Category: film production

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WE ARE THE NEWS NOW 

(Written for a local paper July 2022)

This phrase has circled social media for several years as independent journalists and regular palookas share research and observations in the digital town square, picking up the slack from the polluted Main Stream. It’s best to keep vigilant, to discern and verify sources, for “it’s true, I seen it on TV” has become “I saw it on the internet!”

By the way, did you know the word gullible is not in the dictionary?

But the upside of maneuvering wisely through this flood of voices is less technocratic censorship and control.  If a big platform stomps a story down, it can reappear in a hundred other places, as vlogs, blogs, websites, podcasts, research boards, specialty forums, newsletters and person-to-person text or email.

Like him or not, an important accomplishment of President Trump was breaking the spell of what he calls Fake News.  Fake News, where Media Conglomerates, beholden to their billionaire owners or corporate sponsors, beholden to what will make money for them, to what will promote their ideology, or politics, dictate down the pyramid to supposedly local television, radio stations and newspapers, what the stories or angles are to be,  often regardless of how vetted or true.   Mockingbird Media. Remember the video showing Sinclair News subsidiaries, local newscasts from across the country, reading the same script, verbatim?

Hence the local news may not really represent the community it is supposed to serve, and may instead be working to inorganically nudge that community in an unnatural direction. “Eat ze bugs!”

At one time journalism was considered the Fourth Estate, the guardian to help keep the checks and balances of our government checked and balanced. But what if that watchdog has become a lapdog, trained to fetch Master’s slippers for the hopes of a belly rub or a bone?

How potent is the power of the press? The Office of the Historian provides an example of its effect on diplomacy and public opinion, leading to war and an expansion of the United State’s foreign reach.  Basically, used as a device to sell more papers in the late 19th century, a strategy of sensationalized, rumor-based reporting vs. factual reporting, yellow journalism created a hot button of anti-Spanish sentiment in the Cuban struggle for independence, and helped pave the path to the Spanish-American War. 

Fake News is not new, just expanded, monopolized and now congressionally sanctioned. 

Once called the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the U.S. Agency for Global Media states that it “and the media organizations that it supports can now make their content available in broadcast quality upon request within the United States.  This is due to a law that went into effect on July 2, 2013, amending the U.S. Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948, known as the Smith-Mundt Act.”

The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 was tucked into the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in 2013, section 1078. If I am reading this whole bill come amendment correctly, it provides that “information” (propaganda?) prepared for distribution in foreign countries (think Voice of America) to spread democracy (how’s that going?) can now be distributed domestically to the American people.  

Perhaps the initial intention was lovely, but could the use of this Act be weaponized to mislead, control or twist a narrative, and thus the public?  In such a short period of time our country seems irreparably divided in a dozen ways.  By design? By distraction, to subvert attention away from those in “power” as they feed off most of the life on earth? 

The USAGM’s arrangement for “Global connectivity” seems like a handy tool for promoting global lockstep lockdowns and global pandemic procedures, or bureaucratically created global energy and global food shortages. “We’re all in this together….”

Oh boy we live in interesting times! And if not satisfied with corporate newscasts, magazine and paper subscriptions, we now have the option at our fingertips to instead research for ourselves; to read, listen or subscribe to more direct and less biased sources of information.  

So  “we are the news now” does not refer to this specific grassroots publication per se, but to we the people, sharing what we consider pertinent findings with our friends, families and groups in a bigger way, allowing space to ask questions, challenge mainstream narratives, and dare, with due diligence and verification, to discover the truth.

Some interesting fictionalized film examples of political media manipulation:

Frank Capra’s Meet John Doe

Orson Welles Citizen Kane

Barry Levinson’s  Wag the Dog

Sources:

https://history.state.gov/milestones/1866-1898/yellow-journalism

https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/house-bill/5736

https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/house-bill/4310/text

Facts About Smith-Mundt Modernization
BBG Strategic Plan FAQ
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THE FILM THAT COULD NOT BE MADE TODAY

2022 perspective – 

Last night we watched an old film that was racist, sexist, homophobic, antisemitic, filled with hate speech and animal cruelty; elder abuse as a wheelchair bound man was lynched, and a person with cognitive and mental disability was chained and beaten. Women were objectified, and one of the main characters was constantly misgendered, called by a gendered name with which he did not identify. Indigenous peoples were mocked, Native American as well as Latinx, while the KKK and Nazis were featured toward the climax.

The previous 48 years perspective –

Last night we watched Blazing Saddles, and we laughed and laughed.

Was Mel Brooks attacked, cancelled, vilified, for his 1974 Western, or any of his projects, where he lovingly pokes fun at film, at everyone and their stereotypes?  Was Richard Pryor, the black potty-mouthed comedian who co-wrote it?

To recap, black Bart (get it , Black Bart?), a sparkling “urbanite” works building the railroad and whacks his idiot boss in the head with a shovel, sending him to be hung. But a couple of executioners called in sick so they are running behind as a long line of people wait for their turn in the noose, including an old man in a wheelchair.

In a window above the gallows, the cross-eyed Governor, played by Mel Brooks, is really only interested in relations with his near naked secretary.  His crooked District Attorney Hedy Lamarr (no that’s HEDLEY, HEDLEY Lamarr) devises a plan to get the people out of Rock Ridge, a town in the path of the railroad.  They decide to send a black Sheriff, randomly seeing and thus saving Bart from his hanging, only to be killed by the criminals or the residents of the town , so they think. 

Sharply dressed with Gucci saddlebags even, Bart rides into Rock Ridge. A welcoming reception becomes un-welcoming when they see the Sheriff is a you know what. At this point the word which shall not be written here has been ridiculously said a dozen plus times making us laugh at the speaker or their attitude, using humor to take the sting out of the word.

Bart takes on an alcoholic sharp shooting deputy, Jim, and tells him a childhood story of an Indian attack on their wagon train. The Chief, again Mel Brooks in full feathers and war paint, tells Bart’s family to go on, in Yiddish, because they are darker than the native people.

Bart gains the respect of the townspeople by protecting them from the goons sent in by Hedy (no that’s HEDLEY, HEDLEY Lamarr).  Mongo, a gargantuan dumb brute, introduced to us after a few rounds of bean dinner farts round the campfire, reminiscent of being on set after chili lunch, is chained and beaten, seemingly unaffected by such treatment in his strength. The gang boss sends him to terrorize Rock Ridge.

As he wreaks havoc, Bart tricks him, captures him and also must chain him up in the jail, but releases him when a lawful order to do so comes in.  But Mongo does not want to go back to the gang and instead stays to help.

Hedy ( No, Hedley blahdy blah) tries another approach, sending a torch singer Lili Von Shtupp, tired from whoring, into the town to perform and seduce Bart. Here’s another sprinkling of peeny and vv jokes, and Bart’s charm and other assets brings Lili to his side too.

Hedley and the Gang decide to flood the town with marauders and hold a casting call of baddies from throughout the world and across time. Mixed in with cowboy types are banditos that don’t need no badges, Nazis, and the KKK with “Have a Nice Day” on the back of their robes.

Bart gets his railroad building friends to come help the town build a booby trap for the gangs, in exchange for some land.  At first the Mayor agrees to give land to the blacks and Chinese, but not the Irish.  Anyway those guys fight beside the townspeople when a brawl ensues in the streets against the roughnecks. Mongo even punches a bad guy’s horse, knocking it out in pure stuntmanship. The camera cranes up up up to reveal the big battle is on the back lot of a Hollywood studio.

The brawl rolls over into a soundstage filming an elaborate musical number with dozens of tuxedo clad gay men dancing down a cascade of steps. They join in the fray (“c’mon girls”), and jokes are made with synchronized swimming, and a cowboy joining their team.

The brawl rolls further into the commissary with a blend of actors taking lunch in their costumes, including a guy dressed as Hitler.  A pie fight ensues, but ultimately the film ends with Bart and Jim taking to a trail on horseback, meeting up with a limo, dismounting the horses for a wrangler, and riding the limo out into the sunset, presumably all the way to the bank.

A little levity used to go a long way in reminding a generation we can or have outgrown certain ideologies and labels by seeing the ridiculous side, instead of replacing them with more divisive ones.

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DEAR MR. BOGDANOVICH

Gear Head Peter

Dear Mr. Bogdanovich,

Over 20 years ago you spoke at the SXSW festival in a smallish room that held 100 or so people. Though familiar with a couple of your more comic films from my childhood television viewing, I was not familiar with you. Upon seeing your initially dour expression and that neckerchief, well, who knew what to expect.

But then you painted the room with fascinating stories and loving observations of films and filmmakers of yore. Though just a festival volunteer, I was placed in the front row with Albert Maysles, who gently punched me in the arm with unfettered laughter during your talk.  He punched me a lot.

Since then I’ve caught up with most of your films, and learned more of your personal story with the theater, acting, critiquing, as well as the triumphs and heartbreaking trials both in film production and in romance.

As innovative and enjoyable as most everyone’s favorites Paper Moon and The Last Picture Show were, it is your early film Targets that brought me to tears.  It wasn’t over the ending of the Old Horror type genre, nor the beginning of the new horror of real life violence, shootings and mass murder portrayed with the sniper in your film.

While tension builds towards the climax, car loads of innocent families and couples pull up to the drive-in for a night at the movies, unaware that a shooter lurks behind the giant screen, waiting for the right moment to unleash further bloodshed and bullets.

While waiting there is a quick camera shot of one of the sedans, of a little boy in the backseat, bouncing up and down, anxious and excited for the movie to begin.

And I wept. Not from concern of this little character getting caught up in the coming slaughter.  I wept because that is how I used to feel about going to the movies. And that delicious, sweet anticipation tingling through my body dried up after too many years of disappointment and downright disgust at what more often than not junk was being presented to us from the movie making leaders. Profit at the expense of story, in the mainstream. 

My final fizzle was in 1999 with Star Wars IV or Star Wars I or whatever it’s called.  I was actually excited to reconnect and further explore that world that had enchanted and moved me so as a child. After the heart pounding thrill of that famous opening theme music blasting through the darkness, and the familiar prelogue scrolling away into the sky, the movie began. And I did not know what I was looking at, with so much modern CG, using animated effects instead of a compelling story to try to whisk me away. Then Jar Jar Binx came out and I knew I, and millions of others, had been had. All the way to the bank.

This wariness of commercial films is not a rejection of all. I have still gone out of my way to see intriguing work, and have a few contemporary directors that I keep up with. My love and appreciation of film is not less, just my expectation of what it could be/ has become.

I believe you felt the same way, and that this dejection from the general lowering of the bar actually inspired you to keep telling those personal stories of the great films and filmmakers, to spread a little of that fire, that creative passion that used to light up the screen, reminding us of the rich cinematic history and lineage waiting to be rediscovered and explored.

Thank you! Bon voyage,

loveb

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WANTED: SCRIPT SUPERVISOR ASSISTANCE

Once In A While

The very first time back on set was also the very first time wearing a mask – hours and hours in the humid Texas swelter.  Add a Bizarro world hotel room of anti-slumber (next to a highway literally being demolished), and I was soon sleep deprived, heat exhausted and oxygen starved, with long stretches of heart palpitations.

By only Day 3, I barely made it to our distant location, a rough ranch. If staying on the road was a challenge by day, how would navigating the dark hills by night be any safer?

Extra coffee was not going to cut it. Despite multiple other situations of near incapacity, in 2 decades of movie making I have never called in to the office or opted out. Until now.  Sitting in crew parking, “I don’t think I can make it through the day.”

Covid pre-testing protocol means it’s near impossible to be replaced.  What could Production do?  They sent over TM, an AD, to quickly and crudely train so I could go home. OMG.

Well, an AD knows filming protocol, and the basic slating system.  An AD knows the Actors and the story.  An AD has their own long term career goal which doesn’t threaten the Script Supervisor position.  TM was glad to get to be in the middle of filming instead of at the periphery or at base camp.  

This was actually a good choice.

We started slow, with noting takes and lining pages, but it still seemed like too much. So I asked TM to stay with rehearsals down in the ravine, to follow the dialogue and learn what the shots were going to be.  Then as we rolled he followed lines while I took notes.  It was a relief to not tightly track dialogue and call out lines.

I kept still, in shade, hydrating. With lots of breathing breaks.  And started feeling a little better. They put me a trailer for lunchtime, to cool off and rest.  With TM’s help and a bit of care from my film fam (they know I am not normally needy), I made it to wrap. And Universe presented a room at a friend’s near by, saving a lengthy bumpy dark drive.

Long story short – having an extra person to take on just a couple of the duties made the biggest difference.  These scenes had several characters, stunts, 3 cameras panning all over.  Wide Shot, Medium Shot and Close Up of the same Character is a timesaver.  And doing Over The Shoulders at the same time saves all that matching. But 3 cameras doing their own thing is 3 times the work. Which is now rather standard.

Sometimes  – if we are pooped, if the dialogue’s pages long, if they add additional additional cameras , it can be a little much, tracking all and supporting the Actors, the Director, the Editor.  As THE Script Supervisor there is no one to support us, not even for a bathroom break.

On a few occasions I have been called in to cover the extra cameras for big filming days- like football games etc… But I have also tracked 5-6 cameras simaltaneously, not sprinkled throughout the day, solo, several times on two nightmare shows, and was too beaten down to pipe up when I realized what was happening.

So as our job has taken on more  – more cameras, less cutting during multiple takes, capturing screen shots and video, not alternating Script Sups for episodic (which means breakdowns and prep on the weekends), sending batches of notes ASAP at lunch and wrap to a growing list of people, and now with the CV excuse for more walking lunches where you don’t get that chance to catch up, I feel we trade quite a bit of the actual craft of Script Supervising for the data entry chase.

Is there a win/win way to have, on big days, some assistance and flexibility to help make even better work, that Production sees as beneficial? Or can nothing change the more work less pay steamroller crusade for content quantity as king?

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COVID PROTOCOL ON SET, AND GETTING THIS BLOG POST OVER WITH

Help I’m stepping into the TWILIGHT ZONE

Hello.  How are you?

Pardon I’ve not been blogging. All the writing was more film history, or Covid-in-film venting. Frustration.  Frankly, not uplifting.  But the show (and the blog) must go on!  Projects started and stopped, based on mandates and such, but since Texas has been “open” productions been consistent for months. 

After a year on standby, avoiding some of the learning hiccups of the evolving CV protocol, I jumped on a TV show this spring.  Once an online CV safety tutorial and a clear pre-start test were completed, I was back on set.

The actual work is the same, but the routine is different, with daily health questionnaire, temperature check and tri-weekly CV tests before starting our actual day. This does cut into our unpaid time. Crew positions are categorized into zones (closer to actors, more testing, more access etc…), which early on caused division and a new layer of elitism in our film family. “I’m in zone A, could you step back a few feet from me while trying to do your job?  And use your allotted toilet, lunch line and drinking fountain?”

Wearing masks all day (in the Texas heat and humidity), limited capacity in the socially distanced transportation vans, and distancing at catering, with spaced out lunch seating looking like a ping-pong tournament, slows everything down (we even had some walking lunches to save time). No-touch craft service, not even allowed to grab water out of the cooler, slows everything down.

And all of this protective separation zaps those pleasant impromptu moments of the past in talking with someone you happen to be next to for a van ride, or at a lunch table, or in the craft trailer.  This Script Sup can get a little lonely. This Script Sup enjoys hugs hello, and likes to catch up with fellow crew without meters between mask muffling. Those were the days. Bah. 

On top of the masks, some Directors and Ads wear a “mandated” face shield when approaching actors, but some do not.  Interesting.  Paper is limited as a potential contaminant, so no paychecks brought to set, but sides (script pages) are still passed out. Hmmm. And the ‘convenient’ paperless camera reports transform a quick handful of circling good takes on set into an extra 15 minutes at wrap to go through separate excel sheets for 3 cameras, not to mention a Camera AC having to type in info for every take. 

Surely each department has undergone some tweaks.  May swabbing, masks and these limitations soon be a thing of the past! What I DO hope remains forever and ever is the cleaning – the hand washing stations, the sterilized bathrooms and doorknobs! And the shorter (normal length) days to accommodate the extra clean up.  Some productions are aiming for mostly 12-hour days and under. Some kinda blew past that early on.

Overall, thankful Texas film is back up and running. Now, to make better stories!

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CONTINUITY CHILDSPLAY

I got chillllls, but I dont got trees, the background guys gee-gawking with their arms up and the same hue of seafoam green

My parents didn’t take us to the movies as much as I would’ve liked, but a couple of those early screenings have stuck with me as filmic comfort food.  After the daily stress of the world on hold and nightly chores on the farm, 2020 has been the year of classic cinema. Not meaning highbrow, just old!

Grease is the word! Or it was last night, streaming into our living room.  Way back, when movies stayed in the theater for months, I did get to see this film projected a couple times.  That year a friend and I danced and sang our little girl heads off to the soundtrack. And when it later came out on VHS, and when my family eventually (better late than never) got a VCR, teenage me maybe might’ve rented it once, or twice, until someone down the road gave me a tape of my own. Never got around to a DVD copy.

So my hub and I watched, in HD on a decent sized flat screen. And during the climactic final duet, some childhood cinematic memory urged, “was I right?” There was something that I remembered feeling off about that part of the song where Sandy and Danny move their way up the zig zaggy stairs of a carnival attraction.

And there it was. The close ups didn’t match in continuity, the backdrop didn’t quite match, and were (now quite obviously) filmed on stage. I felt that as a kid!  But I’ve seen this on tape several times since then, and thus knew this already no? No. Poking around versions of the scene on Youtube it became clear. After seeing it in the 1970’s theater, the other viewings were on a squarish TV, the image severely cropped (unless there’s a letterbox version out there), with the softer focus and drained color saturation of a film on tape.

Good grief, who knew then that seemingly useless observational sense would apply to decades of work as a script supervisor!

As an aside, in mentioning this to a friend, she brings up the cringiness of some of the sexist dialogue and lyrics in my beloved Grease. Well, I look at it as a film about the 50’s made during the 70’s. Context people! BTW what kind of example are today’s big name musical artists promoting? I will take my hand jive and pussy wagon all day long over a degraded twerking Cardi B or Miley Cyrus.

the wideshot
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LISTENING TO YOUR GUT, EVEN IN FILMMAKING

Guest Blog by the Fabulous Michelle Cohen

enlightened gut

After years of questioning my instincts, fighting them and not following through (usually to my own detriment), I have finally been handed enough proof in my life that it is usually wiser to trust those feelings.

Here is a tale of what happened when, despite my doubts and fears, I listened to my inner guidance and found myself swiftly whisked across the country to LA – with meetings at CAA, UTA and ICM for my movie…

Emails kept popping up about a film networking opportunity in downtown NYC. Being from the theater, new to film, and not a comfortable partygoer…I promptly deleted all three of them. When the 4th message came in, I finally realized I HAD to go.  By then I had at least learned how messages are not that insistent unless there is a reason. So I replied with a sigh, ‘yes.’

But a few days before the event, I came down with such a horrible cold that during a coughing fit I burst a blood vessel in my eye. Aye yai yai! Now I sounded and looked like Quasimodo and figured, cool, don’t have to go.

And what came was such a loud, resounding, YOU ARE GOING NO MATTER WHAT message in my gut, I became more nervous to ignore the advice than to attend the event. So, resisting the temptation to don a pirate’s eye patch, I made my way to the party and hoped for the best.

In moments I was approached by a woman who introduced herself as “Tequila” (not kidding). She was so taken by me that, without my knowledge, she went around the room telling everyone about my screenplay. I found myself at the center of attention without having to say or do anything. Without even moving –  everybody came to me. Including the “suit” which is really the one person you want seeking you out. 

Not only was he intrigued, he asked if I was going to AFM in Santa Monica. Again, theatre person, no clue what he was talking about. He explained that it’s a huge film market event. Next week. Next week? I needed to get on a plane and be there and he would personally introduce me to everyone I needed to get my movie made.

What?!!

Back home I checked him out and sure enough he was legit. Wise advisors in my circle said that it was nearly impossible to get into this organization without that kind of support so I should absolutely find my way there.

No, impossible for this to happen! But my instincts continued to reassure me that this could be easy if I let it be. Sure enough, my parents had frequent flyer miles they kindly shared, and my sister and brother-in-law, living in LA at the time, offered to put me up.  In spite of my apprehension, next thing I knew I was in Santa Monica. The “suit” was true to his word, already waiting with people prepped to meet me. It was a whirlwind experience but within the week I had lined up a distributer, producer and investor interest!!!!! 

And within the month, I found myself in the offices of the highest agencies in Hollywood, each of them trying to get me to choose to work with them!

Now I am very aware, this is not the norm. But what if we truly listen to our instincts even when they seem highly improbable, could it be more commonplace? For while I certainly resisted from my personal comfort level, when I followed through – it brought me to an inconceivable amount of opportunities.

Michelle Cohen is a producer, writer, director, performer & intuitive coach moving seamlessly from the entertainment industry to the written word to the invisible world. Her many talents have been featured on CNN, Good Morning America, MTV, NPR’s “All Things Considered”, and in People Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, The Chicago Tribune, and The Washington Post.

For more info visit her website: www.michellecohen1.com

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A WRINKLE IN TIME PERCEPTION

Lockdown to Slowdown

Woke up…no alarm…sunrise…. Did not know what day of the week it was.

This sentiment pops up on the Internet, seeing others comment that in lockdown they are losing their bearings. Basic patterns disrupted, unsure as to when things will get back to normal, a certain monotony of days blending together…

This is not uncharted territory for folks in the film industry! After completing a job you might just float around til the next one. But when in production, crew becomes initiated in to a sort of club where the framework of time is lifted, or shifted, in a ‘through sleet or snow or any hour’ kind of way. If not clocking in at a sound stage, and instead doing location work, more than likely schedules will shift, with no natural day of the week or weekend.  Circadian rhythms be damned, if we need to shoot all overnights, we shoot all overnights. If we need to shoot 6 days a week, well by golly that’s what we do.  If we need to film Wednesday through Sunday, then that’s that. And say goodbye to the 40-hour work week.

Friends and family don’t automatically understand that you can’t meet up after work or for Sunday dinner, or that you can’t plan too far ahead without the caveat “if I’m not working.”  They may be shocked that you miss a little calendar marker, or that your bills might be late, or that you aren’t caught up on the news.  

They may not understand how with odd and shifting work schedules you can get turned around as to the day of the week, and even if you are off on Sunday you must do laundry, wash dishes, look at mail and paperwork and try to sleep for that 6 a.m. start time on the next day.

They may not understand… until now. At least some folks. Depending on the level of lockdown, some people have been home in a loose loop. Saturday night may not differ much from Monday morning.  Home bored, or home busy – cleaning out closets and cabinets, learning an instrument or writing that novel. Working from home in half the time. But missing haircuts, no concerts or shows, nor eating out, no conference room meetings. Sweatpants, and keeping those brassieres in the drawers (this, actually, is pretty good) – all are big adjustments to a whole world’s habits and rituals and normal operations. 

For those on the sidelines that didn’t experience any sickness, maybe this was a strange gift, a moment to slow down, catch up, to look inward, to intuitively appreciate simple moments and small things.

It’s almost summer. Businesses begin to open. Production is officially allowed to shake the dust off its shoulders in Texas, but projects have yet to ride over the horizon.  People have had to live in the slipperiness of an expanded view of time, and maybe that has changed us in a good way.

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MEDIA CIRCUS, FILM INDUSTRY?

balancing act

The tension of not knowing what the film production future will look like, as in jobs, as in when, as in being decades invested in such a niche industry, and the thought of trying to make a living at something available and new, deep into middle age, finally got to us. Fighting over planting the green beans. At one point the words “breaking up” were uttered, and not by me.

That night I did not want to hear another word, no syllable nor peep, and stumbled upon a silent film from 1928, Charlie Chaplin’s The Circus. CC can be a little syrupy for my taste, but after reading that he had pulled this movie out of circulation for nearly 50 years, rereleasing it in 1969 (to an audience both sophisticated enough to appreciate a master in film history, and perhaps exhausted from the hippy beads of culture shock confusion mixed with a deepening march of war), I hit play.

In an exaggerated way the Tramp lives out our primal fears – homeless, jobless, alone and hungry. But he holds his head up. Given a chance to work at the circus, stumbling through various jobs and actual circus acts, one could cynically say he is taken advantage of, used, and placed in danger.

But it doesn’t actually feel this way to watch. Despite his misadventures the Tramp can love, share, protect and sacrifice, maintain more dignity and grace than those who have a flush wallet and a full belly. And now, here on Earth 2020, our circumstance may change but it needn’t change who we are. It can’t.  What makes us “us” are internal qualities, not possessions or positions, no matter how entrenched we seem to have become with such. In trying times we see what we are made of.

By the film’s climax my husband and I were laughing out loud, tears running down my face (and I am a hard nut to crack), as the Tramp fills in for the Tightrope walker. I wont describe it for hoping someone here will actually watch the WHOLE film, but lets say its an allegory for how some of us may feel a this time – safety line snapped, a monkey on our back, being out of balance, caught with our pants down.  Tears of laughter are better than tears of fears.

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JERRY LEWIS, FRIEND OF THE SCRIPT SUPERVISOR

Virus and a Video

The Genius Jerry Lewis – with video camera mounted to film camera

Well our country and world is kind of …closed. Some people have been dealt tragedy, many mere inconvenience, and a few, with good cheer and stocked pantry, hold a winning hand of rest and reconnection with family and home.

Here on the farm it’s just another day after day of spring chore after chore. When it’s finally time for a little lie down before bed, too many news programs bring the fear. So I prefer the comedies of the 60’s, which as a child of the 70’s were like comfort food, safe cozy movies playing on TV in the afternoons or on the weekends.

We started with some Jerry Lewis. The French thought him a genius. And they were right! Not his spasmodic shrilling that first brought him notice, but with Directing and the construction of story – composition, timing, editing, visual transitions, the use of sound, expanding simple moments. Some of his films are downright experimental for their time (like The Bellboy – who else could make a successful modern Hollywood film like that, where the star is silent and there is no story just a bunch of rather unrelated vignettes?!).

Beyond what’s on the screen, Jerry Lewis changed film production technology for the rest of us in advancing the cause of Video Assist.

What?

To be able to truly direct (himself) and best assess his performance as Actor, he worked with the Studio and Sony to develop what we now know as video assist, or having monitors and playback.

Basically at a time when movies were shot literally on rolls of film, he pushed to have a video system capture what the film camera was seeing (by mounting a video camera onto the film camera!). Thus he could adjust his performance take by take, instead of waiting for the film to be developed and a print to come back from the lab, only then deciding whether to reshoot the performance, or live with what he got. All time and money.

The Script Supervisor of yore would often watch takes from as close to the (ONE) camera as possible. Think of Pat Miller, with her binder, on a ladder behind the camera! Now with a faster pace, multiple cameras, location shooting, hand held etc…the video monitor is an essential tool in doing our job.

And this “LAAAAAAAAAAAADY” says thank you Mr. Lewis.