Bringing the Audience: Why Hollywood is Addicted to Adaptation

Heavy sigh. Another book or two bites the dust at the movies, and still Hollywood insists on adapting books, GREAT BOOKS into movies. You know what I think. I think that they are simply terrified to make original movies anymore because it rarely pays off. Why is that? Because original movies don’t have audience. Well, original movies by new artists don’t have audience. Original movies by the old guard, Spielberg, Nichols, Brooks, Scorsese and Copola still have audience, but even that is not a sure thing. Tarantino sort of kind of has audience. Rodriguez kind of sort of has audience. Uhmmm. Spike Lee anywhere to be found?

Who are the original new artists getting funding for their films anymore? If you go to the influential group “New Directors/New Films” http://newdirectors.org/ for their top 40 film presentations, you’ll see lots of familiar names at the beginning of the list starting about 1980, but as the list becomes more recent the last filmmaker who has continued making films that have audience is Christopher Nolan, 1998. Uhmmmm. So the ones that follow, besides the brilliant filmmaker Darren Aronofsky, who made “Pi,” I have never heard of since. Since 1998.  The films post 1998 are sparse. Why is that? No audience.

What happened in 1998 to take the audience away from the movie theater? Hmmmm. Well, I for one have a perfectly good excuse: I had two babies. Surely though there must have been something else going on besides all the moviegoers my age staying home from the movie theater to watch videos at home on their big television screens. Home video burst onto the scene in the 1980s in a big way with VHS surging ahead of Beta in this country. When I worked on The STAR TREK Fact Files I had an entire room with wall-to-wall shelving to accommodate every single STAR TREK episode and movie on video for quick replay. I was actually dreading the advent of shows after the third season of ST: VOYAGER because I didn’t know where I’d put the dang video tapes. Video tapes meant for me that I could work at home with my baby in her swing, but that was work. What it meant for the audience was that a person could be reasonably entertained without going out.

A friend gently pointed out to me that losing movie theaters is not like losing the banks on Wall Street. They are not too big to fail. They can be shown the door from the entertainment industry, but I will tell you that until the dust settles from their demolition, Hollywood is not funding new, untried, high-risk ventures often, if at all, because the business model does not yet exist.  The audience is shrinking from first run releases. The first run release success is how second run success is predicted. Straight-to-video films have generally not done well at finding their audience. Therefore, what we will see is films that come from someone or some creation that already has audience.

That means we’re going to see adaptations of popular, well-loved books, even when they NEVER really work.  We’ll see films based on other franchises like SNL, or any given science fiction show, ahem, and don’t be surprised if they try to figure out how to make movies about Real Life Housewives, American Idol or So You Think You Can Dance. It is not to insult the audience’s intelligence. Really it isn’t. It is trying to guarantee an audience will fill the theater. I mean they make successful first run weekend movie releases on movies based on theme park rides, and board games for shitsake just because we want to see how they try to pull it off. We are into gimmicks like 3D and IMAX. The age of the sequel is so deeply ingrained that there are now Academy Awards going for THIRD sequel releases. Thank goodness, for comic books because with their audience and from their very conception as essentially storyboards, they make pretty good movies. All of this is simply to guarantee an audience (YOU) will come into the theater, and buy licensed products like apps and games. It comes down to this fact: Audience = Money. Money equals a return on investment.

Collaboration: It’s Not All about Me

Here’s a real screenwriting bloggety-blog for those of you still committed to seeing your work played out by the great actors of our time on the big screen….

Writers have to be somewhat egotistical to pull off anything. We have to believe that our story has some importance, some meaning, in order to slog through the work it takes to produce it as a script, a poem or a story of any sort. Honestly, the merit of writing a tale that is meaningful to others is our craving. Defending our point of view becomes a major part of the work of writing, of each story, and yet it is only when we become as confident of our point of view, as a ballerina is confident of her pirouette, that the writing begins to shine on its own and attract an audience.

In screenwriting, and perhaps playwriting, the moment we are confident of our point of view, we begin to understand that our writing is part of a collaboration of points of view. Wait. What? Yes, I am saying that just when you think you’re done, the real work of a screenwriter begins. We’ve developed our writing skills necessarily, up to this point, to work independently, but that’s not all. There is more. Upon reaching a success plateau, say having your script optioned, or getting ready to make a short video with a group of like-minded souls, you are now volunteering to let others into your work circle and actually welcome their additional points of view, and if you're lucky you've been paid to let go of the reigns.  They’ve chosen your script because it struck them as “true” at some level, but now they have opinions about it as well. You go from being confident that your screenplay is perfect as it is, to being asked to consider the necessity of change (locations, for instance) or improvements (i.e.; stronger villains).  Screenwriters do sometimes whine about being left out of the process, once their work is in the development process.  Everyone wants to make a mark on the writer’s former territory, and it can be heart-wrenching to the unprepared.

Most of the working world works in collaboration with others, but writers often believe that they have sole ownership of their efforts. Most likely, they became writers because they have a tolerance for working alone that many do not share. I know that was true for me, but I also know from experience that screenwriting is different. Whether you start alone and then join a team of producers, actors and crew, or you start with a writing partner or even a team, when you type the words, “the end” on your script, a new level of work begins.

You may see this as an argument to be loosey-goosey with your point of view, to be a panderer to anyone who will give you money for your work, but let me be clear: NO! No that is not what I’m arguing for in the least. If anything, I will argue that you must carefully build up a confidence in your point of view before you will be ready to open up to other people’s perspectives with any grace at all. Additionally, only when you have begun writing your own take on a story will it have the cohesiveness it must have to attract others to want to collaborate and bring it to the screen. Why? Because a director or producer or agent will sense the weakness of a premise without a point of view, and will know that a writer submitting such mumbo-jumbo is not ready for the rough and tumble world of collaboration.

Collaboration is THE process of filmmaking. Imagine an architect with the hubris to believe that the grand temple he has designed will be built with his own hands. Um, it has to be a very little building, or maybe the ONLY building he will build in a lifetime then. If you are a writer who wants sole ownership, then consider that screenwriting may not be where you want to focus your storytelling gifts. If you can imagine how the dynamic of teamwork will enhance your work, then you are in the right place.

There are tried and true methods for building strong teams, and, unless you also want to become a director, you don’t really have to pay attention to all of them. In fact, a production team is most often an organic expansion of talented people who more or less share a point of view. Famous writer/directors like Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese have worked with a tight knit group of talent for decades. That said; there are things you can work on as a writer to ready yourself for the collaborative process:

• Story confidence building. Being confident of your story, knowing it inside and out is the first step towards being ready to work collaboratively. You must be ready to answer any question and defend any story point throughout your script. This is not about bullshitting. This is about knowing your material inside and out.
• Prepare yourself to compromise. I have a screenwriting friend, who had set a scene in a grocery store, but the production company couldn’t get a grocery store to agree to be the location, and so she had to rewrite the scene for a hardware store. These kinds of things have happened everyday in filmmaking since the golden age. Flexibility is a great asset any screenwriter can bring to the table.
• Don’t take it personally. When you’ve worked on a script for a year or sometimes more, remembering that it isn’t just yours is difficult to say the least. Is it possible that you’ll be working with insensitive, egotistical people in Hollywood? Are you kidding? Make like a duck in a rainstorm and let it roll off your back, as my wise grandmother would say.
• Keep your eye on the prize of a whole career of writing screenplays rather than investing all of your creative self-belief in one project. At the beginning of your career, accept you are on a learning curve. As your films find an audience, you’ll know more and more how to handle “the development process.”
• Use your skills! You’re a writer! Keep notes of why those changes were made and when. Write out reasons for defending your preferences before exploding on the scene with demands and defenses, shooting from the hip of emotion. Use your skills to work out the best choices, and when you can’t find a meeting place realize that sometimes compromises are not win-win, but you can live and write another day if you can work with others and do your best.
• Combine survival and celebration. Enjoy each step of the experience of seeing your idea come to life with others help. Enjoy the additions that enhance your idea and the scramble to get it all done. Enjoy the changes you disagree with for what they are: a learning experience.

I will say that the learning experience is sometimes hard and not apparently enjoyable for many writers. I have seen some writers spin themselves into addictions and worse because they were asked to give up something they didn’t want to give up. Unfortunately, I have not seen these writers’ work back up on the silver screen since. That’s the truth. Collaboration is not about one person, and making movies is all about collaboration.

Empower yourself

The truth is that working in Hollywood is hard! There are endless meetings, and long hours, and lots of reading, not to mention the driving. Endless drama marks the day and it isn't all entertaining. So what are those who have found their fate lies behind a desk in Hollywood to do with the submission of some 50K ideas in any given year? How in the world does the cream rise to the top? How can they bring to order the mass chaos that lands in their in-box every single day?

Agents, the gatekeepers of Hollywood, run the first line of defense against the onslaught. They say, "No, thanks," a lot. Why? Writers want to understand why this elite group of arbiters hasn’t chosen them. I'll tell you the bottom line reason: it is because the writers make it easy to say, "No, thanks." How can that be? They've written the script of their lives, how can this make it easy for an agent to say...? How? I could take the easy way out, lie to you, and say it is all just numbers. They reach their limit. However, that isn't really the how. The how of "it's easy," is that the script is not the only thing that you need to bring to an agent to make it with them or anyone else in Hollywood. The amazing truth is that the script is barely a business card in magnitude as an introduction to Hollywood. It may be the biggest effort of a writer's life, but its impact on the future of a screenwriter is initially negligible. What? Yes, there is a "what" that the writer should be bringing to an agent, producer, manager or anyone else who has the power to say, "Yes!" to them besides a single script. The most important thing you bring to a person in power in Hollywood was never just a story in script format.

It took me years to understand this folks, and the "what" is directly related to "point of view" that I've brought up before on this blog, but it isn't just your point of view. No. There's even more besides a story and a point of view. To get there you really have to invest in your own point of view and I want you to understand why it is so important to have that point of view. Many schools will tell you that you must find a "niche" while at the same time being broad in your strokes and enlisting the lowest common denominator to support your work. This is mumbo-jumbo, folks. It means NOTHING. What you have to do is find your point of view and develop it so that it is indelible, so that it is Teflon. Your point of view is what the people who eventually come to see your screenplay made into film want to know about. Your point of view challenges a film goer, television viewer. Your point of view makes the story that has been told a million and a half times unique in its detail and expression. Because your point of view will find the "what" that you must bring to the table in Hollywood, and that "what" is AUDIENCE.

Why it is so hard to find someone to read and represent our scripts is that we make it easy for agents and producers to say, “No, thanks.”  How we writers make it easy for agents and producers to say, “No, thanks,” is by expecting our stories to be the only thing they are looking for in a client. What is lacking is a clear audience for our point of view. Where do we get that audience? The “where” is known as “credits” in Hollywood, but it is really “credentials” as well.  Our credentials prove that we have followers already and that there is a foundation of work to build upon.

Palm hits forehead. We’re supposed to come to Hollywood with an audience already loyal to our work? Yes. It doesn’t have to be a huge audience (though that is certainly helpful), but we have to show that we have been committed to using our talents out in the world for a good period of time. Whether we just left film graduate school with a school award and a film under our belt, or we have made a hobby of entering our spec scripts into screenplay contests and finally winning one or two of them, these accomplishments show that we are committed to sharing our point of view with an audience.  Right now, there are amazing opportunities to build audience with tools that have never been available before. There are websites dedicated to opening up awareness of your work. There are video sites where you can upload your short films. There are workshops and classes you can take. You can blog about film…grin. In short, there is no excuse left to wait until you are “discovered.” Empower yourself today and tomorrow Hollywood might just come knocking on your door.

Mariachi Square & the Arbiters of Content

When I was a little girl, I spent many summers in southern Texas on the border with Mexico. Often we would travel across the border for lunch and an afternoon in the Mercado in small towns like Reynosa, and Progresso, and cities like Matamoras, Mexico.  One of my favorite experiences was walking through the town squares where the Mariachi bands gathered in their big sombreros, and sharp suits of black with gold piping, white with blue piping, or fuchsia with silver piping. The colors were magnificent, but the music was even better. Dozens of guitars of all shapes and sizes, trumpets blaring and the perfect harmony of brothers and sisters singing and that cry, “Aye, yie-yie-yie~!” filled my ears and my heart with joy.

What I didn’t understand then was that these Mariachis trained all their lives, and they made their living by being the best of the best. Mariachi Square was a grand audition stage, not there just for my entertainment, but to hawk the Mariachi wares, to win the prize of playing at a wedding or Fiesta Quinceañera. Throwing a band together, shooting from the hip (because aim was impossible) or assuming their grand idea was good enough would have been unthinkable. These men and women were professionales in every sense of the word, and the bigger the band the higher the price and the grander the occasion. The duets and trios were better suited for wandering the restaurants or intimate affairs. Each band, quartet, trio and duet knew all the songs that it could know, and could play those songs on the spot in any circumstance.

This brings me to the movies and television and the new explosion of “filmmakers” on Youtube.com, Vimeo.com and any number of smaller aggregate and the question of skill and talent. Right now, during the birth of this new entertainment, anything seems to go, but I’m here to tell you that this will not last very much longer. Imagine if Mariachi Square had been filled with a bunch of amateurs. Would anyone in their right mind spend even a dollar to hear their songs? Is it any wonder that YouTube has no business model, yet? I am not saying that the potential is not there, of course.

It used to be that the arbiters of content in the entertainment industry resided behind the wrought iron gates of grand studios, in the air-conditioned high rises of New York City and the Sunset Strip, and precious Spanish Colonial bungalows from Malibu to the Hollywood Hills. These people had an eye for talent and potential. They had worked their way up through the industry from mailrooms to cubicles and right into the corner office. They spent their lives looking for the perfect combination of fresh and edgy work that could be “developed,” for the road to final cut is a collaborative affair.

Now the arbiters of content still reside in those faraway places, but they also now live in small apartments in Tokyo, mud huts in Africa and trains in Europe. They live in trailer parks in Florida, and mansions in the Rocky Mountains. They live at the end of a satellite signal, and when they like what they see, they share it. A well-loved piece of filmed entertainment goes viral in a day, and for the first time ever we can have an exact number for just how many people “hit” the program. There is no more bull shitting a project to success. Its success is in numbers, and no one knows whether that work was a struggle, developed into something we love, or whether it was shoot-from-the-hip aimless, and just happened to tickle us.

Right now, the more seemingly spontaneous a short video on YouTube is, the more popular. How many flash mobs and baby moments captured by accident can we absorb? I think probably many more, but eventually, the surprise grows thin. When that happens, I ask you dear screenwriters to be ready with projects that make sense for the format. When we turn that corner, then business models will emerge.  

My extrapolating mind says that these business models will look very different from the big-money projects done in Hollywood, but there will be big money to make nevertheless. The difference is that the future of multi-level storytelling will depend on a balance between giveaway and micropayment. Suddenly, we will be Mariachi Bands in the “Town Share” vying for bigger prizes, and still accepting the pesos for individual songs.  These auditions will begin the moment we share our first concept on-line, because like a website, we will only have a moment to capture the audience’s imagination. We will have to be perfectly tuned, and choose the right offering for the audience we hope to win over. Some of us will be better suited to wander through the square alone or with a few fellow collaborators, collecting micropayments and surviving. Some of us will join bigger collaborations and become more event-focused. Both styles are valid, and there are a myriad of in-betweens.

That leaves to Hollywood the slickest packages, aimed at the very broadest audiences. I’m not saying there isn’t a place for that, but now there are opportunities to work at many different levels. We must understand that the arbiters of content no longer live only in the ivory towers of Hollywood, but are walking amongst us, and this should not be a relaxing acknowledgment. There is some room for slackers at this stage of the game. However, in the end, they will be relegated to this small slice of time when anything goes. Those of us who are serious about the craft will determine, by virtue of elimination from the on-going game, that our mission is to be the best of the best in our expression.