A Filmmaker's Life: You and Your Cinematic Vision - A Relationship Story

As usual, Jacques Thelemaque writes inspiring metaphors for filmmakers of any ilk.  (click link)

A Filmmaker's Life: You and Your Cinematic Vision - A Relationship Story

Personality

The Thinking Writer had a good link today on delving into the personalities of characters by finding their "personality type." He suggests Keirsey Temperament Website. The best  personality typing system for me is The Enneagram. It's a little more writer friendly and less academic than Keirsey. 

And it's particularly fun when you go against type, imagining your action hero as a "Peacemaker" or your femme fatal as an "Individualist. Fun Joel's Screenwriting Blog has a series of five posts on the subject, which you can read here.

Just my tip for the day.

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