analyzation

PHASE 2 // mise en scene


okay. I'm working on screenwriting. a dismal task.. since that is not my skill set..
Watched several movies that really got me thinking.

The Ice Storm
Dead Ringers
Breaking the Waves

//Boys Don't Cry nearly killed me.

Now I realize I need to read scripts of the films that contain the mark I am trying to hit. So I downloaded Black Swan, Mulholland Drive.... Revolutionary Road...... yes, I know, majorly depressing.


BUT no. 2 on my docket is to work on my ideas with mise en scene and sequence breakdown.

Sights. Sounds. Imagery lists.

How do my favorite artist construct these worlds?

When I was in high school, I broke down a scene from Pirates of the Caribbean to see how the scene was constructed. The scene included action as well as dialogue, so it was really really awesome when I started seeing patterns. A lot things that I learn about blocking, I learned before coming to film school by some of those exercises... granted I didn't know how to practically apply them until I tried and failed many times.... but! now that I have the tools to know how to technical achieve scenes... studying films may actually contain some worth now! haha

One of the films that has always HAUNTED me was Agnieszka Holland's The Secret Garden. Recently I have really really wanted to be able to capture her ability to transfix an audience. There are some eerie and compelling nuances to her work.

So I am breaking down one of my favorite scene from the movie. Celtx has this AWESOME storyboarding section of the app that allows you to import photos and sketches and storyboards shots and notate them. So! I watched the scene through, doing screen grabs of each shot movement and/or change and then imported all the photos like a storyboard!

I've already noticed something!!! Holland uses the camera like a character. Camera movement is motivated throughout the scene by the scary and intimidating environment that Mary, the main character, finds herself in. A noise at her bedroom door! The camera whip pans to the door as Mary turns to hear the noise... The camera stands away from her, gliding across the room, leaving you to pick apart the frame, looking for the thing! the thing that made that scary noise. Its brilliant. I know a lot of directors use some of these techniques, yet Holland and Roger Deakins!! (who shot this film, so of course... amazing camera work) uses them in a much more intuitive and deep way. Nothing seems a device or calls attention to itself, but simply underlies the story. The reverses are seamless! She stitches the visual language together so neatly. The lenses and frames are chosen carefully. Very cinematic, showing the large, dark spaces off. The shots pay attention to putting you smack dab into this mystery and lonely world, exactly the fantasy world you want to explore and fill your darkest imagination with...

In addition, the sound design, which I noted while watching, is subtle but hangs in the air.. like that eerie feeling. The moans of the thing roaming the house leave you uneasy.

I have just complied the shots! so I will have to let you know what I find.. but every detail counts.

For example:

There was this one scene in The Ice Storm that stuck me so hard, because it was so subtle but it created so much feeling. It was a scene where the wife character was consoling her husband, who had gotten so drunk that he had been sitting on the bathroom floor, ready to spring for the toilet. It had been a terrible party they had gone to that night, and not what they bargained for at all. In fact, in addition and even before they had come to the party, they had been second guessing their marriage... but the hell they just gone through had bonded them closer to together.

She says, "I'll talk to you in the morning," as she leaves the room and pulls the door to....

almost....

closed.

End scene, right?

No.. her hand lingers there. Only her arm and hand can be seen in shot at this point, casually clasping the door knob. Her husband within has been mostly obscured by the door. Then she goes back... the door reopens slightly, her hand hesitating, and then finally, makes up her mind leaving the door midway between open and closed.

Why did Ang Lee do this? I puzzled and puzzled... I think he knew that we, the audience, wanted them to fall back in love. He wanted us to be rooting for that door to be reopened.. for her to have something more for her to say to him. In fact, that was what I was hoping for. I was compelled in that scene by the question of whether or not that would happen. Whether or not it was over, whether I would get to see the reconciliation which Lee, in the end, denied me.

Its questions like this... with depth of that caliber in the context of all the carefully construct moments before it, that keep you watching. The unpredictability and lack of formula.

Ang Lee, you are genius.

the seattle opera is putting on a production of madame butterfly.
I wish I could go....
Instead I checked the cds out from the library

Robert McKee is a man after my own heart.

How does this man manage to read my mind? How does he manage to sum up thoughts I have been having... mention things I have been struggling with?

Is he and I too idealistic? Is this sort of thing able to be a reality?
He is the expert!! That is what makes me excited.
Robert McKee!
YOU are so big picture! thank you. tell me about the roots. Where story starts. How my favorite movies are so compelling. I don't want some common sense analyzation or surface level "tips and tricks to sell your script!!" I want you Robert McKee and your underlying archetypes.. yes! yes! yes!
not only will you help me make my own work shine, you will make my daily struggle with clarity and my screenplay coverage writing skillz 100% better. I feel it in my bones.. in my heart.

Awesome!!!

PUNK ROCK morning // well sex pistols morning

Today was my first official commute from my new place to and from work.
Best thing ever! So close.

Filled my cupboards with food!! so excited to cook and to live here .. my own place!

Pace myself. Yes. I need to have some fun.

How can I maximize myself? How can I have more to go around?
I need to do so many things and be so many people. I need to be a cook and a house cleaner. An assistant and a director in training. I need to be more than I have ever been. To be completely challenged. I want some good people in my life that love me and I can love in return.
I want to map out all the parks in the Seattle area and all the beaches and hang out at all of them. I want to play tennis and go running and see Shakespeare. I am going to go see Bruce Lee's grave for sure!
Seattle is my oyster. I am going to make you awesome.! Capitol Hill is my oyster.
People watching up here is AWESOME. So many interesting people and faces. So exotic and different.

I will have to tell you want happens!!!

a couple new..

All of Me by sahalemarja

Borders by sahalemarja

sometimes I feel no matter what I experience, no matter what I learn, I am really just uncovering who I had always been... only had forgotten. No matter what institution, ideal or philosophy others want me to believe, I always will and always have been .. Sahale.

its a new genre.

Just, take me where you find me and what my actions reveal me to be.

scripts are a beast.

a script is like a mighty beast.

each genre is its own animal.
you can't look at a action film and a high school musical rip off the same way.

each is totally legit in its own world. But what is its world?

I bet reading High School Musical you would scoff it. Tear it to pieces and generally see it as fluff.

"Filmmakers from Southern have an advantage because our work is DEEP! and all of Hollywood is shallow!" blerdy-do

NOT TRUE.
people in Hollywood that are working high up aren't nessicarily dumb. They just have to make entertainment.. you know why? because you will buy it.

They are super smart.. super deep about these things, but intentionally dumbed down. It a part of selling the image. Its what the majority wants. Its just another way of manipulating the market. Of course the brilliant bit... the bit you are not seeing... is that they just suckered you into making that pithy movie into a blockbuster hit!! The joke is more on us than them. Trust me.. its intentional. Not necessarily what you always want to do, but hey! some of the most brilliant and fun/compelling/entertaining films out there .. strait classics and all around amazing films are made of some of these very scripts and concepts.

Sometimes is becomes more form than content.

So when you read a script... it is valuable to say in your coverage of it that it is good.. yes. But more than that.. does it fit in with the world of films out there? It is commercially relevant. Is it enough of a blue print for a good film of that genre?

We are considering developing a action-y.. thriller-y film and as a part of the process, I was to read the script and give coverage. Lets just say I had a variety of problems with it. It was written well.. but there were some things I just couldn't buy. Some loop holes in my own mind of what it should be. Did I have context for these comments? Had a read a lot of action-y thriller scripts? Had I even seen a database of the classics in that genre? No. My comments were generally worth something, but not much. I decide to watch some of this genre's films.. ones I had seen before.. Top Gun, Alien, Wanted, Jaws... etc. and I started to break down what I was seeing with how I imagine the script to read. Corny words stared to appear on its pages.. contrived situations.. giant leaps in plot.. okay okay okay.. obviously.. I started to realize that these films would have read on page just as corny and just as contrived as this script I had read, but yet on screen they worked. they were magical.

the script is an animal! I'm telling you!

Its not what it seems.

A good director/producer needs to be able to decipher the animal. know if the beast is tamable by taking that content and knowing what form it demands. they need to know the genre.. know the screenplays and films in that genre well. pull it from their back pocket.. give people's work context and scrutiny on the correct playing field..

or someone else will for them.

///movies Sahale is watching this weekend..

1. Boys Don't Cry - Kimberly Pierce

2. Amores Perros - Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

3. Breaking the Waves - Lars van Trier

4. The Ice Storm - Ang Lee

BORDERLINE!

Lesson Number 2

Tip No. 2 .. aspiring filmmaker.

watch LOTS of movies.

you want to talk to any professional about your film or someone else's film? You need a lexicon of influences.. models, to draw from. The bigger the better.

You need to watch everything. Nothing is worthless.. EVERYTHING comments on what is achievable or what you should avoid. Not only should you watch the "good" and artsy films but you need to especially pay attention to films that make MONEY or films that art marketable.

The films that are considered great, show the subtleties of film.. the ultimate potential artistry that is possible. The make you think and they challenge you. They show you how a film can be compelling. Be it unpredictable characters, distinct visuals, or articulate and deeper plot structure. They they have an innate and intuitive profoundness that you should pay attention to. I haven't been able to figure out exactly what it is.. but it holds you hostage.. compels you beyond your control.

MAJOR MOTION films show what is desirable. What people are looking for what people want.

You are not always going to be able to shoot or produce the next "Citizen Kane". You HAVE to have content for genre. You have to know what the acceptable boxes are before you can hit or intentionally miss them. You have to know what is out there, you have to be aware of the working professionals, screenwriters and production companies that are able to make work and stay in business because IT SELLS.

Working at a production company, I have found that I have seen nowhere near enough films to a have an adequate database to converse with legitimate professionals. If I watched 2 movies a night for a year I still wouldn't be caught up. There are so many films that I have FINALLY been exposed to that have taught me the equivalent or more than one of my film classes at Southern. They have challenged my way of looking at films.. they have shown me how production lives and breathes. To be relevant you MUST educate yourself. You must watch and watch and study and study your craft. And that means watch as many movies as you can.

Because, I have found, if you are watching a movie and can say to yourself "that's interesting!" ..you should have, in that moment, learned something new about filmmaking.. and if you are paying attention to that moment, if you are being critical about it, you will be able to identify what that new thing is. The more movies you watch.. the broader your scope is, the bigger and bigger you database and lexicon .. the more content you have! the more your opinions, insight, and critique on scripts, films, other working professionals.. (even your own stuff) is relevant!! Be extremely relevant people! make your words and your opinions matter. Make them matter by knowing what you are talking about. In other words, watch tons of movies!!

hard work. work hard.

So.
Filmmaking.

I am realizing how saturated the market is.. and how LUCKY I am to be a ShadowCatcher.
I want to sooo badly to work in the top of the top in the film industry. I'm not even sure why.
I think it is because those are the type of people I want to mix with. I am so addicted to how smart Tom is. I so addicted to how much work Ginny Ruffner gets done. I want to be amongst people like that. ALL the time. They are exciting and challenging. I thought I wanted to be a great filmmaker because I wanted to make good films.. which I still do, but now I really want to make smart films to be around the smart people who make smart films.

I do not want to squander this opportunity. I have to be good at this stage of the process so that I can be good at the next. I have to work above and beyond what I need to at this level so that I can make sure to tackle the next. I want to live life fuller in the sense that I take on everything and anything and be the best at everything and anything.

I found that I haven't been who I was all along because I never saw myself as that. Now that someone has mentioned that I am "ambitious" and "aggressive" I realized that I was all along.. just no one ever took me seriously.. or maybe this is something new.. maybe I just never believed in myself.. Whatever the case.. I am finally in a good place! I am finally in a place I fit.

Its up to me. Its how far I want to take it.

"When I die I'll rot, but when I live.. I'll give you all I got" -Sufjan Stevens.