Writing Screenplays, Satire and Novels

there is but one time
one place
one chance
brief and fleeting
wherein to walk
wherein to dance

the spectrum’s wide
from the blackest void
to the whitest ski
and we shall yield
to this unpaced life
a harmony to live
a woe to die

there is but one song
one chorus long
one word
one phrase
hushed and whispered
right or wrong

the spectrum’s wide
from the greyest smoke
to the palest ash
one chance
one choice
in halting voice

and we shall meet
by chance one day
and choose the song
to begin this turn
and we shall go
and we shall stay

among the smoke
among the gray
and bring to light
the chorus long
in the smallest time
in this so brief song

Wilson Dutcher enjoys tweeting on Twitter. In the course of watching his fleeting and often interesting splats of communication, I’ve realized a number of things about the entertainment industry and people in general just from observing Wilson go plickety-plop on his I-phone. Most of Wilson’s followers are in the film and television industry (as one might guess since he’s a screenwriter.) Despite the fact that quite a few of them have celebrity status (unlike us lowly writers who rarely become household names), they are as interested in sharing their thoughts with others as anyone else. But here’s the rub: An actor’s stock-in-trade is not limited to his/her ability to deliver a line any more than a writer’s task is limited to writing one. An actor’s persona is what the director is utilizing in helping to create a scene; it is what the producer is marketing whether the performance is presented on a viewable medium or live. There is a reason we have casting directors: the persona needs to fit the role. (Whether we like it or not, not every persona is right for every part. I can’t imagine Wally Cox being cast as the captain of the starship Enterprise any more than I can imagine Humphrey Bogart playing Mitzi in The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert. Both may have been up to the challenges presented by such casting, but I doubt either would have been interested in trying.) When a person gets on Twitter, or Facebook or any other medium of mass communication and states that he/she is well known person without disclosing the fraud, that person is stealing—and perhaps damaging—the actor’s stock-in-trade. I know, I know… some will say that it goes with the territory. It doesn’t. The purpose of Twitter is, in part, to be able to form a community. The formation of a community contemplates facilitating communication between people with shared interests. It includes the means of adding new people who’d like to be introduced to the existing crowd. It is built on the sharing of one’s personality when the spotlight isn’t turned on even if that sharing goes out to thousands of others. I was trained as an attorney and actively practice law (the dreaded “day-job”). My wife, Jen, will tell you that I’m a different person in the court room than I am when I’m with friends or working on a film concept. I like the fact that I don’t have to be “the lawyer” except when it’s called for. I suspect that everyone feels that way about their professional personalities and the ability to shed them when they are sharing their thoughts during downtime. I know it may be fun for some to play dress-up and pretend to be Brad Pitt, but that’s what Halloween parties are for. If I’m listening to someone, or talking to an individual—even on an open market like Twitter—I want the assurance that I’m not talking to a fraud or listening to one. Each of us has spent years developing a unique and valuable personality. Identity theft in any form is a crime.

A view of the coming attractions at the multiplex would lead one to believe that American cinema no longer knows how to tell an ordinary, adult story where the word “adult” is not a code word for porn. It has often been said that Hollywood made a film a week in the golden age of movies, all centered on main-stream adult fare. When this is said, it is always it the context that the quality of films today is slipping. In my schizophrenic view of this odd industry I’m in, I find myself quibbling with that bromide and agreeing with it at the same time, all the while digressing from the main theme of this blog as a plethora of conflicting ideas pours in.

First, we still think there is something called “Hollywood”. Even if we mean that concentration of film-related businesses in Los Angeles, or the general world of film making, referring to “Hollywood” isn’t helpful except to evoke a whiff of nostalgia for a time and place that never existed. Second, the Golden Age wasn’t all that golden. For every Philadelphia Story there were four or five forgettable “Blondie” comedies; for every Singing In The Rain there was a handful of Busby Berkeley knockoffs. Time filters our memory. We forget that The Third Man was not a hit when it was first released, Mash was viewed with horror by the studio, and Altman was thought to be nuts.

Admittedly, one part of the film industry is very centered on making large entertainments. They are expensive, technically driven pieces designed to occupy the 17-34 year old core demographic in the hope of garnering a large return on investment the first weekend of release. These films are devoted to blowing things up or tearing things apart. Most of them have predictable story lines in a genre where story line is not the leading element of the presentation. They are films that are easily dismissed by critics, as digestible as a handful of malt balls and a swig of Coke, a megadollop of immediate gratification with minimal residual side effects. In fact, some of this stuff is very well written (Iron Man for example), and most of it is at the cutting edge of film technology. Most of these films shouldn’t be written off: they are fun and they turn a dollar.

Even with a more balanced view of the comic book driven extravaganzas and the wink-wink, wank-wank comedies being offered (Superbad; Hangover), I still wonder where our audience is heading. It is clear to me that character-driven stories are being marginalized. My choice for best film 2008, Benjamin Button, was not at the center of audience interest. Neither was Slumdog Millionaire. What the audience finds appealing has changed, hasn’t it? If Bob Hope was trying to get into movies today, where would he fit in? At best, he might find a spot in episodic television as Kelsey Grammer did in Cheers and Fraiser. While Fraiser contained some of the best comedic writing and Grammer was often as good as any performer in a feature comedy, humor on this level is fading. None of the Crosby/Hope “Road” pictures would be green-lighted today, and reality T.V. has drowned out even the best of situation comedy on television. [Indeed, as reality TV. now fades, TV. producers are wondering what it is that will draw an audience as overall viewing erodes.]

I equate comedic and dramatic stories that involve the mind of the audience as quality work; I tend to place movies featuring gross-out humor or super baddies-vaporizing-the-Golden-Gate-Bridge on some other level. I suspect I don’t think that getting drunk and throwing up is really all that funny, and smashing apart a city is not all that interesting no matter how inventively it’s done or even if it’s Modesto.

In today’s market, Casablanca would be an art house film. So-called independent film makers still make films that involve real people in real situations—sometimes they even center on people that are older than thirty years—but they do not get the exposure to reach a wide audience. They don’t have the budgets that contemporary advertising requires.

Despite the length of this essay, I still haven’t answered the question posed at the heart of this blog: has the film industry abandoned the genre of films (comedy or drama) centered on ordinary people in relatively normal situations, or has the audience abandoned stories that are not primarily fantasies? When Steve, Mark and I discuss this sort of thing, we always say that if the movie is good, it will find its audience. Maybe so. I am sure that the people who made Slumdog Millionaire were asking themselves this as they were about to begin principal photography. I hope there is still a place for the sort of film that Paul Newman and Jessica Tandy starred in, Nobody’s Fool.

I sometimes wonder if writing is worth all the problems that the desire to write creates. It rarely gives the writer cash or fame: if we are lucky enough to be paid, it’s all-too-quickly spent; if we get recognition (Diablo Cody who wrote Juno, for example)—well—fame’s fleeting and it can’t be deposited at the ATM. The title “screenwriter” sometimes causes a flicker of interest—anything remotely echoing of Hollywood sounds exciting. While a long resume brings a “wow” in the inner circles of movie-land, interest quickly fades if there’s nothing new on the blotter, and the only other place where “inner circles” are found is in Dante’s Inferno. Comparisons between the Inferno and Hollywood are purely coincidental.

I don’t have a long resume. I only started writing screenplays a couple of years ago which isn’t long enough for anything I’ve done with DGM to trickle trough the process of production. No one gets their first screenplay produced after it’s finished unless the writer’s uncle is the head of Paramount. It might happen if the writer has Cinderella’s magic dove (fairy godmother in the Disney version), but I don’t have any use for the glass slipper which won’t fit and no interest in the Prince (since I’m not gay) unless the Prince wants to underwrite DGM’s next screenplay. What’s the chance that Tinkerbelle will get our next screenplay green-lighted by sprinkling us with “fairy-dust, fairy-dust” as Robin Williams calls it (which, as I recall, did not manage to arouse interest from the gum-chewing dancer for the Nathan Lane character.) There is no magic in the film industry, from fairy dust or anything else.

So, what’s this all about? Well, we’re in production, or pre-production, or development or something with a new film currently entitled Call Waiting. Since this is being shot as an independent film, no one has had the decency to payoff the writers, lay hold of the script, and film the damn thing without us. We’re still in it. Everyone except Mark Gallistl’s dog, Caramel, has made script suggestions. Some of them are good; some have been just this side of rancid milk. Caramel has had the good taste to leave the writers alone unless we have cookies with our coffee in which Caramel’s interest is limited to getting her cut of the cookies.

What non-writers don’t know is how interconnected a story is: a change on page ten ripples to tidal wave proportions by page 43. Every great suggestion creates pages of agony trying to get the ramifications of the suggested change straight.

I think many screenwriters have given up trying to write a story that makes sense. Maybe it makes no difference if the story has more holes than a moth’s wool suit. I liked Zombieland for it’s nuttiness, but explain to me again why zombies don’t get eaten by other zombies. And, if a zombie is simply a person reawakened from the dead, why can it be killed by shooting it? Wouldn’t a zombie that’s been shot get up and keep going since a zombie is a person reawakened from the dead? Yeah, I was awake during the movie when they rattled off the mad cow disease mumbo-jumbo for people like me who want an explanation for something that clearly does not exist in the world. I’m not sure it helped.

Yet, that is what we do as writers, isn’t it? We spin a web of fanciful facts in the odd hope that someone will like the finished work well enough to hand us a few bucks and give the production company a wad of cash to produce it. They say there’s a thousand unread scripts for each one that manages to get filmed. Of the films made, only a few get a wide release. So, again I ask, Why do we do it?

I don’t know except to say that I’ve got to quit writing this so that I can get ready for a meeting with the director of Call Waiting so we can outline some changes to the script.

So, GE sold NBC to Comcast. One megacorp selling a film company to another. Big Deal! At least, you might say, Comcast is in the communication business while GE makes stoves and toasters. I guess optical fiber is more closely connected to the making of films than warming trays for bacon wrapped sushi.
Big companies buy businesses to generate revenue (alert the media with that one, Rich!) We all want to generate revenue, right? Wouldn’t be in business if we didn’t—but… Look at what’s out there. Avatar cost what? And is that including the cost of developing 3D digital technology? If you include that, no matter what Avatar makes, it won’t break even. That’s Mr. Cameron’s concern, not mine, you might add. I know, if the film looks good, the audience will show up. If it doesn’t, it’ll die in the second or third weekend like every other film. Personally, I hope it does well. Without Titanic Mr. Cameron’s work in digital 3D wouldn’t have been done.
So, what’s the gripe (cause, Rich, we know you’re going to bitch about something)? In order to get massive revenues a film must appeal to a wide audience. The films of the ‘30s and ‘40s were written for all ages, not merely the 17-34 male demographic. There were stories about married people in ordinary jobs who did not blow up buildings or slice evildoers while leaping between apartment building in Marrakech. I like the Bourne series as much as the next person chomping popcorn and I truly hope that the studio and Paul Greengrass patch things up so that Matt Damon can go back to work being enigmatic. The smaller film has been pushed into the indie circuit, but the indie circuit doesn’t get much exposure outside the largest markets. The drive to remake every idea that ever made a buck into a film is driven by the need of MegaCorp for instant gratification. You like My Mother The Car-The Film and the nineteen installment of Saw? Okay. But what about anything else? Pirate Radio is playing in four or five locations in San Francisco: it played in one location in Fresno for two weeks. I know, Fresno sucks and I should be happy that it played in Fresno at all. Ninja Assassin? Four locations: one doesn’t have to drive more than six or seven miles to go see it. I know this makes me a snob but at least Pirate Radio was about something else than blowing things up and slashing people.

DGM Writers group started in the summer of 1995. Mark and Wilson went to Montana where they met with relatives of the scout whose story is told in Absaroka. They began a long journey researching and writing this compelling story. They were side tracked in 2000 for lots of reasons, but in June of 2008 Wilson met Rich who was a novelist at the time. Read more

My usual comment is a gripe about the loss of great storytelling in film. Where are the stories that are so breathtaking you could talk about them for hours afterward with your friends? Where are the comedies that make you laugh and make you think? You counter my glum countenance by reminding me that Avatar is a very conventional story—yeah, it’s kitty cat aliens and space miners instead of Indians and settlers or catholic girl and Jewish guy that drives the love story—but it is a traditional story:  the clash of cultures as the hero falls in love with the doomed society. What about the cool CGI, the glowing forest, and the state of the art battle scenes, you ask? Isn’t that why the audience turned out in half-a-billion-$-plus droves? Eh, no. Read more