gregorybayne(dot)com

This I Believe

“A film is – or should be – more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what’s behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.” – Stanley Kubrick

Belief is a funny thing. It can be a powerful tool for change, or a personal driver to success. Yet, it can often times be mis-guided, even destructive, leading to both intentional, and unintentional wrongs. Like all things in this human aresenal of survival, it can be a double edge sword.

In the creation of art, belief can easily succumb to doubt, or cloud our objectivity. In contrast, it can also lead us in bold, new, and transformative directions. Suffice to say, belief is a required ingredient for follow through on any endeavor, creative or otherwise.

The rubber truly meets the road for us creatives though when it comes time to share our work.

As we move outside the comfort zone of our collaborators, peers, and supporters it is inevitable we will run up against criticism of our work. Some harsh, some ridiculous, some warranted, and some not. The best elixir for these criticisms is our belief, true (and objective) belief in the work we are putting out.

My film, PERSON OF INTEREST, marks the first time I have put my own work out into the world in a significant way. And, I have done so with a vervent belief in both the story I am telling, and the way it has been told. That said, I must admit this belief has been hard won. I, like I imagine many filmmakers, and artists, went through several bouts of self doubt, fear, and yes loathing over this project.

While these things are normal in any creative endeavor, I can see clearly now how in retrospect a lot of my anxiety was driven by the fact I had allowed myself to fall into the trap that cripples so many of us before we even make it to the starting line.

I’ve been involved in independent film production since the mid-1990′s and have watched (and experienced personally) as the initial instinct to tell stories and create art was corrupted, even damaged, by the overwhelming and obsessive notion of ‘making it’. The independent film became ’brand’ and suddenly ‘commercial viability’ entered the picture and with it a swift, decisive and hostile corporate takeover of the hearts and minds of artists and filmmakers.

In the early days of PERSON OF INTEREST, I succumbed to this obsession, and it was damaging. Both to my mental state, and more importantly the work.

Admittedly, we’re all dreamers. And, as with any art form, filmmaking is driven in part (well, probably in large part) by the need to be seen. But, now as I emerge on the other side of this endeavor I can see, perhaps for the first time, all that was lost as I have toiled in a system that compels one to compromise, relentlessly, in order to gain the approval of arbitrary gatekeepers, as opposed to simply having a spine, and believing in what it is you do. I am truly saddened by my own, and our shared willingness to forego our sanity, our ownership of the process, innovation in method and creativity, control over our own individual destiny…our own deeper dream(s) to run with inspiration, explore, imagine and frankly -make cool shit. These things, in essence, our creative values, subverted in order to attract a failed status quo that trades on hollow promises, and fear.

In making this film, I stumbled onto the most simple, and profound recognition thus far in my creative journey (as it were). It’s frankly idiotic it took me so long to conjure this one up, but I finally figured out that the best road forward (for me, for any of us) was to simply recognize, and accept my voice, and just go forth and do what I do…as well as I possibly could.

So, ultimately with PERSON OF INTEREST, I threw out the ‘rule book’, cast off the anxiety, and got to work. The end result is a film that steps outside (perhaps way outside) ’the way things are always done’, in narrative structure, style, and execution…and in that appears to be resonating with many, while of course being elusive to some.

Ultimately, I understand that it is not a film for everyone. But, I am confident it is a film for many.

It is a small film, with big ideas, that eludes to a lot, and (much like life) resolves little, offering a glimpse into one man’s journey without dictating how the viewer should feel at every moment within it. When I watch it I am reminded of this quote from Stanley Kubrick, “A film is – or should be – more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what’s behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.”

Yes, this I believe.

Learn more about PERSON OF INTEREST, and the campaign to take the film on the road at Kickstarter.com.

The Art of Listening

Today I awoke to this incredible review of PERSON OF INTEREST:

“The ring of a bell: a metaphor for recognition.

This is what I kept hearing while watching PERSON OF INTEREST. The attack and decay of a bell kept resonating in my head as the story of the main character Terrance Dyer evolved. I kept recognizing situations, feelings and attitudes that reside in the deep paranoid pockets of the American psyche.

This is a visionary work; it is the TAXI DRIVER of this generation. It is a fulminating, subversive piece of cinema that throws a sharp elbow into the solar plexus of domestic propaganda and challenges the dogma of fear.

PERSON OF INTEREST will anger some as it will be misunderstood. The ignorant will hear rhetoric and see symbols (such as an inverted American flag) that they will take to mean disrespect, and for some “wing-nuts,” treason.

But an inverted American flag is a military symbol of distress. Terrance Dyer, a returning veteran with loads of emotional baggage feels that the country that he has fought for seems to have changed as he views it through the prism of his experiences.

Terrance Dyer sees things differently, and over and over again his character brings us to the edge of a dark abyss and then steps away as we catch our breath. Was Terrance a flawed individual who went to war? Or is he a scarred veteran trying to deal with the residual anger of war? Has he crossed the Rubicon?

This is the type of independent cinema I thoroughly enjoy. It is bold, politically agnostic, in your face and provocative. Excellent choices Greg! BRILLIANT! You hit many buttons that are left untouched in today’s indie film world.

Bravo.” – Pericles

After reading, and yes, reveling in these words for a bit, I couldn’t help but think of the long and difficult path the making of this film has been.

J. Reuben Appelman (the writer, and star of the film), and I began working on the script back in the summer of 2007, and the eventual 2008 production was plagued by the usual trappings of low budget independent cinema: no money, borrowed gear, limited time, and little crew. It was so extreme in those circumstances that there were days in which I would literally be the only crew, hand-holding the camera, boom, and tweaking lights all at the same time. I felt like a street performer wielding a strange cacophony of instruments, tied together, desperately trying to keep the beat in this band of one.

In the end though, all these difficulties proved nothing in comparison to road that lie before us as we entered post production.

After nearly a year of editing, J. and I were finally able to come to terms with the grave fact that our film, having been plauged by the above compromises (which included having to omit the shooting of a few scenes), and the actualities of a story’s evolution through the process of filmmaking, simply did not work. Editing, beyond all else, is a battle for tone. It’s akin to walking a tightrope, seeking that balance of consistent and sensical tone that is true to the story, and character of the piece. PERSON OF INTEREST in those early cuts, was like watching a sad battle in which neither side won. We had begun with a script that was in many ways defineable as a ‘psycholigical thriller’, but what we ended up shooting was not that, or at least not successful as that, and had a few missing pieces.

Prior to PERSON OF INTEREST I had edited a number of feature documentary films, and had become used to the idea, and practice of creating stories, and piecing together moments with available footage. In our shared despair of what looked to be the demise of the film we had spent nearly 2 years on, it was J. that first sparked the idea to throw out the script as written, a bold move for the writer, and to dive into the footage, as if it were a documentary of sorts, and allow it to guide the storytelling.

Many times, in these situations, the usual response is to shoot more footage, create new scenes, and indulge more in an effort to ‘make things work’. We didn’t have this luxury, or inclination, and decided to commit ourselves to the idea that there was indeed a film within all of this footage, and that if we listened to it, we could find it.

Working from this ideal, and a new framework based upon our only addition to the film, Terrance Dyer’s voice over monologue, we began the slow, surgical process of creating what is now a work that in so many ways better personifies the ideas we were trying to express going into the making of the film, than the script on which it was based.

The making of this film has indeed been a lesson in listening. Listening to my collaborator, my gut, and most importantly, the footage that we captured. It reminded me of why I do what I do. Why I am so attracted to cinema, and the art of visual storytelling. That though difficult, it can be a somewhat magical process to let yourself go to all these moving parts, and allow the story you are telling, its nuances, its subtext, to emerge gracefully, with the understanding that sometimes it’s not about what you have in mind, but about what you have in front of you.