Rossen was “staging those scenes with a very accurate sense of what the scene was about. He knew what the point of the scene was. And he knew therefore when he was physically staging it, as well as the input from his actors — he knew what he wanted to get out of the scene.”

I still feel like if I were to stage a scene tomorrow, I would have a lot of trouble. Anyway, I did end up working on my final pages of a screenplay today. Writing felt like fricking hard work today, like rolling a boulder up a muddy hill in a rainstorm. I typed complete and utter crap for the first hour, deliberately, just to get the nuts and bolts of the scene out, not knowing if I’d be able to make it more eloquent later. But after a break I went back and attacked the dialogue again, and I felt I had a better understanding of what the character wanted to say, and I polished the words a bit and the lines sounded more like they were coming from his heart. It’s not quite finished yet, but at least there was progress and change.

I’m writing about this because I used to be one of those people who thought that if screenwriting wasn’t easy, then I should be doing something else. If it didn’t come naturally, I’d never be good enough to “make it”. And that thought would make me so sad, and I’d get really depressed, until I realized how badly I actually wanted to write. I’d write until it got hard again, and the whole process repeated itself.

But by all accounts, writing is hard. It is work. It’s not like, this incredible reservoir of creativity and inspiration, all the time. You sit there, and knock your head against a wall, and sometimes type stuff you know will never see the light of day. And I used to be scared, terrified to do that, because it meant I wasn’t good, at this thing that I really, really wanted to do. And I hated being bad at something I cared about, so much. It just felt like there was no hope.

And here is where I need to be clear: there is a difference between “making it” and “doing the thing”. I am currently finishing a screenplay that’s an improvement on my previous one, but still absolutely not ready to show or produce, with like, no guarantee I will ever have any kind of career. I have spent countless hours since 2013 reading screenplays, writing screenplays (finished and unfinished), working on treatments, brainstorming ideas, with no real guarantee of “making it”. And I’ve come to the conclusion, which may be bullshit to a small degree, that I do this because I will absolutely die if I don’t. Without developing stories and crafting screenplays, my life has very little meaning.

This is a very sad thought, actually. They talk about on The Hustler commentary that values and character are more important than whatever the heck you’re doing, some pool game or whatever else. There is more to life, more important things, than the thing you’re doing, the thing you’re working on.

I do like screenwriting a lot, though. But I do feel like having a well-rounded, rich life is important, too. And that’s something to talk about in another entry.

D S 11/3/23 D S 11/3/23

Progress and Process

I’ve been writing every day this week. It’s not like I don’t have the time. This is not the way it used to be, at all. Sitting down to write used to give me immense anxiety. I wouldn’t know what to write. I think a part of it had to do with being afraid of screwing up. Whatever I’d write wouldn’t be the right lines. I could tell my work wasn’t coming out like the professional screenplays I had been reading. And this realization just paralyzed me, for such a long time. But I kept coming back to the desk. And ten years later, I’m still writing, which is pretty wild. I’ve been doing this since college. I don’t know what that says. Maybe that I’m persistent, and foolish.

It’s just crazy to spend so much time doing something with no guarantee of breaking through. No one is paying me to develop these screenplays. Pursuing this hobby feels indulgent, and selfish. I’m not exactly contributing to the good of society by doing this, though I suppose that’s the hope. And writing for two - three hours a day isn’t going to cut it.

I’ve never been naturally good at screenwriting. I’m where I am with my screenwriting now thanks to throwing myself at the wall for all those years, sometimes skipping screenwriting for months at a time, sometimes writing only two lines a day. I’ve been reading and writing and trying to figure it out. And I’ve always come back. Part of the reason my screenwriting is where it’s at too, though, is because of the wonderful feedback I’ve gotten from my screenwriter’s group. My work wouldn’t be the quality it is today without their input.

When I first started writing, I didn’t have any idea of how my work registered with an audience. I had an idea of the effect the story and the dialogue had on me, how things sounded to me, but when you hear how your work impacts others (or doesn’t), you can really get a sense of what your strengths are, as well as what skills you need to shore up as a writer. You can get better. I ran a group of my own for a year and a half and while I enjoyed that, I got too exhausted to keep it going. Moderating a group is a responsibility, and I couldn’t do it anymore. I’m really fortunate that I’ve had this other group as an option, and that I’ve gelled so well with the people in it. Their feedback has been invaluable.

One of the things someone said during group tonight was that writing is a process. And it’s easy to forget that sometimes, when you’ve been working on something for a year, or you see the new crop of Sundance folks and they seem so ridiculously qualified, or you notice that your work still isn’t matching up to the screenplays that inspired you to start writing in the first place, even after years of work. It’s a process. And that’s what I have to keep remembering. Because I definitely don’t want to stop.

D S 11/1/23 D S 11/1/23

Falling Behind

My productivity is laughable. Can I say right off the bat that I am struggling figuring out where to go from here concerning filmmaking?
It’s 4:15 a.m., a terrible time to have self-doubts and draw conclusions. But the story’s been going like this:

I haven’t been able to get a job on a film set since July. I’m not sure if this has to do with the strikes, or if my resume’s formatted wrong, or because I’m being selective about what I apply for. It’s probably the last one, and if I’m that selective about gigs, how can I really expect to grow my network anyway? I’m so hungry for narrative on set experience. I would take a production assistant job on any kind of fiction film tomorrow. I really enjoy watching and learning, and when you’re at the bottom rung and you’ve finished stocking your crafty and cleaning up lunch, you can learn so much by watching everyone on set. I’ve been thinking about doing Hollywood CPR, but I have absolutely no interest in being a technician. In a cinematography course I’m taking with Tal Lazar, which I’m really enjoying, he showed the opening scene from Bing Liu’s Minding the Gap, which I had seen before. The opening scene knocked me out then and it knocked me out again, and I wondered — how did Bing know to shoot the opening footage the way that he did? And then I go onto his IMDB, and find out the dude’s a camera operator when he’s not making his own stuff.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me, man. I just feel like I’m in deep, deep trouble. My last film didn’t do very well on the festival circuit. I know the next step is to focus on your work and make the next one, but the only route for me seems to spend another five figures on a short again, which I have absolutely no interest in doing. I would rather pull a David Lowery and make a feature for that amount of money; I would rather make a short confidently with the knowledge I can do something with the material. But after how much I fucked up Carol, Roberta, and Teri, and how much I’ve learned since then, I’ve come to the conclusion that when it comes to directing film, I have no idea what the heck I’m doing.

That realization has been further impressed upon me by my pre-screening gig. I’m watching an average of seven shorts a week, and I’m quickly realizing what good film directing looks like. There are subtle blocking decisions these talented filmmakers are making that blow me away, and they seem to know instinctively where to put the camera. And I think of how I covered the previous short and feel like I’m so out of my depth. Knowing what I know now, I honestly don’t know if I even would have shot the movie. PreGame was so dynamic partly because of the blocking, because I consulted with the main actors on real basketball moves. The shots were designed around that, and (D.P.) Charles’ excellent framing and camera movement gave the film a production value that made it feel like you were in the match with them. With the same script that I had written, and the limitations to the location of shooting in my house, I’m honestly not sure how I’d enhance the material. The only thing I’d think of is to do better blocking choices, which would change the coverage, but then the blocking wouldn’t communicate the subtext of the script I had written, so I’d have to change the script. I’d probably make it way less yell-y, and much more of a simmering tension. I’ve honestly found that in all the films I’ve watched as a screener, such an approach is usually way more effective.

I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I need to grow some balls. I need to say that part of the reason why I feel so torn is because I don’t want to stop writing. I’m not writing enough, but if I had to remove screenwriting from my life, it would devastate me. I mean, it would tear a hole in me and I wouldn’t be able to function. And I’m trying to write every day while I’m unemployed, because it means something to me. It’s important to me. And then I think about how I’m not in the industry and wonder how I’m going to make the right connections, and I get bogged down by the noise. I am so close to finishing this screenplay, which is an indie dramedy that will likely crack the 160 mark when all is said and done. At press time, I have one piece of work ready to go that I’d feel comfortable submitting to agents if they’d asked. What the heck am I worried about breaking in for?

I am terribly, terribly worried. I am going to be 35 next year, and am worried that I am completely deluded by continuing to pursue this. And I’m also terrified of not pursuing it, because like, this is the thing that sets my soul on fire. I felt during Tal Lazar’s lessons today that I was starting to get (to some degree) how to translate subtext to the screen, and it just felt like my soul was flying. But is it totally off-base to say that such joy shouldn’t be an excuse for making stupid decisions?

D S 9/15/23 D S 9/15/23

Don’t Call it a Comeback

And LL Cool J probably used the phrase to mean it as he had never left, but I’m going to be using the phrase a little differently.

I can’t believe that over a year has gone by since I’ve written in this blog. Between May 3rd, 2022 and today, here’s some of the stuff that’s happened:

1) My stepfather died

2) I worked in logistics for some good film festivals

3) I wrote a pilot

4) I drove from the American East to West

5) I was diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and borderline personality disorder.

The last number. Where do I even begin?

I would like to take this moment to get really, really presumptive and say that I am very nervous that any content I may post concerning the fifth number may cost me future jobs and relationships in the industry. But things have so bad and so isolating with regards to my current state of mind that I no longer feel I really have a choice in the matter as to whether I call this depression and anxiety out by name and write about it. I have no doubt that other creatives and humans, just in general, have gone through and are going through similar issues and mindsets, but may have very few people to talk about this with, if at all. And they may have possibly been looking for information on how to live, how to survive, so they can cope as their brain is lifting off from its hinges in some kind of great unbuckling, as they’re finding out what’s underneath the floorboards of neurons and synapses is nothing but sheer, dark terror.

I don’t know how honest I can be about this [honestly]. I’m thinking of William Styron’s highly rational article on his struggle with depression, Darkness Visible, which sounds so reasonable when you read it. He has the benefit of hindsight and is in a recovered state of mind when he’s writing it. Whereas I am in the midst/mist of this, this thicket of blackness that just consumes and won’t go the hell away.

I returned home after a terrible, terrible time doing a film festival gig because my brain had basically decided its only modes were one of the three:

1) Wildly depressed (would only activate in private)

2) Moderately depressed

3) Trying to pretend like I wasn’t depressed for the benefit of others (co-workers, the public, etc.)

My medication has stopped working. That isn’t to say that I stopped taking it, or that I did something wrong in the course of this. I took my meds, meant to keep the depression and anxiety at bay, regularly. And what’s been happening this week is that my body has likely gotten used to what I’ve been taking. These pills, which rocked me through July and made me feel like a human being for the first time in longer than I can remember, are somehow not doing their job. And for the devil’s advocates that would like to tell me “go outside and get some sun and just exercise for 30 minutes and clean your room and eat well and you’ll feel better” — I want to say that these things are temporary fixes at best, and getting myself to do them, to do anything, feels like I’m executing a function written by some distant coder instead of performing human behavior where I feel in the moment. I feel like there is molasses in my veins, moving through deep water anytime I do anything, and I can’t swim to the surface until I complete the task at hand, but oh my God, I’m underwater and I could drown while completing it, but if I swim to the surface and abandon the task at hand I won’t make it, and everything seems difficult and a source of agitation.

I’m writing all of this down for the only purpose of trying to chronicle and explain this for someone, for the person who understands, who maybe hasn’t had the words to articulate their experience, and also for the person who has never experienced anything like this. I feel like those who look for information on this sort of thing need to find it so they can be more empowered, so they don’t kill themselves, so they can be less alone. Someone needs to know what’s going on. Again, the above is not to be melodramatic, but to try and describe.

The last time I called 988, I was in a state of acute crisis, where no one picked up for a good twenty to thirty seconds that felt interminable in my awful state, so instead I called an acquaintance for help and screamed into the phone nonstop for thirty full minutes while waiting for my mom to arrive at the house, because I was afraid to be there by myself. I’m not really motivated to call the number again, because all it reminds me of is what happened that awful day. I had another fit of screaming within the past month, only this time I had the sense to realize that I couldn’t call the same acquaintance without being a tremendous burden and scaring the heck out of her even more, so I screamed and cried for an hour at my ceiling.

I am on a regiment of medication which is supposed to make me feel better. Because I’ve felt so good and more or less normal on it, I’ve been realizing that I’ve been depressed for probably twenty years, and never got the help I needed or deserved, for various reasons. Maybe I’d be in a better position to kick some ass by now if I had taken myself more seriously back in 2017, when I had a full time job and proper health insurance. Now I’m on the state’s insurance, and it’s so difficult to make an appointment, and I have to wait another two weeks before I can see a psychiatrist — but I should be so lucky I have insurance at all, right?

I am leaving up all of the above. I am leaving up all of the above because I ultimately want this to be a story of getting better. People going through their own hells need to know that someone else is going through their hell too, and is trying to get out of it. I feel it’s good to know what experiences look like that come from being in them. We need to start talking about these experiences more in the collective conversation. What’s currently happening — this is something that I didn’t ask for, that I would never wish on anyone. There is a part of this that isn’t my fault, yet the burden of dealing with these illnesses has been enormous. I can no longer keep silent about my experiences.

One more thing I’d like to say is that starting this blog again is an attempt to reclaim my identity as a filmmaker, which I’ve had since I was twelve and which I don’t think is an inherently bad thing. I understand that we grow and change and evolve as people, but there is still nothing else that has captivated my imagination quite like film, and I am still heavily interested in filmmaking, and if it wasn’t for whatever the heck is going on with me, I honestly think I would have made a lot more stuff by now and have a lot more screenplays written, but whatever. I don’t want to lose this part of myself to the despair that comes from having your anxiety turned on like a faucet nonstop for the better part of your day. I cannot believe this is happening. When I would sit down and write for the better part of this year, all I could think about is that I’d never make it. This terrible voice in my head wouldn’t shut up, and I’d start to question why I was writing, whether what I had to say meant anything. The Voice cuts through the fabric of my reality with its sharp tones and harsh voice and general nastiness, and I couldn’t shut it up until I got on medication. Now it no longer seems to be as effective, and I’m sitting here in bed at 11:43 p.m. after hardly writing anything at all today, wishing I were dead.

I need to reclaim my dreams, as long as I still want them. I need to reclaim myself.

Here goes nothing.

D S 5/3/22 D S 5/3/22

Smoke on the Water

So either I’m not understanding how to change my blog layout, or Squarespace sucks. In Google Sites, it’s so easy and intuitive to change the layout of a blog. I don’t even know what a meta position is. All I want to do is put a picture on the left of the blog, and the content to the right of the blog. What’s going to happen is I’m going to get some huge picture at the top of this entry, which is not what I want. Argh.

The above is a picture I shot while in Ossining, New York. I’m trying to get better at photography to gain more of an understanding of elements like lighting, composition, and framing that serve to enhance a movie.

Inquiring minds may have noticed I haven’t written in this blog in two months. Yes. I moved to New York, PA’d two NYU shoots back to back, then moved back home temporarily to help take care of my stepfather, who’s been having some health issues. And I think I wore myself into the ground, because I now have this weird cold that doesn’t feel quite like a cold. My nose isn’t as stuffed and my throat isn’t as sore, but I feel so unusually depleted of energy. My body aches all over. I have no appetite. And it’s like, when I’m sick is the only time when I’m available to write in this blog. Grah (another expression of frustration).

Another development is that the latest short film is finished. Stephen the Fantastic Editor and I finished it last week. Interestingly, I’ve been so sick and busy helping to take care of my stepfather that this accomplishment hasn’t really set in. And I think this may also be because I have a good idea as to what’s going to happen, if PreGame is any indication: I’m going to submit this to festivals, it may get into a few good ones if I’m lucky, though it will be a crapshoot as to which ones. And more than likely, nothing will happen. I will have spent a total of $70,000 on two shorts, when there’s a very plausible chance that the only thing that will happen after this is that I’ll have two films made and a couple more worthy film festival acceptances to my name, and that’s it. I wish I could find that page I read a long time ago that said the average budget for a short film is around $35,000. And this is because I spent about a fourth of that on equipment, and about a third of that budget or more on paying professional rates for the fifteen crew members and three-person cast members I had hired for the three day shoot. And yes, I could have saved money by hiring people with lower rates. But I’m not 22. I don’t have the kind of time to build connections in the hopes that they work for free on a project I direct down the road because we’ve been in the trenches together or whatever. The money I paid is at least some insurance that whatever happens with me in the director’s chair, I’ll at the very least have some semblance of a quality product at the end of the day. I could afford the people I wanted to work with, which is a luxury you’re incredibly fortunate to have. That doesn’t necessarily mean I’d work with everyone again, though. The interesting disparity that happens when you hire someone and what they’re like when they actually show up on set (or not) will have to be for a future post.

Please know that I’m not bitter, and I’m trying to process all of this as learning experiences. And hey, I was able to make a movie with (for the most part) cool, knowledgeable, skilled people! Shoutout to every single member of the crew and cast anyway. Thinking of all of you right now; I hope you’re doing well and having success this year.

My road trip screenplay is coming along slowly. Due to what’s been happening with my family and with my cold, I’ve barely had the time or energy to write at all. I wrote about four days last week and was really proud of myself, and then got sick. Since I want this to be my job and all, I feel like I should be doing this every day. Right now, it surprises me that I even have the energy to type a coherent sentence. I really, really want the screenplay to be done by the end of the year, though. I’ve written about fifty pages or so, just trying to crank it out as a first draft with no filter or censorship on my part. And while I like the looseness of some of these particular moments that I’m uncovering as I go in this first draft, I’m wondering if I’m really building a foundation for this project. I’m trying so hard to develop a particular process so I can ask the right questions for each screenplay, but maybe each project has a particular process of its own that I can’t know until I finish writing it. Anyway, it would be really, really nice if I could have a draft by the end of the year that I’m satisfied with, even if it’s not perfect.

Really sick and feeling like I want to sink into my bedsheets. That’ll have to be it for now. Don’t even have the energy to make recommendations.

D S 3/2/22 D S 3/2/22

Precision and More

I’m not sure what the “more” is, yet. Maybe we’ll find out at the end of this post!

I’ve been coming across the theme of precision in the movie-related stuff I’ve been doing and absorbing lately (no bullshit, it’s not a lot, at least not as much as it should be). I’ve only listened to a few episodes of Team Deakins, but the information I’ve heard from Robert and James has been so helpful so far. Hearing about James’ work with everyone from 1st A.C. Andy Harris to the VFX department and bridging those gaps to help create the best image possible, makes me feel like I’m actually on set, like I’m on the production with them. The qualities that seem to be required to be successful in this medium seem to run the gamut between being detail-oriented and open-minded. You have to be super tenacious when it comes to things like figuring out the origins of mistakes in the camera tests, noticing whether a fraction of an image is pixelated, or timing the VFX right in a shot in post. On the other hand, you have to be open to possibilities you didn’t anticipate that can actually make the film better, such as when your storyboards or pre-conceived blocking doesn’t really fit when you arrive at a location scout, though after seeing your location in person and discussing possibilities with other professionals, you work out shots/blocking/other elements that can actually make the film better.

In the location scouting episode, Deakins mentions that scouts are opportunities for being able to execute something conceptually in a physical space (paraphrasing). In the conversation with The Witch’s Robert Eggers and Jarin Blaschke, Jarin mentions that he notices the relationship of person to environment as a cinematographer. I never, ever considered the relationship of camera to person and person to environment and camera to environment as part of the cinematography, before I started listening to this podcast. I initially thought cinematography had only to do with lighting. Then I learned that cinematography actually had to do with managing the quality of the image. Okay. Now, after listening to the Team Deakins podcast, and watching interviews with DP’s like Marcell Rév, I am realizing that cinematography is so much more than what I thought. It’s a whole package. Lighting, camera, lens choice, angles, a collaboration with the production designer, location manager, working with the limitations of the space and sometimes extending or shrinking them artificially to get the shots you need, working with the VFX department, in addition to the director.

And the qualities that I’m learning are useful as a DP are also useful when directing. Attention to detail, flexibility, openness, good communication, an eye for quality, trusting your sense of taste, and knowing when you don’t know something, so you can get the answers you need. Speaking of attention to detail, the other night I discovered the presence of a gas flame missing in the burner when a shot of a character is at the stove. All scenes at the stove were shot with the gas flame off for safety, and a burner plate was taken so that the image of the flame could be composited with scenes later. During my quality control with Stephen the Fantastic Editor, we had diligently listened all of the VFX shots that needed to be done, and sent them off for compositing. This was months ago. It was only in the sound design phase, where I’ve listened to and watched the movie even more times now so I can provide the necessary feedback for the post-sound professional, did I notice that the flame was missing from the shot. What. The. Heck.

I am still working freelance. A part of me keeps wondering if I’d really be able to approach each phase of this movie with the rigor I’ve been doing if I was working 40 hours a week. Now knowing the attention to detail I strive to apply to this kind of endeavor, I think the best course of action for me would be to space out my sessions over the course of a week — an hour per night with the sound design, instead of cramming two four-hour sessions into my Saturday and Sunday. I am also looking for a long-term apartment and a full-time job, and I’m on a road trip in search of these things, which is taking up a substantial portion of my time. But whatever’s happening in my personal or professional life, it doesn’t have the kind of gravity to halt this film altogether. I have to get this film done. Nicolas, the Wonderful Sound Mixer-Designer, wants to get this film done. The actresses are invested in this film getting done before 2025, you know?

A quick note: I don’t want anyone to think I’m complaining. I love this. I say this without irony. It’s been amazing being able to get inside the film and listen to the nitty gritty details that make a difference in your experience of the film through the audio. It’s truly been a blast. I hope to be able to keep directing so I can do this again. But this whole process has been time consuming. The sound mixing-design process for this short is different than it was on PreGame, where we basically handed the audio files to the sound mixer-designer, and I essentially was like, “hope the basketball footsteps sound good!” And they did. I wasn’t looking for dramatic tension in the footsteps or basketball dribbling — the important thing was that it sounded like a basketball game, that the energy of the characters’ movements matched the sounds (and Derek made them sound crisp and sharp, which I hope was essential to the way viewers felt when watching the movie).

With this current short film, it’s no longer about the mixing, it’s about the dramatic tension and emotion conveyed through sound. It’s a totally different cinematic situation in correspondence with the needs of the movie, and I don’t know why I didn’t consider how this would play out in reality when it came time to executing this concept in the sound design phase, how much time and nuance and rigor this would take. You live and learn.

I’d like to share a filmmaking sentiment I’ve found to be helpful: everything costs more time and money than you think it will. I’ve only made two shorts (one still in the can, really), but I can’t tell you how many times there have been unexpected surprises that have added time and money to a particular element of a production, the kind of coincidences you can’t anticipate until you get to them. I actually think that philosophy is a reasonable approach to life, to be honest.

The insertion of the burner flame in the overlooked shot, which might seem like an indulgence, but one I deemed necessary due to the circumstances mentioned above, cost me $400. This is to say nothing of the $7,000 I’ve spent in special effects, to insert royalty free paintings in the places of the art that decorated the walls’ of my parents’ house, to ensure that film festivals wouldn’t balk at any copyright issues that would prevent them from accepting the film. Not to devalue anyone’s work or my contributions, but I knew from my past festival experiences that the chances of getting into ones like Sundance and South by Southwest were basically zero. Why spend all this money? Would even the regional festivals care? But if a copyrighted painting prevents this film from being accepted into one good festival, and prevents the work of the actresses and the other professionals I worked with from being seen on an even slightly, I have to do what I feel I have to do.

In prep, which I did not give myself enough time for, I should have allowed myself enough time to explore the option of buying stock art, and putting it on my parents’ walls in place of the paintings. Even if that cost me $1000, that’s still way less than the price I ended up paying. But at that time, I had just wanted to get a film made (to provide some context, I need to state that I also made this film under some state of duress, as I had turned down a job prospect to avoid conflict with my parents about moving away, and I subsequently felt I had no professional future. This inception of this short came from a combination of real fear, and wanting to make something very, very badly).

These are learning lessons, that are also really costly mistakes for a lot of people. Unless you’re living at home or have really, really low overhead, saving $7,000 within even a few years is very difficult. That money is a third of a future production. The kind of tenaciousness I’m putting into the on-set and post production of my shorts, I need to be putting into prep and the finances. And let’s consider that when you’re writing, directing, and producing the project yourself, and you want to do a good job, committing to that kind of extended tenaciousness for all of those phases takes a toll. Really only suitable for air traffic controllers and Navy Seals, haha.

One last update on a recent blog entry: I even get an interview to NYU this year. I was so sure I would get in. This current short film wasn’t ready. I submitted a 48 Hour Film Festival entry I had done a few years ago for this current application, while taking great pains to say that hopefully this shows what I can do under time constraints, and is indicative of some kind of talent. If I had thought the movie was a total train-wreck, I wouldn’t have submitted it. It had its moments. I tried to acknowledge it for what it was. I believed so certainly I would get in because I made it to the interview round last year. But also like — I wrote my personal essay and my dramatic tension submissions with my whole heart. I know that sounds so maudlin and sentimental, and likely has little to do with the actual reality of what an admissions committee looks for in qualified candidates, or in cultivating the next cohort. But like, I bared my soul in those pages, in what I felt was a really articulate way, rooted in genuine feeling. And I wasn’t thinking that I’d get in from a place of entitlement, but because I believed the committee members would detect the kind of passion and genuine feeling that I had expressed on the page. It came from a real, bare-bones place, that I believed was stark and distinguished myself from other candidates. Now writing this, and looking back on that phase after not getting an interview, it’s like: well, that passion and genuine sentiment clearly wasn’t enough.

The primary reason I am not in a place of despair about this is because I have more money in the bank to make another short, and job prospects in the film festival world and in the film industry that would allow me to save money and make the connections needed to make another short. I had the time and presence of mind to screenwrite today. I am not desperate. I hate what something like this might do to me if I thought that NYU was the only way to have a fulfilling and full-time directing career, if I had no other means by which to achieve it. Without being presumptuous, (but still being able to speculate, because this is a blog and I’d like to use it to communicate some opinions and feelings once in a while, even if — disclaimer — they don’t reflect the full reality of things), I feel like this is where empowering yourself through learning a skill or getting a job in the field comes into play. If you can get a job at an agency, like someone I know recently did, or if you can edit, color, or do sound really, really well, that’s one step closer to being able to get paid to make films, save for your projects, and meet the connections that will hopefully allow you to do satisfying work in the future. Again, just a thought, that’s all it is.

D S 2/16/22 D S 2/16/22

In Limbo

In my bio, I write the following:

I try and put a lot of thought into what I write, but sometimes extenuating circumstances will lead me to sound pessimistic, unhelpful, immature — like a human being, basically.

This is going to be one of those entries, so at the chance of possibly sounding like a teenager, please read at your own risk.

I have been living out of AirBnB’s and accommodations for the past month due to some problems with living at home, and with the conflict I’ve experienced, I’m also finding it impossible to return there. I was also in a co-dependent relationship with my parents that I helped to perpetuate, which isn’t a good look for someone my age (33!). So I think it’s time to put up the sails and push off from shore, so to speak. The thing is that I have no idea where the heck to go. I have no roots in any other city. However, I have decided that who I am isn’t compatible with the vibe of Los Angeles. I don’t mean this in a mean or bitter way, I just mean that I think it’s best to put down ties somewhere else.

I want to be a filmmaker so desperately. And for any younger folks reading this, I’ve been thinking of the concept of “deserving” in my head over the past couple of days. When I was younger and just starting out (or really, spending years trying to navigate how such an ambition would be possible while being too nervous to act on my goals, because it seemed like there was no sure way to reach them), I thought I deserved to be a writer-director, simply because of how bad I wanted it. I was a decent person. I wanted something terribly. Why shouldn’t I get it? I’m not sure how much this is a reflection of my character or not, whether at the time or right now. Anyway, what I want to say is that this isn’t how the world works. You have to actively work toward and fight for your goals if they’re really important to you, even when it seems like the world is telling you to quit. And being a filmmaker is still really, really important to me. I feel I have things to say and a particular vision that will connect with audiences (notice I didn’t say an AMAZING or a PROFOUND vision, I just said a particular one).

By an incredible stroke of luck, I still have the money to make projects. But with every week I spend at a particular place, that money that I could be spending on crafty or film equipment drops. It needs to be said though, that I’m really lucky to have enough of a financial cushion to hole up in a place where my accommodations are clean, quiet, and comfortable. To be frank, what’s been going on in my personal life has been very hard, but in other ways, I’m very lucky. And I don’t think I’ve really applied that knowledge to where I’m at in this moment and this time in my life, until just now.

I need people to know, though, that what I’ve been feeling lately is just…sad. My personal life is kind of a bummer. Nothing professional is happening. The short film I started prepping for last May is now on its third sound mixer/designer, and the saga of that is probably worth a whole additional blog entry. I’ve been applying for jobs and have been finding positions hard to get in light of my scattershot work history, which is my fault, and the result of some very poor decisions.

I feel very, very far from my goals, but here’s the thing. Instead of writing, or reading a screenplay, or watching a movie, or researching or practicing an element of filmmaking like editing, I’m sitting here freaking out about my prospects, instead of building the bridge to get to the next thing through steady, dedicated, professional work. And that doesn’t even have to be through making some short film — it could be as simple as writing half a page every day, or opening Adobe for a half an hour every night. Developing habits. I understand that when you’re feeling lousy or discouraged it’s hard to apply that negativity into something productive and creative. My default is simply to sit there and steam like some kind of baked potato when I have a setback. And sometimes, that’s what you have to do to get past what you’re feeling, and feel better. But if you don’t continue your momentum somehow, you’ll never get those screenplays finished or out into the world. You’ll never get the money for that short film. You’ll never get done what you want to do.

Watching: John Wells WGA interview Part 3 (the whole three-part series should be REQUIRED viewing for any storyteller)

Reading: Lori Teresa Yearwood’s feature on how she worked to escape the trauma of homelessness while facing others’ white savior complex is one of the most heartbreaking things I’ve ever read.

D S 12/13/21 D S 12/13/21

Producing, Collaborations, and Film School (maybe)

I’ve gotten sick twice within the past month, once from the Covid booster. But twice? Currently writing with some fatigue. I haven’t written for movies today at all. I feel generally bleeeggghhhh.

This week I’ve been analyzing a script on CoverflyX along with the screenplay from Unforgiven, by David Robert Peoples. C.R.T. should be done by January. It’s interesting because PreGame we shot in October and it was finished by February. C.R.T., which didn’t require any extensive basketball choreography or anything, took an extra two months. I have no idea why this is. I think the color and VFX required took longer than anticipated, and I’ve had to work within the current schedules of other filmmakers. The person performing the aforementioned tasks on this movie, who did a really terrific job, wasn’t available until the start of November, about a month or so after Stephen and I finished editing. My sound designer, who I brought on after I had to pull the project from the post mixer I had hired because I wanted to go in a different direction, started working on the project at the same time. And he’s likely got his own projects, too.

For the record, I’m not complaining at all. That’s the way it is. I want to take this opportunity to note that even with their other projects and commitments going on, the people I’m working with in post have been upstanding. They’ve been communicative, transparent, flexible, thoughtful, responsible, and honest. I’m fortunate to work with them. It needs to be said that I’m paying them professional rates, and may not have had access to this sort of talent otherwise. It should also be said that these are people who I’ve worked with before. They know how I operate and that they’ll get paid what they asked for on time. And I can go days without hearing from them for a while because I trust their quality of work on all levels.

In an interview for Film Roundtable, David Lowery talks about how being able to trust a collaborator you’re working with on a movie provides you with a certain sense of relief. As someone who’s currently spearheading her own projects, I get this. You want to be sure that all the planning you’ve done in the shot selection, blocking, location scouting — that whatever is in your power to do as a director and producer to see the project through with a particular vision will be worth the investment. The skill, taste, and collaborative qualities of the professionals I’ve worked with thus far have ensured that the investment of my time and finances have yielded satisfactory results. Now, it’s ultimately your responsibility to shepherd the project to the best state it can be if a sound pass doesn’t come back to your liking or something, but that’s all part of the collaborative process. It’s nice to know that you and the other professional are willing to do the work to get a certain element of the film the way it needs to be to create a quality cinema experience.

I applied to film school again. This year I feel like is the year where I need to decide if I’m going to film school, or if I’m going to find another way to make movies. Now you may ask why I feel the need to go to film school if I’ve already made two projects outside of that context. That’s a great question.

One of the reasons is support. I’d like the scope of my next two projects to be larger. I don’t know if I have more pressing stories to say that can be executed within the confined space and limited blocking of my previous two shorts, which all took place at one location and with less than three actors. The next short I do will likely have more actors and/or locations. Coordinating C.R.T. and all the challenges I faced in pre-pro almost destroyed me. Had I known what I know now, I would have given myself a longer pre-production period. The challenges at this stage of filmmaking are likely unique to every production. Two months was not enough time for me to finalize the script, comb through eight hundred applicants of actresses, deal with unexpected personnel negotiations and dropouts that took hours of my time, storyboard the film, prep with Charles the DP, hire and communicate with sixteen crew — now that I think about it, it’s a miracle that this short has come out the way that it has. I’m not sure how much the chaos behind-the-scenes affected what’s in the cut. At the very least, from watching the final edit, you’d never know about the tornado that went on in pre-pro. My creative choices seem more like the results of writer-directorial strengths and limitations, rather than a lack of planning on my end. Which I guess is something.

But what’s clear, especially if I want to make projects on a larger scale, is that I’m going to need someone with more experience to handle the logistics. Producing projects of that magnitude on my own while shepherding them as a writer-director would be too much.

It’d be cool, for example, to work with aspiring producers getting their NYU Tisch/Stern MBA degrees. Getting that kind of degree requires a certain seriousness about the business and financials of filmmaking. As they’re also fulfilling their roles for a diploma, there’s the insurance they’ll take their roles seriously. As students who may have limited filmmaking experience, though, will they be able to perform their jobs competently? Hmm. That’s an important consideration.

There is really no point in making a film of a certain scope if you don’t have a competent producer. I say this from experience. Even Take Out, which had a total of four people in it, had four producers according to its IMDB page (though its two leads produced, too). Medicine for Melancholy, which pretty much features only two people in the film and had a crew of five at any given time, had two producers.

I do not consider myself a competent producer. With a couple of exceptions, there have been no lines drawn in the sand where it comes to money, which is what a good film producer enforces. Now, I’m not spending $80,000 on this short or anything, but I know in certain situations that have come up on this film where a producer would have and should have drawn the line. In pre-pro, a producer would have been able to help me find a good crew for a lower cost that could probably more or less still executed the vision that I had for this movie. Now, I may have been able to do this myself with more time, but this would likely be a prolonged task with its own challenges. A producer could help with this. And there’s other things I didn’t know producers did that would have helped in post-production. When it’s just you and the editor assessing footage after four weeks of refining the cuts down to a matter of frames, some additional project input from a trusted source couldn’t hurt.

Filmmakers: David Firth, Kogonada

Reading: Lil Kalish’s article on Los Angeles community fridges

Watching: Cashback (Sean Ellis)

D S 11/30/21 D S 11/30/21

Details

Progress on The Nothings and some bar mitzvah movie I’m now writing about is still proceeding at some lugubrious pace. The good part is, I think I’ve locked in the first act of The Nothings. And by this, I mean the events portrayed to help viewers identify with the characters, and the events to get the characters to the next part of the movie seem pretty solid. I don’t think I’m going to be changing them in any way (although I could be totally wrong), but now I’ve opened myself up to an entirely new arena with entering the second act, because some of it has to do with subject matter I’m not familiar with.

It’s like when you think you’ve completed a crucial part of a video game, only to open a previously locked door that you thought was a closet or something, and find out it’s actually an entirely new level. The scope of the game just astonishes you, and the high you got from thinking you had completed something evaporates in the midst of being overwhelmed with the thought of this new landscape you have to travail after working so hard to conquer the previous terrain.

The thing is, I don’t know why I’m not enjoying the process. I feel like I used to enjoy this process a lot more when I did this for fun. A spaceship in a cave? Who cares how it got there or how the spaceship works? Do we need to know? Who cares if a beacon couldn’t really broadcast to the surface of Earth from 50,000 miles underneath? Realism be damned! Just put the spaceship in the cave and give the kids an adventure and it’ll be fun!

Now it’s like, tackling the details. And I can appreciate details, but I feel like for your story to really be impactful, you have to take care of every detail. And I am not the most methodical person.

Have I said this before? Filmmaking is gritty. There’s all this adulation and fame surrounding people who get paid tons of money to create, and that vortex can make what they do seem like this divine stream of inspiration that pours out of them into some tangible channel that we can all enjoy. This praise and attention put toward these people can make what they do seem effortless and easy if you’re on the outside looking in. It’s like, “look! They wrote words on this page! They put a ball in a basket! They’re acting! And they’re getting all this attention! What they do seems really effortless and simple, especially in light of all the attention they get, so how hard can doing this be? Maybe I should try it!”

Nope. That’s your first mistake. I mean, it’s not a mistake to try acting or sports or anything really, but these activities done at the highest level are rarely effortless. Often the action that looks so natural under the lights is the product of thousands of hours of training and error and learning and effort, and sometimes people don’t have the circumstances around them that allows them to get even that far. I’m starting to think learning from your mistakes is a luxury. This is coming from someone who used to never want to make a mistake at all, because it was considered a sign of weakness in effort and/or character by authority figures in my life at the time.

Anyway, back to filmmaking being gritty. When I first started filmmaking, what appealed to me about it was that spark of creation that was more connected to impulse, the purity of being able to open some software or pick up a camera, and with a little imagination, you’d have a screenplay or a movie. But when you start getting into the professionalism aspect, a lot of planning and prep work is involved in the creation process that I didn’t anticipate. Maybe creation in the moment is spontaneous, and feels great, but getting there is often the product of sweat and concentration and … ugh. There’s creation, and work is pretty much everything else.

I feel like I’m consistently frustrated. I imagine people like Aaron Sorkin and Eric Roth and Todd Haynes (Safe blew my mind the other night) being total naturals at this, and everything coming to them with uncanny insight and perception that separates them as the creatives that have the innate quality needed to make it to the highest levels of the industry. A part of me is like, if I really were meant to make it and can succeed in film, would this be so hard?

Anyway, I wrote seventy-one pages of notes before this supposed first draft of The Nothings got locked. They include several outline changes; inspiration for a 3-5 page scene in the first act that didn’t work with my screenwriting group and got cut, which was the right decision; pages of backstory on the main characters’ parents that I will very likely need in order to authentically write the scenes with them interacting with each other; along with countless questions: what’s the typical procedure for rehearsing in a band? Would a club ever let 16 year olds play? Detention would be a good obstacle for these characters’ goals, so when would they have detention in a way that best serves the story? Right after they get in trouble? Four days after? Why do the parents feel the way they do about this thing your main character wants? Is there a girl involved?

And on and on and on. I’m a frustrated creative at the minute. And what I keep thinking is that I should be enjoying this process, or it’s a sign I shouldn’t be doing this professionally. But maybe that expectation is flawed. I feel like — there’s expectations, and then there’s you, me, it, existence as separate from the ideas we try to impose upon it but aren’t what it is, though we can pretend like we know about it because it’s an object of fascination being so standalone and unique from all preconceived notions; and because of that it fascinates us, so again we want to pretend like we know about it, while at the same time try to put it in our box of preconceived ideas to help us feel better about not being able to truly comprehend the unknowable, the immutable, the mysteriousness, the uniqueness of this matter in front of us. All you can do is go with it, really, and see where it takes you.

Filmmaker: Quyen Tran (Director of Photography)
Short Film: My Mother Dreams the Satan’s Disciples in New York
Watch: John Wells — Television Academy Interview

D S 10/11/21 D S 10/11/21

Time For a Change

I’ll be changing the look of this website soon to something a little more streamlined.

Post on the project is now out of my hands, and in those of Sound and Color. To elaborate on the last post, I decided to take the music out completely. So a film that I had initially envisioned to be accompanied by some kind of score is now…not. I just hope the audience won’t be able to tell. There’s a montage sequence at the end that I’m wondering is going to somehow appear very “naked” to viewers. It’s just the family setting the dishes down on the table with a voiceover, and I don’t know if it’s enough. Nothing I can do about it now. I’m wondering how much sound and color will change things in the final cut.

Stumbled upon the work of Cloudy Rhodes today, which is so good that right I’m now wondering why I’m even bothering making anything.

Currently working on the same projects I’ve been for the past month. Everything is taking five years. I’m doing two outlines for separate projects. You think work will progress in a linear fashion, that you’ll have one act plotted out and finish act two by the end of the week. Instead, you stumble upon a question you can’t answer when creating a scenario in your head (who loads the equipment into the club? How much time does it take for a drummer to set up their gear?), and you spend twenty to thirty minutes researching before you get a satisfactory answer.

You need to decide the events that convey the proper information, or whether you need them at all. You need to decide upon the character information that supports the plot information (if the principal calls the mom at one in the afternoon and she picks up the phone, what kind of job would she have that would allow her to do this, and have an extended conversation?). You don’t think of these answers right away. You write, write, and write some more. These things take time.

The more that I do this, the more that I’m starting to equate writing with digging/excavation. You write stuff, erase it, go on tangents, go down rabbit holes, stumble upon details, expand upon those, come back to your original idea, and eventually find the thing you’re looking for, the actual detail that you may use in the film (but you might not, either). The process doesn’t always happen this way, but I’m finding that what they call development doesn’t happen all at once. It seems to happen when it happens, in correspondence with the skills of whoever’s doing the developing. And I think what’s clear is that I’m not a natural at creating these organic situations in which the movie can just progress from my brain to the tips of my fingers to a screenplay in a linear fashion without effort. This is taking work, and time (there’s that word again). And I just need a screenplay. I need a piece to have in my portfolio. But at the rate this is taking, it could be two years before I have a fully developed story, which would put me about on par with Pixar’s pace, haha. But those guys have the luxury of time. I don’t.

DP Spotlight: Mia Cioffi Henry (Superior, The Surrogate), Lauren Guiteras (Ma Belle, My Beauty)