Topic #4: Influencial Works

First of all, I owe you, fair readers, an apology. It's nigh inexcusable that this be my first blog post in almost a month, and I hope our writer and director - and sound designer, no less - have kept you company in my stead. Chalk it up to procrastination, confusion - I would hardly call myself a successful blogger in general - and a swarm of projects that hit me all at once in the latter stages of January.


We've received a great deal of positive feedback on the teaser for Separation Anxiety, which warms our hearts immensely. It gives us hope that we're making a film that can truly strike a chord with a vast audience. A couple of people have actually asked me what influenced us in terms of previous movies and works of art to shoot it the way we did, to write it the way Jeremy's written it, and so on, and so I thought our next blog topic should be something a little more...accessible, perhaps.

Glass City, on my end at least, had more influences than original ideas, to some extent. The film was loosely based on stories I had lived or experienced vicariously through friends of mine, but certain images, lighting setups, turns of phrase, plot sequences, and themes were unintentionally cobbled together from a dozen of my favorite movies and shows. Cole, after viewing Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (my #1, in case you were wondering), told me that he understood so much more about me after watching it, and I'd argue it's a must-see for anyone who wants to dig a little deeper into the John Klein psyche. I'd also argue it gives you a bit more appreciation of, say, the Toledo montage in Glass City or the argument prior to the bridge. Again, it's unintentional, and in my opinion, understandable. It's the result of a first-time filmmaker falling back on what he knows and loves.

So, here we are. Separation Anxiety. Jeremy will surely have plenty to say about what influences drove him in his screenwriting, but I believe the trailer looks as good as it does because, for once, I was acting on original ideas and instincts. We all were. I didn't think of looks from other movies; I simply took the words on the page and lit them. That is a true testament to Jeremy's ability as a writer. The themes and visuals were already there, not in a shot-by-shot format but in a beautiful sense of feeling.

That said, I still want to talk about a few of the works that have influenced me, because they will always have a stamp on my own work. So, without further adieu...


1) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (dir. Michel Gondry): Has there ever been a more truthful film about the nature of memory and its effect on our relationships? Has Jim Carrey ever given a more bruising performance? Has any film in recent memory committed so fully and wonderfully to its ideas and themes? The wonder of Eternal Sunshine - as well as another work down this list - is in its ability to mold a very sci-fi concept to a very universal series of thoughts and emotions. We believe that these characters exist. We know them personally. We wish they would understand how not right for each other they are, yet cheer for them to realize how perfect they are together. Pay special attention to the scene in the bookstore near the end: as all the book covers around Joel and Clementine vanish, as they reminisce in regret about their failed time together before she finally disappears, I dare you to find a more perfect scene in any movie of the past ten years. The handheld cinematography in this film, now a staple of mine, has ruined me for other directors who eschew the strategy. Even Cole hated me for it...until he saw this film.

2) Garden State (dir. Zach Braff): Okay, it's flawed. It's too quirky for its own good, it has several technical errors reminiscent of a film student's first masterwork, the plot doesn't have the stakes to back up its melodrama, and it's largely based on elements of Braff's life. Weird how much that sounds like Glass City, don't ya think? But I digress. It's also a wonderful portrayal of how solid dialogue, smartly written characters, brilliant yet unobstrusive cinematography, and a strong independent spirit - Braff wrote, starred, produced, and directed - can make a cult classic out of the slightest material and a movie I still watch when I'm feeling down to this day. Its compositional influence can be felt all over the Separation Anxiety trailer. And its perfect soundtrack, I would argue, inspired us to make sure every movie we ever do has music just as fitting. Anyone who's heard Glass City's soundtrack would wholeheartedly agree, I think.

3) LOST (TV series, prod. J.J. Abrams): The best series on primetime, period. No show blends character and concept more vividly. No matter how shark-jumping the plotlines or how mythologically dense and confusing the show gets, the scripts are always firmly rooted in the characters. This is the sci-fi I want to do someday. Ep. 1x04 "Walkabout" and Ep. 4x05 "The Constant" are must-sees for anyone who appreciates terrific, visual storytelling. Did I mention it's also the most beautiful show on TV? Guess it pays to set a show in Hawaii. I would argue that the WHOOSH sound in the Separation Anxiety trailer during shifting time periods was influenced by LOST, but I leave that to our sound mixer Jordan to speak on. Maybe I just like to think so.

4) The works of Claude Monet. Art historians have said that Monet's Impressionism was a precursor to the moving image. Stare at the Waterlilies series for a good ten minutes and try not to think you see flowing ripples in the water. Stare at the sky in his paintings of Paris and tell me the clouds don't skirt across the sky. His use of light and color to create definition, rather than sharpness, is probably why I don't mind an out-of-focus take now and again and why I prefer saturated higlights to monochrome imagery. In my opinion, color simply makes you feel more. And the lack of it can be equally striking when juxtaposed with it. Even in color-correcting our B&W short Rendezvous, I added a tint of blue to the image. It felt colder, sadder. Much of the way I shot the Bangladesh documentary Strong Bodies Fight (see the opening shots of my reel) came from those thoughts and images.


There are a dozen more, to be sure - the cinematography of Janusz Kaminski, Roger Deakins and Conrad Hall; the Matrix trilogy and Citizen Kane; the very architecture of Chicago - but I'm more interested lately in crafting works that don't directly reference anything. When creating shot lists, I would always have a list at the top of the page of films I watched for visual references. I've stopped doing that of late, and the four projects I shot over the past two weeks felt different from anything I'd done yet. It's great to know where you've come from, but sometimes it's better to wonder where you're going.

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The Art of Sound

Hi everyone, I'll keep this quick. While Cole, John, and I have lots to say about film making and the respective parts that we play in that process, we know that we are incredibly lucky to be surrounded by many talented artists, each an essential piece of an amazing jigsaw puzzle. From time to time, we'll introduce you to some of them and have them share some of their experiences working on Separation Anxiety. That brings us to our first guest blogger. I'm pleased to introduce you to Jordan Fehr.

Hello all, Jordan Fehr here. I am the Sound Designer working with Glass City Films on Separation Anxiety and I have been asked to say a bit about what I do here on the production blog.

First of all, Sound Design is both a technical and creative field, and a Sound Designer can be responsible for everything except the compositional aspects of the film's sound. The term is also now used in Video Games, Theatre, and other multimedia projects.

Anyone who has worked in film or watching some special features on a DVD with unfinished scenes knows that with our current sensibilities, that raw footage is almost unwatchable. It seems boring, flat, and fraught with mistakes. More than 50 percent of this is usually the audio. We are so used to polished film sound, where every little sound in the scene is closely controlled, that when we hear the sound from just the set, it seems cheap and bad. That is where Post Production Audio comes in. We receive the film after it has been edited, and both edit the production audio from the set, and add lots of new sound to sweeten what is there but also add sounds that SHOULD be there, but are not. Backgrounds are put in to establish time and place, Foley is added to sweeten human movement and interaction with objects, and SFX and SPFX are added for other things that make noises, or to enhance the film in some other way. On a large Hollywood movie, all the various roles that I fulfilled when working on this trailer would be done by an entire team of people.

Doing Sound Design for a trailer is a bit different than working on an entire film, because there is a lot more music and dialog, with usually no space in between, and the point is to hit them hard and fast and make your audience feel something without getting the whole picture. The trailer for Separation Anxiety came to me with pretty good production sound, and some great local music. I spent more time on the dialog and music edits than I did on anything else, because there were not a ton of SFX and Foley that needed to be done in the trailer. Dialog is the most important thing, and the music provides that much needed emotional push so those were the focus. SFX were added on scene transitions, when text comes up on screen, or to enhance something in a subtle way, like the fireworks or Bai and Jess laughing.

If I did my job right, you probably didn't notice the audio all that much, but you felt something from the trailer, and you believed that these scenes actually took place, instead of thinking about a movie being made. If you are curious about Sound Design, there have been some great DVD features about it in the past 5-8 years. I recommend the featurettes on Wall-E, King Kong and the Lord of the Rings Special Editions.

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Collaboration... from the screenwriter's POV

FADE IN:

INT. COMMERCIALIZED COFFEE SHOP - NIGHT

Two young artists command a table normally reserved for six. One is tall and softening from too much time away from the gym. He is in his late-20s. This is JEREMY. His cohort, sipping on a fresh latte, is the energy of the room. Focused, determined, early-20s, this is COLE.

Two LAPTOPS are opened before them. We join them in mid-conversation.

COLE
That's exactly what I was thinking.
And how about we try...

JEREMY
And then we just move this here,
take this over here... yeah... that's
gonna work.

That's one way to look at it. Jeremy here... musing on the symbiotic relationship that is the writer-director. In any film, there is a person (or people) who pen the script. The screenwriter(s). And then there's a director. The one who has to take the pages and put them onto the screen. And both sides of the coin have their own vision of what it will look like. One creates. The other interprets.

And I imagine there are varying levels of interaction between writer and director as you move through the pantheon of film. There are those that option a script, sell it, and step back as new writers come in to rewrite, reinvent, and depending on your viewpoint, destroy or improve your work. And there are those films where the screenwriter stays very, very involved. And perhaps, a few instances that fall along the in between.

Cole recently posted on this topic and brought up an idea that I'm used to seeing in theatre, and excited to see happening in film. Collaboration. As he mentioned, the script has been tightened and trimmed, and in parts, it's already evolved from its staged predecessor. As I began working with Cole and John on adapting the play, we spent hours on Skype, over email, taking up workspace at any local coffee shop that served anything worth drinking, and began to answer some of the big questions that were never fully tackled in the play. I won't give away state secrets here, but rest assured that moments of frustrating ambiguity you might have experienced if you've seen the play have been addressed to offer a more complete story arc that's more suited to film. And that was born out of many, many talks between the three of us.

Going into this new partnership, I (the writer) took a moment to think about how Cole (the director) might approach this. And then I realized two things. I'm not a mind-reader. And he just blogged about it. So, I stopped and thought about how I've directed others' writing in the past.

When I direct for theatre, I aim to realize the script as I feel the writer intended. And that choice effects how I direct actors to emote, how the pacing flows, and everything down to a costume or prop selection. And then I have to wonder if it's what the author even intended. In 2007, I directed a show called "Darkside". And it was well received. Awards were bestowed from the people in Columbus and Ohio who bestow such awards. And then, I went to see that very show, directed by the very man who wrote it, Ken Jones. We clearly had different visions for that story. Some similarities were there—mostly in the set and costumes and the number of actors on stage (actually, even there we found a way to differ).

And so I think, how great would it have been to have had Ken there to bounce ideas around with and get him to talk about why this character does what he does and all that. Make it a dialogue. The kicker? We're now connections on LinkedIn and he sent me three of his plays as a gift.

Point is, there's a want in any artist to produce the best art. Creating a conversation about a script between writer and director is one way to help ensure that happening. So, that brings us to the now, as the screenwriter (me) and the director (Cole) sit down and begin the task of polishing Separation Anxiety to the best it can be.



That's us. Being collaborators.

I was reading an interview recently featuring screenwriter Christopher Wilkinson, who co-wrote Nixon and Ali, among others. And in talking about his writing relationship with Stephen Rivele (Nixon, Ali) he made a wonderful observation about collaboration which I think is at the heart of how we are approaching the final stretch of rewrites for Separation Anxiety: "And we have absolutely no ego about the writing process; we will go with whoever has the best idea, scene to scene and line by line. If we don't agree, we go with whoever can make the most compelling or passionate case for a character, story turn, whatever."

I value Cole's artistic opinion and he value's mine, so I'm excited about the end result that sits upon the horizon. I'll be honest, Separation Anxiety is intensely personal for me, and so I won't be surprised if there are moments (as Cole mentioned) where I dig in my heels. And those heel-digging nights will be for those compelling cases that Wilkinson talks about. But in the end, I will always pen the words that serve the story in the best possible way. That is my ultimate goal with anything I write. What serves the story and the characters? And this is the one thing that any screenwriter and director need to agree on. Making the best art. Serving the story.

Thanks for reading. Coming up later in the week is a special guest posting from our Sound Designer, Jordan Fehr. Until next time...

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Answers to absences and answers to questions...

Cole here...

First off, I need to apologize for the delay! John, Jeremy, and I looked at each other and took a deep breath, deciding that three updates a week, although eventually routine, would be a little hefty so soon in the process. We decided to set up a time to keep it frequent but not overwhelming. Not a few days after this decision was made, we all became swamped, gleefully in our position...

You see, Jeremy is the playwright in residence at Theatre Daedalus where he mounted a 24 hour playwrights project. He and two of his colleagues literally stayed awake for over 35 hours, writing scripts. rehearsing, and producing a show with the head of the writing department at Kent State.

From the sound of things, the energy was fantastic at this show, and people are eagerly looking forward to the next production which, again, might be a full-length Sony experience.

My excuse? I was amidst week two of The Internationalist with Available Light Theatre in Columbus. In many ways, one of the greatest experiences I’ve had acting in Columbus. Professional troupe (lauded by American Theatre Magazine as one of the hippest companies in the country) and great work done in the shortest rehearsal time I’ve ever experienced. 11 days by opening night... The reviews were wonderful, and the show did exactly as we set out to achieve.

And lastly, but certainly not least... John Klein, our producer, was in Oklahoma for the Trail Dance Film Festival, ranked one of the top 25 festivals in the country. There, Glass City was nominated for best drama, best director, best actress, best actor, and best in festival.

As if that weren’t enough, our short, Rendezvous, was also selected to compete and was VERY well received with wonderful feedback, a gasp at the end, and many filmmakers saying we should make a feature out of it. 

Oh, and Glass City took best drama.

So there we are. Guilty. Our writer being overly in-demand as a writer. Our director finishing up a wonderful experience downtown at the Riffe Center. And our producer, seeing our major vehicle to awards and accolades, and bringing the name of Glass City Films to filmmakers across the country. 

I can’t exactly say we’re sorry for the absence. Just the 24 hour days being so numbered.

But a question was volleyed... in my direction is would seem.

Writers and directors. Directors and writers.

There is a naive notion, it would seem, that writers hand their script off to directors and wave goodbye. The notion is also that the director is handed a script and tells people where to stand, where to set up, and how to say it right.

Any famous play or movie you see comes to you with the finished touches. It has the by line: writer. And the picture line: director. It carries the fact that the production has compartmentalized craft. But along with that, it carries that stigma that it has compartmentalized the responsibilities. 

When the reality is they bleed into each other.

These first revisions of the screenplay involved Jeremy trimming and tightening. Put simply, Jeremy did what he could to subtract. He cut the fat from the muscle. Now that the film is a lot leaner, although still rich, we can see what it’s true strengths are. I developed a concept over a few days last week, which was sent to John as a producer and DP and to Jeremy as a writer. The concept basically focuses the part of the script that I think holds the real story. The strongest part of the animal. The concept can be answered with two things:

A) Complete agreement, where Jeremy would love how I see the piece being stronger, and he would write to enhance those qualities. Here, in essence, he would be adding instead of subtracting.

B) Or he could disagree. At least in part. And I couldn’t hope for anything better.

And that is where the responsibility is shared. Yes, it’s my picture. Yes, it’s Jeremy’s screen-play. But it is our responsibility. And as I tell him to add and subtract to his side of the fulcrum, he will ask me to do the same. And seeing the metaphor all the way through: we achieve a balance. A film that is not too heavy in either way. Where the director does more than tell the DP to his record and tell the actors say the words, but also where the words tell a beautiful story and the director is able to get out of the way and stay behind the camera.

And the beauty of this system is that we can repeat (B) until (A) happens. But that’s where collaboration gets tricky. It is utterly impossible to be objective and fresh in your art unless you come across (B). Otherwise, it’s heavy handed in one way or another. But once you find someone to disagree with you, you need to respect each other enough to achieve (A) before the principal photography. Otherwise, it’s a tug-of-war and nothing can grow out of it.

So...it’s like math. 

Let D = director. Let C=concept. Let W= writer. Let S=script. Let A= agree. and let B=disagree.

C(D+S)= (+or-)S(C+W) 

You just have to balance the equation.

Then mutiply by (A) or divide by (B) depending on how you work together.

Jeremy, would you like to explain it better?

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Answer #1... When the words aren't making sense

Jeremy here. Answer time. A few days ago, we got a question and Cole was nice enough to field it my way as it had to do with how we approach things in the script that aren't working, or maybe won't ring true at second blush. The short answer? We fix it.

(insert canned laughter here)

And that's where rewrites come into play. For example, if this post were a sitcom, I'd know that the "fix it" line bombed a little bit and I would promptly strike it out of existence. Since this answer deals with rewrites, I posted it AFTER my normal weekly blog, which dealt with creation.

Rewrites. Some writers hate them and other can't get enough. I'm of the latter variety. I want the script to be in top-form. As Cole mentioned, there was a massive rewrite about a week or so ago. Now, that sounds drastic. The story is still very much intact. It's just trimmed. It got liposuction—trimming out the fat to such a degree that it dropped nearly 30 pages. 30 pages that weren't working.

How do I know it's not working? I read it. Over and over and over. And then I have John and Cole read it. Over and over and over. And everyone makes suggestions.

Each time we read the script, we look for the best and the worst of everything. I need to make sure I keep the good stuff, but I also want to continually rid the script of flaws... connect the dots... and make it, you know... boss. So we look for dialogue that's klunky. Or perhaps some scene doesn't work because we moved it or rewrote its lead-in. And any number of things might work in draft 4 but not in draft 31.

The movie script has been changed in numerous ways from its staged counterpart. The screenplay went through several drafts to get itself adapted. And there are scenes we couldn't do on stage that we're free to do now.

So we keep rewriting and polishing. And then there's more reading. And it keeps getting better.

Thanks for the question!

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Characters... one word at a time.

I'm excited to tackle our second blog topic because Separation Anxiety, from the beginning, has always been about the characters. In my last post, I wrote on the evolution the story took from short fiction to stage play to film. The characters themselves have evolved, but I also want to touch on where they come from, and how a writer uses words to define a character to an actor and an audience.

The best films, to me, are built on characters that we, the audience, can identify with. We want to be the hero. Save the day. Find true love. But I don't connect with escapism (there's a reason it's called escapism). I know I'm not John McClain. But maybe I see myself in the Lester Burnams of the world. Or the Tyler Durdens (of the Ed Norton variety).

When creating a character, I sometimes pull from my own experiences, memories, beliefs, and borrow pieces of myself to form someone new. Equally, I will draw from observation—the people around me, friends, strangers, and research. And the third part of the equation is imagination. Putting myself into a situation and living it. Experiencing, or at least projecting an experience.

I don't know how all writers write. Wouldn't claim to and I won't say this is some secret formula for how to write a character in ten days. Just my take.

Quinn was the first. And in the beginning, he was me. I wrote him in a cathartic moment and it wasn't until later that I thought he might have more purpose than I first gave him. So he was slowly and carefully designed to be a facet of me, rather than a mirror. And all that is well and good, but still, most of that is just in my notes. The characters in the film were mapped out and their back stories drawn out. The trick, is to convey that through the words, since a movie script doesn't work like a novel. You don't write the intangible. "Don't write what we can't see." It's a popular idiom in film. And very helpful in forcing a writer to think visually and vocally when putting character down on paper.

Quinn, for example, is described as having a spartan room. He dresses older than he is. He drives a nice car. The things around him in the script are used to define him to both the director and the actor. Hints from the writer as to the man Quinn is, or thinks he is. This comes through in his speech pattern as well. Quinn uses longer words when he can. Not because he needs to, but because he likes to hear himself say them. In a script, the way a person uses words defines him.

Bailey, conversely, doesn't use big words unless they're the right words. He's more casual with his language. And more straightforward. He doesn't talk around things. The only time in the script he is not completely himself is when he's trying to talk about Jess to Quinn. She makes it tough for him to say what's on his mind, and when a character is otherwise great at speaking his mind, when he can't, there's reason for that.

Jess uses a mix of phrases in her speech, little saying that she makes up. Her way of playing with words. If there's something she doesn't want to talk about, she'll say it another way. Not passive, but subtle.

Mr. Palmer words skew older than the three youngsters. For him I has to go listening. I'm not his age. I didn't grow up in his life. His words needed to showcase his midwestern, blue-collar life. So as a writer, one of my first responsibilities is to listen, to read, to hear. How people talk. Go sit in a bar for a while and nurse a drink (at a bar that reflects the people you're trying to recreate). You'll be amazed at the gems you'll pick up. I heard one today at a skating party of my youngest cousin. You'll no doubt see it appear in something of mine one day (I'll let you know when that happens).

Lily was another character that required research. She speaks in languid sentences. Lots of words that give her the sense of being someone who counsels people. She asks questions and has a mix of compassion and bluntness that keeps her honest. To that end, she doesn't speak in specifics until forced. Most of her words bring us back to Quinn. She uses phrases to redirect conversation away from her in an attempt to protect herself.

One of the great challenges of any script, is creating a universe of characters that speak independently of each other. Different lilts, tones, cadence, and especially word choice will create a script full of different characters, rather than a group of people that all talk like the screenwriter.

Jess began in another play. She and her mother Ruth have their own story and I realized about three pages into it, that she knew Bailey too. That she was going through the same thing Quinn was. And that'll happen when a writer starts two project at the same time. You realize quickly that you're just writing one project and the second isn't going to make it. So you pull from it what you can and keep going.

But for all the character work a writer does, there's a group of people coming along who will take those characters and give them life. I love working with actors on a script. Listening to an actor read a line can give me a view of that character I hadn't seen. And that gets the juices flowing and then sometimes the character changes. But then I'm a collaborative writer. I know that eventually an actor will put his or her own spin onto a character I conceptualize. It's like potential and kinetic energy. I just need to make sure from my end that I give the actor the most potential possible for putting a brilliant character on the screen.

This past weekend I watched a short piece of theatre where an actress took on a role originally meant for a man. The last-minute gender switch brought such a level of importance to one line later in the show, that I can't see it written any other way. And I encouraged the writer to make the switch permanent. Because of one actress.

With another draft done for "Separation Anxiety", I'm working with Cole and Kiana to fine-tune the characters of Bailey and Jess in the film and each subsequent draft. They have both taken great care to examine the text, the words these people use, the actions they take through these words, and talk with me about them. Their motives. Their tenets. Their throughlines. A strong actor knows how to study a character, and that is invaluable to a writer.

I think all writers should take acting classes. Being on a stage, and not just to be there, but to engage and bring a piece to realization, is amazing and has, through my own experience in theatre work, taught me a bit about how actors approach their characters. How they might interpret someone I create.

Different actors have different speech patterns and different facials and movement, and that all goes into how they build the characters. And sometimes a word might work better for this actor than a different one. So lines are tweaked to play to a strength.

At the same time, every word a character says has to be carefully considered. A hesitation in the wrong place and they look weak when you wanted them to look strong. A vulgarity for no reason in a character that doesn't use them looks sloppy. Hip new phrases rolling off the tongue of an old fashioned guy (not being used for comedy or effect) looks odd. The words they use in dialogue, and the words I use for their description, should shape them, grow them, and more than anything, define them.

So like the actors, I go through the script. A pass for each character. Tracing their steps. And each time through I see something new. Something I missed before or just caught in a different light.

Overall, I look to give each character a distinct voice. A clear motive in what they do—a character says one thing but does another, and that incongruity grates against the audience. And honestly, they just need to speak to me. I identify with each of them, and through that I keep developing them. My goal is to make them real. Because if they're ever displaying anything that makes the actors and audience question that, then I've missed a step in their development.

Great topic... but now I'm going to answer our first question. Look for the posting tonight as well. More next week.

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Character Development: Director and Actors' take by Cole

You’ll have to forgive me, as writing this post seems almost backwards. In a way, we should be hearing from Jeremy first before jumping into what the performer is supposed to do. It all starts with the text, after all.

That, and I’m fighting being a bit sick with opening my show this weekend.

This weeks topic. Where to begin. John’s already spoken to you as a cinematographer. I suppose I should speak from a director/actor point of view. Jeremy will chime in with writing. I should say that, as a director/actor, the first thing I need to reiterate is that it begins with the script. And that the script directly effects the process of the actor in progress, just as the script in progress is directly effected by what the actor brings to the table. Hopefully Jeremy will talk later with you about what he expected from the actors with the words he wrote, and what surprises the actors gave him that, in turn, changed the words that he wrote.

Given Circumstances

The actors job begins with the text. What is found in the text informs character. And literally, EVERYTHING in the text informs the character. The tempo with which a characters speech is written, what he says about himself, what the writer says about the character in the stage direction, what the other characters say about him, where it says the character is, where he’s coming from, his income, his health, his race, his religion. Careful study can find answers to almost all of these. 

Example: The present time of Separation Anxiety is the morning of Bailey’s funeral. Bailey’s family would be Catholic, no? How much weight you give to this piece of information is up to you. He could be secular, or he could be profound in his faith. It depends on where you want to take the character/performance and production. My observation, as Bailey, was that the funeral makes him Christian. I chose to make his faith more profound than what was originally intended. For the trailer, you’ll see this in John’s framed shot of the crucifix in Bailey’s bedroom, as we see Mr. Palmer discovering the letter, and later in the trailer when we find Bai at the cathedral. This is a perfect example of the text (the funeral) informing the actor (that Bailey was a Catholic) who in-turn informs the director (playing to the profound faith) to inform the writer and the DP (making faith a key player in the script and in the shot.)

It all must be taken in and accounted for. The more that is done, the more truthful the performance. And nothing is more wonderful than a true and specific performance.

There is a common word that often goes along with directors. Write. Directors write. They take text and they work it and re-work it to find out the story that they want to tell. A director, new or old, will always be able to cut his teeth with a new or open bit of dialogue. What the director does with these new words, the backstory, is the director stepping into the role of writer and fills in the gaps, connecting the dots. The focus the story.

Originally, Bai’s role was unfulfilled. We established him as funny. The eclectic one. And we know that he and Quinn are best friends. We know that Quinn is going to an IVY league school on the opposite end of the country. Draw these connections, the polarization of the characters. The distance between them. The status between them (Quinn with his top school, Bai still at home. The way they talk to each other and Quinn’s unavoidably large vocabulary vs. Bai’s use of slang.) To develop Bai’s character more, we have to ask what would draw on that polarization even more so. Obviously, with his eclecticism, his TYPE B personality, and his passion, vs. Quinn’s timidness, it could make sense to make Bai an artist. Here we are, directing...writing backstory and dynamo into a relationship. Drawing on what is already there to make the stakes more staggering and the relationship more starkly evocative.

I said that this blog would be short, and in two points I’ve already come to a page and a half. It’s the text, I’m telling you. It’s barely the tip of the iceberg with it’s information.

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Questions from YOU #1: Dialogue that doesn't work...? REWRITES

Cole here. I'm going to invite Jeremy to field this one when he gets a chance over the weekend, and this does not count as my topical blog-of-the-week. That'll be later or tomorrow.

We've invited questions and comments from you, and we're going to answer them. That's our promise. That makes this a wild ride everyone can enjoy.

We got a question from someone asking about a particular bit of dialogue. I won't say that I know the fate of THAT particular line just yet, but it raises a good eye-brow and perks our ears, and it is much appreciated.

Jeremy has already posted about the importance of less. It's ironic that in order to be a writer, you NEED to put pen to paper. But in order to be a GOOD writer, you need to stop at some point. I've never heard of a writer being able to cut a great amount away from his script unless he has weeks and weeks to say goodbye to it. As the co-writer of "Glass City" my re-write and cutting process accidentally added a page or two the the screen-play. Woops...

Enter Jeremy and the reason he's going to be a marked raise in our standards. In one fell swoop, Jeremy Sony cut Separation Anxiety from 120 pages to 92. 

That's almost 30 pages. 

That's almost 30 minutes on film. 

And it all still makes sense. It all still induces sadness and jollies.

"Glass City" was a raging success. It is competing at a major film festival(s) (Trail Dance in Oklahoma) and has garnered nominations for best director, best actor, best actress, and best drama. However, a glaring flaw was that, in our budget of time and money, we were only able to put the draft up to revision number six. Having Jeremy on-board with enable us to really pay attention to the writing, which is something that should be given the same priority as the casting, the investing, the concepting, the shooting, and the editing. And with as far as number of re-writes and revisions. The number "50" has been tossed out there over the next nine months.

And that's just about the standard.

This will be a marked difference to the play some of you had seen in January of 2008. That playwrights festival dealt with one playwright who lives out of town (attentive as possible, but unable to be in the room has to be frustrating for any new work artist) and our own Jeremy Sony was busy being the president of a theatre company as well as directing a major piece of his own (again, with the ambition....). What we have here that is different is a dedicated playwright. And the revisions just keep on coming.

Hope this helps! Thanks for asking! Awesome question.

Cole Simon

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Topic #2: Character

First of all, apologies for the delay. You wouldn't know it yet, but we actually have a schedule that looks something like this:

John: Monday-Tuesday
Cole: Wednesday-Friday
Jeremy: Saturday-Sunday

So, as you can see, I've missed my deadline, and were it not for Cole's incessant pestering, I probably would have missed it further.

I've been delayed blog-wise due to final bits of color correction on the trailer and getting everything in order for our sound designer, Jordan Fehr, to take a quick look at any mixing and design tweaks necessary before next week. Why next week? Because Glass City Films is going to the Trail Dance Film Festival in Oklahoma, and we're hoping to have a solid version of the trailer and an investor packet to give to potential producers and distributors.


But enough with excuses and awesomeness. This week's topic centers entirely on character development, something that always seems to be lacking in most of the scripts I work on in Chicago as a cinematographer. One of my central edicts for good storytelling is that plot should follow character, not the other way around. I cite the difference between LOST and Heroes as prime examples of the former and the latter: whereas LOST's conspiracy theories and mythology are firmly rooted in the characters and the emotions that drive them to do such things, Heroes's characters seemingly change on a dime because the plot dictates that they must. One minute, someone has to be a villain; the next, that same person will be saving the life of a person who should be strong-willed yet has decided for this string of episodes to be a flip-flopper.

Cue frustration and rant. But I digress.

What drove me to Separation Anxiety, and what ignites me about its writing, is its to-the-core focus on character development, almost at the expense of what would be considered a typical three-act "plot". Bailey, Jess, and Quinn - and Lily and Mr. Palmer, as well - are all complex characters with shades of grey about their major characteristics, all of which are motivated by choices and events in their lives. I look forward to reading Jeremy's ramble on how he crafted those characters, but that is not my job on this film. My business is cinematography, and how to illustrate each character with imagery and lighting.

My favorite shots in the trailer - look for it next week - are those that evoke certain emotions and feelings about a character or a scene, regardless of what is prettier or not. For example, in Jess' initial confrontation with Mr. Palmer, as she goes to leave, her face is lit with a strong, cool side light, to separate her in color and feeling from Mr. Palmer, who is bathed in a more orange, gentle light. It's not to cast judgment, however, but rather to illustrate that, at this point in the story, Mr. Palmer has settled on his thoughts, and Jess is struggling to come to terms with all of it. And we see that in the wear and tear of the image.

The beauty of feature film work, as opposed to short films, is that the length of the project leaves room for a great deal more nuance. Rather than committing to a single style or a single visual arc, multiple arcs can co-exist. Robert Elswit (Magnolia, There Will Be Blood) and the late Conrad Hall (American Beauty, In Cold Blood) are terrific examples of cinematographers who use all the tools in their bag to achieve these multiple arcs. So too is Robert Richardson, who uses a minimum of six film stocks on almost every film he shoots (JFK, The Good Shepherd) because each stock has its own life and character.

For Separation Anxiety, a few thoughts we had discussed: Jess and Quinn's journey through grief can be a subtle transition from cool, flat tones and hard fixtures to more shapely soft light and warm color schemes. Mr. Palmer's rigid manner can be reflected in claustrophobic framings with longer lenses, but can give way later to wider shots that leave room to breathe. Lily and Quinn's relationship, over the course of the film, can start with a strong degree of contrast and morph into a less harsh, high-key low-fill lighting scheme. All within a general visual scheme dictated by the timeline of events: flashbacks are saturated, almost like porcelain dolls, and the present is melancholy, with a bleached, worn look to it. Think of the way memory is toyed with visually in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (my favorite film, but that's for another topic).

Another idea brought up was to keep elements of Bailey and Mr. Palmer's faith life present in the frame. As Mr. Palmer's faith is so tested by the possibility of Bailey having committed suicide, we thought it a nice visual reminder as opposed to a wordy explanation of Mr. Palmer's history with God and with church. In the trailer, there's a simple but effective image through the mirror of Mr. Palmer crying on Bailey's bed. A crucifix plays in the foreground, subtly, and the image is incredibly evocative.

So, that's it for my ramble. Don't want to give away ALL the surprises, do we?

Let's hear your thoughts and comments. Based on your general knowledge of the script, what visuals come to mind? What films best play in your head as using multiple visual paths to tell the same story? Do you prefer the more stylized visuals of, say, a Quentin Tarantino film or a Steven Spielberg film, or the subtle drawings of the Robert Elswits and the Anthony Dod Mantles of the world? (The latter, by the way, recently shot Slumdog Millionaire, and I encourage you all to go see it multiple times.) Have at it!

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Evolution of a Story - Stage to Screen

The topic for week #1 couldn't be more apropos, as I've just spent the last half-fortnight whittling, polishing, revising, re-imagining, and just generally adapting. That's the best word for it. Adapting.

Separation Anxiety, as John and Cole mentioned, first met the public eye as a stage play in early 2008. But in the beginning, it was something else. There are moments in the play and film scripts which echo their common ancestor, "A Kick to the Stomach"—a short piece of fiction written in 2002 by a young man coping with sudden tragedy. That piece served its purpose and then one day, I realized I could do something more with it.

And that's what I love about writing—there are so many way to express an idea. An emotion. And in each medium, they come through in different ways. That was evident in the early drafts of the film script, which echoed and mirrored its older sibling in length and verbosity.

I talk a lot—and so, apparently, do my characters—with a fast-paced, adapted English (I like to verb nouns, sue me), that rolls off of my tongue like silk and yet might discombobulate the most veteran of thespians. Intentionally exaggerated, that last bit, but a good rendering nonetheless.

First lesson of adapting a play to the big screen: learn to shut up.

One of the key difference, and advantages of film is the ability to tell a story with moving pictures. Visuals. Those shots that win people awards. If a picture's worth a thousand words, just imagine what it's worth when it's in motion.

When I saw the stage play, I knew that there were still scenes that would be trimmed and it could be crisper overall. The actors did a great job with what I gave them, allowing me to hear the dialogue spoken in real time, by real people. And that made a difference.

After filming the trailer for the film, and watching these little scenes take shape from what I thought were drastically abbreviated moments, I realized that the film script was way too wordy and I pulled out the blade of my pen and went to work.

The most recent draft of the script tightened it down and trimmed out nearly 30 pages. And the fun fact is, it doesn't feel like it's missing anything. I just discovered new ways to tell the same story... showing, not telling. Which is amusing because that's still a tenet of the stage. And I have learned quite a bit about the economy of words and that sometimes it really is about the things we don't say.


Second lesson of adapting a play to the big screen: Evolution is adaptation, not translation.

Too often, and John touched on this, films that stem from books or plays can end up flat and disappointing on film because they're being translated. It's like listening to a Frenchmen tell you the story of Le Petit Prince in broken English rather than his mother tongue.

In approaching the film version of Separation Anxiety, I found the most effective way to get a film scene written was to write it from scratch. To adapt, not retell. I know the story. I know the characters. I know the play script by heart and can recite you their lines.

The story has been fleshed out. Decisions were made. And as it adapts, the characters continue to grow. Or, more accurately, they continue to evolve and like a sculptor with his marble, I've chiseled away the bulk and waste to find the essence of the character within.


Third lesson of adapting a play to the big screen: Technically speaking, it's like capturing snowflakes.

Plays don't do this. Aside from a playwright's note and some stage direction, there is little for anyone producing a play to go on. Even set designs in the back of scripts get tossed out because every stage is different. The same script can be presented any number of ways over time and even the same production can see itself tweak and change mid-performance because it's live and thus the show is never the same twice.

In bringing the show over to film, I realized it was being locked down. Yes, there's fun with editing and music and all sorts of post-production, but eventually, the film will lock and be forever in one form. And to achieve that, the writer needs everyone on the same page. Thankfully, film scripts are very clear cut about how to make that work.

So, I had to reach back to my days as a film major at Notre Dame and learn to write both visually AND technically.

When do you cut to verses fade to? How about those slug lines? INT./EXT.? Time of day? Overall, formatting is paramount because unlike theatre where a director and his team assemble everything in one place for a continuous block of time, in film there's a team of people mapping out a filming schedule.

And every time we move to a new place, that's a new set-up, a new call-sheet, a new everything, and so things have to match. A film script is a blue-print with pretty exact specifications open to artistic license.


Over the past couple of years I have seen living room readings and more organized feedback sessions for the play, followed by its staging at Curtain Players last January. Each time, there was a jump forward. Characters stripped out and replaced. Motives changed. Tones shifted. The story itself never changed, but the means by which I told it did. The trailer created new moments in my head and pushed it along the track. And each draft from here until production will only get better.

I'll be back next week with a new topic. For now, I've got to go work on the next draft.

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Stage to Screen: The Guy Who Was There Both Times

I’m up early this morning to make my self-set deadline of Friday for this blog. I was up until 1AM last night listening to music from this dream team of artists that have sent their material our way to be considered for the soundtrack. In some cases, I think we really struck gold. The trailer will testify to that in a matter of days. It’s surreal to me.

I’ll begin this topic with a bit of back story, and we’ll go on from there.

From Stage to Screen

The Theatrical Production

About a year ago I was heading into tech week for Separation Anxiety at the Curtain Player’s Playwrights Festival. This annual festival took place during the winter (now summer) where, unlike their regular season where they perform the show for three weekends, three brand new pieces are performed for one weekend each.

When I first read Sep as a play, I found myself compelled by the idea of it. The decisions were bold and unforgiving. I turned page after page to see what would happen next. However, that’s not to say that it was without it’s flaws. The play w

as verbose (which I usually don’t mind as much but generally, it’s something to avoid), it had some factual flaws that, if scrutinized, would blow holes into the entire plot.

And because the Playwrights Festival took place over the christmas season, rehearsals were

 limited. We were only afforded one session with the playwright to make sense of things with him in the room and request changes. O

therwise, we were to make due.

As the show ended, I had grown a lot with Bailey. Separation Anxiety was my first bit of theatre outside of college, just after I’d finished directing Glass City. I’d grown because Bailey, along with the other characters and due to the limitatio

ns of the Christmas holiday, hadn’t been given the ideal TLC of a playwrights festival (hence the excitement for moving it to the summer). Where Bailey was underdeveloped I found myself doing a lot more work on my own to justify certain actions and decisions, especially pertaining to the big decision that is ultimately asked of Bailey. I added a brava

do 

to him. A certain infuriating sense of mysterious confidence that “worked” for the character but really was the smoke and mirrors effect to mask someone who was altogether an unanswered question.

Opting Sep for a Film

Since working with John on Glass City we both realized we need to jump at the chance to work with each other again. In late December we’d just finished up a marvelous and hurdle-ridden short called Rendezvous and decided we would keep enabling each other. John respected my instincts for finding good artists and good mater

ial. I respected John’s passionate yet fair sense of filmmaking and his ability to spot a success, among other things. I mentioned the script to him, but sat on it until running it by the writer, Jeremy Sony. At a closing night cast party, when I asked him and got a very shocked or somewhat befuddled “yes” I timidly s

ent it to John in a sort of “There-might-be-something-here-but-I-like-the-story-and-the-characters-could-be-great-I-hope-you-don’t-think-I’m-a-fool-because-I-know-it-needs-work.” You know...THAT sort of timidness.

What I got back from him was startling.

~Cole:

Just finished reading.

It's beautiful.  It's absolutely beautiful.  There are scenes in this

that sparkle and crackle with brilliant resonance, and what it lacks in

subtlety at points, it makes up for with wondrous feeling and heart.

My first thoughts:

~

  So, what we’ve just done is Opted the Script. Nice.

Re-writes

There are certain aspects of working with people I’ve come to develop that is a litmus test for true collaborative artists. Jeremy is a wonderful collaborative artist. When we sat down for dinner after the play had closed with the specific intention of discussing screenplay options, I had never really talked to him before besides in passing. As I’ve said, one of the frustrating aspects of the theatrical production is how much the writer was not actually in the room with us. So, here I sit, a 22 year old freshly graduated collegiate, meeting for the first time with playwright/director Jeremy Sony about his play that I was

 just in, and oh yeh, he’s 7 years my senior.

The beginning started as cordial and pretty nervous, maybe a little awkward.

And then I remembered the point.  We want to make Sep into a film. That tells him already that we love the script. But the difference is that we want to raise a lot of money for this and pay everyone what’s fair. So, that being said, the notes I give him on re-writes from myself and John might come off as harsh, but he should remember it’s because we think he’s really good.

And he never needed reminding of that. It seemed he was thirsty for hardcore criticism. So

mething that is hard to find in a theatre community, which is someone who both knows what they

’re talking about mixed with being honest and truthful enough to challenge you to get better. I think Jeremy

 and I first bonded on that, and a beautiful friendship has since stemmed. But we’ll see what he says later this weekend.

That is what I mean by collaborative artist. Jeremy sets out to do his part of the job in the rewrites as he is the one responsible for them. However, at the same time, we all have a hand in it. Because what he doe

s effects us and what we do in our jobs effects him. Jeremy does so well in film/theatre becau

se he respects how it MUST be collaborative.

Bailey

Bailey’s transformation from the stage to screen is born in the re-writes. Jeremy is working hard to get much more specific with each character, especially the “children” Quinn, Jess, and Bai. Where, as I mentioned, Bailey had an infuriating sense of confidence before, Jeremy has done a wonderful job making him more sensitive and embracing his flaws as well as his virtues, while keeping the truth, which is that Bai likes to make light of everything. With Jeremy as the director/writer of the project, I have been able to meet with him fairly frequently simply to ask questions about the Baile

y and to offer up my own answers. Bailey has grown in his sensitivity, his goals, and his perhaps crippling insecurities.

Questions

Ultimately, I have a list of things that I want to talk about here regarding putting a play on scree

n. But this is

 carrying on and I don’t want to lose you. Feel free to ask any questions in the comments b

elow or email us at ou

r movie Gmail! Jeremy Sony is next, due up by Sunday. Happy New Year everyone!

Cole Simon

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