no devil lived on

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