He goes, "Yeah, I approve, 99.9 percent." And I'm like, "Wow, and what's the 0.1 percent?" And you think he's going to say, "You know, I never said that," or whatever, and he goes — director to director — he goes, "Yeah, James, I think you should look at lighting in the beginning of [the] movie." And I'm like, "Oh man, I'll tell my cinematographer to watch The Room for pointers."
But then we realize only later that he had been wearing his shades through the whole movie, so it's like, "Yeah, of course the lighting is off." ...
I realized in that screening ... when [the audience was] cheering for him, they were cheering his story. They were cheering him on and the will it took to get his mov...
Related posts tagged 'Filmmaking'
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Related posts tagged 'Filmmaking'
[Tommy Wiseau] also financed it at the tune of $6 million. It does not look like it was made for $6 million. It looks like it was made for about $60. It came out in 2003, and Tommy intended it to be a great drama. He wrote on the original poster that it was a Tennessee Williams-level drama. It's a very simple story.
[Wiseau] casts himself as Johnny, this great guy, all American guy, and he has a girlfriend and best friend named Mark. And basically the plot of the movie is his girlfriend and his best friend have an affair and betray him, and — spoiler alert — he commits suicide at the end.
And that's kind of it. But that says nothing about all the bizarre creative decisions — the weird side...
when i did pootie tang i signed a deal that i served at their pleasure and had no creative control. It was worth it because I got to direct a studio movie at a young age and I learned. I don't sign deals like that anymore though.
Question: You've worked with a lot of the same people since your early 20s (Bridges, Elswit, Tichenor, Sellar etc). Did you pick these people very carefully out of admiration for their work, or was it more coincidental? Especially with Elswit - did you immediately know this was your guy?
Answer: Elswit was the only one who had a resume. The rest of us all found each other and started getting to work - big dreams and all...
Elswit was nice enough to work with me and teach me everything. He was and is my hero.
Every time Burt said ‘Neverthless,’ I kept noticing something was happening to Ricky’s face. I said ‘What’s going on?’
And he said, ‘I can’t… I’m suppressing laughter when he says Nevertheless.’
I asked why, and he told me this great story, of being at a football game where this woman is being introduced to sing the national anthem, and her name is Helen Forrest or whatever it is. And the announcer says, ‘And now to sing the National Anthem, Helen Forrest.’
And somebody in the stands screams, ‘HELEN FORREST SUCKS COCK.’
And the announcer [without missing a beat] says, ‘Nevertheless…’
It was a blast. First movie I ever did. Major memories: Danny McBride and I watching the Tyra Banks Show at lunch everyday and the stuntman breaking his leg for real in the opening scene!
I really love the way Wes writes with his collaborators, I like the way he shoots, and I like HIM. I've become so fond of him. I love the way that he has made his art his life. And you know, it's a lesson to all of us, to take what you love and make it the way you live your life, and that way you bring love into the world.
As I move through time, things change. I change, the world changes, the way the world sees me changes. I age, I fail, I succeed, I am lost. I have a moment of calm. The remnants of who I have been, however, hover, embarrass me, depress me, make me wistful. The inkling of who I will be depresses me, makes me hopeful, scares me, and embarrasses me. And here I stand at this crossroads, always embarrassed, wistful, depressed, angry, longing, looking back, looking forward.
I may make a decision and move from that crossroads, at which point I find myself instantly at another crossroads. Therefore there is only movement. A screenplay is movement. It is written in time and expresses a passage of ti...
At several points, there can be dozens of people who need you to have an answer. Your job as director is to tell everyone if what they're doing is within your vision. You always have to be able to convey that vision to everyone making the movie with you. The question could be about an actor's character, and if their improv or idea works in context with the overall story, or your beliefs about their character. It could be making the decision to move to a cover set because the forecast is rain. I make sure to surround myself with smart and highly competent professionals, and then take everyone's advice. I like the idea that's best for the movie, even if it's not mine.
It was incredible. The most exciting condensed period of my life and I can't imagine I'll ever do anything more exciting and I'm actually fine with that -- I don't know what could top that fantasy-camp of a filmmaking experience. The only stressful part was when we'd all go out drinking after a day on set, and I'd ask Quentin Tarantino a question, and he'd start to answer, and I'd feel this enormous pressure to REMEMBER EVERY SINGLE SYLLABLE because film history was literally being dictated to my brain, and I was the only witness, and I was two drinks in and feared I wasn't going to remember a sentence that a friend or historian would ask me for someday. It was the coolest thing ever, quite ...
Tommy Wiseau is the master rewriter of history, because when he was making The Room I think he was completely sincere. He was aiming for [Marlon] Brando and James Dean and came out with something completely different. But when he realized that people were laughing at his film, he then rewrote his whole script [of his life]. ... He came out and said, "Oh, I intended it to be comedy." Whereas, in fact, he had kept it in theaters — on his own dime — for two weeks to qualify for the Oscars.
Seth Rogen and myself are really good friends. We started out in the business together, so he was calling friends for favors, he wanted me to do a cameo and I agreed. It was a funny cameo; he explained the premise to me and I agreed.
The scripts is one of the greatest conceptual scripts I've ever seen. It's a script that was so unique, so original, and yet it got not acclaim. To me it was no question that it was the greatest script of the year. To this day people are talking about it, but they forget no one paid any attention to it at the time. The execution of the script, there were great people in it. It was a difficult movie to shoot because we shot in winter outdoors. If you ever get to go to Puxatawney, you should go, it is one of the few things that is BETTER than advertised. It's really something to see. But doing the movie, shooting the scenes over and over, it's like an acting challenge. It's like doing a play a...
Finish them! DOn't be the guy that writes half a script. Write a full script or make a film and post it! you have so many cool avenues these days! But no matter what, finish! Even if it's bad, then you have something finished to work off of and show others and get their thougths! Finish, then show others and take their precious free thougths!
I think Hitchcock had a good idea - he said shoot Love scenes like Murder Scenes and Murder Scenes like Love Scenes..maybe he felt that falling love was scary as shit.....? I think we've all felt that way sometime...
There’s another quote that I like, this one’s a little long, but I think it’s good. It’s by a guy named John Garvey: ‘I am increasingly convinced that the need to be right has nothing whatsoever to do with the love of truth, but to face the implications of this means accepting a painful inner emptiness; I am not now what I sense somehow I am meant to be. I do not know what I feel from the bottom of my heart, I need to know. The beginning of wisdom is not to flee from this condition or distract yourself from it. It is essential not to fill it up with answers that have not been earned. It is important to learn how to wait with that emptiness. It is the desire to fill up that emptiness which le...
Chris was always doing that bit to me at work. We shared an office, and you had to walk through our office to get to Chris Rock & Adam Sandler's office, so these 2 microscopic offices were back to back, and Chris' desk was behind mine, and he didn't really know how to write, or read, really (kidding!) but he would come in bored, because I would have to write my sketches to try to get on but they would always let him on, so he would get behind me and be bored, everyone would write him sketches, and he would say "Davey… turn around" and I said "if this is Fat Guy in a Little Coat I'm not turning around, it's not funny anymore." And he would say "no, i've got a whole new thing I'm doing."
And ...
Doing these other things [in art school] was a release, and I think it made me a better actor. Because when I was only acting, I was trying to do all of these things as an actor. I was on my own mission. I was acting for myself — to do a great performance for me, not for the movie. But that’s not my job as an actor. My job as an actor is to help the director achieve his or her vision. As soon as I got to direct my own films or escape the film world and into these other realms, when I came back to the film world, I could be pure about it. I don’t think my performance in Spring Breakers could’ve happened if I didn’t do all this other stuff.
I couldn’t have lent myself to that if I didn’t have...
No, it’s not. There are so many pitfalls when a movie comes out that it’s hard to enjoy it when it comes out. Obviously if a movie does well and is critically well received I like it, but I’m so needful of it, that kind of response that it doesn’t feel good. It just feels less bad, you know? Because it feels really bad when people say mean things. Really, it feels bad. And I kind of wish that it didn’t, but it does for me.
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