Amie

Nothing unusual, nothing strange
Close to nothing at all
The same old scenario, the same old rain
And there's no explosions here
Then something unusual, something strange
Comes from nothing at all
I saw a spaceship fly by your window
Did you see it disappear?

Amie come sit on my wall
And read me the story of O
And tell it like you still believe
That the end of the century
Brings a change for you and me
Nothing unusual, nothing's changed
Just a little older that's all
You know when you've found it,
There's something I've learned
'Cause you feel it when they take it away

Something unusual, something strange
Comes from nothing at all
But I'm not a miracle
And you're not a saint
Just another soldier
On the road to nowhere

Amie come sit on my wall
And read me the story of O
And tell it like you still believe
That the end of the century
Brings a change for you and me

And Amie come sit on my wall
And read me the story of O
And tell it like you still believe
That the end of the century
Brings a change for you and me

- Damien Rice

Tales of a Student Producer, Part 3

We've almost got all our footage now. We have many one more weekend's worth of work, which has to be filmed either this weekend or next because the university's about to confiscate our equipment for the audacious reason of giving it to other students in other classes.

We filmed at a coffee shop on Sunday. We tried finding a place to shoot in our town, but all we have are chains and they were really unhelpful. One of the smaller, more local chains, who proposes to be dedicated to community arts, wanted to charge us $40/hour, even during business hours. Being a student film, we don't exactly have that sort of budget. So we branched out and looked at coffee shops in a neighboring town and found two that would let us film during business hours, no problem what so ever. Definitely no charge. Extremely helpful. I think that even having people who give you time and don't rush you allows us to also take our time and have time to move out of their way if they need us to. If we're not rushed to take a shot we don't have to muscle our way around to get the filming done. So if you're looking for a business location, look outside of the corporate chains and find an independent business. Even if it's a little out of the way. The cooperation makes the shoot much more wonderful.

I haven't seen any dailies yet. The director and cinematographer have, and they say that some color correction needs to be done on one of the scenes, but overall it's looking good. We did get some bad news from the lab that our first day's footage, the beautiful outdoor fall scene that we waited and planned and postponed and stressed over to make sure that we could capture the most brilliant fall colors, yes that un-reshootable footage had black lines running through it. It was frustrating to get that news, especially since there's about a foot of snow on the ground now, and the lab said that it looked like a film stock problem, not a camera failure or lab problem. The only consolation was the fact that the footage wasn't really necessary to the plot. But the director viewed the footage the other day and said that the lines aren't as bad as we were dreading and there's actually some usable footage. Whew.

The farther we get alone, the less stress I feel and the more fun I have. Maybe it's because I grew tired of being stressed more over this project than any of my actually school work or maybe it's because we bonded more as a crew and learned how to have fun together while we filmed. My coproducer and I get along really well, and she might produce my 1940s short. We were talking about film sets the other day and how each one is such a completely different experience from the next. I think it's just another reason why working in the film industry is a bit risky. And I think that's why it's an industry of recommendations. The people you work with make a huge difference on your experience of the shoot, and if you find people you work with well, you'll want to work with them again. Otherwise it's a gamble about who your next coworker is going to be. And consequently what your next film experience is going to be like.

How to be a Screenwriting Master

Actually, I don't know how to do that.

But I do know how to be a student in a master screenwriting class. Sorta. We had our first class on Wednesday, and I think it might have been one of the more terrifying moments of my undergraduate career. I had calmed down from my will-never-have-a-job-and-will-probably-starve rant of earlier, but I was still feeling the expectations. We had to pitch our ideas to B. and the rest of our classmates, and the first person to pitch has been working on her idea since she started filming it as a short this past year (this is the film I'm coproducing, actually). And I get really nervous summarizing my ideas, especially since it's so completely opposite of what I wrote for V. and B. this past year. But I pitched it, and even with its shaky start, B. liked it. Talking it out actually helped me define it a little more, and B. got to go on a few theological soapboxes. A good time was had by all.

We had to write 5 page treatments for today, and that was difficult. I actually don't remember if we had to write treatments for our previous screenplay; I think we just did step outlines. I've never written an action movie treatment. The second act of course got muddled, and so there were paragraphs like "So and so and evil person fight." I just didn't mention the theological discussions at all. It's only supposed to be five pages, right?

But I'm really excited about this Current Draft. I think I'm going to be able to delve into a lot of spiritual issues. I just want to be able to handle them with tact and craft. And though this will be my first action script, it will be my fifth screenplay, and I already have the feeling that it will be my best yet. And this will be the script that I give to David Koepp. : )

And the feedback so far on the second draft of "Collapse" has been pretty good. I'm submitting it to our most prestigious university competition in Febuary, and am hoping to get a third draft done before then. I'm just trying to decide if I want to continue with the changes I made for B. or create a completely different plot line that I might like better personally.

It just dumped snow on us the other day and it's stuck. And its completely beautiful, but it makes me wish I had my 1940s short ready to shoot, because this is exactly the type of weather I imagined for it. But then again, as my friend pointed out to me, no one really wants to shoot outdoors in the middle of the winter in Michigan.

It's Started

My last first day of undergraduate classes starts tomorrow. And up until about forty-five minutes ago, I would have told you that I was actually looking forward to it, that I'm even a little bit excited for my classes. It's past that time now, and everyone else has gone to bed, even my slightly sniffly roommate, which is a huge disappointment. Because I was going to stand on her swively desk chair to get eye level with her on her loft bed and unload my sudden change of feelings onto her. Here's the problem:

I seriously feel sick, and I think I stopped breathing for a minute while I was brushing my teeth.

Not in an "I'm actually feeling ill" sort of way. More in a "I just realized my imminent death is approaching" sort of way. Because here's the thing about a film degree. Sooner or later, you realized that you're qualified to do --

Absolutely nothing.

My roommate and I watched The Nines tonight (we really enjoyed it, Mr. August, and I hope to be able to expound on it more thoughtfully when the possibility that my head is going to explode passes). Mr. August's blog is one that I check fairly frequently, so I decided to do a little post-viewing research about The Nines. Poking around his blog led me to this post about a young grad who went to LA to make his mark on the world. He gets around making contacts, PAing, and writing what he hopes to be his directorial debut. This is all great, this is all wonderful, this is what we, as young film grads, expect out of the world. Until it hits me, once again, that I am qualified to do --

Absolutely nothing.

Adam Davis wrote and directed several shorts while at college, had John-freaking-August as a recommended contact, and had plenty of experience to flesh out his resume. And for all his hard work, he gets very short term PA jobs for indies and shorts. Yes I know we all have to pay our dues and yes I know that clearly some how it's paying for the rent and yes I know that those jobs will lead to bigger things. That's not why I'm panicked. I'm panicked because Adam did a lot before he graduated. He was experienced. I have done nothing. Okay, so this is not entirely true. I have PAed, I have written and directed my own (video *gasp/shudder*) short, I'm coproducing a film. But to be honest, because of my short time at my second uni and my pursuit of screenwriting, I have basically zero technical knowledge. Who is going to hire me to be a PA if my only credits are a two day PA gig for a student film and a coproducing byline? They could probably pick up someone from Circuit City who has just as much technical knowledge as I do!

Perhaps this wouldn't concern me so much. Perhaps I wouldn't feel so sick. I have been talking recently about how I feel that I've received such a good education as far as my writing is concerned that I'm not even sure I need an industry day job while I'm practicing and writing and rewriting, waiting for my big break. However, now that I'm in the master class, now that I've gotten an email from my first screenwriting professor about my class standing (which was p-r-e-t-t-y good, apparently), I am petrified. I have never been at the top of the game. I have always been second best or second choice. Top ten material but never first place. I don't know how I got here or what to do next or how to even stay here. That's part of the terror of creating, I think. We never really know how good it's going to be until we make it, and we're never really certain if we'll be able to do it again. Even if I do have some shred of talent that will eventually turn into a writing career for me, what am I going to do while I'm still working on getting there? There is no way I'm going to have a marketable script before I graduate. What do I do in the meantime?

It's the graduation panics. It makes my stomach feel three times smaller, my breath come in short shallow spurts, and my eyes roll up toward the back of my head. It's the question of how am I supposed to survive after my last class is over? What am I going to do? How am I not going to starve? Who's going to hire me? And how can I fool them for as long as possible until they realize they've made a mistake and hire the blithering fool they mistook for a real film graduate? What happened to that large 3-person box from camp I planned to live in?

It's in moments like these that I wish I would have chosen a sensible major, one that actually qualified me to do things, that I could have gained quantitative knowledge from. Or at least a shred of confidence.

Please excuse me while I go curl up into a fetal ball.

And in other good news...

We have three screenwriting classes at my university. The first one you write a screenplay, the second one you re-write that screenplay, and in the third one you write a new screenplay. They're all competition based. Half of the students in One get into Two, and half the students from Two get into Three. I finished the second class this semester and was waiting with bated breath for an email one way or the other on the third class. Out of the twelve students in our class, only five would make it into Three for winter semester. Christmas Day I opened my email to find a congratulatory email from my professor - I got into the third class! One step closer to my dream of being a real, working, money-making screenwriter.

Now a decision to make : do I write the children's fantasy Neverwhere meets Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium or the action-adventure Da Vinci Code meets The Matrix?

Amy's Guide to Moral Living

Or, How does one become a movie critic?

Sometimes I wonder what else I can do with a film degree besides make movies. If I can't write movies, maybe I can write about movies. I know it's not that easy, of course. And to be truthful, I'm really bad at discerning what makes a good movie. I spent a semester in a class that just read scripts. Good scripts, produced scripts, some award winning scripts. And it was sometimes very difficult for me to understand what it was about the script that got it greenlit. And when I watch movies, I often do it from a pure enjoyment perspective (should one really mix work and fun?). And it definitely takes me more than one viewing to formulate some sort of critical stance on a film.

Then I was perusing Bill Martell's blog and came across Mark Twain's Rules for Writing. Basically, Twain was using his rules to completely ream another writer, but it got me thinking. If there are rules for good writing, there should be (and are, though I think they're a secret) rules for great movie making. I'm big on theory as it is, that writers and filmmakers should have an understanding of why they're making movies and what they believe to be the purpose of film. And an extension of that is understanding what makes a great film, to them. So, it may take some research, but I'd like to compile rules for great filmmaking and fantastic storytelling. Think about my favourite movies, what makes them great. Write it down, 'cause otherwise I'll forget.

Figuring out what makes the movies I love great will only make the stories I write better.

The Stork Brings Them

From Finding Neverland
Mary Ansell Barrie: I was hopelessly naive when I married you. I imagined that brilliant people disappeared to some secret place where good ideas floated around like leaves in autumn, and I hoped at least once you would take me there with you.
J.M. Barrie: There is no such place.
Mary Ansell Barrie: Yes there is: Neverland.

Sometimes I do something I hate very much, that grates against my pride and sensibilities, that makes me cringe and mumbled excuses. And that is summarize my stories. After I manage to word vomit something out, someone will invariably say, "I could never be creative enough to write something."

This ends up being very embarrassing for me, because I feel like I hardly have any creativity at all. If someone doesn't say something like that, they'll ask me where I get my ideas. It's quite easy, and if you follow this advice, you will both have the ideas and the creativity to write your own story.

Cannibalize your life.

Seriously, if you daydream, and who doesn't, you can come up with a story. Both my favourite scripts have been inspired by real life events or issues. All it takes is asking, "What if?"

I already have a couple of ideas for future projects, but if I were to take my own life and cannibalize it, here's what I would do:

Two of my friends at college and I apparently have similar tastes in guys. At some point, two of us have been interested in the same guy at the same time. And we always joke that we'd all get married, but to the one guy we were never interested in. So if both O. and I had been interested in X. at one point, T. would be the one to marry him. We joke about that a lot.

But what if that actually happened? Love triangles are more than popular in movies. What if you had *three*? (The old fashioned kind, guys.) Maybe it would be too much, I don't know. Maybe it would be like a reversed-gender Sabrina on acid. But -- it could be so much fun. It would be like the chaos of Shakespeare's comedies and the humor of My Best Friend's Wedding. The possibilities are endless, and that was a "What If" I came up with with friends. Maybe people don't think about their lives that way. Maybe no one sees the possibilities in their daydreams. Not just anything can be a story, it's true, and not every story makes a good film. Execution is a skill. Execution is an art. But stories? There's a minefield every day.

"People on the outside think there's something magical about writing, that you go up in the attic at midnight and cast the bones and come down in the morning with a story, but it isn't like that. You sit in back of the typewriter and you work, and that's all there is to it." - Harlan Ellison

The Finish Line

The earth is warm next to my ear
Insect noise is all that I hear
A magic trick makes the world disappear
The skies are dark, they're dark but they're clear

A distant motorcade and suddenly there's joy
The snow and ticker tape blurs all my senses numb
It's like the finish line where everything just ends
The crack of radios seems close enough to touch

Cold water, cleaning my wounds
A sad parade, with a single balloon
I'm done with this, I'm counting to ten
Bluest seas, running to them

I feel like I am watching everything from space
And in a minute I'll hear my name and I'll wake
I think the finish line's a good place we could start
Take a deep breath, take in all that you could want

- by Snow Patrol

Tales of a Student Producer, Part 2

That's not really my job. I'd love to just do slate all weekend, but usually I only get to play with the slate when we're short crewed.

We're about a third of the way done with shooting. We ran into some frustrating location issues for this weekend and, long story short, had to cancel the shoot. I hate doing locations. The place we were hoping to shoot wanted to charge us $40 an hour, both for overnight shooting and during business hours. We understood that we'd probably have to pay some for the overnight because most businesses like to have an employee there - but who is getting paid $40/hour at a coffee shop? Or even 20?

I've worked on one other senior honors thesis. I only PAed for just two days, but I learned some interesting things and got a little bit of a feel for the way it ran. It ran a lot different from the way we run ours. And for a while, I really struggled with that. The project is already pretty stressful for me, and having that comparison made it more difficult.

Until I put things into perspective. The other thesis film was produced and directed by a team of senior film students who had done a project of similar length and scope the previous year. So it wasn't their first time around the rodeo. Our project's director is talented and knowledgeable, but it's her first time directing some of this scope. Our producing team has never before produced anything of this length and are relatively early in their film training. And we're running on a very talented but limited crew.

Basically, I realized that the two different films I worked on were, in fact, two different films. And I should treat them as such. And that helped a lot. Realizing that I didn't have to live up to some standard that didn't actually even compare made me feel a little more at ease with the job. I was talking with my screenwriting professor the other day about how producing was probably making me more stressed than all my classes, he sort of raised his eyebrow as if to tell me that I needed to rethink something. And he reminded me that everyone in everything has a learning curve. I think the goal is to just maintain your course on that journey and not let yourself be overwhelmed by the mistakes and challenges that are inherent in improvement.

Sure, it's a lot of work and it's stressful sometimes. But I have no doubt that this film is going to be great. Our crew members are so talented and skilled that I can't imagine it coming out anything less than stellar. And they're amazingly fun to work with too. And that keeping that perspective helps me realize what an enjoyable experience this is.

"If you were a melody...I used only the good notes."

I was walking back to my house today, and I passed this tall, kind of goofy looking kid with large earphones, and I had a flash of sudden realization/dread.

I don't know if anyone else ever inadvertently daydreams about how they're going to meet their future spouse, but I have -- you know, only once or twice.

My two best friends from high school are getting married this summer. They're making smart choices. One is marrying an engineer, the other is marrying a film major - but he's got a plan. So they're both making practical choices. Here's the thing. I'm not going to make the practical choice. I'm going to run into someone on the street, he'll say something sorta goofy, and I'll be completely smitten, which will be a sign since I've been so rarely smote on a first meeting, etc. etc. etc. Sounds cute enough, right? So what's with the dread?

I know I'm going to make a completely irrational, impratical choice --
I'm going to marry a musician.