MARTIN GRIFFIN, WRITER
  • Welcome
  • Blog
  • Fiction
  • Non-Fiction
  • Hangfire
  • Contact

September Shorts: Director or Selector

23/9/2020

 
Picture
I'm an on-and-off listener to The Rewatchables, a podcast offering an irreverent and amusing dissection of an old movie each week.

Recently I was enjoying an episode exploring Tony Scott's final movie, Unstoppable. I love the film. It did OK business at the box office and garnered its fair share of critical praise but it was a runaway train disaster movie and as such, didn't much trouble the end-of-year lists back in 2010. So if you've never heard of it don't feel bad.

The episode's special guest was Quentin Tarantino, a huge fan of Unstoppable and of Tony Scott. Tarantino speaks at 100 miles an hour about most things film-related but he's operating at top-speed for much of the show, scattergunning stories, observations and analyses.

Here's what struck me. Tarantino described himself and Scott as polar opposites when it came to directing movies. I'm paraphrasing, but the gist was this: Tarantino described himself as a director. I shoot using a single camera, he explained. Every scene you see was composed by me. I framed and arranged it, I organised it and I shot it. Tony Scott, he goes on the say, is a selector. He shoots with five, six... nine cameras at once. Other people are shooting the footage. Scott is the genius who selects the results and cuts them together.

Director versus selector. An interesting distinction.

It made me think about fiction writing. Much as I'd like to be a director - much as I'd love to have everything staged and rehearsed scene-by-scene before the first keystroke - I just don't seem to be able to do it. I write tens of thousands of words that I don't use; scene after scene that might end up in a book but might not. My current project is 120,000 words' worth of prose so far. I still don't think I've got it anywhere near right yet.

It's exhausting, infuriating and discouraging. But I think it's about all I can do. I'm a selector, not a director. And I've gotta say, most days I wish it was different.

Comments are closed.

    Archives

    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    December 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Welcome
  • Blog
  • Fiction
  • Non-Fiction
  • Hangfire
  • Contact