In the post, Fred makes the case that the three important factors are a mix of market, team, and product. The overall size of the market is important, because that determines the size of the opportunity. The founding team is important because they determine how the company is run, what its values are, and how decisions are made on how the product made. And the product is important because it’s the thing that actually has to appeal to consumers.

I think this analogy links very closely to how I tend to evaluate what movies to make. The product is the screenplay or the treatment or the pitch. The team are the writer, director, stars, and key department heads that will determine not only how the product develops, but also what the process will be like.

The market is a bit trickier. If a film already had distribution, the market is the moviegoing audience for this particular product and team. If a film doesn’t have distribution, then you also have to consider the market of what companies would distribute a movie like this. You have to plan for the eventual audience and the smaller audience of acquisition executives who decide what movies they want to buy and release.

But really all three of these things matter. The filmmakers, the movie, and the potential audience for that movie. If you get all three of those things right, then you drastically increase your opportunity for success. If you start getting any of those things wrong, and you’re going to have a very rough path ahead of you.

#filmmaking #filmbusiness

On a macro level, I think there are two ways to exist in this world as a filmmaker and film producer. Either you make as many movies as possible, and attempt to create a large library of “content” that has value mostly because of its size. If you have a sizable library, you have value to a lot of the new distribution systems just for that quantity. And if you're making enough of these films, you can start negotiating directly with the growing number of platforms around the world for full library distribution deals. You basically create value by being part of the noise that makes up the bed of mass content availability.

This is not the path for me. I've never been able to think in quantity terms. It's hard to produce mass amounts of quantity while still caring about the individual pieces of art that make up that library. I just can't do it.

So the second path is to focus on individual films. Artisanal filmmaking. But how do you make individual films stand out against the numbing noise of infinite content? How do you get someone to pull your book off the shelf in a library the size of the world?

For the record, I have almost no demonstrable success at figuring out the answer to this question. But it's the question that haunts every decision I make as a producer, and here's my current thinking on the topic.

I think the first approach to successful artisanal filmmaking is to make a movie that people think will deliver the same pleasure they got from something else that they love. This is where sequels and prequels and reboots and remakes and adaptations and franchises live. It's Bohemian Rhapsody. It's The Fate of the Furious. It's The Lego Movie. It's all the Star Wars and all the Avengers and all the Bonds. It's a direct attempt to stand out in the marketplace by latching onto something the audience already cares about.

But there are also indirect ways to fulfill this approach. You can promise the same pleasure of a prior entertainment experience through artist affiliation. It's Jordan Peele's new movie. It's a new Denzel Washington movie. It's “from the producer of PARANORMAL ACTIVITY.” It's “from the writer of TRAINING DAY.”

And then there are the trickier indirect ways to make audiences think they're returning to the same well. This is where we get into what I call echo movies. Taken is a movie with dozens of echoes. Similar feeling movies that ride in the wake of Taken's success. In the 90s, there was a booming industry of Quentin Tarantino echo movies. People see them because they hope the echo of a movie will bring them the same joy as the original. This is a dangerous place to be. Some echo movies can be a big success, but some of the biggest disasters of recent years are echo movies that either misjudged the appeal of the original or misjudged the continued appeal of this type of echo. At some point you start dealing with echoes of echoes of echoes and people can tell there's no there there. You get RIPD, Jack the Giant Slayer, and Cowboys and Aliens.

The key to success in this world seems to be knowing when audiences want more of the same, and then aggressively marketing your film to that audience. Spending a ton of money to remind people they like things like this, and here's the new thing like this. The risk of this approach is that you get the echo wrong and you're just spending tens of millions of dollars to remind people that no actually they don't want to see more of this. They've seen enough of it. Because that's how this works. People get sick of the echoes of echoes of echoes. They've had enough of Saw-likes and Taken-ishes. They want something new.

That's the other approach. Making something new. It's a much harder path to hew, but I think you can also stand out in the sea of noise by being unique. Being so different from everything else, that you force people to acknowledge and discuss you. Giving people joy in a way they haven't experienced it before. This is Boyhood and Birdman. This is Searching and Moonlight. This is Inception and Arrival. These are the movies that other people will echo. These are the splash in the pond, and every other movie is just a ripple. This is where I want to live.

The risk here is that maybe people don't give a shit that you made something unique.

I haven't quite figured that part out yet.

#Film #Filmmaking

[This post was originally published on February 21, 2012 on my old blog at keithcalder.com.]

Mackendrick worked in the film industry as a storyboard artist, screenwriter, and director. He directed Sweet Smell of Success and The Ladykillers, among others. He was a studio director at Ealing Studios, and when they shut down he moved to LA to work as an independent director. Facing frustration at the Hollywood studio system, Mackendrick left to become the dean of the film school at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). After about a decade, he gave up the position to focus on teaching. He taught at CalArts until his death in 1993.

On Film-Making was not designed to be a book. It's a well edited collection of materials that Mackendrick created for his classes. It's an incredible collection of study plans, handouts, storyboard examples, and essays. The book is broken into two sections: Dramatic Construction and Film Grammar. While both are full of gems, it's the Dramatic Construction section that contains chapter after chapter of brilliant insight into narrative fimmaking. Mackendrick manages to cover screenwriting from both the writer's and director's perspective, creating an invaluable resource for the aspiring filmmaking.

It's a waste for me to try to paraphrase Mackendricks' insights, so I'll just give you some quotes directly lifted from the book.

• “Your only mistake, as you work in this medium of communication, is to produce in your audience an effect you didn't intend, or fail to produce the effect you did.”
• “Primitive magical rituals use rhythmic movement, repetitive gesture and musical noise to give sensory unity and comprehension to some otherwise disturbing and fearsome mystery. A myth, it is said, is the verbal equivalent of a rite that serves the same archaic need: to help the primitive mind take hold of a mystery. Stories, even in the contemporary context of mass entertainment, would seem to be successful when they, too, fulfil such a need, something audiences need not even be aware of.”
• “Drama, so said drama critic William Archer, is almost always the effect of 'anticipation mixed with uncertainty'. A good director, therefore, is always asking himself certain fundamental questions. What is the audience thinking? In relation to what has just happened and what might or might not happen next, is it approving, disapproving, fearing or hoping?”
• “A dramatic character is definable only in relation to other characters or situations that involve tension. A dramatic scene is usually one in which something happens: an incident or an event takes place, the situation between the characters is different at the end of the scene than from what it was at the beginning. The equilibrium has been altered and there is some narrative momentum that drives the characters (and us the audience) to a new situation in the next scene.”
• “Most stories with a strong plot are built on the tension of cause and effect. Each incident is like a domino that topples forward to collide with the next in a sequence which holds the audience in a grip of anticipation. 'So, what happens next?' Each scene presents a small crisis that as it plays out produces a new uncertainty.”
• “The task of a storyteller is thus often the invention of a structure along the principle of Chinese boxes. A situation is created where our curiosity is whetted by the desire to uncover or disclose a solution, or to unravel a knot of tension, but when the discovery is made or the knot unravelled, it shows only another box, another hiding place.”

And these are all before page 50. The book is a treasure trove for the aspiring filmmaker. It gives you a skillset for analyzing your own work, and methods for pushing against the limits of your current abilities. Mackendrick pushes a philosophy of understanding how an audience interacts with a film, and developing the skills to shape an audience's reaction.

I can tell this is a book that I will come back to over and over again in my career, as I struggle to get a grasp on my own path as a filmmaker. Mackendrick opens the books with a simple concept: “Film writing and directing cannot be taught, only learned, and each man or woman has to learn it through his or her own system of self-education.” Well, I'm well on my path of self-education, and I feel like I made leaps and bounds thanks to this book.

#Film #Filmmaking #Screenwriting #Directing #AlexanderMackendrick #SweetSmellOfSuccess #TheLadykillers

Because it's really fucking good.

[This post was originally published on February 15, 2012 on my old blog at keithcalder.com.]

For Valentine's Day 2012, Jess and I decided to see Dirty Dancing at a theater here in London. this is probably the 4th or 5th time I've seen the film, but the first screening for over a decade. It's also the first time I've ever seen the film projected in a theater.

I've always been a fan of Dirty Dancing. Unfortunately, as a cultural phenomenon, “Dirty Dancing” has moved beyond the quality of the film, and now exists as a polarizing pop-culture item that people “love” or “hate.” This is a shame, as the film itself is of remarkably high quality.

So what the hell, I'm going to make the case for why I believe Dirty Dancing is one of the great films of the 1980s.

THEME

Dirty Dancing is incredibly dense with interesting thematic content. It contains interesting explorations of class relations, shifting family and cultural dynamics in the mid-20th century, the maturation of father/daughter relationships as a daughter becomes an adult, but mostly it's a film about believing you can change your world and the importance of helping other people. These last themes are touched on by all of the interweaving storylines and major characters, and is the beating heart of the relationship between Baby and Johnny.

THE BABY/JOHNNY RELATIONSHIP

Baby and Johnny have a love story built on the belief they have in each other, and their ability to expand each other's horizons. Johnny teaches Baby how to dance and how to express herself. He helps her take the path from timid teenager to strong expressive adult. Baby in turn gives Johnny the strength to push against the class driven glass-ceiling he feels restrained by. In the most basic and compelling sense, they complete each other. They are simply better people in each other's company. We fall in love with Baby and Johnny for the same reason why they fall in love with each other, and this is the ultimate success for a dramatic romance.

BABY'S RELATIONSHIPS WITH HER FATHER

The second biggest driving relationship in the film is between Baby and her father. People generally attribute the Baby/Johnny dynamic as the cause for the film's rabid female fanbase, but I think the father/daughter relationship has an equally strong appeal and elevates the film beyond just another teen romance. The film uses the events of the narrative and Baby's character arc to reflect the universal relationship dynamic of a father realizing his daughter is not just a child to love but a person to respect. Baby leaves Dirty Dancing as a truly realized adult in all her important relationships.

THE WRITING

The screenplay for Dirty Dancing is exceptional. If you've been following my blog, you can tell that I have pretty strong beliefs when it comes to the power of a well executed dramatic narrative. Dirty Dancing never lets its narrative tension slack, and every scene is a real dramatic scene, which has become a rarity these days.

When I describe a scene as a “real dramatic scene,” I mean something very specific. In his book “On Film-Making,” Alexander Mackendrick defines a dramatic scene as…

…one in which something happens: an incident or an event takes place, the situation between the characters is different at the end of the scene from what it was at the beginning. The equilibrium has been altered and there is some narrative momentum that drives the characters (and us the audience) to a new situation in the next scene.

It has been a sad trend these days that many scenes are just “stuff happening.” Events will occur, but they have no impact on the film's narrative propulsion because they don't actually change the character dynamics or situations from the start to the end of the scene. They don't indicate to the characters or the audience a new situation that builds on the prior situation, and so we enter the next scene as a blank slate waiting for the next “stuff happening” moment. Boredom is born in “stuff happening.”

This idea of indicating narrative progression is hugely important when it comes to structure. It's well explained in Matt Stone and Trey Parker's NYU lecture on story structure that went viral in 2011.

We found out this really simple rule… We can take these beats… of your outline and if the words 'and then' belong between those beats, you’re fucked. You’ve got something pretty boring. What should happen between every beat you’ve written down is the word 'therefore' or 'but.'

If you have “and then” between your scenes, it means that you aren't writing using true dramatic scenes. You aren't using your scene to build a changing situation in the world, and indication of how that changing situation effects the overall narrative progression of your story.

Dirty Dancing is almost entirely structured using strong dramatic scenes. Every scene propels the plot and the characters, and this is what allows for such dense thematic, narrative, and character content in a brisk 100 minute running time.

This alone would make Dirty Dancing an impressive screenplay. What makes the writing exceptional is that you never notice this expert craftmanship! Hell, I'm always looking for this stuff, and it took me a few viewings to realize how well crafted the script is. You never feel the invisible hand of the author forcing the story along. The scenes exist as natural moments between characters, where you believe they are making decisions and experiencing the world exactly in that moment. As a result, the audience also lives within the moment of every scene.

THE DETAILS

It's certainly not enough to have a brilliantly structured and told story. Having a strong dramatic structure definitely helps make a film compelling to watch and avoids the cardinal sin of boredom, but it's not like most people look back on a film they loved and say “it was amazing how every scene had narrative propulsion.”

The things you consciously remember and love about a film are the details. The iconic shots, the memorable marriage of dialog and performance, the shocking peripeteia (reversal of circumstances; turning points), the powerful scene or sequence, or the twist ending. The moments and the details.

The red pill or the blue pill? Indiana Jones shooting the swordsman. Bruce Willis was dead the whole time. Darth Vader reveals he's Luke Skywalker's father. Gene Kelly singing and dancing on a rainy street. “Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown.” Slim Pickens riding the bomb. “I Fart In Your General Direction.” Johnny lifting Baby above the water of a Catskills lake. “Nobody puts Baby in the corner.”

Dirty Dancing draws us in with its expertly conceived narrative, and hooks us eternally with its exquisite details.

#Film #Filmmaking #DirtyDancing

In that spirit, these are some books that I've read over the last decade or so that helped shape my approach to filmmaking and my understanding of the film business. I think these books all have considerable educational value to the aspiring or working filmmaking. The list is broken into categories, but I recommend cross-pollinating your knowledge. I find that breakthroughs in one filmmaking discipline often come from knowledge and experience acquired in another. The art, craft, and businesses of filmmaking are not orthogonal; they intertwine and it's expected for an expert in any field to at least have a basic understanding of how their work impacts their colleagues.

This list is just a starting point. I will update this list if I find a book of exceptional value.

Some disclaimers:

• Obviously I have not read every book on filmmaking, and please don't take the omission of books from this list as a sign that the book does not have value.
• That said, I have omitted some well known books intentionally because I think they don't have any meaningful value. For example, most screenwriting books.

General Filmmaking / Personal Anecdotes

On Film-Making by Alexander Mackendrick This is my favorite book about the overall craft of writing and directing film. Here is my longer article about On Film-Making.

Rebel Without a Crew by Robert Rodriguez At the age of 23, Robert Rodriguez made El Mariachi for $7,000 (excluding post-production and delivery). This book contains his personal journal from that period, and is a fascinating read. It also includes many wonderful practical tips on guerilla filmmaking.

Getting Away With It by Steven Soderbergh and Richard Lester This is my favorite film-related book of all time, and one that I have revisited a few times over the years. At a low point in his career, before the huge success of the Ocean's Eleven films and his studio system re-entry of Out of Sight, Soderbergh sat down for a series of interviews with legendary director Richard Lester. This book is a fascinating look at both artists, and you can see the conversations shape Soderbergh's future path as a filmmaker.

Directing

Making Movies by Sidney Lumet This is the single most useful book on directing that I have ever read. Lumet is obviously a legend, and this book contains priceless nuts-and-bolts wisdom. If you are going to read one book before shooting your first film, this is the book.

My First Movie edited by Stephen Lowenstein If you are going to read two books before shooting your first film, this is the second book. This book contains interviews with twenty directors exclusively on the subject of shooting their first film. It covers the anxiety and stress of making your first film, and contains priceless tips that will help any aspiring filmmaker get over that hump. Note: there are two volumes in this series, and I think that the first volume is vastly superior to the second.

Film Directing Shot by Shot: Visualizing from Concept to Screen by Steve Katz Another book that I read a long time ago, but I'm pretty sure helped to formulate by thoughts on visual storytelling. This book analyzes many of the options and reasons for planning composition and shot selection for a film. I haven't revisited the book for well over a decade, so I'm not sure if my opinion would change today, but I remember liking it as a novice.

On Directing Film by David Mamet It's fascinating reading Mamet's thoughts on directing. He has some opinions that I definitely disagree with, and I think his approach to directing has also limited the cinematic potential of his films. That said, there are some real gems of insight, and I recommend it mostly as a divisive book that can help foster your own original thought on how to approach the art and craft of filmmaking.

Cinematography

Painting With Light by John Alton Supposedly the first book on cinematography written by a working director of photography (in fact one of the inventors of the film noir look), this somewhat dated book is a true classic that focuses on the use of light on film.

The Five C's of Cinematography: Motion Picture Filming Techniques by Joseph V Mascelli To be honest, I read this book a very long time ago, but I remember it shaping my thoughts on cinematography and the fundamentals of visual temporal storytelling.

New Cinematographers by Alex Ballinger OK, so you've had enough of these old books with old fogies talking about classic cinematography. New Cinematographers contains interviews with six cutting edge current cinematographers: Lance Acord, Jean-Yves Escoffer, Darius Khondji, John Mathieson, Seamus McGarvey, and Harris Savides.

Screenwriting

Adventures in the Screen Trade by William Goldman This memoir by William Goldman is a must read for any screenwriter. It covers the early part of his career in great detail, and even includes the script for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. This is one of the essentials.

On Writing by Stephen King This is not a book about screenwriting, but it is a book about writing. Many of the insights and thoughts that Stephen King shares in this book are wonderful. A lot of his suggestions will be totally misleading when applied to the craft of screenwriting, and when reading the book it's important to keep in mind the differences between the two forms. However, on the whole I think this is a fascinating read on the process of a writer.

Editing

In the Blink of an Eye by Walter Murch If you only read one book on film editing, this is the book. Walter Murch is a master, and covers all the fundamentals of editing with wonderful expertise. This is a book to come back to again and again over the years, always gleaning new insights.

First Cut: Conversations with Film Editors by Gabriella Oldham This book consists of interviews with 22 amazing film editors, and provides a huge number of insights into their creative and technical process. As I'm sure you can tell by now, I am very drawn to first-hand information from filmmakers, and this is a treasure trove of information on film editing.

The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film by Michael Ondaatje After reading “In the Blink of an Eye” get even more Walter Murch in this series of interviews by Michael Ondaatje. Walter reveals even more secrets and insights into his trade, making this a must read.

When The Shooting Stops... The Cutting Begins: A Film Editor's Story by Ralph Rosenblum There is a trend that my favorite film craft books are written by expert craftspeople, and Rosenblum is no exception having edited films like The Pawnbroker and Annie Hall (both of which I consider to contain some of the finest picture editing of all time). This book is a fascinating insight into his process, but most importantly I think it's the best source for information on the art of cutting for comedy.

Producing

So You Want to Be a Producer by Lawrence Turman Larry Turman is another legend. The man produced The Graduate, The Thing, and American History X and now runs the Peter Stark Producing Program at USC. There aren't many good hands-on books on film producing, and Larry's book is by far the best I've read.

The Business of Filmmaking

Ovitz: The Inside Story of Hollywood's Most Controversial Power Broker by Robert Slater At one point in time Michael Ovitz was the most powerful agent, and perhaps the most powerful person in Hollywood. This official biography was published in 1997 so you won't hear about his stunning fall from power or any real dirt. What you will hear about is how he helped form CAA (Creative Artists Agency) into a powerhouse, and a brief understanding of how agents and agencies derive their power and influence. The book is so hugely one-sided about what a great person Ovitz is, it actually exists as its own proof of how much power Ovitz could once wield.

Storming the Magic Kingdom by John Taylor Maybe I have a thing for old books on the film business. The book covers the period in the early 80s when Michael Eisner and his team took over Disney and reshaped it to be the current media powerhouse that it is. It's a fascinating read, and has a lot of detailed information and analysis of how things work at the top of an entertainment company.

Hollywood A Go-Go: The True Story of The Cannon Film Empire by Andrew Yule Published in 1987, this book is about the rise and collapse of the Golan-Globus film empire. It goes into some detail on their business model, and holds no punches as it's clear that the author doesn't like what he has to see. It's one of the few books that actually has insight into the world of international independent film finance, production, and distribution. It gives you a sense of the types of people you will end up dealing with if you get into the film industry. Unfortunately this book is long out-of-print, and isn't even listed on Amazon's website. The above link should go to a search for the book on AbeBooks, but if the link is broken you'll have to search for it yourself.

#Film #Reading #FilmBooks #Filmmaking #Screenwriting #Directing #Cinematography

The Feather Men has alternately been marketed as fiction, non-fiction, and “faction.” In this interview at The Daily Beast, Ranulph Fiennes describes this decision as being relatively mercenary:

The idea was to sell more books and at the time, the person who was going to put new books in the bookshop was told to put it in the “fiction” side of the shop or the “non-fiction” side of the shop, and at the time people only read one or the other, so if you put it on both sides of the shop you got both sets of book buyers.

The book was originally published including real photographs of the characters in the books, and presented as if its contents could be based on a true story. Today, Fiennes says the book is a work of fiction, but the truth is muddied by the various ways the book has been marketed since its original publication in 1991. In my opinion, some incarnations of the book crossed the line in promoting the “non-fiction” elements of the story, rather than taking on the more responsible genre of “faction.”

The film, on the other hand, clearly departs significantly from the plot of the book. It goes so far as to actually drastically change the storyline of Ranulph Fiennes' character, who is the one person whose participation can be easily verified. Given this huge departure from the book, a source of already dubious veracity, it is clear that the filmmakers have no reasonable belief that they are actually creating a work “based on a true story.”

The movie presents real deaths, war actions, and crimes performed by characters with real-world living counterparts, and it presents them under the guise of being “based on a true story.” This is despite the following statement from Fiennes:

The publishers and literary agents have written to them and said it was quite clear that they shouldn’t have done that, and that they should change it to words like “inspired by” instead of “based on.” Maybe they’ll change it, but I don’t know.

Personally, I find the presentation of this film as being “based on a true story” to be reprehensible.

Here's the weird thing… I have no problem with a work of fiction pretending to be real. I'm fine with it in the case of Fargo and I'm fine with it in the case of the many “found footage” horror films or mockumentaries. These are cases of presenting predominantly fictional characters and situation as being real. They are wholly fictional works being presented as “true” as part of their fiction.

However, it's totally irresponsible to do this once your characters are real people, especially real people who are still alive. I think it's deeply unethical, and in many cases could considered to be illegal. I assume that the people who made the film feel they are adequately protected legally in their claim that the film is “based on a true story” but that doesn't relieve them of their ethical obligation of not presenting real people as war criminals and then claiming they're telling a “true story.”

There are actually plenty of suitable alternatives to “based on a true story” that cover situations like this. Some obvious alternatives would be “inspired by a true story” or “inspired by true events” which both weaken the connection to reality. An even better alternative would have been just changing the names of the characters, so they aren't directly claiming that real people committed unsubstantiated murders and war crimes. This should have been an obvious choice once they changed the story from what was presented in the original book.

Of course, the most responsible choice would have been to just present the film as a work of fiction, but then you don't get the “true story” marketing and publicity hook.

The nature of film is that it has a power of becoming real to the viewer. We experience what the characters are going through as if we are going through those same situations. We feel their emotions and think as if we are in their shoes. There is a level of trust implicit in this; that we, the audience, are willing to let you, the filmmaker, control our experience for the next two hours because we trust you will treat that honor with the responsibility it deserves. We want to believe the things we are watching are real, and when you tell us that yes, we did actually watch something real, we take that information with us when we leave the theater.

At the very least, we hope that if you are going to mess with the implicit contract between audience and filmmaker you are going to do it for a compelling artistic reason. Not just as a way to market your movie, with the side-effect of causing members of the audience to believe damaging lies about real people and real organizations long after leaving the theater.

What I'll take away: “based on a true story” can provide an interesting marketing hook for a film and can help draw an audience into a film, but should be used responsibly.

[A version of this post was originally published on January 15, 2012 on my old blog at keithcalder.com.]

#Film #Filmmaking #Ethics #KillerElite