It's All Over Now, Baby Blue: Graduating from New York University

Note: I wrote this piece this past May after graduating from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. I believe the piece more or less deals with a lot of my fears immediately after graduation, and, to a certain extent, the piece still reflects a lot of my feelings even months after graduation.

There’s a deep, profound sadness during this time of transition. It’s about that time when regrets start bubbling up in my mind, although, for me, they never seem to really leave, and my days are spent recounting and reliving the social errors and faux-pas I made over the past four years.

If I’m concerned or preoccupied with anything, both in my everyday life and in my creative work – it’s behavior. Specifically, my own, over which I am significantly concerned. But I suppose in the days surrounding graduation, my normal state of anxiety has risen to a full-out existential crisis.

What behavior do other people remember? I think that my latest film, You Can’t Put Your Arms Around A Memory, deals with this question a little bit. Is it possible to act like a buffoon in front of a large group of people, but still manage to salvage your reputation and retain some pride for the next day? Is everyone thinking mostly about their own moral failings, their own insecurities and disappointments? I know that I’m guilty of overanalyzing my own behavior, but I also know that I’m able to sometimes behave on autopilot, unaware of what my words might mean or suggest to someone else.

If only we were given a transcript of everything we said during a given day – every word, every action – then I would have a way of analyzing my behavior closely to see how I did (and I wouldn’t struggle to recall every significant thing I said). Was my behavior as awkward as I remember? Did I alienate anyone along the way? After reviewing it, I would probably hand the transcript over to someone else – a witness – to receive some sort of validation that I’m not doing as terribly as I think I am.

There are opportunities for opening up, but I squander them. I imagine most students who graduated last week are experiencing a kind of existential crisis to one degree or another. But my concern isn’t having an existential crisis – my concern is that I’ll continue to mask that crisis behind sarcasm and a snarky sense of humor that shoots down any real kind of conversation with another person. I build walls.

I also struggle immensely without structure. I began feeling comfortable and respected in high school when I became a part of our school’s wonderful theatre department, but that was a long time ago. I think I’ve been able to survive in college through the structure of the film school and keeping busy with making movies.

What structure remains now? There will be the weekly Wednesday evening meetings with my Advanced Production class, where we screen rough cuts of our advanced films and, ideally, screen feature-length films afterwards. The class is made up of people who I love dearly, and perhaps it’s because I love them all so dearly that I fear my excitement in seeing them each week will result in the kind of behavior I long to end. I’ll talk too much, I’ll get started on a rant about films, or perhaps a political issue about which I know far too little, and when the evening is over, I’ll take a look at myself and promise to do better the next week. But this is one of the only surviving structures in which there is the luxury of having a next week. And it won’t last for long.

But When We Get to the End, He Wants to Start All Over Again

That’s right, so many of the structures and institutions that give direction to my life are disappearing before my eyes. The Dean’s Scholars group, the classes, the internship, Tisch New Theatre – all have come to an end.

There are many friends (and people I wish I knew better) moving to Los Angeles soon, and maybe I’ll have the chance to see some of these wonderful people one last time before they leave. But there likely won’t be enough time for me to re-shape how they think of me, or for me to deepen my friendship with them in a significant way. Of course, I always tell myself I need more time – it doesn’t matter how long I have with someone. If I spend ten hours with another person, for instance, I’ll very likely squander 9 ½ of those hours by telling nonsense jokes, ranting about movies and acting bizarrely in an effort to gain some sort of attention or respect. And then, in the last half-hour, I’ll suddenly scramble to make some kind of real, true emotional connection with the person and achieve what I failed to do in the previous hours. That’s my nature.

Although some of us will remain at Tisch and continue editing our senior films in the months to come, the vast majority of people I know will move on, and what was once a fresh class of students and artists will drift away. I think I’ll miss it the most precisely because, just as I was learning how to become a part of it, it ended.

But for the past four years, every night was a chance to look back at the day behind me, review the possible mistakes I made and try to reinvent myself for the next day. I’m not sure there were very many days where I took that opportunity.

Now, I have that slightly lonely feeling you get after a shoot is over, except it feels like one giant film shoot has come to an end. Most shoots themselves feel like a rush of quick decisions, small arguments with other people – an entire laundry-list of sometimes questionable behavior. When they’re over, everything slows down. Suddenly there’s time to think through everything carefully, but it’s too late to change anyone’s opinion of you because everyone has moved on, and that rush that comes with having so much to do has vanished. There’s the need to lay low, make amends and keep quiet for a while, and you’re not totally sure if there will always be a next shoot, and you know you may not see many of these wonderful people ever again after spending so much time with them.

That’s what graduation feels like.

After the Gold Rush

It’s late at night when I get the most anxious – when I realize that all of the plans and dreams I had for a given day did not come to fruition, that I accomplished very little and that, frankly, I regressed in many ways. And then I fight against the night to fix what I can before I run out of steam and energy. When I wake up in the morning, the world seems so full of opportunity and promise again. Energized by the potential of the day, I get a little giddy, and I goof around, leaving the work for just a little bit later, and I goof around some more – until it’s nighttime, and I realize that I let all of that opportunity and promise slip away. But that’s okay, because the next morning –

When you get to the end, you know there are so many people who you could have gotten to know better. Oh, how I wish I had been more candid, more genuine and free of cynicism.

It’s true that there are wonderful things that await me. I get to live with two of my dearest friends this summer. I will continue working on my advanced film, a project I’m very proud of, and I will be faced with a few more opportunities, perhaps, to better my behavior in front of people I respect and admire.

But, for me, there’s always going to be a tension every day between the need to behave, to be rational, to make a good impression on others – and then the impulse to somehow transcend the day, to act a little bit crazier and take a few risks – but in doing so, maybe you get the chance to earn the love and respect for which you’ve been searching. And then there’s the fall – where the behavior comes crashing down and those risks turn into regrets, and you wonder why you didn’t play it safe and just behave like a normal human being.

Our last advanced production class with Yemane Demissie profoundly moved me. He screened Alexander Payne’s About Schmidt for the class, and although the film is one of my favorite movies, I didn’t initially understand why Yemane selected the film to end our class. He told us that he thought showing a transition film about college graduation might be a little obvious, so he wanted to show a film about a different moment of transition in a person’s life. The movie, as it always does, made me tear up a little bit at the end. But, after it ended, Yemane sat in front of the class and connected About Schmidt to my future in a way that I had never considered.

Schmidt (Jack Nicholson) plants a seed at the beginning of the film by sending a monthly donation to a six-year old child named Ndugu, who lives in a developing country, through a program called Childreach. It’s exactly the kind of thing an American man in his late sixties might do to give back, or to feel he’s doing some good in the world. Schmidt expects nothing by sending the check, though – it’s a genuine act that results in him writing letters to Ndugu throughout the film, speaking his mind and sharing his insecurities with a young boy who probably doesn’t understand what he’s talking about.

Over the course of the film, it becomes clear that Schmidt has planted nothing with his family – after his wife dies, he’s left to fend alone against his daughter and her fiancé. By the end of the film, Schmidt is alone. He has nobody left, and he has failed. His daughter marries the imbecile he so strongly urges her not to, and after the wedding, she’s gone, out of reach.

His wife is gone, too. He is mostly forgotten by his co-workers from his insurance office. “Relatively soon, I will die,” Schmidt writes to Ndugu. “Maybe in 20 years, maybe tomorrow, it doesn’t matter. Once I am dead and everyone who knew me dies too, it will be as though I never existed. What difference has my life made to anyone? None that I can think of. None at all.”

In the last scene, however, he opens a letter from a Sister who works in a small village in Tanzania and cares for young Ndugu. She tells Schmidt that Ndugu reads all of his letters and thinks of him every day. Enclosed with the letter is a painting by Ndugu, which shows two stick figures – one shorter than the other – holding hands. Schmidt breaks down crying. In the end of the film, Ndugu is his salvation. He expected nothing from it, and put his time and energy into relationships that ultimately failed him – but it was Ndugu that gave him his salvation.

Yemane asked us to remember, as we go forward in life, that if we plant something small and expect nothing from it, it could very well end up being our salvation. You never know what is going to end up saving you, and it may very well come from the place you least expect.

The graduation speech I needed came from Yemane Demissie. But it also made me wonder, where or what is my Ndugu? I worry and struggle through so many strained relationships, but which are the ones that will come through in the end?

How many times I have felt just like Schmidt – my last-ditch ambitions foiled, forced to return home, disappointed and defeated, only to have my spirits lifted by the smallest and most unexpected source. However deluded my happiness – or Schmidt’s – might be, it’s what keeps me going.

And so I move forward into a world of uncertainty and anxiety. My expectations are unrealistically high, and hopefully I won’t be crushed with disappointment. I only wish I knew the identity of my Ndugu, so that I can keep my eyes open and my heart ready for whatever ends up being my salvation.

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.

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

A Boy And His Dreams of the Cinema: Scorsese, Hugo and Me

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.

And it is in this way that I looked to Scorsese, really, as a sort of father figure – as a filmmaker who spoke to the fears and obsessions I harbored at a very young age, but also as a filmmaker who understood the excitement and thrilling rush of living. His films are experiential in a way that other movies are not, and I think I recognized early on that no other filmmaker was capable of communicating “an intensity onscreen that matches what [one] perceives/suffers in real life,” as eloquently stated by Chris Hodenfield in his article “You’ve Got to Love Something Enough to Kill It: The Art of Noncompromise.”

On December 20th, 2002, I was a twelve year-old boy sitting bright-eyed, entranced, exhilarated and moved by Gangs of New York on its opening day at the AMC Barton Creek Cinema in Austin, Texas – my first Scorsese film in theaters and a life-changing – yes, an absolutely life-changing – experience. And so with Hugo has Scorsese finally made a film about a twelve year-old boy enveloped by the cinema. And not just a twelve year-old boy, mind you, but a boy with a recently deceased father who seeks emotional satisfaction through the imagination and power of cinema. If there was ever a Scorsese film made just for me, surely this is the one.

My anticipation for a new Scorsese picture is unmatched; I await a new Scorsese movie the same way some anticipate a sort of religious experience. I don’t know if it's truly possible to count the ways Scorsese has influenced every single part of my everyday life, down to the music I listen to daily (The Rolling Stones, Van Morrison) to my beliefs about people, down to the way I experience things, every blink, cut and interpretation of events – not to mention my choice to attend New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Scorsese’s alma mater. His work is such a fundamentally important part of my life that there are times when I don’t know how much I originally found similarities between my personal demons and Scorsese’s work, and how much Scorsese’s work ultimately influenced my behavior.

“Movies are the memories of our lifetime. We need to keep them alive.” - Martin Scorsese

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 two 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.

Behind the Scenes of "The Wheels"

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 first day of shooting on Monday, October 3rd. In a series of upcoming posts, I will detail the extensive pre-production process for this picture, as well as other adventures from this great semester. Here is a link to the IndieGoGo campaign:

Dear Contributers,

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

I want to provide you with an update regarding shooting. The first day of shooting was on Monday, October 3rd, and it could not have been smoother. We shot at Deno’s Wonder Wheel, one of the most famous landmarks in Coney Island that has been featured in countless films, for about seven hours straight. The owner arranged for my crew and me to have full access to the park on Monday, despite the fact that the Wonder Wheel is usually reserved for professional films (most recently, Men in Black 3 rented out the Wonder Wheel for two weeks of shooting).

We had great weather, terrific acting, an extraordinary crew of very talented Tisch School of the Arts students and an incredible location. We shot some of the film’s most important scenes and got the best possible performances from the actors. After many rehearsals with the two actors – the excellent Tom Corbisiero and Dan Hasse – I was certain that the relationship at the center of this film, between a father and his son, would be wonderfully acted. Fortunately, we were lucky and prepared enough to have more than great performances on Monday. Behind the camera, cinematographer Ben Dewey and assistant camerawoman Arina Blinova made the most of this visually stunning location; sound mixer Bobb Barito and boom operator Miki Benyamini recorded some excellent sound; Alex Fofonoff and Jesse Rosenberg gaffed and lit the scenes; script supervisor Julie Augustine kept an eye out for continuity; and assistant directors Matt O’Brien and Mike Cheslik kept me on schedule and assisted me with acting notes. I am very lucky to get to work with these professionals.

Of course, none of this would have been accomplishable without your generosity, which made it possible to feed the cast and crew, transport cast/crew members to Coney Island and back to Manhattan, pay for a Budget Van rental for the movement of equipment, purchase film equipment and account for additional production costs.

Our second day of shooting will be on October 23rd, and we are currently preparing for that shooting date. Thank you so much for your help with this film – I assure you that we are making an excellent, powerful project that I hope you will enjoy.

Sincerely,

Jack Kyser

Deno's Wonder Wheel - Monday, October 3rd