I recently came across this note in one of my notebooks. In my scrawl:
Go with tighter shots and more cramped framing for subjects that have less time, i.e., older subjects. Younger subjects have more time, + therefore more space.
I wrote this many years ago, perhaps before we began shooting. My notebooks are full of such scribblings. Early on I was talking to an editor about the film and excitedly rattling off a slew of such ideas. The editor, who is also a director, said, “You have a lot ideas, and that’s good, but you have to remember that you can’t use all of them.”
He spoke the truth. Having a lot of ideas is good; make no mistake, it’s better than not having a lot of ideas, but how do we know which ideas are good and which are stinkers? First, it might be helpful to group ideas in a few classes:
- bad ideas that are just bad (ex. using fingernails on chalkboard as the main instrument for a soundtrack)
- bad ideas that are bad for a current project but might work elsewhere (ex. no talking heads, not a single one for the entire film!)
- ideas that are not doable because you lack the resources (ex. fancy animated sequences)
- ideas that conflict with other ideas you are using (ex. shoot in black and white, no shoot in highly saturated colors!)
- good ideas that are simply common sense (ex. conduct interviews on camera even if you don’t intend to use talking heads)
- good ideas that have been internalized since the beginning of time and are so common place that no one thinks of them, but when they dawn on you they seem like brilliant ideas (ex. I had an idea that we would shoot A Life’s Work using only three camera heights, one seen as if you were reclining on your side, one as if you were seated, one as if you were standing. I thought of these points of views as the way Buddha would see things, based on artistic representations of him. Well, duh, this is pretty much how every film is shot. [In fairness to me, when this idea “came to me,” I was watching a lot of films by Yasujiro Ozu and I was thinking of his tatami angle, which is actually him being practical and shooting the Japanese equivalent of a family seated around the dining room table.])
Defining the good, the neutral, and the bad is all well and good, but sometimes, in the midst (mist?) of the work it’s difficult to recognize what kind of idea I’m working with. I can trust my gut, but to steal a line from High Fidelity, sometimes my gut has shit for brains. Time away sometimes clarifies things, but taking a break from the project isn’t always reliable and sometimes it isn’t an option. For me, the most helpful thing is to have people around who know what they’re doing and will tell me what’s what. I’ve been blessed to have such folks in my life, and I’ve thanked them many times before, here and in person, but to everyone out there who’s engaged with my work and offered honest feedback, a hearty thanks for telling me when things suck, when things don’t, and when things just need a little massaging. I hope you trust me enough to return the favor some day.
How do you decide which ideas are best for you?