For those who don’t know what Wordplayer is, it’s a web blog created nearly two decades ago. It was written by the screenwriters of Aladdin (1992), Mask of Zorro (1998), and the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise (2003-2000 4ever): Ted Elliot & Terry Rossio (ampersand intentional). It contains exactly 100 “columns” as they were called before the word “blog” took favor. The blog covers an intense amount of knowledge from working writers in the industry. At the time these blogs were written, the duo were working on re-writes of the Mask of Zorro and providing thoughtful insight into the film without revealing the name of the project they were working on (the site is copyrighted 1997). I have found it to be an invaluable resource and a source of motivation in writing a screenplay. These guys like the same type of film I like: epic swashbuckling hero films!
Column #5 Death to the Reader provides a checklist that “readers” use to evaluate an unsolicited script sent to a film studio. A reader is someone who reads an unsolicited/spec screenplay and provides coverage of that script to their boss (typically a producer who works for a production company). A spec screenplay is one that is written on speculation that it will be produced by Hollywood once someone has read it. Spec screenplays are written on the writer’s dime and time and there is guarantee it will ever be made. Coverage is a summary of the spec script with its pros and cons and why the studio executives should pass on the script or read it themselves and consider it for production. Having readers filter the good and bad screenplays for their bosses is a necessary evil. Without them, the studio executives would have no time for anything but reading screenplays, instead of making them. Unfortunately, many times it means your script will be read by college graduates instead of studio executives and the life of your script depends solely on the coverage these readers write about your script.
This Wordplayer column (“Death to the Reader“) provides the checklist that readers use to screen/filter the thousands of screenplays a studio can receive. If your spec screenplay beats this checklist, then your screenplay may be considered further.
No matter what stage of your screenplay you are in, there is extreme value in double checking your script against this checklist. It may save you years of effort and rejection. It may also inspire you to write a better screenplay too. Whenever I read this list, I remember why I like movies and why I like Ted Elliot & Terry Rossio.
I love this book. It has helped me reframe stories, character, and life in general. At its core is Mr Kalpan’s simple rule for what makes comedy work. It is all based on what a comedic hero is. Interestingly it is directly related to an action hero and a tragic hero. So without further ado, I present my paraphrasing of what a comedic hero is:
A comedic hero is a normal person put in an extraordinary situation with no skills required to accomplish his goal, never giving up hope that he can win, and succeeding despite his best efforts.
An action hero is a person put into an extraordinary situation with every skill required to accomplish his goal, never giving up hope that he can win, and succeeding because of his best efforts.
A tragic hero is a person with every skill required to accomplish his goal, never gives up, and fails despite his best effort.
In all fairness, this paraphrasing may be a mix of Ted Elliot’s and Terry Rossio’s definition of heroes as well (as learned from Episode X of their web blog “Word Player“).
In all three definitions, the hero is confronted with an extraordinary situation and all never give up on their goals. The distinguishing factors lay on a few orthogonal axes: On the first is skills required to win. Action and tragic heros have every skill required to win. Comedic heros have no skills. On the second axis is the outcome. Action and comedic heros win because of or despite their best efforts. The word despite seems to be included not to suggest random happenstance allows them to win but merely to explain that the apparent skills they lacked walked into the the situation should have caused their failure, but instead their hopefulness and relentlessness is why they won. The word despite is also used to relate it to the tragic hero definition where the hero fails despite having all skills necessary to win. The third axis is hope. That doesn’t simply mean relentlessness in accomplishing their goal. It actually means belief that their efforts can actually help them win. In action movies you have characters who truly believe that jumping across the chasm will help them win. In comedies, every action they take is a manifestation of a genuine belief that they can win. In tragedies, you may start with optimism but at some point the character may hit a wall of hopelessness and start doing things with no expectation that they can win, like going on a date and being a complete dick to the perfect potential partner.
The thing I love about his definition is the how closely related all three scenarios are to each other. Make one simple change in outcome and you switch from action to tragedy. Take away a character’s hope and you move from comedy to tragedy. Give your comedic hero every skill required to win, and your audience will judge him like an action hero and his blunders may feel more sad.
The author gives really good examples of this. I will NOT attempt to provide one off the top of my head so as not to mess up his definition. Go read the book (or at least the first few chapters). The rest of the book deals with some other tools and ideas that will help move scene toward comedy as opposed to uncomfortable tragedy or uncomfortable action/adventure.
I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to get analytical about comedy. And also to anyone who thinks they know comedy because they’ve been the class clown their whole lives or have been successful at their silly YouTube videos. I also think there is a ton of benefit in understanding these ideas for anyone writing action or tragedies because they are all related. And you don’t want your drama to come off as a joke.
I found the book extremely insightful. More so than any English class I ever took in high school. But I’m also the guy who loved the Spark Notes of the plays better than the actual play because I could finally understand what the words meant and I could understand the drama and conflict between characters and inside characters. This book helps boil 12 of his plays down to one or two lessons each that can be used by screenwriters in crafting a story or a character, but isn’t helpful in writing the actual words. The book starts out strong, but as the plays progress, the ideas are less helpful. I stopped reading after a couple of plays where his insight was more obvious than insightful.
Here are my notes from the chapter about Hamlet which helped me understand why people like Hamlet as well as why people (the filmmakers) say that Lion King was basically Hamlet in the wild.
Chapter: Hamlet
Hamlet is a man of inaction. He is told at the beginning of the story (through a ghostly vision of his late father) that Hamlet’s uncle killed Hamlet’s father to take control of the thrown. The rest of the story follows Hamlet on his journey to decide whether the vision is real (and thus avenge his father). He struggles often with the possibility that he is wrong and he could be killing an innocent man.
The author mentions how Hamlet is a more relateable character because his internal conflict is uniquely human and causes us to empathize with him. In contrast, the character Laertes son of the murderous uncle) does not hesitate at all to avenge his father. Because Laertes has no internal conflict, he is a less relateable character.
My brother and I watched Forrest Gump last night…again. And we couldn’t stop analyzing it, in between the laugh out loud moments and utterly depressing tear-jerkers. It is now my intention to write down the lessons we learned so I don’t have to be curious and sit through it again.
There’s a stream of consciousness to the ideas as of now since I have idea about plot, context, characters, lines, arcs, and virtually a million other things.
Forrest Gump was not an original screenplay. It was based on a book and thus “adapted.” That means that all of the symbolism and character development was already plotted and written. It was then the screenwriters job to keep the important parts. It also meant it was an easier sell to the studios because there’s a built in audience, or at least a marketing gimmick. That said,
Forrest Gump was an epic. The budget was at “tent-pole” film levels. The special effects and number of filming locations were staggering. Getting this film made must not have been easy even with the built in audience.
Despite what screenwriting books say, Narration works! Maybe it’s allowed because it’s a book adaptation. But more likely it is because the narration rarely pushed the plot forward. Instead it was done as commentary on the images on screen. Typically poignant philosophical mantras and catch phrases. It should be noted that I didn’t come to this on my own. I heard this idea from the screenwriter of Fight Club (made 5 years after Forrest Gump). Fight Club was also a movie adaptation of a book, and I just so happened to watch it twice this past weekend: once normally and once with audio commentary from the book writer and screenwriter. Fight Club was also a philosophy film but that worked for a whole slew of other reasons, which deserves an article in itself, so one day, I might do that too.
It felt like Brooks/Zucker comedy (stupid, ridiculous humor) mixed with powerful cinematic drama from the like of Spielberg and classic cinema. In between the deep philosophical moments, there was typically a joke like “I’m sorry I ruined your Black Panther Party”. Right after Forrest is attacked with rocks and breaks free of his leg braces, Forrest has traversed an entire field in the span of a pan. We’re brought from outrage, to empathy, to hope, to on the floor laughter. Why did that scene work?
Philosophy should be fed to the audience with a healthy balance of laughter, empathetic dramatic moments, and by stereotypical wise characters allows to spit knowledge, like (grand)mothers, and wise mystical characters, like Forrest at the park bench. And sometimes they should be baited by characters who epitomize the dramatic life questions the audience is currently thinking about because of the situation a character is in. The key is really to break down the barriers we’ve built up against being preached to. Laughter helps with that and so does empathy. A lot of Forrest’s most poignant lines come from characters (and audiences) who are confused and searching for an answer to their problems. For example, [Do you know what it feels like to not be able to use your legs?!]. The character is mad about his situation as would many audience members be, but that question opens the door to Forrest’s response: Yes, which reminds us that he wore leg braces for five minute of the film. Another example is when Jenny says, “Forrest, you don’t know what love is.”
Don’t be preachy for too long. The bigger key is to balance preachiness, levity, and gravity. A movie like Crash becomes painful, because it’s too preachy and dramatic at all times. Some comedies fail because they’re too afraid to say anything in between laughs. Forrest Gump is comedic at most times, until the last half hour, which is mostly depressing. which allows us to swallow the preachy one liners.
Show don’t tell. In screenwriting that means have your characters do something, not say they did something. It also can mean show your characters acting on their feelings instead of saying their feeling. I see that also as: use your characters and scenarios to discuss a life lesson, don’t just talk about something theoretical. When someone dies, address it; when someone breaks your heart, deal with it then. Don’t worry about things until they happen. Most of the life lessons came from what happened to the characters and how they dealt with it. Never did the narrator or story say, think this way and here’s why, instead they had their characters think a certain way and the “here’s why” was what happened to them afterward.
The movie took it’s time to remind you of the calm feeling you get when you have nothing to do during a hot summer day/night. The movie had many slow dollies and crane shots, long one-shots, and several master shots. Most of those were filled up with philosophical comments or comedic one-liners, but I can think of two sequences that were deathly silent and slow: (A) when Forrest finds Jenny gone and he’s all alone in his house, right before he starts to run, and (B) when Forrest is talking to his mother’s grave.
What is the point of Jenny?! Is she supposed to be the foil to Forrest? The will-they/won’t-they love interest? Is she supposed to be the the foil to Forrest? An example of the person not to be? A precautionary tale? More importantly, why does she deserve Forrest at the end of the day? And why would Forrest not give up on her? And why was there never another option in Forrest’s whole life? It’s all fine and dandy to show the dark side of the human condition, but I felt that here change happened off-screen and wasn’t really helpful for anyone going through that situation. There really wasn’t any helpful answer that might get people like her to change their thinking patterns. She clearly didn’t think highly of herself, “Forrest, you don’t want to marry me,” and was ready to commit suicide. But then she’s magically fine again and did it on her own off-screen and raising a child. For the amount of thought put into Forrest as an example of how to look at life, Jenny seems like the needlessly depressing character. And the fact that Forrest ends up losing her to aids and raising a child on his own makes me wonder what the point of the story was.
Forrest doesn’t change! He grows a little and learns a lot, but he never has to make a choice to change the way most character-arcs are written in screenplays. Lt Dan is forced to appreciate his life, Jenny is forced to learn to love Forrest, but Forrest is a perfect character from beginning to end. Like Superman or Goku, he’s always doing the right things and be a great example of a human being. He’s loving, he fights for the ones he loves, he saves and values his friends, and always thinks positively. He was like a wise-old man from a young age. Screenwriters and studio execs hate these “flat” characters, but somehow it worked in this film. I think it worked because of two reasons: (1) The deuteragonist and tritagonist (Jenny and Lt Dan) demonstrated character arcs, and (2)
Forrest is a Yes Man. Whenever a question is asked of Forrest, what does he say? Okay. Why does he not say yes? My guess is because it implies a dichotomy and right-wrong, whereas okay, suggests and attitude of “Sure, why not?” Successful people think positively and try new things. Forrest was extremely successful because he said Okay to Bubba’s question of becoming a shrimping captain.
Forrest never smiles! I can think of one or two scenes where Forrest smiles authentically. He usually looks like he’s floating through life. (1) Forrest giggling after touching Jenny’s boobs, (2) something on the shrimping boat, and (3) something on the bench. And some examples of him not smiling: (1) “Forrest, will you marry me?” (2) “Lt Dan, ice cream!”
I like/hate Forrest Gump. I like it because it can be on the floor funny, but hate it because it’s a tragedy and needlessly depressing at point. I use the word needlessly because I go under the assumption that depressing thought are unhealthy unless you do something to help yourself or others.
“Good” Fiction is a only reflection of life, it’s never an example of how to live life. Sure there are elements in Forrest Gump that tend to support an argument that thinking simply, lovingly, and positively will lead to a successful life, but it really doesn’t help with the how. It can get away with presenting depressing and burdensome characters and offer no solutions but magical changes on-screen.
I’m tired of “good” movies and dramas/tragedies and vow to avoid them at all costs. If anyone asks me why, I’ll refer them to this article. It’s because “good” drama is a depressing reflection of life, intended to make you feel sad, then return you to your life with no intention to improve the world or the viewer. Often times, they foster negative and confusing thoughts. They are intended to make the audience cry. I have no interest in that. It is an unhealthy habit to get into, it’s self-loathing, self-pity. It accustoms you to ugly situations and desensitizes you. It let’s you walk away from conflict with an attitude that nothing gets resolved positively and/or that’s the way life is. Maybe the redeeming grace is to tell others that they’re not alone. Maybe that’s why people tell others to watch depressing movies. Not to spread depression but to say, I’ve felt the sadness you felt. Again, all unhealthy thinking. Nothing gets solved in two to three hours in these tragedies. Nothing is learned that couldn’t be learned faster in a book.
I’m sticking to fun entertainment because they show positive go-getters who make light of situations and spread joy, happiness, morals, and examples of how to make the world a better place. Tragedies and dramas do the exact opposite. They show unsavory characters in tense inter-personal conflict and show examples of the worst outcomes. They let people bask in sadness and drama and show the world for how bad it can be. Is it so horrible to say that “good” movies are bad for me?
Maybe people like sad movies because they’re able to see the positive and hope in any situation and want to challenge themselves on thinking positively. Maybe there are people out there who have it so put together that they need to be reminded of what depression and tears feel like? Or maybe there are people out there who are depressed and want to spread their pain to others, and, in the word of South Park creators, “that’s a shitty thing to do.” But I’d like to think that some filmmakers and fans want others to know that there are people out there who are going through the same shitty things you are and someone felt it was worth spending millions of dollars to tell you you’re not alone. Maybe people can’t cry about their own situations, so they need a way to relieve the stress and pain they’re already in. What ever the reason is, I’m choosing not to watch depressing movies, tragedies, dramas because I don’t need any of that. I’m aware that millions of others are going through what I’m going through, went through what I went through, and don’t need to go back to those things. I know how shitty the world can be, I know what it feels like to cry, and I’m trying to handle my self-pity, stress, and pain in more productive ways. I don’t need to spend two more hours in darkness when I could be spending those hours in lightness. And if you’re a filmmaker who feels that a depressing movie is the only way to be respected as an actor or suddenly lost sight of what it means to live life, fuck you. If you built your career on making people laugh, you had it right the first time. You were serving a role in many peoples’ lives to make their day brighter, if only for 90 minutes. Don’t cancel that affect by catering to a small minority who want to see their day grow darker if only for 120 minutes or longer. Go solve your existential questions, give to charity, be a volunteer, make a difference on an inter-personal level. Don’t go appealing to people who weren’t a fan of you in the first place.
If you don’t know how enjoy yourself in Man of Steel, you don’t know how to live life. Because life is long, loud, painful, and pointless. That’s what “Man of Steel” showed me. The whole entire movie shitty things were happening to people just so superman was forced to help (does this sound like the Dark Knight to anybody?). He was forced to show his power, but then he ran away, upset. It’s the Christopher Nolan mentality that a character in peril is more interesting if he is never shown happy. Even when Superman found out who he was and was encouraged by his real father to develop flight, he never smiled! And in what should have been the greatest moment of wonder and joy, Hans Zimmer’s music held you back. Yes, I said it: “Hans Zimmer’s music held back Man of Steel”. Instead of a theme that lifts you up, it loops on four notes in pairs, holding on only the saddest notes, and in the two or three movie moments I truly expected a moving ballad of joy, I got a sweeping, noisy swath of melancholy.
I blame Christopher Nolan. It was Nolan’s choice to take this intense and joyless approach to Superman, and his decade of collaboration with Zimmer (since the 2005 Batman) that has brought Zimmer to this point. A point where a melancholy four note theme reminiscent of Batman’s two note theme is Superman’s theme. A point where he is intentionally minimizing the number of notes in the “theme” in a mis-guided belief that this makes things simpler. And simpler is better.
In any case, the paradox is that Zack Snyder clearly enjoys the opposite approach. The visual effects in this movie were like Transformers 3 and the Avengers on crack. It was just awe-inspiring. The duration of the destruction, the scale, and the detail all contribute to what appears to be the largest undertaking in Hollywood yet. It was clearly an attempt to win the Blockbuster crowd seeking entertainment. Seeking fun. But at no point were you allowed to marvel at the moment, cheer for superman, or smile. Because superman did none of that. There were three moments in the movie that caused me to laugh. Three one-liners that were so out of place that they felt like they were written on location by Zack Snyder in an attempt to save the movie from the screenplay. I can’t help but wonder if Michael Bay could have saved the movie from the screenplay. I think he could have. Step number one would have been to fire the screenwriters and bring on six more (provided there wasn’t a writer’s strike going on). I’m sure the thought had passed through Zack Snyder’s head, “how do I save superman from these guys”. The problem is that the story/screenwriter was also the producer, and he couldn’t make the movie if he fired his boss! So he went ahead with his vision of delivering the grandest action scenes in Hollywood yet, but it was undermined intrinsically by the story.
And unfortunately, the music corroborated the screenplay. Even at the moments of visual wonder and awe, moments to celebrate, or clap or cheer, it said “nope, this is sad; this is not the time to smile”. After all it is music that tells the audience what they’re allowed to do. It can’t tell you the story, but it will tell you the purpose of a scene. It tells you how to feel, and the whole movie it said “superman is in a bad place; he doesn’t believe in himself or in what he thinks is right; this is bad”. And part of me can’t really blame Zimmer because the screenplay said exactly that!!
At the end of the day the fault lies in the screenplay, written by one of the guys who wrote the Dark Knight with story overseen by Christopher Nolan. It was constructed as exactingly and dramatically as Inception or Dark Knight: by asking themselves “What’s the worst possible thing that can happen?” Hey, this is okay. Armageddon did the exact same thing. All great movies do. But instead of a hero that excels with grace (think of any 80’s or 90’s action hero), Superman simply does his job then hides in fear. And the strange thing was that in both Man of Steel and The Dark Knight, the protagonists seemingly refuse to kill without explanation, except in this movie Superman finally does. Whereas Batman is given this wholly out-of-place and therefore artificial spine that he will never kill, Superman mans up and says (emphasis added) this fucker needs to die! As my brother says, in that way, he’s a true American!
It was amazing though that even at the end of the movie, they were still doing flashbacks to scenes of “character development”. As audience members, we all accept 15 to 30 minutes max of exposition. We put up with random scenes, flashbacks, that serve to illustrate a single don’t-hit-me-over-the-head-I-get-it point. But the Nolan team just doesn’t get (or refuses to accept) that exposition is only acceptable when it’s done comedically!! Instead, this movie (like Inception) is still explaining the character to the bloody end of the film. We are stuck in ACT I until the titles come on screen!! This was such a problem that halfway through the movie, I noticed what was happening! When nauseatingly shaky handheld camera work in a scene where two characters were simply talking quietly to each other caused me to briefly look away from the screen, I realized why I felt so uncomfortable. I said to myself “holy shit, I’ve been sitting here for well over an hour and they’re still doing exposition!” Fifteen minutes later I asked myself, is this ever going to end?” and then we were in the middle of the most epic blockbuster sequence in the world and I just didn’t connect with the character. What happened? Isn’t exposition supposed to quickly set you up so you can do just that? Connect with the character. This time, it didn’t.
The phenomenal thing is that the Dark Knight trilogy was EXACTLY the same, and Inception was an even worse offender of exposition to the bloody end, and audiences ate that shit up! The problem here is that audiences were expecting something different. Something uplifting. This is Superman after all. And even Hans Zimmer was telling us that musically (i.e. emotionally) this movie would be the opposite of the Batman trilogy and would inspire us as Americans. He lied.
Other notes:
There seemed to be serious production inequality. It’s as if they spent $10 on production and a billion dollars on post. There were at least three scenes ruined by hand held shots that should have been on a dolly or at least a tripod. What blows my mind is that it would have cost them nothing to get a dolly because they probably already had one in the D.P.’s truck. Instead, they probably thought “ooh, this adds energy to the scene”. But what they didn’t remember is that this image was going onto a sixty foot screen – in 3D, besides the fact that it makes the movie look amateur!
And then my brother noticed as much as I did that there was an obnoxious hiss during everyone’s dialogue. It was like pristine music and sound effects and then when the characters opened their mouth, the hiss would fade in with their voice and fade out at the end of their dialogue. This means the audio mixer heard the hiss and was trying to avoid it. Maybe it was only audible in IMAX, but audio mixer heard it. And when two people spoke over each other, I could actually hear the hiss double. I noticed it in like three different scenes with Russell Crowe. It was so obvious! I couldn’t understand why they couldn’t spend a few extra dollars to get the actors on a sound stage and re-record the scenes – which is standard in practically EVERY OTHER MOVIE. I guess no one was going to be that guy who said “Uh, guys we need to redub this stuff” to Russell Crowe.
It was like “Look at these visuals! We spared no expense. Except for good audio and a dolly.”
In discussions with others who agree (“Well, Man of Steel killed my inner child. I wish I could fly around the world to reverse time and NOT see it.”) I added this:
That movie was just so cynical. And I’ve been saying it since Batman. Christopher Nolan makes cynical, depressing, dark movies that kill you inside more than they inspire. I expected a different movie than Batman when I heard Zack Snyder was on board and what the composer was saying about how this one is the opposite of Batman and about hope. I would recommend against seeing not only this movie, but every single Christopher Nolan movie ever made!! Take a look at Memento, Inception, Batman, Prestige: all movies where the protagonist has terrible things done to him and many where the protagonist does terrible things (Prestige, Inception). Never has the protagonist been happy about anything, nor have any of their achievements been celebrated. Always a cynical, “this is life” attitude. This movie should have been a popcorn, stand-and-cheer movie. Instead we get this. I am boycotting all Nolan productions from now on. I SWEAR. I NEVER swear, but this is the last straw!
Excuse me if I sound upset. This is just what Christopher Nolan films do to me. What do they do to you?
from the Facebook post I made the same night I saw it (April 25, 2013):
Pain & Gain Review: A+. It truly was a roller coaster. Intense. Driven. Funny yet depressing. Goofy yet serious. Stylish, energetic, and fast. Everyone left the theater like they would a rollercoaster: unsettled, yet entertained. But not sure how to describe it. They knew they enjoyed the ride, but they didn’t expect that slow descent into the very sad reality that all serious drug movies end on. It’s a movie about criminals, real life criminals, so it gets dark, very dark, like Goodfellas dark, maybe even Scarface dark. But you’re laughing all the way until they get what they deserve. It’s this weird feeling that you’re laughing despite know that this actually happened and what you’re seeing is really bad. But good cinema is supposed to evoke an emotion right? Well this movie evokes two at the same time. And it’s that mix that makes you unsettled, but when you look back on the experience, you’re glad you went on that journey. Go see it. It’s the most bold and unique movie you’ll see in theaters this year. (Rated R for violence, gore, nudity, and very mature content).
from Glenn’s Facebook response on April 26, 2013:
I’d give it an A because it was a well crafted movie, but not a family movie. Bay clearly has a macabre sense of humor. Why make such a dark story into a movie? Probably because the con-men tried 6 times to kidnap him (once dressed as a ninja), drove his car into a pole, and after he walked out on fire was ran over twice and lived. (That’s funny). The serious reality is these guys are no different than gangsters (and the film alluded to this) who are glorified by “classics” like Scarface and Godfather, but instead of glorifying these guys, Bay made them look like lunatics, sociopaths in a thoroughly entertaining but visceral, tragic, and realistic way (yes, disturbingly realistic even if fictionalized). That was a deliberate choice and for that, he should be commended because had he showed them as the dark moody characters of Scarface and Goodfellas, it would have been unwatchably disturbing, and a conscientious audience would have no reason to sit through the whole thing. The man knows what he’s doing.
Spectacular! The combination of the super high-resolution dinosaurs with the flawless 3D created a tear-jerkingly nostalgic yet fun experience. The crowd I saw it with opening Friday night was clapping cheering and laughing at all the right moments. Not a single person in the theater was left unsatisfied.
I don’t know how the regular sized screen experience is, but for a few extra bucks, I highly recommend the larger format. IMAX screens are not only larger, they are in fact higher resolution AND much brighter. Other 3D viewing formats use filters that dim the screen a noticeable amount. However, since IMAX employs linear polarizers and maintains a highly reflective screen, the colors are bright, vivid, and true. And if you’re afraid of the experience being too in your face, sit in the back row which is usually least full and affords a view that fits perfectly inside one’s thick rimmed glasses such as my own.
My favorite 3D shot is when the velociraptor peaks his head up from a plastic tarp and cocks his head left and right. The 3D animatronic was so viceral and hauntingly real.
My favorite feature of pre-2000 movies is the infrequent use of overt color correcting and heavy filtering. Because Jurassic Park was lit realistically and the colors were left natural, the realism of the 3D brought the experience to a whole nother level.
IMAX 3D Dinosaurs are awesome!
On a side note my brother and I were trying to find something to learn from the movie regardless of the 3D. Here are some notes we’d like to share.
1) Jurassic Park introduced new “world mechanics”, a term we use to describe mechanisms or ideas that one can use to view the world differently. In this case, Jurassic Park introduced three: (A) Dinosaurs can exist today, (B) if you stay still Tyrannosaurs won’t see you, and (C) Velociraptors are smart and hunt in packs of three. When you leave the theaters as a kid, these are all fascinating ideas to toy with when playing games or imagining stories. It invites the viewer to imagine the world differently than before.
2) Jurassic Park is an escapism film. It takes you into another world complete with dire consequences as well as awe and wonder.
3) Jurassic Park is a horror movie. The first half is an adventure film, introducing you to a new world, but after Dennis Nedry shuts the power down, it because a survival film with dinosaurs as the purely evil creepy killer(s) lurking around ever corner.
4) The Ending felt abrupt because the protagonists did not earn their escape, it happened to them coincidentally. Most adventures have a hero searching for a special object or what many writers call a “McGuffin”. At the very least, the protagonist is actively working toward a goal. This film had neither. Once Dennis Nedry shut down the power, it was simply a movie about surviving. Perhaps one can argue that survival is a goal, but I don’t buy that. There was one scene with a goal or sense of direction: getting the power back on (Ellie in the bunker, Muldoon’s death). After they get the power back on, they’re running from the Velociraptors for another 15 minutes until finally the TRex saves the day. Then suddenly they’re free to go home.
5) John Williams score branded the film with a great and memorable theme song, despite the fact that I personally feel it’s a half developed theme that loops back into itself too quickly or transitions to a second melody instead of going bigger better and more developed. That’s a hard one to explain or argue, but it’s not as fun to hum as something like Star Wars or Superman.
Below is a list of trailer that changed my outlook on life. Seriously, some gave me something to look forward to for several months straight, while others made me question why I’d ever let Hollywood touch my films. So here they are:
Trailers that Changed my Life:
The Two Towers Theatrical Trailer
Nostalgic and honestly pretty lame for the first one minute. But then the music starts brooding, and at 1:28 is one of the best “Hell yes! Whaaat!!!” shots in cinematic trailer history that blew my mind when I saw it, followed by the introduction of THE consummate trailer music: a remix of Clint Mansell’s Requiem for a Dream theme that has been used in fan-boy trailers ever since. The epic-ness of the visuals coupled with the epic-ness of the music make it a classic. I think this was one of the first trailers I downloaded in .MOV format back on the site “movie-list.com”. I also downloaded the remix on Napster! Remember that!? Waiting hours to download 3 MB on 56kbps dial up?!
I must have seen this trailer ten times before sleeping through the midnight screening of it. Needless to say the third movie’s trailer is not on this list.
And just for good measure, the teaser trailer is not bad either.
The Matrix Reloaded Theatrical Trailer
Though the screening of Two Towers went pretty poorly in my mind, it did show the trailer for this bad boy which had me pumped for 5 whole months! Great visuals cut to fun techno driven music (Andy Hunter’s Wonders of You) followed by Rob Dougan’s epic “I’m not driving anymore” instrumental (album version here)…it’s the definition of what I find fun. It got me online finding out the music and downloading Rob Dougan’s Furious Angels album and the original Matrix soundtrack and score. It even made me go out and BUY the Matrix Reloaded 2-CD soundtrack Album and Score weeks before the film’s release (all soundtracks are officially released before the film’s release date, i.e. I didn’t buy it bootlegged). I fell in love with the score especially tracks 3-7 and especially Juno Reactor’s Mona Lisa Overdrive, which we used for our friends Magic Promo video back in 2006. I knew the music by heart by the time I walked into the theaters. So when everyone else was enjoying the film for the first time, I was was bobbing my head to the music, and disappointed when the end came and it went to Don Davis’s bastardization of his own theme. Another disappointing film, but at least in this one, there’s was 10 whole minutes of bliss in the theaters. It also played the teaser trailer to Bad Boys II (below) that would give me something to look forward to for the next two months.
Bad Boys II Teaser Trailer
First off, I had never seen Bad Boys I before seeing this, but I had seen The Rock, which I owned on VHS and maybe also DVD at the time (I now own it on Blu-Ray as well), but I did know that Bad Boys existed and being a good boy I never got around to asking my parents to rent the movie “Bad Boys”. But I knew who Michael Bay was and knew his IMDB. I also knew who Will Smith was, and knew his IMDB. I also have a photographic memory for film visuals and trailer visuals. So for the first 15 second I had no idea what the film was about, but I recognized the visual style, and liked the editing and music, but when I saw the Navy seals pop out of the water, I turned toward my brother and his turn confirmed our shared thought: Somebody stole that shot from The Rock! But when Will Smith and Martin Lawrence popped up 15 seconds later, we both screamed “Bad Boys 2!!!” to the whole theater. And then a wonderful minute and a half followed, complete with sexy imagery, bright saturated locales, explosions, girls, action, cars flipping, crazy camera moves, fun music and protagonists smiling, laughing, singing the theme song, and making silly ass jokes like “We usually only do the chorus”. What more can you ask for in a movie? Seriously. It looked like a ton of fun to watch! By the end we knew we were going to watch it. Period. So we avoided trailers for it, closing our eyes and plugging our ears when it would come on TV or in theaters. And two months later when we finally saw it, we were satisfied. So much so that we went out to find the other trailers and found what I think is the best trailer ever made.
Bad Boys II Theatrical Trailer
From start to finish: it’s full throttle. The first whole minute is a basically a summary of the best car chase in the movie. It includes all the funny jokes and ends on a shared moment of are-we-having-fun-yet when Will Smith lets out a “Woooo!!” Followed by flashy logos and more jokes and sick editing and burnout flash transitions, ending in the LOL moment of Will Smith’s reaction to “I was at a family barbecue”. We ARE having fun. And then it keeps going. More jokes, more fast cutting, and non-stop invented dialogues and story due to the magic of trailer editing. And it all tops off after Will Smith’s classic line: “We ride together, we die together, Bad Boys for life,” which eschews in the perfect trailer music from the Face/Off soundtrack (thanks John Powell, you the man!) which sets up the pace for the epic car crashes and explosions that culminate to the final shared moment: Will Smith and Martin Lawrence laughing and having fun, like the audience.
Trailers Today that have me going again:
That’s the end of the trailers that really changed my life so here are some trailers that got me excited recently. We’ll start with Michael Bay’s return to character driven films like Bad boys.
Pain and Gain TV Spot
Admittedly, the theatrical trailer was weird. It definitely made the movie look like nothing happened. Unlike Bad Boys 1, there’s no explosions or crazy car chases, but I understand since just like Bad Boys 1, this film was made for the price of a bad horror movie, probably 10% of a normal budget for a Michael Bay film. Don’t get me wrong it still got me excited to see Marky Mark and Dwayne Johnson on the big screen with Bay behind camera, but it was definitely a weird trailer. But the TV spot really boils it down and has me going again. It has everything I love again: bright saturated visuals in a sunny locale, large nice and fun egos, and great trailer music. Sure you may not love dubstep, but the track they played worked perfectly for the high energy and chaotic footage and editing. It was simply a fun video to watch and listen to. And now I’m really excited for what Michael Bay has to offer us. No big expectations, but I at least know it will be fun and ridiculous.
Fast & Furious 6 Superbowl Theatrical Trailer
First off, Fast Five was awesome. It was fun, hyper-masculine, and had huge egos fighting and smiling. You couldn’t ask for more in a movie. And since Fast Five, The Rock has become stronger, more famous, and more of my everyday life since I follow his Facebook page. So I’m already excited for Fast 6. And to be honest the first half of the trailer was a bunch of bad dialogue and unnecessary plot. But the last 30 seconds sold it. I mean come on! Ludicrous says it all, “Um, they got tanks!” Move aside Indy 3, I think we’re in store for the best tank chase ever! I was a little skeptical when watching this the first time at the super bowl, but then a car flies out of the front an exploding cargo plane and I was sold. They know why we go to the theaters still. To have fun and watch a spectacle! We’ll see if it delivers, but I haven’t been this excited for an action film in a long time.
Favorite trailers for films I first saw on DVD or VHS:
Independence Day Theatrical Trailer
It’s the perfect summary for the classic film. It’s got action, epic visuals, and a loop of Hans Zimmer music for a whole two minutes. In fact, it opens up with music from Speed for the first 30 seconds, followed by Hans Zimmer’s Crimson Tide Roll Tide theme for two minutes straight, then the Terminator Two theme song ending for the last 2 seconds. It even inspired us to make that same Crimson Tide loop into an 11 minute video, which is a much favorited video among fans of the theme.
The Rock Theatrical Trailer
The first minute pulls down the replay value, but once the Bad Boys soundtrack kicks in around 1:23, I can’t stop watching it. The fast, easy to watch editing, the narration, the invented dialogues, the clever way they introduce the lead actors and give them something to say, and the consummate trailer finale music make this a top-notch trailer. Around 1:55 the chase music from Bad Boys kicks in and the narrator starts name dropping: Don Simpson, Jerry Bruckheimer, Top Gun, Crimson Tide, Michael Bay, Bad Boys, Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage, Ed Harris: Fire! Then the drag race music for Bad Boys kicks in and we get treated to an onslaught of beautiful action footage that seems to be from 100 different locations, all edited perfectly to the music of Mark Mancina for an epic crescendo of images and explosions. The finale music was so perfect we even used it for the finale of our spoof trailer BHBB that made fun of both Bruckheimer and Bay films. This is also one of our favorite movies to watch. It’s a little slow at parts, but the music is so much fun to listen to. It’s like the best rock band on the planet teamed up with Zimmer to play some awesome themes and fun action cues. Yet to this day, I’ve never heard anything that sound even remotely similar to The Rock’s soundscape. It’s also a fun movie to watch. From the mutiny scene until the end of the credits, every second is tense nostalgic and above all fun.
Broken Arrow Theatrical Trailer
Not really a favorite trailer or even that good of a trailer in my mind. In fact, the music pulls it back for the middle minute or so, and the finale cue is just hard to have fun with on first listen. And the narration is just bad. But it’s one of our favorite movies so I thought I’d share its trailer. Maybe it’s because it was one of the first action films we ever saw, but more likely because it has an amazing score by Hans Zimmer, non-stop action, leads (both good and bad) who smile incessantly and are having fun at all times, and because of John Woo’s visual style.
And just as a reference the finale cue for the trailer is Charlie Loses his Head, from Hans Zimmer’s Black Rain soundtrack, which was Zimmer’s first collaboration with Ridley Scott. And if you skip to 6:10, you can hear The Dark Knight/Batman Begins theme.
Star Wars Episode I Theatrical Trailer
Admittedly, we saw this trailer before the films came out, since I remember downloading it from apple.com/trailers back in the day. But it’s still so good.
Worst Trailers for Movies I like and Movies that Sucked:
Pirates 1 Teaser Trailer
Cheesy music, stock footage, and no plot. It got me really disappointed in Jerry Bruckheimer. Like he had sold out and made another bad kid’s movie. Kangaroo Jack had released in January 2003 (also produced by Bruckheimer), and we all saw the trailers for that. So I wasn’t too excited about Disney’s Pirates. Furthermore, it starred Tim Burton, I mean Johnny Depp. Ah, they’re the same person. So the movie was for sure going to be weird. Fortunately, while visiting my uncle in Orlando, Florida for our yearly summer vacation, he dragged us to go see the kid’s film. And we were blown out of the water. Boy was it a fun summer movie. It had fun dialogue, large egos, big characters, bright saturated locales, crazy action, and fun music that we were positive was written by Hans Zimmer, but turned out was some guy named Klaus Badelt. The scene where Geoffrey Rush tells Keira Knightley to start believing in ghost stories had us convinced that Zimmer wrote the music or someone stole the Gladiator theme for their soundtrack. We even stayed until the end of the credits to successfully find out that Hans Zimmer had indeed produced the soundtrack, but didn’t compose it (though by the time the sequels rolled out, Hans Zimmer admitted to writing the themes in a 2 night stint so his composers at Media Ventures, now Remote control productions, could finish the score in 19 days thanks to Alan Silvestri’s subpar attempt; see paragraph below. Furthermore note: Alan Silvestri recently scored The Avengers which, by no accident it seems, had a really crappy theme song). We loved the movie so much that we bought the score for this film too, ripped it to WAV on our computer and used Adobe Premiere 6.0 to edit an 18 minute best of suite, that we listen to on at least a weekly basis. It also started a DuenasFilms tradition of making best-of suites that has produced mixes for Pirates 2, 3, Dark Knight, The Rock, Independence Day, and others. It also made us check out the theatrical trailer which is actually pretty good:
Pirates of the Caribbean Theatrical Trailer
So it’s not one of my favorite trailers but there’s not much to complain about AND it’s got a great last 30 seconds scored by none other than Hans Zimmer (well it’s from another Hans Zimmer soundtrack: Drop Zone, specifically After the Dub).
Aside: The source of the Pirates soundtracks
So here it is. The article that tells all about how the pirates scoring went down. http://www.soundtrack.net/content/article/?id=205
Basically, the story is as follows. Alan Silvestri gets hired to score Pirates, thus the cheesy pirates music in the Teaser Trailer above (the stuff Silvestri was showing them probably sounded as campy and kiddy as his music for Super Mario Bros. or his Who Framed Roger Rabbit score). At the last minute, Gore and Bruckheimer decide its not working, so they fire him. Fortunately for Hans, both Gore and Bruckheimer had worked with Zimmer on previous films (Gore’s The Ring and Bruckheimer’s Crimson Tide & The Rock) and call him up to finish the job. Unfortunately, Hans is in a binding contract with Ed Zwick and Tom Cruise to not work on any other film for the next 6 months until they release The Last Samurai, so Zimmer can’t officially work on it. So what does Zimmer do? He gets drunk and jams out with his composing friends for a whole night and produces a 5 minute demo track that contains the Pirates theme and the film score’s “sonic world”. They finish at 4:35am and title the demo track 4:35am and send it to Bruckheimer who signs Media Ventures (Zimmer’s studio which houses under on roof several composers including Klaus Badelt, Blake Neely, Geoff Zanelli and others) to finish the 2 1/2 hour score in 19 days. Thus the crappy mixes, harsh quality, derivative themes, and high energy of the score.
The article includes a link to the original demo track that Hans Zimmer wrote drunk with a bunch of his composing buddies at Media Ventures. The link is broken, but I uploaded a video on YouTube presented here as “4:35am“. You’ll notice the background riff from Miami Jump from the Drop Zone soundtrack and a riff that appears again in The Contender (TV, 2004) theme song.
I think it was the quest for figuring out Hans Zimmer’s involvement that lead us to this site as well:
Credits to film Trailers:
http://www.soundtrack.net/trailers/
The site lists the names of songs used in trailers for Hollywood films. It lead us to X-Ray dog and Immediate Music which are recording studios that specifically produce a bunch of generic trailer music for Hollywood to use under license. Their music as a genre is called Production music and includes music specifically made for commercial music or filler music on any TV show.
Star Wars episode I Teaser Trailer
Hard transitions, no story, and cheesy narration. It’s a pure teaser but at least we were getting another Star Wars! Though we had all seen the digital remastering in 1997, so we all had our reservations.
It is the goal of the Duenas Brothers to entertain audiences in a manner that will make them dream anew. The following rules will be adhered to:
1. The movie must introduce a new world mechanic.
2. The stakes must always be high.
3. Core conflict should either be some natural force or a formidable villain.
4. The good guy must be having fun. And he always wins.
5. The protagonist must want everything with a passion.
6. Clearly defined good and bad.
7. Charged characters. Either root for them, or love to hate them.
8. Bring them to tears, then make them cheer.
9. The protagonist shall always be in peril.
10. Scenes should in some way come out of a character’s actions.
11. Good fortune works only if it comes at the worst possible moment.
12. Dialogue is to be worked into action scenes.
13. Do not use JJ Abram’s “what is going on?” technique to drive a movie.
14. Color grading must be natural or brighter and more energetic than natural.
15. There must be quotables, memorable lines, or catch-phrases.
Rules to Making a Fun Movie (or a Blockbuster):
The following elaborates on the notes above with some discussion.
1. The movie must introduce a new world mechanic, that is something that makes you see the world differently. For example, the neuralizer, any conspiracy theory, super powers (like Jedi or flight), or gadgets (like Bond). The idea is to make you see more to the world than is actually there. The world mechanic has more staying power than anything else in the movie.
2. The stakes must always be high. The greater the stakes, the more riveted we will be. In a sense, the protagonist’s livelihood is at the core of all stakes, but saving the world is much more interesting than just getting home. For comedies and smaller movies, the character’s defining need is the stake that is set for the movie (e.g. to win the tournament for grandma or himself). But action and adventure movies usually center on saving the world, and horror movies usually center on survival. On that note, see #9.
3. Core conflict should either be some natural force, to get people working together (Armageddon), or a formidable villain (Bond villains, Speed bomber, The Terminator, Sauron, Alien invaders).
4. The good guy must be having fun. And he always wins. Nothing defines the mood of the movie as much as the mood of the lead. If he’s charming, you’ll be charmed (Bond, Tom Cruise). If he’s moody or emotionless (Russell Crowe, Christian Bale), the movie will be depressing or flat. Casting is therefore very important. Nothing ruins a good movie like the protagonist losing, even if it’s “necessary” to the character’s arc or supposedly funny. With VERY few exceptions (The Killer), if the character is someone who needs to lose, you’re telling the wrong story.
5. The protagonist must want everything with a passion. The protagonist’s attitude propels every scene in the movie. If he wants or needs something badly, the stakes are intrinsically higher and the movie can move forward naturally.
6. Clearly defined good and bad. At any given moment, we can tell who is the good guy and bad guy and why. This establishes a clear conflict in each scene.
7. Charged characters. Either root for them, or love to hate them. Anything in between is poor screen-writing. You actually want actors to vie for screen-time, particularly those playing secondary characters; it makes their characters more interesting.
8. Bring them to tears, then make them cheer. The movie must end in a positive note, with uplifting and energetic music. Tears may not happen in shorts, but it must happen in features (or you should really feel for the character(s) at some point).
9. The protagonist shall always be in peril at any given moment of the script. Think Armageddon or Speed; the moment one peril is resolved, another presents itself.
10. Scenes should in some way come out of a character’s actions. They shouldn’t just happen. Basic screen-writing, but it’s not something I learned or appreciated until recently. A leads to B, lead to C, and so forth. And sometimes, A leads to R, which comes way down the road, and we can forget that A lead to R, but in some way, it did.
11. Good fortune works only if it comes at the worst possible moment. That is, disguise or hide good fortune in the midst of great peril. You can also get away with humor on a case-by-case basis.
12. Dialogue is to be worked into action scenes. That is, audiences will ignore clear exposition scenes if it’s in the middle of action or if you make them laugh hard. Develop characters in the middle of action, not in dry conversations between compelling scenes.
13. Do not use JJ Abram’s “what is going on?” technique to drive a movie. This may keep people interested, but for most, it just makes the experience very uncomfortable. It also renders the movie useless for repeat viewings (Inception, Lost, The Usual Suspects, the entire first half of the Matrix).
14. Do not destroy the colors. In fact, use more color than exists in reality. Kids movies are fun, colorful and bright. Adult movies are dark and colorless. We are making fun, colorful movies.
15. Memorable quotes are inside jokes with millions of other viewers. “Hasta la vista, baby,” conjures a happy memory among the millions of people who recognize it. “I’ll be back,” is an every day phrase that now carries an enjoyable memory with it. Good quotes make people remember the movie in a good light.
Miscellaneous Notes and Guidelines:
Note: Good comedy is over-acting. Good action is over-action. Don’t let actors tell you otherwise. “Faster and with more intensity” is true. Always.
Note: Action scenes require less takes per shot but more shots overall. Even so, they’re faster than dialogue because they depend less on the variable performance of the actors. If it’s in frame, you have it. Remember that when shooting and writing. Dialogue scenes may have less setups, but will take much longer than a series of shots you can get off in one take. The longer the take during dialogue scenes, the more cues there are to hit, the more blocking is required, and the more chance for mistakes.
Note: Regarding spoofs/satire, making fun of something is dangerous and antagonistic. It might be okay at times, but it shouldn’t be the point of the film. Having fun with an idea is more positive and fun. A movie, including YouTube, is to be fun. It’s escapism. The kind of thinking we want our audiences doing is “how can this idea make my dreams cooler?” Not “You’re right, the guys you made fun of are doing something stupid.” Remember that.
Fun with, not Fun of.
Note: Armageddon worked because the main source of conflict came from big egos and different approaches to achieving the same selfless end goal: saving the world.
