Cynematik • Cyndi Greening

Short filmmakers who are committed to being successful and catapulting their film career into motion have an amazing resource available to them. Former Sundance programmer Roberta Munroe has written a book entitled HOW NOT TO MAKE A SHORT FILM. During her five-year stint at Sundance, Roberta watched THOUSANDS of short films. She’s seen every mistake, every cliche, every bad choice beginning filmmakers make. And, she’s seen the films that shine, that stand out from the crowd, the films that launch careers.

If you’re thinking about making a short film, RUN (don’t walk) to the nearest bookstore. The book is a bible for short filmmakers. Among the things Roberta covers: how to keep your story fresh, getting your story to the right length, finding and keeping a great producer, finding the money, getting the talent, getting into an A-tier festival and using your film to launch your career. It is simply excellent. There’s even a cliche list of things to avoid. It is painful to find something you wrote on the list but infinitely better than losing a shot at a festival because you didn’t know every lame short has that cliche in it. Get the book. Read the book.

There’s even a better option for short filmmakers. Roberta offers a one-on-one consulting service. She’ll review your script, let you know if it’s worth your time and effort to make and, if it is, offer notes and detailed advice on how to strengthen it for the A-tier film circuit. If you’re working on a feature, she can help you with that as well.

I sent her a short script I’d been loving for a couple of years and the guys were wanting to shoot. Before we committed the time to do it (because we have so many other projects going on), I wanted to get her thoughts on it. She was direct and thorough in her analysis of the characters and the story. She offered concrete suggestions (without rewriting it or making it her story) to bring it up a notch. She cut to the chase and now I’m more enthused than ever about doing it. More importantly, the film will be stronger because of her input.

So, if you’re a short filmmaker, read the book and consider having Roberta read your material. It may make the difference between a tepid response and a rapid rise in the festival circuit.

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On my Facebook account, I’ve been updating my status frequently with the comments about my work on “the Emily and Susan” story. I’m always a bit obtuse about it because, like all writers, I have this basic fear that someone else will see the story and decide to do something similar. And I think this is a really good, really amazing story.

A bit more than two years ago, I was “in a poetry phase.” I’d recently re-watched SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE and was enamored of the written word. I started messing around with sonnets … again … almost with the same enthusiasm as when I was in college. Soon, the rigor of the form dampened creativity and the sonnet lost its appeal. So I started playing with free verse and, for inspiration, I spent time re-reading my favorite poets. I stumbled back into Emily Dickinson. Her biography was well-known to me. Unmarried, probably agoraphobic, woman dies with only ten (10!) poems published. Following her death, over 1700 (that’s one thousand, seven hundred) poems are discovered in her home in bound books she called “fasicles.” One thousand, seven hundred.

I started writing a poem a day using Dickinson as my standard bearer. I loved her imagery, her cadence, her style.

Her breast is fit for pearls,
But I was not a “Diver”–
Her brow is fit for thrones
But I have not a crest.
Her heart is fit for home–
I–a Sparrow–built there
Sweet of twigs and twine
My perennial nest.

I started noticing the tenderness and longing and eroticism in her writing. So, how does a reputed agoraphobe have these sorts of thoughts? Did she have relationships in her adolescence of which I was unaware? So, I started reading more. More on her biography and more of her poetry.

WILD nights! Wild nights!
Were I with thee,
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile the winds
To a heart in port,—
Done with the compass,
Done with the chart.

Rowing in Eden!
Ah! the sea!
Might I but moor
To-night in thee!

Who the heck is she mooring in? Wild nights with whom? Whose breasts? Doesn’t sound much like a (male) editor that she’s pining for, does it? And then I find information on Susan Gilbert Dickinson, her sister-in-law. A woman she knew from school, a woman who married her brother, Austin, and lived next door to family home for Emily’s entire adult life. About half of Emily’s correspondence was to Susan and many poems were written TO her or ABOUT her (in spite of efforts by others to obliterate Susan from Emily’s writings.

Scholar Martha Nell Smith’s wonderful books OPEN ME CAREFULLY and ROWING IN EDEN offered a more complete, richer biography of Emily. Using the poetry and correspondence of both Emily and Susan, Professor Smith brought an entirely new understanding of Emily Dickinson and her work.

Tomorrow, more about the mistress of Austin Dickinson and the writings of Susan Dickinson. If you haven’t figured it out, I’m working on a screenplay about the Dickinsons.

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Script Doctor John Truby offers the following ten mistakes that screenwriters make:

Great Mistake 1: The story idea isn’t original.

Great Mistake 2: Writers often use the wrong genre to develop the idea, or they impose the pre-determined genre beats onto the idea instead of finding events that are original to the idea.

Great Mistake 3: They think a hit movie script is all about finding the high concept premise. But they don’t know how to extend the premise, from the two or three scenes suggested by the high concept to a 110-page script.

Great Mistake 4: They don’t know how to hang the story on the seven major story structure steps, so the plot fails to come out of character and the main character does not change.

Great Mistake 5: They think of the hero as a separate individual with a list of superficial character traits instead of as part of a web of characters, each character structurally different from the others.

Great Mistake 6: They try to create their plot using the three-act structure, which doesn’t work and causes a weak middle, instead of using the 22 building blocks of every great story that builds the plot steadily from beginning to end.

Great Mistake 7: They fail to give their hero a moral as well as an emotional weakness at the beginning of the story.

Great Mistake 8: They don’t know how to create the story world or how to connect it to the hero.

Great Mistake 9: They think the story is carried in the dialogue, or they force the dialogue to do the work that structure should do.

Great Mistake 10: They don’t know that rewriting is a set of skills, just like plot and character. So they rewrite in the wrong order, and their second draft is worse than their first.

If you’re a filmmaker and want to improve your films, you should get Truby’s Great Screenwriting: The Foundation Course … even if you DON’T want to write, you will understand the story structure sooooo much better and build a better film. Go check out the website and see what you think. There are some media links you can check out.

Interviews with John Truby about
The Anatomy of Story

	Writer’s Digest Article
	KCUR (NPR station in Kansas City)
	Part 1 and 2, Premise and Seven Steps
	Part 3, Plot
	Part 4, Opposition

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I’ve been tutoring a young fellow for the last year. It’s been interesting to revisit all of the things we were taught in high school. Last week, I was drilling him for a history exam. The Great Depression was the topic of study. It was fascinating to read about FDR’s New Deal, his economic stimulus package, the statistics on unemployment during the great depression. I found myself wanting to read more to compare the challenge that Barack Obama is facing as the President-Elect of the New Great Depression! I am certain he studied history and knows what was done in the past.

In the review session, Alec was talking about how Frances Perkins became the first woman cabinet member. She was FDRs Secretary of Labor for his entire tenure. Of course, I always like when we hear about the “first woman” to whatever.

A few days later, I got to thinking about the big fire in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York in 1911. I had remembered learning about that when I was in high school. I recalled that around 150 women were killed because the factory doors were locked and that the ladders on the horse-drawn fire trucks only reached as high as the sixth floor … but the women were on the eighth floor. Many jumped to their deaths rather than dying in the fire. I recalled that it lead to stricter labor laws and sweeping factory reforms.

On the Cornell University website, there’s an excellent section on U.S. Labor laws and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. While exploring their site I notice Frances Perkins had been a young woman in the city when the fire broke out. She had witnessed the women jumping from the windows and followed the prosecution of the factory owners. Perhaps that is why Perkins helped write legislation and supported such things as Unemployment Compensation, Disability Insurance and Social Security. If is often surprising to watch the ripple of each major event that occurs in history.

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We’re in New England, researching our own “CHATTY PILGRIMS” story. I wanted to come research in the dead of winter to fell more clearly what the Puritans endured during the less hospitable season. Anne Hutchinson was tried in November of 1637. She was found guilty and put under house arrest until March of 1638. At that point, she and approximately 70 of her friends, supporters and relatives packed their carts and started walking to their exile in Rhode Island. The goal of this research trip was to “feel” the environment, the weather, the atmosphere of the geographical location that is Boston’s Shawmut Peninsula. Tomorrow, we are following the path the Hutchinson party walked. We will be passing through Quincy, Braintree, Brockton, Taunton and finally arriving at Portsmouth. Since they actually left in March, our cinematographic journey is likely going to be less temperate than their journey but, given we’re in a Dodge Charger, we won’t be suffering too much.

Today, we went to THE OLD MEETING HOUSE which is now a museum in central Boston. It is an old Puritan Church, built in 1720. It has the high lecturn and stiff benches. Across the street is the property that formerly belonged to Anne Hutchinson. According to the plaque on the building, a fire in 1711 destroyed their home and a brick building was erected in the same location. We spent a great deal of time at THE BOSTON COMMONS trying to decide where they hanged Mary Dyer. Based on the written accounts, I tend to think it is up near The Old State House (since it is near the end of Court Street). Then we went down to the wharf to feel the brutal breeze off the harbor. Finally, we went to The North End of Boston to check out Paul Revere’s house and The Old North Church. Revere’s house was built in 1680 (just 20 years after they hanged Mary Dyer) but you couldn’t get near the building and you could photograph or video anything in the area. It was quite disappointing. Alec was quite vocal in his frustration.

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It’s a phrase that appears on many early gravestones in New England. A phrase made famous by Horace, one of the great lyric poets. “Eram quod es; eris quod sum.” — “I was who you are — you will be what I am.” Last week’s episode of HEROES was entitled the last half of the quote — Eris Quod Sum — you will be what I am. One of the things that I love about comic books and television shows like LOST and HEROES is how they dip into mythology to deepen their stories. In the process of looking for the quote, I discovered a wonderful website devoted to amassing a digital collection of all classical works. You can discover some amazing things at Perseus Project at Tufts University.

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I’m stuck in the sweat zone and I am grumpy. Really grumpy. I was supposed to be in Utah this week, researching the polygamy documentary but plans changed at the last minute. So, I’m getting reports about how things are going, about the images and journals that are being discovered, about the video being shot. My documentary is drifting into new realms without me. Where oh where did my project go? So, I’ve got a big grump on.

My birth mother died two weeks ago. It’s been a few weeks of endings. Disconnection. Loss. Disappointment. There have been a whole lot chaotic feelings lately. Sometimes, I feel like I’m walking on Jell-O … take one step and watch the ground shake. Difficult to see a clear path. What’s that thing that people always say, “If God closes a door, he opens a window.” So, I’ve been looking for the open windows and checking out the potential new views.

Independence Day is almost here. I keep reflecting on that in light of everything that has been happening. Humans are such odd creatures. Why is it so hard for us to be free? We encumber ourselves with so many things. We make it impossible to be happy, to live joyfully, to express fully who we are and what we have to offer the world. We go through life like the little pigs, huddled inside our structures, trying to ignore the wolves at the door. What do we do to distract ourselves? We go to Disneyland! At least, that’s what I’m doing. I got an invite to spend the weekend at Disneyland with a friend while she celebrates her 50th birthday. At least I know which t-shirt to buy.

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The last few days, I’ve been blogging about religious freedom and the fundamentalist Mormon groups. I’ve been dwelling in this subject area since last October when we started a new screenplay about religious intolerance during Puritan times. It’s funny, when I’m working on a project, everything I read, see or do seems somehow linked to this story.

Everything about the war in Iraq seems related to the topic. You’ve got the entrenched intolerance that the Shiite and Sunni have for one another driving the centuries-old civil conflict. That is layered with the right-wing, righteous Christian drive to bring “freedom” to the region and obliterate a dictator. Everyone in the region is claiming the will of God as their inspiration and motivation. Just as the Puritans did when they beat, imprisoned and hanged the Quakers. Just as Joseph Smith and his followers did in their justification for marrying multiple women.

I was raised in the Roman Catholic faith. Whenever I’m talking about these other faiths and their controversial practices, someone invariably mentions the sexual abuse committed by Catholic priests and demands that I justify what they have done. Like my LDS friends, I hastily distance myself from “those” Catholics. There is, however, a big difference between the events. To the best of my knowledge, none of the priests ever claimed to have been commanded by God to commit those acts. None of them ever claimed to be doing God’s will.

The historically-astute may then point to The Crusades, the nearly 200-year conflict between Christian Europe and the Muslim Middle East. Christians claimed that were trying to “liberate” Jerusalem and the Holy Land. Muslims said it was Christian greed that brought them to their lands. The roots of the Iran/Iraq problem with the U.S. were planted about nearly a millennium ago. Maybe that is the problem with doing “God’s work” — the conflict is eternal.

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Author J. K. Rowling is having a howling fit. It seems that the moderator of a Harry Potter fansite that Rowling visited and praised for its coverage of all things Potter has gone and published a Lexicon on the Harry Potter series. Now, mind you, the fellow didn’t write a rogue novel, he simply catalogued things like spells, potions, magical characters and such.

Rowling was quoted as saying that she felt “exploited” by her fan, Steven Vander Ark. RDR Books attorney Lizbeth Hasse said that Rowling is seeking a monopoly over the work, which is not part of copyright law. “It’s a very legitimate literary activity,” she said of the lexicon. “Like a reference book or a guide to literature, it’s a long-recognized genre.”

The thing that I find most interesting and amazing about this whole dispute is that Rowling had no problem exploiting her fans over the years. The proliferation of adoring fansites amounted to millions of internet hits in free marketing and publicity which only increased fan loyalty, boosted book and film interest by current and future readers/viewers. Web marketing is as valuable as word-of-mouth marketing for low cost and high endorsement value. So, while bloggers spent their time, effort and MONEY to run their sites, Rowling built her bank account. Now, the lexicon, (which I have to agree with RDR is a legitimate literary form), may make a little bit of money for a fellow who has given her YEARS of web marketing … and she feels exploited.

So, if someone like Tere Stoufer wrote a book called THE COMPLETE IDIOT’S GUIDE TO HARRY POTTER or someone like Colin Duriez wrote a book called Field Guide to Harry Potter, shouldn’t Rowling being suing them, too? Or, are the publishers just too much larger than little RDR?

Vander Ark’s 400-page HARRY POTTER LEXICON has been blocked from release by the lawsuit filed by Rowling. Vander Ark and publisher RDR have said the book would only promote the sale of Rowling’s work and that Vander Ark’s Web site, used by 25 million visitors, had been called “a great site” by Rowling herself. Isn’t that funny that people unknown to her and other publishing entities can make whatever they want but this fellow is being shut down?

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“Nobody, I think, ought to read poetry, or look at pictures or statues, who cannot find a great deal more in them than the poet or artist has actually expressed. Their highest merit is suggestiveness.” — Hilda, in THE MARBLE FAUN by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Another screenwriter I know is always worrying that what she writes isn’t “important enough.” Since I’m working on projects with her, I guess that means I’m working on projects that may not be meaningful enough, either. The Bible and the Koran have already been written and Shakespeare was so prolific in the realm of dramatic storytelling, it seems like the whole important, meaningful thing has already been handled. Besides, if Nathaniel Hawthorne is correct, if we do it well, people always find more in our creative work than we originally intended anyway.

I find myself wondering if Hawthorne had any idea of the merit of his writing as he was doing it. Born on July 4, 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts, Nathaniel was the descendant of John Hathorne, one of the prosecutors of the Salem Witch Trials (in 1692 and 1693). Shortly after he graduated from college, Nathaniel added a “W” to his surname. (Why add the “W”? Was it for Witch? Or, perhaps, he just wanted to be different from his family? I’m sure the answer is somewhere but I haven’t found it definitively, yet.) Anyway, back to Hawthorne the writer. THE SCARLET LETTER was published in 1850, just four years before his death. I remember having to read Hawthorne in high school and college. His writing was so dated; it was staid as a Puritan’s collar, more stiff than a Puritan’s prosecutor’s righteousness. I had a difficult time getting through it, much less enjoying it. Now that I know he put historical figures into his work and that his ancestors arrived in Plymouth Colony in 1630, I have more of a commitment to revisit his novels.

A few years back, I went into an Antiquarian Bookstore and saw a FIRST EDITION of THE SCARLET LETTER. It was amazing to look at this book and know it had been printed more than a century and a half earlier. It had a leather cover, ornate and tooled. It had been read and treasured by readers for decades. I started to have a desire to own a first edition of an important work … and what I noticed was NOT that I wanted to own a work that was meaningful or important to the storekeeper or the contemporary literati. I wanted a work that was important and meaningful to me. I ended up getting a first edition “book” by Joyce Carol Oates. She probably doesn’t even remember it, this micro-book, a first edition short story (printed on a laser printer, put in a saddle-stitched printed cover and signed) but it meant the world to me.

So, every day, I just keep writing and hoping, at the end of the day, that someone, somewhere finds what we do to be meaningful and important to them, in their lives, at that moment in time. Even this blog is part of that desire to connect and create access to and for another. What else is there in this life?

“We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a troubled dream; it may be so the moment after death.” — Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864).

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My writing partner, Pamela Jo, went to see DAN IN REAL LIFE with the family this weekend. She said it was a tremendously fun film; she had several belly-laughs. I’ve been looking forward to seeing the film. It looked like a funny, poignant, perhaps bittersweet love story. Unlike the brutal family dynamics typically mined by Noah Baumbach, DAN looked like a more good-natured family film. It still looked like it would explore the traumatic ties of family but with a lighter touch.

So, I started looking into the details on the film and discovered the screenwriter and director of DAN IN REAL LIFE is the same writer of one of my very favorite films. Anyone who knows me, knows that I always say, “If I could create a film like WHAT’S EATING GILBERT GRAPE, I’d die happy.” I just adore that film. It turns out that I’m a big Peter Hedges fan and I didn’t even know it. Hedges also wrote ABOUT A BOY and was the writer/director of PIECES OF APRIL. Hedges was at Sundance in 2003 with Patricia Clarkson, Oliver Platt, Katie Holmes and Alison Pill. Had I known about the Gilbert Grape connection, I’d have made more of an effort to hunt him down. Dang skippy.

Hedges is currently working on the screenplay EVERYTHING CHANGES from the novel by Jonathan Tropper. A family-centered drama about an engaged man who finds himself attracting to his friend’s widow while dealing with his estranged father’s sudden appearance in his life. The rumor mill has it that Tobey Maguire will star.

Earlier today, I consulted the iChing and was given the hexagram Chia Jen (The Clan). There was a line that kept resonating all day, a line that speaks to the importance of family connections and the films that explore those stories. The family is society in the embryo; it is the native soil on which performance of moral duty is made early through natural affection, so that within a small circle a basis of moral practice is created, and this is later widened to include human relationships in general.

The relationships of family are the microcosm of one’s participation in society at large. This is, of course, one of the things that I love about Sundance. It’s such a mecca for creative, independent filmmakers who want to explore the ties that bind and unwind us all.

Quote for Today
“To believe is to know you believe, and to know you believe is not to believe.” — Jean-Paul Sartre

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BY CYNDI GREENING, PHOENIX, USA – Those of you that follow this blog know that I’ve been working on two Zambian films for the last year. While in Zambia, I started journalling again. That led to creative writing, mostly poetry for a couple months. Of course, that led back to one of my favorite writing forms: screenwriting. I realized that I’d been screenwriting for almost two decades. It didn’t even seem possible. Over the years, I’ve written with a few writing partners. I like bouncing ideas off another person and bantering the dialogue around. It’s just the nature of the beast. I like working with people. That’s why film was a natural art form for me.

When I first investigated screenwriting as a career, I thought I’d move to LA and become part of a writing team on a situation comedy. Then, Alec was born and I opted to remain in the Valley. Teach and do the indie film thing. Sitcom writer/Show runner Ric Swartzlander (husband of former Phoenix news anchor Cater Lee) shared the intricacies of writing as part of a team. I learned a lot from him. Now, I’m working with a new writing partner. As is often true in the beginning, it can be a bit rugged getting used to each other’s styles.

As a side note, Ric has a new show coming out this fall called NEWS. It’s about the crazy goings on at an Arizona news station. It stars Barry Bostwick and Rachel Boston. I’m looking forward to seeing it.

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