Painting the Tiger

Back when I was young I spent a couple weeks in the summer at “Art in the Park.” It was a program at Assiniboine Park in Winnipeg. We would go to different parts of the park and paint what we saw. We also went to Kildonan Park, where I did a picture of the Chief Peguis statute.

My memory of that time is rather vague, but one incident does stick in my mind.

One day we were at the tiger enclosure in the Zoo. I strove mightily to do a realistic picture of the tiger. The teacher (coach?) came by and looked at what I’d done. I can remember exactly what he said, but it was to effect that I was too conventional.

After he had gone I decided, OK, I’ll show you unconventional. So I did a more abstract painting. I just did the orange stripes of the tiger. It wasn’t the realistic image I wanted, but more of an impression of a tiger. When I look back, it doesn’t seem so unconventional now. At the time, for me, it was.

When the teacher came back he was very impressed with it. At the end of the program, he selected that painting for the showing they did. I remember seeing it up on the wall at the Kildonan Park pavilion. That was the old pavilion, not the one they have now. I never got the painting back.

As I’ve struggled with my rewrite of The Crying Woman, my thoughts went back to that teacher’s advice. Am I too conventional in my approach? I do recognize that I often fall into a set pattern. I reuse the same phrases, words and structures.

If I really want my movie to stand out, I must find a way to break out of my conventional thinking. Over the last eight or nine months I have looked for a writing formula to help me move to longer and more substantial stories. That taught me more about how to write, but it also constrained my creativity.

I’m not sure how to shift mental gears just yet. Maybe, like the tiger, my work needs to be abstract and impressionistic. I use a similar approach when I created Line of Taxis and I feel that worked well.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Focus Focus Focus

A problem I run into all the time is that I spread myself too thin over many different projects. I find myself jumping back and forth between each project. In the end, I never finish any of them.

It is only when I take a step back; consider each of my projects, and then make one my top priority that I finish. In the last couple days I’ve come to realize that I’ve fallen into the same trap again. It is time to let go of projects.

I have a bunch of ideas I want to work on.

Feature Scripts and Novellas

I wrote four feature scripts and I’d like to rewrite all of them. I’ve also thought of rewriting them as prose. They’d all end up about novella length. Maybe some day I will get back to them, but right now, there is only one, Then the Phone Rang, that I can see I would ever make as a movie.

Transportation Planning

I want to do a movie about transportation planning. I worked as a transportation planner for 30 years and thought that background would help me write. I still feel strongly about many issues in transportation planning, which would help push me through to completion. A month ago I asked some transportation planners what they thought of my ideas. The feedback I got wasn’t quite what I expected. I think I need to take some time away from the project to absorb what I learnt before I pick it up again.

Articles and Stories

A little over three years ago I started to post my stories and articles on-line at sites like Triond and Bukisa. Generally I’ve noticed that my stories don’t do as well as articles. As a result I’ve done more articles. Right now I have quite a few ideas for articles. In fact I had a new idea this morning and wrote up some notes for it.

While it has been nice to have people read what I wrote, it doesn’t bring in much money. It also distracts me from my stories and movies. I’ve decided not to write anymore articles. I’ve decided that several times, but every so often I do one.

I have started to post my stories on my own website and no longer post them on Triond. I want to use them to build up my “brand” and I think that would be more effective on my own website. Several of the articles I wrote I’ve done as blog posts instead. Again, I think it is better to draw people to my own site, rather than some other site. So far it hasn’t made me much money either.

Blog

My blog does take time away from my other projects, but I plan to keep it up. It allows me to articulate some of the ideas I have and help me focus. In the long term I think it will help promote my work.

My Most Difficult Case

Long ago I started to refer to this project as “My Most Difficult Film.” The first draft of the script is dated March 6, 1991 and the film still isn’t finished. I really need to put this project to bed and move on.

Years ago I read a quote from François Truffaut. He said that when he started a film, he wanted to make the best film ever made. As the project progressed, he decided that he’d settle for the best film he ever made. By the end, he just wanted it finished.

I really need to make this project my top priority.

My $100 Film Festival Film

Next year will be the 20^th annual $100 Film Festival. Melanie Wilmink at the CSIF would like to see all the film makers from the first festival submit new films. I’ve got a couple of irons in the fire.

Howard Horwitz, who also had a film in the first festival, and I have talked about collaboration. I did some test shots a couple weeks ago. I need to fill out that idea more. It needs to be ready to submit by December 1.

I have another idea I’ve considered for years. I think I can get it done fairly easily. It would be a very short film. Less than a minute long.

I really do want to get this project done this year.

The Crying Woman

This was originally an idea I had for a movie. It came from a suggestion that I do a film like Before Sunrise. I realized that it was very different from anything I’d done before. As a way to build up my skill, I decided to start with a short story.

I thought that not only would I develop my skills, it would also help me pitch the film. It has been a hard slog to get the story done. I made some good progress on a rewrite yesterday, so I feel much better about the project now.

While I feel good about the story, I do worry that people may not like the ending. It is so built into the structure of the story that if I wanted to change it, I would have to start over from scratch. I want to finish the story I have now, but I also think I will start on a new story in a similar vein.

My Short List

I plan to concentrate my efforts on just three projects for now.

·         My Most Difficult Case,

·         My $100 Film Festival Film, and

·         The Crying Woman

Ideally I should only have one top priority, but I think I can work on all three of these projects at the same time. Each of them will have periods where I have to wait for some one else to do something, which would allow me time to work on the other projects.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Project Updates: A Film, Another Film, An Article, A Story and More Stories

I made progress on several of my projects this week.

$100 Film Festival Film

I got the test roll for my new $100 Film Festival Film (HDFFF2012). I was happy with how good it looked. I had been worried that the film was too old and wouldn’t work. I need to plan out what to do next. What I’ve had in mind is something like Man with a Movie Camera.  I’ve been in touch with Howard Horwitz to collaborate on this project. He had a film in the first $100 Film Festival back in 1992.

My Most Difficult Case

Actually I haven’t made much progress on My Most Difficult Case. I’ve run into some difficulty with the sound production.

Can Taxes be Fair?

I wrote and published a new article about taxes. I had some ideas about what is fair and thought that an article on taxes would do well. The initial response was good, but then things slowed down.

The Crying Woman

I got the first draft of my story The Crying Woman done. It came in at about the length I planned, but the last section of the story was short by 200 words, while the first three sections were a little over. Right now I think I shouldn’t get all concerned about that.

Before I start to rewrite it I want to think over what I want to do with the story. Since I took so long to write it, the style I used isn’t consistent. I had followed the Lester Dent formula, but it isn’t really appropriate for this kind of story. I want to move back closer to the style I used for A Walk in the Snow, A Woman Alone in a Cruel World and Hello, My Name is Bob.

Transportation Planning Stories

I’ve written two transportation planning stories, The Glencoe Project and The Gladstone Barrier, as part of my goal of a transportation planning movie.

I posted a request on some LinkedIn groups for transportation planners to comment on my transportation planning stories. The response wasn’t as great as I had hoped, but I still had trouble responding to the comments. I want to give thoughtful responses and that takes longer. I got most of them done this week, but I think there are still a few I need to follow up on.

I started on the outline for a new transportation planning story this week. I tried to incorporate some of the suggestions I got.  I wondered if I should be doing a new story outline now with all the other projects on the go. I do enjoy doing out lines and it is a little too easy to drop what ever else I’m doing and put them together.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Issues in Transportation Planning #5: The Public and the Media

The relationship that transportation planners have with the public and media is an essential part of the job. But it is a relationship that can be strained by conflict.

Researchers, like Zahavi, have found that people spend about an hour a day travelling. It doesn’t matter if a transportation planner works in the public sector or the private sector, in the end taxpayers have to pay. Given how directly people are affected by transportation, it shouldn’t be a big surprise that transportation planners are subjected a lot of public scrutiny. Needless to say, this can lead to conflict.

In my experience, everyone has an opinion about transportation and everyone thinks they are an expert. They may completely misunderstand what a transportation planner does, but since they pay the bills, you need to be diplomatic in your response. The customer is always right.

When I was in graduate school I read an article about public participation. That was 35 years ago, so I don’t have the reference. The article talked about the difficulty that planners had with public input to long range plans. Usually the people who showed up for public meetings would have more immediate concerns and had no real opinion on what should happen 20 or 30 years later.

More generally, when transportation planners meets with the public, people are often not interested in the issue that the transportation planner has been assigned. They may be interested in problems elsewhere, sometimes not even transportation related. I had a character in The Gladstone Barrier who was interested in sewers, but who glommed onto the transportation engineer to solve his problem.

I heard a story about a transportation planner who had a project where he expected several of the options to be highly controversial and get the public angry. While he was supposed to do all his evaluation under public scrutiny, he wanted to do preliminary analysis of these options before he went public. He thought that if he could eliminate the controversial options for technical reasons before he went public, he could make his life much easier.

The transportation planner’s relationship with the media is another potential source of conflict. I took media training once and I think most of the time the conflict in this relationship can be avoided. People in the media have tight deadlines, so they will be open to a cooperative planner who can make their job easier. That isn’t always the case. Good stories need some conflict, so media people look for the conflict in a situation. Some may even try to create conflict.

I must admit that I am tempted to make the public and media into the villains in a story. After all, that is often the way it feels to a transportation planner. I suspect that people in the public and in the media often see transportation planners as the villains. However, I believe that a more nuanced relationship where both sides show good and bad traits would make for a better story.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

A Feature Movie is Difficult to Make in Many Different Ways - Version 1.0

Back in 2004, after I shot My Most Difficult Case, I decided that my next movie would be a feature. I felt I was ready for it, but seven years have gone by and no feature yet. I’ve started to consider some of the difficulties I’ve run into. I hope that will help me overcome them.

I expect that my knowledge and views will change and become better organized. That is why I call this version 1.0.

How Much Can I Afford to Spend on My Transportation Planning Movie?

Lately I have asked people for their opinions about my idea for a movie about transportation planners. Some comments I got made me realize that many people have an unrealistic view of the economics of moviemaking.

How Much Money Might I Make?

So, what is the market for a movie about transportation planning?

The Crying Woman and the Art of Listening

The Crying Woman

I got back to The Crying Woman this week. I got about 850 words done Thursday. The next day I couldn’t write if my life depended on it. I find this is a very hard story to write.

I’m about 80 per cent through the story now. I hope to get the first draft done next week. It will need a lot of rewriting though. Of course, since I plan to turn it into a film eventually, I’ll rewrite it many more times before I’m done.

The Art of Listening

The Evolution of My Transportation Planning Story

I have embarked on a project to make a movie about transportation planning. This idea has been percolating through my mind for a long time and has a long way to go yet.

 

Early Efforts

I worked for over 30 years as a transportation planner. When I started to make films in the early 1990s, many of my co-workers encouraged me to make a film about transportation planning. I was reluctant to do that.

Issues in Transportation Planning #4: It’s All Bad News

“I never gave them hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.” – Harry S Truman

I don’t know why I didn’t think of this earlier. After all, all through my career I was frustrated by how people reacted to bad news. Time and again I ran into a lot of flack about my “negative” attitude.