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Screenplay & Film Consulting By Susan Kouguell

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Susan’s Interview with “Parasite” Editor Jinmo Yang

December 17, 2019 / / Comments Off on Susan’s Interview with “Parasite” Editor Jinmo Yang

INTERVIEW: “Parasite” Editor Jinmo Yang

Susan Kouguell speaks with “Parasite” editor Jinmo Yang about his collaboration with Director Bong Joon Ho, defying the rules of genre, and finding the rhythm of the film.SUSAN KOUGUELL

DEC 5, 2019

“As a depiction of ordinary people who fall into an unavoidable commotion, Parasite is: a comedy without clowns, a tragedy without villains, all leading to a violent tangle and a headlong plunge down the stairs.”

 — Director Bong Joon Ho

Just days before my Skype interview with editor Jinmo Yang (he was in South Korea and I was in Manhattan) the Cannes Film Festival Palme D’or winner Parasite became the top grossing foreign-language film of 2019.

About Parasite

Meet the Park Family — the picture of aspirational wealth. And the Kim Family, rich in street smarts but not much else. Be it chance or fate, these two houses are brought together and the Kims sense a golden opportunity. Masterminded by college-aged Ki-woo, the Kim children expediently install themselves as tutor and art therapist, to the Parks. Soon, a symbiotic relationship forms between the two families. The Kims provide “indispensable” luxury services while the Parks obliviously bankroll their entire household. When a parasitic interloper threatens the Kims’ newfound comfort, a savage, underhanded battle for dominance breaks out, threatening to destroy the fragile ecosystem between the Kims and the Parks. (Source: Neon)

The Kim Family: Woo-sik Choi, Kang-ho Song, Hye-jin Jang, So-dam Park
The Kim Family: Woo-sik Choi, Kang-ho Song, Hye-jin Jang, So-dam Park

Jinmo Yang

Award-winning film editor Jinmo Yang has edited over a dozen feature films, including Train To Busan and is a long-time collaborator of Director Joon-Ho Bong, having worked with him sinceSnowpiercer (VFX editor) andOkja (editor).

THE INTERVIEW

We began our interview talking about a quote from Director Joon-Ho Bong about Parasite:

“It’s a human drama, but one that is strongly imbued with the contemporary. Although the plot consists of a string of unique and distinctive situations, it is nonetheless a story that could very well take place in the real world. One can see it as taking an incident that was on the news or on social media, and putting it on the screen. So in that sense it’s a quite realistic drama, but I wouldn’t object if one were to call it a crime drama, a comedy, a sad human drama, or a horrific thriller. I always try my best to overturn viewer expectations.”

Kouguell: The film defies traditional genre, as it transcends drama, dark comedy and thriller. Talk about how you worked with the director to create this in the film.

Yang: The script itself reflects how the genres were mixed in the story because that’s a common thread in Bong’s films. I wasn’t really shocked at how all the genres were mixed.

Kouguell: Tell me about your collaboration process with Bong.

Yang: I first began working as his on set editor and for Parasite I actually had my assistant working as my on site editor so I was really able to communicate with the team even as they were shooting. In the editing room, based on the rough edit we got, director Bong and I delved into the details pretty much straight away in our process.

Kouguell: How did you and Bong find the rhythm in the film? There’s such a specific rhythm especially as the genre shifts and the story unfolds.

Yang: There’s always a certain rhythm when Bong writes a script and he continues to develop that sense of rhythm through his storyboarding process, and as he’s shooting; he thinks about how this rhythm will be created during the editing process.

Mr Park (Sun-kyun Lee) and Yeon-kyo Park (Yeo-jeong Jo) in Parasite
Mr Park (Sun-kyun Lee) and Yeon-kyo Park (Yeo-jeong Jo) in Parasite

When Bong comes to the editing room, we start working on this together, there are some changes that he makes with me in terms of the rhythm he’s constructed during the previous processes. With very specific sequences, he does leave it to me in terms of creating the rhythm and pacing and the tempo, and because we worked on so many films together, with Parasite it wasn’t very difficult to coordinate our senses of rhythm.

Yang cited an example:

One obstacle was that the beats in certain shots felt too lagging. Director Bong wanted to shorten their length and tighten their rhythm, yet maintain all the essential beats. In these instances, we shared the same goal — remove all the “fat,” yet save the “essence.”

One example is when Ki-taek holds up Moon-gwang’s blood-ridden tissue. Originally, Ki-taek had to go through a lot of motions and gestures, such as opening and spraying the packet of hot sauce, to reach the final gesture of “holding up the tissue.” However, we felt like this dragged on too long. So what I suggested was to create jump cuts of Ki-taek’s actions. In the end, the audience didn’t miss out on anything. There were no problems with continuity, yet we achieved the rhythm we were aiming for.

Kouguell: Bong was the co-writer of the script along with Han Jin Won — how closely in the editing room did you work with the screenplay?

Yang: When I’m editing I hardly rely on the actual script; I just work on the footage and the images we have because the basic structure of the story is already set at that point so I don’t go back to the script. I take in account that for director Bong everything he shoots is pretty much in the script.

Kouguell: So, not much improvising then?

Yang: In terms of the story it’s really not different at all but within particular sequences the tone and pacing are often fairly different from what’s in the script.

Kouguell: Advice for film students and aspiring filmmakers?

Yang: Watch a lot of films and not only films that are currently playing in theaters but international films. For me, I tend to be inspired by classic films and older films. When I’m working I tend to use older films as my reference. I’m very inspired by the French New Wave because I think at that time there were new editing styles and techniques that came out. One of my favorites is My Life to Live by Godard and I also watch a lot of films by Akira Kurosowa from the 60s and 70s. 

SUSAN’S INTERVIEW: Academy Award-Nominated Producer Rosalie Varda Discusses Her Documentary Film, “Varda by Agnès,” Collaborating with Her Mother and Preserving Agnès Varda’s Legacy

November 22, 2019 / / Comments Off on SUSAN’S INTERVIEW: Academy Award-Nominated Producer Rosalie Varda Discusses Her Documentary Film, “Varda by Agnès,” Collaborating with Her Mother and Preserving Agnès Varda’s Legacy

Susan Kouguell speaks with Academy Award-nominated producer Rosalie Varda about her new documentary film “Varda by Agnès” and collaborating with her mother Agnès Varda.

At the 2019 NYFF Rosalie Varda (Producer: “Varda by Agnes” and “Faces Places”)

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A personal note about Agnès Varda

Decades ago, when I started making short films in college, it was Agnès Varda’s work that influenced me most. Certainly, a groundbreaking female filmmaker caught my attention, but it was not just about her gender, it was about her art; her portrayal of characters in her narratives, the intimacy she conveyed in her documentaries, how she moved the camera, framed images, and captured moments of color and language—all these elements and more, deeply connected with my artistic sensibilities. Agnès made me believe I could express my voice as a filmmaker. And this was all before I even met her in person.

Over the last few years, I was very fortunate to interview and spend time with Agnès Varda at several events, including her 2017 photograph and installation exhibition at the Blum and Poe Gallery in Manhattan, at Film at Lincoln Center events, and the Locarno Film Festival in 2014 where she received the Pardo d’onore (the lifetime achievement award) during which time I was honored to be the only journalist invited to her masterclass for international students—a fortuitous event, witnessing firsthand her interactions with aspiring filmmakers, which is captured in Varda by Agnes. (There are three years-worth of masterclasses from Agnès Varda’s international travels included in this documentary.)

What always struck me during our conversations was her generosity of spirit, and specifically her pointed questions to me, which admittedly were sometimes intimidating because she had always been a personal inspiration as an artist and filmmaker.

Agnès would ask me: What did you think about the characters’ interactions and movement in the triptych in the installation?

At Blum and Poe Gallery
At Blum and Poe Gallery

Why do you teach Vagabond and Cleo from 5 to 7, and what did you specifically discuss with your students? Where can I see your films? Excuse me?! That gave me pause; no other filmmaker I had interviewed over the years asked me questions about my work, nor was I ever forthcoming about my own films. However, the prized interviewer pried it out of me. We talked about our respective challenges and experiences of making movies on low budgets, raising children while making films, and themes close to our heart in our past, present and future work.

I told Rosalie that the last time I spoke with Agnès one-on-one, she gave me the needed push to get back to making my own films. Rosalie smiled and nodded knowingly, “Agnès was always pushing women: “Go! Don’t be afraid. Just go and do it.”

I am forever grateful to Agnès.

Agnès Varda giving a masterclass in VARDA BY AGNÈS courtesy Janus Films
Agnès Varda giving a masterclass in VARDA BY AGNÈS courtesy Janus Films

About the Documentary Varda by Agnès (Excerpts from Notes from the director Agnès Varda)

“In 1994, with a retro at the French Cinémathèque, I published a book entitled VARDA BY AGNÈS. 25 years later, the same title is given to my film made of moving images and words, with the same project: give keys about my body of work. I give my own keys, my thoughts, nothing pretentious, just keys.

The film is in two parts, two centuries. The 20th century from my first feature film LA POINTE COURTE in 1954 to the last one in 1996, ONE HUNDRED AND ONE NIGHTS. In between, I made documentaries, features, short and long. The second part starts in the 21st century, when the small digital cameras changed my approach to documentaries, from the GLEANERS AND I in 2000 to FACES PLACES, co-directed with JR in 2017. But during that time, I mostly created art installations, atypical triptychs, shacks of cinema and I kept making documentaries, such as THE BEACHES OF AGNÈS. In the middle of the two parts, there is a little reminder about my first life as a photographer. I’ve made a wide variety of films in my life.

So I need to tell you what led me to do this work for so many years. Three words are important to me: Inspiration, creation, sharing. INSPIRATION is why you make a film. The motivations, ideas, circumstances and happenstance that spark a desire and you set to work to make a film. CREATION is how you make the film. What means do you use? What structure? Alone or not alone? In colour or not in colour? Creation is a job. The third word is SHARING. You don’t make films to watch them alone, you make films to show them. An empty cinema: a filmmaker’s nightmare!”

Rosalie Varda
Rosalie Varda

The Interview with Producer Rosalie Varda

During the 2019 New York Film Festival (which was dedicated to Agnès Varda) I had the great pleasure to sit down over a glass of wine and speak with producer Rosalie Varda about her new documentary Varda by Agnès, which was a Main Slate selection at the Festival.

A tour de force in her own right, Academy award nominee Rosalie Varda spent 25 years as a costume designer and fashion artist before she began to produce her mother’s films full time. She once commented, chuckling: “At the age of 20, I never would have said that at 50, I’d be working for my mother.”

Susan Kouguell: You and Agnès had a very special and unique collaboration. What was it like working with your mother?

Rosalie Varda: Our collaboration was very interesting because both of us wanted to share more than just being a mother and a daughter and speaking about holidays and children. I really started working with her in 2005 on an exhibition that we co-curated together. In that experience we saw that we were able to work together. I don’t have any ego, and I know where my place is. I loved the idea of helping her to be more free to do exactly her project with no concessions and to do it really as she wanted it, which means not taking care of the production, not taking care of the money, not taking care of how it should be, but just be involved in creation because her urgency was creating. She knew at one point she would not be there anymore. She still had new projects and it was like a race of doing everything, which means we did everything.

I realized when working on getting the archives together we had done so much in ten years between when she was 80 and 90-years old. We had maybe 30 exhibitions, four catalogues, and two films.

Portrait of Agnès Varda - Courtesy of Ciné-Tamaris
Portrait of Agnès Varda – Courtesy of Ciné-Tamaris

I traveled a lot with her over the last 10 years. We shared good times; she was very easy and open-minded. I would always say yes to what she wanted to do. I was not there to judge. My job was to produce and help her. It was very rewarding to be able to see her notes she did on the street or a train and then you do it, and see it, and then it’s done and the satisfaction of that is wonderful.

On the personal side, I was happy to share time with her, talking art, music, people, seeing journalists, having a glass of wine—you know, just life. Sharing a life of not just being a daughter coming to see your mother once a week; we were seeing each other every day, working together every day. We laughed a lot. We were very good partners. She would never put me down. She would always put me in the front. She was so generous. She would always say, ‘I wouldn’t be here without you doing everything for me.’ I wanted Agnès to be more in the light and have the younger generation know her.

Faces Places

Agnès Varda (right) and JR (left) in Faces Places directed by Agnès Varda and JR.
Agnès Varda (right) and JR (left) in Faces Places directed by Agnès Varda and JR.

SK: I understand you were the one who initially got in touch with the artist JR.

RV: Yes. Agnès didn’t know him and neither did I. I saw his books and I called him on the telephone and said. ‘I’m the daughter of Agnès Varda and I’m calling you because I’d like you to meet my mother.’ There was a blank (silence) on the telephone. Then he said, ‘Well, I know about your mother, I would love to meet her.’ We organized a meeting. And after their meeting, Agnès and JR said to me, ‘We’d like to do a little installation,’ and I said, ‘I think it’s going to be a short film’. They said, ‘No, we don’t want to do a short film.’ I thought, OK, they are going to do a film, but they don’t want to tell me right away, and I thought, I need to find money right away. I went to a French art dealer who’s a friend of mine who gave us the first money. With this money we did the first shooting. And then I produced the film.

Agnès Varda in VARDA BY AGNÈS courtesy Janus Films
Agnès Varda in VARDA BY AGNÈS courtesy Janus Films

Varda by Agnès is both an introduction to her work for those not familiar with her vast body of narrative and documentaries, art installations, and photographs—and a love letter to and from Agnès.

SK: One constant in all her films is her humanity, a poignant trait that came across once again in Varda by Agnès.

RV: Yes, the film is a joyous legacy. This film to me is very important because it’s about legacy, and it’s about education on image. I think this film should be shown to students doing cinema; to discuss (elements of filmmaking), like frame, what is a frame, what is a photo, what is documentary.

SK: The film is a lesson for students without feeling like one, for example Agnès’s discussion about the tracking shots in Vagabond.

RV: Our project was not to be boring for people, it was a conversation about cinema, but it had to be cinema first. Not filming a masterclass. I’m happy you liked it.

SK: What’s next for you?

RV: A kind of documentary but I can’t talk about it yet. I’m also taking care of Agnès’s archives and I hope in the next few years to do an exhibit of her photographs and installations that will be more global. I want to be able to protect all her films; it’s what I do with my brother (Mathieu Demy) so I will continue to travel where people invite me and try to share a little bit of what Agnès had with her curiosity and her humanity — and always pushing people to do things. She would say, ‘Just stop talking about it, just do it.’ I will never forget that.

Agnès had a beautiful life; she has done so much. Agnès did a lot to the end.

Agnès Varda on the beach with birds in VARDA BY AGNÈS - Courtesy Janus Films
Agnès Varda on the beach with birds in VARDA BY AGNÈS – Courtesy Janus Films

AGNES BY VARDA TRAILER

The film opens November 22 in select cinemas in New York City, followed by a nationwide rollout.

A retrospective of Agnès Varda’s work at Film at Lincoln Center starts in December 2019.

SUSAN’S INTERVIEW: “Beanpole” Director Kantemir Balagov

November 22, 2019 / / Comments Off on SUSAN’S INTERVIEW: “Beanpole” Director Kantemir Balagov

Susan Kouguell interviews the 28-year-old Russian director and co-writer Kantemir Balagov about his award-winning second feature film “Beanpole.

This is not a story about a historic period: this is a story about the world today. The fact that we live in a world where wars still rage, makes Beanpole a very universal story.

—Kantemir Balagov

Kantemir Balagov
Kantemir Balagov

During the New York Film Festival, I sat down with the 28-year-old Russian director Kantemir Balagov to talk about his second feature film Beanpole, which received the FIPRESCI Prize for Best Film and Best Director in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival.

Born in Nalchik, Russia, in 1991, Beanpole marks his second feature film; his first feature was the multi-award-winning Closeness (2017). Balagov graduated from Alexander Sokurov’s directing workshop at Kabardino-Balkarian State University in 2015. During his studies, he made a number of fiction and documentary films which took part in various domestic and international events.

Beanpole

1945, Leningrad. World War II devastated the city, demolishing its buildings and leaving its citizens in tatters, physically and mentally. Although the siege – one of the worst in history – is finally over, life and death continue their battle in the wreckage that remains. Two young women, Iya and Masha, search for meaning and hope in the struggle to rebuild their lives amongst the ruins.

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KOUGUELL: Let’s start with the meaning of the title Beanpole.

BALAGOV: In Russian it means not only about height, it’s about clumsiness too. So, every character in the film is a beanpole in some way. They feel clumsy, they move clumsy. The way they try to start a new normal life is clumsy.

KOUGUELL: The book The Unwomanly Face of War by the Nobel Laureate Svetlana was your inspiration for this film. How closely did you follow the book when writing the script?

BALAGOV: If we’re talking about the plot of the film, it’s original. If we’re talking about the intonation about female destinies it is close to the book. The most touching was the female side of this because I didn’t know about the role of women in the war. Before I read the book, I thought they were serving only in the medical centers and hospitals, but when I knew more, and the amount of sacrifices that they did, I was just blown away. I knew when I finished reading the book in 2015, that I wanted to make a movie about it.

I wanted to show audiences who are the same age as me, that female side because in modern Russian films no one really shows the female side.

KOUGUELL: Tell me about your writing process and collaboration with your co-writer Alexander Terekhov.

BALAGOV: Terekhov is a great Russian writer. Before we met each other, I split the script into small episodes, like a treatment. I sent it to him, and he didn’t like it. I liked that he didn’t like the treatment and we started from scratch. (Balagov smiles.) It’s a funny thing, we had some fights while we worked on it and he said to me that you want me to talk in whispers and I want you to scream. We tried to figure out this middle. He’s a very talented writer; and he knows almost everything about that era. He was a journalist, and worked a lot with archives, and then he started to write books.

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KOUGUELL: Masha and Iya are layered and complicated characters; they’re at times in psychological opposition to each, but neither is stereotypical; neither is all good or all bad.

BALAGOV: The layers and shades came to me from literature. My professor Alexander Swgurv told us that I should read more books and watch less movies; this is the motto for the director. I always try to understand my characters and for me as a director it’s always interesting to understand the moral actions of my characters; we’re not black and white.

KOUGUELL: You chose not to include any traditional communist symbols from this era.

BALAGOV: Cinema is a tool of immortality and these women and these men who are in the film, I think they are immortal. I think these kinds of (representations of) political characters don’t deserve this immortality in my films at least, that’s why I didn’t include them.

KOUGUELL: There is a stillness about the film when Iya freezes due to her PTSD. It was visually and emotionally striking.

BALAGOV: We had history of cinema lessons with Alexander Sokurov. He showed me that cinema is a visual code and told us that if you want to see the connection between camera, rhythm, and the characters, to watch Fassbinder’s films. After I saw some of these films, I understood the connection between character and point of view, and for us, with the DP it was really important because that’s how we try to be closer to them and I want audiences to feel close to them, too. It relies on each other, not just editing cuts, etc.; it should be more than that. It’s all interconnected.

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

October 30, 2019 / / Comments Off on 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.

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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 Cane, The 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.

SUSAN’S INTERVIEW WITH “63 UP” Director Michael Apted

October 25, 2019 / / Comments Off on SUSAN’S INTERVIEW WITH “63 UP” Director Michael Apted

By: Susan Kouguell | October 17, 20198

Susan Kouguell interviews 63 UP director, Michael Apted on narrative vs documentary films, getting feedback and more!

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Michael Apted

During the 2019 New York Film Festival, I sat down with director Michael Apted to talk about his new documentary 63 UP where it is an Official Selection, as well as his wide-ranging body of work.

Since the 1960’s, Michael Apted has helmed an extensive list of feature films and documentaries.  His feature films include Gorillas in the Mist, Coalminer’s Daughter, Gorky Park, Thunderheart, Nell, The World is Not Enough, Enigma, Enough, Amazing Grace, and the third installment of C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treaders, and Unlocked.

Mr. Apted’s documentary credits include the Boris Grebenshikov film The Long Way Home, Incident at Oglala, Bring on the Night, Moving the Mountain, Me and Isaac Newton, Power of the Game and the official 2006 World Cup Film. Mr. Apted has also worked extensively in television, including directing episodes of HBO’s epic series Rome, the Showtime series Masters of Sex and Ray Donovan, and the Netflix series Bloodline.

The UP Anthology Documentary Series

The internationally acclaimed, multi-award-winning sequels based on the original 7 UP documentary, have followed the lives of 14 Britons since the age of seven in seven-year increments.

The original 7 UP was broadcast as a one-off World in Action Special inspired by the founding editor Tim Hewat’s passionate interest in the Jesuit saying, “Give me the child until he is seven, and I will give you the man,” and his anger at what he saw as the rigidity of social class in England. 7 UP featured the children talking about their hopes and dreams for the future. As members of the generation who would be running the country by the year 2000, what did they think they would become?

This groundbreaking documentary anthology has now reached 63 UP, gaining further illuminating insight into its premise of asking whether or not our adult lives are predetermined by earliest influences and the social class in which we are raised.

Director Michael Apted, who moved to Hollywood in the late 70s, has returned every seven years to chart the children’s progress through life. Over six decades, the films have documented the group as they became adults and entered middle-age, dealing with everything life has thrown at them in between.

63 UP

We began our interview talking about 63 UP.

Kouguell: There is nothing rehearsed in this documentary.

Apted: It has to be the first time it has ever been said or thought.

Kouguell: Did you work from a script or an outline?

Apted: Neither. I write down thoughts and look at all the episodes again just to see what I left behind or should pay more attention to.

I used to plot out the questions I would ask and sometimes give them clues about it, but now I don’t tell them beforehand what I want to ask them. I know some of them don’t want me.to ask certain questions and so I don’t ask those questions; I don’t want to lose them.

I also don’t see them hardly at all between the times we’re filming every seven years, so I won’t get confused by what’s happened to them otherwise it gets so complicated. I know the big issues we talk about in their life and what they’re doing in this particular point of time.

Kouguell: At what point of the process did you add the voiceover narration?

Apted: I added it during post-production; it’s the last thing I do during the last 2-3 days of dubbing.  And then I polish it so it can be as up to date as possible.

Kouguell: Tell me about your collaboration process with the editor.

Apted: I’ve been working with editor Kim Horton since 21 UP. I give him an outline of what we filmed. We type everything up and it’s about 100 pages. I do a rough first draft during the time I’m shooting. Then once I’ve got the major outline of them (the subjects) and I start deciding where I put them, then I mark lines through the transcript and give a rough cut of it to him. If there are problems, he’ll let me know. By the time I finish shooting, we’ve got a pretty good sense of where the subjects are.

We do a rough assembly and the film is about 40 minutes too long and then we start slashing. Then I get into the interesting parts. It’s by elimination; sometimes you do an interview and it doesn’t go well and then you’re looking at something and you go back to it and see something good, it’s to keep the big picture of it. It’s not the same order in every film.

Directing Narrative and Documentary Films

Kouguell: The many films you directed include the biographical dramas Coal Miner’s Daughter and Gorillas in the Mist. How did the UP series inform your narrative films as a director?

Apted: I think doing a documentary is one set of your muscles and doing a drama is another. You can learn from both of them — how to place material, where you build it. I learned those lessons doing both documentaries and drama.  Both of them helped the other; how to keep things interesting on camera when interviewing them, the same way you keep the actor of a drama alive and not just doing it by numbers.

The dramas I do are usually character-driven. It’s very similar to doing a documentary; in a drama you’re always trying to build to something.  I say to documentary directors to look at more dramas, to give it more wit so you don’t put one great thing at the beginning; structure the documentary to keep the audience’s interest.

I learned a lot in documentaries about how to cut performances in dramas and to keep the audience on their toes.  It’s so interesting to me in a lot of my movies, the more documentaries I do, the more non actors I use in narrative films.

Kouguell: Words of advice to filmmakers?

Get feedback

Apted: It’s painful to have people look at your work. Better to know now than later when you see the reviews. It’s hard to get feedback. It used to drive me mad. Always show it to someone who will tell you the truth.

Rhythm

Apted: The film’s rhythm in both documentary and fiction is important. Keep the audience on their toes so they’re not quite sure what’s going to happen next. It’s that element of surprise that is important, but not bogus surprise. If you know you have five big moments in your film, spread the drama around.

63 UP opens November 27th at Film Forum in New York City, December 6th at Landmark Nuart in Los Angeles and nationwide December 13th.

INTERVIEW: Born to Be Documentary Director Tânia Cypriano

October 13, 2019 / / Comments Off on INTERVIEW: Born to Be Documentary Director Tânia Cypriano

By: Susan Kouguell | October 2, 2019

Susan Kouguell speaks with filmmaker Tânia Cypriano during the New York Film Festival where her powerful documentary Born to Be had its world premiere.

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“I’ve always been interested in stories related to health and the body in the context of individuals and communities.”

~ Tânia Cypriano – Director

Tania Cypriano and cinematographer Jeffrey Johnson

I had the pleasure to speak with Tânia Cypriano during the New York Film Festival where her powerful documentary Born to Be had its world premiere.

Born to Be follows the work of Dr. Jess Ting at the groundbreaking Mount Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery in New York City—where, for the first time ever, all transgender and gender non-conforming people have access to quality transition-related health and surgical care. With extraordinary access, this feature-length documentary takes an intimate look at how one doctor’s work impacts the lives of his patients as well as how his journey from renowned plastic surgeon to pioneering gender-affirming surgeon has led to his own transformation.

ABOUT DIRECTOR AND CO-PRODUCER TANIA CYPRIANO

Tânia Cypriano has been working between the United States and her native Brazil for over twenty-five years. Her films and videos have won international awards including Best Documentary at the Pan African Film Festival in Los Angeles, New York AIDS Film Festival, Festival do Cinema Brasileiro de Gramado in Brazil, and Fespaco in Burkina Faso. Her first documentary Viva Eu!, which won five international awards, including Best Documentary at Joseph Papp’s Festival Latino in New York, is about the first man diagnosed with HIV/AIDS in Brazil. Her television credits include working on documentaries for PBS, the History Channel, NHK in Japan, GNT in Brazil, and Channel 4 in England. Tânia has also been a grant recipient from the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Soros Documentary Fund, the Jerome Foundation, Experimental Television, and the National Latino Communication Center. She has served in productions for Bill Moyers, Martin Scorsese, and Nelson Pereira dos Santos. She has also co-organized film series with MoMA, Anthology Film Archives, Exit Art, the Museum of Image and Sound in São Paulo, and the Grazer Kunstverein in Austria.

Dr. Ting (center)

KOUGUELL: Let’s talk about the creative collaborative process.

CYPRIANO: After a year of getting the hospital’s permission to film and finding funding, we started production with no sound recordist—just using mics on the cameras and for that matter no crew; it was just our cinematographer Jeffrey Johnson, our producer Michelle Koo Hayashi and myself. Michelle had a lot of creative input with me, and it was her first film. I try to include and be open to everybody’s suggestions and thoughts. I try to include and be open to everybody’s suggestions and thoughts.

With the filming, I went in with Jeff and myself often carrying all the equipment. We had no sound person in the beginning. It was the three of us or just Jeffrey alone because of the size of the rooms. It was very tough to film in such tight spaces. I was lucky to find Jeff and to work with him. It was hard to find camera people who would feel comfortable filming surgeries and exams; a lot of people are not good with seeing blood.

Dr Ting with Jordan

KOUGUELL: How much input did Dr. Ting have on the project?

CYPRIANO:  Dr. Ting had quite a bit of input. He helped me gain access to both the director of the hospital and inside the hospital spaces. Sometimes Dr. Ting would meet a patient and then suggest them to us. Other times we were just there by chance. This happened with Cashmere; we were there by chance, and we were able to film her on her first consultation and follow her journey.

Devin waits for Dr. Ting pre-op

KOUGUELL: Did you work from a written outline or script?

CYPRIANO:  We filmed without a script or outline. The film was shaped in the editing room. After we started editing, we did do some more filming. For example, with Devon’s story, more happened after we were already editing. We had to bring the material to the editing room and then rethink how we were structuring our acts. It totally shifted where the film was going originally. To the very last day, we had to make sure to be as accurate and open to tell this very story.

KOUGUELL: There was a poignant comfort level that you established with the patients and their families and friends.

CYPRIANO: I spent almost three years following the people in the film. I built a very tight relationship with them. I’m part of their life, too. That’s a way I also work. Once I start getting involved with personal stories it’s difficult to separate myself as a person. A lot of the material we have is because of these types of relationships.

It was important to me that everyone felt comfortable; it was important for their bodies to be part of the story. All of the patients felt very comfortable being in front of the camera. I tried to make sure that the surgeries (seen in the film) were treated in a certain manner; what we could see and not see. It was a big decision how and what to show.

For transgender people to get this healthcare is historical. Before, patients would have to be wealthy or travel great distances.

KOUGUELL: Were there any questions or subjects either Dr. Ting or the patients did not want to discuss?

CYPRIANO:  Once I found the right people to be part of a project, I needed to know that we could talk about everything. They were all very open.

It was essential to me that everyone be comfortable sharing their names, their faces, and their bodies. It was important to me to follow people of different ages, ethnicities, gender, and financial backgrounds. There are those who have family support and those who don’t; there are those who have partners and those who hope their transition will bring them to one.

KOUGUELL: Looking back on this experience, what are your final thoughts?

CYPRIANO: I was overwhelmed by how many people in the film wanted to show their faces on camera and be involved in the project. They knew the importance of this film, and how historical this moment is.

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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