Su-City Pictures East, LLC

Screenplay & Film Consulting By Susan Kouguell

Month: August 2019

Susan’s INTERVIEW: Creators and Cast of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

August 27, 2019 / / Comments Off on Susan’s INTERVIEW: Creators and Cast of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

By: Susan Kouguell | August 22, 201948

Interview with the creators and cast members of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel talking about the writing and the resonant characters brought to the screen.

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Tony Shalhoub, Caroline Aaron, Alex Borstein, Daniel Palladino, Amy Sherman-Palladino, Rachel Brosnahan, Michael Zegen, Kevin Pollak, and Marin Hinkle attend the Making Maisel Marvelous featuring Amazon Prime Original The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel at The Paley Center for Media (Photo by Lars Niki/Getty Images for Amazon Studios and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel)

At the opening of the interactive exhibit Making Maisel Marvelous at the Paley Center for Media, I had the opportunity to speak with the creators and cast members of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Our focus was on the writing of the series and the resonant characters brought to the screen. The show recently received 20 Emmy Award nominations, more than any other comedy, including nominations for Outstanding Comedy Series.

About The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

In 1958 New York, Midge Maisel’s life is on track—husband, kids, and elegant dinners in their Upper West Side apartment. But when her life takes a surprise turn, Midge has to quickly decide what else she’s good at—and going from housewife to stand-up comic is a wild choice to everyone but her.

Interview Highlights

Alex Borstein and Rachel Brosnahan (Photo by Lars Niki/Getty Images for Amazon Studios and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel )

Kouguell: What initially attracted you to the material and the role of Midge Maisel?

Rachel Brosnahan :  I knew I wanted to do this project from the bottom of the first page. The first scene of the pilot, at the wedding, Midge is really patting herself on the back. I loved how sure she is. I loved her world. I loved how unburdened she is. She’s funny. She’s smart. She’s flawed. She’s selfish. She believes she’s the center of the universe. We’re watching her grow and getting taken down a peg.

Kouguell: Some of the choices Midge makes are nontraditional for that era, and perhaps some might even consider for now. What’s your take on some of the criticism about Midge’s character regarding her mothering?

Brosnahan: I find some of that criticism valid at times but also frustrating. The kids have two loving parents, four loving grandparents. They have a village, including a nanny who is devoted to them. They have a mother who’s not always around; she’s pursuing her dream and as a result, is asking their father to step up, asking the neighbors to step up, and asking the grandparents to step up and help raise them. The kids aren’t wanting for anything.

I was asked once in an interview if I thought Midge loved her children, and Alex Borstein (Susie) turned around and said, “Well, do I not, not love my children because I’m here doing press and I feel the same.”

I get frustrated when people say that it feels like lazy writing as opposed to attributing it to her character; she’s not a perfect 1950s ideal of a doting mother that we’re used to seeing on television. In a show like this, I appreciate the idea of what a good mother could be—someone who is out to provide for her children, looking to make herself satisfied, and to grow. I don’t know what part of that makes Midge a bad person.

Kouguell: What drew you to the character of Susie Myerson?

Alex Borstein: I was on my way out of the country when Amy (Sherman-Palladino) said, ‘I have this part I want you to audition for.’ So, I read it and I said, ‘Oh damnit it, it’s so great, how do I not do this?’ I like playing characters with a unique voice and Susie’s got that. I like playing people who are dissatisfied and angry, there’s some joy in that for me. Someone who’s battling uphill. And Susie is all of that, a perfect storm of what I want in a character. She is strong yet incredibly vulnerable and that’s hard to find in female characters. Susie’s really fun to play, and I get to wear flat shoes.

The way that Amy envisions things is extremely thorough. She uses as many words as she can in any given sentence. It’s really challenging to memorize it all sometimes, to find a pattern that feels somewhat theatrical yet somewhat believable. Her material is theatrical in a sense, in a good way. It feels like a Katherine Hepburn-Cary Grant relationship between Midge and Susie sometimes. It’s fun to have it feel like a game, but you want to find the truth in it, the reality. That’s always the challenge but that’s what’s fun about this material.

Kouguell: The relationship between Susie and Midge continues to be realistic, unpredictable, and not stereotypical.

Borstein:  Yes!  It’s a love story. A platonic love story. You rarely get to see a good one of those regardless of gender. It’s more interesting in a way because you don’t have this, ‘Will they, won’t they’ type of element that you would have with a Kathrine Hepburn-Cary Grant comedy or Bruce Willis and Cybil Shepherd—remember Moonlighting? Those kind of shows and films where you’re always teetering on that ‘will they won’t they?’ and this is not what it’s about. It’s: Will Midge trust Susie with her career? Will Susie trust Midge to give up everything at the Gaslight and really move forward and just focus on her? It’s terrifying but that’s what makes it fun for both characters.

Kevin Pollak, Michael Zemen, Carolyn Aaron. (Photo by Lars Niki/Getty Images for Amazon Studios and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel )

Kevin Pollak: (Moishe Maisel) As a proud member of the WGA since 1987, I love Script magazine!  Everything starts on the page and in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel the subject matters and the relationships jump off the page. I’ve never personally played a loud obnoxious Jewish man, which is a weird irony, starting out as a stand-up comedian and then becoming somewhat of a loud obnoxious Jew in my real life. The show continues to raise the bar and then top it.

Kouguell: Joel’s character, Midge’s husband, is not the stereotypical antagonist. He’s empathetic; he’s both sympathetic and unsympathetic.

Michael Zemen: When I read the pilot I thought he was going to be the villain, but as the season progressed, there was a peeling away of layers, and I realized he’s not the villain, he’s a human being who’s made some mistakes. That’s what I love about him; there are so many layers to him. It’s apparent that he’s a good guy, he’s a good father, and he does care for Midge. I don’t feel bad for him; he did this to himself.  At the same time, he was the catalyst for Midge to pursue her stand-up career and without him she wouldn’t have discovered her secret talent.

Carolyn Aaron: I play Shirley Maisel, not the Marvelous one, but the other Mrs. Maisel. Joel’s mother. I have a daughter who watched Gilmore Girls incessantly. When my agent called me about auditioning for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, I said you know my status with my daughter is going to be incredible.

We talked about our respective 20-something daughters growing up watching Gilmore Girls, and how Carolyn Aaron was struck by the unique mother-daughter relationship portrayed in that series, and the humorous yet realistic portrayal of the family relationships in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

Marin Hinkle and Brosnahan. (Photo by Lars Niki/Getty Images for Amazon Studios and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel )

Marin Hinkle and I talked about the choices Rose (Midge’s mother) makes to seek more independence, pursuing her own goals and dreams outside of her marriage, and a voice within her marriage. Hinkle stated: “There are few roles out there for women (air quotes) of a certain age, and one that is so complex like this one.”

The Creators

Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino . (Photo by Lars Niki/Getty Images for Amazon Studios and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel )

Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino serve as showrunners, executive producers, and have directed and penned most of the episodes. The show was inspired by Ms. Sherman-Palladino’s upbringing.

Sherman-Palladino: We have complete creative control. That’s the only way we’ve done things ever. We had complete creative control over Gilmore Girls because they kind of forgot we were there.

We talked about the layered characters in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which each of the actors with whom I interviewed, marveled and admired.

Daniel Palladino: That was the goal, to have multi-dimensional characters who had depth.

Kouguell: What advice can you give to writers trying to break into the business?

(There was a beat and then the three of us chuckled, saying “OYE” in unison, like right out of an episode from Gilmore Girls—for fans of that show, we did not add the infamous phrase: “…with the poodles already” though I whispered it under my breath.)

Palladino: There are a lot of hurdles. Stay true to your core. Even if they (executives) are happy, the audience won’t like it. They’ll sniff it out. The audience has the final say.

Sherman-Palladino: You got to keep remembering why you love the project in the first place. The deeper down the rabbit hole you go, the more people that chime in, the more people who have ideas, good, bad or indifferent, you got to keep remembering why you love the project.

The exclusive New York engagement of Making Maisel Marvelous is free and open to the public and will run at the Paley Center for Media August 10 through September 6.

Season 3 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel will air on Amazon Prime at the end of 2019.

Susan Kouguell Speaks with “The Farewell” Editor Matthew Friedman

August 27, 2019 / / Comments Off on Susan Kouguell Speaks with “The Farewell” Editor Matthew Friedman

Susan Kouguell speaks with Matthew Friedman about his work on The Farewell and his collaboration with Lulu Wang on their third film together, and his editing philosophies.

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“Every frame matters”

— Matthew Friedman

Writer and director Lulu Wang’s The Farewell opened with a limited release on July 12, yielding the best platform opening of the year, and continues to maintain a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Now, in just over a month of its release, this low-budget independent film continues to average at number 7 at the crowded summer box office of big budget studio films.  If numbers are any indicator, audiences have a strong desire for poignant, character-driven stories, and The Farewell is just the proof to build such a case.

About The Farewell

In this funny, uplifting tale based on an actual lie, Chinese-born, U.S.-raised Billi (Awkwafina) reluctantly returns to Changchun to find that, although the whole family knows their beloved matriarch, Nai-Nai (grandma), has been given mere weeks to live, everyone has decided not to tell Nai herself. To assure her happiness, they gather under the joyful guise of an expedited wedding, uniting family members scattered among new homes abroad. As Billi navigates a minefield of family expectations and proprieties, she finds there’s a lot to celebrate: a chance to rediscover the country she left as a child, her grandmother’s wondrous spirit, and the ties that keep on binding even when so much goes unspoken.

Matt Friedman

I had the pleasure to speak with Matthew Friedman about his work on The Farewell and his collaboration with Wang on their third film together, and his editing philosophies.

About Editor Matthew Friedman

Matthew Friedman has edited features around the world and has credits in numerous genres, including Alvin And The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, the 3D dance movie Step Up Revolution, the comedy What Happens In Vegas, the Netflix original film Step Sisters, and several pilots, including the pilot for the series The Loop. His most recent credits include Posthumous and Life In A Year. He edited the short film Dog Food, which premiered at SXSW and won San Diego Comic-Con’s Best Horror/Suspense Film Award. He has worked with directors and producers, including Betty Thomas, Shawn Levy, Andrew Lazar, Adam Shankman, Karen Rosenfelt, Jenno Topping, and Charles Stone III. Friedman has collaborated with Wang on both of her feature films, as well as her award-winning short film Touch. He is perhaps best known, however, as the voice of the talking bird in Scary Movie 2.

Kouguell: Let’s start with your background in editing.

Friedman:  I went to film school at Northwestern in Chicago. They didn’t have a specialty editing program, but I always enjoyed editing. When I graduated, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. I thought maybe direct but having directed a bit in college I didn’t really like it. I found out about an internship with a studio in Atlanta in 1993 and faxed them a top 10 list of why they should hire me. Funny things like: ‘good at math’. I got a call almost immediately after I faxed them.  They offered me an internship in either the art or editorial department. I fell into a great situation working with the editor Emma Hickox—she’s Anne Coates’s daughter who edited Lawrence of Arabia. Emma is magnificent and taught me so much that I didn’t learn in film school. She said, move out to L.A. and I will hire you as an assistant. And I did and she hired me.

Kouguell: Tell me about collaborating with Lulu Wang.

Friedman:  One of the great things about Lulu is that she’s incredibly tenacious and never gives up. On our first project together, she was cutting Posthumous in Berlin with a different editor and not getting the response from the screenings, so they looked for someone to come help them polish it. I went out to Berlin for three months in the summer to recut the film with her.

One of the things that happened early on, that goes to my philosophy, is that every frame on the screen must be placed there consciously to further the story. If it’s not there to support the story it should be cut. The way we worked, for example, is that I went through the first reel, and then we worked together on what I cut. Sometimes when she asked me to put something back in and I would suggest to tighten it up, she would suggest: “OK, split the difference.” This leads to another philosophy when I’m editing, which is to ask: ‘What is this character thinking? What’s in a character’s mind?’ You can’t edit a scene without understanding what characters are thinking in order to cut their performance.

Kouguell: You’ve worked on projects of all genres. What makes this one unique for you?

Friedman: I got my start cutting big, broad studio comedies which was very enjoyable, but I wanted to start working on more risky and more unique, character-driven projects.  So, I stepped away from those and started cutting more independent films. The Farewell is the culmination of that desire and that move. The reception it has received is amazing and humbling, and I couldn’t imagine a better result when I made the decision to work on independent films.

I like cutting in multiple genres. Obviously, The Farewell has a lot of comedy and a lot of crying so the skills I’ve acquired from cutting different genres I am able to work that together.

Kouguell: Did you stick close to the script?

Friedman: It’s a matter of degrees. This is true in virtually every movie. The script is the jumping off point; it’s a road map made before the contributions of the other creative people, including the director, actors, and director of photography, step in.

The intention of the script is followed completely. Lulu understood the story she wanted to tell. All the other creatives brought their flourishes into it. That’s why I like being an editor; I can put my finger in all that everyone’s contributed.

Lulu is such a tenacious person, she is always rewriting through the editing process and she considers what she can improve in post-production, she never stops.

Kouguell: The film’s pacing has a definite rhythm to it. For example, not rushing through quiet moments, seeing characters think and breathe on their own.

Friedman: I was vicious in terms of every frame matters. There are scenes that are cut quite quickly and when you shift to those quiet moments it helps to bolster the emotional effect of the performance. Indeed, there were times I would cut something, and Lulu would say, ‘I would hate losing that’ and we’d discuss what the intention was, and sometimes we’d come to the conclusion that it shouldn’t be there.

Other times I would try to cut something, and she’d say, I want more space for emotion’. Like the groom crying. All those moments are specifically designed. Lulu and I had intense conversations about how long everything would be, to the frame. Nothing was arbitrary. It was important to understand what was going on in the characters’ minds, what they were wrestling with, and give them enough time to move through those emotions, their decisions, and what they were processing.

Final thoughts

Friedman: I went to see The Farewell at a movie theatre with a full audience on a Sunday afternoon. It was the first time I saw it with an audience who paid money to go. Watching their reactions and feeling their reactions was really the reason I got into filmmaking in the beginning. Helping to tell a story like this, bringing them to laughing, to crying and move them finally to hope, is just such a rewarding experience.

There was a random guy behind us who said after the film, ‘I’m going home to call my grandma’. Lulu said in interviews that’s what she wanted, to move audiences to build connections with other people. The critical responses have been the icing on the cake.

To learn more about Lulu Wang visit her website here.

Making the Most of Attending a Script Conference

August 22, 2019 / / Comments Off on Making the Most of Attending a Script Conference

Susan Kouguell shares advice on the value of attending a screenwriting conference, from networking to learning.

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Getty Images – Photo Credit: Caiaimage/Sam Edwards

You’ve probably heard the joke: “What’s the best way to Carnegie Hall? … Practice, practice, practice.” What’s the best way to break into the film business? Network, network, network.

Attending screenwriting conferences, as well as film and pitch festivals is a great way to network with other writers, as well as panelists and speakers, including agents and executives.

Agents and executives who agree to speak on panels know there are hungry writers in attendance looking for representation and getting their projects noticed, and often they are open to meeting new writers in order to find that new talent.

Over the last two decades, I’ve spoken on many screenwriting and film panels for organizations, including the Writers Guild of America, the Directors Guild, the Independent Feature Project, New York Women in Film and Television, and more. As a working screenwriter, I understand the excitement and anticipation of speaking to panelists. It can be nerve-wracking, trying to get attention but stay calm and focused.  And professional.

The following anecdote is excerpted from my book The Savvy Screenwriters: How to Sell Your Screenplay (and Yourself) Without Selling Out!

THE BADGE IS ON THE OTHER CHEST

Years ago, two of my short films were shown at the Independent Feature Film Market (IFFM) in New York City. I remember the nerve-wracking wait among the crowd of other screenwriters and filmmakers to meet executives. When I finally got my chance, I asked them if it was okay to pitch my project.  It was all very civilized.

A few years later I found myself on the other side. I was a buyer for Warner Bros. seeking acquisitions and directing talent at the IFFM. I was given the green buyer’s ID badge. I saw it as a badge.  Screenwriters and filmmakers saw it as a target. I soon learned that “green” means “go,” as in attack. Literally.

Filmmakers and screenwriters zeroed in on me—they pointed at my green badge and shouted phrases from their pitches in desperate attempts to snare my attention. I understood their desperation as they fought through a crowd of other filmmakers and screenwriters clamoring for attention from executives and agents—and knowing that this could be their one shot at making contact.

The surge of screenwriters and filmmakers fell into three groups: the underconfident, the misguided, and the overconfident.

THE UNDERCONFIDENT FILMMAKERS/SCREENWRITERS

They would open their pitches with a whole string of apologies seemingly designed to provide me with every excuse I needed not to see their film or read their script. They’d say: “I know that you’re not interested in my film or my script, and you probably don’t have time and it’s not really finished, and I’m not really sure I like it anyhow, but maybe you’ll want to come to my screening or read my script.”  I’d think, no, I’ll go get a cup of coffee instead.

THE MISGUIDED FILMMAKERS/SCREENWRITERS

They would zero in on my green badge and grab their opportunity—launching into a long and involved pitch without asking me if I would like to hear it. They would keep talking and talking despite the fact that I’d made it clear from their first words that theirs was not a project that Warner Bros. would ever consider. It became embarrassing, like being the subject of a case of mistaken identity.

Maybe I was too polite. I should have firmly interrupted them and said, “You’ve got the wrong person. Don’t waste your time or my time pitching to me. You should be pitching to that person over there who can really help you. And, in the future, ask executives if they are interested in hearing a pitch. If they say yes, make it brief and exciting.”

THE OVERCONFIDENT FILMMAKERS/SCREENWRITERS

I walked in the door, anxious to get to a screening on time. The usual surge of screenwriters and filmmakers approached me—pressing flyers on me, inviting me to their screenings, shouting and interrupting each other in their clamor for my attention. Understanding their desperation, I tried to stop for each one on my way to the screening room. One guy certainly made a lasting impression as I was listening to another filmmaker’s pitch. He stepped between us, pushed my hair away from where it accidentally was covering my green ID badge and shouted at me that I should be more accessible. I will always remember him, but not in the way he wanted me to.

I was even followed into the ladies’ room by an eager female filmmaker who kept pitching after I had politely but firmly closed the stall door. I later learned that, by virtue of my gender, I was among the lucky ones. A less-fortunate male buyer told me of an encounter he had at the urinal. As he zipped up his fly, a filmmaker approached him and impulsively asked, “Are you interested in shorts?”

There are definitely right and wrong places and times to pitch.

VITAL TIPS

BEFORE THE EVENT

Create an announcement. Compose a one-sheet or postcard. Do what best fits your budget. Your announcement should contain the following:

  • A great pitch. Describe your project in one or two attention-grabbing sentences.
  • A very brief bio highlighting your most important credits.
  • Your contact information, and website if you have one.
  • You can include an eye-catching graphic, but the content is the most important.

DURING THE EVENT

  • When meeting an executive be brief and polite. Introduce yourself, hand them your business card and announcement, and ask for their business card. After the meeting be sure to write a note to yourself on the back of the card to remind you of your conversation. (Trust me, once the event is over it’s unlikely that you’ll recall exactly what was said to whom.)
  • Don’t stalk the executive.
  • Don’t pitch your project to an executive unless you are asked to.
  • Don’t hand an executive a script unless it is requested. Generally, if the executive is interested you will be asked to send it.

AFTER THE EVENT

Follow up with an “It was nice to meet you” note. If you didn’t have the opportunity to meet the targeted executive, send a letter or email introducing yourself and your project; state that you attended that event and regret not having had the opportunity to meet. You can enclose your project’s announcement with your note.

Enjoy your time at these events.  In my experience, and I’ve been told the same by my Su-City Pictures East clients and students, that by staying in the moment and avoid being frantic, it will enable you to successfully network.

Susan will be presenting the workshop ‘What Film Executives Really Look for in a Script that Sells’ August 24, 2019 at the Writer’s Digest Conference in New York City.


Filmmaker Rodney Evans Discusses His New Documentary Vision Portraits

August 16, 2019 / / Comments Off on Filmmaker Rodney Evans Discusses His New Documentary Vision Portraits

Filmmaker Rodney Evans Discusses His New Documentary Vision Portraits

By: Susan Kouguell | August 6, 2019

Filmmaker Rodney Evans discusses his deeply personal feature-length documentary exploring how his loss of vision may impact his creative future, and what it means to be a blind or visually-impaired creative artist.

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“As a filmmaker with only twenty percent of my visual field remaining, I am forced to work in new, more collaborative ways while also being part of a long tradition of artists seeing in highly idiosyncratic ways.”

— Rodney Evans

I had the pleasure to speak with Rodney Evans following the press screening at the Ford Foundation in Manhattan and Q & A with Evans and dancer Kayla Hamilton. As it turned out, Evans and I are both MacDowell Colony fellows and even occupied the same studio during our respective residencies.

Emerging from the event into the summer heat of midtown, I found it particularly profound from a personal perspective as a writer/filmmaker, reflecting on each of the artists portrayed in the film, who not only redefined their lives with impaired vision, but redefined and discovered new ways to communicate and express themselves through their respective art-making practices with poignant beauty and vulnerability.

ABOUT RODNEY EVANS – DIRECTOR/PRODUCER/EDITOR/SUBJECT

Rodney Evans

Rodney Evans is the writer/director/producer of the feature film Brother To Brother which won the Special Jury Prize in Drama at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival and garnered four Independent Spirit Award nominations, including Best First Film, Best First Screenplay, Best Debut Performance for Anthony Mackie and Best Supporting Male Performance for Roger Robinson. Evans has received funding from The John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, The Ford Foundation’s JustFilms Program, The Creative Capital Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, The NY State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), The Independent Television Service (ITVS) and Black Public Media (BPM). His second narrative feature, The Happy Sad, has played at over 30 international film festivals. Evans has taught at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Princeton and Swarthmore. His documentary short Persistence of Vision screened at BAMcinemaFest and Frameline: The San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival and won the Jury Prize at the Ann Arbor International Film Festival in 2017.

ABOUT VISION PORTRAITS

This deeply personal feature-length documentary explores how Rodney Evans’s loss of vision may impact his creative future, and what it means to be a blind or visually-impaired creative artist. It’s a celebration of the possibilities of art created by a Manhattan photographer (John Dugdale), a Bronx-based dancer (Kayla Hamilton), a Canadian writer (Ryan Knighton) and the filmmaker himself, who each experience varying degrees of visual impairment.

Winner, Outstanding Documentary at the 2019 Frameline International Film Festival, and Official Selection at many festivals, including the 2019 SXSW Film Festival—Documentary Competition, 2019 BFI Flare London LGBTQ Film Festival, 2019 Inside Out Toronto LGBTQ Film Festival, 2019 Outfest Los Angeles Film Festival, 2019 American Black Film Festival, 2019 Sydney Film Festival, BAMcinemaFest, and the 2019 Black Star Film Festival.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT—RODNEY EVANS

Vision Portraits is my personal story of going on a scientific and artistic journey to better understand the ramifications of my deteriorating vision. My aim is to come to a deeper sense of knowledge through illuminating portraits of three artists: a photographer (John Dugdale), a dancer (Kayla Hamilton) and a writer (Ryan Knighton).

The film consists of four chapters which profile each artist and also follows a medical procedure centered on the restoration of my lost vision through the use of cutting-edge technology at the Center for Vision Restoration in Berlin, Germany. The film is told from my perspective as a filmmaker who was diagnosed with a rare genetic eye condition in early 1997 called retinitis pigmentosa resulting in the loss of my peripheral vision and much of my night vision.

Kayla Hamilton

Kayla Hamilton was born with no vision in one eye and has very minimal peripheral and night vision in the other due to glaucoma and iritis. She incorporates her unique perspective on the world and embodies resilience and empowerment in her solo dance piece, Nearly Sighted.

John Dugdale

Photographer slowly loses his vision at thirty-two in St. Vincent’s Hospital at the height of the AIDS epidemic due to CMV retinitis and continues to take photos with the sliver of sight that remains in one eye.

Ryan Knighton at the Moth

Ryan Knighton, a punk-rock teenager, is diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa on his 18th birthday and finds writing as his salvation through the process of going blind.

All of the artists are deeply influenced and motivated by the power of art to heal and transform.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE Q & A

PERSONAL JOURNEYS

Rodney Evans: I wanted the film to specifically focus on the ways each artist was impacted by the loss of their vision and the ways in which their creative process thrives in spite of their blindness.and also follows a medical procedure centered on the restoration of my lost vision through the use of cutting-edge technology at the Center for Vision Restoration in Berlin, Germany. The film is told from my perspective as a filmmaker who was diagnosed with a rare genetic eye condition in early 1997 called retinitis pigmentosa, resulting in the loss of my peripheral vision and much of my night vision.

The film offers a deep dive into the work of each artist and incorporates their art (photography, dance, literature and filmmaking) to provide an immersive way to experience how they “see” the world through these unique perspectives.

CINEMATIC TOOLS

Evans: We utilize rich and evocative sound design and detailed audio description channels specifically created for the visually impaired and blind community so that they have the ability to access the film.

The film includes a mixture of in-depth interviews, vérité footage of each artist’s daily experience, creative process, and exhibition/performance. Sound design, still photography, visual text, macro cinematography and subjective camera positions chronicles the experience of each artist.

There is some use of experimental POV footage to visualize some of the remnants of sight that remain for each character. This involves use of overexposure, roll outs, flares and cropping to mirror the subjective experience of these artists similar to the ways in which films like Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and Nostalgia for the Light (Directed by Patricio Guzman) and filmmakers like Stan Brahkage and Leslie Thornton use abstract, subjective viewpoints to immerse the viewer deeper into the emotional experience of their central characters.

WHAT DREW RODNEY EVANS TO THE ARTISTS PORTRAYED IN THE FILM?

Evans: Ryan Knighton and I were already friends and I had already read his memoir Cockeyed, which is incredibly powerful and moving. It’s about his retinitis pigmentosa diagnosis at 18. I learned that it had been adapted into a screenplay that had gotten into the Sundance Lab, and I asked Michelle Satter at Sundance and mentioned that I had the same condition, and she was nice enough to connect us.

John is someone whose photography I knew very well; it’s beautiful, stunning. My brother’s friend dated John for 10 years. I think it was difficult for John to go back through a lot of those memories. He asked to see a film of mine, and I showed him a film about my own coming out to my own Jamaican family, and I think he was moved by how intimate that film was and how vulnerable I was in that film. I think that made him trust his story with me.

With Kayla, I didn’t have the pleasure of knowing her before. I specifically asked a colleague at Swarthmore where I teach if he knew of any women dancers of color, and he said yes. It was fortuitous timing meeting Kayla, we met on a Sunday, and I asked if I could film her rehearsal. Four days later, my DP and I went and shot at the space in the Bronx.

PLEASURE AND CHALLENGES

Kayla Hamilton: I was asking myself: If I lose 100 percent of my sight, how can I consume dance; how can I see it? How do you describe movements to someone who is not a dancer? What are the possibilities? What can that mean for a sighted person and someone who doesn’t see out of their eyesight? Challenging ways we take in movement as vision as the primary source.

Evans: Visual style, for me, one of the great pleasures and challenges was putting the viewer in the subjective position of the different ways we all see differently. When John describes his vision as the aurora borealis, and these flashes of color he gets and that he constantly has his optic nerve firing.

In the film world, because it’s a visually-based medium, if you are visually impaired, there is a stigma. I don’t know a lot of people who are ‘out’ about it, with audio descriptions there are so many ways to execute visuals through language.

One challenge is how do you create a visual language that an audience can experience? The visual language of the film came about the various ways we talked about seeing in different ways, waking up and blinking, things being abstracted and literally light and shapes, and asking how do you move around and navigate space.

VISION PORTRAITS opens in theaters August 9th in Manhattan at the Metrograph and August 23rd in Los Angeles at Laemmle Royal with a national rollout to follow, courtesy of Stimulus Pictures.

To learn more about Rodney Evans, visit his website.

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