John August

Charlie's Angels

When do you walk away?

Charlie's Angels, Film Industry, QandA, Tarzan, The Nines

questionmarkSo I’m doing it again. Writing on a project that I feel in my gut is doomed. It’s paying me money and I know many writers are looking for that first paying gig. This is my umpteenth paying gig, and somehow I’m not really that much further along in my career than I was four years ago when I started. But I am a bit wiser. Wise enough to know when producers and development execs are really out to lunch. But apparently not wise enough to jump off this sinking ship. Baby needs a new pair of shoes, right?

And so I must ask someone wiser and infinitely more successful than I am: at what point do you pull the plug. You know, you’re getting notes that make no sense. You’re executing a project that is someone else’s “idea”…though you know full well this someone doesn’t realize that his idea is nothing yet…not until you deliver a script that will undoubtedly be everything he did not imagine (because he really hasn’t imagined anything at all).

When do you save yourself the embarrassment and heartache and suddenly become “unavailable due to a scheduling conflict.” Yes, sometimes the most unlikely projects fraught with problems go on to become successes. Apparently Casablanca didn’t have a script and was being written anew the night before each shooting day. But my experience also tells me that is the exception and that doing it “right” has a higher likelihood of turning out a creatively successful product. What’s John August’s tipping point? When does he leap? What are the danger signs that make John August say, “My employers are completely whacked and I’m catching the next bus out of here”?

— Skip
Vancouver

Often, the only power a screenwriter has is to walk away, and the decision whether to do it is almost never straightforward. But there are a few key points to consider:

1. **Write movies, not scripts.** Always recognize that the words scrolling up and down on your monitor are the means to an end, not the end itself. An unproduced screenplay is like blueprints for an unbuilt skyscraper — brilliance is irrelevant if it never gets made. So ask yourself: “Am I giving up because of a fundamental concern about the movie, or a concern about the script?” The former is valid, the latter isn’t.

2. **Don’t do free repairs on sinking ships.** The Writers Guild (or the Canadian equivalent) would like to remind you that you’re never supposed to do free rewrites, but the reality is that for a project you believe in, you’re willing to do whatever it takes to get it right. But if you’re questioning the producers’ commitment to the project, ask to get paid for that next batch of tiny tweaks. If they balk, it’s that much easier to walk.

3. **Set some objectives and deadlines.** Agree to do that next pass, but only if they’ll commit to taking it out to directors. Insist on having the follow up meeting this week, not a month from now. Don’t let it drag out.

4. **Write your own notes.** Before the next revision, give them a set of written notes about what you want to do. Let that be the template. If they’re not on board, it’s clearly time to move on.

If it’s any consolation, the decision of when to cut one’s losses never gets easier. I had to walk away from both Charlie’s Angels movies when they completely went off the rails, only to come back later. More recently, I had to let Tarzan go, after more than a year of work.

In both cases, I felt profound frustration and disappointment, both in myself and the people who’d hired me. It wasn’t just the amount of wasted work, but the sense that I was abandoning my creations. The characters were real to me, and now wouldn’t get a chance to live. (This dilemma ultimately became one of the storylines in The Movie.)

The only upside I can offer is that once you leave a project, you remember how many other movies you want to write. Shutting one door opens others.

Test screening The Movie

Charlie's Angels, Film Industry, The Nines

Last Monday was the first time I put The Movie in front of an audience: thirty friends and colleagues recruited to help figure out whether the film was appropriately funny, dramatic, and comprehensible. (Answers: Yes, Yes, and Not So Much. We’re working on that last part.)

Screening a work-in-progress is just as nerve-wracking as it sounds. Going in, you know the film isn’t perfect. You’re projecting low-resolution video, with temp music, temp visual effects, and bad sound. But it’s a crucial step, because it’s impossible for filmmakers to see their movie with fresh eyes. You need an audience to laugh, gasp or murmur in confusion.

The thirty people who watched the cut were incredibly generous with their time and comments, not only staying afterwards to talk, but also filling out cards and emailing additional thoughts. They made the movie significantly better.

But as great as they were, the fact that they were friends and colleagues was a significant detriment. They had an emotional investment: they wanted to like it. They were also largely film-and-television people, hardly a representative cross-section of the movie-going public.

The obvious next step would be to put The Movie in front of a real recruited audience, i.e. strangers.

But I can’t.

The very same internet that makes this site possible makes a real test screening impossible. Or at the least, a very risky proposition.

Odds are, one or more of those recruited strangers would recognize my name, the producers, or the actors involved and decide it would be a really good idea to write in to Ain’t It Cool News or a site like it. Quite a scoop, after all, reviewing a movie where even the premise has been kept hush-hush.

Reviews of test screenings are frustrating for a big studio like Warner Bros., but they’re potentially ruinous for a little movie like ours. Keep in mind: We don’t have distribution yet. We’re hoping to sell the movie after a festival premiere. So if DrkLOrd79 trashes the movie, that sets a bad tone going in. Almost worse would be if DrkLOrd79 loved it and gushed on for pages. We’ve all experienced the disappointment that follows having our expectations set too high.

The friends and colleagues at last Monday’s screening were chosen for their insight and opinion. But more importantly, they were chosen for their discretion.

With one exception, every movie I’ve written has had a traditional recruited audience screening, with 200 or so demographically-mixed young filmgoers circling numbers with little golf pencils. After every screening, we learned important things which made the film better.

And after every screening, someone posted his thoughts on the Internet. It was annoying, but it was inevitable. For CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, I stayed up until 2 a.m. waiting for the first test screening review to show up. Sure enough, it came.

The one film which didn’t have a traditional test screening was CHARLIE’S ANGELS: FULL THROTTLE. It was fear of internet leaks that kept the studio from bringing in a recruited audience. And let me be clear about the cause and effect: Full Throttle was not untested because it was a bad movie.

Full Throttle was a bad movie because it was not tested.

The premiere at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre was the first time I saw Full Throttle with a full audience. As the lights went down, there was palpable enthusiasm, and some real residual love for the first movie. By the time the lights came back up, it was pretty clear we really should have done a test screening.

Part of me fears the same could happen with The Movie. Our fear of internet leaks may keep us from giving it the test it deserves. Lord knows, I don’t want the first time I see it with a real audience to be at Sundance or some other festival. So I’m trying to figure out some middle ground, an audience of trustworthy strangers.

As always, suggestions are welcome.

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.

Mongolian characters speaking Chinese

Charlie's Angels, Rant

full throttlerantI’ve been thinking to write you this letter for a while. I saw the movie [Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle](http://imdb.com/title/tt0305357/combined) on a movie channel recently. As a Mongolian, I’m deeply offended by your knowledge about my country.

In the beginning of the movie you show a scene that something is happening in Northern Mongolia and the people in the movie were speaking in Chinese. If you know a little bit about the country you would’ve known that Mongolia has its own, unique language, Mongolian. If you wanted to use Chinese people with their language you should’ve called that place Northern China.

I’m pretty sure that you’re a young and talented writer, but if you don’t know much about other cultures then don’t use them. I’m glad I didn’t pay to see your movie.

— Toshka

The sequence you’re talking about was written in English, with Russian subtitles, because the bad guys were supposed to be Russo-Mongolian. However, when it came time to shoot the sequence, they ended up casting Chinese actors. From a production standpoint, this makes sense: the martial arts team for the movie was largely Chinese, and these are the people who would end up doing the fight sequence anyway.

This is an example of why it’s frustrating being a screenwriter. You get blamed for a lot of things that are completely out of your control: plot holes that arise from editing, crappy dialogue improvised on the set, and supposedly Mongolian actors speaking Chinese.

I’m sorry, Toshka, that the five or six lines spoken in Chinese during the sequence offended you, but I think you’re expecting way too much cultural accuracy from a movie which ignores gravity, plausibility and narrative logic with alarming consistency.

Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle isn’t my favorite movie either, but I can easily think of five better reasons to be frustrated by it:

1. Too many villains. (Four, if you’re counting.)
2. The wrong kind of sexy. Flirtatious, meet slutty. Oh, you’ve met.
3. The whole ring McGuffin. Where’s Frodo Baggins when you need him?
4. It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s — huh? Demi Moore can fly?!
5. Bernie Mac? Funny! I just wish I could understand what he’s saying.

I was complicit in at least three of these faults (#1, #3, and #4, begrudgingly), so I’ll gladly accept my share of the blame. But as for the Mongolian problem, nope. Can’t help you there.