I have a Wikipedia entry?

Not much there yet, but I guess it's a start.

Charles "Ched" Beckwith

"Three Wishes" Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Press Representative: Michael Martinez
212-712-7362

Director Charles Beckwith helms "Three Wishes" in Curan Repertory's Notes Festival

Fashion photographer and filmmaker turns to directing for the stage with an amuse-bouche-style introduction.

New York, NY – (March 3, 2008) Charles Beckwith directs "Three Wishes," part of The Curan Repertory Company's Notes From The Underground Festival. The tight one-act written by Robert Caisley will be performed along with other selections March 11, 12, 14, and 15 at the Payan Theater at Roy Arias Theatre Center. The play features actors Shawthel Stephenson, Hugo Salazar, Jr, and Robert Keiley. In "Three Wishes," a young writer strung out to wit's end is cursed with strange visitors in the middle of the night. Showtimes are at 8pm, tickets: $15, call (212) 479-0821

Charles Beckwith (www.charlesbeckwith.com) is a commercial artist with experience across radio, television, dramatic feature filmmaking, documentary filmmaking, fashion photography, and fiction writing. His documentaries have featured a wide variety of subjects, including everything from womens' surfing on the East Coast (East Coast Wahine Surf Championships), following multinational corporations into India (Re:Solve Mumbai), to a film about the lifespan of a film festival (Cucalorus at 10). In 2001-2002 Charles produced a popular college comedy/variety television series called Uncommon Variety on UNC Wilmington Television, for which he wrote and directed over half the comedy sketches in the series. "I Like Fog," his first solo gallery show, featured two dozen photographs which hung at Plan B in the East Village for several months in 2006. Film and photography clients include Herman Miller, Harvard University, UNC Wilmington, The Brand Experience Lab, Microsoft, Richard Saul Wurman, Urban Outfitters, The Design Management Institute, EUE/ScreenGems Studios, F!ND Magazine, Talent In Motion Magazine, Go NYC Magazine, 11211 Magazine, Fashion Wire Press, Supreme Model Management, Women Model Management, and One Model Management, among others. Charles has a BFA in Creative Writing and is in the process of completing an MFA. He currently works as an editorial photographer in the fashion industry and is producing a new photography-focused talk radio series called Light and Gravity. He has enjoyed working on "Three Wishes" and hopes to continue directing for the stage with more ambitious projects in the future.

Press reservations or interview inquiries with Charles Beckwith: Please call Michael Martinez , 212-712-7362.

The Notes From The Underground Festival is the annual festival devoted to original one-act plays. The festival showcases new short works by emerging writers and directors. For more information please go to: www.curan.org

The Plays:

Boston by Charles Evered

Dog and Human by Ellen Kouisto

famous - small "f" by Robert Mattson

The Greatest in the Whole Wide World by David Kosh
MEL ( and God) by Ted Williams

Sleep Baby Sleep by Scott Saffer
and

Three Wishes by Robert Caisley

Location:
The Payan Theater
at Roy Arias Theatre Center
300 West 43rd St. Suite 506
between 8th and 9th Ave.
phone: 212-957-8358

Subway: A,C,E to 42nd St-Port Authority

Three Wishes

I'm going to be directing a one act play called "Three Wishes" to be performed during the Curan Reperatory Company's Notes from The Underground Festival in March. More details to follow.

"The Cube"

This is an early Jim Henson experimental film (made for television).

About an hour long, it predates and presupposes the concept for the feature film Cube by a couple decades. Definitely the "mindfuck" genre.

Thanks to Stephen Bodi for passing this along.

notes from a directing seminar at the Drama Book Shop

On Wednesday I went to a seminar at the Drama Book Shop on 40th Street (between 7th and 8th Avenues).

I am on the store's mailing list and had gotten a newsletter advertising Free Workshop with Myrl Schreibman, author of 'The Film Director Prepares.'

When I arrived I was surprised that Myrl was a man. I guess I had read "Myrl" as something relating to "Myrtle." Apparently not. Odd name. Anyway, he wanted to know every one's name and what they did, and how that related to wanting to know about directing. Several people had gone to a previous seminar about a software package called Frame Forge 3d Studio, and included with Myrl's book is a demo copy of the software. A few others were actors on the Drama Book Shop's normal channels. One was a cinematographer. Way in the back was a guy who directed a couple of features and was a former student of Myrl Schreibman. When his name was mentioned I had already finished taking notes and didn't write it down. I thought Myrl said he directed Annapolis, but I looked on IMDB and the guy who directed Annapolis is Asian, and this guy wasn't Asian, so who knows. While I was Googling around I noticed that Mr. Schreibman gave the exact same lecture on Tuesday, elsewhere in Manhattan.

He started out asking who we thought the creative force was behind a feature film. The answer he was looking for was "the producer or the producers." He used a football metaphor, saying the producer is the coach and the director is the quarterback. That would seem to make sense. The producer deals with strategy so the director can get in the trenches and push the project forward. Usually you don't think of the producer as creative, but in practice they are very much involved. In John Ford's early days as a director, you had the producer sitting back at the studio doing finance and the director would take the company off on location to make the picture. Now the producer goes along. Not only that but you have a whole crew of producers and assistant producers and associate producers and a line producer and executive producers doing all kinds of crap to get the picture made. I think I'd rather do it the old way, but the market says otherwise so we do it that way with the whole circus above the line now.

Myrl went on to say that the director has three basic responsibilities. (1) To the financial backers of the project, (2) to the audience, and (3) to their creative self. In my mind, if you satisfy 2 and 3, 1 naturally falls in line. Though, only if you have a good producer and 1st assistant director watching the expenses.


He mentioned "mobisodes," which are programs you can watch on a mobile device like an iPod or a cell phone. The word is short for "mobile episodes" but can also include standalone pieces. There are a lot of things you can do with mobisodes, but the sacrifice, at least for the moment, is resolution. The video quality on a cell phone is far from HDTV, and light years from something like a Cinemascope image. Also, because bandwidth is always a concern for wireless devices, it's best to be able to compress the image as much as possible, so it's really not a format for a lot of action. The ideal format for a webisode/mobisode is vector animation (like a Flash animation) drawn by a local graphics processor; but animating takes a lot longer than shooting something with a video camera so it is in the end more expensive. What you will see available for delivery on mobile devices the most is probably going to be soap operas, because they're relatively cheap to produce, they allow for more-or-less static images (making compression easy), and the tried and true daytime soap is a proven formula for advertising. Get an audience hooked on a story and string them along forever. How long have Guiding Light and General Hospital been running? There is hope though, brought by the Hispanic television world's novella format. Novellas are soap operas with a beginning and an end. More like prime time dramas. Ugly Betty is the heavily touted example of a recent successful novella on American network television. Unlike shows like Dallas, which suffered greatly from an ambling plot line and unfocused writing, novellas have a predetermined story arc, like my favorite television show ever, Babylon 5, and the very popular Lost series. They write the episodes as it goes along, but there are plot points and character changes mapped out over the season. Many series of the past would probably have benefited greatly from this sort of structure.

Back to the seminar, Myrl said "the director begins with the script" and described an objective method of doing read-throughs. First you ask "what is it" and look for themes. Second read you ask who the characters are, where do they come from, how they relate to each other, what are their needs and wants. Third pass you ask yourself "can I hook my gut to the piece." Meaning, is this a story that I can tell from the heart. Do I believe in the material enough to drive this story as a director. He also said, if it's a paying job and you need the money, you probably do it either way. I wish that weren't the case, but for survival in the industry it needs to be. You can always go by Alan Smithee.

Moving on, he mentioned some hints to look for in your quest to "find the character on the page." Obviously, look for a character's actions and dialog. Myrl said that "words and actions are the result of impulses." One can infer that these impulses all have a cause behind them. I've felt for a while that in a good screenplay, nothing in the text is insignificant, and this speaks to that end. If the script says the character turns to the left, then the word "left" should have meaning. It's specificity. When you write a script you are writing out a set of instructions, and meaningless textual chaff is disruptive to the process of turning your words into a meaningful film. So, if a character says or does something, and the writing is good, you should be able to read something between the lines about the character's intent or impulses.

He also said something I found very interesting. I like when complex ideas are distilled down to a few words. He said, "anger is protest. Tell the actor to play the source of the anger." This is an important distinction that translates to using models in photography. I hate when models are obviously posing. I tell my models quite often to "just be." I don't like them to look at the lens a lot. I tell them "only look at the lens if you mean it." Sometimes I have to wear a model out a bit before they start to act naturally. New models mostly, but also models who do a lot of glamour photography are usually stuck on artificial poses. Jim Henson once said, "You're assisting the audience to understand; you're giving them a bridge or an access. And if you don't give them that, if you keep it more abstract, it's almost more pure. It's a cooler thing."

Mr. Schreibman then went on to talk about a few classic films and what they are in essence about. The Godfather is a story about succession to the throne. It is at its roots the same formula as Shakespeare's King Lear (Michael being Cordelia) and any number of classic Greek plays: a king has three heirs and one kingdom. He mentioned The Conversation as well, describing is as having a theme of transparency, and mentioned that Gene Hackman's character wears a translucent raincoat. I did not notice the raincoat when I watched it a few years ago. It is possible that this was planned by the writer or the director, but since it didn't really stand out I wonder if it was not simply the wardrobe supervisor pulling something that fit Gene Hackman. Lastly, he mentioned Traffic, and that it was really three movies with three separate themes.

He then moved more into an actor-director matrix part of the seminar. A book was mentioned, Friendly Enemies: The Director-Actor Relationship by Delia Salvi. The store was out of copies when I went upstairs, so I have not yet had a chance to check it out. I started doing model photography in grad school because I wanted to get better at working with talent. It's largely how I got sidetracked into fashion photography. When I was at the North Carolina School of The Arts, my end of year project was a bit of a disaster, largely because I didn't know how to communicate with the actors. Since then I've put a great deal of effort into figuring out how to talk to performers and get them on the same page about what we're working towards and how I see a particular scene. Mr. Schreibman said "[single camera narrative] is all about the discovery of the moment." This was a central theme in his talk, particularly later when he started talking about the perils of over reliance on previsualization, but also in relation to the task faced by the actors, and the director's responsibilities in helping them to achieve a captivating performance. He said "actors work on three levels simultaneously." First is the conscious level, where the distractions of the actor being chained to their own life while trying to play a character are always going on. Is their wig going to fall off, the coffee on the craft services table is bad, etc. The second level is the unconscious level. On the unconscious level, the actor's life experiences, the things that make them who they are, act as a filter (and unfortunately sometimes a governor) for how they perceive the world. Third is the subconscious level. I really don't understand the difference in practice between the labels of unconscious and subconscious, but just roll with it. The so-called subconscious level is where the actor uses their base emotions to fill in the gaps of the character. Myrl referred to an actress in the audience as having a computer (I think he meant database) from which she could call up preexamined emotional states from her own life and lay them over what a character was experiencing to make the character more real. As I understand it, this is called Method acting. Personally, I can see how it could be useful, but I think there is certainly an art to the deployment of The Method. For every Marlon Brando there are a couple hundred bad method actors out there. You have to do what works for you. But that's internal for the actors, and I try to stay out of it as a director. Myrl siad "the image has to be motivated by the actors, not the actors motivated by the image. In my previously posted list of Rules of Filmmaking I said "never perform an actor's line." This is what I was talking about. There is a certain trust between the director and the actors, and you as the director really don't want them doing your job, so why would you tread on their turf and try to do their job right in front of them? You as the director are a facilitator for the creative input of everyone on the set. You are guardian of the vision, but the vision is not yours, it comes from everyone involved in the project. If one person is not hitting the mark you want them to hit, you don't shove them into place, you find out why they're not hitting the mark. They are professional artists and if they're missing the mark you want them to hit now, then the source of that divergence will probably cause a greater rift as you go on with making the picture. You need to stop and find the cause. Myrl said, "the closer the camera gets to the actor, the more truth it tells," and I add that if the actor doesn't believe in doing it the way you want them to do it, then that breech of verisimilitude will probably be quite visible to the audience. The actor isn't playing it the way you want them to play it? Stop and talk about character and motivation with them. You're working form the same script, so get on the same page and talk it out. The actor may be completely right to play it their original way.

Then came the final segment of the seminar. Myrl Schreibman teaches coverage at UCLA so he knows quite a lot about assembling a film. He was very insightful about the use of storyboards, saying, "storyboards are dangerous for directors. Directing is a thought process." They are also bad for the actors, "find what they're giving you." He showed a few clips from the film The Cooler (William H. Macy plays a guy who is unlucky and brings his bad luck with him wherever he goes, so a casino employs him to walk around and drive away luck) as an example. On the DVD for The Cooler, there is a feature where you can view the storyboard sequence and the final film on the same screen. They were similar but the camera angles seldom matched, the cartoon figures often didn't look like the actors playing the parts, and the gravity of William H. Macy's performance in the scenes and his ability to bring them alive was quite obvious. In other words, the storyboard is only the beginning. As a director, you have to sense the scene on set and react. Don't just shoot the storyboard shot for shot, bring the sketches to life. Storyboard and create shot lists but do not use them as a bible. Myrl didn't mention this, but I think it was Martin Scorcesse who pointed out that the only real thing in Raiders of The Lost Ark was when the fly flew into John Rhys-Davies' mouth, and that the original audiences reacted to that moment quite positively because there was a sense that the rest of the movie was too tightly controlled. This is possibly why writers should not direct their own material or be on set for every shot. The script is clay and the director and actors must breath humanity into it. Myrl said "the audience doesn't care about the visual. The audience cares about the performance."

Finally, he said "[when you are directing] instinct is never wrong." That one's a bit too deep for a blog.

establishing communication with the model is as important as their makeup getting on right

Some of my best recent pictures came when the model showed up early and I made him go with me to the diner while I ate lunch. As soon as we started shooting there was a connection and it all just flowed. Because we'd been hanging out talking for 20 minutes, we had a sense of each other. Communication is of terrific importance. Sometimes the camera is an obstacle to good work, and you have to just put it down and hang out until you click with the subject.

fashion photography theory and concepts #1

I am always looking for formulas and keys so good performances can be repeated. Sure you hit a good shot once in a while, but often it’s on a test and not an editorial so I can’t send the images out. Serendipity is great for art, but it has to be repeatable to be profitable. There is less difference between performing on stage before an audience and walking into your own gallery show than one might imagine. In both cases you must attempt to pre-cognize the experience of others. In both cases, getting it right in the shower doesn’t count. Some artists prefer to satisfy only their own needs and leave the viewer on the wind. I have gone to far too many art galleries and left confused to not give a decently explanatory label to the viewers of my own work, even if I make them look around for it a bit first. I feel indebted to the audience for taking the time and energy to view my work, and therefore strive to satisfy both my own needs as an explorer and to communicate my experiences on the journey to viewers as a reward for their own curiosity. Curiosity should always be encouraged.

There exists a requirement in the fashion photography I favor, that the model should exist in the environment of the image and be somewhat connected to that world. Most often when I find myself believing my work on a constructed image to have yielded a failure, it is the result of an apparent lack of connection between the model and the other things in the frame. If that is not the case, the second most common culprit is having failed to control the light. Both can be improved with practice, as my own work has shown. What I refer to as the model being connected to the world, director Richard Donner calls “verisimilitude,” meaning "the truth of the thing" or "self-truth."

There may be some universal formula for projecting how a model will play off a given prop or costume. I have not yet found it. Perhaps it is too complex and individualized to forecast. Possibly at least some generalizations could be divined, but then would their employment by an artist be detrimental to originality? I think such things are better left to instinct honed by experience, for my own work at least. Yet, still I wonder if there could be a primer written to guide outside of instinct. Can you bracket models and props like they do sports teams in a tournament?

I believe that tension, composition, and detail are the keys to a great image. The viewer must be presented with drama (or the equivalent), context, and a visual focal point in order to relate to most images. Drama is given by any notion of tension within a frame, whether that is interpersonal tension, spatial tension, or implied kinetic tension.

The story of the single frame must have a context, as all stories presented visually do. The context is revealed and highlighted (successfully or poorly) by the composition. In this use of the word “composition,” I mean the juxtaposition of complimentary and contrasting areas of color tone, hue, and saturation (or simply brightness in a black and white image). Void and filling shades and levels between them must be shaped to draw the viewer’s attention to your intended purpose in presenting the image. With multiple frames, a sequence of images, it’s a whole other ballgame.

The visual focal points are also of great importance, and without these details the image will appear totally meaningless. In photographing people, the visual focal points of an image almost always include the eyes. The detail need not be overpowering. It could be as simple as a green dot on two hairlines intersecting. What is important is the presence of an anchor of some sort. An image that is totally unfocused cannot ordinarily hold or even momentarily capture the viewer’s attention.

In most cases, a formulaic approach to fashion photography would be counterproductive. However, if one is conducting some sort of experiment to find the subconscious mechanics of one’s work, looking for patterns in the behavior of subjects would probably be useful. Finding such patterns would be a step in a long path to allowing for a conscious and controlled paradigm shift in production and visualization methods.

Trying to break into fashion photography is like trying to break into rock and roll...

If you think about it, becoming successful in fashion is a lot like becoming a rock star.

• It all comes down to having a great band behind you. You truly cannot do it alone.
• If you don't have talent, the best guitar in the universe isn't going to help you.
• It's more about the vibe than precision, but you have to have the command of precision to create the vibe.
• You just have to keep playing and be out where people can see your work, and that's how you become popular. You cannot both be genuine (and therefore have staying power) and start out playing in stadiums, just as a photographer shouldn't start out in major international publications (I'm slowly starting to realize).
• You must get out there and network.
  

Andre Austin's Seminar - Notes

Today I went to a seminar about fashion styling, held by celebrity stylist Andre Austin.

He was very knowledgeable and candid.

A couple of notes on things that caught my ear as a photographer:

He said that commercial styling is like wardrobe styling for a movie, as you are creating a person from clothing, which I found interesting.

He also talked about acknowledging the financial investment required of a stylist for testing. For a small shoot, even if all the clothes are free, the stylist could easily spend $100 on cabs picking up and returning outfits.

Apparently, "metalics are in right now," which I had sort of noticed but was trying not to because I'm not crazy about people wearing metal, it just seems unnatural. I wonder if there is a psychological link between the metal sheen clothing and a need for armor in the post 9/11 environment. Sort of like SUV's. They aren't really tanks but they make people feel better.

He spoke briefly about the insecurity level of celebrities, especially artists, and their real need for attention and support on a set. I think probably every artist on a set needs attention and support, but he's right in that when celebrities don't get it they can cause trouble that will disrupt the shoot. So be nice and let them work at their own pace as much as possible, I suppose.

I'm feeling less guilty about mixing Canal Street discount clothing with the high end stuff, and I intend to go check out Target and H&M for some test shoot stock items.

The Rules of Filmmaking... an evolving list

Back when I was making movies a lot more frequently, I came up with a list of rules for better filmmaking. I like rules and handbooks and that sort of thing. Rules are, of course, meant to be broken, but you should understand the rule and why it exists before you trespass in its realm. I will go into detail about the specifics in a later post or posts.

The Rules of Filmmaking... an evolving list

Please do not repost this elsewhere online without a link back to the original page and a reference to the version number, or reprint for commercial purposes without the express written permission of the author. It can always be found at http://www.starfortress.com/filmrules.html

• Leave the location or stage in a better condition than you found it.
• Never forget your flashlight.
• Never forget your radio.
• The streets of Hollywood were never paved with gold. Make that your job.
• Never perform an actor's line.
• Always keep your crew well fed and watered.
• One sandbag per light indoors, two if you're outside.
• Watch your language, kids show up at the oddest times.
• Tagging someone with C-47's is not a crime unless you're caught in the act.
• Only the director may say or grant the authority to say "action," or "cut."
• Keep the assistant directors informed about EVERYTHING. Give them a department status report at least every 30 minutes. If something is going to be delayed or ready ahead of schedule then they should know that immediately.
• Never ask someone to do something you would not.
• Never be afraid to ask someone to do something you cannot.
• The set should be treated more like a temple where the filmmakers are the monks, and less like a saloon where the filmmakers are the customers.
• If you're not needed, be nearby.
• If there is not a phone list then compile one and distribute it. There are always movies down the road where you may want someone or someone may want you.
• Never let an actor take home a prop or costume that you cannot easily replace.
• Never pay for an investor's lunch.
• Never unplug an unfamiliar cable.
• The director should never hire or fire anyone directly unless it is their personal assistant.
• Filmmaking is definitely a collaborative process, but not so much a communal process. There needs to be a leadership structure like you would have on a ship.
• Never shoot in an actively hostile location.
• Master lighting with one source first.
• The lowest ranked person in the room is the most important one to have on your side.
• "In a crisis people need to feel like soldiers, not victims." - The West Wing
• Know all the rules (and what they mean) before you break them.
• When all else fails, ask yourself "What would John Ford do?"

version 3.2, released the 30th of October 2005
all versions (C) 2003-2005 C. Beckwith