Editing Myself

This is really an extension of an earlier post on editing.

I’ve been rereading what I feel is becoming my bible on directing, “Directing: Film Techniques and Aesthetics” by Michael Rabiger and Mick Hurbis-Cherrier, and this morning started the section on editing. I probably blew past it the earlier times I read it, as the focus isn’t specifically on first-time directors, but the authors state that directors should always edit their first effort. This was reinforced by John, the experienced director who has agreed to help me with my first effort, who said the same thing. I don’t feel I’ll be a good editor, or at least don’t feel called toward the topic like I do to directing, but I’m becoming convinced having the in-depth experience of doing my own editing will be worth the personal sacrifice in the long run.

What I may wind up doing is investing a few months (or longer) in developing the edit to the best of my capabilities, then hire an experienced editor (John offered as much at one point) to go over my decisions with the eye toward improving it. Even though I feel I’m too close to the story, as writer and director, to make the necessary analytical decisions to get the best balance for the material, I’m sure, by going through the likely painful process myself, I’ll be able to internalize the advice given to a much better degree. Plus, as the bible states a number of times, having the viewpoint of the editor embedded in my psych will improve the entire pre- and production system by being sensitized to the opportunities inherent in the process.

Since I plan to film my first over weekends, I’ll have five days to work on a rough cut of what happened the previous weekend to give me a chance to identify weaknesses I can recover from the following weekend.  Also, by going through this process, I can probably substantially improve myself as a director as well.  My goal is ten pages each day.  This highly optimistic number (the oft-stated average is around 5 pages per day) has been reinforced in reading about various indie experiences, as well as by John, as attainable in my project.  The gist seems to be, because my locations are highly condensed (I hope to film 80% or more on our own property), there will be very little travel time to deal with, so average setup time should be dramatically lower.  I have yet to complete a shooting schedule to have any confidence in this figure, but it’s very high on my list-of-things-to-do over the next couple of weeks (first, I want to update the script to incorporate the romcom aspects).

Assuming I can contain myself to a 10:1 ratio of filmed minutes to finished (I’ve read horror stories of up to 200:1), that would mean each week I’d have 200 minutes of raw footage to edit down to 20.  Three and a third hours.  That seems like a minor thing to do in five days (I’m usually home from work by 2:30 and don’t go to bed until 9, so 6.5 hours a day, assuming I eat in front of the computer), but the degrees of freedom inherent in editing tells me that I’ll be doing very very good to have an assembly (basically, a linear collection of the ‘master’ shots faithful to the script), let alone a sloppy rough cut.

Just thinking about it feels painful, but, as they say (whoever ‘they’ are), no pain, no gain.

RedDom Coverage Reports

Because of my doubts regarding my “Treasure Hunt” screenplay, even after getting positive feedback from one of my screenplay editors, I scheduled script coverage reports for “The Dominatrix Wore Red” from two professional script readers. I actually asked three, but only two got back to me and I decided, with the other feedback I already had, two would be enough. As it happened, one was a woman and the other a man. Since most of the feedback I’ve got so far has been from women, I felt getting a man’s POV would be valuable.

I didn’t want to ‘contaminate’ the readers, so contacted them with only the most basic information: title, genre and length. The first that got back to me, Amanda, the ScriptGal gave me very encouraging responses, particularly given that RedDom is the first screenplay I completed. Though she gave me a ‘pass’ (‘for now’) on my screenplay, she gave me, as a writer, a ‘consider.’

Based on everything I’ve read, the general results from coverage is around 95% of all scripts rate a ‘pass,’ which tells the producer (the conventional customer to the coverage report) that they don’t need to waste their time reading the script, it has too many issues to be considered. Around 4% of all scripts rate a ‘consider,’ which, obviously, tells the producer they may want to take a look at the script themselves and see if they feel it can be brought up to the necessary level with some additional work. The holy grail, the remaining 1%, is the ‘recommend,’ which I’ve read translates to the reader is so enthusiastic that they’d be willing to put their own money into making the movie.

Thus, getting a ‘consider’ as a first-time writer is very encouraging to me, it puts me in the top 5% of all scripts the reader has read. While my two editors have been quite encouraging, they’ve been ‘contaminated’ by helping me craft the story, so aren’t quite as objective as I’d like. I consider them both professionals that are capable of being critical, but believe any time someone takes part in the development of a story, they get some level of emotional attachment.

Amanda’s general conclusion, slightly edited:

“There is absolutely nothing wrong with this script. [see, I told you she was very encouraging] … But I think the writer is better than his story, in this instance. The problem is there’s nothing here that distinguishes this script – there’s really not enough conflict and not enough edge.”

She outlined four basic areas (I interpreted that) she felt could be strengthened:

  1. The mob is under developed and feels generic.
  2. Same with the political backstory.
  3. Need more to connect Sidwell with the mob, the politics and, most importantly, why he needed to die.
  4. Hap is “too safe;” a proper gentleman.

After some consideration, I had these thoughts (warning: contains spoilers):

1) I’m not sure how to do more development on the mob, unless I add to the ‘montage’ when Hap and DB research the dark web. I can certainly see strengthening those scenes; I may have assumed the reader/viewer will intuit too much. I don’t want the mob to be any sort of suspect until that montage, though.

2) I intended for more political intrigue, but it fell by the wayside. That’s a very organic way to up some of the tension, as I can put some of those actors on the screen interacting directly with Hap and DB. I can probably even have Elise involved someway and tangle the threads even more. My biggest concern is running long, as I’m at 100 pages and worry making that intrigue smooth will take up too many pages.

3) I totally agree that Sidwell’s motives can be elucidated much more clearly. My idea is he was always a druggie, but ‘managed’ it better when he had less money. With the mob’s money, he’s been living an obvious lifestyle that became a threat to them. I think that can be made much more clear without too many additional pages. The intelligence community watches people with clearances pretty closely, so it would be very legitimate that the mob would see his excesses as a personal threat. I can see there being potential for some political intrigue as well, though have no ideas at this time.

4) I think Hap has enough flaws. I intend for him to be a gentleman, but one so focused on his work that he can’t maintain any relationships outside of work.

I’ve discussed the above points with a couple of the people who have been so much help in crafting the story as it stands and they gave me feedback that help spark additional ideas, so I believe even more strongly in my script. Perhaps not enough to warrant a ‘recommend,’ but my intent has always to direct the thing myself and expect to put some of my own money, not to mention a lot of time, into production, so the barriers to acceptance might be just low enough that a ‘consider’ is good enough. Besides, Amanda had this to say about casting:

“There are also some castable roles here – the lead HAP will be appealing to any number of actors, as will the juicy role of ELISE – the dominatrix.”

I’ve read in quite a few places that there’s a substantial dearth for strong female roles once actresses ‘age out’ and hit their 30’s. Ideally, the role of Elise will be attractive enough to a ‘name’ actress that I can build on that to get a ‘name’ actor for the role of Hap and leverage that into enough interest from producers that the project can get the necessary investment to make it to the big screen. A man can dream, can’t he?

The second script coverage report was from Drew, the Screenplay Mechanic. Sadly, my fantasy of becoming a lauded first-time writer came to a halt with his feedback, as I only rated as ‘pass’ for my screenplay and as a writer:

“This scribe needs to elevate his story in a number of ways. If the concept is going to hang its proverbial hat in the culture of BDSM then truly do so. Send the protagonist down a rabbit hole of BDSM, perhaps to the point where he loses himself and becomes addicted to it. Additionally, make the murder-mystery “sexy” too and find ways to evoke more of emotional investment on our part. Finally, always remember that this is a visual medium so aim to create optics which demand the widescreen treatment and lure us into the theater. This needs to be a 2019 version of BASIC INSTINCT, something which combines the kinky nature of FIFTY SHADES with a cool, slick detective mystery. Right now, it’s a surprisingly tame affair and the mystery isn’t as thrilling as it needs to be.”

Had I received this as the first feedback I ever got on the script, it might very well have been discouraging enough to turn my back on this rather insane idea of writing and directing movies. However, coming on the heels of so much other, largely positive, feedback, coincidentally all from women, it crystalized in my mind the target demographic for the story: women ‘of a certain age.’ I think women who have left their teen years (e.g., late 20’s and on up) might find the talky story I originally envisioned as something they’d be interested in watching at enough numbers to justify the budget I have in mind (million-dollar or so).

This is not to say that Drew’s feedback didn’t provide lots of useful information. Honestly given and well considered negative feedback is probably more valuable in the long run than positive and encouraging. As I learned when working on my blurb for “Diary of a Contract Killer”, knowing what audience I shouldn’t be targeting (romantic thriller, in the case of DoaCK) is equally as important as knowing which audience I should be. Positive reviews engender more, so properly targeting an audience such that the majority who are incentivized to see it actually enjoy it is way more valuable than generically appealing to an audience and winding up with a lot of unhappy viewers leaving negative reviews.

Drew thinks, in order to have big-screen appeal (there being so many similar stories on TV) the screenplay needs more action, way more sexiness and sexual tension and really thinks I dropped the ball on making my murder victim sympathetic enough for anyone to care if the mystery gets solved. Yet, those are actually elements I was intending to avoid. This tells me that I was successful in getting my intent across. Just not the intent he feels is commercially viable. He did have slightly encouraging words, though:

“At the end of the day then, this writer’s style is somewhat enjoyable to read but this story is too unremarkable to become a theatrical feature film.”

Of course, ‘somewhat’ enjoyable isn’t a ringing endorsement, but it at least tells me that I have reasonable potential as a storyteller. That’s the question that’s always been in my mind: can I tell stories that other people want to read/watch?

So what’s my conclusion to the original point of asking for coverage? I think I’m going to make “Treasure Hunt” and learn if I really enjoy the challenges of making a movie, like I believe I will. And to get some indication if I can entertain viewers with my stories, which, with the feedback targeting the romantic comedy genre, I feel very positive about.

Assuming TreasHu gives me the results I hope for (e.g., I like making movies that other people like watching), what I’ve taken from the feedback I’ve received so far, particularly including Drew’s, is I should be targeting a female audience, and one ‘of a certain age.’ I don’t think RedDom will have much potential to appeal to a teenage audience (of any sex), but I’m getting the impression that more mature women (late 20’s on up), are likely to find appeal in RedDom’s talky plot and dearth of car chases or explosions. While the good guy may be too much of a gentleman, he isn’t squeekly clean, and while the suspect is clearly taken from the femme fatale rule book, I believe she isn’t so flawed that women won’t find her interesting and sympathetic. She’s a very strong character, though, I trust, with enough flaws that she isn’t a Mary Sue.

My goals for the story, which have been recognized by very few readers (which implies I may not be making my intent clear enough (though the coverage reports got the synopsis dead on)) are as follows, in their relative importance:

  1. Entertain people.
  2. Show cops often latch onto the easiest suspect and have trouble giving that up.
  3. Political pressure can make cops take shortcuts.
  4. Autopsy and DNA results can often take weeks, or longer.
  5. Educate about the dominatrix business.

One is pretty much a given; as if people are not entertained, why should they tell their friends? The second may not be resonating very well, though I feel the script manages my intent very well. The third needs some work, I think and I’m sure the fourth isn’t covered well enough to get my point across. The final one, which is why I started writing the story in the first place (and why I interviewed an actual dominatrix), I think is handled perhaps a little too much. I do believe I made the infodump visually compelling, and am rather pleased with myself when I rewrote it (initially the entire scene was static at the cafe table) and gave Hap a plausible reason to engage in flirting back, but do understand that I have probably oversold the whole dominatrix angle, since I have none shown (I do put a tiny bit in the sequel I’m writing now) and it factors so little in the climax. I’ve had complaints about my logline feeling too boring:

“The Dominatrix with a PhD, who may be a murderer, has erudite conversations with the investigating Detective, who may be falling for her.”

But it’s the exact vibe I want to go with. Thus, I feel anyone who reads the log line and has an interest in reading the blurb:

Hap has been a detective for over a decade, a police officer more than twice that. In all that time, he’s never dealt with the BDSM subculture, yet that’s exactly what he needs to know about for his latest case.

The nude victim, a Senator’s aide – who has Top Secret clearances – is tied to his bed. Strangled, it’s obvious he enjoyed his demise. The scene is almost entirely devoid of evidence. Just an imprint of a high-heeled shoe on his chest and three strands of long brunette hair. Hair that’s the exact color and length of Mistress Elise, whose contact info is among the victim’s possessions.

Mistress Elise, the Dominatrix with a PhD, provides BDSM services along with erudite conversation. She’s coy with Hap, proving her brilliance isn’t limited to her occupation and academic research.

Hap can’t figure if Elise is his prime suspect or an exceptionally capable subculture consultant. The more he learns, the less he understands.

And the bodies keep piling up.

Will find the story, with some minor tweaks, interesting enough to enjoy and recommend to friends.

Screenplay Coverage – Screenplay Mechanic

I contacted Drew, the Screenplay Mechanic, for a coverage report on my script “The Dominatrix Wore Red.”  The excellent logline and synopsis told me he read my script in detail.  Though his feedback wasn’t encouraging, nonetheless it was very detailed and informative and allowed me to make decisions regarding the target demographic for the screenplay.  I highly recommend him to anyone who is looking for an experienced independent set of eyes to give the same feedback a producer would get.

Screenplay Coverage – ScriptGal

I contacted Amanda, the ScriptGal, for a coverage report for “The Dominatrix Wore Red.”  I was very happy with her response, and not just because it was encouraging.  Her logline and synopsis told me she carefully read what I sent her.  She also gave me detailed and actionable feedback.  I highly recommend her to anyone looking for an experienced set of eyes to give an independent opinion on what producers are looking for in a screenplay.

Chanur Novels – CH Cherryh

I believe I’ve loved everything I’ve ready by CJ Cherryh. I don’t know that I’ve managed to read all her scifi (yet), but I’ve read a number of series in her Alliance/Union/Compact universe.

I typically smoke a cigar in the afternoons (when it’s warm enough, but not too warm; I only smoked in the house once – never again) and will take a dead-tree book with me while I do so. Because I’m cheap, and have bought and given away so many books in the past (thousands, for sure), I’m reluctant to buy new books. I’ve also got conservative over the years and typically don’t take on new authors, as it’s expensive to test the waters (now I beta read, so get to read new authors for free and give back to the writing community at the same time). As such, I generally reread the same books I’ve saved over the decades as too good to give away (maybe 50). I selected the three novels in the Chanur’s Venture / The Kif Strike Back / Chanur’s Homecoming series to read and it had been so long that I’d forgot most of the plot details (see, there are benefits to being absent minded ;-). I really enjoyed (re)reading the series, often lingering past the point where I was done with my cigar and should have been beta reading (sorry to all those in my queue; I expect to make up for lost time over the next couple of weeks).

I’ve adopted part of Cherryh’s writing style as my own, so obviously I’m a big fan in more ways than one. I love the intellectual challenge of figuring out how her universe works through context, and have tried to adopt that aspect in many places as well (particularly in my DoaCK series). As I’ve been having issues with conflict in my own writing, I was acutely aware of how Cherryh kept ratcheting up the tension and how it all felt organic as I read. As an author, I wondered if she added some of these conflict/tension elements later, after she’d written her first draft, or if she’d been doing it so long that she naturally added it as she went. I’ve been finding places where I feel it’s organic to add conflict to some of my work, but still struggle with it sometimes feeling gratuitous.

Pyanfar Chanur is the primary character in the series (there’s a novel that details events prior to the series and contains many of the same characters and is called “The Pride of Chanur” and a following one that introduces many new ones called “Chanur’s Legacy”). Pyanfar is a hani (lower case on purpose), a member of a humanoid cat-like species. What’s even more interesting is Pyanfar is a female and, until the events of the series, no male had ever been outside their home star system and only a handful had even been in space. The males fight among themselves to become leaders of a pride (so to speak) and would then be pampered until he lost to another challenger, who would then be pampered. The menfolk were believed too passionate and violent to consider even exposing to outside events. Not quite a 180 degree flip from our misogynistic culture, but a very interesting take nonetheless. Cherryh also has several other extremely well done alien species and part of the fun is trying to understand the motivations, and even communications, with the various species.

Cherry’s faster-than-light travel, her hyperspace, has some interesting limitations, at least to the characters that are primarily the focus of the stories. Some species (humans being one) need to be drugged to even make it through the travel. Others, like the hani, don’t need the drugs, but are barely semi-conscious during that period and are reliant on automation for the hard-to-define period of travel, that can take what appears to be biologically several days or even weeks. Also, hyperspace travel has to happen between specific locations, so it doesn’t allow willy nilly movement. Their in-system travel is done with conventional (well, probably fusion-powered) rockets and takes the appropriate time. Their hyperspace travel mechanism, though, can be used to boost (or slow) the ship to (from) close to the speed of light, which allows for some interesting challenges. For instance, when a ship enters a new system it’s moving so fast that those in the system will often find out about the ship moments before the information about it has arrived, even if the ship has been inside the system for hours.

Anyway, regarding the tension and conflict, Pyanfar’s body slowly deteriorates over the course of the series (which may only cover a month of ‘realtime’ (if you can even define that with all the relativistic effects going on)) as she spends so little time to recover in between hyperspace jumps. One of her crew is seriously injured and they’re all legitimately worried that she (the entire crew is female) won’t survive the stress of the jump. Then a bunch of food/vermin (one of the species she reluctantly has onboard can only eat live food) escapes on the ship and it seems they’re perfectly happy during the jump, even breeding and eating as the crew are in a zombie-like state.

Pyanfar has more and more responsibility dumped on her increasingly frail and weakened shoulders, and events degenerate to the point where it feels even a sneeze could set off irrevocable events that could destroy whole worlds.

The series is very fast-paced, even frenetic at times, but it works perfectly. The results at the end make logical sense and the only thing I wish Cherryh had done was give a longer wrap up so we could see better how things turn out.

Prologue – The Dirty Word

First, what the heck is a prologue? It’s not trivial to define one, as I found out when asking an author friend to critique this. For the purposes of this post, I’m going to go with Wikipedia’s definition:

“A prologue or prolog … is an opening to a story that establishes the context and gives background details, often some earlier story that ties into the main one, and other miscellaneous information.”

The key here, for the purposes of this post, is ‘earlier story’ and ‘miscellaneous information.’ If your ‘prologue’ is actually the beginning of the story (as is the case for my friend), then everything below is irrelevant.

A prologue is the same thing as the dreaded infodump:

“Infodumping is a type of Exposition that is particularly long or wordy. Although it can be done in a way that is unintrusive or entertaining, most infodumps are obvious, intrusive, patronizing, and sometimes downright boring. Specifically, if the premise of your story is laughably ridiculous, an infodump will call attention to the fact. The absolute worst is the gratuitous infodump, which painfully restates that which has already been adequately shown, just to make the reader suffer. For these reasons, ‘infodump’ is often used as a pejorative. Even worse, one character may be saying it to another who is fully aware of it already, for no good reason besides filling in the audience.”

You’re giving the reader (audience, for the above) too much information without context for the average reader to internalize and remember. A ‘Bad Thing,’ and this post is an attempt to steer you away from doing such.

Prologue is often considered a dirty word to agents and publishers. That seems arbitrary and offensive when you’ve invested so much time and energy into your story, but there are good reasons for it. The average reader has a short attention span, and need to be grabbed right away, else they won’t be held long enough to get invested in your characters. If you have a big pile of words they have to wade through before they even get introduced to your main character, you’re going to lose the average reader.

But I want above average readers, you exclaim. Don’t we all. But if you want to sell novels, which is the only focus of agents and publishers, then you need to cater to the average, which means a fast-paced opening where the reader quickly gets hooked, developing sympathy for your character.

Another reason why prologues are considered problematic: they tend to reflect lazy writing. What? This information is important to understand my carefully crafted world! How can the reader possibly get hooked and sympathetic to my main character (MC) otherwise? Well, sorry to say, but if your MC is written so weak that the only way the reader can develop sympathy is by having background poured all over them, then you have bigger problems. Prologue, background, world building, all these things should be trickled in as your MC goes about his or her business. The rule of thumb is to supply such information only at the last possible moment. Besides, that’s the time most readers will remember: when it becomes integral to understanding the story. If you puke world building all over them, most are going to forget the details, because they don’t understand the relevance. Think back to any history lesson you had in school. Without context, names and dates don’t mean anything, forcing you into rote memorization. Do you want your readers to feel like they’re in a history class and need to memorize things to pass a test?

You don’t even have to supply the missing information. CJ Cherryh is an excellent example of someone who rarely fills in all the details. She writes such that her MC only makes note of things that the MC has interest in, which sometimes means you never get an explanation for something. What’s a reader to do? Use their imagination! Good books cause a movie to be projected in the mind’s eye, and the brain will fill in what’s necessary, so give your reader a chance to exercise their creative muscles.

Having said all this, a way to ‘have your cake and eat it too’ (what does this even mean?), is to put the prologue at the end as an appendix. Keep in mind, though, that publishers making dead-tree versions of your book will likely be reluctant, as each page costs additional money. Another way, much less likely to risk being cut, is to put in a brief (1-3 sentence (and not long, either!)) paragraph at the beginning of each chapter. Set off with a different font, margin and/or italics, those who would rather discover as they read and learn by context (which is the best way to get the information across) can easily ignore it, while those who want the extra information can easily read. It can be ‘excerpts’ from an encyclopedia or something. Perhaps a learned scholar’s research headlines, or just some particularly relevant bits of history, important to the chapter that follows.

But why does <insert famous author> write prologues and sell piles of books? Short answer: they’re proven money makers with a loyal following. If you can entertainingly write about growing grass or drying paint, then you can probably write entertaining prologues and none of this matters to you. But, if you’re like regular mortals, particularly unpublished, then you should focus on adhering to as many conventions as possible.

To reiterate, the very best way to convey the information is in the body of the text, as the reader needs the information, where much of the understanding is through context. For fantasy or scifi, though, too much background exposition being dropped in might dangerously slow the pace down, so even then you have to balance explanation with comprehension.

RomCom?

I just got the response back from one of my script editors and she was very positive.  The main thing I took from her feedback was her characterization of Treasure Hunt as a romantic comedy, something I hadn’t considered.

I never considered myself capable of writing comedy. Timing is critical and I just don’t think I have it.  Though I like to write love stories, my analysis of the romance genre, plus the feedback I got over my first novel (initially called it a romantic thriller; it is neither), told me I wasn’t any good at romances.  That being said, everything she was writing about resonated with me. Actually had me itching to get to making revisions (mostly her thoughts were about elaborating a few scenes and inventing a couple to up the sexual tension).  I like the idea of calling it a romantic comedy and think the clearly defined and widely accepted genre will make it easier to find cast and crew as well.

I’ve asked for script coverage from two experienced readers for RedDom.  One will get back to me the end of this week, the other on the 20th of this month.  Their feedback should crystallize my decision one way or another.  If I go forward, I’m going to aim to film over 4 weekend starting middle to late September.  My generous, smart and beautiful wife has agreed to back the budget necessary to pay cast and crew (not a lot, but enough, hopefully, to get serious responses), so I no longer have to exclusively rely on reel, beer and pizza to find a team.

There’s no question I’m crazy to dive in like this, but crazy has got me this far in life. There’s no sense in changing gears now.

Feeling Blue

Something different this week: published early, rather than late (my goal is once per week). The last one was something I’d written a while ago, just hadn’t got around to posting, as I’ve been rethinking this whole movie making idea, yet again.

I’ve been getting a lot of ‘push back’ on my Treasure Hunt script in the area of conflict. Middle of last week, after making a number of changes to my screenplay to increase the level, I got some feedback that, essentially, said the script was worthless (not really that harsh, but that was the gist) because it almost entirely lacked conflict. Since this is the exact same feedback I’ve got up to this point on all my scripts, it really caused me to rethink my whole making movies concept. Which bummed me out, as this was the only thing that seems to get me excited about life, the universe, and everything (though I can see some potential in reviving my biotech research, but that interest has lay moribund for lo these many years).

My real concern isn’t that there isn’t enough conflict in TreasHu, but in RedDom, etc. TreasHu has a definite purpose: to act as a learn-by-doing moving making project, to tell me if I really want to pursue directing and, to a lesser degree, serve as reel for trying to convince producers I’m a viable candidate to direct RedDom, etc. While I intend to submit to festivals, it’s more about that learning experience than any real expectation. If a thousand people watch TreasHu, it will have vastly exceeded my expectations. If any of them pay, I will consider that a game-winning home run with bases loaded.

After some long thought, I developed this strategy: polish up RedDom and get some more input on it and, potentially, write BlueDom, a sequel called “The Dominatrix Was Blue”, and get input on that as well. the DoaCK screenplay is probably not a valid piece to use for evaluation, as the underlying novel, while about perfect in achieving my story telling goals, inherently lacks the conflict so near and dear to everyone (else’s) heart. Thus, when all the fat is boiled down (wtf does that even mean?), I’ve really only written one script that I meant to fit in the movie making mold (as I believe I’ve said, I don’t expect to film DoaCK until/unless I become successful enough with other movies that I can afford a vanity project). Now, having said that, I’ve had a number of complaints about a dearth of conflict in RedDom. And, while there are a few places I feel it’s organic to add (and have already done so in most cases), it may still be that I lack the ‘conflict genes’ to write. I’m not sure I want to ‘just’ be a director, and, in any case, that just increases the number of barriers to entry, so, at least for the present, my focus is entirely on writing first, then directing.

If, as I suspect, Jennifer, a script editor I’m sending TreasHu to on Sunday, is going to have little positive to say about TreasHu (note that all the reviewers so far have had favorite passages/events, so it’s not all bad), I think I’m going to delay my decision on moving forward with TreasHu (and any other movie making project) until I’ve got feedback from several other screenplay reviewers on RedDom and possibly BlueDom. If the consensus is I just don’t have what it takes, then I’ll probably put all this to bed and try and find something else to get passionate about (the biotech research, statistically speaking, is probably a vastly better probability of making money than movies, and where, after all, I actually have a competitive advantage). If the consensus seems to be that my story telling abilities have the potential to be successful (in that enough people will pay to make a profit on the budget), then I’ll pursue TreasHu as-is (or, maybe, with some minor tweaks) and let it answer it’s intended questions.

I can’t tell if this is a smart plan or just hiding from the inevitable.

What I (think I) want in a DP

While the director is the main creative force behind a movie, and is ultimately responsible for answering to the producers (and thus to viewers), he or she is the ringmaster in a giant circus and needs lots of help to be successful.

Largest among those helping is the cinematographer, or Director of Photography (DP).  Typically second in charge of the whole circus, the DP is the person responsible for what the movie actually looks like (e.g., dark and moody, pastels and slightly out of focus, etc.).  The DP is also in charge of most of the crew and needs to be a capable manager in her (or his) own right.

When I start looking for a DP for my Treasure Hunt movie, I’m hoping to find someone who can become a long-term partner I can work with for many years (decades) to come, making a dozen (or more) movies.  That’s a lot to ask for when I’m a nobody with a micro budget, but why not ask for what I want? What do I have to lose?

Having given some thought to the visual style I’d like, one thing that’s really important to me is holding the damn camera still.  I hate shakey cams and think the invention of the steadicam rig was the mark of the highest genius. I prefer the idea of long takes and having as much coverage done in parallel with up to three cameras.  Visually, I like clear, sharp focus and realistic, but strong, colors. Except when the story calls for otherwise, I want the viewer to see what I see when I’m watching the action unfold.

This is not to say that I can’t be persuaded into some interesting angles or movements, just that I want the default to be a rock steady camera and clean, realistic images.  I defer to your expertise, but also have a certain vision in mind.

While I will (am) doing my best to develop an in-depth technical understanding of all the jobs of the crew (and cast), my intention of doing so is so I can learn a shared vocabulary in an effort to communicate better with you.  I don’t want to become an expert on lenses or lighting, microphone placement or dolly vs steadicam.

I’m a strong-willed person who is… not very diplomatic at times.  I tend to respond in a knee-jerk way (emphasis on ‘jerk’) to ideas that aren’t my own, so please give me a few moments to realize how right you are.  As such, I need a DP who is not afraid to push back, who can deal with an ‘artistic temperament’ (but little actual artistic ability). I get angry easily, but I also get over it easily.  Often, if not reminded quickly, in a few minutes I’ll have forgot that I was upset. I try very hard not to be an asshole, but that’s my default personality, so I need a DP that can work comfortably with that, and to shield the rest of the crew from my raw nature.

I’m a firm believer in the chain of command and will do my best not to interfere with any of the crew directly.  That being said, I have lots of curiosity and like learning, so my being absorbed in the technical aspects of the crew’s work doesn’t mean I’m trying to muscle in.  If I overstep my bounds, just push back and I’ll adjust my attention.

Economics of Indie

I’m being persuaded that I should cut out or rewrite a couple of scenes in my screenplay.  On the one hand, I think the way I’ve written it is more visually interesting and tells the story better.  On the other hand, it will be logistically complicated and relatively expensive to film. My original intent was for the students to learn about the potential for buried treasure during a lecture in school.  That means finding a lecture hall I can use, hiring an actor to be the teacher and getting a dozen or more extras to give the illusion that the lecture hall is full of students.

On the other hand, if I reconceive the scene such that the students (and audience) get the same information from, say, going over the lecture notes in advance of class, then I can not only cut the expenses and challenges of filming it a lecture hall, but I can film it in the same locations I’m using for the other student interactions, which could significantly reduce setup time, shortening the length of time I would be filming, further reducing costs.

I’ve been thinking about the added value of the lecture scene.  If I didn’t have budget constraints, I feel sure the story would flow better with it in. However, budget is the absolute driver for this project, so my consideration becomes, is the incremental benefit to the story so high that it’s worth finding the funding (and location and extras) knowing that the cost has to come out of the rest of the project somehow.

Though I’ve been giving some serious thought to increasing the size of my budget, so I can pay my cast and crew (I’m not having much luck so far finding people to work for reel, beer and pizza), doing so adds a lot of complexity to the project.  I’ve been debating the value of the added complexity to my goal of learning if I want to be a director. If I can pay even a moderate amount (it seems that even $100 a day (generally 10 hours) is considered at the higher high end for low budget projects), I’ve been told I can attract a very different caliber of cast and crew.  Ones that have professional experience. And that are much more likely to show up for the entire production period.

I would very much like to be the only ‘virgin’ on the shoot, so the prospects of investing the time and energy to get a larger enough budget to pay cast and crew appeals very much to me.  If we’re all learning at the same time, there aren’t any experienced eyes watching to keep me from making naive mistakes.

The other direction I’ve been looking is toward shrinking the shooting days.  I’ve been using an estimate of 5 minutes of finished film (pages of script) each day.  With a goal of 80 pages/minutes, that translates to 16 days, or 8 weekends. I’ve been told, and have read, that projects which work to minimize the number of locations and sets can dramatically increase the number of pages shot each day, so much so that 10 minutes/pages appears feasible.  That cuts it down to 4 weekends, which could cut the required funds in half.

This feeds back into my decision making process regarding the lecture scene (actually, there are two in my first draft, though I’ve decided I’m OK with cutting the second entirely), since I get so much savings.

So it seems, whether I increase the budget or not, it makes a great deal of sense to replace my lecture hall scene with something much cheaper to film.  With that decision made, I now have to decide how else to convey the same information. Which I’ve been struggling with for a number of days (and one reason why this blog post is actually being made on Sunday, instead of later on in the week; I’m grasping for distractions).

Part of my goal with the screenplay was to put in some Civil War history specific to the Shenandoah Valley.  I contacted a subject matter expert and got all sorts of excellent information from her. I’ve only used a very tiny fraction of what she provided, but it was the fraction I felt was important to understanding the reasons why there might be treasure for my characters to find.  A teacher giving a lecture felt like a very natural and organic to get the information across. Now I have to find something less natural and less organic, or find a way to tell the story without the information at all.

Stripped of any extraneous staging information, the verbiage in the first draft is 345 words.  About two and a half pages worth of information in a formatted screenplay, or that many minutes.  I felt that long worked as the lecture, but I’m not sure if conveying it in other ways will work that long, unless I can create something visually interesting for the viewer as they get the information dump.  Then the problem becomes, if I create something too visually compelling for the viewer, then they focus on that instead of the information.

I have an idea I’m going to try.  I’m not sold on it, but I’ll ask my advisors what they think.  Maybe it can be made to work, and I can achieve the cost savings without compromising my story.

It’s interesting to me, how my learning process impacts my movie watching experience.  I was rewatching “Out of Sight” yesterday and kept thinking to myself, why did the writer choose to write this scene, then the director film it and finally the editor include it.  A number of them felt like they could be extraneous to the story, yet they wound up in the final cut. “Out of Sight” is one of my favorite movies, so I certainly don’t think the ‘extraneous’ scenes hurt the movie at all, but as I sit and agonize over my decisions, I wonder if I cut too much of my original intent I wind up cutting parts of what I felt made the story compelling in the first place.