Type Cast

Hey Guys!

It has been FOREVER since I last posted to my film school blog. I guess things got so hectic that I never had time to share what I've been up to. Just to get the ball rolling again, I figured I would show you two little projects I acted in as a favor to my classmates. I was also in a scene from YOU CAN COUNT ON ME and will be doing a scene from ANGELS IN AMERICA too... but for now, here are some blind scene interpretation exercises I partook in. Enjoy!

I've found a common theme in all the projects I've acted in: I'm either getting rejected/dumped... or killed. There are really not too many great roles out there for us women.

Here is one directed by my friend Michael Toscano and shot in my apartment:


One Night Stand from MAToscano on Vimeo.

Here is one where I get killed by an axe murderer... try not to laugh too hard! This is directed by Nathan Floody.

Midori 4 Ever

Hello Everyone,
Greetings from my winter bungalow!

So I never told you guys how my last crit went with POUCH. First and foremost, I think I scared most of my family and about 60% of my friends (who always knew I was kinda strange - but never expected me to go this far and present a fetish film over my blog)... but alas, some things need to be created just to get it out of your system, or at the very least for cheap thrills! But all in all, I got great feedback with my camera work and editing from my classmates - but my teacher didn't really like it. He said he thought the camera was too casual - too MTV - and that he wasn't invested in the characters. He asked me what was at stake if the main character didn't buy the pouch. I didn't answer that question - as I thought of the film as an entire fantasy sequence really - but if I had to answer that question now, I'd say - what was at stake was him losing an incredible opportunity to dance some tango in my bedroom with a banana, a whip, a ball gag, and feather. Oh an of course with a sexy Brazilian. But anyway, the true lessoned learned is this: Either make something really funny (and not just funny to my weird, quirky, perverted self) - but to the general public) or make something that is interesting. And that means your audience has to care about your protagonist.... feel invested in their want and need!
So anyway, on to the next directing exercise... this one is called MIDORI 4 EVER.
We were given two pages of dialogue -- with character A and B. We need to create the world and context for the dialogue. We can make the characters two men or two women - you get the drift. We can shoot it in as many or as few locations as we want. Basically - do whatever we want, just make sure you use the dialogue provided. Click HERE for a less compressed version - otherwise... stay here..
So here we go... ENJOY!

POUCH

Hey Peeps,
Been a while since I posted anything. Classes have been intense and I've been battling a really bad cold. Not fun! Nonetheless, tomorrow I present my Directing Exercise #2. If you recall, I was going to do a drama about torture in Guantanamo - and lets just say, I had to put that one aside. Perhaps it was a bit overly ambitious for a 3-5 minute film with no dialogue. So... this is the alternative story. Please don't ask how I came up with this... I swear I have no idea! It's a little over the top and not appropriate for children so don't plop the kids down in front of this one :)

Okay, so the exercise is: Character A is in a room, Character B enters the room and takes a position away from A. A approaches B and offers B a small object. B either accepts or rejects the small object. A assumes a new position, B then approaches A and either finally accepts or returns the small object. A then leaves the room. B assumes A's position (Now the rules can be bent slightly if well motivated; I certainly did a tad bit). It should be no longer than 5 minutes with no dialogue. Also I had to write, direct, shoot and edit it. It stars Jay Haddad and Rafael Lessa. Special thanks to New York Fetish and my friend and classmate Veronica Novelo Turcotte for helping out!

Click HERE to see a better, less compressed version. Otherwise, here it is on You Tube:



Okay, on to some other random treats...


Tonight I went to see BRIGHT EYES at Radio City Hall. What a great venue. Very chill. Just sat back and listened to some beautiful music. Here is one of the songs they played, but from their performance at Coachella. Bright Eyes is known for creating music that makes you wanna fall in love and have your heart pulled out and stabbed a couple of times...



Here's a hopeful one, it'll leave you all warm and fuzzy inside :)


On another note, I am dying to go see Natalie Dessay in "Lucia di Lammermoor" at the MET. Unfortunately all of her shows are completely sold out. I may be able to find a ticket and pay a ridiculous amount of money to see her in March. I just want to show you a clip from the opera. She is AMAZING. I really love her approach. She says she considers herself an actress first and then an opera singer. Her performance is so beautiful and so heart wrenching.

Natalie Dessay in Lucia's Mad Scene at the Met


Okay, I'm only slightly obsessed... here is a great interview with Charlie Rose:. I rather you watch this that have me try to explain what it is that I love about this woman!



More goodies to come soon...

Inspiration... rain down on me!

Hey Guys,
I found this little interview with Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson on the internet and wanted to share it with you all. Wes is a wonderful filmmaker - by far one of the best of my generation, and Owen is an amazing actor and screenwriter.
Artist on Artist: Owen Wilson and Wes Anderson

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Marinating on the idea of creation I wanted to hear your thoughts on the creative process. I'll get the ball rolling but please add your own thoughts to the blog...

1. You do it because you have to. It's as necessary as breathing. You feel like you're dying if you don't get it out of your system (sorry I'm so melodramatic - but it's true!)
2. You realize that you are unbearably moody: high when creativity is flowing. Petrified when it's not (There is really nothing that feels worse than that. Even when your heart is broken - you feel something that you want to express). To have a blank canvas or to stare into your soul and say "now what?" is probably the WORSE feeling in the world.
3. You question everything you create as if they were your long lost children who come back to you to claim you as their parent. They look recognizable. They tell you they are your child, and yet you are skeptical. "Hmmm... are you sure? ... Do I even like you?... Is that the best I can do?"
4. You feel the need to connect with the world and share your perspective. To me, that is the most interesting thought. If someone could psychoanalyze that, that would be great. Why on earth are some people driven to regurgitate our individual experiences or perspective on life?
5. You hope (or at least I do) that you can touch someone. Make them laugh, make them cry, make them feel outraged by a social injustice.

Okay so add your own thoughts!

Other than that, on this beautiful, somber, rainy day, I've been thinking about my upcoming projects. I've got a couple of things going on. I have to shoot my Directing Exercise #2 and #3. My Directing Exercise #2 project is somewhat inspired by all those Flight of the Conchords music videos I keep sharing with you guys. I was going to do that interrogation scene I keep telling you about, but after 20 rewrites I decided to put it down for a little while. What I was trying to say about the use of torture and detaining suspected terrorist for years on end with no trial, was getting muddled and lost. It's a loaded topic and definitely something that is hard to tackle in a 3-5 minute short film with no dialogue. So that is on hold. I've decided to take a less personally loaded route and go with something fun and sexy. This next project takes place in a sex toy store and has a tango infused fantasy sequence =).

Some inspiration...


Then for my Directing Exercise 3 project, we are given two pages of dialogue and we need to create the world around that... i.e. break the dialogue into multiple location and imagine the context in which the story is unfolding. So I am pretty excited about this project and doing some research to shoot it in a style inspired by films like SHAFT or SUPERFLY. Here is a clip of a montage of images from SHAFT set to the theme song:



And here is a clip from SUPERFLY... you gotta LOVE IT!! The narration on the trailer really rocks.


I've also been watching a lot of Wes Anderson films. I love the way he uses the camera - dollying from one room to another in this scene from THE LIFE AQUATIC. His work has a beautiful storybook kinda feel.



Well, that is it for this week. Need to write a bunch of short screenplays over the weekend that I'll tell you about later.

Hugs and Kisses,
Marta

Everyman's Search for Dignity...

So some of you were wondering what happened when I didn't post a new blog this weekend. I was so flattered that anyone even noticed or even cared! To be completely honest it's because I got three short films back with feedback and they were ALL shredded to pieces. So I wasn't much in the mood for writing about what I learned all week. I felt pretty exhausted and down in the dumps. With that said, I didn't want to keep you from watching a couple of beautiful and entertaining clips. So here we go...

First and foremost, if you have not seen Vittorio De Sica's THE BICYCLE THIEF - what on earth are you waiting for? I've known about this film for years but never took the time to watch it until this weekend. It is by far on my top 5 movies of all time now. It is absolutely breathtaking and heartbreaking.

In a nutshell, it's a story about a very poor man - post WWII Italy - who lands a job putting up posters of Rita Hayworth around the city. The only catch is he needs a bicycle. So he sells his family's linens to get enough money to buy a bike and then on the first day of work, the bike gets stolen. The rest of the movie is this man and his son searching the streets of Rome for the stolen bicycle. Here is a clip towards the end of the movie when the man feels he has no other choice but to steal a bicycle.



Here's an interesting quote from Videohound's World Cinema, J. Hoberman's review in the October 6, 1998 Village Voice
"The Italian neorealist filmmakers were left-wing political philosophers, filled with moral indignation and opposed to the Fascist regimes of both the Nazis and Mussolini. Rejecting the escapism of pre-war Italian cinema, they were inspired by a resurgence of a realist aesthetic in Italian literature. They believed that non-professional actors filmed in real locations would create a revolutionary cinema of truth and ideas. There was also a practical consideration, since money was scarce, film and equipment were hard to come by and the studios were in ruins, like the rest of Rome. Devastated by World War II, Italy was occupied in defeat by Allied troops. Poverty was suffocating, and unemployment rife. The poor workman in The Bicycle Thief or more accurately translated, Bicycle Thieves needs his modest transportation in order to continue posting the image of the insanely unattainable Rita Hayworth in Gilda. Vittorio De Sica used the neorealist philosophies to make "what was surely the most universally praised movie produced anywhere on the planet during the first decade after World War II" (Hoberman).

Other than that, I've moved on to prep for my next two directing projects, rehearsing my scene from PROOF, breaking down scripts for my Producing Class , reading, reading and reading, and rewriting like crazy.

I just wanted to share with you three short films from some of my classmates. I am trying to get more for you. This was the same exercise I did when I shot HAMBRE CARNAL. The first one, Love Letters, is my favorite. The second two were done in a different class and didn't have the same restrictions as we did and came out quite differently.

Love Letters:


Sleep:


Cut Up:


In theaters you can also catch Julie Taymor's ACROSS THE UNIVERSE. I am not one for movie musicals, but I am a big fan of Julie's work. She is the director of FRIDA and TITUS and was responsible for the production design and costumes of the LION KING on Broadway, and THE MAGIC FLUTE at the Met Opera.. So while watching ACROSS THE UNIVERSE, at times I said to myself, you've got to be kidding me... eventually the movie really grew on me.It's totally different from anything else out there! I still laughed at some of the cheesy parts but Julie's vision is impressive. Just watch the way she works with choreography, camera movements, mise-en-scene. This woman in definitely very creative, original and visionary. Not only that but her interpretation of all the Beatle songs was particularly poignant and timely. The movie definitely speaks to us at a time where we are in a war with no end in sight. Is this going to turn out to be another Vietnam?

I definitely shed a few tears here and there and I am pretty sure I'll want to buy the DVD when it comes out!





And just for fun... some entertaining clips if you are looking for some serious procrastination time:

From Flight of the Conchords:


Hipster Olympics:


Battle at Kruger:

We've made it to sound...

Lots to catch you up on. This week, we saw more silent films... yes we have been watching and writing silent films for six weeks. In particular we have watched and analyzed G.W. Pabst's "The Love of Jeanne Ney" - twice. It's a Russian film from 1927 that was very popular at the time. What makes it so important was that it mixed a personal story with historical and political events, it uses dramatic action and location shooting, and had a mixture of styles. I was going to add a clip from You Tube - but I couldn't find one, sorry.

We also watched Buster Keaton's CAMERAMAN. Wow - what a beautifully shot and wildly entertaining silent film. Here is a clip. Put it on your Netflix list, you won't be disappointed.



Next week we have our first 3-5 minute screenplay to hand in with dialogue (now I'm having anxiety about using dialogue) and we are also making the transition into sound in cinema in our film studies class. Once sound was introduced to film, it completely changed the American film industry, mostly by centralizing filmmaking into a smaller group of companies (many merged or were bought up) but basically what we ended up with is an oligarchy that we now call the studios. With talking films, came more challenges with foreign markets. When the films were silent, everyone could watch and understand them - so now how do we market talking films? Well, this is when dubbing and subtitles were introduced, and more importantly where the trend for action driven films came in - in particular, the Western. Sound in films also helped improve film stock, led to the building of sound stages since it was technically more difficult and needed more controlled environments, it created a new department: the sound department, it led to actual screenplays with dialogue so all the playwrights of New York went out to La La Land, and of course it helped push along better lighting equipment that wouldn't buzz or make noise while they were shooting.

Then in my Elements of Dramatic Writing, we are continuing to explore narrative filmmaking: structure, theme etc... and we compared two films: RODAN with THE HOST. They both explore similar themes but approach it very differently. In RODAN you have the antagonistic force being nature against itself. In THE HOST you have the antagonist force in the form of the evil white American guy. So anyway, this week was really focused on how to introduce the protagonist in your films and show his/her relationship to the antagonistic force... with a focus on achieving a feeling of real force and magnitude in the form of yes... monsters!

Here is a clip of RODAN. I had never seen this movie before and we didn't get to finish it but it was truly entertaining. The narration is completely on the nose and hilarious. But the best part is the introduction of the monster.... wait for it... wait for it... I cracked up in class when IT finally appeared. Check it out:



And of course, here is a trailer for THE HOST. This was TERRIFYING!



Then of course, I had my crit for HAMBRE CARNAL. It actual went well. My class seemed very entertained, the straight guys want to go out on a date with Tracy, the gay guys want to go out on a date with Leon, and everyone loved the music, the kitchen, and the shot selection etc...
I knew once I was editing that there were a bunch of things I wish I had done differently, and this was what was discussed in class. If you watch it again, you will see it is not immediately clear whose story it is. That's because when I wrote it, I thought it was Leo's character. But then when I shot it, I thought it might be Tracy's character. But if that is the case, I needed to have shot the whole thing more from her point of view. I shot it too objectively. Also, I needed to give her character more of an arc. She should have come in, sat down and tried to pretend she is not interested in the salad until she can't take it anymore and she throws the magazine away and THEN heads for the salad dressing etc... Also, my dramatic blocks were not sharp or distinguishable. Everything kinda blended together, mostly because I should have compressed time in certain parts a little more, and elongated other moments so that that each dramatic block had a different rhythm. So all in all, very good learning experience. I tell you, you can write a very clear script and yet miss the most essential narrative beats when you are shooting.
But anyway, my next shoot is going to take place in an interrogation room. I've written a couple of drafts of this one and my class really likes it but I'm still struggling with two things:
1. Character development/whose story is it and how to best shoot it for a 3-5 minute film with no dialogue and 2. I am overly descriptive and putting camera angles and movements in my script which is also a big no no. My writing teacher said "Would you tell Scorsese where to put the camera? TAKE YOUR CAMERA DIRECTION OUT!" ahhhh ooops.

Anyway, this week we also saw two films with a Q&A with the directors. We saw Werner Herzog's documentary ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD and Todd Hayne's I'M NOT THERE. Herzog's documentary was very interesting. It's not so much an analysis on global warming or a call to action per se... but rather a meditation on the people working and living in Antarctica. It is going to be showing on the Discovery channel so set your TiVos or DVDRs. Here is a link with more info: http://encountersfilm.com/page.cfm?load=about

Todd Haynes was also amazing to listen to. I love this guy and I love his movies but this one just flew over my head. I don't know if you need to be a die hard fan to "get" this film, but I certainly felt lost and confused most of the movie. I think it was a great concept but somehow didn't work on screen. Maybe this film is completely ahead of it's time and in 20 years it will be considered one of the best - but right it left me thinking, "huh?" Regardless, if you are a Dylan fan - it's worth checking out and letting me know what you think!



Anyway, that's all for now. Hope this one wasn't too long or boring!
xoxo
Marta

Hambre Carnal (Carnal Hunger)

Hey Guys,

So tomorrow my Directing 1 Exercise is due. Here is what was asked of us:

Sitting at a table, character A is engaged in an action (say studying). Character B enters the room, sits across from A and begins her/his own action (say seduction), which escalates, either repelling or attracting A. At the end, A leaves the room and B assumes A's seat at the table. Character B's entrance into the room through a doorway should be on-screen as should A's exit.

The primary goal is to articulate a dramatic scene with the camera and editing and absolutely no dialogue. We were given a camera and a tripod. We each have to write, direct, shoot, and edit a silent 3-5 minute film.

Tracy Perez and Leon Klein perform in it - I think they did a fantastic job! Thank you so much Tony for helping me out and Thomas for lending us your beautiful apartment. All the music is by Dan Nadel who came in and improvised while watching the final cut. I was very lucky to have so many talented friends to collaborate with.

So anyway, because I was afraid that my professor would kill me for starting the scene at the refrigerator instead of with character A seated - I have two versions. Version 2 is right after Version 1 and the beginning is slightly different but other than that, the cut is pretty much the same. The short is called HAMBRE CARNAL (Carnal Hunger - in English).

Hope you like it! I am pretty sure you will never look at another salad the same way again :-)
xoxo
Marta

p.s. I also have these completely silent with just music in case we are not allowed to have any ambient sound or grunting. Thanks Chris and Mario for the warning!!!!