John August

fixed

Because nothing says quality like a cow

Film Industry, Los Angeles

In an article in today’s LA Times about his collaboration with Laura Dern, director David Lynch bemoans how expensive Academy Award campaigns have become:

So in what must have looked like a scene from one of his own films, Lynch recently made a “For Your Consideration” sign touting Dern, hired a piano player and a cow named Georgia and sat for about four hours at Hollywood Boulevard and La Brea Avenue and another four in front of the Tower Records store on the Sunset Strip.

“It was the greatest cow,” Lynch said.

“People would come up wanting to pet the cow and talk. So many people came up and said they wanted to help. So there is a part of us that can see through [the hype]. All I want is to try get the word out.”

Follow up: What job should I beg for?

Directors, Film Industry, Follow Up, QandA

follow up
Continuing the tradition of readers following up on previous answers, we hear back from the guy who wondered what the best job on a movie set would be for him to learn more about filmmaking.

Here’s the original question and answer:

A friend of mine is a writer whose work has been lucky/funny enough to make it to the big screen. The sequel has been greenlit and he just shot me an email letting me know that he’s signed on as the director! I am an aspiring screenwriter and I understand how valuable it is to be on set and get a bird’s eye view of the process. So my question is this:

What job should I beg him for? I’ve got no on-set experience and I’m not sure how much staffing power the director has, or in what areas he has it. I don’t want to ask for something completely unrealistic and appear foolish. I am, however, eager, ambitious and a very hard worker. I’ll carry their luggage, haul equipment or simply make sure the toilet paper is properly stocked — if I can just get a peak at the process, write during my down time and make friends/connections. I’d kill for this opportunity. I just need to know…um…. what opportunity exactly, I’m killing for.

— J.R.

If the budget allows him to have an assistant, that’s the job you want. By shadowing him, you’ll get the broadest perspective of preproduction, production and post.

Maybe he already has an assistant, or the budget won’t allow him to have one. Then it gets a little harder to figure out the right spot for you.

Assuming you can drive a car, answer a phone and work long hours, you can be an office PA. You’ll learn a lot about the logistical side of filmmaking, but won’t have a ton of on set exposure — you’re running back and forth from the office a lot. You’ll be taking orders from a production coordinator, who will generally send you for a pickup in Santa Monica when you just got back from Venice. On the plus side, you’ll get to know your LA geography a lot better, and become familiar with the various vendors and production houses.

While an office PA can learn on the job, an on-set PA actually needs to know what he’s doing. There’s a useful guide you can download, but a large part of the job is simply anticipating what’s going to happen next, and that only comes with experience. But everyone has to start somewhere, so if you can convince the first and second AD’s (who oversee the PA’s) that you’re a quick learner, they might bring you on. But always keep in mind that you’re working for them, not your buddy the director.

If you’re competent with a videocamera, another possibility is to shoot the behind-the-scenes footage. That certainly gives you access. Just make sure not to step on the toes of the actual filmmakers.

If it’s not possible to get a real job on the movie, it’s absolutely worth asking your friend if you can visit set a few times during production. Just make sure that when you do, you make yourself a ghost. The best set visitors aren’t just invisible — they’re almost immaterial, and never in the way when you turn the set around. The safest place to hover is generally near craft service; they pick that location to be close to the set but never in the way.

JR wrote back yesterday…

In October of this year I wrote you asking what job I should beg my writer-turned-director friend for on the set of his new movie. After reading your response I immediately went to beg for an assistant job — preferably on set since that would obviously be the biggest thrill for me — but made it clear that office PA would be terrific as well (naturally, no begging and choosing). He already had an assistant, but promised to do what he could to get me on as a set PA. He also informed me that since the film is shooting outside of California, he’d have to speak with the executive producer to make sure that I wouldn’t jeopardize any tax credits they’d be receiving from the state in which they are working. Lastly he’d have to speak with his ADs to make sure they were fine with a quick learner with no experience.

As it turned out, the assistant directors were cool and I didn’t kill the tax credits. I’m a set PA!! The ADs have been extremely friendly. They’re communicating as much information as they can before production begins in January so that we can lessen my learning curve as much as possible. The PA handbook you shared has also been invaluable. I’m truly grateful for your help and insight.

In January I’m leaving my 9-5 to go on set for 3 months and play a (small) part in creating something that’s been an indescribable part of my life. I’m beyond ecstatic. What little downtime I have will be spent writing, conning the right folks into reading it, and trying to network my way into my next job. I’d appreciate everyone’s tips and or experiences in accomplishing these things if you’d care to share.

Thanks again,
JR

Confessions of a genius script reader

Rant, Resources

LC (whose email handle ThrobbingSocks is much more provocative) tipped me off to this Film Threat article by Allan Heifetz which explains some of the more significant pet peeves of professional (and unprofessional) script readers.

Newbies also love to break the fourth wall. These fools must think they have super strength. “Hulk smash fourth wall! Aaargh! Hulk need to address audience for lighthearted and wacky fun! Hulk’s rom-com is effervescent and delightful! Aargh!”

Unfortunately, once you have a character address the camera you are essentially saying that your movie takes place in a magical fantasy land where anyone can talk to a theatre full of people from another dimension whenever one feels the need to vent.

The full article is here.

Final Draft updated

Software

Final Draft, the screenwriting application I use most despite profound reservations, has been upgraded to 7.1.3. I haven’t gotten it to crash, so that’s something.

My assistant Chad had never used the Tools>Reformat command, which despite its clunky interface is a huge timesaver when importing text from other places.Including other Final Draft scripts. Too often, Final Draft will retain the margin and font information after a copy-and-paste, so it’s up to you to remind it that you really do want the dialogue lined up. Basically, it steps through your script paragraph by paragraph, waiting for you to press a key indicating which type of element — action, dialogue, parenthetical — that paragraph should be. If the formating is okay, ‘N’ will leave it alone and jump you to the next block. ‘P’ moves you back.

Make friends with Command-R.

One aspect of Final Draft I’ve long neglected is its ability to do multiple panes. I’ve never found splitting the window all that helpful, but with today’s giant monitors, I could see myself doing it more. One often needs to refer back to other parts of a script while writing a scene. Multiple panes make that marginally easier.

One annoyance is that Final Draft won’t let you see the two panels in different views. If I could see the “real” script on the right and the expanded script notes on the left, that would be helpful. But Final Draft can’t do that. The exceptions are Scene Navigator and Index Cards. Scene Navigator is almost worthless without the split screen. Index cards you either dig or you don’t. (I don’t.)