Today's interview is with Paul Brenner,
MFA, film maker, script writer, Director of Audio Visual Services at
John Jay College of Criminal Justice at The University of New York.
His focus was English Studies and Film Studies at the College of NJ,
Rutgers and USC and then on to Northwestern and New York University
for Graduate School.
MLAC: Can you tell us about some of
your earlier creative activities?
PB: I started making movies in
Jr. High School ...Super 8 films...one starred my dog and was called
Bozo the Magnificent. Another was a film with my sister called
Death in the Snow. Then I got more serious and started making
films at TSC. One film that got me into USC was called Armadillo
Souffle. This film was a parody of Invasions of the Body
Snatchers. One morning the main character wakes up and everyone
looks like Groucho Marx and starts to chase him. The film culminates
with the main character (Ed Holub) jumping to his death from an open
window. USC loved it. I'm not sure if they loved the film or the
concept of Ed jumped to his death out of an open window. Actually,
USC liked the way the shots were composed, the editing, etc.
MLAC: Was that
the movie you asked me to be in on that rainy, spring day at TSC as I
trudged through the mud pits to my car....and you and Ed Holub were
about to enter the mud pits? I turned you down because I was having a
bad hair day and didn't want my straight hair to get any straighter.
Now I could kick myself because... I could have been in the
movies!
PB: Yes. You could have been the
next Pia Zadora.
MLAC: Back to your earlier creative
activities.
PB: At Rutgers, I got more
involved in film criticism and writing about film. I was the film
critic for the Rutgers Newspaper, The Daily Targem.
I got accepted in 1974 to USC and went
there for a couple of years. I mostly wrote scripts and worked
collaboratively with teams of students on films.
I went to Northwestern University for
Graduate School and majored in TV-Radio-Film mostly film history and
theory and I made films because at Northwestern you could study film
history and production in the same department. Several of my films
were shown at festivals at the Art Institute of Chicago. Here I ran
the film society, called the A & O Film Board. The society ran
films 7 days a week with midnight showings on the weekends with
special guests.
MLAC: You've had
some very interesting experiences at some of the universities!
PB: At Northwestern University,
a friend and I had to pick up Dennis Hopper from the O'Hare Airport
for a special screening of THE LAST MOVIE, which Hopper wrote,
directed and starred in. It was his first film after EASY RIDER.
After the movie was shown we then introduced him to the students.
They were not happy with the film, so they started to criticize the
film...they were very angry about it. After the film a Question and
Answer period took place and he didn't like some of the questions. It
wasn't like Inside the Actor's Studio. It was more like Inside the
Psycho Ward at Bellevue. A snarky, elitist film student disparaged
the film as a piece of pompous drivel…some kind of intellectual
diatribe. Hopper's film WAS very experimental and very alienating and
some folks in the audience couldn't comprehend the fact that there
was no narrative. Hopper had just returned from shooting APOCALYPSE
NOW and he was super-paranoid.
Hopper reacted psychotically. He lunged
over the footlights at his student critic and shouted “What do you
mean by that?” and he revealed a gun stuck in his belt! I don't
know if the gun was loaded or not, but I was, after Hopper got
back on the plane.
At USC, there was a special
retrospective of Orson Welles films with Welles himself in
attendance.. At the end of the screening my friend Ken and I were
supposed to sneak him out of the theater and to his car without Orson
Welles fans seeing him.. We were using a golf cart as a means of
transportation to Welles's car with Ken and I in the front of the
cart and Orson in the back. It was slow going with Welles's feet
dangling from the cart and he was spotted by the crowd, who started
pursuing the electric cart. Welles started sweating and the mob kept
getting closer. As his legs bounced around as we bounded over
potholes, Welles would crane his head in our direction and in a
booming Shakespearean voice he yelled, “ Faster, faster you
b.......!”
MLAC: What are
some of your professional writing assignments?
PB: I have written for a number
of books and conducted research for others. The books I've written
for have included two editions of The Motion Picture Guide,
The Encyclopedia of Film and The Movie Guide. I
researched and/or conducted interviews for Close-Ups: The
Movie Star Book, Women and the Cinema, Cult Baseball
Players, We Played The Game, Roger Maris: Baseball's
Reluctant Hero (published last year), and Gotham (which
won the Pulitzer Prize). I have also written many film reviews for a
number of websites including America Online's first movie review
site, Critic's Choice, MediaScreen, and FilmCritc.com.
MLAC: How do you
find writing jobs?
PB: Finding writing gigs is like fishing. You just have to target certain editors and pitch yourself and offer samples of your work or links to your work. The more gigs you get, the more you add to your resume and the more you add to your resume the more editors will pay attention to you.
You can also get work by making contacts. For example, Paul Kelly with whom I co-wrote Fermented and My Day is a playwright who also works at John Jay College and we got together to write. So too with another script I wrote called Betrayal, with Kathy Willis, who was the producer of a television show, Criminal Justice Matters, that I direct. And the author of Gotham, Mike Wallace, I also knew from the college. Danny Peary, with whom I worked on the baseball books, I knew because his brother was a professor of mine at Rutgers, with whom I worked on several film books and Danny and I kept in touch through the years.
PB: Finding writing gigs is like fishing. You just have to target certain editors and pitch yourself and offer samples of your work or links to your work. The more gigs you get, the more you add to your resume and the more you add to your resume the more editors will pay attention to you.
You can also get work by making contacts. For example, Paul Kelly with whom I co-wrote Fermented and My Day is a playwright who also works at John Jay College and we got together to write. So too with another script I wrote called Betrayal, with Kathy Willis, who was the producer of a television show, Criminal Justice Matters, that I direct. And the author of Gotham, Mike Wallace, I also knew from the college. Danny Peary, with whom I worked on the baseball books, I knew because his brother was a professor of mine at Rutgers, with whom I worked on several film books and Danny and I kept in touch through the years.
MLAC: Any
memorable movies that you've worked on?
PB: In 1994/1995 I worked with
director Ken Kwapis on the film Dunston Checks In which
featured Jason Alexander, Faye Dunaway, and Paul Reubens. I was
working at 20th Century Fox and my job was to write sight gags and
jokes for the film. I was working with a story board artist to
construct comedy sequences and the sight gags. The film was put on
hold because of Rupert Murdoch who had taken over the studio and shut
down production of everything and funneled all the money into The
Power Rangers Movie, shot in Australia. I had already uprooted my
family and quit my job, and my bank account was flatlining. With film
on hold for several months I had to head back to New York and get my
old job back. And the day I finally wrangled an apartment in
Plainsboro, then they green lighted the film. It was shot, they used
my gags but it didn't help the film at all. The film tanked at the
box office. Jason Alexander went back to Seinfeld, Faye
Dunaway went back into seclusion and Paul Reubens ended up hosting a
game show.
MLAC: What
project are you currently working on?
PB: My current solo project is
called The Big Igloo which is based on the 1922 Robert
Flaherty documentary Nanook of the North. Nanook of the
North is generally considered the first documentary feature and
it deals with an Inuit family Canada's Far North. Particularly a
famed Inuit hunter Nanook. Well, the film was a big hit when it was
released in the United States and Nanook became a cultural celebrity.
The Big Igloo is a satire film is about how William Fox
brought Nanook to NY for publicity and how Nanook became dazzled by
the city and couldn't go back to his old way of life. In reality,
Nanook went back to the Arctic wastelands and he and his family
starved to death. But my script is about Nanook in NY. In my version,
Nanook becomes a drunken lout who ends up losing it all and going
back home where he can no longer fit in and can't adjust. A cynical
take about what happens to an innocent when exposed to a modicum of
fame. It's a laugh riot.
For a future project, I have written
hundreds a film reviews as an online film critic and I'd like to
collect all of my movie reviews and create a website or blog
featuring the reviews and new criticism.
MLAC: Do you
have any advice for film makers, script writers etc.?
PB: I agree with John
Cassavetes. I met him one time during a screening of his film A
WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE and he told me that if you want to be a
film maker or any type of creative writer, that has to be your main
focus. Once you have an idea, see it through to the end. Don't
solicit opinions from friends and relatives. Be true to yourself and
your ideas. Cassavetes followed his own advice ...he would mortgage
his house to complete a film.
My advice is...you have to make time
each day for writing and you have to have a passion for what you do!
If I had had any sense, I would have
worked in a Video Store like Quentin Tarantino. I would have been
able to make more movies that way instead of getting a degree and
making loan payments until I am 90. Thirty years ago, before video,
it was very expensive making films. Today you can buy a flash card
and film for 6 hours, then weed out what you don't want. A sloppy way
to put together a movie. When you shot with actual film, you had to
think every shot through since film costs money. It forced you to get
a handle on what you wanted to shoot.
Paul's
film reviews as a writer for FilmCritic.com on
AMC:http://www.facebook.com/l/mAQHQj5n6AQH7iSkXQKYHHBCn42TAgBEhrgBxoHRa1_4QLQ/www.amctv.com/search%23t=ALL&q=paul+brennerhttp://www.facebook.com/l/mAQHQj5n6AQH7iSkXQKYHHBCn42TAgBEhrgBxoHRa1_4QLQ/www.amctv.com/search%23t=ALL&q=paul+brenner
For
the Fermented film in which Paul co-wrote the
screenplay:
http://www.facebook.com/l/TAQGSUFxfAQF7F7qv6ksFeuCPouHHyghDLYERRZjaR_0c7w/www.amazon.com/Fermented/dp/B007GUHOFGhttp://www.facebook.com/l/TAQGSUFxfAQF7F7qv6ksFeuCPouHHyghDLYERRZjaR_0c7w/www.amazon.com/Fermented/dp/B007GUHOFGFor screenplay formatting, he uses a program called Final Draft.
http://www.facebook.com/l/TAQGSUFxfAQF7F7qv6ksFeuCPouHHyghDLYERRZjaR_0c7w/www.amazon.com/Fermented/dp/B007GUHOFGhttp://www.facebook.com/l/TAQGSUFxfAQF7F7qv6ksFeuCPouHHyghDLYERRZjaR_0c7w/www.amazon.com/Fermented/dp/B007GUHOFGFor screenplay formatting, he uses a program called Final Draft.
Paul Brenner's
Movie Reviews and Previews-Rotten
Tomatoes:http://www.rottentomatoes.com/critic/paul-brenner/
Movie reviews,
previews, and articles from Paul Brenner on Rotten Tomatoes! Paul
Brenner best and worst review.
Paul Brenner's
email: pbrenner7@comcast.net
