GABRIEL FELSBERG
163 – JOURNAL
THE FILMMAKING THEORY AND PRATICE OBSERVATIONSINITIAL THOUGHTSI like this idea that we are expected to make mistakes, as Alan said a numerous times. This journal makes sense to me when I think about it in this way. We learn by making mistakes, we are being taught, judged, and supervised. To keep these records on the thinking process of how we deal with the art of filmmaking is priceless. If no mistakes were to be expected we had no purpose of going to LFS. These mistakes are a very important part of the learning process, and I appreciate this approach on us. I am opened for criticism as I’ve said to all my 163 colleagues and a few teacher “Don’t BS me, come straight, come clean, I want to learn”. But I won’t treat the teachers as the beholders of the wisdom of cinema. I’ll treat them as ordinary people that knows more than I, and that I have a great deal of listing to do. I am very crude as a director, but I am a director back in Brazil, and I have lived a little and I cherish that very much, and I think I have also things to say, about what I think and feel about filmmaking. In other words, if I disagree with a teacher on a subject matter, I will insist on him convincing me why my point of view is wrong. At the end of 2 years we will become colleagues in a greater circle of filmmakers, so respect comes with respect.
ABOUT THE CLASSES - OVERALLWhen I talked to Alan on the phone from Brazil, he said that by looking at my resume and show reel I would find many subjects repetitive. I confess, sometimes it is boring to listen to the same things over again, and in some cases is good to have a different perspective on things. For instance Alan gave us a first production class where he gave us the backbone on how to make student films in London. This class was extremely important because every country, every city or town has its own particularities. I tried to take notes of everything he said and understand this task, because it is one of my weakest points in filmmaking. PRODUCTION, be a producer, It is a living hell to me. I’m terrible at the phone, getting prices right, names, dates, bloody hell.
Cedric’s Class have been very helpful to me. I enjoy very much the hands on approach he gives us on cinematography. Barry is a gentleman, and a film encyclopedia and shows us interesting films, but sometimes it is very hard to concentrate for a long period of time on early cinema films because they were too slow.
Ben Gibson has given, in my opinion, the best classes for me. He is dynamic, direct, walks around the class, speaks loud, gesticulates, and asks us questions; it is class that helps us thinks out of the box. He doesn’t stand in one position, and talks, talks, talks without moving. It becomes exactly like the early cinema movies, difficult to watch without something to chew, bite or drink. Sometimes it becomes a drama to me because we can’t drink food or drinks to the theatre, but sometimes I bend the rules or else I sleep.
Alan is a film buff, and I respect him very much as a teacher because he knows what he talks about, but I don’t like his teaching very much sometimes. He oscillates from a very interactive class with scene analyses to a standing person talking without interruption for over an hour. And when that happens it is very hard concentrate on a single spot for so long. As I, he has strong opinions about certain film director’s or subjects and seems a bit egocentric, no letting the students speak up. For instance after we watch a film we take a break, and when we come back he lets us brainstorm on the film for about 10 to 15 minutes. Then he starts speaking and doesn’t seem to like interruptions. He told me once “I would hate to see your version of Psycho” after a comment I made comparing the western film scene we just watched and Psycho. Frankly that is not something you say to a student.
As a student I have one weakness, time. And especially over here in England people get very annoyed when others are late. I understand that it is disrespect to the teacher, but sometimes it is over exaggerated. It has taken me almost a term to really understand what Alan has been talking about when he called my attention about time. To me it seems that not being on time is the easiest way for people not to take your work seriously and in consequence not respecting you as a filmmaker. Fortunately therapy has helped me a lot to deal with matters like these, so I know how to blow some steam when needed.
A film in a very superficial sense is a combination of pre production, production and post production. All of these steps stated have an equal value and they all influence on another during the assembly of the film in post. 1/3, 1/3, and 1/3 to became 3/3 as 1 unit. A film at the end has to become a unit. I think that we had very few classes with Alan and Ben that clearly pointed out the necessity of being well prepared on all steps of the process.
For future terms I think there should be classes dedicated on production, something like getting a few the scripts from the teacher, and in one week period we should work in pre production and organize the film in a way that it will work on set. Let me just state that I most hate to be preoccupied or get involved is as a producer, but I can say it with some background knowledge acquired in Brazil that the producer and his/her production team makes all the creative beauty that a director, and his creative group come to life. LIVE TOGETHER OR DIE ALONE.
ABOUT MY CLASSMATESLittle by little I am beginning to understand a little more about them and they about me. I will not go into details about each and everyone in the class, because this is not of this journal, but I think is important for to state that I am disappointed with LFS. I thought I would meet a group of people that all had quite the same experience (in different areas) and what I found, was not bad, but a mixture of people with all sort of different talents. Probably there are including myself 3 or 4 at most that has some similar experience. I say this because I wanted to exchange professional experiences, contacts, and future business. We are a group of 11 monkeys. 1/3 is at the same level the other 2/3 has talents but never worked so many times in a professional world. But as always I try to look at things in the bright side, so I see these other 2/3 as people with a lot of potential if they apply themselves very hard during these two years. I know I’m going to do my best and try very hard to do my part and eventually if possible help others too. This is what I chose as a profession.
I think that many students are making films and worried about if Alan and other teachers approve their work. I disagree. We make films in the surface for them and to certainly pass at the end of the year, but we make films to experience the process of telling stories, reflect from our mistakes and congratulate our achievements. A film here is all about what did you learn about the experience of making art, judging art, and working with others. I think that the most difficult part of filmmaking is dealing with others. Humans are very complex and complicated specie.
2 LOVERS to Sex Wars (Title may Change)This short story is the climax of as larger script that I am developing with my business partner back in Brazil. We hope to shoot our first long feature in about four years. This script came to while I was singing a police song called wrapped around your fingers. The lyric tell us a story of a boy that has an affair with an older woman. He is fascinated by the sexual education he discovers staying with her and really commits to her in all possible ways. He is wrapped around her fingers. At the end of the song he learns how to play the game and surprises his “new moves” and she becomes astonished with that. The table turns and the servant becomes the master.
I had a very similar personal experience when I was 20 years old and I identified myself in the song. But in my case, I felt so powerful that I screwed up bad. I cheated, said horrible things, and many other things.
I thought about this scene back in Brazil when I was drawing the timeline sequence of events that would happen in the story. And I got to a point where I had to make time pass and show that the kid was learning fast to a point where she had nothing more to teach him. For this purpose I mixed them all together in one big scene where you see the character’s arc going from total submissive to total control. IT IS NOT A PORN FILM. IT IS AN EROTIC FANTASY SHORT FILM.
I researched many films to develop how this progression would look like. I watched films like, The Dreamers, from Bernardo Bertolucci, Fatal Attraction, from, Cruel Intentions, Samsara, and Basic Instinct, as a first reference of how to shoot erotic scenes and how they are framed.
Eventually the idea was banned so I tried a comic approach on the subject. How could I in some way put erotic substance into a comic short film, black and white 16mm with no sound? I’ve never done it before, but I challenged myself. Like always I investigate what films I liked that had this approach. Conclusion…Hundreds of them, mainly EUA, but Brazilians had for over a decade a whole a setup industry of what we call in portuguse “Pornochanchada”
EXAMPLE POSTER OF A PORNOCHANCHADAThe script was approved by the group by an outline I did in my head. The basic idea was that this old couple would have an argument over lunch, or breakfast and they would begin to throw food at each other than at the end they would make love behind the table where the audience would not see the action but imagine it. I thought it was very funny. I am perfectly capable of directing this material, but I don’t like to direct comedy so I gave it to Liz, because she never directed a film in her life, so I thought I should give her the chance, and make my conclusions on how I thought she handled it. Another motive was that I am not attached at all to this script, I don’t treat it as a baby, or something else. Filmmaking is about collective work. LIVE (WORK) TOGETHER OR DIE ALONE. Very philosophical and true, I won’t get into details about this but this craft of making films is about how can you stimulate a person to do something for you. I did it to Liz, it is different to manipulate, but very close to it. It depends on the interpretation to the facts. If I use this gift as a weapon in the future I would have manipulated her today for some sort of favour later in the course. It’s like a chess game, I always attack thinking of my possibilities.
This term has been until now a great big review of every class, workshop, and trainee experience I ever experienced in Sao Paulo at Paradiso Films, Los Angeles and New York. I’ve been around for about 4 years and I’ve seen and learned some things valuable. I can say that one of my greatest strengths is in pre-production, for commercials, institutional and short film. I’ve participated in more than 30 projects. This is what I think about when I do these kinds of projects.
a) READ THE SCRIPT.
b) DO A MAJOR BREAKDOWN.
c) BEGIN TO SEE REFERENCES OF ANY KIND (PHOTOS, VIDEOS, PAINTINGS, BOOKS, ANY KIND OF ART FORM OR EVEN DAILY SIMPLE THINGS SUCHAS TV SHOWS) AND ORGANISE THEM FOR FUTURE NOTES.
d) STORYBOARD (WITH IMAGE BANKS, DRAWINGS, SKETCHES OR VIDEOS.
e) MAKE A VIDEO AND PICTORIAL MONSTER RESUMING YOUR THOUGHTS AND DIRECTIONS TO THE SPECIFIC PROJECT (EDIT A SMALL VIDEO WITH IMAGES COLLECTED FROM DIFERENT SOURCES TO ILUSTRATE WHAT KIND OF APPROACH WILL BE GIVEN TO THE PROJECT) EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE UNDERSTOOD VISUALLY!!!
f) BE AVAILABBLE 24/7 FORM PREPARATION TO THE LAST DAY OF POST PRODUCTION.
g) BE FRIENDLY AND GIVE ATTENTION TO YOUR TEAM. LIVE (WORK) TOGETHER OR DIE ALONE, RESPECT THEM, BE EDUCATED, AND COOPERATIVE.
In my case I’ve been more times director and anything else, so that’s one of the reasons I decided to do this master at LFS. From the few things that I learned and got to know within this short period of time, I always focused on the director’s job more than anything, which means that I’ve always saw the macro scope of doing a film or video, I’ve got in touch with some micro aspects of doing a film and I believe these micro aspects I will learn here at LFS.
For Sex Wars I asked to be assigned to be an editor and a 1st assistant director. Jobs that I am very comfortably in doing because I have some experience in doing so. I am very exited in editing on the moviola, because I never had a chance to touch or see one. I think that the experience of living cinema as it began is something to respect, and I thank the school for that. This first step towards filmmaking is for us students to understand the laborious work it is, the craft of filmmaking and for to understand while watching old movies from the last century the technical problems those men had to solve with much less technology than we do today. A good one-word definition for this first term is AWAKENING.
I think the film Sex Wars is a bit behind schedule. We’ve had very brief meetings, and the director just gave some general explanations on what she envisions. I saw Liz today arranging a room for a casting session but she was not very clear with us during the brief meeting when would this casting session happen. At least she found a location, her backyard, but there are a lot of important creative on production-wise decisions to be made. PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE! I bet she won’t make a storyboard, but I will try to convince her on a floor plan layout so we can visualize where the camera will be set. For that the whole crew (unit) needs to be present and VISIT LOCATION TOGETHER and possibly take some photos of angles that could be used during the real shoot. I learned that Murphy’s Law always walks with us during shootings, and I hope the best.
AFTER 3 WEEKS163/B – From Sex Wars to Casualties
Ever since I wrote this naïve, not my type of film script, I’ve been dwelling with production issues. I have a strong personality, and because of that I am still trying to find the best balance to handle production the best way possible. I have experience working the students too years few years ago, and It was horrible, they were clueless about the importance of pre-production. Everything was unorganized on the films, and because no money was involved, they didn’t work as hard as they were supposed to. I am finding quite the same attitude with Liz. As a Director she is supposed to give orders, assign work to be done, right or wrong she has to transmit confidence on her ideas and ASK about things she doesn’t know. I’ve been the BITCH of the group until now, because I want to know what are the pre-production schedule, the storyboard, location, and actors. I need paper work, e-mails, DOCUMENTS to work on not IDEIAS. She said in many occasions that she had the film in her head.
That’s not good enough. This term should also have many classes on HOW TO PRODUCE A FILM from A-Z. In my opinion just the very basic of it all was passed to us. We should exercises, like we have in some classes and learn how to produce. We can become directors, DOPs, Sound engineers, sound designers, Cameraman, PRODUCERS, and many other things in film. We are supposed to learn how to make films and learn how to work as professionals. Not only “be on time is enough”. I was said that things in the school were gonna be tough, I am still waiting. I want to learn more, I want to feel more and more that I am learning important tools for my career.
Casualties, is an actor’s type of film, because it very much depends on what type of actors the director chooses to ensemble a cast. It can be done with still cameras all the way, Liz has only to block everything very carefully where one shot ends and another shot continues for a smooth editing. It is possible to do an invisible editing in this film, because it is staged on one location all the time, example wide, to medium to close. My responsibility as an editor will be to give the right rhythm to the film. If that happens we can have some laughs with it.
CONCLUSION: This film is not being done as if would be done in a professional world.
PATIENCE IS A VIRTUENow lets talk about some good things that have been going on with the group. “ Save the best for last”.
LUN GAE: Lun is our peace warrior; He has the qualities needed in the film business. He is always ready to help. He was Liz chauffer on pre-production, cooked (catering) on set, cleaned the kitchen almost by himself, and never complained. He has team spirit and likes to make everybody happy on set.
CORIN: He needs to be more focused make priorities with his commitments. No question that he is interested in filmmaking and knows something about camera work, on set he was very concentrated and quick on decision making.
Winnie: She is very sensible and always takes notes on classes and is very attentive on set to know what is going on, and is eager to learn.
Liz: When she focuses on what she has to do, she does it. I would like to see her participated more in-group activities, on set and in class. She is a raw talent that needs to be constantly motivated.
Gabriel: Me…I’m he Brazilian guy, I am very dedicated in doing the things I like to do. I chose to be here and I want to make it a good experience to the end. I came here to learn, share experiences. I don’t like to compare myself with others and I take my work and art very seriously. My mojo is “CHOAS AND CREATION”. I need to have more patience and help more others rather than just criticize them.
THE THINKING CINEMAI don’t like very much the genres the two films we are shooting this term. I like horror, suspense, and philosophical drama films basically. I have a saying “Rock is Rock, the rest is Jazz”. The way I think about cinema for the past 2 years is that films can be divided into 4 layers of understanding:
a) Time
b) Space
c) Psychological or Social Issue
d) Philosophical
All films have the first 2 items time and space. They are set some place during a period in time. The psychological or social issue depends on what I call the complexity of the theme. Meaning that independent of the genre films can approach certain topics with profound or superficial questionings or explanations on psychological or social issues. Very few films achieve the philosophical aspect of the theme, relating to the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence. When a film achieves this fourth layer it becomes a humanist act, a statement of its time, space, psychological, social, and philosophical, when it was made.
I am only attracted to films when at least I feel it touches the third level. These two first short films only do the basic time and space.
“Discipline is Freedom
Compassion is to have a Fortress
Goodness is Courage”
(Há Tempos – Renato Russo)
ON SET PRODUCTION - CASUALTIES
A director is only as good as its production teamwork and effort on set. This is a very important lesson I learned back in Brazil after I shot and saw the dailies of my father’s institutional film. It’s crystal clear that as wannabe film director’s we have got to learn how to work and analyze the production work on pre production, during production and in post production. It is as important as knowing how to direct a scene, an actor, how to do a storyboard, how to use a camera, sound, special effects, film grammar, or film history to name a few.
Most of my criticism to this first project has to with what I tried to explain in the paragraphs above. Liz is innocent to fact that because she never directed a film to know a lot being a director on set, and a producer too. She followed her gut feeling in this project and was very lucky to have a group of people involved to help her vision become reality as we tried with this project Casualties. I was very pleased to see the group apply itself hard from the moment we got there until we cleaned the set and left location.
We shot the film in one day, and that information shows how dedicated we were on set to shot this first film. I scheduled the whole film on EP Scheduling, after reading the director’s notes about shot framing and action she prepared hours before. Lun printed the schedule so when we got on set I knew exactly what was going on. For every shot I had a paper with me and another more detailed that I stick on a place behind set where everybody could see. And I told everyone, that every scene shot information is there for consultation so we could have a quite set. The actor’s signed the release forms 2 copies each so the school would have one as Liz at the end too. For the director I printed a sheet that I would be responsible to keep all record of the order we shot the scenes on set likewise the one the assist. camera Winnie had with her for the camera department but with less technical information required and with space to describe what action occurred and any observation if the scene was any good or not. So we were ready to go.
I have to state here that the group worked very well together at the end, and we survived alive. But I want to state some very important issues that happened, as a constructive criticism.
1-) Liz spent much more than she could for this production, without consulting at first with any group member. I talked with her about and I said that as director’s we have to know when to draw the line. I told her the story that was a major problem in life for almost 2 years. During my last 16mm short film in New York City, I spend 950$ on a Red Ferrari that I used for 6 hours. It was a school project. I could have rewritten the script for something less expensive. Common sense helps.
2-) Liz and Lun made a mistake on set. I scheduled that we would do a complete food fight and then have lunch. I forgot to warn them that they needed the extra food ready for a re-shoot fast. So the cast and crew waited Lun to cook all the breakfast again to continue he shoot.
3-) For last Liz should have had an introductory talk with cast and crew before shooting for her to state the way she would work, ground rules for things like how she would want this and that, liberty with actors and so far. A director is the main reference on set he needs to behave as such. During the shoot we all talked to the actors giving them instructions of some kind, because we felt Liz needed the support.
The group was very easy going with each other and we all respected and trusted each other job on set. And this behavior was on of the most important for the making of this short film.
163/B – SKETCHES Pre ProductionBecause I’m not the assistant director, and just a focus puller on set for this film, I backed off of the pre-production more, but Corin has also been doing a terrible pre-production. Today is Saturday, June 9, 2007 and from what I know, he doesn’t have a location, he has problems with actors, and didn’t finish a final draft of the script. He centralized the whole pre-production on his back. He also did not delegate tasks to others. Liz and him are taking the whole responsibility of the 2 shootings and they have not passed tasks to be done when there was time to do so. This film is also going to be a fluke, a surprising piece of luck.
The script tells a very simple story about a sketch artist sitting on a coffee shop in the morning and woman that looks like she had been partying all night. She doesn’t know that she is being sketched until the end when she passes by him and sees herself on the drawing and smiles at him to finish the drawing.
I think this last 3rd draft he wrote should be a final draft, because the nuances of the girl smiling or not or details that you can test on rehearsal or on set. It also depends in how you shoot it.
It suits the 3 minutes black and white no sound and no artificial lights exercise. This film is a director’s type of film where he has to have the sensibility to know how to ensemble the cast (man and woman) with the crew. It is a very meticulous piece of direction for the film to work, and later the editor has to make very precise cuts for the whole shooting to work. This is a film about details. It is in his hands.
ON SET PRODUCTION – SKETCHESCorin pre-produced his term film in about 2 to 3 days, he used his shooting days on faith to get everything ready so on Monday he could shoot everything he needed. By doing that, he jeopardized his shoot by not handing in on time his risk assessment sheet to Alan, and only on the last minute wile shooting did Winnie take the paper to Alan so he knew what was going on.
Winnie sent us an email one day before the shoot (bravo!!!) but with one mistake. Camera Crew (Me and Lun) was supposed to be on location 1 hour earlier than everybody. I had never been to the recent found location and there was no information with name to talk to when I got there the next day. For this kind of shoot there was no reason for camera crew to arrive on hour before, that’s the point. She knew as the whole group knew that I could help with the scheduling of the film but at any moment I was consulted on this matter too. On set Winnie did her best to help and for that, being there I thank her for the help.
Lun is our peace warrior; he has this very beautiful, poetic idea that he wants to make everybody happy, but he acts very naïve dealing with this altruistic behavior. He helped on both films driving us around with the camera, was the one that always was prepared to help, but I wonder and I asked him, want do you want for you.
Liz: Her job on Sketches was to help on pre production with the actual sketches, wardrobe and a prop or two. OK, she did that. At one point she help opening the umbrella on an external shot, and on another moment faked the actor’s hand on a drawing shot and that’s it. Liz is very immature person and needs to be watched very closely.
Corin acted like a smiling dictator, opposite of me the tyrant. Always smiling he gave very little freedom to the creative people on set, especially Lun that DOP for him. The director didn’t give the crew freedom to talk about shot options. He made the film with our help no doubt about, but he didn’t trust us completely. He should have prepared a storyboard, helped Winnie prepare his film, make tests with a still camera, but it was all made in a hurry.
163 GROUP – A GROUP ANALISES. In an overall 163/B did very well, due to the fact that we never before had done anything like this together, and I can’t stress enough that we need to learn from our mistakes. I don’t know any other way to learn. We should learn how to take criticisms too, and self analyze others and ourselves with what we think is right and wrong. I mean we are not doing this only as part of the curriculum and to pass, but as a collective working experience. We should make films to learn how to make better films and not to please our teachers. At he end they stay and we leave to out lives outside the school and I can guarantee, the world is not so kind and nice as we sometimes see in films or portray in our own ones.
We have so much to learn as in how to work in a group. I named this 1st term exercise as “The Big Brother Film Experience”. I remember a BBC documentary I think it called the Human Zoo, or had to do with something like that. Two shrinks called in about 20 people to a house men and women. Then they were split into 2 groups, the red and blue group, and they had to compete with one another, then they were designated bosses. Later each group had do tasks to the other group. I remember that one of the groups had a boss that was a woman hairdresser, at the beginning before she was the boss, she behaved like a cute puppy, after she became the boss and the others as part of the experiment were forced to obey any orders, she reveled herself as a tyrant. Horrible things happened inside the house, one group had to cook to the other group and they did all sort of mean things on purpose to provoke the other group.
The both groups (red and blue) fell apart in basically for two reasons. Their bosses became self centered, egoistic, totalitarian, horrible human beings, because they let themselves corrupt by power. Second because of this attitude the groups were divided within themselves, of those who agreed with the boss and those who wanted his or her head.
As wannabe director’s, producers, DoPs, we have to learn to coexist has peaceful Homo sapiens sapiens. Learn to listen, when to speak, respect each other. A film works only as a group work. It is much more difficult to do it all by yourself, and more we all have different talents that if put together amazing things can spark. I truly believe in this. We as a group and we this school can offer can make amazing work. We have to learn to put the right things in place. How do you see yourself as a human being alone, and inside a group, and how do you see the group as a whole.
I’ve been thinking a lot on all of this that I’ve been writing about. I’m writing the truth, I’m being sincere and unfortunately from what I’ve listening people have a hard to listen he truth in such a crude way. I write crude because I have trouble many times to find the right words to express myself so I exaggerate on a point to be made. For that I apologize from my heart.
I had a very good and honest talk with Alex from group A about his experience with the making of the 2 films. His conclusion was that “people can’t handle the truth”. I told him that they would have to handle the truth because I’m going to speak it to them. We made a joke with that line in a Few good men movie, directed by Rob Reiner. “ You want the truth…you can’t handle the truth”. We had his conversation mainly because I told them, that I talked to Alan after a class and gave him the idea that we should have a group discussion on the events having to do the experience of making films during this 1st term. I’m gonna fallow my gut feeling when we have this group meeting and I don’t know if I’m gonna point my finger at my collogues or speak to all of them in a general term. But I guarantee I will speak the truth.
I am taking this master course very serious and I hope to see the same dedication on others, probably it is a fantasy to think like that, but those people who really don’t know what the hell they are doing hear should save their money and leave. All this talk about the truth is about my perspective on what I see, due to my experience hat I rely a lot on. So if someone disagrees, I am happy to listen him or her argument with facts why they disagree and prove me wrong. I know I’m not a teacher and people in a sense don’t need to prove me anything for that matter, but usually those who just shout can’t argument are very weak and should stay quiet and listen more, because nature made us with one mouth and two ears for one good reason.
I learned back in Brazil during college their true motivation for doing their work, and it was money. It is sad to think like that, but I understand them to an extent. Brazil is a poor country, people need money to survive, not live, survive. But college students became just a reflection of what generally happens in the real capitalistic world, very little work on ideology, or for the thrill of it. I am in this category mainly because my mom and dad support me. But I think of money as a consequence of my work, it doesn’t come in first place. I like that here in London we can work with many actors and crew people mainly because of the excitement of he working experience together. I cherish very much this behavior and a value those in our group that think this way.
POST PRODUCTION CASUALTIESLike Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein wrote in one of his books about editing “…every cut is a new information to the brain”. There is no formula on how to edit a film, I base my editing decisions on scene motivation driven by emotion. I am interested in certain genres of films and styles; basically I like horror, suspense, and heavy sorrow dramas. But not everything needs to end up in a Reservoir Dogs bloodshed violent film sooth me. This weekend I watched a beautiful film called Ame Agaru (After the Rain), a film honor, truth, loyalty and fidelity. I am in humanist films, with strong messages that motivate me to think about for a long time. When I watch beginning of the century films or very early 20s 30s films I sometimes loose myself in the story because of the lack of interesting things to see in a frame after sometime. I have to prepare myself with some food to eat while the film goes, because it helps me concentrate on what goes on with the story.
Long scenes are more difficult to focus attention, and for that matter it should be used in precise moments to cause awe on the public. Alan showed us an excellent Orson Welles film called “Touch of Evil” with a great sequence shot, in my opinion it is one of the most amazing sequence shots I ever seen. It has it all, camera motivation, strong visual narrative, precise good taste camera movement, framing and lighting, and seat grabber suspense as genre.
As an editor in Casualties I worked in a very honest and cooperative way with Liz. We looked at all scenes together, then we talked about every scene and how they could be assembled together. So my job was basically find the in and out of every shot and mend it with the before shot and prepare for the continuous shot.
I tried to always build up the emotion throughout the scenes to the climax, their kiss at the end. And I think it happened, the movie worked as a story, the shots assembled, the funny parts worked and the films clearly represents the amount of work inputted during pre production. I am saying this because back in São Paulo, I was watching a rough cut of a friend’s long feature and after a sequence shot I asked him to stop the film, and I told him, “What a fantastic crew you assembled”, congratulation. I felt he crew’s energy on making that complicated shot.
I edited 2 cuts, the director’s cut than the editor’s cut. Mainly the differences between these cuts were the ending, and minor flash frames cuts and better in and out moments for the film. Details like, should the orange juice come in frame or should the last shot hold a bit longer so the continuous shot show the glass jar already in frame.
Alan said at the first screening that our ending with the out of focus view of the couple at the back was and I quote “the worst ending he had seen in years”. Sahil later translated this comment to me and I got it. I was missing the essence the final true message of the script I wrote in the beginning. That shot weakened the film because the film wasn’t about a breakfast food fight. It was about that couple, their love, how they bond, about their love. The food fight was just a superficial action to demonstrate a before and after of the characters.
About the experience of editing on the moviola, it was awesome. I loved it very much. I have had very little physical contact with film on hand. So editing like this was a true artesian experience to me. And I like this powerful and important relationship that a director has with his editor. We direct in different ways, we feel the scene in different ways. As an editor I am always preoccupied in 3 things:
1-) Emotion
2-) Cadence
3-) Build up Climax
As an editor we learn to work the given material, and not with the wanted material. How can his crude piece of footage become a story with these tools I have in hand. MAGIC.
