Film Utopia

Sunday Blog: Francis Ford Coppola, Ambition and Learning?

photo by Paul Watson

I read a very interesting interview with Francis Ford Coppola this week.

What really struck me about this interview was this quote:

"I just finished a film a few days ago, and I came home and said I learned so much today. So if I can come home from working on a little film after doing it for 45 years and say, “I learned so much today,” that shows something about the cinema. Because the cinema is very young. It’s only 100 years old."

More clearly than any of my feeble attempts to explain why I constantly rail against screenwriting gurus, his short paragraph encapsulates the whole thing. Cinema is only one hundred years old; there is still so much to learn and discover about it; therefore, there are no pat answers, no easy fixes, no convenient truths.

I take great comfort in the fact that we're all working in a profession that is still merely a toddler, finding its feet and stumbling about the red carpet. I take comfort, because it means that there is still so very, very much to be done with the medium.

My question this week, therefore is about ambition. It is, how much ambition do you have as a writer?

Most people assume that the word ambition is solely about money, status and career. It isn't. It is about the relationship between artistic self-confidence and the limits we place on our work.

I know for myself, each time I start a new script, my ambition is to create something astounding. It doesn't matter whether I'm writing a completely original film script, or, if I'm creating a reboot of a very old story. My ambition is always to write something that knocks people's socks off. (Currently I am working on a reboot, and socks are getting knocked off).

I believe it is vital to pour that kind of ambition into every scene. That every single scene can and should be thrilling on some level.

The conclusion I've come to, is that if you are ambitious and focussed on using cinema or TV as a medium at a scene level, then the vast majority of the rules and principles they teach in screenwriting classes become irrelevant. What seems to be important is each moment of screen time, each reaction to circumstance, each opportunity to reveal something wonderful.

Now, I have no idea what Francis Ford Coppola is learning about film making today and on many levels I don't want to know. I'm quite happy learning the things I am learning.

One thing I do know, is that ambition is a good thing. Writers and film-makers should be ambitious. It's just understanding what your personal ambitions are, that is important.

However, there is one other point, which is that once you understand the true nature of your ambition, you're then obliged to live up to that. That actually is the hard part. It's actually easier to not be ambitious. It's actually easier to create a false veneer of humility, because if your ambitions are small enough there is never any possibility of failure.

So, that is the real question... not whether you are ambitious, but whether you dare own your ambitions and take the risks involved in daring to be exceptional?

Now, that is something to think about on a Sunday morning.

keep writing and viva la revolution

 

Posted via email from Filmutopia's Sunday Morning Movie Blog

Sunday Blog: Don't Beat Sheet the Script to Death!

photo by Rhys Asplundh

When time is short it's a good idea to be succinct.

Time is short this week. I am up to my eyes in business plans and marketing strategies. Huzzah!

So, this week, I want to write about the dangers of over plotting. In basic terms, this is when a writer looks for all their answers on the beat sheet, instead of in the script.

I know that is a fairly contentious statement. These days, the fashion is for writers to nail their plot on file cards, or on a beat sheet, so they are sure that they are hitting the main structural points. That isn't a practise I disagree with, I do the same myself.

However, the temptation when creating a beat sheet, is to over think and overwrite the structure. In particular, there is a temptation to not just identify the core of theme and situation of a sequence, but also to figure out what the characters do when confronted with this new dilemma. Personally, I think that kind of "solution plotting" can be a mistake.

For me, each sequence in a beat sheet is written as a problem for the characters to solve... but, the actual solving of the problem, I believe, should happen in the script. The drama comes out of the character's unique reactions to the situation.

What this means in practical terms is that threre are creative advantages to going into a scene with a dilemma for the characters involved, but without a solution already outlined. The scene remains open and problematic as it is being written, forcing the writer to reach out to the characters to find their own solutions to the problem. When you think about it, it makes real sense, because it is the characters who are interacting with the plot. They should be in a position, where they have to find some sense or solution out of the given situation rather than merely flapping their lips until they hit the point marked "exit".

The other point I want to make, is that for a writer there should be a sense of danger and risk in the writing process. If you know the hero is going to escape by leaping out of the window, there is no tension, the only puzzle will be how to force the character to that pre-destined solution. If, however, all you know is that the protagonist is cornered and you have no idea about how she or he is going to escape, anything can happen. Even if the character leaps out of the window, leading up to that point you will experience the tension of not knowing how the hell you get out of the hole you have created for yourself.

When you think about it, most dramas are moments of tension created by some kind of problem, which them find some kind of resolution. The tension, the not knowing, the figuring it out, are all part of the experience for the audience.

In my experience there are two kinds of extremes in writing, neither of which I believe are helpful to most people. One is the total free form. This is where the writer starts with a blank page and starts writing. They literally do all the development work by creating drafts and reworking in subsequent drafts. The other extreme is systematic writing, where every detail of the script is planed in beat sheets and character development profiles. The actual writing then becomes the simple task of dialogue and description.

Personally, I don't like either way of working. Free form is just too time consuming. All that staring at a blank page hoping for inspiration. The endless bloody rewrites to hammer the free form mess into some workable shape. I don't like any of that. I also don't like overly prepared projects, where every single movement of the plot sits on a file card, waiting to be typed up. I don't like it because it takes control of the story away from the characters.

The thing about writing as a career, is it has to be more fun than regular work. It has to be, because it doesn't come with a regular pay cheque for most people. Therefore, there has to be something about the creative experience that is more than just pragmatic. This is why, for me, beat sheets are a series of problems for characters, rather than a series of solutions. I like not knowing if or how my characters will survive. For me, that is fun. I also happen to believe that leaving the solutions open is good for the actual product. I think a lot of the flat, predictable and boring films we see are because the characters had an easy pre-planed exit sitting there through the entire writing process... and because the writer was under zero pressure in each scene, any artificial attempts to create tension come across as just that, artificial.

Anyway, talking of pressure. I must get back to writing business plans and creating a media empire...

keep writing and viva la revolution!

 

Posted via email from Filmutopia's Sunday Morning Movie Blog

Movie Blog: Screenwriting, Connection and Vulnerability

photo by creative endings

This week, my marvellous fiance introduced me to this TED talk by Brene Brown on the power of vulnerability.

As I watched it, I was taken by how astute a description it is what I call "screenwriter emotional intelligence." By that, I mean the level of understanding a screenwriter needs of human behaviour to write a rounded character.

For the last year I've been trying to figure out why I don't get any pleasure from some of the TV drama I watch and why many films leave me cold. The conclusion I've come to is that writers have become so wrapped up in plotting and the techniques of screenwriting, that they forget what the basic job is. In my opinion, the writer's job is to present the audience with interesting people and then through exposure to extreme circumstance, reveal their vulnerabilities. Let me put that another way... take someone interesting, show who they really are by giving them a hard time, ultimately let them transcend their troubles. To do this well the writer needs a well formed sense of screenwriter's emotional intelligence.

Personally, I think this idea could be applied to all drama; that the ideas of vulnerability and connection are more important than conflict in creating drama.

Where I think many scripts seem to go wrong is they attempt to apply a "faux" vulnerability to template plots. That is when the writer puts characters in an emotive situation in the belief that the situation itself will cause the audience to feel something. However, without a sense of connection or relevance, overly emotive scenes often just seem contrived, manipulative and frankly ridiculous. I feel pretty much the same about "save the cat" as a principle. The idea that you can contrive a humanising scene, where the character shows compassion, strikes me as a false economy. Sure, it is a handy slight of hand to avoid the graft of actually writing a rounded character with whom we may feel some empathy... but if you really  believe screenwriting is about avoiding the hard work of creating a person with genuine human vulnerabilities, maybe you should consider doing something else!

I guess what I am saying is that when a scene is lack luster, maybe instead of looking at whether there is enough conflict, or whether you've written enough action, perhaps instead you could look at whether there is enough vulnerability... not an out pouring if inner feelings, more a sense that something the character needs to keep secret and part of their inner life is at danger of spilling out.

Of course the real trick is in developing that level of emotional intelligence and the bad news (or good news depending on how you feel about screenwriting gurus) is that you can't learn this at any screenwriting course. The only way I know of to understand human vulnerability is to actually accept and embrace your own humanity. Personally, I believe Brene Brown nails it in this talk. This isn't about book learning, it is about each writer's personal journey to understand the world by understanding themselves.

keep writing, viva la revolution
Clive

Posted via email from Filmutopia's Sunday Morning Movie Blog

Movie Blog: Originality is Just an Ego Trip? Discuss.

photo by grrrrr123

I was reading an article by my friend Roger Goff this morning. He's an entertainment lawyer in Los Angeles and he often writes very smart pieces about the ways in which the industry is adapting to new technologies and formats. His article in a nutshell is... no matter how the technology changes, the key ingredient is a great story.

This week I also found Seesaw, a new and totally legal way to watch television series on the Internet. As a result I have watched both series of Hyperdrive. An underrated sci-fi sitcom starting Nick Frost and Miranda Hart.

The availbillty of whole TV series onto the web, to hire or to watch for free, with ads, is probably going to be at least one of the nails in the coffin of the DVD business. The fact that I can watch a whole series online for free, anytime I want, doesn't make me want to go out and buy the box set. I'm not going to mourn the loss of those scratchy discs of skippiness. Good ridence.

In the last year, I have all but given up on buying DVDs... and I can't remember the last time I rented one. Our ancient television hasn't been turned on in ages and these days is really a monitor for the games console. We certainly don't watch television on the television any more. What started for me with BBC iplayer as a way of watching the odd series, has now become the norm. We watch most, if not all of our television via the Internet now. It has become the norm in our houshold.

What I see, is the television industry embracing the Internet as a new distribution format, at the same time that the film industry is still treating it like the ogre under the bridge. There is a lot of legal content from television companies on the Internet, now. The film industry content is still almost all illegal pirated content. I genuinely wish I could explain to you why this is. What I do believe is that the TV industry is taking the smarter approach. Having stuff out there legally, connected to advertising revenue, is better than having shonky, pirated content as the sole representative of the industry.

However, Roger is definitely right about his key point, regardless of how the content is distributed what draws people in are great stories. I would add a single caveat to that, though. Great stories need great execution... and ultimately audiences prepared to try out something new.

That's the interesting thing about Seesaw... because it is archived TV series, it encourages me to binge on old episodes of what I already know. Often, when I'm tired and a bit stressed, as I am at the moment, I don't want new and interesting, I want warm and familiar. I want to watch stuff I can trust to deliver an acceptable level of OKness.

There is an important point here for writers and for content producers. It's this: an artist seeks to create something new and innovative in order to fulfil their egotistical desire to leave a mark on the world... an audience often seeks comfort in the familiar, in order to use entertainment as proof that life is predictable and therefore safe.

The only conclusion that I've come to regards this, is creating great, original entertainment often starts by taking the familiar and shifting it just a little. This way the audience get something new and delightful, but wrapped up in the comfort of something that they already understand. This isn't about being cynical and selling out, it has more to do with an admission that regardless of my indie credentials, I still watch more mainstream television than anything else. So does everyone else.

keep writing and via la revolution

Posted via email from Filmutopia's Sunday Morning Movie Blog