Ross: The Man, The Myth, The Legend

It's a Tuesday evening, long after the rest of the creative team has left the building, but the lights are still burning in the editing lab.   An amiable looking man sits at a computer, his face fluctuating between consternation, thoughtful reflection, and flashes of brilliant inspiration.  It's been like this for the last five hours, during which time his hair has progressively gotten bigger and messier as his hands search through its curly strands to find the answers he is looking for.  Ross Swanson is man who knows there are answers; there is a 'best' way to put this film together.  It's not something you can just throw together in any halfway artful way; what would work just fine for most people is just not quite there for him.  He's like the sculptor who sees a pre-existing work in the stone, there before the first chip is chiseled away, waiting to be unveiled.  There is a right way to edit this film, and Ross will get it there, chip by chip, frame by frame until the final work is revealed.

Ross is a bit of an outsider in the community, not conforming to the norms of the cinematic elite.  He has the artistic vision, the appreciation for the deeper things in film, but his approach to movies and film also has a blue-collar air to it.  Unlike so many in his line of work, Ross doesn't sneer at the less erudite, less sophisticated, either in film or in life.  He is decidedly down-to-earth, and mocks the holier-than-thou film critics and connoisseurs for their "douchey" sensibilities.  But for all that, Ross has a complex and refined artistic vision, and the work ethic to tease it out of every work he creates.  Perhaps that is why he such a force in the community, acting, as only he can, as both a shotgun blast and a scalpel incision, a delightfully contradictory mixture of reckless inclusiveness and precise exclusivity that combine in his own work to find the 'right' form.

The Myth of Lucas

Rubin describes Lucas in his article a drifting, freedom oriented, tinkerer who just happened upon film nearly by chance.  Rubin's Lucas is a rebellious, rule-breaking, artistic man with a vision for the film itself and the forms it takes.  This contrasts with the public's general conception of George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars, the founder of Lucasfilm, etc.  What the public wants to see and hear about Lucas is that he is immersed in a highly technological, fantastical world, filled with Wookiees and droids; they see a man whose dream is Star Wars, with a little Indiana Jones thrown in as well.  Rubin's article begins to unravel that idea a little bit.  Lucas wasn't necessarily obsessed with the story of Star Wars or its worlds, rather he was obsessed by the process of filmmaking and the ways in which he could manipulate the physical parts of the process.  For him, it was about the story, yes, but it wasn't all about the story like some might suppose; the story was a medium through which he could edit and create, which was likely more important to him than ever was the details of every little alien floating around the galaxy of Star Wars.

Big Fish

I watched Tim Burton's Big Fish tonight for my master class assignment.  It was an excellent movie.  The story is one about, well, stories.  It is about the way we all tell our own stories, how our lives come to be narratives for someone else, and how there is always a little bit of adventure and magic behind some of the more mundane parts of life.  This movie is about that magic.  Burton highlights the distinction between the father, a story telling man who lives in his created world of intrigue and fairy tale adventure, and his son, a practical, no-nonsense man bitter with his father's compulsory elaboration.  It is interesting to note the difference in lighting between different segments of the movie, the flashbacks to the father's tales shown in a very surreal, soft, vividly colored light, while the scenes in the 'real world' are of a more muted, normal tone.  In a way, it gives the story scenes an almost heightened realism, giving them a depth and emotional character far greater than the normalcy of the other parts of the film.  This aids in blurring the line between story and real when approaching the question of importance or significance.  It attaches us closer to the stories, but grounds us in the reality, dividing our attention between the conflicting worlds until the reconciliation at the end, the son entering into the bright, fantasy-lighted world and understanding his father.  A somewhat in-between level rounds out the finish of the film, maintaining the brightness, but removing some of the softness, revealing a melding of story and reality, finally compatible, within the son's life.

Three Words Redux

As we enter the filmmaking phase, it again becomes time to revisit the three words chosen at the beginning of the semester to define my creative process:  Vivid, Detailed, Ideals.  The question now is how to apply these to the process of putting a story on film, especially for my specific duties of light and sound. I'm not quite sure how to transfer ideals through those mediums, however, I think both light and sound contribute much to creating the vividness and detailed appearance of any film.  Both light and sound, though far from the focus of the film, are absolutely vital to creating depth, intrigue, and believability.  The human mind is incredibly well tuned, subconsciously, to the variability in the way light plays off of objects and interacts with different things and to the subtleties of our audio surroundings.  The manipulation of these factors can covertly influence the emotional and mental state of the viewer.  Conversely, errors involving light and sound can predispose an audience against a film, giving it a simply 'wrong' feel.  Paying attention to detail will certainly aid in reducing these issues and aid in creating the proper feel.  Creating vividness will also aid in drawing the viewer in and connecting them with the story and the ideals it presents, if that is the film's aim.