|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
Mates,There is much discussion here about the relative qualities of "Hollywood", "Independent", and "Foreign"(non-US to the US)films. And strong feelings as to preference.
The Hollywood movies are often criticised for being predictable and there is a reason. The Hollywood type does correspond to a template 99% of the time:
One page of screenplay= one minute of movie
Screenplay= 90 to 120 pages (tending to be a longer lately)
1. ACT ONE pp 1-30: pages 1-10: page 1: open with a strong image that to establish location and time (place and period).
2. pp. 1-10 Establish main character(s), especially the likability or interest and also the hateability of the (future)opponent
3. pp. to 15: establish need, desire, task of main character
4. somewhere pp. 25-30: plot point- something happens which sets main charcters into action towards fufilling the task-
5. ACT TWO pp. 30-90: the character pursues task, development of the opposition
6. somewhere around p. 90; plot point- the final "battle" to fulfill task is set- Luke and Darth sword fight, Earps and Clantons are heading off to the O.K. Corral
7. ACT THREE pp. 90-120: the final battle- the hero(ine) confronts the opposition in a confined space to a clear result.
8. last 8 pages- resolution: explanantion of the results in which the effect and changes to the hero are made clear. The hero is shown sad, happy, fulfilled or dead.FADE to BLACK
If you are a screenwriter without a considerable track record and producer contact, unless your script follows the above formula- and is even typed and bound in a certain way- it will never get to or past the first round of readers. The audience does not know how rigid the application of this formula has become.
If this seems too simplistic, watch any US studio financed and distributed movie since 1970, time the plot points and the three acts, wait for the final battle in a confined space and post battle resolution. I have seen this pattern in movies exactly with a frightening regularity. If you see independent and/or foreign films that are taken up for distribution by major studios, most often it is because the independently made film corresponds to the formula.
As for preference, this formula produces some wonderful, interesting movies and from studio (=money) perspective, the public is perceived as being most comfortable with this familar structure. It is the suprising non-flexibility that can bore people that enjoy suprises.
Cheers,
Bambi B
Follow Ups:
Setting Eraserhead aside, I loved Blow-up because a lot of the loose ends were not tied up at the end. Also, the ending scene in Blow up and The Devils (kurt Russell?) both had this weird sense that it's over--but not resolved. Hollywood doesn't do that too much anymore, if they ever did it. But to me, that's one of the reasons I liked the movies. Ohm well, it's all aimed at 12 year old boys anyway...
the unresolved ending - just like every friday the 13th, halloween and nightmare on elm street movie. is he dead ... or not? we don't know!
Or theatre? Not really. Some people consider film is art. I don't, it hasn't been in my lifetime. But if you do, why shouldn't it follow a strict format? Likewise for classical music and painting. It's always been about a format that people like (or is deemed acceptable), and still is.If you don't like the strict format, then you go to "alternative" film and music and art. The structured and the loose can coexist no problem.
cfraser,I (and many others it seems) don't object to a format or formula for any kind of art. As you say, they permeate every realm and are actually necessary. Without form (formula)there is no sequence or structure that allows an outsider to understand the work. The 20th C. tried formlessness, but there still had to be an explanation of the attempt to make events inclusive and random so of course, 'deliberate randomness' became another cliche- or formula. "Cue spontaneity."
In poetry there is meter and sonnet form, haiku, etc and a lot of pepole are drawn to making or reading a particular form. One of my favourite formats for solo keyboard music is the fugue, which is so rigourous that some music analysts say that Beethoven never wrote a real one, despite those included in the late piano sonatas, Ode to Joy, and the Grosse Fuge. There are fewer real formats to painting but there are categories of genre painting, and the many "isms" that amount to the same kind of set of rules. With surrealism, wasn't it Andre Breton who tried to exclude and almost supress painters that didn't play the game to his standards?
But, a format or formula is actually a great way to limit the field of play and then force a kind of cleverness to make new statements still within the tight rules. People like to see how well an artist plays their chosen, familiar "game." Others- and I do too- like to see the form subverted for something liberated. But there can also only be liberated forms in relationship, by contrast to the established ones.
As for film being art, I would say that all film is art because it corresponds to the basic premise of art as a object made with an intention of affecting the thoughts and/or emotions of a viewer. That's a broad view, but the 20th C. so completely liberated art (Duchamp) to include almost everything with an aesthetic intent.
Then, there is good and bad art.
Cheers,
I'm not sure what art is, have lots of thoughts, but to me music and movies are entertainment, like novels, they don't have to have a higher purpose that elevates them. They can, but I don't demand it during my times of relaxation, as long as it's not totally dumb.The new movie Adaptation has a main theme that is very much in line with your topic, so much so that I wonder if you might have seen a preview showing that got you thinking. This sounds like a movie that all movie buffs should see.
cfraser,I don't expect art to always have a higher purpose to elevate- entertainment can be enough. To me, it's always interesting to separate out activities that are intended to affect people in some way and look closely. Then, there is a consciousness of what a single person or small group is saying to a larger group. With entertainment though can be packaged other content. In war-time America, it is interesting to watch the film portrayal of war and heroism. "Casablanca" is entertaining but can be also seen as beginning to end a message for the US (Rick) to stop it's isolationist attention to business (Rick's Cafe) and get into WWII (the Lazslos). M*A*S*H* and "Apolocalype Now" are fun but also talk about the meaning of becoming- or resisting becoming- warriors.
Thanks for mentioning "Adaptation." I think it is in general release this past week, but haven't seen it. The premise of the intertwining of life and film is always interesting. (There are so many strange films about film making- "Shadow of the Vampire"- director Murnau hires a real vampire to star in "Nosferatu.") It's a little difficult to imagine Cage and Streep together, but Cage has a dual role as identical twins, so it's Cage+Cage+Streep. If "A." has the quircky energy of Jonze's "Being John Malkovick" it should be fun!
BTW, I'm embarassed to say, but the only real studio preview I ever attended was "Flash Gordon" in 1980!
Cheers,
I have not seen Adaptation either, not sure if it's even out here yet. So what I say is just based on my interpretation of the story synopsis I read. Besides the intertwining of life and film (Woody Allen anyone?), a main theme is supposed to be a screenwriter trying not to succumb to the Hollywood formula for scripts, yet his life and subsequently his script does follow the pattern. It almost sounds like an "art imitating life imitating art", or "life imitating art imitating life" double whammy. One I'll have to get to.I have also only been to one "preview", and funnily enough it was Apocalypse Now in '79. The movie was pre-released in 3 or 4 cities to get audience reactions to different endings, before picking the release ending. The "Toronto ending" was not used, and I have never seen the released version...think I'll watch the Redux version tonight.
part of the newer formula added in the 70's and is now a part of alomst every film. The self applause at the end. I can't stand any film that has the movie characters or extras applausing the hero at the end. That is my job to applause or hate it. I remember the audience used to applause movies at the and. Then the movies got bad and we stopped. Then the movies applaud themselves.I once heard a script reader for one of the big studios in an interview. He said he could accept or reject a script in 30 seconds. He said he started by turning to page 42(i think that was the number) and if there was no tense moment that would hold the viewer and allow a commercial break, the script was trashed. He could "read" 100 scripts a day that way.
The really sad part is that most of these standard script elements were established 50 years ago and have not changed. In the same way I love Lucy established the sitcom forumla that is still standard.
P
w
nt
You didn't mention this: Hollywood films typically have two parallel stories, one public and one private, both of which resolve together.For example, the public story is that the main character is a detective working to solve a whodunit, or a man being chased. The private story is that the main character is going through some personal problems, or there is a romance budding between him and another character, or whatever. In resolving the public story, the main character also resolves the personal story.
It is not a secret that films follow formulas like the above. You haven't said anything that people don't already know. Why does this "formula" work so well in, say, Vertigo but not in Pearl Harbor?
Because it's not about the formula. It's about *how* you get to the ending. Since you mention Star Wars, did you know that George Lucas consulted mythology expert Joseph Campbell to help construct his story to resonate with many of the themes found in mythology? Ideas that touched the Greeks will still touch us today - this is because we're funadmentally the same deep down inside.
Look, you can break any rock song down to verse-chorus-bridge-guitar solo-verse-chorus. So what if it's a formula. We enjoy it because of the tunefulness of *how* it's done. You say that you want something different from the formula, but I would suspect that you yourself have a more enjoyable time listening to a formulaic Mozart opera than the Ring cycle.
Now, what I don't like, and what I suspect you really have a problem with, is not formulas but cliches that get played over and over and over.
TA,Some good points. There is often a parallel public and private story that resolve togther, and this is used to enrich the overall "task" the main charcter undertakes, but it is really part of that task/ desire/ need of the main character, not essential to the basic structure.
You're right that Lucas' consultation with Campbell did add Campbell's brand of Jungian collective unconscious and enliven the first Star Wars set. Possibly the lack of Campbell in the current set may have dropped Star Wars back in depth. The current series to me are broken, epsisodic, and more driven by jargon, hardware, and action sequences than say Luke's fulfilment of his destiny through self-knowledge.
And again, you're correct that this kind of formula works relative to the skill in using it. I would suggest though that Vertigo was made somewhat before the formula was so codified (I think about 1970) and, of course, Hitchcock is debatable classed as a regular US studio director. He was often looking to break studio patterns- such as "Rope." "The Sting" is a case where the formula was set and everything worked together well. "Raiders of the Lost Ark" worked too on it's chosen level.
As for operas, I'm a medium fan of "The Ring" because it is largely not written idiomatically for the human voice, but the story is great and music is brilliant. I wonder if those with the Tolkien craze realize the great number of 'similarities' to Wagner- magic gold ring with powers, historic swords, races/species with special powers, etc? I particularily like "Goetterdaemerung" because it begins with giants who are building contractors- any epic opera that tries that is admirable. The first Harry Potter is full of discount Wagnerisms. I do like "The Magic Flute," which is mythology laden as well as humourous, but I would say Britten's "Billy Budd" has it all.
I'm fairly neutral as to formula for the reasons you mention. If it's well done and given interesting characters and situations, something mysterious or intriguing, it's fine, but cliches are tiresome. I'm so on guard- jaded- I didn't enjoy "The Sixth Sense" because it's obvious in the first 30 minutes the 'trick' that the Bruce Willis character had already died. It becomes a one-liner when everthing works off of one concept.
And sorry, I didn't mean to preach something that everyone already knows- that's why "secret" is in quotes. I imagined that there are many who recognize the pattern but don't know the rigidity of it in detail today and it's relationship to getting a movie financed and distributed.
Cheers,
I claim to have fugured it out in under 10 minutes! Any other claims?
Hey Bambi, You don't need to be defensive - I think these boards are for playing out ideas and getting a good discussion going so we all come away with new ideas.The "formula" has been around forever. Some movie books talk about it with His Girl Friday as their example, and if you run through old Hollywood film (It's a Wonderful Life, Casablanca, etc.) you'll see that it's always been there.
What I think often distinguishes "good" films from "bad" films these days falls along the lines of what Victor's post talked about. A good film will develop good characters, and the story and action "naturally" comes out decisions and choices that are the products of their nature and character, and maybe their one flaw if it's a morality tale. A bad film just drops action out of the sky onto the main character and makes those choice for the character.
Maybe the main character trimphs at the end, or maybe he fails (and either outcome might have been done many times before). The crucial difference is that the outcome is a product of the character's nature and choices developing over the movie, rather than just the writer dropping a situation on the character. In other words, you see how the charcter's flaws drive him into a situation where he's got to make a final stand against his enemy, versus random bad guys showing up out of nowhere for that final fight. Either way, you wind up with gunfight at the OK Coral, but it's a matter of *how* you get to the fight that makes the difference.
That is interesting. I certainly see some validity to these points, although I would have to think more about them.I would like, however, to add one more distinguishing feature that immediately separates what we should call "typical Hollywood script" from those used in the films many of us consider deep and thoughful.
It is the reliance of plot twists and turns, on events, or situations.
In a typical "deep" film (pardon me for using this terminology here - just for simplicity, really...) the drama and action are in the emotions of participants, much like in real life.
In a typical Hollywood script it is the situations which most often have nothing to do with real life and would never be encountered by any of us.
Bergman and Co can keep you riveted to your chair with simple (simple.... huh!) emotions, Soderberg and Scott need something to happen on the screen, something incredibly unusual, or the public is gonna leave, as not much else is typically there.
If you look at Hollywood history, it has not always been that way. Its better films used to have wit, energy, emotions and jumor. They were, and still are, incredible fun to watch.
These have been later largely replaced by action, events, and an endless panopticon of morons and social deviants.
While, as we have mentioned many times before, this trend is taking place apparently everywhere, Hollywood is most definitely the trend setter here, and rightly takes most blame.
VK,Your characterization of separating plot-driven action from character- driven action is highly important. When the movie moves because of a kind of clockwork force with deceptions, it is done to maintain a certain kind of interest- an intrigue as to what will happen next. When it is charcter driven it becomes what will a person choose to do next-(and remotely, what would I do?)- the intrigue of human action.
The first is just easier. The recent version of "Ocean's Eleven" is a case of being extremely plot driven so that there is little memorable about the charcters except Elliot Gould and Carl Reiner who had some personality. Clooney's Ocean did not have any believable inner drive, Andy Garcia walked around stiff as a board in his wierd wardrobe and Julia Roberts at $20,000,000 was getting $1,000,000 per useful word. Contrast this to the original Rat Pack version and esp. the great Las Vegas charcters in "Casino."
The second- character driven- is much more difficult. And you mention one of my favourites- Bergman- who manages to portray a real psychology and how deep personality causes people's choices in interactions. The difference too might be that "O-11" tries an impresive big scale external, epic and Bergman goes into the epic scale of one or two people's internal life.
As you recently heated the plate with the discussion of "Sola," I would be interested in applying the idea of plot-driven against character-driven to it. I am inclined to think that Sola's amazing violence is plot(incidence)driven to purposely de-humanize. Perhaps Pasolini didn't establish for viewers the two sides of Fascism- that it is a nightmare for those who oppose it, but there are many, many more people who fall for it and admire it's order, benefits, and clarity to the point of looking away at it's costs. In pro-fascist movies we see politics, morality, military, public order, and justice based on enforced compliance with the needs of the production of wealth and maintainance of a pyramidal power structure as a kind of meritocracy. With Pasolini, we are forced into seeing the costs close up but still in a general way. A plot-driven rather than character-driven world portrayed.
Cheers,
drive." Wonder if he picked up any speed in that other ocean, that is,
the one on Solaris? - AH
Thank you Bambi, interesting observations regarding the Salo. I think I am going to agree with you that it is unfortunately to large degree done at conscious level, or as you put it plot-driven. There is not much the characters contribute to its development either, they are merely pawns in that game. That is not surprising given the film's and its creator's history, and to a large degree it is the result of the deteriorating ego. However, I suspect that just the two types outlined by you are not going to cover all cases, and the marvel of Salo lies not really in its plot, and most certainly not in acting, but in the atmosphere that only a great director can create. So in essence it becomes a director-driven film.As I said, to me its plot was shocking and unforgettable, but far more so was the almost unbearable atmoshpere of horror without exit, without end. For instance, Salo was the only film that I remember where I closed my eyes for an instant, as the suffering had truly reached the hight that was too much for any human being to handle - the moment when they scalp the victim.
We had all seen attempts at presenting horror on screen - from adolescent Friday the 13th to the pretentious yet flat Apocalypse Now (its ending where the horror... horror... narration failed to produce well, horror) and Saving Private Ryan, we all had seen guts open and blood gush, and that stuff usually doesn't move a muscle in out bodies. So how did Pasolini manage to make me recoil in shock? It was the thick atmospere of REAL horror that only a true artist could create.
And since then, whenever I try to create the sence of utmost horror in my mind, I always envisios the Death Dance that only Pasolini, with his ultimately perverted and perhaps too conscious mind, could create.
And to support this I would once again mention the Konchalovsky's segment in Lumiere and Company, where there was no plot and no actors, yet the director simply painted a masterpiece with nothing more than just a camera angle and its position... or so it seems.
VK,Yes, the distinction is between Salo and the others is the palpability of the violence, the sensation that is, as you say, true. I sense that you may have a similar reasction to it that I do of combined repulsion with simultaneous admiration for the sheer skill of conveyance(?)
I had a similar reaction to realistic violence the first time I saw Eastwood's "Unforgiven," e.g., the sherrif's (Hackman) beating of English Bob really hurt.
But it was not the relentless violence in Pasolini's. Perhaps Pasolini intended to overdrive his point in an allegory: that fascism contains a necessary relentless violence such that a reasonable person must turn away from.
I don't discount you're suggestion that Pasolini was also just diving off the deep end either. As we now know, he had troublesome hobbies.
Thank you for mentioning Konchalovsky and the marvelous "Lumiere et compagnie". After I saw it, I wanted to build a replica of the cinematographe. It appeared to have about ten parts but it's nature enforced a wonderful series of complex images. I looked up Konchalovsky and he is also the screenwriter of one of my favourites from your part of the world, "Andrei Rublev."
Cheers,
Bambi B
***Yes, the distinction is between Salo and the others is the palpability of the violence, the sensation that is, as you say, true. I sense that you may have a similar reasction to it that I do of combined repulsion with simultaneous admiration for the sheer skill of conveyance(?)Yes, that's exactly it.
I have always had mixed feelings about Konchalovsky, as he was an official Party cinema man. Some of his films were simply puky. But he most definitely has talent.
I presume some of those older machnes can be purchased today perhaps even on ebay, but of course the prices would likely be high. I agree, it is amazing what could be done with them, and I strongly recommend the Lumiere to anyone interested in fine films - what a wealth of styles and expressive techniques, each one a small gem.
I gave at the office!
There are two parts to movie making: a public and a director.Unfortunately one doesn't lead the other, they slide together, hand in hand.
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: