Pulp

The first semester I was a college teacher I began receiving treatments for films that went a little like this:

Two hit men, one black and one white, in black suits travel around the city.

or

A man with a band aid on the back of his neck opens a briefcase and a light glows on his face.

or

A woman overdoses on heroin and a man brings her back to life with a needle of adrenaline to the heart.

That spring vacation I finally had some time off and caught up on some movies. So I am in the theater and John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson hit the screen and I'm thinking this is familiar. Then Uma Thurman gets a shot of adrenaline and I start getting annoyed. Finally when a band-aided Ving Rhames opened a briefcase and a light shines on his face, I swore out loud, mid-movie, "Those sons of bitches!"

When class resumed after the break I read them the riot act and tried to introduce the idea of original thought to the class. Since then I have been on the lookout for the popular student film. The following is a brief list of films important to my students and what they tried to do with it.

1) Fight Club. For a while every student film had to be green and film students started throwing around the processing phrase "bleach bypass."

2) The Usual Suspects. Student films are often confusing on their own. When they intentionally try to be confusing watch out.

3) Being John Malkovich. Not the plot so much but how many times can you use the half-floor trick.

4) Trainspotting. There was about a three semester stretch where every student film had to have strung out heroin addicts and music by Iggy Pop.

PeterH

Post It!

Who would have thought that the most valuable tool in building a college curriculum would be Post It Notes?

In the Flashpoint office we have a wall, much like this one, full of two-foot square month by month calendars going from September -May. On each of those calendars are Post Its with perspective classes written on them. We need a tangible and visual reference for our academic calendar so we decided on little sticky squares of paper. We spent the better part of June and early July putting classes up on that wall. When we finally locked in on a schedule we transferred the information from the wall to Excel programs and then passed that info on to Flashpoint registrar Brad Bergeron. At that point Brad did his registrarial magic and Viola! students and faculty had a schedule for the year.

In addition to Post Its the other thing that really surprises me about this college building experience is how much time we have spent with the registrar. Everything we do in terms of class schedules and credit hours must get approved by Brad. At Columbia I didn't even know then name of the registrar. At Flashpoint he is ever present.

Here is a typical early July day. I am at my computer and Brad quietly walks over to me and says, "Excuse me Peter but you seem to have made a little mistake."

"Huh?" the dumb filmmaker replies.

"Yes, you have 37 screenwriting sections scheduled for group A and only 3 for group B, you know they have to be equal."

As much as I want to say a la Samuel L. Jackson, "Check out the big brain on Brad!" I say, "Sorry, I'll fix it," and slouch back over to the wall of Post Its.

PeterH

Drinking the Kool-Aid

On Wednesday this past week Howard Tullman, President and CEO of Flashpoint Academy, cuffed me on the back of the head. Yesterday, as we were waiting for people to arrive at a Flashpoint open house, founder and chairman Ric Landry slapped me on the forehead. Now if Paula Froehle, academic dean, slaps me across the face (inevitable) I will have hit the Flashpoint Academy beating trifecta. In all seriousness I take these whuppins' as signs of endearment (if not I have a pretty good law suit on my hands, I think).

We are a week away from opening the doors to the first class and all is terrific. The building at 28 N. Clark Street is state of the art and for the first time in my teaching career I feel I have all the tools and resources necessary to be the best teacher I can be. In all modesty and honesty I believe Flashpoint is going to be a big success and I take great pride in helping to get it off the ground.

More on Flashpoint developments as the week progresses but for now I need to work on my bobbing and weaving and keeping my left up.

PeterH

Sentimental Education- Part 1

School resumed this week in Chicago and the big yellow buses are a reminder of just how much I hated going to school. While I was a good student and had lots of friends and did lots of extracurricular activities I just plain hated going to school. All those rules and regulations, do this and do that- who needs it? But now I am a college teacher so go figure.

From Montessori until I graduated from high school I went to school everyday with my father. Each morning we would get up and have breakfast- the same thing, cereal. After 1700 of these breakfasts before my 18th birthday I now refuse to eat cereal. (The last time was in England a few years ago when my alternative was a “healthy” full English breakfast.)

Our conversation consisted of this: Dad: Eat your flakes. Me: OK.

The sum total of 14 years of weekday morning conversation- 4 words.

Several of those years my dad had a Volkswagon I had to push to get it started and then run to catch up to the car a la Little Miss Sunshine. These moments with my dad were often the highlight of my school day. It was downhill - literally from that start- from there.

So with apologies to Gustave Flaubert below are a series of highlights (lowlights?) of my early education.

Montessori- My grandmother, Kakky, picked me up and asked me what I learned today. I said, “I don’t know.” She said you were in school all day and didn’t learn anything? Oh to have been able to shift into my adult head and say, “You know it was all that 2+2 is 4 and ABC bullshit. Give me a break grandma!.” Instead I said something like “we used crayons” and hoped for unconditional grandmotherly love.

Second grade- Luckily I was allowed to skip first grade, I don’t think I could have handled any more rudimentary education. However, skipping a grade made me forever the youngest in my class.

Fourth grade- Each weekend Mrs. Hackworth (a sometime reader of this page) made the class memorize a poem and be prepared to recite it in front of the class on Monday morning. Now as every fourth grader knows poems rhyme, that’s the definition of poetry, right? Evidently not. Mrs. H. gave us “real poetry” the crap that doesn’t rhyme or make any sense. Poetry and public speaking- I’m in fourth grade this is not Victorian England! Note to Mrs. Hackworth, thanks to you I still have trouble sleeping on Sunday nights in anticipation of failing my poetry reading.

Fifth grade- An insane woman comes to our class room and speaks only in French to us. She refuses to allow any English. This is funny for the first five minutes, then we think she is seriously disturbed. This continues for days and weeks. Finally I burst out, “Je vais a la salle de bains.” Where this comes from even surprises me but my point is made and I was allowed to escape to the bathroom. (I know it really means “I go to the bathroom” but we had covered “May I” yet.)

Seventh Grade- By now I am thoroughly ensconced in the third ring of education Hell. Our assignment is to write a science report and make an oral presentation to the rest of the seventh grade on a topic picked randomly from a hat. My pick: the reproductive process of amphibians. No, nothing safe an easy like the Big Bang (at least my school believed in that) . Being good (strict?) parents I had to rehearse my speech in front of them. I do not know what is worse, talking about frog sperm in front of my parents or in front of 50 7th graders.

Ninth Grade- What is with this incessant need for my teachers to insist on memorization and public speaking? Draconian Mr. Grunwald makes the class memorize the Declaration of Independence from the preamble through the charges section. (Even then I was certain this is something that I would never need to do at any time of my life.) Then, over the course of a month he randomly picked students to recite passages to the class. So I memorized the damn thing and he never called on me!

That’s enough for now I am having bad flashbacks.

PeterH

Selling Funny

For a lot of reasons- none that make any sense to me- advertising agencies are loath to sell commercials using humor. Jim and I have directed some mildly humorous spots that perhaps generate a grin or a smile, but nothing (intentionally at least) that is laugh out loud funny. The first and only person who comes to mind as a truly funny TV commercial director is Joe Sedelmaier.

You will know Sedelmaier (one of those people who is almost always referred to by his last name only) from the Wendy’s “Where’s the Beef?” commercial and the Federal Express fast talker, but his best work came in the 1970s. His commercial for Southern Airlines- where he shows us the difference between first class and coach (steerage)- is a terrific example of short form filmmaking. Was it an affective piece of television advertising? I don’t know- anyone fly Southern lately?

You can identify Sedelmaier commercials very quickly. He uses wide angle lenses, real, often strange looking people as actors- Clara Peller was no actress- and very simple sets. He was famous for stopping people on the street and taking a Polaroid of them. He was equally famous for being tough on his crew-he yelled, he had a temper, he kicked clients off his own sets (he yelled at me once in 1987) and is generally a horse’s ass.

It’s important to place his work in context. Pre-Sedelmaier here is a typical TV commercial: to the sounds of Sprach Zarathustra (the main theme from 2001) in slow motion comes Kraft Thousand Island Dressing pouring onto iceberg lettuce. Da- Da- Da- Da- Dum-Dum-Dum-Dum-Dum-Dum….Introducing new Kraft 1000 Island dressing! After Sedelmaier- a whole new language for selling.

Thanks Joe, you horse’s ass.

PeterH

Groucho

Thirty years ago last Saturday, the 18th, Groucho Marx died.

I have been a fan of the Marx Brothers and Groucho in particular for as long as I can remember. I don't know if there are any comic actors today who can do what he did so well. He could double as both a straight man and the funny guy. He could be his own straight man as well with a pause or a leer or an eye roll, followed by a zinger. Could anyone do more just by raising his eyebrows?

The classic Marx Brothers' films- Animal Crackers, Duck Soup, Horse Feathers, A Night at the Opera- all feature a level of anarchy that you don't see in today's comedies. In each of those films the brothers lampoon science, government, universities and "high" art and through their antics show us the hypocrisy of those institutions and the people who run them.

Regular readers know I think cinema is first a visual medium, the pictures tell the story. But there are only two purely visual (and classic moments) I can think of in their films. The first is Groucho and Harpo in pajamas and night caps aping each other in the mirror- a gag copied with Harpo on I Love Lucy. The second (and repeated often) is everyone piling into a small room and when the door opens they come tumbling out from A Night at the Opera.

But in Marx Brothers' films it's really the dialog that is the important thing. So despite all of their genius I don't think film was the ideal medium for them, oddly I feel the frame was too limiting for them- they needed to burst out of the screen. It was when Groucho hosted "You Bet Your Life" on television that audiences really got to see Groucho at his best.

There has been enough of my words, I am going to end with Groucho doing his thing, from Horse Feathers the lyrics to his song, "Whatever It Is."

PeterH

I don't know what they have to say,
it makes no difference anyway -
whatever it is, I'm against it!
No matter what it is or who commenced it,
I'm against it!

Your proposition may be good,
but let's have one thing understood -
whatever it is, I'm against it!
And even when you've changed it or condensed it,
I'm against it!

I'm opposed to it.
On general principles I'm opposed to it.

For months before my son was born,
I used to yell from night to morn -
"Whatever it is, I'm against it!"
And I've kept yelling since I first commenced it,
"I'm against it!"

On the Road

Jack Kerouac’s On the Road turned 50 the other day. When I worked at the Museum of Broadcast Communications we had a great clip of Kerouac reading On The Road on the Steve Allen Show as Steverino made a little jazz piano behind him. Can you imagine Jonathan Franzen or Dave Eggers appearing on Letterman reading as the band just played a groove behind him? It’s a different time.

But this blog is about film, and of my favorite sub-genres of film is the road move. (I am apologizing to my dad now because there will be no discussion of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby- and the film where Bob Crosby suddenly appears in the jungle because Bing promised him a role in the film. Great films, but not on topic.)

I often say to students, metaphorically, that the audience really wants a road map to where your film is heading. While not explaining everything, they do want to know where they are going once the film begins. The road film provides just that. We, the characters, the audience, the crew, everyone are going from point A to point B and we will meet new people and see new things along the way.

The other thing a good road film does is expose us to who we really are. Much like it took a French man, Alexis de Tocqueville, to write the definitive book about America’s first century, an outsider’s perspective to a culture is very valuable. All of this leads me to the definitive road film of my youth, Easy Rider.

Today Easy Rider is a relic of the 60s, both in its content and in its style, but it captures the zeitgeist of the times. Simply put, Captain America and Billy sell a pile of cocaine to crazy Phil Spector and set out across the country to find themselves. Along the way they go to a hippie commune, meet Jack Nicholson, a drunk lawyer from Texas, get harassed by rednecks for their long hair, take acid in New Orleans and come to an understanding that perhaps the American Dream isn’t what they thought.

The cinematographer of Easy Rider, Laszlo Kovacs, died a couple of weeks ago. He felt he learned a lot about America by shooting that film and going on the road with Fonda, Hopper, et. al. He said his biggest contribution to the film was to bring the perspective of a foreigner to the picture.

Here are a few of my other favorite road films.

The Wizard of Oz
Lost in America
Smoke Signals

PeterH

My Cousin Bob

So more international filmmaking, but try to top this.

My brainiac cousin Bob is an expert on glacial ice. He has spent an entire year in Greenland and two, six month stretches in Antartica. He currently lives in England where he is a researcher at Cambridge. This fall he will be an Associate Professor at Dartmouth (show off). He is off to Greenland again tomorrow and on all of his journeys he takes a camera and shoots film (video.) Talk about brutal conditions- Antartica, 24 hours of sun, reflecting snow. How do you get exposure?

He is also part of a documentary on the melting of the Greenland ice sheet- it's just 7 minutes long in this form, take a look, no Al Gore, but better. Visit his blog at http://coldclimes.blogspot.com/

Of course he got his big break in film as a p.a. on Victimless Crimes-where he also played a cab driver and got a line. So take that Ivy League.

PeterH

Flight of the Conchords

International week continues.

I am a huge fan of the HBO series Flight of the Conchords. Not only is it funny, and often it is very funny, but I really like what they do with the form of TV. Twice in each episode they break into a song and the ensuing low tech music video reminds me of Ernie Kovacs and early David Letterman.

They use their limitations- a low budget- as their strengths. In the most recent episode one video was shot as they rode bikes through the lower east side of Manhattan. Before that they did a dream sequence where "David Bowie" flew in to the room with his guide wires very visible.

There is a plot to every episode, but the real charm is their banter and their songs. I am not doing them justice here so take a look for yourself. This clip features Murray the band manager.

http://www.hbo.com/conchords/video/index.html

PeterH

Finding the Story

Jim and I have been working on this film about teen parents on and off for 13 months. We have interviewed parents and counselors and doulas and administrators and health care professionals all to help paint the picture of these young lives. We have been working very closely with a non-profit called Teen Parent Connection. The TPC folks are incredibly upbeat and positive and everyone we have dealt with on this project is nice and caring. There is no judgment or negativity or religious affiliation, or politics, just positive actions. It is as if they have over dosed on Happy Pills. For a cynical, ironic guy like me it is very disconcerting- why is everyone so nice I ask myself.

So, the other day, on what might be our next to last day of production, we were interviewing their executive director and I asked her, "What makes you different from other social service organizations?" And she said, "We talk the talk because we walked the walk. Many of the staff and administrators (herself included) where teen parents themselves."

Ah! that's what makes them different. (Note to self, next time ask this question like 9 months ago.)

My point here is not about teen parents, but about the process we go through to paint a complete picture. Our not realizing this was not our fault- Teen Parent Connection does not promote themselves as a place for teen parents by teen parents, nor do any of these women wear their past on their sleeves. We needed these 13 months as a time of discovery. This little, almost anecdotal, piece of evidence will completely change our approach to the edit. And we may even decide to go shoot some more from this point of view.

In an earlier post I talked about good, fast cheap- pick two. In this case I hope you see why fast was not picked. We needed the time to find the story to make the best film possible.

PeterH

A Boy and his Camera

Something happens when you bring out a motion picture camera to both those in front of the camera and those of us on the other side. Anyone who has seen a home movie knows what happens when the camera appears- your inner ham comes out. Even professional actors have their on-camera personality and know how and when to turn it on and off.

Something similar happens on the other side of the camera too. In Victimless Crimes about half of my cast gets killed and the other half does the killing. This means I had to film lots of shooting, strangling and stabbing. These scenes- which in another film I would watch through my fingers- just seemed like work. When a take was over I would say let's do it again and the actor who had been shot or stabbed changed his clothes, put on new squibs (exploding blood packs) and an hour or so later we did it again. This went on all night.

My point is that as a filmmaker you shoot until you get what you need and the camera gives me confidence I don't have in my regular life.

While shooting a TV commercial for OFF, the mosquito repellent, we had to make a ten-year old boy stick his arm into a transparent box full of mosquitos and hold it there, still, for 30 seconds. He did and he got bitten and there were tears and I felt like Hell but it was the job and we had to do it. (He was wearing the "other leading brand" which wasn't as good as OFF, but he was well compensated and his parents knew what they signed up for.)

Today, Jim and I are wrapping up a documentary about teen parents and I sit opposite these young woman and ask them very personal, very probing questions about choices they made (or in some cases didn't make) . It's not something I would do if the camera wasn't there and I have to get into another mindset in order to do it, but again it is part of the job. I am always surprised when they open up and start revealing themselves to me. The power of the camera is really working for me in these instances.

Now I need to remember the next time I ask for a raise to bring a camera with me. No one can say no to a boy and his camera.

PeterH