Guns And The Auteur Theory

And promptly fell asleep. What a shocker, I know, but in fact it wasn't totally unexpected, because I haven't been sleeping well recently.

Tiff said she would call at 4. When I woke up and saw it was 4:20, I wondered what the heck was going on. I picked up the phone and figured it out: the computer had decided to go get my mail for me and was still logged on.

That's right: there is a downside to computers.

She'd left a message and I went downstairs to wait for her. We headed over to Reseda and went to the indoor shooting range, which was in a scruffier part of town. Not bad, necessarily -- just lots of chain-link fences and old Chevys, both cars and trucks. We were the only people at the shooting range except the guy on staff, who was so young he made me feel old. Tiff and I went into the shooting room to check it out, primarily in the department of ventilation, because she's heard about some ranges that don't ventilate properly and become filled with smoke. She asked me what the hanger in front of each position was; I said that was where you hang your target and then you use the switch (I pointed) to move the target back as far as you wanted.

"Have you done this or just seen it in a movie?" she asked.

"What do you think?" I answered.

We both knew the answer was movie, so we moved on from staring at the tonnage of brass shell casings on the floor and went to get that certificate.

I asked her if she didn't want to get the certificate at the Beverly Hills Gun Club. She said she didn't know what the rates were there; are they reasonable? I said the BHGC is where all the stars go to shoot and the rates probably weren't reasonable, no.

The other thing I did today was meet with my D.P. -- for those of you not in the know, that stands for "Director of Photography," which is another name for "Cinematographer." The person who decides how to get the director's vision on film. Or, in our case, video. As you may remember, I'm the director of this little project.

It's odd directing something for the first time that I myself haven't written. I got the script faxed to me yesterday. I considered killing the screenwriters, but decided that was hostile and not at all constructive. Yes, once you're on the other side of the creative equation you understand why everyone thinks that writers are nobodies who exist simply to make your life difficult. Among the tasks I was faced with:

• A 7 page script. The general rule of thumb is that one page of a script equals one minute of screen time. For production purposes however, a 7 page script has to be broken down into individual shots, which means that you are going to be filming all goddamn day. (Did I mention that the screenwriting members of our directing group went skiing this weekend and will not be around for the production?)
• Lots of the places in the script had directing on the page. This is a major no-no, because it's the writer's place to tell a story, not to tell the director how to shoot it or the editors how to edit it. Directing on the page includes phrases like CLOSE UP ON or DOLLY OUT ON or CAMERA PANS UP. I crossed all of those out. The way they had this written would have been lots and lots of shots, which means lots and lots of setups (arranging the actor, the lighting, and the camera angle so that this shot matches with the previous shot).
• A scene with the male and female leads in bed together after having sex.

The writers wrote this script specifically for this project. This is not something one of them whipped out of his trunk. No, they were faced with the task of coming up with something on Friday night that the production half of the crew could shoot on Monday and the editors (the screenwriters' other job -- it's not going to be all fun, games, and skiing for those two)can edit by next Monday. So what did they do? They wrote a long script that is both productionally and thematically, uh, difficult.

Anyhow, I met Jose today at the Industry Cafe (every time I've gone there I've wondered how in the hell they've stayed in business, and today was no exception, but it was halfway between my place and his) to discuss how to film this. Jose, thankfully, has the same attitude towards filming I do: get it done. Don't stand around and waste time thinking about "the intention" of this scene. Worry beforehand, worry later, but put it on film now. What's even better, he's a Production track MFA student, so he's done a lot of camerawork. He likes cameras, and I like that in a D.P.

We went over the script and I took out the red pen (actually, a pencil, but you get the idea) and started slashing dialogue. I pointed to one especially long portion of dialogue and said, "Do they realize how long this is going to play on screen?" We could make it interesting, but we're not going to. It's not necessary, goodbye.

Instead of shooting it as written, which would as I said have taken dozens of, if not a hundred or more, shots, Jose and I decided on a plan to use long takes with a moving camera to move the participants from one location (living room, bedroom) to another. A couple of closeups and inserts here and there.

The trickiest part is going to be choreographing some of the scenes. Stuff that's going to be hard to make look natural, especially if these actors have never met before. One of the nice things about having someone else do camera is that I can spend more time with the actors.

So this is what I've been spending my Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend doing.