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Screenplay & Film Consulting By Susan Kouguell

Month: December 2018

Susan Kouguell Interviews We the Animals Director and Screenwriter Jeremiah Zagar and Screenwriting Collaborator Daniel Kitrosser

December 28, 2018 / / Comments Off on Susan Kouguell Interviews We the Animals Director and Screenwriter Jeremiah Zagar and Screenwriting Collaborator Daniel Kitrosser

By: Susan Kouguell | December 19, 20182

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In a lively and insightful conversation I spoke with We the Animals Director and Screenwriter Jeremiah Zagarand his screenwriting collaborator Daniel Kitrosser about their new film, which has garnered numerous awards and nominations. We discussed the adaptation process and bringing the novel We the Animals written by Justin Torres to the screen.

About Jeremiah Zagar and Daniel Kitrosser

Co-Writer and Director Jeremiah Zagar

Born to hippie artists, Jeremiah Zagar (Director/Screenwriter) grew up in South Philly spending most afternoons in a dark movie theater or wandering the aisles of his local TLA video store. Later, on trips home from Emerson College, he started filming his parents, resulting in the documentary, In A Dream, which premiered at the SXSW Film Festival and screened theatrically across the US and in film festivals around the world. It was broadcast on HBO, shortlisted for an Academy Award and received two Emmy nominations, including

Best Documentary.” His next feature-length documentary, Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart, premiered in competition at the Sundance Film Festival and aired on HBO to much fanfare in 2014. Other notable output includes the pilot episode for Showtime’s 7 Deadly Sins, and commercial work for GE Capital, Pedigree and New Balance. We The Animals based on the best-selling novel was selected for the Sundance Directing & Screenwriting Lab fellowships, and debuted at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival.

Daniel Kitrosser

Daniel Kitrosser (Screenwriters) is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter, whose plays include The Mumblings, Dead Special Crabs and Tar Baby(Scotman’s First Fringe Award, Amnesty International Citation). For the screen, Dan co-wrote We the Animals(dir. Jeremiah Zagar) and was the script consultant on Night Comes On (dir. Jordana Spiro), both premiering at the Sundance Film Festival 2018. He is currently a TimeWarner 150 Fellow for his television series The Move, about West Philly in the 1980s and is the Artistic Director of Writopia Lab’s Worldwide Plays Festival, a festival of plays by young playwrights from all across the country now in its 8th year.

ABOUT WE THE ANIMALS

SYNOPSIS: Us three. Us brothers. Us kings, inseparable. Three boys tear through their childhood, in the midst of their young parents’ volatile love that makes and unmakes the family many times over. While Manny and Joel grow into versions of their loving and unpredictable father, Ma seeks to shelter her youngest, Jonah, in the cocoon of home. More sensitive and conscious than his older siblings, Jonah increasingly embraces an imagined world all his own.

Based on the celebrated Justin Torres novel, We the Animals is a visceral coming-of-age story propelled by layered performances from its astounding cast – including three talented, young first-time actors – and stunning animated sequences which bring Jonah’s torn inner world to life. Drawing from his documentary background, director Jeremiah Zagar creates an immersive portrait of working-class family life and brotherhood.

MAKING THE FILM

Shot in the summer of 2016 over a 27-day period, the team returned to the location in February 2017 for another six days of shooting for a very specific purpose. “We wanted to see the boys grow up onscreen,” Zagar says. “I wanted their aging to be literal, not acted, and to observe a true passage of time.” (Inserts for the journal were created a few months later, and additional pickups were filmed in December 2017.)

JONAH’S JOURNAL

One of the most unique and most important narrative tools Zagar uses in the film is Jonah’s journal. In a family where complex emotions simply don’t get talked out. Zagar explains: “It’s a device we use to help you understand the private space of this young boy and how he’s processing what he sees. And in this family, in a house that intentionally has no doors – just curtains – there is no privacy. They all live together, they all hear everything. They all feel everything. And even though Jonah desperately wants a private, secret world, the reality of him actually having that is very, very difficult. So, under the bed was our place where he could achieve that private world.”

L to R – Raul Castillo and Evan Rosado

THE ADAPTATION

Their adaptation was, as Zagar states, “a screen translation, not a rewrite of the book. We wanted to remain as true to the book as possible, while making sure it was applicable to the screen.”

There were a few important modifications, the most notable of which was keeping the protagonist at a young age throughout the story, rather than following him until he’s a teenager. The protagonist is also given a name, Jonah, in the film, whereas in the book he is an unnamed narrator, a quiet observer soaking in much more than he can handle. In Torres’s novel, the journal only appears in the last part of the book, when it is discovered by his family. But Zagar and Kitrosser wanted it there to illustrate Jonah’s journey throughout the film. “We wanted to create a device where you understood that Jonah was slowly separating from his family.”

L-to-R-Evan-Rosado-Sheila-Vand-Raul-Castillo

THE INTERVIEW

Kouguell: Tell me about your adaptation process and how you worked together.

Kitrosser: In terms of the adapting process it was a lovely experience. Jeremiah was living in a wonderful apartment, and we would read a chapter from the novel and argue it out, trying to find the cinematic way to tell that story and transfer his lyricism into the screenwriting program Final Draft. Then, I would type it and Jeremiah would make lunch. Over lunch we would discuss the writing and take another stab at it. We would focus on each tile of the mosaic individually and then ask, how do we weave that tapestry together?

Zagar: We got the rights to the novel in 2012. We were rewriting straight through the entire process. We had a greenlit script in three years. Dan was on set during the shoot. There were scenes that had to change once we were on set.

Kouguell: Why was that?

Zagar: It was a low-budget film and there were certain constraints that inhibited the script we wrote. For example, combining two scenes because there wasn’t enough time to shoot both. When it was practical, we had to accommodate.

Kouguell: Let’s talk about your collaboration.

Zagar: Dan is the real writer. And a wonderful playwright. I’m a director, and I understand the visual medium a bit better. We would talk each chapter of the book out, and I would talk about the best way to interpret each scene and Dan would write it. And then Justin would edit it with Dan and we would edit back and forth together. Justin was involved every step of the way. Our objective was to stay true to Justin’s work as best as possible.

Kouguell: What were some of your challenges adapting the book to the screen?

Zagar: The time lapse in the book; Jonah grows much older and condensing that time into one year was a big challenge. The ending had to change dramatically, and we wanted to maintain the intentions of the novel.

Kouguell: How did you develop the voice-over narration and the visual animation?

Kitrosser: It was not in the script come shooting. For me, I had to learn the limits what we could do when shooting; we didn’t have access inside Jonah’s head. We had written in flashes of images in his head, but then watching Jeremiah with the editor and animator, they were able to go deeper by adding the animation.

Zagar: There were text cards in the journal. In the edit, it was supposed to be similar to the style of the Tarnation documentary, but that wasn’t working. We didn’t have access to Jonah’s intimate life, we didn’t want to just use voice-over. The animation was the same thing. We wrote in moments that weren’t coming alive to the mind of the audience, so we had to bring them to life for the audience in the editing process. In the editing process, Justin said the animation was really working, and the voiceover was really working, which was really affirming.

Kitrosser: Jeremiah has a lot of collaborators – his editor, cinematographer; his vision is really clear and it’s wonderful to see how these different marriages come together.

Zagar:  We love to write together. We love working together. The three of us plan to keep working together as long as possible.

Learn more about the film here.

Susan Kouguell Speaks with Patrick J. Don Vito, Editor of Green Book

December 22, 2018 / / Comments Off on Susan Kouguell Speaks with Patrick J. Don Vito, Editor of Green Book

By: Susan Kouguell | December 18, 20182

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The awards buzz is swirling—not to mention some early wins for Green Book, which is currently in theaters. I had the pleasure to speak with editor Patrick J. Don Vito about editing Green Book and his collaboration with director Peter Farrelly.

PATRICK J. DON VITO

Patrick J. Don Vito has been working in Feature Film and TV Picture Editorial for over 27 years. He has worked with directors, including Peter Farrelly, Jon Avnet, Jay Roach, Judd Apatow, Donald Petrie, Steve Brill, and Dennis Dugan, among others. Born in Southern California, he graduated from Chapman University in 1991. During school he focused on editing and immediately afterwards went into the profession. His passion for storytelling has taken him through the world of Features, Episodic Television, TV Movies and Documentary, whilst covering many genres throughout his career. As a classically trained pianist he has also had a few compositions included in projects on which he has worked.

ABOUT THE GREEN BOOK

Academy Award ® nominee Viggo Mortensen (Eastern Promises, The Lord of the Rings trilogy) and Academy Award ® winner Mahershala Ali (Moonlight, Hidden Figures) star in Participant Media and DreamWorks Pictures’ Green Book.  In his foray into powerfully dramatic work as a feature director, Peter Farrelly helms the film inspired by a true friendship that transcended race, class and the 1962 Mason-Dixon line.

When Tony Lip (Mortensen), a bouncer from an Italian-American neighborhood in the Bronx, is hired to drive Dr. Don Shirley (Ali), a world-class Black pianist, on a concert tour from Manhattan to the Deep South, they must rely on the Green Book to guide them to the few establishments that were then safe for African-Americans. Confronted with racism, danger, as well as unexpected humanity and humor—they are forced to set aside differences to survive and thrive on the journey of a lifetime.

THE INTERVIEW

KOUGUELL: What drew you to the project?

DON VITO: I read the script and thought it was amazing, it was one of the best I read. I do a lot of comedy and it had so many different elements in it, which was the challenge of the movie; it was a hybrid of comedy and drama.

KOUGUELL: You’ve worked with Farrelly before on Movie 43.

DON VITO: Yes, and on a pilot that never aired.

KOUGUELL: Tell me about your collaboration with Farrelly.

DON VITO: Working with him is always collaborative. Peter knows what he wants but he’s careful to let you try what you want, to see if that will be a help.

Farrelly knows story really well.  He wanted to be a novelist before he became a director.

DON VITO: It’s interesting how this movie got made. This movie fell into Farrelly’s lap. He ran into Brian Currie—the character actor, and he said he was working on his first script and told Farrelly the idea, and a couple of months later Farrelly asked what was happening with the script about the bouncer, and then he suggested, why don’t you, Nick Vallelonga (Tony Lip’s son), and me start on it? They had a wealth of story to work from, hours of tapes.

Once Pete got involved, he wanted Viggo attached. He sent a wrote a letter and sent it along with the script to Viggo, and said, ‘This is a departure for me, please read the first 20 pages.’ Viggo liked it, and this started the ball rolling.

KOUGUELL: As an editor do you stick close to the screenplay?

DON VITO:  My first pass, I try to stick to the script but along the way and something comes up we will try alternate cuts. There are always little things that you try to fix along the way that you don’t necessarily know until you sit with the audience. Sometimes it’s about trimming, sometimes clarifying an idea, sometimes it’s too clear and needs some mystery. There are always many ways to solve problems, so you have to figure out which will work the best.

KOUGUELL: Let’s talk about the balance between drama and comedy in Green Book and how you worked with Farrelly to create this balance.

DON VITO: The trick of the whole movie was getting that balance right. There was improvisation on the set, the writers were on the set the entire time, too. The stars also would pitch in ideas, so the script would evolve while they were shooting. In the cutting room, I would first cut everything together and then pull out things that weren’t the right kind of joke or didn’t seem to come naturally out of the scene or if it wasn’t the right tone.

KOUGUELL: What’s your reaction to all the awards and recent nominations the film has received?

DON VITO: It’s very cool, better than the opposite! Better than being ignored. I’ll take it. It’s been fun to go to screenings and having people excited.

KOUGUELL: Your advice for aspiring film editors?

DON VITO:  Keep working. Use your instincts and look for stories that you really connect to. It’s been an amazing ride.

Learn more here about the film here.

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Susan Kouguell Speaks with Filmmaker Sam Green About His Live Documentary “A Thousand Thoughts”

December 17, 2018 / / Comments Off on Susan Kouguell Speaks with Filmmaker Sam Green About His Live Documentary “A Thousand Thoughts”

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Susan Kouguell speaks with filmmaker Sam Green about his new project "A Thousand Thoughts." Green performs a live narration on stage throughout the 85-minute piece alongside the Kronos Quartet.

“I’m endlessly interested in live cinema.”

— Sam Green

In early December of 2018, I spoke with filmmaker Sam Green about his new project A Thousand Thoughts. Green performs a live (poignant and often very funny ‘voiceover’) narration on stage throughout the 85-minute piece alongside the Kronos Quartet, who are also performing live on stage and often alongside images of themselves.

Kronos Quartet violinist David Harrington describes the work as “a live documentary”—a film, a concert and lecture.

A Thousand Thoughts is a unique and powerful experience that is not limited to an audience of music lovers or just fans of the Kronos Quartet; its themes are universal and its presentation, captivating.

Sam Green

ABOUT A THOUSAND THOUGHTS

Academy Award®-nominated filmmaker Sam Green (The Weather Underground), in collaboration with Emmy Award®-winning writer and editor Joe Bini (Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, Grizzly Man), takes the stage with the legendary classical-music group, Kronos Quartet, to create a “live documentary” that chronologically unfolds the quartet’s groundbreaking, continent-spanning, multi-decade career.

Wildly creative and experimental in form, A Thousand Thoughts is a meditation on music itself-the act of listening closely to music, the experience of feeling music deeply, and the power that music has to change the world.

Green narrates the piece live onstage while the Kronos Quartet performs the score, and a rich blend of archival footage, photos, and interviews with members of the Kronos Quartet—as well as longtime collaborators like Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, Terry Riley, Tanya Tagaq, Steve Reich—unspools on screen. After premiering at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, A Thousand Thoughts screened at the National Opera House in Athens, Greece, and is touring nationally. It received the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the 2018 San Francisco International Film Festival.

ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

Director, Writer, Editor Sam Green is a New York-based documentary filmmaker. He received his master’s degree in Journalism from University of California Berkeley, where he studied documentary with acclaimed filmmaker Marlon Riggs. Green’s most recent live documentaries include The Measure of All Things (2014), The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller (with Yo La Tengo) (2012), and Utopia in Four Movements (2010). With all of these works, Green narrates the film in-person while musicians perform a live soundtrack. Green’s 2004 feature-length film, The Weather Underground, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, was nominated for an Academy Award, included in the Whitney Biennial, and has screened widely around the world.

Director, Writer, Editor Joe Bini is best known for his long-time collaboration with Werner Herzog. Their work together is comprised of over 20 films in all, including the narrative films Rescue Dawn and The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans and such notable documentaries as Little Dieter Needs to Fly, Grizzly Man, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Into the Abyss, and the 2015 drama, Queen of the Desert. Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, a film that Bini cut and co-wrote, won the Documentary Film Editing Award at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and an Emmy Award for Outstanding Nonfiction Writing. He won the Prix Vulcain De L’Artiste-Technicien at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival for We Need to Talk About Kevin.

ABOUT THE KRONOS QUARTET

For more than 40 years, San Francisco’s Kronos Quartet—David Harrington (violin), John Sherba (violin), Hank Dutt (viola), and Sunny Yang (cello)—has combined a spirit of fearless exploration with a commitment to continually reimagine the string quartet experience. In the process, Kronos has become one of the world’s most celebrated and influential ensembles, performing thousands of concerts, releasing more than 60 recordings, collaborating with many of the world’s most intriguing and accomplished composers and performers, and commissioning over 900 works and arrangements for string quartet. Kronos has received over 40 awards, including the Polar Music and Avery Fisher Prizes, two of the most prestigious awards given to musicians.

THE INTERVIEW

The filmmakers had extensive archival material from which to work, as well as the Kronos Quartet themselves and its former members. During the film, filmmaker Chantal Ackerman’s News from Home (the 1977 avant-garde documentary) is referenced, and how this work captured America unraveling during this era; this reference underscored the historical context that coincided with the 40 years of the Kronos Quartet’s existence and how the history of the past four decades are an integral part of the evolution of the Kronos Quartet as musicians, as well as the music they perform and commission.

KOUGUELL: In A Thousand Pieces you discussed the definition of documentary, and what this film is and isn’t. Please expand on this.

GREEN: There are many different types of documentaries and some subjects are permanent and never changing. There are many reasons I thought the live format would work for this project; experiencing it in person is a completely different thing than just including recorded music.

I generally don’t like music documentaries because they’re so formulaic. Like the “Behind the Music” types; they’re predictable and what I don’t like in that is it’s just a little bit of music, and the music fits into it. (Green laughs) And Kronos was not trashing hotel rooms in the 70s.

In a normal documentary, when you have three minutes of music it’s way too long. In the live format there are no rules, so this form is well-suited, and music is at the heart of it. The live experience is unique and in some ways the form reflects it.

KOUGUELL: How many times have you presented A Thousand Pieces?

GREEN: To date, this project has been performed 15 times. We have fine-tuned things; some small changes. Every show is different based on the size of the room, the time of day, is the audience drinking alcohol, and so on. There are a million intangible things that I like a lot.

KOUGUELL: Let’s talk about your collaborations with Joe Bini and Kirsten Johnson, and the collaboration with the Kronos quartet.

GREEN: Cinematographer Kirsten Johnson and I are old friends. I was floored by her documentary Cameraperson—the sensibility behind it, it was so wise and insightful, and I knew I had to have her on this project.

Joe and I met at a Sundance event, and he was so smart and radical, and we became friends. The editing was challenging and complicated. My collaboration with Joe was one of the best I’ve ever had.

Working with Kronos was great, we interviewed them, and showed them the film at the end.

KOUGUELL: In the film, you mentioned that this film was an “unauthorized biography” of the Kronos Quartet. What was the reaction of the project by the Kronos?

GREEN: We had no rules about what we could include or not include in the documentary. There were some small things they didn’t like; the bigger things like when Harrington talked about losing his son, the quartet doesn’t like sitting through that, they rather not be in that, but they recognize that it’s a big element that evokes something deep and complex.

KOUGUELL: Let’s talk about the writing process and script.

GREEN: We started with the music and created scenes from around the music and pieced together a story. Joe and I wrote the story, we pieced it together with words, images and music. It’s a tech-based piece, and it is a script, and I’ve memorized it.

A funny thing: I’ve never been able to write with someone else, but while Joe and I were working, I said I’d work alone with the first section and he gave me a weird look, and suggested we try it together. It totally worked! I asked him, ‘How do you know how to write voice-over?” and Joe laughed and said: “I worked with Werner Herzog for years.”

Find A Thousand Thoughts upcoming events here.

Susan Kouguell Speaks with “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” Editor Anne McCabe

December 2, 2018 / / Comments Off on Susan Kouguell Speaks with “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” Editor Anne McCabe
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Susan Kouguell speaks with Can You Ever Forgive Me? editor Anne McCabe about her collaboration with director Marielle Heller.

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Anne McCabe

About Anne McCabe

Anne McCabe, editor, started in the cutting rooms of Woody Allen, Brian de Palma and Sidney Lumet. She has collaborated with Director Greg Mottola on several projects, including The Daytrippers, Adventureland, and the award-winning pilot for HBO’s Newsroom. She also worked closely with Kenneth Lonergan on the Academy Award-nominated film You Can Count On Me, and Margaret. Her television credits include Nurse Jackie, Damages, Younger, The Purge and this summer’s HBO’s hit drama Succession. Navigating both drama and comedy, she cut Chris Rock’s acclaimed movie Top Five and is currently editing the untitled Tom Hanks and Matthew Rhys Mr. Rogers movie, also directed by Marielle Heller.

About Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Melissa McCarthy stars as Lee Israel, the best-selling celebrity biographer (and cat lover) who made her living in the 1970’s and 80’s profiling the likes of Katharine Hepburn, Tallulah Bankhead, Estée Lauder and journalist Dorothy Kilgallen.  When Lee found herself unable to get published because she had fallen out of step with the marketplace, she turned her art form to deception, abetted by her loyal friend Jack (Richard E. Grant).

Melissa McCarthy in ‘Can You Ever Forgive Me?’

THE INTERVIEW

I spoke with Anne McCabe by phone for our interview; it was certainly fortuitous timing as McCabe was in the editing room working on her next project with director Marielle Heller on the new (untitled) Tom Hanks film about Mr. Rogers.

Kouguell: Tell me about your collaboration process with Marielle Heller.

McCabe: I was drawn to project because it was a different type of story than we usually see. As an editor I’m told, ‘Can you make this woman more likeable? Does she have to do this terrible thing?’ It was wonderful to work with Mari who was unafraid to make Lee Israel super grouchy, correct people’s grammar, and so on. Lee was a difficult person and not a typical character you often see on film.

Mari is drawn to stories we haven’t seen a million times; even the character of Jack is not one we normally see. Often, we see an English character who is more informed, for example, but Jack is shallow and Lee is smarter than he is.

Interview: I, Tonya Editor Tatiana S. Riegel

Kouguell: How long was the editing process?

McCabe: About 8-9 months.

Kouguell: Did you refer directly to the shooting script?

McCabe: Absolutely. Several people spent an enormous amount of time writing this script, and I try to create as close to it as possible. Occasionally on set lines might drop, but very much what was written, is on the screen.

Before we started shooting we talked about the script, and while Mari was shooting we would discuss scenes, and the story beats. We stayed as close to the script as possible in the first cut of the movie. We did spend a lot of time reshaping the film while staying true to the story.

Kouguell: Were you cutting as they were shooting?

McCabe: Yes. I would cut the dailies the next day. Continuity was often a challenge because they were shooting in New York and there was so much changing weather.

Kouguell: You’ve worked across all genres. Tell me what made this experience unique.

McCabe: It was great to work with a lot of women who are clever and confident. I love that Mari is bold and taking chances. I worked with producer Anne Carey before on Adventureland. Mari and I had a great connection. It was great to also work with Jane Curtain and Anna Deveare Smith.

Jane Campion Talks Top of the Lake, The Piano, Writing and Moviemaking

Kouguell: Let’s talk about your reaction to McCarthy’s dramatic performance.

McCabe: Melissa Mccarthy was fabulous – she’s a beautiful woman in real life, she embraced the ‘not-looking-gorgeous’ in this role. The film starts with a close-up and they put makeup on her to make her look worse, it was a brave thing. Even the cat crap under her bed, she dove in. She embraced this grouchy, difficult person. Lee Israel is complicated, and McCarthy has so much warmth that she brought to the character.

Kouguell: Some final thoughts about the film?

McCabe: I love the fact that the film centers on two gay characters but it’s not a central theme. It’s looming, regarding the AIDS in New York City during this time period. That last scene I was most proud of. We worked hard on that. There were a lot of ways to go. The moment Lee really becomes honest and goes through all the different stages of a relationship. They’re uneasy, there’s humor, sadness. Their lives are so lonely, everyone can relate to that feeling of ‘you don’t fit in.’ Lee gets ignored because people often don’t acknowledge women in their fifties, and it’s the same for Jack. And for each of them, finding that friend.

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