Last night, I got dumped.
Not like that.
I went to see The Woman In Black with a girl I work with after we finished for the evening. It was all going well - we lined up for popcorn before deciding against it at the last minute, got in for the last trailer to get settled and the seats we had were pretty good. The movie started and we were thrown in.
All around me in the cinema, people were jumping, shrieking, laughing nervously. I must admit I did jump once or twice - it was sufficiently creepy and frightening in the second act. I thought the acting in the beginning from Dan Rad could've been stronger and I think the writing toward the end could've been a lot tighter to give the film it's final punch (I know it's based on a stage play and I haven't seen it so I'm not sure if it's the same ending, but films and plays are slightly different beasts). But none of that bothered the people in the cinema around me.
I did leave feeling slightly dissatisfied, the ending wasn't quite as strong as I thought it could've been. And when my friend asked me what I thought of the film, I shrugged and said 'I didn't really understand why she was doing it.' My friend looked at me and then proceeded to try and justify the wonky motive of the Woman in Black, with me then pointing out plotholes and flaws in her argument. I then made a comment on how Dan Rad needed to have a moment with his onscreen son at the beginning to really cement the relationship for the audience and she pointed out (rightfully) that in Victorian times, it would've been very stoic like that. I agreed, but as the character hadn't been completely stoic in the scenes beforehand with his son, the consistency of character wasn't quite there.
She fell silent and I knew that we'd probably never go to the cinema together again. The silence between us was suddenly filled with the words I knew she wanted to say:
'I'm sorry, I can't see movies with you anymore.'
It's a symptom of working in filmmaking. For me, it's an instinct now. My sister hates it too, she begs me not to ruin things after we see them so that my critiques after we watch something get whittled down to 'Hated it', 'That was okay' or '<insert quotable line from film here because it's AWESOME>'. I think I'm especially bad at the moment because I've been actively watching films and reading scripts for research for the past three weeks. I'm used to breaking things down into first, second and third acts, analysing the story beats, the second act turning points and if they place enough at stake, why I'm reacting the way I'm reacting (or why I'm not), the moments I like, how that moment could've been stronger...
I love doing it. I really enjoy figuring out what works and what doesn't. The thing is that when I do it out loud, people don't tend to enjoy it as much as I do. The only way to fix this is to either never see movies with anyone ever again or find someone who doesn't mind me groaning at bad dialogue, protesting weak plot points or grinning like a maniac at a well executed story beat.
Anyone else have this problem?
More importantly, anyone want to go and see Red Dog with me next week?
Thursday, 23 February 2012
Friday, 10 February 2012
Crafting Characters
I was asked by an old friend of mine, Lori, the other day how I created characters. This was a bit of a weird question to answer for me, because I really had to figure out what I did. Stories and characters come very naturally to me and I can safely say that I don't have a set way of developing a story every single time. Sometimes I see a scene, sometimes a character, other times I get asked to write something with certain criteria in mind. The latter usually helps a lot - I find it's always easier to write to a concept than it is to write to nothing.
Usually I don't write down a whole bunch of things that a character does, fill in questionnaires in character, figure out every single thing about them - from their favourite colour nail polish to the birthday of their Great Aunt Mildred. What I do know or can work out quite early on, is what they will and won't do in certain situations.
And this, I think is key.
Action informs character, not the other way around.
They say that actions speak louder than words and I think that this is especially true in films. But the key thing to figure out about your characters first is how they react to things.
There's a really simple writing exercise that I think can help if you want to get to know your characters a little bit. It might be a good idea to try this anyway, to check that you've got a good handle on characters you've already developed too.
But imagine they're waiting in line at the cinema and have been waiting for twenty minutes, there's one person at the counter and the line is a mile long. They're two people from the front of the line and someone cuts in front of them. How do they react to that?
Depending on your film and your character, the location could change (the post office/pub/garage/toilet), but the essence of the scene is there. Really think about it. I'm not even going to throw out examples of what they could do because it needs to come from your head. Chances are there are things that will feel instinctively right and others that don't. Follow your gut and figure your characters out - give them a chance to do their thing. Because when you're writing, their voices will really come through in your work. And sometimes they can completely surprise you.
Try it. See how you go.
Usually I don't write down a whole bunch of things that a character does, fill in questionnaires in character, figure out every single thing about them - from their favourite colour nail polish to the birthday of their Great Aunt Mildred. What I do know or can work out quite early on, is what they will and won't do in certain situations.
And this, I think is key.
Action informs character, not the other way around.
They say that actions speak louder than words and I think that this is especially true in films. But the key thing to figure out about your characters first is how they react to things.
There's a really simple writing exercise that I think can help if you want to get to know your characters a little bit. It might be a good idea to try this anyway, to check that you've got a good handle on characters you've already developed too.
But imagine they're waiting in line at the cinema and have been waiting for twenty minutes, there's one person at the counter and the line is a mile long. They're two people from the front of the line and someone cuts in front of them. How do they react to that?
Depending on your film and your character, the location could change (the post office/pub/garage/toilet), but the essence of the scene is there. Really think about it. I'm not even going to throw out examples of what they could do because it needs to come from your head. Chances are there are things that will feel instinctively right and others that don't. Follow your gut and figure your characters out - give them a chance to do their thing. Because when you're writing, their voices will really come through in your work. And sometimes they can completely surprise you.
Try it. See how you go.
Wednesday, 8 February 2012
Improvisationising.
Being a writer or filmmaker means that you can do this really awesome thing. I don't mean making a profound movie that touches people's hearts - although that is really ace. I don't mean getting to work with amazing cast and crew and all working together to make something beautiful - although that rocks.
I mean being able to sit around and watch loads of movies and call it research.
It is seriously one of the best things ever. What's even better, for me, is that a few projects that I'm working on at the moment are romantic comedies. So I get to watch a lot of good ones that I can learn what to do right and a lot of terrible ones which are almost better to watch because it's easier to figure out what they've done that you'd do much much differently.
I'm working on a feature film concept at the moment with the effervescent Anton and we meandered out to the cinema last week to see 'Like Crazy' as research for the film. This actually was a film for research, as we'd heard that the 'falling in love' section worked really really well. If we'd been going to see something like 'The Artist', it might've been less research and more 'research' - although, a silent rom-com, anyone?
The cinema was completely empty which was great for us as it meant that we could easily talk through the film and pull it apart and figure out as we went what we liked and what we didn't. But about ten seconds in to the first scene where the leads have any proper screen time together, I tilted my head to one side, paused thoughtfully for a second and said 'This is improvised.'
And it was. As was most of the film.
I don't know if it did it any favours. There were definitely three massive story beats missing so it seemed to skip over huge spaces of time in the story. It also meant that some scenes felt like they were over really quickly or too long or hitting the same beat again and again. There's a scene where they're arguing and Anna keeps repeating the same line of dialogue over and over again in different ways. The scene stalled and it didn't really make sense in the context of the story, either.
This scene really sticks in my mind because it doesn't work. There was no build up to the height of the argument, the pair of them just kind of jump to the main point of the scene - where she accuses him of having feelings for someone else.
I think that this can often happen when all the actors improvising are thinking about is the core plot point of the scene and not the build up. Arguments can often be fantastic scenes to write, to act and to film when they are done dynamically. One way that I like to do this is before the argument explodes, one of the characters is trying NOT to get into the argument, even though it's brimming under the surface. They contain themselves for as long as they possibly can and the other character is completely unaware, until the argument bursts into being at the smallest thing.
This is a really great way to tackle improvising arguments with actors and you can get some wonderful character moments in them. If you tell both actors what the core plot point of the scene is - she accuses him about having feelings for someone else - then take each actor aside privately and give them direction that the other doesn't know about. For example, tell her that she wants to confront him about it but doesn't want to make a scene. Tell him that he wants to go out for pizza because he's organised a surprise dinner for their anniversary. Then you create a moment that is driven by the actors surprising each other - she surprises him with the argument and he surprises her by insisting that they should go out and get pizza. The more he blocks the argument with dinner, the more she'll attack him and the more she'll attack him, the more he'll block until eventually, one of them will break and you'll hit the high point of the scene - even if you don't know what that high point will reveal.
You don't need actors to do this. You can do this as a writing exercise too. Place restrictions on your characters a scene to see how they react under pressure. It doesn't even need to be an argument, although it is often a surprising and fast way to get character and exposition across. Try writing a scene like the one above with your two main characters and see what you get out of it.
I think the key with improvising is that it should be done in the rehearsal/development stages. We played with improvisation during the rehearsals of 'With A Little Help From Our Friends' and the film is definitely the better for it - some moments became even bigger and more hilarious and the improvised moments became a part of the film, a part I wrote into the script which we shot on the day. I had to tweak it a little to make it work, but adding those improvised moments to the structure of the main film definitely gave it a little more sparkle.
It's very gutsy to improvise a whole film, mostly just because that actors are often not writers. They can craft amazing characters and create wonderful moments, but the doesn't make a story. However, if they've got the skeleton of a fantastic script underneath them, the improvised pieces become beautiful flourishes on a fantastic film and not a film that had so much potential but didn't quite get there.
I mean being able to sit around and watch loads of movies and call it research.
It is seriously one of the best things ever. What's even better, for me, is that a few projects that I'm working on at the moment are romantic comedies. So I get to watch a lot of good ones that I can learn what to do right and a lot of terrible ones which are almost better to watch because it's easier to figure out what they've done that you'd do much much differently.
I'm working on a feature film concept at the moment with the effervescent Anton and we meandered out to the cinema last week to see 'Like Crazy' as research for the film. This actually was a film for research, as we'd heard that the 'falling in love' section worked really really well. If we'd been going to see something like 'The Artist', it might've been less research and more 'research' - although, a silent rom-com, anyone?
The cinema was completely empty which was great for us as it meant that we could easily talk through the film and pull it apart and figure out as we went what we liked and what we didn't. But about ten seconds in to the first scene where the leads have any proper screen time together, I tilted my head to one side, paused thoughtfully for a second and said 'This is improvised.'
And it was. As was most of the film.
I don't know if it did it any favours. There were definitely three massive story beats missing so it seemed to skip over huge spaces of time in the story. It also meant that some scenes felt like they were over really quickly or too long or hitting the same beat again and again. There's a scene where they're arguing and Anna keeps repeating the same line of dialogue over and over again in different ways. The scene stalled and it didn't really make sense in the context of the story, either.
This scene really sticks in my mind because it doesn't work. There was no build up to the height of the argument, the pair of them just kind of jump to the main point of the scene - where she accuses him of having feelings for someone else.
I think that this can often happen when all the actors improvising are thinking about is the core plot point of the scene and not the build up. Arguments can often be fantastic scenes to write, to act and to film when they are done dynamically. One way that I like to do this is before the argument explodes, one of the characters is trying NOT to get into the argument, even though it's brimming under the surface. They contain themselves for as long as they possibly can and the other character is completely unaware, until the argument bursts into being at the smallest thing.
This is a really great way to tackle improvising arguments with actors and you can get some wonderful character moments in them. If you tell both actors what the core plot point of the scene is - she accuses him about having feelings for someone else - then take each actor aside privately and give them direction that the other doesn't know about. For example, tell her that she wants to confront him about it but doesn't want to make a scene. Tell him that he wants to go out for pizza because he's organised a surprise dinner for their anniversary. Then you create a moment that is driven by the actors surprising each other - she surprises him with the argument and he surprises her by insisting that they should go out and get pizza. The more he blocks the argument with dinner, the more she'll attack him and the more she'll attack him, the more he'll block until eventually, one of them will break and you'll hit the high point of the scene - even if you don't know what that high point will reveal.
You don't need actors to do this. You can do this as a writing exercise too. Place restrictions on your characters a scene to see how they react under pressure. It doesn't even need to be an argument, although it is often a surprising and fast way to get character and exposition across. Try writing a scene like the one above with your two main characters and see what you get out of it.
I think the key with improvising is that it should be done in the rehearsal/development stages. We played with improvisation during the rehearsals of 'With A Little Help From Our Friends' and the film is definitely the better for it - some moments became even bigger and more hilarious and the improvised moments became a part of the film, a part I wrote into the script which we shot on the day. I had to tweak it a little to make it work, but adding those improvised moments to the structure of the main film definitely gave it a little more sparkle.
It's very gutsy to improvise a whole film, mostly just because that actors are often not writers. They can craft amazing characters and create wonderful moments, but the doesn't make a story. However, if they've got the skeleton of a fantastic script underneath them, the improvised pieces become beautiful flourishes on a fantastic film and not a film that had so much potential but didn't quite get there.
Monday, 23 January 2012
Writing Short Films: Location
Location is a really important aspect of low budget filmmaking that a lot of writers may not take in to consideration when writing a short. Fantastic locations add immense production value to your film and if your film looks snazzy, your script is fab and your actors zing, then you can take over the world.
Set your film a location that you have access to.
Really think about what you DO have access to. All the places you might be able to sweet talk someone into letting you use. I used to work in a restaurant, spoke to my boss about a short film I was writing and asked if we'd be able to shoot it there. The answer was yes. Suddenly the film stands out against others that are shot in someone's lounge room.
Have you got access to somewhere different? A farm? A house by the beach? A skyscraper with a view of the Thames? A nightclub? Somewhere that someone else probably wouldn't have access to? Go for it. Set your film there if you know you'll most likely be able to swing the location. Make it easier for yourself to get your work made.
Likewise, if you visit somewhere and fall in love with it, then look into how hard it is to get permission to shoot there. It might be really simple. It might be really difficult. But at least you'll know how much work you'll have to do to get your film into production. You might not even have to do any of the leg work if you get a producer or production manager on board, but arm yourself with the knowledge of how difficult it's going to be to shoot in the middle of the MCG before you write it.
It really is amazing how much difference it makes to set your film in a location that doesn't scream 'low budget'. Of course, there are certain films that have to be set in a lounge room or an office or a bedroom - that's where production design comes in.
Think about what you've got in your arsenal and use it to your advantage.
Set your film a location that you have access to.
Really think about what you DO have access to. All the places you might be able to sweet talk someone into letting you use. I used to work in a restaurant, spoke to my boss about a short film I was writing and asked if we'd be able to shoot it there. The answer was yes. Suddenly the film stands out against others that are shot in someone's lounge room.
Have you got access to somewhere different? A farm? A house by the beach? A skyscraper with a view of the Thames? A nightclub? Somewhere that someone else probably wouldn't have access to? Go for it. Set your film there if you know you'll most likely be able to swing the location. Make it easier for yourself to get your work made.
Likewise, if you visit somewhere and fall in love with it, then look into how hard it is to get permission to shoot there. It might be really simple. It might be really difficult. But at least you'll know how much work you'll have to do to get your film into production. You might not even have to do any of the leg work if you get a producer or production manager on board, but arm yourself with the knowledge of how difficult it's going to be to shoot in the middle of the MCG before you write it.
It really is amazing how much difference it makes to set your film in a location that doesn't scream 'low budget'. Of course, there are certain films that have to be set in a lounge room or an office or a bedroom - that's where production design comes in.
Think about what you've got in your arsenal and use it to your advantage.
Monday, 9 January 2012
New Year, Moving Forward.
Welcome to 2012 everyone!
I know I'm a little bit belated with this, but I've had a wonderful festive break from blogging and am now back to whipping the film into shape.
Where are we at? I hear you ask.
We are currently at the beginning of post production! I met with Dan, the editor toward the end of November and we walked through the rushes. It was a great meeting and Dan made notes, we all laughed at the amazing acting skills on screen and talked about the general tone and feel of the film. I gave him the most recent copy of the script to put together a rough cut on and we decided that we would go from there.
There have been various delays - the two big ones, obviously, are Christmas and New Years, as well as Dan being packed off to Italy for work and me getting ill just before Christmas - but we both got through it and that resulted in the first rough cut of the film hitting my inbox at the start of last week.
It was both daunting and exciting to watch.
Watching the first cut is terrifying, in essence. Every single problem you talked about around a table in pre-production, made a split second decision about on set in production is suddenly concreted on screen in front of you. You notice every single thing you never did on set - was that cable always in that corner? Why didn't we move it out of the way? You notice everything that's wrong continuity wise. You hear every extra noise that wasn't there before, you see all the shifts in light, the differences in performance. How the rhythm of the cut is wrong, there are pops in the sound and for a split second it looks like the actors break character. You almost watch with your hands over your eyes, because it's slightly horrifying.
Then you spot a sparkle in the performance. You laugh. You gasp. You grin madly because you can see the potential in the film, the diamond in the rough. The lighting looks amazing in this shot. The sound is crystal clear in this entire scene. God, that shot was so difficult to get but it completely paid off. The look on his face is hilarious. The look on hers is beautiful.
It's about trimming and shaping and pruning the cut until all of it is full of glee and delight. Or shock and awe, depending on what kind of film you're making. Just finding the right emotion of the scene, the comedy in the beat, the horror in the darkness. Pin-pointing the best way to get across the message of your film.
That's where we're at right now. I'm meeting up with Dan tomorrow to go over the cut and we'll move this bad boy forward and keep shaping, sculpting and trimming until we find the cut that really zings with the rest of the film.
This is the really exciting part.
I know I'm a little bit belated with this, but I've had a wonderful festive break from blogging and am now back to whipping the film into shape.
Where are we at? I hear you ask.
We are currently at the beginning of post production! I met with Dan, the editor toward the end of November and we walked through the rushes. It was a great meeting and Dan made notes, we all laughed at the amazing acting skills on screen and talked about the general tone and feel of the film. I gave him the most recent copy of the script to put together a rough cut on and we decided that we would go from there.
There have been various delays - the two big ones, obviously, are Christmas and New Years, as well as Dan being packed off to Italy for work and me getting ill just before Christmas - but we both got through it and that resulted in the first rough cut of the film hitting my inbox at the start of last week.
It was both daunting and exciting to watch.
Watching the first cut is terrifying, in essence. Every single problem you talked about around a table in pre-production, made a split second decision about on set in production is suddenly concreted on screen in front of you. You notice every single thing you never did on set - was that cable always in that corner? Why didn't we move it out of the way? You notice everything that's wrong continuity wise. You hear every extra noise that wasn't there before, you see all the shifts in light, the differences in performance. How the rhythm of the cut is wrong, there are pops in the sound and for a split second it looks like the actors break character. You almost watch with your hands over your eyes, because it's slightly horrifying.
Then you spot a sparkle in the performance. You laugh. You gasp. You grin madly because you can see the potential in the film, the diamond in the rough. The lighting looks amazing in this shot. The sound is crystal clear in this entire scene. God, that shot was so difficult to get but it completely paid off. The look on his face is hilarious. The look on hers is beautiful.
It's about trimming and shaping and pruning the cut until all of it is full of glee and delight. Or shock and awe, depending on what kind of film you're making. Just finding the right emotion of the scene, the comedy in the beat, the horror in the darkness. Pin-pointing the best way to get across the message of your film.
That's where we're at right now. I'm meeting up with Dan tomorrow to go over the cut and we'll move this bad boy forward and keep shaping, sculpting and trimming until we find the cut that really zings with the rest of the film.
This is the really exciting part.
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