Yesterday I finally saw (on DVD) a film I wanted to see but missed when it was in the theaters: Blue Valentine.

Because of the human scale of the imagery, it doesn't seem to lose much on the small screen.  The most remarkable thing about the film is the performances of Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling.  Their ability to just "be" in the characters amazes me.  It's what I hope to achieve in my films.

Acting is - for me - an incredible mystery.  Yes, I could take acting classes (I did take one actually), perhaps appear in some small theatrical production.  But I'm just not going to be able to devote the time and energy to the pursuit of acting sufficient to achieve that level, certainly.  My job is to create the conditions for actors to do their best work.  So, as a director, part of my job is to stay out of the way.

As a writer, I have to provide enough for the production to know the characters and their journey.  In the film I'm producing right now (Endings), that has required me to write an entire story (well, 5-pages) about the two couples in my film, how they grew up, how they met, what their life together has been like, perhaps a memorable image from their shared history.  None of that is in the script, but working with excellent actors results in getting excellent questions about these things and that document was part of the answer.

Endings has roughly 40% improvised scenes.  These are scenes being recalled by the characters in their "present" from their past.  While we will record dialog in those scenes, it may barely be heard in the finished film, with a few exceptions.  It's only important to know that these events took place and to be able to see how the people involved acted and felt at the time.

Okay, not my most coherent post here, but an opening on a topic that I will talk about again in the future, especially as this current project moves into production and into post and to its audience.

As they say in the fine print of investment documents, "past performance is not an indicator of future returns."  Nevertheless, I was happy to receive a call from the Fifth Annual Columbia Gorge International Film Festival telling me that they are going to be showing Grace Running.

Columbia Gorge is pleasant affair, which I visited two years ago when they showed Eight Lessons In Living Together.  I'm not sure I will be traveling to Vancouver for the festival this time, but we shall see if anything else pops up on my travel agenda!

I'm planning to shoot my next short, ENDINGS, in the first three weeks of June, so I may be ready for another trip in August.

From time to time in a film project I can be overheard making a reference to “what I learned on the day job.”  What I did learn on the “day job” is fairly complex but includes dealing with groups of people, organizing my own time, prioritizing tasks for other people to do and general organizational schmoozing.

When I taught art and photography (at the high school and college level) I observed that many folks are initially attracted to the arts by the perception that artists are “free” to do whatever they want.  There are plenty of cultural myths (and facts) around to make this seem like a fundamental truth.  In my experience, it’s not true in the way a lot of young people read it. There is a relationship between freedom and discipline.

There is a slender book, Zen and the Art of Archery, published half a century ago or so (and the godfather of all the “zen and the art of xxxx” books) by a German philosopher who spent time in Japan in an effort to understand Zen.  He ended up studying Zen archery and what the book essentially documents is how much difficult and hard work must be done in order to become spontaneous.  I think this is a very congenial insight for anyone who has really mastered an artistic practice, from painting to bluegrass banjo.

It’s my belief that I’m regarded by my peers as a well-organized fellow.  (They may think I suck as a filmmaker, but I do keep to the schedule!)  I do put a lot of work and thought into planning of all kinds.  Planning the shotlist, estimating how long it will take to shoot a particular piece, planning who will do what and where the nearest sandwich shop is and so on.  I plan extensively not because I believe the plan is the way to perfection but because I believe a good plan minimizes the chaos.  And I deeply believe that chaos is not the right environment for creativity, especially in this medium.

Order is what frees up the heart and mind to take on the important and interesting problems.  Chaos is what drags you down into questions of where is the battery charger and who is going to get the pizza?  Yes, there will always be some level of immediate problem to solve.  But it is so easy in life and in art to let the small urgent things overcome the truly important stuff.

To me, being in the moment with actors, images and words is the vitally important thing I have to do.  It’s difficult to have a well-defined plan for some aspects of this, but if most other things are falling in place, I’m freed up to focus on what matters most to the quality of the film.

Since I began to edit my first film, it has always been clear that audio is the hardest technology in filmmaking.

In my very first film (since high school anyway), I made several key mistakes leading to some basic education.  It seems like there is always more to learn and, I joke (but it's true) that every time I learn something important about audio it costs me $1000.

Stephen van Vuuren is a film friend and one of the most technically accomplished filmmakers I know. Recently I took advantage of his generous "open house" offer to play my DVD of Grace Running in his carefully calibrated theater setup in his workspace.  Basically, it sounded like you'd want to turn the volume up a notch or two.  Unfortunately, in his setup this means that your overall audio level isn't where it should be, among other problems.

I am doing a second pass on audio post-production for this film, not because I think I'm going to become an audio expert, but so I will understand what I think I learned by practicing it a bit.  I may be able to do a better job on my own edits (of all kinds) in the future and I will certainly be a bit smarter if it comes to communicating with an audio mix specialist in the future.

Oh, and I bought better monitor speakers, complete with a cool subwoofer that sits on the floor.

Onward and upward!

When I got most of the way through editing my last (just finished) film (Grace Running) the insight that began to intrude itself on my consciousness was:

         “You never have enough B roll.”

So, I’m building that thought into my plans for the next film.  But I’m not just building the thought into a shot list - I think it has to be part of the script, part of the entire emotional landscape.

I’m stretching the meaning (but maybe not the practice) of B roll a little bit here.  Classically (meaning in the last ten years) “B roll” in the film context consists of inserts and cutaways that can be used to allow an edit in the main shot, plus some other mood imagery that can be used to go in or out of a scene.  I guess one ironclad rule is that B roll does not include any shot of the actors or at least no dialog of significance.

I’m thinking here about B roll as a line of imagery that supports and enhances the story.  In a story that is big on “moments” of feeling, I think “B roll” can become extremely important.  So my insight / plan for the future is to specifically create time and opportunity for my DP to explore a scene, a location, a setting visually, exercising his creativity as a photographer to highlight significant details.  This demands and relies on the DP being emotionally aware, involved in the story telling on the visual level.

I believe this is an opportunity for my DP to extend his creativity and an opportunity for me - as an editor - to have a rich bank of imagery to draw on.  I’ll let you know how it works out.