The (Rest of the) Best Films of 2011

After listing The Ten Best Films of 2011 in an earlier post, I want to talk about the year's other great movies - and there were many. In fact, my second Top Ten are all films that would easily make the final ten in a weaker year. 2011 was a particularly strong year for movies, in my opinion, and all fifty-six of these titles are worth your time and consideration (and believe me - plenty of worthy films were left off the list entirely).

11. Shame (Steve McQueen)

Shame is an uncomfortably vivid and raw portrait of Brandon (Michael Fassbender), a sex addict in New York City. Oh, but the film is about so much more, touching on our fear of emotional intimacy in the twenty-first century and examining addiction and self-abuse more profoundly than any film since Mike Figgis’ Leaving Las Vegas (1995). Director Steve McQueen shoots most of the movie in long, unbroken takes that are extraordinarily uncomfortable and effective. Fassbender and Carey Mulligan, as Brandon’s sister, give two of the year’s best performances.

12. Midnight in Paris (Woody Allen)

In the midst of an almost unbearable summer full of superhero garbage and brainless sequels, Woody Allen released Midnight in Paris only seven months after the release of You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger, his 2010 offering (which, although critically maligned, I found every bit as profound and affecting as Midnight in Paris). Owen Wilson gives one of his best performances as Gil (the ‘Woody’ character), an American writer visiting Paris with his fiancé (Rachel McAdams) and her unbearably uppity parents. Gil, bored with his status as a hack Hollywood screenwriter, yearns for the Paris of the 1920s, when F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Picasso walked the streets and tossed ideas around in cafes. And so it happens that, while Gil is walking alone through the city after midnight, Paris magically morphs into that era, and Gil quite literally hangs out with the Fitzgeralds, Hemingway and the rest of the gang. Along the way, he falls in love with Picasso’s mistress Adriana, played by Marion Cotillard, who perfectly embodies all of the beauty of Paris in any era. With the playful and fantastical premise, Allen is free to wrestle with large ideas in a very funny manner (not dissimilar to his work in 1985’s wonderful The Purple Rose of Cairo).

Along the way, Allen takes playful jabs at the current state of Hollywood screenwriting, Tea Party dimwits, and pseudo-intellectuals alike (Michael Sheen is perfect as that guy – you’ll know the character once you see him). More importantly, it’s a wonderful movie about nostalgia, a force so strong and bittersweet that Allen has devoted an entire film to the subject. Gradually, our protagonist learns that all people feel disillusioned with their own time and place, and secretly yearn to live in the idealized past, no matter the current era. It’s Gil’s (and Allen’s) own discovery of this truth that lends Midnight in Paris its poignant insight. For this particular Woody Allen fan who holds Annie Hall (1977), Manhattan (1979), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) and The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) close to my heart, I mean it when I say that Midnight in Paris is as wonderfully poetic, sad, touching and funny as anything Woody Allen has ever made.

13. Beginners (Mike Mills)

Beginners is one of the most heartfelt movies I’ve seen in a long time, and it features two of the most touching love stories of the year – the first, between Ewan McGregor and his dying father, Christopher Plummer; and the other, between McGregor and Melanie Laurent. In any other year, Beginners would have easily placed very high on my top ten list. Plummer is deservedly winning many of this year’s Best Supporting Actor accolades.

14. Moneyball (Bennett Miller)

Expertly directed by Bennett Miller and featuring brilliant performances from Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill and Philip Seymour Hoffman, Moneyball opened exactly one year after the release of David Fincher's brilliant The Social Network - another talky, fact-based account of recent-year events written by Aaron Sorkin, who co-wrote Moneyball with Steve Zaillian. Both movies are relentlessly fascinating, and they serve as rare examples of high art and popular entertainment. If every major studio release were as smart and compelling as Moneyball, it would be a golden age for cinema. Pitt gives yet another outstanding performance (after his extraordinary work earlier this year in Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life) as Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane, who, in 2002, changed the game of baseball by using new and radical methods to select players for the team. Moneyball works as just about everything - a rousing sports movie, a powerful character study, an involving look inside the politics behind baseball and, most notably, superb entertainment for all audiences - baseball fans or not.

15. Young Adult (Jason Reitman)

For some people, high school is easily forgettable, a simple opening chapter to a larger and better life. But in Mercury, Minnesota, high school is the life experience that defines everyone and follows them to the end of their lives. Mavis (Charlize Theron), the heroine of Jason Reitman’s incendiary and brilliant Young Adult, escaped Mercury and fled to the big city – Minneapolis – at a young age, becoming a somewhat successful author of young adult novels. Divorced, unhappy and a bitter alcoholic, Mavis returns to Mercury at the opening of Young Adult to win back her now-married high school boyfriend Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson), who she believes is unhappy in his marriage. Yes, Mavis suffers from delusions, and yet the film doesn’t ignore the delusions and imperfections of the small town people, as well. At one point, Mavis tells her parents that she thinks she’s an alcoholic. Both her mother and her father laugh it off, and we immediately understand a bit of the genesis of her problem. But Young Adult isn’t afraid to embrace Mavis’ delusions and even bypass that whole redemption nonsense by the film’s end, opting for a startlingly honest and bold closing chapter.

This is a sad film with characters who reek of desperation, and the result is a little uncomfortable (it shares a number of similarities, in fact, with Martin Scorsese’s masterpiece The King of Comedy). Diablo Cody wrote the screenplay, and for my money, she eclipses the work she did in Juno (2007). The movie is harsh and oftentimes a little bleak – but the film – and Theron’s character – are also right on the money. The last thirty minutes of Young Adult are as biting, risky and audacious as anything I’ve seen in a mainstream comedy in years.

16. We Bought A Zoo (Cameron Crowe)

I’m embarrassed to admit the number of times Cameron Crowe’s We Bought A Zoo brought tears to my eyes. A deeply personal filmmaker, Crowe ranks among my favorite directors, and his movies – from Jerry Maguire (1996) to Almost Famous (2000) – are full of heart, hope and absolute sincerity. We Bought A Zoo also features many perfect soundtrack moments (a signature of Crowe’s pictures) with Cat Stevens’ Don’t Be Shy, Bob Dylan’s Buckets of Rain and a powerful original score by Jonsi adding to the warm atmosphere. In the center of the picture is an honest and soulful lead performance from the endlessly talented Matt Damon that stands alongside the other moving portraits of single fathers this year (The Descendants, Moneyball). With a wonderful supporting cast (Thomas Haden Church! Peter Riegert! Scarlett Johansson!), We Bought A Zoo is a genuine movie about a family in grief moving forward. The human comedies of Cameron Crowe, Alexander Payne and Jason Reitman are the kind of pictures I want to make, and I'm overjoyed that all three of those filmmakers released new films this year.

17. Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn)

Ryan Gosling – who, if you recall, deserved last year’s Best Actor Academy Award for Blue Valentine (2010) – continues his streak of excellent performances with this thrilling neo-noir directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, who won Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. Drive is a rewarding, pulpy masterpiece – partially resembling both the Los Angeles noirs of Michael Mann and the 1980s romances of John Hughes (that Hughes comparison comes straight from Gosling himself, in fact). There’s nothing ironic about the film, though – it’s meant to be taken seriously, and it features one of the most fascinating and complex antiheroes of the year.

18. The Ides of March (George Clooney)

George Clooney’s The Ides of March is the sort of film that almost doesn’t exist anymore – a serious adult drama starring Hollywood’s finest working actors released by a major studio. Ryan Gosling undergoes a Michael Corleone-esque transformation as a naïve staff member for an inspiring presidential candidate (Clooney) battling to win the Ohio Democratic primary. It goes without saying that the performances from Gosling, Clooney, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti are outstanding.

19. Warrior (Gavin O’Connor)

The personal drama among estranged brothers, Tommy (Tom Hardy) and Brendan (Joel Edgerton), and their alcoholic father, Paddy (Nick Nolte), paves the way for a rousing series of Mixed Martial Arts tournaments in Warrior. Brendan fights for his family’s survival (they are in desperate need of money), while war hero Tommy fights for the family of a fallen soldier. Paddy trains Tommy, while desperately seeking to regain the love of both of his sons. Warrior is a heart tugging, emotionally satisfying sports film that will easily resonate with audiences – I heard cheering and applause regularly in my theater during the second half of the movie. But while the film’s fighting scenes are wonderfully directed, it’s the human drama – the time that director Gavin O’Connor spends outside the ring with his characters – that makes Warrior such a powerhouse. Hardy and Edgerton, two excellent actors, are given the spotlight, and they are never anything less than brilliant. But Nolte’s performance is perhaps the best of his entire career. There’s an incredibly touching scene near the end of the picture in which Paddy has relapsed into his alcoholism, and Tommy finally breaks from his stone exterior and comforts his father. It’s more likely to make you weep than anything in the film’s stunning finale.

20. Rampart (Oren Moverman)

Woody Harrelson gives the performance of a lifetime as a corrupt Los Angeles police officer in Rampart, an outstanding film from Oren Moverman. “I’m not a racist,” Dave Brown (Harrelson) says. “I hate all people equally.” He may be telling the truth, and the most disturbing part of Rampart is watching Dave as he tries to do the right thing, in his own perverse and corrupt way. A decidedly different but equally powerful take on the Bad Lieutenant films, Rampart is its own modern-day Raging Bull (1980) or Taxi Driver (1976). Harrelson and Moverman previously collaborated on 2009's The Messenger, which established Moverman as one of the great new filmmakers.

21. The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius)

The Artist is a wonderfully charming film. Any hesitation on the part of audiences to see a silent, black-and-white film will hopefully be eradicated by the overwhelming critical praise the film has received since it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year.

22. A Dangerous Method (David Cronenberg)

Viggo Mortensen, Keira Knightley and Michael Fassbender are absolutely wonderful in this involving and incredibly engaging film from director David Cronenberg. The deep focus shots are stunning.

23. Into the Abyss (Werner Herzog)

I saw Werner Herzog’s Into the Abyss at its Opening Night Gala presentation at the DOC NYC Festival. I was particularly excited for this Herzog film, as it explores the story of a death row inmate in Huntsville, Texas convicted of murdering three people, and his accomplice, who is serving a jail sentence of forty years. The film, which studies the impact of the murders on the surrounding community, is astonishingly powerful, and Herzog allows us to see the humanity of everyone involved in this tragedy – the victims, their family members and even the murderers themselves. There is so much sadness and regret in the film, and yet Herzog shows us that beyond this horrible tragedy, there is still life and love among the survivors. It's rare that I see a movie where I feel so strongly for so many characters - or subjects, I should say – all of them so honest and so human. In the live discussion after the film, Herzog spoke about his stance on the death penalty and the process behind making the film. After the discussion, my friends and I talked briefly with Mr. Herzog about Texas and his Rogue Film School, which I'm hoping he brings back to New York City in the near future.

24. Meek’s Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt)

To quote Roger Ebert, Kelly Reichardt's Meek's Cutoff is "the first film I've seen that evokes what must have been the reality of wagon trains to the West." A gorgeously filmed, immersive mood piece starring Michelle Williams (the best actress of her generation), Meek's Cutoff is destined to become an art-house classic.

25. 50/50 (Jonathan Levine)

How much did I love 50/50? When Joseph Gordon-Levitt tells Anna Kendrick, "I wish you were my girlfriend," my heart melted a little bit.

26. Everything Must Go (Dan Rush)

When I say I wish I had made this film, I mean that wholeheartedly. Everything Must Go is a wonderful, moving portrait of an alcoholic, with a lead performance from Will Ferrell that should do for him what Punch-Drunk Love (2002) did for Adam Sandler.

27. Margin Call (J.C. Chandor)

Everything about J.C. Chandor's debut feature film Margin Call is absolutely first-rate, particularly its brilliant screenplay and outstanding performances from Kevin Spacey and Jeremy Irons. When I saw the film at New York’s Angelika, Chandor spoke afterward about the challenges of making a movie about the “bad guys” on Wall Street. I eagerly anticipate his next work.

28. Martha Marcy May Marlene (Sean Durkin)

Sean Durkin's film Martha Marcy May Marlene is a major triumph not only for the filmmakers and stars Elizabeth Olsen and John Hawkes, but also for the Tisch School of the Arts, from which a wave of new talent has made its way into cinemas.

29. War Horse (Steven Spielberg)

After a three-year absence, it's nice to have Steven Spielberg back with a new directorial work. War Horse is a beautiful and crowd-pleasing picture, and the battle scenes are quite outstanding.

30. Carnage (Roman Polanski)

Roman Polanski's adaptation of God of Carnage is just as much fun as the Broadway stage version (performances from both are outstanding - I don't see a reason to compare). While the film lacks the immediacy of a live performance, we do get a claustrophobic sense of what house arrest must have been like for Polanski.

The Rest:

31. Another Earth (Mike Cahill)

32. Win Win (Thomas McCarthy)

33. Contagion (Steven Soderbergh)

34. Terri (Azazel Jacobs)

35. Submarine (Richard Ayoade)

36. Rango (Gore Verbinski)

37. Source Code (Duncan Jones)

38. The Guard (John Michael McDonagh)

39. Tabloid (Errol Morris)

40. The Beaver (Jodie Foster)

41. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (Brad Bird)

42. Crazy, Stupid, Love. (Glenn Ficarra)

43. My Week With Marilyn (Simon Curtis)

44. Melancholia (Lars von Trier)

45. Attack the Block (Joe Cornish)

46. Our Idiot Brother (Jesse Peretz)

47. Page One: A Year Inside The New York Times (Andrew Rossi)

48. Super 8 (J.J. Abrams)

49. Hanna (Joe Wright)

50. A Better Life (Chris Weitz)

51. The Muppets (James Bobin)

52. Cave of Forgotten Dreams (Werner Herzog)

53. The Future (Miranda July)

54. Horrible Bosses (Seth Gordon)

55. The Conspirator (Robert Redford)

56. Cedar Rapids (Miguel Arteta)

My Semester with the Tisch Dean's Scholars

During my Fall 2011 semester at New York University, I was once again very honored to participate in many exciting activities with the Tisch Dean's Scholars. I have written in previous posts about many of the amazing opportunities that this program has offered over the past three years - including the Scholars' private luncheon with Alec Baldwin, tours of nearly every department at Tisch, our invitations to Broadway performances (including Rajiv Joseph's Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo and David Mamet's Race) and meeting and talking with the actors after the performances, including Robin Williams and Kerry Washington. In this post, I want to highlight some of the amazing opportunities we were given this fall.

The past semester opened with a Dean's Reception in the Dean's Conference Room at Tisch, where returning scholars, including my good friend and fellow film student Nicole Cobb, welcomed the Tisch Dean's Scholars Class of 2015 and met with our wonderful Dean Mary Schmidt Campbell. I was unfortunately unable to attend an early September weekend trip to Dia: Beacon (because of a mandatory weekend safety tech for my Intermediate Narrative course). But on Wednesday, September 14th, I joined the scholars for an extraordinary New York Mets game at Citi Field stadium in Queens. Not only did we have our own private suite (courtesy of the extremely generous Cohen family) and private box seats for the game, we were joined by Dean Campbell, Associate Dean Louis Scheeder, Associate Dean Robert Cameron and film professor Yemane Demissie (my advisor at Tisch) for the game. We were served a delicious dinner and watched a great game between the Mets and the Washington Nationals with the best possible seats in the stadium. Not only was this an extraordinary experience for the scholars to spend time together, but it was also a great opportunity to get to know these fantastic deans at Tisch. Dean Scheeder, for instance, is a brilliant director and professor (the founder and director of The Classical Studio, among many other accomplishments), but he also knows everything about baseball. Sitting next to him during the Mets game, I learned more about baseball than I could have ever imagined.

Later in September, the scholars were invited to a dinner at Cafe Espanol, a very famous Spanish restaurant on Bleeker Street. Aside from these amazing outings, the regular Dean's Scholars meetings are held in the Tisch Office of Student Affairs at 726 Broadway. In October, the upperclassmen scholars shared our work with the younger scholars. In my case, I screened two of my Sight and Sound: Film projects from my sophomore year. In November and December, we were given private tours of both the Tisch Dance department and the Drama department. On Thursday, November 10th, the scholars experienced an evening with NYU Photography professor Shelley Rice, where she "[led] a lively discussion [and] debate on social media and interactions through technology," as described by one of our fantastic and dedicated leaders, Professor Chris Chan Roberson.

On Thursday, November 17th, the scholars were invited to a dance performance by the amazing HT Chen and Company on Mulberry Street. We were served dinner at the historic Chen Dance Center, and before and after the performance, we were offered a chance to talk with Mr. Chen. During the actual performance, warm green tea and food were readily available on small tables next to our seats. It was an outstanding dance performance, and another incredible New York experience about which I wouldn't have known if it weren't for the Dean's Scholars program.

This is somewhat unrelated to the amazing opportunities provided by the Dean's Scholars program, but on Wednesday, November 2nd, my good friend Jeremy Keller invited me to the DOC NYC Festival's Opening Night Gala presentation of Into the Abyss, the latest documentary from legendary German filmmaker Werner Herzog. The event was held at NYU's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, and Mr. Herzog, one of the greatest living filmmakers, participated in a discussion after the screening. I attended the premiere with Jeremy not only excited to see the powerful new movie from an iconic director, but also with the hope of meeting and talking with the man himself.

As Jeremy and I walked into Skirball, Mr. Herzog stood near the front of the lobby, talking with one of our friends who also attended the screening. Both before and after the movie, Mr. Herzog was an extremely approachable man and kindly fielded many questions from the admirers surrounding him. Jeremy and I arrived in time to grab some perfect seats in the auditorium, and as soon as Into the Abyss started, I was absorbed by the documentary. I was particularly excited for this particular Herzog film, as it explores the story of a death row inmate in Huntsville, Texas convicted of murdering three people, and his accomplice, who is serving a jail sentence of forty years. The film, which studies the impact of the murders on the surrounding community, is astonishingly powerful, and Herzog allows us to see the humanity of everyone involved in this tragedy - the victims, their family members and even the murderers themselves. There is so much sadness and regret in the film, and yet Herzog shows us that beyond this horrible tragedy, there is still life and love among the survivors. It's rare that I see a movie where I feel so strongly for so many characters - or subjects, I should say - all of them so honest and so human. In the live discussion after the film, Herzog spoke about his stance on the death penalty and the process behind making the film. After the discussion, my friends and I talked briefly with Mr. Herzog about Texas (Nicole, who attended the Opening Night Gala, is also from Texas) and his Rogue Film School, which I'm hoping he brings back to New York City in the near future.

I hope to write soon about some more of the amazing experiences from my Fall 2011 semester. I am grateful to the Tisch Dean's Scholars program for providing so many incredible opportunities every semester. By the way, if you're interested, here's my friend Shaun Kim's freshman year Frame and Sequence final project - an old relic from the spring of 2010, in which I appear. Take a look:

The Making of "The Wheels"

Writing, directing and producing my Intermediate Narrative film The Wheels was a long and fascinating process that began well over a year ago, in Professor Selma Thompson’s Fundamentals of Visual and Dramatic Writing class, where I first wrote the screenplay for The Wheels as a class assignment in the fall of 2010. Originally, the film took place almost entirely in a Ferris Wheel cage, but Professor Thompson and the class assisted me with creative changes that ultimately resulted in a final script with which I was very happy. Professor Thompson, knowing that this was a particularly personal piece and something that I hoped to shoot at New York University, specifically helped me refine the screenplay so that it could potentially get approval from the NYU insurance office. This meant rewriting the Ferris Wheel scene such that the Ferris Wheel never actually moves or operates in the film – for if we needed to shoot the movie in a moving Ferris Wheel, we would have a far more difficult time finding a location and receiving insurance certification from the university.

During the spring semester of my sophomore year, I wrote and directed a short film outside of class titled With Love, Marty. I asked most of my friends who had crewed on that picture to return to work on The Wheels the following semester – including my producer, Erica Rose; director of photography, Benjamin Dewey; and sound mixer and sound editor, Bobb Barito. Having assembled a large part of my crew over the summer, I spent time during July and August writing letters, making phone calls and contacting amusement parks in the Tri-State area – mostly in New Jersey, Brooklyn and upstate New York. On my birthday, I heard back from Dennis Vourderis, the owner and proprietor of Deno’s Wonder Wheel in Coney Island, offering me the opportunity to shoot at his location. This was perfect - Deno’s Wonder Wheel was my first choice as a location (as their Ferris Wheel cars are exactly what I had in mind).

The immediate difficulties were obvious – we needed to shoot at Deno’s Wonder Wheel before Columbus Day Weekend, the expected closing date of the Wonder Wheel for the fall. Mr. Vourderis and I settled on a shooting day of Monday, October 3rd – for a six-hour shoot. This meant shooting nearly six pages of material in six hours – which, at first, seemed nearly impossible. In addition, the shoot was scheduled so early in the semester that I quickly realized that I must have everything prepared long in advance during the month of September.

Still, even though I arrived to New York City in late August and hit the ground running with the pre-production process, I did not expect some of the many challenges that came immediately. After visiting Deno’s Wonder Wheel and taking extensive set photographs on Labor Day weekend, I attended the first day of my Intermediate Narrative production class to learn that students were not allowed to shoot their films until the weekend of Friday, October 21st per Tisch School of the Arts guidelines. Fortunately, having emailed the Executive Director of Production Studies, Gay Abel-Bey, over the summer and pre-approving my October 3rd shooting date, I was technically in the clear to move forward and shoot on that date. Thanks to the incredible generosity of Ms. Abel-Bey, my professor Josh Sternfeld, Production Supervisors Jeff Stolow and Ted Wachs, an arrangement was made so that I could have an early Safety Tech from Mr. Wachs before my first day of shooting. However, Professor Sternfeld warned me that if I was going to go ahead with my plan to shoot on October 3rd, I would have to move fast and furiously to ensure proper insurance approval, transportation, fundraising, casting, rehearsals and finding a way to shoot a large part of the film efficiently and quickly. Because the alternative meant finding another location (something that I didn’t particularly want to do), I decided to plow ahead. Benjamin Dewey and I met, and we prepared a shot list and style of shooting that would make it possible to shoot six pages in six hours. I created an IndieGoGo campaign to raise money for The Wheels, shooting a Promo Video over the weekend and beginning the fundraising campaign twenty-six days before our first day of shooting. In those twenty-six days, I raised $1331.00 – almost double the amount of my $750.00 goal. Because I was shooting my film long before anyone else, not as many people were flooded with Kickstarter and IndieGoGo campaign contribution requests for other films, which was a blessing.

I started working on the lengthy production insurance approval process, which meant creating a cast and crew contact sheet; drawing floor plans and finding maps of the location; visiting Deno’s Wonder Wheel again, taking more location photos and labeling them accordingly; finding maps to the hospital, police station and firehouse nearest to the location; creating a specific, shot-by-shot shooting schedule with my Assistant Director, the great Matt O’Brien; working out a specific, item-by-item budget with my producer; describing in detail what equipment I would use from the Intermediate Narrative allotment and where that equipment would be staged during the shoot; turning in an equipment Pick Sheet to the NYU Production Center; creating a Call Sheet for the first day of shooting; making a rental reservation for a moving truck from Budget Van Manhattan, with my driver and second Assistant Director Mike Cheslik; providing proof of one million dollars worth of liability insurance from Budget Van Manhattan; making a detailed pick-up and drop-off schedule for October 3rd; and detailing any red flags or potential production dangers in the script. All of this information needed to be documented and completed in about a two-week period, so that I could turn in the information to Professor Sternfeld, who in turn gave it to Mr. Stolow, who then officially cleared my production for approval a few days later. Only after Mr. Stolow approved the production could I file for insurance and send all of this information over to the NYU insurance office. Students are not allowed to shoot until they have received insurance certification from NYU – and, in my case, the insurance office emailed me questions about potential red flags before giving me approval. Generally, you should have your production checklist ready to submit to the insurance office a full two weeks before you shoot, although, at that time, my film was the only project that the NYU insurance office had to inspect.

I also began assembling a crew of students who were able to shoot on a Monday – this was a little difficult, as many students have class on that day. Furthermore, I was simultaneously planning my second day of shooting, which was to take place on the weekend of October 21st (when I would have normally shot my film if I did not have this extraordinary location and the permission to shoot early in the semester). A further complication was the availability of crew members for both days of shooting – for instance, I had promised to work on several of my friend’s films in other Intermediate Narrative classes, and it wasn’t until I had been assigned specific shooting weekends for my crew in class that I realized that Benjamin, Bobb and I, in particular, would have overlapping shooting days.

In the midst of this production process, I also had to focus on the most important aspect of the film – the casting. I held three days of auditions at the Todman Center for Film and Television, and after hearing many actors read for both roles, I ultimately cast Daniel Hasse, a nineteen year-old Tisch sophomore, as the ‘boy,’ Harry. Although Harry is written as a much younger character, I felt that a slightly older actor would be more capable of capturing and understanding Harry’s complex emotional arc in the film (not to mention the fact that, considering all of the other non-stop production concerns, it would have been a monumental challenge to cast a minor in the role, which would have resulted in even more paperwork and parental supervision on set). The actor I cast as John, the father, unfortunately dropped out of the film less than two weeks before we started shooting – on the evening of our first rehearsal, in fact. Luckily, it was a tough decision choosing between two different actors for the character of John, and once the first actor dropped out, I immediately called the other actor – Tom Corbisiero – and asked if he would be available to play the role. In the end, the first actor dropping out was a blessing in disguise – I couldn’t be happier with Tom’s commitment, professionalism and, most importantly, his wonderful performance. He signed on right away without hesitation, and he joined Dan and me for four rehearsals in the span of one week – and that’s a real commitment for an adult actor with a day job. The rehearsals were spectacular – these two actors worked very well together, and we had enough time to explore these scenes thoroughly.

In the midst of rehearsing with Tom and Dan (and assembling their costumes, as I knew I wanted Tom in a blue jean jacket and Dan wearing a Boston Red Sox baseball cap), Matt, Benjamin and I traveled back to Coney Island and scoped Deno’s Wonder Wheel, taking a last look at the location and addressing any shooting concerns. Mr. Vourderis and his son, who supervised my crew and me during the actual shoot, were incredibly kind and helpful throughout the entire process, particularly in regard to my requests for a specific Ferris Wheel car, the exact set-up of the water balloon game and the time it took to get them the insurance certification from New York University.

Meanwhile, Professor Sternfeld suggested particular shots and gave some fantastic notes about the script itself, which is an easy thing to forget about in the rush toward production. In short, I feel much of the success I had with this picture is attributable mostly to the pre-production period. It was a stressful September, but having secured the location over the summer was an excellent thing. Despite the last-minute replacement of an actor, I feel I succeeded most during this pre-production phase (especially with the help from the NYU administration – they made all of this possible).

The first day of shooting on Monday, October 3rd was very smooth. After so many rehearsals with the two actors, I was certain that the relationship at the center of this film, between a father and his son, would be wonderfully acted. However, during our last rehearsal, I asked one of my Assistant Directors, Mike Cheslik, to take notes. After that last rehearsal (which Benjamin filmed), Mike and I re-watched the recording of the rehearsal and made specific performance notes. Because Mike knew the specific things I was looking for in the performances, he was able to help me articulate and note what I loved versus what I didn’t love in the final rehearsal. On set, I asked him to keep the list of acting notes we made the previous night handy, and check in with me every once in a while to make sure the performances matched what I liked best during the rehearsals. Basically, I wanted Mike to work as an Assistant Director in the sense that he would actually be assisting with some of the directing – I thought this would be a good idea, as we had such limited time to shoot at Deno’s Wonder Wheel, and I didn’t want to sacrifice the great performances for the sake of time (it’s easy to plow forward during a shoot and assume that you have everything you want performance-wise – only to find that you needed that one more take in the editing room later). Mike’s position was kind of an experiment, but it wound up working wonderfully. He was honest with me when he thought that the actors didn’t quite have what I had wanted, and as a result, he helped me keep my priorities straight both on the first day of shooting and on Sunday, October 23rd – after all, I wanted more than anything to have rich, believable performances at the center of this film.

Now that some time has passed and The Wheels is well into the post-production period (I edited my own cut of the film, and then handed it over to my friend Jonah Greenstein, who is a much better editor than I am), I have been able to reflect about my experiences on set. In terms of my craft developing in the coming years, I hope to keep pushing myself technically in terms of my filmmaking. I come from an acting background, and so my primary concern will always be the quality and believability of the performances. Luckily, Benjamin Dewey is a brilliant cinematographer, and he is always giving me great ideas about how to film a particular scene. With The Wheels, I do think I conveyed early on to Benjamin what I wanted in terms of camerawork – a hand-held, gritty, realistic approach – but, as a director, I want to be equally interested in camera and performance. I do think I made progress in this department on The Wheels compared to my last movie, but I can do better.

If I can draw any lessons from this production experience, it would be that pre-production and rehearsals are the most important ingredients in making a successful movie. And, to be honest, there are still lessons I am learning with this particular movie – for instance, working with Jonah in the editing room was a fascinating experience. I was initially opposed to a major cut Jonah made in an early scene in the film – an entire exchange of dialogue was cut – and I had to determine if it actually worked better for the movie without the scene, or if the scene actually added something to the movie (in the end, Jonah was right - I was a little too attached to the footage, and it didn't particularly add anything to the story).

Overall, I learned so much about making a movie with the help of the Tisch School of the Arts and my wonderful crew, and I cannot thank Professor Sternfeld, Mr. Stolow, Mr. Wachs and Ms. Abel-Bey enough for their tremendous support and help throughout this process. I am very happy with The Wheels and the experience I had making the movie this semester – it was an incredible opportunity.

The Best Films of 2011

Every year, when I compile my best-of-the-year list, people ask me, when did you find the time to see all of these films? The answer is, Thursday. Nearly every weekend this semester, I was working on a film shoot. Somehow, I ended up with a small window of time on Thursday afternoons, and so I carefully tried to take advantage of that time to catch up with the new releases. 2011 was an incredible year for films. For the first time in ages, I can honestly say that every single movie in my top twenty-five were considered at some point for the final top ten list.

1. Hugo (Martin Scorsese)

When watching Martin Scorsese’s new film Hugo, it’s as if my love for Scorsese has come full circle. I first fell in love with him – in obsession with him, really – when I was eleven years old, when I watched VHS copies of Raging Bull (1980), Goodfellas (1990) and Taxi Driver (1976) almost back-to-back. On a visceral and emotional level, I had never seen anything like these pictures. These first encounters with Scorsese occurred only a few months after the death of my father, and in a way, the events are forever linked in my mind. My eyes were opened to a different kind of world – a place where pain, obsession and guilt were always present, and the only way to express this pain was through cinema.

Although every one of Scorsese’s pictures is extremely personal – after all, that’s what’s so effective about his films – Hugo may be Scorsese’s most personal film of all. Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield), a young boy living in the walls of a Parisian train station in the 1930s, discovers that an automaton left for him by his recently deceased father (Jude Law) may unlock the mystery behind George Méliès (Ben Kingsley), an unhappy elderly man who owns a toy shop in the train station. What Hugo and his newfound friend Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz), Méliès’ goddaughter, gradually discover is that Méliès is one of the original pioneers of cinema, the director of over five hundred pictures and a revolutionary filmmaker. However, most of his films are believed to have been destroyed and melted at the rise of World War I, and Méliès, a broken machine without a purpose, resigns from life and fades into obscurity – until Hugo, who understands the pain of having one’s hopes and dreams disintegrate into flames – sets out to restore Méliès’ work.

Ah, film preservation – Scorsese’s most passionate cause, and the real subject of Hugo. The film is all about time, cruel time that batters away at celluloid. As the clocks tick-tock away in Hugo, the memories of our lives are slowly dying, the celluloid burning into ash and the preservation of our past decaying. But how can we let time destroy the magic and power of the cinema, of our memories?

The film gets you caught up in the magic of moviemaking, to the point where the audience gasps in astonishment at the beautiful remaining print of Méliès’ film A Trip to the Moon (1902), screened by film scholar Rene Tabard (Michael Stuhlbarg), who worships Méliès, but, like many, believes him to be dead – until Hugo and Isabelle prove otherwise. Watching Hugo with an audience, there were further gasps of awe when Méliès – in one of the most visually arresting and beautiful flashback sequences I have ever seen – splices together a cut in one of his early films. It had never occurred to me that so many people would not have known the process behind film editing, but there you go.

To say that Hugo is the finest use of 3D technology that I’ve ever seen doesn’t do justice to what Scorsese and cinematographer Robert Richardson achieve with this picture. I don’t particularly like 3D, and yet the visual bravura of Hugo has convinced me that, when utilized by a master filmmaker and treated as an artistic device, it is a major cinematic innovation, on par with the innovations of Méliès and the Lumière Brothers.

This movie is so rich – not just visually, but emotionally – that even after four viewings I am still overwhelmed by it. The performances, from the brilliant and hilarious physical comedy of Sacha Baron Cohen’s Station Inspector, to Kingsley’s nuanced, powerful portrayal of Méliès, are superb. The editing, by the wonderful and loyal Scorsese collaborator Thelma Schoonmaker, is as crisp and exciting as ever.

But in the end, if Scorsese is Hugo, the film preservationist – the boy who restores the magic in a broken machine – then Méliès can be seen as a stand-in for any one of Scorsese’s filmmaking influences whose work he has restored through his Film Foundation, including Michael Powell, Elia Kazan, Luchino Visconti and, of course, Méliès himself. But surely Scorsese knows that, by the end of Hugo, when Méliès takes the stage and tearfully acknowledges Hugo before a screening of his restored work, that it’s impossible for someone like me to look at Méliès, the great innovator of cinema, without thinking of Scorsese, the wise master of filmmaking who influenced me.

This is the work of a master at the height of his cinematic powers. People who truly love film have, picture after picture, said this exact same thing about Scorsese many times. We said it when The Aviator (2004) soared as the most ambitious, energetic and entertaining Hollywood biopic in years. We said it when The Departed (2006) was no less than the great American tragedy of the 2000s, a masterful return to the gangster picture that held us captivated in our seats. And we’re saying it again for Hugo, a movie that has been surrounded by so much negativity from the first announcement that Scorsese would direct a 3D picture – as if the world’s finest filmmaker, who has never made anything short of a great film, wouldn’t find a way to discover the art in 3D technology and take it to an entirely new level – and not only that, but do it with his most passionate cause as his subject material.

My loyalty to Scorsese is boundless, and I’ve suffered through the lows – throwing things at the television when he unfairly lost Best Director Academy Awards for Gangs of New York and The Aviator to inferior films, listening to pseudo-intellectual hipsters knock on the brilliance of Shutter Island (2010) – and I’ve been with him through the highs. And let me tell you, there is nothing that feels as wonderful as watching the artist you love and defend your entire life receive the praise and admiration he so richly deserves, squashing the cynicism of those who feel his time has past. This is his time. George Méliès, step aside for another master of cinema. Martin Scorsese, take a bow.

2. The Descendants (Alexander Payne)

The Descendants is as moving, funny and poignant a film as I've ever seen. It might be writer/director Alexander Payne's best movie, and that's high praise, considering his Sideways (2004) and About Schmidt (2002) are two of the reasons I want to be a filmmaker (with these three masterpieces, Payne has also found the beauty in the road trip movie). His films move so effortlessly from great tragedy to human comedy, and The Descendants is no exception. George Clooney gives the best performance of his career (topping his extraordinary work in 2009’s Up in the Air) as Matt King, a Hawaiian landowner left to look after his two daughters (Shailene Woodley and Amara Miller, both magnificent) and deal with his family after his wife falls into a coma.

Nick Pinkerton, in his interview with Payne in the Village Voice, best articulates the originality of Payne’s remarkably human and distinct voice as a filmmaker:

The viewer sees [his family and cousins] at first as King does: just more burden to bear. Eventually we come to realize, through Clooney’s artfully withholding reaction shots, that they are people with private fortitude and sadness all their own.

“To say something bad about someone, to caricaturize someone, but then to go, ‘Yeah, but God love ’em,’ that might be something particularly Midwestern,” Payne says. The harsh initial judgment, followed by the recall of the same judgment, is a signature of Payne’s films…

What makes The Descendants perfect isn’t simply the masterful screenplay, or the incredible ensemble acting from an inspired cast (including Beau Bridges, Matthew Lillard and Judy Greer) – it’s Payne’s unmistakably Midwestern attitude toward the material and the characters. With subject matter ripe for easy laughs and easy tears, Payne opts for neither. In the best closing credit sequence of the year, he leaves us not with an emotional epiphany, nor with a heartwarming close-up – but with a picture of the banal, everyday life that the King family will face in the years to come.

3. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick)

Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life is a miracle, a picture consumed by the wonder, amazement and beauty of life. Watching the film on opening night in Austin with a packed audience (many of whom worked in some capacity on the film, which was shot in Smithville), it was not unlike taking in the grand spectacle of The Lion King on Broadway for the first time as a young child. It is an overwhelmingly emotional experience.

How many people will see this film and watch in awe as memories of their own childhood flash before their eyes? I know I did. The story concerns Jack, an eleven year-old boy raised in Texas in the 1950s whose wondrous and carefree childhood slowly gives way to a more troubling, complicated understanding of human nature as he loses his innocence. You can see where I might find some similarities (as long as we’re swapping the 1950s for the 1990s). As he grows into a disillusioned adult (Sean Penn), he struggles to come to terms with the two ways through life: the way of human nature, fierce will and determination, epitomized by his father (Brad Pitt, in a hauntingly understated performance); and the way of love, compassion and grace, epitomized by his mother (Jessica Chastain).

But Malick’s movie extends back to the beginning of time, offering us beautiful sequences depicting the creation of the world that call to mind similar scenes from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). This is a film that requires patience and respect for Malick’s vision. I left The Tree of Life full of hope – not just spiritual hope, or the hope of someday understanding all things – but hope for the future of cinema.

4. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (David Fincher)

The films of David Fincher have appeared near the front of my top ten lists in recent years. Last year, he released The Social Network, still the best movie of this new decade (not that the Academy rewarded Fincher with a deserved Best Director Oscar, mind you). His films are fascinating because they are the work of an obsessive. Zodiac (2007), Fincher’s finest film, was a story about three men whose lives were consumed by their obsession with the unsolved Zodiac murders in the late 1960s. Fincher now returns to the serial killer genre with The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, a masterful film with bold and fearless lead performances from Daniel Craig and especially recent NYU graduate Rooney Mara (Mark Zuckerberg’s girlfriend in The Social Network) as anti-heroine Lisbeth Salander.

You may have read the book by Stieg Larsson. I have not, but I did love the Swedish film adaptation of the novel released last year. However – although I think it’s unfair to label Fincher’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo a remake (it’s an English-language adaptation of the original novel) – this is a case where the ‘American version,’ as it were, is largely superior to the ‘original’ movie. In one of the most haunting scenes of the year, Fincher makes extraordinarily creepy use of Enya’s song Orinoco Flow (similar to his disturbing and brilliant use of Donovan’s Hurdy Gurdy Man in Zodiac).

There’s a bitter irony that the actress who represented the source of Mark Zuckerberg’s loneliness at the end of The Social Network – Erica Albright (Mara) – is on the receiving end of the rejection at the end of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, left alone in a man’s world. It’s a powerful and grim closing chapter to a new Fincher masterpiece.

5. Margaret (Kenneth Lonergan)

Kenneth Lonergan's Margaret is a stunning masterpiece. I can't remember the last time I saw such a brilliant film go completely unnoticed by the film community (although, in recent weeks, a movement petitioning Fox Searchlight Pictures to screen the film for end-of-year awards consideration has started online). The film, shot in 2005, has been in legal battles for years, stemming from post-production clashes between the producers, the studio and Lonergan.

Lonergan, a master playwright and writer/director of the outstanding You Can Count On Me (2000), even solicited the help of Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker to edit a final cut of the film (Lonergan co-wrote Scorsese’s Gangs of New York and Scorsese was an executive producer on You Can Count on Me), which was rumored to be a masterpiece. Unfortunately, Fox Searchlight Pictures rejected the cut and ordered a maximum length of two-and-a-half hours. Six years after production on the film wrapped, the two-and-a-half hour Margaret was half-heartedly released in select cities for no more than two weeks, and then disappeared from the film scene. I count myself among the lucky few who caught Margaret in New York City before it vanished.

New York City teenager Lisa Cohen (Anna Paquin), having seen a horrible bus accident right before her eyes, is fighting against a world where she seems to be the only person willing to admit her culpability in the accident. But Margaret is not only the story of a teenager trying to make sense of a tragedy and assign blame accordingly – the movie is a passionate and raw portrait of New York City in the wake of 9/11.

This movie has so many ideas and burning questions, and Paquin’s extraordinary performance is full of the tumultuous adolescent anxiety so rarely explored honestly onscreen. The movie’s dramatic ambitions and scope exceed those of any recent film I can recall – even in this studio-cut version, decidedly not approved by Lonergan, the picture has a dramatic power missing from nearly all of today's cinema. Margaret is perhaps the most important film release of 2011 – even if it is six years too late.

6. We Need To Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsay)

We Need To Talk About Kevin is as perfect as any movie I've seen this year. Director Lynne Ramsay asks audacious and challenging questions in this disturbing and powerful film. Eva (Tilda Swinton) raises the son from hell – a malicious, dark and cold piece of work named Kevin. Is the mother responsible for the cruel and sadistic behavior of her son? Is Eva an unfit mother, or is she simply cursed with a demonic child? And, perhaps most disturbingly, is she somehow complicit in the violent actions of her son? We Need To Talk About Kevin doesn’t give easy answers. Ramsay’s bold visual approach and her extraordinarily powerful use of music (both Jonny Greenwood's haunting score and pop music, ranging from Buddy Holly to The Beach Boys, create an atmosphere of dread) results in one of the year's best pictures. Swinton should be the frontrunner for the Best Actress Academy Award, and John C. Reilly and Ezra Miller are terrific in supporting roles.

7. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Tomas Alfredson)

The complexity of Tomas Alfredson’s Tinker Tailor Solder Spy demands that you see the film twice – not necessarily because the movie is tough to understand (although pay attention, because it is a bit of a labyrinth), but in order to fully appreciate the subtle and wonderful character work occurring throughout the film. Everything about Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is remarkably subtle, from its depiction of loyalty among cold men who are forced to abandon their every attachment in sight, to the masterful lead performance by Gary Oldman as British Intelligence Agent George Smiley.

It’s also a story of revitalization – watching Smiley, fresh from retirement, slowly outsmart the current agents at the center of the Circus and, by the film’s rousing coda, take the seat at the head of British Intelligence is an exciting cinematic lesson in controlled, disciplined filmmaking. This is the sort of complex and moody thriller you would expect from the cinema of the 1970s. The pacing is perfect, the cinematography is breathtaking and Oldman is so damn good, that to not nominate the man for an Academy Award would be an egregious oversight.

8. George Harrison: Living in the Material World (Martin Scorsese)

Martin Scorsese’s documentary George Harrison: Living in the Material World runs just shy of four hours – but as far as I’m concerned, the film could have lasted another four hours and I wouldn't have budged. I sat in awe, enveloped and entranced, during its one-week run at the Village East Cinema. A fascinating and moving portrait of Harrison from his early days with The Beatles through the end of his life, Scorsese places great emphasis on the material world combating against the spiritual world – a struggle that resonated heavily with Harrison. It’s rare to see a complete portrait of such a fascinating human being. By the time All Things Must Pass plays over the last days of Harrison’s life, it’s hard to hold back the tears. George Harrison: Living in the Material World is every bit as compelling as Scorsese’s best music documentaries, including No Direction Home: Bob Dylan (2005), The Last Waltz (1978) and Shine A Light (2008).

9. Take Shelter (Jeff Nichols)

Is Take Shelter an exploration of mental illness or a tale of modern-day anxiety as experienced by a common man? Either way, the film deals with its subject matter more maturely than any film I can recall. Michael Shannon is astounding as the tortured Curtis LaForche, a small-town family man in Ohio who builds a storm shelter in his backyard as an uneasy dread comes over him. This is a powerful and wrenching film, written and directed with such understanding by one of the great new filmmakers, Jeff Nichols. Take Shelter also features two of the year’s best performances from Shannon and Jessica Chastain, as Curtis’ wife – their scenes together represent the finest screen acting of the year.

10. J. Edgar (Clint Eastwood)

I can't remember the last time I've been at such odds with the major critics over a film as extraordinary as Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar – in my mind, it's the best work Eastwood has done since Letters From Iwo Jima (2006), every bit as great as his one-two punch of Mystic River (2003) and Million Dollar Baby (2004) - and this comes from someone who had endless adoration for Hereafter (2010), solid respect but some qualms with Invictus (2009), and just couldn't get on the Gran Torino (2008) train.

The cynicism of online bloggers and their passionate disdain for Eastwood be damned - J. Edgar is a great movie, shot in Eastwood's typically muted color palette and hauntingly staged in the deep shadows that so many of Eastwood's characters occupy. As Roger Ebert notes, "few films span seven decades this comfortably." It's true, and the transitions between the later years of J. Edgar Hoover's life and his glory days in the 1930s are seamless. If the first hour is a study in the evolution of fingerprint profiling (and other criminal investigation techniques revolutionized by Hoover), then the second hour concerns the personal repressions and demons that haunt Hoover for his entire life.

For the last decade, Eastwood's films have taken a revolutionary approach to the subject of masculinity, and our understanding of Eastwood - the quintessential tough guy - has evolved with his meditations on the afterlife (Hereafter), racial barriers (Invictus), World War II from both an American viewpoint and from the perspective of the 'enemy' (Flags of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima) and now on the most powerful (supposedly) homosexual man of the twentieth century with J. Edgar. What we see from Eastwood in these films is an enormous amount of compassion, a deeper understanding of the human experience and a total re-assessment of everything Eastwood has stood for in the minds of moviegoers for decades. The films work individually on their own, but they are even stronger taken in the context of Eastwood's larger body of work.

There are individual scenes with enormous power and sadness, with strong work from Armie Hammer, Naomi Watts and Judi Dench. But Leonardo DiCaprio is beyond outstanding as Hoover. In a career marked by outstanding performances (The Departed, The Aviator, Revolutionary Road, Shutter Island), this is one of his finest.

I will write about the other films I loved this year - The Best of the Rest, if you will - in an upcoming post. It was heartbreaking to leave so many extraordinary movies - including Midnight in Paris, Shame, Moneyball, Beginners, Young Adult and Drive - off of this top ten list. If I picked the winners of this year's awards, here's how I would vote:

Best Picture: Hugo

Runner-Ups: The Descendants, The Tree of Life, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Margaret, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, We Need To Talk About Kevin

Best Director: Martin Scorsese, Hugo

Runner-Ups: Alexander Payne, The Descendants; Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life; Tomas Alfredson, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; David Fincher, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo; Kenneth Lonergan, Margaret; Lynne Ramsay, We Need To Talk About Kevin

Best Actor: George Clooney, The Descendants

Runner-Ups: Brad Pitt, The Tree of Life and Moneyball; Leonardo DiCaprio, J. Edgar; Michael Shannon, Take Shelter; Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; Michael Fassbender, Shame; Woody Harrelson, Rampart

Best Actress: Anna Paquin, Margaret

Runner-Ups: Tilda Swinton, We Need To Talk About Kevin; Rooney Mara, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo; Elizabeth Olsen, Martha Marcy May Marlene; Keira Knightley, A Dangerous Method; Charlize Theron, Young Adult; Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn and Meek's Cutoff

Best Supporting Actor: Ben Kingsley, Hugo

Runner-Ups: Christopher Plummer, Beginners; Nick Nolte, Warrior; Kevin Spacey, Margin Call; Viggo Mortensen, A Dangerous Method; Albert Brooks, Drive

Best Supporting Actress: Jessica Chastain, The Tree of Life and Take Shelter

Runner-Ups: Shailene Woodley, The Descendants; Berenice Bejo, The Artist; Carey Mulligan, Shame; Melanie Laurent, Beginners

Best Adapted Screenplay: The Descendants

Runner-Ups: Hugo, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Moneyball, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Best Original Screenplay: Midnight in Paris

Runner-Ups: Margaret, Margin Call, 50/50, The Tree of Life, Young Adult

Behind the Scenes of "The Wheels," Part Two

For my Intermediate Narrative film at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, I wrote and directed The Wheels, a very personal story about an alcoholic father and his young son, and a study of their strained relationship over the course of a long day at an amusement park. In order to raise money for this production, I created an IndieGoGo campaign in early September, where I received extremely kind contributions from friends, family and coworkers. In less than twenty-six days, the campaign raised $1,331.00, almost double the amount of my initial $750.00 goal. I sent the following update to the wonderful contributors after our second and final day of shooting on Sunday, October 23rd. Here is a link to the IndieGoGo campaign:

Dear Contributors,

Thank you all so much again for your incredibly kind contributions to my film The Wheels. As I said before, the production of this movie would not have been possible without your help, and the fact that you have successfully funded this project means the world to me.

After a long day of incredible work on Sunday, October 23rd, The Wheels is officially wrapped. From an artistic standpoint, I could not be happier with the results of this shoot. The two lead actors, Tom Corbisiero and Dan Hasse, gave searing and wonderfully moving performances, and I know that when it comes time for me to review their performances in the editing room (which will be quite shortly, in fact), it will be challenging to choose among the many extraordinary takes from each scene.

The cast and crew arrived in Coney Island early Sunday morning, and we began by shooting the opening scene of the film, which takes place on the Coney Island Boardwalk. At noon, we began shooting the final scene of the picture, which takes place on a sidewalk just outside of Deno's Wonder Wheel. After an equipment move back to Manhattan, we shot the days final scene in the bathroom of New York University's Todman Center for Film and Television, the only scene from the film not shot on location in Coney Island.

It is worth mentioning that the people who crewed on this film are not only my very talented peers and classmates at the Tisch School of the Arts, they are also my dearest and closest friends. Without their support of this project and dedication to their craft, this film would not exist. The crew consisted largely of the same people who worked on The Wheels on the first shooting day, with a few welcome additions: Producer Erica Rose, Art Director Madeline Wall, Assistant Cameraman Andrew Griego, Gaffers Jon Annunziata and Ryland Tews and Set Photographer/ Digital Imaging Technician Jeremy Keller. Returning veterans from the first day of The Wheels shoot included the extraordinary Ben Dewey (Director of Photography), Bobb Barito (Sound Mixer), Mattheau OBrien (Assistant Director), Mike Cheslik (Assistant Director) and Miki Benyamini (Boom Operator).

As The Wheels officially moves into post-production, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your contribution to this film. With your help, I was able to make an extremely personal film, with the best possible group of people, all in less than two months! Thank you so much.

Sincerely,

Jack Kyser