Short Cut Through Nuit Blanche

The Cat Sees Detail

Madness and Enemies

The bad guy Count Adhemar in A Knight's Tale says to the hero William, "You have been weighed. You have been measured. You have been found wanting." Naturally, in the end, William's friends turn these words against Adhemar. The scene resonates with me due to my own insecurity and my long held ambition to make a mark as a writer and movie director. There are a couple of faces that spring to mind as being the sort of disgusting self-styled snob who would go so far as to try to mentally sabotage those of us who have specific goals to achieve. ```````````````````````````````````````````````` Someone running a screenwriting group ostensibly for writers to read and comment on each other's works in progress might be motivated primarily by the need to be the focus and the decider, perhaps pushing what might be called the dogma of Syd Field and Robert McKee format even in a culture where many different storytelling styles might be aching to get exposure and might not survive adaptation into the presumptive blockbuster streamlining. I can say that I have more memory of abuse from those communities than useful feedback. If anything, time can be wasted following the alternate rabbit holes of random opinions given without focused consideration. The preference is for feedback to come from people whose own work you admire and who will look at a draft as indicating what it is you care about and from that how well you are serving that concern. I made the mistake of being candid about my night job, due to the need to travel there after each monthly meeting instead of joining the rest or the writers for a beer. I had a security guard job. If someone chooses to look down on that, they ignore the fact that it did allow me to read screenplays and give considered notes on them. In the realm of sharing notes with strangers, online outlets like Zoetrope.com and Triggerstreet.com were somewhat useful and at least you could tell something about the reviewer by the willingness to rite more than 200 words and the specific relevance to the manuscript at hand. Nothing against the study of Syd Field's Screenwriter's Notebook for example or Story by Robert McKee and various other books about writing but these should be part of a Recommended Reading list and not sources for generic go-to comments to pass off as thoughtful coverage. ```````````````````````````````````````````````` If someone is a toxic person, even though they might appear to believe in the most humane left-wing ideology their fascist heart can be exposed by the tactic of attacking the individual speaker and assigning a pathology to them instead of engaging the arguments with logic and without the expectation that your "facebook friend" is the enemy. Even if it is disguised as a teachable moment, that can tend to be so crass that it is a slap in the face. ```````````````````````````````````````````````` The tricky trap is that there are some who believe or push the principle wherein the mental instability or trauma of a small percentage of those reading or following must set the tone and limitations of what can be said and how it can be said for fear of "triggering" them. While we all might have compassion for someone's trauma, this has escalated to the level of the victim as ruler. If one makes any complaint, he or she will be accused of "playing victim," yet complaints often do have to be conveyed one way or another. If someone has legitimate claim to vulnerability or victimhood, however, it is not a workable situation to stifle and censor all thought that fails to placate that person. ```````````````````````````````````````````````` I don't find it necessary to name names. If someone wants to be an idiot and say that I have spoken out about his/her actions, that is out of my hands. But the principles are more important than the personalities. ```````````````````````````````````````````````` Someone asked for volunteers for a project in her back yard. I responded with an e-mail and mentioned I have a camera I can bring. This was agreed. I was to document. I happened to bring two cameras, the second one being capable of shooting tape for an hour unbroken. So while walking around documenting the volunteer work, I allowed this person to frame up each or three camera positions - each one running an hour - that might be used as part of a demonstration. So I spent some time over there. As essential as the three hour-long shots might have been, there had been no effort to secure this for the project outside of my randomly showing up. As well thought out as the presentation might have been, this person then was not able to firewire onto a capture card of the computers on hand. Documentation of the volunteers on my other camera was easily imported. But I left my camera overnight so more attempts could be made to capture video. When that failed, I returned to pick up my larger camera and I spent another four hours trying to capture and also burn discs. Two discs went fine, but the third shot had some glitches and I wanted to know if I should persist. I e-mailed that there were two discs that turned out but not in full 1080 HD, only DVD quality. I also sent via Facebook a similar message and uploaded sped-up files of all three shots to indicate what was done, noting that at high speed I could be seen waddling around fast and that might be a distraction. I got NO RESPONSE as to the next step from this genius. Do I drop off the two good discs or try to get something out of the third? I had discovered that my camera playback/record heads needed cleaning if I was to record anything again. I looked into taking it in to Canon in Mississauga to get the lens cleaned and heads cleaned. (Turned out that exercise was horrible because Canon workers there won't make money from cleaning lenses or heads, only for a deposit over $300.) Time passed as no phone calls, e-mails, nor Facebook messages were answered. I did my distracting and anxiety-filled back and forth with Canon and their techs trying to scam me. And before I knew it, I was hearing indirectly that the presentation that had been planned never happened. I had gotten through by phone only to be told my timing was strange. I did not press to find out what this meant, and only then did I learn the thing was a bust. I had no indication as to whether I was expected to do more than I had. I had not spend five hours at a semi-friend's place and four more at mine working on that as a prank. There is only one communication style that is worth anything when you have deadlines and specific things that need to be done: Direct, clear communication with a specific intention. There is nothing between the lines in a non-response. There is only disrespect and perhaps madness. ```````````````````````````````````````````````` Ove the course of a year, my only communication to this person was two supportive notes (along with other people) on Facebook threads. One was about being small after being big for a while, and I said, "You are big." The other was about the Netflix series Sense 8 the Wackowskis did. I commented like someone else that even if their content might seem to message-driven and can be a bit much they know how to direct. Finally, a crazy falling out happened (if there was anything to fall out) because I commented on a linked blog that was factually weak. It was complaining about "the male gaze" driving movies and in its three cited examples it included Fifty Shades of Grey and neglected to mention that its director Sam Taylor-Johnson was a woman and that the novelist who had control over the project was also female. It also jumped through hoops with diagrams trying to prove that the geometry of the framing in Mad Max: Fury Road forced the movie to be more respectful to women.... neglecting to mention that Imperiator Furiosa and the whole movie was the product of writer-director George Miller and his 70 year-old male gaze. If you like the heroine of that flick, thank her maker. ```````````````````````````````````````````````` It did not help that a guy I had unfriended a year previous for abuse chimed in for some virtue signaling to throw shade on the ignorant sexist (me). The only lesson I learned from that back and forth and the following morning was as follows: If your Facebook account is beeping whenever someone posts, don't procrastinate about disabling that function. Don't let others and their random input drive your day. Also, make your point and then leave any conversation. There is a tactic some use in which they widen the scope of a discussion beyond the specific item for which you have an opinion. The wider the umbrella, the more disrespectful it is to clarity and the finer points. By the end of it, you can end up with your name all over the page and people seeing remarks out of context. This is baiting. The imbecile who chimed in also lured me to address side-issues and then the next day deleted his own remarks and left mine hanging without context. My own direct message to the owner of the page asking what was really going on was not answered. So I could see the value of my remarks: nothing. I deleted each of my posts. When the owner of the page realized this, there was a manic attempt to paraphrase the discussion with multiple highlights of my name - again to restore the vulnerability of my name being all over the page and this time with less context. I could have sent a printscreen or frame grab to Facebook with a complaint of harassment. That might have been the wise course of action. Instead, the person unfriended me. ```````````````````````````````````````````````` There was some back and forth in Personal Messages trying to get to the bottom of it all, and finding only spin and a completely false recollection of something from 15 years prior. Of the project, the only mention was one of being grateful for my help, although it is doubtful how that could be anything more than ironic. I was told this person likes me but that on Facebook I was a terrible person and a troll. I began to correct the errant memory that had been referred to from the year 2000, and got back a rambling and hyper mess of words telling me not to communicate again. My only response was to go a step further than unfriend and actually block this individual, which I should have done to my shade-thrower the year before. ```````````````````````````````````````````````` I have posted commentary tracks to a few of my short films on youtube, and I started with one for the short that was mentioned from 2000. The sound quality and picture were both murky once I posted it, so I took another stab at it. But because the first version included an allusion to this individual walking from the location, I got indirect feedback on it. The first time around, I had a prop - a VHS tape - and I mentioned something scandalous the self-righteous protester shot which had aired on TV. I had nothing to show from it, but I flipped up the tape guard and pointed at the half-inch tape and said, "There's the nude shot" or something to that effect. The second time, I could not find the tape prop so I let it go. I got an automated e-mail in an account that only a few people knew, advising that am instagram account had supposedly been started by me and that my name was something other than my own. There was a picture of a little boy on the fake account and some message like "I have a podcast." ```````````````````````````````````````````````` When some people get indirect they can be very creepy. I also received a mess of Facebook friend-requests from accounts that seemed fake, like a little girl I did not recognize whose parents I did not know and that was filled with professional-looking photos. Many fake accounts were like dating ads. I had to actually block some so that they would not automatically follow me. I was told that both my troll and this person I had recently blocked were conspiring together to send me these annoyances and also going after the page for my planned film. So their attacks did have quite a great deal of bashing me by name. I know that it caused one friend to stop replying to me (on matters unrelated) and his wife to unfriend and block me. I can only imagine the range of evil slander that has been spread - and over what? If I could anticipate that sort of enemy being killed, I am not sure that I would make an effort to stop that. I look forward to the obituaries of even that mundane level of adversary. ```````````````````````````````````````````````` My generation was raised on Norman Lear, Princess Leia, Mary Tyler-Moore, the Bionic Woman and Murphy Brown. Yet, we are likely to be called sexist for not being excited about the 2016 Paul Feig version of Ghostbusters. There are people who will "other" you and shun you for disagreeing with a sub-issue despite genuinely holding many of the same values. No matter how it is spun, it really may just come down to assholes in sheep's clothing. And mad, mad, mad vindictive jerks cloaked in the flag of decency.

the short itself in perhaps final form

The Fashion from William La Rochelle on Vimeo.

a low res version of the final segment

Well, here it is:


The Fashion of the Christ - end

William | MySpace Video

Post Production

The shooting of this film, let alone casting and rehearsing, had its fits and starts to such an extent that I felt self-concious (if I spelled that wrong I'm unaware of it) chronicalling it all as it happened. I didn't want to curse anything.

Jay Ould (Porno the Clown) played Abe the homeless guy, formerly written as Gabriel the Archangel posing as a camera man or producer or or whatever I happened to type as a placeholder for a character that was heavy with backstory and exposition and now actually as a homeless man had some actual genuine anger issues to provide a foil for J.C.

AuBrey Friesner played Jesus Christ. Jay knew him through Burning Man.

Kirsten Harvey played Penny Hennessay the hooker. The character had in earlier drafts been a TV journalist, because that was handy for throwing questions at Jesus, but something always bothered me about it as a script idea for that reason. Again, the character should be someone coming from a lowly place, although I refused to write down to the character just because of her presumed social caste. Also, despite being described in the final script as dressed in skimpy clothes, she ended up using a big fur coat (which I will say was faux. to put people at ease and I'm pretty sure that is correct although it reads well on camera) because in February when we shot it was pretty cold. Jay knew her from the local comedy and performing community, a Ryerson Acting student on the rise.

We almost cast Kirsten for an earlier shoot, but then she had to back out because a friend had fallen ill and between that and the crunch of school the time wasn't right. But in the interim of asking other actresses I cane around to the big rewrite and enough time apparently passed before there was again another window to possibly shoot.

I did one partial shoot when AuBey and Kirsten were available but Jay wasn't, and I put on a producer hat to make the most of it and shoot - according to the storyboards - whatever shots Jay's character Abe wasn't in. We got some usable stuff, but in general I think that producer pragmatism approach leaves out the element of energy that the full cast dynamic has. Even if Jay is crusty or impatient with interjections moving the shoot along, ultimately he is first contact with with other two and has about him a way of putting people at ease in general. I as a director may or may not have that quality in the same degree. Maybe because I don't have the gift of gab and I might be focused on this process of directing that I have done before many times but which I don't do often enough.

At one point in the middle of a take Kirsten slipped coming down. There was more mud on the hill than it appeared. Oddly my camera didn't get the fall, only the line leading up to it and the recovery. Maybe my thumb twitched on the button in reflex. I then fell on my way up the slope. Went to the library washroom at lunch to wipe off whatever mud I could.

The last stuff shot in the day, after lunch, oddly has the most relaxed and appropriate tone, especially for AuBrey as Jesus. Jay loved the first cut, but for a few shots that were too fast (easily corrected) but it was obvious on Jay's TV that I had a spot on the lens that was not so dramatic in the viewfinder or in my editing software. Much of the middle of the short had this piece of dirt or snow or dust or whatever giving us a plain as the nose on your face blemish, or "dot-nose" to use a term from the guys on The Sarah Silverman Program. I don't know if it can be gotten rid of. I'm an idiot. I would put the cap on the lens between moves but I didn't dust off the lens until AuBrey noticed it in a los close-up and wiped it off with Jesus' cloak. We don't have Industrial Light and Magic to go through it frame by frame and replace the spec with background.

I've made a smaller version, cut from 11 minutes to 6:22 without credits, trimming the opening and eliminating the middle segment. Hard to lose. But that is mainly because a ten minute short wouldn't survive on Funny or Die without big names. Also because now I could give some sort of version to Jay's animator friend filmmaker Chris Minz who has agreed to add some things to the ending which was shot as a great leap of faith that effects would fill it in. We have cold sweats about compression going from different formats, but that might be solved and it'll be a kick any way to see those shots completed.

Just found out about that now. It's Palm Sunday today. Next weekend is Easter.

We shot the movie at a park across Yonge Street from Blessed Sacrament church, south of Lawrence subway station on the Saturday before Ash Wednesday and I did my first big edit the weekend after Ash Wednsday. So Post Production has pretty much been Lent. My Mom had e-mailed me when I told her about the shoot and sent her a photo that she had given up bread for Lent. I had missed Ash Wednesday. I must have dragged my ass from work and through the subway without noticing one person with tell-tale ash forgotten on their forehead. I had kind of wanted to do that this year, just to look crazy (or crazier) on the subway. But you know something, I decided to follow my mom's lead on this one issue and give up eating bread as well. Except for two occasions of faltering (a hamburger at one point and a visit to Red Lobster where they set down two biscuits and I didn't want them to go to waste) I've managed to keep off bread. ** Knock on wood ** and that might have something to do with losing ten pounds since my last doctor's appointment (my diabetes doctor; I still don't have a GP since - well that's another story), and it has been easier to walk let alone climb stairs without pain. It would be nice to go home skinny for Easter, and shock everyone in North Bay, but I'm afraid it won't be that dramatic. Ten pounds on my frame is hardly noticable unless people notice I can tie my shoes now without getting winded.

Anyway, we'll see how it goes. I had put out feelers about music, both to a friend from college I hardly hear from, Peter, and to Lorne who composed for Porno the Clown. Both are always busy. Haven't heard a music-specific reply from Lorne, and Peter said he was too busy (right before going onto Facebook and posting a status update that he was going to get an ipod to waste more time). For the time being the temp music is generic cleared stuff just in case.

Happy Palm Sunday and Holy Week leading to Easter.

-- William

Say Anything

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