Shooting to Kill
by Christine Vachon, David Edelstein
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Book Summary Information
Author: Christine Vachon, David EdelsteinEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1998-09-01
ISBN: 0380798549
Number of pages: 352
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Book Reviews of Shooting to Kill
Book Review: a whole new arena of hope
Summary: 5 Stars
Shooting to Kill by independent film producer Christine Vachon gives you the nuts-and-bolts of what a producer does to blast through the barriers to make movies that matter on extremely low budgets, but it is also filled with great stories and anecdotes about what really goes on in those desperate film sets with auteur directors aching to have their stories told on screen. "Basically, a low-budget movie is a crisis waiting to happen," she tells her readers in the opening chapter. Here is an example of a mini crisis from "I Shot Andy Warhol" a film about the woman who really did shoot Andy. She was played by Lili Taylor and another actor had an identity crisis playing drag queen Candy Darling because he didn't want still photos of him in drag leaked to the press (as if people weren't going to see him anyway when the film was released):
Tom Kalin, my coproducer, beeps me 911. He has just spoken to Stephen's agent at ICM who chewed him out for allowing any stills to be taken--which according to him is BREAKING OUR VERBAL CONTRACT, which according to him is BINDING IN THE STATE OF LOS ANGELES. We might have to track down and destroy all the negatives, or the state of Los Angeles will come after us.
Christian Bale meltdown? When he was just starting out, on Velvet Goldmine, he was much more easygoing (though there is dramatic foreshadowing of what was to come). Christine needed a ride home, so she asked Christian; little realizing what she was in for:
He had only been on the set for a couple of days, so I didn't really know him, but he seemed nice enough. He didn't take kindly to my request, though. "My contract," he said curtly, "says I get an exclusive ride to and from the set." It did, so that was that. When I started to turn away, he said, "Christine." Big grin. "I'm kidding."
Rumor has it that he said the same thing after his Youtube meltdown, but they cut that off to leave the impression that he really was an insensitive, intolerant jerk who had let his minor talent and major stardom go to his head.
A large part of the fun of Shooting to Kill is these little stories about actors that started in independent films and went on to bigger but not necessarily better things. As the actors and directors she worked with became more and more famous, the films she worked on had bigger budgets, and bigger problems. Or in some cases, the actors and directors matured and delivered much better work. She worked a lot with director Todd Haynes, and he went on to make Far From Heaven, with Julianne Moore, and I'm Not There. with Christian Bale. She produced I Shot Andy Warhol, which was directed by Mary Harron and starred Lili Taylor and Jared Harris, and then later on she produced The Notorious Bettie Page that also was directed by Mary Harron with Lili Taylor and Jared Harris. The biggest success she can point to is producing Boys Don't Cry which won an Oscar for its star, Hillary Swank. She produced one of the earliest films with Julianne Moore, but was also there for a mature masterpiece of hers, Savage Grace. I like this story a lot, about one of Julianne Moore's first auditions. Her agent had said she wouldn't read, and they couldn't tape her, but when they met her she was eager to read and be taped. They were casting for a part in Safe, about a woman who is being killed by toxic chemicals in the environment:
And she gave the most astonishing reading. Time froze, the air in the room stopped circulating. Todd and I were both on the floor. What do you say? Great! Thanks!" She left and we looked at each other and-- "She's cast! We've got to get her!" Julianne told me later that she wanted the part so badly that out in the hall she burst into tears.
Christine has chapters on Development, Budgeting, Financing, hiring the crew, finding locations, shooting the darn thing, editing, post-production, marketing, and most important, schmoozing at film festivals. It includes actual budgets and other charts and graphs that would really only interest you if you wanted to follow in her footsteps, and become an independent film producer. But actually, it is fascinating seeing all the work and planning that goes into making films. She includes other voices, from friends and associates who also work in the film industry. For instance, here is James Schamus expounding on the independent film climate:
The other space that was competing for ascendancy at that time was created mainly by European television, which was itself a publicly-funded thing. American Playhouse combined those two cultures: It was a bridge between the international marketplace culture and NEA apparatchik culture.
You can really see that James has spent time in Berkeley, and in fact, when I lived in Berkeley he was a friend of a friend of a friend and I heard some interesting stories about things he said. He works a lot with director Ang Lee, who made The Ice Storm; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; and Brokeback Mountain. James is half Irish and half Jewish, just so you know. Ang Lee was making a film about a Chinese family that involved a lot of arguments over the dinner table. Schamus was having a hard time writing convincing dialogue for the Chinese family, as he couldn't imagine how they talked. Ang Lee told him to just write it exactly the way that the Jewish half of his family talked at table. Once he heard that, he was able to write it with no hesitation, and it was just what the director wanted. He just did a global search-and-replace that changed the names of the characters from Jewish names to Chinese names. I guess some experiences are universal.
The Bottom Line is that Shooting to Kill by Christine Vachon is quite interesting even if you don't intend to become an independent film producer (a thankless task). Shooting to Kill would be of interest to you if you are a film lover and are curious about the process of making films, even if you don't intend to make a film yourself. If you do want to work in films, as a producer, director, writer, or in some other capacity, and are planning to break in through independent films, then this is absolutely the book for you.
I know that in this book I've been rattling on about money and locations and equipment, but it's important to remember that they all surround a thing so fragile, a thing that requires imaginative leaps and an incredible emotional commitment. And yet, there's no other way to approach it, is there? No matter how deep and poetic and delicate an onscreen moment will be, you still need lights, a camera, and a location in which to shoot. And in the middle of the most intense, hushed scene, when your actors are plumbing their most profound emotions, the AD will still turn to you--as an AD turned to me, recently--and point to the clock that shows you're three hours behind schedule, and whisper: "We Suck."
PRODUCED BY CHRISTINE VACHON
I'm Not There (Two-Disc Collector's Edition) (2007) (producer) Directed by Todd Haynes, with Christian Bale
Savage Grace (2007) (producer) Julianne Moore
The Notorious Bettie Page (2005) (producer) Directed by Mary Harron, with Lili Taylor, Jared Harris
Party Monster (2003) (producer) Chloë Sevigny
Far From Heaven (2002) (producer) Directed by Todd Haynes, with Julianne Moore
Boys Don't Cry (1999) (producer) Hillary Swank, Chloë Sevigny
Velvet Goldmine (1998) (producer) Directed by Todd Haynes, with Christian Bale
I Shot Andy Warhol (1996) (producer) Directed by Mary Harron, with Lili Taylor, Jared Harris
Kids (1995) (co-producer) Chloë Sevigny, Rosario Dawson
Safe (1995) (producer) Directed by Todd Haynes, with Julianne Moore
As Bruce Wagner, the director of I'm Losing You, puts it, independent film is "a whole new arena of hope." And what I want most passionately is for aspiring producers, directors, and writers to treat it with something like reverence. H. L. Mencken notwithstanding, a lot of people have gone broke underestimating the public's intelligence. Whereas I truly believe that if you fashion a great work, it will--ultimately--be seen. I have to believe that, or I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing.
Summary of Shooting to Kill
Complete with behind-the-scenes diary entries from the set of Vachon's best-known fillms, Shooting to Kill offers all the satisfaction of an intimate memoir from the frontlines of independent filmmakins, from one of its most successful agent provocateurs -- and survivors. Hailed by the New York Times as the "godmother to the politically committed film" and by Interview as a true "auteur producer," Christine Vachon has made her name with such bold, controversial, and commercially successful films as "Poison," "Swoon," Kids," "Safe," "I Shot Andy Warhol," and "Velvet Goldmine."Over the last decade, she has become a driving force behind the most daring and strikingly original independent filmmakers-from Todd Haynes to Tom Kalin and Mary Harron-and helped put them on the map.So what do producers do? "What don't they do?" she responds. In this savagely witty and straight-shooting guide, Vachon reveals trheguts of the filmmaking process--rom developing a script, nurturing a director's vision, getting financed, and drafting talent to holding hands, stoking egos, stretching every resource to the limit and pushing that limit. Along the way, she offers shrewd practical insights and troubleshooting tips on handling everything from hysterical actors and disgruntled teamsters to obtuse marketing executives.
Complete with behind-the-scenes diary entries from the sets of Vachon's best-known films, Shooting To Kill offers all the satisfactions of an intimate memoir from the frontlines of independent filmmaking, from one of its most successful agent provocateurs-and survivors.
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