Movies: When filmmaking and novel writing collide

By Julie

Last week, my husband and I saw a quirky little film at Christopher Kelly's Modern Cinema - Monthly Series at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. The movie was Love and Air Sex, filmed in Austin, Texas. Here's the blurb:

When brokenhearted Stan (Michael Stahl-David) flies to Austin for the weekend in hopes of "accidentally" running into his ex-girlfriend Cathy (Ashley Bell), he arrives to find their best friends Jeff (Zach Cregger) and Kara (Sara Paxton) in the middle of their own vicious breakup. Before too long, battle lines are drawn - and with the Air Sex World Championships in town, anything can go down.

The movie was fun. It was silly in places, for sure, and downright obscene in several. (Though somehow the unapologetic cringe-worthiness of the raunchy parts somehow made it feel, I dunno ... less obscene? And apparently? Air sex competitions are a real thing. You cannot make this stuff up. Another blogger wrote, "Crude beyond belief -- and in the most endearing manner") But it was also a sweet romantic comedy with top-notch performances from lesser known actors, laugh-out-loud lines and scenes, unexpected developments, and a poignant, unpredictable ending. One of the best parts is that it was a real love letter to Austin -- and we all know Austin is Weird. Ultimately, not a terrible way to spend an evening. We enjoyed it.

What made it even better, though, was the live Q&A with the director, Bryan Poyser, who attended the screening. I introduced myself to him after the event and chatted for a moment, asking if he minded a wearing an honorary tiara here at What Women Write. Mostly I just listened carefully and took good notes as the audience asked intelligent questions and he responded. The takeaway for me was how similar the filmmaking process can be to writing, editing, and promoting a novel. A few things in particular stood out.

Format

As a director, Poyser loves seeing his work on the big screen and believes it's the best venue, but he has to stay on top of technology and be "device agnostic." That means he makes certain choices in filming, bearing in mind how the movie will play not just on a theater screen, but on a big-screen TV, a computer screen, or even a phone screen. Love and Air Sex was immediately available on iTunes, so some of those choices were critical. Ultimately, Poyser said, a film is a film is a film, no matter how it's viewed.

As novelists, knowing our novel might be read not only on paper, but on an e-reader or phone screen might not change how we write it, but it certainly makes a difference in how we promote reading and books. We have to be device agnostic and meet our readers where they come to read.

Ultimately, a book is a book is a book, no matter what platform is used to read it.

Investment of time and balancing the work

Poyser talked about how filmmaking is really a three-year process. He spends a year developing the film, casting it, securing locations, and so on. He spends close to a year producing it. And he spend the better part of a year promoting it. In the meantime, he's thinking ahead to future projects, and trying to balance all the tasks in tandem.

Sound familiar, novelists? Being a published author is a balancing act, and it's a marathon, not a sprint.

Voice

Poyser didn't write the script for Love and Air Sex, so directing the film was like writing a whole new draft. His biggest task was making it personal--putting his "voice" into the produced film. This meant, for instance, writing additional bits that weren't just funny in general, but funny to him. He said the concept of air sex competitions was awkward (ok, downright embarrassing) to him as the director -- and that came across in the camera work and in the main character's interactions. Ultimately, for the film to work with Poyser at the helm, it had to have his stamp on it. It clearly had to reflect his world view.

As a novelist, your second and third and every additional draft is about being sure your voice comes across in the story. 

Re-writing

An audience member asked if the final cut was anything like his original vision, and whether the differences made it better or worse. Poyser said he hopes he never thinks a film is perfect in retrospect, because he always wants to be learning. As a novice filmmaker, he said reshooting a scene felt like failure. Eventually he realized it wasn't failure, it was re-writing. It was editing out the stuff that didn't work and making it the best it could be. Also, he said, because filmmaking is collaborative, the end result and the "accidents" made it different from the original vision, but often so much better. He pointed out one particular scene that was the actors' idea. He never would have thought of it, and it added a really winning moment to the film.

As a novelist, re-writing a scene that doesn't work isn't failure; it's an opportunity. And publishing a novel is a collaborative effort. Sometimes the editor or publicist or critique partner has an idea that ramps up the quality exponentially. 

What about you, readers? Can you think of other similarities in the process of creating these very different mediums? 

(Here's the trailer for Love and Air Sex. If you are easily offended, don't say you haven't been warned. I'd say even the trailer is a strong pg-13. The movie is unrated, but it's a definite R in my opinion.)

The other things we do

By Julie

We sure talk about writing a lot here at What Women Write. I guess that makes sense. But today I thought I'd talk about something else! I think as a writer it's extremely important to develop other passions and interests. This isn't an original idea. I've even blogged about it before, and most writers will tell you the same thing.

It's good to get out in the world and do something different now and then. 

It stretches our brains, makes us think about new things and different things besides the constant world of characters, setting, and plot, where we often dwell inside our brains.

Do you love to run? It's not just good exercise, but good thinking time. Work toward a marathon, or a half marathon, or even a 5K! I'm very proud I've worked up to running about 30-40 minutes on my treadmill after never being able to run much in my life. Outside I can't run more than half a block without feeling like my lungs are going to pop (mild asthma, maybe?). Since I started running inside, I've been amazed to discover I can run -- and much longer than I ever dreamed! Sometimes I even just run in circles inside my house. Trust me, this works, though it probably looks pretty ridiculous from the outside looking in.

Do you love to craft or scrapbook? I'm severely scrapbook challenged, but I do enjoy making a crafty thing now and then. Remember my posts about Wine 'n Whimsey last year? I've been missing those evenings, and I learned from experience it's good to confine my crafting ventures to that 2-hour window. When I try to craft from home, I invest too much money in supplies and dwell too much on perfection and rarely finish much. Remind me to tell you the story about the wine bottle chimes I made for Christmas gifts last year ... (ahem, a few are still sitting in a box unfinished on my dining room table).

Do you love taking photos or painting or drawing? Make some time for doing those things.

One of my absolutely favorite things in the world is going to movies.

I especially love quirky or fairly undiscovered indie films, but I also enjoy getting the scoop on bigger films that aren't in wide release yet. It's film festival season in the DFW area, and my husband and I start scoping out the websites and schedules long before the Texas summer heat finally retreats each year, planning and talking about which films we're going to try to see and how many we think we can cram into a weekend. I mean, you can only watch so many movies in the space of three or four days without going a little soft in the brain, right? We also love the unique experience of seeing a director or actor stroll to the front of the theater after the film for a Q&A as we've been able to do for several films at the annual Lone Star Film Festival.

Last weekend, we attended one of our favorite festivals -- Chris Kelly's Modern Cinema Festival at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. In previous years, we've had the privilege of seeing films ahead of wide release such as 50/50 that we loved, and some we weren't quite so sure about (E.g., A Dangerous Method).

Each year, while I'm scanning the schedules initially, I often think I'm not too interested in many of the films. At first glance, they might seem like something I just wouldn't ever think of seeing, or they might be on a topic that doesn't interest me, or maybe even are filmed in a country I've never had the desire to visit, even in a film. So, we say, oh, should we get passes or just take our chances on sold-out screenings by buying individual tickets? We waffle around, but usually, and often the day or two days before the festival, we convince ourselves to buy the passes, and while we're at it, buy the annual membership to the Modern, and heck, throw in the Reel People membership while we're at it so we can get discounts all year round to the Magnolia at the Modern films.

And then the challenge is on. And suddenly, we are checking out the trailers for the films, looking at scarce reviews or social media posts, or checking to see what else the actors have been in.

And suddenly, we're planning to watch as many of the films as we can stay awake for.

This year we managed a record six. I really think it would have been all eight scheduled had I not already committed to meeting with a book club on Friday evening.

Not every single film was a hit for me and/or my husband this time, but we enjoyed several very much -- especially the funny and bittersweet A.C.O.D. (adult children of divorce), a breathtaking and heartbreaking Belgian film titled The Broken Circle Breakdown, and a sweet (and sometimes not sweet) look at marriage from the viewpoint of a couple struggling to regain their mojo after many years of marriage in Le Week-End.

We might not have stayed for the final screening Sunday afternoon after Le Week-End, because le weekend had already been long, and we were exhausted and happy and overfull.

However, things were running a bit behind, which mean the very last film would start almost immediately after credits for Le Week-End rolled. We went to the lobby to stretch. I said to my husband, "Let's sit at the back, and then we can leave if we want to."

After all, this movie was a documentary -- never my favorite genre. And it was about India. I've never felt compelled to visit this country, though I liked 2011's The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel movie immensely. I have a dear online friend from India, and though I have always enjoyed seeing her posts and pictures, that was close enough for me.

The topic seemed interesting, but I just wasn't sure it was interesting enough to sit for another hour and a half in this particular theater, which is not your regular cushy stadium style set-up. So we wandered back in and plopped down in the very back row, which happens to have extra legroom, too, and prepared to be semi-engaged for a long as our tired back ends could take it.

It turns out we stayed for the whole thing. And wow, am I ever glad we decided to hang around. I have never been as emotionally wrung out after seeing a film. And it was not all BAD emotion. The film was extremely sad in places, but over-the-top JOYFUL too. I laughed and laughed, even while I cried and cried. Moreover, I have never, ever seen my stoic engineer husband as affected by a movie as Todd was. On our way to our car after the screening, I struggled to control actual sobs, while he was speechless and I could tell he was struggling to contain his emotion, too.

Here's the blurb, from my perspective:

A young man, disillusioned and confused about his purpose in life, goes on a trip to India and while he's there, he happens to visit a shelter for children and mothers who are HIV positive -- something that happens in staggering numbers in third-world countries. He doesn't even like kids, but something about his visit draws him back, and he ends up moving to the nearby village to volunteer and be with these children as many minutes of the day as he can. He falls in love with them. He is back and forth between the U.S. and India for visa renewals, and feels like a fish out of water whenever he's "home" in the U.S. This place and these kids have become his home and his family. 

I shared all this to say two things:

First, following some of your other passions beyond writing can have such a good effect on the writing itself. You learn new things, see new things, find new worlds and new ways for your characters to interact.

But you might even find yourself suddenly with a new world view as a result.

This was the case for me after watching the film Blood Brother, which won the 2013 Sundance Audience and Grand Jury awards for a U.S. documentary.

Suddenly, I am not so sure I will never visit India. And suddenly, children who are HIV positive aren't just random statistics across the world. They now have names I know. Surya. Anitha. Vemathi. Some who are no longer here. And the movie didn't just make me want to pull out my credit card and send the organization ten bucks. It did something to me I don't quite understand yet. Something that is making me think long and hard about my own purpose and investments of time and money. It will be interesting to see where I go with this. Somewhere, I hope.

Second, I want to invite you to look at this website, watch the trailer (and never imagine for a single moment that the extent and depth of what you will see in this film can even be touched on in this two minutes), then see if there's a screening somewhere near you in the next few months. I kind of want to lock the politicians in DC in a room together for the screening there tonight. I couldn't detect even a hint of political propaganda in this film, by the way. I think you might be touched as deeply as I was, and as Todd was, when we randomly (or maybe not) decided to give another 90 minutes to doing something we love to do anyway -- even though we were tired.



What are you doing ... besides writing?

Richardson Reads One Book: Markus Zusak

By Julie

Each year, we here at What Women Write attend the Richardson Reads One Book event as a group--whoever is available, usually most if not all of us! We were super excited to learn that the 2013 book was The Book Thief, and that Markus Zusak would be the special guest! Several of us had already read and loved the book.

Here's a quick run-down:

Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusak’s groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau. This is an unforgettable story about the ability of books to feed the soul.
Susan, Pamela and I (and eventually, Elizabeth, after a prior obligation with her kiddos), along with Susan's daughter and a friend of Pamela, met up last night for a delightful evening listening to Zusak speak about writing and reading and The Book Thief.

We also took the obligatory group shot. By the time we got through the line (which is always HUGE at Richardson Reads One Book because they do such a fabulous job choosing the author and promoting the event), I think everyone was tired, including the author. After doing my own book talks and signing events for the last seven months, I now have a huge appreciation for authors who tour almost nonstop, sometimes for years, as Zusak has done with The Book Thief due to its immense popularity and success! How do they keep up the smile and small talk and personal level of attention for so long? At any rate, we all, including Zusak, joked about making us look good--thus the arty effects, which I assure you were completely necessary. :)

I knew it was my turn to blog, so I jotted a few notes to share with you.

• We loved hearing the story of Zusak's first few events after his debut in Australia years ago. It was heartening to hear that even a world class author like this had to more or less bribe the high school rugby team he coached to come to his launch so it wouldn't be just him and the bookseller. Look at him now--more than a thousand rabid fans attended this event!
• He talked a lot about story. He started by sharing a funny family anecdote, then talked about what made it work for the audience. These are lessons that can be applied to writing, public speaking, or any situation where you need to tell a story your audience connects with.
• It's yours. In this case, it was his family's story.
• The details are what makes your story believable. (For instance, knowing not only what color a jacket is, but what's inside the pockets.) If you know the details, you are the expert. You are the owner. People believe people who know the details.
• You've told it again and again. You know it inside out. (And in the case of novel writing, you've been willing to fail and fail again as needed until you get it right.)
• The best moment in a story isn't the expected, but the unexpected.

The biggest point of his talk, and also, as he shared, the main theme of The Book Thief,  was that:

Stories make us who we are.

What a great reminder.

Want to write a book?

What are your stories? 

Want to do something else innovative or creative?

What are your stories? 

How do your stories make you who you are?

If you haven't read The Book Thief yet, we suggest you run right out and find a copy and devour it (as we are sure you will) before the movie comes out in November!

Why I Write

(Subtitle: Reminders To Self, In Times of Brain Lock)

By Susan

Sometimes I need a reminder to why I do this— the late nights and early mornings alone, the thinking, the writing, the editing. I now have this list posted close to my monitor for the tough times. Enjoy!

Susan, Susan, Susan. You write because you love it. Silent hours with a scratchy pencil. Fifteen minutes in front of a clicking keyboard with music thumping in your ear buds. Stolen moments when you pull over the car to write down a perfect sentence in the "notes" app of your iPhone. You write because you love to write. You love the words.

Second reason: you write because you have something to say. About human nature and relationships and the existence, perhaps, of God. You want to tell of places and books and men that you've loved. In the telling, you feel connected. Because other people relate. They read it, and love it or hate it or agree or disagree. But it ties you, you know. It ties you to humanity.

The third reason? You write because it feels good to get the words out of your head and onto paper. Simple.

Number Four: This brain lock thing? It doesn't exist. You think you are frozen because the words are hard. (Who said just because you love something it is easy? In fact, it is usually quite the opposite.) Because sometimes you throw it all away and start over, or because you are not clearly stating your point and must work for it. This means that you need to move. Take Lucy for a run. Scrub a toilet, or eat some pudding while you walk in circles in the kitchen. Practice your sun salutation on the back patio. You'll find that the words will come back to you. I promise.

Lastly, dear Self: don't let other's opinions, your failure or even your own success, or the busy-ness of your life ever get in the way of your "one thing." That "one thing?"

It is this.

Keep doing it. No matter what.

An Evening with Stephen King

By Pamela

How did you spend 11-11-11?
 

About a month ago, an email appeared in my inbox from A Real Bookstore announcing a special event they were hosting on November 11: An Evening with Stephen King. I've been fortunate to see some amazing authors, but this one ... well, let's just say, I didn't see this opportunity presenting itself for me again anytime in the near future. Normally I'd have forwarded the email to my fellow bloggers first, but I figured my husband would want to go so I called him instead. Yes, he was on board. So, I purchased our tickets and eagerly awaited the date.

When we took our seats in the sold-out auditorium, we were kept entertained by trivia questions that played on the screen over the stage. "What book was inspired by Stephen King's run-in with a Saint Bernard?" Easy. Cujo. "What event inspired the book Pet Sematary?" Stephen King's daughter's cat getting run over on the highway. And so it went until he appeared on stage and commandeered the microphone, stepping from behind the lectern and ignoring the stool provided for him.

My first impression was how small he appeared to be. I guess anyone larger-than-life appears remarkably normal when you finally see him in person, and we were pretty far back so his 6'4" frame seemed non-imposing. My second impression was how funny he was. Immediately engaging, he had the audience laughing much of the time--not at all the dark and brooding persona one might imagine given the stories the man creates.

He talked a lot about his early writing career--from his first autograph (while in the john, given to the restroom attendant) to his first time being recognized in public. He said he's often asked what scares him. "Everything," he said. "Spiders, snakes, the elevator in my hotel, standing up here talking to a large crowd." Apparently, most writers--even notorious ones--share this fear.

Before answering questions from the audience, he read a few pages from his new book: 11/22/63, a "what-if" tale of time travel and Kennedy's assassination. His research for the book brought him to Dallas and he returned for a benefit event the night before for the Sixth Floor Museum. In doing research for the book, he said he watched a lot of old tourism movies from the Dallas Public Library to get a feel for the setting of that era--what people wore and drove, the look of the town.

I resisted the urge to take notes during his talk as I didn't want to be distracted, but a few of the questions from the audience turned to the subject of craft and I couldn't help myself. Here are a few of my favorite responses to questions (paraphrased here):

When asked if he thought it was harder or easier today for new writers to make a name for themselves as authors, Mr. King said that he thought it was easier today given all the different venues one has available through ebooks and self-publishing. But he thought people put too much emphasis on getting published. "You have to get words on paper, words on paper, words on paper--then worry about the business side of it."

When asked if he would ever consider writing for young adults, he said, "Well, I write for the whole family!"

When asked which of his book-to-screen projects he was most proud of, he listed: Stand by Me, Storm of the Century, and Shawshank Redemption.

Other thoughts on writing included:

• There's a "beautiful hypnosis that takes affect" when you get immersed while writing a book.
• While writing, "characters do things that surprise you and that's the greatest thing of all."
• "The worst day I had in that chair (while writing) was absolutely terrific."
• When starting a new book, "you have that feeling of total inadequacy."

What surprised me the most was that after all his successes and for all his fame and fortune, he's really just a writer, worried about the next book and doing his best to make sure he tells one amazing story after another. Lucky for us, he still seems to have a lot of ideas. And after penning over 50 novels, that's inspiring!