Film Courage: Stan do you watch your work? Do you go and watch reruns? Stanley M. Brooks, Director/Producer/AFI Adjunct Professor: I watch my work
while I'm doing it. I'm incredibly involved especially in the
post-production. I try not to do much on set as a producer obviously as a
director I'm running the set but when I get to post if I'm the producer I like
to do everything I like to be the person who locks the cut I like to be there in
the scoring session work with the composer do all the visual effects sit
in the editing room do the color correct be there for the mix to be there for the
final mix all of that I like I love that part of it I was a musician in high
school I like the music I liked the whole because I think there's three
parts to making movies that people forget and my competitors in television
movie business I think didn't follow this and I think that's one of the
reasons there's an Emmy on my shelf and not on other shelves is that there's
three very distinct parts of making a movie the first part is the script and
that script is written to get somebody to give you the money that's its job the
job of that script is how do we get to make the movie the script isn't here's
the plan for the film here's what it should look like here's what it should
be that job of that piece of pay those 120 pages is to get someone to say
you're greenlit go make the movie now you have with the money now you have a
second period which is the production period which is less make the movie now
whatever's in that script may not necessarily you may get a piece of
casting that comes in that you know what they're better than what was there we're
gonna change that or we go to the location and that location doesn't exist
you may want a house that overlooks the water but you know on this budget I
can't afford a house that overlooks the budget so what we look the water so
we're gonna find another house that's where you take what was in the script
and now you have a production script now you have a production plan and now
you're making the best movie you can from that part of the creative process
it's no longer the script it's now the production script and now you finish now
you get to the editing room most of the people that television movie biz is that
I've worked with will use the script and put the film together the way the script
unfolded and if there's a star that's the star of the film
and if there's a plan for flashbacks or voiceover that's the plan and put the
film together like that and you give it to the network I don't believe in that
at all I believe that now you're wrapped now you go into the editing room and say
okay what's the best movie I can make from what we shot not from what we wrote
from what we shot there's gonna be and it happens on every film there's gonna
be performances where you go wow I didn't expect that that character actor
in these five scenes steals the scene from the star so don't cut the scene
staying on the star cut the scenes saying on that because that's who you
want to watch that's who lights up the screen I've discovered actors that have
gone on to big careers there it's not always in them in the lead role but
you'd be a fool not to have the camera on them even on reaction shots the same
with with music there may be a call for a certain kind of music in a scene you
play it and go that doesn't work there may be a call for a visual effect that
doesn't work so now what you got to do is structure the film I've had films
that start inseam 25 and then flash back to start at the beginning so you see
something that's gonna happen you don't know what it means and you don't know
where that's gonna take you and then at some point in the film you catch up to
that scene and I've put the film together and go that doesn't work I
don't want to see that at the beginning gives it away plus the fact I'm bored I
don't know what that means so we lop it off and we start the movie
where it's supposed to start because that's the film tells you what it's
supposed to be the performances tell you what the movie's supposed to be you need
to move it around at their puzzle pieces sometimes and so that third part which
is how you make the movie in post I think is part of why my films in the
television movie business have been more successful higher rated better reviewed
than most of my competitors and you know that was why my company was called Once
Upon a Time is I was a storyteller I was gonna be a storyteller from the first
day we start on the script for the last day we deliver it to the network so this
movie tells you what it's supposed to be in the Edit Bay and then you work within
that it's not that script the initial screw you don't stay to sort of like
mayor to that one script correct interesting
okay and sometimes directors on a television movie because that's what
they directed can't let go of that structure or those performances or that
pacing and so it's my job as the producer to be able to separate myself
and say okay I have this much footage what's the best movie I can make it's
you know I have all these different pieces of clay what's the best sculpture
I can make I'm not gonna leave them as blocks I'm gonna mold it into something
that's perfect or as perfect as can be from what I'm
given I'm not given what was in the script we had hoped that that actor was
gonna be the star well as it turns out the other guy in the movie is a better
performer so I'm gonna want to Lee in the movie that way I'm not gonna just
for pride sake because I cast this guy as the lead and this woman as the
co-lead stay on this side I let the movie tell me what it should be
I let the movie tell me how it should be cut how it should be scored how it
should be mixed how it should be color corrected it tells you you pay attention
it tells you as long as you can let go this is the back to the coloring outside
the lines question as long as you can let go of what you wrote and what you
thought you were gonna shoot you know the happy accidents you stuff happens on
set all the time but those happy accidents aren't probably in the script
those are things when I directed perfect sisters with Georgie Henley and Abigail
Breslin and Mira Sorvino the best image in the entire film was not in the script
I showed up on set and Georgie was sitting in a classroom by herself and it
was and it would they were these green desks elementary school desks and they
were all in rows like a Kubrick movie I mean the geometry of the shot was
amazing and we were waiting for all of the other kids to come in because it was
a classroom scene and Georgie was sitting in the middle seat by herself
and I remember looking at her and thinking that's the shot where she
decides she's gonna kill her mother I don't have that in my script I don't
have that in my storyboard I don't have that in my production plan and I said to
the director shoot that and I'd said to Georgie just look down and then look up
and that's probably the most powerful moment in the film was not in the
production plan was not in the script and it spoke to me it just all of a
sudden she was there the the symmetry of the room everything just said we have to
shoot that have you ever put footage on the editing timeline and with with your
editor and whoever else in the room and watch the whole thing through and just
sink down and go we can't use any of this and then I mean you know have to
say which which production but and then over time shaping it doing you know
maybe a couple new resuits it actually turned into something beautiful
well it's interesting as a producer a lesson I learned and it was maybe the
hardest lesson to learn as a filmmaker it was pretty much the hardest lesson
I've ever learned is that the hope you have for what the movie will be is never
there when you look at the editors assembly there's assembly first of all
is the editors idea of how it should come together and there's no score or
they stuck in some you know temp there's no sound effects there's no ADR none of
what you do in that third process has happened yet and yet I always forgot and
I finally taught myself don't be depressed when you see the editors
assembly it's not going to be that bad as bad as it feels now the movie that
you thought you were gonna make you can still get there but this isn't and and I
learned I learned quickly probably after five or six films let that depression go
don't walk in with the expectation this is gonna be a walk in the expectation
it's not and then I forgot it all when I became a director and the first cut of
the first movie I directed I solved I said to the other that's thank you so
much I walked in my car and I cried for an hour I said I am NOT a director I did
such a terrible that is such a terrible movie if I could throw it all out I
could throw it all out and start again and then I had to call my friend Jeff
Loeb who was the best storyteller I know and he said
you've been through this before you've done this you've made 70 movies stop you
remembered as a producer now remembered as a director it's just more personal
now and eventually we worked with it and worked with it and work with it and then
I got the movie I wanted but yeah that was the hardest and I still even when I
just directed an episode of agents of shield and still when I see the assembly
it's like uh and then you get there
you