Extra Criticum

Another Great Film Lost in our Broken System

Who We Are Now is one of the best indie films I've seen in years. And it's playing on one screen, the beloved Cinema Village. And if yesterday's sparse attendance is any indication, it won't be here next week. And that is a crying shame. If you're in the city and can manage it, run to the Cinema Village to see this important, moving, breathtaking and beautifully written and acted film while you can.

I can point to two things which might account for its lackluster box office performance. The first is a problem of film marketing. The trailer is a pumped up shiny object which tries to make the film seem like a conventional thriller when it's so much more. Like many trailers today, it underestimates the public's hunger for substance and plays the lowest common denominator. And by doing so, I'm afraid, possibly causes folks who'd really connect with the moral core of the story to skip it entirely.

Robert McKee is So Much More Than I Imagined Him to Be

All filmmakers know his name. It's virtually impossible to have written a screenplay in this country (or any other, for that matter) without having come across the name Robert McKee because it is McKee who towers over all of us, or the idea of McKee, an omniscient master analyst of any story told on screen. As we write our screenplays, it's almost impossible to ignore the nagging fear whispering from within. The fear that when the film is finally made and screened and (God willing!) released in movie theatres, McKee might see it and emerge from the darkened theatre shaking his head in disbelief at the multitude of glaring failures of storytelling on display.

As I was making ALL THE RAGE, which I adapted from my stage play A BETTER BOY, I wondered what McKee might make of my radical reworking of the story's structure, specifically, the last 15-20 min. of screen time, which departed radically from the play's resolution. I uprooted what had been the the last 25% of my protagonist's journey to construct an end that really landed 180-degrees from where the play had arrived. What's amazing to me, looking back on it, is that somehow without ever having read McKee's books or taken his world-famous workshops, I'd managed to absorb one major point he's been making about storytelling for the last thirty years: the relationship between the audience and a story's protagonist is essential to a story's power to move us and engineering that relationship is delicate surgical work that demands our undivided attention.  Turn away from that question for even one moment during the crafting of a screenplay and... well, good luck selling more than a dozen tickets.

YouTube Promos 4 Live Theahtuh!

Here's a re-post from 2008. I was reminded of this problem/issue/question recently when I stumbled upon the super slick promo video for the Flea's upcoming show. Here it is so you can take a look.

I don't know about you, but as lovely and adrenaline-pumped as this is, there's absolutely nothing here that would make me decide to open my wallet and purchase tickets. How about you?

What follows is my original post on the subject. And links to two promo videos that I think were super cool and effective.

Death on the Tracks. What a Railway Accident Can Teach Us About Filmmaking

Recent news of the criminal prosecution and sentencing to two years in prison of film director Randall Miller in the death of camera assistant Sarah Jones on an indie film shoot in Georgia has been stuck in my brain like glue. They were shooting a scene on tracks used by freight trains. They weren't permitted. And the freight train just came up too quickly. It crashed into a truck bed, debris from which flew into the crew, killing Sarah Jones.

See, it wasn't so long ago that I was leading my own skeleton crew through the fields and back roads of Omaha on a 3-day shoot of a scene in We Pedal Uphill, the culmination of which was a 2 min. sequence featuring a parked truck on the railroad tracks, a bottle of champagne and enough dirty doings to keep us all up at night.

Here's what I remember about our shoot. I'm not sure we got a permit. But we did check in with the local film commission and they provided us with details of the freight train schedules for our particular crossing so we knew when the next train was scheduled to come by and planned accordingly. But that scene took more than an hour to shoot, even on our shoestring budget so you can imagine how much time it might eat up on a bigger production. We needed our moment to be the edge of dusk so we really couldn't afford to draw it out much anyway.

But this news of the accident in Georgia has me doing a good deal of soul-searching about just how easy it is to succumb to the temptation to cut corners, especially when working in the low-budget arena. I like to think I didn't put my actors or crew at risk but can I be so sure? We took the precautions we felt were prudent at the time while still managing to squeak out a feature film for thousands, rather than millions. And lucky for us, no one got hurt or killed. 

But I am reminded of another film I worked on years before that one where lines of safety were far more blurry.

The Overnighters: Hope and Shame for America

Just saw Jesse Moss' arresting documentary, The Overnighters in a screening room the size of my livingroom at IFC Center on Sixth Avenue. If there's a movie that captures this moment in American history -- the tearing apart at the seams of our social fabric -- it is The Overnighters. Through the microcosm of the city of Williston, North Dakota, which is undergoing a kind of Frack Rush the likes of which this country hasn't seen since the days of the California Gold Rush the film can be seen as a portrait of America. In case you hadn't heard: The Dakotas are booming thanks to fracking and one of the results is an influx of men seeking work in the oil fields. 

Congratulations Laura Callanan on your new post at the NEA

I'm absolutely over-the-moon with pride and joy at the recent announcement that my dear friend, Laura Callanan, has been appointed Senior Deputy Chair of the National Endowment for the Arts. Anyone who follows me on social media knows what an admirer I am of Laura's unique perspective on the role aritsts play in shaping our world. What better time than now to re-share one of my favorite videos of a talk Laura gave entitled, The Surprise Social Entrepreneur. I still find this talk simply astonishing. I'm sure you'll agree.

Here it is for your viewing pleasure:

Oh where oh where did our firewall go? Marketing firms and name brands are getting into the "Art" game. Should we care?

This item recently caught my eye.

Heineken, Stella Artois, and Sony are among those to have commissioned one-off immersive live theatrical experiences in recent months. Now, however, London culture marketing agency pd3 is pushing the model further by financing the development of its own theater projects.

The move--which will bring a theatrical interpretation of five Brothers Grimm fairytales to central London later this year--will demonstrate both new creative and commercial opportunities for both brands and theater producers, the agency claims. FULL STORY HERE

It seems that more and more big name brands are getting into the commissioning business. Is this any different from the Archduke commissioning a new piece of chamber music from Beethoven? There's a lot of talk these days about a direct line leading from Rembrandt straight through to Andy Warhol, a line defined by an exciting new noun/verb: branding.

David Dower on "The Scarcity Matrix"

David Dower has an astonishing piece on what he calls The Scarcity Matrix up on Howlround. Here's an interesting paragraph from this must-read post.

We used the Scarcity trigger to corral an audience for ourselves and hang onto them out of fear they’ll migrate to “our competitors in the market.” We adopted the Scarcity Principle to drive generations of artists into MFA factories because, without that credential they’d not be able to compete in the open market for the scarce opportunities available to new voices. We adopted the Scarcity Principle to build the endowments and a competitive advantage in our markets, and tied up that capital forever in the hands of the few, the proud, the chosen—ourselves. Now we are the gatekeepers and long lines are forming outside our doors. We used it to build our Boards, promising prospects that our Board was more prestigious and their contributions would mean more if given to “us” than to “them.” We celebrated our success in this zero-sum competitive frame with press releases about box office records, enormous donations, celebrity appearances, and transfers. 

 

read the whole piece at Howlround.

So Much Talk of Commerce. So Little Time.

Lydia Stryk has a fascinating piece up on HowlRound about a movement to guarantee artists a living wage. And Stryk's wonderful piece (not all of which I agree with) is just the tip of the iceberg. There's an ocean of online commentary these days on art-making and the question of its sustainability in our current economic structure. I wonder why this might be happening.

Maybe it's just that a lot of over-educated folks with upper-middle-class parents (myself included) bought the story they were sold about devoting one's life to the creation of art: You can do it.

Or put another way:

You can be whatever you want to be.

Has there ever been a more profoundly dangerous message conveyed to an entire generation?

Playwrights at the Helm (DG Academy)

I had an absolute blast moderating this panel for the Dramatists Guild on Tuesday. Really smart and generous panelists include: August Schulenburg (Flux Theatre Ensemble), James Comtois (Nosedive Productions), Susan Bernfield (New Georges), and J. Holtham (New Black Fest, EST, and Fell Swoop).

Good news for those who weren't able to join us. Here's the video:

Watch live streaming video from newplay at livestream.com

 

What do Bansky, Joni Mitchell and Joshua Bell all have in common?

So, have you heard about this thing that happened? The artist, Bansky, set up a table in central park to sell his work for $60 a canvass when they usually go for the thousands. This video is amazing to watch.

And, well, that got me thinking of the Joshua Bell stunt from a few years back.

'Steps' of Rejection

I recently wrote a blog post pointing out the obvious: that any writer who has sold 450 million books has a clear marketing advantage over an unknown scribbler. I was comparing J.K. Rowling and an unknown author, Robert Galbraith, after those two writers were outed as being the one and the same (though somewhat transgendered perhaps).

Besides giving us the year’s best book publishing controversy, the incident provides a nifty case study on the power of brands, even if the brand happens to be an artist.

Overcoming "Submission Aversion"

I'm not sure how it happened to me but at some point in the last ten years, I stopped submitting my work to places and people I didn't know. Well, not entirely. But virtually so.

I'm not sure if this shut-down can be attributed to battle fatigue induced by one too many rejections on the heels of another or if it has something to do with my work at the Dramatists Guild where I find myself spending more and more of my energy on a crusade of my own making to shake playwrights free of what I consider to be a misguided fantasy that sending a script to a literary department and waiting is somehow a key to something more than frustration.

So, here's the thing. A good friend of mine told me about a contest that seems very well suited to my most recent play -- my sprawling history play about the rise of young Teddy Kennedy. And last year, I missed the deadline. So this year, she very considerately called to remind me about it.

My friend Susan Tunis

Visitors to this site know that one of my standing obsessions is audience development. I'm convinced not enough mental energy is being devoted to the question of what makes someone hungry for theatre of any kind. I remember when I attended plays in Lithuania, I was struck by how young the audiences were compared with my experience here in the U.S.

I thought it might be interesting to profile some of my favorite audience members, highlighting certain traits I admire or get a kick out of. I'll start with an old pal of mine named Susan Tunis.

Susan is on my mind because she recently visited New York for a conference. Professionally, she is one of Amazon's top book reviewers. Her blog, In One Eye and Out the Other is a go-to destination for bibliophiles. But I digress.