May the Force Still Be with You

“Star Wars is one of those films — old films — that was designed for the big screen. It makes a big difference to see it on the big screen with the overwhelming sound, the picture and now 3D. We’ve had two generations be able to see it on the big screen and it was great. Now kids who have never seen it on the big screen, who have no idea how powerful it was — because all they had was DVD — have that chance.”
George Lucas
The Hollywood Reporter article by Alex Ben Rock

It’s been a Star Wars week for me. Wednesday night I had to drive two hours to pick-up a crew member flying into Des Moines Airport from Los Angeles. Because he was coming in around midnight I decided to make a stop at the Apple Store and catch a late showing of Star Wars: Episode 1 -The Phantom Menace 3D at the West Jordan Mall. I know this will be heresy to diehard Star Wars fans, but I had never seen the film. I was a teenager when the first Star Wars came out and eventually when I found out who Darth Vader was I was satisfied with the series.

Which means I hadn’t seen a Star Wars movie in the theaters since seeing Return of the Jedi in 1983. That’s almost 30 years! But I remember that night well, because I was in film school where about 70% of the people were there because of the original Star Wars. A bunch of us went to a midnight showing in Hollywood and it was great.

So there I was Wednesday night (with just one other person in a massive theater) hitting the reset button experiencing Star Wars again like I was seven years old. And remembering that through all of the pros and cons that’s been said of various Star Wars characters and movies over the years—that George Lucas is a genius. Forget almost everything else he’s done and just judge him Star Wars, American Graffiti and the story for Indiana Jones is proof enough.

Yesterday (the day after seeing The Phantom Menace) I went to a shoot at a company here in Cedar Falls called Phantom EFX where among others things in their creative environment was a handmade R2D2 so I couldn’t pass up having my picture taken with the little fellow. I was interviewing Aaron Schurman, Phantom EFX CEO and designer of the Darkest of Days video game. It turns out that Aaron has been out to LA to meet with CAA and develop one of his games into a feature film.) Boy, you never know what’s going on in the outskirts of the cornfields here in Iowa.

All of this reminds me of an opportunity I had back in 2006 to visit ILM in San Francisco where I was greeted by the statue below of Yoda before entering the building.

Good memories, and great movie memories. Thanks Mr. George Lucas.

Maybe the force still be with you—and all of us—all the of days of our lives.

Scott W. Smith

Read Full Post »

The Enemy of Creativity

“As a teacher what I do is I combine passion with the subjects I teach.”
Jaime Escalante (1930-2010)
Inspiration behind the movie Stand and Deliver

“I can’t think of a better way to spend a life than pursuing the imagination.”
Richard Walter
Writer & screenwriting professor

(Richard Walter Interview Part 1)

Today begins a several part series taken from an interview I did with Richard Walter, Chairman of the UCLA screenwriting program. Early in his screenwriting career he wrote the first draft of American Graffiti for George Lucas. He’s taught at UCLA since 1977, where his students have included David Koepp (Spiderman) Audrey Wells (Under the Tuscan Sun), and Alexander Payne (Sideways). He’s also the author of Essentials of Screenwriting: The Art, Craft, and Business of Film and Television Writing.

SS: In the last 30 years there has been an explosion of screenwriting training in books, schools, CDs/DVDs, blogs, and seminars, yet you say that you’ve seen that many writers are merely writing scripts that are “shiny, superficial and soulless.” So what’s the problem that writers today are technically better, but that hasn’t translated into better scripts?

Richard Walter: “They’ve gotten intellectual. I think the downside to some of the books on screenwriting is they do tend to make people become self-conscious and intellectual—’Uh, let’s see is this the inciting incident? Or is it a plot point? On page 17 this is supposed to happen, and that’s supposed to happen.’ How can that do anything other than straight-jacket people?

I do believe in outlining, but at some point you have to let go of that outline and stay open to surprises and live with the uncertainty.

I’ve seen people who have shaped the script correctly, yet it just doesn’t move me. It just doesn’t reach audiences in the solar plexus. It’s too complete in the old spelling of the word C-O-M-P-L-E-T. It’s a little too well made.

One of my favorite movies ever, but certainly my favorite of those that came out of UCLA, was a real UCLA film school Mafia film called Stand and Deliver, the story of Jaime Escalante. He was a dedicated teacher and decided to teach calculus to these Latino kids who live in the barrio in East LA and go to Garfield High. And he succeeded in doing that.

The first thing a teacher has to have is high expectations. And indeed Escalante succeeded in teaching these kids calculus. And indeed they take the Educational Testing Services national test in calculus and they all pass it. Well, back in New Jersey where the ETS is located they get back these results and say, ‘This can’t be true. These Latino kids in East LA could not have passed this calculus exam, they must of cheated,’ and so they make them take the test again. This is the true story upon which the movie is based. So the kids take the test again and pass and demonstrate they indeed were capable of learning calculus.

Now I want you to imagine Tom Musca, who was the producer and co-writer of that movie, saying to me, ‘Now , Richie, imagine me pitching this picture to the town. The climax is these kids take a math test—twice.’ It sounds idiotic, it sounds very stupid. But it works so well. So I would say that the worst mistake that writers make is we outsmart ourselves, and that’s sometimes what happens with these (screenwriting) books, they make us a little too self-observing and that is the enemy of all creative expression. “

Related Posts: Robert McKee Vs. Richard Walter

Screenwriting Quote #16 (Richard Walter)

Scott W. Smith

Read Full Post »

Movie Cloning (“Raiders”)

“The main thing is for him to be a super hero in the best sense of the word, which is John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Sean Connery tradition of a man who we can look up to and say, ‘Now there’s somebody who really knows his job…’”
George Lucas in 1978 Raiders story conference discussing the character that became Indiana Jones

“I have read from cover to cover, books like Leonard Maltin Movie Guide, which contains thousands of plot, character, and movie ideas. I encourage my brain to try to mix these themes together in the hope that my mind will meld a new form. This process is called ‘bi-association.’ the joining together of two forms to create a new one.

Jaws in Outer Space? This is bi-association that could be called Alien? Dinosaurs in modern America? You could call this Jurassic Park. Star Wars is akin to Robin Hood in the future.  What about Casablanca on Mars?

The story of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves started in my idea files as ‘Robin Hood—Raider’s Style.’ It was there for some time before the concept of framing the story around a Muslim hero and a Christian Robin Hood working together against an evil force solidified my creative direction.”
Writer/Director Pen Densham (Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves)
Riding the Alligator

And since we’re talking about cloning and Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) we must make a point of mentioning King Solomon’s Mines. Though that was a 1985 movie, it was based on a very pre-Raiders book by H. Rider Haggard (1856-1925). Haggard is said to be the founder of the “Lost World” literary genre and you can download his books at Project Gutenberg. In fact, King Solomon’s Mine was first made into a movie in 1950 with a script by Helen Deutsch, and perhaps a movie little Stevie (born 1946) or George (born 1944) watched on TV  growing up.

In 1975 (around the time Raiders was first being developed)  the old 30s & 40s pulp book adventure hero Doc Savage came to life in a TV movie called Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze.

“Remember the movie Soldier of Fortune with Clark Gable? There was a good deal of Rhett Butler in the character. The devil-may-care kind of guy who can handle situations.”
Steven Spielberg
1978 Raiders story conference

If you want a Michael Douglas/Indiana Jones check out Romancing the Stone—1984. Tom Selleck—High Road to China. If you want a female version of Indiana Jones watch Angelina Jolie in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Just to name a few, of course.

And though there are reports that Harrison Ford wants to kill off Indiana Jones, apparently Shane Black is developing a new script on Doc Savage.

Related Post: Movie Cloning (Part 1)

Raiders Revisited (Part 1)

Raiders Revisited (Part 2)

Raiders Revisited (Part 3)

Raiders Revisited (Part 4)

Scott W. Smith

Read Full Post »

Merry Christmas George Lucas

Judging from the Christmas list (or Cristmis list) that my wife and I received recently from a seven-year-old, LEGOs are a little different then when I was a kid. (And, yes, this list is 100% authentic.) And if this is a common list this Christmas, and every kid gets one or two Star Wars LEGOs this year, then it will be a very good year for George Lucas. The total of this list comes to $1,384.91.

Star Wars, the movie that just keeps on earning.

Read Full Post »

Creating Under the Influence

“Oh, I’ve stolen from the best… I mean I’m a shameless thief.”
Woody Allen

“Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination.”
Jim Jarmusch

No, I’m not going to write about writers and artists who create while drinking. But if you read a few bios of writers and artists you’ll realize that more than a few (for whatever reason) have a fondness/weakness for drugs and alcohol. But that’s another post for another day.

I want to address creative influence.

Yesterday, I did a photo shoot and was told by one friend that one of my shots looked like one of the Star Trek movie character posters and other friend said George Hurrell would be proud. Not knowing what either meant I did a quick Google search and discovered that they were both correct. See if you agree.

The photo I took of Josh McCabe is one the left and the other is of actor Eric Bana as the Star Trek character Nero. I don’t recall ever seeing the Nero photo before, but the  similarities are obvious. Black & white photo of white males, dead center  composition with eyes looking up, lit with edge lights to the left and right. (If I shaved Josh’s head and Photoshopped some tattoos from his arm to his face it would be called a dead rip off.)

Now photographer George Hurrell‘s influence I will admit to. When I moved to LA as a 21-year-old there was a place on Hollywood Blvd. that was lined with photos of old movie stars— Errol Flynn, Joan Crawford, Jean Harlow and the like.  Lots of black and white shots from the 30s and 40s and I’ve always been drawn to that style. Hurrell was one of the best known photographers of movie stars in that era. Here’s one of his shots of Humphrey Bogart next to the photo I took. Again, there are similarities and I understand why the connection was made.

There’s nothing new under the sun. Isn’t Lady Gaga just an updated version of Madonna and Cher? And weren’t they updated versions of Carmen Miranda?

Well now she had a big hat, my it was high
Had bananas and mangos all piled to the sky
How she could balance it, I wouldn’t dare
But they don’t dance like Carmen nowhere
—Jimmy Buffett

From a screenwriting perspective, don’t be surprised (or offended) if someone reads your script and says, “It reminds me of….” Graphic designer Milton Glaser (most famous for his I Love New York design) says that all creativity is is just connecting influences. You have your influences when you create something and the viewer/reader of your work has their influences. Lines are being crossed and connected all the time.

George Lucas and Steven Spielberg have both talked about boyhood TV shows and movies that influenced the concepts behind Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Sometimes the connection is obvious and sometimes obscure. One of the screenplays kicking around my house is Body Heat written by Lawrence Kasden. The 1981 film has often been called a re-make of the 1944 Billy Wilder film Double Indemnity. You can find much online (here’s one) about the connection between the two, and I don’t know if Kasden ever saw Double Indemnity, but the script I have says “An original screenplay by Lawrence Kasden.”

Don’t analyze this stuff too much because it will stifle your creativity. Just keep creating, keep writing.

Scott W. Smith

Read Full Post »

Screenwriting Outside L.A. 101

“I have not failed. I have just found 1,000 ways that did not work.”
Thomas Edison (And one of screenwriter Chris Sparling’s favorite quotes.)

Los Angles is full of screenwriters who came from outside L.A.

Of course, most of them broke in the old-fashioned way. They moved there. That’s been going on for 100 years ever since L.A. replaced New York and Chicago as the go to place to make movies.

And that may be true for the next 100 years, because that is still the heart of the film industry. It’s where the majority of studios, executives and film talent are based. It’s the main place for deals to happen and for movies to be made.

But what keeps that heart pumping is the fresh talent that movies through it. And that talent often comes from outside L.A.

And I’ve spent two years giving accounts of talented writers who come from all over the U.S. (and sometimes other countries) to make an impact on the film business. Occasionally, writers have enough clout to stay in their hometowns (John Hughes/ Chicago) and sometimes they move back to their hometown (Mike France/St. Pete Beach) or move to their ideal creative place (George Lucas/Skywalker Ranch). But those are exceptions to the rule.

The big question now is has the technology and the business evolved to the point where it is becoming more common for screenwriters and filmmakers to not only launch a career outside L.A., but sustain one from wherever they want live? In the 70s & 80s Francis Ford Coppola & Lucas fled to Northern California to do their thing. In the 90s & 2000s, we’ve see places like Austin, Atlanta & Portland become places where filmmakers live and work. I think that is a trend that is going to continue to spread throughout the country.

Let me throw out a quote that point to where things are heading:

“I think that the Internet is going to effect the most profound change on the entertainment industries combined. And we’re all gonna be tuning into the most popular Internet show in the world, which will be coming from some place in Des Moines. We’re all gonna be on the Internet trying to find an audience.”
(Steven Spielberg in interview with Katie Couric on the NBC Today Show in 1999)

Have you noticed that the phrase “I think that the Internet…” has become a very popular? As in I think that the Internet…helped Diablo Cody become a screenwriting rock star.

But I think that it is fair to point out that Diablo Cody moved from Minneapolis to L.A. soon after her script for Juno sold. My guess is newcomer Chris Sparling will be moving from Rhode Island to L.A. soon (if he hasn’t already done so). I think Sparling is a recent and great example of how to launch a screenwriting career from outside L.A.

At this point he’s just a few days removed from the stir that was created at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival where the film he wrote, Buried, sold for $3 million plus. So there is not a lot written about him, but I’ve pieced together a few things I could from the internet.

Since he’s said he is roughly the same age as Ryan Reynolds (who stars in Buried), I’m guessing that he has been writing for ten years (maybe even 15 if he started as a teenager). He made some short films and in 2005 made a low-budget feature called An Uzi at the Alamo where he was the producer, director, writer and lead actor. The film can be viewed on Netflicks.

But as is often pointed out, getting a film made and paying the bills are not always the same thing. In one interview he said he recently “started applying for police jobs.”

From what I can gather Sparling earned money as a personal trainer and a freelance writer for magazines and blogs such as Maximum Fitness Magazine, Sunrise Helpers, Indie Slate and Imagine Magazine,The Diabetes Blog, The Cardio Blog, FitBuff,  America Online’s That’s Fit and Exist Magazine. He also taught screenwriting at Emerson College and I found an ad from just a year ago where he would read scripts for people and help them write query letters for extra money.

In an interview with Emerson College, Sparling was asked how one gets an agent and he said,“You have to cultivate relationships. You have to nurture them. You may meet an agent and send him a script. Odds are it will be a pass if he or she reads it at all, but you keep that relationship open and get recommended to others, and maybe on the fourth or fifth script you send to an agent…that’s the one they love and want to rep.”

Did you catch that? He said “maybe the fourth of fifth script.” Good writing is a process. It takes time. Sparling has said that it took him seven scripts before it “clicked” for him and that he wrote 9 or 10 scripts before Buried sold. Then he was on the fast track as it went into production, was edited, and shown and sold at Sundance all within the last year. It will be released in the spring of 2010. He’s a hot writer in Hollywood now as he’s sold other scripts and picked up other assignments. But don’t forget the many years and many scripts that paved the way for his recent success.

Living in Providence, Rhode Island he would also make occasional trips to L.A. to make contacts in the film industry.

“The first time I flew into LA, I had 15 meetings in five days. The next time it was 20 meetings.”
Chris Sparling

So did Chris Sparling just get lucky? I don’t think so. His is not the only way to break into Hollywood, but it follows a pretty common path that I would condense as:

1) Read a lot of scripts
2) Write a lot of scripts
3) Meet a lot of people

And if you want to read most of the good, logical reasons on why you should live in L.A., check out Ashley Scott Meyers’ post Do you have to live in Los Angeles to be a screenwriter?

© 2010 Scott W. Smith 
 

 

 

Read Full Post »

Raiders Revisited (part 4)

So where did the Ark idea come from for Raiders of the Lost Ark?

The credit apparently goes to Philip Kaufman who received a story credit on the script. (Kaufman is best known as the writer and director of The Right Stuff.) Kaufman was born and raised in Chicago and his grandparents were German-Jewish immigrants. He majored in history at the University of Chicago before spending time traveling in Europe.

In an interview with Alex Simon for Venice Magazine Kaufman said, “I didn’t actually write any drafts of that. George Lucas and I sat down to write a story. I had the idea of the lost ark. George had the idea of the Indiana Jones character. We talked for about six weeks and then I got an offer to do another movie. About four years later, I got a call from George saying that he and Spielberg talked about the project on a beach in Hawaii, and would I mind if Steven did it? I said fine, and that’s what happened.”

In the Raiders Story Conference Transcript Kaufman explains how long the Ark idea had been kicking around in his mind. (And keep in mind this is an unedited, free flowing brain storming meeting.) “A kind of Middle Eastern adventure based around a similar idea to something like that book The Spear of Destiny where the Nazis were into mystical cults and so forth, and they were looking for, in this case, it was a thing that I, you know, have been thinking about for maybe twenty years since a doctor — my mononucleosis doctor — when I was in college, a famous blood specalist –and he had written –with another doctor — an article on the Ark of the Covenant and how he felt it provided a means of communication with some other extra-terrestrial or Godlike whatever — it was in a sense an elaborate radio setup –it contained silk curtains and veils and others things –I’ve forgotten — it’s all in the Bible, Leviticus, Exodus, the second book of the Bible, or whatever …A good part of that chapter in the Bible is the detailing of the actual Ark of the Covenant itself….”

They kick around details about the Ark for a while and then Kaufman says,”I told George the other day that there was a thing on In Search Of the other night –The Dead Sea Scrolls – and there was, kind of the landscape similar to what – to where I’d imagine this would happen – the tents in the desert and coming upon – suddenly in the Middle East – all of these Nazis who were out there looking for –tracking down clues to find this thing if they could in fact find it, all power would be theirs –they would be invincible, and immune.”

(How many times does Leviticus and Exodus come up in Hollywood story meetings?)

So you take the Ark, some Nazis, a James Bond-like archeology professor with a bull whip, a tough girl, a bad guy, some spiders and snakes, a little Exodus,  and you let Lawrence Kasden sort it all out and have Spielberg add his visual style in exotic locations, add some special effects like that guy’s face melting at the end and out pops Raiders of the Lost Ark.

It all sounds kind of simple, doesn’t it?

And what were the results?

A total of eight Oscar nominations with four wins; art direction, effects, editing and sound. The $20 million film made a domestic gross of $200. million and when  you add the sequels, tape and DVDs sales, and merchandising that simple concept has made a gazillion dollars.

And it also faired well in AFI’s top 100 films resting now at #66 and #10 on AFI’s 100 Years…100 Thrills. And it all started with an idea the George Lucas had back in 1973 called The Adventures of Indiana Smith. 

Side note: My only very, very loose connection to Raiders is that a couple years after the movie’s release stuntman Terry Leonard came to my film school to give a workshop on stunts. He was the guy that performed the famous truck drag scene that some have rated as one of the all time great stunts. Leonard once said, “Most people treat their bodies like a temple, whether they do or not, I treated mine like a South Tuscon beer bar.”

 

Scott W. Smith

Read Full Post »

Raiders Revisited (part 2)

 I hate snakes, Jock. I hate ‘em. 
                                        Indiana Jones
                                       Raiders of the Lost Ark 

How did Indiana Jones come to hate snakes? Well, thanks to the discovery of the Indiana Jones Story Conference we now know. Here is the evolution of an idea as transcribed in 1978 in an exchange between Steven Speilberg, George Lucas, and Lawrence Kasden. Leading up to this exchange they have decided to shut Jones inside the “Well of Souls”  with a couple torches and think of ways to terrorize him.

G — … The idea of the Nazis putting tigers in there…You know what it’s like to fly in a tiger from South Africa.

S — It would have to be a neighborhood tiger.

G — There aren’t any tigers out there.

S — I’m not in love with the idea.

G — You could have bats and stuff, make it slightly spooky.

S — I like the idea of, while the water’s rising, he climbs up onto the rocks, he sees a column which is weak, he finds a rock and pulls it out of the wall. He begins pounding away at the column as the water is rising. His hands are all bloody. He’s able to loosen the column so that it falls through a wall or through the door. 

G — And then all the water rushes though?

S — And he swims with the water. It’s a waterfall.

G — The only problem with the water is it’s going to be hard to do, and it’s going to be hard to rationalize it. We can’t. We can call it the temple of life and establish that it has a lot of water in it. But, at the same time, it’s like the sand. Plus it’s such a classic thing.

S — What about snakes? All these snakes come out.

G — People hate snakes. Possibly when he gets down there in the first place.

S — It’s like hundred of thousands of snakes.

(They continue to develop the idea and then work their way backwards to make sure the snake scene is properly foreshadowed by letting the audience know early on that Jones hates snakes. That allows for maximum impact during the “Well of Souls” scene.)

G –It should be slightly amusing that he hates snakes, and then he opens this up, “I can’t go down there. Why did there have to be snakes, Anything but snakes.” You can play it for comedy. The one thing that could happen is he gets trapped with all these snakes.

S –Another thing that would be interesting for complete abject terror, as you see these thousands of snakes, you cut to macro insert shots, snakes laying eggs, little snakes hatching, two snakes eating each other. All this propagation is going on inside this huge tomb.

In the screenplay the set up that Indy hates snakes is on page 11 and the payoff happens on page 63. And they save the pay off when it will have the maximum impact—as Indy is close to the very thing he is after the Ark of the Covenant.  This is how the script describes the scene:

                                                INDY
                    The Ark must be in that stone case. What’s that gray
                   stuff all over the floor –

He breaks off realizing exactly what that carpet is. He blanches. Indiana Jones blanches. 

Indy drops his torch on the floor of the Well. This is answered by the most horrific HISSING imaginable.

WHAT HE SEES. That thick carpet of moving. It’s alive. It’s thousands and thousands of deadly poisonous snakes—Egyptian asps. And the only thing that seems capable of avoiding this venomous groundcover is the alter. The snakes ebb and flow near it, but never encroach on it, as though repelled by some invisible force.

Indy shakes his head and talks to himself.

                                               INDY
                     Why snakes? Why did it have to be snakes.
                    Anything else.

Though I first saw that movie when it was released almost 30 years ago I remember the creepy (yet humorous) impact that scene had on me. (Though I’m not sure why the screenwriter used the word “blanches” at that moment other than I think he used to teach high school English. I would prefer “His face instantly goes pale.”)

It was a great movie moment and now you know there is no mystical place screenwriters go to for great ideas. They simple kick ideas around using their back ground and knowledge until they land on what they think will work best. The results aren’t usually as good as Raiders of the Lost Ark, but the process is the same.

Scott W. Smith

Read Full Post »

Raiders Revisited (part 1)

I just learned through Mystery Man on Film that there is a downloadable transcript of a story conference for Raiders of the Lost Ark. It includes George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Larry Kasden walking through their ideas back in 1978 for the blockbuster film that would eventually be released in 1981. (Philip Kaufman who has a story credit on the film comes in toward the end of the 126 page transcript.)

There’s great stuff there and I highly recommend it to any screenwriter. I am currently writing two screenplays with others writers and it’s nice to see that the process is basically the same as what happens at this story conference. Not that I’m writing the next Raiders, but that the give and take is the same. You talk about other films, characters, and situations that are like your story.

Here’s an excerpt of George Lucas from the story conference discussing the Indiana Jones character;
Now, several aspects that we’ve discussed before; The image of him is “The Treasure of the  Sierra Madre” outfit, which is the khaki pants, he’s got the leather jacket, that sort of felt hat, and the pistol and holster with World War One sort of flap over it. He’s going into the jungle carrying his gun. The other thing we’ve added to him, which may be fun, is a bull whip. That’s really his trade mark. That’s really what he’s good at. He has a pistol, and he’s probably very good at that, but at the same time he happens to be very good with a bull whip. It’s really more of a hobby than anything else. Maybe he came from Montana, someplace, and he…There are freaks who love bull whips. They do it all the time. It’s a device that hasn’t been used in a long time.

And at another point when they talk about the opening scene in the Temple they talk about spiders, snakes, and skeletons,  Spielberg adds, “What we’re just doing here, really, is designing a ride at Disneyland.” And for anyone who didn’t like my post Screenwriting by Numbers here is another Spielberg line, “This is the first scene in the movie. This scene should get at least four major screams.”

Is the document authentic? I don’t know but it certainly seems plausible and it’s a joy to read. 

 

Scott W. Smith

Read Full Post »