The Visionary Screenwriter - Part Three

Framing our film stories begins with who we write about and in what context. 

There are actual facts that reflect the changes happening in America and the world. A good place to start finding them is at the website for the U.S. Census Bureau.  You may think, “So what there are now over 50 million people of Hispanic identification in this country?” So what indeed. I estimate that fewer than 10% of the films and television shows produced by major studios and networks in Hollywood are reflecting the demographics of a rapidly changing America. They seem to be stuck in a nostalgic Jim Crow identity with a few “token minorities.” They are token because, even while they may have leading roles in a movie, white folks inevitably surround them in the story. They are minorities only because they’re still identified that way. America is changing and it is hard to continue going to films that largely exclude the changes that we deal with everyday. 2042 is not very far away, but how many Sci-Fi films have you seen that reflect the coming demographic fact that Hispanic heritage will surge ahead in all of the US the way it already has in major Southwest cities?

It’s not only America that is changing, the way the whole world interacts is changing. We no longer have to rely on the diplomatic corps to communicate with people from other countries. We can Facebook them. We can discover a lot about ourselves by interacting with people all over this little blue globe in a way that Hollywood seems to be unable to absorb and communicate. While we rely less and less on Hollywood to interpret our place in the world, it may simply be because they are not doing a very good job. Seemingly, they would have us return to a simplistic point of view where there is one big enemy and one big hero, but the reductionism just comes off as silly. Thank goodness for shows like “Outsourced” and “NCIS” because they admit that our contextual place in the world is very confusing at best, and we’re usually the butt of the jokes because we are so isolated and sure of our position…until we aren’t. Until we writers realize that a big story right now is our bewilderment in this new world order, we’re not seeing that story very often on screen, but instead see a lot of conspiracy stories that show how we lost our footing. In my opinion, that’s looking backwards.

Some of my new and young friends in places all over Africa are using technology to leap ahead of their parents, and even their siblings. It will not be too long before the changes in leadership, supported by way leaders and entrepreneurs like Dr. Mo Ibrahim of Sudan, make Africa extrapolate an entirely different world scenario with diverse resources and brain power. How do you think a strong Africa will change the way African Americans view themselves, and yet we still have stereotypical black men appearing in films made even by black filmmakers like Tyler Perry. I’m sorry but I don’t get it. I have yet to see films reflect the kind of insanity my dear husband still deals with everyday. It is far past time to call on the carpet the way Hollywood frames life as we know it.

Then there is the story of women. Women who make up 51% of the population, have infiltrated every stratum of society, and are still portrayed by the entertainment industry as being primarily interested in consuming lingerie and extravagant lifestyles rather than changing the world. Even my fourteen year old daughter can see that there is no difference between plastic surgery and a burqa. When will Hollywood wake up? Well in 100 years of film we JUST had a woman, Kathryn Bigelow, win "Best Director" from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences last year. I have so many talented women friends who have endured an unreasonable hazing in the entertainment industry, at every level, and they are still locked out.  As Tyler Perry has sometimes pigeonholed the black family in endless victimhood and violence, there are women who would rather be the only woman in the control room. Even women agents and executives still magnetize stories that portray women as victims or bitches. 

In all cases, it is a question of what is valuable to our culture, and frankly as reflected in Hollywood films we are more often than not found wanting. However, I'm not sure that is a true reflection of our culture and I ask screenwriters to challenge themselves to find the truth. To be a visionary screenwriter in times of chaos is an opportunity to reframe the discussion and the way we will be a part of the world.

The Visionary Screenwriter - Part Two

It's a lot in the details...

We live in a different world than even five years ago. It’s 2011 and the items that have gone by the wayside in the last decade are too numerous to name. What I would like to call your attention to, though, is the ways in which we’ve really changed our lifestyles so much that when something about it appears, it dates a film immediately because of its appearance.

Phones. Nobody uses phones anymore. Gasp. That is nobody uses a phone to talk on anymore. (Case in point, even the old newspapers are saying good-bye to their chums: Don't Call Me, I won't Call You) 

I was watching “When Harry Met Sally” just a few nights ago and I was shocked by how much screen time was taken up by Harry and Sally talking on the phone to each other and their friends. Split screen? Are you kidding? In the recent “Wall Street II” movie one of the trailer-worthy funny moments is when Gordon Gecko gets his bulky, ancient cell phone back from his jailer.

If I were to write a scene with a phone in it, it would be only for comic relief about how stupid talking on the phone feels anymore. Yet movies released today still are rampant with phone talking scenes. Get over it. If you have any phone scenes in your script, seriously consider another way to convey that communication.

Newspapers are another thing that will be gone in a few years. I remember telling a twenty-something to look up an article for me in a newspaper. I handed the thing to her, and her reaction was actually disgust, "Why do I have to touch this? I get ink all over my hands. I'll go look it up on the web." This was a few years AGO.

The bookstore is a location that will quickly be obsolete. When the second largest chain Borders has declared bankruptcy because they failed to get on the electronic reader bandwagon, then you have to think where will bookstores be in five or ten years? Libraries are likely to be very limited or gone due to a number of factors. First, they are having their funding cut. Second, they are quickly jumping on to electronic borrowing. Three, who goes to the library anymore? Certainly not kids, who can research in 10 minutes what their parents researched over 10 hours in the book stacks.  

So, you’re looking for the cute meet spot? Try  "Idea Tourism" by Seth Godin, as a starting place, or maybe try getting out of the house and away from your laptop once in a while. See, you do it, too. The fact is that we are more connected to each other than ever before, and also more isolated than ever before. There are stories in that dichotomy. Look for them. These are the stories that will be the contemporary phenomenon in just a few years.

Now, say you are writing a story that takes place twenty years ago, or that you do have flashbacks, be particularly aware of how the lifestyle of twenty years ago, day-to-day, was so different. Typewriters, Walkmans, VCRs, a million remote controls, stick shift cars and uncomfortable office chairs are just a few of the things we had always around us and that are now gone forever. It isn’t just about hairstyles and music. Details are what make those places and people come alive.

Let’s say you’re writing a science fiction story. Puh-lease read some eBooks and articles about upcoming trends and try to extrapolate even beyond them. Be a visionary. It’s not so amazing that someone is carrying around an  iPad™ on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise® anymore, ya' know? You have to go further than we’ve gone, and further than the closest visions of the future take us.

To be a visionary screenwriter, you have to not only have great stories, you have to have great details.

The Visionary Screenwriter - Part One

How many of you believe movies can stay the way they’ve been since the 1940’s? since the 1960’s? since 1980’s? since 2010? Accepting that the movies reflect changes in the way we see the world is one thing, but embracing that movies change the way we see the world is another. Over the years, since I began teaching, the world has changed innumerably, but the screenplay stories that I see from my students have been stuck in the 1980s in terms of worldview and voice. I want to help screenwriters leap into 2015 or even 2020 because the screenplays you’re writing today may not find their way to the screen until then. At the same time, there are structural truths that have withstood the challenges of change and so I am a believer in understanding the essential craft of screenwriting, too.

The audience now has entertainment media readily available. I’ve seen jokes, for instance, on my Facebook newsfeed that are better and about 12 hours ahead of the late-night talk show stand-up. The soap opera that runs on Twitter is as dramatic and fascinating as any story on daytime TV. Conspiracy theories, Magic and UFO sightings are a daily occurrence in threads of discussion forums with a thousand and more labels that are different worlds the user can enter. People may not know their neighbors but still feel they are part of specific communities spread all over the world. This is all free with access to the internet or a smart phone. How can a studio, much less a lowly screenwriter out in the hinterlands hope to compete with so many worthy distractions?

There are going to be gimmicks that, as a screenwriter, you’ll need to consider incorporating into your screenplay. The most obvious and latest craze is 3-D as a value-add. What in a screenplay would make investment in 3-D technology worthwhile? Even the second to last “Harry Potter” installment took a step back from it in favor of a timely release of the movie. First, you have to ask yourself why 3-D is effective as a film tool. Back in the day, Hollywood was looking for a blockbuster film, a film that made the audience want to line-up around a block to see it not just once, but over and over again. Filmmakers like Steven Spielberg and George Lucas somehow inherently understood that going to a film was a two-fold adventure – one being the character-driven hero story, and the other was a visual world that came alive on screen. Combining the hero’s journey with exciting and out-of-this-world action became the standard foundation of a blockbuster film most recently expressed by the 3-D film, “Avatar.”  It is not the hero’s journey that makes a 3-D film work, though, it is the out-of-this-world action that makes it worthwhile. Yet, without the hero's journey the gimmick becomes too obvious. Unfortunately, it may take a while for Hollywood to figure out that you can’t just stick a few action scenes in a movie and make it 3-D. This will cause 3-D to fall into the category of “been there, done that” for many filmgoers. Not every film is a blockbuster film. If 3-D is to survive as a value-add then screenwriters and studios will have to understand what makes it work for the audience rather than just celebrating the fact that they can do it.

However, now look at the world that our audience lives in again. What does the audience experience daily within entertainment that it never had before in a meaningful way? TV shows like “American Idol” call on the viewer to participate in the outcome of the story. These “reality” shows are based upon a belief that if the viewers become invested in the outcome, then they will put aside their time on the computer to come back each week and watch the show unfold. Even YouTube videos incorporate the ability to like, comment and share the films the audience sees.

Films do not offer this kind of interactivity at all. A filmmaker expects that the audience came because they want to invest in another’s point of view and experience catharsis by osmosis. I ask you with complete earnestness, can this possibly stand as the model? Setting nostalgia aside for a moment, can you imagine the children growing up in a world where they interact with technology on a daily basis wanting to go sit in a movie theater for 2 hours or more without expressing their opinions? When those short films come up at the beginning of the film asking for cell phones to be turned off, do you think they actually do that?

The Troubadours and Taliesins of old traveled from village to village singing and telling the news, and stories of their time. Who knows how they interacted with their audiences? Perhaps the event of storytelling, before the advent of writing, was a much more dynamic. Perhaps the story shamans asked the audience to participate. Then along came writing and set those stories on stone and papyrus, and the lasting power was not on the memory of the storyteller or the interaction with the village, but on the interpreter of the writing. Keep in mind that Socrates never learned to write or read and, presumably, his work would not have survived without the writing ability of his student, Plato, but who knows what Plato left out. Works have been commonly revised, including the bible, to fit their time. My suggestion today is that screenwriters must begin to think more flexibly than ever before.  As sure as there was chaos and opportunity in the age when troubadours found themselves replaced by books, there is chaos and opportunity now as we enter the digital age of storytelling but the key to success will be adaptation to change not insistence on the same old, same old.