John August

QandA

Villains

Episode - 75

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Scriptnotes, Story and Plot, Television, Transcribed

John and Craig give heroes the week off and talk bad guys. Not every movie needs a villain, but if you have one, he better be good.

Also this week, follow-up on Courier Prime, John’s TV pilot, and most importantly Craig’s movie Identity Thief, which hits theaters this weekend.

In our One Cool Things, John talks up Gillian Flynn’s terrific but tough-to-adapt Gone Girl, while Craig wants fewer dead athletes.

LINKS:

You can download the episode here: AAC.

UPDATE 2-9-13: The transcript of this episode can be found here.

The hyenas got a raw deal

Story and Plot

Cezary Jan Strusiewicz makes some good points about villains who are actually right, including [The Lion King’s hyenas](http://www.cracked.com/article_18417_9-famous-movie-villains-who-were-right-all-along.html):

> They want something to eat. That’s their problem, and it’s only a problem because Mufasa banished them from the Pride Land and forced them to live in an elephant graveyard, which is no place to raise a child, hyena or otherwise. We never know why they were banished to the Pride Slums, leaving us to assume Mufasa’s unedited explaination of the Circle of Life went something like this:

MUFASA

Everything you see exists together, in a delicate balance. As king, you need to understand that balance, and respect all the creatures-- from the crawling ant to the leaping antelope.

SIMBA

But Dad, don’t we eat the antelope?

MUFASA

Yes, Simba, but let me explain. When we die, our bodies become grass. And the antelope eat the grass. And so we are all connected in the great Circle of Life.

SIMBA

Wow... Say, Dad, where do the hyenas fit into the great Circle of Life?

MUFASA

Ugh, the hyenas. No, f#@k those guys.

SIMBA

Yeah, that’s fair.

That said, I’ve seen hyenas in the wild, and they freak the bejeezus out of me. At first glance, you think “dog.” Then they start to move and nope, not dog.

Not. At. All.

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Scriptnotes, Story and Plot, Transcribed

Craig and John spend the entire episode discussing and dissecting RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, looking at both its structure and scene work.

This amazing and iconic 1981 film established so much of what we expect of out movie heroes and set pieces — but a lot of what it does would have a hard time getting through modern studio development. Five-minute exposition scenes! Nazi monkeys! Helpless heroes at the climax!

And yet it works so well. There are great lessons to be learned for screenwriters in every genre.

LINKS:

* Raiders of the Lost Ark [official website](http://www.indianajones.com/), and on [IMDb](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082971/?ref_=sr_1), [Netflix](http://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/Indiana-Jones-and-the-Raiders-of-the-Lost-Ark/60011649?strkid=1024294360_0_0&strackid=28d787371bc40f39_0_srl&trkid=222336), [iTunes](https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie-collection/indiana-jones-complete-adventures/id561542568) and [Amazon](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0014Z4OMU/?tag=johnaugustcom-20)
* George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Larry Kasdan’s [Raiders story conference transcripts](http://moedred.livejournal.com/2009/03/04/)
* [“Apple for teacher? Why’d he do that?”](http://raven.theraider.net/showthread.php?t=6083) thread on theraider.net (via [@sethgs](https://twitter.com/sethgs/status/292779295905021952))
* OUTRO: [A British Tar](http://www.guntheranderson.com/v/data/britisht.htm) from the HMS Pinafore by Gilbert and Sullivan, performed by John Rhys-Davies

You can download the episode here: [AAC](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/scriptnotes_ep_73.m4a).

**UPDATE** 1-25-13: The transcript of this episode can be found [here](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-ep-73-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-transcript).

The second letter in R&D stands for development

Film Industry

Variety’s David S. Cohen returns from CES with a warning that studios need to invest in [research and development](http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118064759/):

>Exhibitors, and by extension the entire movie biz, have seen TV as their nemesis since the smallscreen ripped away a huge chunk of the moviegoing audience 60 years ago. Today that threat is more dire than ever, and business-as-usual from the majors and their parent companies isn’t going to cut it this time.

Cohen points to upcoming 4K TV screens — which trump the resolution of many movie projectors — as an example of how studios are risking the theatrical experience.

> Many years ago, the studios spent liberally on tech R&D; Fox spent a more than a million to try to get stereoscopic movies off the ground in Hollywood’s early decades, without success (which may be why the studio didn’t embrace 3D in the 1950s). In recent decades, aside from Sony, which was a technology company before it bought a studio, the Hollywood majors have seemed mostly content to let other companies take the lead in improving the movie experience. That worked well enough when the technology leaders (Kodak, Technicolor, Deluxe, Panavision, Christie and Barco) were basically in the movie business and movies had the advantage of a better capture and delivery medium — film.

But here’s the thing: while many movie studios are part of giant corporations, movie studios themselves aren’t manufacturers. They never made things the way Kodak and Panavision do.

Nor are movie studios in the exhibition industry, like IMAX or AMC. In fact, they’re [legally barred](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pictures,_Inc.) from owning movie theater chains.

Movie studios make *movies*. Movies are intellectual property.

Cohen ultimately acknowledges this:

> The majors invest lots of money on R&D these days, but it’s mostly on developing intellectual property: script development.

They spend their R&D money on the thing they actually make. That’s pretty reasonable, really.

Studios love to make money from distributing movies theatrically. They also love to make money from home video — including on those fancy new TVs Cohen saw at CES.

When Cohen argues that the majors “need to invest in improvements to the movie platform, and soon,” it’s not at all clear what he wants. IMAX at every theater? Studios don’t own theaters. They can release more movies in IMAX, but by my tally, they’re already pushing it for every movie that makes sense.

Is there room for innovation theatrically? Sure. Love it or hate it, 48fps is a change, as was the resurgence of 3D. As with IMAX, the most the studios can be expected to do is produce and release movies in a new format and hope that moviegoers will embrace it.

Behind the scenes, the switch to digital delivery instead of film prints saved studios a lot of money. That’s not sexy, but research is often about spending money to save money.

Companies spend R&D money in the hope that the investment pays off down the road, and for studios, that mostly means paying screenwriters. I happen to think this is an awesome business plan.