Collaboration – It means you have to work together
On June 26, 2001, I had the pleasure of joining a panel of other filmmakers and theater artists to discuss the difference between theater and film. On June 30, we did a one day reshoot of a film which I produced and co-wrote last summer. Together, these events have conspired to bring me to today's topic - collaboration.
Of all the arts, I truly believe that film is the one that most depends on collaboration. I know the arguments against: that film is a directors medium; that even in theater you have a combination of writers, directors, actors and designers; that this theory does not account for the producer/writer/director/actor. There are cases to be made for each of these rebuttals. However, my experience tells me that these are either oversimplifications, or exceptions to the rule.
Film is a directors' medium.
There is no doubt that the director has the most influence on a film. I see a director much like an orchestra conductor who is also musical director and composer. He may have contributed most of the elements, but he can't play all of the instruments at one time.
Theater has the same collaboration of actors, writers, directors, and designers.
Yes, it does, but the long rehearsal process allows a director more time to influence these. The reality of independent filmmaking - and remember, that is our topic - is that a director on an independent does not have the time to affect these as much.
What about the producer/director/writer/actor?
They are the exception to the rule in independent filmmaking. Woody Allen is an anomaly, a brilliant anomaly, but an anomaly all the same. Even in those cases, they are not the director of photography and editor and production designer as well. Remember that I am not talking about student shorts here. I am talking about features.
Now, let's talk about collaboration.
I was the co-writer and producer of this film, and the director was the co-writer with me. We spent two years writing this film. Every writing team works differently. In our case, he wrote an outline, I wrote the first draft and every draft after that one. He would make notes on them. We would argue.
Argue? Yes, argue. I use the term because it is stronger than disagree. No collaboration of artists can work together and agree on everything. Many times, he would make a note and I would think," yeah, I like that." Sometimes, I would think, "I see what he's getting at, but I think this is a better way to say this." Then there were those times that I thought his idea totally changed the intent of the scene or the movie, or betrayed the character. When I could not convince him I was right, we argued. That is okay.
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