New Interview - The Collective Podcast

I've always loved the Sound of Music, which I grew up with at a time when it caused a world wide sensation. Young people today may not comprehend this. It played literally for years in theaters. I saw it for the first time while living in Kenya in '65. When I started attending school in Seoul in 1970, it was playing in Korea and all the kids knew all the songs in Korean, and we'd sing them in music class.

Today, looking past the nostalgia, I am in awe at the very high level of craft involved in every aspect of its production, and I can understand its ability to affect audiences of all ages and backgrounds. The great Ernest Lehman and Robert Wise deserve a lot of the credit apart from the usual appreciation for the cast and Rodgers and Hammerstein. (Compare it to the awful recent live TV version of the musical.) The innate qualities of Maria's character are seamlessly woven into the drama such that their cumulative effect makes the twist (her marrying the captain) satisfying, natural, inevitable, yet surprising all at once.

As a younger filmmaker, intense and violent scenes, especially in horror movies and thrillers often used to excite and inspire me. You could see how the director was plying his skills, and it would make me want to try to get a rise out of my audience by applying such tricks. Young directors often start their careers doing horror (including Robert Wise) for that reason.

Today, I look at a scene like the dinner in the Sound of Music, when Maria gently and graciously sets the whole table of kids bawling, and I'm floored by the guts and confidence it would take to pull that off. (Both the writing and directing.)

All while managing to make the scene funny for the audience at the same time, I might add.

My tolerance for unearned emotional manipulation is quite low, although I cried on Thanksgiving Eve from Planes, Trains & Automobiles and I'm not annoyed about it.

A recent new favorite was Lord Love a Duck, going easily into my top 30 or so. Was lucky enough to see it in a theater, but if you must:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPFmBsvNxDU

(Cashmere sweater scene is unbelievable.)

Haven't seen Sound of Music since I was a kid, and will be unfortunately missing the chance to see it theatrically in a few weeks. I'll get to it eventually.

I'd be in on Aeon Flux crowdfunding for at least $1,000.

Looking over this thread, I saw that I never answered this question:

"Are there any authors or specific novels that you would say had strong influences on your development as an artist?"

I get asked this every year by my students. My answer is one I've given on these boards before. The Trial by Kafka. Jealousy by Robbe-Grillet. Pale Fire by Nabokov. Over the years, I've read (or have tried to read) a lot of science fiction too, but it always come back to these three authors. ( I've given up on trying to slog through Neal Stephenson and Iain M. Banks.)

On writing for film, Dashiell Hammett has taught me the most. Many of my students say they would like to learn to be better at story. Not how to use words, but how to construct narrative. I tell them just to read everything written by Hammett. It isn't a lot. He has five (short) novels and several collections of short stories. Without even trying, at the end of the exercise, you will know everything you will need to write for the screen. Your brain will have acquired a mode of thinking in terms of plot mechanics and structure. That includes clear and concise character motivation.

One of the projects I worked on developing right before Aeon Flux was an animated feature to be based on Hammett's comic strip, Secret Agent X-9. The project was never made, but some of the plots from the AF series were directly inspired by Hammett. Utopia or Deuteranopia? was influenced by Red Harvest. Ether Drift Theory had elements from The Glass Key. The Glass Key is the best of his novels, and was adapted closely for the Coen Brothers' best film (IMO), Miller's Crossing.

WARNING - SPOILER ALERT:
.
.
.
.
.
In the Glass Key, the hero must allow himself to commit morally questionable actions, including an apparent betrayal, for the sake of an ultimate goal that would save his friend and redeem himself. The simulation of immoral actions, however motivated, end up having unforeseen internal consequences, in spite of a positive objective outcome. And since that ultimate goal is far from guaranteed, making the stakes not just death, but false condemnation.

These are the two worst emotionally manipulative devices in the Disney / Pixar formula. And the reason I can't watch them.

1. One of the main characters dies. Dead as a doornail. The scene is played to wrench maximum distress from the character's friend and the audience.
Then, without fail, he/she comes back to life and everyone's happy again. The whole meaning of sacrifice is rendered moot. Many superhero movies and JJ Abrams are also guilty. I wonder if audiences still even fall for this crap.

2. The two main buddy characters have a falling-out due to a misunderstanding or disappointment. Depressing break-up scene followed by crisis of confidence. It all looks hopeless, they give up.
Last minute rally where they decide they don't hate each other really. Through working together, they prevail. I'd like to see, just once, characters who are mature enough to keep working together in spite of emotional injury.

This kind of thing is bad form, but I will mention it:
I deliberately played against trope #2 in Firebreather. In my mind, I believed you could wrench greater and more genuine admiration for a character if he rose above emotional injury and stayed loyal.

Duncan's friends, both Kenny and Jenna reject him at a crucial moment. Duncan gets angry and sulks for exactly one minute. He returns and saves those who rejected him, even calling them his friends. It's the emotional high point of the story. I'd imagined it as a stand-up-and-cheer moment and a feel-good scene for the audience. As it plays, it is actually a deeply sad moment, which makes him a stronger hero.

One more thing. This is mostly a shot at Disney.
Third act reveal of who the real villain is - it's always the one who first appears warm, friendly and helpful to the hero.
Zootopia, Wreck-It Ralph, Frozen, Big Hero Six.
(Currently living with eight-year old.)

"One of the main characters dies. Dead as a doornail. The scene is played to wrench maximum distress from the character's friend and the audience. Then, without fail, he/she comes back to life and everyone's happy again."

Ugh, yes, this always annoys me when it crops up (Guardians Of The Galaxy, I'm looking at you.)

Although something I find just as irritating are the stories that take the opposite tactic, where a major character is shown to have been dead all along and only a dream, hallucination, or memory of another character. I'm really getting tired of this plot device; in the films that resort to it, it's always used for either a cheap twist, or to convey some pseudo-profound moral like "it's good to let go of the past."

(Penguindrum subverted (maybe sidestepped is a better word) this particular trope; just one reason why I adore that show.)

I think of commercial animated and CG-fest live action films as rides. They're safe, well-made, and sometimes a lot of fun, but when the ride is over, that's it. I loved the visuals in Your Name, fr'ex, but I haven't had any strong feelings about Your Name since watching it, and in retrospect it's a totally forgettable film.

There's a recent anime series, From The New World, that did leave a strong impression on me. I can't give it an unqualified recommendation -- it takes the taste for post-Evangelion bleakness to unprecedented levels -- but it managed to knock the emotional stuffing out of me, while at the same time playing against many of my expectations. It wasn't an easy watch, but it stayed with me afterwards like few other shows have.

The most irksome aspect of the resurrection device is that the character doesn't seem to have had his consciousness altered in any way by the experience of dying.
In both Mission Impossible 3 and Star Trek Into Darkness, Ethan and Kirk both DIE and return to life like it's something they do like washing their hair. In MI3, he just picks up where he left off in the middle of a gun battle.
These aren't near-death experiences, which in real life, change a person's perspective on everything they believed in. They are cheap gimmicks by a storyteller to make the audience admire their hero for putting everything on the line. Except they didn't.

Well, in the case of Star Trek, it is a franchise that routinely kills off and resurrects its characters.

And hey, it's cool not to be affected by shit. That's the American way.

Backpedaling here: Mulholland Drive used the exact trope I claim to hate, but that film is a work of genius. I guess the difference is that it earns the right to its "twist", instead of forcing it to score cool points.

While working on a story about finding meaning in a finite existence, I am struck by a brief moment in Prometheus. It's in the midst of the climax, so it passes almost without notice, but it's remarkable.
The captain, Janek, offers to pilot the ship himself, suggesting that his two crew mates could live for up to two years on the lifeboat. They choose not to live, implying that they would find such an existence pointless. It's a poignant moment in a story about a man's quest for immortality.

I've read the Glass Key and a handful of Hammett's short stories based on your recommendation Peter. I greatly enjoy the shorts especially (and not just because one of the chase scenes takes them on my street and literally right past my current apartment!), and I'm seeing part of what you're getting at. There's no puzzling over why such and such is happening, except to the extent that there's usually an overall mystery. Similarly, there's a short clip of Trey Parker and Matt Stone (South Park) that became "famous" where they say essentially that all of your key story beats/scenes/sequences/whatever should be connected by a "THEREFORE" or a "BUT", and not an "AND THEN..." (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGUNqq3jVLg).

I've taken all of this into account while writing a screenplay - it's fascinating to say "no wait a minute, this wouldn't be happening - why would the character do this?" and then either figure out why the character would do it or change/cut the scene.

It's also improved how I watch films. On Friday I saw Ferris Bueller's Day Off again for the first time in well over a decade (maybe two), and was highly critical of it for the first 2/3rds. Besides Bueller being a jerk, there are bad motivation, character, and story problems. Their Chicago trip is a series of short episodes largely there just to deliver little gags. Later on the motivations get articulated better, the final third is strong with purpose and momentum, and in retrospect you can forgive the earlier lack of clarity. But I can't help but think that with a couple of weeks of script work it could have been even better. It could be as simple as re-shuffling where and when you expand on the motivations, and connecting the city trip with a few extra lines - have the maitre'd at the fancy restaurant offer them complimentary baseball tickets, for example, or have the infamous school dean character (Jeffrey Jones) more actively on their tails rather than setting him up for one mistaken identity gag.

The reason The Glass Key had the impact it did was because I'd first read Red Harvest, The Maltese Falcon and The Dain Curse. All of which are more "classical" narratives. The Maltese Falcon has been so influential over the years that you have to imagine being a reader at the time it was published to truly appreciate it as the source of so much that has since become standard narrative strategy. Since you have read The Glass Key, watch Miller's Crossing, one of the best film adaptations of a novel I can think of.

I can't argue that Stone and Parker have found a way to be very prolific and successful by following their path. I have personally never watched anything they've done.
I suppose that for me, the greatest realization I've had is that it isn't the story that matters so much as how you tell it.

Thanks for sticking around. I am (honest!) going to be making a major announcement here soon.

The biggest hurdle I have found in getting colleagues and students to understand cinematic storytelling (or drama) is that it must be approached on two levels simultaneously. It isn't enough to convey the story. That is the big picture. At the same time, the story must be embodied in scenes that are engaging on their own, regardless of the plot they serve. It is the attention a director pays to constructing scenes that is crucial to engaging an audience.
The scene must serve the story. That is understood by any director. What many do not grasp is that the story also exists to provide a pretext for a good scene. This is a big part of my complaint about Oshii's GITS.

Conventional wisdom is that general audiences watch films or TV for the story. But that is really only half of the film's task. Generally unspoken is the audience's desire to witness well directed scenes.
A script exists to provide a director with something to direct. If the directing is masterful, an audience will be satisfied, though they may not fully understand why.
It's like the question of whether the brain's purpose is to serve the stomach, or is it the stomach's purpose to serve the brain?
Is the director's job to serve the script, or is it the script's job to serve the director? It is both at once.

It's dismaying to see major productions in which the director has made no effort to crafting engaging scenes. Somehow they think that the job need consist of no more than having characters sit around and deliver expositional dialogue. Some recent examples come to mind. David Yates' Harry Potter movies, Francis Lawrence's Hunger Games sequels, animated DVD features of DC comics characters, most Japanese animated features, especially CG films like Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV and Captain Harlock.

Heh, I'm glad you made these two follow-up posts, as I wanted to ask exactly what you answered.

For a long time I was on the side of "the story is just BS, the in-between is what's interesting", but I've come around to the value and importance of both.

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/aeon-flux/

Another recent interview, which was intended as a process-centered discussion on the title sequence. I ended up spouting off a lot of what I've been posting here one these boards.
Drew Neumann also goes into a lot of detail about his working methods. Thanks, Drew.

All of this discussion in work done so long ago would be sad - but....!

;-)

Looking forward to reading that later, had been wondering about Drew as well recently.

Two questions, not particularly interesting ones:

1) Is a Blu-Ray of the AF series in the cards anytime soon or should I just go ahead and get the DVDs, which I never owned?

2) I haven't seen The Demiurge in 10+ years and remember almost nothing about it. Read the script you've posted first, or rewatch and then read?

1) Get the DVDs, then buy the Blu-Ray if it ever gets made. There are no current plans for it, but it could happen, though not for years.

2) Read the script first. When I wrote it with Steve DeJarnatt, I pictured a very different film than what resulted. Of all the episodes, this is the one I'd love to go back and totally redo. Howard Baker worked hard on it, but, there were censorship restrictions that prevented it from being as intense as it should have been. Especially act one.