What Ever Happened to Buster Keaton?

Fall from Grace

In a previous blog post, I mentioned how Buster Keaton signed a contract to MGM. If we were to look at modern filmmaking and Buster Keaton's style of filmmaking, it can be understandable why these two things clashed. The film industry as we know it today focuses on having a script and staying within a budget. Buster Keaton did not care how much money it would take to create a film, because he wanted to make it the way he wanted. He also did not use scripts, even in his feature-length films, and would often make up his stunts on the spot. For example in the film Three Ages, there is a famous scene where he makes a jump across a rooftop.

He did not make the jump. (tumblr.com)

He missed, hit the wall of the building, and fell into a safety net below. When he saw the footage, he actually incorporated the mishap into a different, more elaborate stunt all together; he would fall through awnings, hang on a pipe, swing through a window, go down a fireman's pole, and end up on a firetruck leaving the station.

During his time with MGM, Keaton was forced to use a stunt double for the more dangerous stunts. The company wanted to protect their investment, but Keaton wanted to do the stunts himself because he believed the stuntmen do not get laughs. The sound pictures were not the usual level of comedy he performed, so he grew frustrated. What made this worse was the fact that these films made more money than his earlier films did. Thus he would start drinking and begin to show up on set hung over. Eleanor Norris, his third wife who was 23 years younger than him, was what helped stopped his heavy drinking and got his career back together.

(findagrave.com)

Rise

After spending some time putting himself back together, Buster Keaton found success in an up and coming medium: television. Television had the live audience, which he loved because it was like back in his vaudeville days. His old gags from his past films found new life on television.

When James Mason, an actor, bought Buster Keaton's old house, he found film reels that were once thought to be lost. He was able to save them and thus introduce Keaton's gags to a new generation. In 1965, he was invited to the Venice Film Festival and received a standing ovation for five minutes.

Buster Keaton hit rock bottom and hit it hard. However, he surprised the world by picking himself up and doing what he loved to do.

How to Get Started as a Filmmaker... More or Less

The First Steps Toward a Passion

In this field, as with many other professions, the best teacher of film making is experience. No amount of theory or lectures can improve a skill like going through the trenches of film production. Of course, from my own personal experience, suddenly just starting on this path is quite daunting to say the least. Suddenly you have a lot more questions, such as how to make a film and why certain cameras work better than others. In the digital age we live in, you are more than likely to find filmmaking tutorials. As such, here are a few examples that I have used in the past.

More or Less. (techfellows.uaa.alaska.edu)

 

Tutorials (How to Get Your Feet Wet)

Although it has ended its programing, Indy Mogul was the one place an up-and-coming filmmaker could go to. Ranging from prop building tutorials to camera techniques, Indy Mogul had it all. There are no longer any new videos that will be released, but there are still plenty of videos available to see.

(wikipedia.org)

Another tutorial place to hit would be Film Riot. The format of each episode would be to present a comedy sketch that would include a tutorial or technique taught in the same episode. Besides teaching filmmakers how to do things, it would also provide challenges to its viewers to encourage film making. For example, one challenge was to create a scene reminiscent of Spielberg.

Extra Knowledge

Like the two websites above, Film Maker IQ provides tutorials for films. However not only do they address how to perform certain film techniques, but they also address why it should be done so. The website also provides brief history lessons about the film industry, such as the history of popcorn as a movie snack.

These places are a great way to start learning if you have trouble. However your perfect film cannot be made unless you take action. Thus, take that first step.

Buster Keaton: One of the First Stuntmen

A Daredevil of His Time

When you think of a person who does their own stunts in movies, one name that would pop up would be Jackie Chan. However another name should come to mind, considering this individual inspired Jackie Chan himself; that name would be Buster Keaton.

While he was most likely not as well known as Charlie Chaplin, he delivered laughs and jaw dropping stunts to boot. Keaton's athleticism and work ethic when it came to making films was something you would almost never see again.

Humble Beginnings

Before people went to the movies, the entertainment would come from vaudeville. In layman's terms, vaudeville was a theater variety show. The shows would have multiple acts that have no relation to one another: musicians, magicians, singers, dancers, acrobats, etc.

At the age of three, Buster started to perform with this parents in vaudeville acts. They were mostly comedy sketches in which Buster would act up and his father would retaliate by throwing him around. This was when he learned how to fall safely. As would many future film stars of the era, this vaudeville star moved on to films.

The Man with the Stone Face

Buster Keaton's trademark was to keep a deadpan face no matter what was happening to him. Fly out a window? Deadpan. Face an avalanche of rocks? Deadpan. When he was younger, he realized that people laughed harder when he did this, so he stayed in that character.

His first film was with Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle in the film Butcher Boy. He introduced himself to the world by getting stuck on molasses and getting pelted by a flour bag.

Soon afterward, Buster Keaton began to make his own films such as Steamboat Bill, Jr. The Electric House, and Sherlock, Jr. As seen below is his most famous stunt involving a house.

Keep in mind that was a real, solid part of the house. If it missed, he probably would have died. Despite the danger and the abuse he put himself through, he loved his craft. The story goes that he would tell his crew "keep shooting unless I yell cut or I'm dead."

Unfortunately for his career, it took a swan dive during the sound era. Now the problem was not necessarily his voice, which actually was well suited for film. His real mistake was signing a contract with MGM in which he lost his creative freedom. The Camera Man would be the last film of his style.


Despite this sad ending, Buster Keaton is still influential to this day. Many sight gags of his seem to creep up in modern day. When you find the time, go and look for his films. It is worth your time.

The Father of Special Effects

Movie Magic....Really Old School Style

Whether it is seeing a T-Rex come to life in front of our eyes or seeing our billionth explosion on screen, special effects have a special place in film. It is one of many tools of the trade that allows a filmmaker to create an illusion to their liking. When done well, the audience is taken to a place not thought possible; done poorly and popcorn bombards the silver screen. Even if most effects are done digitally, the principle of having effects at all is key to creating a whole new world. One question may come to mind as you are reading this... Who is this old dude here?

(lauraretrolibrarian.blogspot.com)

This individual here is Georges Méliès. If anyone saw the film Hugo, you would recognize him as the man Ben Kingsley portrayed. This man was a great film innovator. He was one of the few to look at a film camera and see much more than a simple gimmick.

Stage Magician to Film Magician

Special effects in cinema are often considered magic tricks, so it is fitting that the father of special effects was a magician in real life. Although he originally was part of a family business in shoe making, Méliès hated making shoes. He sold his share of a shoe factory to his brothers and bought the Théâtre Robert-Houdin. Attendance was low at first, but Méliès was able to increase ticket sales by creating his own magic tricks.

When he first saw the film camera by the Lumière brothers, Méliès immediately tried to buy one from them. Although refused, he was actually able to build one himself. As soon as he got his hands on a camera, Méliès began to use effects such as the jump cut, the dissolve, and the double exposure.

Example of Double Exposure. (http://www.mexicanpictures.com)

Anytime you saw an object suddenly appear in a film, that is usually a jump cut. The story goes that while Méliès was filming a trolly, the camera jammed. He got the camera working again, but there was a hearse in the place of the trolly. When the film was developed, he noticed that the trolly turned into the hearse. This discovery led to one of the 1st instances of editing and was a common trick he used in his films.

Double Exposure... Or How to Clone Yourself

Today we have green screen and computers in order to duplicate an individual. However, Méliès was able to do so only with a film camera using double exposure. The reason it was called double exposure is because the same strip of film need to be exposed twice or more. First a subject is shot, with half of the lens covered; this allowed only part of the film to be exposed. Then the camera operator would have to rewind the film and cover the other part of the lens. When exposed and played back, it would look as though there are clones. In order to do the ghostly effects, the same process would be repeated without covering the lens.

(popmatters.com)

It is fun to think that without this one French man, we would not have the film The Avengers. While his tricks are not nearly as advanced as special effects are today, Méliès paved the way for many special effects to come.

The Devil is in the Details

What is Told but Not Said

What the title above refers to is specifically the visual aspect of film. Images that tell the viewer about something without a character or narrator saying anything. For example, we as the viewers will notice something different such as the frame suddenly tilted at an angle.

Not to mention the placement of certain props, people, or

the camera in different spots.

 Sometimes this is simply done for the sake of style. 

However GREAT films manipulate visual aspects in order to alter the story how they want it to be. One example of an alteration would be the dutch angle.

As seen here in Batman from 1966. 

For the purposes of the TV show Batman, the dutch angle was used to

 demonstrate the villains as crooked. Get it?

Different colors in the film also help sell the type of film you are about to watch. Going to see a summer blockbuster? Expect blue and orange color schemes

Pick a movie. Any movie.

So what is the point of all these tidbits? Well human beings tend to notice when certain things are different than how they were before.

If stuff is written here, you would think this was a quote or something pretty important.

Anything slightly off or unusual will catch our EYE. With the mindset that everything seen in the film has meaning,

• it's just as possible

1. to think that a difference in location or angle

will tell us something more about the stories or the characters in front of us.

Granted it does not always work or seem very OBVIOUS!!!!!!!!!! But the best ones are films that can pulls these off without you noticing them...just like a magician....

 

So What To Do When It All Goes Wrong

When Murphy's Law Strikes Back

Anyone who attended college should be familiar with a concept known as Murphy's law. For those not familiar with it, the law basically states that whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. If you were in college as a filmmaker, like I was, Murphy's law scared you almost every waking moment. To complete a film, a lot of factors need to work in your favor: securing a location, having the equipment working, hiring all the actors, etc. However if one part goes wrong, the whole thing potentially falls apart; for me this happened numerous times.

Outside of college and making films, Murphy's law has yet to leave me alone. The worst will bite you in the butt when you don't look, so it's best to know how to deal with it.

 

 

Do Not Panic
The most repetitive piece of advice you will receive, but it is true none the less. For example, I had a film shoot today. The location of the short film was supposed to be in a quarry. It was scouted in advance and appeared to be a sure thing. Then on the day of shooting, the gate leading to the quarry was locked.

(deviantart.net)

 

 

One option was to cancel everything since we lost the location. However everything else was planned meticulous, so there was a general agreement that we would not just scrap the shoot so easily. With calmer heads, we were able to discover a different location nearby that we were just as familiar with. It turned out to benefit us the most since no one bothered us throughout the entire shoot.

Panicking is a natural and understandable reaction. The problem is that nothing is fixed once you finished having a freak out. As hard as it is, you have to buck up. Think less of why it went wrong and more of how to get it right.

Improvise

As I mentioned before, our crew was able to think of the the new location at the last minute. Many great inventions were created as a result of an accident.  While it is a pretty annoying setback, you may be able to make something great with whatever you have left.

Cut Your Losses

 

Even if you spent hours writing a scene, practiced lines, and set up a shot, sometimes parts need to be cut out. Going back to the film shoot, there was a fight scene involved and a lot of choreography was involved. However this was an outdoor shoot and sunlight was fading. The plan was that by the end of that day, all the fighting had to be shot; another day in the future would be used to shoot dialogue. Although time was spent a day earlier rehearsing, the fight ended up having to be cut shorter. This added stress on me because not only did it had to be shorter, it still had to make sense with the story order. As frustrating as it was to cut what I put time into making, I knew it had to be done to complete something.


Murphy's law will never leave me alone as far as I can see it. However, I plan to keep these three principles in my mind every time it decides to rear its ugly head.