Naked Filmmaking

A catchy title for an old idea.

When we make movies these days there's all this stuff.

Movies all begin with an idea, which rapidly is measured against the 'market', agents, lawyers, executives get their fingerprints all over a highly structured script with the right beats landing in the right spot.  McKee, Vogler, Snyder all have lots to say about this.

The screenplay practically becomes an armoured delivery mechanism, but that's only the beginning.  Next comes the financing, the packaging; and eventually the diversity-preferred, foreign-market-taken-into-consideration casting.

Locations are selected based on their suitability for the story, yes, so long as they qualify for the tax credits that are central to the financing and how long to drive to and from the nearest 5-star-hotel for the cast?  Not too expensive please.

Then there's the schedule, which on the day is distilled down to the call sheet.  There's all sorts of gear and crew we need to help us wrangle reality, and then there's the gear and crew we need to wrangle the gear and crew.  The day is about making the call sheet.  Making the day.  You shoot scenes in the most efficient order taking into account hair/makeup/wardrobe changes, lighting logistics, minimizing cast days.  Story and performance concerns are hardly prioritized at all.  That's why we sometimes see professional actors and directors as well as a script supervisor and an A.D all fumbling to answer just where exactly in the story we're at right now.

When you get to set to direct, and it's time to find that concept again, there is so little time on the usual low budget show.  There's the day to make, the tightening marketplace has crushed the budgets and now you get fourteen, twelve, sometimes ten shooting days to make your movie.  A pro knows to shoot fast and move on as soon as what you have is technically competent.  Sometimes sooner.

This is the way we make movies in the low budget world  (let's say for argument's sake the 1M - 3M range).  And believe it or not it works pretty well.  Sometimes not so well.  Sometimes very well.  There are people who are very good at what they do.

When I used to crew, we called it the factory floor.


Many filmmakers yearn to let that all go, yearn to shed as much of it as possible.  So many of us lust for a sort of direct contact with the work.  Skin to skin as it were.  I certainly do at times.

Naked filmmaking.

The French called it 'Nouvelle Vague', Cassavettes did it, heck, that's what the Lumiere Brothers were doing.  I'm talking about a craftsperson approach to the business of filmmaking.  Not a factory floor operation but rather a home office operation.

There was DOGME 95, with a whole manifesto and certificate thing.

Steven Soderbergh impresses me as a director who chooses to go back and forth between studio pictures and true craftsman pictures.  FULL FRONTAL and the 'rules' he put out back then are a great example of how you go about making craftsman (or naked) pictures.

I like to think of them as rules, but of course, you're always going to look to break them.

Here are some of mine.

1.  Budget BELOW 100K.
2.  All locations are practical
3.  Crew fewer than 10 people
4.  No 'company moves'
5.  Shoot in sequence as much as possible.
6.  Writer-Producers-Director-DP-Camera Operator-AD-Editor-VFX-Sound- Composer-Colorist = at most five people
7.  Single camera, supplemented natural light
8.  Cast responsible for own wardrobe, hair, makeup, props
9.  Improvisation on set
10.  Break up the schedule (several small shoots rather than one big shoot)

You do feel naked, there is a freedom and intimacy in the process.  As a filmmaker, I do find I'm so much more exposed, more vulnerable since it's all me.  I can't blame anything on anyone else, I'm not a cog in the machine, I'm the craftsman at work.

There is an ideal to strive for, a purity there, just as there is an ideal to strive for in the perfectly honed production machine a well run set can be.

Naked Filmmaking.