LES MAUVAISES HERBES (Bad Seeds) My New Favorite Movie!

LES MAUVAISES HERBES, directed by Louis Bélanger and written by Louis Bélanger, Alexis Martin, and starring Alexis Martin, Gilles Renaud, Emmanuelle Lussier-Martinez, Luc Picard... is my new favorite movie!!

I got up at 7:45 am for the 8:30 screening. It was a full house - the movie had its world premiere in Santa Barbara that weekend.  I don't think there's a trailer online with english subtitles yet, but here is the french one anyway. I want everyone to see this movie! I laughed hard and giggled with delight and cried a little too. It's a farce set in the woods in a Quebec winter. The Q&A with Bélanger and festival programmer Michael Albright is below.

Bélanger spoke in some broken english, but got up to thank everyone after the ovation and immediately spoke about his movie: I wanted to do something about what happens if you put a street wise guy with the rural wisdom guy. If you put them together for a whole winter, what would happen, what would be their daily life? When I started to write the project I realized that they get along quite fast. So I had to have this young girl that kind of gives another push to the script. It gives another drive to the film. And then we would be able to talk about this generation gap.

Albright: I appreicate the mix between drama and comedy. I know you have influences with the Czech new wave and I think it's just a brilliant balance. How do you get that tone just right?

 Bélanger: It's not easy because right at the beginning, the distributors and people who finance the film always say care when you say you want to have a few different tones. Because people want to put your film in a box. 'Is it a comedy, is it a drama? When you start to say, “We're gonna mix all of them,” they feel uncomfortable with this. But, I strongly believe that it is possible. It's just a matter of writing it and directing it...I like it when you laugh after you almost cry.  When I was studying at the film school, I wasn’t going there that much. Right beside the street there was a cinemteque. It was two bucks to go there, so basically I spent all of my university years not in school but at the movies. I was some sort of rat over there. We were having fun seeing films, going to the bar and discussing it, seeing some girl thinking one day we would be "cineaste" that was the perfect school for us.

Albright: What are the logistics of filming with marijuana?

Bélanger: I was a bit naive. I thought it would be really cheap to film because it’s mostly one location and a few exteriors. but we had the weed which was 2000 plants. And it’s really 4x2000 because they’re at different lengths throughout the film. It was the metaphor, the friendship during the growing. Plus, it was the coldest winter we had since we have been recording the winter forecast. It was minus 35 most of the day. If it would have been real pot, we probably would have lost the entire thing almost ten times. Because we lost electricity, it was a nightmare. I thought we could get medical marijuana to donate but they said this is for medicine not cinema. I said, "ok ill go to hells angels," my producer said, "you you don’t want to deal with those people they don’t provide receipts.” The artistic director said, “please stop thinking about it i’ll take care of it. It's gonna be plastic.”

An audience member asked about distribution for the film. The answer shocked me since the movie is so good.

Bélanger: Distribution is breaking my heart all the time” The film will be released in Canada on the 7th of March…. But the problem is to encourage the distributor that the people want to see different films and foreign films. I know that your people are curious and we have to convince the distributor that he has to make people see other films. Plus the thing is, once the distributor gets back his investment, usually they stop working on the film. It’s tough as a director because you always have to be bugging them, on the phone saying ‘Please, submit the film to festivals.’ I’m not that type of guy. I don’t want to be the guy who’s moaning and complaining and saying… in that situation I say well let's work on the next project because I don’t want to get depressed about distribution. It's always the big battle for me. I know people will come to see the film its just a matter of providing the film.

I wrote the script with the guy who embodied the character of the actor. It's our 3rd film together. We made one documentary and two fiction films together. He usually writes plays, so I try to tell him, go with your ideas, Il'l do the cinematic aspects. We always try to not give everything to the audiences right at the start, it’s always fun to discover a character in some sort of mutation. When you think you know a character, there’s a scene coming that will give you new information about the character. its fun when you are in an intellectual process while viewing a film.

On casting: I never do casting. For my entire this is my 9th fiction film, because i know the actors in Quebec, i go often to theatre, I also direct theatre, and I’m a family man with my actors. the guy who embodies Simone, this is our 5th film together. The two goons, we have done 3 films together. Most of those people, they are not only actors — I go fishing with them, we play petanque, we eat together, i know their girlfriends or wives… for me, being a filmmaker is not a way of earning my living it’s a way of living. Those people became my friends and i say I’ve got this project. You know I read this book - jacques casavetis ? basically he was working with his friend. Only the younger girl, she’s 26 and I’m 50 so we don’t speak very much. That was her first feature film. I knew with her audition right away we had her because she can confront, and she’s not trying to seduce them. And young actresses often try to seduce their partner or the camera or even the director, and I’m searching for realism that is not seducing so she fit perfectly.

Oscar Nominated Producers Tell All in Santa Barbara

The panels at the Santa Barbara International Film Fest include talent and crew from some of the year's best movies and they're always one of my favorite parts of the festival. This year's Movers and Shakers Panel included: Finola Dwyer of Brooklyn, Steve Golin of Spotlight, Ed Guiney of Room, Jeremy Kleiner of The Big Short, and Mary Parent of The Revenant.

Here are some takeaways:

Weather Problems: While filming The Revenant in Canada, there wasn't enough snow, and they kept awaiting a big storm that never came. As temperatures rose, they tried trucking in snow from higher up in the mountains, using wheelbarrows to bring it on set. But it was melting in front of them. Knowing they couldn't CG in snow, they wrapped and started post production along with pre-production, searching for where they were going to find "geography that not only had snow, but also matched the film," Parent explained. It came down to the wire. Inarritu was forced to edit the film without an ending for now. It was August by now and the search was narrowed down to the few places in the world that have snow on this time - New Zealand, and South America are two of them. "The only issue with New Zealand is that the trees are very different. It would have been very costly to take all those trees out, and put different, trees in, it just wasn't possible" Parent explained. The crowd laughed.  

No Such Thing as Overnight Success: Steve Golin worked on both Spotlight and The Revenant. The Revenant was 10 years in the making, and Spotlight was 5. "It was just coincidental that they happened at the same time and are coming out the same year...Once in a while you get lucky and you get one that goes quickly but most of these are a long haul." Golin said that a movie with a logline like Spotlight is not easy to get made, so it becomes about the stars attached. "It's really about getting that first person in there, and then trying to make the schedules work with all the different people." Mark Ruffalo was the first person in. Mark told producers and agents he didn't care about money, he wanted to do it. "Once that happened the other dominos started to fall" said Golin. 

Golin is friends with Inarritu, and once Michael Keaton had finished Birdman, Golin asked Innaritu if Tom McCarthy, the director of Spotlight could see an early cut, with Keaton in mind. "That helped the momentum of that. All things are kind of oddly intertwined."

Movies with Meaning: Golin talked about his surprise that the Catholic church chose to show Spotlight to the Bishops in Rome. "What has been really gratifying about this movie is that a lot of victims have come forward and told us their stories and I think lot of people have come to terms with it, and realized they're not alone." McCarthy still gets emails daily thanking him for the movie and admitting what happened to them too.

The Big Short producer Jeremy Kleiner talked about how even though the 2008 economic crisis was a seismic event, "I think still remains rather mysterious to people. Like, 'what was that?!' We're still living in the wake of that and the film I think is part of that," he said. The project had been floating around Hollywood for a while before director Adam McKay became attached. The story goes that After Anchorman 2, McKay's agent asked him 'what do you want to do?' And he said, 'The Big Short.' "He had made Anchorman, Taladega Nights, maybe not the person you would expect to make this movie" the crowd laughed. "And yet maybe he's the perfect person" said Kleiner.  "Producing is such a peculiar vocation and one of the morals of the story is, sometimes half the battle is staying alive long enough for something positive to happen to you." Brad Pitt had a relationship with "Big Short" author Michael Lewis because of Moneyball. "Like Moneyball it's about heretics. There's this conventional wisdom about X, and then these people think otherwise. I think the screenplay presented itself as a serious film about a serious subject." Because Adam McKay's work has a subversive element, he was the perfect fit. Anchorman was subversive, and Kilner also mentioned, "You're Welcome America," the Broadway show where Will Ferrel plays George W. Bush. "The idea of approaching this topic with his brand of sense of subversive humor and his techniques-- his films are very structurally audacious and take chances, but they are very precise at the same time. It was a really exciting match. I feel like it's the film he was born to make and that he's been wanting to make his whole life." McKay is passionate about the idea of "systems of power that claim to be in the right but are fooling people or pulling the sheet over people's eyes. He relished the opportunity to break that down and lay bear what happened in this country and around the world and say, 'people are taking your money.'"

Movie Magic: Brooklyn, which has no star director or star power took 12 different financiers to make. Whatever it takes! "It's not high concept, it's not genre, it was never gonna be an easy film to finance," said Finola Dwyer. It was a co-production with the UK, Canada and Ireland. Though it takes place in Brooklyn, it was filmed in Montreal. "Montreal and New York share a lot of the same architecture. The architect of the empire state building did a department store in Montreal. It's a small city, it's very easy to get around. We had 30 days of filming in 3 countries so that was essential." The crew did have to film in Brooklyn for a little while because of its distinctive brownstones.  "It took 6 months of negotiating with SAG to let us come to America and film for two days without being a full SAG movie" said Dwyer. They had to use snow machines in May. Those scenes you see of Saoirse Ronan walking in Brooklyn in different seasons? They were all shot in one day. We had to put a lot of leaves on trees in post production too. Especially in Ireland. We don't have a lot of leaves on trees. We have harsh winters," she said with a chuckle.

Filmmaking in a Cocoon: Room was all about "Creating a cocoon around the creative process. Protecting it so we could make it the way we wanted," said Ed Guiney. It was filmed in sequence. "Not just because we had a young boy, but it's always a much nicer way to make a film," says Guiney. "The first half of the movie in the room is very intense and challenging for the cast so creating an environment where Brie [Larson, star] and Lenny [Abramson, director] and Jacob [Tremblay, star] could work on the story together to give it in the intensity it required" was key. They built the set 3 weeks prior to shooting so that the three could spend time there before the crew moved in. "That was a really precious time I think, where they were able to get to know the set and props. Brie and Jake bonded together and created a magical relationship together. We tried to create this atmosphere that leavened the intensity. So although it was very intense, the atmosphere around the set was kind of familial, warm, and lighthearted. I think it really, really helped. Guiney said they always joke because they thought it would be so easy to make this film since it takes place in one room, when it reality the shoot was not short of complexity. The whole first half of the movie takes place in a 10x10 space. "We had a rule that the lens of the camera would never be outside of the walls of the room, it gave it this intensity."

On Saying "No": Moderator and LA Times film writer John Horn asked what it's like for producers to say No.

Mary Parent: "It's not about saying No. No movie is going to be easy or difficult, there's always going to be challenges. As a producer, you always want to anticipate as many of those as possible. But inevitably stuff happens, and you want to make choices together that protect the film."

Golin: "The most important thing is that we make the best movie we can make. None of us are doing this for money, I can guarantee that. The director is the captain of the ship without question, and usually the producer has to manage that and get them the best movie they can. If it's just about the money and the movie's no good, what's the point of it? It's really about trying to help that filmmaker to make the best film possible."

Dwyer: "I agree. There's always a solution. You reinvent the wheel every time. Every director is different. Every film is different. So much is out of our control. As producers we like to think we are in control of everything but we're not."

On the impact of Nominations and Awards Season:

Ed Guiney: "It has a really big impact on the life of your movie. We went from 80 prints to 800 prints the week after the Oscar nominations came out. And our box office has doubled.  It's a challenging subject matter and its hard to get people to go to the theater and see it. We were really confident that once people engage with the film and see it it’s a really powerful movie and very life affirming movie. Having the recognition has had an incredible impact on our movie and we're incredibly grateful for that."

Mary Parent: "It has for us as well. Having 12 nominations... The academy is a brand and a stamp."

Golin: "I think that's [potential for Oscars] is why a lot of movies get made."

Kleiner: "The academy and the role that they play in society as far as creating a forum and a standard that means something to the world gives films a place in culture."

Oscars so White, Male: John Horn: "How do you guys go about making a wider array of stories so that people can see their stories on film and be validated?"

Kleiner: "It’s not just an important conversation but a necessary one...I think as Alejandro and my business partner said in interviews, the Academy is at the end of a long chain of decision making. As producers, it's our responsibility to pursue a wide range of stories and not have an ideological rigidity about what is gonna work and not work, and not internalize those ideas about what kinds of stories deserve to be told."

Golin: "The whole community needs to look at what the whole world looks like and what America looks like and make movies that are representative of that. This controversy has been a wake up call. It's unfortunate that it takes a controversy to get there but… if the movies themselves are more diverse I think the voting will take care of itself."

Kleiner: "It seems the consequences of not hitting a home run are greater if you’re a female director, minority or person of color. It’s hard as it is to get movies, but there are examples of people where the standard is higher."

On Producing: 

John Horn: "If we run on the assumption that actors get all the glory, directors get all the credit, what do producers get?"

Parent: "I love the process. I love being able to support great artists and the most satisfaction I get is having someone tell me that my support has made a difference, knowing that I’m in there helping towards achieving a goal. I don’t think any of us are glory seekers, I don’t think that's why we do what we do. I think we also get a lot of out of it."

Kliener: "I think it's the greatest job, maybe for a combination of reasons that are not all entirely rational. When I saw Do the Right Thing as a 13 year old...the affect it had on my life  somehow changed the trajectory of what I wanted to do. To be a part of these films that may have an impact on the way people think, and with our film which I think is about values, and what we as a culture value and what our incentive structures are, if that somehow could make its way into someone's mode of thinking, and scramble their brain in such a way where they might make a distinct choice like that, I think we live and hope for those sorts of things happening. That's not rational maybe, but it’s exciting."

Guiney: "I like the company of people in this industry. They’re the people I gravitate to and people whose values I share. I guess it is a very exciting thing to be involved in an enterprise where you take something as wonderful and powerful as Emma Donoghue's book and to try and give cinema-goers a similar experience, to bring that piece of work to a bigger audience and different medium-- that’s been incredibly exciting. I’ve never really worked in another business but I think it’s a business where people are tested, and their loyalties are tested, and their goodness as people is tested, and I think when you really see that, you form very strong bonds with people, and that idea of working in a family really resonated for me in terms of my professional life."

Golin: "For me its about storytelling...finding the story we want to tell, finding the writer, finding the filmmaker, putting the actors together, and the satisfaction of doing that process from the ground up. Generally I get involved in movies from the ground up and see it all the way through the end. In the case of Spotlight we knew it was going to be very difficult movie to get made but we felt it was very important. As I get older I want to much more be involved in movies that have social significance. I don’t really care that much about who gets the credit. The actors and director deserve it; they are the reason movies get made and the ones who do the bulk of the work. But the satisfaction of telling the stories and knowing that it wouldn’t happen without us is enough."

Dwyer: "Working with talented, inspirational people is a privilege. The satisfaction of taking something all the way. It doesn’t get better than that."

Inspiring Words

John Horn: "There are perhaps some aspiring producers in the audience. You’ve made it sound like a pretty decent career. What advice would you offer?"

Parent: "It is the greatest job. But you have to be passionate and you have to believe and you can’t give up. A lot of times making movies, more often than not it will fall apart or it won’t happen...being a dog with a bone... and also work with really talented people. Whether its people that are already successful, or discovering new voices."

Kleiner: "If you feel as if you don’t fit into any other facet of society (a laugh from the crowd) then you’re probably on the right track. Another thing is... it’s a mysterious vocation, the reasons for success are very peculiar and almost don’t obey rational laws. I think we’ve all benefited from fortunes smiling on us in strange ways. The ways that things fall into place are not always clear. There's a lot of emphasis placed on the individual will, and I think that is a strong component of this. The other part is somehow being in alignment with other things like where the culture is going, and what stories seem to be emerging as stories worth telling. The will, but also that humility and receptivity to other factors as well."

Guiney: "Make things. So many people spend so much time talking about making things. I've come up with my contemporaries in college. We were bound by a mutual interest and passion. People think money is the limiting factor in our business, and it is, but in a way the rare thing that’s hardest to find is talent. I almost think of producers as prospectors for talent- the new voices, people with utterly interesting things to say. Something that’s going to stand out. For producers, try to find those people around you who you think have something interesting to say."

Golin: "The most important thing is the story. There’s a lot of money out there frankly. It’s tougher than it used to be, but really its about passion, about what the story is. You have to really be passionate because its not going to be easy. And Jeremy's right sometimes things come together, but its really about being very tenacious, not taking no for an answer, being very thick skinned because generally you’re rejected many many times. It’s about being very patient and very impatient simultaneously. Generally it makes sense to have a few things going at one time. You need tenacity."

Dwyer: "And take risks. With Brooklyn, people said 'Oh we’ve had those: immigration stories,' but I said 'we’ve never had it from a female perspective.' But we really really believed in it. Take risks, don’t take no for an answer... Take risks, its one of the best things you can do."

Tundra Caravan

 Last summer when I directed "Aladdin" in Fairbanks, Alaska, we were very lucky to have a certain middle eastern dance troupe in town choreograph a dance number for us. It added tremendously to the show. Every kid was engaged in the dance. In return for doing us a favor I shot their show at the Tanana Valley State Fair and edited a recap:

2015 in Pictures

in 2015 I...

Rang in the new year with good friends and a tiny dance party.

Ate quinoa for breakfast over the Pacific Ocean.

Completed a year long project: a documentary that tells the story of an affordable housing nonprofit.

Posed nude in the name of art!

Worked with Al Jazeera Plus, sharing a story of a good friend and her bold way of living.

Brought my left brain to post production teams on a few better known projects:

  

                   

Spent my birthday drinking port from a plastic martini glass on the beach.

Worked with my mom professionally.

Worked on the early stages of a documentary about people who believe they are God.

Fell in love with theatre again. Watched some fucking talented brave actors and a director take risks and have fun

Made lots of fake whiskey. Took a photo with Cher.

Fell in love with some big dogs (a palm reader once told me i was a healer of large animals in a past life). I need one.

Explored a tid bit of the ginormous state of Alaska.

Rode through three continental divides, caught a salmon, stood in a glacier.

Rode a moped 5 miles to my job in Alaska.

 (Later found out the muffler was broken that whole time. Got yelled at once for unknowingly having the blinker on too long "Learn how to drive or don't drive at all young lady!")

Taught myself how to teach theatre.

 ...And learned even more from teaching 30 7-12 year olds.

Witnessed a friend since before shirts were necessary start a new chapter.

  

 Directed Aladdin the play!!! It ended in 3 sold out shows.

...Starring 28 12-18 year olds. We borrowed some inspiration from the well known version, and added some of our own flair.

Glamped 2 miles remote.

Lived at three different Los Angeles addresses.

Had Kardashian hair for a day.

Edited a virtual reality video.

Bought a new camera and started learning how to use it.

Sat at a board room table and pitched a documentary project I believe in (fingers crossed..)

Learned the vital Importance of Being Earnest.

Drove to Mexico with this one.

Made a personal story reel of past projects.


Was inspired by: The Revenant, The Big Short, True Detective, Transparent, Bloodline, Chef's Table, Iris, The Act of Kiling, Transparent, Straight Outta Compton, Aziz Ansari, The Measure of All Things, Sam Green's Louis Armstrong Pop Up Magazine piece, Selma.

Swam lots of laps, started meditating, felt freedom on skis again,

 and ended the year with good friends and a tiny dance party.

The Barista Dance!

I learned the barista dance at Deux Gros Nez, a coffee shop in Reno where I worked during the year after high school. It was my first paying job! The "Deux" as we called it is also where I learned the joy of simple things: like the difference a smile, a hello, and a coffee can make in someone's day. I took pride in learning how to make good coffee, knowing that people made a special trip to get one. I learned the meaning of cooking with love: cooking for someone the way you would want to eat it. ( Much to its regulars' chagrin, the Deux is no longer open, though you can find at least a little of its essence over at the new Laughing Planet Cafe, which Deux Chief Tim Healion now runs.) When The Thinking Cup located in Boston handed over footage of one of their baristas at work, knowing the swift and careful moves of a busy barista, I was excited to edit it into a jazzy dance.

Thinking Cup Coffee Shop from lis bartlett on Vimeo.

Speaking of Stumptown coffee, which The Thinking Cup serves, this is one of the best videos I've ever seen. Cheers to you, Trevor Fife.

Real Tips: Ava DuVernay, 2013 Film Independent Forum Keynote Speaker

Last summer I saw Middle of Nowhere and was introduced to Sundance "Best Director" award winner Ava DuVernay at the Los Angeles International Film Festival. Since then DuVernay has directed a 30 for 30 ESPN documentary about Venus Williams, a few delicious kicka** shorts, network series TV, and was recently named director for the upcoming MLK biopic “Selma, among other things. Her keynote speech at Film Independent Forum was an empowering call to action! ...It centered on a metaphor about an old, smelly coat.

DuVernay's talk would not be newsworthy or controversial like Ted Sarando's Netflix talk the day before. However, “This is a tweet-friendly talk,” DuVernay, a longtime grassroots marketer stated up front. “It’s important to share what happens in rooms like these, beyond rooms like these.”

"The cool thing about being in LA is there's so much to get your hands on," says DuVernay. She praised the Film Independent Forum, Film Independent's annual film nerd's dream weekend of panels, screenings, and networking, for the “inquisitive energy that comes when you’re in a room of like-minded people” for that precious period in creativity when you are in "info-gathering mode."

DuVernay's first tip: pay attention to your director's uniform: a thermal, because your shoot always ends up on the coldest day of the year; glasses, for emphasis, and to avoid dry eyes; a hipster t-shirt, film nerd camouflage; and comfortable shoes -- "These shoes are from Rite-Aid." When she's wearing this, DuVernay explained, "I am who I feel I should be, and I’m only able to be that because I took off something three years ago in 2010 that was inhibiting me from being that. And that was my desperation. I wore my desperation like a coat... It was definitely the first thing you saw when you met me.” Duvernay described her desperation coat as an "emotional pain" that was not coming from a place of empowerment.

How does Ava DuVernay know how to identify the coat of desperation? Because she sees it on people she meets every day. “I often meet people who ask,

‘Can you help me?’

‘Can you read my script?’

'Can I take you to coffee?'

...I rarely meet people who tell me what they’re doing. All of that focus on trying to extract from other people is taking away from what you’re doing,” she said. “When I figured that out, things started to change for me.”

…"Guilty," I thought to myself, sitting front row center. After I saw her speak in 2012, I wrote to Ava asking if I could have coffee with her. It was an act of desperation. When she wrote back that she’d love to but was pushing many projects along and didn't have time for everyone who asked for coffee, I realized I would have to create a project of my own so that I had a reason to reach out to her in the first place! DuVernay is a comforting beacon, here to assure us we don't need her for anything.

“All of the time you’re spending trying to get someone to mentor you, trying to have a coffee, trying to-- all of the things that we try to do to move ahead in the industry, is time that you’re not working on your screenplay, strengthening your character arcs, thinking about your rehearsal techniques, setting up a table read to hear the words, thinking about symbolism in your production design, your color palette…Desperation is not active…because all of the so-called action is hinging on someone doing something for you. Does that make sense?” Yes. Audience applause.

Comparison is the worst; an amazing procrastination device. It's easy to look around and think there's always one thing you are lacking and if only you had that you could achieve success. That mindset is desperation."The odds were so against me, doubly so. Being black, being a woman, never having gone to film school...The biggest weapon you have in this new content revolution is what you wear. Are you wearing this coat of desperation or are you wearing your passion on your sleeve? Because one is a repellent, and one is a magnet. One makes you a shadow of yourself, and one enlarges you. Waiting is not doing. So you gotta knock it off...There’s a big difference between being hungry and passionate, and being desperate and depressing."

So, are you wearing a desperation coat? Here’s a test to know: Do you spend more time in the day thinking about how to get what you don’t have, rather than looking at what you have and working with that?

Once DuVernay got active things changed for her. “By not pursuing the other it left me hours and hours and hours to actually create work. This time and energy spent on things you think are going to move you forward when the only thing that moves you forward is your work...I wasn’t desperate anymore because I was making movies.... All of a sudden I was on the 'Yo I'm making films' train...If you channel your desperation towards things that you have, it’s passion. Otherwise it’s stagnation, and it stinks. People don’t want to be around it. Work over other chatter, and leave the nasty coat behind. The desperation reeks off of you, why? Because it’s not a part of you. It’s like a smelly coat you put on yourself. Until you take it off and free yourself it’s going to be very difficult to move forward…. And some of us don’t even know we’re wearing it."

“For a long time I thought people were laughing at me when I said I was a filmmaker. Or I was kind of laughing at myself... Today, I can say I’m a filmmaker. Without being shy about it," DuVernay says. When asked what else she wants to do that she hasn't done yet, she said, "I wanna be a senior citizen. I wanna be Werner Herzog. I just want consistency and longevity.” DuVernay has many more movies to direct.

With that, I'm gonna get to work.



Ava Tips in Summary:

It's okay if you didn’t go to film school. "You just gotta keep educating yourself in other ways." (panels, videos, books...)

Stop asking and start doing. “I have more mentors now since I stopped asking for them. A mentor is someone who cares for you – and you can’t go up to someone and ask them to care for you.”

Failure is awesome. Failure drives change.

Savor every minute of her speech here.

Sorkin Presents NEWSROOM at LA Film Fest

Halfway through the first scene (he writes long scenes) of Sorkin's NEWSROOM I thought, "This show could change the world." I am a Sorkin fan, and an idealist, but that's besides the point. In the same way that THE WEST WING made Americans feel apart of what was happening in Washington, NEWSROOM does too. It takes place in a newsroom in Washington, and not only that but it's set during the real events of the day beginning on April 20, 2010. I feel like this kind of pseudo-inside look on things can only be healthy for people. It's like catharsis or something. When many Americans feel disillusioned, out of touch, and like we have no idea what really goes on in Washington, a well-written, smart dialog that Sorkin himself calls "optimistic and idealistic" of what may or may not have gone down, can inspire us instead of render us apathetic.

 It's quick, smart, passionate, fun, intense, colorful, exciting, and elegant.

Besides making my heart race, the other thing the show did for me is desperately make me want to be a journalist. I know, I kind of am one here, but like a real, newsroom journalist! Inevitably the show will do the same for youngens across the country. With the phrase "journalism is dying" still afloat in our ether it makes me wonder, did Sorkin do this on purpose? Whether or not he meant to Aaron Sorkin wrote a show that makes journalism alive again.

 Funny how great art fuels gratefulness. You can get the same feeling from running really fast and far. That's how I felt while watching this.

A few scenes in I had to know: Mr. Sorkin, WHO ARE YOU? HOW DOES YOUR MIND WORK?

Lucky for me Sorkin came in for a panel with moderator Madeliene Brand, Producer Alan Poul, and Director Greg Mottola.

Here are a few things I learned.

Sorkin has always liked workplace stories, and has thought of live TV as very romantic ever since AMERICAN GRAFFITI. "I like to write a romantic and idealistic style, as opposed to a gritty style," he says.

"It's [NEWSROOM] extremely optimistic and idealistic, and it's meant as more of a painting than a photograph."

Mottola: "One of the things that I really love that Aaron does is he writes long scenes with a lot of shape and change within the scene." Mottola went to film school, and he says they always teach you to "come in late and leave early" in the scene, getting in and out as quick as possible. But that doesn't always allow you to get to the heart of it. "I love the development IN the scene, not just the juxtaposition of scenes" that happens in Sorkin's writing. Sorkin probably writes this way largely because he has a theatre background.

Actors are used to play real people in NEWSROOM. "People don't play themselves because it just jumps out as stunt-casting. There are situations where it works" but not here, says Sorkin.
The show is "incredibly research intensive." "I'm almost always writing about something I don't know about," says Sorkin. Because of that he surrounds himself with experts who can give him crash course tutorials. Sorkin will go to an expert and say, "Tell me what you think." Then he will say, "Tell me what the really smart person in the room who disagrees with you thinks." "Then we take that and try to make it entertaining," says Sorkin.

After the script is written and before it's shot the director has 2 weeks to prep the show. "In between, I rely on Alan and Greg and script editors," says Sorkin. But though they help a lot and make changes, they say the show remains Sorkin. Poul: "There's a very specific musicality to what Sorkin writes. We look at it as a score."

"We always have anxiety about the length of the script, but in Aaron's world it's faster, there's an urgency. There are a lot of smart/ really neurotic people (characters) who have a lot to get off their chest."

To act on the show, you have to know your lines WELL. "They have to be in your bloodstream...It's gotta be like your phone number," says Sorkin.

NEWSROOM confronts a lot of controversial current events. Brand challenged Sorkin about whether he has an agenda with this show. "What are you trying to say with this?"

I mean this: "A good time. That's all I'm going for."

It's a 10 hour story, but Sorkin also set it up as a 3 act structure of a movie.

"I'm not buying your 'just entertaining'..." said Brand.

"I grew up loving the sound of smart people arguing with each other. If I have a skill, it's phonetically imitating that sound," says Sorkin. "Entertaining is my only goal. It's very hard, and it's very gratifying...We are a divided country...It's a Don Quixote story. It's meant to be a swashbuckling fantasy set against the real world."

Don Quixote is to Aaron Sorkin as the Bible is to many. He's always reading it, when he's done he picks it up and starts at the beginning again.

Sorkin finally said this. If anything, NEWSROOM honors the idea that 'fairness and balance = good news' is contrary to good news and democracy. The news should not be: "There's 1 bad thing about a republican and 1 bad thing about a democract," but "There's an empirical right and wrong here and it's OK to say that on the news."

Sorkin agrees with the idea that, "There's nothing more important to a democracy than a well-informed electorate."

Production note: The acting, and energy of the acting dictate what the camera is doing (Rather than a prepared shot list). "We wanted the sense that you are capturing reality. Everything is set up to be live," says Mottola.

Sorkin snuck in during the LA Film Festival showing and sat in the back. "One of the things I hate about TV is I never get to watch it with you," he says.  

On his creative relationship with HBO, Sorkin says they serve largely as script supervisors. And with HBO, "Numbers are less important than how much the people who ARE watching it like it. You are in business with the audience, not with advertisers."