How do I watch films?

This question was asked on a forum I sometimes participate, and I thought I’d cross post my answer, rough as it is.

When I watch a film, first and foremost I desire a complete world. I don’t care if afterwards I think the story was lousy, the characters were evil, the film was too long or badly edited – I want to be taken into the filmmaker’s vision.

Yesterday my wife and I caught a film called Sita Sings the Blues at the Nashville Film Festival. (this film is incredible on its own, one woman wrote directed and animated the ENTIRE thing) I took in a notebook to write down some notes because I’m writing some reviews for a local site. But I was so entranced by the film I didn’t take one note. The director created this world and sucked me in, and it was amazing.

That’s step number one. A world I can believe in. I don’t care if it’s completely fantasy like Lord of the Rings, or completely realistic film like the French films I’ve been watching lately, or something in between.

Secondly, (and admittedly, step number one is big picture under which everything else falls) I look to the writing and acting. I want to believe the characters. Do they seem like real people? Why does this matter?

Because I love love love foreign films and indie dramas – films that challenge my perspective of the world. Films that open my eyes and help me better understand what it means to be a human. And good filmmakers create characters who feel human; meaning that despite their geographical, sociopolitcal, racial, and economic differences from me – there are things that I connect with in them. When a good character is created, then I can’t hold them at arms length. Whatever happens to them becomes more personal to me.

Take for instance, the film That Evening Sun that I saw this weekend. It features Hal Holbrook as the lead (An 80 year old lead – how awesome is that?!) – a farmer from the hills of TN who leaves the old person home his son has placed him in because he wants to die on his farm. Only, when he comes back he finds his son has rented the farm to a family who the old man despises because of class. The film is a class war, a meditation on aging, and features no characters that arguably have anything in common with me.

But the filmmakers worked so hard to create genuine, realistic characters, that I, in my humanity, have a great deal in common with them. And so as I watched this (phenomenal) movie unfold, I wasn’t just watching a story and being entertained, I was understanding my sin nature, the ways I fall.

Last of all (not really, but this feels long), I look at the technical elements of the film. The cinematography, the usage (or non-usage from those crazy Europeans) of music, the pacing and editing, continuity and such. These things matter to me, and they disrupt from my viewing of the film if they are not done well.

But I have one final thing to say about watching films – and this may be the only thing of value I say. In my 4 or 5 year long quest to understand whether I thought filmmaking was my true desire and how I felt that fit into faith (which, isn’t over, that’s just where I am in the question), I have finally come to some sort of conclusion on the biggest value of films to me. It’s simple but it’s now the basic framework by which I approach all films.

Films expand my understanding of what it means to be human. And since God is personal, and I will always always only understand him through my own experience, the more I watch good and challenging films (and read great literature, and listen to great music, and read great poetry), the more I expand my understand my understanding of this experience of being human, and the more I am able to deepen my understanding of the mystery of the Gospel and the mystery of the God who is the author of my faith and salvation.

500 Days of Summer

Marc Webb’s debut film finally made it to Nashville last night, as part of the Nashville Film Festival (which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, very cool). The trailer bills the movie as a story about Boy Meets Girl, but not a love story, and the trailer is accurate, thank goodness. We don’t need another romantic comedy, and this film doesn’t attempt to give us more of what we don’t need.

Instead, the film, in its light-hearted and whimsical style, is concerned with what exactly love is in modern times. Both of the main characters come from homes with divorced parents, but Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) believes in true love and finding “the one” while Summer (Zooey Deschanel) does not believe in any of that stuff. Their story; told in a great non-linear fashion that examines the 500 days that Summer is in Tom’s life, examines whether either of their ideas about love hold up in reality.

Much has been made in early reviews about Webb’s experience with music videos, probably because there is a dance scene and the music is heavily tied to the visuals in the film (look for a great split-screen sequence with Regina Spektor’s song Us), but I think most of those reviewers missed the subtle touch that Webb brought out in the post-film Q&A last night. The narrator that we hear in the trailer is the narrator of the film as well; a deep, soothing voice that sets the tone for a storybook-ish movie. By beginning with the narrator giving us the setup – Girl doesn’t believe in love, boy does believe in love, and boy knows that girl is The One at first meeting – the film gives the viewers the normal cues of a fairy tale story.

But the film isn’t intending to be a fairy tale, nor is it intending to subvert fairy tales by setting your expectations and destroying them. Rather, it is questioning and wrestling with my generation’s takes on love – the fear of labeling relationships, the generation of kids who’ve grown up after divorce, the desire for some concrete idea of love but the complete lack of any model or definition. By using fairy-tale aspects, 500 Days of Summer did well to ask the questions that I’ve heard lots of friends ask (that I myself asked), and while the film didn’t really have any good answers, it wasn’t willing to forsake all hope in the idea of love.

I identified with the movie a great deal because I’ve been in those positions before; finding someone who I thought was the one, being with a different someone who just really really wasn’t the one, and finally finding The One who I’m now happily married to. I still don’t know exactly what love is; but I’m a lot closer and I do know a litany of things that it is definitely not. This movie, rather than being a “happy ending all things tied up neatly but nothing of substance provided” Hollywood film, successfully (to me) asked some questions and wrestled with them in a way fitting its characters and story, then ended on a note of hope. It wasn’t a perfect film, but it was far better than anything that Hollywood normally produces on the subject of love, and I hope it has a great deal of success at the Box Office.

Off Topic:

And I think that somewhere down the line there is a critical essay waiting to happen about how this film identifies another shift in culture; with Summer being representative of this generation’s wrestling with the 70’s generation (which might be defined as Spring – the birth of free love and love as a self-centered, self-seeking concept). If I were to write said essay, I would place the modern generation right at the end of 500 Days of Summer (which I won’t spoil), and explore the themes of the film as suggestions of ways that culture is changing. But that’s just me.

Monsters Vs. Aliens

Many critics have already railed against this film for being gimmicky. I’m here to tell you they are right. But most of those critics saw the film for free, meaning that they didn’t get the full experience that I had last night. Freya and I decided to see the film on the IMAX screen in 3D, and we might have rethought that if we’d asked the price before purchasing the ticket. The tickets were $14.50 apiece – $6 more than your regular movie ticket.

When you go see 3D movies on IMAX, the theater gets to add two upsell fees – $3 for IMAX, and $3 for 3D. If the film were good, if it were interesting, I’m fairly sure I’m ok with paying $6 extra dollars per ticket to enjoy the film on the biggest screen possible. And 3D on IMAX was definitely cool.

Monsters vs. Aliens was not good or interesting though. I guess when one takes inspiration from B-Movies and then attempts to write a kids movie, one cannot make anything more than a B-movie. And when a studio undertakes the effort, with its legions of writers and focus on the bottom-line, and when the film becomes the Studio-head’s seminal effort to show off the awesomeness of a new technology, well you can guess that there are a couple things that fall to the wayside in making that film.

Those things are plot, characterization, plot, and refinement of plot. Monsters vs. Aliens is, when it comes down to it, a demo-reel for 3D technology. There are some funny gags and a few laugh-out-loud lines or scenes, but overall, there is very little substance to this movie.

You shouldn’t misunderstand either; I love a good kids movie. I was all about suspending some disbelief and having some fun with Monsters Vs. Aliens. But the writers through every possible idea they could come up with into a bucket, and it just kind of came out looking like mud. Here’s some of my main complaints:

• The monsters are lame. The supporting monsters are all cardboard characters that we don’t really get to know at all. The filmmakers couldn’t decide if they should be “realistic” (meaning they could be explained by “science”) or if they should be monster-ish, so they are both. And it doesn’t work.
• The humans vary between cartoonish (see next point) and attempts to be real (like with the monsters). The President is a pointless character as are the general and Susan’s parents, but Susan herself is an attempt to bring a moral to the movie so they can’t make her too cartoony. It just feels stupid.
• The General is a clear mish-mash of every General in every war film that was already a parody – most obviously that I saw was Gen. Buck Turgidson from Dr. Strangelove. Apparently when you parody a cartoonish character by making him more cartoonish, no one finds it funny.
• And last of all, the battles were lame. I mean, with a title like Monsters vs. Aliens, there’s an expectation that you’ll have a battle of epic proportions, something like the old Godzilla movies. Nope, no go.

But honestly, I think I would have enjoyed the movie more if not for those ticket prices. It just wasn’t worth it at all.

Adventure Button

This morning as I drove to work, the clouds were temporarily ripped around the Nashville Metro area to allow sun in. And as the early morning sun streamed down, and the clouds reclaimed some of the liquid that they have given us the past few days in a hazy steam, I was reminded of my travels.

It made me remember the time that Drew and I drove across the US and watched storms from a distance in the desert, miles and miles away. Storms don’t look like that in the south.

Then I thought about all the other things I’ve been blessed to see in my youth thus far, just the US. Travelling from San Francisco to Portland to Chicago to New York and Boston to Florida and Texas, I’ve seen lots of corners of this beautiful land.

But I really want to see more; really really. I want to hop in the car, grab Freya, and and take off to see more and more and more.

And then yesterday Wired arrives with this article and makes me want to go buy a cheap RV, fit it out with some cool technology (mobile edit studio, amirite?) and leave for a few years.

That big button labeled adventure gets pushed like every three weeks in me these days. I’ve got to hit the road.

Poem from John Updike

Fine Point
December 22, 2008

Why go to Sunday school, though surlily,
and not believe a bit of what was taught?
The desert shepherds in their scratchy robes
undoubtedly existed, and Israel’s defeats-
the Temple in its sacredness destroyed
by Babylon and Rome. Yet Jews kept faith
and passed the prayers, the crabbed rites,
from table to table as Christians mocked.

We mocked, but took. The timbrel creed of praise
gives spirit to the daily; blood tinges lips.
The tongue reposes in papyrus pleas,
saying, Surely - magnificent, that “surely” -
goodness and mercy shall follow me all
the days of my life, my life, forever.

(Published in the New Yorker, Mar. 16, 2009)

RIP Mr. Updike

Final Cut Pro and Motion Tutorials

Today I’ve had a few people ask about learning Final Cut Pro so while I have a ton of videos compressing here at work, I’m going to search the web and try to compile some good resources for FCP.

First of all, you should know that if you want to make a video like I did here:

Final Cut is not enough. It is a powerful program, but it has limitations. That’s why included with Final Cut is Motion; a motion graphics program. It’s not near as powerful as After Effects, but it is powerful none-the-less and has a lot of the typical Apple flair for ease-of-use and deep features.

The thing about Final Cut pro is that while it has vast and powerful features; there is no good way (that I know of) to briefly introduce it. You just learn as you go. Need to do something with the project you’re working on? Well, FCP probably has 3 or 4 ways to do it. So the best thing to do is to get a project and start working; and with every bridge you cross, Google it.

With that said, check out these, I think they are a great overview:

Apple’s Tutorials
http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/tutorials/

Apple has basic tutorials for all of their professional programs on their site. The tutorials are great overviews of the powers of the FCP studio. They won’t teach you how to do exciting things, but it will give you a good handle on the basic capabilities of editing in the suite. Start here if you are new to the program.

As for Motion, your best bet is to visit this site:

www.applemotion.net

And just start going through the tutorials. Rather than doing everything all at once, be selective on topics, so that you can slowly flesh out your understanding of Motion. Since I am unable to go through all the tutorials and choose the best ones, here’s some of the capabilities in Motion you’ll want to learn about over time:

• Text
• Replicators
• Particle Emitters
• Motion Paths
• Animation Modes (Keyframes, Recording, Behaviors)
• Masks
• 3D Space

Nashville Film Festival

As I return from the SXSW film festival, I’m looking forward to what’s upcoming. Here’s some highlights from Nashville’s Film Festival, which is running April 16-23 this year, and looks to be very strong.

Narrative Competition:

• Buick Riviera
• Kisses (Slashfilm Review)
• Pachamama
• Sita Sings the Blues (I’ve heard nothing but praise of this film)
• That Evening Sun (Jury & Audience awards winner at SXSW)
• True Adolescents*

Documentary Competition:

• For the Love of Movies
• Garbage Dreams
• Living in Emergency: Stories from Doctors without Borders

Special Presentations

• 500 Days of Summer
• The Passion of Joan of Arc
• Trimpin: The Sound of Invention

I was thinking of trying to catch the Atlanta Film Festival, because it is showing some films I missed at SXSW like Goodbye Solo, Alexander the Last, Beeswax, and a film that I did catch and I want Freya to see called it was great, but i was ready to come home. I hope to write some more on that film soon. It’s playing April 18 in Atlanta, and might just be worth the drive to see it. For some reason I just kind of loved the film.

Anyways, that’s all for now, I’ll do some SXSW thoughts in the coming days hopefully and get some more posts up on this blog.

Learning about being Human

Films I’ve seen thus far at SXSW:

• New World Order
• Medicine for Melancholy
• True Adolescents
• Artois the Goat
• Sin Nombre
• it was great, but i was ready to come home.

They’ve ranged from american new wave (the second and the latter) to indie/mainstream mixes (the third and fourth) to  really affecting Indie dramas (Sin Nombre). Coming to this fest has taught me a few things. 

First, I’m never coming to a film festival without my wife again; or some other film loving geek who I have a preexisting relationship with. I’ve struck up conversations with people nearby and had a couple decent convos, but there’s nothing quite like friendship and knowing where someone stands to help promote deeper conversations about the films I am seeing.

Secondly, the last piece of my understanding of why film fell into place. As in, why do I have such a strong desire to make film? What is it I love about watching films? And this is obvious, but in my usual behind the curve way, it just now dawned on me; I love film, i watch and analyze film, to learn about being human. Not just to learn more about myself, but to learn more about others.

It seems simple, but it was kind of eye-opening to me to put it into such exact terms. I’ve even had the thought many times before, but I think in light of the wonderful films I’ve seen recently, from Silent Light to Medicine for Melancholy to it was great, but I was ready to come home. have all clearly emphasized that goal. They have opened my eyes to what it means to be human. 

And so, In light of all the trouble I have writing official reviews, from now on I’m just going to examine films from that light; what did this film open my eyes to about the experience of being human? What do I miss, that this film opened my eyes to?

I’m not stopping attempts to critique films, that is obviously necessary to my better understanding and appreciating them, but it has helped me today in trying to crack these films apart from just an “are they good; why or why not” aspect, which is always frustrating to me. 

So, look for more thoughts in the coming weeks, on these films, and others that I’ve seen this year. (Like, Silent Light and The Wrestler)

Job Opening at my company

cj Advertising, the company that I work for (and might I add, love) is hiring a web designer. Here are the job specs. If this is you (and they are pretty serious on these specs) hit me up at peacefulchaos at gmail. I’ll give you the rest of the info and put in a good word for you with the hiring squad.

Job Requirements:
• 3+ years working as a professional interface designer with excellent samples of design ability
• Extensive knowledge of XHTML, CSS, effective design techniques and current SEO best practices
• Detail-oriented with strong organizational skills
• Self-motivated, disciplined, and able to work effectively as part of a team
• Ability to maintain ownership of individual projects while also working on collaborative projects
• Exceptional communication and project management skills

Job Functions:
• Maintain awareness and familiarity with changes in online marketing best practices, including (and not limited to) Web design methods, mobile marketing, and social marketing.
• Create complex, standards-compliant Web sites utilizing CSS, HTML/XHTML and PHP
• Develop cutting-edge user interface designs for Web sites in the legal industry
• Develop and implement online marketing strategies and tactics to increase Web site traffic and improve conversion rates
• Develop and monitor email marketing initiatives
• Review and analyze client sites to improve online marketing strategies
• Conduct competitor analysis/research

This job, by the way, is based in Nashville, TN and no commuting will be considered.

Fearless Creation

Flannery O’Connor has popped up a great deal in my reading the past few days. (here, and here are two notable articles). That first link asks the question “is O’Connor overrated?” and arrives at the answer that she most definitely is not. I would agree, but I don’t claim special authority in answering that question.

But the article delves into how misunderstood she has been, since her first novel arrived on the scene. Many many people have been able to see her genius, but many of those people never understood its roots or her purpose in writing. At one level she was merely an artist; a writer who was writing what the knew to the best of her abilities.

But there were deeper levels to her artistry; as she explored themes of grace and redemption in the most backwoods and filthy settings. She was exploring the essence of her faith in the symbols of the world that she lived in. And she did it with such craft and skill that her stories, though written 50 years ago, are still admired, studied, and excellent.

I was challenged as I read this article, because she didn’t fear being misunderstood. She didn’t fear that someone would read her story A Good Man is Hard to Find and not get that the grandmother receives grace the moment before she is shot. She just wrote the story that needed to be told.

I’m not sure I can do that yet. I don’t think I’m brave enough or courageous enough to create something that is able to be misunderstood, that isn’t overt enough that it is clear what I was doing with the art. But yet, many many artists who are Christian do just that, from O’Connor to Sufjan Stevens to Makoto Fujimara. It is, I imagine, something that is demanded of an artist who is attempting to make something great; the willingness to do everything in your power to create a genuine, excellent art in your chosen medium and then to set it free.

And if I explore this further, I find that it comes from the very idea of Creation itself. If God created man, and set him free to choose his own adventure, then there was the (now proven) risk that Man wouldn’t understand, and would make the wrong choices. Man would fall.

The beauty of the Gospel is that man, in his infinite foolishness, his lack of understanding of the Creation, did not devalue the creation. The Gospel is the redemption of Creation and it gives man the ability to understand again, to see what was intended. God’s creation was not lost or devalued by its misunderstanding; but God himself had to step in to allow it to be seen clearly again.

Thinking in this way is opening up many thoughts to me, but to bring it back around full circle; the fear for artists is not that their art will be misunderstood, but that it is not good enough for the truth to shine through to someone who is examining it closely. Not all will understand, but hopefully those who look closely will.