Summer Sundance, part two
What exactly do you discuss at Sundance? They’re entering with completed scripts, which I assume are perfect to them at the beginning, so where to next? And if you participate in the Screenwriting Lab are you automatically given a Directors Lab spot, if that is what you so choose to do with your completed work?
– Christina Shaver
The scripts the Fellows are bringing to Sundance are completed drafts, but they’re still works in progress. The advisor meetings aren’t notes sessions, but rather a chance to talk through ideas with experienced writers, whose fresh eyes can identify problems and opportunities. It’s like therapy for your script.
Over the last two days, I met with Braden King and Dani Valent, whose script HERE is a road movie set in Armenia, and Sophie Bartes, whose COLD SOULS is an existential comedy.1 Both projects went through the Directors Lab, so the filmmakers had a chance to see how the scenes worked when put up on their feet, which left them with new questions and ideas.
Over the course of the lab, each writer has five meetings with different advisors. In some meetings, I’ve gone page by page with the fellows, looking at how this line on page 19 is setting up an expectation that never really pays off. In other meetings, I’ve left the script in my backpack, instead talking in broad terms about character POV, balancing tones, and the rewriting process. It’s a conversation, and all based on what the Fellow needs. One of the smartest innovations in the Sundance Labs experience is that the advisors meet each morning to talk through the previous day’s sessions, thus building on each other’s work.
I screened THE NINES last night for the group. It was strange to see it in one of same theaters as January, but with a completely different crowd and set of expectations. (And a new, vastly better digital projector.) Atom Egoyan had screened THE SWEET HEREAFTER the second night, and it was terrific to finally be able to ask him questions about his movie and his process.
Sundance doesn’t change much year-to-year, but there have been a few adjustments this time:
- There’s a documentary lab running concurrently, so we’ve gotten to mingle with some editorially-oriented folks.
- There’s wireless, and thus blogging.
- In an effort to reduce waste, they handed out water bottles and coffee mugs upon arrival to use instead of paper cups and disposable bottles. It’s been remarkably effective. Because you’re at altitude, you have to drink a lot of water, and having a container with your name on it makes it simple.2
- They got rid of wine at dinner, but added receptions to (partially) make up for it. Again, you’re at altitude, so it doesn’t take much.
- My final project is Richard Montoya’s WATER AND POWER, adapted from his acclaimed play. I lucked out this year in that all of my assigned projects feel like Actual Movies I Would Pay to See. ↩
- We recently banned bottled water at home. Our water cooler was using $145 worth of electricity each year, and that’s not counting all the energy wasted packaging and delivering the giant bottles. It’s surprisingly easy to adjust. ↩
Articles
June 26th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
All I want to know is what did you go to afer bottled water? Not…….tap?
June 26th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
Re: bottled water. San Francisco city government just banned bottled water in city offices. Are you using a filtration system instead? Or are you finding that your tap water isn’t really that bad?
June 26th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
We drink tap water. Or use the Brita pitchers.
L.A. tap water is pretty good, honestly. It’s not as good as the Boulder water I grew up with, but it’s better than Des Moines. Pretty much every time they test tap water, it’s as safe as bottled, and tastes similar.
ABC did a story here. (It’s pretty cheap to test your tap water, if you’re wondering.)
I think the reason we started drinking bottled water is the convenience. So get a water bottle, or refill that empty Dasani.
June 26th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
I met Richard at Sundance. Nice guy.
June 26th, 2007 at 6:53 pm
Did you hear me say “Ahhhh….I get it,” all the way in Chicago? Thanks for the enlightening reply.
June 27th, 2007 at 2:56 am
How was the response to The Nines?
June 27th, 2007 at 5:20 am
Des Moines water, oh my (Iowa native here) – it wasn’t pretty, back in the day.
My grandpa had a natural spring well on his farm and to this day I remember how good that water tasted. And it was free, too.
June 27th, 2007 at 7:08 am
I saw THE NINES yesterday at a press screening in NYC. Bravo. Beautiful work, and you obviously have great talent for pulling grounded performances out of actors. Ryan, Melissa and Hope were superior. I almost forgot how hot Ryan is, even after he lost his belly button. Awesome.
June 27th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Armenia as in Europe? or as in Colombia? Last time mom sent a package it made a trip all over Europe before getting down here. Oh, and you definitely want to drink bottled where I live…
June 27th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
Andreas (#6): People here at the lab seemed to like The Nines. I got a lot of good questions afterwards. (Walter Mosley can explain the movie better than I can.) And the people who evidently didn’t dig it avoided me for an appropriate period of time.
Chris (#8): Thanks. Glad you dug the movie.
Richard (#9): Armenia as in Europe. Thanks for the clarification.
June 27th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
How many are total unknowns in the program versus referals and/or individuals with previous buzz from other festivals or by other means such as being famous playwrights?
June 28th, 2007 at 5:18 am
Richard (#9): Armenia is not really in Europe, at least not politically. It’s a former republic of the Soviet Union and located in the Southern Caucasus, sharing borders with Turkey, Iran, Gergia and Azerbaijan. So for a Central European like myself (from Germany) it’s waaaaay east. Technically you’re right, though, because it’s a transcontinental country located at the juncture of Eastern Europe and Western Asia.
Sorry for being so off-topic.
June 28th, 2007 at 7:42 am
Where do you get the confidence to share your work, be its own best advocate and still deal with the awkward silences and averted gazes of those who clearly didn’t like it? Or worse, you imagine that even in an avalanche of praise.
Anyone? No? Me, sole freak on planet?
June 29th, 2007 at 12:51 am
@akaison
Reading the bios of this yeat’s attendees (JA links to a .pdf in an earlier blog entry) it seems to me that everyone who gets in to either lab has a strong and demonstrable background of achievement, as well as a strong project that they want to work on.
So prize-winning MFA graduates, people whose plays have been produced professionally, people whose shorts have impressed on the festival circuit, that sort of thing. From the industry point of view, even the indie industry, complete unknowns. From the point of view of the people they’ve worked with or who know them, complete stars.
It seems to me that the old advice given in other fields applies in film too: excel at what’s in front of you, as well as thinking about the big picture. A record of real achievementis just as important as a gerat script in getting people to buy into your career.
July 5th, 2007 at 8:34 am
On the subject of Dasani water, Coco Cola no longer sell that in the UK after a high profile launch, illegal levels of Bromate were found to be contained in the water. It was then revealed that Coca Cola just used tap water! They said it was filtered. But, due to the loss of confidence in the product, it just disappeared.
Just a little tidbit of useless water information from across the pond.
July 14th, 2007 at 8:46 am
JULY 14
Good stuff about Sundance. Even greater stuff about you going to Africa. And what you’re doing there.
At the same time I got accepted to grad film school at UCLA, I was also accepted into the Peace Corp.
Had to flip a coin…
…tails I hit Africa and teach English, and help build homes and work on my first novel…or…
…heads…I go to L.A. and grad film school?
Screenplays and films…or fiction and novels?
Can’t tell you how many times I really wished I should’ve taken Africa.
I’ll get soon enough though.
I’m writing short fiction again, while I’m submitting my current scripts to film festival – script contests, and some new production companies requesting my work.
Good luck in Africa.