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I'm alive. But Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick are living the dream...

I finally remembered about the blog I started.  I'm also glad I know my name and have no memory of TSA screenings.

In other more interesting news, I loved this write up about the Zombieland writing duo. From /Film:

"Let this be a lesson to any aspiring writers out there. Write fun, interesting flicks and you are going to get a ton of work. Take Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick for example. They’re the guys who wrote Zombieland, a modestly budgeted film that was a hit with both fans and critics. And though they’d each been working in the business for several years on varying projects, including The Joe Schmo Show, it took one little spark and they’re off to the races. Reese and Wernick are writing a sequel to Zombieland for Sony, a second G.I Joe film for Paramount, the Deadpool spinoff for Fox, are adapting the comic book Cowboy Viking Ninja for Disney and developing Earth vs. Moon at Universal. They basically have something set up at every studio in Hollywood because of Zombieland, which was originally conceived as a TV show."

Click here to read the rest of the post 

I think I am a one project at a time guy, but if I had a writing partner, I could tackle more because I like to spend a lot of time plotting out the story. So I can do more than one of that.  But when it comes to finally writing the action and dialogue, I can only focus on one script at a time.

How do you feel about multiple writing projects?

Would you commit to writing more than one script on deadline?

Does page count matter? No...pacing does.

Have you seen The Social Network?  I did.  I also read the script.  If you aren't aware of it, the script was 162 pages.  That's right.  The script they shot.  Not the first draft.  The shooting script.  If you've been to the film, you know it wasn't a 2 hour and 42 minute film.

Now, if you're writing a spec I don't recommend turning in a 162 page script, because you know it's going right to a reader like me and that count is not going to make me happy to see off the bat.  But there's value here for all writers to think about...

What Sorkin's script speaks to is writing a script that fits what you are trying to do.  The Social Network is a dialogue heavy talk-fest, very much what Sorkin is known for.  The script is about people who talk fast, if you run in social circles with highly motivated entrepreneurs then you know what I'm talking about.  These guys are super smart and they don't waste their breath.

The same can hold true for a dialogue-lean action driven script.  Don't overwrite the action because you want it to be a 2 hour movie and so you think you need a 120 page script.  If you can write it well in 90 pages, a good Director will know the finished film would be closer to 2 hours and schedule for that.  There's a good chance that 30 pages of filler your story didn't need will ruin the read and lessen the chance of it getting into that good Director's hands.

I highly recommend in the outline process knowing the time each scene will take.  This means knowing your pacing.  Because your pacing can make or break your script.

A script is never finished. Only the film.

I may have said this here before, but I hate when a script is called a "blueprint" for a movie. It simply doesn't take into account all the things a script must have to make a great movie. I guess if you want to think that way, I'll picture your script as a fully built house, barren of anything inside it. Not a house I wish to spend very much time in.

This leads me to today's topic, why I also hate ever saying a script is "finished" (this should not be confused with being done writing it). A script is not literature. It is not fully realized until it is made into a movie. And as we've learned a lot lately, that doesn't make the script "finished", as we get bombarded with remakes galore. Have you ever read a remake of a novel? Yeah, I didn't think so.

This, of course, is a blessing and a curse for us writers. If you're Robert Mark Kamen, the blessing came this summer with The Karate Kid. The curse? Well, I've heard that's called "development hell" but I've never been there myself and I hope to never.

I for one love getting to the end of a draft. But each time I do I think of Michael Arndt and his 100 drafts of Little Miss Sunshine. It reminds me that if you have a great story, with motivated characters, doing unexpected things, with a hook to be advertised, tied together with a universal theme; don't ever stop writing drafts until the movie is made. Because you've built that great house and now you just need to fill it with the right decorations to make it feel like home.

You can't do "that" in Screenwriting.

I believe there are three things necessary to write a good script.

1. The imagination to envision a story worth being told.
2. The ability to design the story into satisfying entertainment.
3. The knowledge of craft to put it in script form.

I think this could be said even more simply.

1. Story & Character
2. Structure
3. Screenwriting

Out of these three skills you must master to be allowed to call yourself a screenwriter, which one do you think is the least important to take a note on? Have your answer? Ok, the answer is......screenwriting.

Yes, stop shaking your head. I'm dead serious. I know what you're thinking, how could the skill that encompasses spelling, grammar, proper format, style, hell the words on the stinkin' page, be the least important???

Well, actually this post isn't really about that. So, if you can't answer that question yourself, no part of me is interested in reading your perfectly formatted amazingly worded boring as hell script.

Now my point is, how come the least important of the three is always the most important when it comes to not "breaking the rules." My guess is because since the only true rule of the first two is to actually just have them, that leaves a shit ton of rules in the "screenwriting" skill that "instructors" can harp about not breaking.

On a side note, this post's theme is cinematically portrayed in the film Adaptation by writer Charlie Kaufman. If you want to be a screenwriter and you haven't seen it. Add it to the top of the Netflix queue right now.

Where was I? Oh right, breaking the rules. Now I'm not just knocking all the script consultants who've written books about the things your script must and musn't have in order to sell. I actually read 'em all because my brain is a sponge that never gets full.

I only want you to think like me, which basically goes, "thank you very much for the advice, I learned a lot, now I'm going to go do whatever the hell I want." Yes, I know it sounds selfish and self-centered, aren't all writers like that? But if you understand what it means to be an artist, then you completely get what I'm saying.

I hate the term "blueprint" and it drives me crazy to hear anyone say "you can't use voiceover, flashbacks, or dream sequences." I'm an artist, so screw you because I'll use them if they damn well make my art better!!!

Well, see that's the rope. The reason so many Academy Award winning scripts (Casablanca, American Beauty, Citizen Kane)  use screenplay elements that the gurus tell you to avoid is because they're challenging to do well. The gurus want to make it seem so easy to write a script, because who would buy a book about screenwriting that says its really really hard.

So, don't listen to anyone tell you that you can't do "that" in screenwritng, because they're just trying to keep you from winning that first Oscar

School begins. Story never stops.

Hey, just checking in to say my first week of classes has come, so my last week of Graduate school has begun. I have to say I'm really excited this year because all the hard work of learning is really starting to translate into unique well-formed ideas and strong tightly-written pages.

I can't stress enough how important it is to really work on story before even thinking of getting to pages. The first classes of the year are always full of us writers pitching our ideas and it was such a huge benefit for me to have my entire story down in outline form to pitch. I got great feedback, notes, and ideas already just one class in.

There is no shortcut to telling a memorable story. Those who came in and pitched just an idea without much idea of the characters involved and how the plotting unfolds were left without much given in return, besides the obvious answer, "You need to think more about that character or concept."

The best writers are great storytellers. It's in their DNA and they can churn it out on the page or in the room. To become a professional you must repeat story over and over until you know it inside out, backwards and frontwards. If whatever you're writing doesn't get you passionate enough to repeat it to people over and over, you're probably not telling the right story.

Find the ONE...start working on that.

Need to get writing done? Use Google Docs.

I have really good news. The reason I haven't posted in a while, besides the fact that a bunch of DOA movies snoozed into theaters, is because I've been getting a ton of work done. 

Now, I've been looking for productivity tools to help boost my output all my life. Anything that can help me get more work done in less time and effort is a great thing. But, it's difficult to find anything like that in the writing world. Writing is, and I'm probably not quoting it right, "Butt in chair." That is the hardest part, yet you don't need much more than that.

When I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, I started to use Google Docs to keep a spreadsheet and share it with my diabetes caregiver. What I realized was Google Docs is a wonderfully designed app.

So at first, I decided anything I think of for story, I would put it into a Google Doc. Well, pretty soon I was writing everything; idealines, loglines, beat sheets, outlines; everything except scripts with Google Docs. Because of one simple and amazing feature.

GOOGLE DOCS GETS DATES RIGHT. As I mentioned in an earlier post, getting writing done is all about setting a deadline. The way Google Docs sorts documents is a genius way to show if you are getting work done.

With Dates that are clearly readable and sections sorted with labels "Today" , "Yesterday" , "Earlier this Month" ,  "Earlier this Year". Now you can clearly set the goal of writing every day, by not letting that Document leave from under the "Today" label.

Google Docs is part of the future of the always on Internet connection world, which I believe we are moving towards right now. If you use Google, it's really worth checking out.

GOOGLE DOCS

What is a beat sheet? Story simplified.

I love beat sheets, but when I was first starting out I had no idea what a beat sheet was. (Please Note: This is about Story Beats, not the beat used to indicate a pause when a character is speaking.) Even today, it's hard to find good accurate examples of what a beat sheet is. I guess beat sheets are still the best kept secret in the writing community.

Beat sheets are integral to the TV writing process, so using beats to work out a one hour drama show was how I really learned the proper use of a beat sheet. The first thing to understand is that a beat is NOT a scene. If you come across beat sheets that list every scene in a movie, and so run 60 to 90 beats long, this is WRONG. Do not follow this method. That is a scene by scene breakdown or outline and should not be confused with a beat sheet.

So what is a beat? A beat is a moment where new information is introduced into the story. Therefore, a plot point is a beat, but not all beats are plot points. And again, not all scenes are beats, rather beats are made up of scenes. I like to break down scripts in this way:

The Screenplay > Acts > Sequences > Beats > Scenes

When I write a beat sheet I like to do a sentence per beat. A feature length script (90 to 120 pages) is going to run between 30 to 40 beats. Much less than 30 and you don't have enough story to fill a script, and more than 40 you're probably writing an epic like Inception or Avatar, which you really shouldn't be doing unless your name is Christopher Nolan or James Cameron.

I have only found two good examples of beat sheets online. The first comes from John August's blog. In my opinion, this is a perfect example and I love that a Professional I highly admire provided us with such a rare gem. I recommend following John's model. Another I have found is Robert Towne's for Chinatown. Here, Towne takes it a step further with a paragraph per beat, which then often goes by the name of Step Outline instead and is usually the next step after you complete a beat sheet.

Beat sheets are a great way to learn and analyze story. On more than one occasion, I have sat down with a favorite film and done a beat sheet on it. I have one I'll share using Dr. No. Older films can be a good place to start because their longer scenes and more obvious sequences breaks allow you to get down the story beat on the first time through more often.

"Dr. No" Beat Sheet

If you know of any other good beat sheets out there, let me know in the comments. Thanks.

What to see? Weekend of August 13th.

Early reviews of Stallone's latest action extravaganza confirm my worst fears. After seeing the film, I will say it's worth seeing just because of the one scene with Stallone, Willis and Schwarzenegger, though can't say that's worth the price of admission. On the other hand, I have also seen Scott Pilgrim and completely feel it is worth the price.

Go see:

Hollywood Studios:

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World - Universal - Rated PG-13

Like "Dick Tracy," "Sin City" and "300" before it, Wright has, in the words of French film theorist André Bazin, the ability to capture the unique essence of one medium (comics) within another (film) and his stylistic remediations are stunning adaptations of the source material...read more.

Independent & Foreign:

Animal Kingdom - SPC - Rated R

The crime family/saga film is practically a tradition in Hollywood. With well established rules, stock characters and even stock stories the genre has largely run itself into a rut. The inner workings of the large crime families are general knowledge and really, the entire idea of the successful contemporary crime family is practically a lifestyle that's packaged and branded. So how wonderfully bracing it is that from the start of writer/director David Michôd's debut feature film, he tosses out everything that has become routine in the genre and starts from scratch...read more.

Enjoy the movies.

Not sure how to approach a rewrite? Stallone and Cameron.

When I was just knee high to a grasshopper I loved war, particularly Vietnam. At six years old I co-wrote my first story, largely based on my fascination with the TV show Tour of Duty, and oddly enough it was the only surviving item in an apartment fire my co-writer suffered, so naturally he got to keep the very brief manuscript. Was this a sign I’m destined to write war movies?

My favorite war movie as a child was Rambo: First Blood Part II. I was an action junkie and I probably watched the recorded off broadcast VHS tape well over twenty times. To this day I can still quote Rambo’s final monologue. At the time, I had no idea my favorite action star was also writer on the shooting draft of the script, or had hired a young upstart writer to pen the first draft, now one of my favorite writer/directors, James Cameron.

I recently sat down and read the Cameron draft and then the Stallone draft. What a terrific exercise in script development, and I highly recommend doing such a process of reading early and later drafts of scripts and analyzing the changes. Great scripts often go through double-digit draft counts, so you should never feel discouraged when your first or second draft isn’t ready for the eyes of those in the biz.

When it comes to rewriting, there are so many ways to approach it. I have always tended to start broad and then narrow my perspective down to single scenes, and then get as specific as single lines. Of course, starting with the whole script can be daunting, so beginning on a single important scene could always be a good way to get going.

I’m linking to a PDF of one scene taken from both the Cameron draft and the Stallone draft. I picked this scene because it’s fairly easy to answer the important questions of: 1) What is the scene about? 2) Whose scene is it? and 3) Why does it need to be in the script? It’s interesting because, while Cameron’s early take uses much more flowery language and so one could argue it's better written, Stallone’s version is much better in terms of the dramatic conflict and using only what's needed to move the story forward. In other words, Stallone asked those questions above to focus and improve the scene. Still, Cameron does get credit for the great button on the end.

Rambo II scene comparison Script

I hope looking at this can help you think about how to tackle rewriting scenes in your script. Leave me your thoughts on the scene or rewriting in the comments.

What to see? Weekend of August 6th.

Adam McKay writes and directs his fourth feature film starring Will Ferrell. While I haven't been blown away by anything this comedic duo has brought thus far, The Other Guys has a pretty good cast, currently sits at 78% on the Tomatometer, and I'm desperate for a good summer comedy to sit down and get my laugh on. Will McKay and Ferrel deliver? You be the judge and leave your thoughts in the comments.

Go see:

Hollywood Studios:

The Other Guys - Columbia - Rated PG-13

From its balls-out opening (narrated by Ice-T, of course), "The Other Guys" plays with testosterone-injected, action-movie tropes, speeding up the editing while slowing down the fight sequences. But as easily as director Adam McKay makes the transition to action, he never entirely leaves his comic roots behind...read more.

Independent:

Get Low - SPC - Rated PG-13

They don't make 'em like this very often, and they really should. "Get Low," takes a true story and uses it to spin a charming, loose and laid back tale about redemption and regret that is surprisingly warmhearted, fresh and funny...read more.

Foreign:

The Disappearance of Alice Creed - Anchor Bay - Rated R

The opening of writer-director J. Blakeson's debut film "The Disappearance of Alice Creed" is smart and effective. To a point...read more.

Documentary:

The Wildest Dream - National Geographic - Rated PG

Directed by acclaimed documentary filmmaker Anthony Geffen and featuring the vocal talents of narrators Liam Neeson, Hugh Dancy, the late Natasha Richardson, Ralph Fiennes and Alan Rickman, The Wildest Dream: Conquest of Everest is a breathtaking mountaineering adventure that seeks to provide answers to the enduring mystery of the death of George Mallory on Mount Everest...read more.

Enjoy the movies.

Want to read the script for Inception?

Inception crossed the $200 million mark on Tuesday, consistently beating estimates. Will it reach $300 million domestically? Leave me your thoughts.

If your interesting in reading the script, Amazon has released the shooting script for sale. Of course, I'd love to have my hands on early versions to see how the script developed, but who knows if we'll ever be so lucky.

Help support the blog and pick up the script through the link below.

How the idea behind a character becomes dialogue in a script.

When I first started out writing scripts, I didn't like doing anything except writing in screenplay format. Why waste my time when I just want to get pages of a screenplay done so I can go and sell it? How naive I was.

Today, I won't sit down and write pages unless I have a road map of where I'm going(I hate the term outline). I strongly prefer the beat sheet, which I learned from TV writing and now use for film scripts. I know I need to get in the habit of writing a prose treatment, but I'll save those thoughts for a later post.

So, while structurally I'm very happy with beating out the story and having that to go on, I'm still struggling with what work to do on my characters before the page writing begins. At school, my professors have typically assigned doing character biographies. This is sometimes a sheet of questions about the character(age, height, sex, education, job, etc.), which I hate and think is utterly stupid, or it could be writing a page similar to a diary entry that gets more into the psychology of the character, this I like a little better.

Still the best process I've come across, but still don't know how to formalize, is just thinking about who the character is like and comparing them to either people in my real life or others characters in film and television. If I say about one of my characters: this is a Don Draper type, then I know exactly the things to inform my writing when it comes to the character.

What really hit that home for my was finding the transcript of a Raiders of the Lost Ark story conference between George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Lawrence Kasdan. As someone who is admittedly more plot focused, I've always known I needed to work harder on making multi-dimensional characters, but I couldn't see how this character work was actually being put to use in my script. The Raiders story conference really opened my eyes to it. So here goes a brief lesson in taking your character work and turning it into great dialogue that serves all the purposes that character work is needed for.

Story excerpt taken from Raiders of the Lost Ark story conference transcript spoken by George Lucas and discussing the villain of the movie:

“He’s the corrupt version of our guy. He’s the one that really goes in and rapes the temples and steals all that stuff and sends it off to private collectors, and takes antiquities and breaks them into small pieces and sells each piece for the price of the original. He’s a real corrupt guy. Maybe he’s the head of his own museum or something. He’s sort of legitimate, only he’s a real corrupt person, and our guy knows that...So it becomes a personal grudge thing.”

Now, the dialogue by the "corrupt guy" spoken to Indiana Jones written by Kasdan:

BELLOQ

You and I are very much alike. 

Archeology is our religion, yet 

we have both fallen from the pure 

faith. Our methods have not differed 

as much as you pretend. I am but a 

shadowy reflection of you. It would 

take only a nudge to make you like 

me. To push you out of the light.

Three great minds together making story magic. 

I love the approach taken in developing characters and I'm still attempting to adopt it to my process.

How do you develop your characters?

What to see? Weekend of July 30th.

Unfortunately, not a single release this weekend entices me. If I had to go see something, I'd go see Inception again or check out The Kids are Alright, which I want to see but haven't yet.

This past Wednesday I went to an advanced screening of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. It was a lot of fun and better than I expected. While not the style of filmmaking I enjoy most, Scott Pilgrim really captured something other comic book/video game/MTV/ADD-style movies have been unable to achieve. I look forward to anything Edgar Wright does in the future.

Go see:

Take the weekend off. Enjoy the great outdoors.

Why is it Three Act Structure? The cycle of life.

Aristotle's Poetics has long been considered the bible of storytelling. Aristotle applied to stories an absolute truth to all life, there is a beginning, middle, and end. I believe the idea of a life cycle permeates everything known to us in the universe. Alright, this post isn't going to be a discourse in philosophy, I'll stick to story.

While some writers, and teachers, of screenwriting will vehemently say you should forget about the concept of three act structure, I believe this would be the greatest mistake any budding writer could make. Three act structure is simply a way to define the life cycle in screenwriting terms. If you remove the cycle of life from your story, you remove any chance of writing a great story.

To prove my premise, I'm going to use my other passion I have mentioned before on this blog, financial markets. The beauty of financial markets is they're built by humans making them also at the mercy of life cycles. A theory has been created to articulate this called Elliott Wave Theory. Below is an image courtesy of Elliott Wave International that shows standard Uptrend(1) and Correction(2) waves in a market.

Don't worry. This isn't as confusing as it might look. For the purposes of the stock market, each line represents a movement in price. So line 1 is price going higher, line 2 is price going lower, line 3 higher, etc. Now let's see this in action with the Uptrend that started in March 2009.

click to enlarge

The green lines are the waves up and the red lines are the waves down. Pretty amazing how accurate wave theory sometimes can be. This particular Elliott Wave move I would classify as classic Hollywood structure. I have labeled the Acts on the chart. Click on it for a better look.

The blue lines on the chart are Fibonacci retracement lines. If you are unfamiliar with the numbers click here. Darren Aronofsky's terrific debut Pi incorporates Fibonacci numbers in the story, which is a perfect segue to the question, do all movies follow the above three act structure? No.

I'm sure you may have been thinking that and one example is Aronofsky's even more amazing second film, Requiem for a Dream. Am I saying Requiem doesn't contain three act structure? No. It does. Just not the classic pattern of waves seen above. This is because waves can move in a downtrend as well as an uptrend and there is smaller waves within the larger waves. Ok, another chart may help clarify this.

As you can see, there are a lot more waves on this chart versus the first one we looked at, though it is technically the exact same. Each of the single lines in the first has been broken into five or three lines here.

Aronofsky doesn't use classic Hollywood structure where the story's peak comes in Act Three. Requiem's peak comes at the midpoint of the story, right before the "Fall" title card, page 53 of the script. From there it's all down waves, though, of course, he put an up wave coda on the end so we didn't leave the theater completely bummed out.

Looking at the chart above, we would relabel the act structure for Requiem to have Act One end at (3), Act Two end at (B). The movie is a downer for sure, but I love it.

To bring this post around full circle, pun intended, remember that the waves are based of the cycle of life. Aronofsky used the title cards with the seasons to show this. All things natural to our world have cycles. This includes stories.

Look at your script. Can you find the waves in it? Does your story go through a cycle in a classic Hollywood way or is it like Aronofsky's Requiem? Leave me a comment if you agree or disagree with my proof.

What to see? Weekend of July 23rd.

While I haven't read it, I heard from good sources that the script for Salt was great. Of course, the script being evaluated had Salt written as a man, not a woman like in this weekend's release. After finding Knight and Day fairly lackluster, I'm curious to see if I like Angelina Jolie in the role, or if Tom Cruise made the wrong decision to walk away. I guess it could be both. Thanks, as always, to The Playlist, my trusted source for reviews.

Go see:

Hollywood Studios:

Salt - Sony - PG-13

For the next ninety minutes or so, we watch as she dashes, ducks, climbs out of buildings, detonates bombs and engages in high-speed pursuits, all in an incredibly guilty-looking attempt to clear her name...read more.

Independent:

Life During Wartime - IFC - Unrated

The picture brings a solid critique of society, but Solondz is smart enough to do it comically. What could've been extremely dry and preachy is actually a very well made comedy that actually has something to say...read more.

Foreign:

Valhalla Rising - IFC - Unrated

Slow-burning, meditative, eerie and putting a premium on atmospherics before narrative, Winding Refn's 7th feature-film proves he's still one of the most exciting new directors working today even if he doesn't feel the need to thrill audiences with style, fast-pace and camera-moving conceits...read more.

Documentary:

Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno - Flicker Alley - Unrated

History is littered with films that could have been special had they, you know, been made. And "Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno" is a fascinating peek at a potential masterpiece by the French Hitchcock...read more.

Enjoy the movies.

What makes for great TV?

Read this amazing blog post.

I wasn't aware of Josh's blog but I am now.

FYI: Went to Inception in Imax yesterday. In the immortal words of Keanu Reeves, "Whoa"

What to see? Weekend of July 16th.

I would go see anything by a handful of currently working directors no matter what the movie is about. Christopher Nolan is one of those directors. Memento ranks #3 on my FlickChart, so it's fairly obvious what I'll be going to this weekend, in IMAX, of course. Will Inception be the last big summer blockbuster in 2D? Leave me your thoughts on that in the comments.

Go see:

Hollywood Studios:

Inception - Warner Bros. - Rated PG-13

Yes, Christopher Nolan's "Inception" is unthinkably complex, a whirligig puzzlebox thriller set in a world of dreams (and dreams-within-dreams), but it's also a exceptionally aspiring project in general: a large studio movie, whose budget tickled the $200 million mark, that isn't based on a preexisting franchise, video game or breakfast cereal mascot...read more.

Independent

Please Give - SPC - Rated R

Unfairly ignored by audiences and critics, this terrific, emotionally soulful picture, is an underrated gem and audiences with a female-centric bent would be wise to spend their time with these fully-dimensionalized characters rather than the cardboard cut-outs of "Twilight: Eclipse" and "Sex And The City 2."...read more.

Foreign:

Wild Grass - SPC - Unrated

I did enjoy the film's style—its exuberant colors, the restless, ever-curious camera, and the way it wove ominous undertones into an essentially light surface—and of course I enjoyed the loving references to the power of movies...read more.

Documentary:

Exit Through the Gift Shop - Producers Distribution - Rated R

Is it real or fake? In the end, it doesn't really matter because Banksy's high wire not-quite-documentary is one of the most flat out entertaining films you will see this year...read more.

Enjoy the movies.

"Young @ Heart" - One Sentence Reviews

A heartwarming, and at times heartbreaking, documentary with a terrific cast of characters who put together a show that all great movies do: make you laugh, cry, and stand up and cheer.

RECOMMENDATION: RECOMMEND

What's really selling? Adaptations.

All writing begins with an idea. As a writer I'm constantly attempting to generate new ideas, whether they be for the current projects I'm working on or for new potential projects. It can be both frustrating when ideas won't come or you think they're all crap, and extraordinary when you think you've struck gold with something fresh and new.

So much attention gets put on coming up with something completely fresh original and new, it's easy to forget that a great idea is often just a new spin on something done before. Take one of the greatest new ideas of the last decade, the iPod. When I was a kid I had one, only it was called a Walkman and it played plastic tapes. Avatar was deemed by many as simply a re-telling of the Pocahontas story with blue aliens and CGI, that didn't stop it from being the biggest box office success in over a decade. In fact, it more likely helped.

In business, the iPod is called product innovation. When it comes to writing stories, it's called adaptation. Most often when we think of adaptations we think of the recent bestsellers like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo or iconic characters like Harry Potter. This might lead many writers to neglect the wealth of great stories free of copyright, and therefore can be adapted into a script without costing a penny.

Many writers, though, haven't forgotten. Public domain works have become hot properties this year in Hollywood with another being announced involving Victor Hugo's classic tale, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. If you missed the news, check out The Playlist's blurb. Disney has been in this game for decades, hitting it big again this year with Alice in Wonderland, and announcing a Wizard of Oz prequel and a new spin on Sleeping Beauty. Warner Brothers will be back with a sequel to the successful Sherlock Holmes, and a range of others are in the works including Little Red Riding Hood, The Little Mermaid, The Wind in the Willows, and Snow White just to name a few.

There are many reasons why stories in the public domain have been finding a lot of traction in Hollywood right now, but the main appeal for me is a known character free of charge to do whatever you please with them. While some may shake their fist at the revisionist takes just about all I've mentioned will see, like the Walkman and the iPod, innovation on something we already love can really pay off big.

What character in the public domain do you love?

What to see? Weekend of July 9th.

I'm out of LA and on the very hot east coast. The heat always makes me feel more tired than I actually am, and makes me want to go to the movies for the wonderful air conditioning. This week Universal gets into the animation business with Despicable Me. Looks like a chuckle and they beat DreamWorks Animation to the punch with the villain as protagonist angle. I'm more interested in some adult fare this weekend.

Go see:

Hollywood Studios:

Predators - Fox - Rated R

There's constantly so much stuff going on that there isn't much time to slow down and focus on the intricacies of the characters, situation or plot. In a way, this is one of the movie's biggest assets since it doesn't allow the audience (or reviewer) to contemplate why exactly any of the stuff that's happening, or how it's happening logistically, since some other big moment of over-sized kick-assery is looming just around the corner...read more.

Independent:

The Kids Are Alright - Focus - Rated R

Like Meyers, filmmaker Lisa Cholodenko crafts a movie actually made with adults in mind as an audience (and features some gorgeous, glossy-worthy house porn), but Cholodenko doesn't rely on unlikely, Ephron-aping meet-cutes and groan-worthy dialogue...read more. 

Foreign:

The Girl Who Played with Fire - Music Box - Rated R

"The Girl Who Played With Fire" establishes the series' pessimistic ongoing thesis: society is controlled by powerful men who only seek to oppress and exploit women, and no passage of time or changing of the guards will change that...read more.

Documentary:

Winnebago Man - Kino - Unrated

"Winnebago Man" is essentially a documentary following filmmaker Ben Steinbauer on his quest to find the star of the famed RV salesman freak-out video, Jack Rebney, sometimes dubbed as the "world's angriest man" and a guy who's video ranked #2 on some stupid Vh1 show about all-time Internet memes...read more. 

Enjoy the movies.

What to see? Weekend of July 1st.

The only challenger to Twilight is M. Night. Sadly, early reviews make it clear this is no contest, not that there was ever a chance it would be. Is it really possible M. Night will score lower with The Last AirbenderThe Happening on the Tomatometer? While I'd be glad to see another "franchise" put to pasture, I really hope M. Night can come back with a strong original concept that puts him back on top. then he did with

Go see:

Hollywood Studios:

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse - Summit - Rated PG-13 

This isn't as painful as it's predecessors, but that doesn't mean that there's finally an entry point for the uninitiated into the series. "Eclipse" still features dialogue that will make non-fans wonder at the saga's popularity...read more.

Independent: 

The Killer Inside Me - IFC - Rated R

Darkness comes in many flavors. If you've heard anything about Michael Winterbottom's "The Killer Inside Me," it's inevitable that you've read at least something about its supposed darkness and brutal violence...read more.

Foreign:

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - Music Box - Rated R

Though Stieg Larsson's novels are rife with sexual violence and considerable gore, they're also mystery thrillers in the Agatha Christie sense — in this case, the specific genre homages include an isolated estate and skulking suspects with loads of motives and alibis...read more.

Documentary:

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work - IFC - Rated R

With the media in full reality overdrive, it’s refreshing to see an unflinching documentary that delves into what it’s really like to be famous...read more.

Enjoy the movies.

Who has it worse than Studios right now? Theater owners.

As I slowly get the hang of this blogging thing, who I am and what I'm all about will come to reveal itself. One of the reasons I have struggled to post on a more consistent basis is because I consider myself a private person and I didn't want to write about myself at all on here (yes, I realize now that is kinda the whole point of blogging).

Beyond my passion for Film and Television I have an interest in economics and financial markets. Several posts back I showed how the success of Avatar followed by Alice in Wonderland sent stocks of theater owners soaring to levels not seen since 2007.

Since the market peak in late April, all the gains those stocks made have been wiped out and they currently are hitting November 2009 prices. The chart of Carmike Cinemas (CKEC) pretty much says it all.

About two weeks ago I bought some DreamWorks Animation (DWA) believing the market had found support above its 200-Day MA but was stopped out with a small gain (+5%) when the market fell hard two days ago.

With Toy Story 3 performing well, Twilight breaking records and Inception on the way, here's hoping July can start to turn things around for Entertainment stocks, but with key support areas being broken daily in the markets, the time for bottom fishing may not be as soon as I would like.

What's wrong with the Box Office? Pricing.

Yesterday I watched Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious, a film way ahead of it's time and a huge box office success grossing $290 million on a production budget of $24 million in today's dollars, according to The Numbers. Now, I just happened to decide to revisit one of my favorite filmmaker's best Hollywood productions before I came across this article at Time.com, "Box Office Blues: The Blockbusters That Weren't," which mentions the year Notorious was released, 1946.

The article points out the downtrend in admissions, the current estimate for this year at 1.27 billion, far below the 4 billion tickets sold in 1946, a time before free television started to erode the movie-going audience. With attendance in May 2010 down 19% from May 2009, Time puts the blame on the releases this year compared to last year, a consistent message coming out of the media today, and one I'm completely inclined to agree with. But I think there's also a lot more to the story.

What the article failed to talk about was that big fat price hike that showed up before this summer. With tickets 4% to 10% higher and most Americans in not any better financial position then they were a year ago, is it really accurate to blame the release slate for the decrease in attendance? Because Hollywood struggles so dearly with their P&A on so many movies they seem to completely ignore the #1 rule in marketing anything: Pricing.

While the article does point out that attendance in 2009 was about equal to 1997, meaning the 62% increase in box office revenue ($6.51 billion to $10.65 billion) is completely a result of price hikes, no question on pricing is raised. Why does the media and the industry mostly ignore the question of pricing?

The industry likes to point out that a family of four can go to the movies for a lot cheaper than other entertainment options like amusement parks, sports events, and music concerts but to me that's not an apples to apples comparison. So what about that glorious year of 1946 when three times the amount of tickets sold with half the population of today?

I did some research, ok googling, and the numbers I found don't surprise me. Let's start with going to see Notorious in 1946. The average ticket price was $.10, so adjusted for inflation to 2010 that works out to $1.19. While in 1994 I saw Forrest Gump at a discount theater for $2, here in LA the lowest ticket price I can find is $5. I imagine that's similar to most cities around the country.

I know what you're thinking, yes we pay a lot for a movie ticket today but don't we pay a lot for everything else as well? Let's see. How about a car? I found the average price of a car in 1946 to be $1,400 which works out to $16,611. Gee, I can get a new car for cheaper than that. How about some gas to put in that car? In 1946 that'd run you $.21 a gallon, adjusted for inflation that's $2.49. Not so far off huh?

I know, movies and cars aren't the best comparison, so let's use what the studios use. How about a baseball game? According to this article I found, Yankees tickets just to get in the game cost $1.25 with the good seats running $2.50. So that shows a ticket price range of $15 to $30 in 2010 dollars. How does that compare to today? Well, getting the good seats is going to run over $100 with some as high as $300, but you can still just get in the game for $14 and the grandstand tickets that ran for $15 are now $20-25. So while the studios can continue to boast how going to a movie is cheaper than a baseball game, this doesn't account for the fact that the average movie ticket price, $7.50, has risen 530% versus 66% for baseball if we take the higher priced grandstand seats at Yankee Stadium.

With 3D being all the rage and studios basically saying everything will be released in 3D not long off, it seems to me Hollywood's pricing model is simply going to be raise, raise, raise the prices. Are you getting a 530% greater value at the movie theaters today? If every single movie was as good as Toy Story 3, sure, but when's that going to happen?

What to see? Weekend of June 25th.

I get the feeling sometimes that people don't want to see Tom Cruise succeed. I guess he's had a good run but I'd love to see him in some more serious roles like Born on the Fourth of July.

So see:

Hollywood Studios:

Knight and Day - Fox - Rated PG-13

Silly, ridiculous, and yet at times deliciously entertaining, James Mangold's first summer tentpole, "Knight & Day" mostly works and is a better-then-average slice of summer fluff...read more.

Independent:

I Am Love - Magnolia - Rated R

Set in Italy at the beginning of the 21st century, the film serves up a feast of emotions, issues and choices...read more.

Foregin:

Micmacs - SPC - Rated R

Micmacs is achingly beautiful, employing the muted, old-style palette that is so common to Jeunet’s films...read more.

Documentary:

Restrepo - National Geographic - Rated R

Restrepo, which opens in Los Angeles this Friday, offers a somewhat more raw filmgoing experience but makes some equally powerful choices as it shows moments of both adrenaline and tedium experienced by a group of soldiers fighting in the Korengal Valley, one of Afghanistan's most dangerous battlegrounds...read more.

Enjoy the movies.

Did you put a date on it?

Often when you read a Q&A with a professional screenwriter, the questions are asked: "What is your process; how many hours a day do you write; how many pages a day do you write?" While I may listen to the different answers, and they're always difficult, I quickly forget what other writers say about their work ethic. I only care about my own process and the finished script. After all, there is only one thing everyone else cares about, the finished script.

How you get there is all up to you, but you must get there. If you want to be a professional, your career depends on it. This recent article on deadline.com says it all:

WHERE'S MY SCRIPT?! Warner Bros Cracks Down On Screenwriter's Late Delivery Dates

The deadline. In my opinion, the one writing process every screenwriter must have. Since I come from a masters program in screenwriting, I'm a big fan of the weekly deadline. Pick a day and time. Pick a page count. If you finish the script in the set number of weeks, you passed the class.

From the sounds of things rumbling out of Hollywood, working pros know this lesson all too well already.