Editing Shadows (1959 film) (section)

==Production==
The idea for the film came from a classroom exercise. With acting coach Burt Lane (later the father of [[Diane Lane]]), Cassavetes was conducting classes for aspiring actors at the off-Broadway Variety Arts Theatre in Manhattan's [[Union Square, Manhattan|Union Square]] neighborhood. The classes, listed as "The Cassavetes-Lane Drama Workshop", were Cassavetes' attempt to counter [[method acting]], which was ascendant in New York theatre and film.<ref name=Thomson2006>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/14/books/review/14thom.html?_r=0 |title=Cassavetes: Indie Godfather or Riotous Iconoclast? |last=Thomson |first=David |date=January 14, 2006 |work=[[The New York Times]] }}</ref> A particular exercise became the core of the film: A young [[African-American]] woman who was very light-skinned dated a young white man, but he was repulsed when he discovered she had a black brother. Cassavetes determined to put the scene on film, so he began looking for funding. While ostensibly promoting the film ''[[Edge of the City]]'' on [[Jean Shepherd]]'s ''Night People'' radio show on [[WOR (AM)|WOR]] in February 1957, Cassavetes said he could make a better film than could director [[Martin Ritt]]. He pitched the drama workshop idea to Shepherd's radio audience. Cassavetes was surprised when listeners sent about $2,000 to start the project.<ref name=Macadams2012/><ref name=Jarvis2011>{{cite news |url=http://www.popoptiq.com/a-look-back-at-john-cassavetes-shadows-a-pioneering-movie-in-the-history-of-american-independent-cinema/ |title=A Look Back At John Cassavetes 'Shadows' – a pioneering movie in the history of American independent cinema |last=Jarvis |first=Tom |date=November 1, 2011 |work=Popoptiq |access-date=September 3, 2015}}</ref> Money also came from Cassavetes' friends, including [[Hedda Hopper]], [[William Wyler]], [[Joshua Logan]], [[Robert Rossen]], [[José Quintero]], and Cassavetes' agent Charlie Feldman.<ref name=Watson1997>{{cite book |last=Watson |first=Stephanie |editor=Jack Sargeant |chapter=Spontaneous Cinema? In the Shadows with John Cassavetes |title=[[Naked Lens: Beat Cinema]] |publisher=Creation Books |location=London |year=1997 |isbn=1871592291}}</ref> Cassavetes hired German cinematographer Erich Kollmar as cameraman, the only crew member except Cassavetes with any experience in film.<ref>{{cite book |title=John Cassavetes: Lifeworks |last1=Charity |first1=Tom |last2=Charlesworth |first2=Chris |publisher=Music Sales Group |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1jUDAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT45 |page=45 |isbn=9780857128416 |year=2012}}</ref>

Using student actors from the Cassavetes-Lane Drama Workshop, shooting started in February 1957 in a largely improvised form. Cassavetes composed an outline for the film, but not a script. Cassavetes and assistant director/producer Maurice McEndree gave detailed instructions to the actors, constraining the situation to guide the story, with the words and the movements improvised by the actors. Cassavetes intended the story to evolve from the characters rather than vice versa. Three initial weeks of work was thrown out, the first week because of technical problems with quality, and the next two weeks because Cassavetes felt that the actors were talking too much. After they had developed their characters to the point at which they could portray emotion in silence, the actors improvised with more clarity and with a level of truth that Cassavetes found revealing. He was a demanding director who required a critical romantic scene to be performed more than 50 times before he was satisfied with the results. About 30 hours of film was exposed during several months of off-and-on shooting.<ref name=ConC>{{cite book |last1=Cassavetes |first1=John |last2=Carney |first2=Ray |title=Cassavetes on Cassavetes |year=2001 |publisher=Macmillan |isbn=9780571201570 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/cassavetesoncass00cass/page/63 63–68] |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/cassavetesoncass00cass/page/63 }}</ref>

Filming took place in various locations, including inside the apartment that Cassavetes shared with his wife [[Gena Rowlands]], and on the streets of New York. Using a 16&nbsp;mm camera borrowed from [[Shirley Clarke]], and monochrome film stock, Kollmar was forced to shoot scenes in which the actors could move in any direction they wished, making for unpredictable zoom and focus requirements. No [[filming permit]]s were obtained, so the cast and crew were necessarily ready to pack quickly and leave a location.<ref name=Rapold2008>{{cite web |url=http://stopsmilingonline.com/story_detail.php?id=994 |title=Out of the ''Shadows'': John Cassavetes. Al Ruban and Seymour Cassel on John Cassavetes |last=Rapold |first=Nicolas |date=March 10, 2008 |work=StopSmiling |access-date=September 4, 2015}} Originally published in Issue 34: Jazz.</ref> The lighting was a general wash rather than specific effects. The microphone was placed by Jay Crecco (who was also an actor in the film), and dialogue was recorded to tape with street noises intruding. Even though Cassavetes said "print it!" after he was satisfied with a scene, there was nobody on the crew keeping track of the film takes, so all of the exposed film had to be printed. The editing of the film was made much more difficult by the lack of notes taken during shooting, and by the sound recorded "wild" on tape, not synchronized with the film. The microphone failed to pick up some of the dialogue, requiring lip-readers to watch the footage and write down what had been said so that the actors could re-record their dialogue.<ref>Charity, Charlesworth 2012, pp. 45–47.</ref> Editors Len Appelson, Maurice McEndree and Wray Bevins began work while shooting was still under way, editing the film in an office next door to the Variety Arts Theatre, the office that is seen hosting a rock 'n roll party in the film. Primary photography was finished by mid-May 1957, with {{convert|60000|ft|abbr=on}} of film exposed, but the editing took more than a year. Cassavetes was not available during much of this time; starting in June, he was on location working as an actor first in ''[[Saddle the Wind]]'', then in ''[[Virgin Island (1958 film)|Virgin Island]]'' (both 1958). At the end of 1957, the editors moved to a professional editing suite to complete the task.<ref>''Cassavetes on Cassavetes'', p. 76.</ref>

Cassavetes intended to have the jazz music of [[Charles Mingus]] on the soundtrack, but Mingus composed a number of songs that could stand on their own rather than impressionistic film music to follow the story. Three hours of Mingus and his band were recorded, and much of this material was placed in the first version of ''Shadows'', screened in 1958, but almost all of it was removed during the 1959 reworking of the film.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Mingus, Cassavetes, and the Birth of a Jazz Cinema |last=Lipman |first=Ross |journal=Journal of Film Music |volume=2 |number=2–4 |year=2009 |pages=145–164 |doi=10.1558/jfm.v2i2-4.145 |url=http://www.equinoxpub.com/journals/index.php/JFM/article/viewArticle/8158}}</ref> Two of Mingus' compositions for the film were subsequently included on the 1959 album ''[[Jazz Portraits: Mingus in Wonderland]]''.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://isthmus.com/music/vinyl-cave/vinyl-cave-wonderland-by-charles-mingus/ |title=Vinyl Cave: 'Wonderland' by Charles Mingus |last=Koch |first=Bob |date=April 18, 2020 |work=Isthmus|access-date=December 28, 2020}}</ref>