Author: Whatsinthebox

Survival of a filmmaker during Covid-19

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Do you know this depiction of an iceberg, representing the life of an artist?

People only see the top, but what lurks underneath is a dread, a lot of angst, the scrappiness one has to develop, the work itself, setbacks, failures and living in the basement of your parents. Working in film means trying to “make it” in an over-saturated market, where they tell you that failure is “part of the game” and that you should just “do “or “make”.

In times of Covid, the top of the iceberg has been scraped. Festivals are cancelled, networking just doesn’t take place and shooting has become a very uncertain endeavor.

A few problems enlisted:

-location scouting has become very difficult, since traveling is not recommended at the moment

-renting houses or other locations represent a risk to the owners and the crew

-castings, for those who still want to cast in real and 3d, are difficult because of the travelling and being in a room together with no masks

-although there are “covid-teams” on the shoots, it is very difficult to maintain social distancing for the different crew members

-if someone falls ill, crew members in contact with that person, have to quarantine, if these people happen to be the DOP, the director, the show runner, the actresses and actors etc, the shooting comes to an abrupt halt.

-since we don’t know how long this pandemic takes place, screenwriters have been recommended to write smaller plots, fortunately in or around the area they live in

-production companies might be even stingier with ordering new screenplays and/or with committing to filmmakers

I heard about production companies which refused to test sick crew members, to not be at risk to stop the shoot. There is a small number of filmmakers who quit (at least for the time being) their jobs, to look for something steady.

Film making is a hard business and it has become even harder. I would wish for us as a species, that we get closer together, instead of drifting further apart. I would prefer to represent an ensemble, instead of “everyone is on their own”.

The escapism of the arts has never been more relevant to the system than now.

It was the music, the literature, the podcasts, the (online-)theater and the films, series, documentaries which helped the people to get through. Hopefully, we the creators, will too.

How do you experience film making in times of Covid? Do you pull through? I hope you are all doing okay. Tell me in the comments.

Focus Pull

Posted WhatsintheboxLeave a commentPosted in film, General, screewnriting

“Pulling focus” or “rack focusing” refers to the act of changing the lens’s focus distance setting in correspondence to a moving subject’s physical distance from the focal plane, or the changing distance between a stationary object and a moving camera.

Dream. Think. Write. Edit. Write again. Submit. Refused. Doom. Repeat.

So you have an idea and it starts shaping in your head. You start writing, you think about structure and character development, about dilemmas and conflicts, about happy ends. You submit, you hit the deadline. The project is rejected. Some sloppy comments are made which briefly let you wonder if the jury read it thoroughly. You remind yourself that many great ideas have been rejected.

Like J.K. Rowling. And look at her now. Millionaire. Bam, 567 rejections later.

You continue to work on the script, a thought creeps in that you are losing heart for this.

Another idea comes up, a really really good one. This time you write with other screenwriters. The other screenwriters are not that invested and let you wait forever for their work. You cancel the collaboration. You continue to write. You send it in to the producer, he says he sees what you want to do, but it is not his thing. Too TV. Fair enough. Maybe you should write a rom com, that’s what you can and should do. How do they know?

You don’t submit for funding, because you felt insecure and maybe the project wasn’t ready. Or maybe it was and you weren’t?

You work with another screenwriter on their script. It flows better. It is so much easier when it’s not personal. You are asked to be in a writers’ room series, but pay negotiations with the head writer take so long, summer has ended and we have to wake up the dude from Green Day.

Finally you get an idea which excites you so much, that you write the script in one go. You could shoot it yourself, because everything that counts is the idea and how it is acted out. No need for fancy lightning, you just want to get the story out, which is funny and heartwarming and comfortable in all its glorious oddness. And you tell yourself, that you are so convinced about this idea, you don’t need any approval from anybody for this. Which might be true for this project. But not for the others and not in general.

That is what I learned these passed months. I had to acknowledge some hard-won truths. 1. I was too lazy. Not in my every day work, not in my ambition. I was lazy to chill out on my credits I already had and thought they were enough. They are not. 2. I forgot to be humble. Humble in my meager abilities and that one should never stop wanting to get better. Not in recognition. Not in funding. But better in the craft itself.

If people don’t understand your treatment or your pitch, it is not because they are not intelligent enough to understand it, it is because it is not clear. Muddiness is the worst foe of storytelling. That doesn’t necessarily mean you have to change the story, it means you should learn to present it differently.

Work on the treatment, get into workshops, talk to other screenwriters, don’t take it personal if the script is not liked in its entity. A good screenwriter/scriptdoctor is able to tell you the difference what he doesn’t like personally about the script and what simply doesn’t work for the story. Get out and get better.

It is undeniable that screenwriting is only for the toughest, for the ones that are able to pick up their shattered heart and glue it together. That’s something. You’re doing great. Don’t lose heart. It is what it is.

It is nonsense
says reason
It is what it is
says love

It is calamity
says calculation
It is nothing but pain
says fear
It is hopeless
says insight
It is what it is
says love

It is ludicrous
says pride
It is foolish
says caution
It is impossible
says experience
It is what it is
says love

Erich Fried, 1983

Write. Learn. Work on writing. Learn some more. Dream. Submit. Repeat.

It’s showtime!

Posted WhatsintheboxLeave a commentPosted in film, General

Ah, confinement life in times of Corona. People have to stay home, work from home and watch Netflix in substitution of a social life. Or as a screenwriter calls it: Business as usual. Well… minus the severe anxiety of getting sick or loved ones getting sick. Minus that.

When people ask me, if I am not concerned about film making and the future of film making and cinemas, I reply that yes, I am very concerned and my personal funds are low and I don’t know if and when we can shoot, but that  is not the most important right now.

The most important thing now is to stay healthy. Since there are so many people, who normally arduously work and whose days are filled with so many activities that they didn’t have time to watch TV all day, I put together a list. I am aware, that there is an endless number of lists out there, but this list is different (as would every professional list-seller say). I categorized the productions in “what you want to feel when you watch them”, because that is how I chose. We’ll start with series.

“If you want to get to know new friends and spend some time with their nuttiness”

-Obviously: Friends

-New girls

-It’s always sunny in Philadelphia

-Modern family

-Santa Clarita Diet

-Derry girls

“If you like fantasy, where people wear normal clothes and their super powers are used in a clever way to tell an exciting story and of course they save the world”

-The umbrella academy

-Misfits

-the Boys

-Stranger things

-Sabrina (okay they don’t wear normal clothes)

-Locke and Key

-Watchmen

“If you want to be aware how our life is already horror, technology-wise”

-Black mirror

“If you want to feel uplifted by super quirky people who make you believe in the good of humanity”

-Queer eye

“If you bought a sewing machine and can’t sew for shit, but you’d like to see what you could do with it, if you could sew”

-Next in fashion

“If you like a tied-knit gritty story and want to dwell in awe of fine acting”

-The killing

-Top of the Lake

-Handmaid’s Tale

“If you want to see the most bewildering human interactions, who also committed a crime”

-Tiger King

-Wild wild Country

-Don’t fuck with cats

“ if you like to feel all warm and fuzzy, as you’d lived in the village where Belle from ‘the Beauty and the Beast’ lives”

-Gilmore girls

-Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

“ If you want to see a series where there is romance, but also some serious shit is going down, but it always ends good-well kinda”

-good girls

“If you want to watch a harmless rom-com, where she is a nurse and moves into a small village and is courted by a very sweet bartender”

-Virgin River

“If you want to watch girly stuff and dress up fabulously after”

-Sex and the city

-the Bold Type

“If you want to maybe pursue a career in stand-up, when this is all over”

-Trevor Noah

-Sarah Silvermann

-John Mulaney

-Ali Wong

-Wanda Sykes

“If you like to watch at food and either enjoy your food therefore more or because you’re hungry and this looks really good”

-Chef’s table

-the Final table

“If you are terrible at baking and want to meet fellow artists or if you are really good at it and want to laugh at people who aren’t”

-Nailed it

“If you want to be excited because some serious shit hits the fan in fictitious lives”

-the stranger

-the bodyguard

“If you’re in the mood to consider how just the justice system is“

-unbelievable

-5 park guys

“ If you feel a bit lost and fucked-up and weird and think you are alone and also see the most romantic plot in recent tv-history”:

Fleabag

“If you like to revisit your youth in a much more excessive version that it really was”

-Skins ( Only season 1-4 and then 7)

“If you like political scandals and also a bit of romance”

-The good wife

“If you miss Hollywood or would like to experience it”

Entourage

I left out some classics on purpose, since I am mad at them, mostly because they messed up the ending. Did I forget a favorite series of yours? You can tell me in the comments.

The false McGuffin

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In fiction, a MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin) is an object, device, or event that is necessary to the plot and the motivation of the characters, but insignificant, unimportant, or irrelevant in itself. The term was originated by Angus MacPhail for film, adopted by Alfred Hitchcock,and later extended to a similar device in fiction.The MacGuffin technique is common in films, especially thrillers. Usually, the MacGuffin is revealed in the first act, and thereafter declines in importance. It can reappear at the climax of the story but may actually be forgotten by the end of the story.

So you write and write and think about writing and you dream about writing and you write about writing and you mechanically answer to the inevitable question what you are working on at the moment:  “I am writing. Can’t really explain, too complicated. To give you a picture: You hold threads in all of your fingers and try to tie them together and sometimes you think you have a really, really good knot, only to discover that you have three loose ends and a muddy middle part.” With an intriguing regularity, the friend/producer/fellow filmmaker (if worse comes to worst: all of these three together) asks to read it, because “they would love to read it and maybe they can give you useful feedback”. You know, in your guts, neither you, nor your script is ready, but sometimes you feel flattered/curious/eager and so you send it to them. You formulate a mail where you stammer around, that the script is not done and you know work has to be done on this or that and that they should note that this is a very, very early draft of the idea and not at all set in stone…Aaaand: Sent!

And now the horrible part begins: waiting for a reply. Although you sent the script swiftly (for it is an ongoing process and maybe early feedback would come in handy!), the reply takes its time. By sending the script too early to a random person, a false need is created. You need the reader to understand that you are not done and that the script needs work, you may even cling to the feeble hope that the reader could suggest solutions to specific plot problems. In all your vulnerability you fill that McGuffin-suitcase with expectations, which the reader of your script cannot, by all means, fulfill. Additionally, you need them to like the script, to understand its full capacity and that they lovingly fill the blanks the unfinished draft contains. By having sent that script too early, you created your own need for their approval.

Finally, the mailbox blinks, the feedback is here. It says: “Really liked it, although I really don’ understand the middle part, it has this unfinished touch. Plus, I would prefer the girl to be a guy, who maybe steals a boat instead of falling in love with that other person I forgot the name of. Have a similar idea, would you maybe read? Great work, xoxo producer/friend/fellow filmmaker.”

I don’t say that feedback is not very helpful and one should consider giving the finished draft to a person, which you trust to be able to read screenplays of that particular genre and who is able to not only criticise it, but also to give it a constructive feedback. Don’t be demotivated by a false MacGuffin-suitcase full of expectations, don’t run after the approval of everyone, for you will never have the approval of everyone (there are people out there who dislike “the Joker” or “Parasite” or “Scarface” or “insert your favourite film”) The only critic you ought to satisfy in the end is yourself.

Interviewed in 1966 by François Truffaut, Hitchcock illustrated the term “MacGuffin” with this story:

It might be a Scottish name, taken from a story about two men in a train. One man says, ‘What’s that package up there in the baggage rack?’ And the other answers, ‘Oh that’s a McGuffin.’ The first one asks ‘What’s a McGuffin?’ ‘Well’ the other man says, ‘It’s an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands.’ The first man says, ‘But there are no lions in the Scottish Highlands,’ and the other one answers ‘Well, then that’s no McGuffin!’ So you see, a McGuffin is nothing at all.

Have you experienced similar feedback? Or did you get useful Feedback? Tell me in the comments, I would love to ‘hear’ from you.

A Marriage Story

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The husband and I usually take an eternity to decide which movie to watch. When finally a decision has being made, he falls asleep during the first act, second act at weekends. So I end up watching them alone. And I am stuck with all my feelings, trapped inside, my pounding heart basslined by his rhythmic breathing.

I watched Noah Baumbach’s ‘A Marriage Story’ tonight. Quite late in the game, but I often catch myself postpoing intense cinematic experiences, because they throw you into a pit and if it’s done perfectly, they will not let you out for a long time. This film exceeded these expectations:  It feels so honest and in its honesty, it is so intense that I as a spectator felt raw. The acting is immaculate and the script masterfully brought me to root for both of the protagonists. I was mad with Nicole, I cried with Charlie. The letter at the end catapults the film into such a bitter-sweet ending that you want to rewatch the whole thing. ‘A Marriage story’ tells its love story in such a well-crafted manner, that the spectator rethinks their own relationship and lets them wonder, if they should wake their husband to apologize for all the times they were yelling to get heard, instead of also listening to their side.

For me, magic happens if fiction crosses the border to reality. You are part of an intimacy that you can’t escape from, but often want to escape to again. The key to this magic would be honesty, be it in movies, music or any other arts. The spectator doesn’t (always) know it, but honesty is what they are always looking for. Does the author or director or musician or artist honestly want to tell this story? Is there honesty and integrity in this storyline or shot or charcacter or lyrics? If truly so, magic happens and we are part of the story. It becomes our story. If a script is honest, it feels honest and that is something which makes it very hard to reject. Honesty sells or as William Shakespeare put it:

‘No legacy is so rich as honesty.’

Murphy’s law or: That’s setlife, baby!

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/ˈmɜːrfiːz ˌlɔː/ Murphy’s law is an adage or epigram that is typically stated as: “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong”.

You know the beginning of a 90’s movie? You have this upbeat, poppy music (‘There she goes’ or maybe something from Placebo), the setting is revealed, the sun comes up, the universe of the main character is revealed through a smooth dolly shot.

It’s four in the morning (you get up early, to catch that early light). On other mornings, this light would feel harsh, unwelcoming, but in your state as a director who is going to start their first shooting day, it is the most beautiful light you’ll ever feel prickling on your thumbs, erm… skin. Before pocketing the call sheet some nice assistant printed out for me, I skim it with pride, this is what I worked and fought for what feels like an eternity. I step in front of the door and fill my lungs with that cold air, that is soon going to heat up.

A tracking shot is used to show me driving from my home to location, on a field in the middle of nowhere. A few tents and a few scattered people in black waiting for crafty to put the coffee machine up, they look like a classic Satan’s cult, but in a Midsommar’s setting.  I get out of the car, the music stops. The First and the DP say hi. ‘Do you want to have the good or the bad first?’ the First asks. The DP and I lock eyes. ‘The bad, of course.’ ‘Well, the bad is that it looks like we don’t get the cherry picker here on time, so we’ll have to ask production to book it again for tomorrow, or we could inverse the shots 2.4 and 1.2 and  we’ll have a free spot at 17:00 sharp to shoot the cherry picker scene, but we’ll only have a window of 18 minutes, before we have to do the unit move.” I say: ‘It’s all going to be fine. I need coffee.’ I head to the crafty tent, they follow me. I impatiently wait for the thick excuse they call coffee here to run into my plastic cup (that was before green shooting). The coffee machine makes the exact noise Christopher Nolan used for his ‘Inception’-trailer and has henceforth been used for every sci-fi-trailer ever. ‘What are the good ones?’ ‘The good ones are that there are none. Yet. Ah and maybe that the producers aren’t coming today. Only tomorrow for the crew picture.’ ‘I see’, I say.

I turn around to my DP. ‘How are you?’ ‘Broke, tired, without hope for the better in the present nor the future and scared that the first is not going to be happy about this.’ He inclines his head to the right, where about a 10 extras chase each other in their animal costumes. ‘Pretty sure, he won’t.’ The First sees the scene and runs over, call sheet and walkie talkie frantically waving. We look at each other and chuckle. I take a sip of the blissful, horribly sweet coffee.

‘How are you? Ready for this?’ I look straight ahead, watching the First chasing the extras into their tent and shouting into his walkie –talkie where the fudge the extra casting is? I light a cigarette, take a deep drag: ‘Gonna find out, won’t we?’ The DP gives me a pat on the back and heads to the best boy, who seems to roll up cables instead of installing them.

That’s when the music starts again, camera zooms out, the set in its whole glory is revealed, technical crew running around, actors standing around in their bathrobe and hair rollers, trucks coming up, when the music is interrupted by a little, squeaky voice:  ’The boom is not here.’ The sound engineer is standing next to me. ‘Well, where is she?’ ‘Car accident, but she is alright. Only mild concussion. She is going to come in about two hours, had to talk to the police, some asshole on a cherry picker ran into her, can you believe?’ I put out my cigarette in the sad rest of my coffee. I wave a hearty wave at the first, who still chases gorillas, zebras, elephants and one big butterfly. ‘Soo…’, Sound says. ‘MOS?’ I nod. ‘Yepp! MOS’ Cut to black screen containingo the opening credits. This and this production company proudly presents:

‘Murphy’s law, or: Anything that can go wrong on a set, will go wrong. A romcom/coming-of-age/slowburn thriller-dramedy based on real events. No animals were harmed during this production, except Dave, the fly. But that’s another story.’

‘Don’t start to write, it’s a trap!’ Baudelaire, 1867

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Writing about writing is probably the lamest thing a writer does. It seems very important to us to explain to people how hard writing is, comparable to drunk people who have to communicate that they are drunk (and worked hard for it). So, to defeat that cliché once and for all: Here is a piece about (screen)-writing.

You can find an endless stream of screenwriter tips, screenwriter books, screenwriter tutorials, screenwriter mugs and T-Shirts, but it always seems to me like this meme ‘how to draw an owl”. First you carefully start to outline the eye shape, the pupils, the eyelashes and then- you draw the rest until it looks like an owl.

Real ProTip: Before you start writing, do clean your house, re-arrange your books by colors and/or genre, ask the dog if he is a good boy and has to go outside (both times: Yes!), catch up with seven to twelve Netflix-series, bath in the blood of 12 virgins by moonlight, then but only then, you can start to write.  Maybe the dog has to go out again. But then.

I think, everybody has this terrible fear of the white page. This fear, let’s call it Earl, feeds from the following:

*fear of not being able to write down the idea you have in mind

*fear of not being able to write at all

*fear that the idea/characters/storyline turns out to be complete bs

*fear of you’ve written your shitty idea out, give it to a trustee (friend, producer, fellow screenwriter-producer-friend) and he/she/they say it is complete bs and why do you call yourself a screenwriter and that maybe you should look for a different job, maybe hand-model?

*fear of not being able to finish

Earl is an a-hole. A big one. Don’t listen to Earl. Tell Earl to fearl off. The trick I’ve found very useful to get rid of Earl is the following: You don’t have to write a whole script, or story line, character development or even scene. Just write for 15 minutes.

15 minutes is not that scary.  15 minutes you can fit in between anything: between meetings, between dog-walks, between a hot-dog-bun, between your ears. 15 minutes is do-able. Often I the write more than 15 minutes, sometimes I just set it aside and continue to stare at goats. I then look at it the next day. Sometimes I am relieved, because it turned out pretty okay and sometimes it is complete shite. But hey, no one saw it, except you (and maybe Earl) and you can just erase it and write another 15 minutes. You can not always write, but you can always work. And word after word after word, your treatment becomes alive. And you can join the writers’ ranks by chanting (in D):

“I hate writing, I love having written. (So fuck off, Earl.)”

                                                                          Dorothy Parker

Deus Ex Machina

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Deus ex machina (Latin: [ˈdeʊs ɛks ˈmaː.kʰɪ.naː]: /ˈdeɪ.əs ɛks ˈmɑːkiːnə/ or /ˈdiːəs ɛks ˈmækɪnə/; plural: dei ex machina; English ‘god from the machine’) is a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is suddenly and abruptly resolved by an unexpected and seemingly unlikely occurrence, typically so much as to seem contrived. Its function can be to resolve an otherwise irresolvable plot situation, to surprise the audience, to bring the tale to a happy ending, or act as a comedic device.

When I first started working in the film industry, I was quite at a loss for what I say when at a party and people would ask what I do for a living. It seemed so boastful to me to tell people I work in film. The reactions always were a tad too enthusiastic for me to handle. People would ensure me that my job is so much cooler (spoiler alert: it’s not), more exciting (if one would call backstabbing and non-existing tax returns exciting…yeah!) and more adventurous (standing in the middle of nowhere at minus 19 C° trying to write down script notes could be called that, indeed) than their office/lawyer/teacher job. They won’t listen when I try to tell them that, on the contrary, their jobs seem cool and exciting and adventurous and most of all: stable and hence comforting to me, but maybe that is a romanticized view of mine and nobody listens to no one, so fair is fair.

The perception that working in film is not only deeply fulfilling but also fills your pockets, is a common one, I recently learned. The tax office lady called and after a very harsh and quick monologue of hers, I dimly started to understand that they think I would misappropriate taxes. After a desperate try to make the lady understand, that I the salary on the tax declaration is indeed correct, she panted: ‘But Miss Gregory, it says here that you work in film.’ I shouted back: ‘Precisely!’

Apart from the money issues and the anxieties, the job can be fun and fulfilling and enriching and so much more. Standing on a set, creating a film and observing all these talented people do what they do best is one of the most beautiful feelings one can have as a filmmaker. People working in film are not in it for the money (at least not where I live), but because they share the same passion and they believe in the art of film making. That is why they work 14-hours-shifts and eat shitty food of the crafty table, just to do it all over again the next day.

For people who want to work in film, getting into the industry seems like a kind of “deus ex machina”, all the plots come together and the dream comes true-the end! In reality this is where the plot thickens and Murphy’s law kicks in. Join us, we have the stale cookies from crafty.