Same Town... Different View

In other words.... Mismo... pero diferentes.

At the end of the year I had planned for a three month sojourn in Oklahoma City... where I could spend quality time with my friend Hattie as well as knuckle down to do some serious writing.

When Hattie (who plays the contractor in Mismo) decided to leave San Francisco two years ago, I drove across country with her and helped her get reacquainted with her home town.  We enjoyed going out in search of what we deemed civilization... yoga studios, organic produce, wine bars, gay nightlife... any nightlife!  While we never found one vibrant hub that offered all, we had a swell time exploring and Hattie assures me that she has since discovered plenty of cool people doing interesting things.  I was really looking forward to the change of scenery and had already reached out to fellow indie filmmakers who I was looking forward to hooking up with.  Alas...

What's that saying about what happens while you are busy making plans?  Oh, yeah, life happens, and to quote the Scottish Bard who's birthday is coming up, January 25th, "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men Gang aft agley" , which is another way of saying, here I am still in San Francisco, albeit across town enjoying a different view.

A snapshot taken on one of my neighborhood jaunts... looks like the Haight, feels like the Haight... except it's North Beach.

And for your viewing pleasure a souvenir of our road trip from 2 years ago:

finding mismo's pace...

as mentioned in my last submission, one of the biggest challenges in editing motion pictures is getting the pacing right... unfolding the pictures before viewers to compel them to hang around for the next round of moving pictures...

in mismo, there are three distinct stories that make up the larger story... we are all the same... just different...

we have the viera family... made up of jorge, pedro, and anjelica... we have the 'quasi' bohemian family--made up of mitch and rachel... and the 'other side of the tracks' family... made up of toni, bella, and diego...

our rough cuts introduced the viera family first, 'quasi' bohemian family second, and the 'sketchy' family third... this is how the film ended too... but in the midst of taking the film from rough to final cut... many shifts were made within those separate stories... the scale tipped back and forth...

we wanted to give the 'parts' (i.e., each particular story) their due without undermining the whole... yet the 'whole' is only felt if it doesn't feel like three distinct parts... a risk you run in parallel storytelling...

during the rough cuts, we overexposed the viera family... we gave them too much time.. too early... at the expense of making connections with the other two story lines...

this makes sense... you often find the right pace by figuring out where the boundaries are first... where you've went too far... it's a great game of back and forth...

when it was unbalanced... it felt like three separate stories without a sense of wholeness... you need both... that disharmony sent us back to the editing room...

we eventually strung out the viera story further into the movie... and pulled mitch and rachel forward... and sprinkled in toni, bella, and diego... and once the movie gave proper attention to mitch and rachel... toni, bella, diego started coming in more... and then on the back end... toni, bella, diego have much of their story unveiled...

by the time the movie ends... all these characters have touched in ways that speak to their particular story and the larger too...

more than that... in the final scene... in real time... each character touches the other... sometimes physically but mostly in the labyrinth of collective decision making... and how we are affected.. and infected... by all the choices around us... even when unaware...

so bottom line... finding the natural balance... where both the part and the whole feels right and just... that's a story's pace...

and guess what... it's not a linear process... it's an exploratory process... back and forth... and if you are telling a parallel story... make extra time and space for yourself because the route may be ambiguous for awhile...