I've long been fascinated by director Albert Pyun. A bit older than me and raised in Hawaii, Pyun (bio) is something of a real-life Ed Wood. Despite his auspicious start as a member of Takao Saito's (Akira Kurosawa's DP) crew, Pyun is known for churning out dozens of Z-grade, direct-t0-nowhere genre films. Constantly battling low budgets and interference by producers (read a fascinating article), Pyun's talent lies in helming a 20 year directing career that exists almost in spite of itself. I find Pyun's approach to directing really interesting—
No storyboards. Ever. I worked pretty organically. I just go where my impulses lead and mostly where the budget and time limitations dictate! I have always called my style of filmmaking "evolutionary filmmaking" I take the limits of budget and time and try to stretch both to fit my vision. I don't try to fight the limitations. Instead I flow with them.
As a filmmaker, Pyun is reminiscent of Scott Shaw. Shaw is an obscurer-than-thou martial artist, author, musician, producer, mystic, film theorist and star of dozens of sub-B movies. In an online article, Shaw describes his approach as "zen filmmaking."
"Just what the hell is a Zen Film?" First of all, and perhaps most importantly, scripts are out the window. I like to say, "Scripts are for sissies." This doesn't mean that we let the actors improv. For the most part, you wouldn't want to see novice actors improving. The problem with scripts is that performances become so contrived when people have their lines memorized for days or weeks -- its just boring. To create a film what we do is Don or I comes up with a concept, we cast some people who fit the roles we have in mind, go out to a location, get inspired and then guide them through what they should say and do. As Don says, "Zen Filmmaking is like painting: you get a canvas, you get some paint, but you never know what the painting is going to look like until you apply the paint to the canvas."
And no, Shaw doesn't use storyboards either. I've never seen a Scott Shaw film. I've seen one Albert Pyun film—Captain America. The thing that struck me about it was its odd sense of proportion. Important moments weren't underscored. Unimportant moments were dragged out. This is in direct contrast to Zack Snyder's 300 which I watched over the weekend. 300 is all about moments—emphasizing them, deemphasizing them, creating them. Everything, from the virtual sets to the extensive use of time effects is about making moments.
This, of course, was one of the big concerns as we worked on our film. Dan and Ben constantly reminded me that I had to emphasize certain moments. Ben discovers the broken spinner. Ben finds the desert shrine. It wasn't enough to get the continuity and sequence right. The important moments had to come across as important which is why we had to pick up so many shots. You do capture energy and vitality when you "go with the flow" but it's too hard to control momentum, proportion and emphasis if you don't know how you're going to cut.
There's a delicate line that separates A and B movies, especially now that so many genre films have made it big time. For every Sam Raimi and James Cameron, there are Josh Beckers, Albert Pyuns and Donald G. Jacksons who toil in relative obscurity. The industry is small enough that many of these people have worked together. Josh Becker worked on Sam Raimi's early films before turning to Xena and other B-fare. The late Donald G. Jackson, the "Don" mentioned by Scott Shaw, worked camera on the original Terminator and directed 31 B-films. I suspect that one thing that separates the A from the B is the existence of moments that proportionately and meaningfully dovetail with the narrative, something made difficult by run and gun shooting.
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