We read and hear a lot about Wikinomics these days. Is it conceivable that this kind of open, collaborative business model will replace the traditionally hierarchical, protectionist organization of the film industry?
According to Peter Day a recent episode of the BBC radio programme In Business entitled Eureka Democracy, when Proctor & Gamble need a particular molecule for a new product nowadays, they put up an online announcement. Instead of having to make do with the hundreds of scientists they employ, they can now appeal to thousands of people all over the world. The risk is that they reveal the nature of the new product they’re working on, but the rewards make this risk entirely worth taking: They get their molecule far more rapidly than in the old system, and they create new and exciting working relationships in the process.
Imagine Steven Spielberg posting the following online:
“I want to make a film about a great white shark that terrorizes a small town on the west coast of the US. The local sheriff acknowledges the danger, but is told by the mayor to keep quiet in order not to scare off potential investors in new real estate. In terms of theme: The shark symbolizes our fear of the unknown. In terms of plot: the central conflict is the power struggle between the sheriff and the mayor, a metaphor for the struggle between greed and integrity. Please send scripts to …”
The risk Spielberg takes is that he’s publicizing his idea for a movie, which other producers might “steal.” But doesn’t it also make a lot of sense? Or at least more sense than all this secretive, paranoid behaviour? I mean how likely is it, that if Spielberg puts up a posting like this, someone with a “shark” script lying around is going to look for a different producer?
Production companies would get what they’re looking for quickly and efficiently and writers would get to send their scripts to people they know are interested in their subject matter.
Any takers?
Monday, November 26, 2007
Friday, November 23, 2007
No comedy without drama
This was the gist of an almost throwaway comment made by a fellow screenwriter during a recent meeting to discuss further development of our clay-motion animated feature. And as with all substantive screenwriting maxims, it’s simple and true at the same time.
I saw a great illustration of this yesterday on Lead Balloon. To my mind the comedy in last night’s episode worked wonderfully because of the underlying drama.
Rick Spleen, desperate to break into mainstream TV, bumps into a high-ranking TV producer in the neighbourhood and hastily invites him and his wife to dinner. He tells him he’s got a (non-existing) project he wants to discuss with him. We then follow him desperately trying to think up a project and nervously preparing to host the important evening. He buys champagne and cigars and splashes out on all sorts of other unaffordable items meant to impress his visitor. He’s obviously not used to entertaining important guests and is desperate to make it look as if he is. He even rehearses the nonchalant lines he’s going to use. So when the guests finally arrive, we the audience are fully keyed up to the impending drama: Is he going to make an impression and land himself that all-important TV project?
What really happens, though, is that his wife recognizes their guest. He's not a TV mogul at all, he's the building contractor who repaired their roof four years ago. Rick is gutted and has to wrestle his way through the rest of the evening attempting to be polite while feeling like shit.
I found the comedy in Rick’s pain, embarrassment and self-loathing excruciatingly funny. It would certainly have been a far less intense experience if the build-up to the reversal hadn’t been as dramatic (and cleverly misleading!). The lengthy set-up, during which I unwittingly identified with Rick’s mixture of ambition and lack of self-confidence, made his deflation that much more entertaining.
The moral of the story? You have to show what’s at stake in the story in order to be able to make fun of the characters in an emotionally engaging way. If the audience identifies with the comedic character’s desires, then they will experience whatever happens to them far more intensively.
I saw a great illustration of this yesterday on Lead Balloon. To my mind the comedy in last night’s episode worked wonderfully because of the underlying drama.
Rick Spleen, desperate to break into mainstream TV, bumps into a high-ranking TV producer in the neighbourhood and hastily invites him and his wife to dinner. He tells him he’s got a (non-existing) project he wants to discuss with him. We then follow him desperately trying to think up a project and nervously preparing to host the important evening. He buys champagne and cigars and splashes out on all sorts of other unaffordable items meant to impress his visitor. He’s obviously not used to entertaining important guests and is desperate to make it look as if he is. He even rehearses the nonchalant lines he’s going to use. So when the guests finally arrive, we the audience are fully keyed up to the impending drama: Is he going to make an impression and land himself that all-important TV project?
What really happens, though, is that his wife recognizes their guest. He's not a TV mogul at all, he's the building contractor who repaired their roof four years ago. Rick is gutted and has to wrestle his way through the rest of the evening attempting to be polite while feeling like shit.
I found the comedy in Rick’s pain, embarrassment and self-loathing excruciatingly funny. It would certainly have been a far less intense experience if the build-up to the reversal hadn’t been as dramatic (and cleverly misleading!). The lengthy set-up, during which I unwittingly identified with Rick’s mixture of ambition and lack of self-confidence, made his deflation that much more entertaining.
The moral of the story? You have to show what’s at stake in the story in order to be able to make fun of the characters in an emotionally engaging way. If the audience identifies with the comedic character’s desires, then they will experience whatever happens to them far more intensively.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Screenwriting is like sex
The harder you try, the worse it gets. To write great scenes and dialogue, you need to be relaxed. Even if a deadline is looming. Especially if a deadline is looming. You need to write as if nothing whatsoever depends on what you’re writing. You’re writing because it’s your favourite thing to do. That’s when the ideas really start flowing.
While I write, I like to distract the critical, anxious and agitated parts of my mind with the blandest new-age type meditation music. If you actually sit and listen to this kind of music, it’s utterly boring. But as an accompaniment to a creative (or indeed erotic) activity, it’s the best. I’m no neurologist, but my guess is it’s something to do with alpha waves, left/right brains and stuff like that.
Whatever works for you. As long as you can relax, be 100% with what you’re writing and let what you’re visualizing flow naturally into the text. That seems to be the most important thing. Just as your lovemaking can be ruined by concerns about “performance” or other distractions, so too your writing.
As long as you are completely present in what you’re doing, you have the best chance of enjoying the experience, and possibly being invited to do it again.
While I write, I like to distract the critical, anxious and agitated parts of my mind with the blandest new-age type meditation music. If you actually sit and listen to this kind of music, it’s utterly boring. But as an accompaniment to a creative (or indeed erotic) activity, it’s the best. I’m no neurologist, but my guess is it’s something to do with alpha waves, left/right brains and stuff like that.
Whatever works for you. As long as you can relax, be 100% with what you’re writing and let what you’re visualizing flow naturally into the text. That seems to be the most important thing. Just as your lovemaking can be ruined by concerns about “performance” or other distractions, so too your writing.
As long as you are completely present in what you’re doing, you have the best chance of enjoying the experience, and possibly being invited to do it again.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Is this the way I want it?
I recently read an immensely inspiring article by Mark Forster, a time management mentor, in which he suggests a method of dealing with procrastination. It basically entails identifying the frustrating issue and then asking yourself, “Is this the way I want it?” Obviously the answer will be, “No,” after which you then ask “What do I need to do to make it the way I want?”
Forster gives examples ranging from tidying a drawer to buying a new house. But his idea is not only useful for procrastinators, screenwriters can also learn a thing or two from him.
If you stop to consider it for a moment, this a is a hugely powerful way of identifying a character’s goals and conflicts.
Simply by imagining (or writing) your character in a situation and having them ask themselves, “Is this the way I want it?” you hit the ground running. You activate that part of your imagination where your character resides. Especially when you follow up with, “What do I need to do to make things the way I want them?”
These two highly evocative questions set your character in motion, get them talking.
Each “What do I need to do to …” yields a concrete task. Something a character has to do (i.e., something visual) to work towards getting things the way they want them to be. And each “What do I need to do …” can be followed up with another one until you finally arrive at the very basic and frightening thing the character has been avoiding all along.
Of course, to make things even more interesting, your character can be wrong. They think they know what to do to make things better, but they’re actually making things worse.
As I’ve written before screenwriting is often about asking yourself the right questions.
Forster gives examples ranging from tidying a drawer to buying a new house. But his idea is not only useful for procrastinators, screenwriters can also learn a thing or two from him.
If you stop to consider it for a moment, this a is a hugely powerful way of identifying a character’s goals and conflicts.
Simply by imagining (or writing) your character in a situation and having them ask themselves, “Is this the way I want it?” you hit the ground running. You activate that part of your imagination where your character resides. Especially when you follow up with, “What do I need to do to make things the way I want them?”
These two highly evocative questions set your character in motion, get them talking.
Each “What do I need to do to …” yields a concrete task. Something a character has to do (i.e., something visual) to work towards getting things the way they want them to be. And each “What do I need to do …” can be followed up with another one until you finally arrive at the very basic and frightening thing the character has been avoiding all along.
Of course, to make things even more interesting, your character can be wrong. They think they know what to do to make things better, but they’re actually making things worse.
As I’ve written before screenwriting is often about asking yourself the right questions.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Tolerating the unarticulated
One of the most unsettling things for a human being is uncertainty. That’s just a fact of life. People like to know where they stand. What time is the train going to leave? Does my wife still love me?
We screenwriters, being mere mortals like the rest of humanity, don’t much like uncertainty either. But “not yet knowing” where a story is going or exactly what a character is going to do, is an important phase in the writing process and should not be hurried.
It’s often hard to imagine, but there’s always another way of writing everything.
Sometimes a great idea only occurs when lots of scenes have already been put in place and the perspective on the whole screenplay changes. Or when you’re halfway through the storyboard. Or when you do a table reading.
Tolerating the discomfort of knowing where you want to go but not yet knowing the way, is a skill you have to master as a screenwriter. And it’s actually easy once you learn to go with Zen of screenwriting and see each idea for what it is: One of an endless stream of ideas passing through you.
It’s a bit like having forgotten where you put your car keys when you’re already late, or not for the life of you being able to come up with the right word even though you know it exists. The harder you try to recall that trivial little piece of information, the more hopeless it seems.
The best policy in these situations is more often than not: Do something else.
Same with the unarticulated screenplay element you’re struggling with. Do something else. Relax. Trust your unconscious mind to do the work while you’re looking the other way.
Don’t take my word for it, go to Creative Screenwriting Magazine and listen to their podcast interview with David Lynch in which he talks about his fascinating relationship with ideas.
Or, of course, you could go and do something else ...
We screenwriters, being mere mortals like the rest of humanity, don’t much like uncertainty either. But “not yet knowing” where a story is going or exactly what a character is going to do, is an important phase in the writing process and should not be hurried.
It’s often hard to imagine, but there’s always another way of writing everything.
Sometimes a great idea only occurs when lots of scenes have already been put in place and the perspective on the whole screenplay changes. Or when you’re halfway through the storyboard. Or when you do a table reading.
Tolerating the discomfort of knowing where you want to go but not yet knowing the way, is a skill you have to master as a screenwriter. And it’s actually easy once you learn to go with Zen of screenwriting and see each idea for what it is: One of an endless stream of ideas passing through you.
It’s a bit like having forgotten where you put your car keys when you’re already late, or not for the life of you being able to come up with the right word even though you know it exists. The harder you try to recall that trivial little piece of information, the more hopeless it seems.
The best policy in these situations is more often than not: Do something else.
Same with the unarticulated screenplay element you’re struggling with. Do something else. Relax. Trust your unconscious mind to do the work while you’re looking the other way.
Don’t take my word for it, go to Creative Screenwriting Magazine and listen to their podcast interview with David Lynch in which he talks about his fascinating relationship with ideas.
Or, of course, you could go and do something else ...
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Unfashionable screenwriting techniques
In the context of one of the animation projects I’m working on, we’re discussing whether to use voice-over to give the story a kind of satirical “noir” feel. Our discussion is basically: It could work well as a comedic style element, but will it put potential investors off? And I’ve discovered that I’ve internalized a common bias against voice-over without really knowing why.
Flashbacks, voice-overs and dream scenes are frowned upon by most in the film industry these days. The mantra goes like this: These cinematic tools digress from the action. They take the audience out of the movie, disturb the narrative flow of the story. They’ve been used too much. And anyway, there’s always a better way to get the same information or emotion across.
Is any of this true?
Not on TV. Where would Six Feet Under, Medium, Heroes and all the rest of contemporary small-screen magical realism be without a parallel fantasy world?
And there are plenty of box-office hit films that use these techniques beautifully too: What would The Shawshank Redemption be without Morgan Freeman’s voiceover? What would Prince of Tides be without Nick Nolte’s flashbacks? What would Open Range be without Kevin Costner’s nightmare scene?
Nevertheless, the general consensus in movie-land is that these are the exceptions that prove the rule. “Use these tools in a spec script at your peril,” we’re warned. Screenplays are “stories told in pictures and sound,” and the accepted way to draw the audience in and give them insight into the characters, is by having the characters do things in the (fictional) here and now.
Question: Who ever heard of a production company turning down a thrilling, hilarious, or intriguing script because it had a voice-over in it? Or a flashback, or a dream sequence? More than likely, if this is given as a reason for rejecting the script, the basic idea isn’t strong enough to begin with. Because if the idea at the core of a screenplay is great, then the exact details of the writing are of secondary importance.
So will we use the voice-over or not? I think it might just work …
Flashbacks, voice-overs and dream scenes are frowned upon by most in the film industry these days. The mantra goes like this: These cinematic tools digress from the action. They take the audience out of the movie, disturb the narrative flow of the story. They’ve been used too much. And anyway, there’s always a better way to get the same information or emotion across.
Is any of this true?
Not on TV. Where would Six Feet Under, Medium, Heroes and all the rest of contemporary small-screen magical realism be without a parallel fantasy world?
And there are plenty of box-office hit films that use these techniques beautifully too: What would The Shawshank Redemption be without Morgan Freeman’s voiceover? What would Prince of Tides be without Nick Nolte’s flashbacks? What would Open Range be without Kevin Costner’s nightmare scene?
Nevertheless, the general consensus in movie-land is that these are the exceptions that prove the rule. “Use these tools in a spec script at your peril,” we’re warned. Screenplays are “stories told in pictures and sound,” and the accepted way to draw the audience in and give them insight into the characters, is by having the characters do things in the (fictional) here and now.
Question: Who ever heard of a production company turning down a thrilling, hilarious, or intriguing script because it had a voice-over in it? Or a flashback, or a dream sequence? More than likely, if this is given as a reason for rejecting the script, the basic idea isn’t strong enough to begin with. Because if the idea at the core of a screenplay is great, then the exact details of the writing are of secondary importance.
So will we use the voice-over or not? I think it might just work …
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Changing tack
Imagine you had a mental turntable. No, I’m not talking about one of those ancient phonographic devices for reproducing analogue musical recordings from bulky vinyl discs. What I’m referring to is something even older and much less likely to fit into your living room: A railway turntable.
Imagine you had a device like this in your mind. You’re stuck with a scene, a character, an idea, whatever. It just won’t gel. Probably because you’re sticking too closely to some preconceived direction you were travelling in. For some reason you’re convinced that this is the way it has to be. Even though it’s not working. Hey, it happens to the best of us.
Well lucky for you, you’ve just hit the turntable. You’re about to shunt.
Drive your scene, character, whatever, slowly onto the turntable and stop. Look around. You can pick any of the available alternative directions. You can change drivers. You can change destinations. It’s the ultimate "What if?" Let your imagination go down any of the different tracks leading away from the turntable.
And if you get the jitters (damn, what about my perfect set-up in scene 3?) you can always decide you were right in the first place and choose straight ahead.
P.S. For the nitpickers among you: Yes, changing tack is a nautical metaphor. But isn’t creativity all about taking two disparate concepts and conjuring up something new with them?
Imagine you had a device like this in your mind. You’re stuck with a scene, a character, an idea, whatever. It just won’t gel. Probably because you’re sticking too closely to some preconceived direction you were travelling in. For some reason you’re convinced that this is the way it has to be. Even though it’s not working. Hey, it happens to the best of us.
Well lucky for you, you’ve just hit the turntable. You’re about to shunt.
Drive your scene, character, whatever, slowly onto the turntable and stop. Look around. You can pick any of the available alternative directions. You can change drivers. You can change destinations. It’s the ultimate "What if?" Let your imagination go down any of the different tracks leading away from the turntable.
And if you get the jitters (damn, what about my perfect set-up in scene 3?) you can always decide you were right in the first place and choose straight ahead.
P.S. For the nitpickers among you: Yes, changing tack is a nautical metaphor. But isn’t creativity all about taking two disparate concepts and conjuring up something new with them?
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