The Long and the Short of It

With five months left till production, I'm considering whether Heydon should have long or short hair in the film. The role has him essentially playing a version of himself; a musician and university student. I have my own ideas conceptually but which look makes the young man more appealing?

Long and shaggy? Or short back and sides? Glasses or contact lenses?

Heydon in various guises; at graduation (left) and directing his award-winning nature documentary Ducklings and Me (right)

This may seem shallow but the reality is film and television are visual mediums and... the reason Megan Fox is an 'actress'. An example which illustrates my point was the first presidential debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, televised live in 1960.

John  F. Kennedy (left) and Richard Nixon (right) during the 1960 U.S. presidential debate.

The consensus of listeners who tuned into the radio broadcast maintained that Nixon argued his case more effectively, whereas the larger television audience engaged with JFK's charisma and screen presence. Also, Nixon wore no make up and his appearance was weathered due to a recent illness. Popular opinion suggests it was this telegenic 'beat-down' that swayed voters to Kennedy in what became the closest presidential election in United States history.

So what should I do with Heydon??

I'd be interested in your feedback... and yes, you can comment anonymously!
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Stuck on the Realness

 Heydon Hohaia performing at Parachute Festival, 2009

Throughout pre-production, Heydon Hohaia and I have been working on original songs for the film.

Well, when I say we've been working on them - what I really mean is I visit him, he performs his latest song for me and I proceed to offer my cringe-worthy two cents...

"Can we make it more blues-y?"

"Hey! How about you sing the entire last chorus a capella?"

"What if... instead of with guitar, you played the spoons with it? Can you play the spoons??"

...for a split second Heydon will peer over his glasses and then appease me with answers to my hair-brained suggestions. Fortunately for us, he only listens to me about five percent of the time when it comes to the music.

Then... it's our mandatory game of FIFA on PlayStation, where I always 'let' him win... for um, morale reasons. Yeah, that's it. The first rule of making films is you've got to keep the talent happy. Except occasionally, I'll mess up and accidentally win and then have to pretend to be excited that I was 'finally' able to defeat him. If you're reading this Heydon, it's time you faced facts - don't make me Wayne Rooney yo ass. Yeah, you know what's up... (cough).

In all seriousness, I don't have the musical expertise to offer insightful technical feedback regarding songwriting structure so I simply try to respond to the songs at a basic emotional level. It's refreshing because it's one of the few instances when I'm the audience on my own project, as I have a strong overview of every other aspect of the production. Being that there are many similarities between Heydon and the character he plays, I've offered him a lot of creative freedom with the writing and producing of the songs.

It's important to our documentary framework that the music be performed with authenticity and woven as seamlessly into the fabric of the narrative as possible. Although I have admiration for the choreography and production design in musical genre films, I've always found it really contrived when characters break into an epic song and dance number whilst lip syncing to a pre-recorded soundtrack.

Sweeping camera movements and dynamic editing can provide for dazzling visual sequences, however I'll always contend that the best format for a musical is seeing the live stage show. I'd suggest it's akin to watching a band perform live as opposed to seeing their concert on DVD.  Last July, I managed to catch the Broadway show Next to Normal in New York and it was thrilling to witness world class performers on stage with no editing tricks to hide behind.

Movie versions of musicals certainly have the capacity to mask deficiencies in singing ability. It seems some actor's voices are so digitally spliced together that a robot super computer may as well be performing. I haven't seen Mamma Mia, but what few seconds I have seen of Pierce Brosnan in that role make me shudder. Why would he do that to himself?? He was James Bond for crying out loud!

Pierce Brosnan in the hit musical Mamma Mia

For realism purposes, songs in the film will be performed acoustically and recorded in one take on location. Although it's an opportunity to witness Heydon's talent as a vocalist, the songs are an outlet for a character with musical prowess. And it's a vulnerability and immediacy to the character that I aim to capture through a lack of editing; our strategy is to utilise technology to support the performance rather than the other way round.

Okay, I'm starting to feel bad about dissing Pierce Brosnan. And I probably shouldn't make snap judgements about a movie or performance without seeing it in it's entirety.

So, does anyone out there in Internetland wish to accuse me of jumping to conclusions about Mamma Mia and actually recommend that I spend two hours of my life watching it??
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Writing with Indigestion

If you don't feel the emotion, the laughter or the conflict WHILE you're writing it, then it's unlikely the reader or viewer will experience it either.

Sometimes when you finish a scene, you feel good because you've been... productive. You even enter that final full stop with a triumphant strike of the keyboard. As you walk away from your desk however, a feeling starts to resonate in your chest like heartburn... it's a feeling you don't wish to acknowledge, not yet anyway... it's a feeling that deep down, you know the scene isn't quite working.

It's good... but not great.

That tasty sandwich you promised yourself as a reward for finishing those six pages just doesn't taste quite as succulent. Every bite is a chewy lie, a mouthful of denial.

This morning, I re-worked a scene from the screenplay and was reminded about how exhilirating the screenwriting process can be when you experience the tension as you're typing it. The scene in question? The pivotal South Auckland scene, where the lead character journeys home for what may be the last time he sees his father - for us, the highlight scene.

For those unfamiliar, the highlight scene is a screenwriting device which helps prevent Act Two from lagging. It's usually smackbang in the middle of the movie, or thereabouts.

The highlight scene is like a little movie within the larger movie, with it's own beginning, middle and end, complete with it's own plot twists, a dark moment and a clear point of departure. An example of a highlight scene in The Shawshank Redemption is the sequence where the old convict Brooks makes parole and fails to re-integrate with society as a senior citizen, culminating in his suicide.

Brooks (James Whitmore), The Shawshank Redemption (1994), Screenplay: Frank Darabont. 

As I was writing my own scene, there it was, I felt it.. a lump in my throat.. wait, is that a tear forming? No! What are you? A pansy?! It's only words on a page for heaven's sake.

Hang on a second!

This scene IS working!

So, in the aftermath of sombreness, my sandwich was one of the best sandwiches I'd ever tasted! In fact, I wolfed it down in record time so I could get back to my laptop, eager to find out what would happen next.

That's when you know you're onto something.

A successful film has the audience on the edge of their seats constantly asking the question: "What happens next?!" So, if the writer is excitably asking themselves that question AS they're writing then it stands to reason the audience will too.

Isn't it odd to think that you, yourself could get emotionally tied up over the fortunes of characters who live and die at the release of your fingertips... with every beat of punctuation, every word of dialogue, every descriptive action.

But these aren't imaginary friends, they ARE real people. They have to be. They have ambitions, burdens, and... body odour. If the writer doesn't see them as living and breathing, then there's little chance anyone else will buy into their existence.

(Hiccup!)

Whoops... I guess I did eat my sandwich too fast.

(Hiccup!)
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Message to My Girl?

I've been comptemplating whether the lead character (played by Heydon Hohaia) should perform an acoustic rendition of Neil Finn's Message to My Girl as part of the film.

Permission to use the track is subject to writer clearance and would be relatively expensive. Considering the cost, it's important that the song works successfully as a cover version to audiences. 

Heydon Hohaia, Message to My Girl (Acoustic Cover), 2010

Split Enz, Message to My Girl (Original), 1984

...is Heydon's interpretation of the song too different from the original to be effective as a cover?  Or is that a good thing?

Does anyone out there in Internetland have any feedback for us?
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What's in a Name?

A friend who happens to be a branding guru phoned me this morning:

AL: "Hey, have you looked up how many other movies are called The Chameleon*?"

EB: "Nah, I haven't"

AL: "I checked to see if your blog is registering in the search engines and all these other movies came up - so I had a look at IMDB - there's like five or six, and one coming out this year - did you know that?"

EB: "Oh shit - what's it about? Who's in it - anyone massive??"

AL: "Hang on, I'll have a quick look"

My heart is in my mouth. I can see it now... The Chameleon - the story of a man searching for his con man brother starring George Clooney and Matt Damon, coming soon to a multiplex near you!

AL: "You there?"

EB: "Yeah"

AL: "No one that big - ah, Famke Janssen... Ellen Barkin"

Crap.

AL: "...Nick Stahl"

Double crap.

EB: "What's the synopsis?"

I sit down and brace myself for the worst. A year's work is potentially down the drain.

AL: "An FBI agent is hot on the tracks of Frederic Boud - Bourdin? Some French sounding name.. He's taken the identity of a woman's long lost son completely convincing the police and the boy's family of his identity"

EB: "Oh... okay"

Phew. At least it's not the same storyline or anything.

What's in a title? Everything. I imagine it's a bit like naming a child. It shouldn't be too long and it has to look good in print. A film can go some distance with a good title, a great poster or photographic still and a well written synopsis.

Case in point, Snakes on a Plane. I heard that Samuel L. Jackson threatened to quit when he heard the powers-that-be were going to change the title to Pacific Flight 121.

Pacific Flight 121? What were they (momentarily) thinking?? That sounds like a TV movie of the week where a passenger jet has to make an emergency landing because it lost cabin pressure...

Pacific Flight 121 doesn't encapsulate that movie at all. The best part of the movie Snakes on a Plane IS the title!

So, even in a dire worst case scenario where the only people who end up seeing my film are my family and the cinema's janitor, it looks like I need to change the title.

I'm sure something will come to me.

*Title has since changed to FINDING HONK.
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Balls, Sir?

Excerpts from Eldon Booth's Writer Profile in the latest issue of New Zealand Writer's Guild Magazine.

Your hot tips for other writers?

I heard a story once of an advertising creative presenting a pitch to a client. After absorbing the concept, the client requests to squeeze more aspects of their business' services into the one campaign. Frustrated, the creative up and leaves the boardroom without a word and the client is left bemused.

The creative returns a short time later with a sack of tennis balls over his shoulder (turns out he was a part-time tennis coach). The client doesn't know what to make of it all. The creative stands at the opposite end of the boardroom table. "Catch this". He bounces one of the tennis balls down the boardroom table and the client nets it safely in two hands. "Easy right?" The client nods, still unsure of the creative's intentions or sanity for that matter.

"Now catch all of these". The creative throws every tennis ball down the table in rapid succession and the client fumbles and misses every single catch. "See what happens when you try to include too many ideas, the main message gets lost".

I'm not sure if this is actually a true story, but I like the analogy.


Your worst ever day job?

Two weeks, ten hours a day stocktaking an entire warehouse full of forklift parts in the ice-cold of winter. I never would've guessed that many parts could possibly fit into a forklift!

It was freezing due to all the surrounding metal and I had FM Country, the store manager's radio station of choice to make every single minute...resonate. The job was so tedious that I actually considered taking up smoking just so I could have more breaks.

To this very day, the sound of a country and western fiddle makes me shudder and curl up into the foetal position.
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Pen Darts

You made it! Thanks for clicking in.

Who am I? Eldon Booth, writer and director of The Chameleon*.

What is The Chameleon?* 

It's a feature length film, currently in pre-production.  

What's it about then? Actually, I wrote a fairly good synopsis the other day...hang on one second while I copy and paste...

A young man (Heydon) searches for his estranged older brother so the family can make peace before their father succumbs to terminal illness. With time running out, Heydon soon discovers that he is on the trail of a career criminal not looking to be found.

In making the film we’ll look to mix scripted drama with the process and spontaneity of documentary – actors will perform scripted scenes but also do improvised scenes and interviews with real members of the public…a bit like Borat but maybe without the two hairy naked dudes wrestling…maybe.

What else? Although I'm not a fan of reality television, I’ve always been fascinated by the sociological aspect of it – I’m interested in our perception of reality via the media, including the camera ‘persona’ that reality television or documentary subjects inhabit and ethical concerns regarding the potential exploitation of those participants for entertainment purposes – especially if a programme documents the actual death of a real person.

But first and foremost, the goal is to make a film that is entertaining and heartfelt, a good old-fashioned yarn told well - something you and your Grandma can eat popcorn to.

Hopefully this all sounds interesting. Interesting enough for you to want to see and interesting enough to justify spending a year and a half of my life working on it!

Now that the production has the green light, I wish I’d started this blog earlier. The work you have to go through to convince funding panels or rich people to invest in your film can be a harrowing process (and obviously a vital one unless you can get away with shooting it on your cellphone!). The Chameleon is the third feature length screenplay I have written and the first one to actually get made.

The reality is many film scripts never see the light of day. Being an independent filmmaker raising finance for a project is a bit like being a short, fat ugly guy that only dates supermodels; there’s a constant flow of rejection but if you keep persisting, occasionally you get lucky.

So how did I manage to finance my production? This time it was through the tertiary institution where I ply my trade as a lecturer. Thanks MIT! (That’s Manukau Institute of Technology, not Massachusetts – in case you were wondering, I’m a visual arts tutor in South Auckland, not an astrophysics professor for NASA).

It's great to get the opportunity. The challenge is to make sure it turns out good. 

*Title has since changed to FINDING HONK.

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THE CHAMELEON

Copyright 2010. Eldon Booth. All Rights Reserved.

Synopsis, Treatment & Screenplay resigtered with NZ Writer's Guild ( No. 09/123)