Just In Time For The Holidays!
Best Prices Ever on Class Audio CDs ($8) and other select items - prices will never be this low again (Okay, maybe *next* Black Friday)! The prices good ONLY November 27, 28, 29 & 30... Sale ENDS November 30th ("Cyber Monday") at midnight.
For those of you who don't know - Black Friday is our American shopping holiday. Day after Thanksgiving, when all of the Christmas sales begin... usually at 4am. People actually camp out in front of the stores days in advance to be the first ones inside to get the best deals before the store runs out of merchandise. Last year, someone was trampled to death trying to get a sale item. It's festive! Why do they call it Black Friday? A retail store in the red can get back in the black in one day. Not wanting to be left out of the festivities, I figured I'd slash some prices for 3 days. No need to camp out in front of the store or get up at 4.
*** BLACK FRIDAY SALE AT SCRIPT SECRETS! ***
And because it's Friday, here is Jonathan Coe on SABOTAGE:
And I hope that next Friday there will be an actual Fridays With Hitchcock entry!
Now I am going to go see what DVDs are on sale...
- Bill
Friday, November 27, 2009
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Happy Thanksgiving!
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and I will be off eating turkey (the bird, not the country) and watching some film (most likely BLIND SIDE because it's a feel good kind of thing that fits the holiday). I would like to take this time to thank *you* for reading the blog and the daily script tips and for putting up with me on those days when I'm a grumpy a-hole. I hate those days.
I think the great thing about Thanksgiving is that its the holiday where we set aside of differences and come together to celebrate all of the good things that have happened over the past year. Even if your life has not gone exactly as planned (and whose ever does?) you are still here and still plugging away. Find the joy in your life, even when things are not going right. Laugh.
I'm a big fan of silent comic Buster Keaton - his character had the worst luck of anyone on the planet... and that's where he found his comedy. My favorite Keraton short is THE HIGH SIGN, makes me laugh just thinking about it.
Hey, here's Keaton's feature THE GENERAL - view it online or download it free.
Tomorrow, tell the people you love that you love them. Forgive people. Be nice to complete strangers. Think of people other than yourself. And look at people who are different than you are and see the similarities. We all share this planet.
- Bill
*** Script Secrets First Ever - BLACK FRIDAY SALE - Lowest Prices EVER!
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Opposites React - and HAROLD & KUMAR.
Yesterday's Dinner: Togos sandwich.
Bicycle: Through broken glass!
I think the great thing about Thanksgiving is that its the holiday where we set aside of differences and come together to celebrate all of the good things that have happened over the past year. Even if your life has not gone exactly as planned (and whose ever does?) you are still here and still plugging away. Find the joy in your life, even when things are not going right. Laugh.
I'm a big fan of silent comic Buster Keaton - his character had the worst luck of anyone on the planet... and that's where he found his comedy. My favorite Keraton short is THE HIGH SIGN, makes me laugh just thinking about it.
Hey, here's Keaton's feature THE GENERAL - view it online or download it free.
Tomorrow, tell the people you love that you love them. Forgive people. Be nice to complete strangers. Think of people other than yourself. And look at people who are different than you are and see the similarities. We all share this planet.
- Bill
*** Script Secrets First Ever - BLACK FRIDAY SALE - Lowest Prices EVER!
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Opposites React - and HAROLD & KUMAR.
Yesterday's Dinner: Togos sandwich.
Bicycle: Through broken glass!
Sunday, November 22, 2009
DVD Times Two
In Brazil, one of my films is a brand new double bill on DVD. You can now get BLACK THUNDER in Portugese *plus* get some movie I did not write! Thanks to my friend Osvaldo for sending this to me.
Does this mean hot models from Rio will dump Leo and come after me? I sure hope so!
Classes On CD - Recession Sale!
- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: That great one on Tennis Plotting - and SPEED.
Yesterday's Dinner: McDonalds halfway through a bike ride.
Bicycle: Crazy long bike ride as I attempted to find a non-crowded place to work... and the ride home last night almost froze me.
SCRIPT SECRETS STORE
Top 10 Films About Underpants T Shirt: SALE $9.99
Does this mean hot models from Rio will dump Leo and come after me? I sure hope so!
Classes On CD - Recession Sale!
- Bill
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: That great one on Tennis Plotting - and SPEED.
Yesterday's Dinner: McDonalds halfway through a bike ride.
Bicycle: Crazy long bike ride as I attempted to find a non-crowded place to work... and the ride home last night almost froze me.
SCRIPT SECRETS STORE
Top 10 Films About Underpants T Shirt: SALE $9.99
Friday, November 20, 2009
Donald Spoto on Hitchcock's NOTORIOUS
Donald Spoto is a film critic and Hitchcock biographer who also wrote one of the best books on Hitchcock's films. Here he looks at my favorite Hitchcock film, NOTORIOUS, and talks about a couple of things I use in my class...
1) The use of "Echo Scenes" (from Michael Hauge's screenwriting book) - where the same location is used for different scenes creating a film version of those puzzle where you look for the differences between two pictures. In my class I use the multiple scenes on the park bench from NOTORIOUS to show the way their relationship changes as the mission continues. Here Spoto looks at the two scenes on the balcony which use the same background to highlight the difference in the foreground. The earlier scene was the two coming together, here we have the two coming apart.
2) Also the use of dialogie as complete counterpoint to action. This is one of those basic screenwriting things - what they say needs to be different than what they do or you have a redundancy. Because "a picture is worth a thousand words" and "don't do what I say do what I do" and "actions speak louder than words", dialogue is usually less important that the actions of the characters. When action and dialogue are at odds, you can create subtext and depth in a scene - the actions telling us the truth and the dialogue as what the characters want to believe or even a complete lie. I use a scene from NOTORIOUS in class to show that what characters *say* in a movie means far less than what they do. This is why skipping the action to read the dialogue is the biggest mistake you could ever make - if anything, do the opposite!
He also talks about the casting of Bergman, but I think that is part of a couple of larger, screenwriting related elements...
1) Interesting characters. One of the things I talk about in the 2 day class is contradiction *within* character - this creates depth. Here we have a patriotic whore and a shy spy. Bergman's character (written by Ben Hecht) is created as a daring contradiction - this is the female lead, the *romantic* lead... and she is a usually drunk party girl who is sent on a mission to screw an ugly Nazi in order to find information. Um, how many whore leads are there in film *today*? (BTW - not my moral judgement, here: women can have a love life equal to a man's... but that is *today*, in the mid-40s this was shocking stuff, and I suspect that if you wrote a rom-com about a woman who had slept with a handful of men on screen, someone would want you to change that *today*. There is a double standard for female leads on screen.) So we have this shocking character... in a love story. Hey, it might have been a big deal to cast Bergman because she'd just played a nun, but casting *any* female movie star in this role would have been a big deal. It's the character created by the screenwriter that makes it interesting no matter who you cast.
And Cary Grant's character is equally complex - he must order the woman he loves to sleep with another man... Complete love vs. duty conflict, and he screws up and picks "duty".
2) Edgy and Dramatic Concept. If I said: "In a war, a woman is forced into prostitution by the government", you would think the enemy country was doing that... not *our side*! The story concept - that a CIA Agent must order the woman he loves to sleep with the enemy - creates the characters that all three leads play. Again, Bergamn is brilliant as are Grant and Raines, but the situation is so juicy that the film would have worked with other stars in the leads... maybe not worked as well, but still worked. When a screenwriter creates a dramatic situation like this, it really gives the stars something to work with. Cary Grant starred in a bunch of movies that relied on his wit and charm and good looks - here he is completely dialed down. This films is driven by story rather than star power. I think the casting of Bergman and Grant is genius - because there is a huge contrast between their usual screen personas and these characters. This is not a "Cary Grant role" at all - this guy is shy and quiet and introverted. The story concept itself is shocking and filled with drama, allowing the actors to show great emotions by doing very little. Is your concept this dramatic?
Fridays With Hitchcock will return soon! Next up with either be NOTORIOUS or LIFEBOAT.
Classes On CD - Recession Sale!
- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Those Three Greek Unities - and teenaged werewolf movies.
Yesterday's Dinner: Chicken Ceasar salad with garlic bread.
SCRIPT SECRETS STORE
Top 10 Films About Underpants T Shirt: SALE $9.99
1) The use of "Echo Scenes" (from Michael Hauge's screenwriting book) - where the same location is used for different scenes creating a film version of those puzzle where you look for the differences between two pictures. In my class I use the multiple scenes on the park bench from NOTORIOUS to show the way their relationship changes as the mission continues. Here Spoto looks at the two scenes on the balcony which use the same background to highlight the difference in the foreground. The earlier scene was the two coming together, here we have the two coming apart.
2) Also the use of dialogie as complete counterpoint to action. This is one of those basic screenwriting things - what they say needs to be different than what they do or you have a redundancy. Because "a picture is worth a thousand words" and "don't do what I say do what I do" and "actions speak louder than words", dialogue is usually less important that the actions of the characters. When action and dialogue are at odds, you can create subtext and depth in a scene - the actions telling us the truth and the dialogue as what the characters want to believe or even a complete lie. I use a scene from NOTORIOUS in class to show that what characters *say* in a movie means far less than what they do. This is why skipping the action to read the dialogue is the biggest mistake you could ever make - if anything, do the opposite!
He also talks about the casting of Bergman, but I think that is part of a couple of larger, screenwriting related elements...
1) Interesting characters. One of the things I talk about in the 2 day class is contradiction *within* character - this creates depth. Here we have a patriotic whore and a shy spy. Bergman's character (written by Ben Hecht) is created as a daring contradiction - this is the female lead, the *romantic* lead... and she is a usually drunk party girl who is sent on a mission to screw an ugly Nazi in order to find information. Um, how many whore leads are there in film *today*? (BTW - not my moral judgement, here: women can have a love life equal to a man's... but that is *today*, in the mid-40s this was shocking stuff, and I suspect that if you wrote a rom-com about a woman who had slept with a handful of men on screen, someone would want you to change that *today*. There is a double standard for female leads on screen.) So we have this shocking character... in a love story. Hey, it might have been a big deal to cast Bergman because she'd just played a nun, but casting *any* female movie star in this role would have been a big deal. It's the character created by the screenwriter that makes it interesting no matter who you cast.
And Cary Grant's character is equally complex - he must order the woman he loves to sleep with another man... Complete love vs. duty conflict, and he screws up and picks "duty".
2) Edgy and Dramatic Concept. If I said: "In a war, a woman is forced into prostitution by the government", you would think the enemy country was doing that... not *our side*! The story concept - that a CIA Agent must order the woman he loves to sleep with the enemy - creates the characters that all three leads play. Again, Bergamn is brilliant as are Grant and Raines, but the situation is so juicy that the film would have worked with other stars in the leads... maybe not worked as well, but still worked. When a screenwriter creates a dramatic situation like this, it really gives the stars something to work with. Cary Grant starred in a bunch of movies that relied on his wit and charm and good looks - here he is completely dialed down. This films is driven by story rather than star power. I think the casting of Bergman and Grant is genius - because there is a huge contrast between their usual screen personas and these characters. This is not a "Cary Grant role" at all - this guy is shy and quiet and introverted. The story concept itself is shocking and filled with drama, allowing the actors to show great emotions by doing very little. Is your concept this dramatic?
Fridays With Hitchcock will return soon! Next up with either be NOTORIOUS or LIFEBOAT.
Classes On CD - Recession Sale!
- Bill
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Those Three Greek Unities - and teenaged werewolf movies.
Yesterday's Dinner: Chicken Ceasar salad with garlic bread.
SCRIPT SECRETS STORE
Top 10 Films About Underpants T Shirt: SALE $9.99
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Lancelot Link Thursday
Lancelot Link Thursday! For those of you who buy Playboy for the articles, here are some articles about screenwriting and the biz that may be of interest to you. Brought to you by that suave and sophisticated secret agent...
1) Overpaid Hollywood Stars - who is *most* overpaid?
2) Hollywood Reporters Next Generation List - Executives on their way up.
3) Why should you move to Hollywood to pursue your career?
4) And my friend Keith's movie BATTLE FOR TERRA is the #1 video-on-demand movie at Amazon (in its genre)...
Ranked 210 overall and
#1 in Amazon Video On Demand > Movies > Kids & Family > Animation
#1 in Amazon Video On Demand > Movies > Animation > Kids & Family
#2 in Amazon Video On Demand > Movies > Kids & Family > Adventure
I saw it in the cinema, liked it but never got around to reviewing it... even though it pops up as a *great* example of a future or alien world in my review of TERMINATOR SALVATION (which had a stupid and sucky future world). Congratulations to Keith, and if you have those short people in your house, you might add it to your Netflix que.
5) Congratulations to all of the folks who made the top 100 in the Script Shadow logline list - many of them I know, and at least one of them I have slept with. The Top 100 Loglines. Some are... interesting. What are your favorites and the ones that had you saying WTF? Comments section!
- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: This is the end! - and the 5 basic kinds of endings.
Yesterday's Dinner: Tortas on Ventura.
SCRIPT SECRETS STORE
Top 10 Films About Underpants T Shirt: SALE $9.99
1) Overpaid Hollywood Stars - who is *most* overpaid?
2) Hollywood Reporters Next Generation List - Executives on their way up.
3) Why should you move to Hollywood to pursue your career?
4) And my friend Keith's movie BATTLE FOR TERRA is the #1 video-on-demand movie at Amazon (in its genre)...
Ranked 210 overall and
#1 in Amazon Video On Demand > Movies > Kids & Family > Animation
#1 in Amazon Video On Demand > Movies > Animation > Kids & Family
#2 in Amazon Video On Demand > Movies > Kids & Family > Adventure
I saw it in the cinema, liked it but never got around to reviewing it... even though it pops up as a *great* example of a future or alien world in my review of TERMINATOR SALVATION (which had a stupid and sucky future world). Congratulations to Keith, and if you have those short people in your house, you might add it to your Netflix que.
5) Congratulations to all of the folks who made the top 100 in the Script Shadow logline list - many of them I know, and at least one of them I have slept with. The Top 100 Loglines. Some are... interesting. What are your favorites and the ones that had you saying WTF? Comments section!
- Bill
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: This is the end! - and the 5 basic kinds of endings.
Yesterday's Dinner: Tortas on Ventura.
SCRIPT SECRETS STORE
Top 10 Films About Underpants T Shirt: SALE $9.99
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Writer's Roundtable - Is The Film The Movie?
And here is part last of the screenwriters round table, where they discuss whether the films resembled their scripts...
- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: All about your villain - using past Oscar nominees SNAKES ON A PLANE, PHONE BOOTH and LAKEVIEW TERRACE as (bad) examples.
Yesterday's Dinner: Del Taco #6.
- Bill
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: All about your villain - using past Oscar nominees SNAKES ON A PLANE, PHONE BOOTH and LAKEVIEW TERRACE as (bad) examples.
Yesterday's Dinner: Del Taco #6.
Writers Roundtable - Success?
Today I'm posting the other two parts of the Hollywood Reporter's writers round table discussion (last one is at 2pm). The problem yesterday seemed to be that every single writer's website linked or embedded the interviews, and you could not get through to see it. Same problem may happen today. I suggest trying after 5 or 6pm Pacific Time when most folks have gone home for the day.
So, here's part 2 about dealing with success... or even if these folks have found success...
Last one pops at 2pm.
- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: All about your villain - using past Oscar nominees SNAKES ON A PLANE, PHONE BOOTH and LAKEVIEW TERRACE as (bad) examples.
Yesterday's Dinner: Del Taco #6.
So, here's part 2 about dealing with success... or even if these folks have found success...
Last one pops at 2pm.
- Bill
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: All about your villain - using past Oscar nominees SNAKES ON A PLANE, PHONE BOOTH and LAKEVIEW TERRACE as (bad) examples.
Yesterday's Dinner: Del Taco #6.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Writer's Roundtable - Inspirtation & theme
Hollywood Reporter does a series of round table conversations with people in the biz around award season - each segment is about 2 minutes - and here's part one of the series about screenwriters...
Congratulations to the 100 folks who made the semi-finals in Script Shadow's logline contest! Um, I ended up being one of them. Entered on a whim. After reading the other entries - I don't have a chance in hell.
And I have other scripts and projects circling which I will blog about later. Now they're still dreams and possibilities. But, things are happening!
- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: You Are A Failure! - and there is nothing wrong with that.
Yesterday's Dinner: Togos sandwich - tuna.
Bicycle: Short ride to an undisclosed location that is not crowded.
Congratulations to the 100 folks who made the semi-finals in Script Shadow's logline contest! Um, I ended up being one of them. Entered on a whim. After reading the other entries - I don't have a chance in hell.
And I have other scripts and projects circling which I will blog about later. Now they're still dreams and possibilities. But, things are happening!
- Bill
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: You Are A Failure! - and there is nothing wrong with that.
Yesterday's Dinner: Togos sandwich - tuna.
Bicycle: Short ride to an undisclosed location that is not crowded.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Movies Are Ancillaries Of Toys!
And Soylent Green tastes a little weird...
A week ago I did a Doom & Gloom blog entry about the state of the biz after from a dead American Film Market and realizing that indie films and indie genre films are in big trouble these days... and studio movies? Well, it seems like movies today are now an ancillary of toy companies - Hasbro is a film producer now! For real. And Marvel comics is a film producer, they have a deal with Disney. And this just sucks for screenwriters who don't want to write GI JOE 2 or SLINKY: THE MOTION PICTURE...
The biggest mistake of my career is that I am a writer who really wants to tell his own stories and seems to have a bunch of stories to tell. I would much rather write an original script than adapt someone else’s material - and have turned down jobs I should have taken. I always joke about ANGELS & DEMONS, but had I said yes instead of no my name would probably be on a big Ron Howard / Tom Hanks movie right now instead of on some cool spec script I wrote instead that still has not sold. Hey, and that was *before* movies had become just an ancillary right of Hasbro and Marvel and Sony Playstation.
They are making MONOPOLY THE MOTION PICTURE and Ridley Scott is directing.
They are turning a guy’s *Twitter account*, SHIT MY DAD SAYS, into a TV series.
I have a Script Tip called Writing For Toys that gets me a dozen angry e-mails whenever I run it, because it says we should consider the ancillary rights when we write our original screenplays, because that is an elements that the producers are considering. If they have two specs on their desks and one is a perfect for games and toys and Happy Meal tie ins and a Saturday morning cartoon spin off, and the other can only be a movie; guess which one will make them the most money? Hey, you may think this is art, but the guys buying our scripts are businessmen and are making an investment in our screenplays with the hope of making a good return on that investment. They are going to pick the screenplay that will make them the best return. That Script Tip is now out of date because movies are the ancillaries now. They aren’t looking at our spec scripts any more, they are looking at what board game hasn’t been filmed yet, what toy line can be a summer tentpole, what comic book might be the next IRON MAN. It’s long past thinking about the ancillary rights when you write a spec...
Depressing, huh?
As I said in the Doom & Gloom blog entry - Uwe Boll is a genius! He was the one who figured this out before anyone else, before any of the studios, and began making the movies of video games while studios were still thinking the business was all about making movies and then making the videogames of movies.
Terry Rossio (and Ted Elliott) have a column on their site called Mental Real Estate that foresaw all of this a decade ago. This column used to be one that I understood but disagreed with - my theory was that popular movies required original ideas, not some idea so worn out that everyone on the globe knew about it. Of course, that little PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN movie and its sequels proved me wrong. The Mental Real Estate model is the one Hollywood loves right now. “Hey, everybody knows Solitaire! We play it on our computers when we’re supposed to be working! And old people play it with actual cards! That makes SOLITAIRE: THE MOVIE ‘four quadrant’! We get the young *and* old audience! And SOLITAIRE has built in sequels that are also part of our Mental Real Estate - I can’t wait for the scary excitement of SPIDER SOLITAIRE, can you?” If you have an idea on how to turn solitaire into a movie, you can sell that to Hollywood. The business is more interested in the Universal than the Unique right now.
Depressing, huh?
Everything runs in cycles, so this trend will eventually burn out... but it may takes years, probably a decade. Now, the way we land a job like SLINKY: THE MOTION PICTURE is to write a great original spec with an amazing original idea... and that leads to writing a movie that is just an ancillary for a toy or game or comic book. So we still need to be writing original material... unless you can crack that SOLITAIRE movie (because that games is public domain). But this doesn’t satisfy someone like me, whose motivation is to see *my* scripts on screen. Though I have realized the error of my ways and would now probably take the ANGELS & DEMONS assignment or any of the others I turned down, because for some mixed up reason the biz respects the guy who adapts a popular novel more than the guy who can actually create their own story and characters... and more than the writer of that popular novel. I have learned that I need to play well with others rather than go to my own little corner in my own little room where I can be whatever I want to be. But am I going to write stuff like ETCH-A-SKETCH: THE MOTION PICTURE for the next decade until this trend dies out?
Depressing, huh?
So, Bill from Pulp 2.0 and I were talking about this... and instead of looking at this as The Death Of Cinema, we've decided to use this as an opportunity. To make lemonade out of the lemons. Basically, I’m taking my own advice and looking at projects with strong ancillary possibilities. I have a script called ANDROID ARMY that is often a bridesmaid, but so far has not been a bride. People keep *almost* making this script. The great thing about it is that it’s affordable sci-fi, and has some really strange characters. It is the only thing I've ever written that screams: "Action Figures!" It also screams video game and comic book and game cards and all of that other stuff. The stuff that used to be ancillary rights but now seems to be driving the market. So, we are going to try to set it up as a video game and a comic book and maybe even a toy line *before* we try to set it up as a movie. Instead of looking at the movie first and the ancillary stuff second, the plan is to reverse that - and look at video games and all of those things that used to be “after markets” as equals to cinema. To play this ancillary game Hollywood seems to be playing.
Hey, the economy sucks - games and comic books and all of those things that used to be ancillaries are hurting. We understand that. This is not a case of thinking that setting this up as a comic book is going to be easy, this is trying to break down some other door - find some other way in with this project. If we do all of this and nothing happens, how is that any different than trying to set up the script with a bunch of producers?
I did not start writing screenplays to sell dolls, but many of my favorite films have action figures... no, not CASABLANCA, but ALIENS does. So, for a while, if I have a choice between the story idea that can sell to multiple markets or a story idea that can only be a movie, I'm going to pick the additional markets one. I'm not writing anything I don't like, just selecting from ideas I do like or twisting an idea a little to give it additional chances to be bought and made. I’m kicking down different doors.
And that’s kind of exciting.
Instead of looking at something like SHIT MY DAD SAYS and complaining that some guy sold his *tweets* to Hollywood and they are making it into a TV series... I’m looking at things like tweets as a possible market that can lead to a script deal. Instead of looking at Diablo Cody breaking into the biz because she wrote an amusing blog about working as a stripper, I’m looking for a job as a stripper! Okay, I tried applying for a job at Bob’s Classy Lady in Van Nuys and they wouldn’t hire me to strip, even though my boobs are larger than many of the women on the pole. So I’ll have to blog about something else.
But the thing about Diablo Cody and the SHIT MY DAD SAYS twitter guy is that they are *writers* who are *writing something*, just in a different medium than screenplays. If you think about his tweets, it's not just a basic twitter account - it's very specific and all about one character (or maybe two) and it's funny. I can easily see this as a TV series. Yeah - you have to adapt it, but how is that any different than adapting Ray Romano's stand up routine into a series? This guy is writing 140 character scenes about a character! He has found a way to show off his comedy talents. Of all of the twitter accounts in all of the world, his is the one that will be turned into a TV series. Not mine... not even Roger Avary’s tweets from prison (though, he’s funny as hell, too).
The thing with tweets and blogs is that it's a writer getting attention with *no money* because they found a unique character or world to write about. One of my "FB friends" has a blog with all kinds of attitude and a very distinct voice and "world" - she writes hardboiled kick ass action stuff. Carole Parker, it’s over there –> She's damned smart, and FB spams the hell out of her stuff (usually with a smokin' hot picture of some babe with a gun to get your attention). I know her blog is going to land a screenplay deal because it’s unique and she’s working her butt off to get it in front of people. She has kicked in some other door that may lead to Hollywood. That’s one of those inexpensive things you can do to get Hollywood’s attention. I'm looking at something like that myself - a fictional blog that is really a novel in disguise. Costs me nothing to get that out into the world.
I think the challenge for us now is to find stories that have some sort of additional market. Something that makes this script a "web natural" or a comic book or game or action figure or whatever else *in addition* to being a great screenplay. This ancillary thing isn’t a problem, it’s a solution. Before we only had the one door that we could try to get through - the movie door. Now we have dozens of doors, dozens of possible ways in. We can write a blog or tweet or make webisodes or write a novel or write a comic book or create a game or toy or... well, don’t let me make a list that *limits* the possible doors. Find the door that nobody has thought of, yet. Be like Uwe Boll!
Okay, maybe not that last part.
But find where the door is and see if you can kick it open. The blog thing and the tweets and toys and comic books and videogames and whatever the hell else you can think of are doors. Kick 'em open if you can.
- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Research - Who Needs It? - and many of my awful films.
Yesterday's Dinner: Fuddruckers bacon cheddar burger.
Bicycle: Rode *West* to a Starbucks with a bad layout.
Movies: PIRATE RADIO - Saw that new PIRATES movie, and it was okay. As usual, Bill Nighy was great, and Jack Davenport was back again as that government guy who tries to capture the Pirates, like in the other movies. But where was Keira Knightly and Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom? Why didn't they come back for this sequel?
The film was *really* episodic, just all over the place. I had no idea what the story was... a kid searching for his dad? They don't spend much time on that plot thread. The whole government vs pirate thing? Well, the problem with that plot thread is that the *people* are supposed to love the pirates for what they do (play rock & roll music) and we even get shots of normal people listening to the radio and dancing... but they never show us *why* the people *need* the music. Hey, it's great music, but I'm not exactly sure why this service is so important when you can just go by a record.
If they showed us why their job was important to all of those dancing people, showed us that this music was the thing that cheered them up and changed their lives (which isn't the same as just showing them dancing) then we would have felt that the pirates were doing a noble job and wanted them to keep doing that pirate thing. But we don't know why the people need the pirates, so what the pirates do doesn't seem to have a real value, and not an *emotional* value. Why do we care if the government stops the pirates or not? Stakes are not established.
And the government guys, including Davenport as a character named Twatt (never gets a laugh) are just pure evil. They just want to stop the pirates because they are pirates - the antagonist's goal has zero motivation, so it is unbelievable. Which makes the whole film seem fake.
The pirates themselves are a bunch of character sketches instead of real people. It's like each has a cliche they are playing. I didn't believe them, either - though Rhys Ifans steals the whole damned film along with some actor who has three lines in the whole film. If you want us to care about the pirates, make them real people.
It's kind of strange to see a divorced actor & actress couple in the same film, even though they are never in the same scenes.
MILD SPOILERS: HOW I WOULD FIX IT
For me, it was a grab bag of amusing scenes put to amazing music from the 60s that were stuck into this "story" of the government talking about going after the pirate radio boat. There's a scene where Philip Seymour Hoffman and Rhys Ifans have a dispute and race/climb the ship's "mast" to settle it - but the dispute seems bogus and not really fleshed out, so the whole scene is just there. We don't care who wins. And we don't care whether the two ever really get along.
I would have begun with the boy, had him kicked out of school for playing the radio station... and used this scene to show how important this radio station and the music they played was to everyone at the time. Establish the stakes right up front. We'd lose the casting reveal of who played his mom, but that might be good - we show his mom as being a frump, and establish his need for a father and to find out who his father is. Then she sends him off to live on the boat... and plant the idea that one of the guys on the boat might be his father. But open it up, so it could be any of the guys old enough - even Rhys Ifan. That gives the kid a goal on the boat which also gives the story some direction.
Later, when mom comes onto the boat, the reveal could be that's she's found her inner babe - and I'd tie that into the pirate radio station - she switches from whatever boring BBC station to the pirate radio station to see how her boy is doing (kinda)... and the music takes her back to that time when she was having FUN as a young woman, rather than as the working single mom she is now. Use this to show how rock & roll really can transform us - make us take risks and have fun and just let our hair down (as they said in '66).
The music in the movie was great - but the movie wasn't ever *about* rock & roll... and rebellion. The ship is rebellion... but that was never really explored except in the most cartoonish way.
Once we get the boy on the boat, the movie this should have been was ADVENTURELAND - a coming of age movie that is about your idols having feet of clay. There are scenes like that - with Nick Frost - but the script is so unformed and vague and all over the place, anytime it does something that could be from an ADVENTURELAND scenario it does it so poorly and without any emotions at all and you don't care - just another incident.
The government plot thread needed to be less silly, more serious. That's the big external thing that really drives the plot - there would be no boat without the government plot thread. But this thread depends on us understanding how important the boat is to the nice people of England and how their lives would be hell without it. It's strange that a movie like FOOTLOOSE does this story a million times better. I would have had one of the guys go to shore, get arrested, go on trial... and show the public outrage/need and give him one of those speeches. My choice would have been the silent guy... though I know Philip Seymour Hoffman would have probably made the speech, because he's the "star".
They needed to make rock & roll and rebellion and just having fun more of the story - shown that this was a period in time where the old was fading away and the world was evolving. People were rebelling. For that - why not show some scenes with those dancing people getting caught listening to the station and having their boss turn the radio to boring stuff and make them get back to work? Another tradition element was Christmas - and they really needed to push that farther and show the pirates rebelling against formal aspects of the traditions and focusing on the more - spiritual seems like the wrong word, but basic human love aspects. Use this to show a strong contrast between rigid society and actual love-thy-neighbor stuff.
Curtis is already a really episodic writer (THREE WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL - title tells all), so maybe he needs someone to keep him on course. This thing looked like a really rough first draft that needed to be parted out for ideas for the next - more focused - draft.
Also, it could have used more sword fighting scenes.
- Bill
SCRIPT SECRETS STORE
Top 10 Films About Underpants T Shirt: SALE $9.99
A week ago I did a Doom & Gloom blog entry about the state of the biz after from a dead American Film Market and realizing that indie films and indie genre films are in big trouble these days... and studio movies? Well, it seems like movies today are now an ancillary of toy companies - Hasbro is a film producer now! For real. And Marvel comics is a film producer, they have a deal with Disney. And this just sucks for screenwriters who don't want to write GI JOE 2 or SLINKY: THE MOTION PICTURE...
The biggest mistake of my career is that I am a writer who really wants to tell his own stories and seems to have a bunch of stories to tell. I would much rather write an original script than adapt someone else’s material - and have turned down jobs I should have taken. I always joke about ANGELS & DEMONS, but had I said yes instead of no my name would probably be on a big Ron Howard / Tom Hanks movie right now instead of on some cool spec script I wrote instead that still has not sold. Hey, and that was *before* movies had become just an ancillary right of Hasbro and Marvel and Sony Playstation.
They are making MONOPOLY THE MOTION PICTURE and Ridley Scott is directing.
They are turning a guy’s *Twitter account*, SHIT MY DAD SAYS, into a TV series.
I have a Script Tip called Writing For Toys that gets me a dozen angry e-mails whenever I run it, because it says we should consider the ancillary rights when we write our original screenplays, because that is an elements that the producers are considering. If they have two specs on their desks and one is a perfect for games and toys and Happy Meal tie ins and a Saturday morning cartoon spin off, and the other can only be a movie; guess which one will make them the most money? Hey, you may think this is art, but the guys buying our scripts are businessmen and are making an investment in our screenplays with the hope of making a good return on that investment. They are going to pick the screenplay that will make them the best return. That Script Tip is now out of date because movies are the ancillaries now. They aren’t looking at our spec scripts any more, they are looking at what board game hasn’t been filmed yet, what toy line can be a summer tentpole, what comic book might be the next IRON MAN. It’s long past thinking about the ancillary rights when you write a spec...
Depressing, huh?
As I said in the Doom & Gloom blog entry - Uwe Boll is a genius! He was the one who figured this out before anyone else, before any of the studios, and began making the movies of video games while studios were still thinking the business was all about making movies and then making the videogames of movies.
Terry Rossio (and Ted Elliott) have a column on their site called Mental Real Estate that foresaw all of this a decade ago. This column used to be one that I understood but disagreed with - my theory was that popular movies required original ideas, not some idea so worn out that everyone on the globe knew about it. Of course, that little PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN movie and its sequels proved me wrong. The Mental Real Estate model is the one Hollywood loves right now. “Hey, everybody knows Solitaire! We play it on our computers when we’re supposed to be working! And old people play it with actual cards! That makes SOLITAIRE: THE MOVIE ‘four quadrant’! We get the young *and* old audience! And SOLITAIRE has built in sequels that are also part of our Mental Real Estate - I can’t wait for the scary excitement of SPIDER SOLITAIRE, can you?” If you have an idea on how to turn solitaire into a movie, you can sell that to Hollywood. The business is more interested in the Universal than the Unique right now.
Depressing, huh?
Everything runs in cycles, so this trend will eventually burn out... but it may takes years, probably a decade. Now, the way we land a job like SLINKY: THE MOTION PICTURE is to write a great original spec with an amazing original idea... and that leads to writing a movie that is just an ancillary for a toy or game or comic book. So we still need to be writing original material... unless you can crack that SOLITAIRE movie (because that games is public domain). But this doesn’t satisfy someone like me, whose motivation is to see *my* scripts on screen. Though I have realized the error of my ways and would now probably take the ANGELS & DEMONS assignment or any of the others I turned down, because for some mixed up reason the biz respects the guy who adapts a popular novel more than the guy who can actually create their own story and characters... and more than the writer of that popular novel. I have learned that I need to play well with others rather than go to my own little corner in my own little room where I can be whatever I want to be. But am I going to write stuff like ETCH-A-SKETCH: THE MOTION PICTURE for the next decade until this trend dies out?
Depressing, huh?
So, Bill from Pulp 2.0 and I were talking about this... and instead of looking at this as The Death Of Cinema, we've decided to use this as an opportunity. To make lemonade out of the lemons. Basically, I’m taking my own advice and looking at projects with strong ancillary possibilities. I have a script called ANDROID ARMY that is often a bridesmaid, but so far has not been a bride. People keep *almost* making this script. The great thing about it is that it’s affordable sci-fi, and has some really strange characters. It is the only thing I've ever written that screams: "Action Figures!" It also screams video game and comic book and game cards and all of that other stuff. The stuff that used to be ancillary rights but now seems to be driving the market. So, we are going to try to set it up as a video game and a comic book and maybe even a toy line *before* we try to set it up as a movie. Instead of looking at the movie first and the ancillary stuff second, the plan is to reverse that - and look at video games and all of those things that used to be “after markets” as equals to cinema. To play this ancillary game Hollywood seems to be playing.
Hey, the economy sucks - games and comic books and all of those things that used to be ancillaries are hurting. We understand that. This is not a case of thinking that setting this up as a comic book is going to be easy, this is trying to break down some other door - find some other way in with this project. If we do all of this and nothing happens, how is that any different than trying to set up the script with a bunch of producers?
I did not start writing screenplays to sell dolls, but many of my favorite films have action figures... no, not CASABLANCA, but ALIENS does. So, for a while, if I have a choice between the story idea that can sell to multiple markets or a story idea that can only be a movie, I'm going to pick the additional markets one. I'm not writing anything I don't like, just selecting from ideas I do like or twisting an idea a little to give it additional chances to be bought and made. I’m kicking down different doors.
And that’s kind of exciting.
Instead of looking at something like SHIT MY DAD SAYS and complaining that some guy sold his *tweets* to Hollywood and they are making it into a TV series... I’m looking at things like tweets as a possible market that can lead to a script deal. Instead of looking at Diablo Cody breaking into the biz because she wrote an amusing blog about working as a stripper, I’m looking for a job as a stripper! Okay, I tried applying for a job at Bob’s Classy Lady in Van Nuys and they wouldn’t hire me to strip, even though my boobs are larger than many of the women on the pole. So I’ll have to blog about something else.
But the thing about Diablo Cody and the SHIT MY DAD SAYS twitter guy is that they are *writers* who are *writing something*, just in a different medium than screenplays. If you think about his tweets, it's not just a basic twitter account - it's very specific and all about one character (or maybe two) and it's funny. I can easily see this as a TV series. Yeah - you have to adapt it, but how is that any different than adapting Ray Romano's stand up routine into a series? This guy is writing 140 character scenes about a character! He has found a way to show off his comedy talents. Of all of the twitter accounts in all of the world, his is the one that will be turned into a TV series. Not mine... not even Roger Avary’s tweets from prison (though, he’s funny as hell, too).
The thing with tweets and blogs is that it's a writer getting attention with *no money* because they found a unique character or world to write about. One of my "FB friends" has a blog with all kinds of attitude and a very distinct voice and "world" - she writes hardboiled kick ass action stuff. Carole Parker, it’s over there –> She's damned smart, and FB spams the hell out of her stuff (usually with a smokin' hot picture of some babe with a gun to get your attention). I know her blog is going to land a screenplay deal because it’s unique and she’s working her butt off to get it in front of people. She has kicked in some other door that may lead to Hollywood. That’s one of those inexpensive things you can do to get Hollywood’s attention. I'm looking at something like that myself - a fictional blog that is really a novel in disguise. Costs me nothing to get that out into the world.
I think the challenge for us now is to find stories that have some sort of additional market. Something that makes this script a "web natural" or a comic book or game or action figure or whatever else *in addition* to being a great screenplay. This ancillary thing isn’t a problem, it’s a solution. Before we only had the one door that we could try to get through - the movie door. Now we have dozens of doors, dozens of possible ways in. We can write a blog or tweet or make webisodes or write a novel or write a comic book or create a game or toy or... well, don’t let me make a list that *limits* the possible doors. Find the door that nobody has thought of, yet. Be like Uwe Boll!
Okay, maybe not that last part.
But find where the door is and see if you can kick it open. The blog thing and the tweets and toys and comic books and videogames and whatever the hell else you can think of are doors. Kick 'em open if you can.
- Bill
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Research - Who Needs It? - and many of my awful films.
Yesterday's Dinner: Fuddruckers bacon cheddar burger.
Bicycle: Rode *West* to a Starbucks with a bad layout.
Movies: PIRATE RADIO - Saw that new PIRATES movie, and it was okay. As usual, Bill Nighy was great, and Jack Davenport was back again as that government guy who tries to capture the Pirates, like in the other movies. But where was Keira Knightly and Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom? Why didn't they come back for this sequel?
The film was *really* episodic, just all over the place. I had no idea what the story was... a kid searching for his dad? They don't spend much time on that plot thread. The whole government vs pirate thing? Well, the problem with that plot thread is that the *people* are supposed to love the pirates for what they do (play rock & roll music) and we even get shots of normal people listening to the radio and dancing... but they never show us *why* the people *need* the music. Hey, it's great music, but I'm not exactly sure why this service is so important when you can just go by a record.
If they showed us why their job was important to all of those dancing people, showed us that this music was the thing that cheered them up and changed their lives (which isn't the same as just showing them dancing) then we would have felt that the pirates were doing a noble job and wanted them to keep doing that pirate thing. But we don't know why the people need the pirates, so what the pirates do doesn't seem to have a real value, and not an *emotional* value. Why do we care if the government stops the pirates or not? Stakes are not established.
And the government guys, including Davenport as a character named Twatt (never gets a laugh) are just pure evil. They just want to stop the pirates because they are pirates - the antagonist's goal has zero motivation, so it is unbelievable. Which makes the whole film seem fake.
The pirates themselves are a bunch of character sketches instead of real people. It's like each has a cliche they are playing. I didn't believe them, either - though Rhys Ifans steals the whole damned film along with some actor who has three lines in the whole film. If you want us to care about the pirates, make them real people.
It's kind of strange to see a divorced actor & actress couple in the same film, even though they are never in the same scenes.
MILD SPOILERS: HOW I WOULD FIX IT
For me, it was a grab bag of amusing scenes put to amazing music from the 60s that were stuck into this "story" of the government talking about going after the pirate radio boat. There's a scene where Philip Seymour Hoffman and Rhys Ifans have a dispute and race/climb the ship's "mast" to settle it - but the dispute seems bogus and not really fleshed out, so the whole scene is just there. We don't care who wins. And we don't care whether the two ever really get along.
I would have begun with the boy, had him kicked out of school for playing the radio station... and used this scene to show how important this radio station and the music they played was to everyone at the time. Establish the stakes right up front. We'd lose the casting reveal of who played his mom, but that might be good - we show his mom as being a frump, and establish his need for a father and to find out who his father is. Then she sends him off to live on the boat... and plant the idea that one of the guys on the boat might be his father. But open it up, so it could be any of the guys old enough - even Rhys Ifan. That gives the kid a goal on the boat which also gives the story some direction.
Later, when mom comes onto the boat, the reveal could be that's she's found her inner babe - and I'd tie that into the pirate radio station - she switches from whatever boring BBC station to the pirate radio station to see how her boy is doing (kinda)... and the music takes her back to that time when she was having FUN as a young woman, rather than as the working single mom she is now. Use this to show how rock & roll really can transform us - make us take risks and have fun and just let our hair down (as they said in '66).
The music in the movie was great - but the movie wasn't ever *about* rock & roll... and rebellion. The ship is rebellion... but that was never really explored except in the most cartoonish way.
Once we get the boy on the boat, the movie this should have been was ADVENTURELAND - a coming of age movie that is about your idols having feet of clay. There are scenes like that - with Nick Frost - but the script is so unformed and vague and all over the place, anytime it does something that could be from an ADVENTURELAND scenario it does it so poorly and without any emotions at all and you don't care - just another incident.
The government plot thread needed to be less silly, more serious. That's the big external thing that really drives the plot - there would be no boat without the government plot thread. But this thread depends on us understanding how important the boat is to the nice people of England and how their lives would be hell without it. It's strange that a movie like FOOTLOOSE does this story a million times better. I would have had one of the guys go to shore, get arrested, go on trial... and show the public outrage/need and give him one of those speeches. My choice would have been the silent guy... though I know Philip Seymour Hoffman would have probably made the speech, because he's the "star".
They needed to make rock & roll and rebellion and just having fun more of the story - shown that this was a period in time where the old was fading away and the world was evolving. People were rebelling. For that - why not show some scenes with those dancing people getting caught listening to the station and having their boss turn the radio to boring stuff and make them get back to work? Another tradition element was Christmas - and they really needed to push that farther and show the pirates rebelling against formal aspects of the traditions and focusing on the more - spiritual seems like the wrong word, but basic human love aspects. Use this to show a strong contrast between rigid society and actual love-thy-neighbor stuff.
Curtis is already a really episodic writer (THREE WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL - title tells all), so maybe he needs someone to keep him on course. This thing looked like a really rough first draft that needed to be parted out for ideas for the next - more focused - draft.
Also, it could have used more sword fighting scenes.
- Bill
SCRIPT SECRETS STORE
Top 10 Films About Underpants T Shirt: SALE $9.99
Friday, November 13, 2009
Patricia Hitchcock on STRANGERS ON A TRAIN
Sorry there's no Friday's With Hitchcock this week, still shoveling out from under all of the stuff that piled up while I was in London, at Expo, almost in Hong Kong, and at AFM (which ended Wednesday). So here's something to tide you over...
Hitchcock's daughter, Pat, was *in* STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, and these are her thoughts on the film...
And, in the event you missed them, here are my thoughts:
STRANGERS ON A TRAIN
And if you click on the label "hitchcock" you will get all of the past Fridays With Hitchcock (I think).
- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: High Concept Vampires - and those high school vampires.
Yesterday's Dinner: Del Taco Chicken Tacos.
Bicycle: No... but I did on Tuesday and Wednesday
Pages: Did a quick rewrite of ANDROID ARMY before sending it off into the world.
Hitchcock's daughter, Pat, was *in* STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, and these are her thoughts on the film...
And, in the event you missed them, here are my thoughts:
STRANGERS ON A TRAIN
And if you click on the label "hitchcock" you will get all of the past Fridays With Hitchcock (I think).
- Bill
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: High Concept Vampires - and those high school vampires.
Yesterday's Dinner: Del Taco Chicken Tacos.
Bicycle: No... but I did on Tuesday and Wednesday
Pages: Did a quick rewrite of ANDROID ARMY before sending it off into the world.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Bordwell & Bedposts
About a week ago David Bordwell had a great blog entry on bedposts in movies - and other things phallic.
Bedposts On Film
- Bill
Bedposts On Film
- Bill
Clash Of The Titans
Ray Harryhausen. When I was a kid, that name meant magic. Probably the first Harryhausen film I saw was MYSTERIOUS ISLAND, and it was one of those films that made me want to make movies. It's still one of my favorite movies. The creatures in that film were so real! How did they do that?
And that's how I got to know Harryhausen's name. I started to look for movies he did special effects on - and discovered fighting skeletons and sea monsters and cowboys who roped dinosaurs... and Dynamation (also, the Super type). This guy made things that could usually only exist in the imagination of a kid into something that could battle Kerwin Matthews on screen! He made magic into reality.
But the problem with being a star special effects guy is finding stories where the special effects were the stars... at least, that was a problem in the pre-CGI times. So CLASH OF THE TITANS was Harryhausen and his producing partner Charles Schneer's new excuse to do some stop motion work... and they cast prettyboy Harry Hamlin and brilliant-but-down-on-his-luck actor Laurence Olivier, and the film was, well, okay. The mechanical owl was kind of silly - I'm sure in response to STAR WARS' R2D2.
But a new generation of kids saw that magic and remembered the film... and became studio executives. So a film that was just an excuse for Ray Harryhausen's special effects has been remade *without* those effects. And here's the teaser trailer...
And here's the trailer for the original film...
- Bill
And that's how I got to know Harryhausen's name. I started to look for movies he did special effects on - and discovered fighting skeletons and sea monsters and cowboys who roped dinosaurs... and Dynamation (also, the Super type). This guy made things that could usually only exist in the imagination of a kid into something that could battle Kerwin Matthews on screen! He made magic into reality.
But the problem with being a star special effects guy is finding stories where the special effects were the stars... at least, that was a problem in the pre-CGI times. So CLASH OF THE TITANS was Harryhausen and his producing partner Charles Schneer's new excuse to do some stop motion work... and they cast prettyboy Harry Hamlin and brilliant-but-down-on-his-luck actor Laurence Olivier, and the film was, well, okay. The mechanical owl was kind of silly - I'm sure in response to STAR WARS' R2D2.
But a new generation of kids saw that magic and remembered the film... and became studio executives. So a film that was just an excuse for Ray Harryhausen's special effects has been remade *without* those effects. And here's the teaser trailer...
And here's the trailer for the original film...
- Bill
Makes 2012 Look Like A Disneyland Ride
Coming Friday to Los Angeles and New York, this nice little documentary shot at the same location as one of the low budget horror movies I worked on... but much more frightening. It's all about the end of the world. Not some Roland Emmerich natural disaster, but burning through all of our natural resources and killing ourselves. And not sometime in the future - sometime very very soon.
Maybe by 2012.
This looks interesting. It's the end of the world, baby!
- Bill
Maybe by 2012.
This looks interesting. It's the end of the world, baby!
- Bill
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Happy Birthday Sesame Street!
After the doom and gloom of yesterday's post, something to cheer you up. Sesame Street is 40 years old... and still going strong.
Though The Muppets were aimed at adults and kids, Sesame Street was aimed at kids... and still managed to appeal to adults. The characters where wild and fun and irreverent. Here's a song from Ernie...
And a cross-over from The Muppets Kermit singing a song...
Which brings me to my favorite song of all, from THE MUPPET MOVIE. It's not just some silly Muppet song, it's about *me* and it's probably about you, too.
That song just brightens my day.
Tomorrow - back to doom and gloom... and sometime soon, an entry about The Brad Pitt Guy.
- Bill
Though The Muppets were aimed at adults and kids, Sesame Street was aimed at kids... and still managed to appeal to adults. The characters where wild and fun and irreverent. Here's a song from Ernie...
And a cross-over from The Muppets Kermit singing a song...
Which brings me to my favorite song of all, from THE MUPPET MOVIE. It's not just some silly Muppet song, it's about *me* and it's probably about you, too.
That song just brightens my day.
Tomorrow - back to doom and gloom... and sometime soon, an entry about The Brad Pitt Guy.
- Bill
Monday, November 9, 2009
Is Cinema Dead?
The American Film Market is going on right now in Santa Monica... or maybe it’s *not* going on. If you have a film market and nobody comes, is it still a film market?
Is this the canary in the coal mine for cinema?
NO... WHAT *IS* A FILM MARKET
In case you don’t know what a Film Market is, it’s a market where they sell films. Obvious, huh? When a producer makes a film they still need to sell it to a distributor... actually, usually several distributors. Basically, these days a studio is really just a distributor and a bank... they fund a producer’s film in exchange for distribution rights. The producer makes a % of what the film makes after the studio subtracts distribution fees and overhead and the cost of making the film and the townhouse they keep in Marina Del Rey for the studio chief’s mistress to live in. But these days, even studios are looking for money from other sources, and often co-producing some film with some other studio in some other country, or just acting as a distrib for hire for films made in some other country.
Most studios either have long standing deals with foreign distribs or they have their own foreign distribution arm. At one point in time many of the majors shared a foreign distribution company, but I think those days are long gone - too much money in foreign distribution to share with the competition. But as more film finance money comes from outside the USA, in order to get the money a studio must often give up foreign distribution or at least share it.
But not every producer has a studio deal - some are independent and have no foreign distribution in place and sell their films to foreign distribs on a film-by-film basis. There are somewhere around 70 foreign territories that buy USA films for their country (or countries - some territories cover more than one country connected by a common language or geography). These independents go to markets - kind of like a trade show - and sell their films...
And USA indie distribs go to these markets to buy foreign films. Often the indie production company will buy the foreign films, take them back to the USA, and sell them to a USA distrib along with their own movies. Anyway - there’s this whole business of buying and selling films to overseas distribs, and the big markets are Cannes (the festival is the sideline, the market is what it’s really all about) and American Film Market. Now, the Hong Kong Market is taking hold, too. Used to be a marked in Milan, MIFED, but it’s gone.
The thing about these markets, and American Film Market is where it is most obvious, is that “Independent” covers a lot of ground - from all of those serious dramatic Oscar contenders to modern day grindhouse films. It’s not unusual to see some Merchant-Ivory style adaptation of some classic novel you read the Cliff Notes to in High School being sold across the hall from BLOOD OF THE NAKED MUTILATORS. Anything made outside the studio system is here...
Along with films you *think* are studio films but are really some sort of foreign coproduction starring Bruce Willis or Al Pacino or someone else who “likes to work”.
CROWDED ELEVATORS?
When I first began going to American Film Market it was held in Beverly Hills and *crowded* with buyers and sellers and a million cool movies. Those were the years where a small video company could still get films with B movie starts in cinemas - and you might see some Gary Busey action flick at your local multiplex, or one of those Canon Films with Charles Bronson or Chuck Norris or American Ninja Michael Dudikoff... and a year later the films would go to VHS where they probably belonged. But, as a guy working in a warehouse back then, those were the movies we all saw after work. Beers first, movie, then more beers. And sometimes these movies did some breakout business and became DIRTY DANCING (made by Vestron Video). That’s when cinema - and low budget cinema - was alive and kicking! (especially in the Chuck Norris movies)
A couple of years later AFM moved to Santa Monica, and was still going strong. The films were not getting that theatrical window anymore, but VHS was *hot* and had become a separate market with separate stars. It was strange because there were some stars who were huge in cinemas but when the films went to VHS they bombed... and other people who were nothing in cinemas but massive stars on VHS. And it seemed like the market was still *expanding* for independent films (both arthouse and grindhouse) - cable needed movies! DVD replaced VHS, and needed new movies. And then the studios began to realize that DVD was making so much money on non-theatricals that they jumped in making DVD originals... or, trying to. Studios always seem to have problems making movies on a budget, and are used to throwing money at a problem instead of creativity.
Well, a few years ago AFM began to contract instead of expand... though, they actually expanded geographically by taking over the hotel next door. For the first time there were fewer people at market than the year before, even though the PR firm the AFM hired kept trying to convince us there were more people.
But here’s the gauge - at Beverly Hills you could not get on an elevator. There were hundreds of people waiting for the elevator at any time of the day... so you had to climb the stairs. When they moved to Santa Monica - same exact thing. HUNDREDS of people waiting for the elevator... even on one of the slow days! You had to climb the stairs. By the end of AFM my legs were throbbing and jelly-like. But over the years the crowds at the elevators have gotten smaller, and my joke for the last couple of years is that you could actually get on an elevator right away if you didn’t mind being packed in there.
Saturday I’m at AFM, talking about how it isn’t crowded, and I mentioned the elevator thing, and looked over... and there was *no one* waiting for the elevator. No one. The elevator doors opened and *one person* walked out - no one else in the elevator.
ALWAYS A RODEO IN TOWN
Wednesday afternoon when I dropped by to pick up my badge and the catalogues, it was practically empty... but it’s a week day. Weekdays can be weak days. Never this slow before, but I was sure by Saturday and Sunday the place would be packed. Usually the weekend has a great show in the lobby - hundreds of undiscovered actresses wearing the legal minimum of clothing show up to pass out headshots (insert the obvious joke) and try to get a role in some movie being set up at the market. Also actors, composers, posers, directors, writers, and people who have business cards that say they are producers. They crowd the lobby, pouncing on anyone with a badge. I call them the Lobby Rats. After 6pm you might also see some B movie stars (or even an A movie star from one of the big budget films) in the bar, secretly looking for work. They are the center of attention and I’ll bet none of them even have to buy their own drinks. Just for fun, Troma often sends down some costumed superheroes to promote their films, and other companies or producers might have a team of hot women in T shirts with the film’s title or in costume from the film as promotion. It’s a circus, and fun to watch.
This year - no circus. I was there Friday, and the lobby was almost empty. After hours, Fred Williamson showed up, but the place was still mostly empty. Let me put it this way - there are maybe a half dozen tables in the bar area of the lobby, and usually you can’t get near one. This year, I could have sat at the one behind Fred... it was empty!
Saturday? The same. I saw Corbin Bernsen walk past, but no Al Pacino or Val Kilmer or any of the other guys who I’ve seen before. And the lobby was mostly empty - not even the costumed Troma people. Not even the undiscovered actresses. The place was dead!
The hallways were empty. The elevators were empty. The lobby was mostly empty.
WE GOT OURSELVES SOME O'THAT ART HOUSE STUFF
One of the strange things this year was the exploitation companies selling those Oscar movies. It seems that when they closed down the studio indie labels and the independent art house labels began going out of business, there was no one left to sell art house movies to the foreign market except those grindhouse companies. The latest Polish Brothers quirky arthouse movie starring Billy Bob Thornton was being sold by the company best know for flicks like the Steve Guttenberg thriller FATAL RESCUE. I know you've seen that one - it stars the Gutt! There just aren’t any arthouse places left! They closed Miramax!
And that’s the thing that’s scary. The studios say they are hurting now that DVD sales are off due to the economy and need to find ways to cut their film budgets. The studios have stopped making indie films and don't make many prestige films. Those larger budget indie films with stars are not being made, and when they are, they end up being sold by some grindhouse company because they are still in business. But even the grindhouse companies are in trouble, because that middle has fallen out of low budget. There are still films made for under a million (many well under) and still films made for over $10 million that will get a theatrical release from some studio... but nothing in between.
Over the years I’ve seen big companies die and those scrappy little guys who had offices in the basement of the hotel start to climb floors until their offices were in prime real estate. I’m sure I have mentioned Brain Damage Films before - I’ve talked to the guy who runs it in the past (seems like a nice guy) and they specialize in no-budget horror films people shoot in their back yards for PARANORMAL ACTIVITY budgets (around $10k-$15k)... and they are not only still in business, when a movie is made that cheap, it’s hard not to make money. A baby step higher is The Asylum, who make all of those really bad films you see on SyFy and those knockoffs you see on the Blockbuster shelves with titles like I AM OMEGA and SNAKES ON A TRAIN. These guys used to make films for $100k... with a name in the cast! Now their budgets are a little bit higher (not much) and they have a couple of names... but we are still well below half a million bucks. Again, hard not to make money off a film made for so little. But the problem is - the budgets are getting smaller and smaller and there’s not enough money in the budget to make a living writing something like that... or directing... or anything else.
The canary in the coal mine is falling off its perch.
I HAVE SEEN THE FUTURE!
AND IT DOES NOT WORK...
With studios aiming at some Hasbro toy tentpole crap, and the indie world decimated, and the grindhouse world being $10K wonders and $200k mockbusters, where is the business going? I’m having trouble seeing the future. I was talking to Bill from Pulp 2.0 about the market, and joked that the Mayans got it wrong - cinema is dead *today*. I was talking to Bill by phone, because I skipped AFM completely on Sunday - wasn’t worth driving out there. Bill did drive out there, and said it wasn’t worth it.
I think the Hasbo thing, as much as I hate it, is the future of cinema. Instead of making a movie, we will be making something that can sell as a video game, comic book, webisodes, toys, online entity, and maybe a DVD - but the deal will have to encompass all of those things in order to get the financing to make them. The world of selling ancillary rights to movies is over - the *movie* is the ancillary product, now. Marvel and Hasbro run Hollywood. And as the indie films just die, and the grindhouse films get smaller and smaller, the only future I can see for genre movies is if they evolve the same way studio films are evolving and become part of some larger product... We will look back on Uwe Boll and consider him the cutting edge genius who could see the future - he’s already making bad video game movies.
There is no more cinema, there is only the film version of toys and the film version of comic books.
Welcome to Hollywood. The new Hollywood.
- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Characters ARE Relationships - and ALIENS meets BLACKHAWK DOWN.
Yesterday's Dinner: Grilled Ham & Swiss on Rye at home.
Bicycle: No... but should have.
Pages: Um, do these count?
London Blog Entries: 42,000 words = 168 typewritten pages. Crap! I should have written a script instead! Or *two*!
Is this the canary in the coal mine for cinema?
NO... WHAT *IS* A FILM MARKET
In case you don’t know what a Film Market is, it’s a market where they sell films. Obvious, huh? When a producer makes a film they still need to sell it to a distributor... actually, usually several distributors. Basically, these days a studio is really just a distributor and a bank... they fund a producer’s film in exchange for distribution rights. The producer makes a % of what the film makes after the studio subtracts distribution fees and overhead and the cost of making the film and the townhouse they keep in Marina Del Rey for the studio chief’s mistress to live in. But these days, even studios are looking for money from other sources, and often co-producing some film with some other studio in some other country, or just acting as a distrib for hire for films made in some other country.
Most studios either have long standing deals with foreign distribs or they have their own foreign distribution arm. At one point in time many of the majors shared a foreign distribution company, but I think those days are long gone - too much money in foreign distribution to share with the competition. But as more film finance money comes from outside the USA, in order to get the money a studio must often give up foreign distribution or at least share it.
But not every producer has a studio deal - some are independent and have no foreign distribution in place and sell their films to foreign distribs on a film-by-film basis. There are somewhere around 70 foreign territories that buy USA films for their country (or countries - some territories cover more than one country connected by a common language or geography). These independents go to markets - kind of like a trade show - and sell their films...
And USA indie distribs go to these markets to buy foreign films. Often the indie production company will buy the foreign films, take them back to the USA, and sell them to a USA distrib along with their own movies. Anyway - there’s this whole business of buying and selling films to overseas distribs, and the big markets are Cannes (the festival is the sideline, the market is what it’s really all about) and American Film Market. Now, the Hong Kong Market is taking hold, too. Used to be a marked in Milan, MIFED, but it’s gone.
The thing about these markets, and American Film Market is where it is most obvious, is that “Independent” covers a lot of ground - from all of those serious dramatic Oscar contenders to modern day grindhouse films. It’s not unusual to see some Merchant-Ivory style adaptation of some classic novel you read the Cliff Notes to in High School being sold across the hall from BLOOD OF THE NAKED MUTILATORS. Anything made outside the studio system is here...
Along with films you *think* are studio films but are really some sort of foreign coproduction starring Bruce Willis or Al Pacino or someone else who “likes to work”.
CROWDED ELEVATORS?
When I first began going to American Film Market it was held in Beverly Hills and *crowded* with buyers and sellers and a million cool movies. Those were the years where a small video company could still get films with B movie starts in cinemas - and you might see some Gary Busey action flick at your local multiplex, or one of those Canon Films with Charles Bronson or Chuck Norris or American Ninja Michael Dudikoff... and a year later the films would go to VHS where they probably belonged. But, as a guy working in a warehouse back then, those were the movies we all saw after work. Beers first, movie, then more beers. And sometimes these movies did some breakout business and became DIRTY DANCING (made by Vestron Video). That’s when cinema - and low budget cinema - was alive and kicking! (especially in the Chuck Norris movies)
A couple of years later AFM moved to Santa Monica, and was still going strong. The films were not getting that theatrical window anymore, but VHS was *hot* and had become a separate market with separate stars. It was strange because there were some stars who were huge in cinemas but when the films went to VHS they bombed... and other people who were nothing in cinemas but massive stars on VHS. And it seemed like the market was still *expanding* for independent films (both arthouse and grindhouse) - cable needed movies! DVD replaced VHS, and needed new movies. And then the studios began to realize that DVD was making so much money on non-theatricals that they jumped in making DVD originals... or, trying to. Studios always seem to have problems making movies on a budget, and are used to throwing money at a problem instead of creativity.
Well, a few years ago AFM began to contract instead of expand... though, they actually expanded geographically by taking over the hotel next door. For the first time there were fewer people at market than the year before, even though the PR firm the AFM hired kept trying to convince us there were more people.
But here’s the gauge - at Beverly Hills you could not get on an elevator. There were hundreds of people waiting for the elevator at any time of the day... so you had to climb the stairs. When they moved to Santa Monica - same exact thing. HUNDREDS of people waiting for the elevator... even on one of the slow days! You had to climb the stairs. By the end of AFM my legs were throbbing and jelly-like. But over the years the crowds at the elevators have gotten smaller, and my joke for the last couple of years is that you could actually get on an elevator right away if you didn’t mind being packed in there.
Saturday I’m at AFM, talking about how it isn’t crowded, and I mentioned the elevator thing, and looked over... and there was *no one* waiting for the elevator. No one. The elevator doors opened and *one person* walked out - no one else in the elevator.
ALWAYS A RODEO IN TOWN
Wednesday afternoon when I dropped by to pick up my badge and the catalogues, it was practically empty... but it’s a week day. Weekdays can be weak days. Never this slow before, but I was sure by Saturday and Sunday the place would be packed. Usually the weekend has a great show in the lobby - hundreds of undiscovered actresses wearing the legal minimum of clothing show up to pass out headshots (insert the obvious joke) and try to get a role in some movie being set up at the market. Also actors, composers, posers, directors, writers, and people who have business cards that say they are producers. They crowd the lobby, pouncing on anyone with a badge. I call them the Lobby Rats. After 6pm you might also see some B movie stars (or even an A movie star from one of the big budget films) in the bar, secretly looking for work. They are the center of attention and I’ll bet none of them even have to buy their own drinks. Just for fun, Troma often sends down some costumed superheroes to promote their films, and other companies or producers might have a team of hot women in T shirts with the film’s title or in costume from the film as promotion. It’s a circus, and fun to watch.
This year - no circus. I was there Friday, and the lobby was almost empty. After hours, Fred Williamson showed up, but the place was still mostly empty. Let me put it this way - there are maybe a half dozen tables in the bar area of the lobby, and usually you can’t get near one. This year, I could have sat at the one behind Fred... it was empty!
Saturday? The same. I saw Corbin Bernsen walk past, but no Al Pacino or Val Kilmer or any of the other guys who I’ve seen before. And the lobby was mostly empty - not even the costumed Troma people. Not even the undiscovered actresses. The place was dead!
The hallways were empty. The elevators were empty. The lobby was mostly empty.
WE GOT OURSELVES SOME O'THAT ART HOUSE STUFF
One of the strange things this year was the exploitation companies selling those Oscar movies. It seems that when they closed down the studio indie labels and the independent art house labels began going out of business, there was no one left to sell art house movies to the foreign market except those grindhouse companies. The latest Polish Brothers quirky arthouse movie starring Billy Bob Thornton was being sold by the company best know for flicks like the Steve Guttenberg thriller FATAL RESCUE. I know you've seen that one - it stars the Gutt! There just aren’t any arthouse places left! They closed Miramax!
And that’s the thing that’s scary. The studios say they are hurting now that DVD sales are off due to the economy and need to find ways to cut their film budgets. The studios have stopped making indie films and don't make many prestige films. Those larger budget indie films with stars are not being made, and when they are, they end up being sold by some grindhouse company because they are still in business. But even the grindhouse companies are in trouble, because that middle has fallen out of low budget. There are still films made for under a million (many well under) and still films made for over $10 million that will get a theatrical release from some studio... but nothing in between.
Over the years I’ve seen big companies die and those scrappy little guys who had offices in the basement of the hotel start to climb floors until their offices were in prime real estate. I’m sure I have mentioned Brain Damage Films before - I’ve talked to the guy who runs it in the past (seems like a nice guy) and they specialize in no-budget horror films people shoot in their back yards for PARANORMAL ACTIVITY budgets (around $10k-$15k)... and they are not only still in business, when a movie is made that cheap, it’s hard not to make money. A baby step higher is The Asylum, who make all of those really bad films you see on SyFy and those knockoffs you see on the Blockbuster shelves with titles like I AM OMEGA and SNAKES ON A TRAIN. These guys used to make films for $100k... with a name in the cast! Now their budgets are a little bit higher (not much) and they have a couple of names... but we are still well below half a million bucks. Again, hard not to make money off a film made for so little. But the problem is - the budgets are getting smaller and smaller and there’s not enough money in the budget to make a living writing something like that... or directing... or anything else.
The canary in the coal mine is falling off its perch.
I HAVE SEEN THE FUTURE!
AND IT DOES NOT WORK...
With studios aiming at some Hasbro toy tentpole crap, and the indie world decimated, and the grindhouse world being $10K wonders and $200k mockbusters, where is the business going? I’m having trouble seeing the future. I was talking to Bill from Pulp 2.0 about the market, and joked that the Mayans got it wrong - cinema is dead *today*. I was talking to Bill by phone, because I skipped AFM completely on Sunday - wasn’t worth driving out there. Bill did drive out there, and said it wasn’t worth it.
I think the Hasbo thing, as much as I hate it, is the future of cinema. Instead of making a movie, we will be making something that can sell as a video game, comic book, webisodes, toys, online entity, and maybe a DVD - but the deal will have to encompass all of those things in order to get the financing to make them. The world of selling ancillary rights to movies is over - the *movie* is the ancillary product, now. Marvel and Hasbro run Hollywood. And as the indie films just die, and the grindhouse films get smaller and smaller, the only future I can see for genre movies is if they evolve the same way studio films are evolving and become part of some larger product... We will look back on Uwe Boll and consider him the cutting edge genius who could see the future - he’s already making bad video game movies.
There is no more cinema, there is only the film version of toys and the film version of comic books.
Welcome to Hollywood. The new Hollywood.
- Bill
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Characters ARE Relationships - and ALIENS meets BLACKHAWK DOWN.
Yesterday's Dinner: Grilled Ham & Swiss on Rye at home.
Bicycle: No... but should have.
Pages: Um, do these count?
London Blog Entries: 42,000 words = 168 typewritten pages. Crap! I should have written a script instead! Or *two*!
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
New Issue Of Script
The new issue of Script Magazine is out now! Sherlock Holmes on the cover. My article is reporting from the Ameriacn Film Market on Worldwide Cool - making sure your script plays globally.
Script to Screen: Precious
When director Lee Daniels first read Sapphire’s novel Push, he immediately wanted to see the story come to life. However, trying to illustrate the abuse the protagonist suffers without earning the movie an NC-17 rating seemed almost impossible. Daniels and scribe Geoffrey Fletcher collaborated on an adaptation that would retain its dramatic impact and become a work of art on the screen.
Nicholas Meyer: The View From the Scribe
Some writers struggle in transitioning from one type of writing to another, but Nicholas Meyer has conquered many forms. Learn Meyer’s cross-format storytelling processes and what encouraged him to write his recent memoir, The View From the Bridge: Memories of Star Trek and a Life in Hollywood.
Independents: Worldwide Cool
Visual storytelling, clever scenes, cool battles, emotional plot twists, vivid characters—all of these things and more can be found in the Chinese import Red Cliff. So, what can writers learn from this dynamic film about international box-office appeal and about writing across borders?
Small Screen: How I Met Your Mother
The broadcast-network sitcom How I Met Your Mother is enjoying its fifth season of success on CBS, along with a fervent fan following bolstered by interactive Web content. Writer-creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas explain how they combine team writing, nonlinear storytelling, and the best of their favorite shows to create characters we all want to hang out with.
Anything but Elementary: Sherlock Holmes
Arthur Conan Doyle’s tales of super-sleuth Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick Dr. Watson have captivated audiences for more than 100 years. As Lionel Wigram, Michael Robert Johnson, Tony Peckham, and Simon Kinberg pieced together a new story for the famous duo, they balanced the needs of a modern audience with the wit and subversive charm of the source material.
Susie’s Story: The Lovely Bones
Alice Sebold’s novel The Lovely Bones touched a chord when it was published seven years ago. The tale of a 14-year-old murder victim examined the complexities of grief and hope. After spending years navigating Middle-earth, Oscar®-winning screenwriters Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Peter Jackson were ready to explore a less epic, more personal story. Here Walsh and Boyens discuss bringing Sebold’s novel to film.
Writers on Writing: Invictus
After leaving behind his home in South Africa to pursue his screenwriting career, Tony Peckham never thought he would be penning the story of a hero from his past: Nelson Mandela. Invictus’ central challenges were crafting an interesting protagonist when the real-life subject behaved as a saint, and making new the well-worn theme of sports as social politics.
Writer, Edit Thyself!
Reality check: Your final draft is most likely as bad as your first. Unless you’ve made self-editing and heavy revision a priority, you’re nowhere near completing a flawless script. Mystery Man offers advice on how to sculpt your masterpiece while maintaining objectivity and catering to your audience.
Under the Big Top
Equal parts innovator, diplomat, taskmaster and ringleader, the showrunner wears many hats. Responsible perhaps as much as any one person can be for a show, the showrunner must balance creative interests, network interests, and personal conviction—to wide and varied results.
Writers on Writing: The Messenger
Especially during wartime, no civilian can guess what emotions a soldier experiences on a day-to-day basis. Scribe Alessandro Camon tells how he and co-writer Oren Moverman decided to explore the private heartache some soldiers face as part of the “casualty notification” team.
Writers on Writing: The Informant!
Writer Scott Z. Burns delved deep into the journey of Mark Whitacre from federal agent to criminal, but thought it would do more harm than good to talk to Whitacre himself. Read how a bizarre history of crime became a comedy for the big screen ... and even received glowing endorsement from its subject.
- Bill
Script to Screen: Precious
When director Lee Daniels first read Sapphire’s novel Push, he immediately wanted to see the story come to life. However, trying to illustrate the abuse the protagonist suffers without earning the movie an NC-17 rating seemed almost impossible. Daniels and scribe Geoffrey Fletcher collaborated on an adaptation that would retain its dramatic impact and become a work of art on the screen.
Nicholas Meyer: The View From the Scribe
Some writers struggle in transitioning from one type of writing to another, but Nicholas Meyer has conquered many forms. Learn Meyer’s cross-format storytelling processes and what encouraged him to write his recent memoir, The View From the Bridge: Memories of Star Trek and a Life in Hollywood.
Independents: Worldwide Cool
Visual storytelling, clever scenes, cool battles, emotional plot twists, vivid characters—all of these things and more can be found in the Chinese import Red Cliff. So, what can writers learn from this dynamic film about international box-office appeal and about writing across borders?
Small Screen: How I Met Your Mother
The broadcast-network sitcom How I Met Your Mother is enjoying its fifth season of success on CBS, along with a fervent fan following bolstered by interactive Web content. Writer-creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas explain how they combine team writing, nonlinear storytelling, and the best of their favorite shows to create characters we all want to hang out with.
Anything but Elementary: Sherlock Holmes
Arthur Conan Doyle’s tales of super-sleuth Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick Dr. Watson have captivated audiences for more than 100 years. As Lionel Wigram, Michael Robert Johnson, Tony Peckham, and Simon Kinberg pieced together a new story for the famous duo, they balanced the needs of a modern audience with the wit and subversive charm of the source material.
Susie’s Story: The Lovely Bones
Alice Sebold’s novel The Lovely Bones touched a chord when it was published seven years ago. The tale of a 14-year-old murder victim examined the complexities of grief and hope. After spending years navigating Middle-earth, Oscar®-winning screenwriters Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Peter Jackson were ready to explore a less epic, more personal story. Here Walsh and Boyens discuss bringing Sebold’s novel to film.
Writers on Writing: Invictus
After leaving behind his home in South Africa to pursue his screenwriting career, Tony Peckham never thought he would be penning the story of a hero from his past: Nelson Mandela. Invictus’ central challenges were crafting an interesting protagonist when the real-life subject behaved as a saint, and making new the well-worn theme of sports as social politics.
Writer, Edit Thyself!
Reality check: Your final draft is most likely as bad as your first. Unless you’ve made self-editing and heavy revision a priority, you’re nowhere near completing a flawless script. Mystery Man offers advice on how to sculpt your masterpiece while maintaining objectivity and catering to your audience.
Under the Big Top
Equal parts innovator, diplomat, taskmaster and ringleader, the showrunner wears many hats. Responsible perhaps as much as any one person can be for a show, the showrunner must balance creative interests, network interests, and personal conviction—to wide and varied results.
Writers on Writing: The Messenger
Especially during wartime, no civilian can guess what emotions a soldier experiences on a day-to-day basis. Scribe Alessandro Camon tells how he and co-writer Oren Moverman decided to explore the private heartache some soldiers face as part of the “casualty notification” team.
Writers on Writing: The Informant!
Writer Scott Z. Burns delved deep into the journey of Mark Whitacre from federal agent to criminal, but thought it would do more harm than good to talk to Whitacre himself. Read how a bizarre history of crime became a comedy for the big screen ... and even received glowing endorsement from its subject.
- Bill
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
North By Northwest - 50th Anniversary!
The original plan for Monday was to see NORTH BY NORTHWEST on the big screen again as part of the AFI Fest - in celebration of the film's 50th Anniversary.
Think about that for a moment - that film is 50 years old! Hey, 1:30 minutes into the film, the protagonist is kidnaped at gun point and taken to be killed! I love how those old movies took their time to get to the story!
This is one of my favorite Hitchcock films - it's funny and fast paced and exciting.
Here's is a link to... The Birth Of Roger Thornhill.
And here is a link to... The Fridays With Hitchcock Entry For NORTH BY NORTHWEST.
- Bill
BUY IT AT AMAZON:
Think about that for a moment - that film is 50 years old! Hey, 1:30 minutes into the film, the protagonist is kidnaped at gun point and taken to be killed! I love how those old movies took their time to get to the story!
This is one of my favorite Hitchcock films - it's funny and fast paced and exciting.
Here's is a link to... The Birth Of Roger Thornhill.
And here is a link to... The Fridays With Hitchcock Entry For NORTH BY NORTHWEST.
- Bill
BUY IT AT AMAZON:
Monday, November 2, 2009
Publisher's Weekly Best of 2009 List!
So, yesterday I reviewed my friend Harry's first (published) novel CHILD OF FIRE... and today it was selected by Publisher's Weekly as one of the 5 Best Mass Market Novels of 2009. It's his first novel, and it beat out all of those books at the airport and supermarket and front displays at Barnes & Noble and Borders - those books by big famous best selling writers! (well, beat all but the other 4) (well, it was #4 on the list, so it beat out all but 3).
Big congratulations to Harry! If you read my review below, you know I really liked it and want to see what happens in the next book in the series. But Publisher's Weekly Best of 2009 List? Those guys know what they are talking about, I'm just some screenwriter who prowls used book stores looking for that missing Highsmith book I've never read. This is great news. Here's a link to the list, scroll down to Mass Market...
Publisher's Weekly Best Of 2009 List
The great thing about this is that Harry did not take no for an answer and kept writing, finding a place for his stories... not the big screen as it turned out, but a novel. Well, a series of novels. Well, a series of novels where the first one is one of the 5 Best mass market novels according to Publisher's Weekly.
- Bill
Big congratulations to Harry! If you read my review below, you know I really liked it and want to see what happens in the next book in the series. But Publisher's Weekly Best of 2009 List? Those guys know what they are talking about, I'm just some screenwriter who prowls used book stores looking for that missing Highsmith book I've never read. This is great news. Here's a link to the list, scroll down to Mass Market...
Publisher's Weekly Best Of 2009 List
The great thing about this is that Harry did not take no for an answer and kept writing, finding a place for his stories... not the big screen as it turned out, but a novel. Well, a series of novels. Well, a series of novels where the first one is one of the 5 Best mass market novels according to Publisher's Weekly.
- Bill
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Child Of Fire... And Post London Disorientation
Okay, my friend Harry wrote a book... which was bought by Random House... and is Del Rey's big fall paperback release. It's the first book he ever sold. I was going to buy it for my London trip, but the book came out the day of my flight and no one at a book store would slip me a copy before the street date. So I bought it when I got back, for my Hong Kong flight... which never happened due to a late visa.
HONG KONG?
My Visa arrived two days after my plane flew. The pisser about that is that the HKFA was handling my visa, because it was a work visa and I would be working for them (teaching my class) and the envelope was postmarked 14 days after they e-mailed me to tell me they had the visa and confirm my address so that they could put it in the mail that day. Then, it sat on a desk for 2 weeks before anyone actually mailed it. If it had only sat on the desk for one week, I'd have gone to Hong Kong.
The week between London and what should have been Hong Kong was living hell - unpack, do laundry, re-pack, mail orders... and then try to get the damned Theme Class to fit on the CD while dealing with jet lag. The edited version of the class was 4 minutes too long, and that meant trying to find 4 minutes to cut.
Oh, and in the middle of all that I went to Screenwriting Expo - which was a ghost town this year. I was in there for a couple of hours on Saturday, which included a period between classes so that I could see how many people were there - not many at all. Someone told me 1K, but I have to tell you it looked like half that at most. Shane Black said hello.
After that I went for drinks with some people I know - the evening was designed to hang out with people who were only in town for the Expo... but I don't think a single out-of-towner was there. Cat & Fiddle in Hollywood - more Guiness and pub food!
Now, every day during this week I am checking my mail like someone with OCD, looking for that visa for Hong Kong. I have a plane ticket, the plane is leaving first thing Tuesday morning, and I do not have my visa, yet.
This is controlling my life at this point. I'm still jet-lagged because I haven't had a moment to relax, and trying to get everything taken care of for the HK trip...
So, Monday rolls around - I'm flying to HK on Tuesday - and I spend the whole day checking my mail... and when the mail finally comes (it always seems to come late at times like this) - no visa. So, now what do I do? I can't teach my class in the airport, because the students would need a boarding pass to get to the gates... where I'd be stuck without that visa. So, I e-mail the Hong Kong Film Academy to tell them what happened - using their e-mail where they varified my address a month ago as the e-mail I reply to, and go about canceling my plane tickets - lost $150, and the airline keeps the rest for some future flight of mine.
That airplane ticket almost cancels out what I made at Raindance, so I'm kind of breaking even at this point. You know, there are people who think the whole teaching classes thing is a way to get rich from poor screenwriters. Um, hasn't worked that way for me, please send all complaints to Bob McKee.
Now, I'm frustrated, jet-lagged, exhausted... and my head is about to explode.
CHILD OF FIRE
by Harry Connolly
So, I popped open Harry's book and *escape*. Escape from the Hong Kong thing and all of the frustrations. CHILD OF FIRE is almost impossible to put down. Relentless pacing, and escalating conflict, and cool stuff. I want to get me one of those ghost knives.
I am not the kind of person to read fantasy novels - I love science fiction, but anything with wizards just sounds silly to me. Harry's book CHILD OF FIRE is about a sorceress and magic spells and crap - but it's written like a noir action story. Remember those HBO movies that combined Lovecraft and Chandler? Not like that...
CHILD OF FIRE is more of a *Hammett* Continental Op novel like RED HARVEST meets HP Lovecraft - more action oriented, more brutal, more "street" - and a real fast read. Ray Lilly is a career criminal (car thief) who is awaiting trial for some murders he didn't do that have a weird supernatural element to them. His public defender is replaced by some slick mob lawyer type who tells Ray he'll make the charges go away if Ray forgets the supernatural stuff he saw. He even sets Ray up with a job as a driver. This is no normal mob lawyer - this guy is from the Twenty Palace Society - a secret organization of Sorcerers. They control magic, the way some other mob might control drugs or prostitution or motion picture distribution. Ray's driving job is for...
Annalese Powess, a sorceress-assassin who kills those who use magic without permission from the Twenty Palace Society mob. Rogue socerers, people who find some spellbook and use it... anyone who is using magic in some way that might bring down the heat on the mob - or maybe get in their way. Cast a spell without permission - they send Annalize to wack you. All of this stuff is back story we have to piece together as we read - because the book hits the ground running!
It opens with Ray and Annalise on the way to a hit...
Small town in Washington State has an overly successful toy factory - and children who spontaneously combust... and the kid's parents forget they even had kids. They find ways to rationalize the car seats and toys in the front yard. The burning kids are scary and sick and twisted - but that's just the tip of the terror in the novel. This is one of those small towns with a secret - and also a bunch of warring factions that would rather the two outsiders be dead.
No shortage of scary stuff, and no shortage of action and tension. Just when you think things can't get worse - Annalise tells Ray that part of his job is to be the "red shirt" decoy that gets killed so that she can attack...
But when she attacks, Annalise discovers the evil in this town is more powerful than she is. Ray survives, Annalize is seriously wounded... and now all of that evil from all of the different factions in the town are coming after Ray. He is the man in the middle and must figure out who and what is behind all of this in order to survive.
The cool thing about it is how those scenes you might expect to find in a Hammett or Chandler novel are here, but with a supernatural twist. Really corrupt cops who would rather kill you than help you solve the mystery? They're here - but they have also found a little evil magic to use... which makes them a million times stronger than Ray and almost impossible to kill. Wealthy Femme Fatales that lure you to your doom? Here, bit with a twist. There's even a Mayor who seems like he wandered over from THE GLASS KEY looking for some additional bribes.
And reading Harry's book allows me to finally relax... which kind of brings us up to now, present day, Hong Kong just a memory of what might have been. Or, actually, what will be in March, 2010. A good movie or book can just take you away from all of your troubles and let you experience someone with stranger troubles than yours. I didn't have it all that bad - no one was trying to kill me with magic.
CHILD OF FIRE is a real page turner, and *really dark* - kids burn to death in the first ten pages. It really gets into Lovecraft territory at the end... and has a bunch of really haunting, frightening things that stick with you long after you have finished reading it. If the book has any problem, it's *too* fast paced. No place to close it and sleep... and sometimes things happens so fast that you have to read carefully so that you don't miss anything. I know Harry, so you may think I'm biased, but the reviews on Amazon are mostly good:
Amazon Page For CHILD OF FIRE - scroll down for reviews.
And Del Rey has already bought the next two books in the series (Harry has written both already - playing beat the clock so that they could put the first chapter of the second book in here and get them ready). He was on a panel at ComiCon, too. I'm not the only one who liked the book... and I didn't just like it because my friend wrote it. I really want to read the next ones.
So, if you like hard boiled mystery stuff like Dash Hammett or Michael Connolly, or you like those friggin' Urban Fantasy novels or even stuff with sorcerers and werewolves and stuff like that, or if you like classic horror like H.P. Lovecraft, or if you just want to support a fellow writer, buy a copy! Paperback, much cheaper than hardback. And if Harry is signing at some bookstore in your area, tell him Bill sent you!
- Bill
BUY IT AT AMAZON:
Click The Book.
HONG KONG?
My Visa arrived two days after my plane flew. The pisser about that is that the HKFA was handling my visa, because it was a work visa and I would be working for them (teaching my class) and the envelope was postmarked 14 days after they e-mailed me to tell me they had the visa and confirm my address so that they could put it in the mail that day. Then, it sat on a desk for 2 weeks before anyone actually mailed it. If it had only sat on the desk for one week, I'd have gone to Hong Kong.
The week between London and what should have been Hong Kong was living hell - unpack, do laundry, re-pack, mail orders... and then try to get the damned Theme Class to fit on the CD while dealing with jet lag. The edited version of the class was 4 minutes too long, and that meant trying to find 4 minutes to cut.
Oh, and in the middle of all that I went to Screenwriting Expo - which was a ghost town this year. I was in there for a couple of hours on Saturday, which included a period between classes so that I could see how many people were there - not many at all. Someone told me 1K, but I have to tell you it looked like half that at most. Shane Black said hello.
After that I went for drinks with some people I know - the evening was designed to hang out with people who were only in town for the Expo... but I don't think a single out-of-towner was there. Cat & Fiddle in Hollywood - more Guiness and pub food!
Now, every day during this week I am checking my mail like someone with OCD, looking for that visa for Hong Kong. I have a plane ticket, the plane is leaving first thing Tuesday morning, and I do not have my visa, yet.
This is controlling my life at this point. I'm still jet-lagged because I haven't had a moment to relax, and trying to get everything taken care of for the HK trip...
So, Monday rolls around - I'm flying to HK on Tuesday - and I spend the whole day checking my mail... and when the mail finally comes (it always seems to come late at times like this) - no visa. So, now what do I do? I can't teach my class in the airport, because the students would need a boarding pass to get to the gates... where I'd be stuck without that visa. So, I e-mail the Hong Kong Film Academy to tell them what happened - using their e-mail where they varified my address a month ago as the e-mail I reply to, and go about canceling my plane tickets - lost $150, and the airline keeps the rest for some future flight of mine.
That airplane ticket almost cancels out what I made at Raindance, so I'm kind of breaking even at this point. You know, there are people who think the whole teaching classes thing is a way to get rich from poor screenwriters. Um, hasn't worked that way for me, please send all complaints to Bob McKee.
Now, I'm frustrated, jet-lagged, exhausted... and my head is about to explode.
CHILD OF FIRE
by Harry Connolly
So, I popped open Harry's book and *escape*. Escape from the Hong Kong thing and all of the frustrations. CHILD OF FIRE is almost impossible to put down. Relentless pacing, and escalating conflict, and cool stuff. I want to get me one of those ghost knives.
I am not the kind of person to read fantasy novels - I love science fiction, but anything with wizards just sounds silly to me. Harry's book CHILD OF FIRE is about a sorceress and magic spells and crap - but it's written like a noir action story. Remember those HBO movies that combined Lovecraft and Chandler? Not like that...
CHILD OF FIRE is more of a *Hammett* Continental Op novel like RED HARVEST meets HP Lovecraft - more action oriented, more brutal, more "street" - and a real fast read. Ray Lilly is a career criminal (car thief) who is awaiting trial for some murders he didn't do that have a weird supernatural element to them. His public defender is replaced by some slick mob lawyer type who tells Ray he'll make the charges go away if Ray forgets the supernatural stuff he saw. He even sets Ray up with a job as a driver. This is no normal mob lawyer - this guy is from the Twenty Palace Society - a secret organization of Sorcerers. They control magic, the way some other mob might control drugs or prostitution or motion picture distribution. Ray's driving job is for...
Annalese Powess, a sorceress-assassin who kills those who use magic without permission from the Twenty Palace Society mob. Rogue socerers, people who find some spellbook and use it... anyone who is using magic in some way that might bring down the heat on the mob - or maybe get in their way. Cast a spell without permission - they send Annalize to wack you. All of this stuff is back story we have to piece together as we read - because the book hits the ground running!
It opens with Ray and Annalise on the way to a hit...
Small town in Washington State has an overly successful toy factory - and children who spontaneously combust... and the kid's parents forget they even had kids. They find ways to rationalize the car seats and toys in the front yard. The burning kids are scary and sick and twisted - but that's just the tip of the terror in the novel. This is one of those small towns with a secret - and also a bunch of warring factions that would rather the two outsiders be dead.
No shortage of scary stuff, and no shortage of action and tension. Just when you think things can't get worse - Annalise tells Ray that part of his job is to be the "red shirt" decoy that gets killed so that she can attack...
But when she attacks, Annalise discovers the evil in this town is more powerful than she is. Ray survives, Annalize is seriously wounded... and now all of that evil from all of the different factions in the town are coming after Ray. He is the man in the middle and must figure out who and what is behind all of this in order to survive.
The cool thing about it is how those scenes you might expect to find in a Hammett or Chandler novel are here, but with a supernatural twist. Really corrupt cops who would rather kill you than help you solve the mystery? They're here - but they have also found a little evil magic to use... which makes them a million times stronger than Ray and almost impossible to kill. Wealthy Femme Fatales that lure you to your doom? Here, bit with a twist. There's even a Mayor who seems like he wandered over from THE GLASS KEY looking for some additional bribes.
And reading Harry's book allows me to finally relax... which kind of brings us up to now, present day, Hong Kong just a memory of what might have been. Or, actually, what will be in March, 2010. A good movie or book can just take you away from all of your troubles and let you experience someone with stranger troubles than yours. I didn't have it all that bad - no one was trying to kill me with magic.
CHILD OF FIRE is a real page turner, and *really dark* - kids burn to death in the first ten pages. It really gets into Lovecraft territory at the end... and has a bunch of really haunting, frightening things that stick with you long after you have finished reading it. If the book has any problem, it's *too* fast paced. No place to close it and sleep... and sometimes things happens so fast that you have to read carefully so that you don't miss anything. I know Harry, so you may think I'm biased, but the reviews on Amazon are mostly good:
Amazon Page For CHILD OF FIRE - scroll down for reviews.
And Del Rey has already bought the next two books in the series (Harry has written both already - playing beat the clock so that they could put the first chapter of the second book in here and get them ready). He was on a panel at ComiCon, too. I'm not the only one who liked the book... and I didn't just like it because my friend wrote it. I really want to read the next ones.
So, if you like hard boiled mystery stuff like Dash Hammett or Michael Connolly, or you like those friggin' Urban Fantasy novels or even stuff with sorcerers and werewolves and stuff like that, or if you like classic horror like H.P. Lovecraft, or if you just want to support a fellow writer, buy a copy! Paperback, much cheaper than hardback. And if Harry is signing at some bookstore in your area, tell him Bill sent you!
- Bill
BUY IT AT AMAZON:
Click The Book.
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