Kill Your Darlings: Indie and Hollywood Philosphy

"In writing, you have to kill all your darlings." - William Faulkner This quote from Faulkner refers to revising your writing to remove material you loved, if it makes the piece stronger. It's also the title of a recently released indie movie starring Daniel Radcliffe as the young Allen Ginsburg, the Beat poet who wrote “Howl” and other iconic works. The film is a portrait of the artist as a young man, based on the true story of Ginsburg’s formative years at Columbia University, where he first met Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs. According to the script Ginsburg and the young beats came under the spell of the charismatic Lucien Carr, who encouraged them to create a New Vision. The movie features a lot of hanging out in New York jazz bars during World War II as they develop new forms of self-expression. It also depicts benzedrine and other drug use, and Allen Ginsburg explicity exploring his sexuality. There isn't much great poetry in the film; the film ends with Ginsburg starting to write poems in his personal style. Clearly, this film is not aiming at a mass audience, despite Radcliffe's star power. The cast is uniformly excellent, and includes a post-Dexter Michael C. Hall and the immensely talented Jennifer Jason Leigh as Ginsburg’s institutionalized mother. This makes the second film about Allen Ginsburg released in three years (“Howl” was the other) in a period where we’ve seen no films about George Washington or Thomas Jefferson. To be fair, we have seen two films about Lincoln – Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” and of course, “Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter.” I’m surprised the film got made at all – it’s a downbeat story about a literary figure whose most famous poem, “Howl,” debuted over 50 years ago. On the other hand, the Beats appear to fascinate some filmmakers, despite their spotty box office record – the recent movie version of Kerouac’s “On the Road” lost money, as did the most recent film about William Burroughs that starred Johnny Depp. The fact that it got made says a lot about the type of projects that attract actors. Radcliffe said he was attracted by the high quality of the script. Remember that many actors see themselves as serious artists. Appearing in indie movies with meaty roles provides them opportunities to demonstrate their acting ability. These types of roles can also win Academy Awards that you can’t get for big budget sci-fi sequels. The fact that films like “Kill Your Darlings” continue to get made should provide inspiration to content creators everywhere. Don’t give up on your passion project. If your script gets into the right hands, you might capture a star. Just understand that you could be in this for the long haul. It can take years, sometimes. Finally, be ruthless when revising your work. Faulkner’s advice for writers keeps being repeated because it’s often true. It’s often the work that’s most precious to you that requires the most revising. Take it to heart.

Neil Simon's Mistake

If you enjoyed the plays or movies Barefoot in the Park, The Odd Couple, The Sunshine Boys, Brighton Beach Memoirs, and Biloxi Blues (among many others) you've enjoyed Neil Simon's work. He's one of the most successful and funniest modern writers. He's won several Tony and Emmy awards and was nominated for four Academy Awards, all while making millions of dollars from his writing. He became known early in his career for helping rewrite shows out of town before they premiered on Broadway. His play doctoring work was how he got the nickname of "Doc" Simon. I've been a fan of his work for many years, and had the good luck to work as an assistant on his play Actors and Actresses. As Neil Simon writes in his memoir, "Rewrites," his talent as a writer did not always translate into business. In 1965, after Barefoot in the Park and Odd Couple were big hits on Broadway, Paramount approached Simon's business manager to buy the company that held all the rights to those two plays. Paramount offered $125,000, which was a significant amount of money in those days. Simon had misgivings, but because his business manager told him it was a good deal, he ultimately decided to sell. That meant that Neil Simon, the creator and author of the play "The Odd Couple," received no money from the run of the TV series, or any ancillary revenue from DVDs and videocassettes. He receives no royalty money from stage productions of Barefoot in the Park, which is still performed all over the world. For a $125,000 fee, Simon literally gave up tens if not hundreds of millions in revenue. In his memoir Simon takes responsibility for this decision. He says, "No one forced me to make the deal. It was a judgment call, and I let the wrong person sway me in making that judgment." Of course, when he made this deal in the sixties, very few people realized the amount of money one could make from ancillary markets for content. However today we expect that the number of outlets for our content will continue to expand in ways we can't even predict now. Hence the phrase in many content contracts - "all rights in all media currently existing or that may exist, in perpetuity." Never sell all rights to your content to a third party. If your business manager tells you to sell all your rights, get a new business manager. If your content reaches a good sized audience, it may provide you with an income for many years (see my earlier post about Norman Greenbaum, who still lives off royalties from his one hit, 'Spirit in the Sky.'). Of course, like Norman Greenbaum, you should license your content to third parties for distribution and collect your fees and royalties; just don't sell all the rights. I've advised never to sign any contract without having it reviewed by a lawyer. Don't even bother having your lawyer review a contract asking you to give up all rights to your content in perpetuity. Just don't sign it. I should add that Neil Simon wrote a lot more hits, and made a great deal of money from them. Even with this success, it still bothered him that he no longer owned the rights to two of his greatest plays. Learn from Doc Simon's mistake. Own your content.

Happy Accidents

"There are no mistakes, only happy accidents," - Bob Ross When I worked at public television station WLIW, I watched Bob Ross paint every day at 2:00 PM. Every day Bob Ross started with a blank canvas, and a half hour later he created an inspiring landscape. His soothing voice combined with the sound of his brush scratching the canvas was like white noise shutting out the world. He had by far the most popular painting show on PBS; even people who didn't paint watched it. But as practiced as he was, Bob Ross was not perfect. When he did make a mistake, rather than try to cover it up, he incorporated it into his painting. He liked to say "there are no mistakes, only happy accidents." Artistic techniques -- whether it's practicing music, sketching a still life, or creating a believable acting moment -- are studied and practiced in order to enable artists to create freely and spontaneously. There are times when all artists struggle to create, and there are times when the ideas flow freely and the canvas fills up as if by magic. We never know when inspiration will strike, but we do know that we'll make the most of it if we have a solid technique and practice every day to give our inspiration the best chance to affect our work. Allow those happy accidents to happen when you're creating content. Have a vision, but don't be so rigid you ignore opportunities for inspiration. The scene where Cary Grant is chased by the crop dusting plane in "North by Northwest" was created when director Alfred Hitchcock and screenwriter Ernest Lehman were stuck for an idea. They considered several ideas for the scene, including a killer tornado (but how could they make the tornado appear on cue? Too bad they didn't see Sharknado). Finally, one of them said, "what about a crop dusting plane?" and suddenly they were developing the scene and writing notes madly. A happy accident of an idea became one of the most memorable scenes in the film. I bet you're wondering if Bob Ross' painting techniques worked for others. They absolutely did. Mario, one of our master control technicians at WLIW, also had watched Bob Ross' show for years and one day decide to try it. He would often show me slides of the magnificent landscapes he created using the Ross technique, without any formal art training. In your own work, follow Ross' advice. Don't make mistakes. Make happy accidents.

Create Entertaining Stories

In the classic movie Sullivan's Travels, written and directed by Preston Sturges, Joel McCrea plays film director John L. Sullivan, who's made a good living directing light comedies, but now wants to direct a 'significant' picture, a movie called "Oh Brother Where Art Thou?" (yes, the Coen brothers knew about Sullivan's Travels when they wrote a movie by the same name.). When Sullivan actually does live on the streets and is sentenced to a chain gang, he learns how much joy his comedies gave ordinary people, and he goes back to making them. People want to be entertained. That's why they spend hundreds of dollars on concert or sports tickets, and share internet videos about kittens. If you want to market your content to a group larger than your friends and family, you must make it entertaining. That doesn't necessarily mean funny. Your goal as a story teller is to involve your audience so they want to know what happens next, and are anxious to find out. The more your content can do that -- whether it's a viral video or a popular novel -- the more people will want to experience it. How do you make something entertaining? If there was a formula that worked every time, every piece of content ever created would be popular. That being said, there are some principals I've learned over the years that I try to apply to my work: -- A satisfying story is both surprising and inevitable. The audience must be unsure of the ending, but when they get there the ending should result from the characters' personalities and interaction. -- Tell a story about ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances -- whether they're trying to save the earth or save their Average Joe Gym (yes, that's a Dodgeball Reference. Wonder if they'd still have Lance Armstrong in that movie today). By the way, "people" does not necessarily mean humans -- your characters can be hobbits or Norse gods. -- Dialogue should reveal character and advance the plot. Even the most brilliant verbal repartee from Noel Coward or Oscar Wilde or Judd Apatow does that. -- Any message must grow out of the situation and characters to be effective. Otherwise, write an op ed piece or an essay for the NY Times. Of course, even if you apply these rules and work hard to make your content as strong as possible, it still may not find an audience. Forgive yourself, and move on to the next project. My message: If you liked this post, make a comment. My poetry collection, Two Car Garage, is also available on amazon.com and bn.com.

Casablanca's Ending

"We'll always have Paris." "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she has to walk into mine." "Round up the usual suspects." "Louie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." "Play it, Sam." -- Has there ever been a movie with as many iconic lines as Casablanca? By the way, no one in movie ever says, "Play it, again, Sam." Both Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa and Humphrey Bogart as Rick say to Dooley Wilson as Sam, "Play it" meaning their signature song, "As Time Goes By." According to several books about the movie and biographies of the stars, Bogart and Bergman played the movie without knowing how it was going to end. Would Ilsa go off with Rick, or with her husband, the noble resistance fighter Victor Laszlo, played by Paul Henreid? One reason the audience was unsure, was that the actors were unsure. The writers were still working on the script during shooting, and wrote two different endings. Ingrid Bergman said she asked the director and writers who she would end up, and they said, "We don't know. Play it in between." Her uncertainty increased the audience's anxiety,and made this love triangle romantic and mysterious. Even though two endings were scripted, Director Michael Curtiz only shot one -- the famous ending we have today where Rick sends Ilsa off with Victor, and reminds her "We'll always have Paris... If that plane leaves and you're not on it you'll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life." It makes me wonder if Curtiz knew how he wanted the movie to end all along, but didn't tell Bergman to make sure she played it the way he wanted. You can do that when you're directing actors in a movie. You just need to capture the result you want once, and it lives forever. Casablanca won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and many film historians consider it one of the greatest movies ever made. How is that possible, with the amount of rewrites in production and uncertainty about the ending? Sometimes, creative chaos produces the best results. I don't mean total chaos -- after all, the movie did get shot even though the script was being rewritten. All that off screen creative uncertainty has a way of feeding the on screen energy. On the Casablanca set that uncertainty about the ending probably helped keep the performances fresh throughout. It helped that the ensemble cast was one of the deepest and finest assembled for a Warner Brothers, film. It was so good that Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet played only small (but crucial) parts. The reasons why one piece succeeds and another doesn't remain mysterious. If they weren't mysterious, then anyone could create a successful film, and no movie would ever fail. That's why it's important for content creators to keep going and finish their pieces despite the chaos. There will always be chaos. Don't let that stop you from making your content the best it can be.

"The Butler" outgrosses "Lone Ranger"

As of September 8, 2013, the Disney film "The Lone Ranger's" domestic box office gross stood at $88,806,000. That's a tremendous disappointment for a film that reportedly cost $250 million to make. As of Sept. 8, after only four weeks of release, "Lee Daniel's The Butler" grossed $91,901,000. The reviews and word of mouth on the movie have been so good that it's sure to increase its lead over The Lone Ranger, and many other summer box office failures. The budget for The Butler is estimated to be $30 million, making it tremendously profitable. What happened? The obvious answer is that audiences liked The Butler and didn't like The Lone Ranger. In my July post 'A $250 million Flop" I outlined some of the more obvious mistakes Disney and its creators made with the Lone Ranger. Lee Daniels, producer and director of The Butler, made right decisions, starting with casting Forrest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey, who the audience loved and could play those parts believably. The Butler also opened up a world for audiences that most of us do not know -- behind the scenes of the White House. It constantly surprised us in a way that draws people into a story -- we thought we knew the history, but The Butler showed us a side we didn't know. The Lone Ranger had no surprises -- we may not have known the specific stunts going in, but we knew everything that was going to happen. The Butler's success also proves two other things: 1. $30 million dollar films can still make money, if they are well made and reach the right audience. 2. We'll soon see several movies dealing with African-American history -- the upcoming "!2 Years a Slave" is just one example. Does the success of The Butler and failure of The Lone Ranger mean studios will change the way they do business? I'm sorry to say no. It's true The Lone Ranger's budget would fund 8 movies like the Butler. But personal, quality films like the Butler bring their own challenges. You need to have a quality script. You need stars willing to work for less than they usually make because they believe in the project. It's not easy to make high-quality, intelligent, films that reach a wide audience. Finally, Studio executives don't get jobs because they make $30 million movies; they get jobs because they've supervised $100 and $200 million movies. If you greenlight a bunch of $30 million movies and they fail, not only did your films fail, you couldn't attract big budget elements. When The Lone Ranger fails, at least you've shown your ability to bring name talent to your studio. The business isn't set up to nurture inexpensive or even reasonably priced films. For content creators, the lesson of "Lee Daniels the Butler" is that there is a market for quality stories that inspire people. We never really know what stories will capture the audience's interest. Keep working to make your stories, films, poems, and web series the best you can, and let your audience find you.

Final American Idol Judging Panel - You Make the Deals You Can Make

The rumors, stops and starts, and time it took to fill the judges' chairs for American Idol this summer are a clear sign of the show's problems. With its ratings plunging last season, and expected to fall further in 2014, top talents didn't want to be associated with the show. The show's new producers, stuck with high expectations, either couldn't or wouldn't take the chance of creating a panel entirely of successful former contestants. It's possible Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, and Jennifer Hudson didn't want to take time from their busy careers to sit in the judges' seat -- at least not for the amount of money Fox was willing to offer. Instead, with their backs to the wall (production starting this month)the producers first re-signed Keith Urban, whose nice guy persona will at least make contestants comfortable. With a year of experience and a different panel, perhaps this year he'll get a word in edgewise. Next they reportedly spent $17.5 million to re-sign Jennifer Lopez, a judge the previous regime had tossed over the side just a year ago. Lopez was probably happy to get the gig. Her music and acting career is stalling, and after her recent divorce she probably could use the money. After they lost record producer Dr. Luke over contract conflicts of interest, reports are they signed Harry Connick, Jr. to fill the third slot. Harry also has a nice guy persona like Keith Urban, so perhaps Jennifer Lopez will fill the Simon Cowell role of acerbic truth teller. Further rumors are that Randy Jackson will return as mentor. I think bringing Randy back in a different role is a great idea. For long-time fans, Randy provides continuity to the glory days of idol. In earlier blogs on this topic I said, and still believe, the problem with Idol wasn't the judges, but the contestants. America needs people they can care about. I just can't believe out of the thousands who audition every year they couldn't find more compelling contestants than the ones chosen for last season's show. Rather than spend $7.5 million on a single judge they would be better off spending $7.5 million on talent scouts and coordinators to make sure only the most interesting contestants and story lines get to the finals. I'm sure they could find a former contestant who's had some success to judge the show for just $10 million -- Chris Daughtry, Adam Lambert, Fantasia, Ruben Stoddard, and maybe Jordin Sparks would consider it. What content creators can learn from this hoopla is: sometimes you have to make the deals you can make. The producers may have wanted to take the judging panel in a different direction (they certainly tried to sign other judges first. Their production deadline meant judges had to be signed by a certain time, and the longer it took, the less leverage they had to find the ideal judges. I'm sure that Harry Connick's price went up after Dr. Luke dropped out because he knew they needed him and were out of time. When you're creating a movie or a television show you can't always sign your ideal cast or afford your ideal production values. Successful producers and directors make it work anyway by focusing on the key points of the story they're trying to tell. It's possible that the current Idol judge panel will work, as long as the most important part of the show -- the contestants -- capture the viewers' imagination. When you're creating your content don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Make the deals you need to make things happen, and protect the core of the story to connect with your audience.