Sam Weisman: A Wolf in Directors Clothing Written by a Sheep in Wolfs Clothing (Susan H. Davis)
Last week I traveled down to Woods Hole to hear Sam Weisman speak about directing. Three hours there and back, from the north shore, through Bourne bridge traffic. "This better be good", I thought. Honestly, I was open to anything. Why else would I be there, stuck in traffic, sucking in fumes? Under the guise of a producer to hear a director¹s point of view, I wanted to hear why a "Hollywood² or studio director would come back to his roots to settle here in Ma.
Disclaimer- All information into the writers mind is subjective and diffused through a myriad of lenses, so my apologies upfront, Sam, as I had my selective filter on, but here were the things that stuck in my mind:
Sam on basics: Sam started the workshop by recapping what a director does on set- Directing 101. The main ideas being that the basics are ever changing, wavering a bit here and there depending on the size of the production. Hidden in the technical details were personal anecdotes, gems of Sam¹s personal experiences. These were what I wanted to hear, what I had come for, for even though one can find the technical details of directing in a book, the life experiences of one who spent years in the trenches are, to me, what's invaluable.
Sam on actors: The director has to understand how to get the best acting out of the actor. Even if this means cheating the actor into believing the cameras are turned off as the film rolls away capturing the perfect moment, unbeknownst to the actor. The purer the actor is the one who at least tries, take after take. The bigger the celebrity is the one who repeatedly says 'No' to trying out the director¹s suggestions. The best actors are the ones that state the positive when requesting changes. The best way to get the best performances are to get the best actors, and according to Sam, the best world is where the director has the pleasure of being the audience, as the actor does his/her magic.
Sam on the Assistant Producer/or the UPM: Often hired by the Line Producer or studio, the 1st Assistant Producer helps to control the money, who in turn controls the director. Try to hire your own, if you can.
Sam on diffusing the negative: The director has to be a psychologist, friend, father, mother, dictator, etc., all these things on set. The director has to eliminate the negative as quickly as possible between essential creative crewmembers by cutting to the quick. If problems get debated five minutes or more per take, or hour, one loses an hour or two a day for shooting.
Sam on unruly outsiders on location, who are disturbing the shoot: Let's just say that after a myriad of tries to get folks to shut up who insisted on blabbing through a shoot, (but who had every right to be next door to the shooting location because they owned the property, but were paid already for the inconvenience), sometimes one has to fake a commotion to get the unruly bastards taken away by the NYC cops on location. Guts. For this Sam gets the ŒWolf in Director¹s Clothing¹ award.
What I came away from this workshop with was that one of the successful traits of a good director is someone who can diffuse a negative situation immediately, thinking on his/her toes...for time is money, and time is creative energy spent, rarely to be regained, or regained at quite an expense. At the end of the workshop Sam was concerned that he was being too negative, maybe because his experiences were tainted with overcoming the daily problems and pitfalls of directing. On the contrary, the reality of overcoming the minutiae as positively as possible under the ever-changing daily landscape of filming shows the ability to be flexible, and more importantly to get the job done at all costs. Thanks, Sam, for the reality check. Isn¹t that why I was there? There is nothing sugar coated about a day of hard work, and much to be learned from his experiences. And why was I there under the guise of producer? Because I was the sheep in wolfs clothing...a first time producer, learning to build up guts. Why did Sam move back east? He answered this right up front..."to have a better life". With all the benefits for filmmakers in the MA. film industry right now, and all the amazing talent, locales, and crew, I couldn't agree more.
The Filmmakers Collaborative, The Woods Hole Film Festival and David Tames arranged for Les to come to MIT while he was still in the Boston area after spending the week down in Woods Hole as the 2007 filmmaker in residence at the film festival. The seats were filled and the discussion was engaging after the screening of THE BLUES ACCORDIN' TO LIGHTNIN' HOPKINS, WERNER HERZOG EATS HIS SHOE, and clips from his upcoming film featuring Ricky Lecock.
All these and the rest of his titles are only available on his website www.lesblank.com. There will be an exclusive video interview with Les which we will post as soon as possible.
David Tames hopes to organize events like this more regularly due to the great success of this night. We will keep you updated with any of these great events!
In February of 2003, a fire destroyed the Station Nightclub in West Warwick, Rhode Island. One hundred lives were lost. This tragedy, among the worst nightclub fires in American history, had a traumatic effect on the people of Rhode Island. The youngest of the one hundred victims, barely eighteen, was my brother Nicholas. Already an accomplished actor and musician, Nick was a beloved member of the Rhode Island arts community. He was, of course, far more than that to my family. In some families, there is that one child, blessed with a peculiar warmth, humor, strength and intuition, whose existence ties everyone else closer together, one child who is the mover and the standard for measurement of time and space and energy.
For us, that was Nicky. He was equal parts golden cherub and grinning imp, innocent/wise, manic/serene, dazzling/quiet, unassuming/unforgettable, brilliant in all the most unconventional ways. Nick was more than glue for my family; he was its beating, glowing heart, and he was my best friend.
At the age of ten he discovered performing. And when he discovered theatre, we all discovered theatre. That was how it started. Within years Nick had played dozens of roles on dozens of stages across the state, most notably himself – he and his buddy Matt DeThomas were getting paid to do improv comedy from the time he was 14.
than everyone else because of it. His real focus now was on being a fullThere was by now a general consensus that Nicky—our Nicky—could do pretty much anything.—adamant in his refusal to grow up, and smarter time rock star with his band Shryne. Now Nick was fending off groupies; now they were calling him mini-Mick (as in Jagger) all over the Providence clubs. Nick and his rock babe Gabby, Nick the singer/songwriter, the great Nicky O. But still, at home, still just Nicky
Nicky who went from place to place, from crowd to crowd, trying on different masks and playing different roles—and getting each one right—looking, I think, for the place where he’d most belong. Still (now more than ever, in fact), Nicky was the truest real-life Catcher in the Rye (which I tried to get him to read; he wasn’t really the reading type). He was, like Holden Caulfield, hopeful, longing and at the same time bewildered by the world, by people, by the pain they inflict upon one another, and most of all by the appalling inevitability of growing up. Our home, at least, had been an anchor, and now, we learned, we were losing that too. After the death of my father a year earlier, my mom had fallen behind on the payments and could no longer afford to keep up with it. The house went up for sale, and our only prospect was for Nicky and my mom to move in with my grandmother, in a cramped house in Providence. For Nicky, it felt like all the goodness and joy was being suddenly, quickly drained out of his life.
In February of 2002, I received from Nicky the first draft of a play he had suddenly written about three guardian angels—a girl named Grace, a boy named Levi, and a third spirit named Cyrus who was clearly supposed to be Nicky himself. Recently deceased, they meander around New York, chatting and bickering, reminiscing about their funerals, frustrated by humans’ inability to see them, angered by the world’s wretchedness, mystified by God’s seeming inaction, and relentlessly delivering a message of hope to an anguished young man named Adam Tyler and a street corner fortune teller, Mama Marie. The message expressed itself in different forms, but its final delivery was straightforward and simple: “Do not fear to hope.” The play was called They Walk Among Us.
The mysteries that followed from after that time are very much the subject of 41, the documentary that tells Nicky’s story – a story in which his earthly life is only the first chapter.
The pain of loss is beyond the capability of our language to express. It is the most violent, cataclysmic and cruel of realities. Its casualties are motivation, hope, and the past. And the future. It is a dumb,
stubborn thing. It turns the brightest memories against you.
41is not just about that pain, but that needs to be said. This project is also not about my mother, even though so much of what I personally have done in the past years has been for her and in response—dire, desperate response—to her unimaginable misery. We may or may not be strong because of what we have done in Nicky’s name; it was all that we could do. It is the part of me that won’t go gently into a long dark tunnel with only more darkness at its end and call that the remainder of my life, leaving eighteen years of happiness to sit under a coating of dust, allowing my family’s once vibrant and always laughing existence drift into a long extended trite and hollow conversation about “moving on” and “letting go.” We had never known trauma, and now we were there, inside of that word, and that would not stand. This could not be about moving on from, it would be about moving on with, and the world needed to see this, and to recognize this, and to know this. It was for this reason that even a week after the fire, we launched a celebration—celebration—of Nick’s life, greatly to the surprise of many who had come prepared to mourn. But Nicky didn’t want anyone to be sad. In the aftermath of horror, there has been the amazing, stunning blessing of Nick's continued presence; of signs and signals that have defied a thousand times over all rational logic (and on occasion the laws of physics), synchronicities that stand far outside suspicion of coincidence, and miracles that have extinguished our fear of death. It would be impossible to share with you every story, but our hope is that tonight we might share some of the hope. Although our sadness will never end, although we all might wish every second that we could have him back, to see the man he would have become...it is possible to transform sorrow into meaning. —Chris O'Neill (Nick O’Neill’s older brother and co-director of 41)
41 Screens as part of the Woods Hole Film festival program on Thu, Aug 2, 6:00 PM at the Redfield Auditorium.
"41 is a much-needed reminder of all that is good in the world... a heartbreaking and soul-enriching experience...
One of the year’s finest accomplishments” Phil Hall, FilmThreat
Watch the trailer for 41 and see photos from the film at www.41themovie.com/
See the rest that the Woods Hole Film festival has to offer at http://www.woodsholefilmfestival.org/index.php
"ROCKING THE BOAT" IS A MOVIE ABOUT THE MUSIC AND JOURNEY OF ARTISTS WHO DESERVE TO BE HEARD.
Every year for the last twelve, legendary three-time Grammy Award winning, Delbert McClinton has leased a cruise ship and filled it full of his musical friends and fans.
The tone is spontaneous. It’s about Independence, artistic integrity, talent, originality, and mutual respect. Dozens of new songs are introduced. New creative relationships are formed.
This is a floating music festival, song-writing clinic, and musician’s retreat, designed to help artists and audience alike recharge their batteries and celebrate another trip around the sun.
A young Delbert is shown with John Belushi at the Lonestar Cafe, NYC (Photo courtesy of Stephanie Chernikowski)
The following is Jay's account of how this film came into being...
"I have been a small market work for hire director for 30 years. I spent the first 20 years mostly doing commercials. I eschewed agencies and they me. I am a writer/producer/director and didn't think much of the talent they brought to bear on a project or problem. Accordingly, and happily, I worked in somewhat obscurity-even within my market-but nonetheless was continuously employed by loyal clients who appreciated my sensibilities and craft.
While attending our first New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in 1999, my wife, Susan James, and I were astounded at the number of artists we loved that we had never heard of. Delbert McClinton was one of these. Having lived and worked in Hawaii all my adult life, I somehow missed Delbert. The genre defying nature of Delbert has yielded a level of celebrity that is not commensurate with his talent. The same can be said for untold thousands of singer/songwriter/artists who cannot be packaged into the cookie cutter product that dominates the music industry today.
We learned that Delbert threw a week-long floating music festival and signed up. From the first day of the first cruise I knew that this was a movie. It took 4 years to demonstrate to Delbert's wife Wendy Goldstein, that I had the head, heart, and craft to tackle it. Delbert is a happy man. I think he feels he is as rich and famous as he needs to be. He is doing the best work of his life. He is an American Master and 3-time Grammy® winner. He has played with some of the best musicians this country has ever produced. He is unassuming but clearly venerated. The musicians he includes in his annual affair are shockingly good. They are poets with Clapton instrumental chops. The people who attend his cruises come from all economic strata but have in common very demanding musical needs. Delbert's directive is "plug in, play, and blow my socks off." The words have to be clever and the notes sweet.
Delbert Mc Clinton is the image above right,Wayne Toups is the guy with the accordion on the right.
The all access nature of his Sandy Beaches Cruise allowed me to meet artists who are 5, 10 or 20 years behind Delbert in their own journeys but completely in line with his musical values. It is about communicating ideas and feelings through music in the way of Hank Williams, Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Gatemouth Brown, or Wilson Pickett. For the most part it is lyric based rhythm and blues with a Texas twist.
We did a sneak preview screening of the rough cut at the 80-year-old Palace Theater in Hilo, Hawaii on June 3rd. People laughed, cried, cheered, and boogied in all the right places, and many left with the same incredulity that I had the first time I heard Delbert and these other artists: Where the F have I been that I never heard these guys before?"
Come take part in the excitement. There is no shortage in music during the festival to make this experience come full circle.
Rocking the Boat will be screening on Wed, Aug 1, 7:00 PM | Redfield Auditorium as part of the Woods Hole Film festival
Check out the Rocking the Boat website to view the trailer and get more details: http://www.rockingtheboatmovie.com/
Check out the Woods Hole Festival website to check out screenings as well as musical performances: http://www.woodsholefilmfestival.org/
“This year features more than 100 films from around the world that tackle a wide variety of issues at the forefront of humanity; whether related to social change, the environment, war, or people and places on the edge of society. As a festival that supportsthe work of emerging filmmakers, many of whom will be attending, we strive to develop a program that is both a showcase of independent film and a gathering place for filmmakers and for people who love independent film.” -Judy Laster (WHFF’s Exec. Dir.)
The Woods Hole Film Festival, which showcases and promotes the work of independent filmmakers from New England and shows films that are relevant to life on Cape Cod, announces the line-up of the sixteenth annual festival from Saturday July 28, through Saturday August 4. Besides the large number of New England filmmakers represented in the festival, this year’s roster of films includes an unprecedented number of films created by filmmakers from around the world. There are also several panels supported by the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod, master classes, music events and of course, parties. For the first time attendees can plan a personalized schedule and rate and comment on the films they’ve seen through the B-Side online community (details at www.woodsholefilmfestival.org).
This year brings such talent to Woods Hole as Les Blank who will screen his most recent film, ALL IN THIS TEA in addition to leading a master class in documentary filmmaking looking at BURDEN OF DREAMS, his documentary about the making of Werner Herzog’s FITZCARRALDO (Thursday, August 2, 2:00 PM). Sam Weisman, director of GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE, THE OUT OF TOWNERS, and others will be presenting another interesting master class in directing for film (Friday, August 3, 2:00 PM).
Some of Boston’s resident filmmakers will be heading down for the festival such as Arlington, MA-based director and writer David McLaughlin for his screening of ON BROADWAY starring a bevy of Boston-area natives, including Joey McIntyre, Eliza Dushku, Mike O'Malley, Lance Greene, Will Arnett, Robert Wahlberg, and Amy Poehler (Saturday, August 4, 8:00 PM, Redfield Auditorium). Boston-based director David Tames will attend the world premiere of SMILE BOSTON PROJECT, a short film which follows artist Bren Bataclan through the first three years of his campaign to leave paintings in public places with a note that says, “This painting is yours to keep if you promise to smile at random people more often.” (Saturday, August 4, 5:00 PM, Old Woods Hole Fire Station). There will be an enlightening series of panels throughout the week: The future of long form documentary in the age of Internet video Sunday, July 29th - 2 P.M. to 3:30 P.M., Panel Discussion: Delivering Video via the Internet: Challenges and Opportunities Tuesday, July 31 - 2 P.M. to 3:30 P.M, Media Literacy in the 21st Century Wednesday, August 1st - 4 P.M. to 5:30 P.M., Cities Without Walls (cWOW) Thursday, August 2 - 4:00 PM, Survival Strategies for Independent Producers Saturday, August 4th - 2 P.M. to 3:30 P.M. and Making a Good Living as a Filmmaker – An In Depth Workshop with Animator Bill Plympton Saturday August 4th 11:00 AM. Find out what films and panels are the perfect fit for you on their website. There you will find locations, showtimes, synopses, and ticket and pass prices.
In February of 2003, a fire destroyed the Station Nightclub in West Warwick, Rhode Island. One hundred lives were lost. This tragedy, among the worst nightclub fires in American history, had a traumatic effect on the people of Rhode Island. The youngest of the one hundred victims, barely eighteen, was my brother Nicholas. Already an accomplished actor and musician, Nick was a beloved member of the Rhode Island arts community. He was, of course, far more than that to my family. 
—adamant in his refusal to grow up, and smarter time rock star with his band Shryne. Now Nick was fending off groupies; now they were calling him mini-Mick (as in Jagger) all over the Providence clubs. Nick and his rock babe Gabby, Nick the singer/songwriter, the great Nicky O. But still, at home, still just Nicky
The pain of loss is beyond the capability of our language to express. It is the most violent, cataclysmic and cruel of realities. Its casualties are motivation, hope, and the past. And the future. It is a dumb,
