John August

Big Fish

Clive Cussler really, really dislikes Sahara

Adaptation, Big Fish, Charlie, Film Industry, Los Angeles, Projects

Today’s LA Times has a lengthy article about Clive Cussler’s lawsuit over SAHARA. It’s a fun, gossipy read, partially because I’ve had beers with many of the people involved:

For those who don’t have time to read the article, I’ll summarize the moral: be very careful when adapting the work of living authors. Particularly when they go on about how much they hate Hollywood.

Cussler had unprecedented and frankly unconscionable control over the adaptation. He bitched and bullied and couldn’t be placated. And if the resulting movie was less-than-stellar, well Mr. Cussler, three fingers are pointing back at you.

But on another level, I get it. Screenwriters are used to seeing their material altered, mangled and reinterpreted. Screenwriting is part of a process, and the craft can only support medium-sized egos.

The novelist, on the other hand, is God. And God doesn’t like to be told he’s a crotchety old jerk who’s been coasting on a mediocre franchise for years. I sympathize with Cussler’s dilemma: he wanted a big movie to bring new readers to his books, without any risk of the cinematic version replacing his literary one. Dirk Pitt has black hair, damnit! It says so here on page two! He wanted Hollywood on his terms.

Have fun with that lawsuit, Mr. Cussler.

My own experiences with adaptations have been more positive. (How couldn’t they be?)

For A WRINKLE IN TIME, Madeleine L’Engel functioned through a trusted producer, and while I had some significant disagreements over what plot points really needed to stay or go, at least I wasn’t arguing with the author. BIG FISH was a love fest from the start, with author Daniel Wallace so intrigued by the screenplay form that he became a screenwriter himself. And CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY was made with the blessing of — and little interference from — the Roald Dahl estate.

What lessons should an aspiring screenwriter take from the SAHARA debacle? For starters, remember that the unhappy stories get press simply because of the train-wreck factor. Most times, the author and screenwriter have a decent relationship — if they have one at all. A smart novelist remembers that the existence of a movie doesn’t change anything about the book sold at Barnes and Noble. And the smart screenwriter remembers to praise the author at the press junket.

Update on the promiscuous player problem

Big Fish, Geek Alert, The Nines

My plea for a DVD player with [loose morals and low standards](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2006/i-want-a-cheap-slutty-dvd-player) was answered by many thoughtful readers. I ended up picking the Philips DVP-642 ($49 at Amazon), which not only zips through questionably-recorded dailies, but even Peixe Grande e Suas Historias Maravilhosas, the Portuguese version of Big Fish.

Thanks again.

How accurate is the page-per-minute rule?

Big Fish, Charlie, Charlie's Angels, Corpse Bride, Go, QandA

questionmarkEvery screenwriting book I’ve read, class I took, and
basically the first rule I learned says:

ONE PAGE OF A PROPERLY FORMATED SCRIPT = APPROX. A MINUTE OF SCREEN TIME.

I know one page of say a battle can last five minutes whereas one page of quick
dialogue my last ten seconds if the actors talk fast… So my question is,
is this rule true?

Has your 120 page script been a 2 hour movie or was it more like 90 minutes?

My main reason for asking this is I want to make my own low-budget movie.
And the best tips I get say keep the script 90 pages or shorter. And to
make it a play (dialogue heavy, one location).

However, from my short film experience and being an editor, I saw a 90 page
script of a friend be only 55 minutes when edited. And I know Kevin
Smith’s CLERKS was 164 page script, but is only a 90 min movie because of
the dialogue.

So, how can I find an accurate length of the movie before I shoot it. Or
should I have a 130-page script if I want to make my own feature? How do the
big boys figure out if there’s enough actual screen time on the pages?

— Matthew Kaplan
New York City

Your instinct is right: the one-page-per-minute rule of thumb doesn’t hold up to much scrutiny. True, most screenplays are about 120 pages, and true, most movies are around two hours. But the conversion rate between paper and celluloid is rarely one-to-one .

That’s why when a movie is in pre-production, one of the script supervisor’s first jobs is to time the script. She or he reads through the screenplay with a stopwatch, estimating how long each scene will play, then adds up the total running time. Generally, they go through the whole script twice, averaging the times.

How accurate is the script timing? Well, that depends on how well the script supervisor has factored in the director’s style. Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain featured long, contemplative shots of the heroes herding sheep, which another director might have dropped altogether. But generally, the script timing is in the right ballpark.

Although a script supervisor has more experience, you can time a script yourself. My advice would be to read the dialogue aloud, while trying to pad for non-spoken moments. It’s easier with some scripts than others.

As far as my own films:

Go was 126 pages, but came out at 103 minutes — without any major scenes left out. It wasn’t play-like, but the pacing was quick.

Big Fish was 124 pages, and 125 minutes long. To my recollection, only one significant scene was omitted, so the page-per-minute rule came close.

Both Charlie’s Angels movies went through so many drafts during production that an accurate page-count is impossible. But the first drafts were around 120 pages. The original film was 98 minutes; the sequel was 106. The pacing was obviously quick.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: 128 pages, 115 minutes.

Corpse Bride: 73 pages, 76 minutes.

Big Fish’s Karl the Giant has died

Big Fish, News

McGroryMatthew McGrory, who played Karl the Giant in Big Fish, died Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 32.

While his character in the film was about eleven feet tall, in real life, Matthew was “only” a bit over seven feet. While he was big, you didn’t really sense he was a giant until you shook his hand. Then you felt like a child trying to greet an adult.

I got to know Matthew a bit while we were filming in Alabama. He was quiet but funny, muttering asides in that incredibly deep voice that sounded computer-generated. He travelled everywhere with his own chair — he was too big to fit in regular ones — but in every other way was a normal member of a sizable cast.

Meeting Matthew, you definitely got the sense that being his size was a strain on his health, and in fact, his death is listed as natural causes. My condolences to his family and many friends.