Post by Ace on Jul 17, 2006 5:58:05 GMT -5
I had this in Film & TV but think it's a much broader subject since most of this doesn't have to do with TCA though it mentions Pierce and Rene. It's from one of it's writers -- and it's still an interesting read about what little power writers can actually have.
www.tallfellow.com/TF_doingit.htm
Doing It For The Money: The Agony & Ectasy of Writing & Surviving in Hollywood
As one of 48 contributing screenwriters here's Leslie Dixon's war story:
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH (UNITED KINGDOM): LESLIE DIXON
07/17/2006
Leslie Dixon spent 10 years as a comedy writer before trying new genres with 'The Thomas Crown Affair' and 'Pay it Forward'. After her experiences on the latter, her goal is to write silent films.
There are barometers by which writers can judge if a script is any good. If you get 50 job offers after it is circulated, if big stars are clamouring to do it, that's a fair indication you've delivered. By those standards, Pay it Forward was a success.
I was coming off The Thomas Crown Affair. Ooh. Let's talk about those actors. Here's Pierce Brosnan: we're having a meeting in a hip London hotel lounge. Across the room are two girls having a drink. They're young and all dressed up. They are sneaking looks at Pierce, awed to be across the room from him.
Pierce saw them, took it all in. Next thing the girls knew, a waiter appeared. 'Mr Brosnan would like to send you a drink.' It was fun watching them try not to faint. Pierce raised his glass to them, wanting nothing, deriving pleasure from their stammering thanks.
Here's Rene Russo: it's the premiere of Thomas Crown. The paparazzi are snapping away. She sees me, grabs me, and says, 'This is the writer! I wouldn't be here tonight if it wasn't for her wonderful script.' She doesn't let go of me, forcing them to take my picture if they're to get anything of her. Grudgingly, they continue to snap.
Seeing all this, the Movie Gods decided to cast me out of heaven. I hadn't exactly heard warm fuzzy things about Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt. He was supposed to be tough, and she held, by rumour, the title of Most Difficult Working Actress. At least they were great actors, which was lucky, because Pay it Forward was an easy film to ruin. It was about a burnt-out, cynical teacher who gives his class an assignment to come up with an idea that will change the world. He doesn't believe the kids are capable of such a thing; it's just a rote assignment. So, when one seventh grader takes the assignment seriously, the teacher is profoundly affected.
Helen was charming until the first moment I disagreed with her. Her mouth set, her eyes grew hard, and she never again demonstrated the slightest pretence of civility. Anyone who said anything but 'yes' to her was the enemy.
Immediately, Kevin let me know my caste. During our first meeting, he made phone calls, without ever saying 'Excuse me,' or acknowledging that a person was sitting there. I was wallpaper. Finally off the phone, he announced that he wanted a change in his character: 'I think he should be a good teacher and really connect with those kids.'
My heart sank. I mentioned, gingerly, that moral transformations did seem more powerful when they happen to cynical people. Well, he'd played a lot of cynical people. He wanted to be cuddly.
He also wanted more about how his character had been physically scarred by his father. He did not say, 'Give me a big, scenery-chewing speech,' but I got the message. Can't win the Oscar without talking a lot!
Helen's first of many demands was that she be seen not as a tenuously recovered alcoholic but still fighting the demons of the bottle. Again, I was distraught: drunk scenes - territory covered by so many actresses in so many movies.
One morning, she took me aside. 'My therapist says this character's a classic case of a person molested as a child. And it's important to me that this be made clear ... on camera ... in dialogue.'
'You do realise that this would make duelling child-abuse backstories for you and Kevin.'
It didn't matter. She wanted her own under-age grope. Resigned, I began making the script worse. There weren't wrenching changes; it was more death by a thousand little razor cuts.
The week before production I spent in Las Vegas for what were supposedly rehearsals. In fact, it was, in Helen's words, a 'script autopsy'. No word was too small to escape protracted discussion. Kevin gave me a 45-minute soliloquy, the end result of which was that he wanted one line changed. Occasionally, I was yelled at; more often, ignored. No one said a personal word to me - even knee-jerk courtesies like 'hello' and 'goodbye' had gone by the wayside. I quit.
Time passed; I saw the film. Everything I dreaded had happened: looming close-ups, ham-fisted dialogue, searing obviousness, a jarring ending.
Annoyed at my desertion, the actors began taking pot shots at the script. It had been 'goo', they said, but they had gotten in there, rolled up their sleeves, made it ring true. The critics disagreed.
I lay low, licked my wounds. But when my mother said, after reading an article, 'Well, those actors certainly don't think much of you,' I began to boil. Was I going to lie down for that? If I wanted to remain a screenwriter, I should. Besides, wasn't I too mature for petty vengeance?
Soon after, a Wall Street Journal reporter began poking around, curious as to why the film had flopped. He quickly determined that the actors had been calling the shots. In the ensuing article, he observed that perhaps Mr Spacey's judgment about corniness wasn't entirely to be trusted, and quoted a scene that he had improvised. Phones rang. The Powers That Be were raging. That speech was cut! How could the reporter have seen it? Oops. Well, I guess someone gave him the shooting script.
As if in apology, the Movie Gods next threw me Steve Martin. I wrote my brains out for him, turned it in. He called the next day. Just wanted to say how pleased he was.
'Doing it for Money: The agony and ecstasy of writing and surviving in Hollywood', ed. Daryl G Nickens, is published in America by Tallfellow Press and can be ordered via www.tallfellow.com
Copyright © 2006 The Sunday Telegraph. Source : Financial Times Information Limited - Europe Intelligence Wire
www.tallfellow.com/TF_doingit.htm
Doing It For The Money: The Agony & Ectasy of Writing & Surviving in Hollywood
As one of 48 contributing screenwriters here's Leslie Dixon's war story:
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH (UNITED KINGDOM): LESLIE DIXON
07/17/2006
Leslie Dixon spent 10 years as a comedy writer before trying new genres with 'The Thomas Crown Affair' and 'Pay it Forward'. After her experiences on the latter, her goal is to write silent films.
There are barometers by which writers can judge if a script is any good. If you get 50 job offers after it is circulated, if big stars are clamouring to do it, that's a fair indication you've delivered. By those standards, Pay it Forward was a success.
I was coming off The Thomas Crown Affair. Ooh. Let's talk about those actors. Here's Pierce Brosnan: we're having a meeting in a hip London hotel lounge. Across the room are two girls having a drink. They're young and all dressed up. They are sneaking looks at Pierce, awed to be across the room from him.
Pierce saw them, took it all in. Next thing the girls knew, a waiter appeared. 'Mr Brosnan would like to send you a drink.' It was fun watching them try not to faint. Pierce raised his glass to them, wanting nothing, deriving pleasure from their stammering thanks.
Here's Rene Russo: it's the premiere of Thomas Crown. The paparazzi are snapping away. She sees me, grabs me, and says, 'This is the writer! I wouldn't be here tonight if it wasn't for her wonderful script.' She doesn't let go of me, forcing them to take my picture if they're to get anything of her. Grudgingly, they continue to snap.
Seeing all this, the Movie Gods decided to cast me out of heaven. I hadn't exactly heard warm fuzzy things about Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt. He was supposed to be tough, and she held, by rumour, the title of Most Difficult Working Actress. At least they were great actors, which was lucky, because Pay it Forward was an easy film to ruin. It was about a burnt-out, cynical teacher who gives his class an assignment to come up with an idea that will change the world. He doesn't believe the kids are capable of such a thing; it's just a rote assignment. So, when one seventh grader takes the assignment seriously, the teacher is profoundly affected.
Helen was charming until the first moment I disagreed with her. Her mouth set, her eyes grew hard, and she never again demonstrated the slightest pretence of civility. Anyone who said anything but 'yes' to her was the enemy.
Immediately, Kevin let me know my caste. During our first meeting, he made phone calls, without ever saying 'Excuse me,' or acknowledging that a person was sitting there. I was wallpaper. Finally off the phone, he announced that he wanted a change in his character: 'I think he should be a good teacher and really connect with those kids.'
My heart sank. I mentioned, gingerly, that moral transformations did seem more powerful when they happen to cynical people. Well, he'd played a lot of cynical people. He wanted to be cuddly.
He also wanted more about how his character had been physically scarred by his father. He did not say, 'Give me a big, scenery-chewing speech,' but I got the message. Can't win the Oscar without talking a lot!
Helen's first of many demands was that she be seen not as a tenuously recovered alcoholic but still fighting the demons of the bottle. Again, I was distraught: drunk scenes - territory covered by so many actresses in so many movies.
One morning, she took me aside. 'My therapist says this character's a classic case of a person molested as a child. And it's important to me that this be made clear ... on camera ... in dialogue.'
'You do realise that this would make duelling child-abuse backstories for you and Kevin.'
It didn't matter. She wanted her own under-age grope. Resigned, I began making the script worse. There weren't wrenching changes; it was more death by a thousand little razor cuts.
The week before production I spent in Las Vegas for what were supposedly rehearsals. In fact, it was, in Helen's words, a 'script autopsy'. No word was too small to escape protracted discussion. Kevin gave me a 45-minute soliloquy, the end result of which was that he wanted one line changed. Occasionally, I was yelled at; more often, ignored. No one said a personal word to me - even knee-jerk courtesies like 'hello' and 'goodbye' had gone by the wayside. I quit.
Time passed; I saw the film. Everything I dreaded had happened: looming close-ups, ham-fisted dialogue, searing obviousness, a jarring ending.
Annoyed at my desertion, the actors began taking pot shots at the script. It had been 'goo', they said, but they had gotten in there, rolled up their sleeves, made it ring true. The critics disagreed.
I lay low, licked my wounds. But when my mother said, after reading an article, 'Well, those actors certainly don't think much of you,' I began to boil. Was I going to lie down for that? If I wanted to remain a screenwriter, I should. Besides, wasn't I too mature for petty vengeance?
Soon after, a Wall Street Journal reporter began poking around, curious as to why the film had flopped. He quickly determined that the actors had been calling the shots. In the ensuing article, he observed that perhaps Mr Spacey's judgment about corniness wasn't entirely to be trusted, and quoted a scene that he had improvised. Phones rang. The Powers That Be were raging. That speech was cut! How could the reporter have seen it? Oops. Well, I guess someone gave him the shooting script.
As if in apology, the Movie Gods next threw me Steve Martin. I wrote my brains out for him, turned it in. He called the next day. Just wanted to say how pleased he was.
'Doing it for Money: The agony and ecstasy of writing and surviving in Hollywood', ed. Daryl G Nickens, is published in America by Tallfellow Press and can be ordered via www.tallfellow.com
Copyright © 2006 The Sunday Telegraph. Source : Financial Times Information Limited - Europe Intelligence Wire