Creative Cross Pollination

One of the frustrating things about movie development is the way executives, producers, and directors constantly reference their favorite movies. “This part should be like the bathtub scene in The Shining!” said one enthusiastic note-giver the other day. The danger in thinking this way is that your movie becomes a pastiche of images, characters, and story beats lifted from previous movies – and the viewer experiences not the excitement and shock of the original, but only the dull mediocrity of the copycat.

It’s natural for filmmakers to be inspired by their favorite films, but it can also be a creative dead end. This is a particular problem for the genre filmmaker struggling with dusty genre conventions. That’s why I advise Genre Hacks to look for ideas outside of the cineplex.

Try going to an art opening - there’s always free drinks and the people-watching can be just as creatively inspiring as the art. Just last night, I went to Gallery 1988 on Melrose Boulevard in Los Angeles, and had my mind bent by the surreal juxtapositions in paintings by Greg Simkins. Sure enough, driving home buzzing with seeming unrelated ideas for action sequences.

Try reading more novels, not with the intension of adapting them, but simply with the goal of entering a universe and encountering characters that are unlike anything you’ve seen on film. This week I began reading Per Petersons Out Stealing Horses, and I can think of nothing else but the glow of white-blonde hair in Norwegian twilight. It's spooky.

Try going to plays. Fetching young actors and actresses will be grateful you came and will feed you wine and cheese. Try attending an acting class, and bring along some of the scenes you are working on. Try listening to live music with your eyes closed and see what images bubble up from your subconscious. Eat in offbeat exotic restaurants and doodle caricatures on the napkins.

And when you do go to a movie, go the road less traveled. Instead of going to Saw V, see Let The Right One In. Instead of renting Iron Man, rent some obscure Japanese Animation. Writing a psychological thriller? Don’t reference Hitchcock yet again; try watching documentaries on factory workers – all those industrial machines could be a nifty place for a nightmare sequence or a murder.

At the end of the day, you will have to go back to your producers and executives and speak the language of common-movie-clichés. They don’t have to know that your sea monster was inspired by a found-object sculpture, that a scene on a spaceship was inspired by a 19th century poem, or that the actress you’re thinking of when you write is not Elizabeth Banks or Angelina Jolie, but a redhead you saw little theater in NoHo.

They will just notice that you’re writing is alive, engaging and unexpectedly clever… just like their favorite movies.

First Time Reading Genre Hacks?

Check out these posts:

How NOT to Pitch A Studio

Why YOU should write Stigmata 3

Just Listen (A love letter to cinema sound)

And thanks for stopping by!

- Sean Hood

A Filmmaker's Life: The Lifeboat We Call Community

I would be nothing without my very peculiar community of film artists and circus freaks. One of these particularly talented freaks writes about community below:

A Filmmaker's Life: The Lifeboat We Call Community

A Filmmaker's Life: Final VisionFest Reminder

If you are interested in going to Visionfest at the Directors Guild of America, please click the link and buy a ticket (It's a fund raiser), or contact me directly at seanbhood@yahoo.com and I can get you in.

A Filmmaker's Life: Final VisionFest Reminder

Melancholy Baby - August 20th at the Directors Guild Of America

VisionFest 08

About 15 years ago, I was one of eight founding members of the non-profit film collective Filmmakers Alliance. Now the group has over 400 members and has made hundreds of films.

This will be our 11th Year presenting VisionFest, Filmmakers Alliance annual screening and celebration held at the prestigious Directors Guild of America Theater Complex - regularly attended by overflowing audiences, celebrity filmmakers, and press.

Watch the promo here:

A Filmmaker's Life: More VisionFest 08

It begins with the presentation of the Vision Award to an established filmmaker whose artistic ambition and excellence inspires emerging filmmakers around the world. Past recipients include MIke Figgis, Terry Gilliam, Wim Wenders, Allison Anders, Alexander Payne, David O. Russell, Werner Herzog, and Mark and Michael Polish.

This year's Vision Award recipient is filmmaker Kevin Smith.

The presentation is followed by the Los Angeles Short Filmmaking Grant, an award that I won two years ago. And that is followed by a program of the best short films produced through Filmmakers Alliance in the previous year. This year, my film "Melancholy Baby" will end the the program.

The evening finishes with an elegant but high-energy party in the DGA lobby catered by some of Los Angeles' best restaurants. So go to the Filmmakers Alliance website, buy a ticket and COME!

Just Listen

I'm completely deaf in my left ear. Besides giving me a reputation for being "aloof" or "shy" at cocktail parties and noisy restaurants, my shoddy monophonic hearing has inspired in me a peculiar fascination with cinematic sound design. Perhaps it's only in movies that I can actually hear everything I need to hear. Maybe having only one working ear has made me more aware of sounds and how they color my emotional responses to what I see. Both my parents are musicians, so it might be that I experience all cinematic elements - color, movement, shape, plot, dialogue, effects, and so on - as a kind of music. For whatever reason, I don't just like to watch; I like to listen.

David Lynch is often praised for his surreal imagery. But, the next time you are watching one of his films, try closing your eyes. You will hear ominous roars, churning machines, the laughter of children, gushing liquids, and ripping metal. Now open your eyes and see how these disturbing sounds are juxtaposed with with images of a family dinner, a parking lot at Denny's, a smiling starlet, or a simple cup of coffee. Lynch's pictures are strange, but they are genius, in my mind, because of the sounds he marries them to.

The opening dream sequence in Bergman's "Wild Strawberries" is built with long moments of eerie silence punctuated by the shrill cry of a horse or the creak and snap of breaking wood. Remember the scene in which Michael Corleone shoots Sollozzo and the Police Captain? Watch the scene again and listen to how Michael's growing anxiety about the murder he is about to commit is revealed by the squeal and thunder of a nearby elevated train.

The image is presented to our conscious mind, but sounds work on the unconscious. This is why bad sound can ruin an otherwise compelling independent film - it's the annoying buzz that won't let us sleep when we aught to be dreaming. So, with this in mind, when I make films I spend a lot of time thinking about sound, even while writing the screenplay.

"Melancholy Baby," my short playing and this year's Visionfest tells the story of an agoraphobic man who falls in love with his neighbor by listening to her movements through their shared wall. The film is still in process at the time of this writing, but for me, it will be all about what the audience hears. Through the wall, he listens to her crying, coughing, walking, pleading, singing, and having an orgasm. We experience his loneliness through the groan and churn of an air conditioner. the gurgling pipes, the ring of tiny objects sorted into jars, and his nervous fingers tapping out a rhythm as loud as a drumbeat. These sounds are not "realistic." For him the world outside is an intimidating roar of birds, crows sounding off like air raid sirens. The audience hears the sounds as the main character feels them.

In order to get the sounds I wanted, I spent an entire production day "shooting sound" on the locations, recording everything from dog barks to footsteps, laughter and weeping. It was my only day as a director that I called "action" with my eyes closed.



Most of the time, of course, sound is just there to support picture, like Tonto or Sancho Panza. Most people think the sound is good if the dialog is clear, the music is catchy, and the explosions are loud. But for me, it's more than that. For me, one of the best parts of experiencing the most dynamic and power visual medium of all time... ... is listening.