Film: How to Enhance the Filmic Experience (without resorting to 3D)

Hypothetical Situation #1: I've won the Euro Lottery and built a specialist cinema.

Hypothetical Situation #2: You are in my specialist cinema.

So,

You're in my cinema and the film ends - the credits have arrived. But do not stand up; that's sacrilege. Instead, stay with the film. You're in my cinema and you must abide by my rules because I have a special surprise install for you, one that will enhance your overall viewing experience. So stay seated, calm and follow the instructions...

What happens next depends on what the film was. But one way or another, whether you are ushered through an alternative door or given a cryptic puzzle to solve, the filmic experience will transcend the silver screen and seep into your reality.

My reason for this is: I believe the filmic experience should not end as soon as the credits arrive; at this point the viewer is in a meditative, mildly hypnotic state. It takes a little while to adjust to reality after a film. How many times have you left the cinema and a felt little bit disorientated? Took a left turn instead of a right turn after leaving the cinema? Or been struck by the brightness of the outside world?

I want to exploit that state of mind by extending and externalising the filmic experience. For example, imagine the end of a screening of Don’t Look Now (1973), if it was compulsory to exit through another door that leads down a series of mock Venetian alleyways while a midget in a red raincoat darts hither and thither? Or imagine after a Saw movie the doors are shut, then Jigsaw comes up on the cinema screen and gives the audience a conundrum they have to solve before they can retrieve the key that will lead to their escape.

The closest I've heard anything coming close to this idea is theatre company Rumdrunk's It Felt Like a Kiss, where, the audience watches a 54 minute, hard hitting Adam Curtis documentary about the collapse of the American dream and terror spreading throughout the planet; after wich they are ushered through a series of eerie rooms and claustrophobic passageways.

If this can be done theatrically there is no reason why it can't be cinematically, too. With this is mind I'm off to Ladbrookes.

Oh, and Hypotheical Situation #3: Your mobile phone goes off in my specialist cinema.

Consequence: You will not see the phone in one piece again!

Film: 3D vs The Percepto

Cinemas around the country are adapting to 3D. But I think championing 3D is misguided (with the exception of animation films).

In the early 50’s there was a wave of 3D films in Hollywood then it fizzled out as quickly as it began. The same happened with the next wave, does anybody remember flocking to see Jaws 3D, Amityville 3D, Friday the 13th III 3D. More recently there’s been My Bloody Valentine 3D and The Final Destination 3D, not really a cause celebre.

As an alternative, filmmakers should resurrect horror movie maestro William Castle’s method of eliciting an immediate and physical response from his audience via an invention called the Percepto.

The Percepto was an electric buzzer that was wired to seats. At the appropriate moment in a film specially tailored for the Percepto (The Tingler (1958)), some of the audience received mild electric shocks.

Imagine doing the same to a modern audience, either tailoring a film for those exact effects, or create similar effects around existing films.

3D will fizzle out again, it's in its nature. As for the Percepto, its return is long overdue.

[This is an edited version. The unedited version can be found at http://andydwrightsfilmthoughts.blogspot.com/]

Film: Our Mind's Movie Library

Sometimes we read a special passage that makes an instant, indelible imprint on our mind; the content sinks in and we remember it forever.

One such piece of writing for me is an article in Sight and Sound (Nov, 1993) in which the novelist, filmmaker and one-time film editor at Time Out, Chris Petit, ‘raids the movie library inside his head’.

The article is a stream of consciousness trail from one random movie memory to another. Whether or not I am familiar with the films, filmmakers, actors or theories he references does not lessen the impact of the piece; this is an enthralling meditation on movies and memory that reveals how we all contain reels of film stored in the archive that inhabits our mind, and with as little as a flick of a switch, we can project these magic moments once again.

Here is an extract from Petit's article:
‘… Clint Eastwood’s chipped tooth. Genevieve Bujold’s eyes. The tree-house in Swiss Family Robinson. The eaves of the attic room where Robert Mitchum kills Shelley Winters in Night of the Hunter. Bad early Jack Nicholson performances. Bresson’s note about the ejaculatory force of the eye. Jeanne Moreau’s shoes in Diary of a Chambermaid. The last walk in The Wild Bunch…’

There are about 200 of these memories and observations in the article. From the extract above, I could picture the tree-house, the eaves, the last walk, the shoes and some Roger Corman era poor Nicholson performances. But I had not seen Eastwood’s chipped tooth or Bujold’s eyes and sure enough, as soon as I watched Tightrope I was looking for that chipped tooth; and when I watched Dead Ringers I was entranced by Bujold’s glaring eyes.

For some reason though, there are two passages elsewhere in the article that always stuck with me: ‘the way Lee Marvin holds a gun’ and ‘the fact that films don’t say The End any more.’ These observations, both esoteric and astute respectively, reveal not only a lot about the author's passionate observation of film but also how film is a collective experience from which we each derive a very personal response: For Petit it is the eaves in The Night of the Hunter; for me it's Shelley Winters sitting in her car under the water, her hair flowing like reeds, I remember most vividly.

It's the power the image has to reach into us and remain inside us that fascinates me. Sometimes we cherish it like a close friend, sometimes we resent its intrusion, and during the course of a film, who knows when those moments may occur, or what they maybe.

And the question still stands: When did films stop saying The End (or Fin) and why?

[This is an edited version. The uncut version can be found at http://andydwrightsfilmthoughts.blogspot.com/]

On Writing #5: A Journalistic Alter Ego

I’m not a trained journalist but yesterday I had to step into a journalist’s shoes and interview somebody for a magazine article I am writing.

The article is about people with fibromyalgia who have had their benefits withheld having fallen foul of the government's latest scheme to catch benefit fraudsters.

To the supermarket cafe where I was to meet my first interviewee, I took an archaic Dictaphone, a notepad and a pen. I tried to project a proficient journalistic facade, harbouring the virtuosity of Woodward and Bernstein but that was dashed immediately: I approached the wrong lady; I was feeling lucky and thought I would take a punt, after all she both resembled the description I had been given and was giving me the proverbial eye - she confused me.

So I sensibly decided to just be myself and phoned my interviewee. She was only a few feet away (and several years younger than the woman I had just mistakenly accosted) waving at me - nice start.

Anyhow, the harmless blunder did well to break the ice and the interview went well, although the audio on the Dictaphone is hard to hear at times, partly due to a child nearby that occasionally screams and at one point, came right over and started fiddling with my interviewee’s handbag!

The article is in its early stages; however, I will be charting its progress in following blog posts.

Film: Fantastic Fabrications vs Real Reality

A few days ago I watched William Friedkin's Sorcerer (1977). One thing struck me most: it was a refreshing reminder of what witnessing a 'real' movie stunt feels like; a spectre that is seldom seen in modern cinema. This led me to conclude that the impressiveness of what can be achieved by the ingenuity of computers will never match the effectiveness of the ‘real’ stunt.

One particular moment in Sorcerer convinced me of the superiority of the 'real' over CGI's fantastic fabrications. In a tense scene lasting 8 minutes, filmed in a jungle during a violent tropical storm, a batch of huge trucks carrying nitro-glycerine drive over a weak wood-and-rope bridge that hangs precariously a foot or two above a raging, swollen river. Everything is real: real trucks, real bridge, real river and a real tropical storm.

What’s also impressive is, instead of stunt drivers and studio based close ups, the late Roy Scheider - among some other established actors - is driving one of the trucks. It's unbelievable. You just don't see that nowadays - unless you count Jackie Chan.

Now compare the truck-over-the-bridge scene in Sorcerer to a scene in X Men Origins: Wolverine (2009). The climactic fight scene revolves around three characters fighting on top of a colossal chimney that's in the process of collapsing. It is an impressive spectacle, no doubt, but CGI is by its very nature fake, so it maybe great to look at but it fails to reach the level of what it would have been like if Liev Schreiber, Hugh Jackman and the other guy were really on top of a collapsing chimney.

The problem is we know all too well from behind-the-scenes extras on DVDs that they were probably safely tucked up in studio at room temp, against a green screen with props and runners serving their every need. This makes it harder to suspend belief and easier to acknowledge that the reality of X Men is a lame shame compared to Sorcerer's 'real' relentless ambition.

My point basically is, if a film really wants to impress and awe an audience, bigger special effects won’t work as effectively as a real stunt. Such stunts were in films much more often a few decades ago, think about the Smokey and the Bandit (1977-83) and Cannonball Run (1981-89) trilogies for example. And when such stunts are done these days there's a fuss, as if it's something new. A recent example of this would be the hype that surrounded Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof (2007). It was refreshing (and breathtaking) to see a dangerous stunt where a lady was crawling on a bonnet of a car travelling above the speed limit once again on the screen. Bravo!

[This is an edited version. The unedited version can be found at http://andydwrightsfilmthoughts.blogspot.com/]

[The bridge sequence can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4y854SPM3C4]

On Writing #4: The stream of unconscious

In the summer of 98, I experienced a strange writing-related incident when I was working on a play entitled the Paper House.

The basic plot of The Paper House is: a couple with marital and medicinal problems are in their bedroom preparing for their vacation when they're interrupted by a young burglar who, it turns out, the husband had arranged to rob their house (but the burglar arrived one day too early). What happens next is a mock-courtroom set-up in the bedroom where the husband and wife battle against each other, their secrets and weaknesses are exposed, while the befuddled burglar has become an unwitting juror/hostage.

I wrote The Paper House with Edward Albee's Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf in mind.

When I finished my first draft I printed off two copies and got my parents to read it out - I played the befuddled burglar. To my embarrassment I realised that the two 'characters' where caricatures of my mother and father, revealing what were to my mind their worst aspects. I wanted to stop the read-through, but carried on.

It was very strange watching this happen before me; first to see my parents reading it out aloud not realising what I had done, that was bizarre enough; second, recognizing how this play came directly out of my unconscious - it did come very naturally.

This incident demonstrated how cathartic writing can be, how everyday experiences can filter into writing, sometimes explicitly, othertimes unconsciously.

On Writing #3: A Tense Situation

As part of my first MA project I wrote an article for a magazine. The article was about my mother’s long term illness. Writing it was harder than I expected. Condensing 12 years worth of events into roughly 1200 words was a challenge in itself, but the hardest moment was when I handed it to my mother to read.

Before I began to write the article I talked to my mother about it, partly to refresh my memory, mainly to have her consent to continue. Once I had her consent and enough of a refresh to write about her illness it dawned on me that squeezing everything I wanted to write about into 1200 words (about 3 pages) was quite a chore. My main concern was that the condensation would trivialise my mother’s illness and fail to fully capture its nature.

After editing my first draft down to the bone, I took the second draft of the article to my mother and sat next to her while she read it. As she read I realised how tense I was; my right hand was firmly grabbing my left wrist. Even my mother's odd chuckle did'nt relieve the tenseness I felt. It was weird. My previous scribblings have been read by family, friends, tutors, judges, examiners and strangers, and I'd never felt this tense before.

Could it be because the article is the most personally important piece of writing I've ever done?

Fortunately when she finished reading it her verdict was a double thumbs up. It turned out to be theraputic for both of us.

Now the article may be published in February, I hope all those that read it who have the same or similar illness to my mother, will equally enjoy it.

On Writing #2: The Domain Name Game

For part of my MA course I have to create a website to market myself as a freelance writer. This task led to a dilemma: for the domain name, do I use my name or create a name?

I have been playing ping-pong with a barrage of ideas for a while. I want something fresh and simple; a name that is at once self-referential and suitably indicative of the kind of workmanship that’s up for hire; a name that twinkles and gives a knowing wink while projecting seriousness and professionalism. That said, some ideas have been unbelievably corny, but that's the nature of an inhibited brainstorm: there is no self-censorship, so some self-esteem-knocking howlers are expected to filter through - that, on the positive side, makes the better ideas seem better.

Below are some remnants of the dilemma induced brainstorm (Hurricane Andy). As you may notice, it turns into a Cyrano de Bergerac/Roxanne type routine.

Option (1) Variables of my name (My full name is Andrew Duncan Wright. When I was a teenager I became Andy. I’m also known as Wrighty)

www.adwright
www.andy-d-wright
www.andyman
www.handyandywright
www.a-d-Wright

Option (2) Setting myself up as a writer more explicitly

www.andywrite.
www.andyduncanwrite
http://www.copywright/
http://www.adwwriter/


Option (3) Something completely different

Modest – www.writingsolutionsforyou/
Modern & Modest – www.writingsolutions4u/
Direct - www.andywrightfrelancewriter/, andyfreelancewright
Direct with a touch of Moulin Rouge - www.andyduncancanwriteforyou/
Brash Confidence – www.stealthpen, www.heavensentsolutions
Wordy - www.writing-quandaries-quibbled
Arrogant - www.thegreatestsolutionsever, www.bestsiteintheworld/, www.grabyourcoatyouvepulled/
Exploitative - www.google2, www.stephenfri/, www.wrightstuff/

After a spell of deliberation, I made a decision and - as is always the case - whittled back to my first, most obvious idea: my name!

However, depending on how I evolve over the next few months, the domain name may have to change.