InsIder’s PoInt of VIew: dIrectIng
the same themes, to come up with the movie
we made. Powered by an enthusiastic cast
and a tireless crew, many of whom slept in the
abandoned indoor mini-golf course we called
home, we made the film in twelve days.
It is currently at your local DVD store,
has enjoyed an extremely healthy run on
that cable network for guys, and given that it
features sexy women in leather and lingerie,
some enthusiastic if not-too-groundbreaking
fight scenes and lots and lots of gore
(including a rather nasty castration by fangs
and a pair of bloodsucking breasts), managed
to make it onto several guilty pleasures lists
the year of its release.
I mention this, dear reader, not as an “I
told you so” but rather as an illustration of
the sometimes challenging relationship
Chad (The Donald Strachey Mysteries) Allen
gets his motivation from director Ron Oliver
between the writer and the director. Having
been both, and having written for other
directors as well, I can perhaps shed a little
light onto that endless wrestling match
Sometimes, and I say this knowing full well that
which has eternally waged at the end of the
title scroll. (And at no time am I going to
every writer out there is about to nod quite smugly,
comment on the illustrative fact that while
the recent Writers Guild strike lasted for
the director just needs to get out of the way.
three months, the Directors Guild
negotiations, from first handshake to last,
took all of four days…)
Ron and his inspiration Chad and Ron share an on-set joke
The writer’s lot is certainly an unenviable
one; the pressures of staring at a blank
computer screen, trying to come up with
just the right series of words and images to
tell a tale, is enough to drive even the sanest
among us stark raving mad. And given the
writer’s natural inclination toward
introversion, not to mention the fact that
most of them are still living in their parents’
basement, it is a lonely profession to say
the least.
Good stories, however, are about human all the time and energy spent studying the production becomes immediately apparent;
interaction, something that, in this hands- latest Robert McKee tome or attending yet unless one has had the chance to think the
off era of Facebook and its virtual relationships— another How To course in screenwriting is entire movie through, from top to tail, one
the e-Life, as it were—seems to have become for naught, but surely the erstwhile Ernest is literally shooting from the hip—for better
almost an anathema to my fellow keyboard Lehmans out there would be better served or for worse.
jockeys. The messiness of civilisation, the by doing a little less writing and a little And quite often, the worse means falling
residual damage, both good and bad, of the more living first. back on old tricks and old methods that,
endless collisions of human existence are in This is not to say that the director has it while technically sound, do not necessarily
my opinion the only reason to write at all. all figured out either. suit the material at hand; sometimes they
But having Red Bulled my way over the In his or her role as Ringmaster of the can defeat the purpose of an entire scene.
years through script after tedious homage circus, the director’s world is almost entirely I recall once filming three or four pages of
laden script in an endless search for material, one of extroversion, of continuous, non-stop mostly expositional dialogue between two
I am sorry to report that the airtight human exchange, to the point of distraction. actors, staging it in a series of intricate
lifestyle of our current species of scribe does With upwards of one hundred people asking camera moves and elaborate blocking,
not seem to lend itself to anything more a thousand questions a day, and with the foolishly thinking I was helping the script
than a series of reports on the movies they director needing to answer those questions by giving it some visual pizzazz.
have watched, the TV shows they have seen (right or wrong never seems to matter, by As the camera crew scurried around the
and the blogs they have scrolled while sitting the way; they just want an ANSWER!), set following my inanely complicated orders,
alone in their regular corner at Starbucks, the very idea of taking a moment to reflect the actors rehearsed their lines quietly in a
earphones pumping the recycled sounds of or gather one’s thoughts in some kind of corner, just leaning against a piece of
Coldplay into their brains. logical order is practically a call to mutiny. furniture. Eavesdropping, I heard an honesty
I suppose it is sacrilegious to suggest that This is where the importance of pre- and truth come out of the text that had not
www.moviescopemag.com 23
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84