John August

Projects

Charlie out on DVD

Charlie

Charlie DVD
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is out on DVD today (at least, in North America). There are three versions available: a widescreen version, a full screen version, and a two-disc set with bonus features.

Obviously, don’t get the full screen version.

It’s frustrating that they even sell one, much less call it “full screen.” In order to make the film fit on a conventional television set, they lop off a little on the right and left, or [pan-and-scan](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_and_scan). That means you’ll lose any Oompa-Loompas at the edge of the frame.

You wouldn’t kill an Oompa-Loompa, would you? So get the widescreen version.

Or better yet, get the two-disc set. The bonus disc has a lot of featurettes about the making of the film, including how they did the squirrels and Oompa-Loompas. On Amazon, it only costs $19.98, compared to $15.98 for the single-disc version.

john dvdI show up in several of the bonus features. My advice for any screenwriter lucky enough to have their movie come out on DVD: be really nice to the crew that films the bonus features. Think about what they’ll need when they’re editing. Specifically:

1. Tell the story. They need someone to help fill in pieces of the plot so that it makes sense.
2. Speak clearly.
3. If you screw up, or start rambling incoherently, just stop. Take a breath, and start over. They’ll use your clean take.
4. They won’t use the interviewer’s voice, so when they ask you a question, you have to answer as if unprompted. For example:

  • INTERVIEWER
  • Was is intimidating working with a book you loved so much?
  • YOU
  • It was intimidating working on this book I loved so much as as kid. I felt this responsibility to make sure that not just Roald Dahl’s words, but his spirit…etc.

As I’ve [mentioned before](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2004/big-fish-sells-2-million-dvds-in-its-first-week), the screenwriter doesn’t get a particularly big cut of the DVD profits. But it’s something. For Charlie, I’ll also get royalties for “Wonka’s Welcome Song,” for which I co-wrote lyrics.

If you feel like shooting an extra few pennies my way, you can order through Amazon here.

Does Corpse Bride have a happy ending?

Corpse Bride

Corpse BrideI know you were brought in late on [Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride](http://imdb.com/title/tt0121164/)
and from what I gather, weren’t responsible for much
of the story, but I’m curious about your thoughts on
one particular story element.

Is the ending a happy one for Victor?

The way it plays, it seems as though it is intended to
be a happy ending for him when he winds up with
Victoria, but from the audience’s perspective, I’m not
sure we see evidence that he would be happier with
Victoria than he’d be with the Corpse Bride. The
inclusion of the scene where Victor connects with the
Corpse Bride while playing piano with her is of course
necessary to propagate the plot, but seems to indicate
that he’d be just as content living among the dead as
he would be with Victoria.

— Rob
Los Angeles

You point out one of the real challenges with Corpse Bride. Generally in a fairy tale like this, you’d be really clear about which woman the hero is “supposed to” be married to at the end.

At the start of the movie, it seems pretty straightforward: Victor meets Victoria, and both of them are surprised how much they like each other. Corpse Bride seems like a monster when she first appears, but is quickly revealed to be funny and sweet. She’s rotting, but not rotten.

As we worked on the story, Corpse Bride kept becoming more and more likable, to the point where we started to wonder exactly the question you ask, “Shouldn’t, maybe, Victor end up with Corpse Bride?”

The solution wasn’t to diminish Corpse Bride, but rather to beef up Victoria. Over the drafts, we made sure to give her more initiative (such as escaping the mansion to plead for the Pastor’s help) and make her situation more dire (the wedding to Barkis was a surprisingly late addition).

Through it all, we never wanted to back away from what was unusual about the story: it’s a love triangle in a kid’s film, and you’re sort of rooting for all three characters.

Corpse Bride’s decision to stop Victor from drinking the Wine of Ages (added in the last draft) is less about saving his life (after all, death isn’t so bad) and more about seeing herself in Victoria. It goes back to want-versus-need. Corpse Bride wants to be married, but what she needs is to free herself from her self-imposed curse. While we’re deliberately unclear about the exact cosmology of the afterlife, the Land of the Dead seems to be a kind of goofy Purgatory. Her transformation at the end would seem to be the next step in the process of life.

But is it a little wistful? Yeah.

And I wonder if that lack of clearly happy ending limited the upside to the film — which I have to say, performed much better than any movie called “Corpse Bride” could be expected.

But I wouldn’t change it. To me, it’s nice to be able to show kids a movie where everything resolves well but not perfectly. I think it’s more honest to show that you can be happy and sad at the same time.

Where I’ve been hiding

Projects

My blogging-to-actual-work ratio has tipped decidedly to the things-I-get-paid-for side over the last few weeks, as a number of projects have commanded a lot more of my time. So I thought it only fair to explain what’s pulled me out of my beloved bent-brad bunker.

Here’s an update on my [previous post](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2005/project-update), about my current projects.

★ ACTIVE ★

__Ops__
This one-hour drama pilot about private military contractors has suddenly roared back to life, with Fox giving the go-ahead to start casting. We’re out to directors, and — knock wood — should be able to shoot early in the year. For various reasons, the episode we’d planned to start with might now become number three in the season, so that means a whole new script to write (with co-creator Jordan Mechner). But TV scripts are short. And it will be nice to get back into that world.

Casting a TV show takes forever. We’ll have a big pow-wow with the network and the studio, going over their lists of who they have deals with, and who they’ve always liked. Then we’ll meet with those actors. The less-established actors will be fine coming in for an audition, but the bigger names will only “meet.” Which often means coffee. Which often takes a hell of a lot longer.

Eventually, we’ll have big casting sessions, where we’ll audition 15 or more actors in an afternoon, one after the other. On the other two TV shows, I’ve always been in the room for those sessions, but given the newborn and the other projects on this list, I’ll probably be watching videotape for more of these casting sessions.

__Untitled Broadway Musical__
I’ve had work sessions with the composer this week. We’re now up to seven songs, plus a fair amount of connective tissue (“the book,” which is my job). It’s strange working with someone who can hear something once and immediately play it back on the piano, with elaborations, in a different key. I don’t sell myself short — I’m good at what I do — but I’d love to have that kind of gift.

My basic strategy for working with a composer is to offer effusive praise at anything that sounds right, and to feign musical ignorance when it’s clear what’s not working. “There’s something about that part of the song where it goes — what’s the word when it’s not happy, but — yes, minor. Maybe if it were the opposite of that, it could work, maybe?”

I will ultimately pay a horrible price for this passive-agressive behavior. But for now, the songs sure are pretty.

__Father Knows Less__
Just yesterday, I saw that [Charles Shyer](http://imdb.com/name/nm0796124/) signed on to direct this Dustin Hoffman comedy at New Line. I’d rewritten [Aline Brosh McKenna’s](http://imdb.com/name/nm0112459/) script, and now another writer is working with Shyer. Which is fine. The original director, [Shawn Levy](http://imdb.com/name/nm0506613/), fell off a few months ago over budget issues. Since then, I’ve talked to several director acquaintances who’d recently read the script. So it’s good to know that New Line was serious about making the movie.

__Tim Burton’s movie__
I hope to sit down with Tim in the next few weeks to talk over a few things that are in the planning stages. As busy as I get, I hope to always be able to write Tim’s next movie.

★ LIMBO ★

__Prince of Persia__
I’m executive producing this adaptation of Jordan Mechner’s videogame for Disney. What does an executive producer do? Here’s my analogy: Imagine you’re in the cockpit of a 747. You know how to fly it; you know where to go. But you’re not allowed to touch the controls.

If that sounds frustrating, it is. There are decisions to be made, and I’m not the one making them. But I’m hoping the right decisions get made regardless, because Prince of Persia deserves to be a giant summer tentpole movie.

__The Eye__
This [Hideo Nakata](http://imdb.com/name/nm0620378/)-directed horror remake is supposed to star Renee Zellweger, but I haven’t heard anything new since I turned in my rewrite months ago. It’s still floating out there. I doubt I’ll need to pick up my pen again, though.

__Tarzan__
After visiting the two motion-capture film currently in production at Sony, I got thinking more about doing Tarzan that way. It would certainly be a big help in addressing two major issues with filming it: creating a mythical Africa, and humanely handling the apes.

★ FINISHED ★

__How to Eat Fried Worms__
This project was the very first script I was paid to write, way back in 1996 or so. And now it’s an actual movie. But I can safely say it’s not my movie.

When a film completes production, the WGA sends the final shooting script to all the screenwriters who worked on it, which in this case was only two: me and [Bob Dolman](http://imdb.com/name/nm0231190/), who directed it. I read the script, and had the option to arbitrate for screenwriting credit. I passed. Dolman really did his own thing, and beyond one basic part of the setup (Billy and his family have just moved to a new town), there’s nothing I’d really claim as my own.

Regardless, it’s kind of comforting to have one dangling thread tied up.

I am a white male of European descent

First Person, Tarzan

Gene MapMy last normal job — the 9-to-5 kind — was as an assistant at [Oliver Stone’s](http://imdb.com/name/nm0000231/) production company. At the time, he was in post-production on [Natural Born Killers](http://imdb.com/title/tt0110632/), and developing future projects, one of which was a remake of Planet of the Apes.

Any version of Apes must tackle the basic question of, “How does the hero get stuck on a planet full of goddamn apes?” Screenwriter [Terry Hayes’s](http://imdb.com/name/nm0371249/) adaptation forewent rockets and crash-landings, and instead had our hero (or heroes, it’s been a while) traveling backwards in time through mitochondrial DNA. The device itself didn’t make a lick of sense, but it all felt very [Michael Crichton](http://www.crichton-official.com/): with enough jargon, almost anything sounds plausible.

The Terry Hayes/Oliver Stone version never got made, but it was my first introduction to mitochondria, which are fascinating relics we all carry with us. Essentially, they’re like little power plants inside our cells that are only vaguely related to us. We inherit them only from our mothers, which means geneticists can use mitochondrial mutations to track back lineage, determining who is related to whom, in a very broad sense.

So it was with my Planet of the Apes memory that I was intrigued by a post on Kevin Kelly’s very geeky [Cool Tools](http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/000923.php) feed about [National Geographic’s Genographic Project](http://www.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/). It’s an attempt to learn more about how humanity spread out around the globe by doing genetic testing on indigenous populations. The timing has become somewhat urgent, because people don’t stay put the way they used to, and they don’t always marry within their ethnic/tribal groups. In a generation or two, it may be very difficult to say exactly whose genes are whose.

National Geographic’s program is actually a kit you can order, which includes swabs for taking samples from the inside of your cheek. You mail the samples in, and a lab processes them. A few weeks later, you can enter your special code number on their website, and pull up a history of where you came from, genetically. For women, they track mitochondria. For men, they track the Y-chromosome, which is passed from father to son.

The home-test version is pretty rudimentary, and is really intended mostly to fund the larger project of testing indigenous groups. But it ended being pretty fascinating anyway.

The test revealed that I am a white male of European descent.

No shocker, there. My family is largely German, with a little English and Scottish thrown in. This translates to Haplogroup R1B (M343). I’d venture that most white guys reading this would be similar, if not exactly the same. But what’s more interesting than the result is the journey, which National Geographic charts really well. The report generates a map which shows where your genetic line branched out, in my case charting the journey from Africa (M168), through Central Asia (M9), and finally to Europe, where they kicked the shit out of those Neandertals.

pamirFor instance, my ancestors travelled through the Pamir Knot, which I’d never heard of. But looking at the picture, you realize that somewhere back in history, some relative lived there. Hunted there. Died there. It was 40,000 years ago, but it’s still in my blood.

And perhaps more importantly, it’s a shared history with pretty much anyone in the Northern Hemisphere — the Eurasian Clan, which includes Native Americans.

All of this got me thinking more about my long-gestating (or perhaps dead; it’s hard to say) adaptation of Tarzan at Warner Bros. One of the fundamental challenges with Tarzan is finding a way to handle race and ethnicity; having a bunch of white people fight over Africa brings back unwelcome memories of colonialism. My answer was to build the Mother Africa meme deeply into the story. No matter where you come from, no matter what color your skin, you’re related to exactly one African man who lived 31,000 to 79,000 years ago.

To me, that’s the Joseph Campbell/Star Wars-y aspect of Tarzan. Africa is destiny.

My little genographic field trip won’t advance science much, nor will it move Tarzan out of development limbo. But it made for a nice diversion. For $107.50, it’s a nice family project, particularly if your kids are old enough to understand why you’re scraping the inside of their cheeks. It’s a nice way of demonstrating the connectedness of things, and helping break down common assumptions of “us” and “them.”