Preparing to Shoot (Part 1 of 3?)

Since this week was pretty much all rewrites for me again I thought I’d jump forward to some other stuff – getting ready to shoot!

But I want to preface this with something.  There really is no right answer to any of this stuff and each person has their own way that works for them.  That applies to all of my blogs.  This is just what I do.  And I’m not even going to know if I’m right about half this stuff for another few years when it either pays off or I fall on my ass.  Fun for all!  So.  Disclaimer now aside, here’s what I like to do…

Once I’ve locked the script (which is in and of itself no small feat) I’m now in the place to really start getting my movie made.  What follows is a sort of outline for how I crystallize and prepare to communicate my overall “vision.”  (I use that word as unpretentiously as possible.)

-       First impressions.  Before I do any technical breakdown of the script I go through and write down all of my first impressions.  Lots of it will change, but it’s always good to record what I initially imagined, responded to, liked or worried about the material.  This could be anything - scribbles on the side of the script, lists of ideas, sketches of shots, references that came to mind, etc.

-       Script breakdown.  There are any number of ways to do this, but I usually fall back on a mish-mash of two methods I’ve learned.  I take bits and pieces from The Practical Aesthetics of David Mamet I studied at NYU that focuses on finding actionable directions from source material – very handy for working with actors - and Bruce Block’s techniques I learned at USC that breaks down a script from a primarily visual aspect.  (If you want to geek out, here are links to the books on Amazon – A Practical Handbook for the Actor & The Visual Story.  The first one is written for actors and I haven’t read it in years, but what I do remember from it I find really useful as a director.  The second one, I will caution, can get quickly overwhelming.  It’s uber-cerebral.)

I believe everything should originate from the script.  Style, pace, format, tone, all the things that a director brings to a project should be determined by the original material.  I don’t mean a slavish literalness or a refusal to change something that’s not working, but I just don’t get it when I see a body of a director’s work and it all looks the same.  To me, they didn’t do their job.  Each project should be a discovery so that every film has it’s own unique language.  Of course, a director’s personality will always shine through, it’s unavoidable, and certainly the industry places tons of pressure on a person to do what they’ve done before, but I see no point just creating multiple monuments to yourself project after project.  How boring.  This is also why I prefer to work on material that I didn’t write, but that’s a blog for another day.

-       Music.  I like to find music that speaks to me about the film (not the soundtrack exactly because I don’t want to fall in love with anything this early on or my composer will kill me later, but music that helps me focus on the tone, pace, or other element of the film).  This becomes useful when I need to communicate a mood I’m trying to achieve.  Rather than saying to my DP or Production Designer “I’m trying to communicate the feeling of exuberance” it’s much more exciting to play a piece of music.  Besides, do I mean Steve Reich exuberance or Manu Chao exuberance? I make a cd and hand it out to whomever I need to.

-       Tears.  (As in, from a magazine not falling down cheeks.) I’ll find some images that express my interpretation of the script – this can be from a museum, art books, magazines, online, family albums, science journals, anywhere.  It doesn’t need to be “important” or expensive it just has to help communicate what’s in my head.  The images could speak to color, tone, content, lighting, feeling, whatever. I’ll pop it all in a book or binder for reference.  Sometimes I’ll even make individual copies for all of the department heads.

-       Treatment.  Once I’m clear on what I’m doing I’ll write a short one or two page treatment. (I think I picked this up from working in music videos and commercials but I like this process to help focus my thoughts.)

The thing I like about having a process to rely on is that going through the stages actually helps me discover things about the material and find a unique style for each script that I might not come to if I only executed whims and impulses.  Of course, there’s absolutely room for whims and impulses within my system, but the system itself helps to ensure they are all serving the same purpose.

Essentially, all of this work represents variations on one question that I ask myself repeatedly in a million different ways over the course of a production – what is the film I am making?  It’s the only thing the director has to know better than anyone else.