Zen Filmmaking

[Skull]

Is Scott Shaw the inventor of Zen Filmmaking?

Ok what the Hell is Zen Filmmaking? Good question.

According to Scott Shaw's bio page on IMDB:

In Zen Filmmaking no scripts are used. There are no rules and no definitions. The spontaneous creative energy of the filmmaker is the only defining factor - this allows for a spiritually pure source of immediate inspiration to be the only guide in the filmmaking process.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002396/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm


Even when I googled 'Zen Filmmaking' it seemed to credit Scott Shaw as the creator.


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I don't think I'd saw a Scott Shaw movie but I had saw a ton of films, even silent movies, that seemed to be make without rules and definitions... Isn't the Bela Lugosi scene in Plan 9 from Outer Space could be classified as 'Zen Filmmaking'?


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I want to know if Scott Shaw is credited for creating Zen Filmmaking or that he took a sloppy style of filmmaking and named it Zen Filmmaking.

[Rev. Powell]

There have been plenty of improvised films before. He just put a name to it. No harm in it, he's just branding himself. There's nothing new under the sun.

[LilCerberus]

I understand Jodorowski tried some thing like that with Fando e Lis, working from a one page script written by a friend in college, as did Fellini with Casanova, presenting his producers with nothing but a pornographic painting as a script.

[clockworkcanary]

When I read your post, it immediately reminded me of one of Obscuras Lupa's reviews I watched more than a year ago about Max Hell Frog Warrior (aka Hell Comes to Frogtown III?) and I thought...nah...couldn't be the same guy. I rewatched it, and yes, it is the same guy who directed it.

Incidentally, he contacted her about her review and requested not to have any film clips, dialog, or music appear in her review, so she re-edited it with intentionally crappy photoshopping, dialog, and soundtracks.

http://phelous.com/2012/08/10/obscurus-lupa/obscurus-lupa-presents/olp-max-hell-frog-warrior-re-edited/

I'm not sure if it's the first to be "filmed" in such a way, but I thought I would post this to contribute to the discussion.

[Skull]

When I read your post, it immediately reminded me of one of Obscuras Lupa's reviews I watched more than a year ago about Max Hell Frog Warrior (aka Hell Comes to Frogtown III?) and I thought...nah...couldn't be the same guy. I rewatched it, and yes, it is the same guy who directed it.

Incidentally, he contacted her about her review and requested not to have any film clips, dialog, or music appear in her review, so she re-edited it with intentionally crappy photoshopping, dialog, and soundtracks.

http://phelous.com/2012/08/10/obscurus-lupa/obscurus-lupa-presents/olp-max-hell-frog-warrior-re-edited/

I'm not sure if it's the first to be "filmed" in such a way, but I thought I would post this to contribute to the discussion.

Thanks and wow... I think the photoshop job was awesome :)

[Skull]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G80UYQL2D3M




So is a porno Zen Filmmaking?

[ER]

According to Anna Kendrick, the entire film Drinking Buddies was shot that way, no script, and the cast was genuinely toasted the whole shoot, making it up as whim and booze lead them.


Skull, porn has, I think, liberated storytelling from plot, which theretofore was viewed as the very essence of storytelling, much as the concept of physical mass once defined reality, until the neutrino was discovered to simultaneously exist and yet hold no mass. No unimpressive achievement for an industry staffed by directors named Jenny Tellya, and Pump Everhard.

[Skull]

According to Anna Kendrick, the entire film Drinking Buddies was shot that way, no script, and the cast was genuinely toasted the whole shoot, making it up as whim and booze lead them.


Skull, porn has, I think, liberated storytelling from plot, which theretofore was viewed as the very essence of storytelling, much as the concept of physical mass once defined reality, until the neutrino was discovered to simultaneously exist and yet hold no mass. No unimpressive achievement for an industry staffed by directors named Jenny Tellya, and Pump Everhard.

lol 


---------------[Porn script]------------------

HOT GIRL - Sexy girl wearing ultra short shorts and bikini top. She orders a pizza.

PIZZA DUDE - Middle age man, big belly and the worst mustache since Super Mario. PIZZA DUDE rings the door bell.

PIZZA DUDE
"Pizza."

CUT TO

HOT GIRL'S bedroom. Cluttered mess. She looks in her purse and noticed there's no money.

HOT GIRL
"Oh, crap."

CUT TO

The front door, HOT GIRL opens the door topless.

HOT GIRL
"I'm so sorry. I just found out that I have no money."
(frowns)

PIZZA DUDE is too focused on HOT GIRL boobs.

PIZZA DUDE
"It's 10 dollars or I must have sex with you."

HOT GIRL smiles.

CUT TO

HOT GIRL'S bedroom. 30 mins of hardcore adult fun.



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lol... :)

[RCMerchant]

Actually,Shaw is taking credit for a term Donald G. Jackson coined first...they were buddies-but Jackson is dead now.
The idea is not new.
Most of Jackson's movies are crap-though I like DEMON LOVER (1976) aka the DEVIL MASTER. I think this movie had some kinda script-no actors,but a script!

http://youtu.be/dlwN4P9NZSM

This mess was vomited up in my home state of Michigan!

You can see the whole damn thing on youtube-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFXTh_MaBIk&t=26s

[LilCerberus]

In the director's commentary on Easy Rider, Dennis Hopper tried to freestyle a few scenes of dialog. It almost didn't work, as the actors mostly sat there smoking weed in awkward silence for long periods of time as the cameras rolled.

Eventually, one of the actors would break the silence, or say something loosely in character.