Blind Filmmaker

I am a blind filmmaker.  It’s not an obvious choice for someone who can’t see – to work in a visual medium – but film is an extremely collaborative art form.  In terms of affecting the public’s consciousness, it is also the most relevant in today’s society.  Complications resulting from VHL caused me to go blind when I was eleven years old.

My interest in film began with writing.  I studied screenwriting at New York University (NYU) and quickly realized you get a lot more respect in the movie industry if you make your own movie.  Soon thereafter I shot my first short film, Smell the Light, with a crew of filmmakers I knew through school and some actors I knew from doing theater here in New York.

I would encourage anyone who wants to break into film to jump in and make your movie.  Don’t be afraid of making mistakes; of course you’ll make mistakes.  But that is the only way to learn.  In my heart, I knew if I put the energy into an actual product, good thing would result from my effort.  After the fun and excitement of actually shooting Smell the Light, my writing partner, Jim Phinney, and I holed up in an editing studio with our friend Dmitry Khavin and we painstakingly pieced the movie together.  Editing is the most grueling aspect of making a movie.  By the time you’re done, your brain aches from the effort.

After ten days of editing, we went out to a West Village restaurant to celebrate the completion of the film.  It was 3:30 in the afternoon and we were the only people in the place. We were tired, but exultant.  It felt great to have the film done and ready to go out to festivals.

We had just finished eating when Jim leaned forward and said, “Celebrity just walked in.”  That’s always a little exciting; of course I wanted to know who it was.  However, Jim appeared to have been rendered speechless, and I was left to guess.  Finally, Jim whispered “Q.T.”  Then it clicked: the machine-gun delivery, the over-the-top exuberance, the profanity ... Quentin Tarantino.

For anyone who came of age in the 90’s, Pulp Fiction holds a special place in their consciousness.  Even today, people casually drop names of the characters into conversation with the implicit understanding everyone will know who they are talking about.  The director of that film and our biggest idol was sitting three feet away from our table.

We sat in silence, chewing on falafel for what felt like an hour but was probably closer to five minutes.  Finally Jim leaned forward, “I feel like a deer in the headlights.”  I felt like the rabbit between the deer’s hooves.  I knew we should do something, but what?  With the sound of vanishing opportunity in his voice, Jim asked, “What do we do?”  I didn’t really think, I just said, “Get the film.”  Jim jumped up and was gone.

As Jim raced to his nearby apartment, I sat alone listening to Tarantino wax poetic about eating pizza with his dad in Tennessee.  I prayed he would just walk out, while at the same time hoping Jim would make it back with our movie before he left.  I knew Jim was hoping to come back and see me amiably chatting with Q., but I wasn’t that brave.  If I was going to approach him I had to have our movie in hand.  So I just waited quietly and imagined the tiny pistol he’d shoot me with for disturbing his lunch, and the bodyguards that would suddenly materialize and break my arms as they hustled me to the street.

Jim slid back into the booth and handed me a fresh copy of our DVD with brand new cover art.  “He’s right behind where I’m sitting.  Stand up, take one step and aim slightly to your left.  You can’t miss him.”

Was I really going to do this?  I sure as hell didn’t want to, but I did not want to go home knowing I had let this kind of opportunity slip away.  As I have done many times in challenging situations, I thought to myself, “I’ve made it through three brain surgeries and countless eye surgeries – nothing that is going to happen in this quiet restaurant will be as difficult as dealing with uncertain physical health.”

Jim and I are currently raising money for our first feature film, Anonymous Sex.  It’s the story of Calvin Breeze, a blind gigolo, who steals two million dollars from the mob.  We need to raise about $50,000 to complete this project.  With the success we had with Smell the Light, I’m confident Anonymous Sex will find an audience and make us some money.  Smell the Light did very well on the festival circuit and I was amazed at the extent of our press coverage.

As for Tarantino, he turned out to be a great guy.  I gave him our film and we shared a couple of laughs.  I was aware of the wait staff and bartenders watching us and I wanted to let him get back to lunch with his friend as quickly as possible.  I thanked him for his time and Jim and I headed for the door.  I like to think he saw a little bit of himself in us – a couple of young guys trying to break into the movie business.

We walked through Washington Square Park and talked excitedly about how cool it was to meet him and what he might think of our film.  The intense vibrating thrum I could feel coursing through my whole body was the essence of being alive.

More about Adam and Jim and their films at http://www.goodlookproductions.com  See page 15 to order a copy of Smell the Light.

FILM NOIR: Blind filmmaker Adam Linn has a unique vision

Adapted from articles from Time Out New York, and the Boston Sunday Globe

Adam Linn is a 36-year-old graduate of NYU film school living in Brooklyn and trying to make a go of his directing career.  Big whoop, right?  Actually, yeah.  Since age 11, Linn has been completely blind.  How can you make films if you’re blind?  It’s the question everyone asks, and Linn’s answer is that, rather than an obstacle, his lack of sight is an advantage.  “I have an eerily vivid imagination,” he explains.  “My ability to visualize details of people, objects and paths has made directing and screenwriting a natural choice.  In order to navigate my apartment and my neighborhood every day, I have to create extremely accurate visual maps in my head and memorize them,” he says.  “Being forced to visualize every single person and object around you makes screenwriting and directing a snap.”

In 2004 Linn teamed up with West Villager Jim Phinney to form Good Look Productions; their first film, Smell the Light, premiered at the Boston Film Festival in summer 2005.  Linn wrote, directed, and starred in the raunchy short about Manfred, a blind yoga student wrestling with inner cigar-chomping gangster-like demons; Phinney, 36, assistant directed (AD).  After Linn wrote the screenplay, Phinney created crude, three-dimensional models as storyboards.  They say their relationship is that of any director and AD. Linn describes the shots he wants and Phinney shoots them.  In the editing room, Phinney describes the shots in each scene and Linn decides what to cut.

Smell the Light is about enlightenment,” says the Dorchester, Massachusetts, native who, left completely blind at age 11 by a medical condition, went on to graduate from Boston Latin School and Harvard before quitting his job as a stockbroker in 2001 to pursue acting and screenwriting.  “Manfred sees himself as a victim, because he’s blind, he’s broke, he split up with his girlfriend,” he continued.  “But until we learn to let go of such petty concerns, we’re all alone in the dark – that’s the idea behind the movie.”

Good Look’s next project is a feature film, Anonymous Sex, about a blind farm boy, Cal, who has a gift for making women feel beautiful.  Characters like Cal and Manfred are part of Linn’s plan to reinvent blind protagonists. “I want them to have lust, greed and envy, not just as devices to teach life lessons,” he says.  In doing so, he hopes to make life a little easier for the unsighted.  “A lot of the stress of being blind doesn’t come from the inability to see – it comes from how other people see us.”

As printed in the VHL Family Forum 16:2, May 2008. For permission to reprint, please contact VHL Family Alliance, editor@vhl.org.