Ah-Ha! moments

skinnyboy

skinnyboy

Active member
Just wondering what moments/movies have helped shape you as a film maker. This doesn't mean it has to be a good movie, or even an entire movie - but there had to be a something that made you go "I want to do that". And I'm curious about what that is.

Here are 2 for me:

"Red Dawn" (the cheesy Patrick Swayze "Russians are invading" flick)
http://imdb.com/title/tt0087985/?fr...1MDB8Y289MXxodG1sPTF8bm09MQ__;fc=1;ft=22;fm=1

I remember watching part of this at a friend's house on HBO or something when I was probably 14. This was the moment I realized that a movie could be bad. There was a scene with all the kids gathered around a fire talking, and to make a point, one of them leaned in and delivered her line. It was incredibly awkward and unnatural, and for the first time I could see the handprint of a director on a scene.


And on a positive note, "Dead Again" (http://imdb.com/title/tt0101669/?fr...tPTUwMHxjbz0xfGh0bWw9MXxubT0x;fc=1;ft=20;fm=1) - the entire movie was just fun, but the "take the scissors" scene really inspired me. I remember being mesmerized by this scene the first time I saw it, and then realizing the second time that it was all 1 take, and that the music was motivated (it was the downstairs neighbor practicing piano) and it all worked beautifully. Got me on a kick of making one-shot short films that I still haven't tired of 15 years later.

"Dead Again" also reminded me that movies can be fun! (I was in film school at the time - movies are supposed to "make a difference" and not be fun)
 
for me it's pretty much anything Spielberg did. The first movie I saw of his was E.T. when i was 7 or 8 and from then I wanted to make films. In high school though filmmaking took a backseat to music. I play saxophone and my h.s. band director taught me a lot. So then in h.s. I wanted to be a band director. i was on my way to go to music ed school and all.

Then I was in Florida right after I graduated talking to one of (if not my best) friend, who wanted to go into filmmaking. Him and I talked for hours on end about films we loved films we hated and such. It was through those conversations and Mr. Spielberg again that made me jump back into the filmmaking seat. I went back and rewatched all of his movies that were out at the time and from then on said, "this is what i want to do. there's no going back from this."

Other than the great great Mr. Spielberg another one of my other influences is Quentin Tarantino. I love his films. I especially love his writing style. So natural.

So there's what made me want to be a filmmaker.
 
Pure and simple...

From the first time that I saw Star Wars in a 1980 theatrical re-release (just before Empire came out) I knew what I wanted to do with my life. The first 121 minutes especially spoke to me.

Of course, I'm the only one who would list such an obsolete title, & I am sure this little art house film didn't help to inspire any other wee sprouts of future filmmakers.;)
 
Star Wars ... hm ... never heard of it. ;)

Blade Runner was a pretty big influence in my life (if anyone on the site wasn't aware of that already :)). I think because it was one of the very first films I ever saw any behind the scenes stuff. I remember watching a special show or something where it showed them shooting some of the opening car seqences with these little models and I was enammored with the process.

Raiders of the Lost Ark is a big influence because it really just might be the most perfectly made film ever.

And surprisingly Better off Dead, because it stuck me as a movie that I could have made. Kind of bringing the process within reach.

As much of an influence that Star Wars has been in my life, it actually has done very little to inspire me in filmmaking.

Edit: Actually that's not true. Star Wars has affected me in the way they went about the special effects. There's something magical in the way they would keep the ships stationary and move the camera. It created such a "correct" look. I'd love to shoot a Space Opera-type film using models in today's CGI world. I think that would be an amazing nod to by-gone days.
 
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I remember Vanilla sky really making me want to continue making film after I was in a slump, recently Capote was very inspiring. Although I'd love to make some huge budget wonder I can't help being facinated by strong character peices. I guess that's the part of me that alway's wanted to be a doc filmmaker.
 
For me, it was Tarantino who made me look at what could be done with the medium of film. I had never seen anything as stylish or as well written as Pulp Fiction. I loved movies at that point, but after watching that one, I wanted to make movies, and moreso, I wanted to make them look good. I'm seventeen as of right now, I was fourteen when I saw it, and it almost singlehandedly wanted to make me become a filmmaker. I've never been so adamant in what I want to do in life before. It's gotta be pretty powerful to push me into a profession where I know I would make less money (at the start, or for the entire duration) than if I took a business major and became an investment banker or something.

Another inspiration of mine (as weird as it sounds) was Shaun of the Dead. There was something in the writing that was so right on to me, that not many of my friends enjoy, but I can just laugh my ass off at the movie and all of it's little continuous jokes. I also really lilked the way Edgar Wright moved the camera around. And lastly, it showed that comedy can verge into seriousness and do well. It was amazing how they poked fun at zombie films at times, but their main source of comedy came from the reaction or actions of the heroes, not the zombies doing stupid ****. If it was an American made movie (I never saw it, but the Trailer for Dead and Breakfeast comes to mind), it would never have had the audacity to pull that off.

And lastly (and probably most cliched)--Robert Rodriguez. I challenge someone who reads Rebel Without a Crew to not be inspired to make movies. His whole story is just a breath of fresh air; I'm always told by my friends and family that "there's a good chance you'll never make it making movies. You're probably just gonna fail at it; for every one Tarantino there's 100 like him that couldn't make it." So when I read RWAC and saw how he struggled a bit, but made an excellent movie that became the talk of the town as soon as he dropped it off at a talent agency, well, it was nothing short of awe-inspiring. After reading it, I immeadeately went out and wrote a thirty page script (my longest as of yet) with intent to shoot it. Summer ran out, and I abandoned the project, but never before have I been inspired to the point where I put down a book, walk over to my computer, and start writing.
 
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I think Rounders, Fight Club, Terminal, and Amelie have influenced me greatly.

Terminal and Amelie are so quirky but it works and they're both beautifully shot, so you're learning about character interaction and cinematography at the same time through both of these films.

You can learn a lot about writing creatively through the voice overs of Rounders and Fight Club. Although some may feel narrative films are a cop-out in story telling, but there's a lot of exposition that you can put in there for more character depth, without visually having to depict it. This allows for you to focus more on the story rather than the character since the audience is being explicitly told through 1 pair of eyes.

I'd also throw in Sin City for learning noir and different types of story telling. The film could be subdivided into 3 stories, each with their own styles. The double commentaries for the film is just great.

I think you can learn a lot from any film; what to do and what not to do.
 
Body Heat. The intricacies of that story have stuck with me to this day. It's one of those: "I wish I had written that." or even "I wish I COULD write like that."
 
Halloween by John Carpeneter. I nearly wet my pants as a 6 year old when I saw it, but when my pants had dried sufficiently I said,"that's what I want to do when I grow up...if I ever grow up." ;-)
 
This was always my favorite A HA ! moment.

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John_Hudson said:
This was always my favorite A HA ! moment.

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I was wondering when someone would put that up. When I first saw the thread title, that's the first thing that came to mind.
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Actually that video was something of an (aha) Ah ha moment. I liked the way it combined live action with the "drawing" action. Of course, today it's pretty tame.
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