SHOT BY SHOT, NOTE BY NOTE, LINE BY LINE
THOUGHTS ON BEING A RIGOROUS IMPROVISER
AUTHOR’S NOTE: It’s Saturday, February 24th, just one minute before noon. At this time, three weeks from now, we’ll be about one hour into principle photography on our crazy-ass new feature film, The Great Divide.
So it’s fascinating to look back on this slightly refurbished little piece, from seven years ago today, and clock how precisely it matches my current state of mind. HOPE YOU ENJOY!
I’m the kind of guy who calibrates life in action by the micro-second. And that is never truer than when making movies. It's truly stunning how much difference a frame or two can make between a swing-and-a-miss, a dribble, and fucking knocking it out of the park.
I am not, by any means, a rigid perfectionist. If anything, I am a rigorous IMPROVISER: laying down in advance precisely what I want, and then dancing intensely with what I actually get. Adjusting to the spur-of-the-moment as it happens, then riding and dialing it for all it's worth.
Staying loosey-goosey keeps it fun and alive and real. That's where the surprise is. The anything-goes that is, to me, the difference between living art and just painting by the numbers. (Though I must admit, some of these new paint-by-the-numbers kits are reeeeally great!)
But then comes the rigor. And you calibrate it word by word, shot by shot, note by note, line by line, edit by edit, movement by movement. One micro-second of conscious awareness at a time.
I am not a perfectionist. But I do experience precision as a virtue. Know it when I see it, read it, feel it, hear it, smell it, taste it.
It's all about nailing the moment. If you got it, you got it.
If you missed it, you lost it.
And that is the art of the dance.
P.S. – We’re still taking tax-deductible donations right here at: https://thegreatdividemovie.allyrafundraising.com/