creative filmmaking from the inside out by Jed Dannenbaum Carroll Hodge & Doe Mayer & Chris Welch

Author:Jed Dannenbaum, Carroll Hodge & Doe Mayer & Chris Welch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: FIRESIDE
Published: 2003-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Arguments Worth Having: Responding to Creative Differences

Hanif makes a distinction above between a productive collaboration that involves creatively pushing one another with “good arguments” versus one that is “a pain in the ass.” It’s a cliché of filmmaking that when someone leaves a production, the reason given is “creative differences.” And certainly, the ideal model of balance between creative leeway and guided control our filmmakers have described can be difficult to achieve. When collaborators find their creative ideas overridden, how do they handle the rejection? How much should they fight for what they think is the best creative choice, even if they don’t have final say? And how does a director or producer override an idea and yet not stifle the openness of the creative process or the collaborator’s sense that their ideas are wanted and valued?

For the director, it’s important to find people to work with who are sufficiently on the same wavelength, and not, as Hanif said, advocating “ideas which are too different, too diverse.” Kimberly conveys the critical importance of these decisions about choosing collaborators when she says that “whenever you hire somebody, there’s always a fear that they’re not going to really see what you see. You might as well be on a lifeboat, because if that person is not understanding what you’re seeing, you’re dead, you know? You are relying on them, no matter how domineering you may be. They bring you back stuff they can do that you can’t do.”

Anthony agrees that “it’s desperately important to find people whose opinions you can respect and value. You need as many people around you as possible who can help you identify how to improve something.” In fact, once Anthony finds collaborators that are right for him, he wants to work with them over and over: “The team on Cold Mountain is exactly the same team, apart from the production designer, that was on Ripley, which was the same team that was on The English Patient.”

“ Anthony’s desire to keep the same team together doesn’t mean that he has assembled a group with whom he has no disagreements, or who don’t challenge him. He finds instead that he has “gravitated towards very strong personalities. I’ve surrounded myself with people who are slightly tougher than my own particular temperament. It’s almost as if I need to be in a place where I have to prove myself to those people, and satisfy them. I don’t know what the psychology is, I just know that when I look at this parade of bad-tempered, demanding souls, I think, well, I collected these people, and I need them. They’ve made me do better work.”

One of those people is Walter Murch, sound designer and film editor on The English Patient and The Talented Mr. Ripley and Cold Mountain. Anthony describes Walter as “very tough on me. He’s enormously, enormously hard on me. And impatient with me. And challenging of me. I adore him and I think he’s one of the most important filmmakers in American film history.

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