My report from the Student Academy Awards judging.

I just spent two days judging the Student Academy Awards.

Back when I was in film school, there were student films and there were real films. You could tell the student films because they had lousy sound, inconsistent lighting, terrible acting, and stories involving the trials and tribulations of student life.

You were supposed to see past all that to the undiscovered genius, the raw talent that, in the real world, might have what it takes to create something that was both important and watchable.

Judging by those standards, you'd be hard pressed to tell that the films I watched were made by students.

These were stories about poets and day laborers and security guards and ex-wives, told with confidence, skill, and individual style. They were, almost without exception, productions. Real, legitimate productions.

I'm not talking about the amount of money thrown at them, even though there were several with crane shots and steadicams and one even had helicopter shots of Los Angeles. (One film even had an Academy Award-nominated actor in the lead.) I'm talking about work of professional calibre across the board.

What's important here is that student films are no longer competing as student films. They're competing as films.

That's not to say they were all good. Some were extraordinary. Some were lousy. Just like in Hollywood.

I once met Brett Ratner at some Hollywood function. At the time I was quite proud because I'd written six screenplays that were tearing up the screenwriting competitions. I got something like 32 awards for them.

He was unimpressed. He gave me a bit of advice that I found –– and still find –– incredibly profound. He said (and I'm paraphrasing), "The only contest that matters is real life."

I never entered another screenwriting competition after that, which might have been an overreaction, but the lesson I took away was that you can't qualify your success. You can't just write a screenplay that's good in the context of screenwriting competitions. And you can't just make a film that's good film for a student film. Your work is either good or it's not.

If the people who made these films are smart and ambitious –– and I bet most of them are –– the films I judged in the Student Academy Awards will also play at film festivals. Right up there next to films by established, working directors. Like me.

They'll be holding their own. Even blowing my work away.

That's a good thing. A great thing.

The success of these films isn't qualified. And I'm looking over my shoulder.

What's a director's vision and how can I get one? (Part 1.a subparagraph ii)

I want to make another point about that stuff I said back on March 12th about how humankind deals with the discovery of extraterrestrial life. Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Neil Blomkamp, and Barry Sonnenfeld were all drawn, for one reason or another, to the same material. Just in time for their movies to come out when the public wanted to see them.

Think about it.

What that means is that these directors all happened to be on board with the story two to three years before the audiences were ready for them. They had to be. It takes years to make a movie, from the time it's written through its development, shooting, post-production, marketing, and release.

The genius of Spielberg, I'm convinced, is that he wants to make what people are going to want to see two or three years before they even have a clue that they want to see it. And it's not just Spielberg, although he's probably the most consistent.

Remember 'First Monday in October'? That came out just after Sandra Day O'Connor became the first woman justice on the Supreme Court. Want a freakier one? How about 'The China Syndrome'? Twelve days after that film was released, Three Mile Island melted down. The producers couldn't have asked for better PR for the movie. Suddenly, everybody needed to see it.

By the way, I don't think Spielberg –– or any successful filmmaker –– knows how he knows. He's kind of like Wayne Gretzky, who could only explain why he was so good by saying, "I just skate to where the puck is going to be." Something just gets under his skin. It has to. How else could you work that hard on something for two, three, sometimes four years?

Here's the bottom line on material: You can't know. You can't know what's going to resonate with the fickle public any more than you can project what the Dow Jones Industrial Average is going to be on May 13, 2012. So don't try.

Find the material that speaks to you. If you're lucky, it'll speak to an audience as well. If you're not, at least you won't have spent years of your life pretending to care.

What really matters, anyway?

Back when I was an advertising copywriter, I had the good fortune to work for an ad agency in a building designed by Frank Gehry.

When we first moved in, I hated the place. Didn't like the aesthetic. Couldn't understand how this Gehry guy could be so famous and have such abysmal taste in materials and colors.

But after a couple of months, I realized that I was more productive there than I'd been at any job I'd had. The place worked. It went beyond what an office is generally meant to do and created an energy that affected all of the employees. Or me, anyway.

When I left the job, I didn't like the aesthetic or the colors any better, but I had respect for what the architect had been able to accomplish. The agency soon moved into another building –– also designed by Gehry. The new building was much prettier, but it didn't work as well. When books are written about Frank Gehry's illustrious career, the second building gets a lot more ink than the first.

What's my point? My point is that stuff works on a lot of levels. And each person's estimation of the greatness of someone's work is a function of the areas that are relevant to the person. I was able to disregard the aesthetic of the Frank Gehry building I worked in because the energy was so wonderful. (And just so you know, I think a lot of Gehry's work is visually stunning. The one building I worked in just happened to be butt-ugly.)

The lesson? Two lessons. As a consumer, know what you're evaluating and disregard the stuff that's not important. if you go to restaurants to feel pampered, don't make a reservation at the place where you have to sit on a wooden bench and put up with surly waiters, even if the food is supposed to be amazing. If you like watching films with incredible character development, don't expect to be satisfied by a Quentin Tarantino movie.

And as a creator, understand that there are a lot of different areas on which you're going to be evaluated. And don't get pissed off when someone tears you apart for not nailing something you weren't aiming at. If you really really really care about special effects, so what if someone thinks your performances suck?

Sure, it would be nice if you could nail every area, 100%. But then you'd have nothing left to do but die.

Looks like somebody did their job.

Last night, I saw a trailer for a film. It takes place in Paris, the story of a guy who observes the environment around him.

Three quarters of the way through the trailer, I turned to my wife and said, "You know what's funny? They could have placed that same story in New York, but it would be a totally different movie."

My wife gave me one of those looks. The one that says, "You're still not over that flu, are you?"

But the point I was trying to make, without even realizing what I was saying, was that the trailer had made it look as if Paris wasn't just relevant to the film, but crucial. It had elevated Paris' status (and I'm only going by the trailer here) from mere setting to almost one of the characters.

Just as I turned back to the screen, the name of the film came up:

'Paris'.

Way to go, Cédric Klapisch. I hope the film is as good as the trailer makes it look.

What's a director's vision and how can I get one? (Part 2.b)

There's more to interpretation than narrative style. In fact, interpretation is a huge area –– arguably the thing that truly defines a director.

Interpretation covers everything from the look of the film to the way a line is delivered. It's the pacing of a scene, the shirt an actor wears, how much rain is falling on a window, the music that plays (or doesn't). It's who shows up to work on the set and how they're treated.

Directing is interpretation.

Here's the thing, about interpretation. A lot of directors –– especially when they're starting out –– try to act like they think directors are supposed to. They wear black clothes, act like assholes, give their film a "look." They design shots to be "interesting," art direction to be quirky, performances to be unusual.

Don't.

I mean it. Don't.

Forcing your work to be more interesting is an admission that you don't think you're inherently interesting. And you are. Really.

Or you're not. But if you're not, you're not going to be able to fool people into thinking you are, so don't even try.

Interpretation –– meaning your vision –– is about doing what's right. There's one right place to put the camera, one right way a line should be delivered, one right piece of music to emphasize the dramatic content of a scene... Your job is to find it. Create it. Make it.

This isn't a moral judgement. It's a taste thing. It's what works best for you.

You may admire Tim Burton, but you're not going to be him. And even if you could, I'm sorry. That position is already taken.

Be you.

Got that?

What's a director's vision and how can I get one? (Part 2)

You know what's neat about last year? 'Avatar' and 'District 9' are essentially the same movie: Humans discover aliens. Wielding power over aliens, humans exploit and dehumanize (I know, but what word are you going to use there) said aliens. A single human, whose mission is to further exploit said aliens finds himself becoming one of them, and as a result develops sympathy for their plight, ultimately helping the aliens to throw off the yoke of their oppressors.

Or, to put it the way I categorized things in my last two blogs, they're both stories about how humankind deals with the discovery of extraterrestrial life. And they're both coming-of-age stories with a ton of special effects.

Both films were nominated for Best Picture. And both made a lot of money at the box office (okay, so one made a lot of money and the other made a FUCKING SHITSTORM OF MONEY.)

You get the point.

Anyway, they're clearly not the same movie, so how can they be the same movie? I'm glad you asked. It's the second part of what makes up a director's vision.

Interpretation.

In broad terms, James Cameron created a conventional cinematic piece (when I say "conventional", I'm talking about its narrative style), while Neil Blomkamp made a movie that looks like a documentary.

'Avatar' takes place in the future; 'District 9' takes place in the past. Even the settings are light years apart.

Same story, different interpretations.

Neat, huh?

What's a director's vision and how can I get one? (Part 1.b)

You know what I said about how the material you shoot makes up a big part of your "vision?" There are actually two parts to the material part. There's a) "What's the movie about?" which is what I went on about last time, and b) "What kind of a movie is it?" which probably should have come first because it's both broader and more categorizing.

Oh well.

Comedy directors do comedy. Action directors do action. Horror directors do horror.

Put the two parts together and you have a pretty good idea what kind of film you're going to see (or make). A comedy about how mankind confronts the end of the world ('The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy') is going to be different from a horror film about how mankind confronts the end of the world ('I am Legend') is different from an action film about how mankind confronts the end of the world ('Mad Max').

This is particularly poignant for me because I work mostly in commercials, where there's really only one part to the material part. The part about what kind of a movie (commercial) it is.

It makes sense if you think about it. Commercials are mostly about one of two things: saving money or getting laid (I'll get into that in a later post), and it really doesn't make sense to go, "Oh, Brian? Yeah, he's drawn to spots about getting 10% off."

In commercials, if you're considered a comedy guy –– as I am –– you're not really sub-categorized any further than that. Comedy guys do comedy. And have a really hard time getting invited to do special effects, action, food, cars, or any of the other categories. (Those are commercial categories,by the way. You might have noticed that there aren't a lot of horror, caper, thriller, disaster, spiritual, tragedy, heartfelt drama, coming-of-age, slasher, western, rom-com, or woman-in-peril commercials.)

Where was I? Oh yeah. The material.

The material you shoot goes a long way to determining your vision –– as it's ascribed to you. Not just by audiences, but also by agents, managers, financiers, and studio execs. So be careful. It makes sense to do comedy if you're working in commercials because so many commercials are supposed to be funny. But only if you don't mind being a comedy director.

Once you're categorized, it's hard to break out.