Super Shorts International Film Festival

To Rest in Peace is playing in London at the Super Shorts International Film Festival! We are nominated for Best Drama. Congrats to the cast & crew.

The screening is Sunday, December 11th, at 4PM.

You can browse the festival's magazine online.

And you can watch To Rest in Peace and vote online for the Audience Choice Award (possibly winning an iPad).

Super Shorts was the very first festival stop for To Rest in Peace, before the film was even shot. The script was a finalist at the 2008 edition. How perfect, then, that the 2011 edition will mark one year since To Rest in Peace started touring the world as a finished film. Our world premier was exactly twelve months ago at the 2010 Dubai International Film Festival.

Congrats also to Ali Scher, my fellow Trojan, who is nominated as best director for her musical The Maiden and the Princess. Ali is one of the special ones, overflowing with talent, and her film has been winning awards all over the world. I hope she can add 'Best Director – Super Shorts' to the growing list.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to cross the Atlantic for Super Shorts. This is a good time to reflect on a subject that's been on my mind for the last couple of months: missed opportunities. At the beginning of the festival campaign, I made an effort to attend every festival, for the full duration. As time went on, however, that became impossible for a number of reasons. It started with Cannes, which Josh and I were only able to visit towards the last couple of days. Then I attended the New York City International Film Festival, but missed the awards ceremony, which included a 'Best Student Short' for To Rest in Peace. The same goes for SoCal, Central Florida, Crystal Palace, and now Super Shorts.

It's very disappointing to miss any festival, because the programmers have honoured your work by selecting it, and the least you can do, it seems, is appreciate the honour with your presence. It's doubly disappointing when that festival marks both a second invitation and an anniversary.

But one strives to be always working, always building on past success, always looking for the next project. The past couple of months, while they have been negligent toward the festival circuit, have been very productive with my daily work at Mad Universe, and with my writing for producer Brian Zager. The list of active projects expands and contracts, but never dips below five. That is a very fortunate position to be in as a filmmaker, and a good reason to regretfully miss some good opportunities.

In the lead up to Super Shorts 2011, Edward Dark and Ismar Badzic have been the perfect hosts. I'm sorry I won't get to meet them in London, and I wish them both a very successful festival.

Two lectures on Art and Film

I have the honour of joining Luc Travers, of Touching the Art, for a double lecture on 'Storytelling in Art and Film' this Saturday, November 19th at 2PM in Aliso Viejo, California. 

Luc will be speaking on John William Waterhouse, and I will be speaking on 'The Cutting Room: How Filmmakers Shape Their Story," with reference to Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven.

Here are the descriptions of the two lectures:

2PM Introducing Waterhouse 

by Luc Travers

Waterhouse is beloved for his poignant and evocative visions.  However, he is a master "storyteller" as well.  In this lecture, we will discuss some of his masterpieces as well as some little-known works to gain a better understanding of how to "read" the "story" in an artwork.

3:30PM The Cutting Room: How Filmmakers Shape Their Story 

by Fawaz Al-Matrouk

Editing has been called "the final rewrite," when the various pieces of a movie are shaped into the story we see. Fawaz will discuss the filmmaker's art, using two very different versions of the same movie, Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven.

I first met Luc on his tour of the San Diego Museum of Art. He showed me a new and more enjoyable way of looking at art. I used to go straight for the information plaque, but Luc makes you really experience the art, and enjoy it without knowing anything about the history, artist, style or subject. 

I've been very excited by Luc's work in bringing this experience to people through his tours, and now his book. So it was doubly an honour when Luc asked me to give a lecture about storytelling in film. And I had the perfect subject in mind, something I've talk about informally, and have always wanted to give a presentation on. Kingdom of Heaven.

Ridley Scott's epic about the crusades was released theatrically, and later re-released with a director's cut. The differences between the two versions are astounding. Subtle changes make for two very different stories, with different characters, obstacles and themes. Comparing the two is a great way to understand a filmmaker's choices in building a story. 

For the lecture, we will watch the opening sequence from each version, and discuss the differences, and how they change our experience. 

If you're in town, we'd love to see you there. If you're not, you can see Luc's lecture by live or recorded webcast. And you can check out his book, Touching the Art: A New Approach to Art Appreciation.

Stay tuned for a report from Mizna's Twin Cities Arab Film Festival. 

PAGE Awards Semi Finals

Shining Path is now a semi-finalist at the PAGE International Screenwriting Awards!

At this stage of the competition, the scripts are narrowed down to the top 25 in each category. Shining Path is an espionage thriller based on a true story, so it made it into the historical film category.

The picture above is of Abimael Guzmán, the leader of Shining Path. Our screenplay follows a peruvian detective and a rogue CIA agent as they try to bring down Guzmán, who at the time was considered the most dangerous terrorist in the world.

I say 'our' because I'm developing this screenplay for producer Brian Zager. He came to me with the story after he saw To Rest in Peace. We are still in development, working on the next draft. And we have started research on our next project, which will utilize my skills as a historian, but takes place instead in the near future.

Congrats also to semi-finalists Nate Ruegger, and Kristin Ellerman! I had the good fortune of working with both of them while at USC, and will be cheering them on in the next stages. Nate has Furious Angels in the action/adventure category, and Kristin has Riding Pine in the family film category.

Finalists will be announced on September 15th.

PAGE Awards Quarter Finals

In other-project news, my feature screenplay Shining Path is a quarter-finalist at the PAGE International Screenwriting Awards!

Shining Path is an espionage thriller set in Peru in the early 1990s. It is based on the true story of a rogue CIA agent and a small time detective who brought down the world's most dangerous terrorist organization. I wrote it for producer Brian Zager, who came to me with the story after he saw To Rest in Peace. He thought that I would love the idea, and he was right. It shares a theme that runs through most of my work, and is very dear to me: the story of someone trying to do a little bit of right, in a world of wrong.

I have a bit of a history with the PAGE Awards now. To Rest in Peace won the silver prize in 2009, and News from Kuwait, the feature length version, was a semi-finalist.

Scene from the Film

Twenty years ago today, Kuwait was liberated from the occupation.

The moment is described beautifully in Jehan Rejab's memoir, Invasion Kuwait: An Englishwoman's Tale:

As I stared about me, I thought I heard a woman ululating in the distance. I ran round the other corner to look at the mosque and someone said happily, 'It's clean now.' I think they were unearthing a Kuwaiti flag. I do believe Kuwait may be FREE — FREE — FREE.

To honour the occasion, I'm posting this scene from To Rest in Peace. It has been everyone's favourite since the first draft, and my personal favourite as I was about the boy's age when Kuwait was invaded. When I asked what scene people would like to see posted, my friend Nadia said it best:

The scene with the son and his painting, to honour the bright future of Kuwait!

ADR

Sound design on To Rest in Peace is moving steadily forward. Today we recorded ADR, and next week we'll record foley.

For those of you outside the world of filmmaking, ADR is 'Automatic Dialogue Replacement'. I'm not sure where the 'automatic' part comes from, it's quite laborious. There were a couple of scenes where the production sound had distant construction noises, or the sounds of a car motor running. In order to clean up these sounds, and have greater control in the design, we re-record the dialogue for these scenes. Actors have to listen to themselves, wait for a beep, and then repeat their line in the same tone and rhythm.

We also added an unscripted line at the end of the film, to strengthen the climactic moment.

Pictured above is Michael Benyaer (Malek) at the microphone, with Chris Whetstone (the sound designer) at the control board. It was such a joy to see the cast again, and catch up. ADR is often a frustrating process, but with the quality of artists we had today, it was sheer pleasure.

In other news, we've set a screening date in May with a group of USC thesis films. Once all the details are confirmed, I will post the information up! The film will also screen in Toronto and Kuwait, before hitting the festival circuit in the fall.

The Pieces Come Together

After picture lock comes sound design, music and visual effects. The pieces are coming together.

Pictured above is the first draft of a green screen shot by our VFX Artist, Michael Ashton. Michael's film, Lazy Teenage Superheroes, was also shot by Sean Conaty, and has some pretty stunning visual effects.

It's so rewarding to sit back and watch your cut take shape into a finished film. To think that it all started with some words on a page, and a storyboard! There are five green screen composites, and two other effect shots that will be coming in over the next month.

Next up on the blog: an update on sound design, music composition, and a poster painting that I'm thoroughly excited about!

November

I've been bad.

I realize this blog has been left completely unattended. But it's time to wipe off the dust.

A lot has happened since my last update. There were a couple of set-backs, and a couple of successes.

To start with, the script for To Rest in Peace won the Silver Prize at the Page Screenwriting Awards. The feature version, News from Kuwait, made it to the semi-finals of Page, and is advancing in another competition through filmmakers.com

Editing got off to a good start, but then took a long hiatus. Unfortunately, Zach (the editor) was committed to another thesis that was expected to be finished by August, but kept on being extended. We took a three week hiatus from To Rest in Peace so he could picture lock the other thesis. Those three weeks turned into six weeks, before Zach recommended I find another editor. A week later, progress continued with my good friend Ryan Frost, who co-edited Into the Unknown with me two semesters ago.

Since then, we have gone through a number of cuts, screening it to faculty and industry mentors for notes. We are getting ready to screen it for a test audience soon.

The trip to Kuwait is now scheduled for December, after the semester is over. We should picture lock shortly afterwards, then move on to visual effects, and sound design.

Updates might be sparse for the next little while. This has been a busy, but wonderfully exciting semester. I am taking more than a full course load, TAing two classes on directing, interning on a passion project, and finishing up the first draft of a new feature, The First Apocalypse, based on a true story that has haunted me for years.

Until next time...

Semi-Finals

The script for To Rest in Peace, and the feature version, News from Kuwait, are semi-finalists in the 2009 PAGE International Screenwriting Awards!

Finalists will be announced September 1st.

Anniversary

This past April 9th, quite by coincidence, I was meeting with Sean, the director of photography, to go over the script for visual themes. We arrived at one scene that we agreed was the heart of the story, a scene in which Malek draws his frightened eight year old son out of hiding. Out of curiosity, I wanted to see if this scene was in the first draft, so I did a quick search and stumbled onto this date: April 9th, 2007.

It was two years to the day that the script was written.

The story was germinating for a long time. After Josh and I finished Her Music Led, our first little movie shot on film, we talked about possible inspirations for our next project. Eventually we mentioned Antigone [pictured above], a classic that always reminded me of my uncle's story. I related this story to Josh, as best as I could remember, and his eyes lit up. That was 2005.

Spring 2007 was my second semester at USC. I had a writing class with a wonderful professor, who required us to write every week either three one page treatments, or a ten page script. I decided to write my uncle's story, and I put together a treatment for the first assignment, but my professor refused to let me. I wasn't ready, he said. Maybe later, he said.

Grumble, grumble, grumble. But he was right. After a romantic comedy, two ancient period pieces, and a couple of bizarre experiments, I finally understood what he meant. He gave his permission, and I wrote the first draft of To Rest in Peace.

Which did have the scene between Malek and his son, almost word for word.