|
The second bi-annual "Words Into Pictures 1999" Film and Television Writers Forum was a
resounding success from every conceivable angle. The quality, quantity, diversity, and
relevance of content, participation, networking, and just plain fun was overwhelming. A
better three days couldn't be spent.
Primarily screenwriters (but also the directors, producers, and executives of a wide range
of films and television shows you could possibly imagine) participated in the incredibly
insightful and eclectic three-day dialogue sponsored by the non-profit WGA-affiliate, The
Writers Guild Foundation.
The intensive weekend began with a light-hearted, yet sincere discussion of the ongoing
battle between "Chick Flicks versus Dick Flicks." The seminar presented an insightful
analysis of the economic and technological trends and challenges of the coming millennium
for the entertainment industry as a whole as interpreted by some of the major players in the
financial arena. The finale of the jam-packed weekend was a panelist of comedy writers,
including Albert Brooks, James L. Brooks, Janeane Garofolo, Norm MacDonald, and Ed Solomon
(Men in Black), to name just a few.
Other panelists included Ron Bass, Shane Black, Julia Cameron, Wes Craven, Scott Frank, Bo
Goldman, Matt Groening, Brian Helgeland, Jonathan Hensleigh, Amy Holden Jones, Gale Anne
Hurd, David Koepp, Kasi Lemmons, Marc Norman, Jim Sheridan, Aaron Sorkin, Chris Vogler and
Alan Wertheimer... to name just a few.
Close to a hundred other successful industry professionals attended, far too many to list,
though a complete lists of panel topics and guests, sponsors, and other program information
can be found on the Words Into Pictures website at: (http://www.wordsintopictures.org).
Writer Callie Khouri (Thelma and Louise) deserves special thanks for her tireless efforts in
coordinating the impressive event.
For those who couldn't attend or even for the thousand-plus that did, but couldn't possibly
squeeze it all in, the following are broad brush strokes sketching the main themes of the
event:
Target Marketing: Ageism Vs Sexism?
Checkmated in the Juggernaut: staying true to your vision in spite of script notes
Violence in Movies *(coming in a future article)
Sex and Sensibilities *(coming in a future article)
Target Marketing: Ageism Vs Sexism?
Several of the panels touched on age- or gender-specific marketing, writing to a specific
market niche, as well as the issues of ageism and sexism within the industry. One of the
main conclusions surmised from the various discussions is that targeted marketing is
probably preferable to the over-homogenized dilution of material by effectively stripping
the piece of any remnants of its unique voice in order to appeal to the lowest common
denominator of the mass audience.
Specifically narrow casting audiences was presented as a back-door approach to reaching mass
audiences. Cases in point offered were films like "First Wives Club," which catered to
seasoned women; or "There's Something About Mary," which sought the teenage boy audience.
Yet, both managed to capture the entire market thanks largely to audience enthusiasm. Great
word of mouth is undeniably the most powerful form of advertisement and perhaps serves as
the best defense against ill-conceived trailers, poorly devised machine-gun marketing
tactics, and even unfair criticism.
Less money, indeed, is thrown at the riskier, more-compelling, character-driven pieces that
cannot easily be encapsulated into a 26-second audio/visual byte. Not everything can be a
high concept comedy or action movie. A common screenwriter-lament seemed to be that the
writers are expected to do the marketer's job for them, instead of concentrating on writing
good scripts and letting their cohorts earn their keep.
The high-profile "need" to open in 3,000 theaters nationwide puts tremendous pressure on
moviemakers. The perhaps unfair algorithm of pace warrants disappointment when a film takes
four days - instead of two - to break $100 million. No other industry looks at success or
failure quite like Hollywood.
There is no longer the luxury of time or available screens to develop a groundswell of
public favor such as the seventeen-week run that popularized "The Way We Were." Anomalies
like "The Full Monty," prove that this is not an impossible evolution, but it would be a
difficult case study to model.
Further illustrations of unabashed catering to a specific segment of the market as a means
of tapping into the larger audience included the well-respected "Terminator II." In spite of
its "R" rating, one would be hard pressed to find an eleven year-old who didn't manage to
see it while equally as challenged to find anybody who saw "Last Action Hero." It was
watered down into such a dilute, amorphous blob that it appealed neither to parents nor
their children.
"Dick flicks" with female protagonists such as "Alien," "Terminator II," "G. I. Jane," and
"La Femme Nikita" clearly try to target the cross-section of the gender markets. This is
significant in that the delineation between gender may no longer be as divisive as the
increasing distinction between generations. "Bulworth," for example, achieved nearly a 50/50
male/female audience. However, despite the marketing efforts to attract the younger crowd,
this audience was predominantly over thirty.
Mars and Venus aside, contemporary men and women may have more in common than the under-
versus over-thirty audiences. And while it's true that the baby boomers outnumber the Gen X
audience, it's significant to note that younger viewers go to the theaters more often - and
repeatedly - which is what is so seductive to the money guys.
Repeat viewings are one of the primary reasons why "Scream" and "Titanic" were so successful
and perhaps one of the reasons that the "Austin Powers" and Adam Sandler films continue to
thrive. And, conversely, that films like "Election" present quite a marketing conundrum.
Checkmated in the Juggernaut: staying true to your vision in spite of notes
The art of creating your vision - and retaining some semblance of it - through the
constantly changing political constellations and arduous economic dictates was dealt with
from a uniquely creative and proactive position.
The panelists unanimously agreed that notes are individual, idiosyncratic, and symptomatic
(e.g.: indicative of the problem, but not necessarily the right solution). Most of the
panelists agreed that it's not the specifics of the suggestions, but rather the spirit you
must honor.
Marc Norman (Shakespeare in Love) made some excellent analogies when he compared the
screenwriter to a transmission mechanic or a chiropractor. As a skilled laborer, the
mechanic may ingeniously figure out how to move the muffler and re-direct the pipes so as to
fit the transmission in sideways - thus accommodating divergent, maybe even contradictory
notes - and yet still keep the engine running.
He went on to explain that you may be confronted with note-doctors who are able to discern a
sore neck, but are incapable of tracing the problem all the way down to the lower vertebrae,
or incorrect shoes, or the wallet that throws day-long sitting posture off.
As a writer, he explained, you make an infinite series of choices. You must know why you
made each and every one of them - and commit to your own decisions and be able to defend
them. Sometimes, out of the 100 decisions you made on the last ten pages of your script -
one of them was wrong - and it has grown like a cancer infecting everything that is an
inevitable outgrowth of it. If a development executive picks up on the obvious
out-of-character statement or inorganic moment on page 63, you need to know how to decipher
that all the way back to the source - and surgically prune the problem.
Another situation that often requires finesse is when an executive picks up on subtle
subtext. Their inevitable impulse may be to want you to flesh it out the light motif they
discerned in the background when the true beauty of that symbolic element may indeed lie in
its subtlety.
A good response to this criticism, it was agreed, is that it is incumbent upon the actors to
bring out the subtext. In the case of both actors and directors, what gets projected up on
the big screen is derivative of the convergence of various interpretations. It was joked
that, at best, directors have style. At worst, eyesight.
Humorous anecdotes and hellacious trench stories were shared, including: "We need this scene
to be more original...kind of like that scene in Poltergeist..." Or concept re-structuring
such as "We like everything about King Kong, but does the ape have to be so big?" "Love the
kid coming back as an angel idea, but does he have to be dead?"
In the final analysis, the panelists concurred that as a writer, you must strive to be true
to the spirit or intention of the note. If the development executive just wanted you to take
dictation (and simply rewrite the script according to his suggestions), then why hire a
writer?
A question asked from the audience: "When do you fire the writer?" posed to some of the
executives revealed a plain and simple truth: "When something inside them dies. Or when the
writer is ready to be fired." Clearly, when the producers and the writer no longer share the
same vision, he who has the gold gets to play navigator.
It's not called "show art," after all. The bottom line is that the executives who front the
money to launch these visions are not here to make movies. They're here to make money.
Heather Hale is a screenwriter. "Quadroon Ball", set to star Vanessa L. Williams and air
on Lifetime television will be her first produced credit. She is the founder and coordinator
of the Screenwriters On-Line Cooperative http://members.aol.com/SOCwebsite and is currently
working on two speculative screenplays: "Bait & Switch" and "SuperHero".
|
