By Andrew Lund
I learned the following filmmaking lessons from watching Top Chef:
Lesson 1: I discovered this week that it can be almost as embarrassing to admit to your students that you’re only getting around to watching season one of Top Chef (it’s now already in greatest hits mode with the current Top Chef All Stars). My gaff was almost as bad as calling “Star Wars” the first Star Wars film instead of episode four – another mistake I made this week. So I’m a little behind. I’ve been busy making movies and raising babies. I’m hoping to check out Brokeback Mountain soon. I hear it’s a much better film than Crash, which I also haven’t seen. But, on the bright side, I own both DVDs, so I could watch them anytime I want (don’t mention Netflix streaming please).What’s the point of lesson 1? That it’s not how current the film (or the “reality” television cooking competition) is that counts – it’s about what you can learn from it.
Lesson 2: I actually got the idea for watching Top Chef Season One (TC1) when I read a restaurant review for the inaugural winner’s sophomore dining effort. So I knew from the first moments of episode one who would win. It didn’t spoil the fun one bit. First, my wife who watched with me pleaded for me to tell her who won. With her PhD, multiple languages, and academic laurels, she clearly never learned that this information is readily available from Google. So, instead I tortured her by not spilling. And here in lies lesson two. A film doesn’t have to be about who wins. It can be about the why and the how instead of the outcome. Many great movies give away the ending from the start, but still fully engage us. And, with my privileged position of knowing the outcome, otherwise called dramatic irony, I relished the anticipation of what I knew was coming, particularly since it put me in a superior position to my wife, and in a way, to all the contestants including the winner (I know this last part is a bit of a stretch given the realities of reality television and the fact that I was watching a DVD from 2005).
Lesson 3: Being brash, a big mouth, or condescending of all those seemingly inferior to your Herculean talents is a sure sign that you overestimate your talents. This is particularly evident in the episodes where the contestants must work together. No one wants a teammate who points the finger and finds mistakes in the work of everyone else. Remember, film is a collaborative effort, and telling your collaborators how great you are will not inspire them to do their best for you. Better that they discover your talents without you advertising them. A little modesty goes a long way.
Lesson 4: Related to lesson 3. Contestants are judged on their food, not on what they say about their food or how much they think the judges should like it. Ultimately, filmmaking is the same. The audience judges, based on their actual experience – not on what you tell them to experience. Without the filmmaker having a chance (thankfully) to tell them why they should all love what they are about to or have just seen. As a filmmaker, it’s your job to make the movie speak for you. No excuses. No explanations.
Lesson 5: Related to lesson 4. Many of the challenges on TC1 have the contestants cooking in less than ideal circumstances, juggling time constraints, limited resources, and equipment problems. Sounds like filmmaking, right? And when the contestants presented their dishes, no excuses were allowed. Again, the food had to do the talking. Similarly, you don’t get to stand by the screen and explain why the scene didn’t turnout precisely as you hoped – the audience doesn’t care that you were losing light, that someone forgot to recharge the camera batteries, that the nearby playground reeked havoc on your sound department. Nope, the audience only cares about what they see on the screen and hear on the soundtrack. Not that the challenges you encounter don’t impact the outcome. They most definitely do. And you shouldn’t ignore all those obstacles. Learn from them and avoid them on the next film, just don’t use the excuses (it’s a bit like new parents using the excuse of no sleep – it goes with the territory). Of course, filmmaking encompasses so much that is beyond our control, there will always be new obstacles to face – but that doesn’t mean that it’s not worth trying to learn from our filmmaking experiences.
Lesson 6: You guessed it, related to lesson 5. Just like the audience doesn’t want to hear your excuses, you also probably won’t get much credit for your lofty ambition. Repeatedly, Top Chef contestants failed when they were too fancy, combined too many diverse ingredients, or put too many different components on the plate. Simple and well executed (which is very different than unimaginative) consistently pleased the judges’ palates. Again, you don’t win points from an audience for a complex camera move that doesn’t quite work, or an expressive lighting setup that falls short (not enough lights, not enough experienced crew, not enough time – it’s an old song of woe). As David Mamet said in his insightful book “On Directing,” KISS – keep it simple stupid!
Lesson 7: I’m not even going to say it. You can decide if this lesson is related to the previous one or any of the others. The losing contestants repeatedly fell into the trap of cooking something that would take more time than they were allotted for the challenge. It doesn’t matter if they can cook that dish in their sleep. If there’s not enough time, there’s not enough time. So change your plan to something that can be completed in the given time frame. It sounds obvious, but it’s a mistake that student filmmakers repeatedly make. Keep in mind that on a student film set, everything takes at least 25% longer than you think it will (that may actually apply to most things in life come to think of it).
Lesson 8: Taste wins in the end. Taste challenged dishes with lovely presentations consistently lose to simpler, better tasting dishes. Ultimately, the audience connects to your story and your characters. Don’t elevate style over substance. It certainly isn’t a winning formula on TC1.
Lesson 9: But, creative and elegant presentation can elevate a good tasting dish to greatness. A film’s production value can’t carry the day on its own. The best filmmaking combines form and content to create an experience that synthesizes aesthetic and narrative elements to create something uniquely cinematic. So don’t overlook the way the audience experiences your visuals – it is a movie after all.
Lesson 10: One of the more interesting TC1 challenges was to cook a meal entirely from ingredients purchased at a gas station mini mart. Some contestants dismissed this challenge as beneath them. The contestants who excelled took the opposite approach, embracing the challenge and doing the most within the rigid constraints (limited ingredients plus limited time). This approach created some surprisingly tasty food. This approach works in film too. Don’t waste time wishing you had more money, crew, and equipment (here’s a secret – Steven Spielberg has the same wishes). Work within your constraints, allowing them to fuel your creativity. James Schamus, our revered graduate school professor and no-budget guru, admonished us repeatedly to “make the aesthetic fit the budget.” In other words, make those mini mart ingredients work for you.
http://masteringfilm.com/8what-i-learned-about-filmmaking-from-watching-top-chef-part-i/
No comments:
Post a Comment