Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Monday, November 3, 2008
Writing/Scripts
A movie can be only as good as its script. A well written script can be made into a bad movie, but a bad written script will never create a good movie. There are a few things one might need to take into context when writing a script, for example, characters need to seem realistic and not to far fetched. There needs to be a protagonist who comes in contact with some sort of conflict. A movie will never make it if it is just some guy hanging around doing nothing: we can watch reality TV for that. As a writer you have unlimited possibilities with what you can do. You can bring alien worlds to life, or have historical events unfold right before our eyes or even something as simple as making two strangers fall in love.
The characters must be in context. Let's take two opposite ends of the spectrum when taking character development. First we will look at one of the classical movie characters in the Star Wars Trilogy: Darth Vader. This character is the epitome of evil; one could see this character without ever seeing the movie and people will know he is the ultimate evil. He is big, dark and intimidating the perfect blend of subtleties that create the ultimate villain. Over the course of the three movies -- Star Wars IV, Star Wars V, Star wars VI—we find out more and more about the character and what drives him to act the way he does. We find in Star Wars IV he is basically wants to take control of the republic, and will destroy any rebel that gets in his way. Star Wars V we find that he is more than just a soulless evil hell bent on expanding his empire. He, Darth Vader, is a human that is the main character luke's actual father. Finally Star Wars VI we find there is still good in him as he helps his son, Luke, destroy the Sith and help take down the empire. These three story lines take place fluently over the course of the three films: revealing piece by piece the characteristics of a man corrupted but eventually turning from protagonist into antagonist.
On the opposite end of the spectrum we have Vanilla Ice in Cool as Ice. This movie was trying to capitalize on his only hit “Ice Ice Baby” of the early 90’s. In this movie the character John Van Owen is a “rebel” who plays by his own rules. Kathy Winslow is a cold hearted woman who won’t let anyone into her heart. In one scene we have John Van Owen showing up to a biker bar and starting a fight with the whole bar and of course knocking out everyone without a scratch. He eventually wins over the heart of Kathy and they celebrate with a rap number at the end to show John Van Owen’s rebel success as a rapper. There is no character development all we know by the end of the movie is that Vanilla Ice is a white rapper: seems to have been a stretch for Mr. Ice. The point is a movie can only be as good as it’s script, and with these two extreme ends of the gamut we can see writing at its finest and at its worse.
The characters must be in context. Let's take two opposite ends of the spectrum when taking character development. First we will look at one of the classical movie characters in the Star Wars Trilogy: Darth Vader. This character is the epitome of evil; one could see this character without ever seeing the movie and people will know he is the ultimate evil. He is big, dark and intimidating the perfect blend of subtleties that create the ultimate villain. Over the course of the three movies -- Star Wars IV, Star Wars V, Star wars VI—we find out more and more about the character and what drives him to act the way he does. We find in Star Wars IV he is basically wants to take control of the republic, and will destroy any rebel that gets in his way. Star Wars V we find that he is more than just a soulless evil hell bent on expanding his empire. He, Darth Vader, is a human that is the main character luke's actual father. Finally Star Wars VI we find there is still good in him as he helps his son, Luke, destroy the Sith and help take down the empire. These three story lines take place fluently over the course of the three films: revealing piece by piece the characteristics of a man corrupted but eventually turning from protagonist into antagonist.
On the opposite end of the spectrum we have Vanilla Ice in Cool as Ice. This movie was trying to capitalize on his only hit “Ice Ice Baby” of the early 90’s. In this movie the character John Van Owen is a “rebel” who plays by his own rules. Kathy Winslow is a cold hearted woman who won’t let anyone into her heart. In one scene we have John Van Owen showing up to a biker bar and starting a fight with the whole bar and of course knocking out everyone without a scratch. He eventually wins over the heart of Kathy and they celebrate with a rap number at the end to show John Van Owen’s rebel success as a rapper. There is no character development all we know by the end of the movie is that Vanilla Ice is a white rapper: seems to have been a stretch for Mr. Ice. The point is a movie can only be as good as it’s script, and with these two extreme ends of the gamut we can see writing at its finest and at its worse.
Critics
As the old saying goes, "Everyone is a critic." A critic can make or break a film. If the movie receives bad reviews across the board from individuals than more than likely that movie the people are reviewing will not do well financially. A good example of a film doing well because of critics is Napoleon dynamite. This was a movie that started as an independent film that only cost 10,000 dollars to make but ended up becoming a 100 hundred-million-dollar award-winning film. The other surprising feat Napoleon Dynamite accomplished was becoming the #1 box office movie nearly one month after it had been released. This is a rarity in the film industry because movies will usually hit the #1 spot for only one to two weeks and only right after it has been released. Napoleon Dynamite became #1 due to critics of the film. Four to six weeks after the opening the movie was being sold at theatres everywhere. This is a great example of how critics and word of mouth can make a movie just another film or one of the classics.
I personally feel everyone is entitled to their opinions, but here is a random list of my personal favorite movies and the reasons why:
1.) 300: The true story of the epic battle of Thermopylae where 300 Spartan soldiers lead by King Leonidas take on the largest army ever assembled. A graphic novel written by one of the great comic book writers of all time: Frank Miller. The movie made the comic come to life; making fantasy into reality and reality into fantasy.
2.) The 40-Year Old Virgin: Judd Apatow's coming out party setting off a new breed of R-rated college humor comedy.
2a.) Any Judd Apatow produced or directed comedy. Again the new breed of comedy students are lining up to watch. Almost everything he helps produce or direct is guarenteed to make 100 million dollars at the box office.
3.) Black Hawk Down: This is the true story of 123 elite soldiers dropping into Somalia to capture two top lieutenants of a renegade warlord and find themselves in a desperate battle with a large force of heavily-armed Somalis. "No man left Behind!"
4.) Any Marvel Production Studios movie i.e Spiderman trilogy, X-men trilogy, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, with the exception to this claim being Ghostrider. Marvel decided to gain control of their own comic franchise and make sure their comics weren't being subjugated to ridiculous storylines i.e. Ang Lee's The Hulk.
5.) Batman Begins and The Dark Knight: The Nolan brother's screen adaptation of the DC comic Batman have become two of the highest grossing films of this generation with The Dark Knight being the 2nd highest grossing film of all time at over 550 million dollars to date: also one of the highest rated movies of all time according to imdb.com. The realistic adaptation of Batman and his nemesis' has audiences of all ages captivated and eager for more. Watch out everyone Johnny Depp is rumored to be the new Riddler.
6.) The Usual Suspects: Who is Kyser Soze?
7.) Fight Club: It's great to know that a little male aggression can go a long way into bringing down international corporations, because after all How much can you really know about yourself if you've never been in a fight?
8.) Sin City: The ultimate graphic novel to movie film adaptation. The one movie that if you read the comics you do not need to see the movie and vise versa. Everything in this movie feels as if you were actually living in the comic book. Also Frank Miller's first atempt at directing and definitly will not be his last.
9.) I am a sucker for Pixar films such as Toy Story, Shrek and The Incredibles. Movies made for both children and adults. Great for kids with the cartoon aspects but also enough adult humor and stunning computer graphics to keep all ages wanting more.
10.) The Princess Bride: This movie has a special place in me. It was the movie my mom and dad always watched with me when I was a child. It is the movie my family always quotes and believes one of the funniest movies ever: which it really is. It is also however a very critically acclaimed movie that has been dubbed a classic fairytale love story.
"Everyone is a Critic."
I personally feel everyone is entitled to their opinions, but here is a random list of my personal favorite movies and the reasons why:
1.) 300: The true story of the epic battle of Thermopylae where 300 Spartan soldiers lead by King Leonidas take on the largest army ever assembled. A graphic novel written by one of the great comic book writers of all time: Frank Miller. The movie made the comic come to life; making fantasy into reality and reality into fantasy.
2.) The 40-Year Old Virgin: Judd Apatow's coming out party setting off a new breed of R-rated college humor comedy.
2a.) Any Judd Apatow produced or directed comedy. Again the new breed of comedy students are lining up to watch. Almost everything he helps produce or direct is guarenteed to make 100 million dollars at the box office.
3.) Black Hawk Down: This is the true story of 123 elite soldiers dropping into Somalia to capture two top lieutenants of a renegade warlord and find themselves in a desperate battle with a large force of heavily-armed Somalis. "No man left Behind!"
4.) Any Marvel Production Studios movie i.e Spiderman trilogy, X-men trilogy, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, with the exception to this claim being Ghostrider. Marvel decided to gain control of their own comic franchise and make sure their comics weren't being subjugated to ridiculous storylines i.e. Ang Lee's The Hulk.
5.) Batman Begins and The Dark Knight: The Nolan brother's screen adaptation of the DC comic Batman have become two of the highest grossing films of this generation with The Dark Knight being the 2nd highest grossing film of all time at over 550 million dollars to date: also one of the highest rated movies of all time according to imdb.com. The realistic adaptation of Batman and his nemesis' has audiences of all ages captivated and eager for more. Watch out everyone Johnny Depp is rumored to be the new Riddler.
6.) The Usual Suspects: Who is Kyser Soze?
7.) Fight Club: It's great to know that a little male aggression can go a long way into bringing down international corporations, because after all How much can you really know about yourself if you've never been in a fight?
8.) Sin City: The ultimate graphic novel to movie film adaptation. The one movie that if you read the comics you do not need to see the movie and vise versa. Everything in this movie feels as if you were actually living in the comic book. Also Frank Miller's first atempt at directing and definitly will not be his last.
9.) I am a sucker for Pixar films such as Toy Story, Shrek and The Incredibles. Movies made for both children and adults. Great for kids with the cartoon aspects but also enough adult humor and stunning computer graphics to keep all ages wanting more.
10.) The Princess Bride: This movie has a special place in me. It was the movie my mom and dad always watched with me when I was a child. It is the movie my family always quotes and believes one of the funniest movies ever: which it really is. It is also however a very critically acclaimed movie that has been dubbed a classic fairytale love story.
"Everyone is a Critic."
Genres
There are many type of film genres and a limitless way to categorize movies. For this particular subject there are only a few general genres that are going to be defined. The first genre, my personal favorite, is comedy. These are simply movies that are intended to make you laugh. Comedy can be dry and mellow like a lot of British comedies or wild and crazy such as slapstick comedies like Ace Ventura. Here is a trailer of one of my personal favorites--Ricky Bobby; which, by the way, won an ESPY award for best sport film.
Drama can be defined as any situation or series of events having vividly-emotional conflicting results. When one thinks of dram they think of the emotional acting that goes along with the drama. For these emotional reasons movies awards like best acting and movie traditionally go to movies that fit into the drama category i.e. Ray or Schindler's list.
Action movies are usually the films with the big budgets that get a lot of OO and Awws. These movies are also huge money producers as many people are intrigued by the flashy effects and latest in computer graphics. Michael Bay has become the director most known for his action films. His latest accomplishment, Transformers, became a world wide hit that has already been slated for a trilogy with the sequel set for release most likely in the summer of 2009 but more realistically the summer of 2010. Bay turned a lovable child's toy/cartoon into a big budget film that had audiences of all ages captivated everywhere. The one fallback of action flicks is that awards, besides best effects, typically do not follow this genre of film. This trend however might be coming to an end with last year's success of No Country for Old Men and the potential of The Dark Knight to win multiple awards.
Adventure films usually involve danger, risks or chance with typically a high amount of fantasy. Adventure could go along with action and vice-versa. These movies could be go along with comedy or drama also. Adventure is more of a sub-category that an actual category in itself. A perfect example of this genre is The Lord of The Rings trilogy. One of the tag-lines for these movies says,"You will find adventure, or adventure will find you." The entire trilogy is centered around the quest of returning the Ring of Power back to the place of its' birth.
A horror movie is basically a film that is intended to scare you. These movies differ from other genres as the main point of these, usually, as there is a killer who is trying to murder a group of people. A main killer is usually the plot of these genres i.e. Friday the 13th, Halloween, Scream etc. There is however a select few exceptions such as Alien and Predator. These two movies could fall under the category of horror-action.
A few more genres with a quick synopsis of each:
Animation are movies that are drawn either by hand or more recently drawn through computer animation. Older animation was created by thousands of drawnings done by hand like Snow White; while now animation is created using hundreds of computers to render characters, backgrounds, camera angles, textures, etc. i.e. Toy Story. These are also not always children's movies sometimes animation can be geared towards older viewers especially recently with the animation giants like the Simpsons, Family guy and my personal favorite Southpark.
Documentary: Films that document a certain crisis or event happening in the world. There are no actors but real people: example being An Inconvenient Truth
Musical: Films that have many songs and dance numbers throughout an example being The sound of Music, or Sweeny Todd.
Western: Movies set in old western times depicting cowboys versus bad guys.
Family: Films that are appropriate for the entire family to view.
Drama can be defined as any situation or series of events having vividly-emotional conflicting results. When one thinks of dram they think of the emotional acting that goes along with the drama. For these emotional reasons movies awards like best acting and movie traditionally go to movies that fit into the drama category i.e. Ray or Schindler's list.
Action movies are usually the films with the big budgets that get a lot of OO and Awws. These movies are also huge money producers as many people are intrigued by the flashy effects and latest in computer graphics. Michael Bay has become the director most known for his action films. His latest accomplishment, Transformers, became a world wide hit that has already been slated for a trilogy with the sequel set for release most likely in the summer of 2009 but more realistically the summer of 2010. Bay turned a lovable child's toy/cartoon into a big budget film that had audiences of all ages captivated everywhere. The one fallback of action flicks is that awards, besides best effects, typically do not follow this genre of film. This trend however might be coming to an end with last year's success of No Country for Old Men and the potential of The Dark Knight to win multiple awards.
Adventure films usually involve danger, risks or chance with typically a high amount of fantasy. Adventure could go along with action and vice-versa. These movies could be go along with comedy or drama also. Adventure is more of a sub-category that an actual category in itself. A perfect example of this genre is The Lord of The Rings trilogy. One of the tag-lines for these movies says,"You will find adventure, or adventure will find you." The entire trilogy is centered around the quest of returning the Ring of Power back to the place of its' birth.
A horror movie is basically a film that is intended to scare you. These movies differ from other genres as the main point of these, usually, as there is a killer who is trying to murder a group of people. A main killer is usually the plot of these genres i.e. Friday the 13th, Halloween, Scream etc. There is however a select few exceptions such as Alien and Predator. These two movies could fall under the category of horror-action.
A few more genres with a quick synopsis of each:
Animation are movies that are drawn either by hand or more recently drawn through computer animation. Older animation was created by thousands of drawnings done by hand like Snow White; while now animation is created using hundreds of computers to render characters, backgrounds, camera angles, textures, etc. i.e. Toy Story. These are also not always children's movies sometimes animation can be geared towards older viewers especially recently with the animation giants like the Simpsons, Family guy and my personal favorite Southpark.
Documentary: Films that document a certain crisis or event happening in the world. There are no actors but real people: example being An Inconvenient Truth
Musical: Films that have many songs and dance numbers throughout an example being The sound of Music, or Sweeny Todd.
Western: Movies set in old western times depicting cowboys versus bad guys.
Family: Films that are appropriate for the entire family to view.
Cinematography
Cinematography is the discipline of making lighting and camera choiceswhen recording photographic images for the cinema. This camera trick isone of the oldest awards dating back to the very first academy awardsceremony. The most common use of cinematography to emphasis light anddark is horror flicks. In these movies most of the suspense and actionhappens at night time. The directors and cinematographers use littlecamera tricks like quick movement and lighting certain areas for theviewer to get an emphasis of suspense. One movie that comes to mindwhen talking about horror films and cinematography is the movie Halloween. This was such a low budget film that the killer, Michael Myers, had a mask that was a Captain Kirk costume mask spray paintedwhite. The use of lighting and camera angles to obtain the shots madethis movie a cult phenomenon. Since the movie's release in 1978 therehave been multiple sequels just because of its appeal; all of which hadtried to use the same scare tactics and cinematography to capture thatdark omniscient character that scared us to death in the 70's.
One movie that was up for an Oscar nomination in 2002 for cinematographywas Black Hawk Down. This movie was a true story depicting the missionof US army in 1993 where nearly 100 U.S. Army Rangers, commanded by Capt. Mike Steele, were dropped by helicopter deep into the capitalcity of Mogadishu to capture two top lieutenants of a Somali warlord.The mission lead to a large and drawn-out firefight between theRangers and hundreds of Somali gunmen, which led to the destruction oftwo U.S. Black Hawk helicopters in Mogadishu. The movie usescinematography to get the full feeling of hostility in the area. At onepoint in the movie the Rangers are in a night battle with the Somaliangunmen and have night vision goggles to help them. In this scene thecamera uses a night vision lenses to get that first person view of thebattle. This camera lenses gives the viewer the feeling of being rightin the battle, thus, giving the viewer a more sentimental feel for theRangers who had to endure the battle.
The truth is cinematography is basically how the camera lighting is being used. It is however very important to the subtleties of the shot being used. For instance one would not want a scene taking place in the day time to be dark and hardto see because this would give the feeling or emotion of a scene thatis somber, scary or even dull. In contrast one would not want a nighttime scene to be too light. A good example of darkness being used wellis the movie The Descent. This entire movie takes place in a cave, andthe entire movie in itself is quite hard to see. Not being able to seegives the audience a feeling of connection with the women stuck in thecave increasing the intensity of the escape. If this movie were toolight a person would feel as if the women were able to see everythingaround them making their escape seem simple. In conclusioncinematography is one of the first subtleties used in films in order tohelp the audience rhetorically connect with the movie.
One movie that was up for an Oscar nomination in 2002 for cinematographywas Black Hawk Down. This movie was a true story depicting the missionof US army in 1993 where nearly 100 U.S. Army Rangers, commanded by Capt. Mike Steele, were dropped by helicopter deep into the capitalcity of Mogadishu to capture two top lieutenants of a Somali warlord.The mission lead to a large and drawn-out firefight between theRangers and hundreds of Somali gunmen, which led to the destruction oftwo U.S. Black Hawk helicopters in Mogadishu. The movie usescinematography to get the full feeling of hostility in the area. At onepoint in the movie the Rangers are in a night battle with the Somaliangunmen and have night vision goggles to help them. In this scene thecamera uses a night vision lenses to get that first person view of thebattle. This camera lenses gives the viewer the feeling of being rightin the battle, thus, giving the viewer a more sentimental feel for theRangers who had to endure the battle.
The truth is cinematography is basically how the camera lighting is being used. It is however very important to the subtleties of the shot being used. For instance one would not want a scene taking place in the day time to be dark and hardto see because this would give the feeling or emotion of a scene thatis somber, scary or even dull. In contrast one would not want a nighttime scene to be too light. A good example of darkness being used wellis the movie The Descent. This entire movie takes place in a cave, andthe entire movie in itself is quite hard to see. Not being able to seegives the audience a feeling of connection with the women stuck in thecave increasing the intensity of the escape. If this movie were toolight a person would feel as if the women were able to see everythingaround them making their escape seem simple. In conclusioncinematography is one of the first subtleties used in films in order tohelp the audience rhetorically connect with the movie.
producing
The word produce can be defined as to bring into existence, or give rise to. With this in mind a producers job is to help bring a movie into existence by putting up the money for a film, help with the casting, coordinate activites of personel, advertising and various other aspects. To become a good producer one must be able to do all the little behind the scene things. They must be able to use the budget wisely to coordinate all things relative for a successful movie.
The top producers also seem to be very accomplished directors; like an ex-football player becoming a coach a director becoming a producer is the same basic thing. As a director it is very helpful to know every aspect of your film and the production is all the little things that can make the film a success or a flop. In this case a lot of directors also double as the producers of their movies because it helps them control everything from costumes and props to how the movie is advertised. A good example of a director/producer is Stephen Spielberg. He, like talked about in directing, knows how to control every aspect of his films and being able to find the people he wants to help with his movie is just another way he can control the production of his films.
It also takes money to become a producer. Most producers start out as something else in the film industry because it takes a certain amount of wealth to put up the money for the production of the film. For example Spielberg didn't start producing until 1978 and didn't become the main producer until 1982's E.T. This is after movies of his' like Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind had already been released and help make him millions. Since not every movie is guarenteed to make money a producer is taking risks on the movies he/she is helping produce. The Polar Express is a christmas movie that cost $170,000,000 million to make but only made only around $124 million, but it lost over $107 million dollars worldwide. This is the largest money losing movie of all time, and it's not because it had a bad scrpit, bad directing or any other aspect. It was actually a critically acclaimed film that movie goers genually enjoy. This movie had the bad luck of not finding a target audience to be able to make the money back that was spent on the movie. This is a great example of why producing can be so tricky, because it's a gamble whether you will make the film a success or not.
To reiterate to be an accomplished producer one must be a gambler not afraid of the threat of losing money. The greatest producers usually double as directors or produce and direct their own films. There are many jobs a producer must do in order to produce a successful film, and the order and completion of such jobs can help a movie gain income and hopefully not lose money.
The top producers also seem to be very accomplished directors; like an ex-football player becoming a coach a director becoming a producer is the same basic thing. As a director it is very helpful to know every aspect of your film and the production is all the little things that can make the film a success or a flop. In this case a lot of directors also double as the producers of their movies because it helps them control everything from costumes and props to how the movie is advertised. A good example of a director/producer is Stephen Spielberg. He, like talked about in directing, knows how to control every aspect of his films and being able to find the people he wants to help with his movie is just another way he can control the production of his films.
It also takes money to become a producer. Most producers start out as something else in the film industry because it takes a certain amount of wealth to put up the money for the production of the film. For example Spielberg didn't start producing until 1978 and didn't become the main producer until 1982's E.T. This is after movies of his' like Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind had already been released and help make him millions. Since not every movie is guarenteed to make money a producer is taking risks on the movies he/she is helping produce. The Polar Express is a christmas movie that cost $170,000,000 million to make but only made only around $124 million, but it lost over $107 million dollars worldwide. This is the largest money losing movie of all time, and it's not because it had a bad scrpit, bad directing or any other aspect. It was actually a critically acclaimed film that movie goers genually enjoy. This movie had the bad luck of not finding a target audience to be able to make the money back that was spent on the movie. This is a great example of why producing can be so tricky, because it's a gamble whether you will make the film a success or not.
To reiterate to be an accomplished producer one must be a gambler not afraid of the threat of losing money. The greatest producers usually double as directors or produce and direct their own films. There are many jobs a producer must do in order to produce a successful film, and the order and completion of such jobs can help a movie gain income and hopefully not lose money.
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