Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Matt Terry and Jason Zinoman bring us Robert McKee

From See-ThroughFilms follower Matt Terry:

Great article on McKee.

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/features/2009/11/robert-mckee-200911

Having taught screenwriting for 15+ years I obviously believe that screenwriting can be taught...to a point. What CAN be taught is structure, what can't be taught are sellable ideas and the ability to actually sit down and write. I've had students with brilliant sellable ideas who have no passion to actually sit down and do the work. I've had students with marginal ideas who really have a passion to write and are desirous to make it work. I can work with the latter, it's difficult to work with the former.

As for McKee... It's hard for me to trust a guy whose claim to fame is seminars and not sold screenplays. His credits are, uh, less than stellar - in my humble opinion.

Here's his IMDB page: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0571210/

At my first trip to the screenwriting expo I took a class on "Second Act Structure" taught by a guy who wrote "Top Gun" - I learned a heckuva lot by that instructor in 90 minutes than it sounds like the author of this article learned in 8 hours.

If any of you have taken a Robert McKee seminar - I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Matt Terry

Sunday, November 22, 2009

The Film Triumvirate: Film Maker/Film Industry/Film Audience

See-Through Films essayist Jerry Walden sparked something when he said: "I believe that the motion picture is the dominate art form in America in the 20th century. But, unlike most other art, there is a strong, two way interaction between motion pictures and middle class cultures, especially in the USA. Never before has money from the middle class shaped what an art form has produced."

Rodney Lee Rogers replied: "Very interesting and insightful. You have to throw popular music in there as well as a dominate art form of the 20th century and I believe you will find the same theory applicable of the middle class influence. Like most things American and part of the beauty of America, it is the centralist middle class that drives participation. We are probably one of the first counties to wrestle that control from the upper class and their patronage of the arts, though it still very much exists today in America in the fine arts.

"The dark side of this middle class interaction is that the art form must remain populist and appeal to a broad spectrum in order to be consider "successful" and generate a revenue stream for it's creation. Success in the U.S. is also quantified by money and popular favor. Lot's of it. If you check out KINGS that awesome NBC series (which did not get enough of populist interest to continue), it wrestled with the idea of the benevolent dictator verses democracy. Which one is better for the arts and it's quality in general? Hard to say. Great art has been created in all political systems even when repressed. A very interesting additional line of thinking is what are the common factors across all political systems that promotes and increases quality of art. Is it a factor that can replicated or is quality simply a product of the individual artist and can't be fostered within any system."

So, in this "new movie paradigm" everyone is talking about, where now will the middle class 'patronage' (i.e. support) drive the medium?

Monday, November 9, 2009

The Two Minds of Loving Art

I came to NYC for a few days, leaving LA and what seemed to be a warmed-over AFM back home on the beach. Like most people who don't live here, I love NYC. I love the city, I love the pace, I love being able to get places via my feet, I love my friends apartments (the one I'm in now being completely empty except for a bed), I love that there are 4 movie arthouses within walking distance of me...I love the "ART" of it all, the art that permeates everything, even the NYC air. I don't mean art art, of course. I mean "ART"--the art of walking, the art of the pick up game, the art of yellow cabs and city streets, the art of film, art of cinema, art of performance. I love the art of the DISaffectation in NYC. Which is to say, the opposite of LA. That isn't to say I don't love LA. I do, in fact, love LA. But it seems that I'm of two minds here--one for what is, and one for what pretends.

It is in this two-minded state that I read this morning about David Ansen's appointment as Artistic Director to the LAFF. (http://blogs.indiewire.com/iwnow/archives/critic_david_ansen_named_artistic_director_at_los_angeles_fest/).
First and foremost, good for him. David's a smart man with a dynamic film sensability that will serve him well. What's harder to know is how the new festival management will do under FilmIndependent and Dawn Hudson. Will smart-film-sensibility translate to smart-festival-management and then onto smart-audience-attraction? LAFF has its share of problems, what festival doesn't, but most apparent has been its lack of ability to draw in new audiences to avoid becoming redundant. As just one example, in a city where Spanish is more often than not the first (and sometimes only) language, why doesn't the festival have a Spanish language section to its web site, if only to spotlight those Spanish language films in the program?

This past year, most festivals saw a dramatic rise in individual ticket sales and an equally dramatic decline in the more expensive pass sales. This leads me to believe that an "event" film (that is to say a film at a festival with a guest attached that you might only have one chance to see, NOT a film like Titanic or Star Wars) is still at a price point affordable by most audience members and, equally important, of interest to most audience members.

So, logic would dictate, to stay relevant as a film festival means those who reach the furthest for their audiences, last the longest. Which is another way of saying that while David has quite the job ahead of him balancing both artistic and populist programming, I think new festival director Rebecca Yeldham has the harder job of servicing her existing audience with one hand and enticing new with the other.

Remember that tired old cliche, "it ain't show art, it's show business"? Well, it's not just the "art" of film festivals driving ticket sales any longer...

Monday, November 2, 2009

the relevancy of award season

I went to Variety's 10 Actors to Watch event last Friday, and while I assumed it was merely because I'm old that I didn't recognize any one of the new talent emerging, the event is timed to kick off an annual awards season that begs for relevancy.

Anne Thompson recently went off about the Hollywood Film Festival's Awards (http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/2009/10/20/industry_gives_hollywood_film_festival_free_pass/ ) and her disdain for Carlos de Abreu's rather transparent use of the awards to bolster his somewhat sub-par film festival as well as his own celebrity standing. But why pick on Carlos? She outlines his background profile as if from that bio would emerge proof of some nefarious Hollywood collusion.

HFF is simply the beginning of a long line of "awards" all timed perfectly to maximize press attention and photo opportunities just before the January voting by the Academy for the Oscars. The awards, and awardees, are all pawns of the master planning and manipulation by publicists, managers, and the like, to get maximum exposure at just the right time so that their clients are in the forefront of Academy members minds at the time of voting.

So, for example, if I had't heard of any one of Variety's 10 actors to watch prior to Friday, I now will hear of them constently. I will know them, and others likely to be in the running for bigger awards, quite well by the time awards season is over.

The collusion, if there is any, comes from the needs of a press who are fighting for celebrity coverage and events (such as the Hollywood Film Festival) who are fighting for press coverage. The negotiations regarding awardees begins months before these events, and award confirmation always hinges on the guarantee of attendance by the talent (even Varitey changed their event schedule to accommodate actor attendance).

So, if you want to rant and rave about a particular awards event as being irrelevant I think you need to rant and rave about the entire awards season being irrelevant.

Since we all know, what with the monetization of awards and the ever-present thirst by the public for all things celebrity, that the big awards shows are unlikely to disappear, we should also know that as day follows night, smaller events will try to grab some of that spotlight.

Rather than being disingenous about the awards season, I'd prefer to see the press do some critical analysis of the awardees instead. Forget about railing against the inevitable, and instead educated your audience about what they are consuming. Was there a performance by any of the Variety 10 worth awarding? If so, tell me. Compare and contrast for me. For god's sake, do some work as a journalist or as a critical film essayist.

Don't waste my time telling me someone in Hollywood is undeservedly in the spotlight. Tell me something I don't know.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

does a movie have to be an event?

Here's the thing: with "This is It" making such a huge splash (and generating Oscar buzz of all things here in Hollywood) and Oprah/Tyler Perry's "Precious" on it's way to being the new "indie" success (with big box office to back it up), is my sneaking suspicion that an indie film has to be an "event" before press and/or audiences pay attention coming true? Alan Franey (Vancouver Film Festival) made note that while individual ticket sales at his festival were up this year by a good amount, year-round programming attendance was down. His theory? That audiences will only use their allocated movie allowance on screenings that are events...in other words (well, my words) screenings that have something of the circus big top supporting them. Can it possible be that this is true? and if it is, what does that mean for all our indie-industry new-distribution hype about finding the audience? Are we just fooling ourselves into thinking they will come if we don't offer balloons, a big tent and some famous people hawking like a carnival barker at the door? Past successes might have foretold this awful thought...Blair Witch was definately a great 'event-film' once it hit Sundance. But I just don't want to believe this is all we have ahead of us...I want to see what new wave distributors Thomas Mai (Festival Darlings) and Richard Abramowitz (Area 23) come up with before I give up all hope.