To direct with a pure heart

I did the first assembly of the laundry room/bird scene this afternoon and... it was OK. I've been trying to figure out why it's so hard to make the damn thing work. If you recall, the first version of this scene was shot at the church. Then I decided that the church didn't look quite right so then we were going to shoot at the slide library. But then I nixed that idea opting for the laundry room instead. Then we shot a rehearsal, a lighting tech rehearsal and the real thing yesterday. And it's still not quite working.

Part of the difficulty is that I'm trying to imply the bird attack and not show it. That's really tough.

Second, I need to come to grips with what I'm after. I've been gradually excising all the "Hollywood" shots from the film because I realized I didn't like them—the narrative and camera gadgetry designed to generate suspense. Yet that is what this scene is supposed to be. If anything, it's like something out of Hitchcock's The Birds.

So I'm at odds with myself. On the one hand I'm trying to create a typical thriller/suspense scene and on the other hand I'm refusing to use any of the technique to get there. The solution is not a technical one, I think, but a matter of the heart. At a certain point you have to know what you want to do and do it. You can't have it both ways.

I've been veering between mainstream and the mundane. But maybe a third approach is necessary. My next idea is to use bird shadows and make the thing more abstract, more art-horror. That will allow me to actually show the attack but retain some mystery. Plus, in the current versions I've been strongly emphasizing the clue development. I think I need to reemphasize the bird attack and carefully work out the pacing. I think it will work. But I ALWAYS think it will work. I like something Magic Johnson once said. After a game a reporter asked him, "did you think that shot was going in?" He replied with a smile, "I think they're ALL going in." And most things are like that. In order to move on you have to really believe your next shot is going to work.