Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker

On the Auteur Theory.

I try to remember that even if finally a film is authored by one
person–and I believe it is–the conundrum is that it’s achieved
by many, many hundreds of people. It’s as if they’re all holding
onto your pen as you’re writing. And if they don’t hang on–if
they don’t support the pen–you can’t make your piece of work.
So I’ve never allowed myself the delusion that I was doing it by
myself. I am extremely grateful to the crew, and I let them know
I am.

On control.

Given that I’ve written the scene, scouted
the location, worked with the design–that there’s very little
that I haven’t had enormous
control over–I’ve learned that the job finally becomes one of
witnessing, not controlling. If I’ve got Nicole Kidman and Renée
Zellweger in a scene, and they’ve rehearsed with me and are saying
the lines that I wrote and doing the actions that I require of
them, then beyond that, I don’ t need to exercise power over them.
In fact, quite the reverse: I need to learn from them and be instructed
by them about the moment that they’re in as actors.

Language is an Action.

One of the most important things for an aspiring screenwriter
to think about is that beautiful lines are not the business of
screenwriters. Language is an action; it’s part of the vocabulary
available to an actor and often a small part of the vocabulary
available. To carry too much of the meaning of the scene in the
line is a very big mistake. Often a moment of failure or a moment
of contorted language, of ugly language, can be more eloquent and
communicate more to an audience than the most beautiful epigram.

Moviemaking as Growing

I think of the whole process of moviemaking as growing, where
everything is growing all the time: you grow from a blank page
to an answer print, you grow the sound along the way and you learn
about what sort of sound the film likes–what sort of layers of
sound the film is intrigued by. Also, how sound works in transition.
I love the pre-lapping and post-lapping of sound. I love scenes
that finish deep into the preceding scene and scenes that begin
deep into the preceding one.

The truth About Moviemaking.

In the end (and this is the truth of moviemaking,
as far as I’m concerned), no effect, no gesture of the camera,
no lighting characteristic,
no design or costume flourish has any weight in comparison to a
moment of performance. If you can get the truth of a moment from
an actor, with a video camera, with them standing against the wall,
that’s worth more than any dollar that you can spend on anything
else.  

The pen precedes the process.

I think that the pen precedes through the whole process. The instrument
of the writing changes but it’s still a writing process. You’re
writing with a notebook, you’re writing on the computer, you’re
writing with the camera.