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Our Thesis Films
Note: this was an appendix to the first edition. Since it has been more than fifteen years since we graduated from film school, we felt it was no longer current enough to include in the second edition of the book. But we include it here for those who are interested...
We, your humble authors, both went to NYU. While we know our experiences don't apply to everyone at every school, we thought they might be helpful to some. And, anyway, we felt like writing them down. Please humor us--they may be the last films we ever get to direct.
"Wildwood Nights"
by Karin Kelly
"Wildwood Nights" began as a thread of idea based in the filmmaker's annual family vacations at the South Jersey shore. If you are working from your own original material, we cannot emphasize strongly enough that it should be from your own experience. Write what you know. It will make your job a whole lot easier, and your film a whole lot more watchable.
The film was one of three one-page treatments handed in for a January deadline. All were given approval, (which honestly doesn't matter at NYU if you have the money to shoot), and I chose "WWN" for what I then believed to be greater cinematic qualities than my other choices. The story centers around fourteen-year old Stephanie's attempt to escape the boredom of a family vacation by accepting a date with an older boy. The couple goes to Wildwood, New Jersey, and the wackiness ensues.
From January through May, the script was revised nine times. You need to have people read your work who aren't afraid to be honest. It helps. And don't take anything too personally. Film students are notoriously critical of other people's work and notoriously close-minded about criticism of their own work. But, you'll survive the criticism and will probably wind up with a stronger story because of it (not to mention all that character building stuff). This is not to say you need to be a sponge that absorbs every suggestion and winds up a confused mess. Listen, evaluate and take what works for you. One of the smartest things I ever did was to remove a voice-over, based upon a fellow student's suggestion.
I always knew that I would have enough money to shoot the film. By making relatively inexpensive first and second year films, ($6,000.00 total), I had managed to save up the $5,000.00 I would need to get the film in the can. This is a very small budget, considering that I would be shooting on location in South Jersey and Philadelphia for the entire shoot. With careful planning I believed it feasible. However, with a twenty-nine page script I also knew that it was going to be tiring. The rule of thumb for film is roughly one minute per page... and that's for a well-written script that doesn't deal in ambiguous time frames like "Then Bill and Mary make love." Looking back, I should have cut the script by several pages to make for an easier schedule. Film students expect to be abused on a co-student's shoot, but everyone has their limits. If the weather and beaches hadn't cooperated on mine, I think perhaps that limit would have been reached.
I begged for an early June shooting date. Normally dates are chosen by chance drawings, but if you want an early date that no one else wants you can get lucky. Or if another student needs a different date, you can switch. I needed June for several reasons. First of all, shore house rentals, of which I needed at least two to house my cast and crew, would be less expensive up until July Fourth. At this time of year the summer attractions would be open without the massive summer crowds. And last of all, the "Senior Week" advantage. A tradition in the Philadelphia area, "Senior Week" is when, upon their graduation from the local high schools, students head to the shore for a week of reckless abandon. Often rowdy, but usually harmless, I knew that during those two weeks I would be able to cheat the look of a crowded summer resort frequented by teens. Luckily, most of my fellow film students were pushing back their shoot dates. My self imposed deadline gave me the cream of the equipment, and a large pool of non-exhausted crew choices.
It is vital to choose crew members who are not only adept at their jobs, but are in sync with your sensibilities. When things get rough, and inevitably they do, you want to feel comfortable around your crew. They should be a support system that wants to see you succeed as much as you do. If you're thinking Risky Business and your D.P. is more Last Year at Marienbad, we can guarantee problems. And with all the stress you'll be under you just can't afford it.
I highly recommend finding a producer other than yourself. Once you're actually filming, the burden gets to be too much if you have to worry about performances as well as all the millions of other little things that can go wrong. If you can't find a producer, a strong production manager is vital. In the film school realm, your producer/production manager handles everything from your budget to location scouting. Once on the set, the PM makes sure that it all runs smoothly for you. I can't tell you how much I longed for someone else to worry about costumes and meals, bringing the right props and maintaining relationships with the many people helping us along. Ultimately, everything fell on my shoulders.
Because I was acting as my own producer I began location scouting and pre-production in January. This included a lot of letter writing, phone calls and groveling. I often think students would greatly benefit by a "Groveling 101" course. It's a skill you need to learn and perfect. Not everyone is good at this. If it makes you uncomfortable, or you know that you aren't good with people, find a production manager who is. You can save yourself a lot of money. You should always try to get everything for free. You'd be amazed at how much you can get if you really try. I didn't pay for one location. I managed free costumes, food donations, several props, and even the use of a police patrol car. Looking back, if I'd had more time, I would have tried for even more. Just try not to ruin it for those that follow you. Most people have no idea of what a film shoot entails. The time, mess and aggravation are monumental. It is extremely easy to become jaded by a reckless crew who leaves your rugs soiled and torn and numerous patches of missing paint on your walls from hastily removed gaffer's tape. Locations should be left as you found them... better if possible. And be honest about time frames. Better to finish early then to have to beg for another four hours. By being honest, polite, extremely grateful and conscientious you can insure that another film student will not be frowned upon because of you. Don't abuse the kindness of others... even if you are paying them. Eventually someone else will need that diner or mansion, or library. If you've behaved responsibly, they'll be able to get it.
Since I would not be filming in New York, and I was hoping to afford dailies for at least a portion of the film, I elected to go with NFL Films in South Jersey. I still relish the thought of my little fourteen-year-old star frolicking on the same screens as those hulking football types. But they were convenient and cheap. Besides, I figured if it was good enough for Howie Long, it was good enough for me. They were extremely understanding and helpful and gave me a student discount that's unheard of at any of the New York labs. And because of their proximity to my locations, I was able to finagle a free pick-up and drop off of negative and dailies. In addition, I didn't have to pay up front for anything. Try working out that arrangement in the Big Apple.
In March I advertised for actors in "Backstage" the local New York Film/theater newspaper. As with my other films, the ad gleaned somewhere in the area of two hundred and fifty responses. I auditioned roughly seventy-five of those applicants. Out of that group I didn't find anyone I felt met my requirements. So, I advertised again. I needed two parents, three kids, one dream date, some rent-a-cops and numerous extras. I suggest you try to find someone to help you or at least keep you company during these auditions. It's time consuming, and grueling when you do it alone.
You should know that it is quite hard to find talented actors in the forty to fifty age bracket. By that age many of the really good ones no longer have to do student films. You just have to filter through the rest to find those late-bloomers. On the other hand, if you have the time and stamina to search through it, the eighteen-to-thirty age bracket is a veritable gold mine. The fourteen- sixteen age range is another story. Especially when you need to take a kid away from home for several weeks. My film was dependent upon finding the right "Stephanie". I had decided that although I could work around the rest of the cast, I wouldn't shoot if I didn't feel I had found the right lead and if I didn't have time for at least one month of weekend rehearsals. After three tries in "Backstage", I tried the Performing Arts High Schools... then regular high schools in Philadelphia and New Jersey... then acting schools. It was in the smallest of these acting schools, in the most obscure of towns in the outskirts of Philadelphia, that I ultimately found my Stephanie... after over 100 auditions and two months of searching. I made my one month rehearsal schedule with two days to spare. If you really get stuck, don't be afraid to call talent agencies. They are always looking for exposure for new talent. If you are professional enough and you have a solid script, they often cooperate. For actors, experience is really the name of the game. Videotapes of a good performance can be a real asset.
Excluding the parents, I cast the other roles with actors whom I had worked with in my performing days or on my other films, and from my relatives. I may not have chosen my biological parents carefully, but I've made good use of their eight children and numerous grandkids! Hey, you do what you gotta do.
Long about this time I submitted my script to the annual Grad Film Grant/Scholarship Awards. Never having won so much as a handshake in the previous two years, I was shocked to receive a Warner Bros. Grant (and fall fellowship) for my script. The $2500.00 would enable me to pay for my dailies, and in September I would be Production Assisting on "China Beach". Also, along with three equally poor students, we applied for the "Princess Grace Grant". NYU had never even heard of this organization which patronizes the arts. In a desperate search for money we found their name in the Yellow Pages. Eventually we were awarded the $25,000.00 grant which we split equally. I'm convinced there is money out there if you just figure out how to find it.
I shot for twelve days, 3/4 of it exteriors. We started with days, and mid-shoot moved into nights. By the end, I'm sure my crew felt like hostages. Beaches and sunshine can only placate extended hours of tough work for so long. At times like these you need to have plenty of food on hand. Your crew will rebel on pizza and take out. I had most of my meals prepared and frozen ahead of time. The rest were prepared by my parents who graciously agreed to stay for a week and cook for us. Surprisingly enough, they still speak to me.
Feeding 15-20 exhausted, cranky people for two weeks is not an easy task. And take-out gets expensive. If you can trade off cooking duty with a fellow student, do it. I often thought about starting a film student catering service to make some extra money, and fulfill a major need. The quality and quantity of food can make or break the moral of your crew. If you want a hundred percent from them, they need to be treated properly. I really tried to provide good food, lots of snacks and at least 7 hours of sleep. But I'm sure if you interviewed my crew today, they would still tell you I fell short. Don't take this lightly. It will affect your film. At the very least, no one will want to work for you again. Gossip flies fast and furious about who's serving peanut butter and jelly and who's barbecuing on the patio.
Basically we had a relatively trouble-free shoot. Of course there were the minor set-backs. One crew member had to pay a visit to the hospital to remove boardwalks splinters. Another had to be shipped back to New York with a sever case of sunburn on his feet. And we did have to deal with our "date car" blowing up on route to the location. Fortunately Wildwood, New Jersey happens to be the Camaro Capital of the world, so I was able to convince one of the jubilant graduates to "loan" us his car for two nights. Never underestimate the bargaining power of a case of beer. We also were delayed in shooting a large party scene when none of the extras showed up. My wonder P.A. combed the beaches and once again those graduates came in handy.
The major complication occurred when an angry, somewhat immature film student tried to sabotage my film by canceling an equipment rental. This is not the norm at NYU For the most part students really help each other out. It's the only way you are able to crew your film. In this instance I had chosen a D.P. who backed out of my film because of a prior commitment to another student. When the other student changed his dates, he wanted to hop back on board. At this point I'd already hooked up with another D.P., who happened to be a good friend of the first D.P. (Are you still with me?) I then agreed to let both very capable cinematographers shoot my film together. A very bad, extremely foolish error on my part. As pre-production progressed, it became apparent that the second D.P. was more committed to the project. I could not have one person do all the work and allow the other, who was busy working on other projects to just cruise on the set the first day and complicate my shoot. After much soul searching I called and explained this to him. Unfortunately this happened to be a few days before the shoot. Another bad error on my part. As soon as I had began to have doubts, several months earlier, I should have ended the partnership. In spite of my stressing that this was not based upon talent, simply pre-planning availability, (i.e., story-boarding, location scouting, etc.), he didn't handle it too well. I remember standing alone in a phone booth on the boardwalk, in the middle of my shoot, trying to confirm my equipment package pick-up back in Philadelphia, only to be told the package had been canceled by the former D.P. Yikes! Although a supposed friendship was ruined, my pre-planning paid off and I was able to remedy the situation rather quickly. When I hear of some of the other problems students must overcome, (i.e., losing actors or locations at the last minute), I feel very fortunate. But, I pre-produced like nobody's business so that I could avoid any unnecessary problems. Pre-production can give you a well-scheduled, realistically budgeted and successful shoot, or it can send you reeling with costly mistakes, and delays. It can make the difference between finishing your film quickly or enrolling on the ten-year program. Don't leave anything overlooked. Spending the extra time prior to your shoot will save you time on the set, when you'll really need it. . If you don't feel ready to go out, for any reason, then don't do it. Trust your instincts.
After the shoot was complete I handed the dailies over to a fellow student who agreed to edit my film in return for my producing his. Having suffered through the editing of my second-year film, which was optional at that time, I realized that editing was not my forte. My editor did a superb job and there began to be a buzz around the school about "WWN". This "buzz" enabled me and my film to be submitted for the newly developed Paramount Pictures Fellowship - sort of a national discovery program. I was one of four film school graduates (selected to participate. Essentially they gave us a year of employment and access to everybody and anything on their lot. It got me out to California and helped me make some more connections. As the guinea-pigs of the program, we soon discovered the it was not designed to lead to much of anything else at that time. Still, I was thankful to be chosen and found the year to be beneficial in numerous other ways. We were given offices and computers and I was able to at last concentrate on writing the script that I should have had upon graduation.
"Poison"
by Tom Edgar
I am from California originally. I had never lived in cold weather--and I had never lived in squalor--before I moved to New York. So while I enjoyed NYU film school, I hated New York with a passion.
All of my first year films at NYU were dumb comedies. For my second year film I decided to do something different; I wrote a screenplay that reflected my feelings toward New York. I portrayed the city as cold and evil and its inhabitants as wicked and selfish. Sure it was a downer, but it was a pretty good story, I think. The problem is, the story called for emotion, and I directed it the same flat, deadpan way I had directed all of my comedies. The final product was all but unwatchable. I decided to leave it behind me, and take everything I learned from that horrible experience and use it in my thesis film.
I knew that many NYU students took years to make their thesis films, and I swore to myself that I would finish my thesis as fast as was humanly possible, if for no other reason than that I desperately wanted to leave New York. I had about $8,000, some of which I had saved up by working at Saks Fifth Avenue, and some of which I had borrowed from my parents. I determined that I would spend no more than that on my thesis. I spent the Summer and Fall trying (and failing) to write a story good enough--and cheap enough--to film. Fall turned to Winter, and soon I was up against the January script deadline with no script in hand.
I was faced with a choice between delaying my shoot until the following year or finding an existing story and adapting it. I was damned if I was going to stay in New York for another year, so I started going through my book collection, looking at my favorite short stories and pondering their cinematic qualities. What I decided on was a story by Roald Dahl called "Poison."
"Poison" tells the story of Timber Woods, an Englishman in colonial India who comes home late one evening to find Harry Pope, with whom he shares his bungalow, calling quietly to him from bed. When Timber goes to Harry's bedroom, Harry whispers that a krait, a poisonous snake, has crawled over his chest, under the sheet, and onto his stomach, where it is now lying in the warmth, probably asleep. Timber calls a local doctor, Dr. Ganderbai, and the three try to find a way to remove the snake without killing anyone.
I adapted the story into a screenplay and presented it to my writing class. It is a very suspenseful story, and everyone seemed to like that, but there was a problem. Everybody hated the ending. Dahl's story ends ambiguously: after pouring ether on the bed to put the snake to sleep, Timber and Dr. Ganderbai pull the sheet down to find that there is no snake. Dr. Ganderbai asks Harry if he was sure he saw a snake, and Harry suddenly turns on him, hurling racist slurs at him. Dr. Ganderbai leaves, hiding his anger and humiliation. Timber runs after him to apologize. But Dr. Ganderbai doesn't accept the apologies--he says, enigmatically, "All he needs is a good holiday," and disappears into the night.
"You have to have a snake!" I was told repeatedly. "After all that suspense, if there isn't a snake, your audience will be angry!" If only one or two people had said this to me I could have laughed it off. But every single person in the class--including the teacher--insisted that there had to be a snake. I couldn't ignore such unanimity, and I rewrote Dahl's ending so that there was a snake after all.
I was still not completely convinced, though, so I planned to shoot the original ending as well as the new one, and decide which worked better in the editing room.
The school assigns thesis shoot dates in January; they are determined by lottery. Everyone wants to shoot in the Spring and Summer--the weather is better and it allows more time for pre-production--but dates as early as mid-April are assigned. People who get April dates often decide to cancel their shoots and wait until Fall or the following Spring. But I was determined to get the hell out of New York as soon as possible, so I went to a professor and asked to shoot in early April--before the first lottery-assigned shoots began. I was planning on shooting on a soundstage, so the weather didn't matter, and I knew that if I shot when nobody else was shooting I would have access to more equipment. And I would be able to leave New York once and for all by Summer. The only drawback was there wasn't much time.
I knew I couldn't make the film without two people; Juliet was the best Production Manager in the school and Keith was the best Assistant Director in the school. I had worked on shoots for both of them, so they "owed me," but they were also good friends. Unfortunately, they were less than available to help me--they were getting married about three weeks after my shoot. I asked Juliet if she would be able to do it and she told me no.
I was lost. Not many people were willing to work on my shoot--everyone knew I was leaving town, and thus would not be around to work on their shoots--so I had counted on Keith and Juliet. A few days passed, and I was beginning to recognize that I would not be able to make my thesis after all, when I ran into Juliet on the street. She told me she and Keith could work on my film, but I would have to give them a few days off during the shoot to work on preparations for the wedding. It was a deal.
I placed adds for actors in the local trade papers. Middle aged actors are hard to find--most of the actors in New York are in their twenties. But I got very lucky; at an open casting call, Timber and Harry walked in the door, almost exactly as I had imagined them. Eric and David were both fine actors, and they worked very well together.
Dr. Ganderbai, however, did not walk in the door. Not a single Indian actor responded to my advertisement. I put signs up in little India, and when that didn't work, I started asking shopkeepers in Little India if they knew anyone who acted, and learned some interesting things. For instance, that there are very few Indians in New York. All of the Indian restaurants are run by Muslims from Pakistan or Bangladesh (which is why you may notice they all serve beef but not pork). Drama is widely taught in schools in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, so almost all of them have acted. But they are in New York to work and send money to their families--few of them has time to act in a film. I was pondering other alternatives when I met Masum.
Masum owned a spice shop in the East Village. He was quite a presence--he spoke softly, but when he entered a room everyone knew it. He liked the story and, as his own boss, had the time to do it. His English was not great, but I knew that could be fixed by dubbing his lines after the shoot was over. After sitting and talking with him over tea in the back of his shop for a few hours, I knew this was the guy. Lucky thing, too--we were two weeks away from production.
My roommate, Geoff, designed the sets. We built the inside of the bungalow on one of NYU's soundstages and shot there for a week. We built the outside of the bungalow during the days that Keith and Juliet were off making wedding preparations, and when they returned we shot for three more days. The heating system on the soundstage was out of control. It was about ninety degrees on the set for the entire shoot--lucky thing the film was set in the tropics; the sweat looked natural.
It was only after the shoot was over that somebody said to me, "Hey, didn't Alfred Hitchcock make this film?" I checked a reference book, and to my dismay found that "Poison" had been made into an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents in the late fifties. This depressed me profoundly: anyone who had ever seen that episode would think I was remaking a Hitchcock film. Months later, after I had finished cutting the film, I went up to the Museum of Broadcasting in Mid-Town and watched Hitchcock's version. It was an interesting exercise, seeing how Hitchcock directed the same story. But--forgive me for saying this--I liked mine better.
I moved back home to California in the Summer and edited the film there. I tried both endings and it was obvious that Dahl's ending was the best. With the ambiguous ending it was a story about the decline of Empire, about the best and worst of colonialism. With a snake in the ending it was just a story about a couple of guys and a snake. (Hitchcock had put a snake into the ending of his version, and his, indeed, is just a story about a couple of guys and a snake.) When I took the finished film back to New York and screened it for professors and classmates, it was a big hit. Nobody remembered the snake controversy. "Poison" was named a finalist in the big end-of-year awards and was given a very good time slot in the festival--Thursday at 8:00.
It didn't win any of the top awards, though, and it was not shown at the Directors' Guild screening in Los Angeles. I put it in a number of festivals, where it won some awards, including one that qualified it for the Academy Award short film competition. Two things seem to have hurt me in the festivals, though: 1) Some festival programmers had seen the Hitchcock version and dismissed my film as a remake, and 2) Todd Haynes, an independent filmmaker based in New York, made a film called "Poison," which won the top prize at the US Film Festival later that same year.
A few production companies contacted me and asked to see a screenplay, but when they read the one I sent them they lost interest. This always baffled me--it was a good screenplay. Perhaps it wasn't commercial enough. Perhaps they wanted to see a snake at the end.
The people who won the big awards in the NYU festival that year haven't done much better than I have. I now live in Hollywood, as do many of my classmates from NYU. We all work day jobs to pay the bills, we all write screenplays in our free time. We get together and read one another's screenplays sometimes. We go out for drinks and complain about our jobs and ponder whether any of us will ever direct another film.
Deep down we all still believe we will be making films again sometime soon. But the truth is time is passing and film school is receding into memory. And a few thousand more film school graduates move into town every year and compete for the same directing jobs.
We try not to think about it too much.
Sat 04/21/2007 7:27 AM
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