Janet Stilson

Patience, And What I'd Like It to Teach Me

"Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, liked locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Perhaps you will gradually, without ever noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day."

-- Rainer Maria Rilke

Years ago, when I was but a girl-woman in college, I hitchhiked from New Hampshire down to Boston to hear Miles Davis play. It was midsummer, and I slipped into the bar area of the packed club with my friends in a state of rapture that I would get to hear him in person.

Half way through the set, something odd happened. Miles' eyes seemed to pick me out of the crowd, and it wasn't a good look. He stopped playing. This wasn't one of his famed moments of silence that could be so amazing. It was as if he was terribly angry with me. As if I was the Ghost of Christmas Past risen up in July. He walked off the stage, and he never came back.

Two years ago, one of my friends brought Jimmy Cobb to a New Year's Day party that my honey, David, and I threw. Cobb was the drummer on Miles' famous "Kind of Blue" album, one of my favorites. And as he and I got to know each other a little I related the experience, now so long ago. He told me that I look like one of Miles' ex-girl friends. I don't think the affair ended well.

Maybe Cobb was just making a fanciful remark, but for me it was like hearing the proverbial second shoe fall, decades after the first.

And that experience, and Rilke's wonderful quote, has made me think a good deal about patience lately, and my longing to have more at a time when it's so easy to find instant gratification in so many ways.

I've been impatient lately with two films I recently saw -- Tailor, Tinker, Soldier, Spy and Melancholia. 

Making Sense Amidst Senseless Violence

Almost exactly one week ago, one of my favorite people in the media business was murdered. He was shot repeatedly in front of his three-year-old child.

His name is Steven McIntosh, and I posted a blog about him on Jan. 28th. If you scroll down, you'll find his photo and why I find the work that he was doing on behalf of the whole television industry so important.

The account of Steve's death is disturbing even if you never met him. But part of the shock for me has to do with how deeply his death hit me, because I'd grown so fond of him in such a short span of time. How many phone conversations did we have? Maybe five. How many e-mails did we exchange? Around 20. How many times did I meet him face to face? Zero. 

So how did he do it? Why is it that my heart is so shattered when I never even spoke with the bloke until late last year -- less than six months ago?

Ted, Rene, Stephen and Bill

Last week I had the opportunity to ask Michele Ganeless, president of Comedy Central, about Stephen Colbert. His show, The Colbert Report, is one of the funniest programs on TV, if you ask me. She said that nothing motivated Stephen more than if you told him that something was really hard or impossible to do. That's Stephen, pictured here. (Photo credit: Scott Gries, PictureGroup)

Michele's remarks reminded me of some of the most intelligent, successful people I've ever known. They share the same traits: They're incredibly determined despite all the odds against them, and they can be really, really funny.

The Alchemy of Adaptations

Adapting content for the screen has been a topic that has intrigued me for years -- most especially because I adapted a short story into a film a few years ago and found it a very rich experience. But lately, it's risen to the surface because this last week I moderated a panel session on the topic organized by New York Women in Film & Television. And I also saw the Coen Brothers' rendering of True Grit, which is a very entertaining and artful road movie.

It's very common, when I speak with film producers, to learn that they're most interested in working on adaptations. And in fact, one of the panelists at the session this last week, Marsha Norman, said that she owes much of her career's success to work involving adaptations.

Marsha may be best known for her Pulitzer Prize winning play 'night Mother, but her adaptations include a movie version of that play, the book for the musical The Color Purple, the HBO series In Treatment (reformulated from an Israeli series), the musical adaptation of The Secret Garden (which won her a Tony) and the upcoming theater rendering of The Bridges of Madison County.

The Art of Romance

I've been thinking a lot about love lately. Specifically, what you find up on screen in a dark movie house filled with a lot of popcorn munching.

Love is so primal. And yet many movies released in recent years don't seem to make the romance between characters completely believable. For me, it's like being cheated out of an emotional high. And as someone who's written romantic films, it's something I take very seriously.

So when I went to a screening recently of Love & Other Drugs, featuring Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal, I was surprised by the credibility of the romance at the heart of the story.

It didn't hurt that this is a very sexy film, and the chemistry between the co-stars was remarkable. (No wonder that the director and co-writer, Edward Zwick, told The New York Times that he had his co-stars watch Last Tango in Paris as part of their preparation.)

A League of Our Own

A few years ago, some of my friends were comparing notes on how their businesses were faring. And one of them confessed that she really wanted to win an Academy Award for a short documentary that she'd just completed.

That might seem like setting laughably high expectations. But not to these friends. They rallied around their pal and gave her all kinds of support -- from strategic lobbying ideas to advice on the best designer to create her Oscar acceptance speech gown. She snagged an Oscar nomination, and while she didn't win an award, the fact she had made it to the "inner circle" and was part of the whole extravaganza evening was so uplifting for all of us.

When the Oscar confession took place, my friends were not just meeting for a casual get-together. They had formed a Support Group that met once a month and served as a sort of "board of directors" for each of their entrepreneurial businesses. And when they asked me to join shortly thereafter, I was so honored.

While that original Support Group disbanded, I'm now involved with another. And it's vital to my work as both a script writer and a journalist.

Winding Up the Pitch

Last week I had a phone chat with the Hollywood script consultant Julie Gray. The call was part of my prize in winning her recent writing contest, and her advice was so insightful that I wanted to share it with you.

Right now, I'm in the throes of writing a sci fi film script, and I was curious about whether or not there are particular ways to pitch films in that genre.  It will be a while before I actually start marketing the script, but she encouraged me to work on a logline and mini synopsis right now, as it will help me tighten the structure of the script and clarify the themes and plotlines. And guess what? I went through the process, and it really helps.

Much of what she told me about composing the pitch is applicable to films of every genre. But it's important to make clear at the very start when a sci fi script takes place. Is it the day after tomorrow or 50 years from now? Also, who's in charge of the world?

My Secret Writing Recipe

Last night I had a revelation while making one of my favorite dishes. I love sauteed bay scallops married with a creamy pesto sauce over linguine. Especially if the basil is hand picked off my balcony minutes before I puree it, if the cream is sour cream -- and if there's a nice bottle to go with.

I've come to discover that if the scallops are placed in the sautee pan so that they don't touch each other, they don't shed their liquid. Instead, the outside of the scallops takes on a wonderful gold hue -- not exactly carmelized, but definitely more flavorful.

As I stirred them up last night -- anticipating my nice wine and a rollicking conversation with my mate David -- it came to me that there was a metaphor to explore there that pertains to the way I work as both a script writer and a journalist.

Shatter and Build

Last week I received some stunningly wonderful news.  I'd won a competition organized by Julie Gray, a Hollywood script consultant. I'd heard her speak during a teleseminar organized by Marvin Acuna of The Business of Show Institute. Before she was through, Julie invited all the participants to take part in her writing contest, which had a deadline only a few days away.

I tossed away all my skepticism that I could ever win and wrote a 500-word essay called "Shatter and Build." A few days later I learned I'd beat out the competition to claim the grand prize.

Ironically, the topic of my essay was all about the unexpected twists and turns that happen so quickly in life. Julie posted my essay on her blog site, "Just Effing Entertain Me," along with comments on why she was impressed by what I wrote. But privately, she told me that she knew I could make it even better.

She was absolutely right. It was, after all, something I'd dashed off on short notice. So I've taken some time to revise it, and you'll find it attached here:

Download Shatter & Build 1010

It will probably be of particular interest to the people I grew up with in a tiny village called Franklin in Upstate New York, because it stirs up memories of rather shattering events that some of us experienced long ago.

 

 

 

The Dragon and the Phoenix

Perched on the brink of 2007, I look back on many high-resolution memories accumulated over the last year ... whimsical boutiques in the gritty back corridors of Lisbon ... heart twisting scenes of devastation in New Orleans, combined with transcendent music at JazzFest ... an ancient, unfinished cathedral in Costa Rica ... and the roof of the Longshan Buddhist temple in Taipei, pictured here.

I went to Taiwan last month to attend a series of conferences and festivals that culminated with the Golden Horse awards ceremony, which is the country's version of the Oscars. I was there representing New York Women in Film & Television, and managed to pick up some interesting intelligence that will be handy as a film I've written set in China starts to go into the preproduction phase (knock on wood). And I also wrote a couple of stories for The Hollywood Reporter, which can be accessed here:

Download thr_golden_horse_1106.pdf

Download thr_digital_digest_1106.pdf

It's not my habit to make new year's resolutions, but early this morning I woke up and a promise crystallized in my mind: that I write more compelling fiction and news articles than I have ever created in the past -- stories as vivid and thought-provoking as the creatures on this temple roof. 2006 has certainly given me generous helpings of inspiration in order to do so.