John August

QandA

Movie quotes

Film Industry, QandA

It has always bothered me that screenwriters are left out
of the credit for famous quotes. For instance "Here’s looking at you kid," or "Put
your lips together and blow," are almost always credited to the actors
or even referenced as the movie directed by "so and so." Even worse,
some movie theatre chains throw quotes from famous films up on screen prior
to the previews
and NEVER credit the screenwriter.
Where is the screenwriter?! Do you have any
feelings about this? Does the
Writers Guild of America take a position on this?

–Robert

Although I am not an official spokesperson for the WGA in any way, I can safely
say they’re against it. They’re probably even outraged. But in the whole pecking
order of guild priorities, it’s certainly quite low.

Personally, I feel it’s always wrong to quote an author without giving credit.
It’s also wrong to bring a four-year old to an R-rated movie, but it happens
so much I’ve given up being angry about it. For better or worse, I’ve become
complacent about a lot of things that used to really piss me off.

If you feel like becoming an activist for this issue, you might direct your
first missive to the good folks at National Cinema Network (www.ncninc.com),
the company that actually creates and markets most of those pre-show slides
you see. While you’re getting them to properly attribute their movie quotes,
would you also get them to make their jumbles harder? It’s a little insulting
to have to decode a famous movie star when given "M O T S A N K H."

Past mistakes

Psych 101, QandA

Now that you look back on your career, what was the single biggest mistake
or wrong assumption you made early on that someone else could learn from?

–Damion

From the moment I got to Los Angeles, I felt I didn’t deserve to be here.
I was never a classic movie buff; I didn’t have a favorite director; my Honda
was rusting out, but not in a glamorous, beauty-in-poverty way.

I felt like a fraud, an imposter. Worse, I was taking up a slot that some
genuinely deserving person should have gotten. Working in Hollywood was never
my childhood dream. It was almost a flip-of-the-coin decision. For all I knew,
the next Spielberg was stuck flipping burgers in Wichita because I had taken
the last available opening.

Honestly, I felt this way for about three years. I kept waiting to get found
out and sent back to the Midwest.

Thinking this way was easily the biggest mistake I made. When you don’t think
you deserve to be in the room, no one else will, either.

But the truth, which took me an embarrassingly long time to realize, is that
all of the smart, confident people I was meeting really didn’t know any more
than I did. Okay, I had never seen Terrence Malick’s BADLANDS. But I had seen
every episode of "Bewitched," and that was just as valid.

And I could write better than most of them. That seems like an egotistical
statement, but considering I was marking myself lower in every other category,
that lone bright spot was a beacon of hope.

It’s hard to synthesize this advice without making sound like insipid pabulum, "just
believe in yourself." Perhaps it’s best expressed in the negative: "you’re
no stupider than everyone around you."

Based on a true story

QandA, Rights and Copyright

A lot of movies purport to be "based on a true story," even
when the finished product is highly fictionalized. Are there any rules or
guidelines
that govern the use of this label?

–Ellie Kane

Not really. The "based on the true story…" tagline has become something
of a cliché for television movies-of-the-week, along with its insidious
variants: "inspired by…", "in the vein of…" and the
rest. You’re right in assuming that the phrase means almost nothing anymore.

I suppose a very bored, very litigious television viewer could sue a television
network claiming false advertising if the movie was really nothing like the "actual
events" it was based on, but what are the damages, really? Two hours wasted?

The only person who could legitimately claim damages is one of the "real
people" portrayed in the movie, under libel law. That’s why a network
legal department is careful to check out both the script and the marketing
to make sure that none of the portrayals could bring on a lawsuit.

Writing a biography

Film Industry, QandA

I’m submitting a script to a screenplay competition and to
an agent that accepts unsolicited material. Both ask for a biography. Common
sense says to keep it short and sweet–and spell everything correctly. But
I’m finding it very hard to write anything other than a two or three sentence
summation of my education and career (none of which is entertainment related
and all of which is surely boring). I suppose I could add something about my
interests or goals as a writer, but does anyone care? Any advice or guidance
would be greatly appreciated.

–MA

Here’s my all-purpose screenwriter bio. Change the relevant details
to match.

Mark
Anonymous hails from Osh Kosh, Pennsylvania, the zipper capital of
the world.

The son of average suburbanites, he found escape
from the crushing sameness of early-90’s America through the films of Pedro Almodovar
and Lars Van Trier. Inspired to become a rule-breaking filmmaker, he
dedicated himself to learning the rules so that he might break them more
fully and artistically. To this end, he earned a bachelor’s degree
in communications from Oberlin, where he made stylish and inscrutable
films. Forced to take a slave-job at The Gap in order to repay monumental
student loans, he turned his attention to screenwriting, hand-scribing
his first feature-length screenplay during
slow periods in Men’s
Wear.

That script wasn’t very good. However, his second screenplay, A SWIFTLY
TILTING DOUGHNUT, turned out great. A light-hearted riff on Joseph Conrad’s
HEART OF DARKNESS, DOUGHNUT tells the story of a Krispy Kreme manager
sent to close an unprofitable store in the Florida panhandle.

Mark is 25 and lives in Pittsburg.