Unconventional Filmmaking

A sad moment in film usually is expressed with a lot of shadow, somber music playing in the background, a cool color scheme, and a shallow depth of field. A joyful moment is usually expressed through playing happy music and having very worm colors in frame. Film language has been developed for more then a hundred years. Most professional filmmakers know the conventional way to shoot any type of scene. The question I want to pose in this blog post is, when does it become more effective to shoot a scene in a unconventional way.

Sometimes sadness is better expressed through showing beauty. Sometimes insanity is expressed best through calm and calculated shots. Some of the greatest moments in film are achieved through the director going the unconventional rout. Stanley Kubrick is just one director who often filmed in unexpected ways. In his movie A Clockwork Orange we see the main character Alex and his gang rape a woman while he sings “Singing in the Rain”. There is no emotion expressed through the way the camera is used. You would expect a lot of hand held movement, with harsh music playing, and a lot of close ups of the woman getting rapped, showing how hurt she is from the whole event. However, there really isn’t any of that. We know the immorality of what we are seeing on screen. We get a better understanding of Alex however through the direct contrast between his evil actions and his nonchalant attitude. Kubrick’s understated filming of the scene only amplifies the horror.

Another movie that does a fantastic job going the unconventional rout is Never Let Me Go. The basic concept of the story is nothing new. We are introduced to a world where cloning is used to create individuals whose sole purpose is to donate their organs so that the rest of society can have a longer lifespan. There are several conventional ways the filmmakers could have gone about telling this story. We could have had the typical storyline of clones who try to escape from their horrific fate. Then there is the big sci-fi aspect most filmmakers would try to highlight, showing the factory farms where the clones are created and how they are treated like dirt by the rest of the world. However, in Never Let Me Go the main characters don’t try to escape and the idea that these characters are clones is underplayed. Instead we see how the clones are manipulated to believe their organ donating is their purpose and duty in life. We are forced to come to the understanding that the main characters will be killed right in the prime of their lives. The story does not try to villainize the rest of society. Instead the movie concentrates on connecting us with the characters who will eventually be killed. The more we connect with the characters the more horrifying the understanding of their eventual death becomes.

Never Let Me Go could have been shot with a lot of cold callous colors. Instead the filmmakers chose to express beauty in almost every frame. The school the clones lived in as children is a gorgeous location, overwhelmed with vibrant colors. Every shot is a thing of beauty in Never Le Me Go. We are constantly reminded about the vibrancy of life and the magnificent world these characters are soon going to leave. The beauty we see along with our understanding of the clone’s fate creates a much deeper sadness then any dark shadowy composition.

You will have many critics if you choose to go a unconventional rout. Hitchcock was given a lot of grief when he committed to killing off his main protagonist half way through the movie Psycho. Yet, now the movie is considered by me and many others to be his greatest achievement in his magnificent film career. Don’t feel the need to shoot unconventionally for the sake of shooting unconventionally. The conventional film language has stuck around for a reason. Usually the best way to get the best reaction from an actor is by going to a close up. Usually the best way to express chaos is through quick cuts and loud sound effects. However, sometimes a long shot can capture an actor’s performance far more effectively then a close up. Sometimes you need to hold a shot and take away the sound to show the intensity of a situation. As filmmakers we must remember every story has a different way of expressing itself.

Invisible Strings

Filmmakers are puppeteers. We control pretty much everything. We create the story; deciding who is good and who is evil, who wins and who loses. Everything from writing the script, to framing the shots, to cutting the film is part of the complex process of creating the illusion of life for our audience to be entranced by. Some puppeteers are extremely literal in their stories; creating worlds and characters that are quite like real life. Some puppeteers however are quite abstract; creating worlds where fish can talk and balloons can fly houses. There are many talented puppeteers. Most of them like to show off their skill by creating characters who are basically capable of anything. By creating visual effects that completely blow the audience away. And by using their editing and camera skills to show off their magnificent skill as puppeteers. However, the greatest puppeteers, the puppet masters, are the ones who make their tremendous string work invisible to the audience watching.

Making one’s strings invisible does not mean you need to make your film completely literal. Animation  for example is an extremely abstract concept. Animation studios like Disney and Pixar do not even try to create literal copies of the world we live in. They create entire worlds of their own where kids can fly and toys come to life. However, all of their stories are reflections of emotional truths. They create characters that have feelings just like us. No matter if it is a robot trying to find love or a rat who wants to cook, their characters reflect each one of us and the obstacles the characters face are reflective of the things we face in every day life. Because the worlds and characters strike an emotional truth with us the audience, we forget about all the strings controlling them.

There are many basic things that need to be done right in order to hide one’s strings. For example, the reason why the invisible cut is so important is because you want to create a flow of motion through your cuts that does not distract from the story. Music needs to always be in service to the story being told. If it comes in at the wrong time or becomes too overpowering it can very easily take the audience member out of the moment. One of the greatest criticisms of 3D is that it creates the illusion of things coming at you and can easily feel intrusive rather then inclusive to the audience member. The reason filmmakers take so long getting a shot set up and edits just right is because they want everything to feel like it is a natural piece of a greater whole.

The most important things to get right in order to hide one’s strings is the story. The story needs to be structured in such a way that if feels real. Although a movie like Finding Nemo is about talking fish, the story is structured and executed in such a way that the story feels genuine. There are several elements about the fish that remind us of real life. The main fish character Marlin is a single parent who suffers from the insecurity of losing his son. His son Nemo has a birth defect which is reflective of what many people suffer from in our world. And, the core idea of a father trying to connect with his son is something almost all of us can connect with. The story also unfolds in such a way that the farther along it goes the more we get connected with the characters the world it takes place in. Marlin loses Nemo and sets out into the ocean to find him again.  The struggles Marlin goes through during his journey allow him to deal with his insecurities and understand more about the values of his son. Finding Nemo is just an illusion created by the filmmakers, yet their strings go unnoticed because we are so caught up in the story.

There are some filmmakers who don’t care about connecting you to there characters or making a plausible world. There only goal is to take you on a ride. However, these kind of filmmakers get old fast. The actions we see unfold begin to look cheesy because we have not bought into their stories emotionally. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a good example. The movie always felt like a story that was created in tribute to earlier films, not because it had something new to say. The actions that unfolded during the movie often felt too elaborate and overdone. It wasn’t enough that Jones got away from the bad guys lair he needed to also survive a nuclear explosion. One impossibly huge waterfall wasn’t enough Jones and the rest of the crew needed to survive three. Again and again visual effects and elaborate camera shots overwhelm us and make obvious the strings controlling the story. When we no longer feel what we are looking at is real we quickly lose any thrill in watching it.

The key to being a good filmmaker is not necessarily the extant of one’s knowledge of the vocabulary of film. Rather, it is how well we are able to execute what we know for the sake of the story. Sometimes elaborate camera work and spectacular visual effects is just what the story calls for. What the audience wants is to be entertained. They want the actions they see on screen to thrill them and that only happens if they are emotionally involved. When all the puppet masters strings are being used for the sake of the story they disappear. When the strings disappear film stops being a mere illusion for movie goers, it becomes real.

Andrew Stanton- An Observation- Writing Screenplays

I have started several screenplay’s in my life and have pretty much been scared off of all of them. Of course I tell myself I am going to come back, but usually I never do. I think a lot of it has to do with my insecurity as a writer. I don’t think I am good enough. I don’t think I can ever be smart enough to write for several different characters all of whom have different perspectives and intellects. I can never do enough research. I can never express myself in the poetic way I see so many other fine writers express themselves.

One of the writers I look up to is Andrew Stanton. He helped write the majority of the Pixar films. His stories are superbly structured. Everything is preparing the audience for the punch line. He knows how to put us in suspense through doing the unpredictable. He knows how to create characters with depth.  And his stories are always imaginative and unique while also being reflective of undeniable truths we see in everyday life. He has created two masterpieces himself in Finding Nemo and Wall-E while also helping directors like Pete Docter, Lee Ulkrich, and John Lasseter set their stories in the right direction. I don’t think anyone at Pixar would deny that Stanton is a great writer, except perhaps Stanton himself.

Knowing that Stanton is one of the lead writers for one of the most creative studios in Hollywood, you would most likely be surprised to hear that Andrew Stanton has said himself that he doesn’t really like to write and doesn’t consider himself to be very good. He dreads the time his screenplays are read out loud and he never feels like they are finished. He did not go to school for writing. His only experience has been on the job. The only way he feels it is good enough is through rewriting; not just once but rather dozens of times.

Stanton has never treated screenwriting like it was a piece of art. To him it is just a step to something great. When we treat writing as though it is just another step we are freed up to really try our best and fail miserably. Stanton has described screenplays as the screen authority that commands to be followed. It is a cinematic direction manual. It is not for the audience to see, it is for the people who are making the movie to see. His philosophy is to get something onto paper so he can begin to rewrite and refine his work. Once Stanton gets his work out there others are able to help. Pixar happens to have some of the best story helpers in the business. The Brain Trust is not afraid to be blunt with their writers and directors. They help Stanton’s writing go from good to great.

When starting a screenplay the only person you should try to satisfy is yourself. Create the story you want to create. You can read all the books there are on screenwriting, you can do months of research, and you can spend all your money on the most state of the art writing equipment. All of this however is not going to guarantee confidence. The value of writing is that it allows us to put what is in our head onto paper. Don’t treat screenwriting as anything more then a way to get your ideas out there, in a structured way, so you can improve them. After you have something you are able see and show others, you can start to refine. You will never know how good you are until you start doing it.

War Horse- Review

War Horse is a passionate tale that takes place during World War I. The only clear villain of the film is the Great War itself. We see stories unfold on both sides. The film is full of loss, but what sticks out is hope. Their is a sentiment to this film that makes many critics stop liking Spielberg as much as the Fincher’s and Scorsese’s of our time. However, the heart and emotion so openly expressed in this film is what draws me so deeply to Spielberg’s work. The Sentiment of this film does not feel fake. It is genuine because Spielberg believes deeply in what he is expressing on screen.

War Horse opens to a beautiful landscape. The land moves us in this film just as much as anything else. We see it in it’s glory with beautiful sunsets and warm colorful country sides. We are drawn in because of it. The innocents we see at the beginning of the film in the land and characters is even more cherished because they do not last. When war comes we see the land change. It gets corrupted by the evils of battle and bloodshed. The vibrant greens and warm reds slowly turn to gray. The land is cut into to create trenches. It gets infected by, machine guns, canons, and barb wire.

The land is a direct reflection of the emotional state of the star of the movie, Joey. He is a horse and we follow him from birth. He is foolishly bought by an old handicapped farmer named Ted Narracott (Peter Mullan). The true heart of the story begins when Joey is introduced to Ted’s son Albert, played by  Jeremy Irvine. For being his first big role Jeremy does a fair enough job. Everything relies on us buying into the relationship he creates with Joey. Unlike most Hollywood films these days Steven Spielberg is not afraid to take his time at the beginning of his movies. Spielberg spends a good half hour getting us connected with the relationship between Ted and Joey. We are sold with their relationship by the time Joey is sold away by Ted to a kindhearted English Captain (Tom Hiddleston). This starts a series of smaller stories we experience through out the rest of the film as Joey is pulled deeper and deeper into the Great War.

Through Joey we are shown the humanity of both sides of the war. The war is the only evil in the film and Spielberg does a delicate job expressing it’s cruelty. War Horse is the ideal film to introduce a younger audience to the evils of war. The film is not for all ages. However, it portrays war and violence in a much more bearable way then films like Saving Private Ryan or Glory. We see the war’s evil without needing to constantly turn our head from the screen. Spielberg knows the most impacting images often come from the imagination of the audience. Joey is found and treated well by both sides. However, the requirements of war come close to killing him several times in the film. Joey gives us plenty of reason to like characters who fight on both sides. We also see Joey’s profound influence of several characters in the film.

The images of evil are bearable because of the humanity Joey brings to this war film. Spielberg allows us to cherish Joey without making him seem too smart or mobile to be a real horse. My only criticism of the film would be that at times the acting feels a bit overdone and insincere. However, Spielberg more then makes up for this. The pace, visuals, and story of the film will remind many of old classics. Cutting is used sparingly. The film is mostly shot with wide angle lens’ and the story is in no hurry. Cinematographer, Janusz Kaminski’s work has never been better then in this film. Spielberg and Kaminski bend light in magical ways. The ending has some of the most touching shots I have ever seen. John Williams’ music flows as well as ever. It consumes us without ever feeling overpowering. The movie transports us back to the beginning of the twentieth century through the making of the film and the era it portrays.

War Horse is a instant classic it has all the elements of great storytelling, which would have been just as entertaining to those in the 30s and 50s as it is to us today. In the movie Joey represents the land itself. When war comes and the land is torn apart, Joey reflects it’s pain. The movie is a commentary on what it takes to make this world good. The land we live in can provide many good things if we are willing to come together and treat it well. If the world stopped caring Joey would die. Thankfully in this movie the world cares. At several points in the film Joey’s life is brought to the edge, but humanity wins. In the end War Horse is a sincere story about trying to find humanity in a time of war.

The Score

The score in filmmaking is such an abstract concept. Unlike sound effects or close ups, we never experience real life with a bunch of music playing in the background expressing our inner feelings. Even cuts are more realistic then musical scores. Even though we do not live life going from one cut to another our memory works that way; we can remember being in one place and then jump cut to a different memory in a different place. Yet, the musical score has been around almost as long as cinema. Way back in the early days of the silent era most movies were accompanied with someone in the theater playing on a piano.

The two main purposes of a musical score is to communicate to the audience the tone of the movie and the inner emotions of the characters. Most of the main characters in film have their own theme. The main score helps draw the audience into the world in which the story takes place. A world like the one in Avatar is completely different from that of Indiana Jones partly because of the contrast of the music score. Both scores thrill us with the adventure and characters of their worlds. Both enhance emotions crucial to selling the story.

The score helps develop the story. The movie August Rush is a great example. August Rush actually represents a rare occasion where the music is part of the reality of the story. The characters in the film actually do most of the playing of the music. At the beginning of the film we are introduced to the main character August Rush. He tells the audience through a voice over that “Music is all around us”. We see him listening to nature subtly create the slight hint of the theme song of the movie that will develop more and more the farther along in the story we go. At the beginning of the film August leaves his orphanage to find his father and mother. He believes the music will lead him to his family. Unknown to August we find out his father and mother were also musicians. We see how they first came together and conceive August. Every song we hear them play or sing tells us something about who they are. Even though the father is part of a punk rock band and the mother is a classical musician, director Kirsten Sheridan uses cutting to allow us to see how their different styles work together. Immediately we realize the two were meant for each other.

We see relationships come together and break apart in August Rush. Because they are all musicians they use their music to express what is going on deep within. August Rush continues to develop his main symphony with the belief that if he learns how to play the music his mother and father will hear it and come to him. In the end just that happens. August plays his symphony and draws in both his parents. Call the movie corny if you want but it is a perfect representation of what a score should do for a movie. We hear hints of the main theme all the way through the story, but it doesn’t come completely together until the end. We see how all the individual themes and styles of characters create a greater whole.

The movie Bambi is also a good example of how a score can drive a film. Everything in the film is expressed through music. Whether it is the characters, nature, or just the time of the year, music flows from it all and completely intertwines with each other. The world in Bambi seems like a never ending song, with all the elements of great entertainment including suspense, delight, and romance. The score helps drive our emotions and allows us to connect with the world and characters in the film.

While seemingly we are talking about two extremely different types of film the score works the same way. Its purpose is to contribute to the rest of the elements of the film. There are times where the score tries to compensate for poor story or bad camera work. It is important to understand that music will not make a bad movie good. You must have a good story in order to create a good movie. Music and all the rest of the elements of cinema are there only to enhance the story.

A common mistake in film is to have too much music. In most cases the score should be subtle, only a reality to our subconscious. It should not be used all the time, often you will find that the absence of music or even most sound is the best way to effect your audience. Even Bambi had a time where everything was taken away to create a much greater emotional effect. Bambi is completely saturated with music, yet when we hear the gun shot and young Bambi loses his mother everything goes silent. The score finally stops and we hear the painful cries of Bambi calling out for his lost mother. There in the quite Forrest Bambi runs into his father. “Your mother can’t be with you anymore”, the great stage says. This piece of dialogue is infinitely more effective because of the silence that surrounds it.

Composers are storytellers in their own way, developing the characters and plots one note at a time. Yet, the composers job is just as much about knowing when to stay silent as it is to play music. The score of a film draws us in and allows to understand the very soul of the characters and story we see on screen. If executed poorly we will feel manipulated and repulsed. However if it is done correctly the score can be the key which allows us to be completely consumed by what we see on screen.

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn- Review

In The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn Steven Spielberg finally has the ability to do whatever he wants. He can visit any location the mind can imagine. He can create huge ships, vast deserts, and magnificent cities. He has complete control over all the elements. He places the sun where he wants it to be. He makes it rain, fog, or blow depending on what he thinks best fits the scene. There are many scenes in Tintin where Spielberg takes advantage of his limitless camera abilities. The camera can fit through all the small cracks. There are action shots that hold for minutes at a time. And the framing of the picture is often perfect because Spielberg can capture the acting separately from the framing.

With all the cool things that came with the limitless abilities of animation and the vast imagination of Steven Spielberg and collaborator Peter Jackson, I felt astonishingly unsatisfied with the final result. Unlike most motion capture movies I was not bugged by the photo realistic characters and locations for the most part. It was the story and character chemistry that ruined my day.

Evidently we were supposed to just love the main character Tintin right from the start. He is a journalist who apparently is always in search of a good story. However, he hardly needs to do any work to get involved with the story in this film. He happens to buy a ship at the very beginning of the movie that holds a clue to a long forgotten mystery. Everything in the film seems to fall to simply into Tintin’s hands. He gets himself into sticky situations for sure, but we never feel like Tintin is in any real danger. He is always confident and usually knows exactly what to do, which makes the thrills of the picture less suspenseful and entertaining. We have no idea to why Tintin likes adventure. We are given no time to care for Tintin as a character before we are thrown into his adventure. The movie starts out running and never slows down.

Through investigating Tintin is captured and taken to a ship where he meets captain Haddock; a drunker who has lost all confidence in his ability to command his crew. There are hints of life in the story when Tintin meets Haddock. Haddock is a big clumsy drunk who is easy to like. However, it feels like the plot gets in the way of us really getting to know Haddock. Captain Haddock is directly connected to the mystery of the Secret of the Unicorn. The story has more to do with Haddock trying to live up to his old family name, then it does with us getting to know Haddock as an individual. A huge amount of the success of the story lies in us buying into the chemistry between Haddock and Tintin. I however had a hard time liking them as a duo. Tintin is just too one dimensional and Haddock too insecure and delusional.

Steven Spielberg is a live action director and it shows in this film. First off it did not seem like Spielberg was confident in his animation collaborators. In interviews he has said he did about one month of work and then left the movie for the most part to the animation crew for about two years. In the film Spielberg has the control of the camera, but he never seems to hold on anything long enough for us truly to appreciate it. The characters are too busy fulfilling the plot and going from one action scene to another for us to really have time to appreciate them or their relationships to one another. The locations looked beautiful but we never really were given much time to explore. Spielberg also acted like these were cartoons rather then living and breathing human beings. They could survive almost anything, like plane crashes, building collapses, and huge ship fights. With animation shorts like Looney Toons one can get away with a character walking off a three hundred foot ledge and surviving or getting blown up by a TNT with only some hair burnt off. However, if you want to create a narrative that lasts more then ten minutes you need to create characters who the audience sees as alive and vulnerable to the same kind of consequences as we are in real life. All I am asking for is someone to break a limb, have a few bruises, or just be a bit out of breath after a fight or huge chase scene. Because of the huge lack of reality in Spielberg’s imagined world everything felt to convenient and fake for most to really care.

I am sure the younger audience will find The Adventures of Tintin entertaining. Every once in a while I did feel the magic that so often comes with Spielberg’s movies. There are several magnificent transitions in the film.  I felt like John Williams score was just right for the world and story material. I liked the little bit I did see of the Tintin world and am interested in exploring it more. I don’t know if the animation was mediocre because I wasn’t given enough time to appreciate it or because of the limits that come with motion capture. There still was this weightless feeling I felt with some of the animation which bothered me and is typical of motion capture. In some crowd scenes I felt like everyone blended into each other. One of motion captures greatest flaws is the inability to hit extreme poses that help express information more clearly and make each character feel unique. Motion capture is a tool yet to be perfected. However, it seemed to have taken a few steps forward in this film. The eyes never felt dead and the character designs felt more expressionistic and pleasing then in past motion capture films. Spielberg was also given a way to use many of his traditional live action techniques and apply them to the world of animation because of motion capture.

With animation there are limitless possibilities with what a filmmaker can do. However, the artist is required to create everything which means every step of production takes more time. It seems like Spielberg wanted the benefits of animation without putting in the time needed to perfect the art form. Because of this we often get a busy mess of a film. It’s a shame we get a mediocre piece of entertainment from two of the greatest entertainers of this generation, Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson. Spielberg has said this movie was his only real experience collaborating creativity with a producer. I am interested in seeing the roles reversed when Spielberg is the cheerleader producer and Jackson is in the directors chair. The Tintin series has potential but has a long way to go if they want to make any kind of lasting effect like those of the Indiana Jones or Lord of the Rings series’.

The Responsiblity of the Filmmaker

I watched something the other day that pissed me off. It was a “Christmas Special” video created by the Christian youth group I used to attend.  In the video we see a group of college students acting as cliche secret agents whose mission is to hunt down Santa Claus. Watching the video it is obvious these guys are inspired by games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and movies like Man on Fire and the Transformers franchise. In the video we see these guys load up on their share of guns and follow a lead to where Santa might be hiding. They find Santa Claus and like we often see in violent video games and movies, they murder him. There is absolutely no explanation as to why Santa Claus is dangerous and why he needs to be murdered. The guy portraying Santa acts like a stupid monkey. He is nothing like the character we associate with Christmas except he is wearing a similar suit. The driving force behind the film is a bunch of loud music taken from the soundtracks of many big budget movies and a bunch of college kids who don’t look like they know the first thing on how to actually handle a gun. They play around with objects that can KILL people like it’s the “cool” thing to do. They seem completely unaware of the example they are making for the mostly younger audience watching the video at the youth group. What boggles me is that the video was able to be played in an actual youth group (you know, the kind that claims they want to follow God). The youth group is filled with a bunch of middle schoolers and high schoolers, including my younger sister. Leadership didn’t even seem to think twice about it. One of my friends, and one time mentor in film, who works at IHOP (International House Of Prayer) called the filmmakers who created the film “cinematic geniuses”.

I wonder why movies with any kind of sexually explicit material are condemned by the church while movies with mindless violence are  not only accepted but produced by the Church. We all know what words like “frick” and “fricken” are substitutes for, yet for this “Christmas Special” it was perfectly fine to use them. I guess in this instance it was okay to break the spirit of the law as long as they kept to the letter. I stopped really caring about building based Christianity a long time ago.  However, the video I saw the other day is not okay whether you do or do not go to Church or are or are not a Christian.

I am probably not going to get many people who agree with me in this post but I need to express my opinion on this kind of ignorance in filmmaking. Film is a huge source of entertainment, but it is also something else. It’s influential. It is a powerful medium that influences the direction of nations. There are many talented filmmakers out there who create some really crappy stuff. One of the reasons I have not chosen to do a study on a talented filmmaker like Quentin Tarantino is because I so morally disagree with the glamorization of violence in his films. I have heard interviews of Tarantino saying he thinks violence is just a way to entertain. He does not think he is actually harming anyone in his films by “entertaining” people through showing  someone slashing up another mans face or carving a swastika in someones forehead. In my opinion that is like saying children who watch their fathers abuse their mothers every night are not getting harmed because the violence is not being taken out on them. What we see has an impact on us. The sexual stuff we see on television and in the movies has an impact on what the public thinks about sex. The language we hear used in the media influences the way we talk. The same goes for violence.

I have been truly impacted by the violence I have seen in film. Movies like Schindler’s List and Blood Diamond were extremely sobering for me. They allowed me to understand true evils going on in this world and they pushed me to do something about them. However games like Modern Warfare and movies like Transformers and Inglorious Bastards have done the opposite for me. Their purpose is to entertain through showing graphic violence. They have numbed me. They have stopped me from understanding the true consequences of abuse and murder. Abortion is at a all time high, there are millions of people dying from starvation each year, and we still have tens of thousands of people in our own nation committing suicide. Why? Because we have not been taught responsibility, we don’t care about death, and we are not given enough of a reason to live. Film can help change this. Film has the power to teach people about responsibility, to let them understand what it means to kill, and give them a reason to live. Yet with  every Schindler’s List caliber film, there are ten times as many Inglorious Bastard‘s. The new Modern Warfare game just past Avatar as the fastest game/movie to get to the one billion dollar mark, only taking sixteen days.  At least in movies we are just observers of the killing going on, in the game Modern Warfare we are the ones doing the killing.

It is much easier to be ignorant of what violence, vulgar language, and sexually explicit material does to our psyche. This is not a blog telling you never to use that kind of material in film. In film we see all kinds of characters. Many of the characters I see and many I create I don’t agree with. However, my motivation for filmmaking is to make this world a better place. Film can do wondrous things. Film is the art form of the 21st century. The medium gives us understanding of the past and vision for the future. So, my question is what will our future be? As filmmakers will we contribute to the kind of entertainment that numbs us to the evils of this world? Or will we take on responsibility as filmmakers and give our audiences an entertainment that gives them a vision for a better tomorrow?

It breaks my heart when I see media used in such destructive ways from people who claim to be following the same God as I am. The vision and responsibility I have as a filmmaker comes from my Creator. I along with those who made this “Christmas Special” can give the rest of this world vision and hope. We can show others how great our God is. Instead too much of Christian media seems to be full of condemnation, double standards, and lack of vision. It’s time to change. It’s time to take our role as people who claim to know the “truth”, seriously. We can be open to the world while not being a product of it. Let us be the light on top of the hill and give this world visions that reflect the heart of our Creator.

Hugo- Review

Hugo is Martin Scorsese’s masterpiece. It uses all the masterful filming techniques we have come to expect from a legend like Scorsese and also involves several elements we have never seen from this veteran filmmaker who is  completely new to the family genre. The film is a tribute to film itself. Reminding the new generation about the importance of the filmmakers who have come before us while also pushing the medium forward. Hugo represents Scorsese’s first theatrical film shot in 3D. He uses this new element as if he had been using it all along, bringing us into his story like never before. It is hard to compare the 3D aspect of Hugo to a movie like Avatar, but I found the 3D use to be as good if not better then the groundbreaking 3D use we see in Avatar.

Just as the 3D in Avatar transferred us into the vast and open environment of the Pandora forest, Hugo‘s use of 3D takes us deep into the secret tunnels of the Paris train station. The 3D gives the story an extra layer. There is a greater complexity to the framing. I felt as though I could measure distances more clearly. Often I felt like I was right there in the tunnels with Hugo, dust particles and the steam from the pipes drifting all around me. Scorsese uses complex tunnel systems and towering staircases to highlight the 3D effect to an even greater extent. It feels as though we are shown a painting where we are actually allowed to walk inside and explore.

The movie was not intended to be a literal representation of real life. Although the story takes place in Paris, it is an impressionistic representation. One of the common mistakes filmmakers make when creating a enchanted type feel for their story, is getting rid of all the dirt and grit that reminds us of real life. As a result most impressionistic stories feel artificial, the environments look like sets rather then something that has just jumped out of the imagination. Scorsese embraces the murky and grimy aspects of the train station. He is not afraid to explore some of the darker parts of the imagination, taking the boy Hugo into places we are not quite comfortable with. The worlds we see in film do not need to look real, only feel real. The filmmakers make it a point to physically show the strain and hardship the boy Hugo goes through. Because we see the sweat and labor it takes Hugo to survive and because he looks so accustomed to the secret tunnels of the train station where he lives, we buy into the impressionistic world the movie projects.

The subject matter directly calls for the impressionistic storytelling we see in the film. The main characters of the story are Hugo Cabret, played by upcoming child star Asa Butterfield, and Georges Melies played by veteran actor Ben Kingsley. Although the character of Hugo is fictional Georges Melies is based on a real man. At the time the story takes place in Melies is a old forgotten filmmaker who has a small toyshop in the Paris train station where Hugo lives. Hugo is a orphan who keeps the stations clocks working. The movie revolves around an old broken automaton- a mechanical puppet that was made to draw pictures. The automaton is the only thing Hugo has left reminding him of his deceased father. Through out the film Hugo works on fixing this automaton while avoiding the eye of the authorities.

Hugo gets involved with Melies by accident. However, the farther we get into the story the more we find out the automaton is directly related to Melies. Hugo runs into a girl named Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz), the goddaughter of Melies. Together they go on a adventure exploring the ghosts of Melies’ past while also discovering the magic of Melies’ old art form; filmmaking.

Melies has long abandoned filmmaking. He forbid his goddaughter Isabelle from going to the movies. Hugo is the one to introduce to Isabelle the magic of the movies. Slowly Scorsese takes us deep into the origins of film, before computer effects, color, and even sound. We explore some of the very first visionaries of the medium of film. Through several marvelous montages we discover what interested the great Georges Melies in film, what he contributed to the new art form, how he was so quickly forgotten by the public, and how his contribution was so ignorantly neglected.

The film is Scorsese’s tribute to silent cinema and his plead for us to preserve the great films of the past. It is not a tribute in subject matter only, Scorsese shoots much of the movie like the old silent films. We go long periods of time with hardly any duologue. The film has a classic pace which actually enhances the 3D experience. We are allowed to cherish the whole of the environments with brilliant master shots and Scorsese connects locations through several long tracking shots. We are allowed behind the scenes of silent cinema and see how Melies created some of the first groundbreaking effects in cinema.

In Hugo Scorsese shows us the magic of filmmaking. He shows the filmmaker for who he truly is- a magician. A magician who uses flickering images projected on a screen to entertain and revolutionize the world. In this story Hugo is a magical character. It is hard not to fall in love with him. His purpose is to fix things. He thinks fixing an old despairing man like Melies will help fulfill his life. In the film Scorsese creates his own little world inside the train station. A world where Hugo is king. As mistreated and misunderstood as he is, Hugo is the character who keeps everything moving along. He is the only one who knows of the secret tunnels within the train station. He is the only one who can see all that goes on in the train station.

This film seems to be so different from Scorsese’s usual subject matter, yet so close to what I have found his heart to be. It doesn’t take long listening to someone like Scorsese to understand his deep love for the film medium. As many have already said, this is Scorsese’s love letter to silent cinema. The film represents Scorsese at his greatest. It will inspire filmmakers young and old for decades to come. In Hugo we see where dreams are made and the importance dreamers are to the world we live in.

Charlie Chaplin- An Observation- Devotion to Perfection

How could  a man with a fourth grade education, who was raised in the slums, with a father who deserted him, and a mother who went mad, become one of the greatest stars in the history of cinema? Might those hardships be why he became such a great star? Charlie Chaplin was one who demanded an audience. His insecurities drove him to perfect his art form. He wanted the audience to feel for him, to love him. Every movement he made in his films was calculated. Chaplin wanted to control everything on screen. He obsessed on small things like the art of lifting a flower and the exact way the Tramp needed to have his hat tilted. He shot scenes hundreds of times- until the actions in his films flowed like water on smooth rock. Perfection is what Chaplin wanted and it is what he got. Movies like The Gold Rush, Modern Times, and City Lights represent film at  it’s height. They got there because the artist behind them would have nothing less.

Chaplin did not go to film school. He needed to learn on the job. You can see Chaplin learning the techniques of filmmaking through his shorts and early full length features. Slowly Chaplin began to understand the value of a long shot verses a close up. The value of camera movement and invisible cuts. Every day he arrived on set he was in search of a way to tell his story better. Chaplin never knew exactly what he was going to do. He wanted his films to have an organic flow. No matter how funny the gag might be it would be cut if it didn’t make sense to Chaplin and contribute to the story. I have said before, Chaplin’s crew all agreed that if he could Chaplin would cast himself for every character in his films. His crew needed to deal with a relentless amount of scrutiny. He acted out exactly what he wanted his actors to do. If you didn’t do it perfectly you would be in for a long day. Back in the 1910′s through the 1930′s Chaplin would consistently do twenty plus takes when the common Hollywood filmmaker would do three to five.

Chaplin’s classic The Circus was originated from an idea Chaplin had of a man on a tightrope running into several unforeseen obstacles in the middle of his act. The whole rest of the movie was developed from this idea. Chaplin spent months training on the tightrope so he could be prepared for the scene. When it came to actually shooting the scene he shot over seven hundred takes trying to perfect the act. The scene now is a classic in cinema. Chaplin keeps topping himself in it. First he loses his safety harness. Then he has a bunch of monkey’s attack him. He holds us in suspense while he weaves back and forth barely managing to stop himself from falling with his balancing stick. Then his pants fall off, yet still he somehow maintains control. All the while Chaplin gives us some extremely dynamic shots- showing the distance he is from the ground and the frightening perspective the audience has watching him at such a great height. Finally Chaplin tops it all with the greatest banana gag in the history of film when he trips on a peel that one of the monkey’s threw on the rope. It took months to perfect but the result was a flawless performance.

Ideas didn’t come easily to Chaplin. When asked how one gets ideas Chaplin said, “By sheer perseverance to the point of madness”. Chaplin’s unbelievable drive is what created classic scenes like the Tramp on the tightrope in The Circus, the Tramp seeing the blind woman for the first time in City Lights, and Chaplin making his great speech at the end of The Great Dictator. All these scenes have lasted and will continue to last through the ages. Why? Because every movement made in the The Circus and City Lights scenes were pure entertainment leading to a perfect climax, and every word said in The Great Dictator speech rang true to the heart of humanity. Chaplin’s perseverance to the point of madness is what allowed him to retake, refine, and rework his films in his quest for perfection.

Chaplin spent close to two years on most of his full length productions. This compared to the average Hollywood production, which was forty to fifty days, seems quite obsessive. Yet, Chaplin has just as many classics as anyone in film History. Three of his films, City Lights, Modern Times, and The Gold Rush, made it to AFI’s (America Film Institute) top 100 American films of all time. Chaplin was a man with many insecurities and many imperfections. His personal life for most of his filmmaking career was a mess. Yet, this imperfect man created several magnificent films. He told most of his stories with no duologue and hardly any sound. It was mainly through the visuals that he needed to communicate to his audience. So he dedicated himself to perfecting the visuals. And in many cases he did. He has brought a tear to my eye more then once. He created a character who started out as just a clown meant to make us laugh and slowly turned into a character who represented the essence of humanity. Chaplin wanted to speak to the yearning of the human heart. He always felt the need to do more. He had a grand vision for the art of storytelling and he would not settle for anything less then perfection.

Time’s Perspective

Time gives us perspective. I have been going over many of my notes from several years ago and realize I have a much different and more developed perspective on them now then when I first wrote them. Many of the things that didn’t make sense back then are making sense now.  This is one of the reasons I would suggest to take notes on interviews, movies, and behind the scenes features you watch, even if they are not as interesting to you or do not quite make sense at first. Time has a tendency to give us a new perspectives. Notes you might not have thought twice about when you first wrote them can turn out to be great revelations a few years later.

Glen Keane, One of the greatest animators of all time and the lead animator for Disney characters like the Beast and Tarzan, was mentored by one of Walt Disney’s Nine Old Men, Ollie Johnston. When Keane came to the Disney studio in the late 1970′s Ollie had already been working at at the studio for forty plus years. Ollie told Keane that Ollie had so much more to show him but he was not ready for it yet. This bugged Keane because he was an ambitious young artist and wanted to learn everything all at once. What Keane did not understand was, Ollie was not saying he wasn’t willing to show Keane all he had to offer. Keane just needed time to understand the bigger picture. Only over a great amount of time did Keane find the perspective that allowed him to learn. Slowly he began to realize that good animation was not about perfecting the technique as much as it was about getting inside the character he was animating and truly making that character come to life.

Steven Spielberg talked about how he needed to wait ten years before he could make Schindler’s List. He said he was just not ready in the early 1980′s when he was first introduced to the project. There was a curtain amount of maturing Spielberg needed to do before he was able to give the project the amount of respect it deserved.

This is a short point but a valuable one. We must be willing as filmmakers to look inside ourselves and understand what we are capable of and what needs more time to mature. I do not think it is smart to embark on our greatest visions right away. Sometimes we need to do a little growing before we are ready for curtain projects. Sometimes we need to perfect the small things before trying to tackle the big things. If you are a filmmaker devoted to pursuing your art form, perspective will come. In time you will be able to bring your great visions to life. However, let time give you the perspective and understanding needed to do your vision justice.