Storytelling

This is another article I wrote for KiptonART as well as Moviehatch, I've since made some minor changes.

I’ve written a few articles for KiptonArt’s website, but given that this is the first that will appear in the magazine, I feel I should introduce myself once more. I’m a 24-year-old filmmaker from New York. Well, I’d say aspiring. I believe that one should not call oneself something like “filmmaker” unless one is both making a solid living doing so, and other successful filmmakers acknowledge you as an equal, not necessarily in that order. I think I’m on my way there, but not quite ready to be on the level of those who I admire.

On the same topic, people do ask me what I do though, and I find I do not like to say I write, or direct, or produce specifically. I think of each of those tasks, and the others I perform, as all part of the creative filmmaking process.



Before I move forward, let me quote the frequently quoted maestro William Goldman (seen here looking like the sly fox that he is, read his stuff!). “Nobody knows anything.” Abiding by the first and foremost of Goldman’s big three rules, I must disclose that I too know nothing. Everything I say is my opinion, based on my experience (which being 24, is what it is). I’ve read the books, but the opinions here are my own, so if they work for you, cool, if not, feel free to think of me as a moron.

The writing, directing and producing are not separate to me. When I write a script, I think about locations (producing), the camera work and actors’ performances (directing). I also think about production design, music, wardrobe, etc. Screenwriting is not short story writing. A lot of people have this mantra that “it’s all about story.” Obviously. That’s like an athlete saying, “It’s all about teamwork.” It’s not that easy though. A slight variation of the phrase, that would make me much happier, is “it’s all about storytelling.”

You can write lots of good stories that make bad movies. The easiest way to exemplify that is with adaptations. Pick the most infamous failure of recent days—Watchmen. Great story. If you didn’t read the comic, maybe you’d even like the film based on the brilliant story and characters alone. However, if you already knew the story, and were evaluating the film purely on the storytelling, then it fails.

Snyder spent more time trying to be authentic to the comic rather than extracting the essence of Moore’s book and using it as the building blocks of his own story. Specifically, Watchmen failed because Malin Ackerman (an awful actress as far as I've seen so far, who seems to rely on her sexual nature more than Megan Fox even) brought only sex to Silk Spectre II, leaving out the struggle to show her vulnerability in a situation where others only see her strength, combined with the highly relatable conflict of being born into something you don’t feel right for. Patrick Wilson was too dead on, or too extreme, in the polarization of Nightowl. Matthew Goode’s Ozymandias was misinterpreted as a wooden character. I think that was a case of it’s all about casting. Carla Gugino, and that duo of serial killer names Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Jackie Earle Haley were all fine by me for their own nuances as performers, although their characters lacked the depth of those on the page originally, leaving three good one-note performances.

Sidenote: I’ve had a huge crush on Carla Gugino since Son in Law. She is a vision, and even though I thought she was fine in this flick, I’d never say anything bad about her anyway.

The camera work was flashy and astounding, but not actually in servitude to the (back to that word) story. When you do the dramatic dolly around with the deep strings playing, the epic qualities of the scene are highlighted, but you lose the actual exchanges between characters. Music also ruins a lot of scenes. Don’t tell the audience what to feel, get it out there effectively, and trust that you don’t need music to set the tone. People refer to the power of music in film. Although I love music, especially in film, I see it more as a danger.

The production design’s enormity also distracts from what goes on in the scene. This lush production design makes it impossible for Snyder to resist shooting the entire film in wides and masters, much to its detriment. I don’t remember who said it, probably a lot of people, but the greatest invention in film of the 20th century was the close-up. Yep. The close-up. Not the blue/green/gray screen. Not the gear head. CU. I don’t think it’s just a matter of taste, but I believe it’s safe to say, that in filmmaking, often the best way to make a point is with a big Sergio Leone wide screen CU. When you spend 6 million dollars on the set you’re shooting on today, for one scene where a guy jumps out of an Owl plane onto a bunch of rioters, you need to show all the period street signs and cars, the wardrobe on the extras, the tremendous choreography, and probably most importantly to Snyder, as much material as possible to do that high contrast chroma key color correct…BUT…you leave out the close-up montage portion of the scene between Comedian and the rioters as he decides that they are all past the point of no return from saving, and thus expendable to him. They did shoot dialogue very well though, reminiscent of the way Bob Elswit shot Michael Clayton last year.

Those are just a few specific reasons why the film was not effective, but my overall point is that even when you have a great story as source material to make a film, you won’t necessarily make a good movie. Sometimes it’s because you use source material that is not really filmable, as many said about Watchmen (but I disagree with), and sometimes you have great source material, such as a brilliant original script like David Benioff’s Stay, which was put on screen in 2005 directed by Marc Forster. I won’t get into the whole analysis of where that film went wrong, but it’s an example of the hottest script in Hollywood getting one of its hottest directors and three of its hottest actors, all adding up to a not so hot loss of 50 million bucks and some Razzies.

If you’ve taken a screenwriting class, or you have a rough knowledge of the filmmaking process, then you’ve heard that you shouldn’t put camera direction into your screenplays. Often, I hear the why for that to be that it pisses directors off when they read it, and readers use it to identify an amateur quickly. Both of those are true, but miss the point. You don’t put camera direction in your screenplays because your writing should dictate where the camera should be. If it’s good.
When you want there to be a reveal of the body after first showing just the feet walking down the street, personify the feet first. Make them a character of their own, describe the pace and weight at which they step. What kinds of shoes cover said feet? Do you want an angle down? Flat? Worm’s eye? If you want the camera above the feet, describe the laces. If you want it below, then describe the soles. If then you want the camera to introduce the full shot revealing the character, write that. “These feet belong to TONY MANERO, who uses the feet we just watched to strut down the street with a big smile on his face.” As a director reading that, I’d put the camera down on the ground in an ECU dollying back on the shoes for a few steps, and then open up to the full shot after. Just for clarity’s sake, I don’t mean actually write “FEET” as a character, but describe what they do.

If you want to do some Shohei Imamura stuff where you shoot the characters through the big glass window of the room they talk in, or the fish tank, then describe that. “Haru and Ogata sit leaning over the small table close to one another. On the other side of the room, Haru’s fish swims slowly, encased in its tank, but free to view the exchange.” If I were the director, and read that description, and respect this screenplay as not having any superfluous description or verbiage, then that description of the fish would stand out to me, and I’d know that I should shoot this scene from the vantage point of the fish, as this story is very much about watching and voyeurism.

For more context, it was established earlier in The Pornographers that Haru believes this fish to be the reincarnation of her husband, and now she’s being seduced by Ogata. I won’t tell you what the fish does when they sleep together.

Filmmaking is a visual medium. It’s not just about throwing the camera onto sticks and having your characters talk to each other in front of it. Some stories call for a tableau vivant style, but very few call for it. Have a reason to do that. One rule that I challenge anyone to argue is that in film, any storytelling element will be stronger if you do it visually. Exposition with dialogue, music, or classical narrative tropes is often necessary, but never ideal. They’re only used when you cannot think of a better or more original way to do it.

Something that is much more arguable is my personal stance that anything that isn’t original is inherently bad. Take any Kate Hudson (whom I believe to make the worst movies of anyone out there. I sit behind her at Yankee games now and heckle her, third base side, she's dating A-Rod. See picture of her sitting with some morons.) movie. If you made Raising Helen (directed by the worst director in Hollywood, Garry Marshall), in 1942, then it would be a classic. Well, that’s going pretty far, because that story has a lot of plot holes that come from a bad script, partnered with a troubled production leading to an even less cohesive narrative. But you get my point hopefully.

Much of what is done today is only bad because it’s a rehash of what’s already been done. The good films are only good if they give us something new or a twist or improvement on something old. Well, everything at this point is only a twist or improvement on something old, which is perfectly fine. I’ve never created anything wholly original and never will, only mixing and matching old things in different ways.

There’s a big difference between a screenplay written by a good director and one by a decent screenwriter who does not direct. Many screenplays should be short stories or plays. They either have too much going on internally or too much exposition in the dialogue and lack of action.
Specifically, angrily is not a playable emotion necessarily. When my brother gets angry, he gets quiet and looks at the floor. When my sister gets angry, she cries, yells and waves her hands in the air. When I get angry, I raise my voice in volume moderately, but in pitch significantly.
You also can’t say a character is jealous. You have to talk about what that character does to show jealousy, and then let the reader extract jealousy from those actions. If they do not, then you need to decide if jealousy is necessary to the scene. If it is, then go back and rewrite until it’s on the page and the screen equally. If it’s not necessary, it is superfluous, so cut it and move on.

Giving your protagonist an assistant who says things like “You know, if you keep working at this pace, your ulcer is only going to get worse. You need to take it easy,” is not good writing either. If you need to show that this guy is overworked and getting ulcers, and the last thing he needs to find out is that his Mom’s got the C word (Cancer), and he only has the next month to spend with her, then you need to show it. VISUALLY.

Think about everything in the frame. There are so many ways to show us character development. In the film I’m currently working on, we show a characters’ progression through the amount she smokes and the way she smokes, her wardrobe, the way her bedroom looks, the way she walks, the way she looks at or doesn’t look at people when she talks to them, her body language otherwise, the way she has sex, where her hands go specifically… None of these included her opening up to a friend about her changing and conflicted feelings. There’s no ominous music. She doesn’t neglect her dorky friends who are the ones who really care about her. We actually have zero dialogue in the entire film, so there are no expository explanations there either.

A good exercise is to pick a film you like. Go on the IMDB page. Pop in the DVD, or NinjaVideo.net, whatever your preference. Consider everyone credited on that page. Why are they there? What did they do? What elements of the production are they responsible for? If it’s a predominantly source lit, on location shoot, what does the production design and art department do? What about the gaffer? I think of The Wrestler here.

Do the exercise backwards also. Isolate the elements you like or find distinguishing. Why is the camera over Mickey Rourke’s shoulder so much? Whose idea was that? What does it say about the character and how does it affect the storytelling in the scenes it’s used in? Who’s the DP shooting that? Do you think maybe this DP has a background in Documentary filmmaking? If he or she does, then do you think that was an accident? Yes and no.

Obviously the wardrobe department did some cool research to create Mickey’s outfits, but what about those of Evan Rachel Wood’s? Why is she dressed the way she is? What does it tell us about her character? The things it tells us—are they repeated elsewhere, or are they just said once with her outfits?

Another exercise. Remakes made me think of this. Everyone remakes good movies. People constantly say oh come on, that movie is perfect, why remake it? Right. Remake a movie that had potential to be good at some point but faltered. Or put a new spin or update on something that has become relevant again. Think about these things when watching a movie that maybe you didn’t love. Now, instead of thinking about why the story sucked, think about the storytelling. Keep the story they have there. Think about how you would tell it differently to make this movie better.

In Let the Right One In, they avoided the usual way to do a scene with lots of tension due to a forbidden love by only showing the mouth of one of the characters. That’s essentially this exercise. In that film, they remade a scene from other films, but even though I’ve watched that scene so many times, I was taken by it again this time.

How I got started on all of this was by speaking of writing, directing and producing as being part of the same process. You need to write your locations into your scenes. Never write a scene where anything is superfluous, otherwise you just haven’t completed your job yet. It can always be more lush, more dynamic, deeper, better until you’ve made sure that every single member of the crew and every department has something to work on.

Anyway, I hope I’ve been able to not just speak of what not to do, but also provide some effective ways to do it right.