StoryFirst collaborator Michael Nie has been one of my best friends for many years, ever since we worked on an independent feature together in Madison, Wisconsin in early 2004. More recently, he has worked on a myriad of major film productions, including Peter Berg’s The Kingdom, Michael Bay’s The Island, Paul Greengrass’ The Bourne Ultimatum, Joe Carnahan’s Smokin’ Aces, Clint Eastwood’s Flags of Our Fathers and J.J. Abrams’ Mission: Impossible III.

He was director of photography on my thesis film in film school, as well as many StoryFirst Media projects, including work for clients Herzing University and the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board. In 2008, however, Mike experienced the dream of every young boy and girl who dreams of one day making movies. He got to work on a Martin Scorsese picture – Shutter Island.

Mike was kind enough to share his memories and what he learned on the set with us and all of you here.

First of all, for all our readers out there trying to get gigs on a Scorsese movie, how in the hell did you get the opportunity to work on Shutter Island?

My involvement on Shutter Island was the result of quality relationships I had established, my status as a member of the International Cinematographers Guild, and good timing.  If one of these elements was missing, I would not have found myself on the set of a Martin Scorsese film in the Spring of 2008.  The relationships I speak of harken back to the fall of 2004, when I started work as the assistant to the director of photography on Michael Bay’s The Island.  It was then that I was introduced to the first assistant on the “A” camera and the Panavision prep tech for the film.  I kept in touch with both of them over the next several years, and once I joined the union, worked with them periodically.  At the start of 2008, I was in search of my next project.  I caught wind that the first assistant from The Island was hired by Bob Richardson on Shutter Island.  The prep tech from The Island was now the “A” camera second assistant on Shutter Island.  I knew them both.  I was looking for work and when I called, it turned out they were looking for an additional camera assistant.  I boarded a plane for Boston, and so my work began on Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island.

What was it like the first time you saw Martin Scorsese in person?

Epic.  My first day on set, the company was on location, shooting an exterior flashback sequence involving a hoard of prisoners and a firing squad.  It was cold.  I could barely feel my toes and there was ice on the slate.  I first met Bob Richardson, perched atop a camera dolly on 200 feet of track.  With no sign of Martin Scorsese, I remember rolling the camera on several takes.  There was an enclosed tent where video village had been set up.  It wasn’t until the assistant director called cut on the final take that I saw Scorsese for the first time.  With his signature glasses fogged over, he emerged from the tent wearing a black russian ushanka, a black wool trenchcoat, and black shoes.  It was as though a general had emerged to survey the battlefield in winter during World War II.  A historic moment, no doubt.

Does Scorsese sit by the camera near the actors during takes or does he stay back by the monitors?

You will always find Martin Scorsese glued to his monitor at video village while the camera is rolling.  It is worth noting that Scorsese often shoots with a single camera.  His singular focus is on the performance that plays out on the frame in front of him.  His time in front of the monitor allows him to evaluate all aspects of a given shot.

Did you get a chance to see him direct the actors? What is his method with them as you could observe it?

His time with the actors is spent during very long, private rehearsals.  By the time camera rehearsals occur, the actors are extremely prepared.  Scorsese will give small notes to an actor while the crew is present, but if there are any substantial adjustments, the crew is excused for a short private rehearsal.  The assistant director serves as the channel of communication for the crew.

Your boss on the film was two-time Academy Award winning Director of Photography Robert Richardson (JFK, Kill Bill, The Aviator, Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained). What is he like?

With the demeanor of a mad scientist, Robert Richardson is a genius in the world of cinematography.  The man knows his craft.  His work speaks for itself.  Richardson is in constant communication with members of the camera, grip, and lighting crews via a one-way transmitter dubbed the “Bob Comm.”  Often demanding, he produces exceptional results.

How does Scorsese direct his cinematographer?

Bob Richardson and Martin Scorsese have a unique relationship.  They have collaborated on several projects in the past.  Like any member of the cast, Richardson is prepped thoroughly by Scorsese before either of them arrive on set.  They are on the same page from the out set and much goes unsaid.  As with any director/cinematographer relationship however, there has to be a channel of communication on set.  Because Scorsese is glued to his monitor and Richardson is glued to his camera, the assistant director is the go-between.  If Bob Richardson did not operate his own camera, I would suspect that he would join Scorsese at his private video village.

Did you have any personal interaction with Scorsese?

No.  The only individuals to interact with Martin Scorsese on set are the assistant director, cinematographer, script supervisor, and Scorsese’s assistants.  Occasionally, he would have a discussion with one of the producers or his editor, Thelma Schoonmaker.

How did your perspective on Scorsese change through working on one of his films?

Martin Scorsese is a human being like you or I, yet he is certainly unique in his own right.  I imagine I would have said the same about Albert Einstein.  More than anything, I would say that Scorsese lived up to my expectations.  My perception did not change so much as it was confirmed.  When it comes to the craft of filmmaking, Scorsese IS a genius.

You told me earlier that editor Thelma Schoonmaker made an appearance on set – what was your impression of her and Marty’s relationship?

Having met at NYU, Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker have worked together for over 35-years.  Their relationship is one of mutual respect.  They are similar in the way they work and I have the sense that each person often knows what the other is thinking.

Tell me about the experience working so closely to the cast with Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley and Max von Sydow.

The cast of Shutter Island is perhaps the most talented cast I have ever encountered.  Each member that you mention brought vastly different backgrounds to the project and had much to contribute to each of their characters.  Aside from their work on the film, they all were extremely gracious as individuals.  They were all are very approachable and good conversationalists.  I am honored to have worked with each of them.

Describe your average day on set.

In my hotel room, my alarm would go off before sunrise each morning.  I would check the weather report and dress accordingly.  Shortly thereafter, I boarded a van full of sleepy crew members that drove us to the set.  After a quick stop at catering for breakfast, I would meet the crew at the camera truck.  We would unload our equipment and arrive on set in time for a blocking rehearsal of the first scene that day.  Following the blocking rehearsal, the actors would head to the make-up and hair trailers while we would build the cameras and lighting took place.  When lighting was finished, the actors would return the set and we would run a camera rehearsal.  Once all the elements were in place, Martin Scorsese would arrive and we would roll cameras.  When we had the shot that Scorsese was happy with, he would return to his trailer and the whole process would happen all over again.  At the six hour mark, we would break for a half-hour lunch.  Our days would average about twelve hours.  At the end of the day, we would break down the cameras, load the truck, and catch a van back to the hotel.  Often very tired, I would find myself asleep an hour or two after getting off work.

If you could sum up your experience on Shutter Island into a few sentences, what would you say?

Shutter Island is perhaps the most difficult yet most rewarding experience I have ever had on a film set.  The story largely takes place during a hurricane, and there was plenty of water, wind, and debris employed to simulate that phenomenon.  The making of this film was not for the faint-hearted.  I would do it again in a heartbeat.

What, in a nutshell, did you learn about the craft of cinema through your experiences working on a Martin Scorsese picture?

Many talented and creative filmmakers are required to tackle a project of this nature.  While a visionary director is essential in telling an inventive and compelling tale, the contributions of the cast and crew are equally important.  Hundreds of decisions are made each day by members of the filmmaking family that affect the outcome of the picture.

The post On Set with Martin Scorsese appeared first on StoryFirst Media Website.

Back in 2011 when I was deep in editing for my documentary Last Day at Lambeau, I realized the movie didn’t work and I was mere weeks away from film festival submission deadlines.

The movie was about the relationship between sports fans and their heroes through the prism of Brett Favre’s separation from the Green Bay Packers. Through the telling of that story, I was hoping to reveal something about the human condition and what it means to devote yourself to an activity that you have zero control over.

At that time, the movie opened with a 5-minute or so history of Brett Favre’s time in Green Bay and establishing why he meant so much to the state of Wisconsin. But when I screened the film to trusted colleagues and friends, it just didn’t feel like the opening was strong enough.

To a certain extent, who cares why Favre meant what he meant to Wisconsin? All that mattered (from a storytelling perspective) was that Wisconsin loved him. That’s it. Every member of the audience had had an idol at some time in their lives and they could easily recognize themselves in that concept. The facts that he threw so many touchdowns or started so many consecutive games weren’t as compelling as the relationship itself.

But my movie was still missing a human touch. A soul. A voice the audience could connect with.

I had not wanted to include myself in the film. Not because I was shy (I’m not) or because I’m not good enough (I am), but because I felt it would be distracting. I thought it would come across as me forcing my way into a story I wasn’t a part of. This was about fans and their team, not about me making the movie.

But what I was failing to see in that moment was that I was the fan. By attaching my own personal experiences growing up in a Packers fan household, going to Packers training camp and idolizing my heroes, that was a more specific and more human way to approach the film’s soul than any list of dates on a timeline.

So I read my own voiceover and I spoke in the first person. I made sure the audience knew that I was a fan, and as such, I was a part of this story, and by extension so were all of them. Whether you were a fan of the Packers, Yankees, Longhorns, Muhammad Ali or Barack Obama, you could identify to the concept of being passionate about something.

And that opened my film to a much wider audience than it ever would’ve had.

Don’t be afraid to be a central figure in your story. It is your story, after all.

The post You Are Your Story’s Hero appeared first on StoryFirst Media Website.

On January 24, 1978, Steven Spielberg was sitting in a writers’ room with George Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan. They were hard at work structuring a story about a pseudo grave-robber in the 1930s who searches for the Lost Ark of the Covenant.

That story would eventually become the first Indiana Jones film.

At one point in the conversation, the three filmmakers were struggling to craft a simple communication of an important plot point. The point they had to get across to the audience was how multiple broken pieces of ancient metal Indy finds could fit together to form a staff.

“One of the things is to demonstrate, not talk about it,” Spielberg remarked.

What did he mean?

Well, one way to communicate a complex idea to an audience is to literally talk about it, or have a character explain the thing in explicit terms. But Spielberg is a brilliant visual storyteller, so he knows that cold exposition is never very engaging.

So he proposed an example of how they could communicate this idea.

“Like a beautiful vase on a table, that is worth a complete fortune, and they’re all looking at this, and a man carefully puts his glasses on, looks at the vase, takes a hammer and breaks the thing. He divides the pieces up to be shipped all over the world, and sold. ‘I hate doing this. I hate destroying great art, but it’s a living.’ Bam. Crash. You realize this is what happens to all great works of art to make more money for the greedy bastards. And the audience realizes that is why the staff is in several pieces.”

Audiences will always respond better to demonstrations of your idea as opposed to explanations of your idea.

So, how does this figure into brand storytelling?

We encounter this all the time at StoryFirst Media. In an interview for a brand in the sales industry, the interview subject will complement his colleague with the following line:

“She’s great. If someone asks her a question and she doesn’t know the answer, she’ll find the answer.”

That’s all well and good as a complement, but it’s incredibly boring for an audience who very likely does not personally know the “great” colleague in question.

Instead of talking about the colleague in a positive way, what if the interview subject had given a positive demonstration of her efforts? What if he’d told a story?

“I remember this one time my colleague we presented with a very challenging question that she did not have an answer for. This question came from a client that needed an answer by the end of the day, and my colleague’s calendar was booked for the rest of the afternoon. By five o’clock, she had managed to clear her schedule just enough to find some extra time to investigate the issue and get the client what they needed on time. Also, the meetings she had to reschedule to make time ended up working better for those other clients than the originally scheduled time, so everyone was happy.”

While this is a vague hypothetical, you get the point. A story like this presents the audience with the dilemma the colleague was facing and forces them to acknowledge the professional manner with which she navigated her way through it.

Your audience will thank you for allowing them to make up their own damn minds about what your point is, and if you tell the story right, they will commit your message to memory far more frequently than a cold statement.

Don’t talk about things. Demonstrate them.

The post Demonstrate. Don’t Explain. appeared first on StoryFirst Media Website.

According to Eisenstein, there are five METHODS OF MONTAGE.

1.Metric: Basic cutting from one moment to the next (based purely on the physical nature of time) no matter what is happening in the image.
2.Rhythmic: Cutting based on time, but using the visual composition of the shots — along with a change in the speed of the metric cuts — to induce more complex meanings than what is possible with metric montage. It’s about how the movement in one image affects the movement of the next. Here, movement takes precedence over length. Once sound was introduced, rhythmic montage also included audial elements (music, dialogue, sounds). The most famous use of Rhythmic Montage is the climax to “The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly”. Watch Clint Eastwood’s eyes move back and forth, dictating where the shot cuts to next. Watch Lee Van Cleef’s fingers inch closer and closer to his gun, dictating a cut back to Eastwood’s reacting eyes.
3.Tonal: Cutting based on the emotional meaning of the shots – not just manipulating the temporal length of the cuts or its rhythmic characteristics — to elicit a reaction from the audience even more complex than from the metric or rhythmic montage. For example, a sleeping baby would emote calmness and relaxation. At first, this method may seem to fly in the face of Soviet Montage Theory, given that it acknowledges the possibility of individual meaning within the shot, outside of the cut. But the idea here is that you can create a stronger meaning by cutting images together with the same or conflicting tones. Imagine a scene in which you cut between a loud, crazy party on the first floor of a house and the quiet, secluded loneliness of a boy in his room upstairs. Two shots with two tones cut together to create a third tone/meaning.
4.Overtonal: Combining Metric, Rhythmic and Tonal cutting together creates Overtonal Montage. It took me a while to understand the difference between Overtonal and Tonal, and I’m not sure I fully get it yet, but I believe Overtonal Montage simply stands for the feeling the viewer has after watching the film. A writing analogy would probably be the “Spine” of a story. Yes, there are beats (metric), there are scenes (rhythmic) and there are sequences (tonal), but put them all together and you have your Spine (overtonal).
5.Intellectual: When done correctly, Intellectual Montage might be the most exciting form of cutting. This method is the END ALL, BE ALL of Soviet Montage Theory – cutting two images together to create a third meaning. The most famous use of this method may also be the single most famous cut in cinema history: when the ape throws up a bone in “2001: A Space Odyssey”, then cutting to a bone-shaped spacecraft in the distant future (idea: the dawn of man). Another example would be the intercutting of a soldier’s murder with the slaughtering of a water buffalo in “Apocalypse Now” (idea: the soldier’s life must be sacrificed for the war just as the buffalo must be sacrificed for the tribe), or the cut from Lenny Bruce’s courtroom plea to an image of his dead body at the climax of “Lenny” (idea: the court killed Lenny when they censored him).
Ever since learning about Soviet Montage Theory, I have been a huge believer in it. I even went as far as to say that the very definition of a movie is two images cut together to give a third meaning.

“The idea is in the cut!” I would say. The Soviet pioneers, along with other filmmakers such as David Mamet and Alfred Hitchcock had convinced me of this. I would quote Pudovkin: “The image itself is meaningless! The meaning is within the cut!” This made sense to me. Artistic breakthrough! I’d figured out what makes a movie a movie! Through all my independent study and reading I had discovered the essence of great visual storytelling! It’s the end-all, be-all! Surely, this is the only way one should make a movie!

But I love Quentin Tarantino. And Paul Thomas Anderson. And Martin Scorsese. These filmmakers don’t always rely on the cut. All three of these filmmakers have made a name for themselves with long, extended takes and flashy steadicam shots. Did this mean that their films were overpraised? Were they missing the point of a movie, as I had discovered it to be “within the cut”? David Mamet always spoke out against the very invention of the steadicam, arguing that it was like following around your actors, which isn’t visual storytelling.

Then I saw Charlie Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator” and my world really came crashing down. The ballet scene between Chaplin and the floating globe has instantly become one of my favorite scenes in cinema history, and the CUTS MEAN NOTHING. It was all about content!

Another one of my favorite scenes in cinema history is the begging scene in Vittorio De Sica’s “Umberto D.” This scene is also all about content. The method of montage never raises beyond metric or potentially rhythmic. Why, then did I love it so much? Did I just have incredibly bad taste?

Then I remembered a quote from my favorite director of all time, Stanley Kubrick, from a rare interview taken in 1969 as he was promoting “2001”:

“I’ve always said the two people who are worthy of film study are Charlie Chaplin and Orson Welles as representing the two most diverse approaches to filmmaking. Charlie Chaplin must have had the crudest, simplest lack of interest in cinematics. Just get the image on the screen; it’s the content of the shot that matters. Welles is probably, at his best, the most baroque kind of stylist in the conventional film-telling style. I think perhaps Eisenstein might be a better example because where Chaplin had all content and no style, Eisenstein had all style and no content. Alexander Nevsky stylistically is possibly one of the most beautiful movies ever made; it’s content to me is a moronic story, moronically told, full of lies. It’s the most dishonest kind of film. And I would have thought that perhaps a study of Chaplin’s greatest films and Alexander Nevsky would be worthwhile, because somewhere within that you’d see how two completely diverse approaches can make a fascinating film.” – Stanley Kubrick

And therein, in a quote from the great Kubrick himself, lies the great debate between Montage and Mise en scène!

But without cuts, where is the conflict of ideas? With intellectual montage, I can cut between a shot of ants climbing up a branch and a shot of people crossing a busy Manhattan intersection to create the third idea of “we people are just like ants.” It’s meaning is contained in the “conflict” of these two drastic images.

So where is the conflict in the scene from “The Great Dictator”? It’s within the CONTENT. Look at the content of the scene. Chaplin is playing a character based on Adolph Hitler, arguably the single most universally hated man of the 20th century. He is the very personification of evil…

… and he’s performing a ballet.

WHAM! Conflict! An evil dictator (negative element) is performing a ballet with the world (positive element) creating the third idea of “Hitler wants the whole world in his hands. He wants to become emperor of the world.”

As a filmmaker, when you are writing or directing a scene, ask yourself: What is the idea I’m trying to get across? How can I express that idea through conflict? What are my two conflicting elements/images? And then ask yourself the most important question: Is it best to represent this idea through conflict WITHIN THE CUT (Soviet Montage Theory) or WITHIN THE CONTENT (Chaplin)? One is not better than the other. The two can coexist in the same film.

For more writings on Soviet Montage Theory, read the following books: FILM FORM by Sergei Eisenstein, FILM SENSE by Sergei Eisenstein, KULESHOV ON FILM: THE WRITINGS OF LEV KULESHOV by Lev Kuleshov, FILM TECHNIQUE & FILM ACTING by V.I. Pudovkin, and KINO EYE: THE WRITINGS OF DZIGA VERTOV by Dziga Vertov.

For more on the idea of “content”, check out the cinema writings of André Bazin, one of the founders of French film magazine “Cahiers du cinema” in 1951. He preferred what he referred to as “true continuity” through mise en scène over experiments in editing and visual effects. And wouldn’t you know it… he championed both Charlie Chaplin and Vittorio De Sica!

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Such is the motto of Robert McKee’s bible for storytellers, Story. Until I read his book a couple years ago and started hearing more and more screenwriters refer to “turns” and “reversals” and “turning left when they think you’ll turn right,” I had no idea how important a concept this was for screenwriting.

If William Goldman is right and “screenplays are structure,” then scenes are turns.

The next time you watch a film, really pay close attention to the structure of the individual scenes. Nearly every movie that follows classic Hollywood storytelling conventions will construct every scene around at least one turn. The beginning of the scene will present one situation, and by the end of the scene, that situation will turn to something else. The character will start happy and turn sad. The hero will be losing the battle and suddenly summon the strength to win. The girl will be making a fool of herself in front of the boy, but the boy will actually find this cute instead of foolish.

An extreme type of turn is called a reversal. These are 180-degree turns from one extreme to its polar opposite. Alive to dead. Attraction to repulsion. Kill to rescue.

One of the best reversals I’ve seen comes in Shane Black’s noir-comedy Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. In the scene, Robert Downey, Jr. is about to play Russian roulette on a prisoner in order to convince him to divulge information. We’ve seen this scenario play out a thousand times, and Black knows it. Downey puts a single bullet in the chamber of a revolver and aims it at the prisoner. He cries out, “Where is the girl?” and pulls the trigger. Since we’ve seen this scenario play out before, we expect it to go the exact same way as it always has: click, click, and finally the prisoner can’t take the fear of being shot anymore and gives up everything. But in Black’s film, before the prisoner can even deny knowing anything, the first pull of the trigger sends the only bullet in the revolver into his head, killing him. This always gets a rousing response of uproarious laughter from the audience, because we weren’t expecting it to go that way.

Another great example comes in Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges. Brendon Gleeson enters the scene wanting to kill his longtime friend played by Colin Farrell. But when he approaches Farrell with his gun drawn, he suddenly sees Farrell pull his own gun on himself in attempted suicide. Gleeson’s friend instincts kick in as his motivation goes from wanting to kill Farrell to wanting to save Farrell.

While you don’t need a reversal in every scene, it’s good to have as many as you can come up with. It keeps us on the edge of our seat. It’s the quality that makes us all say, “I had no idea what was going to happen in that movie.” It’s even better if you can play on previous cinematic convention like Black does in Bang Bang, making us expect something we’ve seen a trillion times only to deliver the exact opposite.

My acting teacher, Ben Taylor, recently wrote a hilarious scene that takes place in a gay strip club. It shows a drunk, middle-aged man stumbling around, seemingly infatuated with one of the boy dancers on stage. When another one of the employees at the bar tries to escort the man away, he cries out, “I’m his father!” Everyone freezes. Shock. A father has come in to a gay strip club and discovered his own son as a performer. This is the scene’s turn. But then the boy dancer shouts from the stage, “You’re not my father!” The drunk man replies, “Okay, I’m not his father.” This is a reversal of the initial turn, and got tons of laughs.

You can fold this on itself as much as the logic in your narrative allows. But there is a danger in placing too many turns and reversals in your scenes. It can start to come across as absurd coincidence. I just made this mistake in a scene I wrote for class. In my scene, a man returns home to his apartment, drunk, to find that all the furniture has been changed (turn #1). He also finds a woman he doesn’t know lying on his bed, beckoning him to stay with her (turn #2). When he starts to give in to her, thinking it’s just his lucky day, she mentions her husband (turn #3). Our hero asks her what apartment number this is. She says 304. Our hero freaks and proclaims, “I’m on the wrong floor! My key opened your door!” (turn #4). When he tries to leave, there’s a knock at the door. It’s the woman’s husband (turn #5). When the husband enters and sees our hero, it turns out they are old college buddies! (turn #6). Instead of kicking him out, the husband invites our hero to stay for dinner (turn #7). While I got decent notes on this scene in class, there’s no question that it is absolutely absurd, and I feel adequately displays the risk of implanting too many turns in a single narrative (for an example of a movie that does this, look no further than 2005′s inexplicable Best Picture winner, Crash, in which a select number of characters continue to conveniently bump into each other multiple times in a single day in a city of nearly ten million people).

The opposite extreme, of course, is writing a scene with no turns. If there isn’t a turn in a scene or narrative, you will quickly get bored and wonder why you’re watching it. Think of a scene where a character starts happy and ends happy. Or a narrative where a family is living a nice, quiet life in the suburbs and in the end still lives a nice, quiet life in the suburbs. Stories are change. To quote McKee’s fictional depiction in Adaptation., “Your characters must change, and the change must come from them.”

Amen.

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