no devil lived on

This must be shared with the world!

posted by bumbletbw @ 10:37 PM 0 comments

The End of a Long Silence

So campers, I'm sure at this point I'm keeping this journal for myself, so I suppose it doesn't matter how infrequently I frequent this place. A lot has happened in the time between my last post and now, and still nothing has really changed. School as of now is FUBAR. I can pull everything together, but I'm going to need the time and the desire to finish on my own. My brother's band is kaput and so far he has been nothing but discouraging about my desire to enter the entertainment industry. I can understand why, but I'm certainly going to have to go without any familial support on this one.

As far as my film career is going, it's not. No shorts, no nothing. Plenty of ideas, but I have neither the equipment, nor the time to do what it is that I'd like to do. What I have been doing is watching a LOT of films. To date, I've rented something along the lines of 70+ movies since joining Netflix, my DVD collection has grown beyond 150 movies and TV shows, and I've enjoyed quite a few that I had never been exposed to before. I know a lot, and I've seen a lot, but my technical knowledge is nearly non-existant, I'm moving toward more the role of the film critic than the filmmaker. But I will make several films in the span of my lifetime, even if I need another vocation to support my avocation.

posted by bumbletbw @ 8:19 PM 0 comments

A Simple Update

Not much to report on the movie front. Since my last post I have joined Netflix, and have rented a slew of movies in the meantime. Unfortunately, my movie watching schedule willl be unduely interrupted now that college has started back up. I've got my ass in quite a sling here getting registered, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'm not completely screwed yet.

I haven't really dug into 5 C's of Cinematography or Painting With Light yet. They're both very technical books, and have tricks and suggestions for certain situations, so it's not really practical until I start to shoot something.

I recently came up with some themes that I want to insert into my stories, well my comedic stories at least. It's sort of a parallell to Oscar Wilde, only with my own personal little twists. I odn't particularly want to give it away because, even though no one is reading this blog other than people I know, I'm not going to let anyone cash in on any of my brainstorms but me, dammit!!! Some pro writer could be randomly parusing the internet and run into my blog and BAM! he makes a million bucks on my serendipity. I'm too greedy to let that happen.

One of my friends from some other online community that shall remain nameless is a small time wannabe filmmaker. He recently updated his page and said that production on his latest movie was going to be delayed and that he was working on another idea with a friend of his to produce it for about 30,000 GBP ($65,000)!!! Now I've seen this kid's stuff. Amusing, but amateurish at best. I don't want to downtalk him, but I'm very skeptical that he knows what he's doing with a camera. I know I certainly wouldn't give him any money to film my wedding, let alone something that came out of his imagination. He says that he just wants to pay his actors and his crew, but geez ... I know I wouldn't want to be him when the investors want their money back.

posted by bumbletbw @ 8:03 PM 1 comments

I Never Read Like This

I have a sudden thirst for knowledge. I've bought five books in the past month, read two and a half of them, bought and rented tons of movies ... good lord, why can't I do this for the education I'm PAYING for?!?

I just finished Rebel Without A Crew, and all I can say is that for a man's personal diary it was quite compelling. It made me nervous reading it from begining to end, from his story about getting into film school to getting wined and dined by ollywood for a movie he couldn't give away to the Spanish video market. His entries about going from one festival to another and promoting the film after Sundance '93 is particularly fast paced. And I even knew the outcome of most of this before I even bought the book.

Well, the book may not do the same for everyone, but I certainly found it most enjoyable. It's a narrative of filmmaking as opposed to a how-to, or textbook for filmmaking like the rest of the reading material I've acquired. Dean and Rodriguez however offer similar advice on making films: MAKE THEM!!! Don't store yourself away at film school for 16 grand a year learning about how to make movies on a scale that you'll probably never get a chance to see, let alone control. Rodriguez quips that folks who spend a lot of money making bad film school films end up being kibitzing producers and critcs, that tell you how to tell your story. Both directors tell you to film as much as possible and learn what works for you, as a storyteller and a director, don't sweat the small stuff and then apply what you've learned on a larger scale if you ever get the opportunity.

(Side note: There's an interesting annecdote that Robert talks about. At Sundance, after El Mariachi won the Audience Award, a film student from UCLA told his wife how much he hated Robert. Not because he thought the film was terrible, but because he had spent so much on his education - six semesters $20K a pop - that he just realized had been worthless, and how much more energetic and experimental his style was before going to school.)

The thing I keep hearing from film school students is that it's completely worthless, and the more and more I read about it, the more I agree with them. I'll have to drop my friend Mike an IM and ask how film school is going, a tee hee! Though he was making some really fun stuff before he left for film school, I hope they don't turn him off from making movies.

Basically they both say taht you're never going to learn anything about movie making if you don't make movies. Good bad, stylistic, or hackney .... be prolific. Both Dean and Rodriguez stress the importance of being self-sufficient, Rodriguez much moreso than Dean. That way you don't have to rely on anyone for anything. In fact, once Rodriguez has given the master print of El Mariachi to the studio to make 35mm prints, the printers weren't careful and the machine ate the openning sequence. Lesson: No one cares more about your project than you do!!! Try not to let people tool around with it!

I know I'm psyched about making movies. I don't know about anyone else. Today I even bought some classic film school, movie-making texts. One called The Five C's of Cinematography, and the other called Painting With Light. Despite Rodriguez's insistance that technicality is superfluous to storytelling, I would like to know my bearings before I jump headfirst into the deep end. Right now I just want to learn as much as I can, and I can afford 40 bucks to help me understand more, and de-mysticise everything that I'm probably thinking too much about.

posted by bumbletbw @ 12:51 PM 0 comments

Working Progress

I'm about 100 pages or so into Rebel now, and the book is actually a good read. Robert talks about his childhood and how he began by making home movies, first on film, and then on VHS tape because it was much more flexible and less expensive. I've been through his trials and tribulations getting into film school, getting the idea for Mariachi, doing a month-long drug study to fund it, shoot it, edit it, and pitch it to the Spanish straight-to-video market. We're still sort of in the middle of the pitch process, but now Robert has landed two agents at ICM (International Creative Management), one of the largest management firms in the world. They're instructing him on how to sell El Mariachi and how to posture himself to enter the studio system. Still at this point he's also in school at UT-Austin, but took a month-long trip to LA to pitch his movie.

It's an interesting story ... at least it is for me. It's given me some insight as to how one shoots a movie in two weeks with no budget. I still can't believe he got this done for $7,000, the film stock alone was half his budget. He did, however, transfer the 16mm film to video so that he could do his editing without having to make a positive print of the 16mm. Credit to Robert, he had a plan and he made it work. I can't wait to finish the book and get to his comments in "10-Minute Film School."

I think my parents have gotten the hint that they're going to have another starving artist on their hands. My brother, who has an $80,000 chemistry degree from one of the toughest programs in the nation and a near perfect score on the MCAT, chose to forego med school for the life of a Rock n' Roll guitarist. My family has seen me recently toting my books around, which is highly suspicious because I hardly ever read anything, seeing $30 Film School in my hand is a pretty good indicator that it's not politics that's going to be in my immediate future. So, one family, two sons, one BA, one BS, both prefer a creative occupation as opposed to the one they studied for four (and in my case five) years. I could hear my folks' eyes roll when they asked me what I was planning on doing after next semester. I told them that I was kicking around the idea of working at a television station as a part of the production staff. They did their best to discourage me by mentioning that it's not the best paying job in the world. It kills me that they're unsupportive, but they've been through this once already and have done their best to discourage me from doing the same. No dice.

One of the things that I've liked about Rebel Without A Crew was the introduction, an excerpt from the first appendix "10-Minute Film School":

"So you want to be a filmmaker? First step to being a filmmaker is to stop saying that you want to be a filmmaker. It took me forever to be able to tell anyone I was a filmmaker and keep a straight face until I was well on my way. But the truth was, I had been a filmmaker ever since the day I closed my eyes and pictured myself making movies. The rest was inevitable. So you don't want to be a filmmaker, you are a filmmaker. Go make yourself a business card."

I think that bit is always going to stick with me. Every time I feel discouraged, I just have to think about how many times someone like Robert had been nay-sayed to death. Both before he made El Mariachi all the way until he sold it. Also, there is encouragement in the front of $30 Film School, when Mike Dean (the author) mentions that unless you work for a studio, or are already well known and/or connected, you shouldn't plan on making any money from your films. He said, "If you want to make money, go into real estate." Which is true. I don't plan on supporting myself by my filmmaking alone. I plan on having a job that funds my basement/garage/bedroom production company and offers me some experience with a camera and editing equipment. That's why I want a job as production staff at a television station. Most everything they shoot on nowadays is on DV. I can learn shooting, editing and possibly lighting over the course of a year or two, and pump my disposable income straight into my passion. If the job pays 18 grand a year, I'd be ecstatic. If the job doesn't pay as well as I hope, then maybe I'll look into retail.

I was thinking television station (with a news broadcast) for a variety of reasons:

1. The experience with a camera and editing equipment.
2. The availability of television stations in the area.
3. The ability to find a similar position elsewhere should I decide to move.
4. The possibility of advancement and pay raises.

If all of that fails, then I'll be back where I started, but at least I'll have the experience and the money it afforded me. It's a plan. It's the first REAL plan that I've had for my life. I've kicked around a lot of ideas, but never wanted to commit myself to them because I wasn't sure if I wanted to follow through on them: law school, politics, etc. All of them just an answer to give whilst I try to figure out what it is that I really wanted to do. I've got that done, and now I just need to find another good smoke screen to keep them off my back for a few more years. I'm going to give myself five years to get this done, so if nothing looks like it's going to pan out by the time I'm 28, then I suppose it will be time to go back to school or find another career. Not exactly what my parents had in mind, but this is my life and I'm going to do what makes ME happy.

posted by bumbletbw @ 5:26 AM 0 comments

A Little R&R

It's been a while since my last update. I'm back from the beach, which was super fun. Chilling out for seven days with three of my best friends in a beach-front house ... it's hard to beat that. Good food, good beer, good times, and good people. There's really only one thing I can think of to make that sort of trip perfect, and if you can't think of what's missing that's your problem. Topsail Island is not exactly a swinging singles type of beach, but hey (our catch phrase for the week) "... you're at the beach!" Most of all it was HOT, and I was there, right in the thick of it, walking 6 miles straight in 95 degree heat and 80% humidity. It was slightly annoying, but the double digit winds and water took care of most of the cooling down. Unless you were running a marathon, you'd have been okay. Definitely the highlight of the summer.

When I got back my order from Amazon was on my bed. I purchased Rebel Without A Crew by Robert Rodriguez, and I'm looking forward to reading it. It seems to be his personal diary of filming and promoting his first feature film, El Mariachi (a direct-to video movie shot for $7,000 in 1992 and prequel to Desperado), and a couple of appendices one of which is titled "10-Minute Film School" the other is the original El Mariachi script. I'm pretty much finished with $30 Film School until I actually shoot something and have to start editing, so I'll cover that material as needed. I found the book a good place to start, although I still haven't received the CD-ROM for it which is kind of a pisser because I sent for that a week before my Amazon order. I'll e-mail the company again and if they're not responsive, I'll drop by Walden's and see what they can do. As deep as I am into it, the book really isn't as helpful without one. I also picked up a book on basic shot set ups, movements and storyboarding. I'm anxious to read all of them. I haven't paid much attention to my story since before I left. I didn't get much reading or work done down there, but then I never intended on it.

posted by bumbletbw @ 3:52 AM 0 comments

Verbal Diarrhea

It's amazing that for the first time in a long time, I feel like I'm making progress. For better or for worse, I'm going to try and make a career in film or TV work out for me. Over the past few weeks, I've sort of devoted myself to expanding my knowledge of film, and it's working. I'm starting to make some connections both from standpoint as a writer and storyteller, but also as a student of film. I'm starting to see patterns in the types of films I like to watch: Tarantino, Ritchie, Hitchcock, Leone, Romero, Carpenter ... even Lucas were all inspired stylistically with the pulp novels and comics - the serials of the early 20th century.

Lovecraft and Hammet, Black Mask and Weird Tales, all of the pulp writers of this era draw influence from other writers, particularly Twain, Poe, Fitzgerald and Hemingway. The former two popularized and legitimized American short stories, the latter were the pinnacle of style of that time span. Kurosawa, and Leone both adapted a Dashiel Hammet novel, Red Harvest, into the respective films: Yojimbo, and A Fistful of Dollars. In 1996, Walter Hill also adapted the same story for his ultraviolent, bullet-riddled Last Man Standing. George Romero and Sam Raimi draw heavy influence from horror writers like H.P. Lovecraft, in fact Raimi borrows directly from Lovecraft's literary invention, the Necronomicon, in his first two films: Evil Dead I and II.

My point to all of this is that I'm seeing the connections in my head. I'm seeing where all of the people who have inspired me are drawing their influences from, and where they drew theirs from. So now, the path almost seems laid out in front of me. For me, I treat learning about film and writing like some people treat learning to play the guitar: you have your influences, and that directly influences you, but it's also very good to be familiar with who influenced the people that influenced them. To put it into a philosophical context, "If you want to know where you're going, you have to know where you've been." It seems to add more depth to your style, and I feel that it gives you a foundation to build on as an artist.

That's the reason why I like History, it gives you reference points. It lets you know (usually in an indirect manner) how you got to be where you are and why the world is like it is today. As opposed to human history, sociology and political science, it's much easier to track down the history of motion picture because it's only been in existence for a little over a century. Not only that, but the progression of motion pictures is extremely well documented. As of now, I'm trying to track down my roots in motion picture history. I'm tracing through the lineage of my favorite directors, and hopefully discovering new ones, adding to my knowledge and understanding.

Now this may sound like a modern cliche, but I really have Tarantino to thank for this recent surge of creativity and desire. The boat loads of extras on Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction scream to me, "Here, this is where I started. I hope this helps." Well it does ... for me, anyhow. At this point I'm trying to prepare myself to do what I have to do to make it a part of my life. I'll be happy even if I never make a penny off of my work.

That's a lot of crap, but I needed to get that out. Sometimes just thinking about it isn't enough.

In other news I recently found out that on of my friends from high school is an extra and grip on a zombie movie that's being filmed in Orlando. Apparently, there's a good chance of Lions Gate Films distributing the flick because I think they were planning on going straight to video. I hope that the film gets distributed, that would be a good thing for Andy.

posted by bumbletbw @ 4:11 PM 0 comments

Waiting For McGuffin

Well in spite of some slacking in other areas of my life, a story idea popped into my head yesterday. It's a genre piece, I suppose. It would be along the lines of a crime, noir, pulp, heist films, and in my head right now it's also a period piece. I don't know how I'd film it - the costumes, the exteriors, etc. - that's all way out of my league at this point. It all depends on how much I write for it. This could be the best thing we could film, or it could be something I hold off on for a while until our operation gets more professional. Really, there's no sense in worrying about it until we decide to do it. I'm just happy that I've got an idea, and I'm writing.

As stories go for the genre, it's nothing spectacular, but it doesn't suck either at least so far, so good. I've got the premise, now I just need to flesh out a plot and some twists and turns that happen in the meantime. Really what I need is an object to start, a McGuffin of sorts. Something to get the ball rolling, maybe it turns out to be what the movie's about, maybe it isn't. Perhaps I could pull a Maltese Falcon and make the entire plot and the happenings inconsequential because they never find what they're looking for.

I'm going to try to not get ahead of myself, because out-clevering myself is probably the worst thing I can do. That will make everything absurd and melodramatic ... it'd be like the ending of Murder By Death, only purposefully funny. Well, in the meantime, if anyone reading this (Maybe I should rephrase that as "If there is anyone that reads this.") has an idea, feel free to let me know, the worst thing I can say is, "No, I'm not going to use that! That's a fucking horrible idea, you mindless twat!!!"

posted by bumbletbw @ 5:35 AM 0 comments