John August

Search Results for: characters

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.

Follow up: That crushing doubt

Follow Up, QandA

[follow up]Today’s [follow up](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2006/follow-up-please) comes from a reader who asked a question on my imdb column, which somehow never got copied over to this website.

Yes, for the record, I’m aware that this “Follow Up” feature has become self-congratulatory. If it’s any consolation, I hate myself. (Not really.)

The original Q and A went like this:

That feeling where you sink low in the stomach and begin to doubt the really great thirty pages that leaked out of your head -­ which eventually leads to utter disappointment in yourself, your talent, your words. That’s good right?

I know the old “Don’t give up” or “Give it time” advice. But tell me from your personal experience how you get through those famine times in writing.

— Carey O. Malloy

At a workshop last week, one writer said her trick to getting through these bleak times started before she even began working on a project. She would write a half-page letter to herself about why she was excited about the project. Then she’d take this letter and seal it away. Hopefully, she’d never need to look at it again. But if she hit hopeless despair, she could rip that envelope open and be re-inspired.

It’s a smart idea. Unfortunately, it does nothing for you, Carey, right-here-right-now, with no hope, no confidence, and no damn letter to inspire you.

Self-doubt is essentially an argument with yourself, and it’s impossible to win a battle when you’re fighting both sides. So concede defeat and move on to the real questions: Do your thirty pages really suck? What changed that led you away from thinking they were great? Do you really know what the movie is that you’re trying to write?

This last question is usually the killer. I’ve gotten lost in scripts many times, and had to throw out material I really loved but that simply wasn’t part of the movie I was trying to make. It was too slapstick, too showy, too Ivory-Merchant or too Bruckheimer for the project. But I realized something amazing: Nothing ever really goes away. You’ll re-use or re-invent things, sometimes without being aware of it.

The short film script that begat Go was in turn begat (begotten?) by an aborted modernization of “Alice in Wonderland.” I didn’t even realize it at the time, but I was using a lot of my ideas for Alice in it. Later, I wrote a damn cool split-screen action sequence for Charlie’s Angels that didn’t survive, but as God is my witness, one day it shall be filmed.

I guess my best advice for grappling with self-doubt is to reassure you that every script has its crisis point in the birthing process, before a certain critical mass is achieved and it comes out wet and shiny and crying. If a certain scene is troubling you, skip over it and tackle something further ahead. If the story is getting confused, take a break and outline the scenes. Ask hard questions of the script and the characters, but lighten up on yourself. You’re only human, and they’re only paper.

__Here’s the follow-up, more than six years later.__

You answered a question of mine WAY back in July of 2000 on IMDb. Here’s the [link](http://us.imdb.com/indie/ask-archive?date=20000707).

I lived in Nashville then, and at 22, had just decided that year to combine my one real talent, writing, with my insatiable love of films. (Apparently I had also decided to use my middle initial. Go figure.)

So in 2004, armed with a spec that was fueling opportunities to rewrite other people’s specs, I moved to Los Angeles. It took a couple of years, I worked jobs that had nothing to do with writing, as new Angelenos are wont to do, and in April a good friend (and an ex-agent) asked if she could make some calls around town on my behalf concerning my spec (which had basically been a drink coaster for a year and a half.) I said, uh sure.

A week later it sold. She cold-called a big company about a script and a writer no one had heard of because she dug the script and wanted to be a part of it. I had zero representation, no management, no professional guidance really, just that nagging instinct that storytelling is what I’m here for, and someone who believed in my writing.

The project’s in active development, much to the surprise and excitement of just about everyone involved.

And because of that deal, I pitched and met and pitched and met and I’m now adapting a comic book for one of the Big Five.

Less than six months ago, my life started down the road to becoming what I sometimes thought it could be. And it simply came down to a combination of an honest-to-goodness NEED and ability to write, getting people to believe in what you do and wanting to go to bat for you, but mostly, getting the best you have on that page.

Back then I emailed you because starting out I wondered, is this normal? What is this? This sinking, desperate feeling? And of course, now, I know it’s normal. I know what it is. It’s the critic, it’s the “realist,” it’s the southern upbringing telling me that making movies in Hollywood is a fairy tale. Or it’s a problem with the script.

I had to learn the difference between self-doubt and a bad idea. And I think reading your response first helped me realize there was a difference. But if I hadn’t asked, if I hadn’t sort of reached out to someone who I knew I could trust professionally, a guy I knew had been there, who knows…

I like to think I would’ve still pushed through, but asking then, helped get me here now, and I’m grateful for the nudge.

Thanks, Carey Malloy

Movies look nothing like reality

Directors, Projects, Rave, The Nines

While at [Austin](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2006/back-from-austin-2), I caught a screening of Susannah Grant’s new movie [CATCH AND RELEASE](http://imdb.com/title/tt0395495/). Since I sorta-know and definitely admire half the people in it (Jennifer Garner, Tim Olyphant, Kevin Smith), not to mention producer Jenno Topping, I’m hardly an unbiased viewer. So I’ll leave the reviews to more neutral eyes.

But what I do feel justified discussing is the movie’s setting: Boulder, Colorado. My home town.

My very first script was set in Boulder, so I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how it would look on film. Watching CATCH AND RELEASE, I saw many of my chosen locations (The Hill, the Pearl Street Mall, various Flatirons) yet felt almost no recognition that this was actually Boulder.

It’s not the film’s fault. It’s just that movies look nothing like reality.

For instance, a scene set at the Pearl Street Mall is shot in mostly mediums and close-ups. Without a big wide establishing shot, you don’t get a sense of a street that’s been converted to a pedestrian mall. Of course, the movie doesn’t need the wide shot. The scene would probably be worse for its inclusion. It’s only Boulderites who miss the sense of geography.

If it sounds like I’m complaining, I’m not. The movie is a postcard and valentine for Boulder, and its brand of earnest happiness and liberal optimism. Characters attend the opening of a “peace garden” without a trace of snarkiness to be found — and this in a movie featuring Kevin Smith.

Yes, much of the movie was shot on soundstages and locations far from Boulder. But it wasn’t the geographic differences that hurt the verisimilitude; it was the movie magic. In real life, the sun doesn’t dapple, clutter isn’t charming, and a wall painted “Tampax blue” wouldn’t merit discussion.

I have first-hand experience with the disorienting effects of movie magic, since a portion of The Movie I just directed was shot at my own house. For the last four months, I’ve been staring at footage of my kitchen, yet I barely connect it as being the same place I eat breakfast every morning.

Light, film and lenses change the colors and geometry of the room. The camera watches from places a human wouldn’t, constant and undistracted.

After a friends-and-family of The Movie, I got word back from a friend who lamented that her own house seemed less grown-up after seeing mine on film. She’s overlooking the fact we packed up all the baby toys, the dog beds, the stacks of unread mail, and the dishes in the sink. My house looks grown-up the same way houses in magazine shoots look: perfect, because no one has to live there.

In every scene, in every shot, there are lights and flags and twenty crew members just off the edge of frame, all working really hard to make it look nothing like reality.

As it turns out, I could care less

Directors, First Person, The Nines

I fired an eight-year old girl.

It was the third day of production on The Movie, which had already endured freak rains, poison oak, rattlesnakes, bee swarms and a mountain lion. None of which could compare to this little girl.

The soon-to-be-fired pre-teen was a stand-in for our eight-year old actress. As a stand-in, her entire job was simply to reflect light and not be annoying. She failed.

She was über-annoying: a cross between Pippi Longstocking and Nellie Olsen. Whichever way I looked, she was there. While I was discussing wardrobe with an actress during lunch, Demon Girl pushed her way into the actress’s trailer, just for a look.

I promptly told the first A.D. that I wanted the brat gone. When she somehow showed up on the set after lunch, I clarified my earlier statement: I never wanted to see that little girl again, beginning immediately. A white production van arrived to whisk her off to whatever circle of Hell or Reseda had spawned her.

Was it really this little girl’s fault? Perhaps not. She was, after all, eight. Her parent-slash-guardian was alarmingly lax, considering the aforementioned rattlesnakes. And there’s a compelling argument that children should not be stand-ins at all. I had asked about using an adult little person for a stand-in. Apparently, it’s not uncommon, but we couldn’t swing it in time.

But that’s not the point.

I offer this story of juvenile termination to illustrate the single most important skill I developed while making The Movie: I learned to care less.

It seems anti-social — anti-human — to argue for less compassion. But in order to direct the film, I consciously decided to harden my heart a little. And by ZeusIn appreciation of Richard Dawkin’s [The God Delusion](http://www.amazon.com/God-Delusion-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0618680004/sr=8-1/qid=1160776464/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-6262160-3232047?ie=UTF8), I’ve decided to stop referring to the Abrahamic God and start spreading the wealth to other mythical deities., it helped.

In ordinary life, I’m nice, to the point of obliging. I tend to treat people in my life like guests at a never-ending dinner party I got roped into hosting. I want everyone to be comfortable, yet at the same time, I secretly want them to leave.

I find myself apologizing for things completely out of my control, like the weather, or the incompetent baggage clerk at Newark.

A friend of mine, who is one of the more emotionally-intelligent people I’ve met, labels this behavior “over-functioning.” I take responsibility for things that I should better leave alone, and reverse-delegate tasks out of a skewed sense of fairness.

This is a questionable strategy for life. But it’s a flat-out awful strategy for directing a movie. A director’s first and only concern needs to be getting the story into the camera — damn the cost, fatigue, frustration and hurt feelings.

So I changed.

I decided that while I was on set, my only responsibility was to the movie, and my ability to direct it. With this philosophy in hand, many decisions became easier.

It didn’t matter why the little girl was annoying. It wasn’t my job to figure out what her malfunction was, or why her parent-slash-guardian wasn’t keeping tabs on her. The little girl was getting in the way, and thus, she had to go.

When the the focus puller tripped during a complicated Steadicam shot, Ordinary John would have insisted that he get checked by the medic. Director John didn’t. Mr. Focus said he was okay, so we kept shooting. I could see he was hurt, but that wasn’t my responsibility. He was a grown-up, and it was his decision. He could take care of himself.

The real test of this new philosophy came while we were shooting at my house. Normally, the presence of any stranger in my home sends me into full host mode. If I haven’t offered you something to drink within the first minute of your arrival, either I’m off my game, or I’d rather you leave. But when it came to The Movie, I let it go. The house was just a location; the crew was just the crew; it wasn’t my responsibility to find more toilet paper.

The real surprise of my Month of Caring Less was that I found myself caring much more deeply about the things that actually mattered.

Without the background noise of a thousand little niceties, I could focus much more clearly on what I wanted to happen in front of and behind the camera. I could talk to actors about motivation in very precise terms, because all I cared about was their moment, not the long-simmering feud between the gaffers and the camera department.

To be clear, I didn’t become an asshole. I think.I guess technically, I shouldn’t care if I did become an asshole. I only yelled three times, which is three more times than I would normally yell in a year, but well within guild standards. After the little girl, I fired three other crew members, not because they were bad people, but because they weren’t doing what I needed them to do for the movie. Which was all that mattered.

And now that we’ve wrapped? I’m probably a little less obliging, a little less eager-to-please. I expect more out of people, and am quicker to express my displeasure when someone isn’t performing.

Still, there’s no doubt I’ve gotten softer. As I recently wrote to that better-adjusted friend:

I’m worried that the theoretical actors and crew of my theoretical movie might feel exploited by a decision I don’t need to make for months if ever. This keeps me awake at night. Not North Korea. This. Bah.

Which, in a way, is fine.

I think part of being a writer, or an actor, is letting yourself feel things without judgment. A director leads an army into battle; a screenwriter leads characters into danger. They’re vastly different jobs, which require different temperaments.

But I’ll definitely keep part of the experience with me. After you’ve cared less, you recognize a certain dishonesty in a lot of what passes for sociability, and the opportunity cost of too much pleasantry.

For example, the first day of shooting, there was one crew member I was certain wouldn’t work out. He was uncomfortably weird and grumpy. Yet as I watched him work, I realized he was just really into his job. Essentially, he was doing what I was doing, putting the movie first and everything else later. He was too focused to be friendly. But he ended up being a lifesaver, solving problems in seconds that could have taken minutes.

So what did I learn in making The Movie? It turned out, I could care less. And both the film and I were better for it.

———