Is Marco Polo the New Game of Thrones?

If you're one of the many people that feel like six months is far too long to wait for a new season of Game of Thrones, Netflix thinks they've got the perfect thing for you. Anyone that's been jonesing for a new old-timey, action-packed, inevitably sex-filled TV show, look no further: Marco Polo may be the answer to all of your prayers.

Apart from the fact that he had an awesome swimming pool game named after him, I know next to nothing about the famous 13th century explorer. I'd wager that I won't know a whole lot about him even if I end up watching all ten episodes of the new show's first season (from the trailer, the focus of the show doesn't exactly look to be aiming for total historical accuracy), but I think I'm ok with that, considering the subject matter.

Yeah, I see the similarity

If the first trailer is any indication of the overall tone and scope of the show, I think Netflix may be trying to give HBO a run for it's money. Already, we've got some beautiful landscapes shots of Mongolia and China, naked people performing martial arts, armies on horseback, and a strange amount of gigantic doors being opened. I don't know about the rest of you, but they've easily piqued my interest. The show is created and written by John Fusco, who actually has experience with both horses and martial arts, having written Hidalgo, Sprit: Stallion of the Cimarron, The Forbidden Kingdom, and the upcoming Netflix sequel to Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Fusco has no prior experience with serialized television, but Netflix obviously has some faith in him, as they've already begun to work on another one of his scripts.

The cast is comprised mostly of unknown actors, including the very Italian Lorenzo Richelmy as the titular explorer. Benedict Wong (Prometheus, Kick Ass 2) plays the menacing Kublai Kahn, and actress Zhu Zhu (Cloud Atlas) plays the "love interest" Kokachin.

So if you've got nothing better to do on December 12th (apart from attending the premiere of Prerequisites in Textor 102 at 6pm, obviously) it may be worth your while to go on a good old fashioned Netflix binge. After all, nothing says 'happy holidays' like lots of sex, violence, and ancient Italian explorers.

What's the Point?

At a certain point during the 4 hour Prerequisites shoot last night (in which we forced Canon to dress up as a clown and pull 3 takes worth of colored paper out of his mouth), I paused for a moment and asked myself what I was doing there. Why would I voluntarily put myself in the position of organizing, directing, and otherwise running a six-episode ICTV production when I was already taking 16 credits worth of classes? What kind of masochistic, deranged person would do that to themselves? And, come to think of it, why did I want to be a part of the film/TV industry in the first place? Everyone that I've talked to, all the advice that I've been given up to this point, has all more or less warned me about the difficult and relentless pace of Hollywood. It sounds, to be blunt, fucking awful.

So then I got into a little bit of a funk, barraging myself with self-criticisms and convincing myself that my show, which I've spent a good 9 months on, would turn out to be a piece of shit, with a cast and crew who hates me for wasting their time and who will never voluntarily work with me again. 

This post is not about Bob's Burgers.

It was kind of a dark place. 

That, in turn, lead me to ask this question: does film matter? Is the source of 90% of my stress something that I should be stressing about at all? I could be studying medicine right now, or physics, or literally anything else that would allow me to contribute to the world more than I already am. I watch episodes of Bob's Burgers and call that "studying." So. What's the point of it all?

I'd love to say that I have a definitive answer to that question, but that's not really the case. However, since a purely whiny blog post would kind of suck, I did a little googling and found a really cool collection of quotes about why film matters. And it was actually pretty inspiring. The full study/article can be found here. (It's got lots of pictures, it's definitely worth a read) 

The study is basically a collection of interviews with prolific filmmakers giving their opinions on why film actually matters. The answers range from the inevitably annoying (film is art, and like, without art, what are we really) to the thought provoking (my favorite quote being "as long as we continue to enjoy the peculiar sensation of gathering with a bunch of strangers in a darkened theatre, film will still matter.")

The biggest thing this article reminded me of, however, was that film is entertainment, and human beings actually yearn to be entertained. It's a form of escapism: as Gabriel Solomons says, "film matters because it has the power to connect us to a world outside of our own, even if the only traveling we do is from our sofa." Film, like any good novel or piece of artwork, allows us to escape from our every day lives and just be entertained. There's no effort, no immense amount of concentration required. Films can do something as simple as make us laugh or fascinate us visually, or they can present us with ideas and concepts that stick with us for the rest of our lives. A good film will do all of these things simultaneously.


So maybe this whole post was for my own self-satisfying benefit, but long story short, that's why film matters. If you ever find yourself in my position, desperate for some sense that what you're doing is actually somewhat important, don't give up hope. Take a deep breath, step off-set for a minute (or a week) and have faith that what you're doing matters. Movies are always there for you when you need a break, and hey: someone's gotta make them. 

Handling Pressure and Staying Positive on Set

By the time Arturo gets around to reading this post, I will have been on a set 5 times in the span of 8 days.  Two of those times (both of our group shoots for fiction 2) were for 6 hours, and the other three (for my ICTV show, Prerequisites) should each last a minimum of 4 hours. If I did my math right - and hey, there's a good chance I didn't - then I will have been on set either directing, producing, or script supervising for at least a total of 24 hours in the past week. With so much time spent planning, organizing, and figuring out who does what and when they do it, I've found that's it's pretty easy to lose focus on why you're really there. 

Sets, generally, are pretty stressful places to be, particularly if you're in a high up position and have a lot riding on whatever it is that you're filming. I think that sucks. I can't speak for everyone else in the TVR/Film program here at Park, but I know I'm here because I love making films and television. There's nothing else I'd rather be doing. What I'm slowly learning - mostly from working for ICTV - is that when you spend so much time on writing and shot listing and scheduling and everything else that goes into preproduction, when it comes time to be on set, you can tend to get frustrated when things don't go exactly as you planned. I wanted to find ways to help deal with that pressure, and hopefully make it easier for myself - and anyone else - to stay cool and have fun on set. 

I found an article that I really liked, written by Evan Luzi, that talks about five ways to "handle pressure and perform better on set." Most of his suggestions are for ACs, but I think they can be applied to pretty much any on-set position. Case in point: the first step is to be prepared. Probably the most important thing that I've learned over the past few week/few years is that preparation, as annoying as it can be, is by far the most important thing you can do regarding filming. If you're on set and don't have a shot list, you're screwed. If you don't know where your lights are going to go or how your actors are going to block out a scene, you're screwed. Being prepared is by far the easiest way to save yourself from being frustrated on set, and it will also give you a better overall product in the long run. 

Luzi's next two steps are to be confident and relax. These are way harder than they sound. However, confidence comes with experience and preparation, so as long as you stay on top of everything and have faith in yourself, other people will have faith in you as well. Relaxation, on the other hand, is different for everyone. Whether it means leaving set for five minutes to go get a snack and drink of water or just taking a deep breath in between takes, it's really important to not let the stress get to you. People work better when they're relaxed: I think that's a fact or something. 

Above everything else, though, is perspective. It doesn't matter if you're Steven Spielberg or a PA on the set of a CP2 film: all we're doing is making movies here. The worst thing that can happen to you in this industry is that you get fired. In college, the stakes are even lower. We're not making any big, world-altering decisions here (although some people beg to differ). For the most part, we're making movies (or TV, film, art, whatever you want to call it) for the entertainment of others and for our own self-gratification. It's ok if things aren't perfect. Take a break. Go for a hike. Call your mom. As fun/awful/stressful/amazing as it can be to make things, there will always be things that are more important, both for your well being and the well being of those around you. 

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go make a shot list. 

Directing Voice Actors

Between the voiceover work that I'm planning on doing for my ICTV show Prerequisites and the bizarre kitchen appliance voices that our group needs for our short film, I thought it would be useful to figure out techniques on how to direct voice actors.

Well as it turns out, directing voices isn't a whole lot different from directing normal actions. More often than not, the most compelling performances are produced by the most unorthodox forms of directing. One my favorite examples of this (sorry if this is something Arturo showed before, but it just really stuck with me) is how the directors of Up had Jordan Nagai perform his lines as Russell. Whereas other studios may have brought in a more "theatrical" kid for the part - or even a professional adult voice actor, as so many cartoons now resort to doing - Pixar took a risk and banked on a totally inexperienced kid. To make him read the lines as a child would really speak, they made him do laps around the room, hang on to bars hung over his head, etc. It was a creative approach, one that I would imagine was comfortable for Jordan to work with and which ultimately ended in a better voice for the character.

A few other tips I like, curtesy of the Timbuktoons.com  article you can find here, include going deep, not forgetting to record the incidentals, and always doing multiple takes. When you give an actor a line to read, it's going to be almost meaningless if they don't know the context. You need to give their character a backstory - as goofy as it sounds - and help the actor be able to identify with their character. Even if they're playing something that they have nothing in common with, a good director should be able to find that common ground and make actors see their characters in a different light.

Also, from a more technical standpoint, it's important to keep the mic running a bit both before and after each take, to catch some stuff that you may otherwise miss and want to keep in. At the same time, one take is never sufficient to know whether or not you have the content that you want (plus it's easier to lose), so you want to have your actors read their lines a variety of ways to make sure that you've covered all your bases.

So long story short, the next time you find yourself in need of some casual voice actors, make them do some weird things help them both A) Get their inflection right and B) get them in character. Canon and Diana (or whoever is directing producing our group's film) take note, and go cast an awesome blender.