RobMakesMovies.com

For Digital Cinematography we were required to come up with scripts for our 6-8 minute free form project. Well, given that I have a few ideas that can work, I type up one of them and submit it. It’s slightly short, because I left room to expand in a re-write(I submitted the 1st draft). Well yesterday we chose, and out of the three scripts, mine didn’t make it. It was fairly close, though. Eleven people in the group, one for Bean, four for Balance, and six for Differences. It’s the way things go.

I’m not upset, given that they chose Differences because it was a more difficult to execute script and that’s what they wanted. Now its just a matter of fine tuning the idea into something really good. In it’s current form it strays from a complete script since it gets jumbled and doesn’t connect with an audience. Student filmmakers would go see it just to see other talent, but it’s not where a mainstream audience could connect with it. That’s what I plan to fix. Will the rest of the group go for it, God I hope so.

So aside from writing, I’ll be directing a portion of the short. If I can make at least half of the changes I want to in the script, I feel confident that we can take it to the FilmSlam at the local independent theater, The Enzian, and maybe win. – Side note, I’m going to go see The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky and Mickey Rourke’s new film) tomorrow. It’ll be sick!

That’s all I’ve got as an update for now. I’m still fishing through ideas for Meaningless Sex. I thought I might want to take a more Noir style with it, but that just ended up heading down a path of stupid.

- Robert

Nuts of the film will probably guess that I’m referring to The Dark Knight, and thus infer specifically, Heath Ledger. I added The Dark Knight to my Netflix Queue because I wanted to rewatch his scenes as research for a fan-film I am trying to write. In doing just that, I discovered a few things:

1. Heath’s portrayal of Joker can be mimicked, but never repeated.
2. Most of the lines sound like they were improv, rather than scripted. (That’s when you know it’s really good acting)
3. The only character that has ever sent as many chills down my spine was Hannibal Lector.

Heath Ledger is our generation’s James Dean. There is no doubt about it. A person with such raw talent, gone, far before his due time. The question that weighs on my mind the most is whether or not he should get a posthumous Oscar. I haven’t seen any other performances that are on par with what Heath did, but I also haven’t frequented the more “arty” films that the Academy usually goes gaga over. The fact that Heath died nearly a year ago is entirely immaterial. I can guarantee anyone that no one, absolutely no one can recreate the dark depths of such a vile criminal the way the Heath Ledger did. The Oscars aren’t about popularity or what genre the acting was a part of, it’s about celebrating the performance and talent of one individual. I think Heath definitely earned his golden statue.

I’m going to finish this off with Christopher Nolan’s tribute of Heath. He wrote this very shortly after his death, and I think it speaks loudly about the kind of actor that Heath Ledger was:

One night, as I’m standing on LaSalle Street in Chicago, trying to line up a shot for “The Dark Knight,” a production assistant skateboards into my line of sight. Silently, I curse the moment that Heath first skated onto our set in full character makeup. I’d fretted about the reaction of Batman fans to a skateboarding Joker, but the actual result was a proliferation of skateboards among the younger crew members. If you’d asked those kids why they had chosen to bring their boards to work, they would have answered honestly that they didn’t know. That’s real charisma—as invisible and natural as gravity. That’s what Heath had.

Heath was bursting with creativity. It was in his every gesture. He once told me that he liked to wait between jobs until he was creatively hungry. Until he needed it again. He brought that attitude to our set every day. There aren’t many actors who can make you feel ashamed of how often you complain about doing the best job in the world. Heath was one of them.

One time he and another actor were shooting a complex scene. We had two days to shoot it, and at the end of the first day, they’d really found something and Heath was worried that he might not have it if we stopped. He wanted to carry on and finish. It’s tough to ask the crew to work late when we all know there’s plenty of time to finish the next day. But everyone seemed to understand that Heath had something special and that we had to capture it before it disappeared. Months later, I learned that as Heath left the set that night, he quietly thanked each crew member for working late. Quietly. Not trying to make a point, just grateful for the chance to create that they’d given him.

Those nights on the streets of Chicago were filled with stunts. These can be boring times for an actor, but Heath was fascinated, eagerly accepting our invitation to ride in the camera car as we chased vehicles through movie traffic—not just for the thrill ride, but to be a part of it. Of everything. He’d brought his laptop along in the car, and we had a high-speed screening of two of his works-in-progress: short films he’d made that were exciting and haunting. Their exuberance made me feel jaded and leaden. I’ve never felt as old as I did watching Heath explore his talents. That night I made him an offer—knowing he wouldn’t take me up on it—that he should feel free to come by the set when he had a night off so he could see what we were up to.

When you get into the edit suite after shooting a movie, you feel a responsibility to an actor who has trusted you, and Heath gave us everything. As we started my cut, I would wonder about each take we chose, each trim we made. I would visualize the screening where we’d have to show him the finished film—sitting three or four rows behind him, watching the movements of his head for clues to what he was thinking about what we’d done with all that he’d given us. Now that screening will never be real. I see him every day in my edit suite. I study his face, his voice. And I miss him terribly.

Back on LaSalle Street, I turn to my assistant director and I tell him to clear the skateboarding kid out of my line of sight when I realize—it’s Heath, woolly hat pulled low over his eyes, here on his night off to take me up on my offer. I can’t help but smile.

– Christopher Nolan – Director, The Dark Knight –