My Booth @ The Great American PitchFest
Current mood: Helpful
Category: Helpful Writing and Poetry

The Great American PitchFest is this weekend in Burbank at the Marriot.

I will be offering 15-Minute Pitch Tune-Ups at my booth at the Trade Show on Saturday.  I can help you polish your log line and hone your pitch.

Also, people often think that pitching is about the story. It's not. Pitching is all about YOU.  I can help you pitch yourself.

Stop by and say, "Hi."  Mention my MySpace profile and I will take $5 off of a $30 consult.

Currently watching : Session 9 Release date: 2002-08-13

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Genre Works: How to Reverse Reality
Current mood: catalyzed
Category: Writing and Poetry

Professional Screenwriter Sean Hood recently asked me to contribute a short piece on genre writing for his blog, "Reality Hack." My piece, which appears on his blog, is reprinted below.

I focused on that catalyzing moment in every fantastical narrative, when the audience's sense of normality MUST give way to the writer's twist on reality.

Reality Slam

"We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto."
 

Dorothy's classic utterance shines a light on one of the most powerful opportunities afforded to the writer of fantastical narratives, in any genre, in any medium.
    

By the time a filmgoer walks into a multiplex, or sits down to munch microwave popcorn with Netflix, he or she has seen trailers, reviews, poster art, and maybe even an SNL parody. Viewers have a whole passel of pre-conceived notions, but when you properly do your job as a writer, that crystalline moment, when mundane physics, gravity and reason fall away, can still deliver a gut-punch. 

The moment when a narrative departs from the reasonable expectation of reality is absolutely precious. Savor it. Make it sing, sting, or stun.  The storyteller's real job is to master the expectations of the reader/viewer, to move them off their spot and in a direction they might not have imagined or chosen.  How better to demonstrate mastery over those expectations than to suddenly bewilder the audience's sense of normal time and space?

The method by which you separate us from our comfy sense of reality is an efficient way to re-enforce clear genre and establish tone.  Since genre is where craft meets marketplace, this moment can really anchor your narrative to the climax.

§    Horror looks for a good scare or surprise.

§    Fantasy looks for wonder & escape, usually through a magic portal

§    SciFi looks for realism and a logical extrapolation of the known universe

§    Action looks for reality-bending, escalating thrills

§    Magical Realism wants a poetic or whimsical twist on reality, often linked to a POV

§    Broad Comedy wants an outrageous and/or disgusting set-up & demands a laugh

At some point, you want to firmly yank the "Reality Rug" out from under the viewer.  But maybe not all at once. Contemplate WHEN:

OPTION 1:  THE TEASE

A tease can be quite tantalizing.  Most horror movies protract the very thing we all know is coming.  As soon as you buy a ticket to something called ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, you're gonna be pissed if something doesn't jump out at you early and slaughter some poor sacrificial lamb we haven't had time to care about by page 10. Characters early in the story are often heard to whisper: "What was that noise?" Think of the tease offered by the accumulated reaction shots of Haley Joel Osmet's character in THE SIXTH SENSE. Every look accrues to a sense of dread and curiosity.  "What does he see? What's he so afraid of? How soon do we get to see it?  Do I want to see it??"  Ah, we do, but we don't. 

That's the beauty of the tease.

OPTION 2: THE HOOK

If you're shopping for that requisite hook for your first 10 pages, what could be better than pulling off a surprising reversal in the first moments of the film?  A solid reversal requires that you set up an expectation, but since this reversal conscripts pre-existing expectations of reality and physics, the audience has entered the theater with these firmly in mind.  The more resoundingly you can defy those expectations the better.  For some reason, the first moments of BUCKAROO BANSAI come to mind.  The over-the-top comic book tone is established by the hero's prowess as a world-class brain surgeon, a stunt followed by a land-speed world record attempt across a salt flat. The reversal comes when Buckaroo's rocket car veers toward a head-on collision with solid rock.  On purpose.  Buckaroo, a recreational physicist, also happens to have discovered a way to pass through solid matter. He plunges into the rock face, entering the space between particles, and emerges unharmed.  Not a bad hook.

OPTION 3: THE STRUT

If your science fiction or fantasy piece takes place in a completely alternate reality, time, or world, you may need to establish that boldly, up-front.  Still, one must offer some familiar point of reference to create identification for the audience, so they step into the new world with you. If your job is to efficiently cast a whole reality, you better get started right out of the gate.  Look at LORD OF THE RINGS, which grounds us lovingly in the Shire and establishes our charming notion of "home" for the next couple of hours.  BLADERUNNER, on the other hand, opens with a shot of a stark, polluted skyline, with futuristic vehicles.  It seems alien. Moments later we are grounded by the familiar conventions and costumes of Film Noir.  Even a musical often opens with a song, and thereby inaugurates an irrational universe in which silly people are free to burst into song and music will mysteriously swell from no where to accompany them.

Whichever option you use, don't wait too long to establish genre, tone, and degree of irrationality. For the departure from reality to succeed, the audience must be right there with you. If you wait too long, you risk that the audience will no longer be prepared to suspend their disbelief.  I once read a script that spent 70+ pages weaving a drug cartel crime intrigue with a hidden agenda. When the hidden agenda turned out to be related to aliens, my jaw dropped.

Take the irrational universe of a Farrelly Brothers comedy. The absurd tone is established spectacularly up front and makes space in the story for just how broad and unreal the situations will get. Otherwise, they risk that the audience will think a late gag is unbelievable and merely dumb. Take the first joke in SOMETHING ABOUT MARY in which Mary's mentally-challenged brother Warren is the brunt of an impossibly cruel joke. Warren is tricked into asking a cheerleader "Have you seen my wiener?" right in front of her jock boyfriend.  Voila. Welcome to the lucrative world of gross-out humor and humiliation at the expense of handicapped people!   

And always, ALWAYS remember Genre Rule 1:

KNOW THE RULES, SO YOU CAN BREAK THEM !!  

Currently reading : The Little Red Writing Book By Brandon Royal

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ALERT! Creative Businesses -- Your Right of Way on the Internet is in danger!
Current mood: productive
Category: Writing and Poetry

Hey!

This message is important for creative professionals -- writers, composers, filmmakers, rock stars, actors, bloggers and artists -- but if you have ANY marketing and/or business presence on the web whatsoever, from Ebay to Yoga instruction, even MySpace, this message is important to you, too!  (Even Paris Hilton can benefit from this message, even though I invoke her name purely for shameless keyword searchability!)

I want to call to your attention a pressing BUSINESS concern and public policy issue that impacts YOU and every other small business, especially those of us who work in the media.  Action is required this week on this matter!

It's easy to take for granted our fairly unrestricted access to the internet, even as we embrace and exploit such wonders as Ebay, YouTube, CraigsList, MySpace and Wikipedia. The internet has opened up a wild frontier for small businesses and creative people, point-to-point commerce, and viral/grass-roots marketing. If you have any common sense at all, you are already using the internet to promote yourself and your creative projects.

The internet is critical to every stage of your business of being creative, from landing gigs to invoicing. New internet resources in the last two years especially have been a great boon to those who creator original content.  The present configuration allows for easy content distribution (i.e. YouTube, blogs, private list serves, etc.). This is incredibly powerful for creative people and we should not take this for granted.

But there is an effort afoot that would de-democratize the internet and basically fence off this amazing, open-range capitalism, to the detriment of small business, independent content creators, and creative expression.

This impacts YOU. For example, your access to the internet might be taxed, or major corporations who now BORROW the public's bandwidth might be given right of way preference over small operators who can't pay big bucks for access. Your easy ability to distribute your CD, to contact publishers with a manuscript, sell t-shirts, show your film trailer, or promote your gallery event could be restricted.  

In any case, please educate yourself about this issue, and if you feel, as I do, that action is required, please make your voice heard through the Common Cause petition link below. The deadline for public comment to the FCC is June 15. This link makes the process simple, but is certainly not the only means for comment. 

For more information about Net Neutrality, see Bill Moyers' resources on this subject.  

We are all small business people! Each of has a stake in preserving the status quo for the internet as an amazing resource and tool for media-related small business. 

BILL MOYERS (ROCKS) ON NET NEUTRALITY:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/moyersonamerica/net/neutrality.html

COMMON CAUSE PETITION ON NET NEUTRALITY:

http://www.commoncause.org/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=2805365&auid=2756208&kntaw4229=212386FE11A243808B936EA1D78465DD

Good luck with all your creative endeavors!

Currently reading : The Complete Idiot's Guide to Growing Your Business with Google By Dave Taylor Release date: 02 August, 2005

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MASTERING GREAT EXPECTATIONS: Making Genre Work for You
Category: Writing and Poetry

I wrote this article on genre for Creative Screenwriting last year. The following is reprinted by express permission. Visit www.CreativeScreenwriting.com.

Mastering Great Expectations 

By Julie Marsh

You bought your ticket. Hopefully, you're seated next to someone who won't talk during the film. And with popcorn in hand, you sit back and wait for the trailers to end. As the movie begins to unspool, what expectations do you hold?

Good story? A tour de force performance from an Oscar winner? A car chase like no other? A truly original sex scene?

And just how much of what we anticipate from our whole movie-going experience is based on the familiar patterns we associate with genre? Genre labels, such as romantic comedy, horror, action-adventure, and thriller, are in fact, such efficient communicators of broad story categories that they function in the film business like a through-line. Both story development and marketing rely on the fuzzy and fungible expectations associated with any given genre, from pitch to polish to poster. I'd like to set aside the more nuanced aspects of screenwriting for a moment, and approach the subject of "genre" by tracking its usefulness throughout the story development process.

Genre, after all, is where craft meets marketplace.

From my point of view as a development executive, this intersection was always fairly obvious. However, I have learned from my story consulting business that some writers, either consciously or unconsciously, dismiss genre as pure cliché. Writers at the other end of the spectrum have told me they are intimidated by the prospect of fulfilling the obligations of a certain type of story, so they never undertake to write a highly marketable "genre idea."

I am only slightly surprised when a client, even one with credits, hands me a "horror" script that turns out to be better categorized and sharpened as a comic-book actioner. The two genres can resemble one another in many important respects from the standpoint of story, but while horror is a workhorse of the indie film market, the other is more marketable to the studios. The two genres are castable in completely different ways, and the budgetary requirements can be dramatically different. These factors are crucial when you want to target buyers in the spec market.

Plenty of writers successfully rely on pure instinct and their unconscious awareness of genre considerations to achieve a satisfying work. However, I have found, as a general rule, that if a writer cites more than two different genres when describing a screenplay, the script itself will rarely satisfy the best expectations of any genre at all.


Genre Throughout the Storytelling Process

1. The Pitch and Coverage

Understand that when you cite any given genre, or blend of genres, you activate a fairly detailed checklist in the mind of a good development person. If you pitch or submit a romantic comedy, the executive or reader expects that your story should specifically deliver two charming, castable lead roles, probably a male/female combo; a reasonably low, below-the-line production cost; and a refreshing take on Boy Meets Girl. Oh, and it should probably be funny, with interesting comedic set pieces at the major turning points. The executive will also look for how broad and how crass the humor will get for tone, to determine rating and demo. A long mental list of the company's potentially applicable talent relationships, like Keira Knightley, Will Smith, and maybe Drew Barrymore, may also come into play.

All of this, before you've even delivered your logline. Genre frames the expectations of the development person and creates the lock that the key elements of your narrative should turn. If your key elements are off, the door simply may not open for you.

A lack of awareness of this mental checklist can kill your ability to advance your project into the marketplace.


2. The Outline

A writer's mastery of narrative is closely linked to his or her ability to acknowledge, enhance, frustrate, transform, and gratify the expectations of the viewer at every step. Any given genre, be it horror, science fiction, or mockumentary, is simply an existing resource of expectations that the writer can and should exploit.

My whole approach to screenwriting is based heavily upon the activity of the movie viewer, both visually on the page and intellectually. Therefore, since the viewer's interior experience of narrative is built upon expectations, genre plays a crucial role. Expectations, in essence, are natural narrative resources, and should be well accounted for as you assemble the basic elements of plot, while the story is still mutable.

Some of these expectations are completely external to the text, such as the familiar idea of a "romantic comedy," or a high concept like a "gay cowboy love story," which conveys a lot of specific information with just a few words. Other expectations are internal, and a matter of craft. The screenwriter must generate these in order to exploit them along the storylines to ratchet up tension, create surprise and reversals, set up red herrings, and ultimately pay off the whole thing with resounding satisfaction. Ideally, these internal and external expectations play together nicely on the page. 

Reversals, especially, can be accomplished by thwarting genre expectations. In fact, certain genres, such as horror, all but demand a bold reversal at the mid-point. The movie Alien, which masterfully plays horror against science fiction, dramatically leans on one genre to set up its midpoint reversal. Once Kane (John Hurt) is incapacitated by the symbiote facehugger, the problem becomes clinical, with a scientific dilemma and the kind of anxiety that is more familiar to the arena of science fiction. When Kane makes an apparent recovery, the midpoint reversal is set, along with the breakfast table. The reversal, and the sudden return to horror mode, are each piqued in the unforgettably bloody and horrific scene where the new, more menacing chestburster does exactly what its name implies to the late Mr. Kane.


3. The Script

One way to harness genre expectations across a narrative, and on each page, is to put more than one genre to work, as in Alien. The trick is to make sure that you blend with a sure hand and put the strongest expectations of each genre to their best use. Science fiction, for example, is a genre that carries theme very effectively, but can be dry, with settings and characters somewhat remote to the average audience. Film noir is a classic form, both visually and as to character, but it has become dated.

Blade Runner takes the familiar conventions of the film noir hero and story and sets them against a dystopia to play out the kind of cautionary tale that makes science fiction so thematically compelling. The film's fractured future culture has an air of truth, because we recognize Harrison Ford's Deckard so clearly from the vintage pastiche of Hollywood. Film noir foreshadows each femme fatale. The structure of the private dick's determined Q&A drives the narrative. Both genres anticipate the complexity of the antagonist. But the subtleties of theme emerge from the background, too. Even the scene where deistic father-figure Tyrell (William Sanderson) is slain by replicant Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) makes a sophisticated turn to echo both the "Failure of the Fathers" themes from '30s literature, and Mary Shelley's classic, Frankenstein.


4. The Poster (Yes, the Poster)

Some development executives come from the world of advertising and marketing. Screenwriters waste breath complaining that these people don't understand story. In fact, most grasp story quite well, but they probably hold their job because they grasp genre better than the average screenwriter. If a potential buyer for your screenplay can't see a good way to sell your story to the public, they aren't going to write you a check. So, when a development person asks you to "describe the movie poster," forget for a moment that your degree is in literature, not graphic design, and use genre, as they would, to show them how they might sell your movie. 

"In space, no one can hear you scream." That was the tagline on the Alien poster, which featured an ominous, elegant alien form against a star field. It is the perfect balance of the two genres. The poster looks science fiction, but on the other hand, you've been warned by the tagline.

Hazards of Genre

How do you then keep your work from becoming "generic?"

Any attempt to strictly define a genre results in cliché and boredom, just as any effort to define the ultimate archetype creates a dull and predictable hero. Remember that genre conventions are not set in stone, and the best way to break them is with a deliberate awareness.

Write well. Don't take for granted that genre is "easy" because certain expectations are already there for you. You have to make them work for you, against cliché.

Know the critical texts in the genre you're writing. Look at the classics and at recent box office successes. These references are useful in marketing the script and envisioning the movie poster.

Be conscious. Use the expectations/conventions for surprise and advantage wherever possible.

Blend together genres that have strong complementary elements.

Add, subtract, or twist a key expectation or convention, and do so at a plot point. Deviation from expectation is powerful.

Cliché and predictability lay flat on the page when writers deliver only what is expected, without consideration to how those expectations can be artfully manipulated. The familiar should always be a stepping off point for the extraordinary, and the most thunderous surprises often emerge, like Alien's chestburster, from the mistaken expectation of the ordinary.



You can learn more about mastering expectations with my DVD from Creative Screenwriting Magazine:

Genre Works: The Screenwriter's Guide to Horror (DVD #036)
Creative Screenwriting's Expo Seminar DVD Series
Buy it now for only $19.95

Good Luck!  And keep writing. ( =

Currently watching : Alien Release date: 01 June, 1999

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THE SMART SCRIPT PRIMER FOR SHORT FILMS
Current mood: working
Category: Writing and Poetry

THE SMART SCRIPT PRIMER FOR SHORT FILMS

By Julie Marsh

Shorts. There must be a million of them by now on YouTube. Despite the deluge of pet antics, never before has there been such a viable marketing tool for the creative professional. We are witnessing the birth of Guerilla Distribution and an influx of recreational filmmaking.

As someone who's worked as a writer on a number of award-winning short films and consulted on many more, I am sometimes asked for advice on story strategy. 

How do you make YOUR FILM stand out as either a professional or an amateur?  A terrific script is essential and will shine through the most modest production values. Even if it's a simple, one-joke wonder, you must nail the set-up and pay off to grab viewers' attention. It's also important to build viral properties into the narrative, so it has the necessary appeal to spread on the net.

The three most powerful tools I can specifically offer short film storytellers are explained at length below. They are:

1) The Rule of 3.

2) The gimmick.

3) The twist.

Story advice for shorts overlaps with feature films in a few ways that are worth mentioning: Both forms must have a solid HOOK upfront, a CHARACTER with whom the audience identifies, something at STAKE, and a story that makes SENSE logically. Like the film, the script itself should focus on the DELIVERING IMAGES that build meaning.  All that is given.

As for genre, when telling a story for the short format, keep in mind that it's much easier to get laughs or a good shock, than it is to get tears.

Comedy and horror depend on surprise, and you can create surprise more efficiently than you can build the kind of pathos and emotional investment required to generate big wet tears. A notable exception might be the feel good YouTube hit: FREE HUGS which has a warm, fuzzy, G-rated appeal and music video format, but nonetheless tells a whole story, without diagetic sound.  

Critical to the Short format, though, are three tactics, listed above, that I have observed over the years to be so consistently effective, they should be institutionalized.  Many of these tactics CAN and should be applied to narrative features, but they seem essential to the short film.  

After the rules, I've included a link to short film I saw recently, "THE NEW THING," by The Whitest Kid You Know, that STILL cracks me laugh every time I see it. The story demonstrates all three rules hilariously and I will explain how below.    

JULIE'S SHORT PRIMER RULE #1

Use the "Rule of 3" to structure your film.

The "Rule of 3" originally comes from comedy (...or possibly from quantum physics), but it's really the basic formula for creating EXPECTATION, which is the single most important tool of the storyteller. When you master expectation, you master narrative.  Any narrative.

The RULE OF 3 states:  Do anything 3 times and it's funny (or terrifying).

Sure, you can create a quickie expectation and pay it off, simply by asking and answering a question.  The question uses two beats: Set-up (the question) and Pay-off (the answer). Unanswered questions are GREAT for creating expectation, especially when you can avoid the answer as LONG as possible. That's the tension that drives every episode of CSI: "Who killed the victim and how do we nail the killer?"   

But look what happens when you add one more beat and invoke The Rule of 3:

See, when an event or moment occurs ONCE, it pretty much lays there. It should be memorable (funny, odd, shocking, sad, stupid…but INTERESTING), so that we recall the event later.  When we see the event repeated a SECOND time, we are satisfied that we have identified an EXPECTATION, a pattern for how things occur in this corner of the universe. Repetition and pattern create expectation. After two instances, the expectation is now established that the next such occurrence should play out the same way the first two did.

What you have now created as a storyteller is an opportunity. You have SET an EXPECTATION. You are now poised to SPIKE THE DEVIATION. You are free to REVERSE the audience's expectation and… voila! You have a surprise.

You've seen this a million times. Pies in the face. The third creaky door opening in horror movies. It may be why there were THREE Stooges, instead of two. Aristotle understood the power of the Rule of 3. So did Lucille Ball. Even the Knock Knock joke uses the Rule of 3. Comedy and horror can be very formulaic, obviously, because the basics ARE so simple and powerful, so it's up to you to bring something FRESH to the table.

For shorts, the rule works not only within dialogue, but also as the substrate for the entire, simple story.  Consider an event, annoyance, attempt, observation, or other device that can effectively be built into the narrative. In the short film, it's important to keep the plot simple!  The Rule of 3 allows you to do that. 

So, use the Rule of 3 to structure your story.

JULIE'S SHORT PRIMER RULE #2

Use a gimmick.

The reason advertising works is that it is powered by gimmicks that are repeated… usually about 3 times.  A gimmick is like a door prize that the audience should want to keep.  Something interesting, bite-sized and memorable. It can be a concept that binds everything together, or a character, or a combination of the two. Think about the guy from the movie OFFICE SPACE with his red stapler. They now make red staplers because so many people have requested them. That's the kind of door prize I'm talking about. Everyone should want one. 

As with advertising, a good gimmick should appeal to our lowest common denominator: The Monkey Brain. This is not the realm of high intellect, so one of the following Monkey Brain activities should be involved: food, sex, safety or identity/belonging. The red stapler appeals to people's need for identity and uniqueness, and the character's struggle for security and territory, belonging.  See? This Monkey Brain stuff seems simple, but it runs surprisingly deep.

The gimmick can also be a phrase that is repeated, like in THE JERK where Steve Martin searches for and finds his "Special Purpose" which he finally desides is sex. Another type of gimmick is the broad, COMEDIC MISCONCEPTION. Will Farrell's character in ELF absurdly believes and embodies his own giant elf-hood. This gimmick also plays off of our core Monkey Brain need for identity and belonging.

So, use a gimmick and repeat as necessary.

JULIE'S SHORT PRIMER RULE #3

Use a twist at the end.

Mostly because you CAN. You can't often get away with a good twist in a feature film because the audience has invested so much time and emotional involvement in the characters. A huge departure from the most obvious expectation (for a happy ending) in a feature must be set up, and meticulously concealed, or it will not be satisfying. THE SIXTH SENSE is a good example of the arduous plotting necessary to accomplish the miracle twist on the grand scale. But note that the writer/director has not been completely successful at repeating his admirable fete.

In a short film, on the other hand, it's not that difficult to finish BOLD, with something that should punch through that last moment and into the empty space after the film. That way, when people see the option to "SHARE," they are more likely to do so.  

Okay, quiz time: If we want to create a twist, or SURPRISE ending, what do we do? Naturally, we employ that magical Rule of 3.

So, make sure you create a good twist at the end.

THE PRIMER RULES IN ACTION:

I had nothing to do with this hilarious short film, THE NEW THING, but I was an instant fan. Watch it and then I'll break it down:

THE NEW THING

This film STILL makes me laugh, and I don't even really like violence. The script combines a silly, but shocking gimmick and a messy twist at the end.

The universal story basics are all here:  The hook comes the moment the smiling, affable friend SLAPS his buddy. As a character, we identify with the guy in the red shirt who wants to fit in, but seems to have been left out.  He's sympathetic because he makes mistakes and tries a little too hard to fit into a completely absurd social situation.  Each new rule is increasingly elaborate as to be indecipherable and the consequences for error increase as well.

The depth of irony here is pretty great. Kids using school yard bully tactics to enforce each other's geek-ish knowledge of grammar is fairly hilarious (but then, this reminded me of some people I knew in high school, so maybe it's just me…).  

The gimmick is the IDEA that friends would make up some arbitrary, grammar-based set of rules so they could beat the crap out of one another and smile the whole time: violence is cool! The Monkey Brain appeal here is our need to belong, and our fear of being socially outcast. Though, we might need to admit to ourselves that on some level, the desire to SMACK people, even if we're not normally the violent type, also exists somewhere in the violent recesses of our universal Monkey Brain.

The film is basically structured by the first three grammar rules. The first act is learning to expect the SLAP rule. Interestingly, on a local first act level, the rule uses the Q&A, two-beat set-up and pay-off. He asks a question and it's answered with a slap.

The second act involves the incomplete sentence rule, which results in being kicked. From there, combinations ensue. By the time the third act comes around, when the Hockey Punch rule is invoked and explained, the combinations are really flying, and we're DONE. Our guy has had enough, even though we're still laughing. He has his character ARC and he's no longer willing to put up with this stupid game, even at the expense of becoming an outcast. The stakes are too high for him.  

Our guy in the red shirt bows out just in time for the Expletive Twist – a bottle to the head for suing a swear word.  Each time a new rule and violent consequence is added, the stakes have been effectively increased. In the end, they're using sharp objects and the kid already said he didn't want to play anymore.  

You can also see how repetition is extremely effective for comedy.

That's the sum of my Short Primer of Smart Shorts.  I plan to post more blogs for writers in the upcoming months, so feel free to subscribe above.

And remember that all these tactics can help your feature script, too.

Good luck and keep writing. ( =

Currently reading : Breakfast with Sharks: A Screenwriter's Guide to Getting the Meeting, Nailing the Pitch, Signing the Deal, and Navigating the Murky Waters of Hollywood By Michael Lent Release date: 25 May, 2004

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PAN'S LABYRINTH: An Older Fairytale
Current mood: awake
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

Guillermo del Toro truly has the mind of a lyrical poet. So, thank goodness he makes movies in Hollywood. But thank GOD he still makes movies outside of Hollywood. Like PAN'S LABYRINTH.

I just saw this at the Arclight and listened to del Toro speak afterward about this unvarnished, lyrical, extraordinarily moral fairytale. 

(There are no real spoilers herein, unless you're afraid I might reveal... the film's THEME! This film is not for the faint of heart. And definitely not for children. And my film criticism in no way resembles whatever you're used to, so stay close! Horror is a treacherous realm I happen to be rather adept at spelunking. Not that this is a horror movie...) 

Hollywood fairytales bear little resemblance to the authentic originals, and this is certainly not a Hollywood tale. Hollywood "fairytales" are (perhaps necessarily) gussied-up purveyors of consumerism and candy-coated escapism. Those films peddle pipe-dreams, where morality is black and white, polished, Disneyfied. They rarely contain that seed of truth you find at the core of the real thing; that dilemma on the shoulders of a child that reveals our fundamental humanity viscerally enough to affect young and old. Once upon a time, our demographic profiles were more relevant to actual survival than to advertising.

Be it known that I adore old fairytales. Brothers Grim. Aesop. Mythology from all over. Biblical stuff. The kind of stuff that dredges the deepest underpinnings of our personalities and archetypal truths, from the depths of the human soul, in order to stake them out in the sun, as the vultures circle. That's what a fairytale does. A real fairytale's characters are forced to make impossible, horrible decisions. Before we had therapists, we had epic stories to help us understand ourselves and our unconscious. Back when most of our choices had not been reduced to Coke or Pepsi. And perhaps a source of our Modern and Post-Modern anxiety comes is the numbing satisfaction and sedation we get from making facile consumer choices, without ever turning to the painful but essential choices of a mortal soul.

Del Toro's film remembers this kind of potent narrative.  

More than simply slapping a new coat of paint on a familiar story, though, del Toro generates his own pastiche of myth and sets it against a war within reach of our cultural memory, the brutal Spanish Civil War, just as the Trojan War was remembered in its time's mythology. Yet, even with these historical layers, the film's story is uncomplicated. The timelessness of moral truth here is evidenced in the way it's arrow pierces each time period with its sharp point and delivers to our doorstep, the present, a universal message about authoritarianism without ever really setting foot into the Modern world. The setting is a wilderness frontier between eras.  

Still, one would be hard pressed to find any didacticism here. Del Toro did say, after his talk, that he is a fan of another film about a little girl in Franco's Spain, whose political message criticizing Franco was so veiled that it got past Franco's own censors, was funded with government money, and was released while the dictator still lived. The film is SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE. So perhaps a deeper reading of this text is well warranted.  As a myth from a child's point of view, PAN also reminds me of John Sayles' gorgeous SECRET OF ROAN INISH. (I have to immediately go add that to my list of FAVORITES.) And the mythology is a beautiful sampling of Greek, Magical Realism, with a touch of Vasalisa, which is one of my favorites. I think she's from Russian. (Correct me if you know.)  

From a business standpoint, I love that foreign filmmakers like del Toro are so free to live in both worlds, so that they can turn in a studio-scale feature, like HELLBOY ($66 million), then turn around and  make a little masterpiece like PAN in Spanish for $13.5. Who does that??  Guillermo del Toro does that, and it must take extraordinary discipline. The $4.5 million budget on del Toro's earlier film, THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE, is a small miracle. (And the film's a gem, especially if you love ghost stories!)  Del Toro cited PAN as a companion piece to BACKBONE, as both are told from a child's point of view and are set during the Spanish Civil War.

God, I would love to see Peter Jackson go back and make a micro-budget $66 million pic. lol  (KING KONG was $207 million.)

Yes, PAN is in Spanish. Yes, PAN is disturbingly brutal, since the violence is more realism than magical. Not all the monsters in this movie are fantastical. Some of them use guns. This is not American gore that's glorified and beautified for its own sake. It has raw brutality that is meant to make a point. And it does. It has ALL kinds of violence --visceral and psychological. Disturbingly psychological.

I also admire this film because it does not fit any Hollywood genre cleanly. Horror most closely, but I'm hoping it falls into that fabulous genre some call the Masterpiece. But really the technical term for the genre is, The Academy Award Nominate-able Genre. I admire that it is truly a Fairytale. Perhaps the original template for all genre. 

If you have any desire to momentarily recapture that profound awe and surprise and horror you felt as a child, you should certainly see this film. Such an opportunity presents itself so rarely.  I flinched all the way through the film and I am not one to shirk at horror movies. (I can prove it, too... If you care to listen to me talk about storytelling and horror for two hours, you can buy Creative Screenwriting Magazine's Expo DVD on the subject of horror, and you will see that I am fairly unsqueamish. For a girl. Heheh.)

So see PAN'S LABYRINTH. I mean seriously. When was the last time you saw me write a movie review? And I have a whole degree in film criticism and everything. Plus, you know. A lucky 13 years in the business. Besides, Guillermo is the nicest, most literate guy.  I'm sure he would consider it a personal favor.

Enjoy.  ( =   

Currently watching : Hellboy (Two-Disc Special Edition) Release date: 21 June, 2004

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Genre Geek speaks on Horror
Current mood: geeky
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

The nice people at PollyStaffle.com interviewed me before the Screenwriting Expo in October, where I spoke on one of my favorite subjects: the Horror Genre. I have been known to talk for hours on the subjects of Horror & Science Fiction, but it really helps when someone is asking smart questions... 

Of course, I didn't realize they were going to re-print a transcript of my interview, but that's what they did!

And PLEASE! No further comments about the terrifyingly goony photos of me Creative Screenwriting Magazine insists on disseminating...

Proof of my Girl Geek Credentials can be found here:

http://www.pollystaffle.com/screenwritingexpo/juliemarsh.shtml

Currently watching : Session 9 Release date: 26 February, 2002

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