First off, all the links in the Screenwriting section, particularly John August, are worth reading today. His is mostly about getting an agent/your first script, but one thing I'd like to focus on there is his reminder that your first script will not sell.
This is heartbreaking considering how much work went into it. And there are, of course, exceptions. But that script's job is to get you an agent and get you work. Period. I'm fifteen-odd paid movie scripts in, and my spec still sits on the shelf. It got me my meetings, and my first "why-not-it's-a-good-take-and-he's-cheap" assignment. But if there's one massive bit of engram rewriting I could do in every young writer's brain -- this is the long game. It's baseball, and you want to be Yastremski, hitting every day in the cage until your knuckles bleed. Then, "suddenly" you wake up five years later and you're writing $100 million dollar movies.
If, in some insane bit of luck, your script gets some attention, I firmly believe you need to go into those meetings selling yourself as the assignment guy. Tell the agents you're talking to that looking for rewrites. Let them understand they have a person here who knows how the business works, and is prepared to make the effort they're going to put into selling you pay off.
Of course, there's an art to the rewrite pitch, and I may be able to help you there -- that one goes up next week, after I catch up on my pages lost to this filthy flu.
Some of you may have singular artistic visions you wish to pursue. Trust me, it's far easier to pursue them once you've established working relationships with other film-making humans. By, say, working.
Oh, and the title of the post comes from CHUD's review today of Season 1 & 2 of MOONLIGHTING. The show came on my first year at McGill, in Montreal. Only one guy on the floor had a TV, and we'd cram in there to watch hockey -- but one other guy and I would bribe the dude with beer and candy to be able to watch Moonlighting. We were hooked once we'd stumbled across the pilot.
Dan, the other fan, was in his last year at McGill. He was a screenwriting major -- in a college with no screenwriting major. He essentially created it out of whole cloth, and conned the English Department into letting him be the only graduate. We became friends, and he's one of the reasons I becamse a writer, because I saw how you could do it by, well, just goddam writing and not letting anyone stop you.
I had the pleasure of reading his full script he wrote for his major. The name eludes me, but the plot of it involved a small town male babysitter; the genius 11 year-old girl who seduced him so he could be blackmailed into her insane plot of killing Santa Claus; and her narcoleptic younger brother. Every time the brother passed out, he whispered a few random words -- which you realized halfway through the script formed a completely separate but parallel storyline. It remains one of the funniest and most insanely inspired things I've read in close to twenty years.
Not yet thinking I would be leaving Physics, I lost track of Dan as soon as he graduated. He came to Hollywood. Years later, when I arrived, I asked about him.
It was Dan Waters. Dan, of course, wroter HEATHERS, and most peculiarly, BATMAN RETURNS. Which introduced the Michelle Pfeiffer Catwoman. Which was so popular, they commissioned a spin-off movie. Dan Waters wrote the first draft of CATWOMAN back in 1993-ish.
And ten years later, I came on to rewrite it.
He'd left ten years earlier, claiming the movie was doomed. I should've called him ...
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Monday, May 30, 2005
Mad Hot Ballroom
I cannot even pretend cynicism here.
I'm not sure when this documentary about 5th graders in New York entering a city-wide ballroom dance contest hits critical mass.
It starts when you meet the kids, and they talk about their lives and how they percieve the world. It's not quite when the pudgy kid gets picked over his more confident older brother, not quite when you realize that the two kids who aren't allowed by their religions to dance -- one Jewish and one Muslium -- are best friends while acting as DJ's. Not quite when the 11 year old girls talk about being harassed by drunk men, or begging their mom to leave their dads who cheat, and the decision they've made not to join the street culture. Not quite when you understand that the angelic boy speaks no English, but he's a hero and protected by his peers because he's born to dance.
It's not quite when you realize that the dance teacher who seems a little too driven cracks, and you understand that she's lost too many of her kids back into despair. Or when the New York Public School dance teachers break out into an impromptu dance-off/celebration in a basement in Brooklyn.
But somehow, by the time the final city-wide dance finals occur, the movie is a fat adrenaline needle of joy plunged straight into your chest.
I don't care where it's playing. I don't care how far you have to drive. Go. Now.
I'm not sure when this documentary about 5th graders in New York entering a city-wide ballroom dance contest hits critical mass.
It starts when you meet the kids, and they talk about their lives and how they percieve the world. It's not quite when the pudgy kid gets picked over his more confident older brother, not quite when you realize that the two kids who aren't allowed by their religions to dance -- one Jewish and one Muslium -- are best friends while acting as DJ's. Not quite when the 11 year old girls talk about being harassed by drunk men, or begging their mom to leave their dads who cheat, and the decision they've made not to join the street culture. Not quite when you understand that the angelic boy speaks no English, but he's a hero and protected by his peers because he's born to dance.
It's not quite when you realize that the dance teacher who seems a little too driven cracks, and you understand that she's lost too many of her kids back into despair. Or when the New York Public School dance teachers break out into an impromptu dance-off/celebration in a basement in Brooklyn.
But somehow, by the time the final city-wide dance finals occur, the movie is a fat adrenaline needle of joy plunged straight into your chest.
I don't care where it's playing. I don't care how far you have to drive. Go. Now.
Sunday, May 29, 2005
Singularity I
Charles Stross, who writes some very spiffy stuff, has put together a fascinatiing hypertext guide to the latest SF hotbutton. You can check out his:
Singularity: A Tough Guide to the Rapture of the Nerds
and speak knowledgeably about such things at your next rockin' science fiction/jello shots party.
Singularity: A Tough Guide to the Rapture of the Nerds
and speak knowledgeably about such things at your next rockin' science fiction/jello shots party.
Friday, May 27, 2005
Hey, we marched forward a little.
Update to below -- the House defeated the possibly crippling "limit on women in combat units" bill. Credit where credit is due. (via the always excellent Intel Dump)
Lessons Learned #234 - Danish Porn
When a friend asks your wife and you to watch a Danish movie that's intermittently hard-core porn to help out with her figuring how to market it on DVD ...
... say no.
Actual conversation:
"God, that room-mate character -- she's HIDEOUS! Fifty-year old women with bad nose jobs and collagen lips should not be doing -- AGGGHHH!"
"SWEET GOD! Is that her idea of sexy, advancing on his crotch with her eyes rolled back and tongue gaping out off her unhinged maw --"
"Seriously. In the fucked-up Japanese anime version of this film, she would be a sexy Japanese girl, but then she'd lift her skirt to reveal that face flicking her tongue out at you."
"You could sell that movie in Japan."
"I could build an industry on that movie in Japan."
... say no.
Actual conversation:
"God, that room-mate character -- she's HIDEOUS! Fifty-year old women with bad nose jobs and collagen lips should not be doing -- AGGGHHH!"
"SWEET GOD! Is that her idea of sexy, advancing on his crotch with her eyes rolled back and tongue gaping out off her unhinged maw --"
"Seriously. In the fucked-up Japanese anime version of this film, she would be a sexy Japanese girl, but then she'd lift her skirt to reveal that face flicking her tongue out at you."
"You could sell that movie in Japan."
"I could build an industry on that movie in Japan."
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Lost Finale
-- SPOILERS --
First, the praise:
-- bonus carry-over from last week:"black rock" reveal. Whizza.
-- Subtle Rousseau clue that they were focusing on the wrong boy.
-- Statue reveal on Charlie
-- Michael's secret sin
-- *GURK* "Do not. Hit me. Again."
-- the realization that if the show now just became Michael, Jin, and Sawyer on Vengeance Road looking for the kid, I'd watch every episode twice. I don't care how gay that makes me. Twice.
But all in all, that ...
... that ...
.. was not what I was hoping for.
On one hand, shortly after I wrote this, I got a quick e-mail from one of the show creators saying "Hilarious! You will see this addressed soon!" So the whole "you six people clique" was amusing.
Again, this is all from loving the show. But to borrow from our Jargon Preservation Project, there was an awful lot of "up and back".
Huge chunks of flashback, with little or no new information -- the only bit being the revelation of "devoted Dad" Michael's secret sin ... no new info in Charlie's, Locke's, Hurley's (except the comic being his, but was that worth five minutes?*), and you could say maybe Jin gave you at least a variant on his info.
We already knew that Locke and Jack had different views of the island. They've had this almost exact same speech before, in a slightly different context. Although I have to say, Jack might have been a little more open to the whole "This island is hinky" speech after seeing the Giant Snatching Black Cloud of Doom. He's approaching a Second-season Scully Blindspot here.
If you didn't see the science teacher thing coming, well ... you don't watch a lot of TV.
The greatest moment was, of course, "We have to take your boy". My wife was freaking, and it was magnificent -- although I guessed it from the French Chick comment earlier when she said the Others were "coming for the boy." I was thinking -- "Now hoo-haw, THAT'S a GODDAM CLIFFHANGER!" Then I remembered that they needed to blow up the hatch. How do you beat THAT?
You don't.
You know they're going to open the hatch. There's no suspense. As a viewer, you know it's the season finale, you know they've been harping on trying to open the hatch for close to ten episodes, any suspense beats on whether they're going to open the hatch are wasted beats. So the payoff for the cliffhanger has to be, what'll we see IN the hatch?
A ladder? You mean, the hatch has some way of traversing within and without it? Oh sweet MOTHER OF GOD !! And it goes really far down? Not so far down as to be deeper than, say an ordinary parking garage's ventilation shaft , but DOWN? AAAAAGHHHH!
Feh. I didn't want to see everything. I didn't want to see the Control Room with the Brain-puter and the floating brains in jars full of diet ginger ale. I'm fully aware, those who-loved-it-and-think-we're-being-grumpy-pants, that you need to leave some mysteries for next season. You don't find Mulder's sister in Season One (on the other hand, you don't make mulder's sister an ascended spirit-girl, either. Fuckers.).
But I think that if all three hours of Exodus were compressed into one, I would've been lying on the floor in a puddle. I firmly believe the writers struggled valiantly against network-order bloat, but in the end were defeated.
This is a tricky moment for the show -- genre shows create rabid audiences, but once you lose them, they don't just go away -- they frikkin' turn.
I look forward to second season, but I hope they're working on the bible even as we speak.
*there is a theory that this was to show Hurley wasn't supposed to get on the plane -- he was the only one the numbers/island were trying to stop from coming. If so this flashback is fair game. But personally I wouldn't spend five mintues laying obtuse pipe in my cliffhanger finale.
First, the praise:
-- bonus carry-over from last week:"black rock" reveal. Whizza.
-- Subtle Rousseau clue that they were focusing on the wrong boy.
-- Statue reveal on Charlie
-- Michael's secret sin
-- *GURK* "Do not. Hit me. Again."
-- the realization that if the show now just became Michael, Jin, and Sawyer on Vengeance Road looking for the kid, I'd watch every episode twice. I don't care how gay that makes me. Twice.
But all in all, that ...
... that ...
.. was not what I was hoping for.
On one hand, shortly after I wrote this, I got a quick e-mail from one of the show creators saying "Hilarious! You will see this addressed soon!" So the whole "you six people clique" was amusing.
Again, this is all from loving the show. But to borrow from our Jargon Preservation Project, there was an awful lot of "up and back".
Huge chunks of flashback, with little or no new information -- the only bit being the revelation of "devoted Dad" Michael's secret sin ... no new info in Charlie's, Locke's, Hurley's (except the comic being his, but was that worth five minutes?*), and you could say maybe Jin gave you at least a variant on his info.
We already knew that Locke and Jack had different views of the island. They've had this almost exact same speech before, in a slightly different context. Although I have to say, Jack might have been a little more open to the whole "This island is hinky" speech after seeing the Giant Snatching Black Cloud of Doom. He's approaching a Second-season Scully Blindspot here.
If you didn't see the science teacher thing coming, well ... you don't watch a lot of TV.
The greatest moment was, of course, "We have to take your boy". My wife was freaking, and it was magnificent -- although I guessed it from the French Chick comment earlier when she said the Others were "coming for the boy." I was thinking -- "Now hoo-haw, THAT'S a GODDAM CLIFFHANGER!" Then I remembered that they needed to blow up the hatch. How do you beat THAT?
You don't.
You know they're going to open the hatch. There's no suspense. As a viewer, you know it's the season finale, you know they've been harping on trying to open the hatch for close to ten episodes, any suspense beats on whether they're going to open the hatch are wasted beats. So the payoff for the cliffhanger has to be, what'll we see IN the hatch?
A ladder? You mean, the hatch has some way of traversing within and without it? Oh sweet MOTHER OF GOD !! And it goes really far down? Not so far down as to be deeper than, say an ordinary parking garage's ventilation shaft , but DOWN? AAAAAGHHHH!
Feh. I didn't want to see everything. I didn't want to see the Control Room with the Brain-puter and the floating brains in jars full of diet ginger ale. I'm fully aware, those who-loved-it-and-think-we're-being-grumpy-pants, that you need to leave some mysteries for next season. You don't find Mulder's sister in Season One (on the other hand, you don't make mulder's sister an ascended spirit-girl, either. Fuckers.).
But I think that if all three hours of Exodus were compressed into one, I would've been lying on the floor in a puddle. I firmly believe the writers struggled valiantly against network-order bloat, but in the end were defeated.
This is a tricky moment for the show -- genre shows create rabid audiences, but once you lose them, they don't just go away -- they frikkin' turn.
I look forward to second season, but I hope they're working on the bible even as we speak.
*there is a theory that this was to show Hurley wasn't supposed to get on the plane -- he was the only one the numbers/island were trying to stop from coming. If so this flashback is fair game. But personally I wouldn't spend five mintues laying obtuse pipe in my cliffhanger finale.
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
Blogrolling
Adding Groovy Age of Horror to the sidebar, just because it's the perfect example of one of the ways the 'Net allows shared hobbies/psychoses to be promulgated. Adding Vestal Vespa to the "We Link, They Link", along with a blog named after my favorite quote about show business: "Nobody Knows Anything".
In the Moviemaking section, adding an incredibly useful, super-tech site, HD for Indies. Everything you need to know about shooting and editing your project in high-def. As more and more big-time humans shoot on high-def and rave about it, I assure you beginners that this is the tech to learn -- if only to understand your options for when you get to production.
In the Moviemaking section, adding an incredibly useful, super-tech site, HD for Indies. Everything you need to know about shooting and editing your project in high-def. As more and more big-time humans shoot on high-def and rave about it, I assure you beginners that this is the tech to learn -- if only to understand your options for when you get to production.
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
For all the LA-based stalkers
This is what I'm doing Saturday:
Enigma, UCLA's science-fiction, fantasy, horror and gaming fan club, is psyched to invite you to be a guest at EnigmaCon 2005, a charity fundraiser to help support WorldTrust.org's efforts to rebuild the villages in Sri Lanka devastated after last year's tsunami (and even more recent earthquake). EnigmaCon combines the forces of academia and fan culture to produce exciting panel discussions, live gaming, and art exhibits all for a great cause.I'm pleased they're psyched, but this does make me worry for them. Anyway, I'll be at the Animation panel at 2:00 and the "Science in Sci Fi" panel at 4:00. The four o'clock will be particularly fun, as Ron Moore will be there. I'm really just going to meet him and tell him how much I dig Galactica. Well, that's a lie, I'm also going to hunt down good RP guilds for WoW and Guild Wars. I almost feel guilty.
Monday, May 23, 2005
Writing: Plot and Story
Our friend Alex over at Complications Ensue is currently entertaining one of the perennial "three-act structure: useful tool or misleading cross-dresser in the bar" discussions. He (as do many guys in both TV and the action movie world) goes for the "sequence" model, while I still hew to a modified version of three act structure. This nicely leads into a whackload of questions about plot and breaking stories I've received. (we'll get to that urgent "How to rewrite" question too, this week ...) Everyone's got their own personal thing. Akiva Goldsman's told me he likes the three act 40/40/40 structure. I'd choke on that long a first act, but he's got an Oscar, I don't. Elliot likes thirty two-minute scenes. I tend to structure plot out in three-page sequences over a 25/50/25 three-act story structure ( I always run fat, that low count's my safety net). So frankly, whatever gets you to page 120.
This difference between TV writers and film guys is pretty common, actually. As one of the relatively few guys who flips back and forth I think this is because in film, a plot's something you move your characters through to change them. In TV, generally, your characters inhabit the plot, but don't really change. (this is evolving, but slowly). The goal of TV characters -- and I'm not even going to try to dive into the meta-osity of this -- tends to be to resume the status quo. TV characters may shift attitudes somewhat at the end of an episode, but they are essentially unchanged. Interestingly, if you look at Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you can see that there only only incremental changes at most to the characters in each episode, but the seasons produce radical changes in the personalities and lives of each character. I'd say Joss Whedon created 7 movies over 140-odd sequences. Or 1 long movie over 7 emotional swing points.
In short (too late), I believe TV writers have a fundamentally different relationship with story than film writers do.
Back to the discussion at hand. For the newbies, it's important to understand the difference between plot and story. For probably the thousandth time you've heard it:
A story is what happens. Plot is how it happens.
The story is about your characters. What they do, their changing relationships with each other and their surroundings, the choices they're faced with , the results of those choices and how they play out, all illuminating whatever little inner mystery you're trying to explore.
The horrible overly-used term for the character's journey is called, by various annoying executives who've taken a Bob McKee class, the character arc. There is something valid here, however, to focus on, even though there are subtleties in arc theory*. In a movie, your character starts somewhere, and ends somewhere else. Their emotions and the emotions of the tale change. Tracking that journey, breaking it down -- well, let's state this plainly: Breaking your story is not quite the same thing as breaking your plot. And that seems to be where a lot of you young'uns are getting hung.
Let's examine the story and plot breakdown for The Transformers script I just wrote.
... psych.
Let's look at Alex's example of THE INCREDIBLES (his breakdown, not mine):
/* SPOILERS */
Act One: Mr. Incredible stops all kinds of mayhem. Gets married. Act out: he's sued.
Act Two: Mr. Incredible has miserable ordinary life. Gets in trouble. Act out: Gets fab job offer.
Act Three: Mr. Incredible defeats giant robot. Life is good. Then turns out it's all a setup. Act out: he's nearly killed.
Act Four: Mr. Incredible sneaks into bunker. Act out: Is captured.
Act Five: Mr. Incredible and family fight to defeat Syndrome and destroy his bunker.
Act Six: Mr. Incredible and family fight in the city to defeat Syndrome's robot.
Act Seven: Mr. Incredible and family fight Syndrome and win.
/*end spoilers/
Now, at first glance, that kind of blows the three-act structure out of the water. But the thing is, you're looking at the plot here. The sequence of events which occur around Mr. Incredible's (the family's, actually) story. What complicates matters is that Alex has chosen a movie with essentially a stagger-step, a jump to a new narrative chain in the middle.
If you track Mr. Incredible's story, it's about rejection, isolation, ego, and family. (Here's a fun game to play. Take your favorite movies or unproduced scripts. Say what they're about in one word. It's very interesting.)
Now, I'm not going to go parsing out Brad Bird's genius here. But first, note that the movie is called THE INCREDIBLES, not MR. INCREDIBLE. If you look at Mr. Incredible's relationship with his family and their relationship with each other, and his own internal emotional state, the three act structure's pretty useful.
-- Incredible falls from grace.
-- Incredible is frustrated, angry , unhappy. He feels limited by his obligations to his family. (delineated in really, the only weirdly poor scene of the movie. Mrs. I couldn't be more wantonly bitchy here ...)
-- Incredible gets the opportunity to change his life.
transition:
-- Incredible regains his confidence.
-- Incredible is happy / affects relationship with Mrs. I. (distant from family)
-- Incredible, at the moment of his biggest triumph, discovers this is a false paradise.
transition: (midpoint)
-- Now, ignoring that fact that at this point it's really Mrs. I and the kids' movie, let's keep going. Incredible realizes he misses/needs his family.
-- Incredible learns to work with his family, growing acceptance ...
-- Incredible and his family are now a team.
transition:
-- Incredible's acceptance of his family as team is validated as they succeed in doing what he alone could not.
-- Syndrome at the house is really a weird coda, but it reinforces the same emotional point as the launch into this act, validating the family ethos.
Mr. Incredible moves from frustration to overconfidence to despair to new acceptance. That's the story. The events which bring either motivate these changes or create opportunities for them, that's the plot. You can even see the emotional/relationship change within Alex's own example -- note how in his breakdown, suddenly the phrase "and the family" pops up for second half of the movie. That change is the story right there.
So am I saying that it wouldn't matter what happened to bring Incredible low, or that he could have fought a frikkin' dinosaur instead of a giant robot, or that the plans of the villain were irrelevant? -- hell no. Choosing the cool/appropriate/telling plot points to move your story along is what makes you a good -- or in Brad Bird's case, brilliant -- writer. Melding plot to story, choosing the right plot for your story, sometimes orchestrating your plot so nobody notices the story ... in every way that's the craft.
You'll note I tend to put way, way more emphasis on the midpoint than many people. That's because, for me, it's the tentpole of the second act. I often mock my friend DJ for saying this, but he holds that "The midpoint is where the movie ... becomes an entirely different movie." I have to admit, that wrench is way more useful in the toolbox than I would've thought.
So, if you're stuck, the problem may be that you're tyring to break your plot before you've really structured your story. Try focusing on your story first, in the larger broad strokes of emotional movement, or conflict/obstacle. Then, when you have that working, figure out how the plot works to get you through your story. Just be aware that these are two separate jobs, and that may help you.
Let's say I'm breaking my movie. For example, in my first act, do I need to have introduced every character, every element, every detail ... ? No, I just need to know, by page 28, what everybody's status is, how they feel about it, and promise an interesting change. Complications ensue (heh) from decisions, leading to a big story change/obstacle in the middle, more struggles with obstacles in either heightened or changed emotions, and the in act three, all the decisions come home to roost. Once I've got my story broken, then I can worry about the plot structure and tone appropriate to this particular piece.
Later this week: Nuts and Bolts
*specifically, most executives only consider transformative arcs. There are also revelatory arcs. Almost every big-budget franchise hero (and good villain) has a revelatory arc.
This difference between TV writers and film guys is pretty common, actually. As one of the relatively few guys who flips back and forth I think this is because in film, a plot's something you move your characters through to change them. In TV, generally, your characters inhabit the plot, but don't really change. (this is evolving, but slowly). The goal of TV characters -- and I'm not even going to try to dive into the meta-osity of this -- tends to be to resume the status quo. TV characters may shift attitudes somewhat at the end of an episode, but they are essentially unchanged. Interestingly, if you look at Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you can see that there only only incremental changes at most to the characters in each episode, but the seasons produce radical changes in the personalities and lives of each character. I'd say Joss Whedon created 7 movies over 140-odd sequences. Or 1 long movie over 7 emotional swing points.
In short (too late), I believe TV writers have a fundamentally different relationship with story than film writers do.
Back to the discussion at hand. For the newbies, it's important to understand the difference between plot and story. For probably the thousandth time you've heard it:
A story is what happens. Plot is how it happens.
The story is about your characters. What they do, their changing relationships with each other and their surroundings, the choices they're faced with , the results of those choices and how they play out, all illuminating whatever little inner mystery you're trying to explore.
The horrible overly-used term for the character's journey is called, by various annoying executives who've taken a Bob McKee class, the character arc. There is something valid here, however, to focus on, even though there are subtleties in arc theory*. In a movie, your character starts somewhere, and ends somewhere else. Their emotions and the emotions of the tale change. Tracking that journey, breaking it down -- well, let's state this plainly: Breaking your story is not quite the same thing as breaking your plot. And that seems to be where a lot of you young'uns are getting hung.
Let's examine the story and plot breakdown for The Transformers script I just wrote.
... psych.
Let's look at Alex's example of THE INCREDIBLES (his breakdown, not mine):
/* SPOILERS */
Act One: Mr. Incredible stops all kinds of mayhem. Gets married. Act out: he's sued.
Act Two: Mr. Incredible has miserable ordinary life. Gets in trouble. Act out: Gets fab job offer.
Act Three: Mr. Incredible defeats giant robot. Life is good. Then turns out it's all a setup. Act out: he's nearly killed.
Act Four: Mr. Incredible sneaks into bunker. Act out: Is captured.
Act Five: Mr. Incredible and family fight to defeat Syndrome and destroy his bunker.
Act Six: Mr. Incredible and family fight in the city to defeat Syndrome's robot.
Act Seven: Mr. Incredible and family fight Syndrome and win.
/*end spoilers/
Now, at first glance, that kind of blows the three-act structure out of the water. But the thing is, you're looking at the plot here. The sequence of events which occur around Mr. Incredible's (the family's, actually) story. What complicates matters is that Alex has chosen a movie with essentially a stagger-step, a jump to a new narrative chain in the middle.
If you track Mr. Incredible's story, it's about rejection, isolation, ego, and family. (Here's a fun game to play. Take your favorite movies or unproduced scripts. Say what they're about in one word. It's very interesting.)
Now, I'm not going to go parsing out Brad Bird's genius here. But first, note that the movie is called THE INCREDIBLES, not MR. INCREDIBLE. If you look at Mr. Incredible's relationship with his family and their relationship with each other, and his own internal emotional state, the three act structure's pretty useful.
-- Incredible falls from grace.
-- Incredible is frustrated, angry , unhappy. He feels limited by his obligations to his family. (delineated in really, the only weirdly poor scene of the movie. Mrs. I couldn't be more wantonly bitchy here ...)
-- Incredible gets the opportunity to change his life.
transition:
-- Incredible regains his confidence.
-- Incredible is happy / affects relationship with Mrs. I. (distant from family)
-- Incredible, at the moment of his biggest triumph, discovers this is a false paradise.
transition: (midpoint)
-- Now, ignoring that fact that at this point it's really Mrs. I and the kids' movie, let's keep going. Incredible realizes he misses/needs his family.
-- Incredible learns to work with his family, growing acceptance ...
-- Incredible and his family are now a team.
transition:
-- Incredible's acceptance of his family as team is validated as they succeed in doing what he alone could not.
-- Syndrome at the house is really a weird coda, but it reinforces the same emotional point as the launch into this act, validating the family ethos.
Mr. Incredible moves from frustration to overconfidence to despair to new acceptance. That's the story. The events which bring either motivate these changes or create opportunities for them, that's the plot. You can even see the emotional/relationship change within Alex's own example -- note how in his breakdown, suddenly the phrase "and the family" pops up for second half of the movie. That change is the story right there.
So am I saying that it wouldn't matter what happened to bring Incredible low, or that he could have fought a frikkin' dinosaur instead of a giant robot, or that the plans of the villain were irrelevant? -- hell no. Choosing the cool/appropriate/telling plot points to move your story along is what makes you a good -- or in Brad Bird's case, brilliant -- writer. Melding plot to story, choosing the right plot for your story, sometimes orchestrating your plot so nobody notices the story ... in every way that's the craft.
You'll note I tend to put way, way more emphasis on the midpoint than many people. That's because, for me, it's the tentpole of the second act. I often mock my friend DJ for saying this, but he holds that "The midpoint is where the movie ... becomes an entirely different movie." I have to admit, that wrench is way more useful in the toolbox than I would've thought.
So, if you're stuck, the problem may be that you're tyring to break your plot before you've really structured your story. Try focusing on your story first, in the larger broad strokes of emotional movement, or conflict/obstacle. Then, when you have that working, figure out how the plot works to get you through your story. Just be aware that these are two separate jobs, and that may help you.
Let's say I'm breaking my movie. For example, in my first act, do I need to have introduced every character, every element, every detail ... ? No, I just need to know, by page 28, what everybody's status is, how they feel about it, and promise an interesting change. Complications ensue (heh) from decisions, leading to a big story change/obstacle in the middle, more struggles with obstacles in either heightened or changed emotions, and the in act three, all the decisions come home to roost. Once I've got my story broken, then I can worry about the plot structure and tone appropriate to this particular piece.
Later this week: Nuts and Bolts
*specifically, most executives only consider transformative arcs. There are also revelatory arcs. Almost every big-budget franchise hero (and good villain) has a revelatory arc.
Friday, May 20, 2005
Doggie Slave Leia Costume
AAAHHHH! AAAGGHGHAAHAHAHHAHAAAAAA!!! Why won't you come, sweet apocalypse, WHYYYY!!???
(here, via BoingBoing)
Marching II: Stem Cell Research
Wondering about all the hoo-haa in South Korea and what it exactly means? Vis DailyKos, an excellent article on the new stem cell process. Please note that the cell itself is stripped of its own genetic content, and is unfertilized to boot.
Also note, just today the President has reminded everyone he will veto the new bill loosening restrictions agasint stem cell research in the US.
CUT TO:
The year 2042.
Timmy (in wheelchair): Mommy, why are all those other children skipping and playing?
Mommy: Because President Bush saved us from evil, evil gene science!
Timmy: ... you do realize I hate you, right?
Mommy: At least you don't have devil cells in your spine. Now hold still while I clean your breathing tube.
Thursday, May 19, 2005
My Bad
Oh, wow, I just got back from Fanboy Rampage and ... I'm ... so Rob Liefeld's actually insane, then? Not just an asshat?
I had no idea. Apologies to Rob, then, for judging him by sane-guy standards, and best wishes to his family as they deal with this trial. God Bless.
I had no idea. Apologies to Rob, then, for judging him by sane-guy standards, and best wishes to his family as they deal with this trial. God Bless.
Marching Ever Forward
Ahhh, it's so nice when the gods do the juxtaposition for you. From the always excellent Intel Dump:
American Congress Moves to Bar Women from Combat
Pakistan's First Female Fighter Pilots "Doing Rather Well"
Okay, it may be time to just say this. Everybody who wants to live in the 21st Century, over here. Everybody who misses the 1800's over there. Good, thanks. Good luck with that.
*(The AU-smarter-then-I Phil Carter, who served, points out the nine ways that this is craptacular, including the fact that women are right now serving spectacularly in combat in Iraq.)
American Congress Moves to Bar Women from Combat
Amendment passed by subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee may have far-reaching effects — will set back the role of women in the military by a generation*And from Boing-Boing:
This morning's (May 12 - Ed.) Washington Post reports on an amendment passed yesterday afternoon by the House Armed Services Committee which would bar women from service in "forward support companies" — defined very broadly — that have any chance whatsoever of seeing ground combat.
Pakistan's First Female Fighter Pilots "Doing Rather Well"
We risk getting lapped ... by Pakistan.Until recently, most women in this conservative Muslim society would more likely have imagined marrying a dashing fighter pilot than being encouraged to become one. But this was not true for Saba Khan, one of four female cadets to make it through the gruelling first stages of training. Coming from an enlightened Pathan family in Quetta, capital of otherwise conservative Balochistan Province, Saba was initially inspired by one of her uncles who had been in the air force.
And she says the first newspaper advertisement seeking female cadets was like a dream come true."I always wanted to be a fighter pilot, and eventually with Allah's wish and the full support of my parents, I made it this far," she said. (copyright BBC)
Okay, it may be time to just say this. Everybody who wants to live in the 21st Century, over here. Everybody who misses the 1800's over there. Good, thanks. Good luck with that.
*(The AU-smarter-then-I Phil Carter, who served, points out the nine ways that this is craptacular, including the fact that women are right now serving spectacularly in combat in Iraq.)
Promethea petition
For the four-color-heads who hang here, I'd suggest swinging by over to the Absolute Promethea Edition petition. (Say that five times fast)
Promethea is Alan Moore's foray into the world of magical (no, I'm not spelling it with a K, bugger off) realism. He presents the books as an exploration of a recurring character in the world of literature, a warrior-woman Muse who inspires poets and battlefield story-tellers from generation to generation. It's presented with footnotes, etc. much like his detailed real-life research into Jack the Ripper for From Hell.
Once you start digging into the quoted sources, however, you realize Moore's playing around with way, waaaaay more levels than most of us hang out in. So rarely does the word "meta-textual" truly apply. The work, claiming to be fiction based on truth, but is actually just fiction, has inspired real-world followers of the philosophy dilineated within as espoused by historically fictional organizations. So the fiction based on truth/fiction has inspired followers who create a truth which then in some way validates the original fiction as truth.
The book itself explores the adventures of an idea which can manifest itself by posessing someone, and its war with other ideas, all dressed up in superhero clothing to help you get the first few bits into your skull.
Oh, and the art will make you soil yourself. Toss in that Moore himself had a sort of real-world religious epiphany in the middle of the run which informs the rest of the book, and you've got something that very closely resembles the top of what graphic novels can accomplish as literature. I'd say that deserves a nice hardback. Seeing how no less than Michael Moorcock agrees, and has signed the petition, I'd suggest clicking over at earliest opportunity.
Promethea is Alan Moore's foray into the world of magical (no, I'm not spelling it with a K, bugger off) realism. He presents the books as an exploration of a recurring character in the world of literature, a warrior-woman Muse who inspires poets and battlefield story-tellers from generation to generation. It's presented with footnotes, etc. much like his detailed real-life research into Jack the Ripper for From Hell.
Once you start digging into the quoted sources, however, you realize Moore's playing around with way, waaaaay more levels than most of us hang out in. So rarely does the word "meta-textual" truly apply. The work, claiming to be fiction based on truth, but is actually just fiction, has inspired real-world followers of the philosophy dilineated within as espoused by historically fictional organizations. So the fiction based on truth/fiction has inspired followers who create a truth which then in some way validates the original fiction as truth.
The book itself explores the adventures of an idea which can manifest itself by posessing someone, and its war with other ideas, all dressed up in superhero clothing to help you get the first few bits into your skull.
Oh, and the art will make you soil yourself. Toss in that Moore himself had a sort of real-world religious epiphany in the middle of the run which informs the rest of the book, and you've got something that very closely resembles the top of what graphic novels can accomplish as literature. I'd say that deserves a nice hardback. Seeing how no less than Michael Moorcock agrees, and has signed the petition, I'd suggest clicking over at earliest opportunity.
They Gave us Dr. Who and Monty Python ...
Smart bastards. Cory Doctorow does an article on how the BBC is embracing the future, digital archive sharing, figuring out ways to share with the audience using interesting copyright concepts, and basically is kicking big fat bloated Hollywood in the trousers when it comes to understanding how the future is going to work. Hollywood's loss vis-a-vis the broadcast flag is a piquant reminder of who's going to win this little battle and how.
They are the public's airwaves. You use them at the public's sufferance. Smarten up.
They are the public's airwaves. You use them at the public's sufferance. Smarten up.
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
That Ironic Smell ...
... is what caused us to become concerned, and break into Irony's apartment. To, of course, find it dead. Irony is not only dead, but the cats had a while to work on its soft bits as it lay on the kitchen floor.
I come back from a four day holiday with no news coverage to find this?
(Warning -- Atypical rant commencing.)
This administration -- the guys who threw out the Geneva Convention (fact - and proudly, just ask the AG); sends prisoners to countries so they can be tortured (factitty fact fact); and put into place policies which led to images of Muslim men, 70-90% of whom were innocent according to the Department of Defense, being electroshocked , dog attacked, and bound naked, these images being spread worldwide -- these guys claim Newsweek is damaging America's image abroad? Newsweek?
Gee, any of you idiots bitching about Newsweek stop to think why the Afghan people even believed this? It's not like the plate was set for this to be credible behaviour.
Abdul: Mumar, my friend, even though I was innocent, they tortured me, stripped me naked, waterboarded me, had dogs attack me, and shocked my nuts!
Mumar: I heard they also desecrated the Qu'ran.
Abdul: Please! How could you believe such a thing?
Mumar: ... Dude, they shocked your nuts.
Abdul: So? They have taken cultural sensitivity courses. They would never cross that line!
Mumar: I am filled with shame at jumping to unwarranted conclusions.
Did Newsweek fuck up? Of course. They single-sourced a story. Although I'm a little hazy about how this causality of blame works:
1.) Newsweek hears from government official about Qu'ran abuse.
2.) Newsweek, knowing this is controversial, gives the story to another government official for confirmation.
3.) This government official does not correct that item.
4.) Newsweek publishes story with a single detail which has been reported multiple times in other newspapers.
5.) Afghanistan, already a tinderbox because of the incompetence of even more government officials who botched the reconstruction, erupts. Into riots which, according to someone who is probably smarter than I, oh, say, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are actually related to the ongoing reconciliation process more than the article.
6.) Government officials bemoan Newsweek's carelessness.
Of course, nobody cared when the media single-sourced stories on, say, WMD's or whether the occupation would go smoothly. But we're sharper now.
According to the autopsy, what finally pushed Irony over the edge was this:
Larry DiRita, the spokesman for the Pentagon, actually had the NUTSACK to say, of the original source "People are dead because of what this sonuvabitch said. How could he be credible now?"
He actually had the big brass stones, standing there atop Iraq with no WMD's, no links to al-queda, and no links to 9-11 ... he had the unholy testicular power to stand on the corpses of 1600 dead American soldiers, 15,000 wounded American soldiers, tens of thousands of probably-dead-but-we-don't-count-them-because-they're-brown innocent bystander Iraquis and claim the moral high ground on credibility?
I am actually beyond humor. I'm in awe.
So let me see if I understand this.
-- Osama bin Ladin, Zaquari, and Omar are still strolling around ...
-- the Taliban is making a comeback. The Taliban, a group which after 9/11 which should have been so thoroughly vaporized in such a horrifyingly white-smoting-light-of-righteous-violence that even now a mere random combination of the syllables "Tal"," i", and "ban" should cause grown men to wet themselves at the unspeakable memory of their fate, they apparently have a sign-up sheet going in Pakistan like a fucking office softball team ...
-- Afghanistan's a destabilized hellhole.
-- Iraq, according to even the most optimistic of planners, will chew up American troops for at least five more years ...
-- Iraq is an insurgent war hell because (whether you agreed with the reasons for the original war or not) nobody planned for the occupation, based on the rosy beliefs of a few "government officials" ...
-- We have, demonstrably, statistically, one of the worst health care systems of the industrialized world ...
-- Tax cuts have put this country in the hole to the Chinese ...
-- North Korea and Iran are about to go nuclear ...
-- the government's now declared that pensions are fair game for the corporate fucking-off train, possibly stranding 36 million hard-working day-job Americans ...
... and they've got everyone screaming about Newsweek. That's ... just unspeakably beautiful. It's brilliant. That's Lex Luthor brilliant. It's so magnificently evil, I wish I'd done it, just to be able to say I pulled something like that off. When you manipulate public opinion like that so shamelessly, with such breathless artistry, you should seriously be doing it from inside a giant rampaging robot head. It's the only context that makes any sense.
We are officially in post-modern politics in the US.
Really, congrats to everyone who gives a rat's ass about this. I can't wait until the day, standing in the flaming ruins of America's impending economic collapse, watching as Third World countries race past us in technology, education and power, our populace grown disaffected and violently cynical over repeated betrayals and trivializations of the great governmental process, the day when I can turn to my trusty gyrocopter pal and -- raising my voice over the inconvenient weeping of another mother whose kid has died in Iraq -- say "Hey, remember when Newsweek single-sourced a story?"
Boy, that'll be the kicker right there.
I come back from a four day holiday with no news coverage to find this?
(Warning -- Atypical rant commencing.)
This administration -- the guys who threw out the Geneva Convention (fact - and proudly, just ask the AG); sends prisoners to countries so they can be tortured (factitty fact fact); and put into place policies which led to images of Muslim men, 70-90% of whom were innocent according to the Department of Defense, being electroshocked , dog attacked, and bound naked, these images being spread worldwide -- these guys claim Newsweek is damaging America's image abroad? Newsweek?
Gee, any of you idiots bitching about Newsweek stop to think why the Afghan people even believed this? It's not like the plate was set for this to be credible behaviour.
Abdul: Mumar, my friend, even though I was innocent, they tortured me, stripped me naked, waterboarded me, had dogs attack me, and shocked my nuts!
Mumar: I heard they also desecrated the Qu'ran.
Abdul: Please! How could you believe such a thing?
Mumar: ... Dude, they shocked your nuts.
Abdul: So? They have taken cultural sensitivity courses. They would never cross that line!
Mumar: I am filled with shame at jumping to unwarranted conclusions.
Did Newsweek fuck up? Of course. They single-sourced a story. Although I'm a little hazy about how this causality of blame works:
1.) Newsweek hears from government official about Qu'ran abuse.
2.) Newsweek, knowing this is controversial, gives the story to another government official for confirmation.
3.) This government official does not correct that item.
4.) Newsweek publishes story with a single detail which has been reported multiple times in other newspapers.
5.) Afghanistan, already a tinderbox because of the incompetence of even more government officials who botched the reconstruction, erupts. Into riots which, according to someone who is probably smarter than I, oh, say, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are actually related to the ongoing reconciliation process more than the article.
6.) Government officials bemoan Newsweek's carelessness.
Of course, nobody cared when the media single-sourced stories on, say, WMD's or whether the occupation would go smoothly. But we're sharper now.
According to the autopsy, what finally pushed Irony over the edge was this:
Larry DiRita, the spokesman for the Pentagon, actually had the NUTSACK to say, of the original source "People are dead because of what this sonuvabitch said. How could he be credible now?"
He actually had the big brass stones, standing there atop Iraq with no WMD's, no links to al-queda, and no links to 9-11 ... he had the unholy testicular power to stand on the corpses of 1600 dead American soldiers, 15,000 wounded American soldiers, tens of thousands of probably-dead-but-we-don't-count-them-because-they're-brown innocent bystander Iraquis and claim the moral high ground on credibility?
I am actually beyond humor. I'm in awe.
So let me see if I understand this.
-- Osama bin Ladin, Zaquari, and Omar are still strolling around ...
-- the Taliban is making a comeback. The Taliban, a group which after 9/11 which should have been so thoroughly vaporized in such a horrifyingly white-smoting-light-of-righteous-violence that even now a mere random combination of the syllables "Tal"," i", and "ban" should cause grown men to wet themselves at the unspeakable memory of their fate, they apparently have a sign-up sheet going in Pakistan like a fucking office softball team ...
-- Afghanistan's a destabilized hellhole.
-- Iraq, according to even the most optimistic of planners, will chew up American troops for at least five more years ...
-- Iraq is an insurgent war hell because (whether you agreed with the reasons for the original war or not) nobody planned for the occupation, based on the rosy beliefs of a few "government officials" ...
-- We have, demonstrably, statistically, one of the worst health care systems of the industrialized world ...
-- Tax cuts have put this country in the hole to the Chinese ...
-- North Korea and Iran are about to go nuclear ...
-- the government's now declared that pensions are fair game for the corporate fucking-off train, possibly stranding 36 million hard-working day-job Americans ...
... and they've got everyone screaming about Newsweek. That's ... just unspeakably beautiful. It's brilliant. That's Lex Luthor brilliant. It's so magnificently evil, I wish I'd done it, just to be able to say I pulled something like that off. When you manipulate public opinion like that so shamelessly, with such breathless artistry, you should seriously be doing it from inside a giant rampaging robot head. It's the only context that makes any sense.
We are officially in post-modern politics in the US.
Really, congrats to everyone who gives a rat's ass about this. I can't wait until the day, standing in the flaming ruins of America's impending economic collapse, watching as Third World countries race past us in technology, education and power, our populace grown disaffected and violently cynical over repeated betrayals and trivializations of the great governmental process, the day when I can turn to my trusty gyrocopter pal and -- raising my voice over the inconvenient weeping of another mother whose kid has died in Iraq -- say "Hey, remember when Newsweek single-sourced a story?"
Boy, that'll be the kicker right there.
Spam-Verdammt
On the odd chance you got hit, while I was out of town, this account seems to have been spam-jacked -- or a lot of Germans very concerned with honor-killings kept hitting the "Reply all" button on some e-mail I was cc'd on. Either way, good to be back, and we'll be hitting some writing questions tomorrow.
Oh, for those who emailed about the peak oil series, I'm still doing the research. That's right, I work for you bastards. It should start soon.
Oh, for those who emailed about the peak oil series, I'm still doing the research. That's right, I work for you bastards. It should start soon.
Saturday, May 14, 2005
Geek Saturday
Pardon the light posting -- selling our house in Ottawa, bit of paperwork. What? MADNESS!! Abandon the New Orleans of the north? No, rest assured, once Ottawa's gotten its claws into you, it's like the grip of ... well, a tiny drunken lemur. We've just purchased another home there for, of course, a tiny, tiny fraction of the insanity one pays here in LA. ("It's a HOLE in the ground!" "It's a SHIT-FREE hole in the ground. $850,000.")
Two more years, and I'm out of LA and back in Canada writing comic books and gaming supplements. And relearning the true definition of the word "cold." ("... remember, at this temperature, your eyes will actually freeze in four and half minutes!")
Add to this the lovely wife and I will be travelling to Vegas for three days to hook up with my folks, and I will NOT be taking the laptop. So you'll have to fend for yourselves. I leave you with some eclectic links. When I return, I'll be answering some excellent writing questions, there'll be a brief discussion of the pilot process, and maybe even take a stab at answering a Comments question: "What the fuck DID go wrong on Catwoman?"
First off, I have no idea why he's in my Statcounter so much, but go check out The Groovy Age of Horror for retro 60's-70's horror love.
It's in the Blogroll, but I bet you never go to Alice's Wonderland enough. She's got a link to this discussion of the real-world economy linked to game economies, specifically a study done by E-Bay. This stuff is a doctorate waiting to happen. Or a Deadwood-like gold rush. I call dibs on being the Al Swearingen of World of Warcraft. ("And take this fucking hoople's corpse to Mr. Wu's down in Gnomeragan!")
Somebody who's actually looking at MMO's as social phenomena coould do worse than poking around in Terra Nova.
Patton Oswalt, fantastic comedian and all-around geek lord, presents the Marvel story he can never tell. An intimate understanding of the Hostess Fruit Pies ads is necessary, but luckily Seanbaby.com has a (terrifyingly) complete archive of them here.
How annoying am I as a geek? When I mentioned Patton's bit to my wife, she explained to me that she had no idea what I was talking about. She grew up in Canada, and so never saw the superhero/Hostess Fruit Pie ads. I was in such a geek-gasm, not only did I insist on plowing through with my recreation of Patton's parody, but I then spent several minutes explaining the Hostess Fruit Pie ads.
There are days, I have no idea why she doesn't kill me in my sleep.
Two more years, and I'm out of LA and back in Canada writing comic books and gaming supplements. And relearning the true definition of the word "cold." ("... remember, at this temperature, your eyes will actually freeze in four and half minutes!")
Add to this the lovely wife and I will be travelling to Vegas for three days to hook up with my folks, and I will NOT be taking the laptop. So you'll have to fend for yourselves. I leave you with some eclectic links. When I return, I'll be answering some excellent writing questions, there'll be a brief discussion of the pilot process, and maybe even take a stab at answering a Comments question: "What the fuck DID go wrong on Catwoman?"
First off, I have no idea why he's in my Statcounter so much, but go check out The Groovy Age of Horror for retro 60's-70's horror love.
It's in the Blogroll, but I bet you never go to Alice's Wonderland enough. She's got a link to this discussion of the real-world economy linked to game economies, specifically a study done by E-Bay. This stuff is a doctorate waiting to happen. Or a Deadwood-like gold rush. I call dibs on being the Al Swearingen of World of Warcraft. ("And take this fucking hoople's corpse to Mr. Wu's down in Gnomeragan!")
Somebody who's actually looking at MMO's as social phenomena coould do worse than poking around in Terra Nova.
Patton Oswalt, fantastic comedian and all-around geek lord, presents the Marvel story he can never tell. An intimate understanding of the Hostess Fruit Pies ads is necessary, but luckily Seanbaby.com has a (terrifyingly) complete archive of them here.
How annoying am I as a geek? When I mentioned Patton's bit to my wife, she explained to me that she had no idea what I was talking about. She grew up in Canada, and so never saw the superhero/Hostess Fruit Pie ads. I was in such a geek-gasm, not only did I insist on plowing through with my recreation of Patton's parody, but I then spent several minutes explaining the Hostess Fruit Pie ads.
There are days, I have no idea why she doesn't kill me in my sleep.
Friday, May 13, 2005
Trust the Machine, Baby
I'm in the middle of Bruce Schneier's Beyond Fear. It's a really magnificent piece of work, one of the few almost-perfect "bridge" books. He conveys complex ideas about security in complex systems in a readily understandable manner, without ever compromising that this is a tricky, often counter-intuitive field..
He has an excellent essay on why voting machines are hinky as hell, and the very simple way to fix them. How simple? Two. Steps. And he makes one of my favorite points, one that ties into some things going on in the media distribution world - secrecy is not security.
He has an excellent essay on why voting machines are hinky as hell, and the very simple way to fix them. How simple? Two. Steps. And he makes one of my favorite points, one that ties into some things going on in the media distribution world - secrecy is not security.
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Podcasting Galactica
I'm a big girl's blouse for the new Galactica. Even my lovely wife, who has zero tolerance for most television (to be fair, because it sucks) actually cheated on me with Tivo and watched backlogged eps while I was fighting a deadline.
(NOTE: well aware many of you don't understand the context of "cheat on me" in that sentence. The other Tivoids do. Oh yes.)
Ron Moore is doing podcasts on each episode, like little downloadable director's commentaries. But not, because in TV we writers are king, as IT SHOULD BE -- ahem.
Anyway, he's not charging for them, just plowing them out, keeping his fans interested and creating value-added to his show which is now in reruns. He's not going to let the little sci-fishies get distracted and wander away, no he's not. Mr. Moore understands -- in the new media, the fans are your friends, they are your allies, they are your proselytizers. They are not cows to be milked. They are the community, and they are in charge.
This, of course, is the complete opposite from the way most networks and studios are run, because the top-down is what keeps the people in charge in jobs. Do we need them? A few, yes. But even now, as I go to meeting after meeting, where we younger writers and execs realize that the nature of television is changing, that we're no longer bound to 22 episodes for the mass audience, that in fact other models are even more financially efficient, you hear the dreaded "Of course we have to shoot a pilot, that's the business we're in."
In an effort to avoid my notorious two-subjects-one-post habit, I'll leave it at that. Let's just say, I've been looking at the pilot process from a statistcal standpoint annnnd ... think monkeys, darts, a board with show names on them, and vodka-injected bananas.
That would be the better system.
(NOTE: well aware many of you don't understand the context of "cheat on me" in that sentence. The other Tivoids do. Oh yes.)
Ron Moore is doing podcasts on each episode, like little downloadable director's commentaries. But not, because in TV we writers are king, as IT SHOULD BE -- ahem.
Anyway, he's not charging for them, just plowing them out, keeping his fans interested and creating value-added to his show which is now in reruns. He's not going to let the little sci-fishies get distracted and wander away, no he's not. Mr. Moore understands -- in the new media, the fans are your friends, they are your allies, they are your proselytizers. They are not cows to be milked. They are the community, and they are in charge.
This, of course, is the complete opposite from the way most networks and studios are run, because the top-down is what keeps the people in charge in jobs. Do we need them? A few, yes. But even now, as I go to meeting after meeting, where we younger writers and execs realize that the nature of television is changing, that we're no longer bound to 22 episodes for the mass audience, that in fact other models are even more financially efficient, you hear the dreaded "Of course we have to shoot a pilot, that's the business we're in."
In an effort to avoid my notorious two-subjects-one-post habit, I'll leave it at that. Let's just say, I've been looking at the pilot process from a statistcal standpoint annnnd ... think monkeys, darts, a board with show names on them, and vodka-injected bananas.
That would be the better system.
"The Mouth of Madness?..."
"... it's over there, by the Food Court. No, no, past Captain Touchy-Touch's Pirate Kingdom of Tickles, near the Sleeping-Bag-for-Two Dispenser. Riiiiight." (via Boing Boing)
It makes sense, of course, that there'd be a map. But the kid in jammies as the logo -- that's the King in Yellow territory right there, folks.
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Writing: Adaptation (Pt. 5)
The Rules of Adaptation
(adapted from an article for CHUD)
Rule 5: "This property already has millions of devoted fans!"
Rule 6: "... who HATE you."
I ruined it. I ruined it. I made all the wrong choices. That's not how the hero talks, that's the wrong part of the second book, who even cares about that character --
The point is, as we've discussed (in parts 1, 2, 3 and 4), that the sheer mechanics of Hollywood demand an enormous number of ideas, both original and adapted. The adapted properties come with some spiffy things -- ordinarily well-developed second acts, and a fan base which aids in its marketing -- and with some downfalls. Specifically, the fact that the movie already exists.
It exists in the fans' heads. That version cannot be beat. Except by Peter Jackson, but he plainly cut some sort of deal with the cinematic version of the Librarian from Gaiman's The Sandman, punched a hole into Moorcock's idea space and dragged forth each individual fan's fantasy, whereupon he burned the images onto film made from the souls of children who died because they hoped too much. So, exception that proves the rule, yada yada.
When doing an adaptation you have to settle for the fact that unless you really, really cross the strange attractor, you're going to be producing a reflection of the original material. It's even tougher if it's a property you actually love (as it should be). No, the best version is the special In-Skull Director's Cut, which clocks in at four hours and ... well, whatever the time is during red lights on the commute to work. However, what this version lacks is what makes art (and I'm hacking about above my pay grade, but coast with me for a moment) -- choice. Art is choice.
Maybe not for you, but for me. That's what a screenplay is, my friends, one gruelling choice after another, each image, each character fighting for the tiny bit of acreage on that precious whitespace. One of my favorite moments in film is in Wonder Boys, when Katie Holmes --
-- damn you Cruise, damn you monster will you LEAVE NOTHING CLEAN --
-- sorry, when Katie Holmes realizes that Michael Douglas' long awaited opus is a failure because he just couldn't make the choices necessary to elevate his scribblings from clever notes to a novel.
I recently faced this in a rewrite of a script DJ and I wrote three years ago. It's our damn story. We were getting to go back and rip out all the shitty Paramount notes. It should have been a long weekend at best.
But I knew this version will probably go out essentially unchanged to the studios. I knew each choice I made would be, in essence, final as far as my piece of art goes. And so I barely dragged myself through it, agonizing over each scene. Kicked my ass.
So when looking at an adaptation, do us (and yourself) a favor and engage it in its medium. Don't just curse the abridged plots, or the missed characters. Ask yourself why that choice was made. How you would have done it differently. Maybe that examination will lead you through the writer's process, (like studying old chess games) to a greater understanding of perhaps why it had to be that way, or at least why that was the choice that made the most sense. At the worst it'll add another wrench in your toolbox, knowing how to recognize a mistake. At best, you've advanced your understanding of your chosen field.
That's all I can contribute constructively to this topic. Hope you found it useful. As always, feel free to throw a question into the inbox. I'm never short hot air.
(adapted from an article for CHUD)
Rule 5: "This property already has millions of devoted fans!"
Rule 6: "... who HATE you."
I ruined it. I ruined it. I made all the wrong choices. That's not how the hero talks, that's the wrong part of the second book, who even cares about that character --
The point is, as we've discussed (in parts 1, 2, 3 and 4), that the sheer mechanics of Hollywood demand an enormous number of ideas, both original and adapted. The adapted properties come with some spiffy things -- ordinarily well-developed second acts, and a fan base which aids in its marketing -- and with some downfalls. Specifically, the fact that the movie already exists.
It exists in the fans' heads. That version cannot be beat. Except by Peter Jackson, but he plainly cut some sort of deal with the cinematic version of the Librarian from Gaiman's The Sandman, punched a hole into Moorcock's idea space and dragged forth each individual fan's fantasy, whereupon he burned the images onto film made from the souls of children who died because they hoped too much. So, exception that proves the rule, yada yada.
When doing an adaptation you have to settle for the fact that unless you really, really cross the strange attractor, you're going to be producing a reflection of the original material. It's even tougher if it's a property you actually love (as it should be). No, the best version is the special In-Skull Director's Cut, which clocks in at four hours and ... well, whatever the time is during red lights on the commute to work. However, what this version lacks is what makes art (and I'm hacking about above my pay grade, but coast with me for a moment) -- choice. Art is choice.
Maybe not for you, but for me. That's what a screenplay is, my friends, one gruelling choice after another, each image, each character fighting for the tiny bit of acreage on that precious whitespace. One of my favorite moments in film is in Wonder Boys, when Katie Holmes --
-- damn you Cruise, damn you monster will you LEAVE NOTHING CLEAN --
-- sorry, when Katie Holmes realizes that Michael Douglas' long awaited opus is a failure because he just couldn't make the choices necessary to elevate his scribblings from clever notes to a novel.
I recently faced this in a rewrite of a script DJ and I wrote three years ago. It's our damn story. We were getting to go back and rip out all the shitty Paramount notes. It should have been a long weekend at best.
But I knew this version will probably go out essentially unchanged to the studios. I knew each choice I made would be, in essence, final as far as my piece of art goes. And so I barely dragged myself through it, agonizing over each scene. Kicked my ass.
So when looking at an adaptation, do us (and yourself) a favor and engage it in its medium. Don't just curse the abridged plots, or the missed characters. Ask yourself why that choice was made. How you would have done it differently. Maybe that examination will lead you through the writer's process, (like studying old chess games) to a greater understanding of perhaps why it had to be that way, or at least why that was the choice that made the most sense. At the worst it'll add another wrench in your toolbox, knowing how to recognize a mistake. At best, you've advanced your understanding of your chosen field.
That's all I can contribute constructively to this topic. Hope you found it useful. As always, feel free to throw a question into the inbox. I'm never short hot air.
Monday, May 09, 2005
Light Posting
Dead on three different deadlines, possibly four after meeting some cunning bastards from Japan with a suitcase full of money. Will do another writing column tonight, then some media discussion about 4G Media tomorrow. Apologies all 'round for the brown-out.
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Linkage
Well, don't expect one of those every day. They're a bitch to write, and I'm not frikkin' David Niewert or Phil Carter -- who, by the way, continues to rock the house down with Intel Dump. Go visit Phil every day, like taking your multivitamin.
A link to Frontier PAC, dedicated to electing progressive politicians in the West. Now, I don't usually link to straight political blogs, but one of the FP's main foci is energy independence and renewables. They're a great source for links to emergent technologies, and have a very market-savvy approach to getting their point across. We like.
On a related note, if I see you driving a Hummer or Esplanade and you have an "I Support the Troops" bumper sticker, I get to force you off the road in my Prius and crush your trachea with a crowbar. Fair warning.
A link to Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer on, well ... learning to say ain't. Just pointing out that I'm not alone in noticing there may be some issues that require addressing.
And on the lighter side thanks to Gizmodo -- cupcake sheaths!
A link to Frontier PAC, dedicated to electing progressive politicians in the West. Now, I don't usually link to straight political blogs, but one of the FP's main foci is energy independence and renewables. They're a great source for links to emergent technologies, and have a very market-savvy approach to getting their point across. We like.
On a related note, if I see you driving a Hummer or Esplanade and you have an "I Support the Troops" bumper sticker, I get to force you off the road in my Prius and crush your trachea with a crowbar. Fair warning.
A link to Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer on, well ... learning to say ain't. Just pointing out that I'm not alone in noticing there may be some issues that require addressing.
And on the lighter side thanks to Gizmodo -- cupcake sheaths!
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Feedback & Criticism
A surprising number of humans are weighing in on "Learn to say 'ain't". The positive feedback is, well, positive and encouraging further explanation of these ideas. Wait'll we get to building memes like Legos(tm). The negative seems to be falling into two or three camps.
1.) "This is just another Kerry-bashing article! He was a great politician who was unfairly smeared by the media! He's a very charming guy! You should've seen him work the caucuses."
I am reminded of a section in The Sling and the Stone where Thomas Hammes discusses why the study of the how warfare evolves and transforms was largely ignored by the very militaries who should have been parsing it out. Military establishments considered self-criticizing analysis to have too great a negative impact on morale to engage in.
a.) I'm sure John Kerry is a fine, fine man. Certainly a better man than I. However, he was the last progressive presidential candidate, and he lost.
He lost, guys. Lost. I'm sorry that's not fair. I. Don't. Care. I believe we would all prefer to avoid this outcome in the future. Gore and Kerry lost counties that had been Democratic for six decades. Somebody fucked up.
What's more important -- having frank (even if occasionally incorrect) discussions about political tactics, or tiptoing around the feelings of this man's supporters? I'm not bashing Kerry -- I'm using elements of his campaign as part of the discussion. I may wind up being wrong about a lot of this. But let's pick the corpse clean for all it's worth. If there are no lessons to be learned there, fine. If we follow a false trail or two in analysis, at least we're doing the work. The only thing more useless than clinging emotionally to a failed campaign is the almost pathetic fetishism of Clinton. (Talking to you, Al Franken. Just ask him to the prom and get it over with)
b.) Yes, Kerry was smeared. Yes, the media is biased. Damn those Viet-Cong and their dirty jungle fighting! If only we could fight them on the open ground, we'd win.
We're in the jungle kids. Tell you what, you work on reforming the media, I'll work on trying to effectively manage message presentation within the current framework, and we'll meet in Utopia.
c.) I heard on the day how Kerry worked the Democratic caucuses (had a pal who was a Dean supporter). Spiffy. But you know what, this is exactly the blind spot I'm talking about. The broken way we choose nominees actually hides the flaws the candidate then has when presenting himself nationally. When given the choice between a candidate who wows his own party apparatchniks and the guy who can win the vaguely hostile swing voter, I'll take the road comic. The fact that he can get a farmer who's the state party rep and who's been one for thirty years ... does. not. matter.
2.) "This is just another one of those 'Democrats have to be DUMBER' arguments!"
No, and that's prejudice disguising itself as principle. I'm saying progressives need to make sure that they fall in the "us" camp rather than the "them" camp. If you interpret that to mean they "have to seem dumber", then you plainly feel that the majority of "us" is dumb.
Fuck you, elitist monkey.
One of the great shocks as a road comic is that every audience is as smart as you are. Yeah, that guy over there is an auto-mechanic. Can you fix a car? No. It's a really complex gig. That guy's a doctor. You a doctor? No. I once performed in Butte and had a young rancher explain the nuances of cattle economics to me -- trying to follow the discussion, I felt like a five year old with a head injury. That's why I loved the road. It renewed your faith in humanity's wondrous variety and intelligence.
There were, of course, exceptions. There are sections of Idaho, for example, that ought to be fenced off for everyone's good.
Anyway ... No, my argument is that progressives aren't not connecting on a primal level with great masses of people who should be in their camp; that because of this, no matter how smart either the audience is or progressive policies are, they won't be won over; and that this situation is at least analysable and perhaps manageable. And I'm basing this on years of winning over strangers. If you have a different way of winning over strangers based on a decade's practical experience, bang it out on your blog and I'll link to it. If it's better, we'll study your process.
3.) "Your argument's bogus, because you say that the audience can tell when somebody's lying. Well Bush is lying! He lies all the time! He's a Ivy-League millionaire who fools people into believing he's a rancher! HE'S THE LYINGEST BASTARD ON THE PLANET!! AAAAGGGHHHH!!!!!! WHY DOESN'T ANYBODY UNDERSTAND THIS?!!! AGAGAGAHAHAHGGAAAAAGGGHHHHAAAGG!"
No. (and that is roughly the emotional tenor of some of my friends on this subject)
He's not lying.
Man, a lot of you are going to hate this. But here goes.
He actually THINKS he's a good ol' boy. He hung out with southern fellas, banged stewardesses, drank too much Jack, and wears cowboy boots. When he found Jesus, I genuinely believe he found Jesus. He has no intellectual grasp of the contradiction between Christ's method and his policies, but that doesn't mitigate the fact he believes, and it comes through --
-- oh, and by the way, that's hardly rare. Most American Catholics, when it comes to abortion, nod sagely at the Vatican's pronouncement and declare themselves devout Catholics. But when it comes to divorce, pre-marital sex or especially contraception, they're all "WhoPopewiththewhatwiththewhonow? --
George Bush believes he's a good guy. Dad lived at Kennebunkport and went South when he had to. George, for all his faults, thinks he's a Texan. He's PROUD of his identity as a Texan, because it saved him the effort of actually constructing a personality of his own. If any of his businesses, oil or sports, had panned out, I'd take even money he never would've gone into politics. Karl Rove's genius in finding Bush was finding a guy who actually believed in his own bullshit image.
In the parlance of my business, he's the hack comic who kills every show, and has no idea he's a hack.
Why the hell do you think they never let him do press conferences? Precisely because he's such a shitty liar. When he's on the campaign trail and can talk in generalities, his job is to get you to like him. And, looking at his life, that's all he ever did or wanted: was to get people to like him. But when you put him on a podium, and he has to remember all the facts and figures and not to contradict himself because, well, lying is tricksy, he's crap.
Bush accentuates the "us" parts of his personality. That's different from "lying". That extension I was talking about works for both good and evil, folks. Progressives did a very, very bad job of sliding into "us", and did an absolute shit job of defining "them".
Underestimating your opponent's skill because you hate them is one of the primary errors of warfare. It's one of the reasons the US's war on terror is going so poorly. When the other guy's good at something, just acknowledge it and move on. Figure out how to beat it or neutralize it. Stop pretending it can't be true because you can't allow your opponent that level of skill or ability.
So, swing by every few days. It should be interesting.
1.) "This is just another Kerry-bashing article! He was a great politician who was unfairly smeared by the media! He's a very charming guy! You should've seen him work the caucuses."
I am reminded of a section in The Sling and the Stone where Thomas Hammes discusses why the study of the how warfare evolves and transforms was largely ignored by the very militaries who should have been parsing it out. Military establishments considered self-criticizing analysis to have too great a negative impact on morale to engage in.
a.) I'm sure John Kerry is a fine, fine man. Certainly a better man than I. However, he was the last progressive presidential candidate, and he lost.
He lost, guys. Lost. I'm sorry that's not fair. I. Don't. Care. I believe we would all prefer to avoid this outcome in the future. Gore and Kerry lost counties that had been Democratic for six decades. Somebody fucked up.
What's more important -- having frank (even if occasionally incorrect) discussions about political tactics, or tiptoing around the feelings of this man's supporters? I'm not bashing Kerry -- I'm using elements of his campaign as part of the discussion. I may wind up being wrong about a lot of this. But let's pick the corpse clean for all it's worth. If there are no lessons to be learned there, fine. If we follow a false trail or two in analysis, at least we're doing the work. The only thing more useless than clinging emotionally to a failed campaign is the almost pathetic fetishism of Clinton. (Talking to you, Al Franken. Just ask him to the prom and get it over with)
b.) Yes, Kerry was smeared. Yes, the media is biased. Damn those Viet-Cong and their dirty jungle fighting! If only we could fight them on the open ground, we'd win.
We're in the jungle kids. Tell you what, you work on reforming the media, I'll work on trying to effectively manage message presentation within the current framework, and we'll meet in Utopia.
c.) I heard on the day how Kerry worked the Democratic caucuses (had a pal who was a Dean supporter). Spiffy. But you know what, this is exactly the blind spot I'm talking about. The broken way we choose nominees actually hides the flaws the candidate then has when presenting himself nationally. When given the choice between a candidate who wows his own party apparatchniks and the guy who can win the vaguely hostile swing voter, I'll take the road comic. The fact that he can get a farmer who's the state party rep and who's been one for thirty years ... does. not. matter.
2.) "This is just another one of those 'Democrats have to be DUMBER' arguments!"
No, and that's prejudice disguising itself as principle. I'm saying progressives need to make sure that they fall in the "us" camp rather than the "them" camp. If you interpret that to mean they "have to seem dumber", then you plainly feel that the majority of "us" is dumb.
Fuck you, elitist monkey.
One of the great shocks as a road comic is that every audience is as smart as you are. Yeah, that guy over there is an auto-mechanic. Can you fix a car? No. It's a really complex gig. That guy's a doctor. You a doctor? No. I once performed in Butte and had a young rancher explain the nuances of cattle economics to me -- trying to follow the discussion, I felt like a five year old with a head injury. That's why I loved the road. It renewed your faith in humanity's wondrous variety and intelligence.
There were, of course, exceptions. There are sections of Idaho, for example, that ought to be fenced off for everyone's good.
Anyway ... No, my argument is that progressives aren't not connecting on a primal level with great masses of people who should be in their camp; that because of this, no matter how smart either the audience is or progressive policies are, they won't be won over; and that this situation is at least analysable and perhaps manageable. And I'm basing this on years of winning over strangers. If you have a different way of winning over strangers based on a decade's practical experience, bang it out on your blog and I'll link to it. If it's better, we'll study your process.
3.) "Your argument's bogus, because you say that the audience can tell when somebody's lying. Well Bush is lying! He lies all the time! He's a Ivy-League millionaire who fools people into believing he's a rancher! HE'S THE LYINGEST BASTARD ON THE PLANET!! AAAAGGGHHHH!!!!!! WHY DOESN'T ANYBODY UNDERSTAND THIS?!!! AGAGAGAHAHAHGGAAAAAGGGHHHHAAAGG!"
No. (and that is roughly the emotional tenor of some of my friends on this subject)
He's not lying.
Man, a lot of you are going to hate this. But here goes.
He actually THINKS he's a good ol' boy. He hung out with southern fellas, banged stewardesses, drank too much Jack, and wears cowboy boots. When he found Jesus, I genuinely believe he found Jesus. He has no intellectual grasp of the contradiction between Christ's method and his policies, but that doesn't mitigate the fact he believes, and it comes through --
-- oh, and by the way, that's hardly rare. Most American Catholics, when it comes to abortion, nod sagely at the Vatican's pronouncement and declare themselves devout Catholics. But when it comes to divorce, pre-marital sex or especially contraception, they're all "WhoPopewiththewhatwiththewhonow? --
George Bush believes he's a good guy. Dad lived at Kennebunkport and went South when he had to. George, for all his faults, thinks he's a Texan. He's PROUD of his identity as a Texan, because it saved him the effort of actually constructing a personality of his own. If any of his businesses, oil or sports, had panned out, I'd take even money he never would've gone into politics. Karl Rove's genius in finding Bush was finding a guy who actually believed in his own bullshit image.
In the parlance of my business, he's the hack comic who kills every show, and has no idea he's a hack.
Why the hell do you think they never let him do press conferences? Precisely because he's such a shitty liar. When he's on the campaign trail and can talk in generalities, his job is to get you to like him. And, looking at his life, that's all he ever did or wanted: was to get people to like him. But when you put him on a podium, and he has to remember all the facts and figures and not to contradict himself because, well, lying is tricksy, he's crap.
Bush accentuates the "us" parts of his personality. That's different from "lying". That extension I was talking about works for both good and evil, folks. Progressives did a very, very bad job of sliding into "us", and did an absolute shit job of defining "them".
Underestimating your opponent's skill because you hate them is one of the primary errors of warfare. It's one of the reasons the US's war on terror is going so poorly. When the other guy's good at something, just acknowledge it and move on. Figure out how to beat it or neutralize it. Stop pretending it can't be true because you can't allow your opponent that level of skill or ability.
So, swing by every few days. It should be interesting.
Monday, May 02, 2005
Senate Quicksand
The Senate, of course, is a deathtrap for presidential ambition in the current atmosphere. It has tons of negatives -- you make a lot of enemies, you need to compromise so you can be flip-flopped, there are so many votes that one can always find some nasty piece of legislature to hang around your neck, it reeks of professional politician "them"-ness, and most importantly ... you never DO anything.
What? That's not true, Senators vote on a million bills, and introduce legislation, and back .. blah. blah. blah. What did YOU do, Senator? Did you get more armor for the troops? Did you revamp the educational system? Well, maybe you and nine other guys did that and now it's off for approval by the President, but saying you "voted for" something isn't the same as you "did" it. You take the heat for bad voters, and get no credit for victories in the public eye. You do a lot of ... government stuff. Committees. Wow.
This is why governors (and mayors) do so well in presidential politics. Governors can claim they ran their state. Was there a state legislature, etc? Sure, but ads for Governors can read "HE blanced the state budget", or "HE installed universal health care" or "HE got more money for schools and cops." This is why Eliot Spitzer's running roughshod over Pataki right now. His narrative is: "Spitzer puts rich fucks in jail." Christ, he's almost a superhero with that story, never mind a candidate. He's the class war equivalent of Batman. (Oh, and don't miss lecture 10 in the series: "Class war, class war, class war, it's all about the class war, that's why they squeal and accuse you of using it, because it's your most potent weapon, it's the class war, idiot, oh hey look at my shiny class war.")
2008, progressives should lean heavily on a governor or outsider. Just my opinion. But that's what the blog's for.
Next: Less political theory, and more on effective speechwriting. Or, "In the name of Christ, STOP TALKING."
What? That's not true, Senators vote on a million bills, and introduce legislation, and back .. blah. blah. blah. What did YOU do, Senator? Did you get more armor for the troops? Did you revamp the educational system? Well, maybe you and nine other guys did that and now it's off for approval by the President, but saying you "voted for" something isn't the same as you "did" it. You take the heat for bad voters, and get no credit for victories in the public eye. You do a lot of ... government stuff. Committees. Wow.
This is why governors (and mayors) do so well in presidential politics. Governors can claim they ran their state. Was there a state legislature, etc? Sure, but ads for Governors can read "HE blanced the state budget", or "HE installed universal health care" or "HE got more money for schools and cops." This is why Eliot Spitzer's running roughshod over Pataki right now. His narrative is: "Spitzer puts rich fucks in jail." Christ, he's almost a superhero with that story, never mind a candidate. He's the class war equivalent of Batman. (Oh, and don't miss lecture 10 in the series: "Class war, class war, class war, it's all about the class war, that's why they squeal and accuse you of using it, because it's your most potent weapon, it's the class war, idiot, oh hey look at my shiny class war.")
2008, progressives should lean heavily on a governor or outsider. Just my opinion. But that's what the blog's for.
Next: Less political theory, and more on effective speechwriting. Or, "In the name of Christ, STOP TALKING."
Learn to say 'ain't' ...
Well, here we go, with me stepping way outside my pay grade on political thought. All of the essays on this subject will be rough. Many of them will contradict each other. Quite a bit of it will seem manipulative and morally bankrupt. Very work-in-progress. Only way to learn and grow, I guess.
I've been in conversation with some other bloggers, and was working on a longer series of articles, when Ezra Klein gave me the perfect in on the subject -- a link to Thomas Franks article in the New York Review of Books called What's the Matter with Liberals?
Franks discusses something that everyone EXCEPT those people in charge of electing Democratic presidents seemed to understand -- when your party has perceived weaknesses, don't run the guy who's the stereotype of that weakness. Or, as my friend Mark Waid said: "Why the fuck do we keep nominating Frazier Crane?"
My bigger point, leaving all the fancy policy stuff to the wonks who delight in them, is that the art of politics is convincing people to connect with you. When you have an idea, and the other guy has an idea -- if you don't connect in some primal way with the listeners your idea is never even going to get considered, no matter how much better it is on a rational level. In theory, "We're sending guys to fight in Iraq without body armor or properly equipped Humvees and then cutting taxes on rich folk" is literally the worst idea I could come up with to play in a mill town, unless that sentence ended with "... and then, your sons kiss each other." And yet the RR (Radical Right) gets a pass on this. Why? because as soon as guys like John Kerry (and God bless 'em, Al Franken and Janeane Garofolo) open their mouths, all the audience hears is "snobby snob snob think you're so smart!"
Now who the hell am I to even think I have something to contribute here? Well, let's say the candidate's job is to walk into a room of complete strangers and get them to like him. Connect with him. Wow, the few rare politicians who can do that, they're worth their weight in gold.
I did that for twelve years. So did hundreds of other people you've never heard of. We're stand-ups, and that's the ENTRY-LEVEL for the job.
A good stand-up can walk into a room, a bar with no stage and a shit mic, in the deep goddam South or Montana or Portland or Austin or Boston, and not only tell jokes with differing political opinions than the crowd, can get them to laugh. With all due respect to our brother performers in theater, etc., we can walk into a room of any size from 20 to 2000 complete strangers with no shared background and not just evoke emotion ... we can evoke a specific strong emotion every 15 seconds. For an HOUR. A good stand-up can make fun of your relationship with your wife, make fun of your job, make fun of your politics, all in front of a thousand strangers, and afterward that same person will go up and invite the stand-up to a barbecue.
In short -- every club audience is a swing state.
I think I speak for a lot of professional comics when I say there's nothing more frustrating than watching your candidate up on stage or on TV flail around without the basic rhetorical skills needed to score a 5 minute opening set at the Improv. Never mind the more advanced skills of the road comic. But because the vast amount of speaking a candidate does is either a.) to sedate, formal fundraising audiences or b.) rallies filled with the base, the flaws in presentation are hidden. The flaws in the greater theory of candidate communication are never exposed.
For starters, let's talk image. When I first started out on the road, I was a skinny guy with a big nose, a Boston accent and a Physics degree telling jokes in bars out West. I was hitting a wall of resistance in a lot of rooms. One night in Rawlins, Wyoming, the headliner -- a sweet road comic named "Boats" Johnson -- took me aside.
"You're a good joke writer. I mean, damn, there's some smart stuff in there."
"Thanks. But, uh..."
"They don't like you much." Boats handed me a beer. "Second show. Longneck. Always a longneck. Bring it on stage. Sip from it every now and then."
"I don't really drink on stage --"
"Fine. Fill it with water. Don't bring attention to it, just sip from it."
I shrugged. "Anything else?"
"Yeah. Learn to say 'ain't'. Don't change the jokes. Just learn to say 'ain't' every now and then."
The shows went, much, much better after that. I told the same gun control jokes, the same pro-gay marriage bits, the same making-fun of the culture wars jokes. But now I was killing.
There are two lessons to be taken from "Learn to say 'ain't'." First, the fundamental dynamic in all crowd interaction is us vs. them. Period. It's sad. Oh well. Get over it and win.
Now, the fine line here is that, the audience also always knows when you're being dishonest. That's worth hitting again. When you are on stage, the audience's collective mind can tell when you're not being yourself. And even more importantly, they can tell when you're lying to be one of "us". (Like Kerry hunting, or Dukakis in the tank). Changing yourself to fit the audience would be the wrong lesson to take from "Learn to say 'ain't.'" No, the lesson Boats was teaching me was that there's no problem with relaxing a bit and showing that you're not one of "them." He was teaching me that connection is a half-way game -- just extend out a little, and the audience will come the rest of the way. They will extend the boundary of "us" if you advance toward it. That was the genius of "compassionate conservatism."
People will relax and trust you when you're not trying to dazzle them with brainpower. It's okay to be the smartest guy in the room, but that shouldn't be the point of it. This is a liberal weakness, because they often seem to operate on the dual fuels of statistics and sputtering. They foolishly believe that the smartest, most morally equitable, most well-reasoned argument is the right one.
Well, of course it's the right one. It's just not necessarily the one that's going to WIN. And when they point, justifiably, at their idea which is backed up by all the data, all the statistics, and say "But, but this is the only logical solution", the implication is "... by not arriving at this yourself, you are stupid." And once somebody thinks you called them stupid, you've lost them forever. "What's the matter with Kansas?" Nothing, you supercilious fuck, what's the matter with you? Guess who I'm voting for every time you lecture me that you're on my side, and I just have to see that? Yeah, the other guy. Bye now. (this is tied into another rule of stand-up -- "You can never convince anyone of anything", which we'll deal with later)
"Us" is a very amorphous concept. Look how the conservative factions hang together. Catholics and evangelicals? Whaaaaa? You can slide into "Us" without compromising your values or positions. But that means making sure you define "Them" a.) clearly and b.) outside your target audience.
Am I endorsing Clintonist "triangulation"? Hell no. The job here is not to find a moderate position everyone can agree on, because then, frankly, you'll smell like an opportunist and the audience will turn on you (and you'll lose your base). No, the trick (and the RR has done this very sweetly) is to triangulate the audience away from your opponent's position, and by default towards your own.
The second lesson coincides with an interesting study mentioned in Freakonomics. Levitt discovered that in political races where the same opponents ran against each other multiple times, but spent vastly different sums of money from race to race -- the money didn't matter. The races shifted, on average, maybe a percentage point in each direction. Once the electorate has determined your identity, and whether you're "us" or "them", that's it.
This leads to an even more interesting idea. As a comic, these people have never seen you before, and you can control their perception of you in the first five minutes of them meeting you -- which will be the sum total of their perception. But this means that in politics, there are people out there who have already been in the spotlight so long, or who have so well-determined their cultural identities, that no matter how qualified, no matter how sincere, no matter how goddam perfect for the job they are ... they just won't be President in the current cultural atmosphere. It doesn't matter how wildly unfair that is. They can never, ever slide into "us." Kerry was so, so far outside of "us" that, frankly it was a testimony to how badly Bush has screwed up that he even got THAT close. Oh, and sorry, Hilary, I'm talking to you. (oddly, if she weren't burdened with her First Lady Identity, her Senate Identity might pull it off.) On the other hand, I'm also talking to Frist and Santorum.
I feel a digression coming on. I'll split that off in another post called --
(NOTE: some feedback and comments also here)
(EDIT: 2/22/06 -- hey, seeing as this has recently warmed up, a small update post here.)
I've been in conversation with some other bloggers, and was working on a longer series of articles, when Ezra Klein gave me the perfect in on the subject -- a link to Thomas Franks article in the New York Review of Books called What's the Matter with Liberals?
Franks discusses something that everyone EXCEPT those people in charge of electing Democratic presidents seemed to understand -- when your party has perceived weaknesses, don't run the guy who's the stereotype of that weakness. Or, as my friend Mark Waid said: "Why the fuck do we keep nominating Frazier Crane?"
My bigger point, leaving all the fancy policy stuff to the wonks who delight in them, is that the art of politics is convincing people to connect with you. When you have an idea, and the other guy has an idea -- if you don't connect in some primal way with the listeners your idea is never even going to get considered, no matter how much better it is on a rational level. In theory, "We're sending guys to fight in Iraq without body armor or properly equipped Humvees and then cutting taxes on rich folk" is literally the worst idea I could come up with to play in a mill town, unless that sentence ended with "... and then, your sons kiss each other." And yet the RR (Radical Right) gets a pass on this. Why? because as soon as guys like John Kerry (and God bless 'em, Al Franken and Janeane Garofolo) open their mouths, all the audience hears is "snobby snob snob think you're so smart!"
Now who the hell am I to even think I have something to contribute here? Well, let's say the candidate's job is to walk into a room of complete strangers and get them to like him. Connect with him. Wow, the few rare politicians who can do that, they're worth their weight in gold.
I did that for twelve years. So did hundreds of other people you've never heard of. We're stand-ups, and that's the ENTRY-LEVEL for the job.
A good stand-up can walk into a room, a bar with no stage and a shit mic, in the deep goddam South or Montana or Portland or Austin or Boston, and not only tell jokes with differing political opinions than the crowd, can get them to laugh. With all due respect to our brother performers in theater, etc., we can walk into a room of any size from 20 to 2000 complete strangers with no shared background and not just evoke emotion ... we can evoke a specific strong emotion every 15 seconds. For an HOUR. A good stand-up can make fun of your relationship with your wife, make fun of your job, make fun of your politics, all in front of a thousand strangers, and afterward that same person will go up and invite the stand-up to a barbecue.
In short -- every club audience is a swing state.
I think I speak for a lot of professional comics when I say there's nothing more frustrating than watching your candidate up on stage or on TV flail around without the basic rhetorical skills needed to score a 5 minute opening set at the Improv. Never mind the more advanced skills of the road comic. But because the vast amount of speaking a candidate does is either a.) to sedate, formal fundraising audiences or b.) rallies filled with the base, the flaws in presentation are hidden. The flaws in the greater theory of candidate communication are never exposed.
For starters, let's talk image. When I first started out on the road, I was a skinny guy with a big nose, a Boston accent and a Physics degree telling jokes in bars out West. I was hitting a wall of resistance in a lot of rooms. One night in Rawlins, Wyoming, the headliner -- a sweet road comic named "Boats" Johnson -- took me aside.
"You're a good joke writer. I mean, damn, there's some smart stuff in there."
"Thanks. But, uh..."
"They don't like you much." Boats handed me a beer. "Second show. Longneck. Always a longneck. Bring it on stage. Sip from it every now and then."
"I don't really drink on stage --"
"Fine. Fill it with water. Don't bring attention to it, just sip from it."
I shrugged. "Anything else?"
"Yeah. Learn to say 'ain't'. Don't change the jokes. Just learn to say 'ain't' every now and then."
The shows went, much, much better after that. I told the same gun control jokes, the same pro-gay marriage bits, the same making-fun of the culture wars jokes. But now I was killing.
There are two lessons to be taken from "Learn to say 'ain't'." First, the fundamental dynamic in all crowd interaction is us vs. them. Period. It's sad. Oh well. Get over it and win.
Now, the fine line here is that, the audience also always knows when you're being dishonest. That's worth hitting again. When you are on stage, the audience's collective mind can tell when you're not being yourself. And even more importantly, they can tell when you're lying to be one of "us". (Like Kerry hunting, or Dukakis in the tank). Changing yourself to fit the audience would be the wrong lesson to take from "Learn to say 'ain't.'" No, the lesson Boats was teaching me was that there's no problem with relaxing a bit and showing that you're not one of "them." He was teaching me that connection is a half-way game -- just extend out a little, and the audience will come the rest of the way. They will extend the boundary of "us" if you advance toward it. That was the genius of "compassionate conservatism."
People will relax and trust you when you're not trying to dazzle them with brainpower. It's okay to be the smartest guy in the room, but that shouldn't be the point of it. This is a liberal weakness, because they often seem to operate on the dual fuels of statistics and sputtering. They foolishly believe that the smartest, most morally equitable, most well-reasoned argument is the right one.
Well, of course it's the right one. It's just not necessarily the one that's going to WIN. And when they point, justifiably, at their idea which is backed up by all the data, all the statistics, and say "But, but this is the only logical solution", the implication is "... by not arriving at this yourself, you are stupid." And once somebody thinks you called them stupid, you've lost them forever. "What's the matter with Kansas?" Nothing, you supercilious fuck, what's the matter with you? Guess who I'm voting for every time you lecture me that you're on my side, and I just have to see that? Yeah, the other guy. Bye now. (this is tied into another rule of stand-up -- "You can never convince anyone of anything", which we'll deal with later)
"Us" is a very amorphous concept. Look how the conservative factions hang together. Catholics and evangelicals? Whaaaaa? You can slide into "Us" without compromising your values or positions. But that means making sure you define "Them" a.) clearly and b.) outside your target audience.
Am I endorsing Clintonist "triangulation"? Hell no. The job here is not to find a moderate position everyone can agree on, because then, frankly, you'll smell like an opportunist and the audience will turn on you (and you'll lose your base). No, the trick (and the RR has done this very sweetly) is to triangulate the audience away from your opponent's position, and by default towards your own.
The second lesson coincides with an interesting study mentioned in Freakonomics. Levitt discovered that in political races where the same opponents ran against each other multiple times, but spent vastly different sums of money from race to race -- the money didn't matter. The races shifted, on average, maybe a percentage point in each direction. Once the electorate has determined your identity, and whether you're "us" or "them", that's it.
This leads to an even more interesting idea. As a comic, these people have never seen you before, and you can control their perception of you in the first five minutes of them meeting you -- which will be the sum total of their perception. But this means that in politics, there are people out there who have already been in the spotlight so long, or who have so well-determined their cultural identities, that no matter how qualified, no matter how sincere, no matter how goddam perfect for the job they are ... they just won't be President in the current cultural atmosphere. It doesn't matter how wildly unfair that is. They can never, ever slide into "us." Kerry was so, so far outside of "us" that, frankly it was a testimony to how badly Bush has screwed up that he even got THAT close. Oh, and sorry, Hilary, I'm talking to you. (oddly, if she weren't burdened with her First Lady Identity, her Senate Identity might pull it off.) On the other hand, I'm also talking to Frist and Santorum.
I feel a digression coming on. I'll split that off in another post called --
(NOTE: some feedback and comments also here)
(EDIT: 2/22/06 -- hey, seeing as this has recently warmed up, a small update post here.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)