Empathetic Listening

A new friend of mine complimented a favorite scriptwriter as "having an ear for natural dialogue."

"How would you develop one of those?" I asked him, over hanger steak at the Grand Rapids Brewing Company.

"Eavesdrop," he said. "Listen to people."

I remembered being in St. Louis a year ago. Taking a break from an academic conference, I sat alone in an eatery atop a hotel near the famous arch. Alone: just me and my film-making notebook. Now, I don't know where you come down on the issue of eavesdropping, but I figure if people don't want me to hear them, they won't speak intelligibly in my earshot.

The 50-year-old businessman at the next table clearly wanted me to hear him. He wanted lots of people to hear him. For surely, the more people who heard him, the more people he would impress. And the more impressive he was, the better an impression he might leave on his dining partner, a woman easily 15 years his junior. From all indications, it was their first date. And unless I very much miss my guess, it was their last one as well. For I don't suppose she spoke ten sentences in the hour it took the restaurant to revolve. Her date, on the other hand, filled every silence with tales of self-importance.

Midway through their lopsided conversation, the man launched into the story of a mysterious dust he discovered daily on his car during the year he worked at a government project facility. I switched my attention from Caesar salad to notebook. My pen stuttered across pages in a hurried cursive. Perhaps those notes will become a screenplay. If they do, the heartbeat of the scene will be one haunting line of dialogue: "That was the year I got divorced," the man said nonchalantly, "...or maybe it was the year I got cancer... I forget which."

Eavesdropping isn't for everyone. Some might be troubled by perceived ethical boundaries. But there is a character virtue to be developed by screenwriters: empathetic listening. A good ear for dialogue is developed by turning one's attention outward to others. Scriptwriters -- especially scriptwriters of faith -- should listen so desperately hard that they crawl into the words and stories and lives of people who are nothing at all like them. Then, they may tell those stories with a winsome authenticity that invites audiences across borders of race, class, nationality, gender, ability and... difference.

Try

Phone calls punctuated last night's dinner as students discovered the file server intranet had crashed the night before projects were due in two of my classes. I sensed an educational opportunity in the tide of panic and sent the following e-mail:

Yes, o my children. I have heard your lament, rising like incense. No matter how many chickens you sacrifice on the altar of technology, ye cannot revive the ethernet. Verily, I say, follow ye in the way of the parable:

Once there was a servant tasked to split logs for his master's hearth. But when the servant came to the woodpile, he found the axe handle broken in twain. "I cannot chop wood," he said aloud to any who would listen. Yet secretly, the servant was glad in his heart, for he dreaded wood chopping more than all the chores of the farm.

A second servant -- wise and much beloved of her master -- found the same broken axe and used it as a hatchet to size smaller twigs for the fireplace. When the master returned in the evening, no logs were split, yet there was still warmth for his home.

Just because you cannot do all... it does not follow that you cannot do any. Media production is problem solving. Go thou and do likewise.

It strikes me that honor students (easily spotted thanks to bumper stickers on the minivans of soccer moms everywhere) are ill-prepared for inevitable failure. They have little practice taking responsibility for incomplete tasks in ways that are honorable. They are not trained to ask forgiveness; they seldom offer drafts or other paper trails as proof of industry and process.

For goodness sake, attempt something.

Product & Process

Friday morning, I met with a frustrated student. "Your teaching style is a poor fit with my learning style," he told me. I think he means he wants direct answers to simple questions. I think he wants me to tell him which buttons will work ProTools' magic on tracks of recorded music in the hour before his assignment is due. The pressures of deadlines and grades are heavy. He needs a thing to turn in.

But neither his product nor even his mastery of a program is my chief concern. The thing and the software are as fleeting as musical tastes and computer operating systems. How do I insulate the student from the same obsolescence? I teach him process. I teach him how to learn. Such teaching is painful, for it often resembles this exchange:

Student: "How do I add EQ to this section of the guitar track?"
Me: "Why do you want to equalize it? What do you want it to sound like?"
Student: "Um... I don't know. I just... thought it would be cool. The guy at the next work station was equalizing his stuff, so I.... um...."
Me: "Well, let me hear it."
Student: "It's not finished yet."
Me: "Yeah, I know. Lemme hear it."
Student: "Well... it sounds bad."
Me: "They all sound bad. Lemme hear it."

Student reluctantly presses "play." As promised, it is bad. Self-fulfilling prophecy.

Me: "Hm. Who's your guitarist?"
Student: "My suite-mate. He and some guys on the floor put together a band. They played at the Mucky Duck last weekend. Kind of a folk-rock-indy--"
Me: "EQ isn't going to help him."
Student: "Why not?"
Me: "'Cause he can't play. He's flat and he can't keep time with a click track."

Nine seconds pass. The same nine seconds which define the phrase "uncomfortable silence."

Student: "He... uh... didn't play with a click track. A click track messes him up. He wanted his performance to have the natural energy of... well... more like playing in a club, you know?"

The click track is a series of timid beats which keep tempo in a studio headphone. It ensures the guitarist recorded at noon will synchronize with the bassist recorded an hour later. Playing without such a track violates a cardinal rule of the recorded music industry and is the tell-tale sign of an amateur musician.

Me: "You didn't use a click track." I try, unsuccessfully, to sound surprised. "Let me see your regions list."

The student surveys the screen, keyboard, and desk as if he's mislaid something.

Student: "Where is that?"
Me: "I don't know. Where is it? Maybe you should check the class notes blog. I'm pretty sure we mentioned in that in class last week."
Student: "Well I don't remember everything you say in class."
Me: "I don't expect you to. It's why we have a class notes blog. Or maybe you could find the answer somewhere else."
Student: "Where?"
Me: "I don't know. Where do you usually look when you don't know something about the way software works?"
Student: "Um... the 'Help' file?"
Me: "Yeah. Sounds like a good start."

The student looks in the help menu. But unless the searcher's terminology matches the software's vocabulary, additional information about a given program feature often can't be found.

Student: "It's not here."
Me: "Okay. Now what?"

The student blinks. "Can't you just tell me where it is?"
Me: "Yeah, I can. But I'd hate to jump in too soon."
Student, the frustration rising: "It's not 'too soon.' I've got Spanish in half an hour."
Me, with irritating calm: "Take a breath. Think about it a minute. See what you can come up with."

If the earlier nine seconds of silence was uncomfortable, this silence is smothering. It is exacerbated by the necessary sound-dampening insulation of an audio editing lab.

Me, finally: "How do you learn something you don't know?"
Student, testily: "I ask somebody. Like you. But you're not telling me. Which makes me wonder what I'm paying you for.'"

Ah, there it is. The consumer mentality surfaces. It's always there. I mean, it's always there now. Not so much fifteen years ago. But the current generation of entitled learners now expects to get what they [or their parents or their government loans] pay for. They expect to establish the terms of their own satisfaction. And when they are satisfied with the height of their effort, the depth of their inquiry, they expect an "A."

Me: "Half of all jobs in Media Production are with firms of fewer than thirty employees. Your first job might be making wedding videos in your parents' basement. Who will you ask then?" I repeat more firmly, "How do you learn something you don't know?"
The student sighs: "I don't know."
Me, after a beat: "How about an online video tutorial? Maybe a user forum? Have you ever used those before?"
Student: "I guess."
Me: "Why don't you try that now?"
Student: "I don't have my laptop with me. Besides, I don't really have time for this. Can't you just show me how to view the regions list?"

I lean over and click a button in the screen's lower right corner. The regions list appears. The list ought to be populated with all the takes and versions of his recording.

Me: "There's only one recording of the guitar track."
Student: "Yeah."
Me: "That doesn't give you too many options in post."
Student: "Sounded okay at the time."
Me: "Did I tell you about Spielberg's shooting ratio?"
Student: "Yeah. In the intro class, I think."
Me: "What do you remember about it?"
Student: "I dunno. It's like... six to one or something ridiculous."

A shooting ratio: the number of takes recorded versus the number of takes used. The latter is always one, and Spielberg shoots an average of six takes for every one that makes it to the final film. Hence, 6:1. And, no, it's not "ridiculous." A really complicated shot might require a 20:1 ratio. There are stories of 500:1 from Chaplin's heyday.

Me: "You think maybe you're a better filmmaker than Spielberg?"
Student: "No. But the people who booked the studio before me ran long. And the guy after me showed up early. So I didn't have time for more takes. My musician had to go."

I nod sympathetically, but offer nothing that sounds like absolution.

I have not forgotten the student's original question (about how to add EQ), but I do not think that the question he asked was the one that needed addressing. Indeed, addressing that question (no doubt, a shortcut to product) circumnavigates the [admittedly more difficult] discussion of deeper process. Equalization will not improve his music, but coaching him in learning styles will improve his workplace readiness and career staying power.

In the short term, he wants to make good product. In the short term, I want to grade good product. How then, do I teach a lifetime approach to learning all new technology when he wants to know which button makes this software work to his immediate satisfaction?

Teaching as Learning (Again)

Too often I forget that teaching is the best way to learn.

I'm trying to be particularly transparent with a small crew of filmmakers who will be accompanying me on a three-week shoot near New York in January. To that end, I've set up a private blog wherein I'm deconstructing the process of film making. Recently, I wrote about a long shower during which I considered the composition of interview footage and the purpose of a "B" camera. It shouldn't surprise me by now (but it always does) that the act of explaining my ideas gives me even better ideas. As I blogged about the emotional intensity that a "B" camera's extreme close-ups might convey, it occurred to me I might mount the "B" on the jib we're hauling to NYC. I know I'm not the first person to think of putting a "B"camera on a jib. Even so, it might add a rare and distinctive lilt to the footage.

The lonely shower is a fine and reliable an incubator of good ideas. But perhaps it's not the greenhouse. Perhaps the necessary transparency of a master explaining (even justifying) himself to apprentices improves the creative product and process of both.

Mars and Venus #47

My grandfather died a quarter century ago, but the things I learned at his Ideal Barber Shop still seem important:

1. Be more frugal than vain. A $10 haircut should last three months, not merely until the next "bad hair day."
2. "Barbers" are not "stylists." If you want style, go to a beauty parlor.
   
3. If your time is so valuable that you must call ahead for an appointment, your life is over-scheduled. Sit down, leaf through a three-month-old copy of Field and Stream, and wait your turn.
4. Listen to the old guys. They know more than you do and tell it more colorfully. Warning: do not play checkers with the old guys for money.
   
5. Never fall asleep in the chair. You might intend it as a sign of trust in your barber, but it's rude to stonewall a conversation.
6. Never pass up the chance for a hot-lather, straight-razor shave.
   
7. Measure twice; cut once.
   

Obsolete Again

I saw James Cameron's Avatar last night. The film is attracting so much attention, I cannot hope to write anything new about it. Fans and critics have already said what needs to be said about both the content (a derivative plot with liberal politics on its sleeve) and the form (jaw-dropping, groundbreaking). Deeper -- or at least, more pretentious -- analyses will, no doubt, appear in doctoral theses for the next two years. The movie will probably be remembered as a milestone of motion capture technology, "one giant step" for film makers. Robert Zemekis' retelling of A Christmas Carol, released only weeks ago, seems quaint by comparison.

I am bracing for the next round of high school seniors, prospective college students shopping for an alma mater. Immersed in all its 3-D, IMAX glory, Avatar will infect them with new dreams, dreams which likely seem light years from introductory classes in lighting and camera operation. As a measuring stick, Avatar will remind students how little their teachers know. A movie which showcases so many of cinema's possibilities, renders the basics even more boring to would-be Camerons. Avatar will make them more impatient, but it will not make them better.

La Posadas

December 16 marks the start of the Mexican "La Posadas," a string of nightly neighborhood processions recreating Mary and Joseph's search for shelter. Funny how we worship a Homeless Man each Sunday and ignore homeless thousands each Monday.