Just Effing Entertain Me

Prop and Crew Appreciation Day

If any of you have ever had the privilege of visiting a set, you know that for every actor on screen there are 50 crew members running around with walkie talkies, jangling keys and cell phones. They wear jeans and tee shirts, and tennis shoes for comfort. They are men, women, young and old. They aren’t impressed by stars – they don’t have time. They have an intense bond; they work twelve, fourteen and sixteen hour days. They laugh hard and they work hard. And they are very, very good at what they do. It takes a village to make a movie or television show. You actually just cannot appreciate it until you’ve seen it. Crews work their fingers to the bone every day, behind the scenes, to bring what you’ve written to life.

So the Rouge Wave-inatrix was sitting in the office of the Property Master of an ABC mega-hit medical show the other day. We are old friends, long story.

As I watch, my friend and one of her assistants hurriedly discuss how to set up a prop for a scene in which a character eats cereal. Simple enough, right? The character eats cereal. But the prop department cannot simply throw a box of Fruit Loops into the scene. All sorts of legal issues come up. No, my friend must turn to a prop supplier who makes boxes of cereal closely resembling real boxes of cereal. This particular box is “Cocoa Spheres”. But there’s a problem. The prop boxes of cereal don’t come with the plastic bag inside like real cereal does. My friend can’t allow the scene to look unreal; picky viewers will notice. Did I mention this is a mega-hit show? It has millions of viewers. What to do? She must go to the store, buy three boxes of regular cereal, pull the plastic bags of cereal out of those boxes and insert them into the fake boxes. But the scene will undoubtedly require several takes. So the prop assistant on set that day will have to switch out sealed bags of cereal for every take. My friend decides the assistant will not only swap out the boxes, she will reseal the plastic bag in-between takes so that there is a finite amount of cereal, plastic bags and boxes to make the scene work. This discussion takes at least ten minutes. Total time to supply the prop: two hours. Estimated screen time: two minutes.

On another occasion, my friend had her two assistants open and sample a few boxes of different flavored popsicles. In an upcoming scene, two characters would be eating popsicles and also have dialogue; she needed to figure out which popsicle left the least tongue-stains. Because if the scene had to reset and start over? The actors couldn’t have pre-stained tongues. Continuity. Lemon was the least tongue-staining flavor, just so you know.

A prop is anything an actor touches. The book in their hands, the glasses on their faces, the cell phone in the scene – it is a huge job. And on a medical show, my friend is in charge of obtaining the props necessary to make a surgery look real (cow guts, usually) a pair of lungs look real (a plastic creation by a guy the show hires to do just that) preemie babies look real (expensive, life-like dolls) a bottle of Pepto Bismol look real (a bottle full of strawberry yogurt, colored pinker with cake decorating, edible dye) or even a dozen whole, plucked frozen chickens for a character to chop up for surgery practice. Those things got smelly.

Her job is endlessly challenging and endlessly fascinating. The first thing she does is break down the script. That is to say she gets out a pen and a highlighter and reviews each page for props. Then she figures out if she already has the prop in her collection or if she’ll need to rent, make or buy it. Many of the best props are cobbled together by skilled property masters and their assistants. Many of her decisions are on the fly. The pressure is intense.

It’s a medical show, so it’s a given that there will be injuries and surgeries. She pretty much has the blood and guts down. She has suppliers and artists and a methodology that works. Most of the time. But she is entirely at the mercy of the writers. When she opens a script on Monday afternoon and reads this:

INT. Frida’s House – Day

An exhausted and depressed FRIDA has spent her day off building a four-story doll house out of Popsicle sticks.

Okay so my friend is staring at this page. And one thing is going through her mind: where in the hell am I going to get a four-story popsicle stick doll house in less than one week? And the process begins. Rent it? Odds are astronomically low a prop house would have such a weird and frail thing. Buy one? Yeah right. It will have to be built. In the space of perhaps five days.

Writers reach the heights of imagination – and we should – but somebody literally has to make it happen, that dream sequence of yours, with the flying monkeys eating frozen yogurt. Frozen yogurt melts. An animal handler will have to be hired. Have the monkeys had their vaccinations? The actor is terrified of monkeys and stays in his trailer for two days negotiating with producers. Yorkshire terriers are substituted. But they won’t eat the yogurt unless Purina dog chow is mixed in. But that makes the yogurt look lumpy. And on it goes.

If you watch the Golden Globes you will notice actors thanking the crew of their shows and they should. I am humbled and amazed at the sheer passion, creativity and energy it takes to work on a set. Whether you are a grip, prop assistant, electric, best boy, makeup and hair guy, script supervisor or any of the dozens of other job descriptions all the way down to the craft services guy whose job it is to provide interesting, healthy, hot and cold food to the set five days a week plus, on time and ready to go – crew members rock.

Academy Award Dreams

The Academy Awards provoke a rush of feelings: nostalgia, tradition and boredom. And for some – cynicism. It’s rigged! The Academy voters just don’t get it – they’re old and out of touch! We come for the glamour, we stay for the gaffes, wardrobe malfunctions and overlong thank-fests. Let’s face it; the Academy Awards is the Superbowl for entertainment junkies.

Even those of you who claim you don’t care – you’ll be watching. Oh – you will. And even if you don’t – we’ll make you watch. The show, everyone on it and what they wore – or didn’t wear – will be on every media outlet for a week until the war in Iraq is nothing but a faint memory. You gotta love America. Land of the mostly free, home of the easily distracted.

For many of us, what we don’t tell our friends as we pass the chips and guac is that scintillating thought deep down inside: Will that be me one day? Up on the stage? Best original screenplay or Best Picture – could I? What would I wear? Who would I thank? Don’t lie; we’ve all made our Oscar speeches, factoring in the time limit, the Hilary-gaffe and that stupid, rude orchestra. Should we thank our parents? Our spouses? Our best friends, manager, agent and inspirations? What would we say?

Then the fantasy freezes in a stop-frame. Do I even have the talent to be at that hallowed point? Will I ever walk that red carpet? We look down and notice the glob of guac on our tee-shirt.

How do you know if you have talent? Ever? My first inkling, in my tiny but growing little sense of self came in the 4th grade when my teacher, Mr. White, with long hippy hair and Birkenstocks told me that my poem, entitled simply but elegantly – The Butterfly – was “really cool, man.” Oh – the heights I reached that day as I rode the bus home!

What is talent, exactly? The ability to write the perfect script automatically? Without the due-paying, classes, failures and frustrations? I don’t believe that exists. I think writing talent is simply a predilection to write with the application of time and effort. It isn’t born intact, it is developed potential. The desire to write + ambition + hard work = talent.

Talent must be nurtured and cultivated. Maybe your talent lies in writing poetry or essays. Maybe there’s nothing you don’t love to write and maybe there’s nothing you can’t write well. I don’t know. But I do know this; talent is ineffable, it is usually cloaked in a sheer, idiotic drive to write no matter what, and like a chunk of marble, it reveals itself slowly, over time, as you sculpt it into shape.

If you have written a crappy script, take a number. We all have. And you may write more – it happens. But keep your eye on the prize. Aim high. Yes and write that Oscar speech now; visualize total world domination with your creative gifts being beamed all over the world to countries with names you cannot pronounce. Why not? It might just happen. And if we don’t think it can, if we don’t think we have that in us – then I ask – what are we doing?

Enjoy the Academy Awards, Rouge Wave readers, and here’s to keeping our dreams alive and making them real. Now get back to work.

The Joy of It

There are many writers who take this whole writing thing a bit seriously. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. They know their Kurosawa, Hitchcock and Fellini. They can contrast and compare early Polanski, analyzing whether KNIFE IN THE WATER was reflective of cinema verité or whether it was simply derivative. They can spend entire evenings discussing the meaning and metaphor of Truffaut’s JULES AND JIM. Serious writers wear black turtlenecks and write each day at an appointed time. They quote Flannery O’Connor or Ernest Hemmingway; they have elbow patches. They knit their collective brows when we ask if they saw Oprah yesterday. Op-rah? On tele-vision? Serious writers spend every day stooped over their Olivetti typewriters clack-clacking the next CINEMA PARADISO and most evenings watching THE BICYCLE THIEF while they sip very expensive scotch and congratulate themselves on how veddy veddy intellectual they are. And that’s terrific and I salute them and I have seen every movie listed above and many more. But my favorite movie is SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN. I can’t explain it. I just love that darn movie.

My point is that it is important to unkink a little and remember that what we are doing here, as writers is bread and circus. We are creating entertainment. Say it with me slowly: enter-tain-ment.

In my interactions with various executives, producers, managers an agents, I find that we have one thing very much in common: a passionate love of movies. Posters adorn their walls. They are eager to discuss great scenes and memorable moments. If you ask their favorite movie it’s as likely to be THE LIFE OF BRIAN or APOCALYPSE NOW. Yes, it is easy to get lost in the box office stats, the prestige, fame and money involved with this business but at the end of the day the reason we don’t work in a paper mill is because we love movies, top to bottom, side-to-side, six ways from Sunday. Movies are cool.

If you find yourself watching a Buster Keaton movie and feeling very smug and intellectual about it, somebody needs to wallop your head with a dead fish. Forget everything you have learned and watch that man drive a car as it is falling apart down the street. That is entertainment in its purest, essential form. Mel Brooks once said: Tragedy is when I get a hangnail. Comedy is when you fall down the staircase.

One of my favorite movies is Preston Sturges’ SULLIVAN’S TRAVELS. Our main character goes on a quest to live the authentic life because he feels that being a screenwriter in Hollywood just isn’t meaningful or productive. The great moment in the movie comes when our main character watches prisoners shuffle into the viewing hall for their weekly movie. It’s a comedy. And suddenly those sweaty, hopeless prisoners are alight with laughter. And our guy looks around at those faces and has an epiphany; sometimes a good belly laugh is all we have to hang on to. And sometimes a cathartic cry is just what we need. Movies heal us. Movies are us.

It is fantastic to have a knowledge and appreciation of film history and of specific movements, directors, periods, etc. In fact, I think it quite important. But this knowledge is dry, dusty and dead if the pure, untethered love of movies is sucked out of it. Nothing is more boring than a writer who spouts intellectual blather about the French New Wave when all we can think is “Death therapy, Bob!”

Watch older movies simply for the joy of it. Forget all that stuff you are supposed to know about verité this and cantilevered that. Just take movies in for what they are meant to be – entertainment. It really is possible to watch Fritz Lang’s METROPOLIS for the thrill of those funky robots. NOSFERATU (wow, what’s up with those prosthetic fingers?!) MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (admit it, you cried a little, didn’t you?) CABARET (Geez Michael York used to be hot!) PILLOW TALK (coolest opening credits ever!)
What about Woody Allen playing cello in a marching band in TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN? What about when Ratzo Rizzo dies in MIDNIGHT COWBOY? In that moment, I don’t care who wrote or directed the story, I don’t care that Dustin Hoffman ad libbed “I’m walking here!” I get a lump in my throat the size of Arizona when he and Jon Voight take the bus to Florida.

Nobody said it better than Woody Allen in HANNAH AND HER SISTERS. Mickey Sachs, fearing he has brain cancer, goes to the movies and watches the Marx Brothers. And as he watches the black and white movie flicker before him…well…if you haven’t seen it – rent it immediately. It is one of my favorite movie moments ever.

Movies are an art form, a passion and a tabula rasa upon which we collectively write our dreams and fears. Be omnivorous; watch foreign movies, silly movies, action movies or war movies. Let your guard down and take it all in. And just remember this: that pervasive smell of popcorn as you enter a theater is a reminder that this is entertainment. When you get stuck on your script or are just plain frustrated because you haven’t had a good idea for six months, spend a whole weekend and go to the movies. Get that jumbo popcorn and soda, slide down into that seat and forget about plot points, cinematography and directors. Turn off your mental IMDB. Enjoy the exquisite pleasure of forgetting all about your taxes, car repair or laundry. Make watching movies for the simple joy of it a habit. It will make you a happier, more inspired writer and remind you of just why it is you want to become part of something as ephemeral yet rock-bottomly important as entertainment.

Once in awhile, I go see children’s movies by myself. I do it for the sheer joy of watching the children erupt into unbridled, snorting laughter as they thrill to the scenes on the big screen. I look down the row and see little legs sticking straight out because they are too short to hit the ground and I see sweaty, sticky little hands grasping melting candy and I see little faces – grinning, laughing, awed, a little scared – and I am reminded why I love the movies.

Hollywood History for Dummies Part One: The Hays Code and the BlackList

Don’t grumble dear readers. History can be painless. Especially when it’s chewed up first; I am no history teacher but I know one thing: I rarely come across writers who know much of anything about the history of Hollywood pre-GREMLINS. And that, my friends, is not a good thing. Even more rarely do I come across writers who care. And I find that a bit heartbreaking.

Suppose I were to go into the computer chip business today. (The very nomenclature is a hint that the first time I saw how a computer worked it was a Moog synthesizer.) Do I need to know the clumsy intricacies of the very first computers in order to do my job today? Probably not. But in order to really appreciate a slim, sleek, 2 ounce laptop, it is helpful to have laid eyes on a beeping, buzzing four hundred square foot behemoth. Or at minimum to have seen blurry photos of Bill Gates with a mop top and bad plastic 70s glasses. It puts things in context. It gives me an appreciation of my Blackberry. Even if I still don’t quite know how to use it.

To strive to be rewarded by an industry that you know little or nothing about except what you read in the trades or on the cover of People Magazine seems foolhardy and presumptuous in my view. How can we relish where we are as writers and as moviegoers if we know not from whence we came? How can we not tip our hats on a daily basis to the Hollywood Ten?

The truth is that Hollywood history, culture and politics matters and it matters very much. Because like all history, it hasn’t stopped and been frozen and framed in sepia tones. It continues to evolve and have repercussions. The Hays Code is a significant period in the history of Hollywood that very few younger writers are familiar with. Sure, it seems vaguely familiar… is that like Gilda Haysworth? No, that would be GILDA. And Rita Hayworth.

Hays Code
As the power of the medium of moving pictures skyrocketed, a number of scandals rocked Hollywood during the 1920s including the infamous murder of Virginia Rappe by Fatty Arbuckle. There was public outcry over the perceived indecency of movie makers and movies themselves. In an attempt to cultivate a positive view of the movie industry and to prove that it was an upright and responsible business, the Hays code, adopted in 1930 and enforced from 1934 to 1967 was put in place. It was a method through which the content of movies was controlled so that only that which was deemed suitable for audiences would make it to the silver screen. It was actually adopted by the studios quite willingly; it seemed wiser to institute self-imposed censorship than to wait for the other shoe to drop and be censored by the federal government. After all, the movies were generating a lot of money and to allow the industry to be undone would be suicide. So the Hays Code went into effect. For a look at the contents of the code, blow by blow, go to Wikipedia and be amazed.

In the 1950’s, the rise of television took the focus off of the movies. Mores began to shift and foreign films began to hit our shores that were quite a bit racier than Americans were used to – and the Code didn’t apply to foreign films. The Code became less and less effective; the influx of foreign films and movies made outside of the studio system created a system that was rapidly eroding.

In 1968, the Motion Picture Association of America put a film rating system into effect. The ratings were G, M, R, and X. The “m” rating was changed to GP in 1970 and then to PG in 1972. In 1984 PG-13 was introduced and in 1990 the X rating was replaced by NC-17, in part because pornographic bookstores and theaters had co-opted the rating and it had become synonymous with pornography.

The genesis of the ratings system is an important chapter in the history of movies and really, in the history of American popular culture. Will a thumbnail understanding of the Hays Code up your chances of writing an amazing script and winning an Oscar? Probably not. But knowing nothing about it will make you look like you haven’t studied up on the industry you want to be a part of. The term “pre-code movies” is something you should be familiar with. And on a lighter note – watching pre-code movies is a delightful treat.

Some of my favorite pre-code movies:
DINNER AT EIGHT (Jean Harlow)
I’M NO ANGEL (Mae West)
THE THIN MAN (Myrna Loy and William Powell).

MPAA and Hays Code Movie Homework:
THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED

The Black List and the Hollywood Ten
Without question, the most ignominious moment in Hollywood history has to be the black list. After the Spanish Civil War and World War II, many actors, musicians and artists in Hollywood expressed interest in left wing political views including Communism. In 1947 the HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee) invited forty one “friendly witnesses” to testify in Washington, D.C. It was simple, really. All they had to do was cooperate and name names. Ten of those forty one witnesses refused. Claiming that a little something called the First Amendment protected their rights. It was during this testimony that Ring Lardner, Jr., famously offered that he could name names – but “I’d hate myself in the morning.” Lardner was blacklisted and went to jail for 12 months. In fact, his book “I’d Hate Myself in the Morning” is a must read if you are interested to learn more about the black list. The Hollywood Ten refused to yield to the scare tactics of McCarthyism. And they paid for it with their careers. They also unwittingly intensified the witch hunt in Hollywood and the black list grew to unbelievable proportions.

Here’s a short list – a tiny list – of some performers and writers who were blacklisted:

Stella Adler
Artie Shaw
Aaron Copland
Leonard Bernstein
Alan Lomax
Lee Grant
Meredith Burgess
Waldo Salt
Arthur Miller
Lillian Hellman
Zero Mostel
Jose Ferrer
Dashiell Hammett
Ruth Gordon
Langston Hughes
Pete Seeger
Gypsy Rose Lee
Orson Welles

The Hollywood Ten:

Ring Lardner, Jr.
Dalton Trumbo
Edward Dmytryk
Alvah Bessie
Herbert Biberman
Lester Cole
John Howard Lawson
Samuel Ornitz
Adrian Scott
Albert Maltz

As writers and citizens both, we should all remember the Hollywood Ten with a great deal of respect. In this era of the Patriot Act and Guantanamo Bay, the Hollywood Ten are more relevant than ever.

Blacklist Movie Homework:
THE FRONT
GOODNIGHT AND GOODLUCK

To discuss amongst yourselves: Elia Kazan, formidable director of ON THE WATERFRONT, A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS and far too many to name here testified before the HUAC and named names. Coward? Rat? A guy trying to make a living who happened to cave to the prevailing winds?

The Language of Film is Universal

My best friend Angela and I have a terrible habit and we worry about ourselves sometimes; not only can – and do – we quote lines if not vast tracts from movies, we find more and more that we use these phrases and lines of dialogue to answer each other. Me: Bad day at work? Angela: (Jeremy Irons accent) You have no idea. Movies have been so much a part of our lives that they have in some sense become our shorthand. I couldn’t count the number of times I have asked her: …’t hell’s going on Bob?

As writers, we often worry so much about premise, structure, the “universal and resonant resolution” and so on. But we forget, sometimes, that we are writing scripts so that they may become movies. And movies are entertainment. Meant to be enjoyed. But more than that, movies are a collective cultural experience which tells us a lot about who we are as a society. Movies are maps and relics; treasured gems and warm comfort.

Take a few moments and think of the movies you love. Now think of the scenes in those movies you will never forget. Debra Winger’s deathbed scene in TERMS OF ENDEARMENT. Timothy Hutton’s break-through moment with his therapist in ORDINARY PEOPLE. Jack Nicholson’s iconic “Here’s Johnny!” in THE SHINING. Often what we are visualizing in our favorite scenes or moments is stellar acting. But don’t forget – someone wrote that scene. Yes, yes, yes you know this.

But here’s my point. As you are writing your script, get those memorable dialogue, moments and set pieces down on paper. Aim high. Not for just one golden moment in your script – many. Give an actor a role they might just win an Oscar for. Write a sequence that a director and cinematographer will be totally excited to shoot. Write lines of dialogue that audiences will never forget. I’m not talking, necessarily, about high-brow dialogue either. How often have you said Groovy, baby! Come on, be honest…more than you’d care to admit.

View every sequence and every scene within that sequence as an opportunity not only to move the story forward and develop character but to write dialogue that will be quoted by movie-goers into perpetuity. Go above and beyond merely servicing your story. Because more than the whole of your narrative, it is the memorable moments that audiences will share with each other sadly, laughingly or disbelievingly for months if not years – not your particularly clever second act break. Great movie moments lift, inspire and ultimately become part of us. Don’t be intimidated that you’re not Alan Ball, William Goldman, Shane Black or Billy Wilder. The door is wide open; new writers are creating memorable moments every day – and so can you.

Most days, life is decidedly pedestrian. So we go to the movies, settle down in our seats and wait for a movie to tell us the spectacular, hysterical, terrifying truth about who we are – if only for a couple of precious hours.

Here is only a fraction of this cinefile’s quotable movie lexicon. I invite readers to contribute their own as well!

…t’ hell’s going on Bob?
DOWN BY LAW

And your little dog, too!
THE WIZARD OF OZ

You have no idea.
REVERSAL OF FORTUNE

We’ve got a piper down!
SO I MARRIED AN AX MURDERER

Go ahead, cry yourself to sleep on your huuuuge pillah!
SO I MARRIED AN AX MURDERER

I always get the fuzzy end of the lollypop.
SOME LIKE IT HOT

Would you look at that? It’s like jello on springs!
SOME LIKE IT HOT

Give her the goddamned camera!
ORDINARY PEOPLE

I AM crazy!
BARFLY

Put. The Candle. Back.
YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN

More?!
OLIVER

And that, folks, is why I won’t do two shows a night. I won’t do it.
BEETLEJUICE

You think I’m too dumb to know what a eugoology is?
ZOOLANDER

That’s all.
THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA

What do you think I am, dumb or somethin’?
SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN

Well if it isn’t Ethel Barrymore!
SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN

What have the Romans ever done for us?
THE LIFE OF BRIAN

We-wease Wog-ah.
THE LIFE OF BRIAN

S-u-r-r-e-n-d-e-r- D-o-r-o-t-h-y
THE WIZARD OF OZ

Yippy ki-yay motherfucker.
DIE HARD

Welcome to Mindhead.
BOWFINGER

I wrestled with reality for 35 years, doctor, and I’m happy. I finally won out over it.
HARVEY