Taking A Leap

Excited/Nervous/Anxious but yes, initially and resolutely excited. I launched my Kickstarter campaign for The Distant Architect. I've wanted to start one for awhile and finally everything came together. I promised I would launch on Saturday September 13th, and I did. I had a quietly thrilling few moments as I pushed the button to launch while I was sitting alone in my living room. Then I promptly fell sound asleep. I've been working extremely long hours at my "day film job". I was able to finish the clerical and technical aspects of the campaign, get the video edited. But there was no time to promote. So cue the solitary Living Room Launch Party. It's been relaxing to have a "soft launch", sort of like a restaurant. This past week my friend and producer Laurie Little and I have had time to work out the kinks in the campaign. We're rested up to start a great social media blitz- watch out. 

I am most excited though for the film. With prior funding, savings and now the kickstarter- we will be ready to go. Ready to shoot. I can't believe it, finally. I've got butterflies in my tummy and my toes tingle under the covers like Christmas Morning. My "when" has become "anticipation". 

Join me?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1821975166/the-distant-architect

Pic above from our location scout to the South Shore. A very La Jetee inspired shot.

More here

(Scene of the Solitary Living Room Launch Party)

Like A Glove

Feelings on Film Noir, Feelings on Writing a Film Noir

Hollywood likes it's myths and stories. The Hollywood Narrative appreciates the self-obsessed and Hollywood's favorite stories are about itself. Once a genre that came out of being a second thought, a thrifty "B Unit", the Film Noir is a reluctant American art form. I love cinema and I especially love Film Noir and I can over do it when I gush. It probably has to do with stylization being an integral facet of Noir. Noir needs style to be. 

In terms of screenwriting the blank page can be daunting, but with Noir there is almost a blueprint. It's not easy though. Shadows, a gun and dark clothing don't a movie make. If you step away for a moment, a well crafted Noir script is quietly modern and beautiful. A sparse framework, where shadows, pathos and mood can creep in and fill the empty spaces. I can take comfort that there is a suggested direction, and almost relax into it. A subtle relinquishing of control. As I keep working, I am writing my own story, the one that is needed for my film. It is like finding a tailored glove. Pulling it on slowly, tugging at something dark and form fitting. Schooled and studied, I've kept writing, pushing through stages of inertia, the grays and the bleakness of unconfirmed schedules and financing. But with time you begin to know. I know myself and I know my story. I know my curves and lines. Fit and dressed, I've let myself be drawn where I needed to go but the mold has become my own.

Ex-Patriot Noir

As I've said before, I love urban location shoots in old movies. A lot of Film Noirs were shot on location in LA. Although Film Noir is primarily an American art form, some Noirs were shot overseas, especially in France. Film Noir was well received by French film critics, it was the French who coined the term "Film Noir"- évidemment. Bob le Flambeur, Elevator to the Gallows and Breathless all have some Noir elements. And as for location shoots, I love the Parisian footage in these films. J'adore. One of the earlier French Film Noirs came about after an American director had ended his career in the US.

Jules Dassin's directing career was put on hold during a ridiculously dark period of American political history.  He was part of the Hollywood Blacklist and was barred from working after he shot Night and the City. A few years later, he was living in Europe and he was given the opportunity to direct Rififi.  At the time Rififi had been in development for a couple of years and Jean-Pierre Melville was going to direct it. I suppose the production team were excited at the chance to have a real American Film Noir director helm the picture.

 Rififi is gritty, dark and bleak. Dassin only shot at night and on overcast days, no sun shines in the film. There is a thread of betrayal and regret that runs through the story. Dassin was still working through his blacklisting, and the lead actor Jean Servais accepted the part for lower wages after his career had stalled due to his alcoholism.  Dassin loosely adapted a script from the novel Rififi. The story moves and leads up to an awesome 30 minute silent jewel heist. My favorite part of the film is at the end when the mortally wounded Tony (Servais) gets in the car with a little boy and they drive through Paris. The little boy happily tumbles around the car, blood drips down Tony's legs and a useless suitcase of loot bobs around the backseat. As Tony looses consciousness he looks at the sky and we can see the trees and rooftops of Paris. The feeling is frightening but dreamlike.

I found the scene on youtube! Someone recorded it off the Sundance Channel-the end scene starts at 5:43

- Melville supported the choice of Dassin as the director of Rififi. Melville later used some of the work and research he did for Rififi in his awesome movie The Red Circle (Le Cercle Rouge). The Red Circle also includes a silent jewel heist.  The earlier noir film Asphalt Jungle is another film to utilize the silent jewel heist-

Some words about Kodak

My brother Brennan came home from Japan for the holidays. It was great to see him (it had been three years). We had both studied film and made our own projects but we had never worked together. So we decided to shoot something while he was home. And we decided we'd shoot on film. I had made a couple of projects that were influenced by Douglas Sirk's melodramas, but I'd shot everything digitally. Sirk's films were shot in Technicolor and he really took advantage of the medium. His films were rich, saturated color. So we decided to shoot a one reel melodrama. We were visiting our parents up in Milwaukee and we had to make sure we had everything up there to do it. I got the Bolex out and cleaned it. I went to Xav Le Plae's Riverwest Film Video and bought a roll of Vision stock. The film was tungsten balanced and since we were shooting outside, I needed to find an 85 filter. I used to have some tucked in my camera case but they're long gone. Thankfully North American Camera had some filters and Bob, the proprietor asked, "Did you just wake up and decide to shoot a film?" We basically did. My friend Heather Vernon took the train up from Chicago to act in our little production. And together with a powder blue dress, we shot some emotive stuff in the park. There were some blowing leaves and everything (WOTW). It was a great day and I look forward to seeing our finished product. The roll is in the fridge awaiting processing (an old habit...).
Last month Kodak announced plans to file for bankruptcy. It was sad to hear but not surprising. When I worked at Helix I would get memos from Kodak regarding which products and stocks they were discontinuing (it was sad when they discontinued the slide projector). I never was too interested in a film/video debate. I enjoy and appreciate the facets and practice of shooting on both mediums. I'm planning on shooting my upcoming Science Fiction Noir on Super 16 and I know it's going to be pricy but I want to shoot my Noir on film. And I'm happy I still have the option to.

Wardrobe inspiration

Wardrobe inspiration-Jil Sander for Uniqlo, Helmut Lang, Jil Sander, Giorgio Armani, -Kingdom of  Style, an Ungaro pantsuit Melinda thrifted. Still pondering...

Style Within Style

 

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It’s important to me that there is a clear story and defined characters in my screenplay. I’m writing a Science Fiction Noir, and as I work on the technique and story construct, I’m also mulling over aesthetic choices. Noir & Science Fiction genres can be very stylized. I find working within a genre can be helpful because it feels as if there's a compass for your course as a writer and filmmaker. There are components for a style and I am going over them with my own brush. I'm trying to step away from some of the old conventions. Science fiction can be very polished, cold and...masculine. I want the woman protagonist in my film to be warm, approachable. I want the setting to be urban, lived-in and familiar. 

I've been thinking about costume. The characters are professionals so they will be wearing suits but we're going to try to stay away from the 1940s. Melinda Snyder, our wardrobe lady, has some great ideas about where we will go for suits. We're looking towards 1980s and 90s cuts, dark greys. This is going to be fun.

Image-Steven Klein Vogue Italia

Dystopian Noir

 

 

images- Steven Meisel for Vogue Italia, Blade Runner, Blade Runner, Brazilian cover of Neuromancer, Brazil, Brazil, Alphaville, Theirry Mugler by Helmut Newton

80s Film Noir

So I've been doing some research on 1980s Film Noir and there's a few interesting titles and I was like, "Oh yeah, Bodyheat & Michael Mann movies." Neo-Noir basically.

-Johnny Handsome

-D.O.A.

-Jagged Edge

-Against All Odds (remake of Out of the Past)

-No Way Out (remake of The Big Clock)

-The Postman Always Rings Twice

-Still of the Night

-The Morning After

-Dressed to Kill

-Blow Out

-Body Double

-Coup de Torchon

-House of Games

-Maquerade 

-La Balance

-Sea of Love

-Mortal Passions

-Cat Chaser

-Best Seller

-Manhunter

-Tightrope

-To Live and Die in L.A.

-Call Me

-P.I. Private Investigations

-Kill Me Again

-Someone to Watch Over Me

-The Big Easy

-The Border

-The First Deadly Sin

-Black Widow

-Mike's Murder

-52 Pick-up

-At Close Range

-The Bedroom Window

-Betrayed

-Shoot to Kill

-White of the Eye

-Atlantic City

-Eyewitness

-Union City

-Slam Dance

-Criminal Law

-Frantic

-True Believer

-Year of the Dragon

-Eight Million Ways to Die

-Tequila Sunrise

-Thief

-I, The Jury

-Hammett

-The Rosary Murders

-Out of Bounds

-Bad Boys

-Gleaming the Cube

-The Killing Time

-Positive I.D.

-Impulse

-Blood Simple

-Wild at Heart

-No Mercy

-Breathless

-Hit List

-The Long Good Friday

-The Hit

-Stormy Monday

-Dead Calm

-Blue Velvet

-Batman 

-Body Heat

-Blade Runner

-Brazil

-Trouble in Mind

-Angel Heart

-Tough Guys Don't Dance

-The Kill Off

-Repo Man

-Dead Winter

-Angel

-Veronika Voss

-The Moon in the Gutter

-The Fourth Man

-Confidentially Yours

-The Element of Crime

-Mona Lisa

-As Tears Go By

-Monsieur Hire

Image-Blade Runner, Ridley Scott  1982

Film Noir :An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style -Alain Silver & Elizabeth Ward

Greens & Blues

It's turning into a chilly autumn, and a Midwestern filmmaker turns to the research stage of filmmaking. Jose and I are pouring over stills and photos to come up with the color and lighting scheme for our science fiction noir. We've decided to shoot in color for various reasons. We want to shoot at a higher speed and most of those stocks are in color. Plus something about shooting in B&W might feel restrictive. But we may try to limit the palate that we use.

One thing we're looking into are some films from the 1980s. Aesthetically you can notice a lot of blues and cooler colors in some of those films. Greens and blues, & especially greens are what we've been focusing on. I want to watch some noirs from the 1980s. There doesn't seem to be too many, even though one of the initial and continuing influences on my script is an 80s noir- Blade Runner.

Images- flickr,flickr, Blade Runner

Murder can sometimes smell like honeysuckle

What's interesting about Film Noir is the adherence to the style, the formula. In many noirs the tone, characters and settings stay fairly consistent. Raymond Chandler has said he wrote his stories as a succession of "scenes". Fans of his fiction were familiar with the direction of the story, but it was the strength and imaginative use of the formula that proves to be enthralling. It's hard to craft a good noir; nuance and mood are essential elements.
Lately I've been watching and rewatching a lot of film noir. Some have been very good. And some have been very, very good. Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity is an almost perfect movie about imperfect people. He co-wrote the script with Raymond Chandler (Billy Wilder usually worked with a writing partner), and the dialogue is sharp and at times whimsical-"Murder can sometimes smell like honeysuckle..."
The cinematography by John Seitz is hazy with dark long shadows. There's plenty of the classic horizontal and canted shadows from venetian blinds. Motivated lighting with inventive use of shadows were trademarks of early German cinema. There are references to German Expressionism in film noir, if only because many German filmmakers immigrated to Hollywood in the 1930s and 40s. Billy Wilder began his film career in Berlin in the 1920s. One of my favorite expressionist techniques is as the drama picks up in a scene, as emotions heighten, the shadows deepen.
Even though there is a lot of expressive methods used in noir, the genre still has a naturalistic feel. I suppose the naturalism comes from the use of familiar settings and characters that are seemingly plain people. Viewers naturally connect to the characters, in that they are not heroes, they are imperfect and human. The protagonists are often seen engaging in a series of poor decisions and "stuck" in a situation which may not change. I believe the mix of stylization and the ordinary is what I find so compelling about Film Noir.
One of the plot devices that I remember vividly in Double Indemnity was Barbary Stanwyck's ankle. We see her first in a towel, and then her delicate ankle descending the staircase. I remember the ankle playing against the ornate iron rungs of the Spanish style staircase in her shadowed house. Fred MacMurray makes repeated references to the ankle, and her ankle bracelet. Like Claire's Knee, it draws the male protagonists into their fate, towards the direction the story will take.



I love the house in this movie, with all the dust and shadows. It's like a precursor to Sunset Boulevard, John Seitz shot that too. & Barbara Stanwyck is sooo good. A Femme Fatale is probably too tame to reference for her character. Although seductive, she is blunt when she describes her desire for her husband to be killed early in the film. Stanwyck is probably my second favorite actress (she's not The Queen), I do have favorites...

Double Indemnity script

Double Indemnity locations in LA- Dear Old Hollywood

Very

Helmut Newton shot a series of stories for Vogue in the 90s with Nadja Auermann set in Berlin. They were Fassbinder in feeling. Very transporting. I wondered if Berlin was dark and chic, like what I saw in pictures and heard in music.
It is.

Shooting in an asphalt jungle

Developing a feature film is like climbing an invisible mountain. The uncertainties far outweigh what is known. The only thing that an independent filmmaker initially has on their hands is time. And then if any kind of financing comes through and a production is viable, there will begin the process of working in the most difficult schedule. & then if creative decisions have not been made, there is no time to dwell on them and things can be lost. So I am trying to concentrate on decisions now, like the look and locations of the film. I really want to make the city almost a character and strong backdrop for the actors. Chicago is hard, dark, concrete and steely. Shooting in an asphalt jungle it would seem. (A jungle is a metaphor applied to Chicago from time to time...) The film noir Asphalt Jungle, was a good place to go for inspiration-

The opening shots of Asphalt Jungle are shot on location. The film does not specify where the story takes place except that it's a city in the Midwest. The opening was filmed in Cincinnati. The author of the novel, W. R. Burnett, was from Ohio before moving to Chicago. The photography is great. Arthur Rosson, the Director of Photography, was adept at shooting a nice tight, B&W noir (he wasn't a slouch when it came to color either, he shot Wizard of Oz and Singing in the Rain). The exteriors at the beginning are open and vast before the film goes inside to the low angles and tight shots that fit the claustrophobic feel of the story. Sterling Hayden is running from the police and the architecture of the city works with him as he ducts behind buildings and into shadows.





















































The Asphalt Jungle is a nice, dark noir. Directed by John Huston, it has a silent jewel heist that is referenced in later films. Plus there's an early appearance by a young, cute MM.

Noir-There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.

Thoughts on Film Noir, Chicago, night shooting, etc.

I have been thinking a lot about Film Noir lately. Actually I'm always thinking about Film Noir... What a murky American art form. My feature length screenplay has many noir elements. I'm hoping to keep pushing it in that direction, in the framework for the story and especially for the character's through lines. I've always felt that Chicago, where my script is set, is very noir. It can often be grey, dark and bleak. And it has always been my opinion that Chicago as a city is very undershot. A lot of film production takes place but mostly just on the North East side. I don't think the city has been well represented on film. Most times I do not feel a connection or familiarity with what I see on screen. The Fugitive and The Dark Knight are exceptions, I thought both of those films look like Chicago.
I'm excited to shoot around Chicago on location. Shooting a noir potentially means a lot of night shooting, which is always hard, but there's the basic issue of light. My hope, my hope is to at least shoot the short version of the script on film. Jose Luis Rios, my good friend and cinematographer on the project, and I have been having a lot of discussions about the photography. We would like to shoot on Super 16mm for the texture and the grain. I want the film to have sort of a distant "displaced feel" which S16 could provide. If I'm not able to swing film (still crossing my fingers), I'm not adverse to shooting digitally. Never have been. I'm currently shooting a short called Reds and Blues and we are shooting on the Canon 5D. I love the footage that's coming back. One thing that the 5D and 7D do well is shoot in low light. The image below was shot at about 8:30pm with only street lights providing illumination. It's dark but when Sarah turned her head towards the light she had a decent exposure on her face. It was nice and very noir.

















Photo at top of post by Jack Delano link

There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in. -Leonard Cohen

Out of the Past

Out of the Past is an exceptionally archetypal noir. The photography is excellent. The customary high contrast black & white interiors are effective, but I like the exterior shots. In general I like exterior action shots from 1930s and 1940s Hollywood films because most pictures were shot entirely on studio lots. Many film noirs were shot off the studio lots because the "A" pictures usually took up studio space. One of the reasons I like East Hollywood and Echo Park so much is because those houses and streets were the settings of many noir locations. But Out of the Past opens in Northern California, the natural setting and small town feel cheerless. Robert Mitchum works as a gas station owner, a circumstance that is instantly wistful. As the story begins we know that whatever he was able to build for himself would soon be lost. His past comes back to meet him repeatedly as he travels to deal with the characters from his former life. But it is not an emotional journey, the film's desolate tone stays constant until the end. That's what I remember about this movie, that and Robert Mitchum's tired eyes.