I did not expect this phase to be quite as excruciating as it turned out to be. I wrote all the potential scenes on index cards and then sequenced them. In the first draft I was rather set on the idea of a pure observational film and learnt the hard way that compared to watching observational scenes, reading observational scenes in a treatment script requires a clearer exposition of meaning.*

{*Detour: the following is my attempt to understand why. A hypothesis, not a theory.

Narrative, whether in the print or visual medium, works by creating a running dialogue between what is presented on screen/paper, and the reader/viewer’s involvement in visualising and/or connecting the dots. The difference seems to be that the written word builds a scene from a black space, so each detail has to be drawn and highlighted in sequence before the reader can create meaning from the jumble of detail (except that it is not a jumble but a systematic arrangement pretending to be artlessly chaotic). The film montage method probably comes closest to a written scene in micromanaging the attention of the viewer; still the reader does more work than the viewer because he has to create the scene from his imagination while the viewer has it handed to him on a platter. If the reader works harder, the writer does too. In addition, he has to make a clear connection between action and the character’s motivation/inner state because there can be so many readings of an action, that the intended meaning needs to be explicated. In film, we have access (most times) to the character’s face/eyes when we watch actions or conversations unfold.

My mistake in writing the treatment was to combine a promise (that framed my reader’s expectations) without delivering (in the absence of clear explication within each scene) so the poor reader combs each scene, trying to see how each one fits into and develops coherently around the “about” of the film. Terrible description. Let’s try again. At the beginning of each film, you have to provide the viewer with a key with which to orient himself. You may want to save the twists and turns for later, but the viewer has to have a vague inkling of where the story could go because he wants to be able to start trying to figure the puzzle out. So I provided the key, the compass for my reader in the treatment script, but left too much space for interpretation in the scenes, and trampled the fine balance between mystery and clarity. END Detour}

I sent the treatment to my former boss and mentor back in Singapore (a news editor and executive producer) and she less than kindly remarked that she knew what I was going for, but it did not happen for her. Gasp! She found herself wondering too much about my main character, trying to connect the dots, and at the end of the treatment questioned why she was even reading so deeply into a 9-year old’s mind! Alas. It also didn’t help that I was still trying to clarify the themes of the film in my mind.

Not quite the trauma that a plate of Brussel sprouts, celery, Chinese leaf cabbage and bok choy would induce…but close.

A final thought: while it sometimes helps to wait until synthesis is achieved wrt. finding the themes of the film before committing anything to paper (the perfectionist’s curse), it tends to be (and I do hate to admit this) far more productive to start writing even if you feel like a gormless fool who hasn’t quite worked out whether his left foot is indeed larger than his right. The alchemy is that writing in complete sentences has the strange effect of shattering the deluded state of mind which had you believing that those abstract ideas you were so proud of could fit together at all. And since the mindmap you drew (at least three times) in your notebook only has space for four words, of course you didn’t really have to prove that the link worked.

Now to the mix. It’s a two-step process. Writing the sentence first forces you to give the idea a form, and make it concrete. As for the next, I’m sure a linguist would more articulately describe why joining two ideas, each now expressed in a coherent sentence, creates new valuable associations- regardless of whether the original union of thoughts was felicitous.

What is created is a platform which floats in the void, and whether you decide to push against it (because it reeks) or lean into it (because of the brilliance of your idea), you now have someplace to stand.

I have been struggling five days now to write the first line of my paper on Kollwitz for my printmaking/history of print class. I admire her work and her approach to graphic art, but I’ve never written an art history paper before and I can’t begin to frame a cogent enquiry which can be completed in a day. Or two.

That’s the downfall of being a perfectionist. If I can’t do it well, I’m not going to begin. Which really is a rather silly way to live. (And explains why I’m such a lousy communicator- I don’t want to write email replies until I have the time to write a nice one. Which never happens).

Better to swallow my pride and write an analysis of Kollwitz’s work as an “average spectator” than to have a non-existent paper while I maintain the fragile illusion that I’m incapable of writing (and too poncy to write) dross.

Suffice to say that the work has not commenced. It was a gorgeous day Saturday and I spent the latter part of the afternoon sitting in the Main Quad outside Building 120 enjoying some tea (PG Tips: the best plebian black tea on earth with the possible exception of Dilmah) and chocolates (Ritter Sport Rum, Raisin & Hazelnuts: slightly more indulgent). We had left off the Mark study just after Jesus had entered Jerusalem: chronologically this marked the start of the last week of his life. As I was reading, I was trying to find a cohesive theme with which to understand this culminating section of Mark.

There were the arguments that Jesus was having with the religious/intellectual leaders, the Passover meal where a woman annointed his head with a jar of perfume worth a whole year’s wages, Judas’s decision to betray Jesus for just 30 silver coins, Jesus’s observation that the poor widow who put in two copper coins into the treasury had given more than the rich who had put in more money (in absolute terms), and then the Garden of Gethsemene , the trial and the crucifixion.

In the first two-thirds of Mark, I’d noticed that the themes had progressed from:
- being called to follow
- listening and asking
- having faith
- what it means to be great (to be the last and servant of all)

What’s struck me with this last section of Mark (with the ringing clarity of a bludgeoning hammer) is the theme of giving to God. Some bible commentaries say the woman with the perfume had probably bought it using her dowry. To the poor widow, the two copper coins were all she had to live on. In neither case do we see their giving as compulsion or obligation; they were wholehearted and in the case of the woman with the perfume, even joyful. Crucially, their giving was one that required dependence and trust in God to provide for the next step.

I don’t give that way.

During summer ‘07, I learnt intellectually that the surest expression of faith is to obey, and to give/tithe. And I was convinced. Convicted. But continued grasping tight to the monetary provision that God had granted through my Harvey Fellows scholarship, the course assistantship at Stanford, and the prize money from Bullet Proof Vest’s screening on POV and Independent Lens Online Fest. Because giving away means I have to wait and trust that God will provide again. The far more palatable option is to not give, and be (for the most part) self-sufficient (of course only possible if one conveniently forgets the source of said original provision).

Even if I can (obstinately) argue my way out of giving financially because I am a starving student, I can’t reason my way out of giving of my time (for instance when I oversleep church on Sundays because a 20 minute bike ride is too much effort to crawl out of bed for).

I believe that God has a good plan for my work- in this case, my thesis project. And the execution of this good plan means that He will be glorified regardless of whether the film itself is critically acclaimed, universally panned, or even worse fades into the wallpaper of mediocity. Because so long as I am obedient day-to-day, the process of trusting and relying on Him will slowly change me more into His likeness. And that is good. I believe this yet I struggle with wanting the critical acclaim. And I wonder how real my words are if I still cannot give, enough.

From the journal:

Potential angles:
- new owner (of Little Hollywood Laundrette) and attendants (from Honduras, Philippines)
- customers across 4 neighbourhoods (Duboce Triangle, Mission, Castro, Market)

Questions:
- scope: stay in laundromat (more elegant) or follow customers to homes?
- synch interviews or voice-over only?
- black & white film or High Definition video?
- possible to abstract?
- play on dirty laundry concept?

I wanted to hit Parkside and Potrero Hill as well because I’d been told that these two neighbourhoods were more ethnically and socio-economically diverse, but without a car I had to start at the more central areas.

Get the Funk Out! had the better sofa, keyboard and Dr Seuss children’s area. Little Hollywood Laundrette had an Art Deco entrance and a wrap-around floor-to ceiling “Golden Age of Cinema”-themed mural. Guess which one I picked?

1. reclaims my journal entries from the quicksand of illegible handwriting and a porous memory.

2. constitues a “better late than never” gesture to friends who have heard little from me since September.

3. provides some circular answers to questions of process in making documentary films.

4. forces me to write- one can only hope that this is habit-forming.

New Yorkers can catch it at the IFC Center for two weeks from April 18 as part of the IFC Doxita Short Attention Span Cinema. Shorts in this program screen before a feature during those two weeks.

If you are really interested, the P.O.V. website has a background interview on the film. There is a link there to the background interview for Keeping House which screened together with Bullet.

A cheap thrill, but still rather cool to see my name in a Variety magazine spread on the Angelus Student Film Festival, albeit in small print.