{"id":918,"date":"2020-02-07T15:18:30","date_gmt":"2020-02-07T22:18:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/?p=918"},"modified":"2020-02-07T15:18:35","modified_gmt":"2020-02-07T22:18:35","slug":"2020-directors-close-up-week-four","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/2020\/2020-directors-close-up-week-four\/","title":{"rendered":"2020 Director’s Close Up: Week Four"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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How does a director make a film? How has\nfilmmaking changed? Week Four of Film Independent\u2019s Director\u2019s Close Up <\/em>answered those\nvery questions. The panel featured Lorene Clermont-Tonnerre (Writer\/Director\nof The Mustang<\/em>), Alma\nHar\u2019el (Director of Honey Boy<\/em>),\nLorene Scafaria (Writer\/Director of Hustlers<\/em>),\nLulu Wang (Writer\/Director of The\nFarewell<\/em>) and Olivia Wilde (Writer\/Director of Booksmart<\/em>). All films share one common\nfeature, a visible passion for the story being shown. Yet, to get to that stage\nrequires dedication and painful patience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Farewell<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Filmmakers must first choose what topics to\nbring to the big screen. Many take inspiration from the real world.\nScafaria\u2019s The Hustlers<\/em> transforms\nan article on a criminal ring into understandable and relatable individuals.\nWang\u2019s The Farewell<\/em> shows\nWang\u2019s true family tragedy and Har\u2019el\u2019s Honey\nBoy<\/em> visualizes Shia Lebouf\u2019s dark and painful past as a child\nactor.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whatever the topic may be, filmmakers must\nalso ensure that investors feel the passion they do. For Wang, this took many,\nmany years as The Farewell<\/em> features\na runtime almost entirely in Mandarin and a set almost entirely in China. This\nmade any investor believe the film should be produced by a Chinese company,\ndespite being from the perspective of an American. Scafaria had other issues in\nmaking Hustlers<\/em>. After\nScafaria\u2019s script had been approved for production, it took close to a year to\nconvince executives to even consider allowing Scafaria to direct the script she\nwrote. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Booksmart<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The challenge of making a motion picture has\nonly begun once production begins. Wilde\u2019s Booksmart<\/em> featured many Steadicam shots with very few\ncuts. That meant every actor shown on camera had to recite as much as \u201cfour\npages of scripts\u201d at once, as well as every aspect of blocking and rhythm.\nFor The Farewell<\/em>, the\nproblems only begun at long shots. Because the film\u2019s production took place\npredominantly in China,\nmany cultural contrasts became quickly apparent. China had no way to shut down\nstreets, meaning production had to occur in public as individuals walked in and\nout of frame. Assistant directors (ADs), who traditionally keep production on\nschedule, have different roles in China. The film features scenes in\nMandarin and English, so most actors and most of the production crew needed to\nspeak both languages fluently. Other productions may have to struggle with\nanimals – with The Mustang<\/em> featuring\ndozens of horses and a lead actor who could not ride horses. Other films have\nto cast and write children into highly adult-oriented scenes, as Honeyboy <\/em>did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After editing, coloring, VFX, sound editing\nand so much more has been completed, the director sits down with the composer\nto create the music for the film. Some films create stunning original\nsoundtracks, others license them from modern artists. Some filmmakers decide to\ngo to the music of centuries ago, as Scafaria did by having the The Hustlers <\/em>score consist of music\ncomposed by Frederic Chopin, the 1800s pianist and composer. Sadly, Chopin\u2019s\ngenius requires the most talented pianists and, because of that, few recordings\nexist. So, production went on a copyright-riddled Easter egg hunt of trying to\nhunt down Chopin pianists to acquire rights for his treasured pieces.\nWang\u2019s The Farewell <\/em>has\nclassical pieces as well, which made sense as Wang then revealed she has a\nbackground in Classical piano \u2013 specifically Chopin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Gerry O., KIDS FIRST! Film Critic, age 17<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

While cinema has always had the passion and\ntalent seen today, change can be seen in every way. The process of production\nhas become faster and faster, with some panelists quoting 60 day production\nschedules or even 29 day production schedules. The lengthy steady-cam shots seen\nin every film featured would not be possible without modern stabilization\ntechnology. Har\u2019el\u2019s Honeyboy<\/em> incorporates\nWi-Fi-powered lighting setups, allowing the gaffer to turn on and off lights\nwhile a scene occurs, giving far more flexibility to the cinematographer and\ndirector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of all, filmmaking has changed socially.\nThis panel consisted entirely of female directors, a sight that could never be\nseen twenty years ago, and a sight that shall become increasingly common as the\nnext generation of filmmakers make their first films. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information on Film Independent, go to https:\/\/www.filmindependent.org\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Gerry O., KIDS FIRST! Film Critic, Age 17<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How does a director make a film? How has filmmaking changed? Week Four of Film Independent\u2019s Director\u2019s Close Up answered those very questions. The panel featured Lorene Clermont-Tonnerre (Writer\/Director of The Mustang), Alma Har\u2019el (Director of Honey Boy), Lorene Scafaria (Writer\/Director of Hustlers), Lulu Wang (Writer\/Director of The Farewell) and Olivia Wilde (Writer\/Director of Booksmart). All films share one common feature, a visible passion for the story being shown. Yet, to get to that stage requires dedication and painful patience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[201,10,80,197,162,194,163,198,200,199,195],"class_list":["post-918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jury-updates","tag-booksmart","tag-film-independent","tag-gerry-orz","tag-honey-boy","tag-hustlers","tag-lorene-clermont-tonnerre","tag-lorene-scafaria","tag-lulu-wang","tag-olivia-wilde","tag-the-farewell","tag-the-mustang"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=918"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":926,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918\/revisions\/926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}