Notebooks.
I’ve been doing a ton of research for my current screenplay (my Paul Pope graphic novel adaptation), and this entails collecting thousands of articles, photographs, art pieces, books and even pieces of clothing. I’m very serious about my research - for Lilith I accumulated almost nine thousand separate pieces of references, of which by the time production rolled around I actually used about a thousand of them.
But a reference for Lilith can very well make its way into another script, so I need to have things organized so that they’re easily and quickly accessed. About 50% of it is in digital form, so it’s easy to create folders and subfolders on external drives. I usually use a $100 USB hard drive with a capacity of 500GB for the purpose of storing the research materials I’ve collected.
And that’s about as high-tech as I’ll go with it. From there it’s keeping records in small notebooks. Each project will have six subcategories, one for each department: screenplay (which can take anywhere up to five notebooks), cinematography, art direction, production design, music and performance beats. Each department will have anywhere from two to five notebooks each, and they are labeled accordingly. I use two specific types of notebook, a MUJI B5 6mm ruled tape-bound composition book, used for scripting, music and production notes. It just feels good in my hand and the width of the ruling is perfect for my handwriting, which is microscopic. I tend to fit two lines of writing within each line. For art and cinematography I use a Holbein B5 spiral-bound bristol board book, which is perfect for sketches, watercolor / inkwash paintings and for taping photo references into.
One of my sketches for a sequence in ‘Lilith.’
I like using notebooks because it allows me to construct a film in a train-of-thought manner. Having six categories makes sure that I don’t have to thumb through my books to find what I need, and the access is quick.
I also like notebooks because they mirror the work methodology of two of my cinematic mentors, Satyajit Ray and Stanley Kubrick. Ray used what he called kheror khatas (“field note books”), and they were all always linen-bound and red in color. Ray would construct and design his films (and by “design” I really mean design - Ray was a true auteur, from writing the screenplay all the way to composing his music), and he would eventually use the kheror khata as a blueprint when the film got into production. His attention to detail was meticulous, and like his good friend Akira Kurosawa, Ray believed the storyboard to be the fine art precursor to the filmed image. Storyboards were the expression of the required graphic art segment of the director’s brain.
Satyajit Ray’s beautiful, painted storyboards for ‘Pather Panchali.’
Both Ray and Kurosawa were gifted painters and draftsman, and it is a path that I’ve always admired and seek to achieve in my own work. In my notebooks I storyboard sequences in ridiculous detail, sculpting the compositions in my head. The time invested in each frame allows me to make notes on camera movement, performance beats and objectives, and even changes to the screenplay.
Storyboard image I did for a film I’m developing called “The Killing Moon.”
Stanley Kubrick took research to an entire new level of organizational madness. For his unproduced film Napoleon, Kubrick accumulated tens of thousands of articles of research, and employed a small army of assistants to card catalog and file away. While it may seem like overkill, Kubrick knew that these were the keys to authenticity in every aspect of making a film. By researching every aspect of an environment and character, Kubrick created a total immersion for himself, his crew, and his actors. Whatever came from the interaction in context of this preparation would ring as authentic and truthful, even if it is a complete work of fiction.
Kubrick builds a page of his script for ‘Napoleon.’
Longtime readers of this blog will have a taste for the level of research I went through for Lilith, from dissecting Dante’s Inferno stanza by stanza (a feat that required me to read The Inferno almost thirty times), to reading clinical psychological reports of how specific patients respond to grief. While most of this didn’t make it directly into the film, it manifests itself in many other ways on the screen. Performance beats are extrapolated from clinical studies, how Julia was dressed drew upon observations of Freud, Jung and Kinsey. Storyboard designs and camera movements found their nascent conception from manga, musical choices were made from FBI / ATF reports from the assault upon David Koresh and the Branch Davdian compound in Waco, TX. Every choice made in the building of a film is based upon a researched truth. And that’s very important for me. I’ve got a long way to go in perfecting this methodology, but so far it’s served me well.
An unlikely source for musical research.
Every film should be a journey of the mind and soul. We should walk away from each film knowing just a little more about one another and the universe we live in. Or better yet we should emerge with a bold new set of questions to ask. If I don’t get that experience from my work, then I would find storytelling to be an unfruitful pursuit. I emerged from Lilith with new insights into dealing with grief, regret and loss. I opened new doors on the subjects of sexual identity, image and self-esteem. I came away with a deep appreciation and respect for the genius of Dante and The Divine Comedy, which with tremendous economy is one of the greatest portraits of the human soul. having interpreted the story on film, I’ve taken that journey with Dante, and it has changed my life forever, and has made me ask more questions. Forever the explorer, writing notes in a tattered set of notebooks. I wouldn’t want it any other way.
Have a great weekend!
