Thread by @lnputtamchetty

The TOTAL FILMMAKER, a Thread.
#JerryLewis
#TotalFilmmaker

I had this book with me for a long time. I kept it aside and looked at it always and said, not now, not now. As my film is going to start, I thought it's the perfect time I should read it and It is enlightening.

This by far is the best book on film-making and films I ever read.

The total film-maker is a man who gives of himself through emulsion, which in turn acts as a mirror. What he gives he gets back.

Film, baby, powerful tool for love or laughter, fantastic weapon to create violence or ward it off, is in your hands. The only possible chance you've got in our round thing is not to bitch about injustice or break windows, but to make a concreted effort to have a loud voice.

When you make a film under stress of one kind or another, emotional or mechanical, or without all the necessary information, it might still turnout to be a good film. But no one can put a finger on why it isn't an excellent film.

I do know that plumbers don't lick their pipes. With film-emulsion, it's easy to get turned on. Don't lick instead make it taste good.

It does matter how it is made. If the right optics aren't used, and if the actors don't function properly, and if the film-maker doesn't have a complete understanding of his function, it will bomb- whatever the subject.

1. THE HUMANITIES OF THE FILM
How many? Can I teach the intangibles of film-making? Not really. Maybe the only answer is: How do you touch another man's soul. It might develop from that.

Sit down and say, You're dealing with lovely human beings. Each one of them in his own right a lovely, important to someone human being. Some will behave like turds, but you must try to understand why.

No matter how you slice it, the most critical aspect of making films is dealing with people.
I don't care how much technical information you have stored away, you blow the picture when you blow the human end.

Actors will kill for you if you treat them like human beings. You have to let 'em know you want 'em and need them;pay them what they want, but don't overpay them; treat them kindly. Give an actress a clean dress and see she gets fresh coffee in the mornings,She will kill for you.

"Perfect," he said. "Cut! Print!"
He proceeds to the next setup while I'm cocked down with one leg hanging. The son-of-a-bitch didn't say "Thank you" or even nod his head. Just "Perfect."
He lost me with that one scene, and never got me back. -Actor,Lewis.

The relations with crew are not much different from the relations with actors. A strong feeling, for good or bad, runs through a crew.

For years I've had a thing in my operation that I call fear extraction. The first thing I try to do with a new member of the staff is extract the fear that insecurity, God, and Saint Peter handed down.

The funniest part of creative people, particularly people who love film, is that they get up in the morning and can't wait to run into somebody to hug. A hug is in the voice; a hug is in the spirit; a hug is in the attitude.

There is always one who doesn't understand honesty when it is laid on the line. He'll try to undermine. Get rid of him! Save some sabotage.

Humanities go beyond cast and crew rapport. Those who are loving film-makers don't hope another producer's picture will go down the drain.

The people who don't root for another guy's film are the ones who are fearful their own product will bomb. If they had confidence in their own work, the first thing they'd do is pray for the next guy's work, because he keeps the theaters open.

2. THE TOTAL FILM-MAKER
I have some hates in film-the schnuck who works with it and deep down doesn't like anything about it; also, the guy who doesn't care how he works.

The other-type person I hate is the Untotal film-maker who loftily claims he is dealing with the "human magic" of reels, dictating what the emulsion sees and does, and yet has nothing to say. I think he's taking up space. You can automate that kind of film-maker.

The film-maker constantly skates between himself and the audience. Which comes first? Both, hopefully, but it is such a fine line, such an intangible line, that the only way he can proceed is to first please himself.

A man who is going to write, produce, direct and act in a film argues more with himself, fights a greater battle than any battle with all the other bright committee minds choosing to give him static.

The total film-maker cannot lie to any of his separate parts and be successful. There is a tremendous inner government within him, and his judgement is severely examined by that inner government.

In my case, if I believe the character up there on the screen is funny I'll laugh at him. There are no egos or vanities if he isn't. They are kept in the desk drawer.

The total film-maker bears the sometimes expensive curse of never being really satisfied.

Of course, many times a director's design and intention becomes something other than what it was meant to be.
He will lose control of the film if he loses objectivity.

A good film-maker must have the guts to quit, If somebody challenges what he says, or denies him the right to believe what he has said, he must fight back, spit it out, and if necessary, walk out. Total film-making cannot be approached on the basis of compromise.

The total film-maker, knowing all parts of his operation, develops an elasticity that helps in emergencies.

"The psychiatrist is not good because of what he has learned and what he knows by way of texts. He is good because of what he is. It applies to directing films.

I want to make a piece of crap.If it is a piece of crap, let it be mine.Don't add and join. My crap and your crap do not meld. Let mine be good crap by itself.And the only way to retain full-control over your piece of crap is to hold the reins yourself by being a total filmmaker.

3. MONEY MAN
However, it is difficult for a director to face an overpowering producer. The best way to beat those elephants is to see that the actors say the words. He has lived with the script; he knows what he wants to hear.

A true low-budget films cannot be made in the studios. Massive overheads and union costs make even low-budget films relatively expensive. A five crore rupees project is now a low-budget film.

4. SCRIPT AND WRITER
Producers and directors buy a property because they like the story. Actors buy it because they see themselves in a part.

The work of the director and the writer should be a fruitful if not always happy marriage.

It is seldom that a good director can save a bad script. He can help it, but not save it. Yet the really good script is like a well-made building. It is difficult to destroy completely. It all begins with the writer.

The late Ben Hecht, Abby Mann, Sterling Silliphant, Reginald Rose and Isobel Lennart are my ideas of heavyweights in screen writing. But there are many others as talented and as expert.

5. ACTORS

Every director has his own method, but mine is to have an interview of at least ten minutes. I'm not looking for them to perform. Rather, I want to know how I feel when I'm with them. I never ask a performer to read lines during
an interview.

They are so like children. If they see the director talking to a crew member, momentarily ignoring them, they may pout. In the next scene, they won't even listen.

Once they close their ears for whatever reason, whatever puckered petulance, the director may not be able to open them up for a long time. Suddenly he is three days behind schedule.

They are usually waiting for someone not to like them. If the director doesn't let them know where he stands and what he feels, they sometimes interpret it as a disguise for dislike. Most do not have the capacity to say, "He's young and inexperienced and has a problem."

Many actors haven't learned that good makes good, so they resort to techniques like method. They don't know how to relate to other actors, so they reach for a crutch.

Lee Strasberg teaches method acting and has helped performers simply by "taking them out of themselves." He puts a label on it and charges them. They feel they've picked up additional tools. It is still a crutch.

I've often been asked why the film industry hasn't generated more acting talent. The answer is simple: the men at the top do not care. They live on the basis of product being made today. In their view, it is just not practical to spend money to develop talent. They've been lucky.

Today many actors are getting formal drama training. Unfortunately, college drama often imposes the notion that the stage is the world of arts. Films and television are beneath the stage. Drama students should be taught that they can work successfully with fine film directors.

Whether you're in the director's chair, in administration or staff, or the utility man who brings the coffee, these precocious nine-year-old children will kill for you if you respect their humanity and their needs.

I have never known a professional actor who did not respond to kind and fair treatment, plus a little spoon-feeding. Aside from being flies in amber, actors are very human.

6. THE MILLION-DOLLAR HUG
Joe Mankiewicz once said, "A good director is a man who creates an atmosphere for work." To me, that's what it's all about.

Yet the first hug is not with the actor, it is with yourself. You can't care about other people and their problems until you care about yourself as an individual. By wanting to project your own best parts, you are beginning to create that atmosphere.

There are times when you make believe that you aren't aware the actor simply doesn't know how to perform a particular bit of action. Instead of challenging him, you help him by admitting you don't know either.

This can be like swallowing lye. But I've found it isn't profitable for the director to say, "Drop that ego." He has to drop it.

A new director is going to run into this problem. He has to tell the truth to his actors. "I'm impressed with you, Mr. X, and I'm scared to death because this is my first movie.

But I'm a good man and I know what I want and know what I can get. I love you, and think you're the greatest actor in the world . . . but you can't have my balls."The response of any good professional actor will be surprising. He will admire your honesty and have respect for you.

Actors bring their set of tools-experience, information, attitudes, body and script. If they do not have the right attitude, or have an improper idea of the characterization, they need immediate help. The question of how much they should know about the total film always arises.

I try to give as much information as possible and usually have a full-scale reading of the major roles and a discussion before filming begins.

Rehearsals can be filmed. I often do that to gain spontaneity. But it is tough to rehearse on film unless the actors are really up to the dialogue, the camera movement and all the technical aspects. Most often, the very best rehearsal is the one just before the take.

But the director must always stage the scene. He can never let the actors stage it because he will not retain control over it. I had a director who asked, "How do you see this?" I answered, "From an actor's standpoint. I see it's funny."

"No, how do you see it staged?"
I had to tell him, "I'm not the director. You want to see how I see it as a director you put on my funny clothes and I'll sit in your chair. Now, tell me to do something."

The director should give the design, stage it, and then let them bring their individual contributions to it. As long as they do not steer away from it, he should assume the role of monitor.

Of all the information a director can bring to the set, the best information is the point of view of the performer.

Why does a director usually start with a master? My answer is that he wants to know where he is going. Without the master shot of the scene, the overall comprehensive, he has no gUide to individual shots or other combinations. Total coverage of the scene evolves from the master.

7 PRE-PRODUCTION CHORES
I think you must pick the art-department brains, use any good ideas, but battIe every inch of the way to prevent the art director from steering the creation into the toilet to save a few dollars.

Take their story-board, sketches of their ideas on how the scene can he played within the set, and use it as a departure point but not as a bible.

You know what you want to see, know what you want to photograph, know what you need to utilize the set, so in your mind you compose the construction.

Naturally, color becomes a taskmaster in the areas of wardrobe, set color and set decoration.

Every director should be able to control his picture, and every good director sits on his camera and composes his shots.

I feel that the moment a director tells his cinematographer, "This is what I'd like to see," the director is no longer composing the shot. He abandons a creative responsibility.

I rehearse the actors; do a scene and watch it through the viewfinder, the director's most important mechanical tool, and mark the camera positions that I need. I then dry-run it with the crew, staging the actors in position and marking them.

I start the scene, making the camera moves; check the frame and action, settle it, and then get out of the hair of the cinematographer.
The stand-ins go to the positions and he lights it.

Neither are there any rules for camera placement other than space-a closet confines you and a prairie doesn't. The design of any camera setup or placement has to meet
the incoming material and the outgoing.

If you keep coverage of the scene in mind, your angle is as good as the cinematographer's.

The new director will find that a second-hand 35 mm viewfinder is worth more than a dozen textbooks.

8 THE CREW
Many crew problems arise because of the twenty-five year veteran who is still doing a minor job. He will always introduce himself: "I've been in the business twenty-five years." With those few words, the director is in trouble.

The quarter-century vet is a critic and he'll be doing eight hour critiques on the director's work. That means he thinks the director is getting into deep water. He thinks so because he doesn't know the next cut, or how that particular cut will be edited.

In any other business a little knowledge may be a necessary thing. In films a little knowledge of everyone's job is imperative.

Sound? What good's your picture without it? So you get the best possible sound man that you can afford.

A light can go out, an actor can have a coronary, a jaguar can attack , but until the director calls "Cut," that camera has to roll. The instructions I give my operator are simple: "If the jaguar is eating your arm, use the other one." No one but the director can stop a scene.

There are times when the tail end of a scene can save blood on the cutting-room floor.

A pretty good man taught me to always take a long swallow, spit silently, say, "Jesus Christ and where are the Jews?" and then, then only, call out, "Cut!" Let the actor die, let the bed burn up, but don't cut the camera the split second at scene's end.

Team effort, out of selfless pure love for the director, is a state of mind, and the director must acknowledge it but at the same time not be cynical about it.

At the end of the day there is only one guy who will have his throat cut for bad product grinding through the camera. He is the director.

The old-timers will hate the fact that you are twenty eight and hope that lightning strikes you. But if you know something they know, and beyond that, show respect for what they know, they hope you'll live to be a hundred.

Pick their brains. Make their contributions appear of little worth and they'll sabotage you.

The goal is to have a one-man project made with one hundred and two pairs of hands.

9 HOMEWORK
Homework, so far as I'm concerned, applies to preparation of the next day's material.
I begin blocking scenes according to the film's schedule.

I draw every move of the camera on paper, visually preparing it for what I have already shot, and mentally pre~' paring it for incoming material. It takes about two hours each night, and is based, generally, on the prospect of shooting four pages of script per day.

When filming I'm never more than several feet from my script and homework. A property man has the job of keeping that bound leather book in sight.

Once a film is in the can, it is history, good or bad. The design and homework for tonight and tomorrow are enough to handle.

10 FILMING IT
As long as it works, is smooth, and doesn't confuse the audience, any cut can be made, no matter how controversial. Often a director will defend a cut, claiming he did it deliberately; invent a dozen reasons. Usually he has made a mistake and is attempting to gloss.

Charlie Chaplin was the first great total film-maker.

11 EDITING
If the director is good, his first cut is often close to what the talented film editor would deliver if he had total freedom.

The only place to learn film editing is in the
cutting room. Instinct is true guru not the books on Editing.

12 MUSIC AND DUBBING
The director has to know what he wants to hear in his score, and the shortest route to convey the desired sound is to use facsimiles.

Music should not frighten the new film-maker. It is not that complicated.

The decision on when to score and when to exclude music is the director's choice, not the composer's. Each film is guided by different applications of music. The guidelines are in the scenes.

The scene either cries for a musical treatment or it literally begs the director to exclude it. If there is doubt about scoring a scene, the safest way is to score it. It can always be dialed out in dubbing.

A director with a thorough knowledge of his film can hear music on the composer's piano before the orchestra is ever called and make judgment. With the normal hearing God gave him, the film-maker must fight his way through the dubbing room demanding what sounds right to his ears.

13 DISTRIBUTION AND EXPLOITATION
The film-maker must help sell his product. An involvement in publicity is necessary. Publicity can be learned by instinct. Very often, after finishing a script, I will write ideas for the campaign based solely on the new story.

14 OTHER FILMMAKERS, OTHER FILMS
"I'm convinced that the best example of a total filmmaker was Chaplin. He was totally in, on, and all over his films. He created them in the fullest sense of the word: experimented to see how widely, how cleverly and skillfully he could work.

Chaplin saw actors as people, then as dramatic tools. They performed for him that way.

The worst "B" picture is an education. Ninety percent of the avant-garde clique who proclaim,"Look at the greatness of his film," are ashamed to admit they don't know what the hell it is all about.They can't wait to run to the coffeehouse to breathe out,"Wasn't that magnificent?"

15 LAUGHS ARE OUR THING
Identification, and identification alone, is what makes comedy work. If the punch line of an American joke is delivered in Swedish to an American audience, you won't hear a thistle drop.

Messages in comedy must be camouflaged very carefully. If the pace of the comedy is stopped for the message, then the film can be lost as well as the message. In the right frame of reference, on either side of the wildest gag, or within it, the social comment can be made.

..... END.
The new film-maker cannot take part unless he enters the industry with solid information layered over his creative drives. Imagination and natural talents will not suffice. Luck plays a minor role.

What about the critics? Young film-makers should remember Coldwyn's line, "Don't pay any attention to the critics. Don't even ignore them."

The world is still made up of green apples and dreams and wishing wells and throwing pennies in fountains; the heart beats fast when a pretty girl winks.

All of that is still what it is all about. The important things, the ones some people put down, are the lovely, wonderful things that gives gooseflesh.

The young film-maker, with a desire to gain information and be the best in his craft, should also be thinking about puppies and apples and gooseflesh, and wonderful, happy endings.

#JERRYLEWIS
#TOTALFILMMAKER
END OF THE THREAD.