Nota bene

Thank you, loyal readers, for asking for analysis of the new season of The Venture Bros.

The show continues to be wonderful, complex, dark and funny.  Unfortunately, my work as a screenwriter has overwhelmed me.  My apologies.

My two cents on Scott Pilgrim

I know, the last thing anyone needs now is more internet commentary on Scott Pilgrim.  But I’ve been reading all sorts of posts from people who are miserable, bitter or hopping mad about the movie’s failure at the box office.  I’ve read about how the failure of Scott Pilgrim will cause Hollywood to bypass Comic-con, that it spells the death-knell for comics adaptations, that Hollywood will never take a chance again on interesting material, that it marks a turning point for the ongoing collapse of Hollywood filmmaking, that it will ruin careers and lead to an endless series of sequels and derivative crap on our multiplex screens.

Here’s my take: the movie is great.  It’s fresh, unique, surprising, heartfelt and unexpectedly complex.  Everybody connected to the project did a terrific job, including the studio, who stood behind a challenging piece of material and gave the filmmakers a long leash to create a heretofore unseen vision of life.

It disappointed at the box office, yes.  And we could talk about why that happened.  My own theory is that it’s a movie too difficult to sum up in an image or a trailer.  It’s a comedy, a romance and an action movie all at the same time.  Perhaps American audiences are stupid, but whenever the viewer’s response to a trailer or a poster is “What is it?” the movie is in trouble commercially.

A few days ago, I was watching Fight Club, another hard-to-define movie that captured a point in time, and was reminded that it, too, failed at the box office when it came out.  And the same bitter accusations and blames were thrown about: never again will a studio take a chance on fresh material, American film will collapse, careers will end, etc.

And yet, eleven years later, Brad Pitt and Ed Norton are still movie stars with great taste in scripts, Fox is still in business, and David Fincher is still one of our most interesting and sought-after directors, and pretty much everyone recognizes Fight Club as a generation-defining classic.

I predict the same thing will happen here: Universal will survive, Edgar Wright and Michael Cera will have successful and lucrative careers, Bryan Lee O’Malley will become more popular than ever, and, every now and then, studios will take a chance on movies that step outside the rules of the marketplace.

The Good Machine No Budget Commandments

Folks often ask me “How do I get work in this crazy business?  How do I get a manager/agent/production deal?”

Let me tell you, folks — everything is changing.  Various forces — the economy, escalating production costs, union situations, studio re-structuring, etc — has created a Hollywood that is risk-averse in the extreme.  Getting a movie made — by anyone — is harder than ever.  There are fewer people at the top paying people anything at all to write movies.  Ten years ago, one could sell a screenplay idea with a ten-minute pitch and a charming demeanor.  These days, it’s common — utterly common — for producers to demand full scripts from writers competing for a studio job, for free, then decide which of the written-for-free scripts they will submit to the studio, then find out that the studio isn’t really interested in the material.

My advice for those wishing to become known as writers, especially writer-directors, is to produce your own work.  It has never been easier to do — you can get an excellent camera for $1000 or less, you can get Final Cut Pro for the same amount (or less, if you’re a student).  Then all you need is a script to shoot and you’re all set to go.

There are wonderful books out there that can teach you how to make a movie for nothing (Robert Rodriguez’s Rebel Without a Crew is my favorite) but now the nice people at Good Machine have put everything you need to know in a one-page easy-to-read list.

Users will note that this list, if followed strictly, will tend to produce intimate domestic dramas about people talking about feelings — mumblecore movies.  That’s where imagination comes in.  The fellow who wrote and directed Paranormal Activity followed all these rules to the letter — shot the movie in his own house, with a cast of less than a dozen, and with minimal props that could be found anywhere.  What he brought to the format was a great idea that used the no-budget aspect of the production to its advantage — in fact, it pointed to it — in order to help sell its premise.  The result, while domestic, is sufficiently scary enough to make $100 million and establish its creator as a major Hollywood talent.