Tyler Gibb – Writer, Director, Editor, Filmmaker

Been having a good back and forth with Godheval in the comments section of my last entry about writing. It’s got me thinking about process and over the next little while I’m going to try to post about my writing process. I’m always interested in hearing about the processes of others as well so don’t be shy.

But before I get to that, I’ll share a little bit about my latest experience in the prelude to my writing process: Research.

I do lot of research in the early part of just about any script. Most of that research I do online, as I’m sure many people do. Recently I was looking for information on satellite technology; more specifically Earth observation from orbit. Occasionally it’s sobering and often amusing to be reminded of the perils of this online research methodology. The following is a snippet of “information” I came across online:

“A spy satellite can monitor a person’s every movement, even when the “target” is indoors or deep in the interior of a building or traveling rapidly down the highway in a car […] Besides tracking a person’s every action and relaying the data to a computer screen on earth, amazing powers of satellites include reading a person’s mind, monitoring conversations, manipulating electronic instruments and physically assaulting someone with a laser beam.”

Wait, what?

Diversify.

My cautionary word of the day.

Works for investment bankers, works for me. I’ve stated previously that I’ve got enough scripts and script ideas that I’ll likely never be able to produce them all by myself in one lifetime. Despite the conclusion I reached in that previous post about these scripts spanning a gamut of genres, ultimately this diversity is a good thing. I recommend it.

And remember, you’re reading the thoughts of a man who once spent nearly four years invested in one project. Not something I recommend.

It seems like a pretty obvious bit of advice but it – like many little gems – bears repeating to ourselves every now and then. It’s not worth getting overly invested in one project. You have to have other things going on – and not just to have something else to jump to – but for the health of all your projects. When you’ve just got the one thing then it becomes an obsession (see, four years of your life in trade for a cartoon). And the obsessed tend to lack perspective on things. To put it differently, the more you put into one pot the harder it gets to lift off the stove. And what happens to something if you can’t get it off the stove? It burns and you go hungry.

Better to have a few pots on the cooker.

Not so long ago I participated in a government subsidized program in support of the film industry (Hi, I’m from Canada!). In the application paperwork there was a question among the usual informational fare that stuck with me. The question was: “What do you value most about being a writer?”

I was completely stumped.

I still am. Forget trying to analyze what they might be trying to glean about my personality from such a question, I was stuck on simply trying to comprehend the question itself. What do I value about being a writer? Could it be the low to non-existent income? The lack of having anything in common with anybody in my family or social circle? Or maybe what I value most is having the measure of my hard work gauged – in seconds and without any real pontification – by everybody.

Yeah, there’s lots to value about being a writer. So why do it? You know why. If you’re reading this, you know why. Because you don’t choose “the arts.” Who would? It’s a hereditary affliction and you live with it. That sounds worse than it is. It sounds like a resentful complaint, but it’s not. It’s just a statement of fact.

They gave me three lines to answer the question on the application form. Three things I value most about being a writer. In the end I could think of only one and I wrote:

“The ability to exorcise stories from my brain.”

And really, I don’t know what I’d do without it.

The other day I was listening to some podcast jibjab about Oscar best picture winner The Hurt Locker and its current re-release woes. As has been trendy in recent years, big Oscar winners often get a second theatrical life. It seems however that major US exhibitors are reticent to give Kathryn Bigelow‘s flick another shot at the big screen as it has already been released on DVD.

But this isn’t an essay on the closing release window gap that’s going to spell the inevitable destruction of the old way of doing things. *Sob*. Boring. What made my ears perk up during this discourse was when one commentator lamented that it was a shame that without a re-release few people will ever have seen Bigelow’s film on a big screen; “the way it was meant to be seen.”

This was interesting to me because with the cinemascape changing so much lately I wonder how many filmmakers still actually envision their movie on a big screen.

I used to design websites and one thing I learned very early on in this type of media design is that you can’t control everything. You do your best to cover all platforms, browsers, plug-ins, etc but when it comes down to it, your immaculate design doesn’t stand a chance against a computer user with his own control over his screen colour calibration, resolution and aspect ratio. So you do your best to control what you can and learn to accept what you can’t.

When I produce something I do think about the final destination. An obvious example would be where titling comes into play. A small font size on a big screen looks great – not so much when it is downgraded to a smudge on the web version. But titling can be altered for varied exports in post. Shot footage, less so. The notion of a close up or an extreme wide is going to change drastically depending on whether you’re shooting for a theater display or a cell phone. So, like, website design you sort of have to control what you can and accept that your brilliant cinematography and sound mix may not translate too well to, say, the LCD display and previously-loved headsets of an in-flight movie.

I’m not advocating mediocrity or settling for less than what your project deserves. I’m just thinking about the fact that the more the technologies advance – the more multifarious the media become – the more finesse it is going to take to bring out the best in your project wherever and however it is seen.

So will most people lamentably not see The Hurt Locker the way it was intended? That depends on what Kathryn Bigelow intended, I guess.

I’ve been a neglectful blogger – I apologize. I don’t really have any excuse either. Just that I’ve been churning out copy like a teletype machine these days and it’s taxing for me to even think about doing any “recreational” writing.

But here I am. Because that’s what you want isn’t it? Isn’t it, internet? More. Always more. You succubus of information, you.

I wanted to share a little writer’s victory with you. This victory is – as most writer’s victories are – a personal victory. It’s the victory of letting go.

You know how it is. You write something. It’s amazing. There isn’t a word that could be changed about it to make it any better. (I will now employ an automotive simile that will tie in nicely with an anecdote later on:) What you’ve written is like a beautiful road that you’ve traveled down so many times that you don’t even have to think about it because there’s no way it can change.

Until it changes. That is, until the circumstances change. Maybe what’s changed is the budget of the film or the location needs to be re-thunk or it could be that your amazing script just isn’t as amazing as you’ve come to believe.

I was driving along a highway this past winter (Look out, it’s my automotive anecdote!) when the driving conditions changed rather drastically. It was early afternoon but there was suddenly a whiteout of blowing snow and fog – I’m not even sure how that’s meteorologically possible, but there I was. Visibility sank to about zero. Despite this, most people on the road did not turn on their lights making their cars invisible, effectively putting everyone in danger. I’m not talking about hitting the hazards button and braking down to 30 km/h. I’m just saying circumstances had changed that required a measured response. In this case the measured response was overcoming the mental conditioning that tells us you don’t have to turn on your car lights before sunset.

All this to say, I had a minor victory the other day when I cut a scene of dialogue from a script. I’d been enamoured by my own witty dialogue and just loved the way the jokes were constructed. I’d be reworking the entire script for ages but never wanted to touch this precious scene. But what I’d done by editing the rest of the script around it was I’d changed the circumstances around the scene, the characters. On its own the scene was still a beat by beat gem but in the greater context it stuck out like a sore thumb. So I turned on my lights. Cut out my darling dialogue. Now everything plays smoothly.

I’ll miss the scene but its for the greater good. A personal victory. A victory over pride and self-satisfaction – refuges, both, of mediocrity.

Okay. Good. I’ve done my online social duty. Thanks for coming by.

Hey, by the way, have you seen Refrain yet? You have? That’s great. Did you like it? Got anything to say about it? Then what are you waiting for? Post your feedback online, (facebook, twitter, imdb, youtube, amazon, anywhere would be great)! Word of mouth makes all the difference.