August 19, 2006: Director's Concern

Ok, I'll name drop. The friend noted in this post is Academy-Award nominated screenwriter Josh Olson("A History of Violence"). I've known him for something like fifteen years. That's a story in itself. (and there's a pic of us coming up in this log)


I typically send him my flicks to watch before anybody else. He gives me good feedback, which I then integrate before showing more people. 

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August 19, 2006

Let me state at the beginning that this is not meant to be a dig at my actors. (But because I'm stating this you can probably assume it's going to sound like it)

One of the things I'm mulling over as I consider my next project is how much emotion to instill in the story. You see, a story where not much happens between characters is unbearable to watch unless you've got great actors who can live and breathe your characters, so the audience can't help but identify with them.

One of the problems with my original cut of FOC was that it seemed boring. Yet, no one who read the script seemed to be bored. So after I sent the film to one of my buddies out in LA he said, "Dude, you gotta cut all this talking between the characters."

I said, "But it's character development."

He said, "Well...yeah, it would be if you had better actors. But what you got now is just boring dialogue."

So I considered what he said and maybe he's right. Again, I'm not blaming my actors--many of them are very talented. And the onus is 100% on them. Amateur directing can be unnoticeable if the actors on screen are great; the reverse is not true: Shoddy acting will be noticed regardless of how nice it's shot.

The project I'm considering is cheaper than my last couple of films--and with cheaper comes a deeper story. But the problem is, if I can't get an actor who can really sink his teeth into this main character then all I'm doing is wasting my(and my audience's) time.

Anyway, FOC2 cut is down to 1:54, but now I'm about to go through the tough-love cut. Where I trim the fat regardless of how much I like it. I expect the final cut of FOC2 to be about 1:40(100 minutes) with credits(front and end credits typically add about 6 minutes--that's right, you people with brains or calculators can figure out that the actual movie will run about 94 minutes)