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Friday, February 02, 2007 |
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Happy Groundhog Day! |
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Billy Mernit writes about one of my favorite romantic comedies: Groundhog Day.
Cheers!
- E.
Yes, it's that time of the year again. Romantic comedy lovers, romantics, lovers comedic or serious -- pretty much all humans with beating hearts know that as soon as February rolls around, there's a major holiday to be reckoned with, one that's come to symbolize the meaning of love and romance for America, if not the world.
I'm speaking, of course, about Groundhog Day.
Granted, there was a time, long, long ago (i.e. before 1993), when this holiday lacked the romantic associations since bestowed on it, due to the efforts of Danny Rubin, Harold Ramis and Bill Murray. But ever since the writer, director and star, respectively of Groundhog Day created what's now generally acknowledged as one of the great American movies of all time, February 2nd has become synonymous with romance and comedy. In fact, when people ask me to name a couple of my favorite romantic comedies, this one invariably comes to mind.
Groundhog_dayWhat's that? You've never thought of this cinematic classic as a romantic comedy? For shame. I have it on good, nay, unassailable authority that the film more than qualifies. For starters, it says so right on the friggin' DVD box's front cover ("A romantic comedy fantasy that is Bill Murray's best screen performance" -- thank you, Gene Shalit). But you can also look up the definition of romantic comedy in the um, definitive text on same, and find (p.12) that "a romantic comedy is a comedy whose central plot is embodied in a romantic relationship" and that (p.13) "the central question posed by a romantic comedy is: 'Will these two individuals become a couple?'"
As you well know, when TV weatherman Phil Connors (Murray) gets inexplicably trapped in the same repeating February 2nd, his sole recourse to getting out of it becomes the object of his affections, producer Rita (Andie MacDowell); his salvation lies in the answer to their coupling question. (Screenwriting theorist sticklers may point out that the story's central question is really, Will Phil ever get out of February 2nd? To this I say, also true, because the movie is a rom-com hybrid -- ibid, pp.21-28 -- a romantic comedy/high concept fantasy, and thus the couple/escape conflicts are intertwined. But let's stop boring our civilian readers, shall we? Thanks.)
Strange but true, there still exist deprived, disadvantaged people who have not seen the movie Groundhog Day. If you are one of those poor souls, what better opportunity to improve the quality of your life, than to view it this Friday, on the official Day itself? And even if you're one of the many enriched individuals who's seen it, Groundhog Day is of course a movie that you can watch over and over, and over, and over and over and over...
Ground_main_1...And if you're a major Groundhog Day fan, you might even consider journeying to the scene of the crime: the town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania is having its annual celebration, and it promises to be quite a hoot. Such a trip was actually enjoyed by Day's writer and star before the movie was made, and therein lies a little tale that speaks, I believe, to the true spirit of romance, or as we might say, what love's got to do with it.
Danny Rubin recounts the following in his illuminating interview accompanying an early draft of the screenplay in Scenario (Spring '95 issue, regrettably out of print). He talks of having been hired, fired and re-hired to work on the script, and when he, his wife Louise and kids were preparing to move from Los Angeles to New Mexico, getting a call from Bill Murray:
He says, "Do you realize that the day after tomorrow is Groundhog Day?"--"Yep."--"And do you realize that between the director, the producer, the star and the writer of this film, nobody has been to the festival at Punxsutawney? Doesn't that seem wrong to you?" And I said, "Absolutely. And I think you should go, I think that will be a great thing." And he said, "I think we should go." And I said, "Bill, that's a really nice offer, sounds like fun, but I'm moving, I'm moving my family, we're up to our necks in boxes, I can't just abandon them and go off to Punxsutawney." And he said, "Well, think about it and call me back. Here's my number." When I got off the phone, Louise asked who it was. "Bill Murray," I said. "He wants me to go to Punxsutawney tomorrow." And she said, "Cool." And I said I'd told him I couldn't do it. She said, "Are you nuts?" So I talked to [the studio] and they said, "We'll pay for the move, we'll get someone to help pack, we'll fly out a friend of your wife's to help her move in so you don't have to be there."
Groundhog_day2_1This level of support was very nice, and I embarked on the most surreal adventure of my professional life. All of a sudden I'm flying in a private plane from the middle of nowhere to the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night with Bill Murray and we're talking about the script. We landed somewhere near Punxsutawney at 2:00 in the morning. And there were fans out there waiting for him--it was supposed to be a secret...
Rubin goes on to say that he used a lot of what he saw on that trip in the script. He'd originally only spoken to the town's Chamber of Commerce and looked at their literature, but:
After we actually saw it, there was a whole different feel to it than we had imagined. It was delightful, really delightful--a wonderful civic event. We incorporated a lot of that into the movie... Everyone there knew it was a goofy ritual--it was almost sophisticated in its hickyness. What was so much fun about the festival is, it's the middle of the night, zero degrees, they've got bonfires going--and they're playing Beach Boys music.
Groundhog_day
Sometimes I read this excerpt to a screenwriting class when I'm talking about the inestimable value of research, to illustrate how really being there can make all the difference in writing a given project. But I quote it now in this pre-Valentine's Day context to highlight my favorite moment in Rubin's story, which is when Louise says, "Are you nuts?"
I just love that! Gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling every time, because it seems to me that Danny Rubin's wife is the hidden heroine of the Groundhog Day saga. Love doesn't mean never having to say you're sorry. It means having someone be able to say "Are you nuts?!" to you at a crucial moment. Love is sometimes about saving loved ones from themselves -- which come to think of it, is kind of at the core of what the movie ended up being about, don't you think?
Go watch it again, again, and see if you agree.Labels: Billy Mernit, characters, craft, Living The RomCom, screenwriting, Story, structure
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Wednesday, January 31, 2007 |
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Don't Fence Me In, Unless It's For A Really, Really Good Reason |
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From Julie Gray at The Rouge Wave.
Enjoy!
- E.
Ophelia Has Left The Building – Stereotypes in Scripts
I have noticed a disturbing trend among the younger male screenwriters I read. When they write of love, sex and romance they consistently – and I mean consistently – feature two kinds of girls. The hot girl, with big breasts or long legs, blonde hair or brunette, depending on the taste of the writer, and the nice girl – similar physical attributes but just a little more ordinary looking. The hot girl puts out and this is the source of the sex scenes early on in the script. The nice girl does not put out but more than that, she is “sweet”, she often cooks, she is definitely maternal and she is the one our main character will choose to either marry or fall in love with in the end. If I had a quarter for every time I have seen this dynamic in scripts written by younger males, I would be very rich. This disturbing, archaic, binary view of women is, well, disturbing and archaic. Largely this is the result of inexperienced writers being simply too youthful to understand that real women are too complex to pigeon hole and so they fall back on stereotype.
Falling back on stereotype is not only lazy writing it can even be offensive. All readers have seen cringe-inducing scripts in which ethnic characters are portrayed in a deeply offensive light. Other likely victims of stereotype are women, cops, priests, bratty children or just generally any character that the writer just couldn’t wrap his or her mind around. I think we all remember with a collective shudder the Mickey Rooney character in BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S.
Stereotype can be a beautiful thing - if it is a conscious choice. For example, teens are famously myopic and self-centered, yes? Naturally, the teen comedy is from the teenaged point of view - so even if you are a thirty-seven year old writer who knows better, the best choice for the parents in your teen comedy would be the repressed work-a-holic dad and the horny and bored mom. Is it true to life? Not really. But it is true to life for a teenager. And that’s the genre you’re writing.
The young male screenwriter who winds up with Jezebel the horny cheerleader versus Jenny the fresh-faced home ec sweetheart who also does his homework and bakes cookies is most definitely simply lacking in life experience and perspective. (See blog about distance). But for any other writer, stereotype is inexcusable – unless you are making a conscious choice that is in service to your story.
Check in with yourself and your story. What is the functionality of each character relative to each other and relative to the story, genre and tone? Are you maximizing each character? Do you need that character to make a larger thematic point? In other words, if the character is a stereotype, are you aware of it? Can you justify it?
Good character and dialogue work is considered one of the crown jewels in the toolkit of sought-after screenwriters. Stereotypes have a place and serve a function – sometimes the cop really should just eat a donut. Just make sure that as a writer, you are making a conscious choice that works within the world of your story because nothing says PASS writer faster than unfunny, unromantic or unscary stereotypes.Labels: characters, craft, screenwriting, The Rouge Wave
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Monday, January 29, 2007 |
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Word Of The Day |
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Good post from Dave at Writing On Spec.
Enjoy.
- E.
The Word Nobody Uses in Writing
Practice.
The popular phrase is "write everyday", but really, they don't mean the normal kind of writing you do (grocery lists, e-mail, reports, etc.). What you need to do is practice. Practice isn't writing another x amount of pages of your latest script, because, let's face it, that's just one script. How can writing one script help all of the necessary elements to tell a great story? It can't. It doesn't.
When people learn to paint, to play an instrument... any kind of artistic or skilled endeavor, what they do is practice fundamentals. With writing, it's words, spelling, punctuation, sentences, etc.; however, Screenwriting isn't just writing, it's storytelling blueprints for film. Thus, you need to practice the elements of storytelling.
Things like drama, comedy, suspense. Put two characters into a situation and resolve it. Perhaps resolve it more than one way. Write at the top of a piece of paper (or if using a computer, the first line), what the objective is for a specific scene. It doesn't have to have anything to do with any story now or in the future. It's an exercise. Practice. One person is going to get something from another. The other person is just as bent on not relinquishing the same thing to anybody.
There are several books with creative practice exercises:
Developing Story Ideas and How to Write a Script the Hal Ackerman Way are two I've read and found engaging.
What you develop by doing these varied practice sessions is a set of skills that are not connected to a specific story you are telling. It enables you to draw on a wealth of material rather than a single script/story with a few characters.
Many writers have suggested eavesdropping on others for story or character content. Perhaps take somebody you've seen or overheard and put them in a situation and see how you think it would turn out. The sky is the limit. The perk of practice is that you don't have to have something in your script worked out AND it's possible to practice everyday and still write/add to your script/story as the ideas come (instead of staring into space and doing nothing).
I'll dig up some suggestions for next time. If any of you have any good suggestions, fire away!Labels: screenwriting, Writing On Spec
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Friday, January 26, 2007 |
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I Got A Bridge I Can Sell You. |
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Matt Hader recounts what is unfortunately not an uncommon tale in the land of the wannabe scribe.
Can you feel your skin thickening?
- E.
Luck On/Luck Off
I had lunch today with a screenwriting buddy. He’s fairly new to the game and asked me what it’s like to have a well-known production company read/like/and consider taking on something I’ve written. I’ve been fortunate enough to have this type of scenario play out time and time again. He was all bug-eyed with anticipation as he waited for my reply, probably hoping upon hope that I would wax poetically about the feeling of bliss and accomplishment that one can experience --
-- until that “non-deal” falls into oblivion.
It’s not a deal until the check clears, so simply having a production company show interest, while – yes - exciting, is pretty much a fairly common occurrence worthy of nothing more than a passing, “oh, cool,” followed by my daily chores (my beautiful wife is kind of a stickler for vacuumed carpets and Swiffered floors…we’re seeking counseling).
Unfortunately for me, and I’d guess a good number of other screenwriters who’ve been at this for a while, most “potential deals” are really non-deals. You’re led to believe that someone is hot on your screenplay and then the heat fades as quickly as it flared. I’ve learned to react in the same fashion to that non-deal falling apart as I do to the possibility of making a deal – with a calm disposition. If I didn’t level my head, I’d be punching holes in walls, or worse, blogging all the time…
My buddy then asked me how many times I’ve had non-deals become nothing-at-all-deals. I had to think about that for a minute – “in the past year?”
Yeah…it’s happened a bunch.
Maybe it’s me? Maybe it’s my writing? Or maybe it’s the fact that the executive revolving doors in Hollywood spin at such a ferocious pace that you can’t keep track of all the comings and goings. Perhaps it’s a little of all the above?
My screenwriting Bud was surprised that non-deals fall away so quickly after the one championing your cause at a production company makes his/her exit. He never took into consideration that just because one executive at a company likes your screenplay, that the second they leave the employ of said production company, everything they were working on (in most situations) simply goes “poof” into thin air. At least that’s how it’s panned out for me in those instances. Hopefully for you, you’re cranking out the deals left and right regardless of your circumstances…Jealous? Me? Nah…
“But, why wouldn’t that executive take your project to his/her new company?”
Because a lot of times, when he/she does land at a new company, the new employer is looking for a different type of material – and my stuff may not fit in to their corporate vision. And actually in one case, after I asked my agent if the producer would be willing to look at my screenplay at his new place of employment, the answer was not one I fully expected -- “Well, his new job is with a realtor…”
Oh…
They loved it – and left…
I feel so…used…Labels: industry, Matt Hader, screenwriting, Story
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Wednesday, January 24, 2007 |
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Try Something New: Make A Plan. |
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Posting from Mead Kerr via Danny Stack's website on, "Why haven't I made it yet?"
Great reading.
Enjoy.
- E.
WHY HAVEN'T I MADE IT YET?
There it is. That question.
Of course everyone will have their own particular response and I don't profess to have all the answers...but I do have a few theories and a personal mantra.
"If you keep on doing what you're doing, you'll keep on getting what you're getting."
This is best illustrated by an encounter I had recently. An aspiring screenwriter, let's call him WRITER X approached me seeking advice for the year ahead. He was fed up and complained how no one is willing to give new talent a chance. "It's a closed shop...they should give more support to new writers...I've been sending stuff out for years and getting nowhere..." etc, etc. When I mentioned a couple of new opportunities for TV drama writers he stated he was only interested in writing for film. My reply? “In that case the brutal truth is you’ve almost no chance of becoming a full time professional screenwriter.”
This was just one example of how so many aspiring writers make it impossible to achieve the success they dream of. The British film Industry is tiny, poorly funded and with very few PAID opportunities for writers. Ask a cross section of professional drama writers and producers and they will confirm that the numbers of people making a good, full time living from working ONLY in film is minute. By ignoring TV our doleful friend WRITER X was massively reducing the opportunities available to him. TV is where the money is in the UK.
Of course you have every right to ignore TV and specialise in film…..as long as you are happy to dress like a student for the rest of your life and only ever dine out at the local “£5 eat all you can Chinese buffet.” Or you can also learn how get a job in TV drama.
Most UK screenwriters including myself write for both but earn the vast majority of their income from TV drama. You can make a very good living by following this strategy. Go and check out the credits of most established British or American screenwriters and you’ll find they either started out in TV or still do a mix of both.
But of course many of you will know all this stuff already and you will have been attacking both markets with a highly organised strategy. I hope you have, because there's plenty of competition out there.
Last year roughly 20,000 people graduated from Media and Screenwriting courses. That’s another 20,000 aspiring screenwriters chasing the same opportunities as you. Add the English literature graduates, journalists, copywriters, starving novelists and weekend writers all trying their hand at screenwriting and you start to see just what you are up against. Oh, I forgot to mention the army of highly experienced and established professional screenwriters who already have agents and lots of connections.
Statisticians would tell you the odds against you getting your break and becoming a professional screenwriter are massively stacked against you. So, is it nigh on impossible? Should you give up?
Well the truth is that the numbers only tell you part of the story.
The following isn't bragging...I'm just trying to illustrate a point. When I decided to become a professional screenwriter I had no training, no connections with the industry and I was living in Scotland with no desire to move to London. Two years later I had an agent at ICM, was a paid, full time professional writer of film and TV scripts and my first TV episode was watched by 7 million viewers.
To be honest the next couple of years was weird. I couldn't understand why people kept telling me that I was incredibly lucky and how tough it was to get a break. I'd simply done it by planning a CAREER STRATEGY for myself and making sure I took advantage of every opportunity available. Once I started meeting other professional writers I discovered that almost all of them had done the same thing.
Okay, of course you need talent but the following are also just a few of the other things that everyone agrees you also need -
a) FOCUS. Focus your efforts where they will be most effective and likely to reap the greatest reward - most writers are chasing the same few widely advertised opportunities in the UK. They are unaware of how to access Europe, Canada and the USA.
b) INDUSTRY KNOWLEDGE. Establish contacts and links with full time
professionals in the industry, in order to understand how the film and TV industry REALLY works and what type of projects producers and broadcasters are seeking.
c) PITCH DOCS. Understanding what documents you need to sell your ideas and how to write them well is essential. - Overworked execs want to read a brilliant one page doc before they will even consider your treatment or script.
d) A GOOD AGENT. This is HUGELY important now. A free handout How To Get An Agent is available on request CONTACT info@meadkerr.com
e) A CAREER STRATEGY. In order to get your break you need to have planned EVERY aspect of how you are going to get there. By failing to make a financial plan for how are you going to make the transition from your present job to a full time writing career you are sabotaging any chance of success.
I absolutely believe and know you can achieve your goal of becoming a professional screenwriter, it's what I've done and lots of others I know have done the same. However, it will only happen IF you are willing to do what it takes.
Remember: "If you keep on doing what you're doing, you'll keep on getting what you're getting."Labels: Danny Stack, general, screenwriting, scribosphere
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Monday, January 22, 2007 |
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Where's Oscar Going? |
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It's about that time to place your bets, folks. Vegas will be weighing in shortly. Care to wager whether Babel will beat out The Departed?
AJ Schnack's got his predictions in. I'll post mine soon. I need to see a few more films first...
- E.
Oscar Guessing 2007
While many of the Oscar prognosticators have already written off this year's nominees as a done deal (it's gonna be some combination of Babel, Departed, Dreamgirls, Little Miss Sunshine and The Queen), the picks for this year's documentary feature remain a solid mystery. Even the presumed winner, Davis Guggenheim's An Inconvenient Truth, started to look a little wobbly after being passed over by both the Writers and Directors Guilds (even though it nearly swept the critics prizes).
But if I were forced to guess (and there's something in the blogger's contract of having to talk about the future as if you know what it is and then to trumpet your correct guesses and run from your wild pitches), I'd say that An Inconvenient Truth will still make tomorrow's list of five, and I think that it will most likely be joined by Amy Berg's Deliver Us From Evil and James Longley's Iraq in Fragments, both of which received nominations from the guilds, the IDA and the Gothams (Iraq in Fragments won the latter two).
I usually argue that the committee that chooses the nominees tends to breakdown their choices as follows: 3 big theatrical films, 1 political film and 1 international film. If they stick to this pattern, that mean that the 3 theatrical releases will include Truth, Deliver Us (which while sputtering at the box office has been a critical slamdunk) and either Jesus Camp or Shut Up and Sing. Early on, I was predicting Jesus Camp as the 3rd choice (and at the time it was the 2nd highest grossing nominee behind Truth), but after some of the critics prizes and considering two-time Oscar winner Barbara Kopple's reputation, I'm going to wager that they give a nod to the Dixie Chicks film instead.
MoreLabels: oscar, screenwriting, scribosphere
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