John August

QandA

More on becoming a co-producer

Go, Producers, QandA

How did you come to be a co-producer on GO?

–David Demchuk

Although Columbia Pictures ultimately released GO, they weren’t the original
buyer of the script (in fact, every studio in town had passed on it, feeling
the subject matter was too dark). A tiny company called Banner Entertainment
read the script and wanted to make the movie, but since they didn’t have a
lot of money to put up front, they offered a few things a studio normally wouldn’t.

First, they guaranteed I would be the first, last and only writer on the project.
Second, they would give me the right to buy the script back if the movie hadn’t
gone into production within 18 months. Finally, they would keep me on board
as co-producer.

The various flavors of producer credit (executive
producer, associate producer,
co-producer) are tossed around a bit too easily in Hollywood, and all too often
they’re given to people who don’t really deserve them, such as an actor’s mananger.
In my case, I actually earned my masters degree in the film producer’s program
at USC, so I was weirdly well qualified for the job.

For the first week or two, I just sat quietly in meetings, happy to be there.
But ultimately I got highly involved in every aspect of the production, from
hiring Doug Liman to direct it to scrambling for funds when our foreign financing
fell apart (I had just made a deal with Columbia’s sister studio, Tri-Star,
which is a large reason why the movie ended up there). During production, I
was on-set from call to wrap, and sat in on five months of editing. It was
an amazing experience.

In total, there were five producers on GO. The three "full" producers
were Paul Rosenberg, who had set up the script and given me my first two jobs
in the business; Mickey Liddell, who ran Banner Entertainment; and Matt Freeman,
who worked with Mickey and brought him the script. The other co-producer was
Paddy Cullen, who oversaw the physical production, including the budget, schedule
and insurance.

Looking back, it’s hard to imagine making the movie without all those people
doing their part. While GO had some unique challenges, every production needs
its good cops and bad cops, peacemakers and war-bringers. A writer can go off
and work by himself, but a producer needs to lead dozens of other people. It’s
a very different set of skills.

Since GO, I have co-executive produced a television series, and signed on
to produce a big-budget monster movie that I’m writing at Columbia. But even
on projects where I’m "just" a writer, the experience of having produced
is a tremendous advantage in anticipating the needs of the filmmakers.

Themes

QandA, Story and Plot

After viewing many films and reading many books on the craft of screenwriting
one of the most important aspects of film seems to be theme. I’m sorry, I’m
starting to ramble. My question is this: is it bad to formulate an entire screenplay
on the basis of a theme, or does that get in the way of creativity? Should
an idea stem from a theme, or should the idea produce the theme, or can it
work both ways? I thank you in advance for reading this, I know that you have
a tumultuous schedule.

–Brian Formo

"Theme" is one of those words that’s thrown around a lot without
any consensus about what it’s supposed to mean. Here’s my definition to add
the to mix:

Theme is the emotional, intellectual or spiritual issue at the core of the
story. It is the "dark matter" that gives a movie weight – you don’t
notice it directly, but when its missing, the movie seems frivolous and disconnected.

Sometimes, it can be summarized in a word. In X-MEN, the theme is mutation,
and all aspects of the story radiate around this word. The heroes and villains
are all "mutants," different than normal people. The villain wants
to change – mutate – all the world’s leaders. Rogue and the others suffer prejudice
and persecution because of their "otherness." In crafting the story,
the writers focussed on parallels in the real world: particularly Martin Luther
King versus Malcolm X, and the controversy over gay rights.

In ALIENS (the sequel), the theme is motherhood. Almost asexual at the start
of the movie, Ripley adopts a surrogate child in Newt. When Newt is kidnapped,
Ripley must face off against the alien mother, resulting in one of the best
lines of dialogue ever shouted: "Get away from her, you BITCH!" (Interestingly,
in Cameron’s original script we learn that Ripley did have a child of her own
once, but after all these years asleep in space, Ripley
has outlived her.)

In GO, the theme is shouted by several characters in crucial moments: "GO!" Which
means, "I don’t care which way you go, you have to go now!" In each
of the three stories, characters get in way over their heads, but there’s never
time to stop and think through to the best answer. You’ve made a mistake, but
you have to keep going.

Which comes first, idea or theme? Ultimately, I think they’re too inter-related
to divide. When I was brought in to work on TITAN A.E., I explained to the
studio executives that I loved how the Earth was blown up in the first three
minutes, but that the only way to thematically balance the Earth’s destruction
was to create a new world at the end. The story, which had previously been "Treasure
Island in Space," with the Titan holding the Earth’s fortune, became a
Genesis allegory, albeit with a lot of laser blasting and cartoon cleavage.
Thematically, it was now a movie about Home, and every beat of the story focussed
on some aspect of it, from the initial destruction, to the derelict station,
the drifter colony, and finally the Titan itself.

The movie tanked, but how ’bout those themes?
In your own work, it’s definitely worth sitting down and looking at whether
you’ve really explored the idea-within-the-idea. The world doesn’t need another
hollow action movie, but it could use another SPEED (you can’t slow down),
MATRIX (reality is an illusion), or RUN LOLA RUN (what if you could do it again).
It’s no coincidence that the best movies of a category generally have the best-explored
themes.

Copyrighted materials in your script

QandA, Rights and Copyright

I had some questions about copyrighted materials. I
know you have to pay the recording companies for the rights to songs. What
if I have a character singing
Foreigner’s "Urgent" in the shower? Will I get sued?

In the same vein, can I have a character argue the
merits of McDonald’s Big and Tasty or will I have Ronald’s team of lawyers
calling me up? I know different
films have portrayed companies negatively before, most memorable (in my mind)
being RAIN MAN, which had Tom Cruise proclaiming "K-Mart sucks!" But
I don’t know if that was somehow approved by K-Mart or not.

–David Scott

Here’s the difference between writing a screenplay and making a movie: as
the screenwriter, you can do anything you damn well please. You can have your
hero urinating on the Pillsbury Doughboy while smoking crack with Mr. Clean.

Now, when the time comes to actually make the movie, there may be a legal
team offering very cogent arguments for why that can’t happen. The Pillsbury
folks might sue, and even if they wouldn’t win, the threat of a lawsuit might
be deterrence enough. And in the case of Foreigner, they might ask for too
much money. It happens.
But by the time it comes to make the movie, you’ll hopefully have strong producer and director who are so entranced by your brilliant writing that they’ll help
you fight to get your vision on screen. (More likely, they’ll cower and capitulate
and blame other people, but let’s just pretend.)

In short, David, worry about writing the best scenes and not about lawsuits
or song rights.

The problem of multiple screenwriters

Film Industry, QandA

On the first CHARLIE’S ANGELS, you came on after the original writers, and, though numerous writers worked on the script, you stayed on the whole time and were credited along with the first team (whose script, save for the opening scene, has no resemblance to the movie). On the second film you were the original writer, but another writing team came on after and shares screenplays credit. In the end, is it better to be the last writer on these types of projects?

–Barney

In the end, it’s better to be the only writer on a movie. That’s how it was with GO and BIG FISH, which turned out to be the best movies I’ve been involved with in any capacity. Unfortunately, One Writer per Movie doesn’t happen as often as it should. The problem is that any sort of absolute maxim – there must only be one screenwriter on a film – is unrealistic and probably detrimental.

The CHARLIE’S ANGELS movies show how the process works, for better and for worse.

I came on to CHARLIE’S ANGELS after the writing team of Ed Solomon & Ryan Rowe had done a draft. In fact, they weren’t even the first writers. The studio had hired others to write different versions as far back as the early 90’s. But Ed & Ryan wrote a brand new draft that had elements the studio liked, notably the opening sequence on the plane. The rest of their script revolved around cloning supermodels, and definitely reached further into the AUSTIN POWERS/MEN IN BLACK school of wide-angle comedy. I was brought on board when Drew Barrymore and Nancy Juvonen joined the project, with the mandate of finding not just a new plot, but a new tone.

I worked for the better part of a year on the script, which very closely mirrors the final movie. Just before production began, another producer informed me that they were planning to bring in a roundtable of comedy writers to “look for jokes.” After some heated words, I quit the project. During production, a revolving door of very talented writers came on board for a week at a time, making surprisingly few meaningful changes to the script. In the end, none of these subsequent writers sought credit on the movie, so Ed, Ryan and I agreed to share writing credit. It was all very civil.

I went into the sequel knowing it would be difficult. Although I have great affection for each member of the team individually, the combination of personalities makes it very turbulent – anyone on the production would agree with me. Both for the good of the project and for my emotional self-preservation, I adopted a judo-like attitude about my writing. I rolled with the changes, happy to try anything, and worked to build consensus among the many powerful voices. Ultimately, I was asked to squeeze the plot of the proposed third Charlie’s Angels (including the Madison Lee character) into the storyline, and I balked. The writing team of Cormac and Marianne Wibberley were hired to do the job, and did the best anyone could at an impossible task. I came back after them to patch some cracks, but ultimately remained frustrated the movie would be so overstuffed and underdeveloped.

Unlike the first movie, there wasn’t a slew of writers on the project, just two others. The arbitration for credit was remarkably civil, and the Wibberlys and I recorded a commentary track together for the DVD.

The CHARLIE’S ANGELS movies show the pros and cons of multiple writers on a project. The first movie would never have been made with Ed & Ryan’s script, so it’s hard to argue that hiring a subsequent writer (me) was detrimental. In my opinion, the second movie would have been considerably better had certain changes not been made, but if hiring other writers kept the production from falling apart, maybe that was ultimately for the best.

In the end, it’s hard for me to be too high-and-mighty about protecting the original writer. I’ve worked on BLUE STREAK, JURASSIC PARK III, MINORITY REPORT, THE RUNDOWN and other movies as the second, third or eighth writer. In many cases, it’s perfectly clear why these movies need rewriting. But I’ve refused work where I felt the studio was dumping a writer arbitrarily, and sought out the original writers wherever possible to find out what happened.