Poetry’s Hold on Me

Artwork by Victoria Cebotar

Poems pop up unexpectedly. I find it’s better to allow than command their appearance. But I am required to put pen to paper or hover fingers above a keyboard and be still. The seeds for poems are in the wind, the trees, the dirt, the news, works of art, interactions with humans and other beings who catch my attention. Some poems wake me up in the middle of the night suggesting edits, additions, new directions.

I grew up in a house filled with books. My father was a singer, an actor and a sales executive and my mother was a drama major in college who became a high school English teacher and advisor to the Drama club. Both taught me to appreciate fine writing and the power of clear communication, which I suppose is what led me to study anthropological linguistics and then fall into a career in publishing. 

I’ve always read much more prose than poetry, but my writing has taken the form of poetry — the free verse kind.

For that I have to thank my high school English teacher Arthur Smith, who gave me A Stone, A Leaf, A Door, a book of Thomas Wolfe’s gorgeous prose refashioned as poetry. And the more I write, the more I take to heart my college English professor William Gifford’s insistence on succinct and precise writing, no matter what form it takes.

Over the years, I’ve written poetry in cycles, with lengthy gaps between forays. A couple of decades ago, I shared some poems with friends. That gave me the courage to attend a Performance Poets Association open mic in Glen Cove, which led to opportunities to read as a featured poet at coffeehouse and bookstore events and then to a few acceptances for publication. I tried a poetry workshop but was too unsure of myself at the time to continue.

© Emily-Sue Sloane

First published in We Are Beach Glass, by Emily-Sue Sloane (2022) 

I felt I needed to sort out what I wanted and needed from this creative process. I talked about it often with my wife, Linda Sussman, who is a singer and songwriter, and my brother-in-law, Scudder Parker, who is a poet. Was it enough just to write? Did I need to be published? To read in front of an audience?

At some point, life took over and I simply stopped writing. For a very long time.

A few years ago, after I retired from my day job in publishing, I revisited some of my old poems — so old that I first had to reformat the files on my computer or retype them altogether! I saw that some needed revising, and that was the beginning of my pathway back. I attended a poetry workshop at the local library and received a warm welcome there, as well as encouragement and suggestions of other workshops to check out. New poems started to flow. The weekly workshops drove me to keep writing.

I began to submit my work for publication. When the first acceptance during this phase popped into my email, Linda and I did our happy dance right in the middle of a Manhattan Starbucks, where we were killing time before a Sweet Honey in the Rock concert. Every acceptance since has elicited the same level of excitement!

My daily routine these days is to spend a few hours working on my poetry: writing, revising, submitting for publication, organizing, trashing. I attend two weekly writing workshops, a poetry appreciation meeting and occasional readings and open mics. One positive aspect of sheltering at home in a pandemic has been the accessibility of poetry events on Zoom.

I continue to explore what I enjoy about writing and what I want and need from the creative process — often wishing that I could make music or draw instead. 

© Emily-Sue Sloane

First published in We Are Beach Glass, by Emily-Sue Sloane (2022)

For me, writing is meditation. Sometimes it takes me to a deep place where time stops and words flow; other times my chattering mind churns up only garbage. I try to follow Naomi Goldberg’s advice in her book Writing Down the Bones to write, simply write, without judgment; write down the compost in order to get to what lives underneath.

Some poems appear on the page nearly finished; others are a struggle, forcing me to think more deeply about what I’m trying to say. Some require research and lengthy consultations with a dictionary or thesaurus. Some prompt me to write about the process itself.

I’m almost always surprised by the results.

Many people dislike editing their work; others never stop revising. I enjoy editing and continue to learn ways to improve, especially from other poets at my workshops. Like most poets, I’ve learned to “kill my darlings,” those metaphors, similes and phrases that the poet may love but that really don’t serve the poem. And I’m always working to tilt my writing more toward poetry than prose.

My wife is my first reader and best editor. She brings her musical and literary sensibilities to the page. If I initially resist her suggestions, I usually come to realize that she’s right.

I enjoy sharing my poetry, but I don’t like to boast about it. Social media provides an opportunity for the former but necessitates the latter. Submitting poems to journals, anthologies and contests is a lot like playing the lottery: It takes me from hope to disappointment and occasionally to joy — just enough success to keep me in the game. Reading poems to an audience is a more immediate and intimate way to share, even on Zoom, and the experience usually clarifies what does and doesn’t work as spoken word. But as an introvert, I admit those are the times I wish I had inherited my dad’s talent and delight in performing!

© Emily-Sue Sloane

First published in Shot Glass Journal (Muse-Pie Press), June 2020

Every day I worry that I will stop writing again. Until that happens, I am putting one word in front of the other, calling them to order and sending poems out into the world, where I hope they will resonate as true, providing solace for whatever’s ailing a reader or listener, and touching a funny bone or heart along the way.

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Emily-Sue Sloane is a lifelong Long Islander who writes poetry to capture moments of wonder, worry and human connection. She is the author of We Are Beach Glass, a new full-length poetry collection (BookBaby, 2022). Emily-Sue has won first-place awards in poetry contests held by Calling All Writers, the Long Island Fair, Nassau County Poet Laureate Society, Performance Poets Association and Princess Ronkonkoma Productions, and she was a finalist in the Babylon Village Poetry Contest.

Additional publishing credits include print and online journals and anthologies: Amethyst Review; The Avocet; Bards Annual; Boston Literary Magazine; CHAOS: The Poetry Vortex; Corona, an anthology of poems; Escape, a CAW Anthology; Hope, a CAW Anthology; Front Porch Review; The Long Island Quarterly; Mobius; Muddy River Poetry Review; Never Forgotten: 100 Poets Remember 9/11; Panoply; Paumonok; Poeming Pigeon: From Pandemic to Protest; The Poet’s Art; PPA Literary Review; The RavensPerch; Shot Glass Journal; Suffolk County Poetry Review; Trees in a Garden of Ashes; and Walt’s Corner.

For more information, please visit emilysuesloane.com

G&E In Motion does not necessarily agree with the opinions of our guest bloggers. That would be boring and counterproductive. We have simply found the author’s thoughts to be interesting, intelligent, unique, insightful, and/or important. We may not agree on the words but we surely agree on their right to express them and proudly present this platform as a means to do so.

From Blue Skies to Red Ink: John Chatterton Reflects on his Midtown International Theatre Festival

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I was once riding in a cab with some people from a New York City theater company and fell into discussion with their artistic director/producer. I told him about the Midtown International Theatre Festival (MITF), then in its first season. The year was 2000. He asked me if I had any trepidation about the upcoming festival.

“No sweat,” I said. “We’re paying the theater a third of the gross. The shows are getting a third of the gross. So we’re guaranteed a third of the gross. What can go wrong?”

He nodded sagely, as one does when talking to a lunatic. 

Not long after, if memory holds, the theater dumped us on the basis that we had no legitimate press agent and were likely to scratch up a giant Zero on the box-office scoreboard (actually, we ended up doing well in the grosses department; net…not so much). We now had to hustle to get venues, and that involved paying some of them cash. Even theaters aren’t stupid in July. And I needed some staff to open said theaters while I was raking in the money on Wall Street to pay the losses on the Festival.

Still, we presented some 19 shows, spread out over four theaters (not sure why; the details are lost to the mists of time). I think we grossed $35,000 and lost $15,000, though I’m not sure.

I started the Festival because I got a bright idea while publishing a little magazine called oobr, an acronym for Off-Off-Broadway Review -- “the only publication devoted exclusively to reviewing the Off-Off-Broadway scene.” 

Actually, MITF was the brainchild of one of my reviewers, responding to the birth of FringeNYC by suggesting we needed a Midtown fringe festival. Nobody else leapt on his idea, so two years later, I did.

Our beginnings were humble. Put it this way: two of our theaters were at 750 Eighth Avenue. Those with gray enough hair will remember the building with a shudder. I brought bagels for the crew at a production meeting; 20 minutes after putting them down, ready for a snack, I opened the bag and found it crawling with roaches. We had only one box office and theaters on two floors, so the public was always getting lost. Not to mention the critic who ended up stuck in the elevator, which wasn’t the most reliable means of vertical transport.

 Still, we struggled on. I got laid off just after 9/11 but kept going with the Festival, funding it by the time-honored method of deficit financing. We moved up in our taste in theaters, slowly but surely. Just after the layoff, I had another brainwave -- why not start a rehearsal studio in the Garment District, where Off-Off-Broadway production companies seemed to cluster?

Since I had an excellent 1040 from the previous year, and owned some property in Massachusetts, I was able to get a real-estate company to rent me a studio on W. 36th St., near 9th Ave. I sat in the studio and looked out at the empty spaces, hypnotized by the pigeons arcing in the air. I called the studio Where Eagles Dare, for the young actors spreading their wings. Soon, I had another studio on the ground floor, which I converted into a theater. It seated 40 on risers and was a perfect space for solo shows. Unfortunately I had to dump the theater when my lease ran out because a comedy club started up next door, and the MC’s amplification was intolerable.

Always the aggressive entrepreneur, I expanded the upstairs studio to three spaces, notwithstanding the old saw that the two principal reasons for business failure are undercapitalization and too-rapid expansion, both of which I exhibited in spades. Somehow I convinced my landlord to let me trade in my upstairs studios for a whole floor, thereby increasing my overhead to a crushing figure. Better not run into bad financial weather!

Of course, the financial crash of 2008-10 happened immediately, and Where Eagles Dare slid, first slowly and then with increasing velocity, into a sea of red ink, never to return. 

Still, the MITF continued. My managing producer had been a stalwart soul over seven years, but we came to a parting of the ways in 2011. I had to hire a whole new staff, and the new arrivals were from Off-, not Off-Off-, Broadway, meaning I was paying a whole lot more to present a theater festival with $15 tickets. After a disastrous year in 2015, when I had insufficient shows in the lineup to support two expensive theaters, the writing was on the wall for my days of theatrical entrepreneurship (also for my health, which deteriorated sharply in 2017). I shuttered the MITF in 2017.

Would I do it again? Damn straight. Maybe if I learned to anticipate problems better, to look around corners as I speeded toward oblivion, I’d have had better luck. But for over 20 years I was intimately involved with New York Theater. Now I’m relaxing in the Florida sun, starting to get antsy about writing screenplays and maybe starting an online streaming festival. Who knows? I may be b-a-a-a-c-k….

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(Photo Credit:  Ben Strothmann)

John Chatterton always wanted to be in the theater. When he was about 7, he was onstage in a school play. He tripped on his shoelace, and the audience laughed -- so he did it again. In later years, he migrated to writing, then producing. To make a living, he worked in newspaper production and then technical writing and programming. He finally made a break and started producing full-time Off-Off-Broadway with the Midtown International Theatre Festival (MITF), which ran for 18 years. He now lives in Florida, trying to avoid a tan and find a decent bagel.

G&E In Motion does not necessarily agree with the opinions of our guest bloggers. That would be boring and counterproductive. We have simply found the author’s thoughts to be interesting, intelligent, unique, insightful, and/or important. We may not agree on the words but we surely agree on their right to express them and proudly present this platform as a means to do so. 

ABSTRACT ACRYLIC PAINTING (or how to kill your inner critic)

I have a confession to make.  I was that kid.  The one who always got in trouble for coloring outside the lines.  The one who, when learning to sew, cut out the shag carpet along with the pattern pieces.  The one whose early embroidery pieces have a twinge of red from stabbing myself with the needle.  But I loved creating and so desperately wanted to be an artist, even when my clumsiness seemed to be a stark deterrent from that ever being possible.  And yet I persisted. 

My high school guidance counselor, Sister “I Know What is Best For You” Mary, reviewed my career aptitude test results.  My best classes were English, Latin, and typing.  It appeared as if my best career path would lead to being secretary to the Pope. 

I said to her, “I really want to be an artist.” 

Sister fingered her rosary beads, made the sign of the cross, and responded, “That isn’t a job.  Maybe you can be a nurse?”  

I tried to explain how I envisioned myself in a drafty loft, wearing a paint-smeared smock, with every size paintbrush soaking in water in muddied mason jars.  She sadly shook her head, saying that wasn’t my talent and handed me a catalogue of appropriate college choices.  And so welcome to the world my inner critic.  

I ended up going away to a college that was the perfect fit for me.  However, during those years, DIY and crafting were not a thing yet.  Longingly I would remember the feel of creating colliding with a voice trying to convince me that all those dreams were just that.  Never going to happen.  I concentrated on the communications world with the hope of landing a job in big bad New York City.  With student loans to contend with, I knew a more traditional career path would be necessary.  Art seemed frivolous, like a pastime, never anything I should seriously consider.

So, I threw myself into corporate America and worked for fabulous companies in the publishing and retail arenas.  I traveled the country training merchandising teams, setting up and running tradeshow booths, and coordinating public events.  I was able to express creativity within the confines of budgets, branding, and marketing messages. 

The inner critic was muted for many years as I would see quantitative results of success and I felt validated with constructive feedback.  However, I still felt that I was not doing anything for myself.  I would look back at old journals and half started projects and I knew that I needed to get back - but with a demanding career and then a baby - me time was just not an option. I had lost the urge to create for myself and landed in a creative block, which lasted for years.

My world turned upside down in 2011 when I found myself in the throes of a life-threatening medical situation.  I was unable to work, unable to drive; unable to do much of anything.  In between multiple surgeries, I realized I had the opportunity to use this “downtime” to my advantage.  I stepped away from reality TV, gathered up my stash of artist supplies, and scoured YouTube to explore different techniques.  I started off with scrapbooking and paper crafts. However, when I would try to replicate the examples I followed online, my finished piece would always fail my inspection.  The inner critic’s voice became louder.  I felt my work looked like a third grader’s interpretation of the artist’s work and I would crumple up pages and pages of work because it was “just not good enough.”  

As I continued to heal, I was finally able to do more things outside the home.  I started working part time, my son was getting ready to leave for the Marines, and I wanted to seize the gift of time.  I had avoided in-person classes, as it was so much easier to say you failed while hiding behind a computer then to hear you have failed in person.  But I decided to make the leap and set out on the road to reignite my creative juices.  

My first attempt was watercolor class.  I realized my skill was in taking colors and basically turning them into mud.  The feel of the water growing the color on the paper was intoxicating yet yielded no good results.  The inner critic nudged me to examine the work done by the instructor and other students and enabled me to cover my work up and say, “Well, I gave it a shot - and failed.”  I still had no understanding that the art of creating is the joy, the result is a by-product of expressing your joy.  

I moved on to pottery thinking that would be cool.  Unlike the iconic scene from Ghost, my wheel seemed out of control, clay flying everywhere, and the final piece looked like a Dali interpretation of a vase.  It was a very meditative process but again, it wasn’t my thing.

On the other side of the studio a different class was going on.  As my clay once again dissolved into a lump of watered-down dirt, I began watching the other class.  Per my instructor, this was a poured acrylic painting class and he almost sneered while saying it.  “I wouldn’t necessarily call that art, it’s too abstract for me, too unconventional,” he said.  I took it as a challenge and wandered over to the other group.  There were jars and bottles of paint, canvases all over and paint seemed to be flying everywhere.  I didn’t see any brushes or typical artist paraphernalia, but tubs of glorious paint literally poured over the canvas.  The students would tilt the canvas in various ways and the paint would sing across, creating unusual color combinations.  I watched as they combined the paint with latex conditioners found in any hardware store and the colors would morph and assume new depths and shapes.  

I had to learn more.  I took to this painting technique with a passion I had worried was lost.  I wandered the aisles of the art store, picking up supplies, and then watched other artists on YouTube to understand the process more.  Day and night I experimented with techniques and colors. I loved that abstract projects were totally open to interpretation.  The inner critic would be unable to compare my work against any others.  I might have used blues like the instructor, but the way I manipulated the canvas or elements led to a distinctively different result, but one I was happy with and proud of.

The freedom of manipulating the paint and canvas, with basically no rules outside of basic color theory, opened my soul up to an artistic expression that I took to and loved.

Eventually, I would lose my job and our only child shipped off to Marines boot camp.  I looked around at the piles of completed works and thought: Well, now what?  I had gifted pieces to family and friends and, although they were appreciative, I needed to put myself out there to truly see if my work was going anywhere.

I am not a technology wizard, but I was able to set up a basic website for my work in an attempt to get a wider audience.  I soon realized that just having your art out there was not enough - I needed to work it.  I learned Facebook marketing, Instagram for business, and other techniques.  To take myself seriously, I formed an LLC and began marketing myself.  The process was slow and steady but each day I would not only carve out time to paint, but I would also reach out to galleries, competitions, and refine my branding materials and website.  

My persistence paid off in ways I had only imagined possible.  An art gallery in NYC reached out to me and represented me for a year; my work was in their space and online and the response was exciting and humbling.  I continued to research opportunities to showcase my work and signed up for a local art/craft show.  I sat behind my rented tables and all my paintings were on mini easels.  I never felt so vulnerable.  Watching people pass by, hearing their comments, was both nerve-racking and educational.  I sold several pieces that day and received a commissioned project from one of the show attendees.  Slowly but surely, I started to push my inner critic back into the cave from whence it came.

The art of fluid acrylic painting is almost scientific in nature, but the result is emotional.  People would look at my work and see clouds, or a whale, or a wave hitting the beach.  There were no right or wrong observations and I loved that people would see things that were never intended but made perfect sense when pointed out.  

In continuing to grow my skill set in both business and art, I stumbled across gelatin plate printing, which is using acrylics in a different way, and I began to create one-of-a-kind paper.  I combined these papers into my poured paintings, which created new and exciting possibilities for me.

My mindset began to shift away from you’re not that good to heck, why not, apply for that show/contest, etc.  My work was featured in two local art exhibitions, in an AARP statewide art contest, and highlighted by companies when I would flag their product in posts.  My work also enabled me to be hired by the retail chain Michaels as an instructor; I loved sharing my techniques with students.

One of my proudest accomplishments was when I offered one of my pieces for sale, in digital format, early in the pandemic.  All proceeds went to purchasing disposable gloves for local front line workers and I was able to purchase almost 500 pairs to donate.  The dying of my inner critic gave birth to a renewed enthusiasm for my work and freed my mind to keep growing and attempting new avenues as both a businessperson and as an artist.

My artistic life is a bi-coastal one.  I live part time on Long Island and part time in Las Vegas.  The work I do is greatly influenced by the neon lights of the big city and the quiet beauty of the Southwest.  It took me years to realize that the very act of doing enables a piece to come alive.  Once I allowed myself to do what I really love, and to not harvest joy from other people’s opinions, my life changed dramatically.  It has freed me to create with new mediums, to manage my business, to learn pricing, marketing, and e-commerce.  I continue to receive commissions from clients and by eliminating fear of failure from my vocabulary, I have been able to create multiple streams of business.

There is always the “No thank you,” but instead of allowing that “No,” to be a personal affront, I use it to learn and step back with a critical eye. 

The inner critic is strong, but you are stronger.  Being an artist isn’t necessarily my original vision of tortured souls sweating over a canvas or freezing to death in a Parisian loft.  Being an artist is allowing your creative soul to soar, to reach beyond what you considered as possible.  Whether it is painting, writing, acting…. the inner critic survives in all these environments.  When you kill it, the opportunities are endless.  

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Patti Hodder has been involved in art since she was a little girl holding coloring book contests on her front porch.  During her college years she spent a year studying creative writing in London and visiting museums and historical sites for continued inspiration.  Her professional career was spent in the fashion industry working for major American designers, creating in-store shops and tradeshow environments.  Throughout this time Patti continued to hone her craft and several of her collages and pieces have been showcased in national consumer publications, art books, and virtual/in-person exhibitions. She has artwork currently housed at the Brooklyn Art Library in NYC.  She has served on design teams for The Buckle Boutique and The Inkpad (a NYC based rubber stamp store). A self-taught artist, she concentrates in the areas of fluid painting, mono printing, jewelry design and collages. www.pattihodderstudio.com

G&E In Motion does not necessarily agree with the opinions of our guest bloggers. That would be boring and counterproductive. We have simply found the author’s thoughts to be interesting, intelligent, unique, insightful, and/or important. We may not agree on the words but we surely agree on their right to express them and proudly present this platform as a means to do so. 

Skipping Rocks

Art by Carole Forêt

“You’re throwing a rock.” 

You’re auditioning for drama school. 

“You’re throwing a rock down a river.” 

You’re auditioning for a very prestigious drama school... Ya, that one. 

“You’re throwing a rock down a river and watching it skip.” 

These instructions are given during a group warm up exercise before said audition.

“After the rock skips out of view - you bend down, pick up another rock and throw it down the river.. watching it skip again.”

This exercise makes you want to chuck yourself down a river until you yourself skip out of view. 

“Now relax and breathe. Good work, everybody.”

If only...

 Although I didn’t get into that prestigious drama school *cue tiny violin* 

I still ended up attending a college acting program with similar group exercises that gave me the same paralyzing feeling of sinking down like a rock to the bottom of a river (I’m looking at you,  _________ University). At first, I justified attending college as a possible place that had the solution for this sinking feeling or, at the very least, had better exercises besides endlessly throwing imaginary rocks ...if only... As soon as classes began, there were similar group exercises drilled monotonously (vocal warm ups like “zoo, woah, sha!”, text charts like Shakespeare drop ins! back massages from your fellow classmates!); there were revered techniques glazed over haphazardly (Meisner! Stanislavski! The Method! Oh my!) and there were more and more instances where I felt more and more isolated, confused and lost. I really didn’t want to attend college - I thought it was a waste of time and that I didn’t need it (I definitely did need college and it certainly was a waste of time). But all the confidence and intuition was not enough to make it as an actor in the professional world. I needed technique. How to achieve this “technique” mystified me as each tool or lesson introduced in these college courses was said to only be a starting point and that we had to decipher which tool(s)/lesson(s) would work best for our individual selves. In fairness, exposing young minds to a variety of disciplines and letting the individual decide their own recipe is beneficial when creating any sort of craft so the university faculty/staff were not wrong in their overall attempt at what they thought was “cutting edge” curriculum. But in their execution, each professor had their own idea of what makes a “good” performance and students ended up trying to play towards individual tastes to achieve a passing grade rather than gauge if a lesson was helpful or useful for them as a performer. By the end of freshman year, I felt that a lot of the exercises introduced and drilled in class were not working for me and to suck it up and dance just to graduate was not my style. I needed to create my recipe. Quick.

What I’ve learned along the way thus far has taken a bit longer than four years time so here are a few thoughts I've been cooking with - three lessons I’ve learned after college in opposition to the lessons/techniques I experienced during college. 

 LESSON ONE 

A tried and true trick from most teachers/bosses/superiors/parents/authority figures/the man.. is to pretend you’re doing or giving out a lot of work when you’re really doing the bare minimum. I hold a high regard for actual leaders and have had the pleasure to know a few in my life so when I see someone neglecting their duties in a position of leadership, it stands out to me pretty quickly. Most of my college professors stood out quickly and felt like imposters. They assigned small portions of text to work on and made a mountain out of every mole hill, kinda like what I’m doing with this piece- oh shit, am I just perpetuating what the teachers did but in essay form? Am I also an imposter?...ahem... For most assignments, they’d give one monologue/scene/project to work on for at least a month at a time. Just one scene from a Neil Simon play. One classic Shakespeare monologue. Dissected, roasted, oven baked and burnt to a crisp. For a month. Maybe two months. And maybe the whole class does the exact same monologue for those two months. Sound familiar? I was not sure what I wanted my training regiment to look like but I knew I was tired of this similar assignment being given out with middling results. I didn’t realize or treat acting like it was a workout for a “muscle” until after graduating when I moved to NYC and started auditioning frequently at Equity open calls and self-submissions. The more open calls/appointments I attended, whether I got cast or a callback or just a quick “Thank you!” the more it dawned on me - I should’ve been auditioning everyday. Why was the assignment just one piece of text for four weeks? Why didn’t we do a mock audition where we prepared a new monologue/scene for the “casting director” (the professor), discuss afterwards what we did that worked and what could have been better and then do something new all over again next week? Instead of obsessing over one piece of text to the point of over saturation, why not frequently tackle as many pieces of text as you can, raise more questions than answers along the way, and then leave it alone until you want or need to revisit it? There were auditions where I felt I knocked it out of the park and days where I thought I bombed like an idiot but it was a relief once I realized it was just one day. It’s a few minutes in a room with (at first) strangers. There’s plenty of time to dissect and rework a piece for four weeks ... once you actually book the role. But the famous phrase I learned early on in the city is that you have to “book the room” before you book the role and that starts by treating the audition as just that - it’s just a room. With who? Strangers. For how long? A few minutes. When? Today. And guess what? You have tomorrow to try something else out. And if you don’t have an actual audition, assign something on your own and hold yourself accountable. And do it again the next day after that. And the next day. And the next day. Until it starts to become a muscle you don’t even think about. Until it starts to become a reflex as opposed to a conscious effort and the once a month assignment becomes once a week or even, once a day.  

Even with all this muscle flexing, I was not immune to the all-powerful nervous system. I’m never one to shy away from nerves or think it’s a bad thing, but I thought if I were auditioning everyday I would stop being quite so nervous during the process because sometimes those nerves would cost me. Until I discovered the second lesson to add as part of my “technique” – 

LESSON TWO 

Four years living in the city working as an actor, I found myself sitting outside an audition room trying to (once again) calm myself down. I was nervous because it was a good role for my career and a great room to be seen in and it was a second callback so the stakes felt even higher than before and I was kinda broke at the time so I could use the money and I just really wanted it really bad and ... I’m sure you’ve heard all that bulls**t before. Me too. And I was sick of hearing that voice in my head reel through all of that nonsense and then also try to tell myself at the same time, “It’s all good, you’re cool, you got this, don’t be nervous.” These dueling views were in no way helpful for the actual audition scene and these differing moods swirling back and forth in my brain reminded me of a very annoying question one of my college professors loved to drill home right before someone’s scene would start  - “Are you in your head?” In what could be the pinnacle of oxymoronic questions, this particular phrase was asked relentlessly all four years to my fellow classmates and myself by someone who no doubt suffered from hearing this question in their own head. To answer bluntly - of course you’re in your head. You’re always in your head. If you weren’t, you’d be dead. Allegedly, the teacher’s purpose for asking this is to remind people to get “out of their head” and into the scene, to be reactive instead of cerebral. In theory, the impulse is noble. In reality, you are always somewhat in your head whether you like it or not...cuz, ya know, you have to have a functioning brain to, ya know, function. Most, if not all of the time, when a person enters any room (whether it’s an audition, a class, a date, returning home from work, a grocery store visit, a zoom meeting, a conference, the list goes on) they are thinking about and dealing with multiple topics at the same time and they are usually nervous about one or more of those topics. Sitting outside the audition room, I realized I was nervously overworking my brain when I could use those nervous thoughts to my advantage. Why am I trying so hard to not be nervous? Why am I trying to hide myself from the room? Nine times out of ten, the character I’m playing is just as nervous as I am. The character is usually nervous about something unrelated to my personal nerves but the overall feeling the character has I probably share more than I know - when someone wants to be heard or understood, we may get nervous in the process of communicating those thoughts to others. Why not just combine my nervous feelings with the character’s? It’s okay that these two thoughts start out in different worlds - staying focused on the scene/task at hand, the brain starts to blend the nervous feeling as one. So what if the thought, “Am I in my head?” pops up while in the scene? Why can’t the character also think that question in the moment? Maybe you are in your head for a second. Let the thought be a thought like you would in real life and refocus yourself back to the scene/task at hand. Let the nerves guide you. This becomes especially helpful if, for instance, you forget or mix up lines during a scene. Instead of dropping out and apologizing, why not just take a breath like you would in real life and really think about what you were saying before speaking again. If you berate yourself for forgetting the line or start to tense up for a second, that’s fine too - the character might be mad they slipped up and have the same reaction of tensing up because they lost track. Again, breathe and refocus your attention back to the scene and your partner. We all flub our words and hiccup through sentences. As long as we stay committed to the thought, we will get out what we intended to say...or not. “It’s all good. You’re cool. You got this.” Even if it’s not, even if you’re not, even if you don’t - that’s okay too. Be nervous and keep it moving.

LESSON THREE 

Not long after I stopped not being nervous, I was in a production of a play where I discovered a book called “The Rebel” by Albert Camus. This philosophical theory travels through history’s civilizations up to the present day and asserts that all systems that were or are currently in power exist because there are two groups that forever fuel these systems in every society - the victim and the executioner - and that people fluctuate back and forth between playing those two roles. A repeating scene that every so often feels new. This assertion challenged something I have heard throughout my life both in college and professionally where a teacher/director says to a cast right before a performance, “Remember, this play is happening for the first time.” Like the, “Are you in your head?” question, I’m with this sentiment in theory but ultimately agree with Camus in reality. Ideally, you want the audience to feel like the story is fresh and happening in the present moment but realistically, most of the scenes that occur during a story are scenes that have happened before (a repeating scene). However, the reason the writer has chosen to put said scene into this particular story is because any and every repeating scene contains certain moments or elements within it, which have never happened before or have not happened in a very long time (the every so often feeling of something new). Recognizing the specific overall elements that make up the repeating scene (a date, an interview, a proposal, an argument) and the specific changes and shifts that happen during the scene (kiss or handshake, hired or fired, yes or no, wrong or right) helps illuminate clues and hopefully, clarifies the scene. Forget trying to forget that the scenes ever happened before and, instead, remember how much you remember whenever these scenes have happened before. What are all of the moments that the character has already experienced or heard or said in the past? What are the words, phrases, and other stimuli that are familiar? Whether the character is conscious or not of every “new” moment that occurs, the performer recognizes those shifts internally and watches the scene play out how most people live out their days - it's a lot of the same conversations and transactions that take place...until something new happens. It’s like placing detonation mines or breadcrumbs to trigger the character’s ear. For the audience, the performance should feel like it’s happening for the very first time. For the performer, it’s okay to admit that you know every line by heart. Blend those differing worlds together as life is both rehearsed and spontaneous, nerves and confidence, victim and executioner. The happy and sad face masks dueling to be expressed. The outcome of the duel will differ but the duel will repeat. 

That’s it for now. No wrap up. No “The End.” There are more lessons to write about and much more to be discovered and discarded and questioned and reaffirmed down the line...for another time. Be well and do it well. 

‘Till next we meet.

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Jordan Bellow is an actor originally hailing from Southern California. He has performed in New York at Theatre for a New Audience, 59E59, New Ohio, The Playwrights Realm, SPACE on Ryder Farm, The Connelly and Columbia Stages among others. Regionally, he has appeared at Westport Country Playhouse, Denver Center, Syracuse Stage, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Florida Studio Theatre and South Coast Repertory. Film/TV includes "Dickinson"; "Gotham" and "Orange Is The New Black". www.jordanbellow.com

G&E In Motion does not necessarily agree with the opinions of our guest bloggers. That would be boring and counterproductive. We have simply found the author’s thoughts to be interesting, intelligent, unique, insightful, and/or important. We may not agree on the words but we surely agree on their right to express them and proudly present this platform as a means to do so.

Making The Monster

For years, I had been kicking around the world of independent filmmaking trying to get a project made. What I had was a feature length monster movie inspired by the middle section of Mary Shelley’s FRANKENSTEIN, which involved the creature living outside a farmhouse imagining the lives of the humans who lived inside.  I often asked myself, “Who were those people and why did the monster want to be a part of their family?”

Drawing on stories from my grandfather’s life in a lower income rural family, I built out the characters that inhabited the story of SLAPFACE.  Instead of a re-animated corpse as the monster, I drew from Grimms’ Fairy Tales and legends of witches befriending children and drawing them into their worlds of intimacy and chaos. Frankenstein’s Monster was never far from my mind, though, as the monster in SLAPFACE is seven feet tall, wearing a raggedy cloak and skulking through the forest.  

This feature length script was written with a low budget in mind.  One of the reasons independent filmmakers make scary movies is the time-honored tradition of not needing big budgets or movie stars to make a project that can sell.  

On streaming services you can find all manner of spooky entertainment that was banged out in a couple of weeks or less by enterprising creators.  

Seriously, how hard is it to get some young people in the woods, buckets of blood and someone in a mask to dutifully chop them up, or gather a collection of friends to be zombies attacking your rural house?

Once we accept that this can be done, we have to ask ourselves why we want to tell our story.  SLAPFACE was personalized by stories from within my family. The cycle of abuse that exists within the two brothers at the center of the story cut very close to the bone for me.  In some ways the domestic drama is as scary as the monster, and I was excited by the counterpoint of the human drama versus the supernatural violence that ensued.

The main character is a 12-year-old boy, since I loved how Don Coscarelli’s PHANTASM took a child protagonist and placed him in a bizarre adult story.  Once you are dealing with children, you might as well include animals (a dog and a rat figure into the narrative.)  So we very quickly had a demanding low budget independent shoot working around the limitations of child labor laws, demanding special effects, animals, and of course limited funds!

I spent years figuring out how to get this movie made, with various producers going about trying to secure funds.  There was always confusion over how the Monster is supposed to look.  Literally an entire page of the script is devoted to the height, clothes, hair, skin, hands of the creature, and yet producers and investors would ask questions like, “Does it look like Shrek?”

Also, movies like HEREDITARY, THE BABADOOK and THE WITCH hadn’t come out yet, so there wasn’t a framework for character driven stories of dysfunctional families grappling with the supernatural that you could point to in a pitch deck.  Which is not to say that they weren’t getting made...Larry Fessenden’s WENDIGO is an essential, inspirational film about a family, a monster, and a sense of ambiguity over what’s real and what is manifested by a child’s imagination.  If you haven’t seen the movie, go track it down - it’s an indie masterpiece.

After several years of producers trying and failing to get this story told, I gave up.  I put the script away in a drawer and devoted myself to work-for-hire directing, not unlike the Roger Corman school of filmmaking where you are handed a script and told, “We have a slasher in the woods movie and Tom Savini for three days, go direct this to the best of your ability staying on time and on budget.”

That’s good practice for sure, but those projects are largely outside of your control.  One of them had no less than five writers, including myself at one point writing 20 pages worth of material as glue to help the finished movie make some sort of cohesive sense.  One of them told me flat out, in these words, “We’re not interested in rewrites, we want to make THIS shitty script.  Are you interested or not?”  Like a dutiful mercenary, we go in and draw our wages and make the best movies we can under the given circumstances. I’m not complaining; I learned a lot.

SLAPFACE had been long forgotten by this point until my friend, and director of photography, Dominick Sivilli suggested that we go out and make a 5-minute proof-of-concept for the movie of my dreams. “Just put together a few of the best scenes and we’ll go shoot it!  I need some fantasy material for my reel and five thousand dollars. Let’s go make a movie!”  Once I had agreed, he further suggested, “Why don’t we crowd fund a little so I don’t have to spend ALL of the five grand myself?”

After a few weeks of successful crowd funding where I remain indebted to the people who believed in me and this project, all of them, more than I could possibly say, Dominick patted me on the back and said, “That’s a good thing we did that because I DID NOT HAVE FIVE GRAND AT ALL.  I just wanted you to make your film!”

While I was torn between throttling Dom and hugging him, he was right.  Honestly, I would have never have gotten this going without his push.  We shot for two days (and one half-day of pickups) using a cast and crew of friends we had worked with before over our years of grind in the independent film community, edited the piece ourselves, and put it out there for film festivals and critics to judge.

I told myself that no matter what, I had done something that was close to my heart.  Even if the feature never got made, I could sleep peacefully at night knowing I had told SLAPFACE even in this abbreviated form, as a short film.

The short connected with horror audiences who identified with the child protagonist and saw in him the outsiders in themselves.  All I’ve ever cared about as a storyteller is finding a way to share something with the audience; once the movie is done it completely belongs to them.

I’m grateful to all of the film festivals, mostly in the horror community, that programmed our short film.  We used social media to keep people abreast of what was happening with the film and had a lot of fun along the way.  We ran for three years, and along the way were discovered by two producers (Joe Benedetto and Mike Manning) who were interested in optioning the feature.  

I’ve very much become an advocate of doing a proof-of-concept short film as a way to get the word out about your feature.  Doing a short version of your story, with its own beginning, middle, and end, or a piece of the larger story (which is the direction I chose to go), allows you to have an offering that producers can look at and get a sense of tone, performance style; what the monster looks like...!  It is much easier to get someone to watch a short film under 10 minutes than to read a 90-page script. If they are enticed by the short version, it accomplishes in a visual way what most people try to do with a logline or an elevator pitch.  It’s a living, breathing pitch deck and an expression of your idea.  

When Mike and Joe optioned the feature length script, I figured we’d take a year and see what happened.  Other producers had tried to get investors in the past.  Having the short film proof of concept definitely helped in attracting the money and was also instrumental in hiring Dom (who shot the short) and Lukas Hassel (who played the monster) on the feature.  People don’t have to use their imagination; it’s all right there in front of them.

Eight months later I was out there scouting locations, casting, crewing up...and once again most of the crew was people I had long term working relationships with.  When you’re doing low budget horror (with kids and animals, as I said earlier) it helps to be working with industry professionals who are your friends and have your back.  They knew this was my dream project and they wanted to be there to support me because we had all been in the trenches together for years. Having a community is vital.  

When we shot scenes involving extras, I called up my family but also indie horror directors and producers I’ve known along the festival circuit who were happy to show up and be bar patrons.  Trust me, those friendships matter.  When your back is against the wall, a friend will roll up their sleeves to help.  This is a business of relationships.

There are harsh realities of going from a short to a feature as well. For instance, we had to recast some of the lead roles with name talent.  12-year-old August Maturo from GIRL MEETS WORLD and THE NUN was extraordinary as the lead actor in our feature, a brilliant performer and a true partner in every sense of the word. 

But I did have to have some not fun correspondence with the child actor from the short film (who had aged out of the role, but still...) and say there was no role for him in the feature length.  That was uncomfortable, but you always must do what is best for the movie in as respectful a way as you can.

Another note for aspiring horror filmmakers is to always contractually obligate the special effects department to do a test. If you don’t do this, your effects test will happen during principal photography on set with the entire crew standing around watching you figure it out. That’s basically setting fire to the investor’s money and a gigantic waste of everyone’s time and labor. If you’re forced into this situation by a given circumstance, start with scenes you know you can cut out of the movie if you have to in case the effects don’t work.  But better than that is to do tests ahead of time where you can give notes and improve what your whole movie is depending on.  This is a horror movie after all!

Always listen to your collaborators with no ego attached.  Our producer, Mike Manning, was incredibly creative and hands-on. He gave notes that were brave and thoughtful, saying things like, “What if you made the ending EVEN darker; it would be much more tragic...” or “What if the opening scene was in media res and we throw the viewer into a disturbing scene so that they’ll always feel uncertain for the rest of the running time?”

One such note that was initially difficult to hear but wound up being profoundly good for our story was a suggestion that seemed like a radical shift in story. The short film was the story of a father and son, but he suggested it be about a younger brother and an older brother.  

I immediately thought of how THE FOG remake cast all of the actors younger and stripped them of all character and personality.  
 

I didn’t want to make a WB movie. I wanted to make something lean and mean. I balked at the idea but Mike asked if we could talk on the phone for two hours so I could hear him out.  With a deadbeat dad, there’s no hope at all...with an older brother, it is a troubled young man trying to take on the responsibility of parenting using tools he learned from an abuser. It would enrich the role and make a character more complex.  

Fortunately for me, I had been reading Mark Twain’s HUCKLEBERRY FINN at the time and that book is all about a young man plunged into the violence of an older person’s world. I am so grateful to have listened to Mike, who ultimately made the movie better. That’s the great gift of having smart collaborators building a project with you. If you remain open and listen to them, that is a force multiplier...

We finished the film and edited during the pandemic, which thankfully gave us something creative and enriching to do during lockdown, a weird time in all of our lives.  Once we completed the film, we put it out there to film festivals knowing that our goal was to sell the movie and we limited our scope to places that could attract either a sales agent or a distributor. Dread Presents picked up our movie and sold it to Shudder, where we will premiere in early 2022.  

It has been a fascinating journey going from a feature length script to a short proof-of-concept to a finished full-length motion picture.  As a character says in MAD MAX FURY ROAD, “I live...I die...I live again!”  

If you have a script with a high concept idea, maybe you can get the producers on board that way.  SLAPFACE is a character driven thriller with a monster in it, and its unique quality was served by starting small and slowly building.  I hasten to add that the feature length script was written BEFORE we did the short, so we had a lot to draw on. I don’t recommend going the opposite way necessarily; plenty of short films expanded to features get the critical smack down of, “It feels padded and should have stayed a short!”

Really it all comes down to following your passion and believing that there is always a way.  Sometimes it is a sprint, sometimes it is a marathon.  At the end of the day, I made the film I wanted to make and am extremely grateful for the journey with the cast, crew, festivals, critics, and collaborators along the way. I can honestly say, even when it was challenging, I have loved every minute.

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Jeremiah Kipp's directing credits include SLAPFACE (coming to Shudder in early 2022), the Chinese-American co-production BROKEN BADGES, the HP Lovecraft-inspired BLACK WAKE, and THE SADIST starring Tom Savini.  He is currently in post-production on DRAW UP AND STARE starring Michael O'Keefe, Linda Powell and Melissa Leo.  He is a graduate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts.

G&E In Motion does not necessarily agree with the opinions of our guest bloggers. That would be boring and counterproductive. We have simply found the author’s thoughts to be interesting, intelligent, unique, insightful, and/or important. We may not agree on the words but we surely agree on their right to express them and proudly present this platform as a means to do so.