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.

20 pounds

The brief was: a journey; Who, exactly got inspired by a journey around pubs? I am not sure, but it is a deeper story than what you could think... I was co-writer and editor on this one...

The story: A couple finds a 20 pounds note, and tries to find the right place to spend it... here it is

5-minutes videos - a focus on storytelling

Last week, I attended the ideastap event about creating 5-minutes videos. Many thanks to Paul Mason for his time and precious avice!

He's a reporter, so, as a playwright and director I wasn't sure I would gain much, but I did! 

What I loved about the session what how Paul made it very simple and "organised" to create a 5 minutes video. He started by emphasizing the idea of structure, explaining that any video needs a set-up, development and crisis resolution. Then he divided plain paper into 10 rows.... one for every 30 seconds of video. In each one, we worked out what we'd show every 30 seconds, and what type of footage we'd use. The idea: tell a story, and keep the viewer entertained with different type of footage. 

Definitely handy for my last documentary project. Thanks Paul!

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. 

The Lion King is Hamlet

We are adapting shakespeare at school. That's the brief: adapt Shakespeare. How cooler and scarier can it be?

So, with all this creative license, Crystal decided to adapt The Lion King, which apparently is actually an adaptation of Hamlet. And I thought Disney had uncovered some very old legend from Africa.... 

She needed a queen, and as is the case when some of my classmate need someone OLD, she thought about me. 

So I spent last Monday acting like a queen.

Being an actress is wonderful. You get free coffee, a lot of attention, and it's ok to be outrageously made-up. Also, I got to spend the day dressed in Dior, Karen Millen and white fox fur.* (as queens do) 

The only thing is, you kind of have to look good. And in the end, we had to take portrait pictures, for the movie's poster. I figured it's be good red carpet training, for when I am a famous director. I think Caroline tried any angle she could think of, to get a good pic of me. On a chair, from below, three quarters...

In the end, she whispered: "Don't worry, I'll use photoshop"

I was impressed by the cast. She had brought together some very talented actors. It is always disturbing to see how all those skilled actors are willing to work for free. Having them in my movies seem almost like stealing them.**

...

*The girl in charge of production has a very trendy mum

**So, I still spent the day trying to convince most of them to act in my Musical

Tarantino is bold

It's all about Tarantino these days. Though those who have seen it already say it's not that good I can't wait to see Django Unchained and I keep reading as much as I can about Tarantino until the 19th of January. So, this list of Tarantino's boldest moments made me laugh... I agree with the Melanie thing, but still unsure that it is a good idea for him to be in his movies... I don't think he is in Django.

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".

How to write dialogues?

Good question. I am in the middle of writing a play, and am struggling enormously with my fake-sounding lines. So I went back to this interesting Guardian article on writing convincing article. 

How to write fiction: DBC Pierre on convincing dialogue

I find the "beat around the bush" one the most difficult. 

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.