Feedback

I have been very fortunate to receive very good feedback from friends and colleagues last week. I don't mean complimentary (there were a few of those), but quality.
I suppose that in itself is a compliment. If you really have something, people can discuss and debate it. At one point Nic and Robert began to truly argue.
I did complete the two new rough edits and showed them on the previous Saturday to Nic and Robert. The 4th edit was an accumulation of the feedback from Edits 1 and 2 (I never did show Edit 3) and but for one question is the most successful.
More on that question later... but some highlights.
Once everyone bought into the construct of the film they were all for pushing it as far as possible. So...
No dialogue. I cut a two-line sequence in Scene 3, even when it supported some basic exposition. No one felt it was necessary.
This left dialogue in Scene 7. This made sense as the moment where he has decided to stay with her at least for that day.
Yes there is Scene 5 where he is on the phone to a friend, but this is not dialogue as we only hear his part of the conversation. What's more, his dialogue does not drive the story forward. It is important more for other reasons. The tone of the conversation, which is upbeat. Also that he is forming or reforming a relationship with someone else. And up to this point the only connection to the world outside their relationship.
The gesture. I used a physical gesture at three points.
Scene 6, as he has finished packing his suitcase, he moves from sitting on the bed, frozen, and leans forward, and turns to peer out the door. But too far, so that he supports himself on his hands. It is very strange, which is what Phil and I were looking for. It is an aberration, those moments when someone does something they don't understand.
We cut from this to the blackout and then a corresponding gesture of her in the kitchen, twisted, and turned towards the window. It is awkward. She could easily find a more comfortable position but she does not. Finally, after a time she turns to the sink and the dishes she was cleaning.
At the end of this scene, once he has indicated to her that he is going to stay, and goes out, she turns back to the sink, leans forward, and exhales. This is the only moment that caused any debate. Rooven felt it was over dramatic, and I agree it could be read that way. I shot an alternative sequence, where she simply registers he is staying. David agreed too that the gesture was dramatic, but felt it was mitigated by the oddness of the gesture. After all, she doesn't break down crying. It was Robert who helped decide it. He pointed that the alternative was clear, not dramatic, but also not very interesting because it was clear. The gesture on the other hand was ambiguous. Some saw it as dramatic, others as odd. It was an open text. It was more suited to the film.
The blackouts. First, the one second blackouts (thank you Mr. Haneke) were successful. Most found them odd the first and second times, but then accepted them and looked forward to them. In the 5th edit I played with the length of them. The majority were 1 second, but I extended the first to 4 seconds. I felt that since it was such a short film I needed the audience to understand and accept the blackouts quickly. And I also extended the blackouts around Scene 7, the kitchen scene, as this was the critical scene. What was odd was that no one noticed any differences in the amount of time, even though it changed the rhythm of the edit.
And finally, there is the question of the pickup, that is shooting a different angle in Scene 6, as suggested by JC. More on that later.

The shooting style - 2

I had written that scenes were conceived with a certain pace in mind. But in shooting during the workshop I found something else I could use: in the scenes the couple shared I created a pace for each of them that was often at odds with each other. For example, in the lunch scene it opens with her fussing about over the food, and he frozen there. When she sees his look, not understanding what it is about, she becomes despondent, and slows. He picks up his pace, begins eating, as if he could banish his thoughts by moving quickly enough.
What else can I say about the shooting style?
For every part of the story there is one shot. There is no establishing shot. Only one point of view in the edit you are not able to choose from this or that. You better get it right. This is where a producer would be pulling his hair out, if I had one. For of course there is no coverage.
One scene does not lead obviously to the next. This is not conventional drama. It is an open text. Why something happens is open to interpretation.
In effect the shots accumulate, add one on top of another. Since there is no establishing shot there is way to go back, so to speak. Only forward. This creates a momentum which would normally have been created by the plot, eg. he shoots his wife, now he is running from the police.
All in all I would say I am very glad I have chosen Haneke's contrivance for this experiment. It has helped clarify my thinking of the shooting style. That is how this whole blog started after all.

The shooting style - 1

I have written some about the shooting style of Reconciliation already, but from the workshop I have had more time to think about it, and refine my understanding of it.
For the workshop I needed to not only have the actors push against what I had written, but test the shooting style (which is essentially Haneke's). In preparation I planned every shot. The day before I went through each scene, planning it out, checking it with the DV camera, and the director's viewfinder. There were practical considerations. I needed to know how much I could get into a shot. Could I shoot that scene in one shot? Would both characters fit into one shot?
I went back and examined Haneke's 71 Fragments. Perhaps this should have been obvious from my early viewings but I did not notice the significance of several things:
There is no establishing shot. Since the story is about fragments this is only right. He might provide numerous shots of a location, the scene in the armoury where the gun is stolen is an example. He shows the thief, inserts of him breaking the locks on the pistols, light coming from a ventilation shaft, from which the thief hears the sounds of someone walking by, the ammunition cabinet, and so on. But he never knits these shots together. He never shows you where this is or that is in a room. All you can know you must take from the eyeline of the actors.
A scene is generally told from one point of view. That is from one character's point of view. Sometimes he swaps points of view, but it is swap. And it never goes back.
This forced me to reconstruct certain scenes in the story. This was awkward, but I find these contrivances force you to be more creative.
Rhythm is created by jumping from one set of characters to another. I have already written about this, and come up with a practical solution: I had written certain fragments with a certain speed in mind. I even thought of writing pace into the script, like a score.
More on this...

Reconciliation and Haneke's form

I have been busy revising of the short scripts, Reconciliation. This is the short in which I am borrowing Haneke's form, from 71 Fragments, of one or more shots or fragments(some short, some long), which are then closed by a cut to black.
I am just realising the limitations of the form for a short. In 71 Fragments, Haneke as a number of character sets that he alternates with. This means that he can easily create texture and rhythm by moving from one set of fragments to another. In each fragment he has another set of characters, a different location, and potentially a different pace.
Because I want to keep the focus sharp I am sticking to one location, which means I feel there is no place to go. I just had a scene in the kitchen - what now? I have already been in the living room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, even the the closet!
In a feature this is not a problem.
I know, I know, I suppose I was really asking for it, taking this on.

I have now revised the script three times. Where is it going, despite my problems with pace and texture?
One addition I made, in part to defuse the drama, but also to make the story more focused, was to make it clear near the beginning that this is the day he is planning to move out. It was important that the audience is not left wondering what the events of the day are about, or how they will resolve themselves dramatically (it is clear in the title afterall).
I have already posted previously about how I have explored surface-reality in the story - packing, emptying a closet, vacuuming, doing the dishes. But my worry was that I also presented the couples estrangement in these everyday scenes - waking together (or rather not) in the morning. That these parts are not surface-reality, and may become drama.
I am now less worried about this. I might rationalise these elements as what Schrader calls disparity, the second element in the transcendental style (which leads to decisive action). I am happy with the story and I suppose the irony of the title, and how the reconciliation happens, in the mundane - he takes out the trash. I was most interested in how our lives are truly lived in these kinds of events.
Finally there is Schrader's final element, the transcendent:

3. Stasis: a frozen view of life which does not resolve the disparity but transcends it.

From the reconciliation - he, taking out the trash - to the macro view of the world, London at dusk, with lights coming on in flats just like this one.

The final codas of Ozu's films are reaffirmations of nature; they are the final silence and emptiness.

This is the first time we have left the flat, and looked at the world beyond the couple and their flat.