50 Seconds

McCarren Park, I Remember Thee...

Another 2 AM post. I like the idea of a series of posts solidified by a a single idea or concept. That's what this blog started as. You'll be happy to know that I am little bit more lucid tonight too. (Not really.)

Right now I am 50 seconds away from locking picture on my film. The screenplay for the film was 16 pages long. In filmmaking one page of script equals one minute of screen time. I've known that for seven years. I also knew when I started writing this film that the final cut had to be under ten minutes. Why then did I write a 16 page script? WHY???

My first cut of the film was 16.5 mintues. It included every line and every moment of the script as written. They say that writer-directors should NEVER edit their own films because they are too attached to the story as written and directed (naturally). A story which may or may not be the best story to be found in the footage. This explains the frustratingly hard time that I've had cutting this film.

There are certain shots and moments in the film that I feel contain the essence of what I'm trying to say and that for all intents and purposes is probably not communicated to the audience outside of my mind. (The audience inside my mind is totally digging this shit though.) I'm 50 seconds away from excising these moments and getting my film down to the 10 minute streamlined version that the faculty will rip apart in about a week and a half.

Thankfully at 10 minutes and 50 seconds the film still feels like the one that I initially set out to make. We'll see what happens when I finally get those 50 seconds out and lock picture.

The film may turn into a hockey movie. Which is cool as long as its D3: The Mighty Ducks.

Guy the Sound Ryan

On Editing

Another 2 AM post. You've been warned.

It's funny.

I began researching the film that I'm editing now last summer.

I wrote the first draft of script for the film this past August.

I produced and directed the film in November.

The film is due on April 6th.

Creatively I've been focused almost solely on the characters and the world that I've created in this film for about 9 months.

I'm in my final trimester.

Hoping the baby is healthy.

I have a short attention span sometimes which makes editing challenging.

All of the care that I put into researching, writing, and directing kind of falls apart when the film is on a hard drive and not in my head or on paper.

I'd much rather be writing my next film.

I presented the idea for my next script to my writing class a few weeks ago.

I feel like everybody had a sense of why I wanted to write the story that I presented, but nobody outright asked.

There's this unspoken rule amongst screenwriters that my professor alluded to in which nobody ever likes to reveal their methods or process.

Thus, by not asking what inspired my script idea, my classmates were unknowingly abiding this rule.

Good people.

All of this has nothing to do with editing my current film though.

Which proves my previous point about my short attention span regarding editing.

And, subsequently, blog posts regarding editing.

Sleep.

Ryan the Sound Guy

On the Need to Write a New Post

Two of My Heroes (or should I say six)

Residual spring break laziness.

Legs sore and tired from yesterday's half-marathon.

Led Zeppelin on mile 11.

I could have punched Jimmy Page.

Young Folks in my head on mile 5.

Found that It's hard to whistle and run hard at the same time.

Talking bout the old style too.

I just sneezed.

This post is written in real time.

Is it possible to pull an ab muscle?

I only ask because my upper-right ab muscle is rather uncomfortable.

And, when I sneezed I noticed it.

I guess everything is done in real time though.

Health care passed!

If I wasn't a student and had no benefits I could go get this checked out.

My trouble lies in how people see this as a negative thing.

End of semester school assignments on the horizon.

A film about baseball that I need a break from.

My mind on the summer...

Finding a new apartment...

Exploring and getting inspiration from this city...

Writing my new screenplay.

Writing

My

New

Screenplay

And, finishing this baseball film.

Love

Love

Love

All you need is...

A spectator was holding a sign yesterday that said "Run fast, Lennon"

I thought to myself, Lennon isn't a bad first name to have.

Possible first names that I'd consider:

Coltrane

Hendrix

Monk

Simon

Bowie

Armstrong

Gershwin

Ellington

Copland

Harper

Dylan

Stravinski

There are some things that are rendered impossible if intellectualized.

These usually fall into the category of "daring" and include:

Kissing someone for the first time.

Being a Detroit Lions fan.

Jumping off of or out of any high edifice, object, or vehicle.

Running long distances for fun.

Arguing with a Republican.

Playing pro baseball and trying to hit a 100 mph pitch.

Studying filmmaking.

I really want to buy a fedora but I'd have to get over my self-consciousness.

Cath says I can pull it off.

I saw a man walking one day who looked just like Chuck D.

Now I'll always wonder what would have happened if I'd asked him to fight the power.

Anybody ever read Hegel?

Don't.

Does anybody find rhetorical questions to be pretentious?

Why ask a question that you intend to be a statement?

Nobody will ever mistake you for Socrates, I assure you. So why not cut the BS?

Why not just make a statement?

Who's excited for baseball season?

A rhetorical question.

I know that EVERYBODY is.

Pretentious.

The Coen Brothers are certifiable geniuses.

The Big Lebowski. No Country for Old Men. A Serious Man. Fargo. O Brother Where Art Thou?

Geniuses.

All of those films are adaptations, too.

In my next project I will combine and adapt Hegel's "Phenomenology of the Spirit" and Sartre's all but indecipherable "Being and Nothingness" into a kid's movie.

It'll be called "Cloudy With a Chance of Existential Anguish and The Will to Be or Bring Into Existence the State of Being That Which Validates One's Being As Such"

It'll be a commercial and critical hit and in my academy awards speech I'll address the podium and in my best Denzel Washington impersonation claim that "Pixar ain't got s*** on me!"

"Because everyone else is boring. And, because you're different."

The best line in The Science of Sleep.

To sleep I go.

Good night, you different people.

Ryan the Sound Guy

8 1/2

My apologies abound for how cinema-centric this blog has been lately, this being my third film-related post in as many days (goes to show you how one-dimensional I am). But, I just finished re-watching Federico Fellini's 8 1/2 for class, and I'll be darned if it didn't remind me why I was so obsessed with this film and its director when I was in college. Matter of fact, it was the studying of this film and Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless that mostly informed the type of films that I wanted to make when I was the tender ages of 18-21.

These two are two very different films but the techniques that they employ to tell their stories make for some of the most breathtaking and engaging viewing experiences you'll ever come upon. 8 1/2 in particular struck a resonant chord for me both then and now due to the way that Fellini renders his own psychology and state of mind so concisely and imaginatively on screen. As the legend goes, the story is very autobiographical in its depiction of film director, Guido Anselmi's myriad problems as he approaches production on his next film. I won't give any more away, but I will say that if you haven't seen the film you will be left dizzied by this characters many encounters and misadventures.

In film school there's an on-going debate (more like lecture) in most writing and directing classes regarding passive characters vs. active characters. Most professors frown upon passive characters as non-engaging and unsympathetic, and regard active characters who possess a tangible goal and the will to achieve it as the reason why audiences shell out their hard earned cash to sit in a dark room and watch light projected on a screen. I was very resistant to this argument for many years, but have finally come around to it. It's true. (Yes, I am the product of NYU brainwashing.) But, I have to say 8 1/2 makes a compelling case for passive characters in film. You should watch it if you haven't seen it and tell me what you think. Warning: It's 2.5 hours and Italian with VERY chatty characters (translation: A LOT of reading). BUT, it's a miraculous film (and I don't use that word lightly, or ever for that matter).

Nothing like being inspired on a Wednesday night.

Ryan the Sound Guy

Master of Fine Arts in I'm Right, You're Wrong

How awesome is Kathryn Bigelow?!?

It's always great debating the Oscars with film students. As long as we avoid public places and elevators where, to paraphrase Woody Allen, we are likely to be accused and scorned for pontificating in the ears of others, it can be a magnificent thing to observe. You all know the film student stereotype, the self-important aesthete, self-proclaimed master of all things visual and god's gift to cinematic expression, and fervent believer that in the grand scheme of things their work actually matters. While the type does exist in the real world, I'm happy to say that most of us are not actually quite as pompous as all this. At least most of the one's I've met and worked with.

Most of us, however, are quite opinionated in what we believe constitutes a good film. While I believe that everybody is entitled to their own opinions and are allowed to like what suits them, I'd be lying if I didn't hold strong to my own beliefs regarding this (you should hear my rant against Transformers which actually caused my brother to cease talking to me for the rest of the afternoon after we saw it). Which is precisely why listening to film students discuss the Oscars is like observing chimps in a zoo. Strangely bizarre, weirdly fascinating, and slightly discomforting.

After two of my classmates and I saw the Oscar nominated live action shorts this past weekend, we argued all the way home about which ones were good, which ones were trash, and which one deserved to win. It was absurd how up in arms we all got in voicing our individual opinions. I'm sure there was many a passerby who would have liked to tell us all to stfu. But, there we were arguing so passionately that you'd think our conversation held the key to finally getting a health care bill passed. I'm proud to say that the movie that I argued in favor of was the one that actually won (The New Tenants), in a way vindicating my taste in films and giving me a trump card for future debates. If anybody in the Obama administration is reading this and wants my advice on how to crack the health care nut, you undoubtedly have my number.

Speaking of the Oscars, who isn't geeked about the Hurt Locker and Kathryn Bigelow?!? It only took me the better part of a year to finally get around to seeing it, but what a great film it was. This movie only made about $20.5 million in domestic and foreign box office (which means that pretty much nobody saw it). Compared to the $2.5 billion that Avatar has made in global ticket sales (which means that everybody has seen it, with the lone exception of me, not because I'm boycotting, but because EVERYBODY has seen it and nobody will go with me) we can honestly call this a David vs. Goliath story. Not to mention Ms. Bigelow! Horray for history being made!

I read in the Times today that the screenwriter Mark Boal (who also took home an Oscar), "stood on street corners with his teenage nephew handing out free tickets to passersby with the idea that if they could stack the house, perhaps the theater owners would book it for another week." A great idea if I ever get a film into a theater (unless it's snowing). Who's down to man the New York street corners with me?

Ryan the Sound Guy