Power and Product - My Journey Into Film
A couple of colleagues asked me why I was considering return to graduate school to pursue an MFA in Film at Columbia University, when I am already a practicing interdisciplinary artist and educator and I already hold an MFA in Theatre. I came to the conclusion that my reason could be summed up in two words: product and power. Luckily, no one has ever accused me of being laconic, so I'm quite happy to expand on these two words.
Power...
In 1997 I was in my final year of an undergraduate degree in Drama and Theatre at the University of Liverpool, UK. As part of my studies I directed an obscure one-act play from 1938 called The Man Who Wouldn't Go To Heaven by F-Sladen Smith. In this play the main character, a staunch atheist named Alton, finds himself at the gates of heaven. He argues with the angel Thariel that he cannot possibly be there because he doesn't believe in it. As part of this production, I edited together an eight-minute atonal montage comprised of thousands of horrific images of war, death, violence, torture and human suffering. I projected this short film on the rear wall of the stage toward the end of my theatrical production, integrating it with the story and text then returning to the original script to finish the last five minutes of the play.
I was very proud of my interdisciplinary production and was mortified when the evaluating professor pointed out that, despite the standing ovation, the audience had lost interest in the end of the play. The film montage and accompanying soundtrack had been so overwhelming that the audience could not switch back into theatre watching mode. They could not reassert their suspension of disbelief after being bombarded with thousands of potent images each lasting only milliseconds. That comparison between the power of film imagery and theatrical storytelling has been a motivating aesthetic in my work ever since.
After undergrad I worked as a professional theatrical lighting and sound technician for over 12 years, in Britain(including London's West End), America and on international cruise ships. I enjoyed and appreciated being part of skilled teams able to make spectacular images happen for live audiences, but I soon concluded that the theatrical image, regardless of poetic dialogue, commanding performances or clever design, could not control an audience's experience as masterfully as the filmatic image could. No matter how dreadful Macbeth's treachery, it does not compare to the fleeting distress of a razor blade crossing an eyeball as a cloud dissects the moon (Un Chien Andalou). When Private “Pyle” inhales the contents of his rifle in Full Metal Jacket, Willie Loman's off-stage suicide in Death of a Salesman pales in comparison. It is only in this decade that the lighting, sound and automation technology seen in commercial musicals such as Shrek, The Lion King, Beauty and The Beast, Mary Poppins, Spamalot and the upcoming Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark, can provide a similar sense of live spectacle that Eisenstein's The Battleship Potemkin was able to achieve in 1925 with little more than a staircase and a baby in a pram.
Working as a writer and director I use my technical knowledge to help me present story in both theatre and film. However, I believe that only film gives me the power to dictate how I tell the story. For me, the manipulation of the viewer's experience by masterful control of the image in the frame is the key element that theatre lacks. In the last 20 years, I have worked on over 150 different live productions. These experiences afford me innumerable pragmatic and artistic skills, which I am very proud of, and I recognize how these skills and experiences inform my individual aesthetic. However, I now find that I need to evolve by employing my skills and experiences in the story-telling medium that has the power to meet my expanding artistic vision. And so, I come to film.
...and Product
It is more than just the inherent power of film that allures me; it is the product itself.
During the first semester of my MFA program, I finished writing the first complete version of The Holding Pattern, my fourth full-length play. In my own time, I produced and directed the play with a group of undergraduate actors. Using a 16mm Paillard Bolex H16 camera and 100ft of Kodak Plus-X Black and White reversal film, I recorded footage that I wanted to edit and project as part of this play; just as I had done years earlier. This time I took care to integrate the edited films with the live action and although the script is now in its forth iteration, the films remain as independent artistic products.
Like Alton's indignation that heaven cannot exist regardless of his presence there, I repeatedly find myself working in theatre and arguing that I do not believe the end to justify the means. For me, theatre offers no product. In theatre the story is presented in a medium that is, by definition, ephemeral, transitory and unrepeatable. The recorded image, conversely, offers so much more. It is comparable, provable, insistent and permanent. I want to be able to tell stories to more than a few hundred people at a time - or at least to have the facility to do so. It is no longer enough for me to celebrate "the script" as the primary tangible product that remains to justify the collective artistic labor required to put on a show. Whether on 16mm reversal, 35mm, VHS, miniDV or QuickTime, the recorded image allows me to tell the same story again and again and again. Film is repeatable evidence of the performances, the lighting, the sound, the artistry and the substantial collaborative effort required to tell the story. It is so much more than memories and words on paper.
Also during my MFA Theatre program, I took four film classes in one semester: editing, cinematography, critical analysis and philosophy. This total immersion in film dramatically altered my aesthetic. Learning Final Cut Pro and Avid software put Eisenstein's early theories of montage into perspective and fundamentally changed the way I approach imagery and juxtaposition in my both writing and directing, and in my visual art. Robert Rodriguez's pragmatic advice in Ten-Minute Film School persuaded me to pick up a camera and understand that film is not a new direction for my work, but rather an additional means to the same goal. I am a storyteller and I am a filmmaker, and I want to be better at both.
Conclusion
Okay, so clearly my aspiration to make great films takes a little more than just two words to explain, and I admit that much of this autobiographical essay may seem theoretical, even philosophical. However, it is, if nothing else, honest. Theory and philosophy are where my stories come from. They are what inspire me, as my plays, such as In Dog We Trust and Division/Part/Section will attest. I am a theoretical and philosophical storyteller, but I am also a pragmatic and technically skilled producer. As such, theatre has limitations and recognizing this fueled my desire to experiment with the power of the moving image. The products that remain from these experiments made me realize that my desire has evolved into a need, a need that requires focus and experience.
