‘Happy Gilmore’ Golf Scene

 “I would never write about someone who is not at the end of his rope.”
Stanley Elkin

I’ll round out a couple of weeks of movie related golf posts with a scene of a not so happy Adam Sandler character at the end of his rope. The comedy Happy Gilmore was a fictional story about a former hockey player who became a game changer in the world of golf and surged the sport’s popularity. The movie came out it 1996—the same year Tiger Woods became a professional golfer, who in reality became a game changer in the world of golf and surged the sport’s popularity.

While Happy Gilmore made $41 million dollars at the box office the year it came out, according to Forbes, Woods has been the highest paid athlete for 11 of the past 12 years. In fact, he’s personally made more that $41 million each year since 2002 and four times has had total yearly earnings of over $110 million.

And as a bonus here’s a video of some real pro golfers doing their best to do their best imitation of the Happy Gilmore swing;

P.S. The only professional golfer I could find with a screenwriting connection was Britney Hayes, she’s a rookie this year and studied theater and screenwriting at Bosie State.

Scott W. Smith

Read Full Post »

“What if your script doesn’t sell?” (Tip #73)

“What if your script doesn’t sell?  Most of them don’t.  Doesn’t mean you should give up.  Writing involves a long learning curve.  Most scripts or early novels suck.  Usually, it takes three or four tries before some kind of talent and structure begins to emerge.  It’s frustrating to think that your initial efforts might be just that — early, learning efforts.  But the truth is, most of the time, that’s what they will turn out to be.  That said, scripts can have a long shelf life.  I’ve had at least three scripts sell years and years after I initially wrote them.  In one case, I sold a script a decade after I wrote it.  Sometimes, it’s just a question of timing — the area you’ve chosen to write about isn’t in vogue, but becomes so at a later date.  Or sometimes, your particular stock goes up and a producer will ask if you have anything else in the drawer.  The other thing about scripts is that they can be wonderful calling cards — even if they don’t sell or don’t get made.  It took 4 years from the time I wrote Blade until the day the cameras rolled.  During that time, that un-produced script probably netted me a half-dozen jobs because it worked as a writing sample.”
Screenwriter David S. Goyer (Man of Steel)
On Screenwriting

P.S. As an example of scripts having “a long shelf life”— A writer friend of mine Clare Sera recently sold a script that was completed six years ago with her writing partner Ivan Menchell. Their script Blended is currently being filmed in South Africa with Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore in the lead roles.

Related Posts:
Don’t Waste Your Life (“I spent 18 years doing stand up comedy. Ten years learning, four years refining, and four years of wild success.”—Steve Martin)
What it’s Like Being a Struggling Writer in L.A.?
Bob DeRosa’s “Shortcuts”(“There are no shortcuts. There is only hard work.—Bob DeRosa)
Commitment in the Face if Failure (“I wrote five scripts, then I wrote Little Miss Sunshine and then I wrote four more before I finally sold Little Miss Sunshine. It’s an endurance race.” —Michael Arndt)

If your script doesn’t sell…you can always make it yourself:
“It’s a good time to be a filmmaker” (“The field has been completely leveled. You can go and make your movies. There’s tons of ways to get your movies out there now.”—Edward Burns)

Scott W. Smith

Read Full Post »

Architecture as a Writing Metaphor

I’m certainly not an expert on movies that feature architecture but the topic does interest me and I did find an interesting article called Ten films that every architect must watch. Half of the films on the list I have not only not seen but have never heard of before. Films from Poland, UK, Italy, Japan, France, Germany. I see a new world opening up.

1. The Fountainhead
2. Metropolis
3. Blade Runner
4. Mon Oncle
5. Playtime
6. My Architect
7. Tango
8. Castle in the Sky
9. Belly of an Architect
10. Star Wars series

Architects and architecture are often fitting metaphors for screenwriters and filmmakers because it exposes the world we build or want to build.

As far back as the Bible there is this question asked: “For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?”

Harrison Ford longed to build his uptopia in The Mosquito Coast (screenplay by Paul Schrader from Paul Theroux’s book). Adam Sandler is an architect in the movie Click and faces a life that he has built. Henry Ford’s character in 12 Angry Men was an architect. Over 100 years ago Ibsen wrote the tragic play The Master Builder. And most recently Inception written and directed by Christopher Nolan that features some mindbending architecture and stars Leonardo DiCaprio as features Ellen Page as architect/grad student who creates subconscious dreamscapes. (For what it’s worth, I have read that females architects are only in the 10-13% range of all architects in North America.)

I’m sure there are many other noteworthy films that feature architects and architecture and fell free to comment on some of your favorites.

Scott W. Smith

Read Full Post »

Sneaky Long Screenwriting

“If you follow your passion, the money will follow. Success, in my opinion, involves sheer luck, hard work and humility.”
                                                           Anthony Zuiker, creator CSI TV programs

 

“I’m Zack Johnson and I’m from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. That’s about it, I’m a normal guy.”

                                                           Zach Johnson, professional golfer

Last year at this time Zach Johnson’s above quote caused laughter from the press corp in Augusta, Georgia as he spoke those words before a national TV audience after winning the prestigious Masters at Augusta National golf tournament.

But do normal guys come from seemingly nowhere to win their first major tournament against the greatest golfers in the world? Do normal guys fend off Tiger Woods, one of the greatest golfers in the history of the game?

Zach Johnson was sneaky long.

Sneaky long is a golf phrase which describes a golfer, a golf shot, or a particular hole that looks deceptively underrated. Think of it like an Adam Sandler/Bill Murray-like fellow in his goofiest outfit coming up to some serious golfers and saying, “You guys want to put a little money on who can hit the next ball the longest?” They take the bet thinking the guy doesn’t have a chance and he ends up taking their money.

Sneaky long is the underdog that causes snickers. Rocky, Seabiscuit, and Erin Brockovich were all sneaky long. Audiences love an underdog mainly because the underdog represents us and our deepest wishes.

When a 36-year-old writer broke into the TV business (in a business where 30 is old) with a script for an episode for the TV show Hunter (followed by scripts for even lesser remembered TV shows) few probably thought that within ten years this guy was going to write a movie that would win five Oscars. But that’s what happened after Randell Wallace wrote Braveheart.

Johnson’s hometown of Cedar Rapids, Iowa has had it’s share of sneaky long characters. NFL quarterback Kurt Warner not only grew up in Cedar Rapids but went to the same high school as Johnson. When no large schools offered him a football scholarship, he signed with the University of Northern Iowa, a Division II college right here in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

It wasn’t the big-time college football that he’d hoped for, but at least he thought he’d start all four years. However, he sat the bench for three years before making his marking mark his senior year by becoming the Gateway Conference’s Offensive Player of the Year.

Following graduation, he worked as a grocery stocker at HyVee (where I shop these days to pick up the vibe) and then played arena football in Des Moines. Next was pro ball in Europe before joining the St. Louis Rams where he was booed in his first game. He went on to be twice voted the top player in the NFL and Super Bowl XXXIV MVP. Someday they’ll do a movie about his life.

One could even say that artist Grant Wood was sneaky long. He was a schoolteacher and artist who lived in a small apartment above a carriage house in (you guessed it) Cedar Rapids, where he eventually painted one of the most recognizable (and copied and parodied) paintings in the history of art—American Gothic.

Wood once said, “I had to go to France to appreciate Iowa.” He also coined the term regionalism to define his belief that an artist should “paint out of the land and the people he knows best.”

Isn’t that what Van Gogh did in Arles? Isn’t that what Winslow Homer did in Maine? Isn’t that what Faulkner did in Oxford, what Steinbeck did in Monterey, what O’Connor in Georgia, what Ibsen did in Norway, what Willa Cather did in Nebraska, and what Horton Foote (Tender Mercies) has done in Texas?

This is the heartbeat of Screenwriting from Iowa. Hollywood will always make its tent pole movies. Movies will always have a LA/New York thrust because that’s where the majority of studios, crews, and talent are located.

But if the writer’s strike signaled one thing it’s the times are changing. As the founder of The Geek Squad said recently, “What people don’t understand is the internet hasn’t yet started.” I believe new forms of distribution will fuel a revival in regionalism.

“What regional filmmaking means to me is not only utilizing the actors of your area, the musicians and the artists, but probing what it means to that region. And for me, the thing about Memphis that I’ve always responded to is its music scene, from Sam Phillips recording Howlin’ Wolf, Rudus Thomas, Elvis Presely, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Charlie Rich.”
Craig Brewer, writer/director Hustle & Flow

Audiences for years have been complaining about the lack of originality and seemingly endless repetition of remakes and sequels. (And again that’s why they flocked to Juno.) And writers have struggled with the pressure to write what they think will sell to the masses rather than writing what they know and really want to write.

While advertising dollars are shrinking along with the writing dollars for TV jobs, the advertising dollars are not going away. They’re heading to the internet. And audiences are no longer satisfied the the TV limitations they’ve had in the past. They like being their own Internet programers.

We don’t know what it will look like yet, but the writing jobs (and acting, producing, directing, editing, and shooting jobs) will follow. Like the era from silent movies to sound pictures the industry is shifting.

Hollywood is stocked with talent from all across the United States and Canada. We enjoy hearing stories of Katie Holmes being from Toledo, Ohio and Julia Roberts from Smyrna, Georgia. Even the greater Cedar Rapids area alone has its share of actors in recent films and TV programs.

Elijah Wood (Lord of the Rings)
Eric Rouse (Superman Returns)
Michele Monaghan (Mission Impossible III)
Tom Arnold (The Final Season)
Michele Emerson (Lost)
Ron Livingston (Office Space)
Ashton Kutcher (The Guardian)

Did you know that Kutcher grew up in rural Homestead, Iowa and once had a job sweeping up Cheerio dust at the General Mills factory in Cedar Rapids? That was before he became a biochemical engineering student at the University of Iowa, New York model, film and TV actor, and husband of Demi Moore.

Kutcher had the looks, drive, talent, and quirky good fortune to make a name for himself that thousands of small town actors, writers, directors will never find in Hollywood. And what happens to those actors, writers and directors who don’t find fame or fortune in L.A.?

Do they embrace that hotel manager job? Have a career in sales for a health club or a real estate company in the valley? Move back home and unpack their suitcase full of broken dreams? Probably a little of all of that, but it’s going to become less necessary for talent to have to be in New York and LA.

This trend has already been seen in the advertising world as Crispin Porter in Miami was chosen to launch the Mini Cooper campaign years ago. (More recently they revamped VW’s image.) And Virginia’s Martin Agency has been doing the UPS Brown and quirky Geico cavemen & gecko ads. (At Martin they used to have a sign in the creative department that read, “Nobody comes to Richmond for the restaurants.”) Creativity Magazine has called Martin the “Third most creative agency in the world.” And they’re in Virginia! Changing times indeed.

But wherever the sneaky long actor, writer, or director lives they need to keep plugging away at the craft. Keep learning and keep creating.

I’ve said before in workshops I’ve given, “Don’t quit your day job, because you never know how that can serve your work.” (Not to mention it pays the biils.) Johnny Depp says he used to use different voices in the telemarketing job he had when he first moved to L.A. from Florida.

Then there is Anthony Zuiker’s story. After the show he created, CSI, became the top rated scripted show he told Creative Screenwriting magazine, “Three years ago I was living in Vegas as the night manager of the Mirage Hotel tram line.” (Zuiker whose creation has since grown into the hit shows CSI:New York and CSI:Miami has Chicago roots. How many years until CSI: Cedar Falls?)

But when Zuilker was a night manger he was also writing. It was while working at a motel when he actually found the inspiration for his first TV script. “The police and I are in this motel room searching for evidence when an officer lifts up the bed skirt. All I see is a pair of eyes before she leaps from beneath the bed clawing at my face. And I thought, ‘There’s a show here.'” (By the way if you’re interested in having Zuilker speak to a group of yours contact the Greater Talent Network.)

Certainly golfer Zach Johnson has followed Zuilker’s advice: “If you follow your passion, the money will follow. Success, in my opinion, involves sheer luck, hard work and humility.” Johnson was not the top golfer on his college team at Drake. (Congrats, by the way, to Drake men’s basketball coach Keno Davis for getting AP Coach of the Year last week.) Johnson even wasn’t the #1 golfer on his high school team.

But he had passion and kept improving his game until he got to slip on the famed green jacket at Augusta on his way to making $4 million dollars last year.

Whether you’re making music videos in Minneapolis, turning out B-grade cable scripts, teaching high school theater in Tulsa, a grocery store stock boy, a night tram manager in Vegas, a daytime tram operator in Orlando,  or someone sweeping up Cheerio dust in a factory you have to believe that you’re sneaky long and can surprise a lot of people with what you write. But you have to be writing to get there.

 

Copyright 2008 Scott W. Smith

Read Full Post »