The Path to Stomping Ground.... so far.

It has been a week since the completion of our Kickstarter campaign, so I decided to publish the first installment of what will be a “filmmaker’s journal kind of thing.” Action!

August 22
It’s up, it’s good, it’s over. The successful Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for Stomping Ground ended today and we earned nearly two hundred dollars more than we were looking for. It’s a good time to start chronicling the production of the film. Now, maybe seven years after writing it and a couple of false starts, Stomping Ground, formerly Aftermath, is ready to go.

August 23
Partial cast rehearsal at the South Philly home of producer Isaac Ruth. One actor couldn’t make it because of work and we decided to release the actresses from this rehearsal. We knew that scheduling rehearsals was going to be an enormous challenge, but without getting the actors together for some intensive face-to-face time to bond and form a team, this film would never work. Rehearsals have been amazing. This cast has gotten up to speed so quickly and has such a deep sense of what they are doing that I have no doubt that they will be killing it on game day.

Also present at the rehearsal was Steve, our set-photographer and behind-the-scenes videographer. He shot the Kickstarter testimonials, he shot the teaser trailer and he shot a silly video of me and producer Dan Zubrzycki chatting on location but he’d never read the screenplay. He came up to me during a break, nearly in shock after seeing the actors performing for the first time, saying that he found it hard to take photos because he was so wrapped up in the story. If a crew member gets so deeply involved in watching a rehearsal of Stomping Ground at the producer’s house, I can only imagine what will happen when audiences see it onscreen.

Director of Photography Kevin “K-Mart” Martin came down to watch rehearsal as well. He needs to be familiar with the logistics of the script because he will be directing a team of three camera operators who are all moving around, following the action together. The camerawork on Stomping Ground is especially important. Because the film is, in many ways, a one act play, I am insistent that it never become static or stagy. Having the camera and the actors in almost constant motion is my way around that issue.

August 26
Dan, Isaac and Assistant Director/Unit Production Manager Ray Davis and I met at Dan’s place in Center City at 9:00 and went until just after 1:00 A.M. hammering out logistics, crew list, props and, at long last, breaking the script down into a shooting script. All along, the plan has been to shoot Stomping Ground sort of like a play -- with an emphasis on “sort of.”  While there are several large chunks of the screenplay that take place at the primary section of the location (it’s all one big location that we have divided up into sub-sections), we are still making a film, not a play. In film production, as much as possible, you shoot all of the scenes that happen in one particular place at the same time rather than bouncing back and forth between sets. So, in that regard, it will not be exactly like shooting a play because we will be going from Scene 7 to Scene 10 to Scene 13 and so on, not shooting everything strictly in order.

August 27
Another late meeting that went late into the night, past 1:00 for the second day in a row. Dan and I met with Executive Producer Andrew Karasik who was on the last day or night of a European trip. In addition to endless last minute details of physical production, it is extremely important that everyone is both on the same page and also not stepping on anyone else’s fingers. We’re all grownups but we’re also individuals with our own needs and ways of looking at things. 

A film set can be a pretty intense place and, shooting an already highly-charged story in only two hot summer days in the middle of some pretty buggy woods sounds like a recipe for emotions and tempers to flare. My last directing gig was remarkable for a cast and crew for being so relaxed and stress free; people told me that I was a force of calm. I would love to carry this spirit over to Stomping Ground. Here’s aiming for a tension-free set.

August 28
Costumes! Hair/Make-Up/Wardrobe person Joanna Revelle and I took to the strip malls of South Philly. We scoured Marshalls, Target and Old Navy for wardrobe, props and all kinds of on-set necessities. The night before our first meeting, Joanna (whose background is in all aspects of film production, not just HMU) read the screenplay several times so that she had a good sense of the story and the characters, where they were from and what they would wear.

We want these characters to be real, dimensional people, not caricatures. While, in many ways, they come from a different way of life and a different socio-economic class from most of the people making this film, we want to be respectful of them. Ultimately, the movie is about them and the audience has to feel for them as people in a tense situation even if they do not necessarily relate to them. The best movies touch something inside and make us think “How would I feel if that was me?”



August 29
My daughter, Anna, and I went shopping for some last minute supplies: duct tape, gaffers tape and insect repellent --- lots and lots of it.

Next Up: We descend on our location for a weekend of living, working and creating together.

After The First Big Hit: Second (or third) time's the charm? Think again.

Often, we’re told to go for broke. Many of us have an instinct to shoot higher after some initial success. I guess there is nothing wrong with that, or is there? Is it so wrong to find one thing that you do well and then stay in that groove for awhile?

In the past few months, I have seen Mud and Place Beyond The Pines and Upstream Color, all of which were eagerly anticipated follow-ups to critically acclaimed indie debuts. Okay, technically, Mud is director Jeff Nichols’ third film, following up on the wonderful Take Shelter and the little seen but still noteworthy Shotgun Stories. All three of the new films are getting mixed reviews overall and, for my part, I was underwhelmed at best and bored to the brink of despair at worst.

With Derek Cianfrance and Shane Carruth whose last films were respectively Blue Valentine and Primer, their new films Pines and Color are sophomore efforts. But what I am talking about is not technically a sophomore slump and not exclusive to little, indie filmmakers. I’ve noticed that there is a trend (syndrome?) where filmmakers make it big with a little first or second film and take on a “go big or go home” mentality.

Spike Lee followed his minimalist-by-nature debut feature She’s Gotta Have It with the overblown, unsatisfying School Daze. Steven Soderbergh followed up the intimate, introspective “sex, lies and videotape” with the grandiose Kafka. Bryan Singer made a splash at Sundance with his first film, Public Access, and then hit it big with his terrific second film, The Usual Suspects. He next film was the disappointing Apt Pupil and he has since settled into a groove as the main creative force behind the popular X-Men series as well as executive producing some hit TV shows but nothing has been on the same level as Suspects.

I won’t get into the whole love it or hate it conversation about Lena Dunham’s HBO series Girls, though I will point out that it was two little seen micro-budget features, Creative Nonfiction and Tiny Furniture, that put her on the map. The film world is fickle and often, one big bomb is all it takes for your latest film to be your last film and many directors might have that mentality playing in their heads when seeking out new projects.

Of course, this phenomenon is not exclusive to indie up and comers. There is Spielberg’s 1941, Scorsese’s New York, New York, Coppola’s One From The Heart and Lucas’ production of The Radioland Murders – all of which were personal, pet projects that got greenlit after the directors became proven entities, backing themselves up with box office hits, if not critical acclaim. In each case, the film was a disappointment.

That said, I am really looking forward to All Is Lost, writer-director JC Chandor’s follow-up to his impressive debut Margin Call, which was nominated for a Best Original Screenplay Oscar. Lost comes out later this year and Chandor is already in pre-production on his third film A Most Violent Year.

Now comes talk that the freshly ‘retired” Soderbergh plans to release a new cut of Kafka that promises to be “A Hardcore Art Movie.” Maybe he’s onto something. Maybe more filmmakers will follow suit and re-do the disappointing films that they got the chance to make after their initial breakthrough. Maybe not.

"Aftermath" Rising

It’s on!

I have not made a blog post for such a long time but that situation is going to change soon.

If everything goes according to  plan, my-on-again-off-again-from-Philly-production-company-to-L.A.-production-company-and-back-again feature project Aftermath is on again, in Philly, later this summer. Aftermath is Mean Streets meets Stand By Me.

As a longtime student/fan/practitioner/teacher of low-budget independent filmmaking, I have spent years and years not just watching low-budget indie films.  From Blood Simple, She's Gotta Have It and sex, lies & videotape in the '80's to Reservoir Dogs, Slacker, The Brothers McMullen and Clerks in the '90's and almost everything else ever since then, I have been carefully studying the production methods and marketing strategies that made these films successful.

After college, I had the opportunity to experience an incredible study in contrasts when I went from working on a low-budget indie film crew to going to work on a big budget studio film with only one day off in between. I saw such ego and excess on the set of the studio film that I made a commitment to conscientious, fiscally responsible filmmaking practices in my own work: to make meaningful films that rely not on throwing money at the screen but on connecting with the audience.

It took a few years to put together my own first film. I was casting, shooting, editing and whatever else I needed to do --- from cooking for the cast and crew to chasing down locations.In 1995, my film The True Meaning of Cool won an award from The American Film Institute.

Being an AFI award-winning filmmaker opened some doors. Since 2006, I have been hired to write or doctor over 40 feature film screenplays, shorts and documentaries. I teach screenwriting at the University of The Arts and Drexel University in Philadelphia and work on projects for people all over the country.

With the explosion of digital filmmaking, anyone can make an indie film and far too many marginally talented people are making far too many bad films.  I decided to take a scientific approach to writing a screenplay utilizing all of the lessons I learned over the years, to write an innovative, inventive screenplay that could  be shot in 1 to 2 days for little to no money and avoid all the narrative and technical pitfalls that plagued so many micro-budget productions. The film could not merely be cheap; it had to be entertaining and accessible, something that would appeal to both an art house crowd and a mainstream audience.

The resulting screenplay is a story of a group of young buddies who commit a random act of violence and set off a series of events that quickly spin further and further out of their control, testing their friendship and, ultimately, leading to the revelation of a shocking secret.

The film has six characters, one location and takes place in real time.

A colleague of mine, Joe Stinson, who wrote four screenplays for Clint Eastwood (including the line "Go ahead, make my day"), read Aftermath and said to me, "You manage to break almost every rule of screenwriting and still wind up with a screenplay that works and could be a really revolutionary film."

After years of trying to produce the film myself or with other local producers, I optioned the screenplay to an L.A. producer who had been after me to sell the rights to it for three years. The production company was ultimately unable to put it together and let me retain the rights.

So, that history brings us to now. According to current statistics, at any given time, there are four to five thousand independent films being produced in this country. Of those, only 1 to 2 percent will ever be distributed. Aftermath is now titled Stomping Ground. Here’s looking at you, 1 to 2 percent.

I’m back! Okay, I was never really gone but, a few weeks ago, when doing my taxes, it hit me that, last year, for the first time, I earned more money as an actor than I did as a screenwriter. I know, what a shame, what a tragedy -- he can get paid to write, direct and act!

Still, it got under my skin. I set out to be a screenwriter not an actor. So, it was a really nice boost last night --- actually really early this morning -- when a producer friend hit me up on Facebook and offered me a screenwriting gig. Despite knowing tons of people in common and both of us being cast as actors in the same indie thriller shooting this summer, we’d never met face to face until last week. Besides being a great guy, he impressed me with his knowledge of movies and film production and I guess I impressed him because he asked me to do some script work on a project that is being shopped around Cannes later this month.

Yes, much of the time, I am a screenwriting teacher. While, of course, it involves my screenwriting skill set, I tend to compartmentalize that gig, separate it from my actual screenwriting work.

So, as the academic year starts to wind down for me and I replace my screenwriting teachers cap with my screenwriters cap, I’m psyched. I have the new gig, I’m supposed to be writing another documentary and one of the top production companies in the area wants to shoot a short screenplay of mine after I tweak it once more. It’s like spring training is over and I can hit the field for my professional screenwriting season.

Cut! Print that.

At this point, I am pretty sure that I am not dreaming, that I am not going to suddenly wake up, realize that I am actually on-set and two hours behind schedule.

I did it. I got through my shoot this weekend.

Okay, I will admit that I did a little bit more than merely get through the shoot. While my gut instinct was that it was going to go extremely well, I did not want to go into it with any degree of false confidence. And the fact is that, even though I knew what I was doing, I know that you are only right until someone starts saying that you’re wrong and you have to prove yourself.

That didn’t happen.

Everything went extremely well.

People are making comments on Facebook:

“David showed such a calm focus despite the organized chaos around him.”

“....how relaxed you were, David!”

“Great experience working on your set, David. Thank you.”

and from my DP:

“I completely admired your poise and calm from beginning to end. In the pressure cooker environment of a film set, emotions can run high and quickly escalate, but your example truly helped to keep things on an even keel and flowing smoothly. I definitely hope to work together again soon!”

I had to remind everyone that I was only able to do what I did because all of them are so, so good at what they do.

I first worked on a “real” set about 25 years ago and, in my early 20’s, I worked on quite a few sets. I can remember looking at the directors on those shoots and thinking to myself, “I could do that.” I looked around at the crew over this past weekend and wondered how many of them were looking at me and thinking “I could do that.” The fact is, many of them probably can do it. I hope they get to do it. I wanted to do it for so long and now, having done it for the first time at this level, I feel good.

I want to do it again and again...

Action!

This weekend, I am going to be on-set, behind the camera for the first time in who-knows-how-long. Actually, in many ways it will be for the first time ever. Sure, of course, I have been making movies since I was nine but something about this shoot feels totally new.

On the films I made as a kid, it was always me and a friend or two running around, acting, shooting and directing -- if you can call it that -- with the used Super 8 camera that I bought for ten dollars. As an older person, in my 20’s, 30’s and 40’s on The True Meaning of Cool (1995), Jumpcuts: An Art Film (1996) and Love,Park (2010), it was much the same thing -- me running the show, calling the shots, working the camera, writing, producing and editing --- sometimes roping friends in to shoot with me or getting a better editor to do a final cut. In 2007, I was brought in to direct a short film at the last minute after the original director had to be removed from the project. I had no say in the script or the cast but I hastily hired my own skeleton crew -- a DP,  an editor and a sound guy -- and we banged it out.

Pre-production on the sitcom pilot that I am directing has been going on for over a month, we’ve had  casting calls, rehearsals and meetings with the camera, prop, make-up and wardrobe departments. To be honest, I sometimes lose track of how many producers I am working with and how many assistant directors or camera people there are. When the full crew assembled last week, I didn’t know who half of them were. The point is not that I am clueless. The point is that this shoot is bigger than anything I have ever done before and I am loving it.

There are few, if any nerves, just anxious anticipation. The script is good. As a writer, I can be pretty cranky and picky about scripts written by other people but that is not the case here. Sure, I have tweaked the script, changed a line here and there, cut a chunk out of a scene and so on but the core of the project is solid.

As for directing, it’s been said that the key to good directing is good casting. I have been blessed with a wonderful cast, the vast bulk of whom are camera ready. Okay, I will give myself some credit for analyzing the script and knowing in my guts that someone was right or wrong for a particular part when I cast them but my line producer gets a lot of credit for seeing eye-to-eye with me and backing me up on my choices.

Of course, directing is not just casting the right actors, it is conducting them like an orchestra, coaxing them to deliver the lines as I feel they should sound. Actors can be fragile, feisty, sure of themselves or totally lost so I have to make my cast feel good about what they are doing. There is a degree of cheerleading and ego-massaging taking place on and off the set and I love that part of the job as well.  Of course, the job is not just dealing with people, it is dealing with machines, too. I have to make sure that the cameras ---- all four or five of them on this shoot --- are getting what I want them to get. 

The bottom-line is that, no, technically, this is not the first time that I have done this kind of thing. It is the first time that I have done it at this level.  For the first time in my my life I really feel like I am doing what the thing that I have always wanted to do, that I feel that I am meant to be doing and I happen to think that I am doing it really well and, what do you know, it feels good.

Seminarian

Last night, a friend sent me a link to a screenwriting seminar/networking event and asked for my opinion on it, and if I thought it was totally BS. I formed my opinion before even clicking on the link.

I am cranky, cynical and skeptical about all of these screenwriting seminars and networking events. Yes, they often have some decent speakers with solid credits who offer some useful information. But most attendees will not be networking with these people; they will be attending their lectures. The vast bulk of the meet and greet will be done amid desperate, aspiring screenwriters. I know that I am being negative here on one level but I have to think that I am being realistic. Yes, Oscar-winning screenwriter and director Paul Haggis got his first writing job by connecting with a classmate in an L.A. screenwriting class but that story is by far the exception rather than the rule.

I am reminded of the scene in Adaptation where Donald asks Charlie for money to go to a Robert McKee screenwriting seminar:
                    KAUFMAN
              (muffled by pillow)
          Screenwriting seminars are bullshit.

Kaufman pulls a copy of Variety, open to a photo of Margaret,
from under his pillow. He gets lost in the picture.

                    DONALD (O.S.)
          In theory I agree with you. But this one
          is highly regarded within the industry.

                    KAUFMAN
          Donald, don't say "industry."

Donald, now in the sweater, appears on all fours in the
doorway. Kaufman puts the paper back under his pillow.

                    DONALD
          I'm sorry, I forgot. Charles, this guy
          knows screenwriting. People from all
          over come to study his method. I'll pay
          you back, man. As soon as I sell --

                    KAUFMAN
          Let me explain something to you.

                    DONALD
          Yeah, okay.

                    KAUFMAN
          Anybody who says he's got "the answer" is
          going to attract desperate people. Be it
          in the world of religion --

                    DONALD
              (indicating his back)
          I just need to lie down while you explain
          this to me. Sorry. I apologize.
              (lies down, stares at ceiling)
          Okay, go ahead. Sorry. Okay. Go.

                    KAUFMAN
          There are no rules to follow, Donald, and
          anybody who says there are, is just --


                    DONALD
          Not rules, principles. McKee writes:
          "A rule says, you must do it this way.   A
          principle says, this works... and has
          through all remembered time."

                    KAUFMAN
          The script I'm starting, it's about
          flowers. No one's ever done a movie
          about flowers before. So, there are no
          guidelines, and that's good because --

                    DONALD
          What about Flowers for Algernon?

                    KAUFMAN
          That's not about flowers. And it's not a
          movie.

                    DONALD
          Oh, okay, I never saw it. Go ahead.

                    KAUFMAN
          My point is, those teachers are dangerous
          if your goal is to do something new. And
          a writer should always have that goal.
          Writing is a journey into the unknown.
          It's not building a model airplane.


There is plenty of information to be had there but, for the most part, I don't hear about anyone making it in the film business as a result of going to a seminar. Most people make it by:

1)doing really well in film school + hustling really hard to get a foothold in the business
2)already having connections who are working in film
3)making an eye-catching low-budget indie film

The guy who directed the upcoming remake of the Evil Dead is from Uruguay. He got hired to direct this Hollywood feature film based on the strength of his five minute short that became a viral sensation after he posted it online.

Many big directors got their start on tiny, tiny films with budgets in the low-mid 6 figures  --- Bryan Singer, who does the X-Men movies, first made a splash with The Usual Suspects but before that film, he had a Sundance hit with Public Access which was probably made for $50K. James Mangold, who directed Walk The Line, Girl, Interrupted" and 3:10 To Yuma started out with a little indie called Heavy.

There are lots of paths that people take. Right or wrong (but backed up by years of research and tons of anecdotal evidence), I have always seen #3 as my path but there are even more options out there. I love to sit around and write screenplays but I also recognize that plenty of people (Francis Ford Coppola, Oliver Stone, Woody Allen, David Koepp) have parlayed their success as writers into opportunities to direct films. I also put myself out there as a screenwriter. At this point, in my market, people know me via word of mouth/self-promotion. People often sometimes ask me to write for them and I do, hoping that they can put their film together, get it out there, be successful and find some recognition. So, screenwriting seminars and networking events? For now, no thanks, the next screenwriting seminar I go to will be the one where I am being paid to have people listen to me.