Director Shane Black, whose Iron Man 3 recently passed the $400 million mark in U.S. box office, made his first industry splash as a writer (Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, Last Action Hero, The Long Kiss Goodnight). Reflecting on the role of writer as compared to director, he simply related that the former is “solitary” while in the director’s chair you are “plagued by people and questions.”
Black also observed that a prime directorial responsibility centers on the fact that “actors are at their best when they’re playful and can forget about distractions. I [as a director] deal with those distractions.”
Black shared these and other insights during a Q&A session with film critic Elvis Mitchell–curator of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s new film series, Film Independent at LACMA–during a DGA-presented session at the recently concluded Los Angeles Film Festival. (Nonprofit arts organization Film Independent produces the L.A. Film Festival–which ran from June 13-23–and the Spirit Awards,)
Iron Man 3 marked just Black’s second feature film as a director (he also wrote the screenplay with Drew Pearce). Black’s directorial debut came with the 2005 release Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, a well regarded psychological murder mystery starring Robert Downey Jr.
On making the transition to director, Black noted that this career aspiration didn’t crystallize for him until he went from wondering about directing to feeling the “need to direct…Writing wasn’t enough.” He related that the directors on the films he scripted did “a pretty good job of realizing what I had written.” Yet Black found himself recreating those films as he watched them, conjecturing how a different directorial approach he would have taken for a scene might have better advanced the story or shaped a character.
It took a year and a half for Black to write Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and with that investment in time, thought and emotion, he felt compelled to direct it. He waited another year and a half for that opportunity, a key supporter having been producer Joel Silver.
Black’s writing chops have in one key respect marked his directorial endeavors. As a filmmaker he has become known as directing action sequences with a narrative thrust. Being true to story and character development is essential, said Black, but can be daunting when you have an action protagonist–particularly a super hero like an Iron Man or Superman–in an intensive VFX film being portrayed at times by a stuntman or a CG face only to return later in a sequence to a human actor. Thus the director must make sure that somehow CG and VFX push the characters and plot forward.
Also on the character development front, Black said that helping to ease him more comfortably into the director’s chair has been the good fortune of working with talented actors. “Casting is everything…having people who play off each other.”
Working with Downey Jr on Kiss Kiss Bang Bang made Iron Man 3 an easier proposition for Black who enjoyed collaborating with the actor and benefiting from how he collaborates with other cast members.
As for his inspirations growing up, Black cited his brother Terry who wrote paperback westerns (and then moved into the TV, feature and video game arenas), director Howard Hawks, the original Dirty Harry movie which “spoke to much of American society at that time,” Kramer vs. Kramer and Jaws.
Among what’s next for Black is a Doc Savage feature, based on the man with superhero powers introduced in American pulp magazines of the 1930s. Black is writing the screenplay and will direct.
Asked what his advice is for aspiring writers and filmmakers, Black noted that this is an industry with 93 percent unemployment. But rather than view that as a grim statistic, he observed that this merely means that much of the so-called competition has been eliminated. The overwhelming majority don’t have talent, he said bluntly. So if you have the talent, you’re in that seven percent that will rise to the top. He also recommended that aspiring writers get into writers’ groups where they read other scripts and get other perspectives on their work. Don’t worry about a line or an idea being stolen in the mix, just work cooperatively and collaboratively, providing and gaining feedback. He affirmed that you will find like-minded people whom you can help along the way and who will help you move up the next rung of the industry ladder.
Juried winners
The two top juried awards of the Los Angeles Film Festival are the Narrative Award and Documentary Award, each carrying an unrestricted $10,000 cash prize, funded by DirecTV, for the winning film’s director. The awards were established by the Festival to encourage independent filmmakers to pursue their artistic ambitions. Recognizing the finest narrative film at the Festival, the DirecTV Narrative Award was bestowed upon director Janis Nords for Mother, I Love You, which made its U.S. debut at the L.A. Fest. Meanwhile named the finest documentary in competition was Code Black, with the cash prize going to its director, Ryan McGarry. Code Black made its world premiere at the Festival.
Mother, I Love You centers on 12-year-old Raimonds who, like most kids, has his quiet side, his talented side (he plays saxophone at a music school), a mischievous streak and a resourcefulness born of desperation. Often on his own while his single mom works, and routinely at odds with her when they do spend time together, Raimonds finds thrilling companionship in Peteris, a boy who steals money from one of the apartments his mother cleans. Raimonds finds that his increasingly dangerous decisions have thorny repercussions for him and those close to him.
Documentary Award winner Code Black follows a team of young, idealistic and energetic ER doctors during the transition from the old to the new L.A. County Hospital as they try to avoid burnout and improve patient care. Why do they persist, despite being under siege by rules, regulations and paperwork? As one doctor simply states, “More people have died on that square footage than any other location in the United States. On a brighter note, more people have been saved than in any other square footage in the United States.”
The award for Best Performance in the Narrative Competition went to Geetanjali Thapa for her performance in Kamal K.M’s I.D., which made its North American premiere at the Festival. Thapa portrays a carefree young woman living in Mumbai who is visited by a painter who’s been hired to do a touch-up to one of her apartment walls. But when the man falls unconscious, she discovers that she alone must attend to this stranger, first getting him to the hospital and then trying to discover who he is.
The L.A. Film Fest also awarded an unrestricted $1,500 cash prize to each short film category. The recipient for the Honolulu Film Office Award for Best Narrative Short Film went to Walker, directed by Tsai Ming-Liang. In this short from China, the walking pace of a monk is measured up against the bustling streets of Hong Kong.
The recipient for the Honolulu Film Office Award for Best Documentary Short Film went to director Kevin Jerome Everson for Stone, chronicling the exploits of a street hustler running a betting game of finding the ball under one of three caps.
And directors Emma De Sweaf and Marc James Roels’ Oh Willy… won the Honolulu Film Office Award for Best Animated or Experimental Short Film. The protagonist, Willy, has an unexpected encounter after fleeing a nudist colony where he witnessed his mother’s passing.
The DirecTV Narrative Feature Competition jury was comprised of Film Independent Spirit Award-winning producer Gina Kwon (Me and You and Everyone We Know, Chuck & Buck), Spirit Award-nominated director Sean Baker (Starlet, Take Out, Prince of Broadway) and actor-producer Harry Lennix (Man of Steel, Titus, the upcoming NBC series The Blacklist). The DirecTV Documentary Feature Competition jury was comprised of the 2010 LA Film Fest Grand Jury award-winning director Clay Tweel (Make Believe), award-winning producer Lesley Chilcott (Waiting For Superman, An Inconvenient Truth), and New York Times contributing culture writer and former film and television critic Carina Chocano. The Honolulu Film Office Award Shorts Competition Jury was comprised of Los Angeles Film Critics Association VP Tim Grierson, author Sandi Tan (The Black Isle) and Independent Spirit-nominated writer and director David Fenster (Trona, Pincus).
Audience Awards
The Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature went to Short Term 12 directed by Destin Daniel Cretton and the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature went to American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs, directed by Grace Lee. Sony Pictures Classics’ Wadjda, directed by Haifaa Al Mansour won the Audience Award for Best International Feature.
Short Term 12 focuses on Grace who works with at risk-youth in a foster care facility. Having reached a critical juncture in her relationship with her boyfriend, Grace is pushed to her breaking point by the arrival of Jayden, a girl whose troubled home life parallels the one she endured.
The documentary American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs tells us the story of a woman whose lifelong work is to attain social justice and quality. Born into a middle class Chinese immigrant family and educated at Barnard in the 1930s, the young Boggs soon noticed the inequities in American society and spent the next eight decades working to change the status quo, becoming an icon of the African American movement. At 97 she continues to work tirelessly to educate and activate Americans, young and old, to work for the changes in which they believe. Director Lee (no relation) gives us a writer, activist and philosopher as she works her way through decades of social and political upheaval, inspiring others along the way.
Best International Feature Wadjda is not only the first Saudi Arabian feature shot within the Kingdom, but the first ever directed by a woman. The film focuses on a remarkable 10-year-old girl named Wadjda, who sets her sights on buying a beautiful green bicycle so she can race her friend Abdullah through the suburban streets of Riyadh. But in this conservative society, virtuous girls don’t ride bikes, and her mother forbids it. The rebellious Wadjda decides to raise the money herself by entering a Koran recitation competition at her school. The troublemaker must pose as a pious, model student to achieve her goal.
The Audience Award for Best Short Film went to Grandpa and Me and a Helicopter to Heaven, directed by ๏ฟฝsa Blanck and Johan Palmgren. In this short from Sweden, an unsentimental boy goes on a final excursion with his grandfather to collect chanterelle mushrooms.
And winning the Audience Award for Best Music Video was “Katachi,” directed by Kijek/Adamski with music by Shugo Tokumaru.
Also announced at the festival were the Fast Track grants winners which Film Independent selects and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and Millennium Entertainment sponsor. The Fast Track program is an intensive, three-day film-financing market that connects participants with established financiers, production companies, agents, managers and other film industry professionals who can move their current projects forward. Writer/director/producer Christopher Munch’s film Frank’s World: And Tales of the Fearless Brothers O won the Sloan Fast Track Grant, a $15,000 production grant. The $10,000 Millennium Entertainment Fellowship grant was awarded to Vincent Harris and Amy Hobby for their film Third Girl from the Left.
In its 19th year, the L.A. Film Festival held in downtown Los Angeles showcased more than 200 features, shorts and music videos, a body of work representing 30-plus countries.
