Film Geeks @ Work

Friday night I spent an evening watching movies with Leah. Well, we saw one movie and watched scenes from a few other movies. The film we saw was A Slipping Down Life with Guy Pearce & Lily Taylor.

This is a gem of a little movie and it's one of my favorites. I can watch it over and over and the soundtrack is amazing. Guy sings all the songs on the album. The soundtrack makes me melt. His voice is raw, gentle and pure. It's a blues album sprinkled with a bit of honky tonk. Only someone as talented as Guy can pull this off. I often wonder why Guy Pearce isn't more famous. He has such a diverse body of work, from Priscilla Queen of the Dessert, to Memento, to LA Confidential, The Proposition etc. I can't believe that he was in LA Confidential and Russell Crowe is the one who became super famous! I digress....

Leah really liked the movie, it's a very offbeat film and it's not for everybody. I personally love it. The film is beautifully and artfully directed by Tony Kalem (an actress and writer). What I love about the film is that the camera is always moving. So now on top of all the camera equipment we need, we also need a jib arm and a steady cam, plus a steady cam operator!!! Why does art cost so much????

I showed Leah a scene from Grace of My Heart. There's a psychedelic club scene with a band on stage, the crowd is dancing, they use a lot of strobes and it's very '60s. I told Leah that for Dirty Virgin's gig on Valentine's day I wanted to do an homage to that time period. The Grace of My Heart clip was the closest I've seen to what I want to accomplish but I was afraid that the strobe lighting along with the song we are using would make it look like an 80's metal video. I told Leah that at the club scene I want to capture the emotion and the feel of a 60's rock show. I love the 50's and 60s but especially the late 60's and this is my way of acknowledging and thanking the music from that time period.

What I love about Leah is that without much articulation on my part she knew exactly what I wanted. She showed me the opening scene from the movie Ali and there it was. I told her that's pretty much the lighting I was looking for. It's basically a big spotlight and it's mostly shot from the back of the singer into the audience. I told Leah that I wanted similar lighting for the club scene and that the lead singer will perform about 40% of the song offstage singing into the crowd. This is the scene with the 5 cameras and now you can add steady cam and a jib arm to that as well. Luckily, the package we have comes with a dolly.

Next up was Some Kind of Wonderful. I've always LOVED the kissing scene in the garage. It's right up there with the best of them. I told Leah, I want that to be my kissing scene. I had no idea how they got the camera to move around them that way, it turns out that it's just a dolly shot. Leah had never seen the film so I left it for her. I think it's one of John Hughes' best (he wrote it). The ending was a bit abrupt for my taste but I can live with that. I've heard people say that it's Pretty in Pink reversed, there was something about Pretty in Pink that I didn't like. When I watched it as an adult it hit me, Hello, she's in love with an a$$hole and she ends up with the a$$hole! I think I need to watch the Ducky edition and see if I like that better.

The last film we watched was In The Mood For Love. I know, every filmmaker's wet dream is to make a movie like this. How do you demystify a Wong kar Wai film? How do I dare emulate or draw inspiration from even one scene from this film? I love the rich texture of this film, the longing and desires of the two main characters. It reminds me of Shane and Dustin. They long for each other but do they destroy their friendship? Would Shane give up her music to be with Dustin? Will their relationship work? Shane, an up and coming rock star about to go on tour for 8 months and Dustin, a corporate accountant who leaves his job to start a video game company - can they make it work? If not, can they go back to being friends? They are roommates, best friends and do everything together but they withhold their romantic love from each other. It's the withholding and the longing of these characters that makes them similar. I'm not claiming in any way to come close to the genius that is Wong Kar Wai but if I see something in my story that reminds me of his film, I won't close myself to the possibility of using his palette as an inspiration for my canvas.

I love the scenes in the alley way and I told Leah that I want a scene of Dustin and Shane walking down a street in Venice the way they do in this film. Of course it's going to cost money to light such a scene. The scene I showed Leah is what's called slow motion with a stutter, a few of the scenes that I liked from A Slipping Down Life also used this technique. Luckily, the camera we have can do this but again, it comes down to $$$$$$$$$$. So, I need to think of a way to get this shot using what we already have. Plus, I now need to figure out how to get a permit to shoot in Venice at night on the cheap or for free!

So here's what I learned from my movie watching with Leah:

Guy Pearce is super hot
I like dolly shots, jib arms and steady cams
I like slow motion stutters
I can speak Lucy and Leah understands what I want
I have expensive taste, everything I want requires more $$

Lucy