Tag: movies

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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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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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EDITING : Get It Together

misty water colored memories of the way we were

And now a positive note on technology…

We were cutting a reel for a friend and needed a slug of black between shots. BASIC. I don’t edit every day and forgot some of the shortcuts, not to mention what’s in the hundred drop down menu options and tweaks.

Oh where oh where is a simple slug of black? Help was no help. It could not be found by poking around the program. After scanning through a couple articles and a tutorial it was revealed to be “black video.” What should’ve taken 2 seconds took 20 momentum-breaking minutes!

I grumble, then must remember this is a slight inconvenience. Let’s saunter down memory lane. Cutting a film used to literally be cutting the film – first a work print – like practice – then cutting up the negative (no going back here) to match it – the commitment. Negative cutting, or conforming, is a whole nother specialized process.

Editing was on a flatbed, a big mechanical desk with ‘monitors’ that projected the film frames (like microfishe), with speakers playing the sound from the magnetic audio tape. Motors kept picture and sound tracks in synch as they ran reel to reel, lying flat on platters – think of a DJ with 6 to 8 turntables.

BTW using a fantasy name generator, my DJ names are:

wiggy wiggy wiggy

There were maybe 3 buttons, and a lever for playback. Cut and tape with a splicer. Any effects like fades and dissolves were imagined, and notated on the actual film to mark where to add the effects into the negative cut.  You didn’t see your Fade Up until the cut negative was processed at the lab!

Twas a rare luxury for Independents to cut the negative, make a final print, then recut the negative again. All time and money, Baby, so editing decisions were perhaps taken more seriously back then than today. And perhaps because of the abundance of digital footage and choices for todays Editors, the wise ones utilize the blessing of the Script Supervisor’s notes more than ever, finding it faster to scan through a few pages of detailed notes than a few hours of shots. Everyday.

But I digress.

There was an awkward technology gap for a while. Flatbeds were phased out as film was lumpily forging its digital path, different from typical video. “Ooo now’s my chance,” thought this Silly Rabbit, and heard of a rumored unit for sale in town.

I contacted Steve – Hoop Dreams – James, who decided he was too sentimentally attached to his Steenbeck, but graciously invited me to HQ to edit my short film on it.  He brought me to the flatbed’s dedicated room. It was covered in potted plants! Did I dream this part? We moved the greenery and removed the fitted plastic cover. I began to edit.

And within an hour it froze up. Steve couldn’t figure out why, and to fix it he’d have to wait for the one guy in the country, James Bond, I kid you not, to make his annual repair rounds to the Midwest.

I then moved away to a town which decades ago declared “film is dead.” And did not finish that short. Woe? No! For it caused me to look at writing more seriously, and stretch from experimental short films to feature length screenplays.

And now technology has become accessible, so that we can shoot and edit in the same day, have several projects in the works at once, can store hundreds of hours of footage, play forever with effects, correct many sound and video issues, pull still shots instantly, and let others around the globe view our progress, all with a few keystrokes. On my teeny laptop, sitting on an end table.

There are still final final steps for “prints” like Blu Ray or DCP, but a whole world has opened up literally at the touch of a few buttons.

Use your power for good, technology! And you dear reader? What’s your Dj name?

https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/dj-names.php

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SCREEN PLAY – MORE ICING OR MORE CAKE?

write write write

I’m late to the party – Nyan Cat Cake – link to the recipe at the end!

During a job interview, the Show Runner asked how being a writer helped in Script Supervising. Well one of the main ways is seeing when a script is too long. He and the other Producer tripped over each other explaining they were still trimming the scripts, wrestling with the author, etc… I wasn’t even specifically referring to their project!

However, it was true of the episodes I’d read there. Not meaning page count, but more specifically when  scenes and sections do not move the story forward or provide meaningful support for any of the layers in the script. Many times I’ve thought “This fluff is n-e-v-e-r going to make it into the movie,” and have often been right. With time or budget limits tis wiser to edit on the page then in the cutting room.

Is the script more icing or more cake?

Script writing, to me, compresses a story that’s bigger than it might read on the page, in a unique format so even literary authors must learn a sort of shorthand to keep within the boundaries. Do chapters equal scenes? Well, a little yes,  in separating the story into sections, but a bigger no, because the separation is dictated by locations instead of a shift of ideas.

Screenplays are like skeletons that are then carefully and intentionally dressed in layers with clues in the descriptions or dialogue, then fleshed out by Actors rounding out the characters, by how the sets look, or the costumes, how the pieces are edited together, by the use of sound and music, on and on.

They’re written as to what’s to appear on the screen, not by internal beats meandering through a character’s head or their past, at least not in the same indulgent light a novel may. Writing a screenplay can challenge one to find simple, interesting, and perhaps sneaky, ways to color in the bare spots with meaningful information.

But once you understand the limits there’s a lot of freedom within them. Did your Mama ever send you out to play with a “go in the backyard” or “stay on the block “ or “don’t ride your bike in the street” ? Play within the parameters of what will show on the screen, but play!

http://sueneal.blogspot.com/2013/03/nyan-cat-rainbow-cake-please.html

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YOU MEAN YOU’RE LIKE A SCRIPT GIRL?

NO.

That’s a conversation opener I’ve encountered more than once.

actress playing a script supervisor as candy in The Life Aquatic

But NO.

I can still hear my little ol’ Auntie basically asking the above. Well, at least this shows there’s an awareness of someone on set at the helm of the script! More than likely this comes from movies about movies themselves, like Singin’ In the Rain, 8 1/2 or Get Shorty, to mention a few off the top of my head.

Particularly in older movies, when a film set was shown in the story, the only woman sitting by the Director as part of the filmmaking process was a secretarial gal with a script on her lap (a more professional example than, uh, what was portrayed in the picture above).

My husband jumps in with enthusiasm as to what an important and influential position this is. I then fill in the gaps, that many men also hold this position, and that it entails much much more than following lines in the script.

In general terms I explain how this is about managing several simultaneous streams of information in a highly organized way, sometimes creating systems to do so. Yes we support, and correct, gently, the Actors, with their dialogue and with continuity to help things match. Continuity causes us to guide or coordinate with several departments, as Hair, Make Up, Props, Set Dressing and Wardrobe, to keep everyone on the same timeline page and matching looks. We work to keep the Directors on point, inform them as to the coverage or shots needed to tie the story together so they can choose how to proceed, and we keep track of their preferences while we are shooting.

All this while also keeping track every time each camera rolls, notating information for each take on each camera, watching for technical errors, and essentially transcribing a map for Editorial, in a way being on-set eyes for the Editor with the goal to get all the pieces necessary to put the project together appropriately, elegantly, if possible.

We keep tabs on what’s been filmed and what’s yet owed for each scene in the script, applying mathematical calculations that translate into scheduling our production days for the AD Department. These numbers also go to the Producers to help them gauge the budgeting for those days.

Our shoulders also bear the responsibility to our fellow crew and cast members in legally documenting our production time on the clock, to ensure everyone gets the appropriate pay, meal penalties and overtime contractually agreed upon by the Union.

On top of the pure logistics, a bit of psychology is involved for there are a lot of egos involved. One must adapt and learn how to earn trust so that people will allow you to help them.

…My Auntie stares at me blankly.

“It’s like being a Junior Director to help get everything right.” Bah.