Oscars 08 Upon Reflection

The 2008 Academy Awards are now completed, so here are my thoughts on the categories where I've seen more than half of the entrants.

Short Animated Film: Given all the pre-Oscar buzz about the beautifully executed Madame Tutli-Putli, I was quite surprised that it didn't win despite the fact that it has a rather opaque plot. I Met the Walrus is also very much worth seeing, and I say that as someone who is not at all interested in John Lennon. The illustration and animation style in that piece is quite compelling (and in some ways echoes Terry Gilliam's work with Monty Python). Moya Lyubov was absolutely gorgeous, and very boring. I liked Peter and the Wolf well enough, but though the much longer Peter is far more ambitious, I probably would have picked the far more independent I Met The Walrus. The fifth entry wasn't even worth considering.

Best Foreign Language Film: I would have picked Katyn, but at the same time, the The Counterfeiters was the right choice to win.

Animated Feature: Having worked many hours on Ratatouille, I am quite pleased it won. I am glad Persepolis and Surfs Up were nominated, as both were also very good.

Visual Effects: The buzz amongst my friends and colleagues has mostly been about this choice. As a Visual Effects Society nominating judge for the '07 VES Awards, I saw quite a bit of the work done on all three '07 Oscar contenders. Of the three, many of my colleagues and I feel Golden Compass was the least successful by almost all specifically VFX criteria. It is still good work, but both Transformers and Pirates contain work that easily surpasses Golden Compass. At VES, it was only nominated in the "Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects Driven Motion Picture" category (basically the top honor for film at VES, an award which it lost to Transformers), and not in any of the individual achievement categories. The prevailing opinion seems to be the one I share: Golden Compass was awarded based on the overall film and not the technical achievement. Of the three, it is most actor-driven, and the VFX play more of a supporting role (a category for which there is an award given at VES, but Golden Compass is not a "supporting VFX" film by VES criteria, it is just a wee bit more so than Transformers or Pirates). This seems to have made it more appealing to the Academy, which is comprised mostly of actors. This particular win was a pretty big surprise for many of us in the industry who were thinking about it entirely in terms of technique and visual artistry.

Sound Editing and Achievement In Sound: None of the sound in these films truly blew me away (they were all very good, but none stood out as far more compelling than the others), but I still wish both had gone to Ratatouille. That said, I think that the Academy felt compelled to give Bourne some craft recognition.

Original Song: Three nominations for Menken and Schwartz (Enchanted), only to lose? Ouch. Disturbingly, my favorite was "Happy Working Song." I found the songs in Once to be even more annoyingly precious than your typical fairy tale musical fare. Clearly there's something wrong with me.

Original Score: There Will Be Blood (Johnny Greenwood) wasn't even nominated? Are you kidding me? That's a crime. Otherwise, Michael Giacchino should have won -- he's a musical genius. Michael Clayton, surprisingly, also had a pretty good score.

Makeup: This was an echo of Cotillard's acting win. The make-up was great work, but mostly it won because looking at her is very pleasant indeed. The work in Pirates was also very worthy. I am sorry that Rick Baker had to work on Norbit. His work is good, but that film just plain rubbish.

Costume Design: Sweeney Todd was robbed.

Art Direction: A well deserved win for Sweeney Todd.

Editing: I actually think There Will Be Blood should have won this, but Bourne was also a good choice.

Cinematography: Roger Deakins gets nominated twice in one year and, like Menken and Schwartz, he gets robbed. Don't get me wrong here, Elswit's work was genius as well, but the seven-time nominated Deakins (also a genius, and a really nice guy to boot) deserves to actually win an Oscar, damn it. Until Deakins wins one, the Cinematography Oscar is diminished.

Original Screenplay: And Ellen Page's Oscar goes to... Diablo Cody. Page (and Reitman) made this script look great. Regardless of what one thinks of the script (I think it's good -- much better than its many detractors claim, but not the pure, unmitigated genius that others seem to believe), I think this was a safe bet because this award is quickly becoming the award which should be titled as such: "Best indie film distributed, and heavily promoted, by a major distributor, which the Academy liked, but isn't going to honestly consider giving Best Acting, Best Picture or Best Director, so since nobody cares about writers all that much anyway, let's just give it Best Screenplay and be done with it already Award." Michael Clayton should have perhaps won, in my opinion, because buried within its core is a non-satirical reinterpretation of Network (an observation which I consider high praise). I'd really have liked this award to go to Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava and Jim Capobianco -- but an Animated film is unlikely to ever win for writing.

Supporting Actor: Bardem was the obvious, and correct, choice in my opinion. Tom Wilkinson was also great in Michael Clayton.

Supporting Actress: A very well deserved win by Tilda Swinton.

Best Actress: I didn't see Marion Cotillard's film, but she sure is beautiful. However, of the films I did see, Ellen Page should have beaten the rest.

Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lews was a shoe-in, but the others were all worthy competitors.

Adapted Screenplay, Best Director and Best Picture: No Country For Old Men, in what was apparently a make-up sweep for the Academy's failing to properly recognize Raising Arizona, Barton Fink, and Fargo, blew away There Will Be Blood. I personally feel it should have at least been a 2:1 split. As much as I love the Coen brothers' work, and it's a lot of love, There Will Be Blood was an excellent film. Paul Thomas Anderson deserved something for it. Eastern Promises deserved a nomination in any one of those categories far more than Atonement did. And -- for all us aspiring Indie filmmakers hoping to get picked up and shot into success atop a huge marketing budget -- let's hope Fox Searchlight's spending its films (such as Juno, LMS, and Napoleon Dynamite) into the spotlight and onto the nominations lists starts an all-out Indie film marketing and promotional war with Sony Pictures Classics, Focus, etc.

Bittersweet Foreign Films

Tonight Anu and I saw the wonderful Israeli film "The Band's Visit," a bittersweet look at the Arab-Israeli chasm in a unique and compelling way, one that avoids direct political confrontation and instead looks at human relations, similarities and differences from a personalized vantage point, and the loneliness that ensues when circumstances cause distance and disconnect between people who hope instead for friendship and understanding.

The acting is excellent on all counts, with even the most minor of characters coming across as believable. The location is a character in itself, chosen clearly to underscore the overwhelming sense of isolation and incompleteness in all the characters' lives. And the music, the only thing that manages to truly fill the empty spaces from which director Eran Kolirin has constructed his narrative tone, is set apart from the rest of the film as a beacon of dignity and hope in an otherwise lonely world. Clearly not a very American film, but one which I recommend highly.

It reminded me of other bittersweet foreign dramedies , all of which join "The Band's Visit" on my personal favorites list (and all of which hang together on the basis of tone and style, not plot similarities).

Wolfgang Becker's "Goodbye Lenin!" is a post-Communist tear-jerker which deals with the transience of cultural and familial stability in a way which rang especially true with my own Central European sensibilities. Unfairly tarred by some as Marxist nostalgia, "Goodbye, Lenin!" is instead a heartfelt look at family, love, loss, and changing times. Like Kolirin's focusing on people rather than politics, Becker makes the central issue not capitalism vs. communism but rather the precarious nature of striking a balance between freedom and progress on one hand, and rootedness and cultural heritage on the other.

"What to do in Case of Fire?" is the best punk rock film since "Repo Man," and like with the other films discussed, Gregor Schnitzler manages to strike another delicate balance -- this one between nostalgia and realism regarding the interesting and passionate, yet difficult, politically and socially charged punk heyday of the late 1970s to mid 1980s. Dealing with the different paths that a group of punk anarchist friends have taken since those times, and an event which forces them all back together for one last chance at friendship and meaning in their lives, "What to do in Case of Fire?" takes to task the selfishness and emptiness of the "Me Generation" backlash against the tumultuous times that preceded -- while still not making the good old days seem better than they really were.

Finally, Mira Nair's "Monsoon Wedding" rounds out this list of great bitersweet films. Simultaneously realistic and romantic, "Monsoon Wedding" deals with the conflicting and often hypocritical attitudes about love, sex and romance that prevail not only in Indian society, but in various forms throughout the world. Again, rather than make a diatribe Nair chose to focus on human stories that reveal the complexities of the situation rather than paint a black and white picture. Charming, and yet bravely gritty in some of its depictions of the relationship between sex and power, like all the films mentioned "Monsoon Wedding" succeeds on many levels.

Burtynsky: My Industrial / Landscape Photography Idol

I first saw Edward Burtynsky's work at one of the myriad galleries on Geary St. in San Francisco. I was absolutely engrossed by the photos: industrial landscapes from China. Each piece was amazing. The color. The composition. The fascinating scenes he captures. Burtynsky is a master at capturing the horrific beauty of degenerate industrial landscapes that has for so long drawn me to them.

Chinese Oil Refinery

Burtynsky is not only a master of form, but his subject matter is chosen in such a way as to reveal the dichotomy between economic necessity and environmental decay present in all our industrial activities. Thus, his work succeeds both as industrial formalism and as social commentary.

Bangladeshi Shipbreaking

Burtynsky is, for me, a role model for both aesthetically engaging and socially relevant industrial photography. If this kind of work appeals to you, I highly recommend checking out Burtynsky's work.

Lego: Say Yes to Nazis, Say Yes to Fun!

Otaku Mom posted about the lack of Nazis in the Indiana Jones Lego set. She has plenty to say that I agree with, so I recommend you read her screed. However, I want to take a different perspective on this issue: it's a bad business decision.

Think about it. You get your Indy Legos, open the box, and -- it's full of Nazis. So, you rush to make your Lego Diorama of the climactic Ark scene, and you set up the Ark and surround it with Nazis, and you put Indy behind a rock, and then you put your little Tesla coil (sold separately) in the Ark, and it shoots bolts of electricity everywhere, and then you realize the obvious -- the obvious that Lego and Lucasfilm clearly haven't. You need to melt your Nazis! That's the whole point of the setup. Melting some anonymous cultish-looking villains isn't nearly as much fun.

Naturally, melting the Nazis would be so much fun, you'd want to do it again. But, you can only melt your Nazis once. So, you'd put the rest of the kit in a box for that yardsale you'll never actually hold, and buy a whole new Indiana Jones Lego set. People would want to melt the Nazis dozens, maybe hundreds of times. They'd sell at least a zillion additional kits.

Now you can clearly see: Censorship is bad business.

Teaching Film: Don't Let Ambition Stand in the Way of Pedagogy

Tonight was the short film class I'm teaching. I've never really taught a class before, and teaching is itself a learning experience. I allowed the class to select an overly ambitious script, because I felt a class of overachievers deserved it. They are all motivated to finish, but I can see that it's stressing them out (and then that stress has led to my getting openly ticked off on one occasion, which didn't help). Unfortunate scheduling has led to the class corresponding with a time when several students (plus myself) are in the height of production crunch in our real jobs, so that's not helping either. It's hindering me from doing the level of preparation between classes that an ambitious project like this requires -- but then again, if I did the kind of preparation I'm thinking of (such as shot breakdowns, and some rewrites to deal with reigning in some things) I'd basically be co-Directing. The idea was to have someone in the class Direct. Perhaps that was a bad idea, but more likely that being a new teacher I just botched the implementation.

The class was structured as a "give them a minimum of lectures and then throw them into the fire" kind of class, which is popular at film schools these days. However, I think the script was too ambitious (I lobbied for them to do a weekend shoot, but not enough people could / wanted to -- and I failed as a teacher in that I didn't immediately require a rewrite to shorten and constrain the scenario). In the future, I'll probably restrict the length and number of characters in the script, do a minimal shot breakdown myself, and include enough time in the class for me to give a 15-30 minute pedagogical lecture at the beginning of each shoot day. I think I also need to have much more detailed examples for all materials (breakdown sheets, camera reports, etc.) available. The suggestion that there also be an hour of follow-up lecture, Q&A and "dailies" is also good. I'm inclined to suggest that we have a "30 second storytelling" class, as well as an equipment and setiquette class, as prerequisites for this class in the future. This way, people can come more prepared to actually make a real short film, which is what the class description promises.

For the future (provided anyone would even want me to teach this class again in the future), I'm keen to have comments in the comments section from any of you who have taught (especially taught film production) on what you think a good balance is between learning by doing (including failing at doing) a more realistic project, versus constrained, carefully instructed "toy" projects.

End of an Era: Polaroid Getting Out Of Film

Polaroid is shutting down its film operations. They had, of course, already discontinued their most interesting film: SX-70 "Time Zero" film with the gelatin based emulsion, but now SX-70s (and other Polaroids) are rendered completely useless (since there will be no readily available 600 film to hack into it). A shame, too, because it had a "nice" look that's not trivial to replicate digitally.

The only option left is to try unsaleable.com's SX-70 BLEND film, which is apparently just 600 film modified and put in SX-70 cartridges w/ an ND filter to compensate for the 600 film being 2 stops off. The price is quite steep at $37/pack plus shipping from Holland, which isn't worth it for any SX-70 film that hasn't got the gelatin based emulsion. Better off just putting the SX-70 up on the display shelf with other cameras for which film will never be available again.

Anger and Amazon.com

I lost my temper twice today. I'm very stressed right now, but that's no real excuse. The problem with losing my temper is that not only does it make other people feel bad (and generally they don't deserve it), but it makes me feel bad the rest of the day. Not only do I feel angry about whatever made me angry in the first place, but I feel guilty and upset that I've hurt the feelings of people I like and respect. It rarely accomplishes anything to get angry, except to make a bad situation worse, and it undermines the working relationship and requires lots of energy be spent to smooth things over. Getting angry gets in the way of the person getting angry, even more so than the person they've gotten angry at. All in all, it's the wrong thing to do 99% of the time.


I went looking for Anger Management books because I'm often pissed off about something. Sure, the state of the world is such that this isn't unreasonable -- but it's also not very utilitarian of me.

I know getting more exercise will help more than a book, but reading generally makes me feel better. So I went looking for books, and found this one:

Which leads to my simple discussion of how I shop on Amazon:

Search by keywords. Then, open each link in a new Firefox tab, based on:
1. I recognize the author as an authority on the subject.
2. Highest reviews with the most number of reviews contributing (the # in parenthesis next to the stars)

Usually, this nets ten to fifteen books, except on obscure topics.

I then read the reviews, always starting with the one-star reviews. If the one-star reviews all make compelling arguments for why the book is terrible, I quickly skim the five-star reviews for rebuttals. Most books get cut in this pass.

Then I "look inside" if available. If I don't think the table of contents covers sufficient ground, or if the writing samples are bad, the book gets cut.

For the three to five survivors, I read both Amazon and off-site reviews until I'm sick of them. I generally prefer off-site reviews in legitimate publications, but those can be hard to come by for many kinds of books.

Then, I buy the one or two best choices.

Often I move "almost rans" into "save for later" in my shopping cart. The idea is that I can recover those options quickly if I get the book, further reading shows that it's bad, and I decide to return it. The problem is, my "saved for later" list has grown to almost 500 books. There appears to be no tool for editing this list other than the web page checkboxes, one page at a time, with the list continually shifting under you as you remove items. This is very tedious. And it makes me angry. Which makes this post come full circle.

Anyone know of an "Amazon management" tool that would allow this, and also better management of wishlists and reviews? If so, please post in the comments.

The Travails Of Making Timely Sketch Comedy

Friday night some friends helped me shoot a political satire. We wanted to get it up online this weekend for the run up to Super Tuesday, but it may never see the light of day owing to legitimate concerns of our employer (who did not participate in its production, but has a right to approve or deny our side projects).

It was good fun anyway.

It's not much of a film, per se, but rather it's a skit committed to tape. There are only 3 shot setups, and they're all medium shots with fairly poorly thought out options for cutting (my fault -- I wanted to compress shooting time and keep the actors lines fresh, so I didn't instruct them to leave many pregnant pauses or other actions to cut on). The actors ultimately saved the day by finally declaring that they could do the entire piece (over 5 minutes) in one continuous take. In about ten heroic attempts, the pulled off at least two successful reads. They also did a version of the last two pages that omitted the most potentially offensive material (a satire of the crypto-racist underpinnings of a certain kind of political argument). Since I'd given them almost no time to learn the material, I was very impressed. My DP did a credible job with what he was given to work with, which was basically noting -- it's just static shots of two people talking at a water cooler.

Anu and I thought of the idea Wednesday, wrote it Thursday night, and gave it to the actors on Friday. That didn't leave much time for preparation, and we spent 4 of the 8 hours shooting it rehearsing and dealing with technical issues caused by scrambling to get everything together too quickly. The piece is about the text and the performance, not the visuals, but it definitely was another lesson in the difficulties of extremely rapid filmmaking. It also pointed out what a Director truly needs to be thinking about (performance first, then shot design in conjunction with the DP), and why producers are such critical partners in the creative process. I should have delegated more of dealing with practical and technical issues to someone else, and focused on bouncing between my actors and my DP.

We gave up shooting some shots that would have made the piece less static and more visually interest, because it was 2AM and we had to shoot the angles we had so many times because I'd tortured the actors with 6 pages of very dense, yet rhythymic, dialog. What we gave up was close-ups / over-the-shoulder shots. We shouldn't have done that. But, I felt obligated to let my fabulous crew, who responded to my crazy call to "make a short tomorrow," go home and have a weekend with their families. Given either two or three more shooting hours, we would have nailed that. I could try to fake it with cropped push-ins in Digital Fusion or Shake, but MiniDV isn't much of an image to work with to begin with so I'm reluctant to push it.

Preparation is always key to successful filmmaking. I need to replace the missing items in my kit, and work with my DP and others to always keep the proper cables, power supplies, and so on with our gear. We could have done all our shots had we spent less time dealing with the equipment. If you're going to do run-and-gun or any other style of fast filmmaking, make sure your kit is complete and well organized.

All in all, I still like the piece, but it's not much of a film. It's more like a hurriedly put together sketch from a low-budget TV comedy show (the TV feel is further created by the lighting, which was as flat as we could get in our short setup time so we could move the camera with minimal adjustment of lights). None of this reflects on the talent of my crew, but on the following decisions: (1) do the whole thing very fast, (2) focus on the text and performance, and let other things go by the wayside, and (3) let the cast and crew go home. The entire project came together in about 14 hours -- which will increase to about 20 or so if I decide to go ahead and try to edit the 3 setups into some kind of a shot flow rather than sticking with one of the end-to-end takes (but those were so impressive, I feel a compunction to want to use one).

Everyone was a joy to work with, and I hope they will join me in further filmmaking (or, as in this case, skitmaking) pursuits.