The old quota argument has been rearing its seductive head recently, in a blog on the guardian and a bit of a discussion on the Shooting people. Being someone on the outside trying to break in, surprisingly I slightly favour it, though I'm far from well-informed on the matter.
However, Saturday night I learnt a little bit more. At a wedding I sat next to a guy who works the association that represents the interests of Cinemas in the UK. As I don't yet have an actual film to sell him I thought I'd fire the quota question at him. Bear in mind I'd had a few drinks so might be misquoting him - or just making it up.
A resounding no. He hates the Quota idea - thought it was an excuse to make crap films and pointed out that it removed competition - that if I made a film under a quota environment, then every other film made in the same environment would earn exactly the same amount as my one, regardless of how many tickets each film sold. Maybe on this I did mishear him, as I do find that rather hard to believe - surely a more nuanced system could be used?
But his other points were harder to argue against and indeed more encouraging - when I pointed out Hollywood's choke hold on distribution, he quickly came back with two factors that he said would soon be game changers:
Digitisation - not in production but in distribution. Currently, each film print (the film roll you put in the projector to project the film onto the screen) cost thousands of pounds to make and has to be physically distributed around the world. It has to be properly stored in cinemas and physically threaded and projected for each and every show. With the advent of digitisation you can send a film across a secure Internet link and just drag and drop it. This will bring costs down, allowing films to be copied for free and therefore involving less financial risk/investment from the distributor, so they can buy and show - hopefully - more films.
Social Media - It's changing our lives and our viewing habits. But it, combined with this digitisation in cinemas, will enable people to democratically vote as to what film they want to see in the cinema on say a Saturday night... interesting and empowering. But then the argument devolves from distribution ruling the marketplace / industry to marketing and hype ruling the industry, which social media can again influence but I think is still ultimately down to the bucks. So a slow improvement there maybe
While this guy was a complete free-marketer – trust the market, it will all work out – and politically my natural place is opposite, I can see some sense in his argument. Handing out free money to self-entitled media brats to make self-indulgent films is a worst case scenario that would come true to some extent – indeed, some would argue it already has under the defunct Film Council.
But my answer is that the market generally sinks to the lowest common denominator and must be artificially righted. The market seduces people into the choosing the easy way / easy entertainment. There is a scenario where people don't want to watch something challenging but if they are pushed into watching it then they are grateful afterward. However, it’s dangerous to say this because you come across as culturally elitist.
But then isn’t that is also part of the filmmaker’s remit – to answer a need they see in the cultural landscape, one that may not be popular but can still be important, and address it narratively. As Churchill said, democracy/the mob/the market is the best of a bad bunch of systems. To say the market it will look after itself is in some ways naive, and maybe self-delusional. It’s a way to wash our hands of the responsibility, put our trust in something we see as bigger than us but is in actual fact just a mess of complexities and not some wonderful self-organising higher intelligence. The market is not God – it is in fact the Frankenstein story, humanity creating a beast that will kill us. The market argument ignores that there’s an almost "moral" sense of quality that should be intellectually imposed – this may sounds hubristic or arrogant but I think that might be a failure of self-confidence more than anything else. Anyway, enough random thoughts on the market economy.
The Quota idea is a seductive one, and while I think it would be a good move I don’t see the government suddenly turning around and giving away money - it just ain't gonna happen. But maybe the future ain’t so bad even without quotas. Films will become more connected to the audience, more reactive to the audience, and fulfil the audiences needs more directly. Maybe it’ll even slim down the exec/middle man level and contact filmmakers directly to their audience. I just hope I’m wrong and people do choose those artistically, morally, and narratively challenging films.
Monday 20 December 2010
Friday 17 December 2010
What building is your screenplay?
Just listening to a YouTube clip with the brillaint Linda Seger - read some of her books if you haven't - she is really one of the best.
and in it she revisits that old nugget - writing a screenplay is like architecting a building.
Sure.
But what building is it exactly? Just a little game which I think might help envision the finished project:
Avatar would be a future high tech green building, mabye biogenically enginneered from a tree (and people are envisioing this type of building at the moment).
The Hurt Locker might be the destroyed ruins of Uruk (the first ever city, it's ruins in present day Iraq).
Taken would be a dark labyrinth, with the daughter in the place of the minotaur.
The Bourne Series might be a mirror maze
Juno would be what - an empty school?
Mine's a definite old school Cathedral.
So what building is your screenplay?
and in it she revisits that old nugget - writing a screenplay is like architecting a building.
Sure.
But what building is it exactly? Just a little game which I think might help envision the finished project:
Avatar would be a future high tech green building, mabye biogenically enginneered from a tree (and people are envisioing this type of building at the moment).
The Hurt Locker might be the destroyed ruins of Uruk (the first ever city, it's ruins in present day Iraq).
Taken would be a dark labyrinth, with the daughter in the place of the minotaur.
The Bourne Series might be a mirror maze
Juno would be what - an empty school?
Mine's a definite old school Cathedral.
So what building is your screenplay?
Monday 6 December 2010
William and Harold (1066) screenplay review (from Brit List 2010)
Right here comes my Scriptshadow impersonation....for one day only.
Genre: Historical/Period
Premise/logline: How the events of 1066 were driven by the love triangle between Harold of Wessex, William of Normandy and his wife Matilda.
About: This came bottom of the Brit List 2010(an industry list of the best unproduced screenplays of the year). There are a number of other 1066 scripts/projects floating about, one on Trigger Street from a few years back was funded by the now defunct UK Film Council. I also believe Shine Pictures asked William Nicholson (writer of Gladiator) to pen them a script, and I know of at least 3 other independent 1066 projects, all at varying degrees of development.
Writer: John Hodge (United Agents) has written many great British films including Trainspotting, Shallow Grave, A life Less Ordinary, The Beach
Producers: Cloud Eight Films/Pathe.
Details: 108 Pages (this version came from a link of all the Brit List 2010 scripts. I've now managed to lose that link, so if anyone has it please bung it over. I have no way of telling whether this is the final or an early draft).
I’m writing a script on a similar topic – set a few hundred years earlier, so though I would have a look at this and see what I could learn. I’ve also read the trigger street / film council script, which didn’t really impress me save for the ending, though I did read an early draft, so I imagine there have been subsequent drafts.
On to the script - we open with a voice over giving us the low down – “the destiny to the crown (of England) would be determined by a struggle between two mighty armies”. Telling us what to expect from the get go.
And then into some juicy executions of those rabid Welshmen. They are buried then up to their necks in the ground, with a rope tied around their necks. The other end is attached to a horse, who’s slapped on the rump and gallops off. Bye Bye head.
This horseplay is down to the Godwin brothers – Harold, the leader, Leofwine, the brains, Sweyn, a killer and Tostig the tearaway. They've defeated the Welsh and are trintying to get ther opaths of allegiance. Unsuccessfully. Harold, especially, wants to stop the raping and slaughter, but is unable to in the face of the Welsh’s continued defiance. So he kills them all.
Then it’s off to meet William in Normandy, laying siege to a castle and enrolling the three minstrels the King of France gave him into his army. He’s a heck pecked medieval lord who’s bent on conquering more and more land – but who knows that power equals responsibility (yup, he actually says that).
Harold is sent by his King, Edward the Confessor, on a secret mission – so secret he doesn’t even know its aim or the correct destination - Harold thinks he's going to Denmark. But his boat is wrecked on the Norman coast during a storm and Harold , the sole survivor, is brought before Duke William. A nice back and forth explodes into a fight where William proves his ruthlessness and it’s off to the dungeon for Harold.
William has a look at the letter that Harold's colleague carried. And the true mission is revealed – the letter is from King Edward of Englad, who wants William to kill Harold in order to become heir to the English throne.
William considers this as he sets out to besiege a traitor holed up in a castle, taking Harold and his wife with him.
But Harold proves his worth, suggesting a near-suicidal mission for himself and William to take the impregnable castle. During the attack, William asks Harold for advice on his wife - where’s it all going wrong. Definitely a comedic element creeping in here, which is entertaining, not what I’d expect and fresh, though it may a bit too contemporary for an historical epic.
It’s turning into a bit of a buddy film, with William and Harold fighting together against the world.
But then, while WIlliam celebrates his great victory, the betrayal comes – Harold beds Matilda (William's wife).
William, unaware of this, decides to let Harold return to England, but not before revealing the contents of the letter to Harold. If Harold agrees to uphold William’s claim to the throne, William will let him return to England. Harold agrees.
Harold returns to find his brother Tostig has been causing trouble up in Northumbria – consorting with the Vikings – Hardrada’s men from Norway. Harold goes to sort it out, and in the fracas two of Hardrada’s men are killed. Tostig leaves with the last Viking, abandoning his family.
Then when Edward finally dies (of old age), the Witan (English council of Lords) push Harold into accepting Kingship.
William is furious and declares war. He is all set to invade – but the wind holds him back.
Some ships set sail and land on England’s coast – but it is Tostig, with Hardrada and an army of Vikings that have come to Northumbria. Harold marches north to deal with his younger brother, thinking it’s too late for William to sail this year.
There’s no Stamford Bridge moment, when a Viking Berserker held off the English soldiers for hours on a bridge, allowing the Viking reinforcements to come. Neither is there Hardrada’s famous challenge, the last Viking Flyting (war poem), that marks the end of the Viking era. Still, this script is not about that, it’s about Harold and William...
…who has just set sail for England.
With the vikings defeated and Tostig executed, Harold learns that William has landed at Hastings. He confers with his brother who beg him to wait out the winter and attack in the spring – William will be weaker and Harold stronger. But Harold won’t wait. And the clever thing the writer has done here is to explain Harold’s (real and historical) eagerness to go fight William before winter and against all military sense. Harold wants Matilda, who againa accompanies William. He can’t wait. Love will be the ruin of him.
Just before the final battle William and Harold meet and William guesses that Harold slept with Matilda. The scene is set for the big battle. And when the final duel between the two men happens it’s not arms or weapons that defeat Harold but the realisation that Matilda has chosen William over him. That is what kills him - a broken heart.
And it’s all rapped up nicely with a dream/heaven sequence of all three of them back together when they were friends in Normandy.
What I learned: The author has taken a big story and reduced it to a love triangle. Two men, once friends, now enemies, fight over England but also over a woman. The writer’s introduced a comic element with the William and Matilda relationship and also a buddy feel in the earlier part of the script between William and Harold. While this does focus the story, I can’t help but feel the tone might be a bit too irreverent, contemporary and comedic for a historical epic – especially some of the dialogue. The brave warriors emote and are in touch with their feelings, Harold has a tender relationship with his daughter – all good writing but not apt for this period in my view. However, maybe that’s what the genre needs to bring it to the new generation. It’s certainly a new approach.
The script’s action is underwritten, there rarely being paragraphs longer than one line. I don’t know if this is the new accepted style but I think it makes it harder for the reader to enter the world of the film. This is slightly related to another problem, the scripts’ spectacle and size. From a small story it leaps into an epic final battle, which almost dwarfs the rest of the film. It's a story of two halves - the first half is Harold and Williams relationship and the second half is stae affairs and battles, so it feels like you have emotion in the first half and spectacle in the seconds, though the endiong does heal that division somewhat.
But it was a good read, focussed, with a clear through line and an interesting, modern take on what could normally be a pompous and self-important subject. It was funny and exciting and touching. Maybe this is the way to revive the historical epic. Time will tell.
If you're crazy enough to want to write one of these beasts yourself - check out my blog on Writing Historical Epics
Genre: Historical/Period
Premise/logline: How the events of 1066 were driven by the love triangle between Harold of Wessex, William of Normandy and his wife Matilda.
About: This came bottom of the Brit List 2010(an industry list of the best unproduced screenplays of the year). There are a number of other 1066 scripts/projects floating about, one on Trigger Street from a few years back was funded by the now defunct UK Film Council. I also believe Shine Pictures asked William Nicholson (writer of Gladiator) to pen them a script, and I know of at least 3 other independent 1066 projects, all at varying degrees of development.
Writer: John Hodge (United Agents) has written many great British films including Trainspotting, Shallow Grave, A life Less Ordinary, The Beach
Producers: Cloud Eight Films/Pathe.
Details: 108 Pages (this version came from a link of all the Brit List 2010 scripts. I've now managed to lose that link, so if anyone has it please bung it over. I have no way of telling whether this is the final or an early draft).
I’m writing a script on a similar topic – set a few hundred years earlier, so though I would have a look at this and see what I could learn. I’ve also read the trigger street / film council script, which didn’t really impress me save for the ending, though I did read an early draft, so I imagine there have been subsequent drafts.
On to the script - we open with a voice over giving us the low down – “the destiny to the crown (of England) would be determined by a struggle between two mighty armies”. Telling us what to expect from the get go.
And then into some juicy executions of those rabid Welshmen. They are buried then up to their necks in the ground, with a rope tied around their necks. The other end is attached to a horse, who’s slapped on the rump and gallops off. Bye Bye head.
This horseplay is down to the Godwin brothers – Harold, the leader, Leofwine, the brains, Sweyn, a killer and Tostig the tearaway. They've defeated the Welsh and are trintying to get ther opaths of allegiance. Unsuccessfully. Harold, especially, wants to stop the raping and slaughter, but is unable to in the face of the Welsh’s continued defiance. So he kills them all.
Then it’s off to meet William in Normandy, laying siege to a castle and enrolling the three minstrels the King of France gave him into his army. He’s a heck pecked medieval lord who’s bent on conquering more and more land – but who knows that power equals responsibility (yup, he actually says that).
Harold is sent by his King, Edward the Confessor, on a secret mission – so secret he doesn’t even know its aim or the correct destination - Harold thinks he's going to Denmark. But his boat is wrecked on the Norman coast during a storm and Harold , the sole survivor, is brought before Duke William. A nice back and forth explodes into a fight where William proves his ruthlessness and it’s off to the dungeon for Harold.
William has a look at the letter that Harold's colleague carried. And the true mission is revealed – the letter is from King Edward of Englad, who wants William to kill Harold in order to become heir to the English throne.
William considers this as he sets out to besiege a traitor holed up in a castle, taking Harold and his wife with him.
But Harold proves his worth, suggesting a near-suicidal mission for himself and William to take the impregnable castle. During the attack, William asks Harold for advice on his wife - where’s it all going wrong. Definitely a comedic element creeping in here, which is entertaining, not what I’d expect and fresh, though it may a bit too contemporary for an historical epic.
It’s turning into a bit of a buddy film, with William and Harold fighting together against the world.
But then, while WIlliam celebrates his great victory, the betrayal comes – Harold beds Matilda (William's wife).
William, unaware of this, decides to let Harold return to England, but not before revealing the contents of the letter to Harold. If Harold agrees to uphold William’s claim to the throne, William will let him return to England. Harold agrees.
Harold returns to find his brother Tostig has been causing trouble up in Northumbria – consorting with the Vikings – Hardrada’s men from Norway. Harold goes to sort it out, and in the fracas two of Hardrada’s men are killed. Tostig leaves with the last Viking, abandoning his family.
Then when Edward finally dies (of old age), the Witan (English council of Lords) push Harold into accepting Kingship.
William is furious and declares war. He is all set to invade – but the wind holds him back.
Some ships set sail and land on England’s coast – but it is Tostig, with Hardrada and an army of Vikings that have come to Northumbria. Harold marches north to deal with his younger brother, thinking it’s too late for William to sail this year.
There’s no Stamford Bridge moment, when a Viking Berserker held off the English soldiers for hours on a bridge, allowing the Viking reinforcements to come. Neither is there Hardrada’s famous challenge, the last Viking Flyting (war poem), that marks the end of the Viking era. Still, this script is not about that, it’s about Harold and William...
…who has just set sail for England.
With the vikings defeated and Tostig executed, Harold learns that William has landed at Hastings. He confers with his brother who beg him to wait out the winter and attack in the spring – William will be weaker and Harold stronger. But Harold won’t wait. And the clever thing the writer has done here is to explain Harold’s (real and historical) eagerness to go fight William before winter and against all military sense. Harold wants Matilda, who againa accompanies William. He can’t wait. Love will be the ruin of him.
Just before the final battle William and Harold meet and William guesses that Harold slept with Matilda. The scene is set for the big battle. And when the final duel between the two men happens it’s not arms or weapons that defeat Harold but the realisation that Matilda has chosen William over him. That is what kills him - a broken heart.
And it’s all rapped up nicely with a dream/heaven sequence of all three of them back together when they were friends in Normandy.
What I learned: The author has taken a big story and reduced it to a love triangle. Two men, once friends, now enemies, fight over England but also over a woman. The writer’s introduced a comic element with the William and Matilda relationship and also a buddy feel in the earlier part of the script between William and Harold. While this does focus the story, I can’t help but feel the tone might be a bit too irreverent, contemporary and comedic for a historical epic – especially some of the dialogue. The brave warriors emote and are in touch with their feelings, Harold has a tender relationship with his daughter – all good writing but not apt for this period in my view. However, maybe that’s what the genre needs to bring it to the new generation. It’s certainly a new approach.
The script’s action is underwritten, there rarely being paragraphs longer than one line. I don’t know if this is the new accepted style but I think it makes it harder for the reader to enter the world of the film. This is slightly related to another problem, the scripts’ spectacle and size. From a small story it leaps into an epic final battle, which almost dwarfs the rest of the film. It's a story of two halves - the first half is Harold and Williams relationship and the second half is stae affairs and battles, so it feels like you have emotion in the first half and spectacle in the seconds, though the endiong does heal that division somewhat.
But it was a good read, focussed, with a clear through line and an interesting, modern take on what could normally be a pompous and self-important subject. It was funny and exciting and touching. Maybe this is the way to revive the historical epic. Time will tell.
If you're crazy enough to want to write one of these beasts yourself - check out my blog on Writing Historical Epics
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