What to do when the bag of tricks is empty?

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  • What to do when the bag of tricks is empty?

    The art form of cinema is changing and evolving all the time. It grows outside the boundaries we have formerly understood for it. in looking at my own work, current films and scripts, I am consistently noting that as filmmakers we seem stuck in a time warp - scripts that would have made sense and been part of a cultural moment thirty years ago don't have the same impact now that they might have once upon a time. Films like "Departed", "Little Miss Sunshine", "Little Children", "Royal Tenenbaums" are emotionally or viscerally or comedically satistfying but don't make us sit up, hair on end, and say: I've never seen that before! All are derivative (LMS particularly so, I mean c'mon the Dad forcing the family to keep driving with the dead grandparent in the car? Didn't Chevy Chase do that twenty years ago?), all are well executed, all somehow fail to leave a lasting impression.

    If one writes inside the studio system, marketing is now a part of the storytelling. A story can no longer be built on a surprise that is not an absolute end of the film, usual suspects style surprise because that will now be reveald in the trailer. The first one or two surprises are going to be revealed to the audience in advance.

    The immersion in reality TV and documentaries has given us the opportunity to see real people have real reactions to extreme situations. Why would anyone go see "American Dreamz", a film about an American Idol type TV show, when they could instead watch the real American Idol? Fiction is now a filter. Our methods for finding out about life through You Tube, blogs, documentary shows have radically increased our familiarity with Actual Situations. An Actual Situation could be anything from watching a You Tube clip about a moronic criminal breaking into a liquor store on surveillance tape. The guy falls down, shops, he's drunk - it's voyeuristically hilarious. Or an episode of Cops, or Top Chef, or American Idol or any of dozens of outlets. Are they artificially created many of them? Yes. But that doesn't seem to make them less appealing. The fascination of a semi-borderline personality in a high-stress situation is difficult for a creator of fiction to compete with.


    There is a show I'm hooked on called "Intervention" about addicts about to face interventions. I saw "Half Nelson" the other night. Half Nelson is an extremely effective film. But does it rivet me the same way "Intervention" does? The idiosyncratic quirks of real people in real crises are so bizarrely "true" - and real human beings are so fascinating - that even a brilliant performance by Ryan Gosling is filtered, blunted by the fact that he is living in a make believe world. That the movie is a story, someting made up.

    Do we need to make things up anymore? I believe the answer is yes, but I also believe that if we don't keep asking that question - we're dead.

    WHY I CAN'T WRITE ORIGINAL SCRIPTS

    I have come to the conclusion that I am an interpretive artist. I'm like a translator. I take something that has a kind of solidity to it, a true story, a novel, and I adapt it into a screenplay. Original scripts with made up people in made up situations are so difficult to fill with juice, it seems. I admire Guillermo Arriaga and Charlie Kaufman but I feel more kinship with Alexander Payne - because his films are mostly adaptations of novels. In a novel a deeper level of penetration is possible, in character, sociology, back story. Adapting a good one into a screenplay feels achievable. To me, Kaufman is an aberration (in his genius). And his imitators ("I Heart Huckabees", "Stranger Than Fiction") fail completely.


    In historical fiction, screenplays drawn from actual events about real people, i have the feeling that there is something for my writing to push up against. You start the duel with more bullets in your gun. If I write a story with Howard Hughes and Richard Nixon as main characters, I have the mythos of those cultural figures informing the story before I've written a line. The audience now brings so much accumulated knowledge to the screen. Not just of real people and media events, but of stortelling styles (anyone noticed that there is no such thing as a "whodunit" in movies anymore? Since Joe Ezterhas went down in flames we have collectively realized that it is now basically impossible to surprise audiences with "who the killer is". There's no real way to disguise something like that anymore. Audiences are too savvy from watching CSI and Law and Order. They have read the storytelling answers at the end of the book and they need more.)

    Or if A. Payne or Todd Field adapts a Tom Perrotta novel, they have Perrotta's world view and detailed fictional universe as a STARTING POINT. They don't have to arrive at it from scratch. They work against Perrotta the way theater directors bring their own sensibility and style to classic texts.

    Audiences too often know what is going to happen in a story. And this is becoming less and less a failure of imagination by the screenwriter. It's because there are a finite number of ways to tell a story WHILE STILL providing an audience with revelation and emotional catharsis. Because of the speed of the world we live in, audiences have time to process ten times more unconscious information about storytelling than they did thirty years ago. Which is why M. Night Shymalayan is foundering. He is forced to go to such extreme lengths in a desperate attempt to keep his audiences surprised that his stories wind up feeling forced, fake, and his "surprise" endings either aren't surprises (The Village) or mostly we don't care about the new information (Lady in the Water) because we haven't fallen deeply into the story.

    There is a trailer for a movie called "Premonition" in the theater right now. Sandra Bullock movie about a woman who's husband dies in a car accident. But she wakes up the next morning and he is there again. Next day, he's dead again, next day he's there. The story seems to have an interesting premise, but the trailer basically takes us through the second act turn! We can make a very good guess about "who the killer is" or about the ontological foundations of the story just from the trailer.

    Which is why I am not interested in the "what", I'm interested in the "how".

    In pretty much all the screenplays I've written except for my first film (which, interestingly enough, was criticized (fairly) in some quarters as having a shock ending that was predictable) I focus on the "how".

    Not "what will happen to Clifford Irving, the man who tells a lie about writing a book about Howard Hughes?" The audience probably knows from the trailer, from articles or from memory that he gets caught in the end. The audience instead is interested in "how" did this happen? How did this man get away with this lie? In what way was he caught? Did he screw himself up or was there some savvy person that figured him out? Was Hughes actually involved?

    The "how" questions are the future of narrative in film. A movie like "Basic Instinct" or even "Sixth Sense" is no longer a genre. Not that we'll never be surprised in an original script again, that would be a nonsensical claim...it's just that we should expect to be truly shocked by the conclusion of a story (in the way we were shocked by Usual Suspects and Sixth Sense) once every five years instead of a few times a year.

    I beleve that formal experiments ala Tarantino/Kaufman will continue to evolve by writers exploiting structural techniques they have stolen and championed and applying these techniques to adapting true life stories and novels. The blurring between fact and fiction will become more and more seamless. A film like American Splendor, part documentary, part monologue, part fictional film, part comic book - this is a work of art that can engage us fully as we move forward.

    Before very long, I expect that mediums will start mixing. "LonelyGirl" is the wave of the future. Web hoaxes, stories that seem to be accidentally discovered and utterly "true", will entrance viewers because the hoax's creators know viewers are more susceptible to storytelling techniques (conflict, resolution, rising tension, character development) if they AREN'T AWARE THEY'RE WATCHING A STORY. Or the really strong fiction writers will move to gaming, because gaming engages the participant's decision making and physicality, again, making them more susceptible to the same old bag of tricks we storytellers have been lugging around for thousands of years. The hard part is: no one has yet improved upon Aristotle. "Poetics". Same ****, different day. I don't care if you're reading "Oedipus Rex" or "Brokeback Mountain". Aristotle had all options covered.

    Makes you wonder what medium Orson Welles would be working in if he were alive today.

    It's getting trickier, isn't it?

  • #2
    Re: What to do when the bag of tricks is empty?

    Wow!!! As always -- thanks.

    To me -- the most interesting thing you mention is how trailers kill the first and second turns of the movie.

    I think more control over the trailer -- by the director or writer (not in a million years I know) would go a long way.

    I think about the way "Click" was marketed. Audiences came away dissapointed because it was marketed as a traditional Adam Sandler comedy when it was in fact a nice dramatic retelling of "its a wonderful life". The core audience that would have liked the film probably never saw it. Instead, people expecting Happy Gilmore went to a film where the funniest parts were already shown on the trailer. A crying Shame.

    You also mention the "How" instead of the "What". It makes sense -- but the catch 22 is that a lot of people don't want to see a movie when "know" how it ends. Marie Antoinette?(among others).

    All in all though -- an interesting take on the immortal question posed by Buffy the vampire slayer: "Where do we go from here"
    "Take the thing you love, and make it your life"--Californication. [email protected]

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    • #3
      Re: What to do when the bag of tricks is empty?

      Great, post Tao.

      But I have to disagree because IMO there ARE still original stories to be told and that the subject matter of stories is always going to be evolving given the constant evolution in advancements in societal norms, technology and other facets of everyday life that can inspire and even reflect those new stories and subject matters (if this makes sense?).

      You state that it is no longer "What", but the "How". I think this is true for traditional subject matter and genres. What I think isn't taken into consideration is completely new subject material being put INTO certain genres and this is where I believe the "What" can still be just as important as the "How".

      For example, I wrote a script about what is one of the fastest growing hobbies on the planet, worldwide... No not Poker... Video games and video gaming. Specifically, PC (Personal Computer) video gaming which is giving rise to what is called "e-sports" (electronic sports) and cyberathletes across the globe. This is not only a technological phenomena, but a cultural and generational phenomena that does just what you said and that is evolve with audiences and their sensibilities.

      The "Who" and the "How" are present in this kind of subject matter, IMO. Even if the actual execution is more or less a "sports" movie with all the set pieces of overcoming adversity and triumphing in the end... I believe the subject matter itself is what transcends (God, that sounds so pretentious!) this genre and makes stories like this original in every sense of the word.
      Positive outcomes. Only.

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      • #4
        Re: What to do when the bag of tricks is empty?

        Wow. That put it right out in the open for everyone to chew on. Every writer struggles for the unique story, really mixes it up, rips up scene cards, shuffles others, adds and subtracts from story all to find that the same premise and plotline sold in the trades three years ago for six figures.

        What I find interesting is Tao's underlying subtext, either intentional or not, that emits from his references to adaptational writing and Charlie Kaufmann. Here lies a simple clue as to how to go about adding that life to story while maintaining creative heart an audience can relate to in an original screenplay. More and more twists are relying solely on characterization and not simply on story itself.

        Take Adaptation for instance. Kaufmann wrote the script mirroring his own experience adapting The Orchid's Thief. Regardless of the long first act, nil second and extended third act, I find the deviation from structure is irrelevant in a story aspect.

        Adaptation is effective because the writer felt passionate about the material and lived the experience. I think that in drawing different conclusions between fact (reality television) and fiction (original screenplays) maybe Tao was also drawing a few parallels.

        We're always telling the writer to live, live, live then write, write, write. Because first hand experience can not be substituted with research. Am I thinking that maybe a writer should go shoot someone to write an effective murder scene? No. But I think by living and experiencing as much as possible, meeting different people, we're creatively forcing ourselves to write more compelling fiction.

        As writers we have to be as close to the material as possible and write and rewrite aspects of our own existances into the work because anything less, in the original screenplay market, would come across as fraudulent. I find that when I write about characters I know, people I've met, their arcs, traits and nuances make them that much more believable.

        So Tao was basically saying merge reality (our experiences with life and people) with fiction (our ideas and plotlines) to write more compelling original scripts.

        Either that or he's had a few too many whiskeys. Either way, it's definitely getting trickier. Maybe we can shoot real people doing real things and splice it together to make a story...

        Okay, maybe not.

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: What to do when the bag of tricks is empty?

          WB... Technologically, advances such in gaming, medical breakthroughs and setting up a colony on Mars may provide us with new material to fill our three act structure with. But I also think "how" refers to the execution itself. How do we structure a compelling tale?

          Thus, where we had "Die Hard on a bus" we can now have "Die Hard in a cyber statium", "Die Hard on Mars" or "Die Hard in a hospital".

          I think as writers we're being demanded more and more to mix up genres, characters, and plotlines to create a hybrid kind of story incorporating more complicated elements. In order to keep audience attention we're forced to really focus on making Act 1, 2, and 3 separate entertaining stories on their own that "also" push us to the next stages.

          I mentioned that I condensed a 110 page thriller with a twist ending into a 15 page set up with a twist ending because the usual rising conflict scenario is much more advanced than it was years ago and my thriller fell flat. People are smarter. We have to have big conflict right out of the gates nowadays or we lose the audience. Which I think is a big part of Tao's point.

          We'll always have material, but where as there's always going to be Kaufmans out there, can writers like you and I still entertain with the three act system? I think we can. Just like you do. I just think we have to work harder to do it. And push harder.

          And where it took eight scripts to make a sale in the past, it'll now take twelve because of the additional information a writer has to glean from his own personal evolution.

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          • #6
            Re: What to do when the bag of tricks is empty?

            (edited due to a double post)

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            • #7
              Re: What to do when the bag of tricks is empty?

              There are lots of original, jaw-dropping tales to be told, IMO.

              We've just got to keep pushing them until someone decides to give them a chance.

              But I do think our society operates in an "I Am A Camera" mode. I think we all honestly see ourselves as the star of a reality show. Have you ever passed by someone in the grocery store or at work who talks LOUDLY about their life as if you should be interested in hearing it?

              With that kind of mindset, we really are less likely to be entertained by what we see on the screen.

              "Until the Lion writes his own story, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter." -African Proverb

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              • #8
                Re: What to do when the bag of tricks is empty?

                Didn't they say these things when television was first appearing? "We need wider screens or louder speakers or brighter colours, our techniques are outdated!"

                Kaufman's genius may be an aberration, but that's where anything original in film or literature has come from since the beginning of time. Every now and then people say the "well is dry" or "our bag of tricks is empty," and then Orson Welles or Bergman or Tarantino or Kaufman come along and send the bucket into the well little deeper, or they show us old tricks can be new again, and we're left scratching our heads wondering why we didn't think of it first.
                "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." - Sinclair Lewis

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                • #9
                  Re: What to do when the bag of tricks is empty?

                  I'm sorry if I'm mistaken, but it seems like (among many other things, of course) you've gently implied quite nearly all screenwriters are interpretive artists, who can't write original scripts and accomplish little more than "adapting" existing movies, when they try. Part of me can see truth in this, the rest of me doesn't want to, because I very much prefer to make up my own stories. It's troubling. I don't mean to put it on you, though, as if some form of this consideration hadn't crossed my mind before.

                  I love the talk of "how" and really feel in any script if at least as much importance is put on the "how" as the "what", whatever the "what" is will be better for it.
                  Standing on a hill in my mountain of dreams telling myself it's not as hard, hard, hard as it seems.

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                  • #10
                    Re: What to do when the bag of tricks is empty?

                    Everything I write is original.

                    I think back to one of your old posts, Tao. In the post (i forget which exactly) you advised us to identify the deepest, darkest place within us and write from that place.

                    That's what I did and that's what I'm still doing.

                    That place inside me...and only me...that place colors and flavors and styles my work in a way that no other writer on earth's work can be colored, flavored, and styled. That place and my ability to access it and filter my writing voice through it, makes my work truly unique.

                    And it's the same with anybody else. Access that place and access originality...because nobody has that particular place inside you but you.

                    So regardless of whether or not I'm making up a story (which I've certainly done) or if I'm writing a script inspired by a book or a historical event (my current script kinda of falls in both categories)...regardless of what I'm doing...my work is gonna be directly and intensely influenced by that place inside me.

                    But I haven't had to deal with a 24 year old wet behind the ears studio exec telling me he doesn't like that place inside...

                    And I haven't had to deal with that same exec telling me to write from some other place...

                    And I imagine that's difficult and challenging and it probably gets a writer pretty down on the state of affairs and I imagine a writer giving into that exec results in train wrecks like...

                    Jared Hess following up Napolean Dynamite with Nacho Libre...

                    Joe Carnahan following up Narc with Smokin' Aces...

                    Oh and countless others that I can't think of at 1:02 AM on a saturday night/sunday morning but you get the picture, I hope...

                    I don't want to be Shane Black.

                    I don't want to be Steven Spielberg.

                    I wanna be Terrance Malick.

                    I wanna be Charlie Kaufmann.

                    But really I don't want to be those guys, either. I just want to have their balls...so I wanna be me with their balls...my balls...and I want to always recognize that want...that desire to remain true to myself and my artistry and I never wanna get talked into Smokin' Aces or Fast and Furious 4: The Philly Years...I just wanna do what I wanna do.

                    I don't even think about Acts half the time when I write. I don't even think about Act breaks and inciding incidents and fatal flaws and obstacles and all that Screenwriting 101 crap when I'm writing.

                    I just think about the story I'm tellin'...

                    My story...

                    And I hope I'll feel the same way when a studio is payin' me to write that story.

                    And I hope I'll hold true to the same artistic values that I adhere to now when nobody is payin' me...when I'm just writin' from my heart.

                    I don't know if I can pull that off but I hope I do...

                    otherwise I'll cease being original...

                    I'll cease being unique...

                    and regardless of how much money anybody ever pays me...

                    my dream will continue to go unrealized.
                    "I hate to break it to you but there is no big lie. There is no system. The universe is indifferent.- - Don Draper

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Re: What to do when the bag of tricks is empty?

                      Yeah. that's what I'm doing now. writing movies that look like video games and video games that are based on movie concepts.

                      started thinking about sci-fi concept five years ago that will be doable two years from now (thanks James)

                      I say keep your eyes on the East, it's gonna get bigga


                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Re: What to do when the bag of tricks is empty?

                        Originally posted by ylekot43 View Post
                        the most interesting thing you mention is how trailers kill the first and second turns of the movie.
                        went to see Pan's Labrynth yesterday (awesome) but they played the trailer for that Billy Bob Thorton rocket-man farmer film and I was FLOORED at how much they showed in the trailer. Literally, all three acts INCLUDING THE CLIMAX.

                        I mean, I couldn't believe it. They showed us the reactions of all the town looking up in the air as if watching the shuttle launch in all of its splendor.

                        What the heck do I need to see the film for? I already know that the hero achieves his goal. What good is the struggle now?

                        Ugh. Trailers are just RUINING movies now. Absolutely ruining them.

                        Okay, sorry for the digression.

                        S

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                        • #13
                          Re: What to do when the bag of tricks is empty?

                          Revisionist:

                          I agree with you more or less which is why I disagreed with Toa.

                          As a working and produced screenwriter Toa obviously has a better understanding of the realities of this business and I respect him for that and for sharing his experiences with us just as I appreciate you sharing your experiences as well.

                          However, like many, I also think there are still a lot of original stories -- And I mean truly original stories mainstream studios will pay to option and or produce -- As long as we (screenwriters) write them.

                          I also agree with another poster who said we, presumably the audiences, also have to push the studios to make these types of films too because studios are risk averse and taking chances is something they aren't keen on unless someone does it for very little and gets a huge return on it like "El Mariachi", "Borat", and countless other rags to riches examples.

                          Originally posted by joe9alt View Post
                          Everything I write is original.

                          I think back to one of your old posts, Tao. In the post (i forget which exactly) you advised us to identify the deepest, darkest place within us and write from that place.

                          That's what I did and that's what I'm still doing.
                          I agree with this philosophy as well.

                          However, on a side note that may be completely off topic...

                          Do you think the (what I perceive as a) generational shift in audience expectations of wanting supposedly more "realistic" and "gritty" stories ala "Battlestar Galactica" is partially due to everyone being so depressed -- no other word for it -- And wallowing in this "depression" where if a character isn't going throuh hell, or miserable than it must not be "true drama"?

                          The reason I ask is because you said we all have to write from a dark place.

                          I disagree.

                          I think we all have to write from a creative place vs. a dark place... At least in terms if you mean "dark" as in angst-filled, or negative. If you mean just a place deep inside of us than I agree... But I disagree that it must be "dark" in the sense it has to be full of hurt, pain and other negative feelings unless the story requires it, IMO.

                          I think our society, specifically young persons, is too obsessed with pain and suffering and fear and it is getting worse IMO, but the main point is this is now reflected in what they want to see at the box office... Or is it?

                          Like you said, it seems to you the most successful films and stories are the ones that allow you to escape reality and have fantastical elements vs. the somber drama, or "reality mirror" some stories focus on.

                          I just thought it was interesting because from my POV, I think there is a whole generation who is angry and upset and as a result they want to see this in their entertainment... But is that really true which is the irony of it all? I believe this fits perfectly with what you said about writing from a "dark place" if we interpret it literally
                          Positive outcomes. Only.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Re: What to do when the bag of tricks is empty?

                            This is exactly what he said in his post "The Futility of Pursuing an Agent."

                            Seven years ago, after banging my head against the wall, my logic had to change.

                            It changed like this:

                            1. Write from the darkest place inside me. The place where I keep my secrets and my shame. Reveal the few things I know about the human experience that are unique to me.

                            2. Use twelve years of learned craftsmanship (college degree, three years of intensive study of Shakespeare, Moliere, Ibsen, Beckett, Brecht and other great dramatists, the experience of writing six scripts, twenty or thirty short stories, poems, songs, and receiving merciless professional quality feedback that increased in rigor as I went along) to elucidate that darkness in the medium of screenwriting, knowing that medium the way a great mechanic knows exactly how the different parts of a car move together.

                            3. Rewrite into blood hours. Go back to the readers. Listen. Kill the darlings. Rewrite again. Be certain its perfect. Go back to the readers. Listen. Throw everything out. Start over. Rewrite again, this time from scratch. Find out from the readers that the entire concept is flawed. Start all over again with a new script. Repeat process.

                            4. One day, when there's a breeze, when you're least expecting it, you get a phone call from one of your readers. The breath is out of their voice. They don't even bother to compliment you. They want to be attached as a producer. They have ideas who to give it to. It moved them. It actually moved them, altered them, interrupted their weekend, motivated them to have conversations with spouse, friend. They never thought you had it in you. They want to help.

                            5. Throw the script in the street and put double locks on the doors as the forces of forward motion take over. Talk to producers, managers, financiers, actors, directors. Make a deal. Make a movie. Begin your life as a functioning, self-supporting screenwriter.

                            6. Pick an agent.

                            peace out

                            tao

                            So maybe he didn't advise everybody to write from their darkest place. He just shared the fact that that's what he did to break through to the next level.
                            "I hate to break it to you but there is no big lie. There is no system. The universe is indifferent.- - Don Draper

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Re: What to do when the bag of tricks is empty?

                              When you're a working, repped writer, I'm sure there's a much greater inclination -- and pressure -- to take the guaranteed pay of an adaptation assignment than to labor over a spec from which you may never see a dime. It's only natural.

                              That right there is enough to stunt one's interest in even trying to come up with something truly original.

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