Tone is an interesting, tricky thing in filmmaking.
Because you shoot things out of order and over several days -- sometimes weeks -- and because we are, as human animals, prone to moods and "inner tones," if you will -- affected by the weather and how much sleep we've had and what we've eaten last and who we've spoken to about what -- keeping the tone trajectory going in a consistent way is a real challenge. It's another thing that the director has to be really clear about -- really, specifically, explicit about, i.e., not just to intuit. One cannot rely on one's "understanding" of the script or the characters in a general way. One has to be concretely prepared each new shoot day to push aside the influences of the moment (the weather, the food, the latest conversation -- and those things as they influence the actors, as well).
I'm having a hard time editing Scene 28 (Bill and Marissa in the kitchen: "It's the reaction
to the attraction that matters"), not just because the DP and I totally screwed up the eyelines, but especially because I failed to keep the
tone on track.
There's a little footage between takes of me & the actors talking, and I wasn't struggling; I was satisfied, even quite pleased sometimes. But having now edited scenes 1-27 and most of 29-37 into their narrative lines, I can see more clearly what 28 was supposed to be doing in the middle there than I did, that July. Watching the footage now, I can see that on the shoot day, I had lost sight of the role of the scene in the overall arc of the final 90-minute narrative -- understandably, perhaps, given so many variables and my lack of experience, but maddeningly!
We had the kitchen location (Henry and Cynthia Jenkins' house) for a certain number of days; we had the actors for certain hours of those days - some actors at certain times, others at others, with a little overlapping where possible for group scenes. Accordingly, as is common practice, we therefore shot all the kitchen stuff consecutively, lumping the scenes by actor availability, regardless of how they fell chronologically in the story (though I do try to shoot as close to story chronology as I can). What's instructive to watch, from here in 2012, is that I was obviously going along with the flow that the actors were taking the scene, instead of guiding them back to the tone that the scene initially - and ultimately - called/s for. In my appreciation for the honest emotion that was being communicated well, and in my desire to trust them and respect them as artists making choices, I actually let them down by not helping them find their way to what would ultimately have been "better" performances -- because different choices would have fit more smoothly into the flow of the scenes around that one. I watch this footage now, see the genuine, decent "acting" going on, but am confounded about what takes to choose, because so few of them actually fit the movie _emotionally_. "Where was the
director???!!!" I cry at my computer screen.
In this scene, the following exchange is written (about Marissa's ex and why they're not together anymore):
BILL
You're always blaming yourself.
He was probably an asshole.
MARISSA
I'm not saying he wasn't an asshole.
But I still freaked him out. I kept
telling him the truth.
BILL
Oh. I've told you about that. It's bad
form. Freaks people out.
MARISSA
Apparently. Silly me. And then, well,
the proof came when... [sic] He never
came to visit me in there. He called
and left a message once. Once.
BILL
Fuckin' loser.
MARISSA
I know it's hard for people, but once?
It would kill you? I mean, it would
kill you?
If the humor/levity in the tone of this exchange is lost, if
earnestness becomes the "interpretation," then the moment becomes doleful -- and it's the
start of the scene; doleful to start doesn't really give you anywhere to go.
"I kept telling him the truth" must be meant with a self-aware irony, i.e., said as a joke, not as a straight-forward confession -- even though (if not especially because) it
is the truth ("kidding on the square," as my friend Pete Simmons would say). Go on, try it both ways in your head....
See? When said earnestly, it sounds self-important. Then when Bill answers her, there's only so much he can do to lift the humor (let alone the pace) back up again because Bill's role is to be sympathetic.
The other thing I didn't do as director here, re: the actors, was help them the see which lines were the earnest lines that call for emotional investment, and which lines were basically just the
route to those important lines, and therefore not requiring much "umph" themselves. That is one of the tasks of the conversations that should go on between actor and director: making sure the actor is clear about the arc of the scene and the emotions that the character is having in these moments. When you have extended rehearsals, as in theater, you have more room to let the actors find the rhythms of the scene together over time, but in film, "we shoot in five." It occurs to me as I write this that maybe because of my background in theater, I was letting the actors feel it out, probe it themselves, at a pace I might use in a theatrical rehearsal...
Hm. Well, it didn't work in this case.
So - as shot, Scene 28 is slow, earnest and at times ponderous (Bill espouses his theories on the nature of attraction while Marissa playfully [or not!] teases him and draws him out), when it should be quick-paced dialogue with flashes of insight and an obviously intimate connection between the friends. The actors did a really nice job at playing the scene with attention to the content of each line, finding the ways the characters really cared deeply about what they were saying. Unfortunately, thinking seriously and caring deeply make for s p e a k i n g s l o w l y, which is
not appropriate to this moment in the 90-minute arc of the final film. PLUS, because the screenwriter needed another re-write (ahem), the scene is an ASTONISHING NINE PAGES LONG. Which, as you might gather from my capital letters, is too long.
So what I will DO now, as editor, with this scene, is search through all the million takes (nine angles!! WTF?? Where was the director???) (to be fair, it's partly nine angles because they walk around the room, which is also how we lost track of the eyelines - d'oh!) and pick out the little moments here and there, as found, of anything that looks like levity and friendly irony (that is,
not sarcasm, which could screw with the fun that they're supposed to be having and threaten to make the discussion look adversarial in some way). Then I will try to help the tone along by having a lot of cuts -- increasing the pace not only through the rapidity of the cuts, but also cutting out many of the one- and two-second pauses between the lines - which I might actually have wanted to have there, if the scene were supposed to be thoughtful and dramatic.
We'll be going for Tom Stoppard, not Tennessee Williams.
And it will be hard because the actors are doing "Cat," for sure.
Argh.
Another Good Lesson for Next Time!!
