Structureless Films

The writer I suggested do a beat sheet countered that a couple of fave movies, Lost in Translation and Sideways, didn't have stories so what's the big deal?

She HAD to love a couple of movies that I abhor for their lack of story and in the case of Lost in Translation, a film I also find racist, or at least a movie that yet again elevates the problems of white people in another culture, while turning the members of that culture into extras in their own country.

First, the lack of story in both Lost in Translation and Sideways is fashionable. My concern is with trying to learn screenwriting from those scripts. Lost In Translation cheats the audience out of the most important moment in the story, such as it is: what exactly did Bill Murray whisper to Scarlett Johansen? But seriously, who cares? Here's a movie that shows Japanese people as either ranting idiots--the Japanese commercial director--or prostitutes--the prostitute. Are there any other Japanese characters these self-absorbed white people ever meet, interact with, care about or know in their time in Tokyo? This is a movie where nothing happens, not even a romance between the leads, (as yucky as that probably would have been), and they don't even get out of the damn hotel long enough to discover anything about one of the most amazing cities in the world.

Sideways has great performances going for it and four really terrific characters, (that is good writing), but I don't think it has anything to teach about structure, especially given the completely unearned payoff at the end the Paul Giamatti character receives.

So if you love those films, you are NOT responding to strong structure. Indeed, Lost in Translation is a classic episodic plot. The episodes could be reordered in almost any fashion without any damage. Aristotle claimed audiences of drama didn't cotton on to episodic plots and I agree.

I guess the best I could say about both films, is that they are exceptions to screenwriting being fundamentally about structure. They may have many pleasure, like mood, dialogue, character, but structure is not their strong suit. So if the writer I attempted to counsel prefers those films to ones with a strong story, I understand. But it's not where I come from and from what I can tell, what most successful screenplays generally contain at their core, viz. a strong structure.

Sometimes it's not a screenplay

I just read a short film script that's being submitted for a contest. The writer is an excellent writer with a nice personal take on the world that comes through very clearly in what she writes. And her piece had a nice payoff at the end.

But after reading it, I realized it would make a fantastic short story, instead of a script. The entire story basically took place in the lead character's head as she mused in voice over about her feelings staying in a New York hotel. All of which is nicely sarcastic and entertaining as far as it went.

What didn't happen was anything. In other words, nothing HAPPENED. And for me, screenplays need something to happen. Even in a short five minute piece, you still need a story and you need conflict and you need a climax and a resolution. Otherwise, you're left with mood, tone and attitude.

Directors LOVE that stuff, because it gives them a reason to wank with the camera.

But the screenwriter abdicates their position if that's the kind of script they write. The only person responsible for the STORY is the screenwriter. Lose the story, and the screenwriter is now a typist for the director.

Aristotle was right. If you want an audience to respond to your script, make sure something happens.

Lip Service to Screenwriters

At the behest of the WGC, today I joined other screenwriters like Pete Mitchell (The Guard), Steve Lucas (Blue Murder), Peter Mohan (Blood Ties), Sarah Dodd (The Border) and Denis McGrath (The Border) to protect the interests of Canadian screenwriters in the wake of the amalgamation of the CTF and the Canadian New Media Fund into the catch all fund to finance TV and gaming (and other other online media) called the CMF or Canadian Media Fund.

What was billed as the Toronto focus group was really an unwieldy conference of at least 500 attendees in a cavernous subterranean hall in the Toronto convention centre. This "focus group" was the latest in a series of consultations across the country. (Though when the moderator announced that these consultations had had anywhere from 20 to 100 people attending in the past, I wonder how could 500 people in Toronto equal 20 people somewhere else. I guess that's what someone living in the 416 area code is worth to them?)

The whole experience reminded me why I'd rather be a writer. In fact, I wish I were home writing than attending this thing. But my ability to earn an income from screenwriting depends on how this fund gets implemented so I felt compelled to attend.

Most of the time was taken with the leaders of the fund explaining the new rules to the gathered throng in Orwellian language. Do these bureaucrats actually read what they write? They have labeled the two funding streams "Convergent" and "Experimental" but as far as I can tell the difference boils down to the first having a TV component and the second one not having a TV component. So why not call the streams, TV and Other? Or TV and Not TV? A good half an hour was spent explaining what they meant by convergent and experimental--and they admitted that experimental wasn't a good name!

Screenwriters must write so that their intentions CAN'T be misinterpreted because if it's possible to be misinterpreted, it will be. At least that's my modus operendi. And so the obfuscation in the language of todays consultation was headache inducing for me. Clarity is a screenwriter's currency but it's in short supply among bureacrats.

I'm concerned that this fund is going to get hijacked by the broadcasters/production companies who've made no secret of their desire to see public money like the CMF be siphoned off to foreign nationals to run their story departments and be the star of their show. In fact, a broadcaster went so far as to demand that at the session. And it was given as much credence as the numerous voices demanding public money support only 10 out of 10 productions, as it does currently--that is, fully Canadian on and off screen. But when the day was summarized, the multiple voices for 10 out of 10 equalled the single broadcaster demand for reducing Canadian content.

It felt like lip service was being paid to the attendees. We were pitted against each other by the CMF bureaucrats, who apparently just want us to all get along. Producers versus broadcasters versus screenwriters. Why put us all in a room and expect consensus? Why not meet with the various stakeholders separately and see what we have to say? I guess that would have been too considerate and responsible because today felt like the whole thing was a kiss off to consultation. They can say they consulted us and now do what they want.

Steve Lucas, Denis McGrath, Sarah Dodd, Peter Mohan--these writers are primarily responsible for hundreds of hours of successful television that's been exported and made money for the producers, (probably more than these writers made.) They spoke passionately and intelligently and yet were just placed on a lip service list at the end of the day.

Another day in the life of a Canadian screenwriter. How long before that becomes a contradiction in terms?

Same story different script

When struggling with a story's structure, I think it's important to realize that it's always possible for a story structure to be executed in different ways.

Witness, starring Harrison Ford, is a good example. If you watch the film, then read the screenplay you'll discover that while both have the same story, they are quite different in execution. For example, the climax in the screenplay is quite different from the film. In the script, John Book employs a mule who kicks in the head of the bad guy, for example. In the screenplay, he lets loose a silo full of grain on him.

Now some may think that makes these two different stories, since the endings are different. But structurally, the stories are the same. What happens? John Book defeats the bad guy using his newfound Amish knowledge of the farm.

It's only how it happens that is different.

"John Book defeats the bad guy using his newfound Amish knowledge of the farm." That is a mini-story. It has a character, performing a difficult action opposed by a fearsome adversary. It's not particularly interesting in this form, but it is a story.

The how in both the screenplay and the movie are equally valid executions of the story structure for an audience. However, I suspect the film is different because it's easier to find a silo full of grain to photograph, than to train a mule to kick on cue without killing the actor.

The film doesn't violate the story, though. If John Book pulled out an AK-47 he had hidden in the trunk of his car to defeat the bad guy, THAT would have been a different story. But in both the film and the script, Book uses his Amish knowledge to defeat the bad guy. It makes them the same story, despite being very different scripts.

Chicken or egg script analysis

If you scroll down to my post "Why The Hangover Sucks" you can find a comment from someone denouncing my post in somewhat crude language. While I don't think I deserved the name calling for my opinion, he did make me remember why I felt the way I did. I think, parsing his profanity, that he felt I'd imposed a preconceived expectation on the film and because it didn't conform to my idea of what makes a good script, I didn't like it.

But that IS NOT what happens.

What happens when anyone, I think, but at least I, respond to a work of art, analysis is always after the fact. I can't help see something first and respond to it intuitively. Once I understand WHAT I feel, then I can begin to figure out WHY I feel that way.

With The Hangover, I was bored and unamused most of the time. That's my reaction. Now, because I've spent most of my adult life trying to understand how scripts work when they do work, then I apply my experience and opinion to my reaction in order to determine, if I can, why I was bored and unamused.

If you want to know why, you can reread my OP.

But I just am not schizophrenic enough to analyze first and react later. I don't think anyone is, even if they want to be. Sorry to disappoint the commentator of my earlier post, but it just doesn't work that way. Unlike the chicken and the egg conundrum, I definitely know what comes first--my reaction to a movie. WHY comes second. And only if the movie is interesting enough to be worth figuring that out. In the case of The Hangover, it's huge popularity demanded I try and figure out why I didn't conform to everyone else. But then, I'm usually swimming against the tide.

Living National Treasures

I've been in Saskatchewan shooting exteriors for the CBC sitcom Little Mosque on the Prairie, on which I have a fun recurring role as the fundamentalist wannabe "Faisal." (We shoot the interiors on sound stages in Toronto and all the exterior scenes are saved for a shoot in Saskatchewan at the end of each season's work.)

This season, Jayne Eastwood has been added to the cast who along with Deb McGrath, who plays the town's mayor, serve as incredible models of comedy brilliance for me. It was heartbreaking to me to see how much of Deb's comic bits in last season's climactic wedding episode were cut out, I guess for time. I hope they resurface as deleted scenes on the upcoming DVD release.

It's amazing to be on the same set as comediennes of their calibre and I frankly think they are as good as any who have ever been on TV. They are in the same league as Lucille Ball, Bea Arthur or Jean Stapleton.

Naturally, being Canadian, they don't have the same name recognition to audiences--BUT THEY SHOULD.

I suppose the best they can hope for is an Order of Canada, but frankly I wish we could be like Japan and declare our great artists Living National Treasures. As a country, if we acknowledge anyone, it's usually too late. I'd rather Jayne and Deb knew how valuable they are to our culture while they're still around to appreciate it. The Japanese understand this.

I've got my own list of who should be Canada's living national treasures. It's time someone in power did too.

Playing games with Peter and Vera on the set of Orphan

I have a small role in the movie Orphan starring Peter Saarsgard and Vera Farmiga as the ICU doctor trying to save their little boy's life.

When I arrived on set in Montreal I reminded Peter that we'd acted together in a movie 9 years earlier, with me also playing a doctor. He didn't remember me--despite having lunch with him and Oscar-winner Estelle Parsons on set one day--but he thought it hilarious that I show up in his life 9 years later to play another doctor. Type casting. Sigh...

I told Peter and Vera about hearing a story from Liza Minelli at her appearance at the Canadian Film Centre years ago. Apparently on "New York, New York" whenever De Niro and she were doing a scene, and shooting her coverage, he would not feed her the next line until, as she put it, "he heard the truth." At first Peter was appalled at De Niro's apparent arrogance, but as we talked about it, we decided it might be kind of fun. So we proposed it to the director, an intense young Spanish whiz kid, who agreed to let us--well really them--do this and so that's how we played our scenes. We altered the game somewhat in that we weren't really waiting to "hear the truth" but just repeating lines so the other actor had another run at theirs. It was kind of fun and I really enjoyed being able to work on the same level as the stars of the movie. (I've found that once they are past the PR and the entourage, the star making machinery, stars are often like Peter and Vera, very willing to be actors, rather than movie stars with the day players like myself.)

Check out the movie and see if our acting game worked.

Thoughts on beats

I've been trying to help a young screenwriter whose script I read while screenwriter-in-residence at the Toronto Public Library last year. At least I hope I'm helping him revise his script and I've recommended he revert to doing a beat sheet before proceeding to a new draft.

From an email I sent to him responding to his latest crack at a new beat sheet:

Beats are normally written BEFORE the script is written. It's important, in my view, not to try and write the script in the beat sheet, but to craft only the story. Each beat therefore, is created in order to ADVANCE the STORY from the previous beat to the next beat. That is the WHAT happens. A beat is the smallest piece of story. It may mean that a beat will take one scene to dramatize. It may mean it will take several scenes to dramatize, (chase sequences are good examples of this.) It may mean that it will only take part of a scene to dramatize. And those scenes whether written in outline or script form are HOW the WHAT happens happens.

For example, "Romeo professes love for Juliet" is a beat. We have no idea how this will happen. Shakespeare took that beat and turned it into one of the most famous scenes in dramatic literature. I or any other writer would have done something less glorious--but both scenes would tell the same story. The beat sheet is hardly a literary document. It is the story in it's most fundamental, but specific form. That beat sheet can be given to a dozen writers who will craft a dozen different scripts--all with the same story.

I think what you're tending to do because you're partially working backwards, is to try and distill what happened in a scene into your beat. But that isn't going far enough because theoretically you won't be working backwards from the script. You need to figure out what dramatic steps you need in order to tell your story and the smallest dramatic step equals one beat.

Don't get me wrong. What you've done is a great improvement, but in order to make the creative leap the next draft needs, you eventually have to write a beat sheet that feels like it was written before any scenes were ever written. You're inventing--or in this case reinventing--your story.

A lot of things you've already written may be retained, but you don't know that yet. What you must be loyal to is not what you've written, but what is the story you need to tell.

As I said when we met, I think the last half of your story is what works fantastically, but should be the middle act of the new draft. In order to draft a new first act, ask yourself what dramatic beats you need in order to get to that point in your story. Then add the beats that are working which are the middle scenes, by analyzing what is going on in them dramatically. Dramatically means mini-stories. Someone is doing something to someone else. And that someone is not necessarily your lead but it will most often be. Once that's done, then start asking yourself how far you as a writer can take this character and that will form the last third of the new beats.

Giving Criticism

Recently a good friend and colleague asked me to write coverage, (see much earlier posts on this blog to learn what coverage is if you don't know already), for a script he had written. Usually I am happy to give a supportive scan, especially with writer colleagues who are much more talented than I am. I can often learn as much as I can offer by way of feedback.

But my friend was not a seasoned veteran writer, but a neophyte with grand ambitions. And his script did not have the weight or marketability to fulfill those ambitions. Unlike in the past, it took me several days to come to terms with what he had asked me to do and what I had to offer. He'd asked for a professional evaluation. And I knew my evaluation was that at this point, his script would get a failing grade. But I dreaded having to do this.

For a few days I thought about some kind of alternative. Not being honest, but just being vaguely supportive. Perhaps that's what my friend really wanted. Perhaps I should encourage him and let the marketplace decide whether his script had merit. After all, there's plenty of stuff on TV that I can't stand. Yet those shows are bringing in an audience and revenue to their creators. Who am I to be critical?

But finally I came to the conclusion that my own reputation as a story editor would be on the line as well. If I gave him a vaguely supportive opinion, he may use that to sell his show. And if I was right, but had soft-pedaled my concerns in the coverage, what would those who were then assessing his work think of mine? If I was wrong, they wouldn't care what I had to say.

So in the end, I decided to be as honest and even more complete than I would have been if the assignment was from a stranger. I decided not only to write extended coverage with a lot of backup for my view--unlike critical coverage others have written about my work!--I also went through the script and appended it with comments. Over and above what he'd requested. Perhaps he'll see this as overkill and professional jealousy on my part. I hope he's not that sensitive, but I know I take a real risk on our relationship in treating his request as professionally as possible.

I sent my response to him and as yet do not know how he reacted. I know how I feel.

Taking Criticism part 2

I recently began taking golf lessons after spending my life as an enthusiastic, but entirely autodidactic golfer. What a revelation!

But it got me thinking about how my golf instructor Livingston is perfectly capable of being highly "judgmental" -- a cardinal sin for instructors in today's society in my experience -- because there's no subjectivity in the success of my golf shots. It's not his opinion that my shot sucked. I can see exactly how bad my golf shot is. So I can't debate Livingston's assessment of my swing.

Unfortunately, instructing in something totally subjective--writing and acting--doesn't have such clear results to gauge. It actually is my opinion about a student's performance or script that I can offer. And they may disagree, just as there are plenty of people who would disagree with my opinion about the movie, The Hangover, for example. (See my earlier blog on why it sucks, in my OPINION.)

However, instructors in subjective disciplines like mine, can only be gauged on their credibility. As I've been hired consistently for 25 years to work as an actor and a screenwriter, I believe I have some credibility.

I wish students could realize that when I'm judgmental, it is because I am getting them to strive for excellence. I wish I could inspire by nurturing, but it is, I guess, not my nature to be nurturing. My goal is to transmit my passion to anyone interested in receiving it and to push them to be the best they can be.

Teachers like myself are a throwback from modern teaching which has focused on boosting students' self-esteem and supporting them in their studies. I just don't know if that's enough to make aspiring actors or writers employable.