How Hollywood Can Get It's Soul Back

The following ramble, whole it focuses on Hollywood, can apply across all storytelling spaces.  As I am writing this Warner Brothers Studios is being sold off in a deal where Netflix is the frontrunner to get it.  Paramount Studios, newly owned by Skydance, is trying to aggressively stop it for themselves.  Assuming that either company will complete the deal, the results will probably turn out the same--more content for the living room and less for the big screen.  This is a problem but it exposes a deeper rot that needs to be addressed if Hollywood wants to regain its soul.  I will lay out how I think it can happen below.

A film professor I had explained the difference television and movies this way.  Movies are about an emotional experience, usually experienced collectively.  Television is inviting someone into your home to spend time with them.  Obviously there is some overlap here but the point remains.  We're going somewhere with a movie and TV involves an invitation of some kind.  

When an audience rejects a movie it's usually because the experience doesn't live up to what was promised.  Television fails because this person you've invited into your home has betrayed your trust by showing you something you didn't want to see.  I believe these are the two issues that plague this kind of storytelling at the core.  

There is a promise made when someone chooses to experience something based on what the enticement is.  Everyone has different limits to what they tolerate from their entertainment.  For example, Is this level of violence or sex appropriate for me or who I am watching this with? This introspection before the decision to experience the entertainment takes out the moral question of the work's existence.  The late Roger Ebert once said something like "A movie is not what it is about, but how it is about.". 

Solving the issue of trust between this promise of the entertainment experience the next step involves something much harder on the logistical level.  How do we pay for all this?

I have to stipulate that changing the Hollywood business model of deficit financing probably can't be changed.  If you pull on this thread you start getting into fixing things like the American tax system which is beyond the scope of this piece.  So, if we keep the current financing model how do we work within that system to get the audience to pay for it and keep it going?

You have to change how the theatrical experience works.  This is an old problem that goes back as long as I have been alive and it also involves issues of trust.  For the price of a ticket I expect to see the best quality projection of light and sound and the audience being reasonably respectful when watching the movie.  The theatre can control the technology.  They can't control the audience.  I will give you two solutions that might help with this experience.

The first is to bring back ushers.  The good theatres have people check on how the experience is going once the film proper starts and occasionally as it is going.  Ushers may have to double as security and I will acknowledge this would be difficult.  Too many audiences treat a theatre like it is their living room. 

The second solution involves the ads and trailers before a film.  Depending on where you go it ranges from 20-40 minutes.  You are not going to be able to get rid of the ads.  Move both to after the film.  They were called trailers for a reason.  They followed the entertainment.  For those that are waiting to see what is next they can chat about what they've seen and get excited about what could come next.  Theatres are meant to be a communal experience.  Let it be one.

Finally, let's address the cost of going out to a theatre.  We all know it is high and untangling this knot would have to involve reworking at minimum how long a movie can remain in the theatre as well as the percentage of ticket sales that go to the theatre versus the studio that distributed the film.  That too is beyond the scope of this piece.  But we can address production costs of the films themselves.

We'll always have quirky indie pictures and blockbusters.  What we need more of is the mid budget types.  Say 30-40 million max.  Genre pictures tend to do best here.  But even those end up with inflated budgets.  One recent example, unseen by me, very well received was Ryan Coogler's Sinners.  The trailer was fantastic. But it's budget is crippled by two wild decisions.  One is to shoot some of the film in Imax and the other is to use the same actor to play both brothers.  Imax film is very expensive and the use of one actor for two roles increases your special effects budget.  Therefore a film that could have been shot for about 30 million costs 100 million.  This gamble paid off but it could have paid off even more.  

I am an optimist and I believe Hollywood will survive merger and acquisition heaven.  Hollywood will always produce content but the line between film and TV is looking more and more blurry and this bothers me.  I also believe theatres will survive but they may not be the experience I grew up with.  If the movie theatre experience ends up looking more like live theatre, ala Broadway, I wouldn't be surprised.

When I experience any kind of story, regardless of medium I enter into a promise with the creators.  I trust that they are going to show me something new.  They may even surprise me.  And this is what keeps me optimistic about the future of entertainment.  

Reintroductions and a new purpose. Welcome!!

Somewhere in the distant past I finally decided to leap into the realm of internet published fiction through Amazon.  You'll find the links in through the website on this blog.  In the future, longer form essays that go beyond the scope of Instagram and Facebook will wind up here.    

I don't use AI to produce my writing and the cover art for the books below was made by wonderful human hands.  

More books are coming and this is only the beginning.

Why This Story Won't Die

Different authors have different ideas about what constitutes a draft of a particular tale.  Some count drafts by number of rewrites.  Others are not so exact.  Broadly speaking I think most authors would say they work in three drafts.  And it works out like this:

DRAFT 1:  Figuring out what you have and this constitutes everything from whatever is planned to the actual writing of the pages.

DRAFT 2:  Making it the best draft possible based on whatever discoveries were made in that work of draft 1.

DRAFT 3:  Bringing it before an audience and finding out if the story works for anyone else but the author.

To use film terminology, Draft 1 is the screenplay, Draft 2 is the footage shot, and Draft 3 is the final edited cut.

I'd like to show you how I grew as a writer taking a tale from Draft 1 to Draft 3.  I'll call this STORY X.  Mostly because it took approximately ten years.

DRAFT 1 came about because in two previous stories that didn't work I met two characters that I thought would make interesting friends.   I liked the spirit of one of the girls and the other fascinated me because I couldn't figure out her past.  Eventually I found a way to have them meet and put them up in a kind of modern samurai/ninja epic.  The supernatural aspect of the story was kind of wonky but I ran with it thinking it could make sense later.

DRAFT 2 was the polishing portion of it.  I tried my best to make it work by making the writing sing and making sure the dialogue was polished and it all made logical sense.  I still didn't have a sense of one of the girl's past but I kept working at it.  This story skewed young but the adults kept taking over and that's when people noticed how slow the story was moving by that point.  I didn't disagree.   It's the old adage if two or people tell you you're drunk maybe it's best to lie down.

DRAFT 3 was the toughest in that I was trying to make the world building aspect of the story make sense.  I thought I finally had this cracked in that some of the myths I was playing with got better details and I was doing my best to make sure the rules I'd set up weren't being broken.  I thought I stripped out most of the boring parts.  Then I passed the draft to a trusted reader.

And that last draft solved a lot of problems.  But my friend's reaction to that last draft made me rethink the central relationship of the story.  She could figure out why one of the girls was fascinated by her.  But she couldn't quite understand why the other one would switch sides the way she did.  Again she wasn't wrong.  Curiously she didn't have much to say about her reaction to the world and rules I'd set up.  This also forced me to take a closer look at that execution.

Now we were in the stage where we discover whether or not this story is worth saving at this point.  One point of clarification about this story taking ten years.  I have been living with these two central characters as they are now conceived for about ten years.  The actual act of writing this particular plot  was closer to 8.  And while I wrestled with other things I was writing for either assignments or my own pleasure these two characters never really left me.  And they still haven't.

There were two major things I changed based on my friend's reaction to Draft 3.  Since I wanted the focus to be mostly on these two girls I had to eliminate one character.  I also conceived of a backstory for the girl who switches sides.  Her switching sides finally made sense with the building of her past.  The supernatural agents causing the chaos in this story recruited her when she'd died.  But the era in which she lived fascinated me.  I put that on the back burner while I attempted to see where the story went when I eliminated one of the characters (made Girl 1 an only child instead of a sibling) and just ran with the friendship as part of the plot.

While I liked what I had something about the entire enterprise was bothering me.  And this went back to the world I created for this story.  There is a very real act of evil that kicks off the story but the reason for that evil are the agents that Girl 2 works for.  And this bothered me.  It took the agency off the characters when it came to taking responsibility for their own actions.  And taking responsibility for what you could do and not do to prevent these actions drives the plot of the story.

It took a long time but the world I'd set up was flawed from the start and I couldn't make this work.  This wasn't a waste of time except for maybe a few hours lost from my very patient first readers.  The characters worked.  The world didn't.  And all of this effort showed me something that made all of this effort worth it.

I am not very good at world building.  Those writers who conceive whole worlds I greatly admire and love reading them but I can't do it.  I am more fascinated by character.  This is why this particular story hasn't yet died.  I am still convinced I can use these characters in the future.

In fact, Girl 2's backstory provided a window of something I'm going to try.  It's set in 16th century Japan and if I really still want to do a samurai/ninja epic, well why not go to the source.  And the era in which the girl was alive provides a fascinating time in history in which a very real act of evil occurred.  Their response to it would drive a book's plot.  And there's no supernatural crutches to diminish the horror of it.

I figure if I can't build a world, I can simply steal it.  This will require research for the details and I think I can stick with that.

In the meantime I'd like to work on something as a kind of test.  If I really feel that character building is stronger than my world building, I have an old plot in my files that will fit this.  It's a ghost story that will have to succeed on character and atmosphere.  A slightly different challenge but I think I'm up for it.

Thanks for sticking with this post.  I'll leave you all with this caveat for any writers, published or not.  Don't ever stop.   Any time spent before a keyboard or pen/paper gets you better.
 

The Perils of Remaking Classics

I have wondered now and again when a story doesn't connect with an audience is it because of the idea behind it or in the execution of the idea.  I tend to side with the way it is executed.

Case in point is three versions of that sci fi classic The Day The Earth Stood Still.  I say three versions because the original story that inspired both film versions has a connection with the theme that all three versions share despite being separated by generations.

This theme is our reaction to being made aware of proof of the existence of extra terrestrial life and how we are judged as a species by that life.  Ultimately our response to that encounter helps us grow or, in other versions of this kind of tale, destroys us.

To start with the tale that inspired these works we have to look at Harry Bates' original tale "Farewell to the Master".  This short story involves a reporter dealing with the aftermath of an arrival of an alien ambassador protected by a robotic machine who'd been accidentally killed when first arriving.  The robot never moves while it stands sentry over the tomb put up to commemorate the event.  The reporter suspects that this robot can move and is up to something.  The story details what he finds.

Robert Wise's version of The Day The Earth Stood Still takes the broad plot of the story and tailored it to the politics of the day of Soviet era Cold War Red Scare and McCarthyism.  Scott Derrickson's version takes the same broad strokes in the plot and builds a convincing first contact scenario.  But in that scenario the reasons for the contact are about environmental destruction.

In both of these versions the ambassador is there to deliver an ultimatum to the planet.  The ambassador has an experience with a cross section of humanity and both beings are changed by that experience.  The short story is most different in that there is a sense of loss with this first contact scenario.  There isn't an ultimatum delivered.  Both films invented one for the eras in which they were made. The reporter mourns about what they could have learned from this ambassador.  I won't spoil it here but what the reporter discovers gives us hope for all.

Your mileage will vary but I think both movie versions are successful in selling their ideas.  The reasons for the ultimatum change due to changing times of course but neither lose sight of the opportunity to learn.  Missteps happen but that's what drives the plot. They are working from a scenario which is a hard sell to begin with.  You have been measured and found wanting.  Fix your problems or face the consequences.  I think both versions fail in one regard for both their messages in that they have to expressly spell out the message with speeches and then also respond with speeches.  It is very much "on the nose" as writing instructors would say.

For the evil version of this scenario check out The New Twilight Zone episode "A Small Talent For War."

In some ways I think the original story sold the idea the best by leaving out the ultimatum.  Simply mourning the loss of an opportunity to learn from another species is the greatest missed opportunity.

The Terminator and Time Travel

This summer, The Terminator is getting a reboot.  Two trailers have been released.

And boy is it a doozy.  In terms of marketing it does everything it is supposed to.  Show right out of the gate that this is new and also give away a lot.  Kyle Reese is sent back from a timeline that is broken.  Everything that presumably happened in the four other movies occurred but now has been reset to make room for this story. Your mileage will vary but I am genuinely excited for this.  It feels a bit like what the Star Trek reboot did and this is a good thing. 

The original Terminator is my favorite movie.  I didn't fully understand it when I first saw it (probably around age 10) but it stuck with me through the years and still holds up on repeat viewings.  And what keeps that viewing fresh is the love story underlying the plot.

Strip away the time travel, the apocalyptic future, the unstoppable killer cyborg and you have a story as old as fairy tales.  One lone knight protecting a princess and willing to die to protect her.  The sequel is a variation on this plot only it's a father protecting a family instead.  Too early to tell if this film will have an authentic emotional core but I want to outline below the kind of potential I see.

The Terminator film rights revert to Cameron in 2019.  Before that happens we get this film, the first of a planned trilogy.  This second trailer gave away another plot point that I wished they'd saved but like the two terminators in the sequel it was kind of hard to avoid.

John Connor has joined the machines.

I cackled with glee upon seeing that twist.   This series is going in a direction that I always thought it needed to if it would continue beyond two.  John Connor would have to die.  T3 and T4 sort of addressed this but mangled the execution.  The Sarah Connor Chronicles was heading in this direction, I think, before it got weird.

My only worry for this series is that bit about stopping judgement day from occurring.  This series now appears to be playing with quantum mechanics rules of time travel.  Alternate realities here we come.  It takes the sting out of that horribly bleak ending to the original.  Maybe Sarah and Kyle can find a reality where the missiles were never launched.

Solaris: A Saga of First Contact

Stanislaw Lem's novel Solaris is one of those novels that proves how difficult science fiction can be to adapt to other mediums.  Two filmmakers separated by a generation have taken a crack at it and both missed the point.

As a story Solaris is as simple as it gets.  A research station orbiting an alien planet experiences some trouble and a psychologist is dispatched to determine if the project should be shutdown.

What the psychologist discovers is just how alien alien contact is.  The planet Solaris has been attempting contact with manifestations of people or things from their past.  Our psychologist must attempt to understand why when his dead wife returns to him.

Both versions of the films follow this template to the letter.  Andrei Tarkovsky's 1972 version proves to be more faithful than Steven Soderburg's version in 2002.  At least in terms of whole scenes lifted verbatim from Lem's novel.  Both films emphasize a love story and that was never the point of the book.

A film professor I studied under maintained that people go to movies to experience an emotion.  I think he is correct.  Both films hang on the love story as that is probably an easier hook for an audience than anything else.  Science Fiction doesn't deal in terms of those emotions as much.  What science fiction excells at is Wonder.

And Wonder, despite the ability for filmmakers to craft any image, is seemingly hard to convey.  Lem's novel is all about Wonder.  Humans attempting to understand an alien intelligence through any means necessary and failing utterly.

All that said I don't think either of these films fail as an experience.  These are vehicles for the filmmakers own ideas that they took from Lem's novel.  Tarkovsky's version in particular seems to understand better not only why the humans misunderstand the nature of the contact.  But the planet itself seems to understand where it went wrong.

Soderberg's version deviates the most only because it follows a more Hollywood like plot structure including a third act twist to produce a villian and an action sequence.  It also only plays lip service to some of the greater ideas from the book.  I think it succeeds in making the wife a little more human than the Russian version.  It also can't hold a candle to those long philophical arguments that Tarkovsky loves.

I think what I find most curious about this is even with the original text (translated of course) and two different interpretations of the book filmed the ultimate answer is still waiting to be uncovered.  And Stanislaw Lem would probably appreciate that.

HORROR BETWEEN CULTURES. Re-experiencing The Ring.

Recently my littlest sister and I were having a movie night and she wanted a
list of good scary films.  I looked at the list on her phone and made
suggestions accordingly while we waited for our pizza.
 
Something struck me about the titles I suggested for the list.  All of them
were remakes of foreign horror films.  "Quarantine", aka "REC"; "Silent House";
"The Ring" aka "Ringu"; "The Grudge" aka "Ju-on"; "Let Me In" aka "Let the
Right One In."  The film my sister picked that night was "The Ring", the american version of
the japanese hit, "Ringu."  She liked it and it had been long enough between
viewings that I got a new perspective on it.  This also allows me to make a
larger point about what happens when you adapt source material for different
cultures.

Let's start with the original novel.  Published in 1991 as "Ringu", Koji
Suzuki's novel about a reporter's quest to uncover what killed a family member
struck a chord in it's home country.  It's a good cocktail of urban legend,
technophobia, and that old staple of Japanese horror the vengeful female ghost.
 The title comes from the neverending cycle of this cursed videotape that kills
you in a week.  The novel's protagonists are two men, the reporter and a friend
of his who's basically a nihilistic sociopath.  The nature of the girl at the
center of the curse is different and there's a better explanation in the novel
for the need to copy her endlessly.
 
"Ringu," the 1998 adaptation of the original novel takes some liberties with
the book beyond the basic plot.  They changed the gender of the reporter and
the nihilistic sociopath is the ex husband of the reporter.  The nature of the
tape is basically the same.  The ex husband has some psychic abilities that act
as a visual shorthand to get the info you need across at times.  The fate of
the girl and her family have changed the most between the book and the film. 
They basically made it palatable for a bigger audience without losing the main
idea behind the story.  This isn't the first time this has happened and it
won't be the last.  The novel "Let the Right One In" was similarly neutered but
for it's benefit.  The nature of the monster in that story was changed by not
revealing a few key points from the book.  The horror is lessened but still
effective on screen.  The American remake "Let Me In" simplifies it even
further without losing the impact of the story.   

"The Ring" most directly adapts the 1998 feature and the original novel.  The
protagonists and the plot turns are basically the same.  I will say that the
American version has a slight edge in atmosphere but I think that's mostly
because "Ringu" feels like a TV movie by Hollywood standards and "The Ring" is
a big budget studio feature.  There is a lot more shocks in this film and set
pieces that goose the audience.  I got the impression that the filmmakers
didn't trust the audience to stay awake or something.

But here's where I think the cultural differences come in.  There's a
difference in running time between the two features of about twenty minutes. 
That extra twenty minutes in the American version is devoted to those
unnecssary shock scares and the dreaded "Jake the Explainer" roles.  And yet,
with all that explanation on the screen I still had to explain to my sister
what was going on in the ending.  Believe me it wasn't just her.  I saw this in
theatres in 2002 and you could feel half the theatre go "Huh?"  I saw the
japanese version later and only THEN did I get what was happening in the end. 
The novel does a better job explaining all of this. 

I think horror works best when the reasons for WHY this is happening to people
isn't really spelled out.  This is why I tend to enjoy the first film in a
franchise rather than the sequels.  One of the complaints I remember about the
american version is once that countdown starts you're just sort of waiting for
the end to see if how they get out of it.  To be fair that's a problem with the
set up for both versions.  But japanese culture has a different relationship to
ghosts than western culture.  Japanese culture treats spirits as part of the
scenery.  They only become dangerous if they become something else.  A ghost by
itself wouldn't necessarily be scary--just something to be respected.   
American culture tends to treat a ghost as a problem to solve.  "How do we help you
pass on?" 

The American version also spends much more time using the scientific method to
break down what this is and what it isn't.  It feels like a quick class in
video production in some of these scenes.  That is completely missing from the
Japanese adaptation but is pulled liberally from the original novel.  

I can recommend both versions of this movie as I think they represent two
responses to a classic ghost story.  More films and books are in this franchise
and while I haven't seen or read all of them they go in wildly different
directions and beyond the scope of this piece.