Nancy Stetson: Filmmakers share tricks of the trade
Thursday, May 1, 2003 By NANCY STETSON, nrstetson@naplesnews.com
A variety of independent film directors, producers and actors attended the Third Annual Fort Myers Beach Film Festival this weekend, speaking on panels, attending workshops and handing out advice and business cards to hopeful actors, screenwriters and wannabe directors and producers. It was an opportunity for Southwest Floridians not only to rub shoulders with those in the movie industry, but to see premieres of independent films, including documentaries, shorts and animation.
Curry, who's also performed on stage and TV, as well as movies such as "Legend," "Home Alone II," "Clue," "Congo" and "The Hunt for Red October," took part in a panel discussion Saturday afternoon. He told the audience that transforming him into the devil for "Legend" took makeup artists six hours daily, so he'd go in at 6 a.m. and then shoot his first scene after lunch. "From the bottom of my hooves to the top of my horns, I was 8 feet, 1 inch," Curry said. Director Ridley Scott let him look through the lens of a camera at the huge set, and told him: "Now go and play! Look at the size of that set; you can do pretty much anything." "That's something you don't have to ask me twice, to go and play," Curry said with his typical dry British delivery to appreciative laughter. When an audience member asked how he makes an unreal character real, Curry quipped, "My latest TV character was very unreal," referring to his recently canceled TV show "Family Matters." Curry said that he likes to go to the dailies (the film that was shot the previous day) in the beginning of filming, just to get a sense of what his character looks like and how he's lighted. "All cinematographers work differently," he said. "Ask them questions. The light is the soul of the movie. It's the whole feel and ambiance of the movie. Cinematographers are extraordinarily brilliant. They're painters. "It's said that Elizabeth Taylor was famous for walking onto the set and discovering which spot is the hottest ... and assuming that spot is for her." Curry also talked about actor Sean Connery, with whom he worked on "The Hunt for Red October," saying that Connery belonged to "an extraordinary bunch of people who just eat light. (Their sense of authority is) accumulated in a body of work." Curry joked that although Connery plays characters who come from all over the world, amazingly, they all have a Scottish accent. And then he did a dead-on impersonation of Connery, with accent and lisp. According to Curry, actors such as Connery, Mel Gibson and Spencer Tracy, have a certain authority when they're on screen. "That sort of authority is built up out of pure confidence and a steely purpose," he said. "I think there are movie actors and there are movie stars. Sometimes the line gets blurred. Kate Hudson just opened big in two movies. Will she be a movie star?" Curry asked. "I don't know." Curry talked about how he used to worry whether he deserved to be on a movie set. "Maybe it's because I'm English, or maybe because I come from the theater, knowing that I deserve to be on the stage, but do I deserve to be on a film set?" he said. "Watching Sean, I realized that all he had to do was show up. Any role on camera, you bring an authority. "In the end, it's about confidence and about trusting in your intelligence. I think the camera records what goes on behind your eyes ... so you better try to be interesting." During the afternoon, the directors and producers of "Hungry Hearts" and "Bachelorman" spoke to a score of people about the movie business. The panel consisted of John Putch, director of "Bachelorman"; Karen Bailey, producer and actor in "Bachelorman"; Gaynelle Sloman, producer of "Hungry Hearts"; Glen Benest, producer and writer of "Hungry Hearts"; and Rolf Schrader, director of "Hungry Hearts." (Out of 40 movies shown at the festival, "Bachelorman" and "Hungry Hearts" were chosen by attendees as their two favorite features.) The panel talked about everything from cameras and budgets to what a producer does. An attendee raised the topic of food. Everyone laughed, but Putch was dead serious when he told the crowd: "Food on the set is very important, no matter what the budget of your film is." "When you're trying to make your first film, you have to make a lot of compromises," Bailey said. "Maybe next time around, you might have some more clout." She also told them: "The great thing with independent film is that you don't have some studio guy telling you, 'Do this,'Do that,' just so they can justify their job." And directors Putch and Schrader said that making an independent film nowadays is similar to what it must have been like to make a movie back in the '20s and '30s, when the three main people in control were the director, producer and writer. According to these directors, we're in the middle of a revolution of filmmaking, where virtually anyone can write a script, get a camera, put some people together and make an independent movie. "They tell you about writing, to write about the most important to you," Putch said, "With a movie, the same thing. If it's what someone is feeling, it's special. You gotta have faith." Added Schrader: "Build a nest of people around you who will understand you and appreciate you and share your vision and will nurture you throughout."
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