Andy Likes Film

Special Agent Dale Cooper is the greatest character ever invented. Creating a film noir/detective drama and then throwing in Dale, the antithesis of what the main character is like, is such a brilliant idea. The constant recordings to Diane is by far his best trait.  

I also love the fact that every scene is a mixture of drama, tense thriller, mystery and comedy. Brilliant.

69 Pages. My first ever TV pilot and my first ever non-short written. The feeling can be described as absolutely amazing. Now to let that PDF sit happily on my desktop before tearing it to pieces.

My blog posts have been pretty infrequent recently, simply because I have been stuck in the first draft jungle. I have been outlining my first ever feature length drama, which will take the form of a drama about the world of football (or soccer, if you’re wrong ;]).

I am however going to give a quick recommendation to a brilliant book I have discovered and now determined to rifle through at breakneck speed. Xander Bennett’s: ‘Screenwriting Tips, You Hack’, is a concise and to the point demolition of how to write a screenplay. Having read tomes on screenwriting that can be both incomprehensible and hard to apply correctly. This is a very simple and straightfoward way of getting a script off the ground and running.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Screenwriting-Tips-You-Hack-Screenwriter/dp/0240818245/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331156893&sr=8-1 

Now that the Artist has bulldozed its way into Oscar glory, it would be quite a good idea to brace ourselves for the inevitable. Wagers, bets or sweepstake will be placed on the number of black and white (or possibly even worse, silent) travesties that are suddenly shunted into development, akin to the retooling of almost every single action film once the Bourne Ultimatum appeared with shaky cams and occasionally incomprehensible sequences. Originality has long been considering a dying trait in the Hollywood system, becoming more and more lost to imitations, sequels, adaptations of books, adaptations of foreign films and the bizarre adaptation of board games. The question I find myself needing to ask is: Why aren’t we doing it more?

The Artist reminds me of another piece I had just seen days ago. Kirby Ferguson’s excellent Vimeo documentary “Everything is a Remix” is an eye-opening account of how very few new ideas actually find their way to the surface, ploughing through the back catalogue of Led Zeppelin, George Lucas’ Star Wars and even the zenith of technology that is Apple inc to show that most of their best works came from other sources. In his tightly edited essay he concludes that creation requires influence, that influence often takes the form of works, inventions and even the words of people that have come before, and that those works are transformed into something original. He even supplements his work with a five minute video detailing every single film that Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill references, replicating shots from retro Japanese samurai movies and lines of dialogue from Quentin’s previous films.

While I might sound facetious when I ask for more copying, the point I am trying to make is that underneath the surface of any film is a series of scenes, lines and motifs that have existed in hundreds of films that have preceded it. Screenwriter Blake Snyder in his book Save the Cat! Mentions in passing a screenwriting genre he likes to call “Monster in the House” in which a monster is introduced into a confined space and a “sin” by the victims gets them into a whole heap of trouble. The book states two examples of films that to his mind have identical storylines: Jaws and Fatal Attraction. In Jaws, the confines of a small beach community come under threat from a murderous shark after the greedy town commit the “sin” of keeping everything under wraps.  In Fatal Attraction, the confines of a marriage come under threat from an unstable woman after Michael Douglas commits the “sin” of having an affair. Although their genres would probably be considered at opposite poles of the thriller genre, their three key elements are the same.

Those two may be a Hollywood film and a trashy thriller, but what about Oscar bait? What about the Artist? Putting aside its silent film origins and the whole Kim Novak controversy, the film’s story tells us volumes. The Artist centres around an actor whose livelihood is put at risk by the invention of a new technology: Sound. This is very much at odds with The Kings Speech, a film about a king whose country is put at risk by the invention of a new technology: Sound. The Artist might be a highly unique and incredible experience, but if you break down the composition you can see some pretty recognisable gears and cogs at work. What makes it a unique and memorable experience is what it does with those gears. Hazanavicius takes a fairly standard redemption story, sets it in the silent era of film making and takes inspiration from the real life stories of actors fading out of view. Even the bit of The Artist which is unique is taken from similar events that have already happened.

Which is what creativity is, taking standard forms of screenwriting and adding ideas and experiences which haven’t yet been captured on film. It’s important to learn what genres work with audiences, to keep reading and watching classic films to learn what ideas could be re-mined and what has become overused. It is Hazanavicius love of the silent film era that gave him the inspiration of making another one. The Coen Brothers love of The Big Sleep inspired them to make The Big Lebowski. Christopher Nolan’s gadget-filled Batman owes nods to the Bond Films. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel; you just need to find ways to improve it.

You can view Kirby Ferguson’s Everything is a Remix here: http://vimeo.com/14912890

Imagine you want to put a nice juicy action sequence into your film. Think about your favourite action sequence that you might want to replicate or make homage to. Now remove the music score that’s running through your head, the noisy sound effects rattling in the background, the beautiful camera angles which give the scene its zip, and the facial expressions of every actor. What you have left over from all that, is all you have to work with when writing an action sequence in a screenplay.

Writing action is hard, Charlie’s Angels and Big Fish writer John August calls it “the most difficult and least rewarding things a screenwriter writes, but they’re essential to many movies”. Just how do you capture the essence of an explosion filled chase sequence, being able to generate the same thrills gained in the cinema on an A4 sheet of white paper? Using the film Die Hard, a fantastic celebration of everything that can be great about the action film, we will try to find out.

The first thing that actions scenes do is that they build suspense. The most awkward thing to watch is an action sequence in which there is no stakes, the worst example being 300 in which an army of Spartans win every single action sequence they take part in until suddenly losing at the end of the film. At no point is there is a feeling that those Spartans are actually going to lose at any point. It’s important that in any action sequence, that we build suspense.

Building an action scene requires two important factors: what you tell your protagonist and what you tell your audience. When the audience knows what is about to happen and can see the solution to whatever conflict dangling in front of them, they will get bored. When there is a gap between the predicament they find themselves in and the solution that will lead them to safety, then we are interested.

OUTSIDE THE BUILDING - SAME TIME

Signs of activity along the edges and shadows of the area. Men and vehicles. The SNAP of weapons and breeches. Footsteps running in unison. Powell picks up on this, turns to Robinson, who is standing with the SWAT Captain, MITCHELL.

POWELL: What’s going on?

ROBINSON: What’s it look like? We’re going in.

Every action scene needs a beginning, a set-up. Having finally realised that there are terrorists in the Nakatomi Plaza, they strap up ready to attack. Because the penny has dropped halfway through the movie, and that we know exactly what the terrorists planned and they don’t, we have a feeling that this is going to end in disaster…

MCCLANE: Al, what’s wrong? Did something — (realizing) — Oh, God. You’re coming in! That’s it, isn’t it? Christ, Powell, I told you what you’re dealing with here –

…which is reinforced by the frantic shouting of McClane.

Theo sits at a bank of monitors. Screen after screen pinpoints all the police activity outside, down to the last detail. Theo smiles. Suddenly we recognize that tune he’s been whistling. It’s “Singin’ In The Rain.”

THEO: (into a throat mike) It was the night before Xmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, expect for the four assholes coming in the rear in standard 2 X 2 cover formation.

INT. LOBBY – NIGHT: Eddie and another terrorist, ULI, take up prone firing positions, using the gaps in the steel partition like gunpoints.

ANGLE ON TWO SWAT OFFICERS

Mitchell and Robinson watch from behind the cover of a police car as the SWAT officers remove a portable welding torch and begin cutting their way through the locks.

INT. 33RD FLOOR - MCCLANE

He moves painfully to the window and looks out. He can’t see a thing because of the lights.

Notice the cuts between McClane, the terrorists and the SWAT team? This is giving us the viewer some vital information. We now know that the terrorists are watching the SWAT on a TV screen, not even panicking, Theo indulging himself in song. They know something we don’t, and that makes us fear that the four SWAT guys are about to become toast.

More shots ring out from the building going over the SWAT officers’ heads and suddenly the huge dome of one of the spotlights shatters behind Mitchell and Robinson’s head. The glow fades. A moment later the next light twenty feet away dies.

ROBINSON: They’re going after the lights!

The two SWAT officers cutting the garage ate suddenly look up as their cover starts to disappear.

ROBINSON: (cont’d) Call them back.

MITCHELL: No, they’re almost in.

Suddenly the third and fourth lights are shot out and the SWAT men become sitting ducks.

IN HOLLY’S OFFICE - HANS

He calmly speaks into his CB.

HANS: Don’t get impatient. Just wound them.

INT. LOBBY

Eddie and Uli fire. They hit one of the officers in the leg, the second one in the arm.

The payoff of all this is that our worst fears are confirmed, the SWAT team are on the rack. Note that there is a sense of weakness and vulnerability that is reinforced in almost every paragraph. Their cover starts to disappear, and then they become sitting ducks entirely. Also notice the incompetence of the arrogant SWAT guy who demands they keep going, nothing gets us more wound up than someone doing something monumentally stupid. The guy in charge of the SWAT panics and decides to send in the cavalry in the form of the armoured car.

INT. 3RD FLOOR - SAME

The service elevator arrives on the 3rd floor and James and Alexander move across the room toward the windows with the anti-tank weapon. At the window, they prepare the weapon for use. Outside the window the armored car has stopped in front of the wounded man and paramedics quickly load them in from the sheltered side of the vehicle. Alexander quickly sights on the armored car.

ALEXANDER: (to Hans, CB) I have them

HANS’ VOICE: (o.s., over CB) Fire.

EXT. THE ARMORED CAR

A blast ROARS from the third floor window and the shell hits the armored car. The car pitches forward like a beast whose front legs have been shot out from under it — its front axle destroyed,

unable to move. Alexander looks back at James and grins.

(BREAK)

EXT. POLICE BARRICADE - ON ROBINSON AND MITCHELL

They look on in horror as the armored car sits helplessly on fire. On the police radio channel we hear the SCREAMS OF MEN inside.

The scene is continuing to build its suspense to a crescendo. The screams of good cops just doing their job is a powerful one, especially in contrast to a cold villain who matter of factly tells his henchman to “just wound them”. John McClane has been largely silent up until now, and it figures that this particular action scene will end with McClane coming up with an ingenious way of stopping the terrorists.

This is most common structure of an action scene, in which the hero or the protagonist of the scene makes an action which puts him into danger. Since the antagonist has to be smarter than the hero, quite often they find themselves in trouble quite quickly. Our perception of an action scene depends on what information we have that the hero doesn’t, and when we know there is a bad guy lurking round the corner we start to become anxious for the safety of the good guy.

However, this previous scene had one thing most action scenes don’t have: lots of dialogue. Most action scenes don’t have that crutch to hold onto. The biggest difficulty with writing an action scene is to strike a balance between brevity and depth. Going for the most concise description of the action scene will make it take up only a few lines, and could make what you envisage as a two minute scene last only 30 seconds on paper. However, go into too much depth, too much description, and you are potentially telling both the director and the choreographer exactly what to do.

Returning to John August for a second, he makes the key point you have to consider when writing any kind of scene: “Always remember that you’re writing a movie, not a screenplay. Even though you only have words at your disposal, you’re trying to create the experience of watching a movie”

In other words, you have to paint a picture of the scene. In the previous scene, look at the description of the rocket hitting an armoured car. There are no specific camera angles mentioned and the description is still fairly brief, but it still works to great effect: “A blast ROARS from the third floor window” The use of capital letters makes the word stick out on the page and catch the reader’s attention. “The car pitches forward like a beast whose front legs have been shot out from under it — its front axle destroyed, unable to move” A clear and emphatic picture of the action has been created to us, full of detail.

 McClane curses himself, then retreats into a:

BANK OF COMPUTERS

Where he ducks and dodges as BULLETS PING AND RICOCHET all around him. Ducking, rolling, he FIRES at:

FRANCO

McClane’s bullets rake his middle, throw him over a desk, his weapon flying:

CLOSER

He slides right into a glass door. It smashes around his head. Bright arterial blood fountains up:

MCCLANE

hope rising at the prospect of an equal battle, his face suddenly falls as BULLETS fly in from an unexpected direction. He turns:

HANS

has reappeared and snatched up Franco’s weapon.

MCCLANE

FIRES, moving, trying to keep from bring flanked. One of his shots SHATTERS a glass panel, raining down shards near Hans, who escapes with only superficial scratches.

HANS

looks at the glass around him, gets an idea. He shouts to Karl in German:

HANS: The glass! Shoot the glass!

And, saying this, he demonstrates. Karl follows suit.

MCCLANE

as GLASS FLIES EVERYWHERE, McClane sees one option, takes it. BLASTING a burst to keep their heads down, he whirls, jumps on top of a long counter and runs across the room. Their BULLETS follow him, six inches behind his moving form! Big GRAY units GROAN with electronic SQUEALS and SPARKS as a million Gigabytes goes to RAM heaven. McClane reaches the end of the counter, dives and rolls to the floor:

HIS FOOT

goes right down on a jagged shard. He groans, keeps going:

STAIRWELL DOOR

He’s out, gone, safe!

Note that although there are no sound, music or camera angles to work with, the use of words can create a compelling picture of the action. McClane is “raked” by bullets; glass is “raining down” on them as the fire fight continues. He then gives the climax of the scene a long paragraph to give it some bite. Instead of simply stating that lots of computers are shot to pieces, the writer gets inventive with his “RAM heaven” analogy. To give the scene the time it needs, it pays to be inventive.

Finally, the most important factor to consider when placing an action scene into your screenplay is to make it relevant and key to the plot. An action scene is where the stakes are highest in any film, so make sure the hero has moved closer or further away from his goal. If an action scene doesn’t move the film in any direction, then you are making action for actions sake and trying to shoe horn action sequences into the plot to give the script a leg up. These kinds of shenanigans are not going to fool any disconcerting screenplay reader. When he encounters a terrorist for the first time, McClane’s resources are limited:

STAIRWELL LANDING

Then down the concrete steps into the wall on the landing below. For a moment, both men lie still. McClane, still holding onto Tony’s neck, releases it and the man’s head flops sickeningly to the side.

For a moment McClane just looks at the dead man. Then, slowly, methodically, he begins to search him. He turns all his pockets inside out, looks at his clothing labels, stares long and very hard at a California driver’s license with Tony’s picture on it

He expertly examines the machine gun when a HISSING SOUND coming from somewhere attracts his attention.

He rises, moves cautiously to the source.

NEW ANGLE

It’s Tony’s CB, which has fallen from the dead man’s waist during the struggle. McClane stares at it, formulating a plan.

Previous to this scene, McClane was an outsider with just a handgun to take down an unknown number of machine gun wielding terrorists. Now, he is one terrorist down, with a machine gun and more importantly, the CB radio he uses to discover more about the terrorists and to get messages to the outside. Every action scene in Die Hard either moves the plot forward either in favour of its protagonist or against it, and it is the same principle that you must apply to your move if you are going to craft a well-executed action scene.

The post apocalyptic visions appear in the very first frame of Jeff Nichols brooding psychological drama. Dark billowing clouds rain motor oil over Curtis (Shannon), a devoted family man, whose visions turn into nightmares, and his nightmares into delusions, leaving him torn between either building a tornado shelter for his family or having the courage to face the reality.  For the ever excellent and brooding Michael Shannon, this is not the first time he has portrayed an unhinged character, and he combines his intensity with a vulnerability some actors would not give. His range is particularly prevalent in his encounters with his wife (the equally brilliant Jessica Chastain), Curtis unable to express to his wife the feelings running through his head, Jessica unable to comprehend his husbands sudden and erratic behaviour.

The performances are set to a strong visual style containing a mixture of Curtis’ visions and a series of dream sequences, which can be an incredibly clunky device but are woven into the plot with skill. They swerve from the gloomy shots of the sky to the tense and frantic delusions that worsen as the film rumbles on. Even in its quiet moments, the soundtrack rumbles into life, leaving an awful feeling that something bad is going to happen.

Perhaps, it does linger on those moments a little too long. It does feel a little flabby as it judders to a halt into the middle of the piece, but the films well handled second half creates compelling drama as Curtis world begins to fall apart. It delivers a thrilling finale which manages to answer the big question hanging over the piece without cheating its audience or its main character. In fact, it’s those final moments which show what Take Shelter is really a film about, not a film about a disaster, or a film about an illness. It is a film about what it means to be a family.

In the first episode of Ricky Gervais’ long awaited new sitcom, desperate lead character Warwick Davis asks the formerly tubby comedian if he had written another series of Extras for him to appear in. Having witnessed the opening 30 minutes of Life’s Too Short, it was hard not to think that was the case.

Life’s Too Short is a mockumentary that follows Warwick Davis, a long time actor and extra who describes himself as “Britain’s go to dwarf”. He prides himself on having built himself a long career in movies and having his own talent agency for fellow dwarves. He believes that not only is he a big distinguished actor but an example for dwarves everywhere. He takes us round his home and points out his starring role in Hollywood blockbuster Willow, a film which “cost $40 million” as he grins to the camera, before adding “and it nearly made all of that back”. It’s that misplaced enthusiasm that Gervais manages to do so well.

It is the tone that is set for the rest of the show, for all of Warwick’s bluster and belief that he is a big shot; he is actually a man on the way down. His life is slowly falling apart, from his lack of roles to his wife’s refusal to take him back (after he foolishly thought he could do better), to his massive tax bill, the fault of an accountant so incompetent he had failed to realise that the tax system had changed. He is forced to hire a new secretary (The brilliant Rosamund Hanson) who cites her only dream in life to “discover whether they actually sent people to the moon”. All comedy needs a target, the man who will walk into every pratfall, and Warwick is the classic straight man: believing he is a sane mind surrounded by complete idiocy, unable to reflect on his own personality defects. It shows a great amount of comic insight by Gervais, who has quite carefully considered how a comedy which asks you to laugh at a dwarf can still have the heart and soul that flows through the Office and Extras. Nothing in those opening thirty minutes feels malicious, we feel for Warwick when he is hard done by, but his arrogance tells us he quite clearly deserves it.

However, for all of the ingenuity and promise that Life’s Too Short shows in its opening salvo, it is hamstrung by familiarity. Before the show even starts the opening credits depicts the defining feature of Gervais’ previous work: celebrity cameos. Yes, their back. And there are other things bothersome about Life’s Too Short: The accountant, while entertaining, felt a little too much like Stephen Merchants agent. Sometimes, Warwick himself would drop out of being Warwick Davis and deliver lines that felt like David Brent had suddenly exorcised him. It’s not uncommon for anyone successful in TV or Film to pick up certain habits, you can pick out any successful film director and spot certain character types, certain lines of dialogue, certain genres or even plot devices that just seem to ‘crop up’ in all of their films (James Cameron’s Avatar has a large amount of similarities to James Cameron’s Aliens). It only becomes a problem when it is readily apparent; too many similarities or not dressed up sufficiently and the audience will notice. Gervais finds himself between a rock and a hard place: He needs to sell a fantastic premise, but one that is unusual. He needs to get the fans on his side early, and only thirty pages to do it. Given the demands of that first episode, it is perhaps understandable that it reverts to familiarity.

Also, to be a massive hypocrite, the funniest scene of the first episode was the celebrity cameo. Liam Neeson arrives at the office of Gervais and Merchant expressing a desire to enter the world of stand up comedy, while channelling the personality of his character in the film ‘Taken’. His antagonistic riffing with the pair was fantastically well done, and shows the comic touch is still there. Life’s Too Short’s first episode is a little unsure of itself, but shows a massive amount of potential. Once it breaks out of its straight jacket and finds its own voice, it has everything there to become an absolute classic.

If there is one thing that defines Skyrim as the quintessential adventure game of this generation, it’s that initial feeling of amazement when climbing a mountain for the first time and looking at the horizon before you. On that horizon contains caves, bandit camps, wildlife to hunt and battles to engage in, and is the primary reason why The Elder Scrolls has found its way beyond the hardy action RPG audience and into the domain of the casual gamer. For makers Bethesda, they deserve some credit for finding a definable niche in their franchise (not to mention Fallout), which appeals in it’s sheer scope and the freedom it gives to the player: do you go and complete every single quest in an orderly fashion? or do you ignore it all to wander the map and find a random dungeon and fight vampires? It is also a remarkable leap from the slightly inaccessible Oblivion whose landscapes look bland by comparison, especially with a dragon related plot which adds a real sense of adventure. It still suffers from it’s usual trade off of being bugged up to the nines and a rolling save is always advisable, but Bethesda have produced a thrilling adventure.

Haven’t done much on here recently. Will be back with a vengeance next week :)

The idea of portraying Marilyn Monroe would have sent lesser actresses running to the hills, such as the magnitude of trying to capture both her sparkle as well as her vulnerability. Michelle Williams deserves credit for delivering an excellent and nuanced performance of the immensely talented, yet deeply troubled, star. Seen through the eyes of a lowly third, (performed well by Eddie Redmayne) My Week with Marilyn delves into the farcical filming of The Prince and the Showgirl, and sees the perfectionist blonde come to blows with an egotistical Lawrence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh). The film is an enjoyable snapshot of the life of the iconic star, although lacks a weighty finale and leaves you begging for a more comprehensive portrait of Marilyn.