About 15 years ago we were at KNB FX doing an interview for DEAD BEAT Videozine and they had all of these very realistic fake buffalos in the shop from DANCES WITH WOLVES, and Greg ran over and put his head up the butt of one of them. That video tape still exists, but I doubt I could blackmail Greg with it because he'd just think it was funny. Here's Greg's short film, just in time for Halloween!
- Bill
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Friday, October 29, 2010
Happy Halloween!
Remember that blog entry on the nature of art, where I talked about that sculpture of the dancing 1950s boy holding up the American flag on the corner of Victory Blvd and Buena Vista in Burbank? And how it would be cool if someone put something else in the boys hand?
Well, the problem was I needed a ladder or the cover of darkness to replace the flag with the bloody skull. I was afraid that once I put the skull in his out-reached hand it would be taken down quickly, so I had to put the skull there and snap a picture ASAP. And I underestimated the height of the sculpture. Without a ladder and without the ability to use a shopping cart or something tio get the skull into his right hand, I could only put it in his left hand... so that's what I did. I have no idea if it lasted the whole day, but it was up both going to and coming from Burbank - a couple of hours.
FRIDAYS WITH HITCHCOCK: I was hoping to get the Rebecca entry up today, but ran into an unusual snag - a major part of the screenwriting lesson is on setting the mood for your script, which REBECCA does wonderfully... but I really wanted to cut & paste a passage or two from the script as an illustration. But I could not find the script anywhere on line! So I have ordered the screenplay from one of those online script shops (Planet Megamall) and am watching the mailbox for its arrival. Thought it might have arrived in time to finish the blog entry and post it today, but it's looking like it will be up a week from today. Sorry! And just wait - watch the script be a crappy example!
- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Contrast! - and why Michael had to be the lead in THE GODFATHER, not Fredo and not Sonny.
Dinner: Hummus sandwich at Togos - I wanted to spice it up with BBQ sauce, but they didn't have any.
Pages: Working on some stuff for AFM.
Bicycle: Ride to NoHo and back.
Well, the problem was I needed a ladder or the cover of darkness to replace the flag with the bloody skull. I was afraid that once I put the skull in his out-reached hand it would be taken down quickly, so I had to put the skull there and snap a picture ASAP. And I underestimated the height of the sculpture. Without a ladder and without the ability to use a shopping cart or something tio get the skull into his right hand, I could only put it in his left hand... so that's what I did. I have no idea if it lasted the whole day, but it was up both going to and coming from Burbank - a couple of hours.
FRIDAYS WITH HITCHCOCK: I was hoping to get the Rebecca entry up today, but ran into an unusual snag - a major part of the screenwriting lesson is on setting the mood for your script, which REBECCA does wonderfully... but I really wanted to cut & paste a passage or two from the script as an illustration. But I could not find the script anywhere on line! So I have ordered the screenplay from one of those online script shops (Planet Megamall) and am watching the mailbox for its arrival. Thought it might have arrived in time to finish the blog entry and post it today, but it's looking like it will be up a week from today. Sorry! And just wait - watch the script be a crappy example!
- Bill
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Contrast! - and why Michael had to be the lead in THE GODFATHER, not Fredo and not Sonny.
Dinner: Hummus sandwich at Togos - I wanted to spice it up with BBQ sauce, but they didn't have any.
Pages: Working on some stuff for AFM.
Bicycle: Ride to NoHo and back.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Lancelot Link Thursday
Lancelot Link Thursday! For those of you who think KING KONG was based on a true story, 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...
Here are five cool links plus this week's car chase...
1) Most ridiculous edited for TV movie lines - including some Sam Jackson favorites!
2 United States Of America Movie Map - what movie is your state?
3) Top Ten Tech Tricks We're Tired Of Seeing In Movies.
4) Screenwriter Ryan Condal and his manager Adam Marshall on breaking in.
5) Top 25 Worst Halloween Costumes!
6) This week's car chase is in celebration of Halloween! You have seen the Paul Haggis version of CRASH and the David Cronenberg version of CRASH, but here is a clip of my favorite movie titled CRASH...
Directed by Charlie Band. I think the German dubbing and blurry transfer and small screen make it even better! Have a great weekend and trick or treat safely!
- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Subtext in dialogue - and THE CLOSER.
Dinner: Ham sandwich at Togos.
Pages: Knocked out an article for Script Mag.
Bicycle: Short ride to NoHo and back.
Here are five cool links plus this week's car chase...
1) Most ridiculous edited for TV movie lines - including some Sam Jackson favorites!
2 United States Of America Movie Map - what movie is your state?
3) Top Ten Tech Tricks We're Tired Of Seeing In Movies.
4) Screenwriter Ryan Condal and his manager Adam Marshall on breaking in.
5) Top 25 Worst Halloween Costumes!
6) This week's car chase is in celebration of Halloween! You have seen the Paul Haggis version of CRASH and the David Cronenberg version of CRASH, but here is a clip of my favorite movie titled CRASH...
Directed by Charlie Band. I think the German dubbing and blurry transfer and small screen make it even better! Have a great weekend and trick or treat safely!
- Bill
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Subtext in dialogue - and THE CLOSER.
Dinner: Ham sandwich at Togos.
Pages: Knocked out an article for Script Mag.
Bicycle: Short ride to NoHo and back.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Billion Dollar Brain
Last week I had an entry about one of my favorite movies, THE IPCRESS FILE starring Michael Caine. That was his first starring role after playing bit parts and supporting in films and TV series, and he performed like a veteran. The film was both a critical and financial success - and based on the first in a series of novels by Len Deighton - so you know what happens next...
Sequels.
The first sequel, FUNERAL IN BERLIN, is one of those great Cold War movies - directed by James Bond vet Guy Hamilton (GOLDFINGER) and is pretty good. Not as great as IPCRESS, but it’s a fine second film. Maybe because it didn’t measure up to the wild director of Sidney J. Furie, the producers decided to bring in someone arty for the third film, so they hired the flamboyant Ken Russell to direct BILLION DOLLAR BRAIN.
Ken Russell is an interesting director, and I believe this is his first feature film. He would go on to direct WOMEN IN LOVE a couple of years later, which features Alan Bates and Oliver Reed wrestling naked - I am still trying to remove those images from my mind. He would then specialize in over the top musicals and musical biographies like THE BOY FRIEND, THE MUSIC LOVERS, TOMMY, MAHLER, LISZTOMANIA, and VALENTINO before going through ALTERED STATES and coming out the other side as a kind of kinky horror movie director with the wacky CRIMES OF PASSION and GOTHIC and LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM. I believe he is now making erotica with a consumer camcorder - and I’m sure it’s inventive and strange. Russell is one of those crazy geniuses like Orson Welles who needs someone to tell him when he has gone too far, someone to tell him when he has ventured into the really weird.
There was no one like that on BILLION DOLLAR BRAIN... so we have a movie where the army is dressed in white outfits with purple helmets and look like a bunch of penises (or penii) and everything is bright and crazy and the plot goes way off the rails about halfway through and it seems to be a parody of James Bond movies. You keep expecting a big musical number to break out. Ed Begley Sr is so over the top he ends up in the stratosphere somewhere. I have no idea what this movie is - but it is *not* a Harry Palmer movie. I saw it at the American Cinematheque a couple of years ago double billed with FUNERAL IN BERLIN, and it was entertaining in a "How Much Acid Did Ken Russell Drop Before Making This Film" sort of way... but not a Harry Palmer movie.
But here is the trailer...
And here are Maurice Binder's opening titles - you can see they are turning Harry Palmer into some sort of artsie-fartsie James Bond, instead of the more realistic look at espionage from the first two films.
Though this movie is completely crazy, and killed the franchise dead for a couple of decades, you may want to check out Russell’s WOMEN IN LOVE and some of his other films - he’s a wild director, and with material that isn’t supposed to be realistic he makes some interesting films. I've seen most of them. (Amanda Donahoe is mostly naked in LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM...)
- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Shoe Boxing - which is not a new martial art like Toe Fu.
Dinner: Chicken Caesar salad.
Pages: 5 pages on CONTAINED (spec - it's like UNDER SIEGE meets BURIED with Somali pirates) and some work on an article.
Bicycle: Despite the rumored 60 mph winds, yes.
Sequels.
The first sequel, FUNERAL IN BERLIN, is one of those great Cold War movies - directed by James Bond vet Guy Hamilton (GOLDFINGER) and is pretty good. Not as great as IPCRESS, but it’s a fine second film. Maybe because it didn’t measure up to the wild director of Sidney J. Furie, the producers decided to bring in someone arty for the third film, so they hired the flamboyant Ken Russell to direct BILLION DOLLAR BRAIN.
Ken Russell is an interesting director, and I believe this is his first feature film. He would go on to direct WOMEN IN LOVE a couple of years later, which features Alan Bates and Oliver Reed wrestling naked - I am still trying to remove those images from my mind. He would then specialize in over the top musicals and musical biographies like THE BOY FRIEND, THE MUSIC LOVERS, TOMMY, MAHLER, LISZTOMANIA, and VALENTINO before going through ALTERED STATES and coming out the other side as a kind of kinky horror movie director with the wacky CRIMES OF PASSION and GOTHIC and LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM. I believe he is now making erotica with a consumer camcorder - and I’m sure it’s inventive and strange. Russell is one of those crazy geniuses like Orson Welles who needs someone to tell him when he has gone too far, someone to tell him when he has ventured into the really weird.
There was no one like that on BILLION DOLLAR BRAIN... so we have a movie where the army is dressed in white outfits with purple helmets and look like a bunch of penises (or penii) and everything is bright and crazy and the plot goes way off the rails about halfway through and it seems to be a parody of James Bond movies. You keep expecting a big musical number to break out. Ed Begley Sr is so over the top he ends up in the stratosphere somewhere. I have no idea what this movie is - but it is *not* a Harry Palmer movie. I saw it at the American Cinematheque a couple of years ago double billed with FUNERAL IN BERLIN, and it was entertaining in a "How Much Acid Did Ken Russell Drop Before Making This Film" sort of way... but not a Harry Palmer movie.
But here is the trailer...
And here are Maurice Binder's opening titles - you can see they are turning Harry Palmer into some sort of artsie-fartsie James Bond, instead of the more realistic look at espionage from the first two films.
Though this movie is completely crazy, and killed the franchise dead for a couple of decades, you may want to check out Russell’s WOMEN IN LOVE and some of his other films - he’s a wild director, and with material that isn’t supposed to be realistic he makes some interesting films. I've seen most of them. (Amanda Donahoe is mostly naked in LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM...)
- Bill
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Shoe Boxing - which is not a new martial art like Toe Fu.
Dinner: Chicken Caesar salad.
Pages: 5 pages on CONTAINED (spec - it's like UNDER SIEGE meets BURIED with Somali pirates) and some work on an article.
Bicycle: Despite the rumored 60 mph winds, yes.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Weekend BO Smells Sweet!
1 Paranormal Activity 2 - $41,500,000 - (new) $41,500,000
2 Jackass 3-D - $21,600,000 (-57.1%) - $87,147,000
3 RED $15,000,000 (-31.1%) - $43,483,000
4 Hereafter - $12,005,000 (+5,348.8%) - $12,320,000
5 The Social Network - $7,300,000 (-29.2%) - $72,931,000
6 Secretariat - $6,917,000 (-25.8%) - 37,360,000
7 Life as We Know It - $6,150,000 (-31.3%) - $37,615,000
8 Legend of the Guardians - $3,175,000 (-24.9%) - $50,172,000
9 The Town - $2,720,000 (-31.6%) - $84,653,000
10 Easy A - $1,750,000 (-33.5%) - $54,785,000
What I find interesting - the (%) is percentage of change from last week, and often films go into a 50% free-fall where they earn half of what they earned last week. Except, the drops seem more modest this week. Did more people go to the movies? Or was it spill over from sold out showings to PARANORMAL 2?
PA2 set a new record for horror movie opening weekends, beating the long time leader THE GRUDGE. And JACKASS 3D has now made more than the first film made in its entire run! Movies (in the cinema) seem to be doing well. 2010 is ahead of record year 2009 in cash (+12%), but behind in ticket sales... and that's in a year with a lot of not-so-good movies. So, there will still be films in the near future, and those films will need screenplays... or people who come up with dangerous stunts for a bunch of idiots to try in 3D.
- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Late Starts - and SIGNS.
Dinner: Togos - #9.
Pages: YES! Saturday I finally finished the assignment rewrite, Sunday I wrote 4 blog entries for Script Mag Online (lessons based on tips), and worked on some other things.
Bicycle: Sat - Yes, Sun - Rain.
Movies: HEREAFTER - there will not be many people here after the first half hour of this boring film.
2 Jackass 3-D - $21,600,000 (-57.1%) - $87,147,000
3 RED $15,000,000 (-31.1%) - $43,483,000
4 Hereafter - $12,005,000 (+5,348.8%) - $12,320,000
5 The Social Network - $7,300,000 (-29.2%) - $72,931,000
6 Secretariat - $6,917,000 (-25.8%) - 37,360,000
7 Life as We Know It - $6,150,000 (-31.3%) - $37,615,000
8 Legend of the Guardians - $3,175,000 (-24.9%) - $50,172,000
9 The Town - $2,720,000 (-31.6%) - $84,653,000
10 Easy A - $1,750,000 (-33.5%) - $54,785,000
What I find interesting - the (%) is percentage of change from last week, and often films go into a 50% free-fall where they earn half of what they earned last week. Except, the drops seem more modest this week. Did more people go to the movies? Or was it spill over from sold out showings to PARANORMAL 2?
PA2 set a new record for horror movie opening weekends, beating the long time leader THE GRUDGE. And JACKASS 3D has now made more than the first film made in its entire run! Movies (in the cinema) seem to be doing well. 2010 is ahead of record year 2009 in cash (+12%), but behind in ticket sales... and that's in a year with a lot of not-so-good movies. So, there will still be films in the near future, and those films will need screenplays... or people who come up with dangerous stunts for a bunch of idiots to try in 3D.
- Bill
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Late Starts - and SIGNS.
Dinner: Togos - #9.
Pages: YES! Saturday I finally finished the assignment rewrite, Sunday I wrote 4 blog entries for Script Mag Online (lessons based on tips), and worked on some other things.
Bicycle: Sat - Yes, Sun - Rain.
Movies: HEREAFTER - there will not be many people here after the first half hour of this boring film.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Truffaut - The Brats
Here's a short film from Truffaut about childhood and bicycles...
- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Loglines - watch me create a logline for a new spec script in real time!
Dinner: El Pollo Loco chicken - breast & wing (B&W), corn, black beans, flour.
Pages: Another day when the brain would not cooperate.
Bicycle: Just up the street to NoHo.
- Bill
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Loglines - watch me create a logline for a new spec script in real time!
Dinner: El Pollo Loco chicken - breast & wing (B&W), corn, black beans, flour.
Pages: Another day when the brain would not cooperate.
Bicycle: Just up the street to NoHo.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Lancelot Link Thursday
Lancelot Link Thursday! For those of you who think the movie HEAD (written by Jack Nicholson) would have been better starring actual monkeys, 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...
Here are four cool links plus this week's car chase...
1) Six very Misunderstood Books - including FAHRENHEIT 842 (actual temperature that paper burns).
2) 101 Movie Quotes You Should Know.
3) Horror Hostess Elvira Also Says She Is Not A Witch.
4) 3 Euros (short French film... it's *culture*!)
5) And today's car chase... Because it has been raining here in Los Angeles, here's a car chase that features a lot of slip-sliding away! It's from a not-good movie called BLAZING MAGNUM (aka SHADOWS IN AN EMPTY ROOM) an Italian/Canadian co-production starring Stuart Whitman as a crazed cop searching for his sister's killer. The best part of this movie is the car chase...
So there you go!
- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: High Concept vs. High Stakes - and AMERICAN BEAUTY vs. PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED.
Dinner: Tortas on Ventura again, and a burrito as big as my head.
Pages: An awful day for writing... If it could go wrong, it did.
Bicycle: Longer bike ride in damp weather.
Here are four cool links plus this week's car chase...
1) Six very Misunderstood Books - including FAHRENHEIT 842 (actual temperature that paper burns).
2) 101 Movie Quotes You Should Know.
3) Horror Hostess Elvira Also Says She Is Not A Witch.
4) 3 Euros (short French film... it's *culture*!)
5) And today's car chase... Because it has been raining here in Los Angeles, here's a car chase that features a lot of slip-sliding away! It's from a not-good movie called BLAZING MAGNUM (aka SHADOWS IN AN EMPTY ROOM) an Italian/Canadian co-production starring Stuart Whitman as a crazed cop searching for his sister's killer. The best part of this movie is the car chase...
So there you go!
- Bill
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: High Concept vs. High Stakes - and AMERICAN BEAUTY vs. PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED.
Dinner: Tortas on Ventura again, and a burrito as big as my head.
Pages: An awful day for writing... If it could go wrong, it did.
Bicycle: Longer bike ride in damp weather.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Ipcress File
IPCRESS FILE (1965)
Director: Sidney J. Furie
Writers: James Doran, W. H. Canaway
Starring: Michael Caine, Sue Lloyd, Guy Doleman, Nigel Green.
One of my favorite movies.
Sort of the “anti-Bond”, but made by the producers of the Connery films. Harry Palmer is The Spy Who Does Paperwork in this predecessor to THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR. There is a form for everything - a form to get a gun, a form to fill out if you fire the gun... and if you manage to hit someone? No end to the amount of paperwork! This is the *government* - it’s all about filling out forms. Forms for stake outs, forms to requisition a car, forms for *not* discovering any information. Harry hates paperwork, but he’s a genius at sifting through it for clues - to find an enemy agent with no known address, he checks for parking tickets.
The great thing about IPCRESS is that it makes the job of spying mundane - a bunch of stakes outs and surveillance jobs - then it explodes with action that seems much bigger due to the contrast. The great Michael Caine plays Harry as a problem child who probably needed a good spanking many years ago and now knows exactly how far he can push authority before it pushes back. He uncovers a plot to kidnap British scientists, brainwash them until they spill all of their secrets, then wipe their memories clean so that they are unable to function. The cool thing about this 60s film is that it uses all of the real brainwashing devices from the CIA’s MK-ULTRA program, which wasn’t made public until the 70s. How they knew about these things in this film, I do not know. Were there CIA leaks that ended up in (novelist) Len Deighton’s hands?
His boss, Colonel Ross (Doleman), hates him and has him transferred to Major Dalby’s department where he has to fill out stacks of paperwork as they try to find a kidnaped scientist who has been put up for auction by an espionage agent for hire code-name, BlueJay (Frank Gatliff) and Albanian who sells secrets... and people. Dalby (Nigel Green) “doesn’t have the sense of humor that Ross has” (which was none at all) and cracks the whip on Harry again and again. Harry finds a friend in team member Carswell (Gordon Jackson) and a love interest in team member Jean (Lloyd) - who may be a spy for Ross’s department. That’s the kind of paranoid movie this is - the spies are spying on other spies! Ross keeps trying to get Harry to hand over the file on their investigation, code named “Ipcress” because that word was written on a piece of audio tape found in an abandoned warehouse they think BlueJay was using. When they play the bit of audio tape, all they get are strange noises - what do they mean? To add to the paranoia, there’s a CIA Agent who is spying on Harry, and someone in one of the departments may actually be working for BlueJay. You can’t trust *anyone* in this film!
I love movies where intelligent guys get sent into the field, where they are clueless, and must fight to survive. Harry gets in so much trouble, and the story is so clever and twisted and has so many double and triple crosses that I can watch it again and again... oh, and it’s visually really really cool.
The director, Sidney J. Furie, comes up with the most inventive angles and shots I’ve ever seen - which is one of the reasons why this is one of my favorite movies. There is a whole fight scene shot through the glass of one of those red British phone booth - mullion coming between Harry and this huge bodyguard - and every other interesting combination of foreground and background is used to make the fight scene really interesting. Furie re-imagines action scenes as chess matches or tennis games and stages them in unusual ways. Because Harry wears glasses, the element of sight is used in both action scenes (when Harry’s glasses get stomped it changes the outcome of a fight) and other scenes (Harry with glasses off looks over a blurry crowd of scientists and sees a person who does not belong) - the glasses become part of the way the story is told.
Here is our introduction to Harry Palmer...
Other great visual elements include one of the greatest twist-reveals ever put on film, a shot through the keyhole of Harry’s flat of an intruder with a gun, a Polanskiesque shot where a door is opened to hide one character so that we focus on the other, the camera mounted on an armored car that batters down a door - we see it all POV, a Busby Berkeleyesque choreographed prisoner for money exchange in an underground parking garage with a deadly twist, the whole IPCRESS brain washing sequence - which includes an amazing Christ-symbolism bit where Harry jams a rusty nail into his palm to try to avoid the brainwashing, a multi-level following scene in a building, and an amazing ending where a brainwashed Harry must decide who to kill and who not to kill.
SPOILER: One of my favorite bits in the script is when BlueJay kidnaps Harry... and he wakes up in a crappy cell in some old industrial building, and BlueJay tells him that it would be pointless to try to escape, because he's in Albania. How can he get help if he does not speak Albanian? Where would he run to? He has no passport, no identification. Even if he escaped, he's still trapped in this foreign land. Then they proceed to brainwash him using the IPCRESS method... "Listen to me. Listen to me. You will forget the IPCRESS file, you will forget your name..." Harry jams that rusty nail into his palm, "My name is Harry Palmer. My name is Harry Palmer." But he loses the nail... and the brainwashing begins to work. That's when Harry decides to escape... running out of the old industrial building where all of the signs are in Albanian, to... Downtown London! He was never taken to Albania! The whole thing was a ruse to make him not try to escape! This is one of dozens of little story touches that make IPCRESS FILE a really cool movie.
A great clever screenplay coupled with great inventive direction and Michael Caine at the top of his game surrounded by a bunch of great British actors. Oh, and the musical score is one of John Barry’s best! They made two sequels in the 60s and a couple in the 90s (with an old Michael Caine) but the first one is the best. Check it out!
- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Story Form & 3 Act Structure - MEMENTO, INGOLRIOUS BASTERDS, etc.
Dinner: Togo's hummus sandwich (because I ate crap yesterday)
Pages: Some good work on the rewrite - almost done.
Bicycle: Medium ride - in damp weather.
Director: Sidney J. Furie
Writers: James Doran, W. H. Canaway
Starring: Michael Caine, Sue Lloyd, Guy Doleman, Nigel Green.
One of my favorite movies.
Sort of the “anti-Bond”, but made by the producers of the Connery films. Harry Palmer is The Spy Who Does Paperwork in this predecessor to THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR. There is a form for everything - a form to get a gun, a form to fill out if you fire the gun... and if you manage to hit someone? No end to the amount of paperwork! This is the *government* - it’s all about filling out forms. Forms for stake outs, forms to requisition a car, forms for *not* discovering any information. Harry hates paperwork, but he’s a genius at sifting through it for clues - to find an enemy agent with no known address, he checks for parking tickets.
The great thing about IPCRESS is that it makes the job of spying mundane - a bunch of stakes outs and surveillance jobs - then it explodes with action that seems much bigger due to the contrast. The great Michael Caine plays Harry as a problem child who probably needed a good spanking many years ago and now knows exactly how far he can push authority before it pushes back. He uncovers a plot to kidnap British scientists, brainwash them until they spill all of their secrets, then wipe their memories clean so that they are unable to function. The cool thing about this 60s film is that it uses all of the real brainwashing devices from the CIA’s MK-ULTRA program, which wasn’t made public until the 70s. How they knew about these things in this film, I do not know. Were there CIA leaks that ended up in (novelist) Len Deighton’s hands?
His boss, Colonel Ross (Doleman), hates him and has him transferred to Major Dalby’s department where he has to fill out stacks of paperwork as they try to find a kidnaped scientist who has been put up for auction by an espionage agent for hire code-name, BlueJay (Frank Gatliff) and Albanian who sells secrets... and people. Dalby (Nigel Green) “doesn’t have the sense of humor that Ross has” (which was none at all) and cracks the whip on Harry again and again. Harry finds a friend in team member Carswell (Gordon Jackson) and a love interest in team member Jean (Lloyd) - who may be a spy for Ross’s department. That’s the kind of paranoid movie this is - the spies are spying on other spies! Ross keeps trying to get Harry to hand over the file on their investigation, code named “Ipcress” because that word was written on a piece of audio tape found in an abandoned warehouse they think BlueJay was using. When they play the bit of audio tape, all they get are strange noises - what do they mean? To add to the paranoia, there’s a CIA Agent who is spying on Harry, and someone in one of the departments may actually be working for BlueJay. You can’t trust *anyone* in this film!
I love movies where intelligent guys get sent into the field, where they are clueless, and must fight to survive. Harry gets in so much trouble, and the story is so clever and twisted and has so many double and triple crosses that I can watch it again and again... oh, and it’s visually really really cool.
The director, Sidney J. Furie, comes up with the most inventive angles and shots I’ve ever seen - which is one of the reasons why this is one of my favorite movies. There is a whole fight scene shot through the glass of one of those red British phone booth - mullion coming between Harry and this huge bodyguard - and every other interesting combination of foreground and background is used to make the fight scene really interesting. Furie re-imagines action scenes as chess matches or tennis games and stages them in unusual ways. Because Harry wears glasses, the element of sight is used in both action scenes (when Harry’s glasses get stomped it changes the outcome of a fight) and other scenes (Harry with glasses off looks over a blurry crowd of scientists and sees a person who does not belong) - the glasses become part of the way the story is told.
Here is our introduction to Harry Palmer...
Other great visual elements include one of the greatest twist-reveals ever put on film, a shot through the keyhole of Harry’s flat of an intruder with a gun, a Polanskiesque shot where a door is opened to hide one character so that we focus on the other, the camera mounted on an armored car that batters down a door - we see it all POV, a Busby Berkeleyesque choreographed prisoner for money exchange in an underground parking garage with a deadly twist, the whole IPCRESS brain washing sequence - which includes an amazing Christ-symbolism bit where Harry jams a rusty nail into his palm to try to avoid the brainwashing, a multi-level following scene in a building, and an amazing ending where a brainwashed Harry must decide who to kill and who not to kill.
SPOILER: One of my favorite bits in the script is when BlueJay kidnaps Harry... and he wakes up in a crappy cell in some old industrial building, and BlueJay tells him that it would be pointless to try to escape, because he's in Albania. How can he get help if he does not speak Albanian? Where would he run to? He has no passport, no identification. Even if he escaped, he's still trapped in this foreign land. Then they proceed to brainwash him using the IPCRESS method... "Listen to me. Listen to me. You will forget the IPCRESS file, you will forget your name..." Harry jams that rusty nail into his palm, "My name is Harry Palmer. My name is Harry Palmer." But he loses the nail... and the brainwashing begins to work. That's when Harry decides to escape... running out of the old industrial building where all of the signs are in Albanian, to... Downtown London! He was never taken to Albania! The whole thing was a ruse to make him not try to escape! This is one of dozens of little story touches that make IPCRESS FILE a really cool movie.
A great clever screenplay coupled with great inventive direction and Michael Caine at the top of his game surrounded by a bunch of great British actors. Oh, and the musical score is one of John Barry’s best! They made two sequels in the 60s and a couple in the 90s (with an old Michael Caine) but the first one is the best. Check it out!
- Bill
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Story Form & 3 Act Structure - MEMENTO, INGOLRIOUS BASTERDS, etc.
Dinner: Togo's hummus sandwich (because I ate crap yesterday)
Pages: Some good work on the rewrite - almost done.
Bicycle: Medium ride - in damp weather.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Down Terrace plays Sunset 5
I saw DOWN TERRACE a year ago at the Raindance Film Festival... and now it is playing at the Sunset 5 cinemas here in Los Angeles. Here's what I said about it in an article for Script Magazine last year...
*Down Terrace* from England, written by Ben Wheatley and Robin Hill was the winner of Best British Feature and was shot in only 8 days, mostly in Hill’s parent’s house. This blacker than black comedy uses genre subversion to make the most of its limited locations and budget ($30k, 8 days of shooting).
*Down Terrace* opens with the welcome home party for the aging leader of a small town criminal organization and his slacker son are released from jail. Not all celebration because someone on their crew must have ratted them out... but who? Dad is an ex-hippy who got into the drug trade because he thought drugs would change the world. We would all be dropping acid and dropping out. He sings folk songs and has a guitar collection and when he gets drunk talks about the 60s. Not exactly Don Corleone.
What makes it funny is that each member of the crime family has a very human character element that is in contrast to their gangster persona - which subverts the genre. The hit man has a three year old son and can’t find a sitter, so he takes his kid in a stroller on an assassination. The kid gets away, as does the target, and the hit man must juggle controlling his child and cornering and killing the target all at the same time... and that’s funny. We don’t expect gangsters to have problems like this.
- Bill
*Down Terrace* from England, written by Ben Wheatley and Robin Hill was the winner of Best British Feature and was shot in only 8 days, mostly in Hill’s parent’s house. This blacker than black comedy uses genre subversion to make the most of its limited locations and budget ($30k, 8 days of shooting).
*Down Terrace* opens with the welcome home party for the aging leader of a small town criminal organization and his slacker son are released from jail. Not all celebration because someone on their crew must have ratted them out... but who? Dad is an ex-hippy who got into the drug trade because he thought drugs would change the world. We would all be dropping acid and dropping out. He sings folk songs and has a guitar collection and when he gets drunk talks about the 60s. Not exactly Don Corleone.
What makes it funny is that each member of the crime family has a very human character element that is in contrast to their gangster persona - which subverts the genre. The hit man has a three year old son and can’t find a sitter, so he takes his kid in a stroller on an assassination. The kid gets away, as does the target, and the hit man must juggle controlling his child and cornering and killing the target all at the same time... and that’s funny. We don’t expect gangsters to have problems like this.
- Bill
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Final Draft Big Break 2010
October is a crazy month for me. Because every horror movie related event takes place in October, and so does Screenwriter’s Expo, and so does the Final Draft Big Break Party, and American Film Market is in the beginning of November... Often I am in London and Honk Kong this month as well, this year I just have a couple of script assignments to work on. October is never long enough!
This year I seem to be overwhelmed by all of these things. My plan was to have one of the assignments rewritten before the Final Draft party for two reasons: The Non-Fango Weekend Of Horrors begins the day after, and there is frequently a great deal of drinking at the Final Draft party, and my brain may not be fully operational for a couple of days afterwards. But I completely failed at that plan, and am still finishing up the rewrite. That creates kind of a domino effect with my other plans, everything getting pushed back... My Big To Do List gets one of those updates where I just change the months I planned to do everything... that was going to be finished in November, but now it will be finished in December. I have changed the months on that list so many times it might have been more simple to just change the years! But without the Big To Do List nothing would ever get To Done.
But October? So far it has been a disaster. One of my classes for Expo was a brand new class that I had only done once, in London last year. But when assembling my class materials at the beginning of the months (way ahead of time), I could not find the scribbled piece of paper written on the plane to London with all of the cool ideas for the class. Must have left them in London along with that 4g thumbdrive that has all of my important stuff backed up on it. I replaced the thumbdrive when I got home last year, but didn’t even notice the class materials missing. So I would have to recreate that class. Also at the beginning of the month I was invited to a film premiere... and the after party where alcohol was served... and that killed a day when I should have been recreating that class, and I missed the first day of the Shriekfest Film Festival. Well, I missed the rest of it, too - working on that class. The following weekend was Expo... and Screamfest began. Screamfest runs for a full week, and is a great horror festival. I had tickets for opening night... but it was the same day as my Expo classes, and I decided to just stick around the Expo hotel instead of fighting traffic. Though Screamfest went for the rest of the week, I had a an assignment to rewrite (a horror script, which may even be at Screamfest next year). My plan was to go to Screamfest any night that I finished my work early... hah! Like that ever happened! Though I did see some movies - friends called and I played hooky on the rewrite a couple of times. So by the time the Big Break Party came around, I was not finished with the rewrite. I will punish myself later, but first...
THE BIG BREAK PARTY
Oh, I forgot to mention insomnia. I’ve been averaging about 4 hours of sleep a night and was dead tired by the day of the Big Break Party... a zombie. There is always that one day in a run of insomnia where you are so dead tired that you can barely walk and can not think at all - this was that day! The good news is that means my body will just shut down and sleep very soon, the bad news is that I had to go to an event and act like I am awake. I *almost* bailed, but then I would have done almost nothing in October - since I doubted I would make any of the remaining nights of Screamfest, and there’s a good chance I might blow off Fake Fango (which I did). So, off to Beverly Hills I go!
Last year, after they kicked us out of the Paley Center (Big Break venue), we went to Nic’s Martini Bar a couple of blocks away and drank until 2am. They have a walk in freezer there, where you put on a coat and fur hat with ear-flaps and drink Vodka From Around The World by the shot, until your private parts freeze and you must leave the walk in freezer. Last year, Mark from Final Draft was picking up the tab, so I drank many shots of vodka. Many shots. Then, when the bar closed, I had to ride my bike to Hollywood where I picked up the homeless bus over the hill. Balancing was difficult. That is the great thing about drinking on a bicycle - if you have had too much, you can’t really ride. Though, this did not seem to stop me last year. This year, I was too tired for marathon drinking... and I wasn’t on my bike.
Bamboo Killer Emily was my guest for the awards and party (we are not an item, her boyfriend could easily kick my ass).
At the Paley Center, we rode the elevator up with movie star (and Oscar nominee) Robert Forester and his date. Because most people probably recognize him from JACKIE BROWN, I told him how much I liked him in MEDIUM COOL - a great film from the late 60s directed by cinematographer Haskell Wexler. After the elevator ride, Robert was ushered to the red carpet and we went in to find drinks and finger food. Drinks were easy to get (just stand in line), food was more difficult to come by. I never saw any, but heard rumors of it and saw waitpeople with empty trays. Oh, there were sightings of Jeremy Piven, but I never saw him personally. At one point I thought about going out and walking the red carpet, just to see if anyone cared, but it seemed like too much trouble. Talked to Peter Hanson - cowriter/co-director or TALES FROM THE SCRIPT - if you have not seen this movie (or read the book), check it out - it is the *truth* about being a screenwriter. Also talked to Bill Lundy, who used to be Chairman of Scriptwriters Network, and Robin and Max Adams and all of the folks from Script Magazine... including editor Shelly’s Mom, who I have not seen since the first Santa Fe Screenwriting Conference (I think). By then my first beer was almost gone, and they were about to begin the awards ceremony.
Last year, I was at the front of the line to get into the auditorium - when they announced they will be starting in 2 minutes, I figure it’s time to get in line. A prompt man is a lonely man, as they say - but he also gets the best seats. This year I was in the middle of a conversation with Emily and by the time we got in line, the auditorium was full. We had to watch on the monitors as Shelly gave her speech and winners were announced and given their awards and then Mark gave a speech and then gave the Writers Hall Of Fame Award to Aaron Sorkin, who gave the obligatory speech about how he uses Final Draft. I knew Sorkin was going to be there and hoped to bump into him and have a conversation - one of the perqs of being Editor At Large for Script Magazine is that I can probably get past security and handlers and talk to people - but did not see him before they gave him the award and did not see him after they gave him the award... and only saw him get the award on TV. The good news about watching the awards on TV is that you are allowed to drink beverages, so I ordered another beer... but they were all out, so I drank red wine. I was actually feeling better by then. Oh, here are the winners:
Congratulations to them all! One of the great things about the Final Draft Big Break Awards is that there is *always* at least one winner from outside the USA. The contest really is open to everyone who hasn’t had their big break, yet.
After the awards, they rolled out dessert, and I stood in line to get some mini-cupcakes and puffy cookies and fruit slices. 2 drinks combined with no sleep and I was leaning against the walls to prop myself up. Not the best plan when there are pieces of art from movies on the walls... though I did not destroy any priceless works, I did knock the protective plastic sheet off one. Tried to put it back, and failed. What a lightweight! Talked to more people, and told the story about going to the Ft. Lauderdale Film Fest years ago when Shelly’s daughter was a little baby... and how Sir Richard Attenborough was staying on the same floor of the hotel as the Script Folks, and held Shelly’s baby. It’s strange, he was our friend during the festival - we hung out with him! Of course, I was telling this story because they whisked Sorkin away in a limo and I never got to meet him.
AFTER PARTY PARTY
As they were kicking us out of the Paley Center, the rumor went around that Mark had bought out Nic’s Martini Lounge again, and we would be going over there. Last year it was easy - my bike was locked in front of the Paley Center and I just followed he crowd. This year - vehicle in the Paley’s garage, and the garage was closing for the night. After it was re-parked, the crowd was gone... and where was Nic’s? Emily and I wandered around looking for it, bumped into Robin on her scooter who was also looking for it, but said that Max Adams had gone with a group to the Beverly Wilshire’s cocktail lounge... so that’s where we went. Later, I mapquested Nic’s - we were standing a block away.
Max had a contest - win a date with Max to the Nicholl Awards, and the runner up won a date to the Big Break awards. I should have had a contest. She was in the BevWil with the tall guy who won, and two other guys, and Emily and Robin and me. We had some expensive drinks as Max held court and told tales of script meeting disasters (writer horror stories). It was Max’s date’s birthday, so they were buying him shots - many of them - and everyone was getting toasted. I milked my one Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, still a lack-of-sleep lightweight.
Kind of wished I was at Nic’s, because all of the VIPs would be there (except Sorkin) and there might have been an agent or manager there I could casually pitch my new script to. I had a pocket full of business cards and hadn’t given out a single one! The reason why I go to these things is to make some connections that could further my career - and drink free booze and eat free food. Max’s horror stories were fun, but I have a bunch of new specs that *no one* has read. Would be nice to get one read by someone who could help me get it to the screen...
Eventually, it was time to split (leaving Max and some of the others to continue the tequila shots) and get back to the valley. I have a script to rewrite... and Friday begins the Fake Fango Convention in Burbank... which I have ended up slipping. The next night I slept hard, woke up groggy but feeling much better.
Congratulations again to the winners, hope this launches a long career... so that you can tell amusing horror stories about it in the BevWil bar sometime in the future!
- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Cut The Wandering - and that scene from FARGO, you know the one.
Dinner: Denny's chipotle chicken breast.
Pages: This blog entry, so that I can get back to work in the rewrite tomorrow.
Bicycle: Short ride - in damp weather.
Movies: RED - Killer cast, killer concept... lame execution.
One of the problems I see more and more often are films where it seems as if they thought they could get by with the premise and trailer based around that premise and a good cast. I don’t know whether it’s a script that goes through so many rewrites that what they end up shooting is a first draft, or if there’s a new generation of development executives that don’t care, or maybe aren’t educated enough to know that the script they think is ready to shoot is really a rough draft. I suspect the reason why the direction is so crappy on many films is that the directors come from adverts or videos and really don’t know how to tell a story visually or work with actors.
Whatever the reason, we end up with a bunch of crap-action and crap-horror and crap-other-genre movies that make me long for the competency of an H. Bruce Humberstone or John Farrow behind the camera and one of those B movie geniuses like John Latimer or Steve Fisher writing the script. It’s funny that Hollywood used to turn out *better* B movies back in the day when they were grinding them out like sausages and a director might be making a film every other month. Today, we have these films like RED and last year’s TO PARIS WITH LOVE, that have big name stars in movies that look like they were slapped together at the last minute. PARIS was strange, because it was really well written (the protagonist has real emotional issues and a real character arc, it was funny, and the action scenes were character related), but directed all wrong. The action scenes were boring in that film, and all of the character-related elements were practically removed. It’s strange to see traces of a really good script in a really not good movie... but RED can’t even boast traces of a good script! (Unless the director *really* screwed it up!)
I have no idea how faithful the script is to the graphic novel, but it’s positively lethargic. It ambles along from scene to scene without anything driving it, even though our protags are targeted for murder. There is no feeling of immediacy to any of it. They go from place to place as if that’s what the script says to do, but none of it seems motivated by the story or the characters. Just, “We should go see what crazy John Malkovich is up to!” and they go there and there are some crazy scenes, and then they go to the next place. The script has basic structure problems.
And in a film like this the dialogue needs to be breezy and clever, but here it’s leaden and dull. There are a couple of funny lines, but compare any 10 minutes of 48 HOURS dialogue to the whole danged film of RED. It's a script that thinks it is more clever than it really is. 95% of the dialogue is perfunctory and 5% is funny... and that's not a good split for a script that goes into production. Where is the banter? Where are those amazing witty lines? Okay, think about how bad that dialogue would have been *without* this cast of great actors! Morgan Freeman can read a damned phone book and make it sound dramatic. Here, his lines are kind of blah. Hey - if the dialogue isn’t witty, you can hire someone to fix it... but *please*, hire them before you shoot the film!
Even though there are past relationships in the script, and actors like Helen Mirren and Brian Cox make them seem real, when you look at what they have to work with it often seems like a sketch of a relationship. Some of the relationships just don’t work - and none are really tested by the story. So the characters often come off as a bag-o-quirks, but not a real person. You may not think a film like this needs real characters, but *all* films need real characters - look at AIRPLANE if you don’t believe me. The film is a parody, but Ted Stryker has real emotional issues he is struggling with, and they may be played for laughs - but he is struggling with them like a character in a dead serious Oscar nominated drama would. In RED, everything seems sketchy and surface, including the characters... and it’s supposed to be “real” rather than parody!
But the biggest problem is probably direction - the tone is all over the place. It’s as if the director thinks “comedy” means “farce” - so everything is over the top wacky when it should just be standard 48 HOURS / LETHAL WEAPON action-comedy. And the action? This director doesn’t have a clue - all of the action scenes are boring. No reversals, no character, just endless shooting. That gets old fast. The best action moment is stolen from the movie HOPSCOTCH - I mean, lifted almost exactly from that film! The problem is, directing action is an *art*, and if the director doesn’t know how to direct an action scene maybe they should be directing another movie? Everyone has a skill set, and should be hired due to their abilities. Hey, you can expand your skill-set by learning and practicing - but hiring some guy who doesn’t have a clue how to direct an action scene to make an action movie is a bad idea. Seriously - hire Rick Jacobson or someone instead. Action scenes should not be boring.
And talk about clumsy direction: there is a plot twist in the film (no spoilers) where a character we thought was no longer part of the story comes back as a major player... and instead of a cool reveal, the character is just in the shot. It was shot as it it wasn’t a twist at all, just another event in the story. And that’s the problem with bad direction - it’s just a bunch of shots that aren’t trying to tell a story. Blanding the whole film instead of making it more exciting.
RED has a great idea, an amazing cast... but thinks that’s all it needs to be a movie. Hey, you still need a well executed screenplay and a director who isn’t just trying to do cool shit that undermines the story. The cast makes it enjoyable, but it could have been so much more.
- Bill
This year I seem to be overwhelmed by all of these things. My plan was to have one of the assignments rewritten before the Final Draft party for two reasons: The Non-Fango Weekend Of Horrors begins the day after, and there is frequently a great deal of drinking at the Final Draft party, and my brain may not be fully operational for a couple of days afterwards. But I completely failed at that plan, and am still finishing up the rewrite. That creates kind of a domino effect with my other plans, everything getting pushed back... My Big To Do List gets one of those updates where I just change the months I planned to do everything... that was going to be finished in November, but now it will be finished in December. I have changed the months on that list so many times it might have been more simple to just change the years! But without the Big To Do List nothing would ever get To Done.
But October? So far it has been a disaster. One of my classes for Expo was a brand new class that I had only done once, in London last year. But when assembling my class materials at the beginning of the months (way ahead of time), I could not find the scribbled piece of paper written on the plane to London with all of the cool ideas for the class. Must have left them in London along with that 4g thumbdrive that has all of my important stuff backed up on it. I replaced the thumbdrive when I got home last year, but didn’t even notice the class materials missing. So I would have to recreate that class. Also at the beginning of the month I was invited to a film premiere... and the after party where alcohol was served... and that killed a day when I should have been recreating that class, and I missed the first day of the Shriekfest Film Festival. Well, I missed the rest of it, too - working on that class. The following weekend was Expo... and Screamfest began. Screamfest runs for a full week, and is a great horror festival. I had tickets for opening night... but it was the same day as my Expo classes, and I decided to just stick around the Expo hotel instead of fighting traffic. Though Screamfest went for the rest of the week, I had a an assignment to rewrite (a horror script, which may even be at Screamfest next year). My plan was to go to Screamfest any night that I finished my work early... hah! Like that ever happened! Though I did see some movies - friends called and I played hooky on the rewrite a couple of times. So by the time the Big Break Party came around, I was not finished with the rewrite. I will punish myself later, but first...
THE BIG BREAK PARTY
Oh, I forgot to mention insomnia. I’ve been averaging about 4 hours of sleep a night and was dead tired by the day of the Big Break Party... a zombie. There is always that one day in a run of insomnia where you are so dead tired that you can barely walk and can not think at all - this was that day! The good news is that means my body will just shut down and sleep very soon, the bad news is that I had to go to an event and act like I am awake. I *almost* bailed, but then I would have done almost nothing in October - since I doubted I would make any of the remaining nights of Screamfest, and there’s a good chance I might blow off Fake Fango (which I did). So, off to Beverly Hills I go!
Last year, after they kicked us out of the Paley Center (Big Break venue), we went to Nic’s Martini Bar a couple of blocks away and drank until 2am. They have a walk in freezer there, where you put on a coat and fur hat with ear-flaps and drink Vodka From Around The World by the shot, until your private parts freeze and you must leave the walk in freezer. Last year, Mark from Final Draft was picking up the tab, so I drank many shots of vodka. Many shots. Then, when the bar closed, I had to ride my bike to Hollywood where I picked up the homeless bus over the hill. Balancing was difficult. That is the great thing about drinking on a bicycle - if you have had too much, you can’t really ride. Though, this did not seem to stop me last year. This year, I was too tired for marathon drinking... and I wasn’t on my bike.
Bamboo Killer Emily was my guest for the awards and party (we are not an item, her boyfriend could easily kick my ass).
At the Paley Center, we rode the elevator up with movie star (and Oscar nominee) Robert Forester and his date. Because most people probably recognize him from JACKIE BROWN, I told him how much I liked him in MEDIUM COOL - a great film from the late 60s directed by cinematographer Haskell Wexler. After the elevator ride, Robert was ushered to the red carpet and we went in to find drinks and finger food. Drinks were easy to get (just stand in line), food was more difficult to come by. I never saw any, but heard rumors of it and saw waitpeople with empty trays. Oh, there were sightings of Jeremy Piven, but I never saw him personally. At one point I thought about going out and walking the red carpet, just to see if anyone cared, but it seemed like too much trouble. Talked to Peter Hanson - cowriter/co-director or TALES FROM THE SCRIPT - if you have not seen this movie (or read the book), check it out - it is the *truth* about being a screenwriter. Also talked to Bill Lundy, who used to be Chairman of Scriptwriters Network, and Robin and Max Adams and all of the folks from Script Magazine... including editor Shelly’s Mom, who I have not seen since the first Santa Fe Screenwriting Conference (I think). By then my first beer was almost gone, and they were about to begin the awards ceremony.
Last year, I was at the front of the line to get into the auditorium - when they announced they will be starting in 2 minutes, I figure it’s time to get in line. A prompt man is a lonely man, as they say - but he also gets the best seats. This year I was in the middle of a conversation with Emily and by the time we got in line, the auditorium was full. We had to watch on the monitors as Shelly gave her speech and winners were announced and given their awards and then Mark gave a speech and then gave the Writers Hall Of Fame Award to Aaron Sorkin, who gave the obligatory speech about how he uses Final Draft. I knew Sorkin was going to be there and hoped to bump into him and have a conversation - one of the perqs of being Editor At Large for Script Magazine is that I can probably get past security and handlers and talk to people - but did not see him before they gave him the award and did not see him after they gave him the award... and only saw him get the award on TV. The good news about watching the awards on TV is that you are allowed to drink beverages, so I ordered another beer... but they were all out, so I drank red wine. I was actually feeling better by then. Oh, here are the winners:
First Place: Tejal Desai of Austin, TX for Cowboys and Hindus
Second Place: Mick Connolly of Melbourne, AUSTRALIA FOR CRIMS
Third Place: Larry Brenner of New York, NY for FLESH AND BLOOD
Congratulations to them all! One of the great things about the Final Draft Big Break Awards is that there is *always* at least one winner from outside the USA. The contest really is open to everyone who hasn’t had their big break, yet.
After the awards, they rolled out dessert, and I stood in line to get some mini-cupcakes and puffy cookies and fruit slices. 2 drinks combined with no sleep and I was leaning against the walls to prop myself up. Not the best plan when there are pieces of art from movies on the walls... though I did not destroy any priceless works, I did knock the protective plastic sheet off one. Tried to put it back, and failed. What a lightweight! Talked to more people, and told the story about going to the Ft. Lauderdale Film Fest years ago when Shelly’s daughter was a little baby... and how Sir Richard Attenborough was staying on the same floor of the hotel as the Script Folks, and held Shelly’s baby. It’s strange, he was our friend during the festival - we hung out with him! Of course, I was telling this story because they whisked Sorkin away in a limo and I never got to meet him.
AFTER PARTY PARTY
As they were kicking us out of the Paley Center, the rumor went around that Mark had bought out Nic’s Martini Lounge again, and we would be going over there. Last year it was easy - my bike was locked in front of the Paley Center and I just followed he crowd. This year - vehicle in the Paley’s garage, and the garage was closing for the night. After it was re-parked, the crowd was gone... and where was Nic’s? Emily and I wandered around looking for it, bumped into Robin on her scooter who was also looking for it, but said that Max Adams had gone with a group to the Beverly Wilshire’s cocktail lounge... so that’s where we went. Later, I mapquested Nic’s - we were standing a block away.
Max had a contest - win a date with Max to the Nicholl Awards, and the runner up won a date to the Big Break awards. I should have had a contest. She was in the BevWil with the tall guy who won, and two other guys, and Emily and Robin and me. We had some expensive drinks as Max held court and told tales of script meeting disasters (writer horror stories). It was Max’s date’s birthday, so they were buying him shots - many of them - and everyone was getting toasted. I milked my one Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, still a lack-of-sleep lightweight.
Kind of wished I was at Nic’s, because all of the VIPs would be there (except Sorkin) and there might have been an agent or manager there I could casually pitch my new script to. I had a pocket full of business cards and hadn’t given out a single one! The reason why I go to these things is to make some connections that could further my career - and drink free booze and eat free food. Max’s horror stories were fun, but I have a bunch of new specs that *no one* has read. Would be nice to get one read by someone who could help me get it to the screen...
Eventually, it was time to split (leaving Max and some of the others to continue the tequila shots) and get back to the valley. I have a script to rewrite... and Friday begins the Fake Fango Convention in Burbank... which I have ended up slipping. The next night I slept hard, woke up groggy but feeling much better.
Congratulations again to the winners, hope this launches a long career... so that you can tell amusing horror stories about it in the BevWil bar sometime in the future!
- Bill
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Cut The Wandering - and that scene from FARGO, you know the one.
Dinner: Denny's chipotle chicken breast.
Pages: This blog entry, so that I can get back to work in the rewrite tomorrow.
Bicycle: Short ride - in damp weather.
Movies: RED - Killer cast, killer concept... lame execution.
One of the problems I see more and more often are films where it seems as if they thought they could get by with the premise and trailer based around that premise and a good cast. I don’t know whether it’s a script that goes through so many rewrites that what they end up shooting is a first draft, or if there’s a new generation of development executives that don’t care, or maybe aren’t educated enough to know that the script they think is ready to shoot is really a rough draft. I suspect the reason why the direction is so crappy on many films is that the directors come from adverts or videos and really don’t know how to tell a story visually or work with actors.
Whatever the reason, we end up with a bunch of crap-action and crap-horror and crap-other-genre movies that make me long for the competency of an H. Bruce Humberstone or John Farrow behind the camera and one of those B movie geniuses like John Latimer or Steve Fisher writing the script. It’s funny that Hollywood used to turn out *better* B movies back in the day when they were grinding them out like sausages and a director might be making a film every other month. Today, we have these films like RED and last year’s TO PARIS WITH LOVE, that have big name stars in movies that look like they were slapped together at the last minute. PARIS was strange, because it was really well written (the protagonist has real emotional issues and a real character arc, it was funny, and the action scenes were character related), but directed all wrong. The action scenes were boring in that film, and all of the character-related elements were practically removed. It’s strange to see traces of a really good script in a really not good movie... but RED can’t even boast traces of a good script! (Unless the director *really* screwed it up!)
I have no idea how faithful the script is to the graphic novel, but it’s positively lethargic. It ambles along from scene to scene without anything driving it, even though our protags are targeted for murder. There is no feeling of immediacy to any of it. They go from place to place as if that’s what the script says to do, but none of it seems motivated by the story or the characters. Just, “We should go see what crazy John Malkovich is up to!” and they go there and there are some crazy scenes, and then they go to the next place. The script has basic structure problems.
And in a film like this the dialogue needs to be breezy and clever, but here it’s leaden and dull. There are a couple of funny lines, but compare any 10 minutes of 48 HOURS dialogue to the whole danged film of RED. It's a script that thinks it is more clever than it really is. 95% of the dialogue is perfunctory and 5% is funny... and that's not a good split for a script that goes into production. Where is the banter? Where are those amazing witty lines? Okay, think about how bad that dialogue would have been *without* this cast of great actors! Morgan Freeman can read a damned phone book and make it sound dramatic. Here, his lines are kind of blah. Hey - if the dialogue isn’t witty, you can hire someone to fix it... but *please*, hire them before you shoot the film!
Even though there are past relationships in the script, and actors like Helen Mirren and Brian Cox make them seem real, when you look at what they have to work with it often seems like a sketch of a relationship. Some of the relationships just don’t work - and none are really tested by the story. So the characters often come off as a bag-o-quirks, but not a real person. You may not think a film like this needs real characters, but *all* films need real characters - look at AIRPLANE if you don’t believe me. The film is a parody, but Ted Stryker has real emotional issues he is struggling with, and they may be played for laughs - but he is struggling with them like a character in a dead serious Oscar nominated drama would. In RED, everything seems sketchy and surface, including the characters... and it’s supposed to be “real” rather than parody!
But the biggest problem is probably direction - the tone is all over the place. It’s as if the director thinks “comedy” means “farce” - so everything is over the top wacky when it should just be standard 48 HOURS / LETHAL WEAPON action-comedy. And the action? This director doesn’t have a clue - all of the action scenes are boring. No reversals, no character, just endless shooting. That gets old fast. The best action moment is stolen from the movie HOPSCOTCH - I mean, lifted almost exactly from that film! The problem is, directing action is an *art*, and if the director doesn’t know how to direct an action scene maybe they should be directing another movie? Everyone has a skill set, and should be hired due to their abilities. Hey, you can expand your skill-set by learning and practicing - but hiring some guy who doesn’t have a clue how to direct an action scene to make an action movie is a bad idea. Seriously - hire Rick Jacobson or someone instead. Action scenes should not be boring.
And talk about clumsy direction: there is a plot twist in the film (no spoilers) where a character we thought was no longer part of the story comes back as a major player... and instead of a cool reveal, the character is just in the shot. It was shot as it it wasn’t a twist at all, just another event in the story. And that’s the problem with bad direction - it’s just a bunch of shots that aren’t trying to tell a story. Blanding the whole film instead of making it more exciting.
RED has a great idea, an amazing cast... but thinks that’s all it needs to be a movie. Hey, you still need a well executed screenplay and a director who isn’t just trying to do cool shit that undermines the story. The cast makes it enjoyable, but it could have been so much more.
- Bill
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Under A Thousand Bucks!
So, my out of print book SECRETS OF ACTION SCREENWRITING is being sold on e-bay and at Amazon second hand. The price has been as high as $750... and that just got beat by someone selling it second hand on Amazon for $999.00
Used Copy Of My Book For Under A Grand!
I don't get a cent from that! I already got paid my $4 when they person who is selling it bought the book in the first place.
- Bill
Used Copy Of My Book For Under A Grand!
I don't get a cent from that! I already got paid my $4 when they person who is selling it bought the book in the first place.
- Bill
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Lancelot Link Thursday
Lancelot Link Thursday! For those of you who wonder why that development executive is giving you the note that you don't have enough actual monkeys in your remake of The Marx Brothers MONKEY BUSINESS... 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...
Here are five cool links plus this week's car chase...
1) Now that we have the FaceBook movie, THE SOCIAL NETWORK, look what else Hollywood has in the pipeline: More Website Cinema!
2) The Bachelor's Degree 60 Top Blogs For Screenwriters. Check out #10.
3) Your Female Character Flow Chart.
4) The World Clock... with all sorts of things you don't want to know about.
5) And you have probably already seen this... Sesame Street's Smell Like A Monster.
6) This week's car chase - more rural fun from the 70's, when the cops were the bad guys and the crooks were the good guys. DIRTY MARY, CRAZY LARRY... and a Charger vs. a Chopper!
Sorry the blog has been so sparse of late - I'm working on assignments and had Screenwriting Expo and tonight is the Final Draft Big Break Party. Busy! Soon, all will settle down and I'll be posting some new fun stuff.
- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: You Have The Wriong Idea! - and conflicts, deadlines, and emotions need to be part of your *concept*.
Dinner: Hometown Buffet, only because I could do salad bar and it's closer to the cinemas...
Pages: Um, got side tracked doing an online interview.
Bicycle: Not really.
Movies: BURIED - more later on this one.
Here are five cool links plus this week's car chase...
1) Now that we have the FaceBook movie, THE SOCIAL NETWORK, look what else Hollywood has in the pipeline: More Website Cinema!
2) The Bachelor's Degree 60 Top Blogs For Screenwriters. Check out #10.
3) Your Female Character Flow Chart.
4) The World Clock... with all sorts of things you don't want to know about.
5) And you have probably already seen this... Sesame Street's Smell Like A Monster.
6) This week's car chase - more rural fun from the 70's, when the cops were the bad guys and the crooks were the good guys. DIRTY MARY, CRAZY LARRY... and a Charger vs. a Chopper!
Sorry the blog has been so sparse of late - I'm working on assignments and had Screenwriting Expo and tonight is the Final Draft Big Break Party. Busy! Soon, all will settle down and I'll be posting some new fun stuff.
- Bill
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: You Have The Wriong Idea! - and conflicts, deadlines, and emotions need to be part of your *concept*.
Dinner: Hometown Buffet, only because I could do salad bar and it's closer to the cinemas...
Pages: Um, got side tracked doing an online interview.
Bicycle: Not really.
Movies: BURIED - more later on this one.
Monday, October 11, 2010
18th Raindance Film Festival Awards
Last year I did the Raindance International Film Festival in London instead of Screenwriting Expo, this year I was at Expo and missed Raindance. But here are a list of the winning films:
The director of I AM A FAT CAT was chosen to make next year's Raindance Fest trailer, which either plays in cinemas to advertize the festival... or is banned from cinemas by the censors and becomes a big hit online.
Look for the winners if they are released in the USA, and any of the other films. One year when I was on the jury the winning film went on to win Best Foreign Film Oscar - Raindance always has the most interesting films. Too bad many never make it here.
More info on RAINDANCE.
- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Inside The Scene - and THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY.
Dinner: Plate-Of-Shrimp at Denny's.
Pages: Yes - worked on rewrite.
Bicycle: Yes - short ride to a different writing venue.
Movies: LET ME IN - and more on that later.
Movies: IT’S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY - not really funny, but that’s okay, because despite all of the comedians in the cast it’s a faux edgey-indie story of a suicidal high school boy (Keir Gilchrist) who is admitted to a mental institution for a week of observation. Sort of BOY, INTERRUPTED or ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST in high school.
Because of construction on the mental hospital’s young people’s floor, he’s thrown in with a bunch of crazy adults. Zach Galifianakis is his guide in the looney bin, a psuedo-rebel who sneaks out of the mental hospital to get ice cream - so I guess he’s rebelling against hospital desserts. Lauren Graham and Jim Gaffigan are the boy’s suburban parents who are kind of bland - in the voice over Gilchrist says that his father never has time for him because he’s always working... but in every flashback to home, there’s dad... and he’s constantly visiting the hospital... and the story has him constantly pressuring Gilchrist to get into a good college. Doesn’t make much sense.
Viola Davis is the kind, understanding, doctor - not a bit like Nurse Ratchet - who wants to help Gilchrist with his problems. Jeremy Davies is a hip - something - at the hospital. He wears street clothes and hangs around in the background, in the event we need someone for a little exposition or a leading question. There are a bunch of *almost* colorful crazies - like the Hasidic Jewish guy named Solomon who dropped too much acid and now has amazing hearing, and the guy who is sex-obsessed and Gilchrist’s room mate, an agoraphobic Egyptian who never gets out of bed.
Oh, and Emma Roberts (Eric’s daughter) whose face is sliced with scars... and so is the rest of her body. She’s the only other teen in the loony bin, and that means she and Gilchrist with fall in love for no apparent reason. The only other potential love interest for Gilchrist is his best friend’s girlfriend, played by Lisa Bonet’s teenaged daughter, who talks to him on the loony bin’s pay phone which seems to work without ever putting money into it. Lisa Bonet’s daughter is really cute.
The strange thing about this film is that it looks like one of those 1970s indie films were shot on 16mm and blown up to 35mm - grainy, and flat lighting, and crude camera work - when all of that is an affectation. No reason it had to look like that, except that’s what those old edgy-indie films looked like. But the story isn’t really edgie-indie - no one in the loony bin is really crazy, they are just a little eccentric. These are TV sitcom crazy people. And despite the kid being suicidal, he never really tries to kill himself and his depression seems like a typical high school kid’s anxiety (not that being a typical high school kid is easy). This kid never *does* anything suicidal, the way the same character might in one of the 1970s films. And the kid draws pictures, so that we can have some animated sequences that are kind of cool. And the kid has to sing in “musical group therapy”, so that we can have a really fun music video number. And all kinds of other things happen that take time away from any actual look at serious depression or suicide... making this an edgy-indie film that I can recommend to my parents, because nothing particularly edgy ever happens in it. One scene, where I thought for sure something serious and dark might happen, ended up a happy scene where the dark possibilities were never even acknowledged!
So... where is the conflict?
Where is even the *potential* conflict?
It's like the whole film is on Zoloft!
The biggest conflict in this movie about a suicidal teen: he tells one girl he loves her while another girl is listening. Um, that’s the conflict for a subplot in an episode of BEVERLY HILLS 90210, not a conflict in a movie about a kid who contemplates suicide (though, as I said, he never even gets close to suicide).
The strange problem with this film is that it is fake. Unlike those 70s film, IT’S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY has no point to make, no point of view of the world, no anger or passion - it’s just this movie where stuff happens. The closest thing to a point it has is that if you are a mostly spoiled upper middle class suburban kid whose dad wants him to go to a good college - don’t worry so much, that’s not really a big deal nor any different than any other kid like you’s problems. There is more drama, more actual thoughts of suicide, and more of a *point* to the silly comedy BETTER OFF DEAD. And if we look at spoiled upper middle class suburban kids who think about suicide? Well, ORDINARY PEOPLE (made at the tail end of the 70s, but not meant to be edgy - it’s a *glossy* film) the troubled teen actually attempts suicide... and then tries again, later in the film! And he’s not just worried about getting into a good college - he feels guilty for an accident that killed his brother! His brother is DEAD. And his mother isn’t just a little weepy, his mother is a stone cold bitch who BLAMES HIM for killing HER FAVORITE SON. Compare KIND OF A FUNNY STORY to ORDINARY PEOPLE - and you wonder why they wanted to make it. Hey, it is based on a novel - is the novel as wimpy as the movie? ORDINARY PEOPLE was also based on a novel - and was angry and dramatic and tragic and explosive and actually had something to say - a point to make. If we’re talking about edgy 70's movies, you can’t help but think of ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST - which takes place in a mental institution - and is dramatic and explosive and angry and really has something to say. Those edgy-indie films they made in the 70s weren’t just grainy camera work, they HAD A POINT TO MAKE. They didn’t pull any dramatic punches, they HAD SOMETHING TO SAY. Many of these current edgy-indie films are imitations - they have no point to make, no real passion, and the film makers have nothing at all to say. It's funny, we get fake grindhouse movies like MACHETE and THE EXPENDABLES and PIRANHA 3D and fake edgy-indie movies... everyone loves the 1970s! But no one seems to want to make movies for 2010.
IT’S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY is a mildly amusing movie, and you really want Gilchrist and Emma to hook up at the end, but it’s lightweight drama. The fake grainy cinematography and fake edgy look and feel of the film is an insult to the films it mimics. Why not just shoot it with the good lighting the film makers could afford? Why try to make it look like some movie it isn’t? I would have liked this film better had they shot it less faux ragged and more like any other competently made film.
- Bill
BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE
Donoma - FRANCE
** Son of Babylon - IRAQ [winner]
Symbol - JAPAN
Woman With A Broken Nose - SERBIA
BEST UK FEATURE
** Five Daughters [winner]
Huge
Jackboots on Whitehall
Legacy
Rebels Without A Clue
BEST DEBUT FEATURE
Armless - USA
Cannibal- BELGIUM
Donoma - FRANCE
Huge - UK
Robert Mitchum Is Dead - FRANCE
** The Story Of My Space [Vidrimasgor] - RUSSIA [winner]
BEST DOCUMENTARY
Camp Victory, Afghanistan USA
Rouge Ciel - FRANCE
** Sounds Like A Revolution - CANADA [winner]
Stolen - AUSTRALIA
** There Once Was An Island - USA/NZ [winner]
This Way of Life - NZ
BEST MICRO BUDGET FEATURE
Armless - USA
Flooding With Love For The Kid USA
Incredibly Small - USA
Lovers of Hate - USA
** Macho - MEXICO [winner]
BEST UK SHORTS
Dust
The Golden Boy
Natural Selection
Storage
** Stanley Pickle [winner]
Watching
BEST INTERNATIONAL SHORTS
Fly GERMANY/POLAND
Happiness Is Hate Therapy CANADA
I Am A Fat Cat USA
** LIN UK [winner]
Moustachette USA
Still CYPRUS
The director of I AM A FAT CAT was chosen to make next year's Raindance Fest trailer, which either plays in cinemas to advertize the festival... or is banned from cinemas by the censors and becomes a big hit online.
Look for the winners if they are released in the USA, and any of the other films. One year when I was on the jury the winning film went on to win Best Foreign Film Oscar - Raindance always has the most interesting films. Too bad many never make it here.
More info on RAINDANCE.
- Bill
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Inside The Scene - and THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY.
Dinner: Plate-Of-Shrimp at Denny's.
Pages: Yes - worked on rewrite.
Bicycle: Yes - short ride to a different writing venue.
Movies: LET ME IN - and more on that later.
Movies: IT’S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY - not really funny, but that’s okay, because despite all of the comedians in the cast it’s a faux edgey-indie story of a suicidal high school boy (Keir Gilchrist) who is admitted to a mental institution for a week of observation. Sort of BOY, INTERRUPTED or ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST in high school.
Because of construction on the mental hospital’s young people’s floor, he’s thrown in with a bunch of crazy adults. Zach Galifianakis is his guide in the looney bin, a psuedo-rebel who sneaks out of the mental hospital to get ice cream - so I guess he’s rebelling against hospital desserts. Lauren Graham and Jim Gaffigan are the boy’s suburban parents who are kind of bland - in the voice over Gilchrist says that his father never has time for him because he’s always working... but in every flashback to home, there’s dad... and he’s constantly visiting the hospital... and the story has him constantly pressuring Gilchrist to get into a good college. Doesn’t make much sense.
Viola Davis is the kind, understanding, doctor - not a bit like Nurse Ratchet - who wants to help Gilchrist with his problems. Jeremy Davies is a hip - something - at the hospital. He wears street clothes and hangs around in the background, in the event we need someone for a little exposition or a leading question. There are a bunch of *almost* colorful crazies - like the Hasidic Jewish guy named Solomon who dropped too much acid and now has amazing hearing, and the guy who is sex-obsessed and Gilchrist’s room mate, an agoraphobic Egyptian who never gets out of bed.
Oh, and Emma Roberts (Eric’s daughter) whose face is sliced with scars... and so is the rest of her body. She’s the only other teen in the loony bin, and that means she and Gilchrist with fall in love for no apparent reason. The only other potential love interest for Gilchrist is his best friend’s girlfriend, played by Lisa Bonet’s teenaged daughter, who talks to him on the loony bin’s pay phone which seems to work without ever putting money into it. Lisa Bonet’s daughter is really cute.
The strange thing about this film is that it looks like one of those 1970s indie films were shot on 16mm and blown up to 35mm - grainy, and flat lighting, and crude camera work - when all of that is an affectation. No reason it had to look like that, except that’s what those old edgy-indie films looked like. But the story isn’t really edgie-indie - no one in the loony bin is really crazy, they are just a little eccentric. These are TV sitcom crazy people. And despite the kid being suicidal, he never really tries to kill himself and his depression seems like a typical high school kid’s anxiety (not that being a typical high school kid is easy). This kid never *does* anything suicidal, the way the same character might in one of the 1970s films. And the kid draws pictures, so that we can have some animated sequences that are kind of cool. And the kid has to sing in “musical group therapy”, so that we can have a really fun music video number. And all kinds of other things happen that take time away from any actual look at serious depression or suicide... making this an edgy-indie film that I can recommend to my parents, because nothing particularly edgy ever happens in it. One scene, where I thought for sure something serious and dark might happen, ended up a happy scene where the dark possibilities were never even acknowledged!
So... where is the conflict?
Where is even the *potential* conflict?
It's like the whole film is on Zoloft!
The biggest conflict in this movie about a suicidal teen: he tells one girl he loves her while another girl is listening. Um, that’s the conflict for a subplot in an episode of BEVERLY HILLS 90210, not a conflict in a movie about a kid who contemplates suicide (though, as I said, he never even gets close to suicide).
The strange problem with this film is that it is fake. Unlike those 70s film, IT’S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY has no point to make, no point of view of the world, no anger or passion - it’s just this movie where stuff happens. The closest thing to a point it has is that if you are a mostly spoiled upper middle class suburban kid whose dad wants him to go to a good college - don’t worry so much, that’s not really a big deal nor any different than any other kid like you’s problems. There is more drama, more actual thoughts of suicide, and more of a *point* to the silly comedy BETTER OFF DEAD. And if we look at spoiled upper middle class suburban kids who think about suicide? Well, ORDINARY PEOPLE (made at the tail end of the 70s, but not meant to be edgy - it’s a *glossy* film) the troubled teen actually attempts suicide... and then tries again, later in the film! And he’s not just worried about getting into a good college - he feels guilty for an accident that killed his brother! His brother is DEAD. And his mother isn’t just a little weepy, his mother is a stone cold bitch who BLAMES HIM for killing HER FAVORITE SON. Compare KIND OF A FUNNY STORY to ORDINARY PEOPLE - and you wonder why they wanted to make it. Hey, it is based on a novel - is the novel as wimpy as the movie? ORDINARY PEOPLE was also based on a novel - and was angry and dramatic and tragic and explosive and actually had something to say - a point to make. If we’re talking about edgy 70's movies, you can’t help but think of ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST - which takes place in a mental institution - and is dramatic and explosive and angry and really has something to say. Those edgy-indie films they made in the 70s weren’t just grainy camera work, they HAD A POINT TO MAKE. They didn’t pull any dramatic punches, they HAD SOMETHING TO SAY. Many of these current edgy-indie films are imitations - they have no point to make, no real passion, and the film makers have nothing at all to say. It's funny, we get fake grindhouse movies like MACHETE and THE EXPENDABLES and PIRANHA 3D and fake edgy-indie movies... everyone loves the 1970s! But no one seems to want to make movies for 2010.
IT’S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY is a mildly amusing movie, and you really want Gilchrist and Emma to hook up at the end, but it’s lightweight drama. The fake grainy cinematography and fake edgy look and feel of the film is an insult to the films it mimics. Why not just shoot it with the good lighting the film makers could afford? Why try to make it look like some movie it isn’t? I would have liked this film better had they shot it less faux ragged and more like any other competently made film.
- Bill
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Today
Today is 10/10/10.
Though we will have an 11/11/11 and a 12/12/12, after that? We have to wait almost 100 years before we get more cool dates like this.
So, throw a party or something.
- Bill
Though we will have an 11/11/11 and a 12/12/12, after that? We have to wait almost 100 years before we get more cool dates like this.
So, throw a party or something.
- Bill
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Tomorrow (Friday) Is My Expo Day
It's like I'm cramming for an exam in High School again! Today is putting my notes together and preparing for my classes tomorrow. I have tried to catch up on sleep, because there is a good chance I will be awake much of tonight worrying that I have forgotten something, and worrying that I will not be able to fall asleep.
The LAX airport hotels - not my favorite location.
Notes for the new portion of the ideas class - left in London last year or something. So I've been trying to recreate that over the past couple days. I'm sure I will go off book and just wing it.
I'm supposed to be working on one of my assignments, but I'll get back to that after Expo is over...
And hopefully get it done before the Final Draft Big Break Party on Thursday. Because Fake Fango starts the next day.
Oh, and Screamfest starts Tomorrow, too. I have tickets for opening night, but don't think I'll make it. I already missed Shriekfest last weekend. Instead of fighting rush hour traffic to try to get across town to Screamfest from the Airport, I think I may just hang around the hotel bar or attend whatever mixer event Expo has.
This is a busy month...
- Bill
The LAX airport hotels - not my favorite location.
Notes for the new portion of the ideas class - left in London last year or something. So I've been trying to recreate that over the past couple days. I'm sure I will go off book and just wing it.
I'm supposed to be working on one of my assignments, but I'll get back to that after Expo is over...
And hopefully get it done before the Final Draft Big Break Party on Thursday. Because Fake Fango starts the next day.
Oh, and Screamfest starts Tomorrow, too. I have tickets for opening night, but don't think I'll make it. I already missed Shriekfest last weekend. Instead of fighting rush hour traffic to try to get across town to Screamfest from the Airport, I think I may just hang around the hotel bar or attend whatever mixer event Expo has.
This is a busy month...
- Bill
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Story Meeting
Writers often wonder what a story meeting is like. And how often do they read your screenplay, think it is perfect, and just film the sucker?
When we had message boards over on my website one of the regulars, James Patrick Joyce, would jump in and offer spot on advice when I was ignoring my own message boards by being on other website's message boards. Some day he will either win an Oscar or have James Cameron bitch about his latest movie in 3D conversion. He sent me a link to this perfect recreation of the average Hollywood story meeting...
Be prepared - this is in your future!
- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Your Inciting Incident - and why it creates the rest of the script.
Dinner: Togos - pastrami.
Pages: More work on my Expo classes, a bit on the rewrite.
Bicycle: Yes - it was raining, but I rode up to the NoHo Panera for the afternoon shift, then rode between the raindrops back to Vent & Vine for the night shift.
When we had message boards over on my website one of the regulars, James Patrick Joyce, would jump in and offer spot on advice when I was ignoring my own message boards by being on other website's message boards. Some day he will either win an Oscar or have James Cameron bitch about his latest movie in 3D conversion. He sent me a link to this perfect recreation of the average Hollywood story meeting...
Be prepared - this is in your future!
- Bill
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Your Inciting Incident - and why it creates the rest of the script.
Dinner: Togos - pastrami.
Pages: More work on my Expo classes, a bit on the rewrite.
Bicycle: Yes - it was raining, but I rode up to the NoHo Panera for the afternoon shift, then rode between the raindrops back to Vent & Vine for the night shift.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Expo Screenwriting Contest Semifinalists
FEATURE SEMIFINALISTS
A Far Signal - Noelle Foster
Aitu - Sean Malcolm
Alamo-Duluth: Anatomy of a Lynching - Dale Botten
An Unromantic Comedy - Andy Silverman
Army Ants - Andy Cannistra
Battlecruiser - David Hitchcock
Black Friday - Greg Ernstrom
Blood in the Snow - Susannah Petty
Bronco - Ryan McDonald
Caliburn - Nicholas Horwood
Chasing 4 A.M. - Claudine Huffman
Chuck Hodges Conquers the Universe - David Ball
Clear Cut Love - Tanner Givnan
Cold Barrel Zero - Ronald L. Ecker
Dead Air - Walter Bauer & Paul Loeschke
Dirty Wars - Elizabeth L. Silver
Facebook Revolution - Marc Fienberg
Fugue - Laura Lee Bahr & Andrew Gettens
Get Over It - Natalie Ellis
Gluttons - William Sikorski Jr. & William Sikorski III
Holiday - Philippe Forest
How Do I Love Thee - Susu Langlands
Lifestyle - David Hanson
Monster World - Pat Carey & Wyatt Carey
New Mommy - Hamilton Mitchell
On the Fly - Sammye Pokryfki
Rail Brothers - Jonathan Holly
Salvation, TX - Michael G. Gorman
Served Cold - Steven Pryor
Suck It - Kamal Moo
Summer Camp - Diane L. Hanks
Summer Villains - Macon Blair
The Home Front - Richard Herstek
The Lost Treasure of Captain Kidd - David A. Hernandez
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell - Dane Edward McCauley
The Moonbeam Fisherman - John Dummer
The Price of Babylon - Dean Espinoza
The Switch - Derek Domino
The Wind Riders - Jeff Ryback
To A Dancing God - Robert S. Horvath
Transit - Nicholas Julius
Truthies - Carlo DeCarlo
Whitey Don't Learn - Stephen Kunc
Wrath - John Semikan
TV SEMIFINALISTS
30 Rock: "Doppelganger" - Justin R.Schoenfelder
30 Rock: "The Agedly Feeble - Carolyn Kras
Alaska is a Drag - Shaz Bennett
Bodies of Work - NYC - Jorge C. Perez
City of Nights - Grainne Godfree & William Joe Saunders
Curb Your Enthusiasm: "Spic N Span"
Dexter: "Sins of the Father" - Anuradha Vikram & Stephan Vladimir Bigaj
Fight Club and the 5th Street Gym - Tyrone Booze, Mike Kaplan & Dick Zimmerman
How I Met Your Mother: "Identidating" - Wayne Chiang
Incognito - Scott A. Peterson
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: "The Gang is Haunted" - Jeremy McCann
LP - Jonathan Brainard
Mad Men: "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" - Alex Simon
Medium: "From Here to Fraternity" - Tony Eichberger
Modern Family: "Friendly Fire" - Charity Paniamogon
NCIS: "Countdown" - Tammy Olsen & Shawna Moore
Parks and Recreation: "The Election" - Rahom Kazeem
Scalpers - Mike Jelinek
Serial - Matt Sagona
SkinnyMax - Brian Chin-You
The Big Bang Theory: "Head Six Penny" - Jessica Rondash
The Debate - John S. Bushman & Ruth Baird
The Office: "Puppy Love" - Andrea Abel
Two and a Half Men: "Quite Possibly, Definitely, The Next Mrs. Alan Harper" - Augustine Covert
Ultimate Swag - Nicole Wright
SUZANNE'S PRIZE SEMIFINALISTS
An Unromantic Comedy - Andy Silverman
Clear Cut Love - Tanner Givnan
Get Over It - Natalie Ellis
New Mommy - Hamilton Mitchell
Transit - Jason Groce
SHORT FILM FINALISTS
Above Water - Andy Cannistra
Aurora - Kristi L. Simkins
Broken Me - Maurice Blocker II
No Cigarettes in Space or Untitled Russian Moon Landing - Sundae Jahant-Osborn
The Soil and the Taste of the Grape - Richard Herstek
Weeping Willow - Dennis Shutty
Oh, and I am teaching 2 classes at Expo this year:
Noir & Mysteries on Friday 10/8 @ 2pm, and
Generating High Concept Ideas on Friday 10/8 @ 4pm.
Screenwriting Expo 2010.
- Bill
A Far Signal - Noelle Foster
Aitu - Sean Malcolm
Alamo-Duluth: Anatomy of a Lynching - Dale Botten
An Unromantic Comedy - Andy Silverman
Army Ants - Andy Cannistra
Battlecruiser - David Hitchcock
Black Friday - Greg Ernstrom
Blood in the Snow - Susannah Petty
Bronco - Ryan McDonald
Caliburn - Nicholas Horwood
Chasing 4 A.M. - Claudine Huffman
Chuck Hodges Conquers the Universe - David Ball
Clear Cut Love - Tanner Givnan
Cold Barrel Zero - Ronald L. Ecker
Dead Air - Walter Bauer & Paul Loeschke
Dirty Wars - Elizabeth L. Silver
Facebook Revolution - Marc Fienberg
Fugue - Laura Lee Bahr & Andrew Gettens
Get Over It - Natalie Ellis
Gluttons - William Sikorski Jr. & William Sikorski III
Holiday - Philippe Forest
How Do I Love Thee - Susu Langlands
Lifestyle - David Hanson
Monster World - Pat Carey & Wyatt Carey
New Mommy - Hamilton Mitchell
On the Fly - Sammye Pokryfki
Rail Brothers - Jonathan Holly
Salvation, TX - Michael G. Gorman
Served Cold - Steven Pryor
Suck It - Kamal Moo
Summer Camp - Diane L. Hanks
Summer Villains - Macon Blair
The Home Front - Richard Herstek
The Lost Treasure of Captain Kidd - David A. Hernandez
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell - Dane Edward McCauley
The Moonbeam Fisherman - John Dummer
The Price of Babylon - Dean Espinoza
The Switch - Derek Domino
The Wind Riders - Jeff Ryback
To A Dancing God - Robert S. Horvath
Transit - Nicholas Julius
Truthies - Carlo DeCarlo
Whitey Don't Learn - Stephen Kunc
Wrath - John Semikan
TV SEMIFINALISTS
30 Rock: "Doppelganger" - Justin R.Schoenfelder
30 Rock: "The Agedly Feeble - Carolyn Kras
Alaska is a Drag - Shaz Bennett
Bodies of Work - NYC - Jorge C. Perez
City of Nights - Grainne Godfree & William Joe Saunders
Curb Your Enthusiasm: "Spic N Span"
Dexter: "Sins of the Father" - Anuradha Vikram & Stephan Vladimir Bigaj
Fight Club and the 5th Street Gym - Tyrone Booze, Mike Kaplan & Dick Zimmerman
How I Met Your Mother: "Identidating" - Wayne Chiang
Incognito - Scott A. Peterson
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: "The Gang is Haunted" - Jeremy McCann
LP - Jonathan Brainard
Mad Men: "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" - Alex Simon
Medium: "From Here to Fraternity" - Tony Eichberger
Modern Family: "Friendly Fire" - Charity Paniamogon
NCIS: "Countdown" - Tammy Olsen & Shawna Moore
Parks and Recreation: "The Election" - Rahom Kazeem
Scalpers - Mike Jelinek
Serial - Matt Sagona
SkinnyMax - Brian Chin-You
The Big Bang Theory: "Head Six Penny" - Jessica Rondash
The Debate - John S. Bushman & Ruth Baird
The Office: "Puppy Love" - Andrea Abel
Two and a Half Men: "Quite Possibly, Definitely, The Next Mrs. Alan Harper" - Augustine Covert
Ultimate Swag - Nicole Wright
SUZANNE'S PRIZE SEMIFINALISTS
An Unromantic Comedy - Andy Silverman
Clear Cut Love - Tanner Givnan
Get Over It - Natalie Ellis
New Mommy - Hamilton Mitchell
Transit - Jason Groce
SHORT FILM FINALISTS
Above Water - Andy Cannistra
Aurora - Kristi L. Simkins
Broken Me - Maurice Blocker II
No Cigarettes in Space or Untitled Russian Moon Landing - Sundae Jahant-Osborn
The Soil and the Taste of the Grape - Richard Herstek
Weeping Willow - Dennis Shutty
Oh, and I am teaching 2 classes at Expo this year:
Noir & Mysteries on Friday 10/8 @ 2pm, and
Generating High Concept Ideas on Friday 10/8 @ 4pm.
Screenwriting Expo 2010.
- Bill
California Scheming
I’m sitting in a fast food place writing this, and there’s a funny slogan on the soda cup. Somebody wrote that.
Mystery writer Ron Goulart wrote a private eye series in the 70s and 80s and also wrote just about anything else that would help pay the rent - you’ve probably read some of his work because he wrote puzzles and games and stories for the back of cereal boxes. He also wrote the best non-fiction study of the golden age of the pulp magazines.
As writers, we often only see the markets we want to see - and disregard the rest... to paraphrase Simon & Garfunkle. We often miss the niche markets... and even overlook some non-niche markets that may not have any obvious appeal to us. “Who wants to write ____?”
Well, a friend of mine is in a meeting right now with a producer, involving a scheme that I am a part of, and if everything goes okay he will sell his first screenplay and I will eventually tell you all about it. There are also some lessons to be learned about working in under-served genres and ideas that you may think are dumb and opening your eyes to possibilities that are so obvious that you do not see them.
My friend was looking for producers to sell his scripts to and happened upon a producer who was not interested in his wheelhouse genres... and did a very smart thing. He asked what they were interested in. Now, most people don’t do this - I don’t do this. I take the rejection and move on. But my friend asked a simple question. And got an interesting answer. He discovered this producer was looking for a specific niche genre that is popular but no one seems to want to write it. This is kind of strange, but not unheard of. On message boards there are often people who are excited by some cool, sexy genre, but don’t even consider some fairly popular niche genre because it sounds boring. People who want to write some popular genre always go for the cool ones... and often don’t care much about the “meat and potatoes” genres. Well, this producer makes some of those boring genre films, and is looking for scripts.
My friend had never considered this genre. It had never crossed his mind. Now, this is where most writers who ask that “Well, what *are* you looking for?” question get the answer and think, “Well, I don’t write that” and walk away. But my friend thought about the genre - it’s not porn, it’s nothing with some major stigma... it’s just kind of dull. This is not the genre that people sell million dollar scripts in. This is not the genre that wins Oscars. And this particular producer is making direct to DVD movies (for budgets in the millions with actual names in the cast) so it’s not going to play film fests and win you awards. It’s a pay check on a film that will be on the shelves at Blockbusters (well, until they close them all down). Meat and potatoes stuff. He could write that - and sell the script to this producer - and get his first credit - and use it as a stepping stone to some other work. My friend came up with a great story, wrote up a treatment, and set up a meeting with this producer - using his script in his favorite genre to get the door open.
Well, my friend called me yesterday, and told me about his scheme. The scheme on top of writing the film not his his favorite genre. See, this producer makes a handful of films a year in this genre, and my friend plans on pitching them not just his story... but one of mine... and our writing services for future projects. The producer needs a half dozen scripts a year, why not provide 4 of them between the two of us? Would I be interetsed in this? I thought about it, and said "Why not?" Hey, I can quit at any time, and though I currently have work - well, that's the best time to look for more work. This is a business with no visible means of support - sell a script, do the rewrites... and you are now unemployed! The weird thing is, even though I have never considered this niche genre, I instantly came up with some ideas for stories I would want to write. If someone says: "Lesbian Love Story" to me, my mind instantly comes up with lesbian love story ideas. Hey, how about a lesbian version of STRANGERS ON A TRAIN with a strong love story element? Anyway, it's not lesbian love stories...
So far, none of this seems very schemish, right? But here’s where his idea rocks... He is pitching them on the idea of developing some film franchises - and producers love franchises because when one hits, they can just keep making them... with the last film as the advertisement for the next film. Hey, maybe we even put them in numbered DVD boxes? The films all have non-number titles, but the packaging encourages consumers to collect them all. The great thing about franchises from a writer's perspective is that you are creating future work for yourself (though this did not work for me on INVISIBLE MOM as my sequel idea was for top secret gov't scientist dad to invent a time machine and the kid plays with it and gets sent back to the 1860s Wild West, and mom has to go back and rescue him - GUNSLINGER MOM - but the producer wanted mom to just be invisible again... so they hired some other writer... and I didn't write *any* of the 4 sequels!).
Now, the next element of his scheme is also genius - one of the problems with this niche genre is that it is kind of old fashioned - it has been around forever in print fiction. Old fashioned is often thought of as a bad thing, especially if you are writing something cool. But old fashioned also means the genre has a long history... and that means public domain. Expired copyrights. My friend has found some public domain material in this genre with “brand name characters” - famous fictional characters. You’ve heard of them. The problem every low budget film company has is how to publicize their films - how do you make sure that people pick up YOUR DVD rather than the other company’s DVD when in that soon-to-be-closing Blockbuster? Well, a familiar title or famous character name is a great way to do that. Once those Blockbusters are closed and it’s all NetFlix, brand names may become even more important. But what amazed me is that no one else had exploited these characters, whose names you would instantly recognize. Maybe someone has written a script about them and I don’t know about it... but I doubt there are many floating around... and most are probably written as big budget projects. Though this is a popular niche, it’s not popular enough for some huge Hollywood tentpole. It’s a *niche*. So using this public domain material is a great idea, only if you look at the size of the audience for a film like this.
My contribution - nothing major - is the idea of doing *new* sequels to famous public domain titles in this under-served genre. Hey, if we can have Sense & Sensibility & Sea Monsters, why can’t we take some other public domain book and give the protagonist some further adventures? I came up with some ideas and gave them to him. These were off the top of my head, and sounded like things that would be fun to write... even though they aren’t exactly in my wheelhouse, either. But I’ve always wondered what happened to that character after the famous story ended... You know, all of this stuff isn’t earthshattering - but a way to harvest some basic “mental real estate” the same way Hollywood is making TRANSFORMERS and MONOPOLY and remaking every film you ever saw in the 1980s. Taking that brand name character and finding new adventures in their lives.
Back when Spielberg had just signed to make JURASSIC PARK, I was at AFM trying to sell a producer, any producer, on making A.C. Doyle’s THE LOST WORLD - a novel in public domain with dinosaurs. I even knew a guy with some great stop-motion dinosaur footage. Every single producer said no - they had never heard of the book and one producer told me the best they could do was some sort of campy knock off of the Spielberg movie... which confused me. Why was that the best we could do? Well, all of this was before JURASSIC came out... after, many of those same producers discovered that THE LOST WORLD was in public domain and made their versions of it. We had a half dozen LOST WORLDS, plus a TV series. (More of my bad timing, I guess - should have come back *after* JURASSIC came out and pitched the same exact project.)
Though it’s probably too late by now, all of those crappy video games we played when computers first came out could probably be sold as movies these days.
I may have mentioned this in a previous blog entry - a friend of mine and I have a game where we come up with the *dumbest* idea for a movie we can think of... then count the days until someone sells a script with that same dumb idea. Do you see the problem with this game? We had the same dumb idea, but we aren’t making low-six figure against $1.2 million like the guys who wrote the scripts. We would *joke* about BATTLESHIP: THE MOTION PICTURE... and now they are making it. Hey, I’ve joked about SLINKY: THE MOTION PICTURE... maybe I should actually be developing a pitch for that? The thing is, we all have some form of tunnel vision - we see where we want to go, but don’t see all of the other cool places we *could* go. My friend asked a question, opened his eyes, and realized that there was a producer who was looking for material... and figured out the very best material to sell that producer. Any of us could have done the same thing... but we did not.
Another friend, Steve, realized that there is a minority (that he is not a part of) who are under-served by Hollywood... and the scripts out there written by the minority seem to mostly be about them struggling as a minority - not genre stuff. So Steve has decided to write some genre stuff for this minority and discovered producers are really interested. Seems the ticket buyers in this minority already know what it is like to struggle, and want to escape the struggle by seeing some cool genre movie where they get to have fun - like middle class white people in movies do. They need escapism, too - but the minority writers are all writing serious stuff. Personally, I would have never considered writing for a group that I am not a part of... and that was Steve’s genius - he found a need and filled it, even if he seems like the wrong guy to do that. They were looking for *scripts* and he’s a screenwriter.
If my friend’s scheme comes through, I may have a strange side job writing films in a niche genre that isn’t the least bit sexy or cool... but I can quit when it stops being fun, and I can those paychecks to finance some time to write more specs (where things *do* explode) that I can sell for lots-o-money or snag an agent or use as writing samples for the next next-next Tom Clancy film. Funny thing about this niche genre - for all I know it’s some big name producer’s favorite genre. By doing the thing not in my wheelhouse, I might be opening the door to sell some spec script that is in my wheelhouse. And if noting happens from all of this? Hey, both of us are back where we started... but maybe my friend sells *his* project to the producer. That would be cool.
Lesson learned - keep your eyes open for *all* possibilities. Not just the ones that seem on the direct route to your career destination. When someone is looking for something in a strange genre, don’t automatically think “I don’t write in that genre”, think “Hey, they need a script, I could write one for them!” When something sounds silly, stop and look at it again - maybe it’s a genius idea? And find some schemes for yourself - some unusual ways into the business.
What’s your scheme?
What's your *clever* plan to sell a script or two?
- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Producer's Theories - and why every comedy *requires* a donkey.
Dinner: Torta's - huge carnitas burrito.
Pages: Did some work on my Expo classes.
Bicycle: No - it rained! A week ago we had record breaking heat, today it was cold and wet.
Movies: SOCIAL NETWORK - but I wrote my review on Facebook.
And...
My apologies to everyone in the U.K. It has happened again...
Movies For Men Channel: 10/7 - 15:00 - Crash Dive - The crew of a nuclear submarine rescue supposed victims of a boat disaster, but the victims turn out to be terrorists intent on capturing nuclear weapons aboard the sub.
Mystery writer Ron Goulart wrote a private eye series in the 70s and 80s and also wrote just about anything else that would help pay the rent - you’ve probably read some of his work because he wrote puzzles and games and stories for the back of cereal boxes. He also wrote the best non-fiction study of the golden age of the pulp magazines.
As writers, we often only see the markets we want to see - and disregard the rest... to paraphrase Simon & Garfunkle. We often miss the niche markets... and even overlook some non-niche markets that may not have any obvious appeal to us. “Who wants to write ____?”
Well, a friend of mine is in a meeting right now with a producer, involving a scheme that I am a part of, and if everything goes okay he will sell his first screenplay and I will eventually tell you all about it. There are also some lessons to be learned about working in under-served genres and ideas that you may think are dumb and opening your eyes to possibilities that are so obvious that you do not see them.
My friend was looking for producers to sell his scripts to and happened upon a producer who was not interested in his wheelhouse genres... and did a very smart thing. He asked what they were interested in. Now, most people don’t do this - I don’t do this. I take the rejection and move on. But my friend asked a simple question. And got an interesting answer. He discovered this producer was looking for a specific niche genre that is popular but no one seems to want to write it. This is kind of strange, but not unheard of. On message boards there are often people who are excited by some cool, sexy genre, but don’t even consider some fairly popular niche genre because it sounds boring. People who want to write some popular genre always go for the cool ones... and often don’t care much about the “meat and potatoes” genres. Well, this producer makes some of those boring genre films, and is looking for scripts.
My friend had never considered this genre. It had never crossed his mind. Now, this is where most writers who ask that “Well, what *are* you looking for?” question get the answer and think, “Well, I don’t write that” and walk away. But my friend thought about the genre - it’s not porn, it’s nothing with some major stigma... it’s just kind of dull. This is not the genre that people sell million dollar scripts in. This is not the genre that wins Oscars. And this particular producer is making direct to DVD movies (for budgets in the millions with actual names in the cast) so it’s not going to play film fests and win you awards. It’s a pay check on a film that will be on the shelves at Blockbusters (well, until they close them all down). Meat and potatoes stuff. He could write that - and sell the script to this producer - and get his first credit - and use it as a stepping stone to some other work. My friend came up with a great story, wrote up a treatment, and set up a meeting with this producer - using his script in his favorite genre to get the door open.
Well, my friend called me yesterday, and told me about his scheme. The scheme on top of writing the film not his his favorite genre. See, this producer makes a handful of films a year in this genre, and my friend plans on pitching them not just his story... but one of mine... and our writing services for future projects. The producer needs a half dozen scripts a year, why not provide 4 of them between the two of us? Would I be interetsed in this? I thought about it, and said "Why not?" Hey, I can quit at any time, and though I currently have work - well, that's the best time to look for more work. This is a business with no visible means of support - sell a script, do the rewrites... and you are now unemployed! The weird thing is, even though I have never considered this niche genre, I instantly came up with some ideas for stories I would want to write. If someone says: "Lesbian Love Story" to me, my mind instantly comes up with lesbian love story ideas. Hey, how about a lesbian version of STRANGERS ON A TRAIN with a strong love story element? Anyway, it's not lesbian love stories...
So far, none of this seems very schemish, right? But here’s where his idea rocks... He is pitching them on the idea of developing some film franchises - and producers love franchises because when one hits, they can just keep making them... with the last film as the advertisement for the next film. Hey, maybe we even put them in numbered DVD boxes? The films all have non-number titles, but the packaging encourages consumers to collect them all. The great thing about franchises from a writer's perspective is that you are creating future work for yourself (though this did not work for me on INVISIBLE MOM as my sequel idea was for top secret gov't scientist dad to invent a time machine and the kid plays with it and gets sent back to the 1860s Wild West, and mom has to go back and rescue him - GUNSLINGER MOM - but the producer wanted mom to just be invisible again... so they hired some other writer... and I didn't write *any* of the 4 sequels!).
Now, the next element of his scheme is also genius - one of the problems with this niche genre is that it is kind of old fashioned - it has been around forever in print fiction. Old fashioned is often thought of as a bad thing, especially if you are writing something cool. But old fashioned also means the genre has a long history... and that means public domain. Expired copyrights. My friend has found some public domain material in this genre with “brand name characters” - famous fictional characters. You’ve heard of them. The problem every low budget film company has is how to publicize their films - how do you make sure that people pick up YOUR DVD rather than the other company’s DVD when in that soon-to-be-closing Blockbuster? Well, a familiar title or famous character name is a great way to do that. Once those Blockbusters are closed and it’s all NetFlix, brand names may become even more important. But what amazed me is that no one else had exploited these characters, whose names you would instantly recognize. Maybe someone has written a script about them and I don’t know about it... but I doubt there are many floating around... and most are probably written as big budget projects. Though this is a popular niche, it’s not popular enough for some huge Hollywood tentpole. It’s a *niche*. So using this public domain material is a great idea, only if you look at the size of the audience for a film like this.
My contribution - nothing major - is the idea of doing *new* sequels to famous public domain titles in this under-served genre. Hey, if we can have Sense & Sensibility & Sea Monsters, why can’t we take some other public domain book and give the protagonist some further adventures? I came up with some ideas and gave them to him. These were off the top of my head, and sounded like things that would be fun to write... even though they aren’t exactly in my wheelhouse, either. But I’ve always wondered what happened to that character after the famous story ended... You know, all of this stuff isn’t earthshattering - but a way to harvest some basic “mental real estate” the same way Hollywood is making TRANSFORMERS and MONOPOLY and remaking every film you ever saw in the 1980s. Taking that brand name character and finding new adventures in their lives.
Back when Spielberg had just signed to make JURASSIC PARK, I was at AFM trying to sell a producer, any producer, on making A.C. Doyle’s THE LOST WORLD - a novel in public domain with dinosaurs. I even knew a guy with some great stop-motion dinosaur footage. Every single producer said no - they had never heard of the book and one producer told me the best they could do was some sort of campy knock off of the Spielberg movie... which confused me. Why was that the best we could do? Well, all of this was before JURASSIC came out... after, many of those same producers discovered that THE LOST WORLD was in public domain and made their versions of it. We had a half dozen LOST WORLDS, plus a TV series. (More of my bad timing, I guess - should have come back *after* JURASSIC came out and pitched the same exact project.)
Though it’s probably too late by now, all of those crappy video games we played when computers first came out could probably be sold as movies these days.
I may have mentioned this in a previous blog entry - a friend of mine and I have a game where we come up with the *dumbest* idea for a movie we can think of... then count the days until someone sells a script with that same dumb idea. Do you see the problem with this game? We had the same dumb idea, but we aren’t making low-six figure against $1.2 million like the guys who wrote the scripts. We would *joke* about BATTLESHIP: THE MOTION PICTURE... and now they are making it. Hey, I’ve joked about SLINKY: THE MOTION PICTURE... maybe I should actually be developing a pitch for that? The thing is, we all have some form of tunnel vision - we see where we want to go, but don’t see all of the other cool places we *could* go. My friend asked a question, opened his eyes, and realized that there was a producer who was looking for material... and figured out the very best material to sell that producer. Any of us could have done the same thing... but we did not.
Another friend, Steve, realized that there is a minority (that he is not a part of) who are under-served by Hollywood... and the scripts out there written by the minority seem to mostly be about them struggling as a minority - not genre stuff. So Steve has decided to write some genre stuff for this minority and discovered producers are really interested. Seems the ticket buyers in this minority already know what it is like to struggle, and want to escape the struggle by seeing some cool genre movie where they get to have fun - like middle class white people in movies do. They need escapism, too - but the minority writers are all writing serious stuff. Personally, I would have never considered writing for a group that I am not a part of... and that was Steve’s genius - he found a need and filled it, even if he seems like the wrong guy to do that. They were looking for *scripts* and he’s a screenwriter.
If my friend’s scheme comes through, I may have a strange side job writing films in a niche genre that isn’t the least bit sexy or cool... but I can quit when it stops being fun, and I can those paychecks to finance some time to write more specs (where things *do* explode) that I can sell for lots-o-money or snag an agent or use as writing samples for the next next-next Tom Clancy film. Funny thing about this niche genre - for all I know it’s some big name producer’s favorite genre. By doing the thing not in my wheelhouse, I might be opening the door to sell some spec script that is in my wheelhouse. And if noting happens from all of this? Hey, both of us are back where we started... but maybe my friend sells *his* project to the producer. That would be cool.
Lesson learned - keep your eyes open for *all* possibilities. Not just the ones that seem on the direct route to your career destination. When someone is looking for something in a strange genre, don’t automatically think “I don’t write in that genre”, think “Hey, they need a script, I could write one for them!” When something sounds silly, stop and look at it again - maybe it’s a genius idea? And find some schemes for yourself - some unusual ways into the business.
What’s your scheme?
What's your *clever* plan to sell a script or two?
- Bill
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Producer's Theories - and why every comedy *requires* a donkey.
Dinner: Torta's - huge carnitas burrito.
Pages: Did some work on my Expo classes.
Bicycle: No - it rained! A week ago we had record breaking heat, today it was cold and wet.
Movies: SOCIAL NETWORK - but I wrote my review on Facebook.
And...
My apologies to everyone in the U.K. It has happened again...
Movies For Men Channel: 10/7 - 15:00 - Crash Dive - The crew of a nuclear submarine rescue supposed victims of a boat disaster, but the victims turn out to be terrorists intent on capturing nuclear weapons aboard the sub.
Friday, October 1, 2010
RIP: Stephen J. Cannell
Here, some idiot forklift driver interviews Stephen J. Cannell and the writers of the A-TEAM movie...
- Bill
- Bill
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)