SNOW ANGELS

Kate Beckinsale, Michael Angarano and Olivia Thirlby

Kate Beckinsale

I’m a little over a week into my trip touring around doing promotion for “Snow Angels.”  Portland, Oregon was a great city where I had all too little time.  Michael Angarano who plays Arthur just happened to be visiting his girlfriend in town, so we checked out a screening at the local film festival and did a Q&A afterwards.  Michael has a positive energy that so few young actors have.  With him, there is no desperation.  Acting is not a competition.  I learned a lot from his natural playfulness, his willingness to try new things and let the imperfections of a realistic character come to life.  I guess I see a lot of movies about young people where I feel condescension.  Cynical writers paint portraits ventilating the frustrations of their uncomfortable youth, or sentimental filmmakers hitting the cliché notes that play to the beat of the nostalgic music of their past.  Working with Michael and Olivia Thirlby was a pleasure because there wasn’t much I had to tell them to do.  Once we stripped the script away and recognized the intentions of the scenes, they could bring their own experience and maturity to the fumbled nature of two people trying to connect.  This was an essential element of the movie for me: to use the fulfillment of a young relationship as a balance to the canopy of frustrations and violence in the older relationships.  Olivia slipped into the shoes of her character, Lila.  I watched them through the camera and became obsessed with the moments between the lines of dialogue.  For me, their arc is intended to remind us of those moments before the first kiss.  I wanted Lila to be the girl who walks down the high school hallway and everyone has no choice but to smile.  She’s at once fiercely independent and universally accepted.  Visiting with Olivia and Michael over the past few days reminded me of how entertaining their sequences in the film were to make.  The crew looked forward to seeing what they would say and how they would grow.

In Oregon, I pounded a few Cap’n Crunch pastries at Voodoo Donuts and then hit the road for Los Angeles.  Several friends of mine were up for nominations at the Independent Spirit Awards and it’s always a good way to cram some hugs and high fives into one afternoon.  The two movies I worked on, “Great World of Sound” and “Shotgun Stories” came up dry, but such award committees and voter recognition have never been known for going out on a limb, so I can’t say I was surprised.  It is kind of amazing that even a ceremony that is supposedly geared toward independent minded movies seems to distribute the obvious Hollywood accolades.  I’m not sure what that says about the current state of independent film, but I have to say it scares me.  In many ways it’s easier to make a large budget studio film with big movie stars than a modestly priced film that has any degree of a non-traditional approach to its execution.

My week of publicity in Los Angeles was pretty heavy.  On Wednesday I shifted around various rooms of a hotel doing interviews with journalists about “Snow Angels.”  It’s a pretty tough aspect of the job.  Self-promotion.  Every ten minutes you’ve got a new person to talk to, a new set of questions, or an old set of questions that you want to put a spin on so you don’t just end up repeating yourself over and over again.  One of the most valuable aspects of that day for me, was sitting in on a few interviews with Kate Beckinsale and learning from her.  Kate plays Annie in the movie and from the first time I met with her two years ago, I recognized a tremendous intellect beyond the face.  The depth at which she was consistently able to perform was astonishing, and her humorous manner off set and between takes was valuable in achieving an on-set environment that was creative and productive.  But back to the press junket….  Watching the grace and consistency with which she fielded questions was amazing.  When you’re Kate, I guess people are interested in your performance, but they also want to know what you had for dinner last night and what your childhood was like and if you’re currently happy in your relationship.  She fielded questions from the obscure to the absurd with such genuine humor that I couldn’t help be see why so many people are so curious about her and drawn to her celebrity. Her skill at navigating the public interest of her personal life is what makes her stand out among many of the movie stars I’ve seen in action.  She’s appreciative of their insight and at least convincingly handles stupid questions without the burden of negativity.  Her interpretation of our film made me proud and the verbal elegance that I watched her project reminded me of the value of taking difficult journeys with positive people. 

We had our West Coast premiere on Thursday night at the Egyptian Theatre.  I was pretty overwhelmed by everything.  It had been several months since I had seen the movie and for the first time I found myself watching it not as a filmmaker, but surrendering to the product as an audience member.  I recognized a lot of the private moments that we decided to put on screen and afterwards the silence that bloomed into conversation was exactly the reaction I was hoping for.  I want this to be a movie where people recognize pieces of themselves or elements of their relationships…ask themselves “remember when…?” or “What if…?”  It’s about connections and disconnections.  I stuck around to sip a couple Coca-Colas and see some old friends, but my head was still stirring in this peculiar place.

The past three nights I have been in Miami, Florida.  We had a local screening and I did some press, but I took the weekend to walk the beach and kick some sand and do some writing…. My mind wandered into the brain station for a tune-up.  As professional opportunity takes me on this whirlwind tour and the possibility of future projects loom over my calendar…. I need to remind myself where stories come from and where distinctive voices come from.  They come from life experience.  The kind of experience that you can’t squeeze into a weekend or an afternoon, but the epic adventures of the world outside where you are a stranger traveling and soaking in the things you say and the way you feel.