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.