"Dewitt & Maria" Is Finished and Ready For the World: The Website

When you are doing a project in a new realm of experience, much happens--for good or ill--by chance, which can make for a wild ride.  Experience teaches how to avoid risk, but not eliminate it.

Greg, my film lawyer, advised me to build a website to hold a trailer and photos and other info for potential distributors.  Also, the website and trailer should be ready before the American Film Market conference in early November. I wanted it ready in time to promote the premiere, which I was planning for late October. There was time pressure and I didn't even know what an effective movie website looks like, much less how to get one done.

By chance, I thought of the movie It's Complicated, which stars Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin.  Anything associated with those three should be first class. When I saw that website (itscomplicatedmovie.com), it appealed to me. It was tight, simple and easy to navigate. The home page has attractive photos of Streep and Baldwin and a jumpy 30 sec trailer with a number of good hooks. I liked the style.

Kurt, our Director of Photography, had put together a Dewitt & Maria website. But,it was far from complete and he was too busy to climb the curves of both learning and coding to get a quality website up before the deadline, so I needed outside help.

I've had good luck going with vendors local to the South Bay that I find through Google. I found Custom Video by googling video services redondo beach. You can tell a lot about a company from afar by the quality of what they show the world on their website, and also by the way they answer their phone and put together a proposal.  I like people who are organized yet social. I believe everything a person does reflects their character, so that if a person is sloppy about returning calls, then sloppy is probably the way my website would turn out.

There's a myth about the genius who seems totally distracted, disorganized, pressured and cranky who somehow manages to do brilliant work. I've found that almost never happens. Real mastery of every field of endeavor I can name requires discipline, hard work, efficiency and a will toward a quality result.

I've also given up on going with the lowest priced vendor. My choice goes to the best balance of several factors involved in the task. Other factors may be at work for those who give an unreasonably low price. They can simply be incompetent at what they do and no one will hire them. There may be a llack self-respect. They may not really understand the task. As one of my potential vendors put it, going with the lowest price could be the most expensive decision you've ever made.

The first website guy I called as a result of my googling website designers redondo beach had an office in RB but wouldn't meet face-to-face. He said he did everything over the web. I was cool with that because I used to manage customer service for a computer software outfit, and I dealt often strictly through email and telephone. I would never see them in person and never intend to. However, this person's price did astonish me. It was way over my budget, but to be fair to him, I never indicated to him my budget.

By more research into available website designer/implementors: I found a website named designquote.com, that provides an online meeting place for designers of websites and related skills, like graphics designers, and logo creators. I uploaded a specification for my website and within one day, I had 5 good quotes in hand. I checked out their work samples and settled on three of the five to get references. Finally I chose Pyxels Design Studio based in Massachusetts.

Rob, Pyxels' designer, turned out to be quick and efficient and true to our contract. He helped me get the domain name (www.dewittandmariamovie.com), and he designed the site, programmed it and will provide the hosting. Within a couple of weeks we had a good website (www.dewittandmariamovie.com) up and running. Kurt edited a 30 sec video trailer to the site and it was complete in time for the premiere scheduled for Oct 23, 2010.

I had no trouble trusting someone I'd never met before 2300 miles away with a critical project. After all, this whole project has been about trusting people I didn't know. My willingness to take risks has paid off all on the upside so far.

Film Finished Now Time For Premiere

Been a while since my last post, I know, but here's the update. We finished the shoot on March 22, 2010, at Las Brisas restaurant. The cast and crew were tired and a little sad that it was over. You could feel the good vibes all around from the set to whatever corner served as the "green room" to Cat Alfonso's make-up corner, to the "craft" table--the food and drinks.

Everyone was arriving right on their call time , which was remarkable since they came from Hollywood, the Valley, Orange County, all over.  And they were always ready for their scenes without any big delays. Some days started early and finished late. But it was a very happy shoot. I think part of the reason is that the story is pretty happy, sexually innocent, and non-violent.

Dennis Devine and I were happy because we got the footage we needed for every scene. There was minimal overtime and no overruns.

Kurt, the DP, and I were happy because we finally figured out how to transfer the dailies from the tapes on which the Panasonic HDX 90 camera stored its data, through the Mac and onto the hard drive I bought especially for the shoot.

The cast and crew scattered and Dennis took home the raw footage to begin editing on Final Cut Pro.

The first cut  was pretty rough. It had no music or special effects for the shots of Dewitt's computer screens. Some scenes seemed interminable and out-of-place. I showed it to my friends who were cautiously complimentary. But, it was clear it was time for serious editing.

Dennis and I discussed editing possibilities to cut some long scenes, especially in the beginning, and move scenes around so there was a clearer story line.  Dennis grappled with the scene involving Dewitt, his mom and his aunts. He had to do a lot of slicing and dicing to get that smooth and produce a final cut.

When we had the final cut in hand, we were ready to add music.  I stubbornly insisted on accordion music and had tried to get Los Angeles most famous accordionist, Nick Ariondo, to do the music. I spoke to Nick several times on the phone, and he seemed interested. I bought his album, Trilucence and I was particularly taken with the piece he wrote called "Scherzo in Two" which features the accordion and clarinet. Dennis cut it into the opening sequence with Dewitt walking down the street and it seemed perfect.

The clarinet can produce a lonely, isolated sound, while the accordion can evoke Italian culture. Nick's scherzo combined those effects perfectly. It was appropriately comedic, tender, and weird. Unfortunately, I couldn't fit Nick's license (master or synch) into my budget.

AT Dennis' suggestion, we went to meet Tony Green at Ear Gallery Music, who had done the score for one movie. He had a full sound studio in a building separate from his house in Pasadena. Dennis had given him a few scenes. I liked the scoring he did  for them. His price was right, so he came on board.

Finally, the final cut with music came around Sept 3. I was very happy with the results of the cuts. Kurts effects for the computer screens were excellent and very creative. Tony's music added immensely to the emotional effect of the film.

Very quickly, I had copies made (at Custom Video in Redondo Beach) and gave them to Greg, my attorney to pass on to sales agents.



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The First Days of the Shoot

The first day of shooting was 3-14-10, at the clinic office. Kurt and I and all the camera equipment got lost, so we were late. No problem since they weren't ready to shoot, anyway. Pat had arrived with the craft table and everyone was fueling up for the day.

We were allowed to shoot in the rooms where the "Research Fellows" at the clinic study. It has a room that's lined with study carrels which we used for Dewitt's cubicle at Oligarch Computer Games.

They started with the clinic scenes which show Maria at work dealing with unruly patients, especially Ron, who shoves past the others. I played "Old Patient", a cranky old guy who's "not used to all this...ladies bein' docs". They moved on with one of the last scenes where Maria sees Ron again, this time alone in the exam room. He hits on her until she receives a phone call from Dewitt. He then quiets down as Maria displays her new-found ability to handle tough situations after Dewitt's call.

Dewitt shows new-found confidence dealing with his boss, Max, and the recalcitrant software product, LoveSoft.

On into the week. Monday's shoot at the restaurant went well. We got through all but one of our scenes.  Dora kicked us out at 7PM before we could shoot the last scene where Tony and Maria leave the restaurant as Kurt is smiling at them from the bar.

As we got into Monday and Wednesday, shooting at our place, it began to feel like a week-long party, with something (the shoot) to keep it going. Everyone became fast friends. By Thursday and Friday, I was beginning to be a little worn down.

We had a problem downloading the camera tapes to Kurt's computer which caused me some consternation. Finally, we got that resolved and by Sunday AM we had 18 (all but one) of the tapes digitized. After the last shoot day, Monday 3-22, we had 27 tapes.

We had a lot of problems on Wednesday with the outdoor scenes because they were so long and noise from blowers, wood chippers, airplanes and passing cars slowed us down. Also, the dinner/dancing scene took a long time to shoot because of the need to shoot lines. I learned to be very careful of the length of outdoor scenes with lots of dialog.

Thursday was exciting. We shot the street scenes and the plumber shop. The street scenes involve the donut shop. I had a confrontation with the owner of the donut shop, but he seemed to be OK wth the shooting as long as it wasn't inside, which I assured him it wasn't. I ened up giving him $50.

On to Sunday and Monday which will be long days.

Making the 82 Minute Limit

The full reading revealed that we are still short of the 82 minute threshold that separates a "short" from a feature-length film. Dennis, Director, pointed out a hole in our schedule where we have Maria, Tony and Jean for a short shoot in the restaurant and then nothing for the rest of the day. He wanted four or five new pages to shoot in that spot.

Transitioning from production mode (lining up locations, contracts, lawyers, financing, etc.) back to creative mode (choosing themes, writing dialog, ensuring I wasn't screwing things up) was tough. I'm going through the same emotional stuff I was when I produced the play under the $2000 New York State Grant. I like writing the stuff better than managing and administering the production process. Film is much more "industrial" than the stage, so there are more elements to coordinate. It's good I have Dennis and Tom to help me keep everything organized.

When I did re-enter creative mode--about two days of cogitating on it--I focused on two areas that have appeared weak to me: 1) the second scene with Maria and Ron seemed to need more after the transition from Dewitt's phone call to Ron's conversion to a good patient, and 2) there seemed to be need for resolution  between Maria and Tony about his efforts to get her a date and also her views on Tony's romance with Jean.

I was able to write a new scene (unfortunately another restaurant meal scene) with Tony and Maria worth about 3 pages, and I extended the Maria/Ron scene by having her actually examine him. I got a physicians' assistant abdominal exam procedure from St. Francis University via Google. It was very detailed, I integrated the action and dialog for it into the script and it added about two pages.

The Tony/Maria scene I wrote as light-hearted, bantering conflict--hopefully funny. At that point, both Tony and Maria have love in their lives, so I don't think they would have a heavy argument.

I think we now have the 82 minutes we need.

The Full Cast Reading

Everyone got together in our living room for a read of the whole script.

We could barely find enough chairs for the 15 people.   In addition to the eleven actors, Director Dennis Devine and his Assistant Director, Jan Morris were there as well as Art Director, Tom VonLogue Newth, and newly hired Make Up Artist, Cat Alfonso.

It was like a big party. Some of the actors had just been on another production together, so they were sharing on that subject. Others were just getting acquainted.  I was rushing around trying to get everyone's contract and gov't forms signed and copied. Pat was busy with refreshments and snacks. This kind of happening can be overload for me, but I love meeting new people, especially when we share something in common.

The reading seemed to start slow. A lot of the first part of the story is setup. That could be a big mountain to climb when we get to distribution. I'm hoping the suspense, the visuals and the music will carry it along.

Things started to pick up at the first dancing lesson scene. Dewitt trying to absorb dancing into his rational mind turns out to be funny.  So is Maria's phone call from the bathroom. Things got even better with Dewitt's scene with his mother and aunts. Marguerite Sawyer and Jean Alden killed as the two aunts. The emotional scenes with D&M were good and carried right through to the end.

Afterwards, people were getting along so well, they had no problem staying for the final dance scene which Dylan directed skillfully. They all had a marvelous time with that.

Results of Kurt's Jan 24 Reading; Varicam; Notes on Portraying Passage of Time

K&K organized a reading of the 2-17 draft. It was valuable. This is the second reading and each one yielded some good ideas. He is right about it being a good market test, and some scene changes and new scenes came out of it.

The one that stands out is the suggestion to show D&M at the dance club. I think "Dirty Dancing" was mentioned, especially the power of the eye contact between Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze. That was a great idea and we've worked out and will add a scene at the dance club that emphasizes eye contact. The location we're shooting the dance scenes is an old night club with a dance floor, so it should work out perfect.

Max and Ronald seem to attract a lot of the discussion. That's not good since they are minor characters. I've tried to reduce the dialog in the Max scene

I've also tried to beef up demonstration of Dewitt's computer skills. And show more of Maria working hard.

I cut out Reflection entirely and replaced it with Heidi all the way.

On the technical front, we decided to go with the Varicam. It comes with a tape deck that you interface to a Mac running Final Cut Pro to download the files from tape, convert to digital and store them on computer disk.  I don't know the file type, though. That would be a key question interfacing with editing software. 

About the timeframe problem...  I agree some indication of time passage would be helpful. How to do it is the question. William Goldman says in Which Lie Did I Tell You that your scenes should come as late into the action as possible. In other words, resist the temptation to do lengthy lead-ins or exposition. I agree with this because I've seen wordy and expository scenes stop stuff dead--some of my own stuff.

Passage of time is difficult to show in a movie. Something clunky can be done: show a "two months later" card or have one of the characters say "remember that lunch we had a couple of months ago". 

Dennis told me about a couple of tricks: 1) lengthen fade outs/fade ins. That subtly implies the passage of time; 2) show a montage of scenes--this trick can actually show passage of time by mixing in different seasons or sequence the montage as day/night/day/night.

One lesson I'm learning with Dennis is you can shoot footage while on location with the actors which can be included/excluded, sliced and diced during the edit process. You can also include stock footage if you can show something without the actors. I suppose you could even call back some of the actors for a special shoot if necessary---however, $k-ching, $k-ching.

Converting the Playscript to Screenplay

Many plays have been turned into movies successfully (e.g., Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Streetcar Named Desire, Glass Menagerie, Death of a Salesman, Some Like it Hot, Twelve Angry Men, more recently, Six Degrees of Separation,  and Doubt), so the two art forms are mutually adaptable.

The examples are of the theater of the interior. Their dramatic impact is powered by the interplay between the characters and the inner workings of the characters. There's not much interaction with physical nature or its forces. Expressing their conflicts doesn't rely on physical violence--action movies.

Interior theater lends itself well to low budget filmmaking. You don't have to show a lot of objects or broad action or interplay with physical objects. Interior theater relies on quality of acting more than action/adventure, or exterior theater. When adapted to film, the results of the adaptation to film rely on the creativity of the director to select images that complement the interior flow of drama.

Dewitt & Maria (D&M) is interior theater and a comedy. The comedy provides some relief for the audience's strict concentration. Furthermore, D&M lends itself to low budget filmmaking. It could be shot entirely in your house and yard and the surrounding sidewalks. It requires nine actors and your friends could easily fill out the ending dance scene.

I would recommend the writer organize a simple table reading of one of the first drafts of the screen play. It's valuable to hear it semi-acted, hear comments of other listeners and the actors, and it's a good foundation for a party.

The reading revealed three main problems with the first screenplay draft. First, I had left in several long speeches that didn't work that well. Second, the plot device that brings Dewitt and his mother into acquaintance with Maria and her father, of near adjoining windows of two apartments, would not work well on film and was hard to set up. Third,  I had vainly tried to fix the first problem by cutting out one of the most wordy scenes, however, one turned out to be one of the hearts of the drama between the two main characters.

By the second draft, I had overcome all three problems: I trimmed several speeches, I found another way for Tony and Jean to meet and arrange a meeting between their children. And, I restored the heart of the play to the movie.

By the third and fourth drafts I had sharpened and enhanced the conflicts and relationships between the characters, made more variety and openness in the settings. Enhanced the visual nature of the movie version over the stage version.

My director, Dennis Devine had to show me how to format the script to make it suitable for the industrial process (and cultural norms and conventions) of shooting a movie.