Inside THE RED ROBIN: The Making of the Feature Film: 3 from Lumet and coming close with Post!

Thursday, January 12, 2012

3 from Lumet and coming close with Post!

We just brought onboard Tom Swartwout, who edited Sidney Lumet's last 4 films. Call it coincidence, timing or that intangible force I call the "Film God," but that means that "The Red Robin" has the distinction of having 3 key talents who have worked with Mr. Lumet: our first AD, Mike Meador, Joseph Lyle Taylor(plays Leonard) starred in Lumet's short-lived tv series "100 Center Street," and now Tom. I am a big fan of Lumet's work. This wasn't intentional. It just so happened that these people gravitated towards the project or we came into their orbit at the right time. For me, it's kind of a nice omen to have some inspiration from one of my favorite American directors. As Mr. Lumet would say I'm sure, use it now to continue your creative self-deception in the edit, but don't be married to it. ' Or at least that's what I can hear his very practical and sensible self saying.

We have had a few small delays but nothing that's out of the ordinary. We needed to re-transcode all of our raw red epic files for MFX avid files. What we originally transcoded are too large for avid and tcp and would trip up even the most powerful OS. So our DP loaned us his red rocket and we are retranscoding then grouping all at the same time. I am watching the initial Pro res on my Macbook and starting to make selects, though I wish I had a bigger monitor than 15 inches to watch these on. In a few weeks, Tom and I will sit down for 7 days in our dailies bunker, watch everything together and start talking voluminously about each scene. Once I feel like he's got what he needs and understands the emotion, the pacing, the point-of-view I'm aiming for with each scene, I'm sending him off to work remotely and we will be ichatting everyday through the rough cut. Though I was initially planning on being in the room every day for the rough cut, I trust that this working style will serve the project best. Had we had the money and planning beforehand, Tom would've been editing while I was shooting. So while I'm not just throwing him the rushes and saying "have at it," I am giving him creative space to edit unencumbered by my absolute lack of objectivity and his absolute total objectivity. Every day he will send me what he's done and I will certainly give notes, but I don't want to obstruct the first pass. I'd rather let the editor have the space to create and when we get to the fine cut, then we start really building the house, resettling the foundation, redoing the walls and reworking everything that needs attention.
As a director, there's always a strong desire to maintain control over everything and I agree, it's your film at the end of the day. Each frame is the result of your decisions. That being said, I believe you have hired some very creative people who have their own perspective and getting the best work out of them doesn't mean breathing over their shoulder every second. Give them a very specific plan, no doubt, give them the mold, the feeling, the 'what's it about' and 'what do we need to focus on here' but don't do their job. You want to inspire them to find something that you may never have expected either in writing/directing. That's the ultimate goal. That each stage of post-production adds a layer...makes the broth even richer
I want my editor to be a storyteller as well, not just someone who is good at following orders because that's their job. That's not my idea of filmmaking. Never has been. To be the director of a project means hiring the right people and getting them to elevate the words on the page or the frames of film(red). In my humble opinion, that means hiring the right people and inspiring them to do their best work that will in the end do what's most important--serve to tell the best story in the best way possible.

So there's my corny wisdom this week. If you're reading this, remember, these are all opinions. Every creative person has their own way that works best for them. Many would disagree with me. Maybe I'll disagree with myself a few pictures down the road. No, wait, I'm a filmmaker, not a politician. Peace out.

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About The Red Robin

“The Red Robin” focuses on the dynamics of a family whose dying patriarch stands accused of a shadowy past by one of his children. Every aspect of the filmmaking, from the acting to the visuals and editing, are tinted by a traumatic incident from the family’s past that remains unknown to them. As the director of the film, I plan to visualize the damage this buried incident inflicts on the Shellners, how it twists and subverts their reality, and its combustible ability to reap havoc on their lives over the course of one night. The palette of this film could best be described as “Cinema of the Traumatized” and this expression should live and breath inside every frame. Inside the house, the interior design hasn’t been updated for decades with browns, yellows and beige colors popular in the 70’s—though a sanctuary at one time, it’s now tired and depressing. One can’t step foot in the Shellner house without feeling the weight of the world, as if an albatross of despair looms over everything and everyone. Though the story is set in the present, the visuals will have the fragile graininess of aged film from the seventies and the colors desaturated and muted, representing the time which the incident happened. The faces of the Shellners are photographed “unglamorously,” with practicals, giving expressions a raw, real and sallow look drained of all inner/outer beauty. When the accusations of abuse are leveled against the father, the images will retain their yellowish pallor but shot with higher contrast, more areas of darkness to heighten the mystery and confusion. Only when the resolution comes at the end of the film does the image feel contemporary and the faces return to some state of health as if the narrative is able to move out of its trapped past. The camera work will also reflect the emotional burden trauma has had on this family. In the beginning of the story, the action will be kept eye-level, framed in unobtrusive wide shots with little movement, lending a heaviness to the image. The coverage will be minimal and some entire scenes may consist of 1 angle to convey that life has all but come to a halt. Editing will be dictated by the sparce shooting style and will therefore be paced slowly. Many compositions in the house will feature family members framed against enormous windows or the majestic fireplace, giving the image a weight that suggests something unseen is crippling our characters. After the story takes its first dramatic turning point with the son’s accusations of his father’s past, the visuals will become increasingly agitated, unhinged. Similar to movie’s like Roman Polanski’s “Repulsion” which depicts a woman’s mental breakdown inside her modest flat, trauma works its way into the psyches of the family and the sanctuary of home becomes alien, threatening and even dangerous. While the accusing son, Tommy, hunts for the truth escalates and mental state become manic, the camera will mimick his psychology with less steady shots on the tripod, abrupt pans and tilts, erratic zooms, focus-adjustments, and compositions that are busier. Eventually, as Tommy’s siblings begin to have “memory relapses,” the cinema of the Shellner’s becomes “agitated” Camera angles are more assymetrical, exaggerated, closer, and depth of field compresses. Beyond the literal visuals taking place in the house, there’s also the mental “flashes” that Tommy experiences throughout. These are the traumatic “pinches” that give the viewer a sense of his mindset but are also pieces to the underlying past which haunts the family. Because Tommy accuses his father, Nathaniel, of performing government mind control experiments on the children, these flashes should resemble an actual filmed tests. The performances of the family members are equally impacted by trauma. When the story begins, there’s a heaviness to nearly every minute behavior of the characters. Their speech, movements and reactions.are slower than “normal.” Though they don’t realize it, they are paralyzed by their past and not just their present predicament. When one of the children, Tommy, invokes claims of his father’s horrors, the characters undergo a full-fledged identity crisis. With each character experiencing some terrifying recall they don’t understand, they become unhinged, even foreign to themselves, and unpredictable in their minute to minute reactions. The notion that their family history could be a big lie is must be reflected in their behavior. At the same time, there must be a devotional love for their father which complicates their emotions and makes shifting alliances difficult, if not, impossible. Even Tommy struggles with his own premise as it undermines a view of his father as his savior and that must resonate in every nuance of his performance. The patriarch, Nathaniel, will be directed to succeed at saving his children at all costs, no matter what kind of slandering takes place. He rescued and adopted these children from horrible lives and he will not pass until he’s assured they are ok. His frustration with Tommy is tempered with his compassion and he never pulls out daggers to combat what he’s convinced is mental illness. His weapon is his undying dedication even as he struggles with his final hours of life. Movies like Thomas Vinterberg’s searing drama, “The Celebration” and Mike Nichol’s classic, “Whose Afraid of Virginia Wolfe” have inspired me as successful examples of small stories with high emotions told on a large cinematic canvas. Both taking place in one night and in one location with families that undergo seismic conflicts based in trauma, these movies bear mentioning for their wonderful ensemble casts and performances that take us convincingly through some difficult psychological terrain. My approach to directing “The Red Robin” puts the same emphasis on having a cast that can take us to the very edge and back without over-acting and melodrama. Because there are 6 children and 2 parents in a very confined space, the actors must know their parameters and pitch and be careful not to overwhelm each other. As the director, I will make sure that the combustion never becomes theatrical or over-the-top and there’s a realism to the performances and shooting style that keeps us believing. I will encourage my cast to adopt the maxim “Less is more” knowing how easily high emotions in small space can transport us to the stage. Though there’s an abundance of dialogue in the script, I will emphasize silence, restraint and a style of acting that keeps the audience guessing what our characters are thinking and going through.. “The Red Robin” is most engaging at the level of keeping the audience in the dark, taking them out again, then putting them back just when they think they have figured it all out. I would like people to come away from this film not only be entertained by the thrilling plot twists, but moved by the story about a family struggling to cope with a great loss and suffering.

Inside THE RED ROBIN: The Making of the Feature Film

Thursday, January 12, 2012

3 from Lumet and coming close with Post!

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