Posted in filmmaking on August 11, 2010| 1 Comment »
Elia Kazan worked with some of the greatest playwrights in American Theater (Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Clifford Odets, and Thorton Wilder). He also worked with screenwriter Budd Schulberg and novelist John Steinbeck. And somewhere along the way he decided to try his hand a playwriting.
“I finally tried to write a play. It taught me to value playwrights. I failed.”
Elia Kazan on his play The Chain (1983)
Posted in filmmaking on August 10, 2010| 1 Comment »
“Sentimentality is the enemy of drama. It waters down the conflict. It is the sister of self-pity.
Last five minutes of East of Eden. Now you know that the old man would have died without a kind word for Dean—and that the kid would have to spend a long time climbing back.
Toughness fills an audience with the greatest of all theatre emotions—awe!”
Elia Kazan (Director of East of Eden)
Kazan on Directing
page 188
Posted in filmmaking on August 9, 2010| 1 Comment »
“Story has to do with cause and effect, a chain of cause effects linked together in such a way that the end is inevitable in the beginning.”
Elia Kazan
Kazan on Directing
Posted in filmmaking, tagged Elia Kazan, Kazan on Directing on August 8, 2010| 1 Comment »
“The ideal job of the storyteller is to involve the audience emotionally with something right off the bat, then get the chain of inevitable cause and effect rolling so that before the audience knows it, they are going through exactly what the character is going through. They feel with!! They are involved. They suffer and sigh with relief. They are actively and emotionally interested.”
Elia Kazan
Kazan on Directing
page 23
Posted in filmmaking on August 7, 2010| 1 Comment »
“A director commits himself to a project twice. The first time is from spontaneous enthusiasm. The second is after asking questions and overcoming doubts. Don’t talk yourself into it, question yourself. And write down your answers. If you abandon the project, you will know why. If you decide to go with it, your written answers will help you later, in times of difficulty and stress.”
Elia Kazan
Kazan on Directing
Posted in filmmaking on August 6, 2010| 2 Comments »
“They say I’m an acting director, which I don’t take as a compliment. I don’t really agree, but I do deal with actors a lot. I love actors. I was an actor for eight years, so I do appreciate their job. One of the most important things in an acting scene, especially a short acting scene, is not to talk about the scene that precedes but to play out the scene that precedes. You play out where the actors have come from psychologically so their ride into a scene is a correct one.
Once you’ve done that you divide the scene—or I tend to—into sections, into movements. Stanislavsky called them ‘beats.’ The point is that there are sections in life. Sometimes even a short scene has a three-act structure. You lay bare the actor, you make him understand and appreciate the structure beneath the lines. That’s what ‘s called the subtext, and dealing with the subtext is one of the critical elements in directing actors. In other words, not what is said, but what happens.”
Elia Kazan
Kazan on Directing
Posted in filmmaking, tagged Elia Kazan on August 5, 2010| 1 Comment »
“Are actors creative artists? ‘Yes, when they are creative.’ Positively not at other times. As a director, I know that my biggest job is casting them correctly. Then you give them a hint or two and wait. Like a cook with a cake, you mustn’t open the oven door until the cake is done—if you do, the cake is spoiled.”
Elia Kazan
Kazan on Directing
Posted in filmmaking, tagged Arthur Miller, Clifford Odets, Elia Kazan, Kazan on Directing, Martin Scorsese, On the Waterfront, Tennessee Williams on August 4, 2010| 1 Comment »
Today I started reading Kazan on Directing, which is based on the notes of director Elia Kazan. Kazan who directed the classic (and Oscar-winning) On the Waterfront. Kazan has been called by Martin Scorsese as, “one of the most important figures in the history of movies. It’s that simple.”
Of course, Kazan first may inroads in the theater first where he was an actor in Clifford Odets plays, before going on to work on Broadway with Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams.
He went on to be nominated for a total of seven Academy Awards, winning two and also an Honorary Oscar Award in 1999.
For the next few days I’ll be pulling quotes and sections from his book.
“The first problem of the director then is to determine what his direction is to be. And as this direction is to give organic unity to the whole production, his first job is to find a ‘center’ or ‘core’ for the work and for production. Once it is established the base decision has been made. All else devolves from this.
The director has to restate succinctly the play, its meaning and form, in his own terms; he has to reconceive it as if he had created it. What does it mean to him? What does it arouse in him? how does the manuscript affect his soul? In short, what is his relationship as an artist to this document, this manuscript?
It is not necessary that the director’s reaction match the author’s intention. Different periods have different values and meanings. And a director might want to produce a work for reasons other than the writer’s. Examples abound; the clearest is Shakespearean productions from Shakespeare’s time to ours.
Therefore, the director’s first question in approaching the script is not what the author intended, but what is his own response as an independent artist.”
Elia Kazan
Now you know why there are creative differences in theater and film productions.
Posted in Miscellaneous, tagged Jimmy Buffett, Mitch Miller on August 3, 2010| 2 Comments »
“You’ve got to work out a gimmick that’ll get people’s attention and hold it.”
Mitch Miller
Time magazine.
“You know what’s weird? As a kid I loved Mitch Miller…Loved those ‘Song Along with Mitch’ albums, maybe just because I loved to sing.”
Jimmy Buffett
When I was around 19-years-old I heard a radio interview with Jimmy Buffett where he said that one of his early influences was Mitch Miller and his popular TV show Sing Along with Mitch. That was before my time and also before the Internet so I didn’t pursue just how Miller had influenced him. I do recall Buffett say that Miller and gang just looked like they were having fun. All this came to mind yesterday when I learned that Miller died over the weekend.
I had no idea that Miller was still alive. He was 99. And so now in the age of the Internet I was able to plug into You Tube Sing Along with Mitch and see the man in all his glory. Having been to well over a dozen Buffett concerts I immediately see the connection between Buffett and Miller.
What I didn’t know about Miller is that he sold 17 million albums and is both credited and blamed with helping form pop music. Miller took up the oboe in junior high, and at 15 played for the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra before graduating from the Eastman School of Music. Over the year he either performed with or produced records with Charlie Parker, Johnny Mathis, Aretha Franklin, Doris Day and Frank Sinatra. In 1955, he had a No. 1 hit with “The Yellow Rose of Texas.” And in 2000, he won a lifetime achievement Grammy Award.
His TV show was cancelled in 1964 and he seemed to be caught between eras. The year 1964 just happened to be the year that the Beatles came to America. Musical tastes where changing. Miller was never a fan of Elvis and didn’t appreciate the voice of Bob Dylan. He once said, “Rock ‘n’ roll is musical baby food: it is the worship of mediocrity, brought about by a passion for conformity.”
It’s not find to critics of Miller’s musical style. But there was a reason he was a household name in the 60’s and it has to do with this anonymous quote I found on the internet; “Mitch’s recordings and TV shows always made me happy, even if I had a bad day.”
That pretty much sums up Buffett’s fan base. So though I never bought a Mitch Miller album or every watched his TV show his influence filtered down to me via a troubadour from Mobile, Alabama who was tunning in to Sing Along with Mitch as a youth long before millions would be singing along with him on Margaritaville. And who knows how many current singer/songwriters/storytellers Buffett has influenced?
And perhaps in 20 years from now a youngster in Montana will come across an old Jimmy Buffett live CD recorded at Fenway Park, and think to themself, “This Buffett guy seemed to have fun.” And a new generation of singer/storyteller/entertainer will rise up with no idea of Mitch Miller or how a TV show called Sing Along with Mitch helped change the direction of his or her life.
Keep in mind that to whatever success you have a storyteller is temporal. For whatever mysterious reason the torch has been passed to you and eventually you will pass it on. So keep your ego in check, and help as many people as you can along your journey.
As a sidenote, if there are any older screenwriters out there who feel forgotten and unappreciated shoot me an email (info@scottwsmith.com) so I can interview you for Screenwriting from Iowa. You can pass on some of your knowledge and antidotes and it could lead to a documentary I’ve been thinking about.
Posted in screenwriting tips on August 2, 2010| 6 Comments »
“The dialogue must serve four basic functions:
To move the storyline forward.
To reveal aspects of character not otherwise seen.
To present exposition and particulars of past events.
To set the tone for the film.”
Irwin R. Blacker
The Elements of Screenwriting
Screenwriting from Iowa
Screenwriting from Iowa 