Su-City Pictures East, LLC

Screenplay & Film Consulting By Susan Kouguell

Tag: Tribeca Film Festival

Susan’s Interview with “No Ordinary Life” Filmmaker Heather O’Neill

Defining History ‘No Ordinary Life’ Interview With Documentary Filmmaker Heather O’Neill

“Cynde, Maria, Jane, Mary and Margaret took the images that defined history for their generation, yet their own stories have not been told, until now. The shifting scenes between the inhumanity and beauty they filmed, woven with their moments of humor, illustrate how they tried to cope with all they were witnessing. The wars and crises they covered produced images that can be difficult to watch, so I strived to create a balance of stories and images.” – Heather O’Neill

JUN 25, 2021

No Ordinary Life. Photo courtesy Array Films.
No Ordinary Life. Photo courtesy Array Films.

The feature documentary No Ordinary Life had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival during which I had the opportunity to speak with Heather O’Neill about her film and her passion to bring the lives of five extraordinary women from behind the camera to the screen.

About “No Ordinary Life”

In a field dominated by men, five pioneering photojournalists Mary Rogers, Cynde Strand, Jane Evans, Maria Fleet and Margaret Moth went to the frontlines of wars, revolutions and disasters. They made their mark by capturing some of the most iconic images from Tiananmen Square, to conflicts in Sarajevo, Iraq, Somalia and the Arab Spring uprising. In the midst of unfolding chaos, their pictures both shocked and informed the world.

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

Heather O’Neill is an Emmy® and Peabody Award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker. She produced the feature documentary Help Us Find Sunil Tripathi, and with CNN Presents, the award-winning documentary series, Heather directed and produced more than 20 projects around the world.

KOUGUELL: One poignant theme of the film was the idea of bearing witness.

O’NEILL: The genesis behind the film is that I wanted to show the world what these women experience. So often we generally don’t think about who is behind the camera. What motivated me to become a journalist was watching the protest in Tiananmen Square, and 20 years later I would meet Cynde Strand,, who was one of the photographers who stayed the night of the crackdown; I had never imagined at a young age that it was a woman behind the camera.

I wanted to make a film that allowed the audience to be immersed in their experience; the sights and the sounds of what was coming next. These women were incredibly driven, incredibly professional and their singular job was to bear witness and go to these conflicts and uprisings and revolutions to document what was happening and that was the main driver to go into these harrowing situations.

[The Making of an Icon ‘Lady Boss: The Jackie Collins Story’]

KOUGUELL: The camerawomen also talked about the female perspective in their work.

O’NEILL: They bristled at the question of ‘did you approach your stories differently as a woman?’ and I expected that and that’s fine. When we looked at some of their footage together, I noticed a bit of difference; there was a bit more intimacy or an instant rapport. Perhaps women are less threatening to certain subjects or in some cultures it’s more appropriate for a woman to approach another woman. I noticed a subtle difference in how they approached their filmmaking.

No Ordinary Life. Photo courtesy Array Films.
No Ordinary Life. Photo courtesy Array Films.

KOUGUELL: In an age when the media is often negatively portrayed by politicians and pundits, this film underscores the importance of storytelling.

O’NEILL: Yes. This was an untold story and that is what really drew me to it. Once I got to know these women and heard their stories collectively, I thought wow, you’ve been

told the history of your generation. I wanted to share their story. I didn’t grow up knowing super successful female photographers and in my career at CNN I would rarely see camerawomen and I felt it was a powerful story that needed to be told.

KOUGUELL: Tell me about the evolution of the project. Did you know the women beforehand?

O’NEILL: I first met Mary in Baghdad in 2006 and was struck by her tenacity and what an incredible professional and journalist she was. I worked with some of these women when I was at CNN. About four years ago I decided this would be a great story to do now. I think women’s stories are still somewhat untold and I think that’s changing, which is encouraging,

We approached all of them and talked about the footage shot and began to record their stories and developed that level of trust which is critical for a documentary director; people have to trust you to tell their story. They slowly began dropping off tapes to me. They had an incredible library of tapes, which told me that this just wasn’t an accident that someone decided to tell their story. I began the two-year process of screening the tapes along with my co-producer. The story began to come together. We interviewed with them, we filmed with them, and the scripting began.

KOUGUELL: When you planned out this documentary, did you work from an outline or any particular source material?

O’NEILL: For any documentary that I create I usually write a treatment, which you use to pitch when trying to get funding for a film. It is also my road map of where I knew I wanted to go. That was the first process, to have the story laid out in a three-to-five page treatment, and go on to do the pre-interviews with these women over Skype and over the phone, and begin to understand from their storytelling and for me, where we wanted to go with the narrative. We decided that we would weave the stories that they shot with their own backstories of behind the camera of what they were going through when they were actually filming.

KOUGUELL: Was there any reluctance from the camerawomen to speak with you?

O’NEILL: They are an incredibly humble group of women. I always wonder if it were a group of men, if it would be different. They witnessed a lot of difficult things and it was challenging at times to get them to talk about how they were feeling emotionally because there’s a little bit of guilt associated with being a journalist and being able to leave a situation where you know people can’t. They began to understand that we (the audience) have to understand their characters as human beings, too, not just journalists.

KOUGUELL: Advice for aspiring documentarians?

O’NEILL: Make your film, don’t wait for permission. If you have a story to tell, you’ll find a way to tell it. Getting this film made had its challenges. It’s a very long road and you have to be prepared to field a lot of nos. You’ll be surprised how many people want to help and be supportive. 

Susan’s Interview with Filmmaker Laura Fairrie. The Making of an Icon ‘Lady Boss: The Jackie Collins Story’

“I loved the idea of making a film that could intertwine fact and fictional storytelling, and through the spinning together of the two, arrive at an authentic portrait of a woman who often shared her most private self in her fictional writing.” – Laura Fairrie

SUSAN KOUGUELL

Photo courtesy AGC Studios
Photo courtesy AGC Studios

Lady Boss: The Jackie Collins Story tells the untold story of the ground-breaking author who sold more than half a billion copies of her 32 novels in more than 40 countries, eight of which have been produced as movies. Narrated by a cast of Collins’ closest friends and family, the film reveals the private struggles of a woman who became an icon of 1980s feminism whilst hiding her personal vulnerability behind a carefully crafted, powerful, public persona.

I had the pleasure to speak with director Laura Fairrie at the Tribeca Film Festival about bringing the Jackie Collins story to the screen, and the surprises she discovered along the way.

Laura Fairrie is a British documentary director whose credits include ‘Spiral’, ‘The Battle for Barking’ and ‘Taking on the Tabloids’. Previously Laura worked as a current affairs journalist and producer in the UK, Northern Ireland, China and America making special reports and documentaries for BBC Newsnight, BBC2, Channel 4 News and Channel 4.

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

KOUGUELL: How did this film evolve?

FAIRRIE: Ipreviously made films about tough subjects and in quite dangerous places and often I felt scared on shoots. I wanted to start making films with female perspectives. I was going into meetings, saying I wanted to make a film about a fabulous woman, and I don’t know who that is. Producer John Battsek and I had done another project together before, and he said, strange you should say that because I just had this project land on my desk; Collins’s daughters had contacted me. I said amazing, she was my sex education teacher; I had read her books as a teenager, hid her books under my desk in school. I was excited to learn who the persona was behind her work, what drove this woman to write the books she did, and what drove her to be the businesswoman she was.

KOUGUELL: You were interested in making a film that could intertwine fact and fictional storytelling. Please delve into that more.

FAIRRIE: I was interested in making a film about Jackie Collins that was really surprising and not superficial. I was excited by the idea of being able to intertwine her fictional writing with her factual story and arrive at a deeper understanding of who she was through the books that she wrote. Once I started reading her books again, I discovered that there was so much of her own life and experiences and that her authentic voice was actually in her fictional writing.

[INTERVIEW: “Acasa, My Home” Documentary Filmmaker Radu Ciorniciuc]

KOUGUELL: How did you establish trust with your interviewees?

FAIRRIE: I’m always genuine in my motivations for making my films so the conversations I had with people were always very upfront from the start. To do her justice we really needed to show Jackie in all her vulnerabilities and complexities and show the side of her in her own life that she didn’t often share with people. Her friends and colleagues all really loved and respected her and once I spoke to them about it, they all pretty much signed up for it and wanted to tell their version about Jackie.

KOUGUELL: Do you work from a treatment or outline? What’s your process?

Laura Fairrie
Laura Fairrie

FAIRRIE: I start with creative ideas, and a vision and tone of the film I want to make. I’ll often watch movies for reference and for this film I watched , I Tonya, Joy, and To Die For. There were things in those films that were useful for me, and a creative starting point. I loved that idea of narrative films borrowing from documentaries and documentary films borrowing from narrative films.

There were 4,000 pieces of archives, not to mention Jackie’s fictional books and her letters, diaries, Jackie kept everything — photographs, home video footage, there was a huge amount of material to extract a story from. I sat down with her daughters and went through Jackie’s life from beginning to end. From that I wrote a story beats document so I knew when I went into the interviews, I could be specific about what I needed from each person.

I had this idea that in its simplest form, it was the story of a storyteller I would always say to the cast of characters who were essentially the narrators of the film, please just tell stories, let’s make these about storytelling, tell me your tales about Jackie.

[INTERVIEW: ‘Son of the South’ Writer/Director Barry Alexander Brown]

KOUGUELL: There is fascinating archival footage included in the film. Let’s talk about how you gained access to this and how you approached choosing what to include.

FAIRRIE: Jackie’sdaughters gave me access. When Jackie died, they couldn’t believe what she left behind. For them it felt like she left behind the untold story she hadn’t managed to tell in her own life. They felt they wanted to tell it for her. They were incredible about giving me access to the most personal and private information and trusting me with it. It was a beautiful process working with them.

KOUGUELL: Advice for documentary filmmakers

FAIRRIE: Follow your instincts. Don’t be disheartened starting at the bottom and working your way up. You can shoot your own films. I started off with just me and a camera, I did all the sound, and I would immerse myself in stories. I loved the freedom of that, and I learned so much about storytelling and about connecting with people from all walks of life in all places. 

Lady Boss: The Jackie Collins Story airs on CNN Films in late June and on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer later this year.

Susan Kouguell Interviews 19-Year-Old Tribeca Film Festival Winning Burning Cane Filmmaker Phillip Youmans

Susan Kouguell interviews 19-year old Phillip Youmans about his journey as a writer and filmmaker, and bringing Burning Cane to the screen.

Click to tweet this interview to your friends and followers!

I recently had the pleasure to speak with Phillip Youmans about his journey as a writer and filmmaker, and bringing Burning Cane to the screen.  The film was featured at the Urbanworld Film Festival in September in Manhattan, which I attended and I was excited when our schedules finally synched up and we could talk.

Written, directed, shot, and edited by Phillip Youmans during his final years of high school Burning Cane tells the story of a deeply religious woman’s struggle to reconcile her convictions of faith with the love she has for her alcoholic son and a troubled preacher. Set in rural Louisiana, the film explores the relationships within a southern black protestant community, examining the roots of toxic masculinity, how manhood is defined and the dichotomous role of religion and faith.

Burning Cane won the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival for Best Narrative Feature, Best Actor (Wendell Pierce) and  Best Cinematography.

Phillip Youmans

PHILLIP YOUMANS (Writer/Director/Cinematographer/Producer/Editor) is from the 7th Ward of New Orleans. Before high school, Phillip began writing, directing, shooting, and editing his own short films. During his high school years at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA), Phillip solidified his technical foundation of filmmaking in their media arts program. Phillip’s most recent video installation titled Won’t You Celebrate with Me premiered through Solange Knowles’ creative agency Saint Heron at the end of his senior year of high school; the installation is a showcase of black female unity in a non-material, alternative future.

His latest short film NAIROBI, also made with Saint Heron, about a Harlem-based family of francophone West-African immigrants, will premiere on their platform in 2019. Phillip is in postproduction on his short documentary about the Grammy-nominated jazz musician Jon Batiste titled The Vanguard: Days with Jon Batiste.

KOUGUELL: The film has a very poetic quality. There isn’t that much dialogue. Tell me about the writing process.

YOUMANS: I had gone through the script and it had a lot of dialogue; it was explaining too much. The first pass was to see what we communicated through action lines and then I began axing dialogue from there. I approached it with that lens. So much of the crafting and staying within those moments were found during the editing process. During editing there was still too much talking; it was too exposition heavy. It didn’t drop us into the world, it over-explained the world.

Burning Cane began as the short film The Glory that Youmans penned in November 2016, in his junior year of high school. During this time, Youmans began working at Morning Call Coffee Stand in New Orleans City Park to raise money to shoot the short.

The original short screenplay featured most of the same key characters as Burning Cane: Reverend Tillman, Helen Wayne, and Daniel Wayne. Akin to Burning CaneThe Glory followed a protestant woman as she deals with an unexpected visit from her estranged son.

Wendell Pierce

KOUGUELL: How did the The Glory evolve into this feature?

YOUMANS: The short film was very centered on the two pillar characters — Helen, living in isolation and surviving independently, and her son randomly appearing.  In the feature I wanted to give more backstory to the characters.

When Wendell Pierce came on board, it changed everything. One, he’s a phenomenal actor and two, I was able to expand the role of Pastor Tillman.  His character is in a mayoral position, and what he’s preaching he doesn’t believe in; all that was built upon after the prospect of Wendell being attached came to fruition.

KOUGUELL: Given your age, were there naysayers that said you couldn’t make this happen?

YOUMANS: There were a couple of local filmmakers in New Orleans that I volunteered on their sets who thought it was a monstrous undertaking and not possible to do this and raise the money. But, I was working with people who were my friends and didn’t care about getting paid. They wanted to be on set. A lot of people’s reservations were valid but my situation was different. I went to NOCCA;  we had a full sound stage, mixing room, great cameras and audio gear and a crew of people that I would have been hanging out with regardless of making this film.

KOUGUELL: What questions do you wish people would ask you about your film and your journey?

YOUMANS:: What it’s like submitting a film to a festival. Letting it go after investing so much energy. After so much time and hours, donated hours, I wanted the film to be seen, I wanted people to connect to the work, I wanted it to resonate with the world. The process was tough. My mother said, ‘Let it go, you can’t keep on it forever.’

When I first made the film, the first cut was three hours; the script was 80 pages. The first cut was me being too attached to the material, I overindulged.  I got feedback and listened, and took it into consideration. The feedback sessions changed the whole game.

KOUGUELL: Advice for aspiring writers and directors?

YOUMANS: When I was younger I thought I needed to be in New York or Los Angeles to make a name for myself and find a story. But, falling back into my roots, into the world I knew and people I was familiar with, I gave an authentic perspective and unapologetic statement on my work.

My advice — fall back into the things you really know and what means something to you. People are very interested in a story that we haven’t spoken about in a new way before. The only way to bring in a new perspective is if it’s coming from you with authenticity and from whatever you can honestly speak on.

Burning Cane opens in theaters in New York City October 25, and November 8th in Los Angeles.  It will be released on Netflix  November 6th.

Tribeca Film Festival: A Conversation with Acclaimed Writer/Director Andrea Arnold (for INDIEWIRE)

Andrea Arnold
Andrea Arnold

Tribeca Film Festival: A Conversation with Acclaimed Writer/Director Andrea Arnold

by Susan Kouguell

At the Tribeca Talks series at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival, filmmaker Ira Sachs (“Love is Strange”) interviewed U.K. writer and director Andrea Arnoldabout writing, filmmaking, and surrendering.

In 2005 Arnold’s short film, Wasp, earned an Academy Award. She also received two BAFTA awards and two jury prizes at Cannes, as well as a multitude of festival accolades for her films, “Milk,” “Dog,” “Red Road,” “Fish Tank” and “Wuthering Heights.” On television she has directed two episodes of “Transparent.” Arnold’s latest film, “American Honey” starring Shia LaBeouf and Riley Keough (recently acquired by A24) about a crew of teens who sell magazines across the Midwest is her first to be filmed in the U.S. “American Honey” is one of just three films from female directors in the 2016 Cannes Film Festival’s main competition and one of two from the U.K.

American Honey
“American Honey”

On Filmmaking

In Andrea Arnold’s films many of the actors are non-actors and they employ street casting.

Sachs: The shooting process has surprises, dangers, and risks.

Arnold: I love that. It brings life. I don’t like knowing everything that’s going to happen on the shoot.

Sachs:  What frightens you in filmmaking?

Arnold: I like the obstacles. In the last one (‘American Honey’), I think I pushed it. It was very tough, there were days I had scenes with loads of non-actors, and there were a few days I really pushed it.  What are you frightened of?

Sachs: I’m burdened by everything.

Arnold: The money?

Sachs: Yes, the money. It’s fear and fearlessness.  You navigate between the two; I don’t panic in it.

Arnold: I remember before starting the film, I was taking a lot of risks that definitely entered my head. I try not to let the money stop me, you worry too much then you don’t push it. I do feel responsible for the money.

Sachs: Do you think your
filmmaking has changed?

Arnold: I feel like the last
film I made was the most me I’ve ever been. I trusted myself totally, the most
I’ve ever done. In that way it has changed.

About Screenwriting

Sachs: How do your ideas
for film begins?

Arnold: Usually what starts
driving me is an image I have that won’t go away.  For ‘Fish Tank’ I had
an image of a girl pissing on the floor in someone’s house, it wasn’t her
house. And I thought ‘What is this girl doing?’ and then I start thinking about
what that means and who she is, where she comes from, why she’s doing that, and
so I start a mind map.  

Surrendering

ArnoldSometimes when
you’re filmmaking things don’t always go the way you were expecting.  You know, I have such a beautiful
vision in my head in my head before the shoot, and then we get there and of
course it’s different.

On Improvising

Sachs: With your
screenplays, does the dialogue or the action ever change when you’re
shooting?  Is there any
improvisation?  How concerned are
you with preserving what you’ve written?

ArnoldI always have this
romantic idea about improvising but then we go on set and there’s no time to
get the same coverage. I think it’s sometimes valuable when you have scenes
that might not be working. And this last film (‘American Honey’) we did more
than normal. I let them put in some of their own words but it’s definitely my
story but they did do it in their own kind of way.

Sachs: I never liked
improvisation. I want it restrained.

Using Film

Arnold: We did start with
film, but it was way too difficult; we had to keep changing magazines. I like
film a lot.  Somebody said the other day, which I thought was a very good
way of describing it; “When you see a shot of a man in an empty room, on video,
you think someone has left the room, and when you see it on film, you think
someone is about to come in.” There’s nothing like film.

On Rehearsing

Sachs: Do you give actors
the whole script? Rehearse?

Arnold: I haven’t rehearsed
in a long time. I don’t like to rehearse. In ‘Fish Tank’ I gave them pages once
a week and they learned it bit by bit. On this last one, ‘American Honey’ I
gave them pages every day — they didn’t know what was coming!

Final Words

Sachs: Advice for first-time directors?

ArnoldBe yourself. There’s
only one of you. Be unique, trust that.

READ MORE HERE

CONVERSATION WITH ANDREA ARNOLD AT TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL for SCRIPT MAGAZINE

 

CONVERSATION WITH ANDREA ARNOLD AT TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL | Script Magazine #scriptchat #screenwriting

Conversation with Writer and Director Andrea Arnold at the Tribeca Film Festival

Filmmaker Ira Sachs (Love is Strange) interviewed writer and director Andrea Arnold at the Tribeca Talks series at the Tribeca Film Festival. Their lively discussion highlighted Arnold’s auteur viewpoint of filmmaking and some of her unconventional approaches to narrative screenwriting and filmmaking.

In 2005 U.K. born Andrea Arnold’s short film, Wasp, earned Arnold an Academy Award. She has also acquired two BAFTA awards and two jury prizes at Cannes as well as a multitude of festival accolades for her films, Milk, Dog, Red Road, Fish Tank and Wuthering Heights. On television she has directed two episodes of Transparent. Arnold’s latest film, American Honey, starring Shia LaBeouf and Riley Keough, was recently acquired by A24, about a crew of teens who sell magazines across the Midwest, is her first to be filmed in the U.S. American Honey is one of just three films from female directors in the 2016 Cannes Film Festival’s main competition and one of two from the U.K.

ON INSPIRATION

“As a kid I was always writing stories.  I’m inspired by things that I see every day. Sitting on a bus.  Someone walking up a path, and I could see her back and I start thinking about her.  I invent a whole story about her life.  Usually what starts driving me is an image I have that won’t go away.

I use a mind map.  It organizes my thoughts. I start with images and then piece it together. And then when I have a rough idea I start writing. “

WRITING “FISH TANK”

“I had an image of a girl pissing on the floor in someone’s house; it wasn’t her house. And I thought, ‘What is this girl doing?’ and then I start thinking about what that means and who she is, where she comes from, why she’s doing that, and so I start a mind map.  I start with that and think how to build from there.  I wrote the full script before the Fish Tank star was found. I cast quite close to what I saw. She fit in exactly what I envisioned.  The script didn’t change that much after that.”

GETTING SCREENPLAY FEEDBACK

“Sometimes I don’t want to hand it over but I actually got better at it and I do love getting feedback. It’s usually from the people who funded it; they are great people, really supportive and really do want to help. Sometimes I give it to people like a friend of mine who’s a painter — people I trust who understand what it means to make something. We have loads of screenings, literally inviting people off the streets to get feedback. It’s good to know what’s working and what’s not working.”

‘AMERICAN HONEY’

ARNOLD: “The idea for the American Honey script came about when somebody gave me an article from the New York Times about the subculture of kids selling magazines; it had huge resonance for me. It wasn’t the story in the article, it was just the world, and from that moment on I wanted to do it.

I did six or seven road trips here driving by myself so I could make the emotional connection with America; emotionally connecting to what I was going to do. I had a fantastic amazing crew. It was adventurous. We did a real road trip with the crew, and cast mostly unknowns.  We stayed in the same motels. Some of the poverty really shocked me.  Some of the towns, one I went through in the South, I was quite upset by what I saw.”

IRA SACHS:  “It’s interesting you talk about poverty because in your films one of the things so powerful in your films is the depiction of class and certain people you don’t often see in a lot of American cinema. I’m curious if you see intention between your subject and your audience, because your audience is primarily arthouse as is mine, and somehow there might be a disconnect between the viewer and the subjects.”

ARNOLD: “I want to show it. I’m always hoping for more compassion for the people I’m showing. You’re right; a lot of people I make films about don’t see my films.  When writing it, I’m aware of it.  I’m not trying to please anyone.”

More articles by Susan Kouguell

 

READ MORE HERE