Hollywood Scripting

[JackRiddler]

FourthBase: Troy Davis executed September 2011.

[FourthBase]

FourthBase: Troy Davis executed September 2011.

I'm well aware. It incapacitated me for an hour. Depressed me for a week. Would've been worse had I not had the opportunity for an emotional rehearsal of that scenario that day in Atlanta when he came within minutes of being executed then but got a sudden reprieve. Were you just alerting me, in case I didn't know? If so, thank you.

But just in case it was meant to defend the stupid lazy unimaginative irresponsible activists' resigning themselves to his execution's inevitability, realize that they were at that time resigning themselves to the execution that had been scheduled the very next day, in 2008, three years prematurely, after only a half hour of trying to figure out how to stop the damn thing from happening, because they felt totally powerless against the system, they felt no hope, were only going through the motions, a sad and infuriating sight. I chewed them out in as polite a way as I could, let them know I was horrified by their defeatist surrender, and walked the fuck out of that conference room. There was one woman there out of the dozen or so, not a veteran activist for sure, because they were all so matter-of-fact and apathetic, and she was moved by what I was saying, she felt what I was feeling, she was anxious and misty as any human being with a still-functioning conscience and spirit should have been. Maybe all those hardened, self-defeated activists should watch Star Wars, try to tap into the Force, fill themselves up with a new hope.

[JackRiddler]

Were you just alerting me, in case I didn't know?

Nope, just looking for context. Thanks.

There was one woman there out of the dozen or so, not a veteran activist for sure, because they were all so matter-of-fact and apathetic, and she was moved by what I was saying, she felt what I was feeling, she was anxious and misty as any human being with a still-functioning conscience and spirit should have been. Maybe all those hardened, self-defeated activists should watch Star Wars, try to tap into the Force, fill themselves up with a new hope.

Nobly intended, but my doubts pertain to the effectiveness of "Star Wars" as a means of accomplishing the feats you attribute to it, beyond a very small proportion of people. And also, to how this film may otherwise be received, i.e., in ways very remote from your own reading of it.

[JackRiddler]

Just went through this thread looking for material for our Sunday panel on Hollywood and CIA.

Damn, a lot of you guys are good.

HMW had really made discussion on this subject impossible.

[MinM]

@Screenwriting48: Seen this one before? The 2005 screenwriting bible that has caused identical ... - Daily Mail

Seen this one before? The 2005 screenwriting bible that has caused identical movies

By Alex Greig
PUBLISHED: 17:23 EST, 19 July 2013

Hollywood movies, especially summer blockbusters, are always accused of being formulaic - but did you ever stop and think there may actually be a strict minute-to-minute formula to which screenwriters are rigidly adhering?

Save the Cat: The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need was written in 2005 by Blake Snyder, a successful spec screenwriter who was responsible for Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot and Blank Check.

The book details, down to the page number of the script, at what point in the story certain events should play out with 15 key 'beats' or events around which the plot must pivot.

Snyder's title Save the Cat! comes from the idea that the protagonist should do something good, for example, rescue a cat, in the first 10 minutes of the film to get the audience on-side.

Peter Suderman, film critic for The Washington Times, writes at Slate that Snyder's book offers 'a minute-to-minute movie formula,' for screenwriters - and there haven't been many blockbusters that have deviated from it since.

The formula, he says, 'threatens the world of original screenwriting as we know it.'

Snyder died in 2009, but his legacy lives on in the book and its sequel, Save the Cat! Goes to the Movies. The Save the Cat! website even analyzes popular films to break them down into a 'Beat Sheet'...

Recipe: As per Snyder's screenwriting bible, Oz the Great and Powerful had no Dorothy but instead featured a male protagonist..

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z2ZtLAzGMU
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Let me introduce film critic George Orwell

[justdrew]

Peak Hollywood

In June, Steven Spielberg predicted that Hollywood was on the verge of an 'implosion' in which 'three or four or maybe even a half-dozen megabudget movies are going to go crashing to the ground.' The resulting destruction, he added, could change the film industry in radical and possibly unwelcome ways. And sooner than he may have thought, the implosion has arrived: in the past couple weeks, six wannabe blockbusters have cratered at the North American box office: 'R.I.P.D.,' 'After Earth,' 'White House Down,' 'Pacific Rim,' and 'The Lone Ranger.' These films featured big stars, bigger explosions, and top-notch special effects—exactly the sort of summer spectacle that ordinarily assures a solid run at the box office. Yet all of them failed to draw in the massive audiences needed to earn back their gargantuan budgets. Hollywood's more reliant than ever on analytics to predict how movies will do, and even Google has taken some baby-steps into that arena with a white paper describing how search-query patterns and paid clicks can estimate how well a movie will do on its opening weekend, but none of that data seems to be helping Hollywood avoid shooting itself in the foot with a 'Pacific Rim'-sized plasma cannon. In other words, analytics can help studios refine their rollout strategy for new films—but the bulk of box-office success ultimately comes down to the most elusive and unquantifiable of things: knowing what the audience wants before it does, and a whole lot of luck.

[DrVolin]

I will say this is a good thing is this is the future:



Small stars and smaller explosions (and tiny zeppelins!). 100% content.

[JackRiddler]

I daresay if this turns out to be a trend, it will be a just comeuppance for the blockbuster and Snyderist models. When was the last time anything major and unexpected happened in any of these fucking blockbusters? Not including twist-gimmick vehicles like Inception that are predicated on the "unexpected" happening.

[Twyla LaSarc]

Right now I am submerged in cinema of the 60's and 70's. Even the bad films of the era often have an originality and freedom that has been pretty much lost, certainly in the mainstream. I'm tempted to call these films 'offbeat', and they are to present eyes, but at the time they were made they were often produced for a mass audience.

The current 'formula' kills as many movies as it makes and has turned the majority of post eighties mainstream movies into one grey amorphous mass. I think the biggest problem is that it eventually dumbs down an audience by rewarding a certain pattern of neural circuitry and if the audience doesn't get their skinnerian payoff in the prescribed time, they aren't going to be able to enjoy the movie.

I just got a copy of 'Two-Lane Blacktop' http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067893/?ref_=sr_2 I'm gonna pop it open tonite or tomorrow.

[JackRiddler]

The current 'formula' kills as many movies as it makes and has turned the majority of post eighties mainstream movies into one grey amorphous mass. I think the biggest problem is that it eventually dumbs down an audience by rewarding a certain pattern of neural circuitry and if the audience doesn't get their skinnerian payoff in the prescribed time, they aren't going to be able to enjoy the movie.

I think so, yes. The majority of viewers I've observed don't even notice it, I think. They have trouble tolerating anything without color, fill lighting, no subtitles, easy center framing of subject without too much clutter or incidental action, back and forth shots on dialogue, clear sound, a constant narrative beat, speedy story with obvious scene endings and no weird dawdling not knowing where it might go, clean exposition, a variety of conventions (bad-guy bodies fall out of frame, done), and usually also speed of editing (but there's a limit for most on that). And the story needs a clearly identified protagonist in 80% of the scenes, one that offers easy attributes of emotional identification and is "good" as well as "normal," a three-act structure, waves of building tension, payoffs, etc. etc. etc.

People have definitely been cultivated into this system.

[Spiro C. Thiery]

The current 'formula' kills as many movies as it makes and has turned the majority of post eighties mainstream movies into one grey amorphous mass. I think the biggest problem is that it eventually dumbs down an audience by rewarding a certain pattern of neural circuitry and if the audience doesn't get their skinnerian payoff in the prescribed time, they aren't going to be able to enjoy the movie.

I think so, yes. The majority of viewers I've observed don't even notice it, I think. They have trouble tolerating anything without color, fill lighting, no subtitles, easy center framing of subject without too much clutter or incidental action, back and forth shots on dialogue, clear sound, a constant narrative beat, speedy story with obvious scene endings and no weird dawdling not knowing where it might go, clean exposition, a variety of conventions (bad-guy bodies fall out of frame, done), and usually also speed of editing (but there's a limit for most on that). And the story needs a clearly identified protagonist in 80% of the scenes, one that offers easy attributes of emotional identification and is "good" as well as "normal," a three-act structure, waves of building tension, payoffs, etc. etc. etc.

People have definitely been cultivated into this system.

This is a fascinating exchange, quite on target, I believe.

When I think of the development of film and cinema in the context of human evolution (and the feedback of the effect of human behavior on that evolution), I see a couple of major changes of monumental significance in 1) the serious upper-hand gained over the entertainment industry in the Eighties by the number-crunchers, or investment banker types looking for a quick turnover (Day of the Locust) and 2) the prevalence of digital technology's effect on the art-form which quite literally effects the way our brains process information (The Matrix).

As has been observed, masses just go with the flow, while a few of us--though it is quite a few, to be sure--view the development as hideous, almost unnatural, though unnatural it certainly is not. Or is it? What will the average script look like in another twenty years?

[peartreed]

I imagine that scripts 20 years from now will be created for an interactive medium that will place the viewer in the action, personalized to that viewers specifications, and delivered by means of a hand-held device that projects a changing 3-dimensional environment, a customized cast and a subjective-scripted story. The viewer predetermines, by taste and choices, their own character composite and that of the love interest or partner in the plot – and their main antagonist as the threat, composed as the antithesis of the protagonists and their character objectives. The role of the scriptwriter becomes more of programmer accommodating variables in a creative plot setting series of holographic environments/characters/ actions/scenes/plot points and dialogues that are malleable enough to be adapted to the viewer’s initially-selected or demanded personal preferences.

Despite this futuristic fantasy I expect the existing, standard script story structure will still be applied/enforced in order to maintain the format of former film successes and provide the framework upon which the predictable new medium is adapted. I also think the intel interference will be similarly insinuated into this new delivery system of alleged entertainment that becomes corruptly indoctrinational.

[JackRiddler]

Still waiting/searching for video of our Left Forum presentation on "Hollywood and the CIA." Damn it!

Meanwhile, here's an excellent 8-minute look, with some nice clips, at the unavoidable politics of the present-day superhero blockbuster. A bit too much optimism on how things used to be. Independence Day would still be my first example of the cinema of modern US post-fascism.

http://blip.tv/foldablehuman/s3e5-the-p ... nt-6618856

[semper occultus]

http://www.paulschrader.org/articles/1973-JohnMilius.html

[JackRiddler]

Speaking of tropes, I'd completely forgotten the "Bechdel Test."

It's no secret that Pacific Rim, Guillermo del Toro's $200 million love song to Japanese pop culture, was a risky venture from the start. With a multicultural cast, Hong Kong used as the main setting instead of New York or L.A., the only real star being a Black Brit many Americans had never heard of, and a storyline full of borrowed tropes that many anime fans felt were ripoffs rather than homages, the sci-fi action flick has fought an uphill battle to draw attention.

But despite what seems to be an infatuated, deeply loyal fanbase—last weekend saw an entire online fan convention, JaegerCon, complete with an appearance from del Toro himself—Pacific Rim has encountered trouble from an unexpected source: the Bechdel Test.

When Allison Bechdel's webcomic Dykes to Watch Out For introduced the concept of the Bechdel Test to pop culture in 1985, the female character espousing the rule wryly commented that the last movie they'd been able to see in a theatre was 1978's Alien. Why? Because she won't pay money to see a movie unless it has:

1) Two named female characters

2) who talk to each other

3) about something other than a man.

Nearly three decades later, the Bechdel Test has become almost a household phrase, common shorthand to capture whether a film is woman-friendly. But despite how well-known the Bechdel Test is, the vast majority of Hollywood films still utterly fail to "pass Bechdel." Even though the test is alarmingly simple, most Hollywood films don't even come close—and in fact, screenwriters are actively taught not to write films that pass the test.

Further links here:

http://thehathorlegacy.com/why-film-sch ... hdel-test/

SNIP

When I started taking film classes at UCLA, I was quickly informed I had what it took to go all the way in film. I was a damn good writer, but more importantly (yeah, you didn’t think good writing was a main prerequisite in this industry, did you?) I understood the process of rewriting to cope with budget (and other) limitations. I didn’t hesitate to rip out my most beloved scenes when necessary. I also did a lot of research and taught myself how to write well-paced action/adventure films that would be remarkably cheap to film – that was pure gold.

There was just one little problem.

I had to understand that the audience only wanted white, straight, male leads. I was assured that as long as I made the white, straight men in my scripts prominent, I could still offer groundbreaking characters of other descriptions (fascinating, significant women, men of color, etc.) – as long as they didn’t distract the audience from the white men they really paid their money to see.

I was stunned. I’d just moved from a state that still held Ku Klux Klan rallies only to find an even more insidious form of bigotry in California – running an industry that shaped our entire culture. But they kept telling me lots of filmmakers wanted to see the same changes I did, and if I did what it took to get into the industry and accrue some power, then I could start pushing the envelope and maybe, just maybe, change would finally happen. So I gave their advice a shot.

Only to learn there was still something wrong with my writing, something unanticipated by my professors. My scripts had multiple women with names. Talking to each other. About something other than men. That, they explained nervously, was not okay. I asked why. Well, it would be more accurate to say I politely demanded a thorough, logical explanation that made sense for a change (I’d found the “audience won’t watch women!” argument pretty questionable, with its ever-shifting reasons and parameters).

At first I got several tentative murmurings about how it distracted from the flow or point of the story. I went through this with more than one professor, more than one industry professional. Finally, I got one blessedly telling explanation from an industry pro: “The audience doesn’t want to listen to a bunch of women talking about whatever it is women talk about.”

“Not even if it advances the story?” I asked. That’s rule number one in screenwriting, though you’d never know it from watching most movies: every moment in a script should reveal another chunk of the story and keep it moving.

He just looked embarrassed and said, “I mean, that’s not how I see it, that’s how they see it.”

Right. A bunch of self-back-slapping professed liberals wouldn’t want you to think they routinely dismiss women in between writing checks to Greenpeace. Gosh, no – it was they. The audience. Those unsophisticated jackasses we effectively worked for when we made films. They were making us do this awful thing. They, the man behind the screen. They, the six-foot-tall invisible rabbit. We knew they existed because there were spreadsheets with numbers, and no matter how the numbers computed, they never added up to, “Oh, hey, look – men and boys are totally watching Sarah Connor and Ellen Ripley like it’s no big deal they’re chicks instead of guys.” They always somehow added up to “Oh, hey, look – those effects/that Arnold’s so awesome, men and boys saw this movie despite some chick in a lead role.”

According to Hollywood, if two women came on screen and started talking, the target male audience’s brain would glaze over and assume the women were talking about nail polish or shoes or something that didn’t pertain to the story. Only if they heard the name of a man in the story would they tune back in. By having women talk to each other about something other than men, I was “losing the audience.”

SNIP