Missing the Mark

We've locked picture on our feature film (i.e. we are finished editing the images) and when I'm asked, "What do you think of your new film?", I'm never sure what to say.

Part of the journey of creating this film is to find out what it is we have made. We went through a test screening process to become more objective and to better understand this, after the fact.



One thing I now see more clearly is that the film is a reflection of the process by which it was developed. It will not look like a film developed using the linear 'waterfall' method of moviemaking: script development, pre-production, production, post-production, and distribution. Our film story process began with a desire to express a common type of experience both Andre and I shared: a breakdown of a worldview resulting in a new understanding of Self. So we wrote a story outline. Expanded the outline. Wrote some scene dialogue. Rehearsed a sequence of scenes with actors. Revised the dialogue. Shot some scenes where the dialogue was enhanced again by the actors. Wrote more dialogue. etc. The process was iterative. The result is a film with naturalistic dialogue and an eclectic tone. We mixed together a little of Alexander Payne's About Schmidt and some of Mike Leigh's Secrets and Lies with a dab of David Lynch's Twin Peaks.

If the film is about making a name for myself as a director, will I succeed? If the film is about making money, will I connect with people's entertainment expectations? Too much evaluation creates a fear of missing the mark. What I was taught was that I needed to throw the mark away and move freely on the set.

Ray Carney Part 1

Ray Carney's ideas are viewed as controversial because he is critical of filmmakers who rely on classic film studio techniques (e.g. camera angles, music, lighting) to emotionally guide an audience. "Is there any other way?" Then there is his list of filmmakers whose methods he despises. They include Alfred Hitchock, Stanley Kurbrick, Quentin Tarintino and the Coen Brothers. "Aren't these great, artistic filmmakers?"

"Cinematic clichés are everywhere. Any hack can create loneliness with a long shot and a little music. Danger with a hand-held, point-of-view shot. Fear with key-lighting. Surprise with an editorial jump. Leave the tricks to magicians. They are not life."

He continues later,"Actors are cattle in this expressive universe. You wheel them in, position them, light them in certain ways, photograph them from several different angles, lay in some music on the soundtrack, and the job is done: generic mental states replace unique personal expressions."



He gives an example from the movie Psycho: "In the initial romantic rendezvous between Marion and Sam in Psycho, nothing is particularized or unique. The hotel room might be any hotel room; the uneaten lunch might be any uneaten lunch; the beep of a car horn outside the window might be the beep of any car horn. Even the lover's quarrel is generic. The words and tones are generic. The lunch-time rendezvous is generic."

He champions filmmakers who capture the complexity of human behavior with actors who fully inhabit their characters. He praises the specific and local over the superficial and generic. The filmmakers he admires are those that create films using a collaborative process, filmmakers like John Cassavetes and Mike Leigh. These films demand viewers withhold judgment of the characters and story, and require the audience to process the film experience on a moment by moment basis. It is the subtle external traits of an individual that reveal what is inside. He explains, "Our visions are more or less alike; it's the nonvisionary aspects of our lives (our personalities, bodies, gestures, facial expressions, tones of voice) that make us different. In this respect, a person's ideas, theories, goals, motives, and philosophies are the least personal (and least unique) things about him."



My tendency is to watch a movie, give it time, like 10-20 minutes, and then turn it off if it isn't working for me. If it isn't fitting the expectations and constructions that have moved me in the past, I give up. I have a friend Mike who introduced me to the Dardenne Brothers. You can't slip their film characters on and know them quickly. The Dardenne's are from Belgium and this is where their films are set. There is something difficult, ordinary, and local about their characters, but as I sit with them, I begin to see myself and others in them. What I need to do is cease my intellectual arguments and connect with my intuition. So when I watch and wait without analysis, the components of the film accumulate into something whole and profound. This is a non-dual way to experience film and life.

Normally, movie goers "enter into the same visionary relation to experience that the characters in these films enter into. These films not only depict meditative states; they use music, silences, [known locales like L.A. or New York] and close-ups of faces and objects to evoke corresponding meditative states in the viewer. When characters see the world in a visionary way, the viewer enters into a visionary relationship with what is on screen. When a character thinks or feels, the viewer thinks or feels along with him or her in the cinematic equivalent of mental telepathy."

He is calling viewers to wake up and enter into a rich new place.

The ironic thing is that Ray Carney speaks of processing film in a non-dual way but he appears to be a judgmental, inflexible person in his criticism and his actions toward others. Is he trying to provoke in order to make a point? Is he trying to guide film viewers into a new paradigm of film awareness? Is he an elitist?

More in Part 2. Check out Ray Carney and the quotes in this blog here.

Free Flow

"Some people try to squeeze ideas out as if they were constipated, sitting on a toilet seat, glancing occasionally at the toilet tissue, wishing something would come through. When artists do that, the result is very meek and very technical. They always refer back to technicalities and try to produce something out of that --- but they don't really feel good about the whole thing at all. What we are talking about here is the opposite of that. It is not exactly like developing diarrhea, but there is some kind of free flow, in which you have the confidence that you can actually produce ideas."

Page 16, "True Perception: The Path of Dharma Art" by Chögyam Trungpa

A Dual

Dual means two and in the context of this blog two opposites: good/bad, male/female, art/commerce. We classify and partition the world into these parts to create a persona. "I am ... a male filmmaker that makes art."



Nondual indicates one. A unity. Holding opposites in balance. Here we surrender all mental comparisons and judgments. There is no goal except to experience the other or whatever experience comes to us. When for a moment, we let go of the identity we have created, the fear of failing disappears. How can I fail if there is no standard or expectation to reach. Here there is freedom. "I am."

There is a cultural construction that says if I am not using my intellect, I am not progressing. The opposite is true. For example, in the moment of listening, I am not evaluating. I am fully experiencing what you think. When you finish speaking, I intuitively draw on my own experience and create a thought, speak it, and then let it go. I may disagree vehemently, but the conversation becomes about holding opposite ideas together. Letting words, ideas, and passions flow. I am one with you in the moment.


"The electric charge on a body may be positive or negative. Two positively charged bodies experience a mutual repulsive force, as do two negatively charged bodies. A positively charged body and a negatively charged body experience an attractive force."
"Electric Charge", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_charge

I am

I am 'filmmaker'.

Filmmaker is one of my identities I put on to connect with and be shaped by my 'tribe'. My tribe are filmmakers and audiences who decide whether my film fits their cultural construction of what a 'good' film is. I will then adapt my film to grow as an artist and human being, conform to the tribe's expectations, and work out my dysfunctions. An end goal of an identity is to shed all identities and live out of the true self, that is the part of me which is confident and compassionate.



Test audiences who have seen my first feature film say that the story is fragmented. The story gaps between plot points are too big. So big even "Three Months Later" cannot fill them. Traditionally story editors assist in resolving these issues. Our process didn't include a story editor. In fact, we shot the first act of the film before we had the second act written. So our process risks not meeting audiences' cultural expectations. This does not mean that we are right and they are right or that no standard exists. It just means that the film will be different than other films. Can we grow by including others in our story editing process? If we wanted. Does it make me, my films, inferior to others? From a film industry construction it could affect how I am perceived. In the end, I need to be confident in my choices and experiments. I need to be compassionate with myself and know that I am in formation.

Identities are necessary ego structures for the individual to experiment with for the purpose of working out their human nature issues.

Camera Noise

I went to an excellent demo of HDDSLR Cameras by James Swirsky at New Media Manitoba.

I walk in and feel like a stranger. I need to belong. There's Mark and David.

What is the demographic of the audience? Where do I fit in? How am I different? How does what I'm creating compare with what others are doing? I need new technology to create something of quality.

I use up huge quantities of mental energy to help me feel comfortable in my identity as filmmaker.

Intelligence is the wise use of the intellect. Even the ability to turn off the intellect when it becomes noise.