CONCEPTION AND THE IMPORTANCE OF FOREPLAY - Blog 5 of 10
The Film's Treatment Continued
The dashing ship pilots from the Bay of San Francisco have just arrived for their twelve days of advanced training at The Port Revel Centre in Viriville, France. After watching them celebrate their arrival with too many bottles of red wine and all the carousing they can muster, they are harshly reminded that this is not at all a holiday they're on. Classes begin early the next morning and continue 24-hours a day no matter the weather conditions. Each day becomes endless hard work followed by constant proficiency testing. Their days become all about stern and rigorous instructions, hustle, hustle, with very early morning sit-ups, running and rowing.
During their two-week training (interspersed with a long weekend of R&R in Paris) the pilots have a chance to work along side Aimee and the rest of the first-rate staff of instructors and crew. They are particularly impressed how Aimee totally loses what is taken to be her shyness when she's at the con of a ship. She handles boats like a master. Their admiration grows until on the third day they make her their mascot because she is always in high spirits and amazingly talented at moving heavy objects through the water safely and with ease. It's suggested that she has a great career ahead of her piloting ships. However not everyone is on board with that notion. San Francisco Bar Pilot, Captain Buckridge actually lobbies his fellow pilots to leave the girls alone and, rather, encourage her to avoid anything maritime and instead to seek her parent's goal of becoming a doctor. Buckridge admonishes, "The sea is no place for woman."
During the two-weeks of training, Aimee has many occasions to sit outside the men's circle and listen to the pilots and her father as they enjoy after dinner cigars and brandy, and speak philosophically of a life at sea. From time to time the conversations touches on the historical record of sexism in the Navy.
The night before the pilot's farewell breakfast, she dreams that she is a working ship pilot mounting a rope ladder up the side of a mammoth ship during a storm. When she awakens she makes a decision that will change her life. At breakfast that morning she proudly and confidently announces to the SF pilots that she will be the first female ship pilot on the Bay - and that she will achieve it more quickly than any man ever has. And finally, to her parent's surprise she adds, "Will you please support me in my goal by donating to my maritime academy tuition fund that I am establishing here this morning?" Nearly all the pilots stand to cheer and applaud her. Many checks are written that morning. With these eight men acting as her guardian angels it would seem that her future is assured. And yet her father along with Captain Buckridge suggest that she must forget such goals, "For two hundred years the pilots on the Bay of San Francisco have always been men. And before that, for thousands of years."
The film then cuts to the California Maritime Academy. We meet again Aimee at age twenty and now referred to as Lieutenant Amy Tanny at the prestigious maritime academy in Vallejo. Ranked first in the her class set to graduate in just two months, she stands before 199 male and other female cadet dressed in their formal whites and commands them to dig deep to strive for honor and country. She reads aloud a poem by George Bernard Shaw: "This is the true joy life. The being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one." The cadets respond with tears and cheers. Later, she is in the dinning hall that has become a set for her first television interview which is to be broadcast nationally as part of a story on the international expansion of feminism. Her unconventional responses revolve around the subject of maritime commerce from the woman's angle and the reality of choosing it as a viable career choice.
The Treatment will be continued next time.
Copyright 2010 G. Leo Maselli
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Sunday, September 19, 2010
THE MAKING OF "CROSSING THE BAR"
CONCEPTION AND THE IMPORTANCE OF FOREPLAY - Blog 4 of 10
The Treatment
Did I hear, "What's a Treatment?" For sure it's an important part of the process (the making of). The textbook definition describes it as a narrative, abridged script consisting of each major scene, descriptions of significant characters and may include snippets of dialogue. It reads like a short story.
"Crossing the Bar" opens to reveal a 1946 South Pacific military supply base that is preparing to close now that World War II has ended. Located on Bora Bora, the base of nine ships and nearly 5,000 men is under the command of Rear Admiral Bernard Tanneur. When we first encounter Admiral Tanneur we hear him reciting marriage vows with his beloved Polynesian wife, even as she is giving birth to their first child. Despite pressure from the military to avoid such cross-cultural commitments, he takes his new daughter, Aimée, into his arms and tells how much he loves the island and the people so much that he will retire from the Navy and find a new career piloting freighters throughout the South Pacific.
The film then cuts to The Port Revel Centre, Ship Pilot’s Advanced Training Facility in Viriville, France during the mid-fifties. Adjacent to the facility’s large lake is a spacious villa dating back to the middle ages and the highly rated Hotel Bonnoit. This is where we meet the girl named Aimée at age ten. She is tall and gangling for her age, and in her demeanor we immediately observe that she is an inward looking young woman as she rides a horse bareback across the rolling green hills towards the lake where her father is now the Commandant of Port Revel. Under his command are a dozen young seaman and sea scouts who make up the Operations Team of Port Revel.
Aimée works along side the operations team as an equal as they rebuild ship engines for the manned scale model ships used for training at the facility. Her father reminds her that their most prestigious clients will be arriving the next morning and that they must likely work well after dark or all night if necessary to be prepared. She assists the team launching the ships and tugs. She and a young seaman, who will remain a life long friend, test the wind, wave and fog systems. Before collapsing into bed, she stoically finds the energy to assist her mother in programming the curriculum. Besides being brilliant, handsome and athletically built, she’s a genius with organizing and operating things. She comes across as an amazing young woman which often results in making her seem scarcely approachable. One thing seems clear; she appears destined to excel no matter what path in life she may follow. We already have great expectations for her.
For this reason alone, it is somewhat difficult to watch as she gets an innocent school girl crush on all eight of the good-looking and dashing ship pilots from the Bay of San Francisco in for their 12-day training session. They arrive in the early morning in three, large black, SUVs speeding onto the property. They roar along the dirt road in tight formation. They roll to a full stop in front of the hotel. When the dust clears the all-American, all male team of ship pilots exits the SUVs. In swagger they resemble the likes of Russell Crowe, Matthew McConaughey and Ashton Kutcher: white, macho, almost certainly, pathetically sexist, albeit charmingly roguish and romantic to boot. They shake hands with male staff and hug, rather too playfully, all the female staff who greet them from the Hotel – kitchen help, chefs, servers, hotel maids, gardeners and the like. One of the pilots speaks Japanese to the gardeners. Another speaks Spanish to the kitchen help. It should be noted that the parts of each of the eight ship pilots are written to represents one of the eight primary characteristics or personality traits of the featured mariners the writer-producer encountered during his time with the pilots, specifically heroic, charismatic, intelligent, brave, educated, wise, fearless, and archetypical American.
Treatment to be continued.
Copyright 2010 G.Leo Maselli
The Treatment
Did I hear, "What's a Treatment?" For sure it's an important part of the process (the making of). The textbook definition describes it as a narrative, abridged script consisting of each major scene, descriptions of significant characters and may include snippets of dialogue. It reads like a short story.
"Crossing the Bar" opens to reveal a 1946 South Pacific military supply base that is preparing to close now that World War II has ended. Located on Bora Bora, the base of nine ships and nearly 5,000 men is under the command of Rear Admiral Bernard Tanneur. When we first encounter Admiral Tanneur we hear him reciting marriage vows with his beloved Polynesian wife, even as she is giving birth to their first child. Despite pressure from the military to avoid such cross-cultural commitments, he takes his new daughter, Aimée, into his arms and tells how much he loves the island and the people so much that he will retire from the Navy and find a new career piloting freighters throughout the South Pacific.
The film then cuts to The Port Revel Centre, Ship Pilot’s Advanced Training Facility in Viriville, France during the mid-fifties. Adjacent to the facility’s large lake is a spacious villa dating back to the middle ages and the highly rated Hotel Bonnoit. This is where we meet the girl named Aimée at age ten. She is tall and gangling for her age, and in her demeanor we immediately observe that she is an inward looking young woman as she rides a horse bareback across the rolling green hills towards the lake where her father is now the Commandant of Port Revel. Under his command are a dozen young seaman and sea scouts who make up the Operations Team of Port Revel.
Aimée works along side the operations team as an equal as they rebuild ship engines for the manned scale model ships used for training at the facility. Her father reminds her that their most prestigious clients will be arriving the next morning and that they must likely work well after dark or all night if necessary to be prepared. She assists the team launching the ships and tugs. She and a young seaman, who will remain a life long friend, test the wind, wave and fog systems. Before collapsing into bed, she stoically finds the energy to assist her mother in programming the curriculum. Besides being brilliant, handsome and athletically built, she’s a genius with organizing and operating things. She comes across as an amazing young woman which often results in making her seem scarcely approachable. One thing seems clear; she appears destined to excel no matter what path in life she may follow. We already have great expectations for her.
For this reason alone, it is somewhat difficult to watch as she gets an innocent school girl crush on all eight of the good-looking and dashing ship pilots from the Bay of San Francisco in for their 12-day training session. They arrive in the early morning in three, large black, SUVs speeding onto the property. They roar along the dirt road in tight formation. They roll to a full stop in front of the hotel. When the dust clears the all-American, all male team of ship pilots exits the SUVs. In swagger they resemble the likes of Russell Crowe, Matthew McConaughey and Ashton Kutcher: white, macho, almost certainly, pathetically sexist, albeit charmingly roguish and romantic to boot. They shake hands with male staff and hug, rather too playfully, all the female staff who greet them from the Hotel – kitchen help, chefs, servers, hotel maids, gardeners and the like. One of the pilots speaks Japanese to the gardeners. Another speaks Spanish to the kitchen help. It should be noted that the parts of each of the eight ship pilots are written to represents one of the eight primary characteristics or personality traits of the featured mariners the writer-producer encountered during his time with the pilots, specifically heroic, charismatic, intelligent, brave, educated, wise, fearless, and archetypical American.
Treatment to be continued.
Copyright 2010 G.Leo Maselli
Thursday, September 9, 2010
THE MAKING OF "CROSSING THE BAR"
CONCEPTION AND THE IMPORTANCE OF FOREPLAY - Blog 3 of 10
A Mine Field Revealed
My on-going studies of the vast and prickly topic of feminism has lead me to conclude that I am technically a humanist, not a feminist. With that in mind, let's plunge-in.
Feminist scholars have found it useful to think of the woman's movement in the U.S. as occurring in "waves." The history of the modern feminist movement is divided into three "waves," each describing different aspects of the same feminist issues. The First Wave refers to the movement of the 19th through early 20th centuries which concerned itself mainly with suffrage. The Second Wave occurred from the 1960s and ran well into the 1980s. This is the period in which "Crossing the Bar" is set. This wave dealt with the inequality of laws, beyond the early quest for political rights, to fight for greater equality across the board, e.g. in education, at home and in the work place. Third-wave feminism began in the early 1990s, arising as a response to perceived failures of the second wave and also as a response to the backlash against initiatives and movements created by the second wave.
The female protagonist in "Crossing the Bar" encounters a world in which women actually lost ground. Despite the gains made by women over the first half of the 20th century, the essential problems of discrimination, inequality, and limited opportunities reappeared after World War II ended and men returning from combat re-established their previous positions. Consequently, the gradual emergence of a new feminism after World War II was referred to a Second Wave feminism, to reflect the hiatus the war had created and the new directions taken following women's experiences during and after that war.
Historical Importance of a Ship Pilot
The value of a ship pilot is well understood by those who own and operate the ships that have always been considered massive over each maritime generation and borne her increasingly valuable cargos. Key to this understanding is to grasp the fact that a ship is always safer at sea than she is when near or surrounded by land.
The film's audience will experience this dramatically as a vessel gets close to land and see the story change before their eyes. The story now become one about the mounting risk to the cargo, vessel, crew and environment (in that order of importance). Where 98 disastrous shipwrecks have occurred on the Bay of San Francisco over the last 150 years, the pilots have to contend with narrow channels, sharp turns, strong tidal currents, reefs and shoals. A watchful pilot instinctively grasps that quarters are close and there is no time to think or consider action to be taken. Solutions must be instant and intuitive. Traffic may come from all directions and a moment's delay may court disaster. The audience will witness times of poor visibility when all the radar blips must be correctly interpreted and proper decisions made immediately. Only an expert can properly cope with the drama of these dangerous variables. The ship pilots of the Bay are such experts. To this filmmaker "Crossing the Bar" represents not only the outward appearance of Bay Area ship pilots, but also the inward significance of all ship pilots, both male and female, on the great upwelling of commerce in North American harbors that continues today.
Synopsis
This is the moralistic story of Aimee who journeys from Tahiti where she was born as World War II ended, to France where she grew up on a ship pilots training facility operated by her parents, to the Bay Area at age 20 to attend Vallejo's California Maritime Academy. Only with unyielding persistence and unexpected bravery is she able to forge a brilliant career and ultimately pierce into an elite, male clan of mariners as California's first state-certified ship pilot.
By the way, a local newspaper has contacted me with an offer to publish a column on the subject of local feminism. Think I should do it?
Copyright 2010 G. Leo Maselli
A Mine Field Revealed
My on-going studies of the vast and prickly topic of feminism has lead me to conclude that I am technically a humanist, not a feminist. With that in mind, let's plunge-in.
Feminist scholars have found it useful to think of the woman's movement in the U.S. as occurring in "waves." The history of the modern feminist movement is divided into three "waves," each describing different aspects of the same feminist issues. The First Wave refers to the movement of the 19th through early 20th centuries which concerned itself mainly with suffrage. The Second Wave occurred from the 1960s and ran well into the 1980s. This is the period in which "Crossing the Bar" is set. This wave dealt with the inequality of laws, beyond the early quest for political rights, to fight for greater equality across the board, e.g. in education, at home and in the work place. Third-wave feminism began in the early 1990s, arising as a response to perceived failures of the second wave and also as a response to the backlash against initiatives and movements created by the second wave.
The female protagonist in "Crossing the Bar" encounters a world in which women actually lost ground. Despite the gains made by women over the first half of the 20th century, the essential problems of discrimination, inequality, and limited opportunities reappeared after World War II ended and men returning from combat re-established their previous positions. Consequently, the gradual emergence of a new feminism after World War II was referred to a Second Wave feminism, to reflect the hiatus the war had created and the new directions taken following women's experiences during and after that war.
Historical Importance of a Ship Pilot
The value of a ship pilot is well understood by those who own and operate the ships that have always been considered massive over each maritime generation and borne her increasingly valuable cargos. Key to this understanding is to grasp the fact that a ship is always safer at sea than she is when near or surrounded by land.
The film's audience will experience this dramatically as a vessel gets close to land and see the story change before their eyes. The story now become one about the mounting risk to the cargo, vessel, crew and environment (in that order of importance). Where 98 disastrous shipwrecks have occurred on the Bay of San Francisco over the last 150 years, the pilots have to contend with narrow channels, sharp turns, strong tidal currents, reefs and shoals. A watchful pilot instinctively grasps that quarters are close and there is no time to think or consider action to be taken. Solutions must be instant and intuitive. Traffic may come from all directions and a moment's delay may court disaster. The audience will witness times of poor visibility when all the radar blips must be correctly interpreted and proper decisions made immediately. Only an expert can properly cope with the drama of these dangerous variables. The ship pilots of the Bay are such experts. To this filmmaker "Crossing the Bar" represents not only the outward appearance of Bay Area ship pilots, but also the inward significance of all ship pilots, both male and female, on the great upwelling of commerce in North American harbors that continues today.
Synopsis
This is the moralistic story of Aimee who journeys from Tahiti where she was born as World War II ended, to France where she grew up on a ship pilots training facility operated by her parents, to the Bay Area at age 20 to attend Vallejo's California Maritime Academy. Only with unyielding persistence and unexpected bravery is she able to forge a brilliant career and ultimately pierce into an elite, male clan of mariners as California's first state-certified ship pilot.
By the way, a local newspaper has contacted me with an offer to publish a column on the subject of local feminism. Think I should do it?
Copyright 2010 G. Leo Maselli
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