This week we guest blogged for producer Maria Lokken (@Maria_56 on Twitter). She asked us why we made films. Big question. You can read our response, which focuses largely on the pleasures of shared storytelling, here.
In answering Maria’s question, we realized that our response took us in two different directions. Aside from the pleasures of storytelling, we also wanted to consider the practical aspects of filmmaking. Playing with ideas between the two of us is easy; sharing our ideas with an audience via film? Much more difficult. Before you can get someone to sit through your movie and consider your ideas, you have to keep them entertained and in their seat. You have to make it worth the audience’s time. Therefore, in order to get our stories told, we have to improve our abilities as filmmakers. The best way to do that: make films.
We’ve made numerous shorts, but they’re not all gems. They’re all, even the decent ones, experiments with varying degrees of success. We’re brutally honest about what works and what doesn’t. And if something doesn’t work, you can be sure that we take a step back and reassess. What’s the problem? Is it the acting, hence our directing or casting choices? Is it a technical issue? Or is it the writing? Sometimes an idea exists in our heads, but isn’t fully fleshed out in the script. This can be disastrous. And…not disastrous. Why? Because a mistake made in today’s movie is something we’ll get right in tomorrow’s.
Last summer we embarked on the Idville Collection – two short films about the Id run rampant. Out of the two, Libidoland was the more successful experiment. While there are still some kinks in the film, we managed to create narrative tension and to balance that tension with humor and humility, which was one of our goals. Anxiety Acres, on the other hand, is fun but much more flawed. There are several spots where both Julie and I cringe at our failure to carry off certain jokes. The problem wasn’t our actors. It wasn’t our low-budget. It was our script.
Below I’m going to provide a bit of the script and the short sequence that contains one of our most blatant failures. But, first, let’s set it up:
The film is about a couple who has recently moved from the city to the country. Midway through the film the husband (Kevin) runs into town for sandwiches. While out, he imagines many horrible things happening to his wife, Casey, who’s back at the house. Distracted by his nightmarish imaginings, Kevin becomes clumsy and ends up smashing and disfiguring his face. Casey, in the meantime, is safe on the couch catching up on her favorite zombie novel. When Kevin returns to the farm and Casey spies him from afar, he looks an awful lot like one of the zombies in her book. She promptly freaks out and gets ready for the fight of her life.
Here is the script excerpt and the scene:
http://www.vimeo.com/9192515This was meant to be a very funny moment in the film. We dropped the ball. Problem #1, we developed Kevin’s character more than Casey’s. We didn’t write it in a way that built up the possibility that Casey would actually be scared by one of her books. The script should have set Casey up to be on edge and jumping at random noises prior to Kevin’s unexpected and disfigured return. We let her be too nonchalant, and, thus, it isn’t believable that she thinks she sees a zombie. It’s a surprise, when we should have built suspense. If you frame it in terms of Hitchcock’s bomb theory, we set off an unexpected bomb, a fizzler. If we’d cued the audience about Casey’s growing disquiet, it would have been much more satisfying to watch her lose it, especially after Kevin nearly killed himself for the same reason. This idea was in our heads, but it wasn’t fully developed in the script – and thus it didn’t make it into the film.
What did the flaws of Anxiety Acres teach us? For one, we need to think more about character development and make sure our characters’ motivations are clearer. We also need to think about setting up jokes, letting expectations and tensions build, and allowing the joke to release the energy and tension, leading to greater audience satisfaction.
The best advice I have for a burgeoning screenwriter: MAKE A FILM. Make 20. Sure, you can do a lot to prepare. You can study the rules of narrative structure; you can read about comedic timing; or you can supplement your understanding of archetypes with a deep understanding of Carl Jung. But that book knowledge is useless if you don’t have a firm idea of how your words actualize on film. The more we try our ideas out – in the real world, with real people – the more we understand about how to write in a way that is cinematic, in a way that is going to translate into a good film. Each flawed film you make gets you closer to your first really good one. So grab your camera, and go!
- In honor of Libidoland’s screening at the 2010 Cinekink Film Fest in NYC, Jessica has crafted a new poster. Please note: No cakes were harmed in the creation of this poster (but these panties might still smell like vanilla).
- This week we guest-blogged on Tyler Weaver’s pumped-up blog-o-zine Multi-Hyphenate. Click here to read our thoughts on indie movie collaboration.
- Finally, next week we’re going to be writing a short post for our friend, producer Maria Lokken. The topic: Why do we make movies? This question seemed simple at first; now we’re examining the very core of our beings and watching a lot of Bergman. Should make for a relaxing weekend.
Lots of exciting things happening with King is a Fink these days. Here’s just a little taste:
- Hooray! Our short movie LIBIDOLAND has been accepted into the 2010 Cinekink NYC Film Festival. We’re so honored. When we learned about this festival through Twitter, we knew that it could be a great fit for our kinky, quirky short about a loving couple stepping into the world of bondage for the first time. Many thanks to Cinekink co-founder and director Lisa Vandever for taking such good care of us. Cinekink often takes their show on the road, so we’re hoping we can talk Lisa into making a stop in Chicago. You know…for our moms.
- We’re headed to 2010 EgoFest Short Film Festival in Brainerd, Minnesota, to meet festival organizer and filmmaker Phil Holbrook face-to-face. We’ve already met with Phil a few times via Skype to discuss the feature-length dramatic thriller we’re writing for him; he plans to direct it later this year. Phil is in the process of setting up a website to which we will all post progress reports on the script-writing, fund-raising, and the overall collaboration process. More on that soon!
- We’ve finished the first draft of our 3rd feature length screenplay, a dark comedy called THE UNLOVABLES. Logline: A jaded single woman drags her unwitting family to Vegas to track down the serial killer who passed her by for her hotter, blonder best friend. Yes, this one’s pretty dark, but it’s also very funny. In it we explore single life, married expectations, skewed relationship goals, interactions between adult siblings, and the very basic desire just to be chosen by someone. We’re currently collecting feedback and suggestions from trusted friends and readers. We’re also working with Script Dr. Eric, who is giving us valuable tips about our query letter. The next step: getting feedback from the helpful readers at BlueCat Screenwriting Competition (deadline = 3/1/10 & they give GREAT notes), revising, and then trying to find a home for our newest endeavor. Click here to learn more about THE UNLOVABLES or to read the first 15 pages.
- Lastly, next week filmmaker Tyler Weaver, is relaunching his website Multi-Hyphenate (here’s the old version) and turning it into more of a blog-o-zine. His first celebrity guest is Frederick Marx of Warrior Films. Frederick is 1/2 of the team responsible for the documentary HOOP DREAMS. When Tyler asked us to contribute a post to his maiden week, we happily said yes. We did a piece about collaboration, which we’re doing a lot of these days. We’ll keep you posted about when our entry is up!
What’s happening next? Oh, that’s easy: WE are what’s happening next.
We’ve mentioned Phil Holbrook before (he’s known as @philontilt on Twitter), but we’d like you to get to know him a little better. You’re going to be hearing a lot more about him. Here’s why:
1) We’re going to his film fest (EgoFest) in February. Both Snow Bunny and Libidoland will be screening at EgoFest in Brainerd, Minnesota. Word.
2) His short film “Honest Work” is smoking the other candidates in this month’s War of Films on the site Film Annex. (Watch and vote for Honest Work here to help Phil win $1000).
3) We’ve just agreed to write a feature-length film for Phil that he plans to produce and direct in 2010.
Hooray! To be honest, we were hesitant at first. We’ve never written for someone else, and his subject matter was outside of our comfort zone. However, because we greatly respect Phil, we mulled it over and came to the conclusion that this was an opportunity we couldn’t pass up.
We can’t share too many details just yet, but here’s what we can tell you:
- It’s not going to be set in Las Vegas. (We’ll leave that to Hue Rhodes.)
- It’s not going to include zombies. (We’ll leave that to Gary King.)
- It’s not going to include cake sitting. (Did that in Libidoland; apparently gave some people nightmares.)
Of course, now that I see those things together…
So what’s happening next? WE are what’s happening next. PHIL is what’s happening next. This NEW INDIE FEATURE COLLABORATION is what’s happening next. And, as a team, we are going to share updates every step of the way, because we know that YOU are also what’s happening next.
We won, we won! Recently we won two prizes while participating in discussions we stumbled upon through Twitter.
- First, we won a free query review from Script Dr. Eric (@scriptdreric) for participating in ScriptChat, a weekly Twitter discussion about screenplay writing and marketing moderated by writers Jeanne V. Bowerman (@jeannebv) and Mina Zaher (@dreamsgrafter). Great timing! We just finished our 3rd feature and could use an extra set of eyes (an expert one, at that) on our marketing materials.
- Then we won a 3-pack of indie DVDs by SABI Pictures care of Zac Forsman (@zakforsman) and Nic Baisley (@filmsnobbery) while participating in a live chat at FilmSnobbery.com. Score! We greatly admire Zak Forsman for his work with SABI and through NEW BREED Workbook Project. If you haven’t read his New Year’s Resolution, do it now! Informative and inspiring.
Prizes are awesome, but we’re also excited about the way in which we got them. Twitter has become one of our best resources of information and encouragement. While some still dismiss it as a time suck, we’d happily counter that Twitter is great way to market oneself and gather information from people who are doing what you do.
Maybe it would be different if we lived in LA. Maybe it would be different if we’d gone to film school. But as indie film makers in Chicago, we sometimes feel like we’re going it alone, and on Twitter we’ve found people who review our movies, give honest feedback, provide suggestions for how to do things, and even provide plain, old fashioned encouragement.
We’re going to imagine, for just a moment, what our lives would be like without Twitter:
- We wouldn’t have two movies in EgoFest in February.
- We wouldn’t be talking with director Phil Holbrook (@philontilt) about a 2010 collaboration.
- We wouldn’t have been interviewed by David Allen of Mac20Q (@Mac20Q, @Video20Q & @WizardGold). Listen to our podcast here.
- We wouldn’t have met director Tyler Weaver (@tylerweaver) or have gotten a chance to contribute to his blog, Multi-Hyphenate.
- We wouldn’t have met director Matt Shea (@MattOfAllMedia), the creators of Self Helpless (@selfhelplessmov), producer Maria Lokken (@Maria_56), or Eren Gulfidan (@Gulfi) of the Film Annex (@filmannex) at Queens International Film Fest.
- We wouldn’t have Sound Sleeper in the War of Films (@waroffilms) at the Film Annex or be in contention for a spot in the Miami International Film Festival.
- We wouldn’t have entered the Cinekink Film Festival (@cinekink) or the Canadian Short Screenplay Competition (@shortisbetter).
- We wouldn’t be able to keep such close tabs on film makers like Jamin & Kiowa Winans (@doubleedgefilms) as they market their sci-fi indie INK.
- We wouldn’t know what director Gary King (@grking) was up to with WHAT’S UP LOVELY and DEATH OF THE DEAD.
- We wouldn’t be talking with LA Talk Radio’s David Branin and Karen Worden of Film Courage (@filmcourage), @nickpepito, @queeried, or @worldtoknow about future interviews.
- And we wouldn’t be able to keep close(r) tabs on our long-time friends @MCMikeNamara, @norahdub, @dannyhein, and @leontinemay.
Obviously, we’re fans of Twitter. But don’t just take our word for it.
- Check out Charlie Burroughs’ article on Raindance: “How to Stay Unmarketable in a Recession.” Rule #1 – Hate Twitter.
- Check out Clive Davies-Frayne’s article on Filmutopia: “Twitter, What a Fecking Waste of Time.” You can find Clive on Twitter as @filmutopia.
We couldn’t possibly mention all of the wonderful people we’ve met on Twitter, but we hope that once in a while we pass along helpful information, make someone laugh, or give a little encouragement when it’s most needed. Because that’s the point of Twitter.
We recently had the opportunity to be interviewed about our filmmaking experience for Video 20Q. Since the interviewer (David Allen) lives in Spain and we live in Chicago, the interview was conducted via Skype, which worked surprisingly well.
David runs Video 20Q and several other websites, including Mac 20Q, which relays real life stories of how users interact with their Macs on a daily basis. We met David through Twitter and have greatly enjoyed listening to his interviews of others, including David Baker (director of Mission X), Phil Holbrook (director and organizer of the short film festival EgoFest), Jamin and Kiowa Winans of Double Edge Films (Ink) and reality TV producers Joke and Biagio (Beauty and the Geek, Scream Queens).
David’s an expert interviewer, and he kept us on our toes. He wanted to know who we are (good question), what we do (our parents are asking the same thing), how long we’ve been doing it (um, that’s getting a bit personal), and what we use…in terms of hardware and software. We were a little nervous at the beginning but quickly relaxed due to David’s easy interviewing style.
If you have an hour or so to kill or want something fun to listen to while you’re cooking or cleaning, check out our podcast. Even if you know us, I bet you’ll find out something you didn’t know before. And, really, how can you pass up the chance to listen to our battling Midwestern twangs?
http://video20q.com/2009/12/video20q-podcast-13-kingisafink/
Film, Illusion & Spectatorship, Part 5: “I want a thrill a minute…or better yet every 2.5 seconds.”
In Part 1, we discussed how the slickness of Hollywood movies turns audiences off to movies with ambiguous endings.
In Part 2, we explored how audiences don’t like it when movies remind them that they are fake.
In Part 3, we examined how audiences react when either the acting style or the character depictions fall too far outside of the norm.
In Part 4, we looked at how non-realistic characters and situations can actually be enjoyable.
And now, finally, in Part 5, we explore the connection between speed and forgetting and slowness and depth.
“There is a secret bond between slowness and memory, between speed and forgetting.”
– Milan Kundera, Slowness
When I go to the movies, I often come away feeling like I haven’t had a chance to actually see anything, an odd sensation to experience with a visual art form. Sometimes it’s due to hand-held camera work, which can convey the skittishness of a nervous person looking around wildly to avoid eye contact. But it can also be attributed to shot length.
In 1903 the average shot length was 35.6 seconds; by 2007, the average shot length was 2.5 seconds. Slick, fast films keep the audience’s attention easily, because if they look away, even for a second, they’ll miss something. Literally. There’s no time for reflection, no room for contemplation. You must watch in order to keep up. And at the end of the movie, you can easily say that you saw everything but learned nothing.
Even if an emotion or an idea catches your attention in a rapidly cut film, there is no time to savour it or think about what it might mean and, due to the insistence on narrative closure, you probably won’t remember to think about it afterwards. Everything is thus forgettable – almost like a dream: boom, flash, it’s gone. Further, the insistence on short shot lengths makes it impossible to explore certain emotional territory: loneliness, tedium, sadness, desire, nostalgia, etc – these are emotions that require longer takes.
Consider, for instance, the films of Tsai Ming Liang. He tends to make films about lonely alienated people. Thus, many of his shots are long and feature people doing banal, sometimes tedious things. Why? Not because he’s trying to entertain you, but rather to get you to think about the nature of loneliness – how time seems endless and ultimately empty to those who have no one to share it with.
I particularly enjoy how he achieved this sense of loneliness among movie patrons in his film Good-Bye Dragon Inn.
Some, of course, would argue that they don’t go to the cinema to think about the more unpleasant feelings associated with being alive but, instead, to be entertained. I like to be entertained just as much as anyone else; however, I also think that film can offer more than entertainment. I even think film can be both entertaining and thought-provoking at the same time.
When I was in college my hero was Marguerite Duras. I liked her simplicity and her directness. She wrote about desire and suffering. Her characters, much like Tsai Ming Liang’s characters, were lonely and looking to find a connection with others. She once wrote that while making one of her films, Natalie Granger (I think), she insisted on filming one of the female characters doing the dishes for several minutes. Several minutes of a woman’s hands doing women’s work. Entertaining? No. So why put your audience through such a thing? Because that was how many women spent their time, their whole lives, in fact. Tediously. There’s no other way to express it than to show it, to make the audience feel it and experience it for themselves.
Tarkovsky is another filmmaker who relishes in the long, contemplative take. The camera lingers, moves over things, and stops to allow the audience to look, to think, to contemplate. Consider this scene from The Mirror (my favorite Tarkovsky film). You may not know what’s going on, but he gives you ample time to figure it out. And even if you don’t “get it” right away, you can certainly feel it. The slowness of the scene evokes a sense of childish wonder and curiosity mixed with a deep sense of sadness and loss that quick cutting could never evoke.
Shot length is something I struggled with in both Snow Bunny and Sound Sleeper. Both films are about family life, which for me, has always been about tedium and entrapment. So if I want to convey these things to the audience, how can I do it without boring them, especially when they’ve been fed a steady diet of rapid-fire cuts?
I recently hacked two minutes off Sound Sleeper. Initially we showed a mother making and serving breakfast several mornings in a row. You saw her frying eggs, browning sausage, pouring cereal, toasting waffles. Mundane, routine activities that many mothers know well. By cutting out some of the breakfast prep footage, I know that it’s more palatable to audiences, more entertaining. But what did we lose? The monotony of the mother’s morning chore is referenced but not experienced, which, to me, means that the overall theme might not be be fully developed or fully understood. But I also understand that people won’t watch something at all if they think it’s boring… so it all comes down to balance.
As a filmmaker, I plan to continue exploring how to balance showing the tedium or less “fun” aspects of life with keeping the audience entertained. And somewhere, probably not too far away, is another filmmaker trying to figure out how to cut the 2.5 second shot average to 2.25. For entertainment’s sake.
Julie & Jessica have very different tastes. Hence, two lists.
Jessica’s Top 10 Films of the Decade
1. Brand Upon the Brain (Guy Maddin) – 2006 2. Mulholland Drive (David Lynch) – 2001 3. Volver (Pedro Almodovar) – 2006 4. Let the Right One In (Thomas Alfredson) – 2008 5. In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar Wai) – 2000 6. Y Tu Mama Tambien (Alfonso Cuaron) -2001 7. Good-bye Dragon Inn (Tsai Ming Liang)- 2003 8. I Heart Huckabees (David O. Russell) – 2004 9. The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson) – 2001 10. Heaven (Tom Tykver; script by Kieslowski) – 2002Honorable Mentions: Julia, 2046, Before Sunset, Eastern Promises.
Julie’s Top 10 Films of the Decade
1. Secretary (Steven Shainberg) – 2002 2. Hedwig and the Angry Inch (John Cameron Mitchell) – 2001 3. Kissing Jessica Stein (Charles Herman-Wurmfeld) – 2002 4. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry) – 2004 5. Moulin Rouge (Baz Luhrman) – 2001 6. Saddest Music in the World (Guy Maddin) – 2003 7. Shaun of the Dead (Edgar Wright) – 2004 8. Femme Fatale (Brian DePalma) – 2002 9. Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly) – 2001 10. Bring It On (Peyton Reed) – 2000And for the finale…
Five Movies Julie Wanted to Add to Her List To Make People Uncomfortable (But Didn’t)
5. Waiting for Guffman - “Never watched the whole thing, but I’m sure I’m gonna love it.” 4. The Incredibles - “My fave Craig T. Nelson movie. No question.” 3. Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic - “The actress who plays Sarah Silverman is amazing.” 2. Because I Said So - (“If it’s on, I can’t not watch it.” 1. Happiness - “It’s good. But bad. But good.”Film, Illusion & Spectatorship, Part 4: Just give me something I already know and already love.
In Part 1, we discussed how the slickness of Hollywood movies turns audiences off to movies with ambiguous endings.
In Part 2, we explored how audiences don’t like it when movies remind them that they are fake.
In Part 3, we examined how audiences react when either the acting style or the character depictions fall too far outside of the norm.
Now, in Part 4, we look at how non-realistic characters and situations can actually be enjoyable.
Certainly the most notorious and jaw-dropping John Waters film is Pink Flamingos. The plot revolves around a group of people actively competing to be the “filthiest people alive.” One of my favorite moments in the film is when Babs (Divine) and her son Crackers break into the Marble’s house (where the Marbles are hiding a black market, lesbian, baby-making service in their basement) to filth-ify it. Their method? They lick everything in the house: the sofa, the knick-knacks on the coffee table, the banisters, everything. Then, when Connie (Mink Stole) and her husband come home, they slip and fall down when they come into contact with any of their foes’ saliva: they slip off the couch, they fall down the stairs, their drinks slide off the coffee table. Take a look:
Now is this realistic? No. Not in the least. It’s absurd, but, more than that, it’s also incredibly pleasurable, in part, because it allows the audience to be co-conspirators – we all know that a normal person’s saliva would dry in just a few seconds. However, if you accept the idea that these people are filthy, so filthy that their saliva has achieved the consistency of swamp slime that multiplies and spreads its dirty slickness all on its own, then the actions take on a much larger meaning. I’ve never encountered anything so sublime in a film like Revolutionary Road or Knocked Up.
I would argue that a lot of Godard falls into this category as well. For one, many of his films are not about reality: they’re about movies or ideas. There is a playful aspect to many of his characters and their interactions that is similar to the characters in John Water’s films. Of course, in Godard the characters are more playful and childlike than crass. In some films, it’s almost as if the characters are giant children as exemplified in the book insult scene from A Woman is a Woman:
Another filmmaker who delights in playful expressionism is Guy Maddin. This, of course, is obvious as soon as you start watching his films. Because he’s embraced the film tropes and styles of early expressionist cinema, there is no pretense that he is going to deliver characters or scenes that are in any way realistic. Even in his biographical film My Winnipeg, Maddin’s sense of whimsy and play is in no way diminished by the use of archival video or photographs. In fact, Maddin’s ability to blur the distinction between reality and fantasy only enhances the imagination, allowing the audience the freedom to reimagine their own lives and to ponder the relationship between their own mythical histories and their concepts of self and history. This is particularly poignant in the Horse Story scene:
In the next, and final, installment, we will explore editing styles and our ability to be patient in film.
Our newly revamped 5-minute short Sound Sleeper is currently in 2nd place for the December War of Films at the Film Annex. It’s also a part of the Diesel Online Shorts Competition.
What’s on the line? $1000, maybe a trip to Miami, and some street cred.
So please click here to watch Sound Sleeper at the Film Annex. Pass it on to all of your film-loving friends. And VOTE! Today, tomorrow, the next day…
