Making a musical - How much I love you

Finally, here are the videos we made before and after the musical...

Before:
Showing the team at work

After:
A few highlights of the one-hour show

The Great Gatsby

So, The Great Gatsby. The loooooooong-awaited, super-hyped Great Gatsby. It actually proved to be everything I was (dreading) expecting.

First, it definitely is a Baz Luhrman movie, no doubt about that, with some of the things he does that I love. The extravaganza, of course. I love how he recreates these extravagant red-velvet-and-feather atmospheres. The directing style, too, is everything Baz Luhrman has been known for. The extensive use of in and out zooming, the shiny red-light, the fast-forward. And last but not least, the costumes from Miuccia Prada are obviously incredibly beautiful. And, well, everyone has been speaking about it.

But then, when costumes steal the show, it is never a good sign, is it? Because even though I had pleasure watching it, I can't deny I was a bit disappointed.

First, what with the voice over? True, the best thing about this novel is the text (definitely neither the story, nor the characters), but film is another medium. And it would have been great to see how Baz Luhrman takes the higher road and skips the narration. (And please, Baz. No more words fading in and out on screen...)

But mainly, I am still eagerly waiting for Baz luhrman to rock my world and take my breath away the way he did with Romeo + Juliet. Despite the enormous budget, talented team and glittery cast, the movie is not as groundbreaking as it could have been. The thing is, with the Great Gatsby one expects extravaganza and grandiose. And that makes Baz Luhrman's rendition, despite the collaboration with Jay Z, almost too literal.

I would have loved to see him recreate Gatsby in a different world, say Wall Street just before Lehman went bankrupt. That would have given bones and substance to quite a pale story.

Space invaders...

Not long ago, I attended a choreography workshop with Suzanne Thomas, who made us work on the performance's space.

She stressed how movie clips and TV have shaped our view of dancing: the importance of staying on the camera's viewpoint and of not disturbing the audience's attention from the singer have led to more static and uniformed performances.

She wanted us to use the whole space, and see how placing dancers in different locations, facing different directions could make us tell different, textured stories. It was amazing how the same moves could have different meanings.

For example, just placing two dancers next to each other, and one a bit further apart makes you wonder about their relationships. Are the first two in love? Will the third one join in or not? Or having all dancers face the wall, back to the audience, then make one of them turn, can create a kind of surrealistic experience.

Definitely worth taking into account, next time I have a play or dancers to direct...

HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU - the Musical

Last week was the busiest and most emotional week of the year. With two performances of my musical, I was running everywhere, working with my tema Amy, Delia, Veneta, Marco and Nikolai on the latest changes. 

I was the writer, director, co-producer, and I was also a dancer - so quite stressful!

The show went so well. And the venue was full full full.

And the actors asked to be on my nest show, which is all that matters to me, really. 

Pictures and video soon - editing now - but in the meantime, here is a quick "documentary" we made about the show - click on this link

François Truffaut on directing

I was going through the "The Four hundred blows*"'s DVD yesterday, when I came upon an interview with François Truffaut himself, and here he explains what he thinks is the way to become a director.

"Do not become an assistant directors - assistants are being sent shopping when something interesting is happening on the set. Instead, watch movies. There are movies I must have seen more than 16 times. Once you know a movie by heart, then you can start understanding how it was created. I consider Renoir a master, and I always relate to him when I am stuck about how to direct a scene".

There. On the other end, Danny Boyle suggests to get a job in the maimstream. I guess there's no one way.

*It is a literal translation of "Faire les 400 coups" which in French means being naughty and free and wild when you're a teenager. So pretty much spot on. 

Writing plays - What I learnt from my last one and why moodboards are key

With my latest play - How much I love you - out in 2 weeks, now is the time to take a step back about what I learnt during the process of writing and directing it: 

-There's no such thing as seeing it performed. Spending time with actors, hearing them say your words out loud, answering to their questions, definitely makes you spot how your writing can be improved. So, readings are extremely important. But mainly, it is about taking what you wrote out - even if it's not as perfect as you would like it to be - and letting other people bring it to life. 

-As filmaker AnneMarie jacir puts it: rewrite, rewrite, rewrite. I have 6 versions of this play on my computer, and kept editing it while working with actors

-moodboards: something that is extremely important. Even though we work with words, I find working with moodboards infinitely valuable. Moodboarding each characters for example helps define their personality: how would they dress for a walk in the park? which Hollywood actor would best fit the role? What does their office look like? Empty and clean, or with expensive art on the walls? It also helps so much when it comes to speaking with actors

An afternoon with Mike Figgis

Not long ago, a girl at LCC organized a lecture from Mike Figgis, who happens to be her uncle, to raise money for her major project (note for later: that girl is smart, and it is a good start to be the daughter of someone. Would my doctor uncle interest anyone?). 

I didn't know the guy (on my defense, he describes himself as "getting down the Hollywood food chain"), but managed to sneak in anyway. He spoke about his life, and gave good advice on directing. So here are the few things I learnt from him:

-Learn how to use a camera, "it is your brush" (also known as: There is a love affair going on between the actors and the camera crew and you want to be involved)

-Get music education

-Understand light. Take a day off, go out and make some shots then look at them

-My favorite: No comfort food at lunch time during shooting. Noone can focus after fish and chips

-And the one, truest and scariest: you are not here to be loved. Sometimes, you will need to be diva, and you will be loathed for that. 

Now, having been fed with the "two brains is better than one" and "we're all in this together" philosophy during my business years, I find this very hard to make mine. I should write later on that. 

And finally, a quote he started with:

"I thought: it can't be that difficult. It wasn't".

A shooting day

That day we planned on shooting 3 hours in a cemetery, 1 hour in a church and 3 hours at my home. We had it all: the storyboard, the call sheet, the awesome cast... - what could possibly go wrong?

Meeting point is the Brompton cemetery's south entry at 8.

8.00 James arrives

8.30 I arrive

9.00 Levi is lost

9.00 James and I figure we should take establishing shots of the cemetery      while waiting for the others

9.05 The camera says "full battery"

9.15 The camera says "no battery"

9.17 We figure it's better to turn off the camera

9.30 I receive texts saying "On my way"

9.35 Levi finds us

9.45 The actor arrives

9.50 I go for a run around the cemetery because it's sooooooooo cold - did I mention it is the coldest day of the year?

10.15 We prepare the mike, the tripod...

10.17 The cemetery's guard tells us that if we get caught filming in here, it's a 5,000 pounds fine

10.30 Our actress arrives

10.45 We hide our bags

11.00 We start shooting, as discreetly as possible

11.15 We are so running out of battery, we can't even turn video mode

11.17 Our actor does a "working dance" with the battery to make it work again

11.18 It works!

11.19 It doesn't work

11.30 everybody is freezing

11.45 James says he's gonna go home and charge the battery and come back. We plan one hour and a half f waiting time

12.00 I rehearse a dancing scene in the cemetery with our actors and really, they're beautiful

12.05 Our actor reminds us that he has to be at the other end of London in 2 hours

12.30 We sit in a cafe and eat chips and drink tea. 

13.15 The camera comes back - slightly charged - The actor is supposed to leave in 30 minutes max

13.20 We shoot our planned 2 hours in 30 minutes, hiding from the guards and running from one scene to the other

14.10 Our actor can finally go - thanks Sid!

14.15 No more battery so James goes recharge it in a beauty salon

14.35 We're waiting

14.50 We shoot our last scenes

15.13 We can't manage to get a proper shot of the scene when she gets hit by a bus and we almost die

15.30 Shooting over! We can go and give the equipment back to the school

17.00 We go to my place eat humous and watch the takes, only to realize the most important ones are blurry

Despite the cold, it was actually a really cool day. I had a lot of fun, I guess thanks to the beautiful location, our funny actors and my super efficient and focused team. It's cool to know that we will shoot again.

Manifeste!

J'ai déjà eu le mal de mer devant un film de Lars van Trier, mais je n'avais jamais eu l'occasion de lire le manifeste à la base de sa façon de tourner. Et qui est superbement immortalisé par Festen, de Thomas Vinterberg (ici, la meilleure scène du film, mais attention, c'est un spoiler....) 

Apparemment, le Dogme 95 a donné lieu à tellement de films pourris que les deux créateurs ont fini par baisser les bras et se concentrer sur autre chose...

Pour notre prochain projet on doit écrire un MANIFESTE, et tourner un film en accord avec ce manifeste. En gros, si on trouve que la vie est rose, on va filmer avec un filtre rose...

J'ai réfléchi un peu, et pour l'instant j'ai:

-un film ne doit pas forcément représenter la réalité, et peut inclure des éléments de fiction (en gros, si le protagoniste se met à danser sous la pluie, c'est pas grave M. Van Trier!)

-peut inclure d'autres formes d'art/ ne doit pas forcément être une vidéo (comme dans La jetée par exemple)

-Le public est intelligent: pas besoin de tout montrer, tout dire 

-Ce qui se passe entre les scènes est tout aussi important que ce qui se passe pendant

Bref, c'est creux. 

Vous avez des idées? heeeeeeeeeeelp!!!!

PS: j'ai changé les settings (quelle geek), normalement c'est facile de commenter maintenant! 
:-)