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Inside-Out, Outside-In

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Top Five Stupid and Smart Things I Did Producing my First Play

23 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by hunterlh in Development

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apology, biggest producing mistakes with plays, Cody Bayne, Fate of the Monarchs, giving credit, highways performance space, hunter lee hughes, multi-media, one man show, Patrick Kennelly, top five stupid and smart things producing a first play

Ramping up for the biggest project I’ve ever undertaken has inspired me to look back at the beginning of my career to really assess what I’ve learned along the way.  I often find the difference between marginally successful people and extremely successful people is an ability to really integrate their life lessons to avoid mistakes they’ve already made and build on successes they already understand.  You may ask, ‘What does producing a play have to do with producing a feature film?’ Although the tasks seem very different, some important similarities stand out.  They are both long-form creative projects with a beginning, middle and an end that require a team of storytellers and crew to pull off.

I wrote “Fate of the Monarchs” as a 24-year old battling severe depression after a romantic let-down. I basically didn’t leave my studio apartment in Koreatown for about a month. After a couple days straight of watching ants take over my kitchen, I decided – for almost no discernible reason – to head to my local library branch. A striking image of a monarch butterfly wing on the book cover of “Four Wings and a Prayer” by Sue Halpern grabbed my attention. Within a few hours, the depression had started to shift as I learned that creatures with a one-inch body and three-inch wingspan traverse literally thousands of miles for reasons even scientists do not fully understand. The monarch migration served as the symbolic landscape of the journey of five interconnected men in search of spiritual meaning in my very first original play. I’m still extremely proud of the writing and what our team pulled off.

That said, I did some stupid stuff.  And some smart stuff.  Let’s start with the stupid.

Five Stupid Things I Did Producing my First Play:

1.  Not Giving My Director Enough Credit – Back then, my manager-at-the-time Al Trombetta referred me to Cody Bayne when I started looking for a director for the piece. Cody started a theatre collective in his home state of Tennessee and still creates amazing themed events for different bars around town in addition to working as a painter, writer and film producer. He came onboard the project and had a brilliant idea to include a multi-media element into the piece (more on this in the smart section).  Anyway, let’s cut to when the show came out. Cody – very reasonably – asked me to make it explicit in the press release that he came up with the idea for the multi-media aspect. I drug my feet on it out of pretty much sheer ego. Then a brilliant review came out which basically gave me credit not only for great writing and acting, but also for the multi-media aspect of the show. I immediately felt so much shame. Later that day, I changed the press release per Cody’s request and apologized to him. Luckily, Cody’s an amazing man and forgave me and we went on to share a great friendship as well as working relationship. Even in doing a spiritual piece, I’m not excluded from a rush of ego wanting more, more, more. All artists should be aware of this. It is a dark aspect of being an artist that most of us need credit and validation, especially because our job is so difficult and – very often – so underpaid. But making sure other collaborators get their due is part of being a responsible artist. This is one lesson I learned the hard way by messing up and overreaching.

2.  Not seeing enough other one-man shows/alternative theatre – “Fate of the Monarchs” was one of the biggest career successes I’d had.  Yet because I framed it as an artistic venture, I wasn’t prepared for how to capitalize on it and grow my career. I had seen very few other one-person shows before mine premiered and I didn’t have very strong ties to the alternative theatre community in Los Angeles and beyond. If I had to do it again, I would stop in and watch an alternative theatre piece in each town I visited to meet more artistic directors. I would’ve patronized more shows by other artists to be part of a community so that when my show was well-received, I would have more knowledgeable peers to support any potential expansion.

3.  Not getting clarity from a co-production deal up front – The show was produced a total of six times and I had a great experience with all the co-production deals we struck, especially with Highways Performance Space and the Ragged Blade theater group in St. Louis. However, one time, I did have to scramble for a solution based on a misunderstanding. I believed the theatre was supplying the space for free in exchange for a split in ticket sales. Turns out, they expected me to pay a (somewhat reduced) rental fee, although they did provide production support, a press agent and a producer to help out. It was still a great deal and I would’ve gone forward no matter what. But not being clear that I was going to need to pay for rental space sent me scrambling to my checkbook and living on the edge financially for a few months. Had I been more clear up-front, I could’ve handled that money situation better. Even when you have a verbal offer with a promise of a contract, you might want to shoot an email with the main points of the contract to make sure you understand. But don’t be overbearing about it!

4. Not keeping up with those “close calls.” – After our initial run, I sent a 10-page dialogue sample to the Public Theater and – to my astonishment – they wrote back and requested the full manuscript. Sundance also ran a competition for plays and I received a handwritten note from the programmer saying he enjoyed the piece but had to pass for now. Sadly, the Public Theater also ultimately ended up rejecting my work, but listed some contact information and asked me to send more writing in the future. Stupidly, I never have. If I could do it again, I would send Sundance and the Public Theater project updates for all the productions of ‘Fate of the Monarchs’ and should have kept applying with new, original pieces. After all, it’s a huge risk for these places to support an unpublished author so it makes sense that it’s an uphill climb to get in on the first shot. But my mistake was not building on the close calls from the past as my career progressed. Now, it’s been a number of years since I applied to the theater circuit and many of the names in the game have changed, so the potency of re-introducing myself is probably not as strong.

5. Over-marketing to friends – Most beginning artists feel like their immediate family and friends are a natural first audience to build a solid base of support for our creative work. And, indeed, there’s some truth in that (who else is gonna see your band’s first gig at a coffee shop?). But I overdid it a little with “Fate of the Monarchs.”  On the one hand, I was pleased with how many people turned out for the show. On the other hand, I sent out an email, a follow-up email and a reminder email to practically all my friends…and acquaintances…and people I’d met once a few years back. I got one email response whose subject was, “Email Etiquette.” Ouch. While I commend the younger me’s go-get-’em spirit, I do now feel that it’s better to build your audience based on mutual taste/experiences rather that first degree friendships. That’s not to say I would never send out a mass email ever again. But I probably won’t. And if I do, it would be once during the entire life of the project. So don’t Spam Folder, me…please… 🙂

Okay, so I’m totally glowing red from revealing how stupid I was in many ways, but younger Hunter was pretty smart about some stuff, too.

Top Five Smart Things I Did Producing my First Play:

1. Signing off on multi-media element and limiting the budget.  Aside from the mini-drama of credit over the multi-media idea, it was a good idea for me to say, “Yes” to Cody’s flash of inspiration to create a video element of the show. Also, I was smart to give him a fixed amount of money – $300 in cash – and let him know that was all I could afford. I made the decision to trust him with this element and not micromanage. I didn’t even show up when they shot it or sit in on editing sessions. By being hands off, Cody felt secure that I believed in him as a director and invested in the project in a deeper way. And I got to spend more time developing the acting and writing.

2. Hiring Patrick Kennelly as our videographer/editor. Cody did need a collaborator to help pull off the video element of the show and I facilitated hiring Patrick Kennelly, at the time a 20-year old wonder kid of sorts who interned at Highways Performance Space (he’s now co-artistic director there). At the time, artistic director Leo Garcia highly recommend Patrick, an extremely talented youngster without a huge track record (largely because he was, like, 20). It was a win-win-win-win situation for everybody involved. Patrick served Cody’s vision on the video elements, but he also helped our artistic director become even more excited by the piece. And the show was a boon to Patrick too because he got some hands-on experience creating a video installation-type element without being 100% responsible for the piece as a whole (Patrick has gone on to create very unique installation pieces and theater experiences, such as the upcoming religious rival PATTY). Patrick’s work shooting the video and then editing it was incredibly time-intensive and crucial to the success of the piece as a whole. So bringing him on-board was a smart move all around.

3.  Creating a piece that required little outside help.  Despite the crucial efforts of Cody and Patrick, “Fate of the Monarchs” didn’t have a whole lot of moving parts. It was a one-man show, so there were no other actors to coordinate. The crew was extremely limited. This worked out terrifically well because I was able to focus on developing the writing and acting, while keeping the logistical challenges to a minimum. Once you add even a couple more actors and a couple more crew people, things get complicated quickly. Someone cancels for a key rehearsal. Someone else quits. Someone shows up drunk and takes off all their clothes (just kidding on that one…sort of). For a first effort, it was actually super-smart to choose a one-man show, not only to expunge any demons in a raw and personal way, but also to keep the producing task to a manageable level.

4. Taking advantage of co-production deals. I’ll always be grateful to Leo Garcia at Highways Performance Space for allowing us two runs of ‘Fate of the Monarchs.’ The piece simply wouldn’t have been accepted at the same level without patronage from Highways’ built-in audience and support from Leo and his staff. I went on to strike several more co-production deals with highly positive results (the blip described above about one incident notwithstanding). My advice to up-and-coming theatre artists is to get connected to spaces in their area that might curate or support new work…and patronize them. If you’re at all into the LGBT theatre scene and live in the Southern California area, that means supporting Highways, who’ve broken more than a few new artists, thankfully!

5. Producing something out of urgency rather than intellectual curiosity or people-pleasing or the pursuit of money/power/prestige. I find that today’s young artists obsess far too early on about whether or not their work will be accepted by the “right people” (who exactly are they anyway?). So, sometimes, they create their first works from the ethos of “trying to look super smart” or “giving the art world something completely new and original” or “creating a hit in the marketplace.” Of course, the specifics of the material applied to those mindsets vary, depending on whether the work is intended to gain favor in the indie filmmaking community or the alternative theater community or the fine arts community or even the traditional Hollywood community. But a result-driven point of view can be very damaging to artists especially if it hardens into the bad habit of valuing external approval over personal authenticity. ‘Fate of the Monarchs’ came from my urgent personal need to explore the spiritual meaning of a so-called “alternative” sexuality and its particular slings and arrows as applied to romantic love. Indeed, getting out of that severe depression depended on it. By nurturing the paradoxical image of fragility and endurance inherent in migrating monarchs synchronistically given to me, I started my journey as a content creator connected to my own core questions and concerns about the human experience. It’s only from there that real growth as an artist is possible – at least that’s what I believe.

Okay, so that’s it for the stupid/smart things I did with regards to my first play. Next time, I’ll share whether or not I learned anything by the time the second play came into existence (you might be surprised). Thanks for reading and sharing! 🙂

—

Hunter Lee Hughes is a filmmaker living and working in Los Angeles and the founder of Fatelink. His current feature film Guys Reading Poems is touring film festivals and this blog is dedicated to the process of making his second feature film, “Inside-Out, Outside-In.” If you enjoy the blog, please support our team by following us on Facebook, Twitter (@Fatelink) or Instagram (@Fatelink).

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Choreography, Part 1: Jamie Benson on bringing the dance to the movies

09 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by hunterlh in Interviews

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artistic self-indulgence, choreography, choreography in movies, dancing in 3d, dumbass filmmakers!, gay film, gay filmmaking, highways performance space, hollywood hypocrisy, homophobia, homophobia in filmmaking, hunter lee hughes, independent filmmaking, inside-out-outside-in, Jamie Benson, Jamie Jeppe Benson, mass transit, microbudget filmmaking, sermons of john bradley, straight guys playing gay

I’ve known Jamie for about four years.  Formerly the membership director of Highways Performance Space, Jamie helped support our run of ‘The Sermons of John Bradley‘ at the space.  After our show – which included a five-minute segment of choreography with no dialogue – Jamie commented that he liked the intensity and even brutality of the movement between the characters.  I felt so grateful that someone noticed the quality we worked so hard to infuse into the piece.  After that, I began supporting Jamie’s work in independent theatre when I could and noticed that his original choreography in “Mass Transit” focused more on the unique humanity of each of his dancers rather than a perfectionist aesthetic ideal.  And yet, when required, Jamie could choreograph intricately beautiful moments.  This was precisely the quality that made me feel he might be the right man to bring the moves to “Inside-Out, Outside-In.”  So I brought him on to choreograph the initial workshop performance of the climatic scene of ‘Inside-Out, Outside-In.’  And he did an amazing job. Now, I’m just suffering a bit of Jamie-withdrawl since he’s moved to NYC to pursue his fortunes there, but check out our talk about dance and the movies.

Hunter: OK so not only is “Inside-Out, Outside-In” my first feature as a writer-director, it’s the first time I’m incorporating movement/dance choreography into a filmed piece.  Any advice for the newbie?

Jamie: Make sure that you really allow the movement some time in full frame. It seems fast cuts are real popular in the flashy world of feature filmmaking and sometimes the dancing is lost. That and after seeing the Wim Wenders film “Pina,”  it’s only a matter of time before we all should be presenting dance in 3D. Just sayin’.

Hunter:  Well not sure our microbudget will stretch to 3D just yet.  You mentioned that you love seeing people talk and dance on screen, that it’s satisfying to see people work something out through movement.  Tell me about that.  What are some of your favorite movies with choreography?

Jamie: Dance is designed to reveal simple truths. But if you’re able to add words and a linear scenario or context, you have so much more texture to experience as a viewer. If a couple is fighting while dancing a romantic waltz, there is so much more wit and intrigue to the juxtaposition, for example.

Hunter:  I like that.  What drew you to help out with ‘Inside-Out, Outside-In?’ Was there anything in the story there for you or did you just basically get roped in because we’re friends?

Jamie: Ha! A little of both – life is layered or something. I was curious as to whether or not I could deal with the challenge of a limited time-frame AND inform the meaning of the script within the script through simple gestures and movements. A bit of a puzzler but that was part of the fun.

Hunter: We had an issue where a straight actor became uncomfortable with dance with another man while workshopping this piece.  It brought up a lot of feelings of anger and inadequacy in me because I felt I tried so hard to make him comfortable.  Is this a common problem in the dance world?  What is your suggestion for working with actors in the future on this?  On the one hand, the character himself is straight and unsure about his feelings towards this other male so a little discomfort is interesting, but when does fear of intimacy or even homophobia damage a piece or prevent its full realization?  Your thoughts?

Jamie: Most dancers, whether straight or not, are a.) around a lot of gay people because, let’s face it, we’re talking about dance. Cliches, just like a good joke, have some truth to them. b.) Dancers are notoriously underpaid and will usually do just about anything to continue “working” whether that means sidling up to another guy or not. I’ve had to grab a straight guy’s ass in performances before. Honestly I think it was a great chance for the guy to enjoy the flirtation without being totally accountable for it. A sort of, “well that’s what the director wanted” sort of thing. I’ve helped produce a gay-centric play before and the straight guys we’re totally cool about it. There should be some awareness going into it for them and if there isn’t, how can you really combat an actor’s denial during the courting process? They probably want to do what they can to get the part at that point. I wouldn’t worry too much. It’s given you a fire to push forward with the work and material to blog about the movie-making process. Hell, there’s a few press releases there. That’s valuable. In our quick digestion of drama, turmoil can be an asset. Its part of the story and intrigue of the film you’re making.

Hunter: The piece has an element of life-imitating-art-imitating-life.  When you choreograph, how do you draw from your own experiences while still staying true to the situation at hand for the characters?  In other words, when does your personal expression need to be channeled into something more-or-less objective versus when it is okay to allow your personal story/demons to be expressed in a very raw, direct way?

Jamie: Making whatever story arc I’m presenting complete is of top priority. This is not unlike making a film. Sometimes the best lines or scenes must be sacrificed for the greater good of the storytelling. I fear that being an “artist” has an inherent “self-indulgent” quality to it anyway so I have no intention of running away with the fact. I have to constantly ask myself if each moment serves the whole of the story. “Why would she do that here?” or “Who is this character like and what is my experience with that type of person?” “What do I believe is the truth of the scenario I’m creating?” The scenarios I’m compelled to create are somehow personally satisfying for me to present. It’s satisfying to include personal observations I have into the work but it all has to inform the story somehow. I hate going to shows where there is no sense of editing. I’m sensitive to that.

Hunter: You and I have talked a bit about valuing the exploration of the humanity of – for lack of a better word – “the little guy.”  I’m thinking of your piece “Mass Transit” and also the webseries “Dumbass Filmmakers!” on which we collaborated.  Tell me about “the little guy” in your own work and how it might apply to ‘I-O, O-I.’

Jamie:  I am the little guy – at this juncture – so that P.O.V. surfaces in the work at times. I also find a certain innate hypocrisy in the entertainment world and strive to demystify things because of it. Ballerinas are flawless porcelain dolls, or rappers are so so cool or models so sexy yet at the end of the day, they still have body odor, cry themselves to sleep sometimes, or get insecure. That is humanity and our culture seems to deny or exaggerate/exploit it. My work is often aimed at the reveal of these truths under the illusion of the day-to-day performance we are all a part of. Usually, it’s done in a humorous way to help from being preachy.

Hunter: Now, you moved to NYC!  And so…..we’ve had to pick up the pieces without you.  😦  How’s it going out there?

Jamie: Hectic! But good! Internship in the marketing department of the Paul Taylor Dance Company, performance of my satirical ballet “Bowel Movement” in a couple of weeks, just won a Martha Graham video contest and more to come. I’m really enjoying my time here. We shall see. Thanks for your time here!

To learn more about Jamie and his dancing and choreography, please visit www.jamiebenson.com. His latest piece – “Bowel Movement” – runs April 12th and 13th at the Triskelion Arts Aldous Theater in Brooklyn.  Take a look at the trailer here.

—

Hunter Lee Hughes is a filmmaker living and working in Los Angeles and the founder of Fatelink. His current feature film Guys Reading Poems is touring film festivals and this blog is dedicated to the process of making his second feature film, “Inside-Out, Outside-In.” If you enjoy the blog, please support our team by following us on Facebook, Twitter (@Fatelink) or Instagram (@Fatelink).

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