Review – The Mist

I’ll get right to point. I expected much more with The Mist.

 The film’s director, Frank darabont, has had success with each Stephen King-film-adaption he’s made. The Shawshank Redemption (which goes down for me as the greatest film of all time) and The Green Mile (in itself a great film).

While this is a rare misfire from Darabont, it’s still a misfire. It was one of those movies that from early on you can tell is going to disappoint you. Sure, you try and ignore that nagging feeling, we all do. But are we ever mistaken? Not usually. (Not once for me.) Once I “feel” a film is not going to be good it very rarely makes a rebound.

 At times, I just wasn’t sure whether to laugh or not. With scary movies, if that uncertainty happens you’re pretty much dead in the water. Horror movies can be campy and shlocky and GOOD, but they must have that consistency throughout. They must have that self-aware tone. They must KNOW they’re being shlocky.

 The Mist just took itself too seriously, yet the dialog was laughable. One or the other-not both.

 I was disappointed, especially after recognizing several Shawshank alumini in the cast.

 Oh well.

 -ji

No Sleep

Saturday morning, November 10th, 2007. It’s 2:25 AM and we begin the first day of shooting in less than four hours.

 Checklist:

Various props – check

 Fog machine for atmospherics – check

Gallon of overpriced fog juice – check

Lighting equipment (3 modified halogen worklamps + 1 spotlight) – check

Bounce boards – check

Bag o’ stuff including (for the lighting) aluminum foil, gaff tape, heat gloves, wooden clothes pins, and light “gels” with are really just plastic colored binder dividers, extra batteries and cables, camera manual, 2 pairs of noise cancelling headphones, other odds and ends I can’t remember – check

Extension cords of various lengths – check

Storyboards – check

Annotated script – check

Camera tripod – check

Camera battery – check

Camera power supply – check

4 blank camera tapes of 60 minutes each equaling 240 minutes of raw footage - check

Last but not least, the camera – check

I know I’ll forget something.

It’s now 2: 32 AM. I should be marking my script with notes, going over the script, going over the storyboards, but I’m not. I was planning earlier to wake up at 4:30, shower, get ready, and be out the door by 5 AM or so. The drive is only about half an hour or so, but I like getting a head start. I may just stay up, prepare like hell, and just wait for the sun.

 So in less than 4 hours I’ll be shooting my movie. Since May – 6 months – I’ve been waiting. My whole life actually. All those painful, aborted projects I started thinking I could do by myself, they don’t matter anymore. This is for real now. I have no idea what I’m doing. At least I don’t think I do.

 Last Friday when we all met for rehearsals downtown (Atlanta) I went through the night with the actors trying not to think too much, trying not to second guess my ability. Afterwards, the producer (jamila) pulled me aside.

“Jason, I just want to tell you what a great job you’re doing,” she said. “Out of all the film projects I’ve done…you just really amaze me.”

“You think so…?”

“Yeah, I do. And the actors do.”

I nodded, thought. “Thanks. I just worry they’re thinking ‘this guy doesn’t know what he’s doing.’”

“Nah. But,” she added, “the only thing…the only thing that gives off the fact that you’re green is that you…what’s the word….not humble…but…hmm…self depriving? No, that’s not it. Self degrading, no. Hmm…anyway, we’ll touch base tomorrow.”

We said goodbye, I thanked her again, and began driving home. On the way, I got a text message, looked at it. It was from Jamila. It said, “Self deprecating.”

That was the word. I realized then. It’s okay to be humble, great even. But I needed to stop apologizing. It’s just a subconcious thing one does when they’re new at something. They tend to over apologize.

I smiled, I felt pretty good about the evening.

So then again, looking back on that, maybe I do know what I’m doing. I’ll just play that. Play it as best I can and see where it all goes in a few hours. I’m excited. I’m nervous. Both. Maybe 50 percent excited and 50 percent nervous. Or maybe its 10 nervous and 90 percent excited. I don’t know but that’s what makes it so great.

No sleep.

-ji 

The making of “Out Across the Shattered Field.”

What “filmmaking” blog wouldn’t be complete without an actual film to write on.

About six months ago, back in May, I came into contact with an independent film producer based in Atlanta. My home town.

I have always wanted to make pictures, to write. After several screenplays in various levels of completion and a few painful unfinished short films, I was ready to buckle down and actually make something. That’s always the hardest part. Just doing it, sticking by it, and seeing it to the end. Whether it was successful or not, that’s the most important part. Seeing it as a finished piece, a finished story or a finished film. Being able to say, “I made that.”

That was my problem. I just couldn’t “get” to that point. I would start, would try, but not hard enough. I would give up eventually.

Then I met the producer, Jamila.

I wrote a ten page script and sent it to her. She liked it, but wasn’t sure if she wanted to make it, to invest the time and money on the story. I was disappointed but also determined not to lose that opportunity. The story, I felt, was a good. It was fresh, but most importantly I thought it was good.

 She said it was, but she was searching for something with more of a “human element.”

“Okay,” I said. “I have a whole stack of scripts. I think I have just the thing.”

I had nothing of course. And I had a weekend to craft a story, write it down in tangible form, and make it presentable. Well where the hell was I going to find a damn story?

I asked people.

“Stories are everywhere,” someone told me. “Look at Jaws. He got that idea from a news article or something.”

I poured through newspapers, magazines, my fingertips black with ink. Nothing. I began to panic, started to kiss my opportunity goodbye. Over before it started.

“That’s me,” I told myself. “No planning, no organization, and this is what happens. Shit.”

But something changed that night. I don’t know what, I don’t care what. I like the mystery.

But whatever it was, it slammed me down in my chair and made me write for the whole night and into the early morning. I suddenly had a story. I had characters. A setting. Scenes that I could suddenly visualize.

I sent her the script, unsure of everything at that point, and a little freaked out as well.

Later that day, she responded. She loved the story. She wanted to make it. Would I want to direct it?

That’s the basic genesis of this…and the reason I set up this blog. It is now November 1st. The roles are cast, most of the crew is assembled. We’ve had several sit-downs, production meetings, and rehearsals. It’s strange to me, still is as it was then, but I’ve learned to just go with it and see where this endeavor takes me.

-ji

The first ten minutes

They say the first ten minutes are crucial in any film’s success. This translates to about ten pages in a shooting script, and maybe the first few chapters of a novel. Shock, scare, excite, seduce the audience in that first ten minutes, the picture is victorious. Fail to do so, and it will most certaly bleed a miserable box-office death.

This is bullshit.

It has zero importance in reality. Zero. None. Forget about it. There are plenty of films that did not follow this “quicky” gimmick. Films that took the extra time to tell their stories and succeeded in the end.

Yet people-producers, studio executives, marketing gurus, agents, and even some directors and writers still believe this. And unfortunately it carries over from film to reality. People are given a short, precious time period to make an impact on others. Want to impress a lady? You better say something remarkably witty. Want to approach someone unapproachable? Think of something ridiculously unique or else be cursed to obscurity.

 The world moves at a breakneck pace these days. In the words of Tom Cruise from Collateral, “We gotta make the best of it, improvise, adapt to the environment, Darwin, shit happens, I Ching, whatever man, we gotta roll with it.”

 But I make no attempt to say something remarkably witty or funny to grab people’s attentions, to lure them to this. I’m not one for shock value.

 Pretty good for my first post.

 -ji