Slash and Learn
Austinites Troy Lanier and Clay Nichols' 'Filmmaking for Teens: Pulling Off Your Shorts' hinges on the writer/director/producer model
By Anne S. Lewis, Fri., May 20, 2005
Okay. I've got to say at the outset that I love this book. I say this as the mom/former producer/aging extra of an aspiring filmmaker who, at 14, is now in his fifth or sixth year of making films. I use the term "making films" loosely: For the first four or five years (depending on which effort we designate as the first cognizable film), being a filmmaker meant having an idea, perhaps even a few notes for a movie (something high concept and manageable, along the lines of a fourth installment in the Matrix franchise, for instance), and then reaching for the family camcorder or pleading, with affidavit face, to upgrade to the precious family Sony DV.
My role, always unbidden, was to leap into the void and multitask the minutiae: making sure the actors showed up, were duly "into the project," and, of course, that they remembered to bring the T-shirt they were wearing in the first scene when it got reshot weeks later. Location-scouting, prop-shopping, craft services, camera-battery-charging, (Teamster-busting) transportation services, and interposing unsolicited and most definitely unappreciated reality checks. The real sacrifice was always the one that at the time seemed the most fun and least interfering: accepting a draft to act in the film. This would inevitably involve the requisite number of extreme close-ups, for which I was not ready. Early on, I shrugged off my hesitations with an "oh, well, who's going to see it?" Weeks later, squirming red-faced in my seat at some public screening of the work, I'd have the awful answer to that question.
The genius of Filmmaking for Teens: Pulling Off Your Shorts, written by Austin's St. Stephen's Episcopal School film teachers Troy Lanier and Clay Nichols (and published by Michael Wiese Productions), is that it forklifts everyone, including Mom, out of the frame and parlays the filmmaker into what the authors call the "Slash" (the all-in-one writer/producer/director/editor). Then, in a breezy, hip, never technical style, it painlessly reverse-engineers each step involved in the making of a five-minute short film, from "brainshowering" a subject to gaining entrance to the film festival circuit. The aspiring filmmaker is exhorted to set aside at least for now all dreams of the "stretch Hummer" and "go small." Then, in a mere 170 pages, the book walks him through each of the tasks subsumed within the Slash job description: from writing and storyboarding (resist the temptation to forego a script and go improv), picking a crew (complete with optimal personality-profile checklists for each slot), coaching actors, and providing cool craft services without breaking the bank (hint: Find the soft touch of a grocer who's also a film buff), to choosing the best essential equipment. One of my favorites is the suggested exercise of renting a film and then following along, scene by scene, with the film's script, to observe how the film corresponds with, and expands upon, the screenplay, as well as get a feel for pacing and shooting style. The book is crammed with similarly creative, practical suggestions and painless timetables that keep the young filmmaker, who's often long on inspiration and short on follow-through, from hitting the wall and derailing the project before it's a wrap. (Hey, it's worked wonders for my son, who has worked with Lanier. These days, my only qualification for being on the set is my driver license.)
Come to think of it, this book's appeal is hardly limited to teens I think first-time filmmakers of all ages will find Pulling Off Your Shorts the ticket to a not-too-shabby first film.
Austin Chronicle: I've watched a lot of teen films. Something that never fails to amaze, although maybe it's not all that surprising, is the choice of subject matter. High-schoolers would seem to be naturals at nailing the grind of the high-school life ã la John Hughes, but, instead, we get a lot of teen angst and violence, always the violence.
Troy Lanier: The angst films do run rampant. But the word angst has come to be a term that denigrates or diminishes the teen experience. I try to get kids to realize that their angst works in their favor, They feel it more deeply than we do as jaded adults. So, channel it, but do so in a way that is not stereotypical. We do want to know what's in your head, so show it to us, but do so in a sophisticated manner. ... I try to tell them, write what you know. If your car has jumped off a bridge while it was being shot full of holes, then write about that. Instead, why not try and tell me what it is like to have your grandmother die of Alzheimer's, from a teenager's perspective, one not typically attuned to death. Shouldn't angst be OK here?
Kids want to make movies with content that I cannot show in a school setting. And so I have to (choose to) call them on it and then play the censor. It's always awkward to ask them to not make the same movies that our culture allows them to see. And at the same time I try to be respectful of their parental wishes.
Kids are really good at parody, and sometimes it makes us laugh hard. Interestingly enough, kids are really good at documentary. It's easier for them to emulate the documentaries they've watched and they're usually more satisfied with the final product. But at the end of the festival, it's not the docs that kids want to see.
Moviemaking is actually a great exercise for them. The process of making a movie requires them to be responsible for something. They have to get people together, they have to be in charge of expensive gear, they are going to put something of their own making on display. Education is contrived, while moviemaking, even fiction, is very real to them. They come to the media lab on their own accord. They edit all night because they are excited. And they show up in droves for their own student-run film festivals.
Clay Nichols: I would say that kids (boys most of all) most often begin making movies that are about the movies they've seen rather than the life they've seen. First, movies are typically improvised, using whatever lighting is available, camera hand held, simulating their favorite tough guy movie. For most kids, they don't see film as an opportunity to express their unique view of the world they more instinctively reach for the cool emulating what comes at them from Hollywood. We hope the book empowers kids to become authors to be artists that control the medium to express themselves.
AC: And, gosh, it must be tough to get them to learn to love the editing process which is just another word for the dreaded "revising" word.
TL: Kids absolutely hate to revise their English papers or to rework a math test. The same goes for editing their movies. They hit the rough cut and to them it's finished, because what was once random footage is now cohesive footage. God is in the details, and it is our job to help them take their work to the next level. Sweetening the audio, paying attention to cuts that are off by 1/30th of a second, some minor color correction. Willingness to revisit their rough cut with any sort of detail seldom happens on their first work. It's important that they crank through as many movies as they can.
CN: Kids may often "finish" their improvisational films, but they rarely think of their audience as being beyond their circle of friends. At first, they don't realize they can reach, easily, a much larger audience. When they think about many, many more people, strangers, seeing their films then they get serious.
AC: Is it apparent to you as a teacher which kids have what it takes to be a director?
TL: I have come to realize that not every kid is the Slash (writer/director/producer). As the kids progress in our school program, their movies get more and more complex, and the division of labor starts to fall in line with that on a Hollywood set. We have one kid right now who is coveted for his audio skills. Will he ever make his own movie? Probably not, but he will become part of the moviemaking scene in Austin.