MINUTEMAN
THE CREATIVE PROCESS OF SHORT FILMMAKING
BY CODY VANDENBERG
JUNE 2012
∞
A Thesis
Presented to
The Honors Tutorial College
Ohio University
∞
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for Graduation
from the Honors Tutorial College
with the degree of
Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film
This thesis has been approved by
The Honors Tutorial College and the School of Film
_____________________________________
Jeanette Buck
Professor, Film
Thesis Advisor & Director of Studies
_____________________________________
Jeremy Webster
Dean, Honors Tutorial College
Very rarely is a film prepared without aesthetic motif or thematic style. These
decisions within filmmaking are honed and upheld by a specific hierarchy throughout
every stage of the creation of a film. The prominent creative and logistical figures
within the hierarchy were dubbed “above-the-line” by the industry in the early
nineteen-twenties. These are the people who guide and nurture the project by
providing their creative voice, or managerial talents. This thesis will explore the
primary above-the-line creative hierarchy, including Screenwriting, Directing,
Cinematography and Editing, in relation to the filmmaking process of Minuteman.
∞
At the precarious foundation of the filmmaking process lies the creation of
story. Narrative films rely on this preliminary step to pave the way for the rest of preproduction, which is when a producer would typically begin involvement, and is
widely-considered to the be the main problem area for a poor creative result. While a
particular structure, built in three acts, exists for feature films, there are very few
constraints put upon a short film. Short films are known to breed several types of
structure with the purpose of fulfilling the story or concept that a writer conceives, in
the most efficient and creative way possible. The basis for these structures comes from
the simple concept that stories must have a beginning, middle and end to be effective.
Unless a short film is created to be experimental and lacks a narrative altogether, these
three movements are necessary, but can be altered. A filmmaker can approach them
backward, go nonlinear or rearrange and bend them to fit a runtime and stylistic
method.
A short released in 2009 titled, Last Day Dream (dir. Chris Milk) demonstrates
a distinct approach to the three movements. The film narrates the entire life of one
man in thirty seconds. It displays ‘snapshots’ of his life, incorporating short video
clips, shot from the point of view of the man, ranging from the first time he got a peak
at a girl’s underwear in school, to his wife’s ashes being scattered at his feet, sinking
into the coastline of an ocean. A harsh piano chord strikes at every change of a
snapshot. The pace quickens with each strike, effectively displaying the ephemerality
of a lifetime in what seem like heartbeats – these moments in life become portraits;
quick glimpses that define an age and time. Herein lies the beauty of short film. Ideas
and stories can be told with innovative, imaginative technique and emotional impact –
and can be told quickly. In a world that is rapidly loosing attention and interest in longform storytelling, a short film that bends the traditional model of cinema can be a
useful calling–card. The distortion of these rules and guidelines begin at the
scriptwriting phase.
The original concept that shaped Minuteman into its current state began with a
fellow collaborator – an animator who abstracted a short animation about the most
popular television show of all time, starring a fruitless superhero who would utilize his
tagline, “I just haven’t got the time” once in every episode. With viewership in the
billions, each and every eye watching the show would wait for the context in which
the tagline would be delivered. The thought behind twisting a genre, in this case,
superhero lore, would provide the opportunity to experiment with personal tone in
storytelling. Having primarily operated within the realm of comedy, using the idea of
genre-blending, combining comedic elements with true drama, became the new basis
for a film. This allowed a vastly different study in the medium, venturing into more
intricate, mature storytelling, while still incorporating elements of comedy and
creating unique structure.
The often-misconstrued craft of writing a screenplay is based upon a
cacophony of theory and myth. Sifting through sales pitches from snakeoil salesmen
claiming to have a flawless formula for scriptwriting is a craft of its own – a
screenplay should be assembled with the intention of unearthing a universal human
experience (McKee 4), while providing a form of emotional connection for a reader or
eventual viewer. The approaches to attain that goal cannot be tallied. A personal path,
whether obscure or clear, innate or deliberate, takes shape from writing methodology
that can be gathered anywhere – within seminars, bodies of writing, or practical
experience. Skilled creative figures in the film trade have carved a niche by using
unique writing style and unusual formatting to make a moment very apparent to a
director – this being the fundamental goal of the screenwriter. Quentin Tarantino, who
now writes and directs his own films in a seemingly auteuristic state, first gained
notoriety with his use of vulgar language within scene descriptions and with overly
simplistic, obscene parentheticals directed at the reader (Fuller 57-59). The bold
method had an emotional effect on readers and audiences. Pulling these small pieces
and success stories from a cluttered pool of diverse methodology is the only way to
come out untangled by proclaimed ‘perfect formulas’.
At the base of storytelling, there are few fundamental, classical types of plot
that can successfully take shape. A basic understanding of story, which most of
humanity comprehends intuitively, must be broken down before expectations of story
can be altered. Short films, including Minuteman, draw from these classic plots and
rarely escape classification, even if they rework the formula. The primarily renowned
plot type is referred to as the Monomyth, or ‘The Hero’s Journey’. It was first
described, in detail, within Joseph Campbell’s book, The Hero With A Thousand
Faces, 1949. Campbell’s work maintained that most stories, spanning from the
beginning of recorded myths and legend to modern storytelling, share a central
structure; “A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of
supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is
won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow
boons on his fellow man” (Campbell 23). While Campbell writes toward an analysis
of classical works and mythos, any description can be interpreted to fit the structure of
a modern screenplay. George Lucas’ Star Wars, 1977 is widely known and
documented as the primary example of deliberate use of the theory within
contemporary screenwriting (Larson and Larson 541). The protagonist, Luke
Skywalker, is summoned by Princess Leia, thus beginning the journey of Star Wars.
After finding his family and home burned by imperial soldiers, Luke eventually travels
to the Death Star where he rescues Princess Leia. He emerges victorious from the trial,
newly fueled and motivated by the discovery of the force, ready to “bestow boons on
his fellow man.”
While the Monomyth is embedded into the structure of numerous films, a
seemingly opposite formula exists. A Stranger Comes To Town describes a plot
beginning with an often-anonymous stranger who arrives at a location, somehow
affecting the characters established in that location. Instead of witnessing a protagonist
on a path after being called to action, we follow the characters that make the call, or
are going through a change – the protagonist is a catalyst. In the Monomyth, the
protagonist is often built as the film progresses, while the Stranger protagonist is
typically shrouded in a cryptic past that slowly becomes apparent. This type of plotline
is frequently associated with Western-genre films. Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars,
1967 which was directly adapted from Akira Kurosawa’s 1961 film, Yojimbo, best
exemplifies the technique – to the point where the protagonist was created as a
nameless character for ambiguity. He is ‘The Man with No Name’. The plot type can
also be associated with literature as simple as Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat.
Minuteman, upon formal analysis, does not shift the foundation of the
filmmaking formula by escaping classification. Instead, the film adopts both classical
formulas and fuses them as the result of a dual-plot story. The film follows a young
boy who idolizes a superhero character on a television show in order to cope with an
abusive parent. Meanwhile, the writer of the superhero television show struggles to
produce new creative content. When the writer saves the boy and his mother from a
domestic dispute, the lives of both protagonists meld. For the boy, a stranger comes to
town to save him, while the writer takes the hero’s journey to become the idol he has
always written about. Minuteman was not written to precisely shadow either formula,
and neither are most films – short films in particular. However, simply having been
raised with storytelling makes any writer familiar with these theories in a nonanalytical and innate way, because they encompass most stories that have come to be.
They exist as an important foundation in discovering successful writing.
A more adverse method of screenwriting lies within deconstructing scenes and
moments to basic elements, and this deconstruction is taught in various ways by
professors and professional screenwriting lecturers alike. Robert McKee, a renowned
creative writing instructor, is known for his candid, direct lectures on screenwriting.
While also considered to be somewhat of a slave to formula, McKee relays an
underlying message with his seminars – “a story is either compelling, or it is not”
(McKee 28-29). Following narrative structure of a screenplay rather than particular
technique within plot or dialogue writing as taught by a majority of instructors,
McKee emphasizes concise points that clearly emerge in Minuteman and other
personal works. McKee provides an abstract, organic view of story, arguing that
scenes contain positive and negative values that reverse to create compelling moments
(McKee 35). These values depend on the goal of the protagonist (McKee 36).
In James Cameron’s 1984 film The Terminator, the protagonist, Sarah Connor,
has one goal – to survive attempted assassinations by a future-dwelling cyborg
assassin known as ‘The Terminator’. As taught by McKee, each ‘scene’ (McKee 35)
will place Sarah Connor in a place of safety and then suddenly shift her into a
dangerous survival situation, until the ‘archplot’ (McKee 45) or ending is achieved.
The archplot is irreversible, and can either be ‘up’ (Connor survives the attacks from
The Terminator) or ‘down’ (Connor is killed by The Terminator) (McKee 125). These
types of ‘simple plots’ (McKee 79) can utilize either form of archplot. However, if a
film has an ‘ironic plot’ (McKee 129), these variables can change. In John Ford’s
1956 film The Searchers, John Wayne’s character pursues a morally questionable
goal, which takes him further from humanity. Both forms of plot are found in
Minuteman. With a lead protagonist whose goal is to cope with mistreatment from his
father, a secondary protagonist who wants to find some truth in what he writes, a
‘simple plot’ advances these characters toward their goals. From scene to scene, the
writer character, David, is put in a situation of loss of creativity and is then presented
with an opportunity to complete his goal. For example, the first time we see David, he
is sitting a desk, struggling to come up with new material for the television show. The
phone rings. His talent agent informs him that he is in possession of the ‘epitome of
inspiration.’ This ‘inspiration’ is revealed to be fan mail from the other protagonist. At
this moment, elements of ‘ironic plot’ begin to take effect. David is forced down a
path toward plagiarizing the work of the biggest fan in order to reach his goal. Within
the short-form filmmaking medium, this blend in plot type is only one instance of how
expectation can be distorted.
McKee’s fundamental model for the positive and negative value system is the
1942 film, Casablanca (McKee 201). The character of Rick Blaine is understood as a
representation of the United States, and gambling den that he owns, “Rick’s Café
Américain” symbolizes a miniature United Nations in Nazi-occupied Morocco. Rick
“sticks his neck out for no man,” and thus delivers his basic story arc as a man fending
for himself, much like the original decision from the United States to remain
uninvolved with World War Two. However, as the film progresses, Rick (and the
Unites States) is pulled into the game. Casablanca became McKee’s archetype as a
result of its systematic rise to the ultimate ‘ironic’ archplot. Two major elements form
this ending – Rick’s romance with his ex-lover, Ilsa Lund, and Rick’s eventual
redemption. Both of these elements begin as negative values, with Rick and Ilsa
romantically separated, and Rick being content about his neutrality in the war effort.
Ilsa’s return to Casablanca is considered to be the ‘inciting incident’ (McKee 190) or
catalyst of the film. She is now married to Victor Laszlo, a leader of the Czech
Resistance. Herein lies the major conflict; Rick cannot reconnect with Isla if he wants
to remain honorable. He cannot thieve the wife of a noble man who has a proactive
stance against Nazism. Every step toward accomplishing one of Rick’s goals is a step
away from another and eventually, morality and decency. Each character, if well
developed, has an arc with the above positive and negative values. Laszlo is a
definitive example – while he is not Ilsa’s greatest love (a negative for him, and
positive for Rick on his ‘romance’ arc), he is the better, more honorable man (a
positive for him, and negative for Rick on his ‘redemption’ arc). With this in mind,
Casablanca, according to McKee, yields the quintessential ‘ironic’ archplot. Rick
decides to “stick his neck out” for the husband of his former lover by providing him
with the ‘letter of transit’ – a document stolen from German couriers that would allow
the bearer to travel freely around Europe, unburdened by refugee status. With this act,
Rick redeems himself (positive) but also loses the love of his life (negative).
Minuteman’s ‘ironic’ ending tightly adheres to this concept; David has discovered the
truth by donning the role of the hero he has always written about (positive) but is still
unable to produce his magnum opus without the help of his fan (negative).
By examining and implementing ageless storytelling models refined by writers
and lecturers like Campbell or McKee, a screenwriter has the ability to shape a story
and discover successes and failures within it. The writer may intentionally craft their
work around the numerous declared methods, or use them retroactively to assess the
elements that make a piece of his/her own writing compelling. In either instance, the
models are available for deconstruction for the sake of building a personal voice and
technique in screenplay writing. That accessibility was crucial in the writing process
of Minuteman.
∞
Many current filmmakers are known to reproduce directing decisions made by
the most prominent film auteurs, stemming back to the 1890’s. The current generation
of experienced filmmakers takes imitation to a higher standard by using past methods
and styles to innovate unique approaches in storytelling. Modern filmmakers
subconsciously emulate and build on the style of the longstanding auteurs, like
Howard Hawks, Orson Welles, Jean Renoir, Max Ophüls and Alfred Hitchcock. New
work rarely comes without inspiration. Minuteman was created with the same
mentality. For the development of motif, visual and otherwise, in Minuteman, this
section will focus on directing stylizations made by filmmakers like François Truffaut
and other French New Wave directors, and will also explore techniques in acting that a
director would employ with actors while rehearsing, and on a film set.
At the heart of French New Wave filmmaking lays the issue of funding and
lack of resources for production value. Beginning in the late nineteen-fifties, the
French New Wave did not recognize itself as a proprietary assemblage of filmmakers,
aiming toward a collective goal. They were an independent rebellion, striving to break
the conformity of classical filmmaking techniques, while also disguising that they,
outside of a filmmaking system like Hollywood, had very few resources. They
accomplished this by creating a new fluidity in visual storytelling. For the first time in
cinema, filmmakers were abandoning the use the smooth transitions between scenes;
fading two images together for the sake of visual appeal and continuity. Jean-Luc
Godard, one of the preeminent figures of the French New Wave, was told that his film,
À bout de soufflé, had to be trimmed in order to be exhibited. Instead of removing full
scenes that would eliminate important content from the film, Godard cut up several
shots with long duration, creating a rough ‘jump’ effect. He utilized the first-ever true
‘jump cut’. This technique can be recognized when a frame or image is displayed
onscreen, and then simply cuts to a new frame that varies only slightly from the
original – the eventual effect being to draw attention to the fact that a film is
intentionally constructed, disregarding the continuity of time and space. Despite the
fact that these techniques were invented out of necessity, they are decisive aesthetic
choices that bred an entirely new style of filmmaking. This style chooses to immerse
an audience into the filmmaking process, instead of narrative exclusively.
These techniques in French New Wave cinema are the foundation for
independent cinema and student filmmaking. Choices in directing, which ultimately
effect cinematography and editing are said to be “half-necessity, half-vision”
(Bordwell and Thompson 409) – a notion that played a large role in the production of
Minuteman. Thematically, the choice was made in Minuteman to adhere to a
minimalistic style, thus creating a very distinctive style that would remain consistent.
When a film is developed as a period piece, set in the nineteen-sixties, it immediately
creates a laundry list of pre-production and production challenges that are especially
difficult to solve within short student filmmaking. The challenge of working with a
child actor played a large role in the overall direction of the film. There were several
techniques, mainly within performance and cinematography, that were used on set
with the intention of disguising a lack of period-accurate production design and the
issue of the untrained young actor, while still adhering to a specific aesthetic within
picture, performance and sound.
Performances in Minuteman were often bent toward silent roles, using the
subtlety of stillness and expressions on the face to craft the character. The
effectiveness within this approach was based on coaching this young actor on a
moment-to-moment basis, feeding him a scenario before each shot began. Sometimes,
a director will choose to work extensively with actors in a rehearsal setting before a
film begins production. This is where background of the character is developed and
where other details of the performance can be refined. Staying true to a minimalist
aesthetic out of necessity and a defined stylistic choice, the young actor was directed
only on set, and on a very small scale. This choice kept the actor, who is not trained or
developed to retain underlying character themes and arc, on a simple path that did not
contain emotional or logistical clutter distracting from performance. Emotions were
created authentically on set as a two-person team. This methodology tightly bound
performances and cinematography, aiming for the continuity of minimalist style. The
remaining actors were directed with a more organized, conventional method – using
the mentioned rehearsals, in addition to character breakdowns (included within this
document) and table readings to create these characters. However, each actor was
given very few lines of dialogue, keeping the goal of simplicity in tact. Using
knowledge and technique gleaned from tutorials and courses, including the study of
the methods that are taught within the Ohio University School of Theater, direction
was practiced and developed.
The difficulty and ultimate effectiveness of acting and directing actors to
discover authentic performance is underestimated. Both entities work toward a
common goal; creating a testament to the deepest emotions of humanity. Creating
character and working with actors in Minuteman was organized by using parts of a
system taught to students of theater here at the University. Constantin Stanislavski and
Sanford Meisner developed this process, allowing for a clear communication between
actors and directors. These techniques are taught through numerous exercises,
allowing an actor to sharpen a combination of tools that they find most effective. A
method that was occasionally implemented while directing Minuteman was the use of
emotional recall, particularly with the young actor. Utilizing past experiences to build
an emotional journey to an objective is often effective. ‘Given circumstance’ is
another important technique used to inform the actor of a character’s back-story. What
happened right before the character started talking? Where did they come from? What
kind of family life did they have? Did they have a loss in their life? In reality, people
are not flat. They all had a past, which has shaped and molded them. A character is
developed using that idea.
Meisner technique is widely taught in studios today and is based upon the work
that Stanislavski developed. This method of acting is based on finding the truth of a
given situation through a reactionary process, rather than one that is thought out and
grown. Actors have a tendency to evade or fake emotion because of their desire to
think. On set, taking advantage of this process was effective because direction could
be given through verbs, and the actors were open to quick response and could actively
react. Simple, clear direction would consist of changing the performance for variety by
asking, for example, “Seduce him.” The direction is unblemished by emotional
complexity and allows for a truthful reaction, based on the techniques that the actors in
Minuteman are utilizing and developing. These techniques are crucial to filmmaking
for the same reason that acting is crucial. ‘Acting is the ability to live truthfully under
imaginary circumstances’ declares Meisner. It allows an actor to take their character
and create a real person, and ultimately permits a director to effectively cultivate
emotion to shape the film as a whole.
∞
Cinematography within Minuteman was a true reflection of the approach taken
with performances. Simplicity in frame united with quiet performances build
emotional value, particularly when a suspenseful climax will take place. The cinematic
process of Minuteman originated with the concept of visual storytelling. It is the
assessment of where the camera will be placed and will travel to creatively express the
meaning of each scene. Alfred Hitchcock, one of the most important practitioners of
visual storytelling, composed every frame within his films before any set-work took
place. Hitchcock’s Psycho defines the fundamentals of visual storytelling, all within
one scene –
At the beginning of the film, Marion, the protagonist, is asked by her boss to
deposit a large amount of cash that their office received. Marion is seen driving in her
car, seemingly to the bank to make the requested deposit. It is only in the next scene
that we discover Marion’s true intentions. The scene begins with Marion rifling
through her closet. Through visual storytelling, we discover that the bank won’t be
receiving that forty thousand dollar deposit. The money is lying on Marion’s bed. She
proceeds to finish packing a suitcase. She shuts the suitcase, grabs her purse and the
money and leaves the room. This sequence reveals the intentions of a character in one,
simple shot, without relying on dialogue to over-inform the audience.
Minuteman took a very similar visual approach, informing the viewer of plot in
a subtle way by using the frame to place characters and objects – the mise en scène of
the film. Mise en scène refers to everything that appears before the camera and its
arrangement, including composition, sets, props, actors, costumes, and lighting. Mise
en scène also includes the positioning and movement of actors on the set, which is
called blocking. (Bordwell and Thompson, sec. 6) When we first discover Charles, the
young fanboy, watching television in his living room. His parents argue in the
background, blurred and obscured, while Charles sits in the foreground. The mise en
scène allows the audience to focus on Charles to recognize the level of happiness the
show brings him, and also subtly listen in on the background argument. From this mise
en scène, it is understood that Charles’ mother has asked his father to move out of the
house, and that Charles escapes reality by watching the show.
The mise en scène is taken even further in support of subtlety – shots featuring
Nichols, David’s talent agent, are designed to completely obscure him from view by
showing only the back of his body. He is developed as an anonymous figure,
representing another obstacle for David, pushing him further into isolation. A similar
method can be seen in Pulp Fiction (1994), where a character named Marsellus
Wallace remains faceless for the majority of the film. The back of his head becomes
the focus of several shots, successfully inducing an unnatural sensation, and curiosity
from the audience. This visual system was branded as limited disclosure (Young,
personal. 2012) and adapted to the production of Minuteman to manage the attention
of the audience– best exemplified when Charles witnesses David fight Paul. The shot
was designed to drift near the back of Charles’ head, catching glimpses of the violent
fight, while also providing the unique point of view of a child. This visual approach
also preserved performance by concealing difficulties with the young actor’s facial
expressions.
On a different level of support for minimalism and subtlety in Minuteman,
several sequences were shot using a single, prolonged shot, often called a long take or
oner (Henderson 4). Andrei Tarkovsky, a Russian filmmaker and theorist, personifies
a rare class of artist that develops a completely original type of aesthetic, often using
long take techniques; “Tarkovsky for me is the greatest [director], the one who
invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection,
life as a dream” (Bergman 1). His work is celebrated from both theoretical and
technological standpoints, partially due to the practical challenges and thematic
significance of his long take filmmaking. No editing takes place within this form of
shot design, which allowed Tarkovsky to keep time unaltered. This resulted in
dynamic, emotional moments shown from a more truthful perspective. Tarkovsky’s
long take elements can be explored through time articulation, exploration of space and
incorporation of theatrical form, all relative to the application of the technique within
Minuteman.
There are several examples of time articulation that display Tarkovsky’s
central belief and practice in filmmaking; that methodically using time is an approach
to developing a character, and creating catharsis. In The Sacrifice (1986), Tarkovsky
created a shot where the protagonist, near insanity, burns his house down in order to
destroy the things he loves in his life – ‘a sacrifice’ he believes will spare the world
from a nuclear holocaust. This event relies on the use of a long take in order to portray
the severity and timing of what the character has done. We see a full cycle of time, and
a reminder of what has happened throughout the film. Within this shot, the protagonist
performs what he was terrified to do the whole film. Having set the house on fire with
his wife and children inside, his entire life is slowly engulfed, and that slow
destruction is effectively displayed with the sustained duration of the shot. The
technique gradually builds tension while creating a genuine, unaltered sensation.
Another common element that Tarkovsky films tend to display is the use of the
long shot to determine how long it takes to accomplish a particular task within a
frame, simply as exploration in character and time. An example of this technique
would be in his film Nostalgia (1983), where the protagonist carries a lit candle,
attempting to deliver it to a location across the courtyard. He attempts to protect it
from the wind, but fails several times, returning to his original spot to relight the
candle, and continues his journey once again. These bold exercises in shot design,
displaying the mundane, upheld a belief that Tarkovsky had contempt for his audience
(Thompson and Bordwell 149). Even the monotonous wandering of a hallway appears
frequently in Zerkalo (1968), Solaris (1972) and Stalker (1978), further connecting
motif and aesthetic between his films. Minuteman often adheres to a similar technique
by observing Charles, the young fanboy, watching his television set in a long take.
This services a contrast between the tone of the television show, which uses quick,
clean shot design with energetic content – and the tone of the real world, which uses
prolonged, rough design with content based in realism. This shot design appears in
numerous places throughout the film, including David’s opening scene with his
tedious typewriting, and Charles’ long drive home from school with his father, Paul.
Several scenes within Minuteman utilize long takes to allow the setting and
physical space of the film to be examined by characters, as well as the audience. As
David attempts to overcome writer’s block in his cabin, shots are lengthened to reveal
details of the setting, which develop the character. Discarded paper litters the floor. A
single light illuminates the room, detailing David’s isolation. These are understated
elements that allow the audience to understand who David is, and that we are
discovering him at his lowest point. In Stalker, Tarkovsky creates a seemingly bare
space known as ‘the room’ and uses long takes to reveal the persona of a character.
‘The room’ is believed to grant the desires of the person who enters, including
subconscious desires. As one character visits ‘the room’, Tarkovsky uses a lengthy
exploratory shot to uncover that the space is not empty – the character desires money.
This paints the character as petty, having only superficial aspirations. Tarkovsky
expands on the influence of space when the character is revealed to have, according to
another character, hanged himself after his visit to ‘the room’. He did indeed have a
deeper aspiration – a death wish. Tarkovsky’s mastery of long takes to explore setting
becomes very clear. With a prolonged investigative shot, the audience waits for a
reveal about the character’s desires. We only discover what he truly wanted when he is
out of ‘the room’, having killed himself in a scene we don’t even witness in the film.
Even a lack of set design in a space, observed with a long take, can be used to develop
characters, and change our expectation of them. Tarkovsky may have contempt for his
audience after all.
Minuteman features a two-minute single-shot sequence, leading up to a
confrontation between David and Paul. While mainly designed to generate tension and
a driving force for the climax of the film, the scene took stylistic inspiration from
theatrical form most evident in The Sacrifice, and remains as a central motivation for
the use of long takes. By using prolonged shots, widely framed to capture truthful,
active performances, Tarkovsky was able to elaborately block complicated scenes,
creating the effect of live theater on film. Shots circle characters, both observing
performances while advancing story, because of their ability to capture energetic, full
body blocking. With the freedom of a roaming, less inhibited camera comes a rougher
aesthetic and visual style. Minuteman’s shift from comedic to dramatic tone called for
a change to coarse image in terms of movement and color. This necessary visual
change supported the decision to capture the climactic confrontation in a more
theatrical, rough long take form, because of the intricacy of blocking in the scene.
With two characters being thrown against walls and dragged across the house in
confrontation, the availability for the camera to become spontaneous to capture
physical improvisation or adapt to blocking mishaps was invaluable. With a simple,
stoic approach to the visual system for Minuteman, an effective correlation between
writing, performances, cinematography and finally, editing, was cultivated.
∞
Film editing, often referred to as the ‘invisible art’ (Harris, 2006), is the final
stage in the storytelling process. Fundamentally, an editor assembles and focuses the
story of the film, restoring original intent that has been filtered through the creative
discretion of a handful of contributors. If elements of pre-production or production are
mishandled in some form and the objective of the film is unsalvageable, an editor
finds a new, effective way to tell the story. Walter Murch, a renowned editor and
sound mixer who has been honored by both the American and British Motion Picture
Academies, has released several volumes on editing technique that have influenced
several prominent filmmakers, including Francis Ford Coppola (Murch, N. pag.)
Murch reaches beyond the mechanics of cutting film and provides the theory that
editing film is the discovery of a path. He argues that most cuts should be based on
emotion (Murch 58).
Although Minuteman adheres to a simple style of editing guided by long takes
and overall minimalism, the concept of montage plays a significant role throughout the
film. Montage is most commonly referred to as a system of editing that combines a
series of progressing shots to condense time and space (Dmytryk 93). Having two
protagonists in Minuteman who share an even amount of screen time presents the
opportunity to utilize montage techniques to effectively shift between them. Sergei
Eisenstein, a Soviet Russian film director and the foremost authority and “father of
montage,” argued that editing could be used for more than just expounding a scene or
moment, through a “linkage” of images. (Eisenstein, N. pag.) He argued that shots
could be used to manipulate emotion and create metaphor and should not dwell on
comprehensible spatial or temporal continuity used within the classical Hollywood
system. His goal was duality – the study of thesis and antithesis clashing to create an
emotional outcome. However, film critic Arthur Knight connects the development of
Hollywood montage to Eisenstein’s practices; “The word montage came to identify…
specifically the rapid, shock cutting that Eisenstein employed in his films. Its use
survives to this day in the specially created ‘montage sequences’ inserted into
Hollywood films to suggest, in a blur of double exposures, the rise to fame of an opera
singer or, in brief model shots, the destruction of an airplane, a city or a planet”
(Knight 80).
Minuteman puts “linkage” of images into practice, utilizing the emotional tie
between David and Charles. When Charles is introduced for the first time, he holds a
Minuteman figurine. David owns a nearly identical figurine. That link is well
established with a cut from Charles’ figurine, placed in the foreground as the subject
of the shot, to a nearly identical shot of David’s figurine. This tie between them
becomes instantly clear, allowing David’s half of the story to begin. The film also
illustrates this link between characters and images with dolly shots – a type of camera
movement that can track characters – that are edited and combined seamlessly to
create a motion path from one shot to another. When David discovers the pleas for
help written on the fan mail, he leaves his desk, motivating a dolly backward that
continues until the scene is cut. The next shot depicts Charles at the dinner table. This
is the moment when tension severely rises in the room, motivating a dolly forward
towards Charles. These two camera movements are combined in the editing process to
create aesthetic connection and build a common motif.
This same scene also demonstrates Eisenstein’s theory of “colliding” images
(Eisenstein 72), by building opposite forces, thesis and antithesis, to create a desired
effect – in Minuteman’s case, suspense. As David drives to Charles’ house in a loud,
energetic frame, the montage cuts back to Charles sitting in his kitchen, motionless
and quiet. This contrast in shots successfully builds tension by cross-cutting. Crosscutting is used to display two scenes occurring at the same moment while creating
parallels in theme. Director D.W. Griffith was the most famed innovator of the
technique, using it in films like A Corner in Wheat (1909) to cut between the activities
of rich businessmen and poor people in a breadline. The contrast is used for emotional
effect, creating a ‘dichotomy’ encouraging comparison of the two shots (Bordwell and
Thompson 244-245).
This climactic scene in Minuteman also increases the frequency of the crosscutting as the scene becomes more frenetic. These quicker cuts are yet another method
of tension building. David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (2001) demonstrates this
concept in a scene where two men in a diner talk about a dream one of them had. In
the dream, they are in that same diner. Dan, the dreamer, describes that in the dream,
there is a terrifying man behind the dumpster at the back of the diner. The two men
have met there to check if the man really is behind the dumpster. The two men exit the
diner. This is the moment where the editing style shifts, with the purpose of building
anticipation by using shot duration and perspective. As the two characters approach
the back dumpster, the pattern emerges. The editing shifts from a shot of the dreamer,
to his perspective of the dumpster he is approaching. As each shot progresses, the
length of the shot shortens. This forces a quicker interaction between perspectives, and
takes away our ability to anticipate when the next cut will be. When the man that is
behind the dumpster is finally revealed to the audience, sound design is used to drive
the cut, making it unpredictable.
Sound design is an effective sub-category of the editing process that shapes the
tone of a film, while also revealing story. Bonding to every other aspect of production,
the realism sections of Minuteman utilizes a soundscape based on minimalism.
Dialogue is scarce, sound design is natural, emanating from environment, and score
employs simplistic tones. This type of ‘restrained’ sound design, especially barring
overuse of score, is a very particular stylistic choice that must merge with the other
elements of the film. No Country for Old Men (2007) adapted and directed by Ethan
and Joel Coen, has taken the above technique to an extreme, using no score in the film
whatsoever. There is often only the soundscape of wind and boots on rough ground, or
subtle tones that emanate from the environment and landscape. Such raw silence
combined with the bare Texas expanse, all in support of minimalism in the film’s
other areas makes an accompanying orchestral track unnecessary. Instead, the use of a
processed, distinctive soundscape creates the effect that a score, or louder track would
have produced – in a more valuable, interesting way. Above all, these sounds are
storytellers that indicate the course of action that characters are taking. Cutting and
arranging mise en scène in a particular fashion to match sound is a major driving force
in this film. Minuteman lies within the same classification, using dead silence to build
an expectation, then breaking the expectation with a strong sound, like David’s
typewriter, or the crashes from Paul’s outburst.
Overall editing in Minuteman may serve more as a subtle guide to a final
product because of the nature of the cinematography, but by using montage technique
and sound design, particularly within climatic scenes, a higher level of dramatic
tension can be created authentically within post-production.
∞
Contrary to the themes of minutia, minimalistic form and visual system that
Minuteman displays, it is not simple film, and it was not simple to fabricate. Textured
with change in tone and genuine depth, the film is an exercise in nostalgia and
personal discovery. Only with the use of organized hierarchy – developing particular
structural methodologies in writing, visual influences and performances in directing,
exploration of visual storytelling in cinematography, and particular ways to build and
shift tone in editing – could Minuteman have become a successful creative project,
and formal study in filmmaking.
“I just haven’t got the time!” – Minuteman
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