QUALL-IFICATIONS

What, to me, makes a good movie?

1) Lighting: Not too much of any one thing, a movie should be a celebration of light. Of course, the light reflects the mood of the film, so discretion in each genre has to be used, but that only means that the rules were meant to be played with until they break. Light is life. Without it, there is no sight. Without light, the film doesn't exist. It must be lauded within every scene.

2) Script: Tight writing is so key. A screenplay is the passport for a film to travel. Everyone looks at it, so it had better be in order. A great script is practically a "Get Out of Jail Free" card. Actors will fall all over themselves to snap up those roles. Which brings us to the next...

3) Actors/Characters: If they don't fit, it WILL suck. Ever seen a great landscape with a partially decomposed body in it? Yeah. Its like that. I bet you can name ten, right off the top of your head: Movies you saw that were miscast. Some people say that's not the director's fault sometimes, but murder is always someone's fault. If you can't stand up to a freaking actor then you have to stick to busboys.

4) Quirk and bits: Quirk is basically chemistry. But instead of chemistry in the movie, its the movie's chemistry with you. The little loud fizzy multicolored Tom and Jerry pops that go off in your head when your mind is blown. Those moments that make it so sweet to be breathing and witnessing magic. The ones where you pat your own back for getting it at the video store. It feels like getting an inside joke. It feels like they made it just for you. Great, legendary movies are all quirk and good bits. They usually work in combos: Music with picture, actor with actor, actor and picture. That kind of thing. Getting at...

5) Music: Music, like light, is life. If light is the soul of the film then music is blood. It must course smoothly, uninterrupted and yet you can't be able to ignore it. People think its merely an accent piece, but the truth is the score is the second script. And just as important if not more than the first. 

6) Picture: Film is made up of individual frames that fly by. Every one of them should be able to be taken and framed and put up. No one bit of film is unimportant. Its all vital, its all special. There is no throwaway in great films, no wasted space. You have an hour to three in some cases, and every second counts.

7) Family: The director and crew must be a well-working unit. When distress comes up, it shows. When they work on a movie, that movie should be their life. An artist devotes, they don't just go to work and go home. Eye of the tiger, man, eye of the tiger. Keep on your toes. Don't ever let it get to be a job.

8) Eye Treats: I'm a stripper, I like cool costumes and sets. Use your goddamn imagination people. Dazzle me. Stunts are always tops too.

9) Hustle and Flow: Cohesive, smooth, not choppy. A movie is a slipstream. Stylization in timeline is great, but there are tricks to doing it. The only people I can think of that usually do it nowadays do a damn good job, so there's not much to yell at. But when telling a linear story it shouldn't be that hard. Set your blocks up and knock them down cleanly. Don't leave any castles half-stacked for people to sit pondering about nonplused during credit roll.

10) Ending: A good solid ending is key. Even if the end of the story is phantasmic, the actual ending in the audience's eyes must leave them satisfied that they're not wasting 8 to 10 dollars on an expensive piece of crap.

Anyway, those are just my personal notes. Ones I'm going to have to actually utilize these next 6 months as I start the arduous journey of making my first feature film.

What the film is about and all that jazz is really irrelevant here, because this blog is about the mechanics and essence of film making, as well as movies themselves. I'd rather talk about more crucial stuff (ie things that worry me). I really know nothing about this, its the blind leading the blind. And yet I feel relentlessly hopeful and confident in a way. No matter how bad I screw this up, I have a strange and unshakable faith that I'll be able to salvage any major disasters. Perhaps its because I felt that all my life I was racing against time to get to this crucial point. Now that I'm here, there is SOOOO much work to do or die. Whether I will succeed or not: Only time will tell. Thanks to the magic of the Intarwebs, you can watch.

Now that the ground rules are laid, feel free to play: Add, message, do whatever you will. Please, if you have a movie you think I might not have seen, let me know. Even if I have, we can have a good chat about it. Irreverence is key. Anything that I don't like gets Bruce Lee's Immortal Foot of Doom!!! Don't get me wrong though, even though I claim to be all irreverence, I really do have a love for certain things and people in this business that borders on creepy, so feel free to share your film obsessions as well. If you are a stripper, welcome! I will be talking about that too, as its part of my life and one of the ways I'm going to finance the movie.

So let's have fun together. Sexy happy naked fun!

Nanoo nanoo,

PART III