Binger Directors Lab – Weeks 14 & 15

2nd SHOOTING EXERCISE:

This was our second opportunity to shoot a scene from our scripts, yet the first time shooting with professional actors and a cinematographer. The previous workshop, with Mark Travis, gave us plenty of opportunity to rehearse and test out our chosen scenes as well as expose us to casting options from the local Dutch community. Based on that experience I choose to work with Marcel Hensema (‘Ahmad’) and Nasrdin Dchar (‘Stefan’).

DIRECTOR’S PREP:

Ian Sellar – who you’ll remember from a previous workshop, helped us with our director’s prep. We got a chance to discuss what we believed to be the ‘core’ of the scene and how we were going to use the various director’s tools during the shoot to leave with that essence. It was great to be able to strip down what I thought to be a psychologically complex scene into a bare-bones, simple idea that I could reference while shooting.

SCOUTING:

In preparation for the shoot I was also able to work with local producer Danielle Guirguis who helped as production manager, securing the location & props and scheduling the shoot. I wanted to take advantage of Amsterdam’s many retrofitted spaces and find a place for the scene with a sense of history and personality. Danielle took me to an old warehouse that had been converted into offices and studios. On the ground floor, there was a lobby overlooking the water that had the feel I was looking for and provided a great space for the characters to interact in. Here are some photos from that scout:

PREP W/ CINEMATOGRAPHER:
After that I met with my cinematographer, Jasper Wolf. We went through the scene and the film in general (e.g. themes, character arcs, etc.). I expressed to him in broad-strokes my vision for the scene as well as my concerns and ‘blind-spots’ – what I was still trying to answer by workshopping the scene. I also showed him the location photos and that seemed to inspire a lot of ideas on how to use the space and natural light available to us. By chance I ended up with his copy of the script for the scene and I was really impressed with how he marked it up for his own preparation, I’ll be lucky to work with such a well-prepared cinematographer in the future. Take a look for yourself: shelter_jasperwolf_scenenotes

THE SHOOT:
We had a skeleton crew for the shoot, just Jasper and another directing-fellow helping out with sound. We shoot for four hours, working with the Canon 5d and an external sound recording-device with minimal lighting.

In retrospect I got a bit caught up on finding the ‘right’ rhythm for the entire scene, as if we were doing a piece of theater. This slowed us down a bit as I sometimes felt unsure about the choices the actors were making. Maybe I was still in ‘workshop’ mode – but Jasper took me aside and reminded me of the obvious, that we were shooting a film and could shoot numerous variations and wait to find the best rhythm in the editing room.

Related to this mistake I feel I started the scene more as a therapist, instead of a director, getting into long-winded conversations and debates with the characters about their feelings, motivations, etc. I was still trying to access the true emotions of the characters, via the methods Judith & Mark had introduced me to. It took me a while to break out of that mindset and rely more on my own emotions, my own reactions, to gauge the scene’s veracity.

Despite my faults, I was very excited with the work we accomplished in only 4 hours. I felt like this was a capstone experience to see for myself what I had learned about my characters in the last few months.

THE EDIT(S):
The shoot dovetailed with the next workshop with Molly Stensgaard. After a presentation of some of her work and her experiences working with Lars von Trier on films such as Dogville and Dancer in the Dark, we had a few days and dedicated workstations to edit our footage.

Each day Molly went from station to station, giving us feedback on our rough cuts. Studying my dailies I was reminded of how each frame conveys a different dimension of my characters’ relationship, some emphasizing their closeness, others creating distance.

I had decided before shooting that this would be Stefan’s scene, that the audience would be following his change and reactions to Ahmad. It is a complex relationship, that ebbs back and forth between friendship and paranoia during the course of the film, and on set I wasn’t really sure how and when that ebbing takes place from beat to beat. But trying to decide this on set was the thing that slowed me down – I had forgotten that their relationship, their actions and reactions, could be edited and manipulated as I pleased. It was very simple, with the same footage, to tweak their personalities and emotions.

Here’s a coverage-board of our various shots, similar to the one from the last shooting exercise:

Even though I shoot the scene intending it to be Stefan’s, I found with the same raw material I was able to make a second cut, favoring Ahmad experience through the scene. This is good to know for future reference as it reminds me that the perspective of each of their scenes together during the course of the film can also be altered in the edit room.

TAKEAWAYS:
Figuring how to modulate the friendship and distance between two men on paper has been a huge problem for me as a writer. But I discovered that the dimensionality to their relationship – via their dialogue, actions and reactions – can be finalized in editing, assuming I have the necessary raw material from talented actors such as these.

• I was pleased with the prep I did, from brainstorming possible locations, to previsualizing the scene & it’s tone with Jasper, to working with two actors that already had done their own homework and prep with the script and characters.
• It was healthy, both as a writer and director, to be reminded of how much of a scene can be manipulated in post as long as the coverage, both in terms of camera and a range of performances, has been recorded.
• I was also reminded of the benefits of having a cinematographer that intuitively gets the scene and possibilities, one that you can let loose to experiment with capturing the scene.
• My main objective in directing actors is for the audience to realize the veracity of a scene, by whatever means that work for that particular actor. There are times when one must speak to the character, to bring to the surface the things they already know – their history, their pain, etc. And then are times when it is more effective to simply speak to the actor about what you, as the first audience member, are and aren’t seeing from their performance. The trick is to be responsive to the work environment you’re creating for them and how it’s affecting their ability to perform.
• Again, it’s not rocket science – I entered the lab with the notion that acting was something magical, unknowable and delicate to mere mortals like myself with no acting talent. Maybe this is why we started with Judith’s workshop where she stripped away a bit of the mystique and confusion about what actors do. I see now its less of a ‘black box’, but rather the result of a deliberate collaboration between the actor, director and script. Yes, the result is magical, full of veracity, spontaneity and happy accidents that make made up words and characters into real people. But the means to get there are very similar to any work environment. We want to be inspired to work hard, to be given accurate feedback before veering way off course, not to be micromanaged, not to be confused by unnecessary complexity or problems, not to have long-winded discussions or meetings, to be released with the skills we already have and to learn on the job.
• Finally, editing reminded me of the most esoteric of takeaways, but a mantra that I need to remind myself of: complexity arises out of the simplest of things put together.

One post left before I conclude my Binger experience – talk to you soon -