The Kinski entrance
When an actor enters the frame from the side, there is often no dramatic tension, so whenever there was a reason for it Kinski would make his appearance from directly behind the camera. If he wanted to spin into frame from the left, he would position himself next to the camera, with his left foot next to the tripod. Then he would step over the tripod with his right leg, twisting his foot inward. The whole body would unwind before the camera, allowing him to spin smoothly into frame, which created a mysterious nervousness.
– Werner Herzog in A Guide for the Perplexed
Watching with a detached gaze
During the shooting of a scene the director’s eye has to catch even the minutest detail. But this does not mean glaring concentratedly at the set. While the cameras are rolling, I rarely look directly at the actors, but focus my gaze somewhere else. By doing this I sense instantly when something isn’t right. Watching something does not mean fixing your gaze on it, but being aware of it in a natural way. I believe this is what the medieval Noh playwright and theorist Zeami meant by ‘watching with a detached gaze.‘
A long-term project is like a palimpsest
My producer suggested that a long-term project is like a palimpsest — that ideas don’t change but rather evolve from the original idea and all ideas following.
A story created this way will always be full of life
When I write, I sit in front of the computer and pound the keys. I start at the beginning and write fast, leaving out anything that isn’t necessary, aiming at all times for the hard core of the narrative. I can’t write without that urgency. Something is wrong if it takes more than five days to finish a screenplay. A story created this way will always be full of life.
Herzog is so polemical and that’s part of why I love him. I’ve never tried writing a screenplay in just five days but I would love to. I also think that this way of writing could lead to some real dreck.
It’s a great joke but it’s an expensive laugh
Danny Simon. Neil Simon’s brother, who was really very helpful to me when I was 20 years old. He was a merciless editor and that rubbed off on me. This was when I was writing television. Danny and I would work on a skit. It would be coming along fine and then either he or I might come up with a great joke. And he would say, “Yes, it’s a great joke but it’s an expensive laugh.” He meant you’re stopping the action for the joke. I didn’t want to part with it because the joke was great, but then you thought, maybe the joke is too inside and only 100 people would get it. And nobody knows who Thelonious Monk is. Danny was a merciless cutter
– Woody Allen (deadline.com)
They will probably be hustlers, too
VONNEGUT
In a creative writing class of twenty people anywhere in this country, six students will be startlingly talented. Two of those might actually publish something by and by.
INTERVIEWER
What distinguishes those two from the rest?
VONNEGUT
They will have something other than literature itself on their minds. They will probably be hustlers, too. I mean that they won’t want to wait passively for somebody to discover them. They will insist on being read.
Taking notes by hand
The problem appears to be that the laptop turns students into stenographers, people who write down everything they hear as quickly as they can. Students who take handwritten notes, however, try to process the material as they are writing it down so that they only have to write down the key ideas. Forcing the brain to extract the most vital information is actually when the learning happens.
Boredom is one of the most important things
I found this Bill Murray interview. It was him at the Toronto film festival talking about how his philosophy for working is just, you can do your best work when you’re very very relaxed. And the more relaxed you are, the better you can do what you’re trying to do. That blew my mind! That blew my fucking mind. Because up until that I thought relaxing meant like, just wasting time. You know what I mean? [But] relaxing is such a conscious effort. You don’t go on Instagram to relax, you don’t go on Facebook to relax.
Those get mistaken for relaxing so often. It becomes the practice of “Oh, I’m going to decompress by filtering in thousands of pieces of information.” All that’s doing is continuing to stress you out on a level you can’t even address…
…And it means that I’m never actually bored. And boredom is one of the most important things. If you’re never bored, your mind never wanders. And if your mind never wanders, you never get lost in thought. If you never get lost in thought, you’re never gonna think something you wouldn’t have thought otherwise.
– Dan Deacon interviewed at PopMatters (Bill Murray link)
Walter Murch’s hierarchy of editing priorities
The Rule of Six for editing, from In The Blink of an Eye by Walter Murch.
/r/Writeresearch
The subreddit /r/writeresearch is an awesome resource for writers that want to do research on topics that don’t have an easily accessible or existing ‘literature.’