Cyndil bought it for me for my birthday. She's good at finding things I want that I don't even know exist (which is a real talent). I've been reading it this weekend. It's hard to put down. I'm almost done with it.
I've been reading a lot of "making of" books lately, "the Making of Star Wars," "the Making of Fantastic Mr. Fox," the Making of Where the Wild Things Are."
I'm not the kind of filmmaker that gets off on director's commentaries and special features. I mean I find those things interesting, but I don't use them as my filmmaking bible. Probably for the single fact that I know everyone does things differently and you can't really have a filmmaking bible. That's essentially why I don't believe in film school.
But I have for whatever reason been really infatuated with these books I've been reading (which, by the way, is a pretty out of the ordinary thing for me to do). I think the reason I'm enjoying them so much is because they're really breaking down the glitz and glamour of it all, which is something I pride myself in being somewhat immune to anyway. But it's hearing how these projects are developed that makes it all seem so easy and possible. Knowing that something like Star Wars just as easily might not have ever been made is really interesting. Knowing that George Lucas wasn't really all that much more credible than someone like me when he did it is even more empowering.
But Gene Wilder's book is by far the best one yet because it focuses on his entire life and he focuses on his normal life experiences as much as his major film experiences and summarizes them in really succinct ways. For instance, "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" gets about a paragraph in this book. But it's a very good paragraph about how he would only do the role if he could make his entrance the way he does in the film (starting out like a cripple leaning on his cane and ending with a summer-salt) because for the rest of the movie it would make people not trust him...which was perfect for the character.
But the most poignant nugget of information for me right now was a quote from Mel Brooks when they were editing "Young Frankenstein." But I have to set the quote up. Scratch that...rather than paraphrasing the context to set up the quote, I'll just post the whole 3 paragraph section here (I just attempted to type up a set up and realized I was butchering the nice little narrative Gene Wilder had in the book):
"...After seeing a film put together for the first time, a director usually wants to vomit (you may be thinking "ixnay on the omitvay," but I assure you it's true) because it doesn't have any of the rhythms the director had in mind while filming.
When I arrived in Los Angeles, I got a hotel room and an office at 20th Century-Fox and then joined Mel each day in the editing room to look at whatever John Howard had put together. When we saw the ascension scene----where I rise with the Creature on an elevated platform and cry, "LIFE, DO YOU HEAR ME? GIVE MY CREATURE LIFE!," my heart sank. I thought this was going to be one of the highlights of the film, and instead it was a boring blob. I put my head down. Mel didn't vomit. Instead, he got up and started banging his head against the wall. He hit it three times, hard. Then turned his face to the rest of us and said, "Let's not get excited! You have just witnessed a 14-minute disaster. In one week you're going to see a 12-minute fairly rotten scene. In two weeks you're going to see a 10-minute fairly good scene. And in three weeks, you are going to see an 8-minute masterpiece."
That's a cute speech, I thought, but you're kidding yourself, or just trying to make us feel better. How much can you change without reshooting? I saw the scene. I don't believe in miracles.
The next three weeks were my second lesson in directing: thousands of little pieces of film can be arranged in thousands of different ways. Almost three weeks to the day after Mel's speech, the lights went out in the screening room, and I witnessed an 8-minute miracle."
When I arrived in Los Angeles, I got a hotel room and an office at 20th Century-Fox and then joined Mel each day in the editing room to look at whatever John Howard had put together. When we saw the ascension scene----where I rise with the Creature on an elevated platform and cry, "LIFE, DO YOU HEAR ME? GIVE MY CREATURE LIFE!," my heart sank. I thought this was going to be one of the highlights of the film, and instead it was a boring blob. I put my head down. Mel didn't vomit. Instead, he got up and started banging his head against the wall. He hit it three times, hard. Then turned his face to the rest of us and said, "Let's not get excited! You have just witnessed a 14-minute disaster. In one week you're going to see a 12-minute fairly rotten scene. In two weeks you're going to see a 10-minute fairly good scene. And in three weeks, you are going to see an 8-minute masterpiece."
That's a cute speech, I thought, but you're kidding yourself, or just trying to make us feel better. How much can you change without reshooting? I saw the scene. I don't believe in miracles.
The next three weeks were my second lesson in directing: thousands of little pieces of film can be arranged in thousands of different ways. Almost three weeks to the day after Mel's speech, the lights went out in the screening room, and I witnessed an 8-minute miracle."
So yeah, that made me feel better about some of the things I haven't figured out yet in editing. There have been a few things where I think to myself, I wish I had shot that differently, but I'm forgetting two things when I say that. The first is that at least I shot it period. A lot of people don't even get that far...and the second is that I don't even have my first cut done, so by Mel Brooks' philosophy I should have a good four drafts after which I should have something pretty good (I'm too modest to claim "masterpiece").
But I also feel terribly guilty because I don't get to work on this movie like my job. So it's not getting nearly the attention it deserves right now. It's like this thing I get to when I can, and that makes me feel like I'm letting myself down. Don't forget this is what you want to do for the rest of your life, Evan.
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