I am a young screenwriter in Canada who has recently had the privilege of having a film made of my first screenplay.

Surprisingly, the script was financed for production and went to the boards rather quickly – 6 months to be exact. For whatever reason, I got this one right, with the type of feedback a person could only dream of, from everybody involved, including producers, distributors, the crew and cast, the financiers. I felt validated and motivated and eager to continue on, with offers and interest and such.

Here’s the problem: the film has just locked picture and one of the producers gave me a copy to screen. It’s terrible. Astonishingly bad. This isn’t an issue of opposing visions or creative difference. Despite the fact that the script has been heavily cut and rearranged, it just seems to lack life or vision.

The entire treatment is superficial. The performances are terrible, the images lack nuance, there is no sensitivity to the material, never mind entertainment. And I’m not the only one that feels this way. The producers, the distributors -– all are very disappointed. My question is, will this hurt me and my reputation? Will I be given another chance? And how do you deal with a loss of this kind? It’s pretty devastating.

--Jeremy

First off, my sympathies.

This is one of the worst things about being a screenwriter: you ultimately have very little control over the movie that gets made. The director might shoot your scenes; the actors might speak your lines; the editor might assemble them in a logical manner. And yet, when it’s all done, the film may in no way resemble what you set out to accomplish when you wrote your script.

When I saw the first cut of Go, I nearly threw up. I’m talking physical nausea, with shortness of breath and heaviness in the arms. It was terrible. I remember thinking, “Maybe they can just never release it.”

But after a few hours, my optimism gradually returned. Because I’d been on set for every second of filming, I knew we had much better versions of everything. So I sat down and wrote eight pages of notes. After the next cut, I wrote another seven pages, then three pages, and a final three pages.

Ultimately, we went through five or six major cuts of the film, including three days of reshoots. My notes certainly didn’t save the movie. But by writing things down, I was able to get the team (the director, the editor and the producers) to focus on one set of issues, and help steer discussion on what to do next.

I’ve given notes on every film I’ve written since, sometimes with good results (c.f. Charlie’s Angels), sometimes not (c.f. Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle).

So my first advice, Jeremy, is ask those producers and financiers how locked the picture really is. Given a choice between a bad movie and a pissed-off director, most producers will gladly unlock the picture if they think it can really help.

Have you seen dailies? Are they significantly better than the movie? The cliché is that no movie is as good as the dailies, or as bad as the first cut. But if you were watching all the dailies and didn’t sense a train wreck, maybe your movie went off the tracks in the editing. The good movie you wrote may still be in there, hidden under bad choices.

But there’s the very real possibility your movie is just awful. If that’s the case, there’s little you can do except remember that most filmmakers have some credits that make them cringe. Hell, James Cameron directed Piranha Part Two: The Spawning. I’d argue that even a bad credit is better than no produced credit.

So if it ends badly, take the emotional hit. Feel it. Then move on. Your career’s not over; it just didn’t start on quite the note you wanted.

I am currently doing this one year program in film production.

I have made four to five short films recently and I dont seem to have much trouble working with actors or the crew or even editors.

But on the last two films I have found myself getting into long drawn out debates with the cinematographers. On both the occasions it was because I wanted to go for extra takes where I felt the actors could do better but my cameramen/cinematographers were adament that the takes were good enough to them and hence we should move on. I found myself giving in to them at the time only to regret it at the editing suite. How would you handle something like this without pulling rank?

-Albert

I say pull rank, bro. It is the director’s decision as to whether or not there will be another take. When you are in hell in the editing room because you have no cutting options, the cinematographer is probably onto his next gig.

I remember on Wayne’s World we had quite a few “all-nighters” where people got very tired and irritable. Theo van de Sande, our most wonderful cinematographer, must have been a night owl because his energy level picked up right when the sun went down. One time in the wee hours of the morning he was lighting the street outside Wayne’s house and it was taking forever so Mike Meyers put on Theo’s jacket and shades and did an imitation of him (Dutch accent and all: ”I am going to light every zingle leaf on every zingle tree on zis entire ztreeet!!” At least we all got a good laugh out of it. You MUST protect yourself and do as many takes as you feel is necessary to make the best film possible. The ONLY exception to this would be if the cinematographer was also the financier, which I am going to bet is not the case.

There is a protocol and a hierarchy on a set. In the ideal world, the director and D.P. are smooth collaborators and support each other and facilitate each other in doing their best work. There have been many times that a D.P. has asked me if he can do another take because he was not pleased with a camera move or a lighting issue, etc. I always try to accommodate if time and energy allow. In the big picture, however, you are bringing up a point that is quite important with regard to the director’s position on the set and on the production in general. I have had so many crew members from different departments say that they enjoy working with me because I am not “wishy-washy” and that I always “know what I want”. This is absolutely expected of the director. She/he is the captain of the ship (on the creative level, at least) and all the department heads need that point person to help make their life or death decisions and some of the lightweight decisions as well. I recall that on one studio picture I was asked so many questions during the day that I wanted to know just how many there were. I asked the prop man to provide me with one of those hand-held mechanical “counters”. Each time I was asked a question, I hit the clicker and by the end of the 12 hour shooting day I had answered over 300 questions.

The worst answer you can give is “let me think about it” or “maybe”. This is confusing for the crew and greatly slows down progress. It is also not good for set morale if the director is told what to do by the D.P. or any other crew member. Once that behavior is established, then it can get infectious and chaos results. You don’t have to be an egotistical tyrant, but you do need to be assertive and firmly in charge. Right up front if I am working with a new shooter, I establish this: If there is an issue upon which we disagree, we agree to step aside, out of hearing range and discuss the issue privately. That really helps because if you don’t, you may find yourself with an eager audience, much like in a cock fight where spectators stand around waiting for the blood to fly.

Hi. My all-time favorite photographer is David Hamilton. He has this sensual way to just take pictures with a now-legendary technique called soft-focus. He also directed a film called Bilitis which was just an excuse to expose beautiful, poetic and lyric imagery.

I was just wondering how can you get this sensual effect? Do you cover the lens with a soft cloth or something? And seeing I'm just an amateur in photography, what's the soft-focus technique and can it be used on film?

-Elias

Nets are the main way of achieving that kind of look. Dior silk stockings used to be a favorite before they stopped making them. The “dernier” of the weave is the important thing, plus what colour the nets are. Black will not affect the contrast much, brown will give a sepia look and white will create a more blown-out milky image.

How the light works in relation to nets, and also whether the net is used in front or behind the lens, will also make a big difference to the result. Sources of light like windows and bulbs blow out quite a bit and this can be used to create the look you are talking about.

Uncoated lenses is another way to go – like old Cooke Lenses – so he might have used some of them for his Photography.

In the days of plate cameras there were “soft focus” lenses made which can still be obtained from Cooke Optics in a new version. They also do a soft-focus attachment for one of their prime lenses – the 65mm I think.

Cokin make a huge range of soft filters for Stills and Lee, Tiffen and Harrison make a whole variety of diffusion and fog filters for movie cameras, which can be used in combination with nets. The amount of visible grain is another choice to be made in the making of these kind of soft dreamy (kitsch?!) images. Lighting plays an important part, as does costume and settings, so you have to get all the elements in place to achieve a “Hamilton” look. Good luck!

John August's screenwriting credits include Go, Big Fish, Titan A.E. and both Charlie's Angels movies. His current projects include Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Tarzan, and Corpse Bride. He also maintains a screenwriting-oriented website at johnaugust.com.

Born and raised in Boulder, Colorado, John earned a degree in journalism from Drake University in Iowa, and an MFA in film production from the Peter Stark program at the University of Southern California. He lives in Los Angeles.

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