Basic Editing Advice

Submitted by by Peter John Ross

Just because it's digital video doesn't mean you shouldn't log your shots during principal photography.

Logging details about the takes, the camera angles, and all the basic information can make your edit session more economical and timely. If you know there are only two good takes on an entire digital video tape and you know from a log sheet where on the tape the good takes begin and end, you can just type that into the batch capture mode of most non-linear editing systems.
Then you can be creative with the footage at hand, and not waste time looking for the good shots, or filling up valuable hard drive real estate with gigabytes of unusable takes.

For myself, I edit the whole piece together, not necessarily in sequential order, but from the most obvious scenes and takes and then assemble a rough cut. From the rough cut, I then chisel away at the unnecessary lines and scenes to get to the final edit.

Check out my previous Timecode Burns article to help you become more efficient. You may find using a dedicated script supervisor incredibly helpful in familiarizing yourself with the footage so that you are aware of your options.

After working as an editor, I am always shooting for the edit. I will start or end a scene with push-ins or pull-outs of something like a light bulb or the dark part of a painting or wall for natural transitions. Pre-planning these kinds of shots and storyboarding before shooting helps focus on what to shoot and how it will tie into the editing later.

You should always be aware that for every scene, you should try to cover the two C's, coverage and cutaways. These are the things that make editing possible. Finding something relevant to enhance the story as a cutaway is essential to shooting for the edit. What is coverage? Coverage is getting multiple angles of the same scene. Coverage allows someone to edit out unwanted dialogue and also tap into reactions, not just people speaking.

If you are one of the new digital video filmmakers that write, direct, produce, shoot, and edit your own movies then prepare yourself for a completely different mindset as an editor. This job is very different than the other aspects of filmmaking. This job is about telling a story with the raw footage. If you were there when it was shot, you have a bias in that you know what the geography was, and how the ambience felt. As an editor, it's your job to orient the viewer who has never been to the set and didn't see anything. It's your job as editor to give the viewer a sense of the location, and tie it into the acting, the costumes, the set design, and most importantly the story the director is trying to tell.

Of course, if it was not shot with anything other than close-ups, you can't really edit much, so it's a team effort. The director needs to shoot for the edit, making sure all aspects of the scene are shot so that editing can help shape the story in post-production.

Timecode Burns

Submitted by Peter John Ross

Want to know a trick to save your expensive digital video camera from getting editorial wear and tear? Especially all you Canon GL1 owners, or people trying to pay off their cameras.

After the shoot, when you have all your footage, and your tapes all numbered, most people log their footage as they go using their non-linear editing program (Adobe Premiere, Final Cut Pro, or Avid). Which is really cool because you can mark in and out points and you can make a digital log of your footage on each tape.

But you are running a master tape in a deck or camcorder, rewinding, fast forwarding, and playing the footage multiple times. That’s wear and tear on your equipment, your irreplaceable master tapes, and it’s also extra time.

Here’s the not so secret tip, but surprisingly most people don’t know about it.

Make a VHS tape with the timecode showing onscreen. Most camcorders will allow you to select data or timecode output in the menu or on the remote.

Now you can rewind, fast forward, and play over and over again your raw footage and not risk your master tapes or add mileage to your camcorder.

The next step is to watch and log your footage and write down on a piece of paper the timecode of the in and out points of only the footage you need. An important step when logging is to think about the filename for each clip. The official name for your sheets of paper is an EDL (Edit Decision List). You can basically edit your whole piece using the paper edit selecting angles and takes. You use your EDL’s to make the editing decisions and make an offline edit.

All of this while only wearing out the heads of your twenty-nine dollar VCR as opposed to your $2,000 GL1, which some people are still making payments on. Not to mention watching the footage again, making yourself more familiar with the raw, unedited takes.

At this stage you can then use your non-linear software to type in the in and out points you wrote down and use the filenames you made up for each clip and then tell the computer to capture the footage and it will record all the footage from the whole tape, or even multiple tapes if you like, to your hard drive.

Make sure to save the batch capture list. It can be handy later on, such as after you edit your masterpiece, delete all the raw footage and want to make changes a year or two later. If you save the list you can easily use it to recapture the raw footage. On my first few projects I can’t do this because I don’t have a capture list or even a paper EDL to refer to, so I can’t re-edit unless I start from scratch, but I’m only a little bit bitter.

Please note the other benefit – hard drive space. If you do an offline, paper edit from your EDL’s, you are only capturing the footage you need, as opposed to capturing takes and footage you do not need, and filling your hard drives with large video files that you don’t use.
So by copying your raw footage to a VHS tape with timecode you get to:

• Preserve the life of your camcorder.
• Preserve the life of your master tapes.
• Have the safety of being able to easily recapture your footage.
• Become more familiar with your footage.
• Save valuable hard drive space.

Timecode burning – this is an old, but very effective technique.

Independent Film Clichés: An Opinion

Submitted by Peter John Ross

From the Actor’s Point of View

The Casting Call

Here's a story that will probably sound familiar. You hear about an audition. Someone posted a flyer that said something about a short film that's in the Sundance Film Festival. This sounds interesting.

You, the actors, and aspiring actors go to a cattle call for a no budget digital video short. You wait in line, although the group pf people sitting around at the public library is hardly organized enough to be called a line. You get asked to read sides and the first time director doesn't know what a slate is, but he isn't taping the auditions anyway. You leave wondering what kind of movie this could possibly be given that you read a fragment of a script that had dialog as interesting as an insurance actuarial table. After your call back a week or two later, you read the lines again, and talk about other stuff with the director including your dreams an aspirations.

The Call Back

At this point, they tell you the game plan for this incredible movie. It's a twenty minute opus about an everyman that is in some kind of struggle and it's completely original. The goal is to shoot the movie on digital video, send it to film festivals, and then get the money to re-shoot it on film. Of course there's no pay. They can't afford it. But this is a unique opportunity because the script and idea are just that good. You ask about distribution and you are assured that after the film plays at several festivals it will have a distribution deal. At that point everyone will get paid. They say this with such conviction that you buy into it.

The Shoot

You work twelve hour days on your weekend off, the first time director is giving you line readings, and there is barely any craft services to munch on while everyone stands around. Eventually you finish, and you can’t wait to see the movie. Over the next few months you try calling, then e-mailing the director to get a status report. It's still being edited. Eventually you may or may not ever see a finished product, but waiting for that film festival screening seems to be as likely as finding weapons of mass destruction in the filmmaker’s basement.

If this has happened to you more than five times, then you are an ideal candidate to attend an Amway meeting with me. I have just the right opportunity for you.

And now for the flipside...

The Filmmaker’s Point of View

You rent movies all the time. You go to the movies all the time. You have always loved movies, and you just saw the latest Steven Seagal movie that went direct to video on Showtime and you say to yourself, “I can do better than this piece of garbage!” and you have this idea that has been brewing for at least ten minutes. You download the latest freeware screenwriting plug-in for Word and start banging away. The story unfolds and the dialog sounds really good in your head.

Now what?

You read about Soderbergh and George Lucas using home camcorders to make their movies, so all you need is a Sony Handicam and you can become the next Kevin Smith! Because it's a camcorder all you need to do is point and shoot. There’s no need to know anything about lighting or cameras. You remember seeing something about Kevin Smith and the Sundance Film Festival, so when you finish the movie, you'll just send it there, it will be accepted, and you'll get signed to my three picture deal at that point. It should take about three months.

Now you need to get people to be in the movie, your masterpiece. You can hold a casting call. The casting notice reads “Actors Needed for Short Film for the Sundance Film Festival.”

The Casting Call

You can't believe these people want to be in my movie. Look at all of them. You want to savor this moment and see each actor one at a time. Then you see her and she looks really good, so forget first come first serve, get that girl Jennifer in here now! You want someone to look and act exactly as you pictured the movie in your head. With sixteen people waiting to see you at least five of them should be perfect.

The Call Back

Why isn't anyone exactly as you pictured in your head? Jennifer was really good looking and she really seemed to like you. Should you cast her solely based on looks? She can't act her way out of a paper bag.

The Shoot

Nothing is as good as you thought it would be. The actors aren't doing exactly what you want and you even tell them how to deliver the lines. You know you wanted to do more camera angles, but you were running late. Everybody is mad at you and you can't seem to get it right. You can fix it all in the editing. You can't afford to buy another pizza, so whoever is late, is just out of luck. No food for them.

The Edit – Day 2

This is fantastic, this is great. Sure there are warts, but the core of this, the idea, it's so good. You can't believe you made a movie!

The Edit – Day 30

You don't feel like editing today. You just worked a full shift at the store and you’re tired. Instead you see which re-run of Seinfeld is on.

The Edit - Day 66

You’re finally finished. You can't believe you edited the whole thing yourself on a home computer with your bootleg copy of Adobe Premiere. Every word of the script is included and it's perfect. You show it to your friends and family and maybe the cast. They'll tell you if anything's wrong because they are completely unbiased.

Screening Day

You can't believe it! Your mom, your best friend, and the lead actor loved the movie! You were right. This is a masterpiece. You wonder what time the limo will be here to pick you up. Hollywood can just somehow smell talent and no doubt they'll find you. When they do, you'll hire all your friends and all these actors to work with you and Tom Cruise and make Mission Impossible 4.

After the Screening – 11 Days Later

It's been almost two weeks and still no limo. Maybe the people who smell talent have a head cold or there was a flight delay in Chicago for the connecting flight.

After the Screening – 17 Days Later

You get an e-mail today from one of the bit-part actors, what's-her-name, and she has the gall to ask if you had submitted the film to any festivals yet. She doesn't understand that you are an artist and that you have a day job too. You'll get on it soon.

After the Screening – 24 Days Later

You looked into submitting the film to Sundance and it costs twenty-five dollars. Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick, all of these film festivals want money. What kind of sick bastards charge filmmakers money to submit their movies? How many submissions can they possibly have? You can only afford two, so you will definitely send your film to Sundance because that's the big one. For some reason you were under the assumption that either the film festivals were free or that the entry fees wouldn't apply to you. You guess you should have done the math. Twenty-five dollars by eighteen film festivals equals $450. That's more than your Sony Handicam camcorder.

Rejection Day - Late November Every Year

You get a letter in the mail. You can't believe they didn't pick your movie. You went to the Sundance page and looked at the movies that did make it. Why would they pick movies directed by Matthew Modine or Danny Glover? What’s this? Kevin Smith got in too? I thought these people were already famous. Why are they premiering these Hollywood movies? Why didn't hey pick my mediocre movie with no stars shot on digital video? I better avoid all contact with anyone associated with the movie. I'd rather them not know than have to tell them.
I guess I won't be able to make another movie...

How to Avoid This Very Common Scenario

Actors

When you audition, ask about the plan and the distribution. If they can't afford to pay you but plan on sending the film to several film festivals then something is wrong. Do the math. Each film festival costs at least twenty-five dollars whether the film makes it in or not, and because of simple odds (thousands of submissions, tens of slots) the movie won't get into a lot of film festivals. If the filmmakers can't afford to pay for decent meals, how in the hell can they afford to submit the film to festivals?

Now I'm not saying you shouldn't do the movie. That's not my point at all. I guess my point is just BE REALISTIC. Know that you are doing it for the experience. There are pearl's in the clams occasionally, and you won't find them if you don't look. There are some good movies and good directors, but it may take time and a few movies before a first time filmmaker becomes one.

There are other options that can make the experience and the work worthwhile. Don't be afraid to suggest...

Filmmakers

Plan for the entire movie. Budget for the entire movie. That includes money to market the movie. The common mistake is that you spend all of your money making the movie, and then it sits and collects dust because you find out that everything costs more than you thought. Plan for it. Whatever you think it will cost, have double the money. Did you really think that because you shot your film on digital video that it would be that much cheaper? That's insane.

BE REALISTIC. The chances of getting into Sundance are slim, and winning anything, or getting distribution is a pipe dream. First of all, digital video shorts with no stars are generally as valuable as rat feces. There is no real distribution and short films, even with stars, have very few outlets for display, and even more rare are places that pay for them.

Film festivals are great but they are expensive. Plan ahead for the money you will spend submitting your film to festivals and know that you may not get in. They don't refund your money when you don't get in. Also for your information, audiences at a regular film festival range from twelve to seventy-five people, and most of them are the filmmakers and actors of the other films that got accepted. Unless your movie is about filmmaking, this may not be the best audience to judge your work.

Make movies for the experience to start. Don't be delusional. Do you want to help yourself, your film, and the actors who starred in it? Get some exposure. Get your work seen by as many people as possible. Put your film on the internet, public access television, and anywhere else you possibly can. Get your actors seen by as many people as possible. That's the least you can do.

You have to ask yourself why you made the movie or why you got involved in the first place. Was it to get famous or make money? You're better off buying lottery tickets. You'll have much better odds in a casino. Did you make your movie to tell a story? Great, now share it with people in as many venues as possible. Film festivals are good but expensive. Have other options available.

Dreamcatcher and William Goldman

Submitted by Richard Hogg

In my previous article I wrote a brief piece about the William Goldman quote “nobody knows anything.” As a great admirer of his work I decided to go and see Dreamcatcher when it was released.

Looking down the credits it was hard not to take each name as a benchmark of quality. Surely with this many names, this many years, and so many movies between them they might be able to do justice to a book written by one of the, if not the best selling fiction writer of modern times.
But Mr. Goldman’s quote came back to bite him on the ass, and if you’ve seen the movie you’ll get the little joke. If you haven’t seen the movie some of this article may pass you by.

WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP. In a lot of films the script gets the bad press as a lot of people who know nothing about script work start throwing about words like poor structure and loose characterization. Here the common complaint from critics was that the plot was incoherent. If this means they spent more time looking at their watch than the screen as I did, then I agree.
Forget the three act structure and all the other supposed requirements of a script. The simple fact was that the story on screen was about as appealing as a holiday package to Iraq.

To sum it up. Aliens crash land-telepathic friends get caught up-insane special alien task force general goes insane-friend taken over by alien entity-other friends killed-alien tries to escape to spawn and infect others-remaining friends collect other strange friend-strange friend and alien do battle-humans win-hooray–the end. At this point most would be cursing the two hours they’ll never see again, but for a scriptwriter watching something this bad has proved to be more useful to me than watching something of real quality and I’ll tell you why.

The day after deciding I wanted to give this screenwriting thing a real go, my mum rented out The Shawshank Redemption. That night I lay awake, distraught, a broken fourteen year-old boy. I was convinced I would never be able to write something that good. What the hell did I know about the power of hope above all things, desire for freedom, and life inside an American prison (the other prison films I’d seen up to that point involved women only, but those films were altogether different). Two days later I went to see Street Fighter with Jean-Claude Van Damme. With my confidence restored I set about writing down some ideas for my first film.
The lesson I learned and stick to to this day, is never to compare my work to that of others. Learn from it sure, but don’t get depressed and give up if you see some hotshot twenty year-old write an amazing script. By the same token don’t get all cocky if you see something that’s not as good as your own.

The second thing I came away with was the limitations of the writer. I’d never really given it that much thought before, especially when writing. When I write I can see a clear picture in my head. Not only the action takes place but also the expression on the character’s faces. In Dreamcatcher we have some excellent actors and a few mediocre ones. Morgan Freeman is my first example as he seems to be the one with highest pedigree. Such talent, presence, and charisma, and yet here he delivers lines where his expression doesn’t change for the entire film. Does he hate the dialog (not Goldman’s best, for example take “the shit has hit the interplanetary fan”), or is it simply him putting his own take on the character, whereas Goldman was picturing something completely different. He just seemed empty, as if there was nothing to him. He may shoot a guy through the hand for disobeying orders, but I always felt as if I was grasping at thin air when trying to get inside this guy’s head.

Then there’s Damien Lewis (the ginger one). Outstanding in Band Of Brothers and the BBC dramas he’s been in. Here he appears to be underplaying the role, as he seems deadpan for the most part with the only meaty bit being when he’s taken over by the aliens. Here he has to change mannerisms and accents. Surprise, surprise, the epitome of evil has a upper class English accent. We’re not all bastards you know.

I hate to criticize a fellow Brit but the criticism is lessened by the fact that he’s still better than most of his companions. I won’t give a rundown but the one thing that stood out for me was that for a group of friends who are so close, they hardly react when bad things start to happen. Military quarantine-rant a bit; best friend dies-take a moment, wince, and then go about your business.

The lesson from this film was one I still find hard to do. You must know you’re characters. Instead of writing lists of favorite foods and colors as the books suggest, I try to get inside their skin when I’m just going about my day. I think to myself how a certain character would act in this situation. Another tool I have found to be very useful is to write short stories involving the main characters. This helps set up the world in my head as well as give me story ideas, and because it’s prose I can describe what they’re thinking. I recommend you try this.
Lastly, read you’re script out loud. That includes the descriptions. If Goldman and Kasdan had done this and still gone “Yep, this sounds good,” then I refer you back to Goldman’s famous quote.

Going to see bad films made by talented people can be enormously helpful. You may recognize similarities between the film and a script you’re working on. For example, do all of the characters speak in the same way? For me though, the benefit is much less practical and far more superficial. I come out thinking if that script which was deemed good enough to get passed through dozens of money men, as well as those with creativity, and all the changes that were supposed to make it better resulted in what I’ve just seen, then maybe the odds of my making it aren’t as bad as I thought.

Why I Don’t Participate in Cable Access Programming

Submitted by by Christina Hazelwood

Although the village of Downers Grove, where I am a resident, has a fully functioning public access television station, I have been unable to get access to it. In spite of federal and local laws that specify a resident’s right to participate, in spite of the contribution that, I, as a resident make to the village in the form of taxes and cable fees, in spite of my efforts to exercise my rights, the village refuses to provide access.

The Federal Communications Commission, which regulates cable companies, gives franchising authorities like the village of Downers Grove, the right to require cable companies to set aside channels for local Public, Educational, or Governmental (PEG) use, as well as services, facilities, or equipment. Although cities and villages have this right, not all of them exercise it. The franchising authority, in this case the village of Downers Grove, is not allowed to control the content of programming on PEG stations, other than enforcement of obscenity restrictions.

Governing authorities, like the village, establish franchise agreements that specify their relationship with their cable provider. Cable companies pay the local authority, a percent of fees collected, typically from 5% to 5.5% for the privilege of providing its population with service. In its franchise agreement, the village of Downers Grove requires the cable company to provide three PEG channels, but only one is active (Channel 6). Legally, anyone who lives in the village of Downers Grove is allowed to create programming and have access to the village's television station, its equipment, and the airwaves for which the residents pay through their tax dollars and cable fees.

Downers Grove village law (Resolution 96-13) establishes rules under which residents may exercise their right to participate in the PEG station for which they pay. The intent of the resolution is to provide a method through which residents may make their voices heard. But instead the village uses the provisions of the resolution to restrict access and thereby prevent any undesirable information about the village or its activities from reaching residents.

How the village gets around the law is by putting in a clause that requires residents to take classes before they are “qualified” to have access to the station. This sounds reasonable in theory, but here’s the catch. The village then does not offer any classes, assuring that the public does not get access to the equipment, station or airwaves for which it pays.

By not providing classes, no residents become “qualified” to produce programs and all dissenting voices are squashed. In this way the village is able to eliminate public discourse and crush the rights imbued upon its citizens by law. No information or issues that may reflect poorly on the village or its activities is made public. In other countries this is called censorship. The village’s strategy insures that residents are unable to share any knowledge, information, or creative endeavors they have to offer the community at large. Programming that may potentially benefit the residents and the village is thereby made mute and void.

Not only does the village not offer classes, thereby insuring that no dissenting voices are heard, it also makes sure that the taxpaying, cable fee contributing residents are unaware that these rights to express themselves exist at all. The village flaunts its own laws of public access and takes over the station and airwaves for which the residents pay, using it as a pulpit to show a continuous stream of programming about how wonderful the village of Downers Grove and its associated governments are.

If the village was truly interested in allowing residents to exercise their public access rights, lawfully given to them and for which they pay, Downers Grove would offer classes on a regular basis, and post the dates, times, and locations of the classes on their web site, in the village newsletter, in local newspapers, and on the public access television station that it has commandeered. Instead, the village colludes to prevent its residents from knowing about their rights and gaining access to them.

The village and its representatives provide lip service about what an open, wonderful community Downers Grove is and then take measures to assure that the status quo is maintained. The few programs that get aired in which residents participate (to my knowledge there are three of them) are done in the studio under the watchful eye of village employees.
Neighboring communities such as Wheaton and Glen Ellyn, who have similar local laws, manage to provide regular open classes to their residents, allowing them to be “qualified” as producers and share valuable information in the form of programming. These villages seek out the participation of their residents and actually demonstrate an interest in hearing what their taxpaying, cable fee providing residents have to say.

In Downers Grove if a resident wants to take the required classes in order become qualified, the resident is placed on a “list” and is told that the village will be in contact when it decides to have a class. I requested to be placed on this list four years ago, have made several follow up telephone calls, and have yet to be contacted about a class. And further, although I've made movies, videos, and commercials, in the eyes of the village I am not qualified to produce cable access programming. This is in spite of village law which states that persons already familiar with equipment may be waived from taking the village's nonexistent classes.

In America, as well as in the rest of the world, just because we, the people, have both inalienable and lawfully provided rights, there is no assurance that they will be honored. Bullies who trample and disregard the rights of its citizens do not only exist only in other countries, but may be right in your own backyard.

Why I Made A Film

Submitted by Christina Hazelwood

”You’re going to undergo some type of training or study,” the psychic said.

I rolled my eyes and figured the woman had a bad connection or something. Having recently graduated from college, I was happily working in my chosen profession and had no intention of going back to school. Nay, I knew I wasn't going back.

“You’re going to study...” she paused, apparently re-tuning. “...film. Film scripts. You’re going to become very interested in scripts and scriptwriting.”

This woman must be picking up vibes from the last guy that was in here, I thought. But the woman turned out to be right. It just took another ten years to happen.

At the time I was working as a reporter for a regional newspaper and had my life mapped out. Eventually I’d join the staff of the Chicago Tribune and become a salty dog, hobnobbing with police detectives and political insiders, uncovering truth, justice and fighting for the American way. But I took a series of wrong turns, uncovered numerous dead ends, and wound up, just where she said, absorbing any information I could find about scriptwriting and making films.

It’s as though the thing got under my skin, like some nasty filmmaker virus that I couldn't shake. I searched out books, magazines, seminars, every tidbit of information. I even managed to get a few non-gratis (hang-around-the-set-and-we’ll-call-you-if-we-need-you) positions on some films. But I had to face facts. I was not, and had never been, a fresh-scrubbed UCLA film school grad. So if I ever did actually manage to slog my way through the Hollywood jungle (of course I’d have to move there first) and make something of myself, success would not occur prior to the age of ninety-three. And at that point I would no longer be able to see or hear the movie I'd just made.

There was only one possible way for me to become a filmmaker - make a film. Needless to say, this was an utterly horrifying thought to my loved ones. The sheer audacity and utter folly, of believing such a thing was in the realm of the possible, was in itself a shock. Not to mention the financial burden, overwhelming responsibility, logistics, technical demands, people issues, and all else. But being the lone lemming that I am, I decided to jump off the cliff.

I looked at it this way. If I wind up flipping burgers at the local diner, looking at another twenty to thrity years before I pay off that last credit card bill, at least I could say, “I did it.” As opposed to spending the rest of my life wishing I had.

Nobody Knows Anything, The Golden Nugget of Hope

Submitted by Richard Hogg

It seems that a lot of wannabe screenwriters daydream about getting up to accept an Oscar. This is the pinnacle of all the effort and creativity they pour out onto the page. For me, the end goal is to sit down at the screening, doubters at my side, and have the 20th Century Fox fanfare blast out announcing to myself more than anyone else that I should never have doubted myself.

Looking at the endless amount of screenwriting information, articles, script services available there seemed to be a lot of information to take in order to guarantee success. A word which is rarely whispered over here in Britain.

But do we need all of this. If on average I take in less than five percent of what I read (no I’m not irretrievably stupid, this is a average for most people) then think of all that wasted time spent on act structures, plot lines, climaxes, and dialog do’s and don’ts.

One day I began reading William Goldman’s now renowned “Adventures in the Screen Trade.” And in it’s pages I found a voice that gave me more hope than any of the other books on the market. Here I wasn’t being told the rules that I could learn then break, a phrase that has proved to me to be as useful as a chocolate teapot. Here I discovered a truth I still believe in today and one which I had probably read before but had been lost with the other ninety-five percent. Goldman says “nobody knows anything” and then goes onto include himself in that phrase. HE HAS NO IDEA OF HOW HE DOES WHAT HE DOES. This from the man who gave us Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid.

I looked up at a shelf groaning under the weight of other how-to books and heavyweight texts like “Story” or a Syd Field volume. Now I didn’t have to struggle with the feeling that I couldn’t be a writer because I didn’t fit the type. I never got so into my writing that I stayed up all night like they did. In fact, I seemed to self-destruct and in the middle of a creative burst of pure inspiration would find myself pacing the house just to get away from the keyboard. Was I afraid that I would mess it up? That I couldn’t get down on the page what was in my head?

I never used the techniques they mentioned and their logical train of thought seemed lost on me as I spent time writing.

Even writing this very short article I am struggling to think of things to say. Is my point valid? Do I have a point or am I just writing for the sake of writing? Why do I always end up raising more questions than I answer? But how can there be any answers if Goldman is right?

If you have read this little rant (it would be wrong to call this thought fart an article) then well done. Reading it again I realize that it will not solve any script problems or provide any inspiration. Perhaps the only thing to glean is that you either have it or you don’t. Or maybe that there are others who do what they do but not in the way they’re supposed to.

Do you write knowing that it’s not really up to standard but that it’s what you always wanted to do? Maybe you are talented enough but haven’t quite got to grips with business side of things. All I know is I get a sense of total satisfaction when I write something that I would pay to see. So I guess what I’m saying is JUST WRITE. Your imagination is the key, the books just help tidy things up.

War, Sex, Spiders, Singing, and the Culkin Spawn

Submitted by Melinda Murphy

Well, the annual Hollywood self-congratulation convention is over and, aside from Michael Moore’s passionate rant, the Oscars were duller than usual. No terrorist attacks on “America’s royalty.” Who cares whether Joan Rivers gets a whiff of sarin gas anyway?

A movie adaptation of a dated Broadway musical, Chicago, rolled off with most of the little gold-plated men. And a long-suspected child rapist, who made yet another movie about the Holocaust, scored brownie points with the decrepit white men who run the Biz.

This was another year when filmmakers seemed torn between playing it safe and some sense of originality. Because they are so scatter-shot across the crap-o-meter dial, I left a lot out. I haven’t seen several of the blockbusters. Here’s my take, roughly in order of quality but mostly just in order of what I had to say about them.

One-Hour Photo: Robin Williams finally let his wife stop picking his roles for him and it shows. Along with Insomnia, this was his ode to weirdos. ER Honcho, and one-time WGA president, John Wells exec-produced. Williams played a tight-lipped, terribly dysfunctional loner. Still, there’s something a bit art school about this; maybe it’s the terrifying lighting in the Wal-Martesque scenes.

Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers: Swashing, buckling, and then more swashing! Gollum is the creepiest CGI ever. Repetitious beautiful shots of New Zealand had me asking if Peter Jackson is working for the tourism commission? I think so. And then giant talking trees beat Saruman to a pulp! I’m holding out for the Treebeard coffee mugs.

Possession: A great romantic drama from the unlikeliest director, Neil LaBute. Two different couples from two different eras struggle to love one another within a sub-plot about historical letters and an attempt to steal them. Aaron Eckhart is an affable grad student, Jeremy Northam is typically intense as a fictional Victorian poet, and Jennifer Ehle is his fiery and sensuous lover. Gwyneth Paltrow is...Christ, why do people keep making movies with HER in them? How long before a London bus doing sixty miles per hour takes out this whiney anorexic?

About A Boy: Damn funny. Hugh Grant found a part to follow up his demonic turn in Bridget Jones’ Diary and he’s equally hilarious in this. Toni Collette is a screamingly funny London hippie who feeds her boy “Ancient Grains” cereal, dresses him in dorky organic wool and then tells him, “You’re not a sheep.” I laughed out loud the first time Grant’s character zeros in on the flier for SPAT, Single Parents Alone Together.

Igby Goes Down: I liked this! It’s about The Rich, but give it a chance. Get past the polo shirts and blazers and it’s Susan Sarandon being wonderfully evil. Ryan Phillippe does his best I’m-bored-now accent and that Caulkin kid does all right. I even liked Amanda Peet, another model-turned-actress, except she can actually emote, so I can’t really bag on her except to say anorexics really should keep their clothes on in movies. The ending is good! Give it a spin on the DVD player.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: He’s back and he’s driving without a learner’s permit! This one is an improvement; we aren’t dragged through the long list of who’s who. However, the elf engaging in a sadomasochism kind of freaked me out. If a CGI-generated character ever needed a Valium, it’s that one. He makes Gollum look calm. Oh, and there’s S-P-I-D-E-R-S!

The Hours: Heavy-handed chamber music, Nicole Kidman dons a fake nose, Julianne Moore smiles in a skeletal, grimacing way and Meryl Steep enters stage left. Ed Harris is a tortured writer/artist again. But what zapped me was the little kid, Jack Rovello. The boy who acts opposite Moore in the 1950’s scenes was mesmerizing. I haven’t seen a pre-teen that intent on industry recognition since Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense.

Insomnia: Another gutsy, mainstream-pretending-to-be-indie flick from the man who brought us Memento. Al Pacino had me twitching in a way he hasn’t since Dog Day Afternoon. Robin William’s voice drones away on the voiceover, driving Pacino and the audience nuts.

Y tu Mama Tabien (And Your Mother Too): Funnily enough, the male critics who gushed about Mulholland Drive last year mightily dissed this Mexican art house flick. Gael Bernal and Diego Luna are flaky, rich Mexican teens who set off on a road trip to impress their companion, a stunning older woman from Spain, who’s harboring several painful secrets. Of course, the MPAA had no problem with the almost pornographic Mulholland Drive (hot lesbian action!) but they put the smack down on this (possible man-on-man action) and the version I saw was severely edited. Ironically, it just took Best Foreign Language Film at the BAFTAs.

Orange County: Sooo cute. I don’t care if this was a send up of all the “inherited” talent in Hollywood. There’s good comedic delivery and even better lines, like “Hello coyote ugly!” and “If it weren’t for your step-father, we’d be living in a condo eating processed cold cuts!”

The Salton Sea: This missed broader distribution, which is too bad given the appalling crystal-meth boom sweeping America. Val Kilmer is appealing as a broken man on a revenge crusade and his sidekick, Peter Sarsgaard, is amazing as the most naive junkie ever. ER’s Eric LaSalle produced and the movie has a wide ethnic cast, which is ironic given the long-time penchant for meth among bikers and skinheads (it was Hitler’s drug of choice). Vivid imagery and a little plot twist makes this a good video rental.

Rabbit-Proof Fence: Australia does a nice send up of the true story of three girls who escape an Aboriginal boarding school in 1931 and walk 1,500 miles through the outback to find their mother. The school is run by a racist creep, Kenneth Branagh, who wants to breed the black out of the Abo kids, a la the U.S. and Canada’s domesticating of the American Indian. Just like Indian kids, they’re beaten if they speak their own language and when they’re trained, they’re farmed out to white families as domestic help. What’s more amazing is, Aborigines didn’t even have the right to vote in Australia until just a few decades ago.

Minority Report: Stephen Spielberg FINALLY gets dirty. Some scenes in this pricey, slow-to-finish-production are seedy and unsavory - and that’s good! I was beginning to think the Peter Pan of Cinema didn’t know what sex was.

The Bourne Identity: Matt Damon dices, slices, and - ouch! - stabs people with ballpoint pens. Franke Potente does well as his sort-of romantic interest but doesn’t scream enough when they’re driving the Euro-beatermobile through France on one wheel and no brakes. Plenty of white-knuckle fun.

Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys: That Caulkin kid wrestles with puberty and, in this case, a nun played by Jody Foster who he perceives as Satan. Literally. Large chunks of the film are played out Saturday cartoon style as a comic book story. It’s a little disjointed but has a nice indie feel.

Enigma: (2001 but came here in 2002) A very Brit production, complete with backing from Mick Jagger, about England’s race to crack Nazi Germany’s enigma code. Loosely based on real events. Dougray Scott decided that math geek meant he shouldn’t wash his hair and then stare slack-jawed into space a lot. Uber model Saffron Burrows does a brief turn as an amorous femme fatale and Kate Winslet (who was preggers at the time) is carefully dressed down to look ugly next to statuesque Burrows. But cool Jeremy Northam’s weasely secret agent man is the only real reason to watch this made-by-a-rock-star film.

Signs: M. Night Shyamalan follows up Unbreakable and trades in Bruce Willis for Mel Gibson as a lapsed minister who lives on a Pennsylvania farm when this War of the Worlds scenario unfolds. Gibson’s minister is the ONLY person in all of America who doesn’t own a gun! Shyamalan spends a lot of time building his characters and letting them drive the bus, which works, especially in the scene where Joaquin Pheonix is watching TV. There’s some laughs too, with the kids, including another Caulkin spawn.

Blue Crush: A girls-have-fun-too flick with a tired old plot, but the actors, the setting, and the photography almost make you forget you know exactly how it will end. Michelle Rodriguez and company make the most of bikini bathing suits, gettin’ loaded and hangin’ with the howlies. I like this because I have a thing for surfer movies. There’s something far more mystical about surfing versus mountain climbing or pogoing off a cliff on a mountain bike. Any boy can do that.

Full Frontal: Over-blown indie look-alike by Soderbergh. A vanity project where he dazzled us with namedropping. Julia Roberts acts confused, and so was I. Blair Underwood is...well, uh...he’s no Denzel. He’s certainly no Jeffrey Wright, either. He’s pretty but, well...David Hyde Pierce is a writer who’s marriage is floundering. He doesn’t pull a Whiney Niles thanks to hashish brownies. David Duchovny is ultra-sleazy as a movie exec who misses his own party for unsavory reasons. I’m wondering if Duchovny and Soderbergh didn’t create this character deliberately after the gossip about Duchovny and massage parlors while he was still in Vancouver waving flashlights around for Chris Carter?

The Pianist: I haven’t seen this and here’s why - Roman Polanski. I just don’t like him and I like his writing and filmmaking even less. Remember Johnny Depp and The Ninth Gate? How about Tess? Rosemary’s Baby? “Hail Satan! Hail Satan!” Please! I know he co-wrote Chinatown but I’m still not impressed, maybe because of what he allegedly did to a pre-teen all those years ago. Once again Hollywood has proven that it is still run by very old, white Jewish men who reward subject matter first, quality second. The Holocaust was a terrible tragedy and one of the cruelest periods in Western history. Society will never be the same, but how many times can you shove extras into bread ovens and not have it become trite?

Lovely & Amazing: Catherine Keener is a screwed-up daughter in a family of screwed-up women who are, really, like everybody else. They’re obsessed with their weight, so much so that the matriarch, British actress Brenda Blethyn, gets liposuction. She ends up in the hospital in critical condition. Dermot Mulroney is the narcissistic, befuddled Hollywood actor who beds one of the dysfunctionals. Turns out, he’s just as concerned about his physical appearance as she is. Blethyn’s matriarch has an adopted daughter. The daughter is African-American and obese. The film asks hard questions about the objectification of women, stereotypes, race, age, etc. and tries to answer some of them. Guys will hate this flick.

Unfaithful: One of my favorite actresses, Diane Lane, who has certainly aged better than me (we’re both 37), has sex with a dangerous Frenchie on the stairs, in a public toilet, on a table, under a table...let’s see...anyhow, yoga can help anyone except Richard Gere’s character. But I did like the ending.

Reign of Fire: The British Isles get eaten by dragons. Matthew McConaughey must save everyone because he’s the ‘Merikun; thereby, tougher and more macho. The lizards are great! The plot - what plot? I heard two guys wrote this as a spec script submission. Get crackin’ on those soulless, plotless action-packed stories.

The Rules of Attraction: In the beginning, Shannyn Sossamon’s character gets viciously date raped...or does she? James Van Der Beek is a misunderstood, impoverished drug dealer. Ian Somerhalder is the hot gay guy who’s moping after Van Der Beek. Kip Pardue is unconvincing as a recently-returned-from-fucking-everything-in-Europe ex-boyfriend. Why would anyone line up to fuck Pardue? He looks like he asks customers if they want fries with that order. Russell Sams is underused and a standout as Dick, Somerhalder’s occasional lover. Sams acts drunk and obnoxious better than anybody else and drunk and obnoxious is the main theme! Roger Ebert was gushing on his television show that “no college boys on Earth would ignore half-naked coeds making out in a lesbian fashion.” Obviously, this is going on Ebert’s top shelf right next to Mulholland Drive. In fact, there’s so many stark nekid girlies in this, I’m guessing Avary went to a strip club and asked everybody to come be in his movie. I have faith most real coeds aren’t this stupid despite what slimy creep Brett Easton Ellis pens.

Kissing Jessica Stein: All aboard the silly Greed Train for $elling Lesbian $tereotypes to $traight Men! Our conductor is Howard Stern.

The Ring: I don’t know what Jane Alexander or Brian Cox were doing in this - making a house payment? Naomi Watts manages to keep some of her clothes on. Renting videos can kill you and the “new” formula for horror flicks is to flash gross and unsettling images. Here’s the plot: BLOOD, SCARY FACE, BUGS!

We Were Soldiers: God help us, writer/filmmaker Randall Wallace is at it again. Mel Gibson gives one of his sloppiest performances as a stalwart commando who leads his “boys” into Vietnam. Since HBO hit the ball out of the park with Band of Brothers, these war pictures are just pathetic. And I’m a girl who likes war movies! Just buy Band of Brothers on DVD.

Black Hawk Down: Ridley Scott is Bruckheimer’s new bitch?! The man who made Alien and Thelma and Louise, spews out a celluloid mess about heat, dust, and bad lighting. See above.