being savvy, breaking cherries, and the grand question what's next?
I wasn't going to write a whole long thing since it's 2am and I'm not in bed, but you know how it goes. Just try and shut me up. Like, ever.
So lately I've been pushing myself and this Monday I stayed late at work and in six hours I wrote 15 pages of Mexico which did not woo me but did not feel atrocious either. I've since revised a couple of times without moving forward. I might do the sit-at-Laika-until-midnight thing more regularly and just shove forward on this. I want so badly to just have one draft done so I can push onward to the next challenge.
The big question seems to be what that'll be. I've been asking it. A couple of friends have been asking it. Both my friends and myself, we mean it two ways. One, what will be the next story idea I really latch onto (let's not beat around the bush here: what I mean is, what will be the script I submit to the 2011 Sundance Institute's Screenwriter's Lab)? And two, what will I produce next?
I made a recent list for my new friend and fellow Writing Grouper Joseph the other day of each "numbered film" and its mission statement (i.e., 1000 Pieces was "make a film with no written script, just an outline and improvisation"; Bathwater was "make a film with no dialogue and keep it short"), and I ended by saying that for my next one-off "I want to do more emotional scenes and I want to rehearse extensively." Those are my shortcomings, the next humps I have to cross as a director, and so whatever I produce next will probably be Object Lesson #7 and will be me finding a reason to do those things. It might be my last short film. But I said that about Open and Every Room is Empty, so I don't know. I am so antsy to be doing it, to make MY FIRST FEATURE (caps lock unintentional but apropos), but I need to know what I'm doing before I finally start. But god, I want to start so badly.
To answer the first part, every script I labor on at this point is like going on a date, looking for The One. Not the soulmate, life-partner, but that special one you share something with and want to take the Next Big Step with. Maybe this analogy needs to be stretched to choosing someone I lose my virginity to. Maybe I just chose the wrong analogy regardless. (It comes to mind because several of my friends have none-too-gently suggested I get out of my rut and date, pushing for joining an online dating site. I told them I'd consider it, and I mean it wholeheartedly, but I won't consider it until I've at least finished a draft of Mexico. If I have a routine of productivity, only then can I begin complicating my life by chasing ladies. I digress.) The point is, I am looking for the project that will break my feature-filmmaker cherry, and although I would love to (heavily) revise and shoot The World of Missing Persons, and I would love to finish and shoot One Day in the Future, neither of those strike me as the perfect film to come out of the gate on. Those may require a more masterly touch to pull off right, and besides that --
-- well, here's the big thing, my latest obsession. I am reading enough screenwriting and filmmaking blogs and devoting enough time and thought to this that I have begun to look at the big picture a little more savvily than I used to. It's not nearly enough to tell a story because I want to. It never was -- it never is -- enough, but it's an easy trap to find yourself in. I have to tell a story people want to hear, make a film people want to watch, sell a film people want to buy. I need to think like the two great Steven S-berg(h)s, Spiel and Soder. (Okay, that namedrop got weird. But I'm not backing down from its weirdness.) They both know how to get their films made, and not just made but seen. Spiel has (almost) always had an uncanny knack of making High Concept and Commercial Appeal look easy, effortless, and natural to the story he's telling. Soder knows how to lure them in with a big hunk of candy and when to experiment with something odder, smaller, or more personal. My point is, at last count there were six bajillion dudes and ladies who want to make movies, and it's arrogant to think that your voice will be special just because it's really special to you -- even if you wrote one hell of a tight script, or even if everything comes together and you've got a totally solid film. Six bajillion films: even if only ten percent are decent and only one percent are really good, that's still what? like half a zillion really good ones out there -- and we all know there's no accounting for taste. (Numbers may not account for inflation. Numbers may in fact not be real numbers.)
If you want to stand out among the zillions, you need to be smart. They always tell you, you have thirty seconds -- roughly two sentences -- to hook me, and once you've done that you have ten pages (or ten minutes of screen time) to really wow me. If you haven't done both those things, I have too many movies to see, too many scripts to read, too many stories to go through to give yours the time of day. So give me a handle, give me something I can sink my teeth into: why should I put down whatever I'm looking at and take more interest in a debut film by some dude (or lady) I've never heard of?
I can think of sixteen different potential answers to that question. Off the top of my head: attached celebrity, high concept pitch, original voice, new take on familiar material, shocking opening and/or ending... and these are just some quick cheap (albeit effective) possibilities. I don't mean I want to give the world more commercial, broad-appeal lowest-common-denominator crap, and I don't mean I want to overshadow my brilliant stories with cheap gimmicks. But I do think it's unreasonably selfish and naive of me to make a film and not begin by asking: Why Would Anybody Want To Sit Through This? If it's not sellable, and I'm not a commodity, who is going to fund it? If I fund it, who is going to make it? If I make it, who is going to watch it? If people see it, who would want to distribute it?
What makes me and my story so goddamn special?
If I don't have an answer -- a quick, short, punchy obvious answer -- right there in the script I'm looking at, then that script is not the right one for me to open with. That's the bottom line.
It goes for all of you, too, but you have to fight your own battles.
I'm going to go give some more thought to what it means to be "savvy" and then I'm going to go through all my notes and look for the highest-concept, hookiest and boldest story idea, and wonder if I can't pull a damn fine script together around it. If it's your first night in town and nobody knows you yet, you play your rockinest song first. You open strong. Once they've fallen in love, they'll give you their patience and attention and you can take risks and show them your chops, but let's be honest. Before OK Computer there was "Creep," and before In Utero there was "Smells Like Teen Spirit." You have to earn attention, and you're starting out at a disadvantage -- as a nobody. So what makes you so goddamn special?
Just something to keep in mind as I go hunting for that cherry-breaker.
So lately I've been pushing myself and this Monday I stayed late at work and in six hours I wrote 15 pages of Mexico which did not woo me but did not feel atrocious either. I've since revised a couple of times without moving forward. I might do the sit-at-Laika-until-midnight thing more regularly and just shove forward on this. I want so badly to just have one draft done so I can push onward to the next challenge.
The big question seems to be what that'll be. I've been asking it. A couple of friends have been asking it. Both my friends and myself, we mean it two ways. One, what will be the next story idea I really latch onto (let's not beat around the bush here: what I mean is, what will be the script I submit to the 2011 Sundance Institute's Screenwriter's Lab)? And two, what will I produce next?
I made a recent list for my new friend and fellow Writing Grouper Joseph the other day of each "numbered film" and its mission statement (i.e., 1000 Pieces was "make a film with no written script, just an outline and improvisation"; Bathwater was "make a film with no dialogue and keep it short"), and I ended by saying that for my next one-off "I want to do more emotional scenes and I want to rehearse extensively." Those are my shortcomings, the next humps I have to cross as a director, and so whatever I produce next will probably be Object Lesson #7 and will be me finding a reason to do those things. It might be my last short film. But I said that about Open and Every Room is Empty, so I don't know. I am so antsy to be doing it, to make MY FIRST FEATURE (caps lock unintentional but apropos), but I need to know what I'm doing before I finally start. But god, I want to start so badly.
To answer the first part, every script I labor on at this point is like going on a date, looking for The One. Not the soulmate, life-partner, but that special one you share something with and want to take the Next Big Step with. Maybe this analogy needs to be stretched to choosing someone I lose my virginity to. Maybe I just chose the wrong analogy regardless. (It comes to mind because several of my friends have none-too-gently suggested I get out of my rut and date, pushing for joining an online dating site. I told them I'd consider it, and I mean it wholeheartedly, but I won't consider it until I've at least finished a draft of Mexico. If I have a routine of productivity, only then can I begin complicating my life by chasing ladies. I digress.) The point is, I am looking for the project that will break my feature-filmmaker cherry, and although I would love to (heavily) revise and shoot The World of Missing Persons, and I would love to finish and shoot One Day in the Future, neither of those strike me as the perfect film to come out of the gate on. Those may require a more masterly touch to pull off right, and besides that --
-- well, here's the big thing, my latest obsession. I am reading enough screenwriting and filmmaking blogs and devoting enough time and thought to this that I have begun to look at the big picture a little more savvily than I used to. It's not nearly enough to tell a story because I want to. It never was -- it never is -- enough, but it's an easy trap to find yourself in. I have to tell a story people want to hear, make a film people want to watch, sell a film people want to buy. I need to think like the two great Steven S-berg(h)s, Spiel and Soder. (Okay, that namedrop got weird. But I'm not backing down from its weirdness.) They both know how to get their films made, and not just made but seen. Spiel has (almost) always had an uncanny knack of making High Concept and Commercial Appeal look easy, effortless, and natural to the story he's telling. Soder knows how to lure them in with a big hunk of candy and when to experiment with something odder, smaller, or more personal. My point is, at last count there were six bajillion dudes and ladies who want to make movies, and it's arrogant to think that your voice will be special just because it's really special to you -- even if you wrote one hell of a tight script, or even if everything comes together and you've got a totally solid film. Six bajillion films: even if only ten percent are decent and only one percent are really good, that's still what? like half a zillion really good ones out there -- and we all know there's no accounting for taste. (Numbers may not account for inflation. Numbers may in fact not be real numbers.)
If you want to stand out among the zillions, you need to be smart. They always tell you, you have thirty seconds -- roughly two sentences -- to hook me, and once you've done that you have ten pages (or ten minutes of screen time) to really wow me. If you haven't done both those things, I have too many movies to see, too many scripts to read, too many stories to go through to give yours the time of day. So give me a handle, give me something I can sink my teeth into: why should I put down whatever I'm looking at and take more interest in a debut film by some dude (or lady) I've never heard of?
I can think of sixteen different potential answers to that question. Off the top of my head: attached celebrity, high concept pitch, original voice, new take on familiar material, shocking opening and/or ending... and these are just some quick cheap (albeit effective) possibilities. I don't mean I want to give the world more commercial, broad-appeal lowest-common-denominator crap, and I don't mean I want to overshadow my brilliant stories with cheap gimmicks. But I do think it's unreasonably selfish and naive of me to make a film and not begin by asking: Why Would Anybody Want To Sit Through This? If it's not sellable, and I'm not a commodity, who is going to fund it? If I fund it, who is going to make it? If I make it, who is going to watch it? If people see it, who would want to distribute it?
What makes me and my story so goddamn special?
If I don't have an answer -- a quick, short, punchy obvious answer -- right there in the script I'm looking at, then that script is not the right one for me to open with. That's the bottom line.
It goes for all of you, too, but you have to fight your own battles.
I'm going to go give some more thought to what it means to be "savvy" and then I'm going to go through all my notes and look for the highest-concept, hookiest and boldest story idea, and wonder if I can't pull a damn fine script together around it. If it's your first night in town and nobody knows you yet, you play your rockinest song first. You open strong. Once they've fallen in love, they'll give you their patience and attention and you can take risks and show them your chops, but let's be honest. Before OK Computer there was "Creep," and before In Utero there was "Smells Like Teen Spirit." You have to earn attention, and you're starting out at a disadvantage -- as a nobody. So what makes you so goddamn special?
Just something to keep in mind as I go hunting for that cherry-breaker.