Spiritual Enlightenment - The Roundabout Path To Feature Film Production

by Leighton Gage

I seldom post personal memoirs in this space.

But this one, I think, merits being shared.

And I usually post more than one photo to illustrate my posts.

But this time I cannot.

Because I don’t think The Guru would like it.

Here’s the story: back in the very beginning of the 1970’s I had a friend, let’s call him Roland, a transplanted American who lived in a big house facing Hampstead Heath.

I lived on the Continent in those days, but my business brought me to London with some frequency, and when I came, I often stayed with him.

He made his living by directing television commercials and was, in that regard, the most talented man I have ever known – a true artist who managed to turn thirty-second films designed to sell margarine, or diapers, into things of great beauty. I know that sounds strange, but believe me, it’s true.

He did it by taking great freedom with the scripts he was given, too much freedom, in fact, for many of the people who were bankrolling his efforts. Often, the films he made were rejected by the advertisers. Often, they involved costly re-shoots and re-edits in order to secure advertiser approval. It wasn’t long before his assignments slowed to a trickle.

Now, it is a characteristic of TV commercial directors that they harbor in their hearts the desire to do something “really worthwhile”. And by “really worthwhile”, they invariably mean a feature film.

Some, like Ridley Scott, go on to a brilliant career in Hollywood. Most never get the chance. Because as the great French director, René Clair, remarked back in the 1920’s, “Money is the master of film.”

Never heard of René Clair? Read about him here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Clair

But I digress.

Roland, too, yearned to do a feature, but he was never able to secure financing for his projects.

Flash forward a couple of years.

Around about mid-1973, he went to Barcelona and took a job with a Spanish production company. Those were the days when Franco still ruled, and I think Roland regarded his voluntary banishment to the benighted Spain of that time as somewhat of a disgrace, but his work in the UK had practically dried up, and he had little choice.

He didn’t write to me, or to any of our mutual friends, but he did stay in contact with his wife – who was never able to tell me, or didn’t wish to tell me, what had gone wrong in their marriage.

She moved into a small apartment and stayed on, in the UK, with the kids.

And he dropped off the map.

Years went by without a word.

And then, one day, when I had long been living in Brazil, I got a telephone call from a person totally unknown to me. How she got my number I have no idea. “The Master,” she wanted me to know, “would be in touch with me sometime soon.”

The Master, as it turns out, was the guy I’d known as Roland.

He’d gone off to India, she said, had achieved enlightenment, and now had a considerable following as well as a number of spiritual centers on both sides of the Atlantic.

About six months after that, I got a call from an old mate of mine who’d also been a friend of The Guru.

The Guru, he told me, was going to Aruba, where the mate then lived, to scout the island for a feature film he was planning. The Guru would like to see me.

So I went.

And there was Roland, sporting a magnificent beard and so closely accompanied by his followers that it was difficult to get him alone for a talk.

But, ultimately, we found ourselves together in a hotel room. We talked about his spiritual journey, but I don’t feel it would be correct to go into the details of that here.

Suffice it to say it was a truly emotional night.

That was a number of years ago.

I haven’t seen him since.

There is little information about The Guru on the internet, but I have some recent pictures, taken by that mate from long ago, who has seen him quite recently.

I wish I felt free to share them with you. He really looks the part.

The Aruba project never came off, but The Guru’s acolytes have recently constructed a state-of-the-art film production center for him in a small country in Europe.

Where he is busily at work training a cadre of film technicians.

Knowing their dedication to The Guru, and the fact that they’re willing to commit their labor and their wealth to his greater glory, I’m sure that, this time, a feature film will result.

And, knowing his talent, I’m sure it will be brilliant.

It’s been a long time coming.

Military Reminiscences

By Chester Campbell

I thought about writing a Memorial Day article, but that was yesterday. Anyway, Ben and Mark have done a more than adequate job of covering the subject. Also, make sure you check out Pat Browning's Memorial Day blog here. If you happened to be around back in the day, as they say, it will evoke lots of memories of times you witnessed. It certainly did for me.

In fact, it got me to thinking about writing a lighthearted memoir about my own military adventures, starting with the events as a kid that led up to my decision to volunteer for pilot training in World War II. War is no joke, but the things our warriors do at times can be pretty hilarious.

While out walking tonight about dark (it's still Memorial Day as I write this), I even came up with a title and an opening paragraph. The title is A Date with Destiny. Now is that dramatic, or what? Here's the first paragraph:

"When I began searching for a title that would capture the essence of my military 'career,' I immediately thought of A Date with Destiny. It seemed to fit. The only trouble is I can't remember her last name. In fact, I'm not even sure her first name was Destiny. But I did date a girl once while I was in the Army Air Forces back in 1945. I don't remember much about the date, except that I was my usual bumbling self. The girl was nice, and I displayed my best behavior. You see, her father was a general at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, where I was a lowly Aviation Cadet at the San Antonio Aviation Cadet Center."

I don't know if I'll keep it, but that's the tone of the project. I wish my memory were a bit less rusty. I can't recall all the circumstances. It was a blind date arranged by another cadet. His girlfriend wouldn't go out without someone to link up with the general's daughter. I think I called her after a day or so, but I never saw her again. I was in love with a girl back home and wasn't interested in any casual relationships.

Come to think of it, that may doom the book from the start. I don't fit the stereotypical picture of the soldier who hops in and out of beds as he travels from place to place. Will a book without sex sell?

What do you think? Should I bare my sole (a soldier travels on his feet) for the world to see? Or should I be a sensible guy and stick to mystery writing?

Slicing It Thin

By Pat Browning

Has anyone else noticed that mysteries seem to get longer and longer? It’s as if editors and publishers have decided that longer is better, which ain’t necessarily so.

Unless you’re writing historical mysteries which are dense with detail, you should keep your book as lean as possible, especially if you’re a beginner. Readers recognize rambling and padding when they see it. The book may get good reviews but readers may desert you. Or not. As one of my sisters tells me when I get nervous about what I’m writing, “People will read anything.”

In the years since I wrote my first mystery, I’ve learned to cut and cut, and cut some more. In simple terms, a plot comes down to what the main character wants, and what stands in his/her way. But when I began, I kept going off in other directions. Nearly all of what I wrote was back story. I assumed because I knew the complete details of a character’s life I had to explain it to everyone else.

That’s not true, of course. Aside from leaving a little something to the reader’s imagination, it simply isn’t necessary to tell everything. A line here, a paragraph there, maybe even a page or short chapter, is usually enough.

That’s the modern way, and it’s hard for people my age to make the adjustment. We grew up reading the English classics, Charles Dickens, for example. Dickens was paid by the word for his novels published in installments. Of course he put in everything he knew.

Among more modern writers, even Daphne duMaurier in REBECCA described every leaf, bush, flower and cloud in the sky, furniture, silverware, and clothing. But she was skillful at spinning a web to draw the reader in and she got by with it.

Learning as I wrote FULL CIRCLE, I cut out some very good scenes and chapters because they moved the story backward and sideways instead of forward. They were mostly explanations of what happened years earlier.

For instance, I threw in my travel experiences by putting my two main characters in Paris as college students. I actually took them through some of the cities I visited on my first trip to Europe. Well, heck, I thought, those were interesting experiences, and I had copious notes, so why not? Why not? Because I was trying to write a cozy mystery, and not a travelogue or memoir.

While I was cutting, I cut my entire Chapter 2, which had some good dialogue and interplay among characters but dragged out the beginning. I hung an imaginary banner above my computer: FICTION IS NOT REAL LIFE.

The hardest cut I had to make was priceless, in its way, because it was written from life. I devoted an entire chapter to my protagonist’s mother writing about her childhood for a senior citizens writing class. I had written it 30 years earlier, intending to turn it into the Great American Novel. Didn’t happen, so I filed it away.

Why not slip it into my mystery? I thought I was clever in the way I presented it, and it survived numerous critiques by other writers. At the eleventh hour, one puzzled comment by a professional publicist was all it took to nudge that chapter out. Once again, I filed it away.

In the meantime, I learned to cut extraneous material almost as second nature. I give my years as a newspaper reporter credit for that. When Krill Press came along with an idea for reprinting FULL CIRCLE as ABSINTHE OF MALICE, I cut and rewrote and revised with gusto.

This has been an extraordinary year. Not only do I have a shiny new – or at least different – book, but that piece of writing I saved for 40 years has found a home. Two years ago I revised it as a short memoir and submitted it to a magazine. Rejected. Last year I revised it again and entered it in a contest. Won second place and $50.

This year I rewrote it again, and submitted it for publication in the Red Dirt Book Festival Anthology. It made the cut. The anthology was supposed to be out in time for Christmas, but after 40 years – hey, what’s my hurry?