Richard D. Zanuck R.I.P.

Richard Zanuck, studio executive and movie producer, passed away yesterday at the age of 77.

He was the son of Darryl F. Zanuck, the Hollywood mogul who merged his 20th Century Productions with the then ailing Fox Pictures in 1933 to form the mega-studio 20th Century Fox. 

Naturally, he began his career with what was then the family business, starting in the story department, and worked his was up to producing his first feature film Compulsion by the time he was 25.

He became President of 20th Century Fox at the age of 28, but the doldrums that affected the whole industry in the late 1960s hit 20th Century Fox hard. Financial troubles with the studios and conflicts with his father led to him being fired and he began his life defining career as an independent producer.

He was a very successful producer, bringing a then young TV director named Stephen Spielberg to the big screen, first with the small scale drama The Sugarland Express, and breaking him into blockbusters with Jaws.

Since then he went on to produce films ranging from Oscar bait that could still win audiences like Driving Miss Daisy, to bombastic mega-blockbusters like Clash Of The Titans, to the broad cinematic fantasies of Tim Burton.

He considered movie producing an art form in itself, and for that he will have a lasting cinematic legacy.

New Questions, New Answers

Looks like longtime reader Rainforest Giant has some more questions for me to pretend to answer. So get ready for another heaping helping of knowledge!

Ok, since the mouse doesn't have a lock on Barsoom Floor, what other stories are out there in public domain that are begging to get made into movies?

Rainforest Giant in his natural habitat.

Literally thousands.

While laws differ per country, just about any work that's 100 years old or older is a good bet to be in the public domain. If you want to know if a specific work is free and clear check out Project Gutenberg the world's biggest online resource of public domain works.

What is the difference between a script and a screenplay?

The word "script" is a general term used for any sort of written work that is meant to be performed. That includes screenplays, stage plays, teleplays, whatever.

A screenplay is a work specifically written to be made into a theatrical film, be it a short, or a feature.

More importantly, how can I make it big or simply get paid to write one?

To get a paying gig writing screenplays you need to get an agent.

To get an agent you need to show that you are getting paying gigs as a screenwriter.

I know I'm being glib and negative with that answer but I don't need the competition.

Okay, seriously.

You do need an agent to get anyone to look at your script.

However, it's next to impossible to get an agent to look at someone who doesn't already have a track record of some kind. Remember, if you don't sell, they don't make any money and can't pay their bills, so they have to be cautious.

It's easier to attract the attention of a manager, who tend to be more on the lookout for new talent, and can hook you up with an agent.

However, managers are exponentially harder to find than agents. Many of the major management firms have little or no web presence and you need to buy a map from a mysterious one-eyed pirate in Singapore to find one.

These days your best bet is to make some sort short film get it into festivals and onto YouTube and make it so eye-popping great people have to take notice.

Of course all that is for nothing if you can't write and don't know the proper format for screenplays.

Final Draft is the industry standard for screenwriting in Hollywood. And there are numerous books on writing available to teach you the basics.

Lew Hunter's Screenwriting 434 is a good introduction to writing screenplays, at least it was 20 years ago when I first read it, and Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant's Writing Movies for Fun and Profit: How We Made a Billion Dollars at The Box Office and You Can Too! does a pretty good dissection of the business of screenwriting.

But even then the odds are stacked against you, especially with feature films. Television however is booming with more channels producing more original scripted content than ever before, which is probably the best career path for anyone interested in writing for the screen.

Any more questions?

You Got Questions, I Can Pretend To Have Answers!

I put out a call for questions, and I got some real doozies. So I'm going to answer some today, but don't stop asking, I can dispense my smug know-it-allness all freaking week. Just leave them in the comments.

Let's begin with a three-rounder from reader Rainforest Giant:

First, what is the technical name for a cartoon's sound effects guy? Is it the same as Foley(sp?) guy? 

 I can't find anything that says that animation has different titles for their sound effects people than live action sound effects people. There are sound designers, sound editors, Foley artists, and technicians.

Second, can anyone make a Barsoom movie or does uncle Walt own the brand now? 

The source novel A Princess of Mars is in the public domain, and not only can anyone make their own Barsoom movie, anyone already has, as seen in the low budget adaptation put out by the Asylum in 2009 even though the Disney version was already in pre-production. 

 

However, if you make a movie that looks exactly like the Disney version, using the designs they created for the film, they will probably come down on you like the wrath of an angry god with their registered trademarks. Basically your aliens better look pretty different from Disney's aliens.

Then there's the "We took a $200 million bath on John Carter" element, which may reduce Disney's desire to care about the franchise.

Which is good news for my film about John Carter's drinking problem: The Face On The Barsoom Floor, because it won't look like anything Disney did.

Third, why does Cruise stick with Scientology? Hubbard bet Clarke he could invent a religion. Clarke say's, 'I lost.' So who could take it seriously?

I can't explain why Tom Cruise does anything. He's heavily invested in it emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually in the religion, and breaking away is not only hard, but terrifying. So he might not want to take that step into the unknown.

As for who can take it seriously, well, reports say that it's not recruiting new adherents in the numbers they need to maintain the church's overhead. Recent high level defections, and incidents where the church has been actively mocked, like in a now legendary episode of South Park, has also damaged its ability to maintain membership.

Another thing that may have hurt Scientology is its dependence on celebrities to be the public face of the church. Sure, people might buy clothes or cars endorsed by celebrities, but when it comes to issues of spiritual/mental health nobody accepts them as serious role models.

But that's a little out of my jurisdiction, so to speak, and better asked of serious investigative journalists.

Next question!

Rick Mcginnis said...

Why haven't I seen a really good new film in months?

No, I'm serious. I returned to movie reviewing three years ago and after an initial burst of enthusiasm, I'm played out. I've come to dread entering a theatre or cracking open a disc that isn't a Blu-ray reissue of some Hollywood classic whose basic craftsmanship is fairly guaranteed (as long as it wasn't made after 1962.) I've been underwhelmed or outright disappointed in a half dozen new films I was anticipating eagerly for years. The thought of watching a new film - ANY new film - has become as acutely painful as it once was to sit down at a screening of a Canadian film in the waning days of Telefilm's last production bonanza.

Really, this is having an impact on my life, and my livelihood. Any thoughts?

So you're reporting some serious cinematic ennui.

Hmmm...

I think your slump is in direct relation to the creative and audience related slump Hollywood is currently going through. It's a case of history repeating itself, but I think the solution that saved Hollywood in the past is not coming this time around.

As your question noted Hollywood in the 1960s entered a period of decline. Classics and hits were still being made, but the classics were fewer, as were the hits, and few of those hits went on to become classics.

This was mostly because Hollywood was essentially a closed shop that had last seen a sizable infusion of fresh blood with the coming of sound.

These creative doldrums led to slumps in ticket sales, and many of the big studios came very close to bankruptcy.

Many of the studios were taken over by big holding companies, Warner Bros was taken over by Kinney, and Paramount became part of Gulf+Western, and these new owners needed to get these companies to stop hemorrhaging money.

The band aid they needed was brought to them by Roger Corman. The indie director had nurtured an entire generation of young filmmakers who were a lot closer to the pop culture zeitgeist than the old farts running the old studios. Plus, the films they made were cheap and much more profitable.

So in the early 70s you saw a revival of Hollywood's creativity, and with it, a revival of its commercial fortunes, and it was carried by it for decades. These fortunes declined until we hit the seemingly endless cycle of remakes, reboots, rehashes and rip-offs we see today.

Not only are we trapped in this cycle, the indie-to-studio transfusion that revived Hollywood in the late 60s to early 70s WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN.

The indie boom of the 1990s transformed the very nature of independent film. Before then independent films were seen as being separate, occasionally even antithetical, from the prevalent shibboleths, attitudes, and prejudices of the Hollywood establishment.

When they started winning Oscars the Hollywood establishment immediately assimilated indie film and transformed it predominantly into an extension of the shibboleths, attitudes, and prejudices of the Hollywood establishment. Indie film, or at least the indie film that gets any serious attention, is where Hollywood goes to give itself street cred.

Also there's no immediate threat of bankruptcy hanging over them from this creative slump and declining audiences because:

A) The studios are relatively small cogs in massive, multinational, multimedia corporate conglomerates. This gives them a massive cushion from the consequences of their actions.

B) They can point to the occasional mega-blockbuster and say "See, things are doing great!" conveniently forgetting the hundreds of millions pissed away on the fact that they dropped more bombs that year than Curtis LeMay.

Without the fear of immediate bankruptcy the studios can't see what they're doing wrong. There's no way for an outsider to get them to listen to anything truly new or original that might shake up the way things are working. You are either assimilated into becoming one of their Borg like drones, or you're just left out.

But all is not lost.  Pop culture is not a complete wasteland.

Television's in the middle of a new golden age when it comes to the quality of storytelling. New media is rising on the internet with the sort of material that mainstream Hollywood wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.

Will any of this new creative spirit come to the big screen and help shake off your ennui?

I can't really say, but probably not.

IF YOU HAVE ANY MORE QUESTIONS FEEL FREE TO LEAVE THEM IN THE COMMENTS!

Ask Me Anything!

THIS PICTURE SERVES NO PURPOSE

It's been a while so I'm putting out one of my calls for any and all questions pertaining to pop culture and the business behind it.

So click the comments, leave a question, and I'll pretend that I know the answer!

Hollywood Babble On & On #927: 50 Shades Of Movies?

The trilogy 50 Shades of Grey, 50 Shades Darker and 50 Shades Free are a publishing phenomenon, selling over 20 million copies and making their author E.L. James an overnight millionaire. Regardless how you feel about the quality of the writing and the story, I hope she's banking her money, because while all fame is fleeting, this sort of explosive fame fleets fastest.

But that's another topic for another blog.

Universal Pictures spent some serious spondoolix to get the movie rights to the trilogy and just contracted Michael De Luca and Dana Brunetti to produce the film thanks to their track record handling complex adaptations like Moneyball and The Social Network.

They're going to have their work cut out for them, and here's why:

1. SPEED. As I said earlier this sort of phenomenon can go from "hot stuff" to "cold fish" literally overnight. The history of popular culture is littered with the shredded remains of similar pop-culture phenoms whom people are now embarrassed to admit they've spent money on.

Universal and the producers have to get the movie out within about a year to strike while the proverbial iron is hot. Wasting the typical 5-10 years on development will make the whole exercise pointless. But speed isn't anything if it isn't exactly what the book's fans are looking for, and that can be hindered by the...

2. RATING. If they're faithful to the book the movie will get an NC-17 rating. If you live in a cave and don't know why, I'll give you a quick summary of the books: 

A virginal young woman meets a sexy young billionaire named Christian Grey. After that it's a litany of kinky sex, bondage, domination, and sadomasochism. Here's an ad for the audiobook complete with actual excerpts, and like everything associated with the books is TOTALLY NSFW:

Okay, it's a parody, but apparently the excerpts are real.

To get an R-Rating they're going to have to do some cutting. Actually, they're going to have to do a truckload of cutting to get it to fit into an R-Rating.

Then there's the biggest trap of all, the trap that could make all of their efforts for nothing and that is...

3. MEDIUM.  The success of the 50 Shades books is rooted in the fact that are books and not movies. The book's target audience is women who prefer their erotica in text form, so they can let the sexy-times roll around in their imaginations.

Translate erotica onto film, and you run the risk of losing that target audience of women, but of gaining a new audience of men who like their titillation of the visual variety that leave little if anything to the imagination.

Which brings us to the trap.

It's highly unlikely men will flock to theaters to pay to see an R-Rated sex-fest when there's infinite loads of sexually explicit material available for free on the internet in the comfort and privacy of their own homes.

Then there's the water cooler factor. No one wants to chatting about a sex-movie around the water cooler. It's socially awkward. So many would look at the movie and think "Why bother?"

Universal's already spent millions to the film, so they're committed to at least try to do something with it, but the traps that lie in wait for it could make it all for nothing.

RIP Ernest Borgnine

Ernest Borgnine, the prolific character actor who won an Academy Award for the title role of Marty, passed away at the age of 95, ending a career that spanned more than 60 years.

He was an unconventional Hollywood star and used that status to carve a niche for himself, and acting as an example to other actors for his energy and work ethic.

He spent ten years in the US Navy, including combat in the Pacific during World War 2. At the end of the war he had left the Navy and was wondering what he would do next when his mother said:  'You always like getting in front of people and making a fool of yourself, why don't you give it a try?'

That led to a career on the stage, starting in summer stock and touring companies, eventually to supporting parts on Broadway, and guest parts in the early days of television. 

His big screen break happened in 1953 when he was cast as the sadistic Sergeant "Fatso" Judson in From Here To Eternity.  That led to a string of parts playing "heavies," but it was playing a nice guy that took his career to the next level. That nice guy was Marty, a lovelorn butcher, and it earned him an Academy Award, beating Frank Sinatra, Spencer Tracy, James Cagney, and the late James Dean.

Now, after winning an Oscar, a lot of actors end up spending their career chasing after another Oscar. Not Ernest Borgnine.

He knew that he wasn't "leading man" material, and that his place was as a character actor, but that didn't stop him from making the most of it.

He took almost every role he could fit in, including doing television, and brought a great amount of energy and professionalism. He did everything from sitcoms to cinema, and accumulating more than his share of classic roles.

You literally can't find anyone who hasn't seen something that didn't feature Borgnine in some way, regardless of their age.

You can't really do much better when you're a character actor.

Rest In Peace Ernie.

Hollywood Babble On & On #926: Litigation Lunacies

ESCAPE FROM THE WEINSTEINS?

It's been a while since I've written about yet another lawsuit involving the Weinstein Co. but this one is the sort of story that requires one of those "this is the moral of the story" moments they used to tack onto the end of He-Man cartoons.

First the story....

In 2005 The Weinstein Co. had a hit with the movie Hoodwinked, an animated comedy that was made for less than $8 million that ended up making $110,000,000 at the box office. A deal was made with the film's makers for a sequel Hoodwinked 2: Hood VS Evil, and another film Escape From Planet Earth, about stranded aliens imprisoned in Area 51 plotting their escape.

Hoodwinked 2: Hood VS Evil was made for $30 million, and the Weinsteins pledged to release it on a certain date that coincided with the release of the toy line, then that date passed, they pledged another date, that too passed, the producers sued, and the film was eventually released only to be a massive box office bomb because any momentum it once possessed had long been wasted.

Meanwhile the guys who made Hoodwinked, were forced off Escape From Planet Earth and the project given to other people. 

The filmmakers and their producing partners are suing for $50 million, saying the film was wrongfully taken from them and destroyed by the out of control and hubris-happy Weinsteins. Among their demands was a chance to see the film that's being made without them, which a court recently awarded them as an essential part of letting the lawsuit go forward.

AND NOW THE MORAL OF THE STORY

Don't do business with the Weinstein Company, the only person on your side who will make any money off the deal will be your lawyer.

RAGING BULLSHIT

Ex-boxer Jake LaMotta, the subject of Martin Scorcese's classic film Raging Bull, is being sued by MGM for trying to make a sequel without them.

You see Scorcese's 1980 movie was based on LaMotta's 1970 memoir, titled Raging Bull: My Story. In the time since the film came out LaMotta wrote another memoir, and now he and some producers are making that into a movie titled Raging Bull 2.

MGM, who owns United Artists the studio that released the original Raging Bull are claiming that LaMotta violated the contract he signed back in the 1970s that gave them first look at any sequel.

They are also complaining that the producers, RB II productions, are implying that the film is a direct sequel to their Raging Bull, when none of the people involved in that project are connected to the new film in any way.

LaMotta may have believed that such a contract had an expiration date that was long past, and that even if he did they were likely to pass on the project since the original film was only a modest commercial success, and any sequel without director Martin Scorcese and star Robert DeNiro would probably be doomed to fail critically and commercially.

MGM is seeking all sorts of compensatory, punitive, and vengeful damages against RB II productions, and I think that they might have a case. Not just for violating the "first look" clause they had in the contract with LaMotta, but for diluting the "brand" of a movie hailed as a classic.

Imagine you're the studio behind a critically acclaimed classic movie, are you going to let someone just slap together a "sequel" to that film without suing them into the stone age?

Never. If anyone's going to make an awful sequel to a classic, it's going to be the studio itself screwing up its own cinematic legacy.

Hollywood Babble On & On #925: It's Only Rock & Roll But You Need It!

Guess what folks. Some producers are filming a movie about the life of legendary 60s guitar deity Jimi Hendrix starring Andre "3000" Benjamin, and Imogen "I Love Her Last Name" Poots called All Is By My Side.

Now that's good news for aging nostalgia addled boomers and Jimi Hendrix fans, but there's a catch.

While they can make a film about Jimi Hendrix's life, the producers can't use any of Jimi Hendrix's music.

Now this is a case of doing a really bad job at being a producer.

I've written about being a producer before, but this story means I have to expand my arguments.

You see while the director is usually credited as the "maker" of the film, it is the job of the producer to GET THE FILM MADE.

When a film is to be made the producer's first job is to make sure that they have everything they need to make the film.

There are the obvious things that every film needs like money, cast, crew, equipment, costumes, props, sets, and locations, but there are other needs that are unique to the particular type of project you're producing.

One obvious example is a movie about the life of a famous musician. The one thing you need to make that type of film work is THE FAMOUS MUSICIAN'S SONGS.

You do not start filming until AFTER you have the rights to the songs secured, because their plan of having Andre 3000 cover the Beatles and other 1960s songs as Jimi Hendrix sounds kind lame and it makes the film and its producers look ridiculous.

Do any producers in Hollywood know what producers are supposed to do anymore?

Trailer Trashing: Jack Reacher

Today Paramount released the first teaser trailer for their upcoming action thriller JACK REACHER starring Tom Cruise in the title role. Let's have a look, then I'll tell you what I think...

I've written about the subject of Cruise's casting before, but if you're too lazy to click the link I'll give you a recap.

The character of Jack Reacher is an ex-Military Policeman who roams the country helping people in trouble with bad guys, and troubling bad guys with some brutal payback. Now key to the character of Jack Reacher is his imposing physicality. He's described as being over 6'5" and 250 lbs and looks as mean as he is to wrongdoing. In the Reacher's presented as an unstoppable righteous force of nature coming down on wrongdoers like the wrath of a pissed off deity.

That's not Tom Cruise. The image Tom Cruise has fostered over the past three decades has been as a hyper-active super-charming go-getter out to succeed over the hassles and villains that appear, in their way, much bigger than he is.

Tom Cruise is not a massive charmless wall of righteous vengeance, but the trailer makes it look like they filmed Cruise like he is.

That kind of makes him and the film look ridiculous.

Who Does What?: The Film Composer

Music has always had an important role in the history of film. Even during the silent era there would be live music playing alongside the movie, ranging from a full orchestra to just a guy and an out of tune upright piano. The film's background music or "score" is an essential ingredient of a well made movie and I'm going to take some time to try to explain who does it and how it's done.

Now the time a composer gets involved in a film differs with each film. The usual time is during the beginning stages of post-production, where movie's director discusses their plans and ideas for the film's music with the composer.

All worship the Mighty Ennio!

Sometimes a composer gets involved much earlier. A classic story involves Italian director Sergio Leone and his musical maven the legendary Ennio Morricone. In his later films Leone would give Morricone a copy of the script long before shooting began. Morricone would then write music for certain scenes inspired by the screenplay. Leone would then listen to the music while filming those scenes. Composing the shots and the action in time to the music.

But the usual practice is to get the musical ball rolling in the early stages of post-production. Once a rough cut of the film is ready the composer can begin spotting.

Spotting involves the composer, the director, and sometimes the producer analyzing and discussing the film. They lay out the tone of the overall film, as well as the specific requirements of individual scenes, including timing and which moments are more important than others.

Then the "syncing" begins. The composer then goes through every scene making notes of the timing he must consider when composing the music. The old fashioned way is to use a stopwatch and a notepad, but nowadays a lot of composers use sophisticated software to lay out a sort of map for the music they will be composing.

Legendary film composer Bernard Hermann.

That 'map' is called a "click track" where the composer calculates the beats of each particular scene, and the cues that dictate where the music goes in and out.

Then the composer can finally do some composing, writing the music for the film in the tone and style that directors wants for the film. 

Once the score is composed it's then "orchestrated," or "arranged." This is where the members of the orchestra, or band that's going to play the music is assigned their parts of the score, and their cues.  Now a lot of the time this is done by a specialist arranger or orchestrator, but a lot of composers like to do their own arranging and orchestration.

Then the music is recorded under the direction of a conductor who is watching the specific scene being scored, and listening to a click track giving him the essential beats and cues for that scene.

Then the final edits and tweaking are done, and the completed film is set to be released.

Now it's a common practice for directors to use preexisting music as 'temporary' tracks to give composers a rough idea of the tone and timing they're looking for. However, this can backfire, like the case of 2001: A Space Odyssey when Stanly Kubrick rejected an original score by Alex North in favor of making his temporary track permanent.

An oddity in the history of modern movie music is Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. The film doesn't have a traditional film score, in fact the only music in the film comes from within the scenes, on radios, or being played on piano. Instead Hitchcock had his frequent musical collaborator Bernard Hermann to work with electronic audio pioneers Oskar Sala and Remi Gassman to "compose" the sound effects of the birds.

But that's a bit of a digression.