While I have fallen victim to this tendency myself and have plenty to say about it, I thought I would share a little gift with you, loyal readers. Knowing that I’m a big fan, a friend of mine sent me a memo that Pulitzer Prize winning writer David Mamet sent to the writing staff of his show on CBS The Unit.

Here is that memo, retyped for you typos and all, from David Mamet talking about the essence of screenwriting and the difference between drama and non-drama.

TO THE WRITERS OF THE UNIT

GREETINGS.

AS WE LEARN HOW TO WRITE THIS SHOW, A RECURRING PROBLEM BECOMES CLEAR.

THE PROBLEM IS THIS: TO DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN DRAMA AND NON-DRAMA. LET ME BREAK-IT-DOWN-NOW.

EVERYONE IN CREATION IS SCREAMING AT US TO MAKE THE SHOW CLEAR.
WE ARE TASKED WITH, IT SEEMS, CRAMMING A SHITLOAD OF INFORMATION INTO A LITTLE BIT OF TIME.

OUR FRIENDS. THE PENGUINS, THINK THAT WE, THEREFORE, ARE EMPLOYED TO COMMUNICATE INFORMATION — AND, SO, AT TIMES, IT SEEMS TO US.

BUT NOTE:
THE AUDIENCE WILL NOT TUNE IN TO WATCH INFORMATION.
YOU WOULDN’T, I WOULDN’T. NO ONE WOULD OR WILL.
THE AUDIENCE WILL ONLY TUNE IN AND STAY TUNED TO WATCH DRAMA.

QUESTION:
WHAT IS DRAMA?
DRAMA, AGAIN, IS THE QUEST OF THE HERO TO OVERCOME THOSE
THINGS WHICH PREVENT HIM FROM ACHIEVING A SPECIFIC, ACUTE GOAL.

SO: WE, THE WRITERS, MUST ASK OURSELVES OF EVERY SCENE THESE THREE QUESTIONS.

1) WHO WANTS WHAT?

2) WHAT HAPPENS IF HER DON’T GET IT?

3) WHY NOW?

THE ANSWERS TO THESE QUESTIONS ARE LITMUS PAPER.
APPLY THEM, AND THEIR ANSWER WILL TELL YOU IF THE SCENE IS
DRAMATIC OR NOT.

IF THE SCENE IS NOT DRAMATICALLY WRITTEN, IT WILL NOT BE
DRAMATICALLY ACTED.

THERE IS NO MAGIC FAIRY DUST WHICH WILL MAKE A BORING, USELESS,
REDUNDANT, OR MERELY INFORMATIVE SCENE AFTER IT LEAVES YOUR
TYPEWRITER. YOU THE WRITERS, ARE IN CHARGE OF MAKING SURE EVERY
SCENE IS DRAMATIC.

THIS MEANS ALL THE “LITTLE” EXPOSITIONAL SCENES OF TWO PEOPLE
TALKING ABOUT A THIRD. THIS BUSHWAH (AND WE ALL TEND TO WRITE IT
ON THE FIRST DRAFT) IS LESS THAN USELESS, SHOULD IT FINALLY, GOD
FORBID, GET FILMED.

IF THE SCENE BORES YOU WHEN YOU READ IT, REST ASSURED IT WILL BORE
THE ACTORS, AND WILL, THEN, BORE THE AUDIENCE, AND WE’RE ALL GOING
TO BE BACK IN THE BREADLINE.

SOMEONE HAS TO MAKE THE SCENE DRAMATIC. IT IS NOT THE ACTORS JOB
(THE ACTORS JOB IS TO BE TRUTHFUL). IT IS NOT THE DIRECTORS JOB.
HIS OR HER JOB IS TO FILM IT STRAIGHTFORWARDLY AND REMIND THE
ACTORS TO TALK FAST. IT IS YOUR JOB.

EVERY SCENE MUST BE DRAMATIC. THAT MEANS: THE MAIN CHARACTER MUST HAVE A SIMPLE, STRAIGHTFORWARD, PRESSING NEED WHICH IMPELS HIM OR HER TO SHOW UP IN THE SCENE.

THIS NEED IS WHY THEY CAME. IT IS WHAT THE SCENE IS ABOUT. THEIR
ATTEMPT TO GET THIS NEED MET WILL LEAD, AT THE END OF THE SCENE,
TO FAILURE – THIS IS HOW THE SCENE IS OVER. IT, THIS FAILURE,
WILL, THEN, OF NECESSITY, PROPEL US INTO THE NEXT SCENE.

ALL THESE ATTEMPTS, TAKEN TOGETHER, WILL, OVER THE COURSE OF THE
EPISODE, CONSTITUTE THE PLOT.

ANY SCENE, THUS, WHICH DOES NOT BOTH ADVANCE THE PLOT, AND STAND
ALONE (THAT IS, DRAMATICALLY, BY ITSELF, ON ITS OWN MERITS) IS
EITHER SUPERFLUOUS, OR INCORRECTLY WRITTEN.

YES BUT YES BUT YES BUT, YOU SAY: WHAT ABOUT THE NECESSITY OF
WRITING IN ALL THAT “INFORMATION?”

AND I RESPOND “FIGURE IT OUT” ANY DICKHEAD WITH A BLUESUIT CAN BE (AND IS) TAUGHT TO SAY “MAKE IT CLEARER”, AND “I WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT HIM”.

WHEN YOU’VE MADE IT SO CLEAR THAT EVEN THIS BLUESUITED PENGUIN IS
HAPPY, BOTH YOU AND HE OR SHE WILL BE OUT OF A JOB.

THE JOB OF THE DRAMATIST IS TO MAKE THE AUDIENCE WONDER WHAT
HAPPENS NEXT. NOT TO EXPLAIN TO THEM WHAT JUST HAPPENED, OR TO
SUGGEST TO THEM WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.

ANY DICKHEAD, AS ABOVE, CAN WRITE, “BUT, JIM, IF WE DON’T ASSASSINATE THE PRIME MINISTER IN THE NEXT SCENE, ALL EUROPE WILL BE ENGULFED IN FLAME”

WE ARE NOT GETTING PAID TO REALIZE THAT THE AUDIENCE NEEDS THIS
INFORMATION TO UNDERSTAND THE NEXT SCENE, BUT TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO WRITE THE SCENE BEFORE US SUCH THAT THE AUDIENCE WILL BE
INTERESTED IN WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.

YES BUT, YES BUT YES BUT YOU REITERATE.

AND I RESPOND FIGURE IT OUT.

HOW DOES ONE STRIKE THE BALANCE BETWEEN WITHHOLDING AND
VOUCHSAFING INFORMATION? THAT IS THE ESSENTIAL TASK OF THE
DRAMATIST. AND THE ABILITY TO DO THAT IS WHAT SEPARATES YOU FROM
THE LESSER SPECIES IN THEIR BLUE SUITS.

FIGURE IT OUT.

START, EVERY TIME, WITH THIS INVIOLABLE RULE:
THE SCENE MUST BE DRAMATIC. it must start because the hero
HAS A PROBLEM, AND IT MUST CULMINATE WITH THE HERO FINDING HIM OR HERSELF EITHER THWARTED OR EDUCATED THAT ANOTHER WAY EXISTS.

LOOK AT YOUR LOG LINES. ANY LOGLINE READING “BOB AND SUE
DISCUSS…” IS NOT DESCRIBING A DRAMATIC SCENE.

PLEASE NOTE THAT OUR OUTLINES ARE, GENERALLY, SPECTACULAR. THE
DRAMA FLOWS OUT BETWEEN THE OUTLINE AND THE FIRST DRAFT.

THINK LIKE A FILMMAKER RATHER THAN A FUNCTIONARY, BECAUSE, IN
TRUTH, YOU ARE MAKING THE FILM. WHAT YOU WRITE, THEY WILL SHOOT.

HERE ARE THE DANGER SIGNALS.
ANY TIME TWO CHARACTERS ARE TALKING ABOUT A THIRD, THE SCENE IS A
CROCK OF SHIT.

ANY TIME ANY CHARACTER IS SAYING TO ANOTHER “AS YOU KNOW”, THAT
IS, TELLING ANOTHER CHARACTER WHAT YOU, THE WRITER, NEED THE
AUDIENCE TO KNOW, THE SCENE IS A CROCK OF SHIT.

DO NOT WRITE A CROCK OF SHIT. WRITE A RIPPING THREE, FOUR, SEVEN
MINUTE SCENE WHICH MOVES THE STORY ALONG, AND YOU CAN, VERY SOON, BUY A HOUSE IN BEL AIR AND HIRE SOMEONE TO LIVE THERE FOR YOU.

REMEMBER YOU ARE WRITING FOR A VISUAL MEDIUM. MOST TELEVISION
WRITING, OURS INCLUDED, SOUNDS LIKE RADIO. THE CAMERA CAN DO THE EXPLAINING FOR YOU. LET IT. WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERS DOING -
LITERALLY. WHAT ARE THEY HANDLING, WHAT ARE THEY READING. WHAT ARE THEY WATCHING ON TELEVISION, WHAT ARE THEY SEEING.

IF YOU PRETEND THE CHARACTERS CANT SPEAK, AND WRITE A SILENT
MOVIE, YOU WILL BE WRITING GREAT DRAMA.

IF YOU DEPRIVE YOURSELF OF THE CRUTCH OF NARRATION, EXPOSITION,
INDEED, OF SPEECH. YOU WILL BE FORGED TO WORK IN A NEW MEDIUM -
TELLING THE STORY IN PICTURES (ALSO KNOWN AS SCREENWRITING)

THIS IS A NEW SKILL. NO ONE DOES IT NATURALLY. YOU CAN TRAIN
YOURSELVES TO DO IT, BUT YOU NEED TO START.

I CLOSE WITH THE ONE THOUGHT: LOOK AT THE SCENE AND ASK YOURSELF “IS IT DRAMATIC? IS IT ESSENTIAL? DOES IT ADVANCE THE PLOT?

ANSWER TRUTHFULLY.

IF THE ANSWER IS “NO” WRITE IT AGAIN OR THROW IT OUT.
IF YOU’VE GOT ANY QUESTIONS, CALL ME UP.

LOVE,

DAVE
MAMET SANTA MONICA 19 OCTO 05

(IT IS NOT YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO KNOW THE ANSWERS, BUT IT IS
YOUR, AND MY, RESPONSIBILITY TO KNOW AND TO ASK THE RIGHT
Questions OVER AND OVER. UNTIL IT BECOMES SECOND NATURE. I
BELIEVE THEY ARE LISTED ABOVE.)

Juno

Everyone loves good stories. It’s what the book industry and the film industry are based on. Even the adult industry makes porn with an attempt at a story line no matter how cheesy because they know that people have an appetite for good stories. By now, you must have either seen the movie Juno or have heard some of the endless hype about this small indie comedy from Fox Searchlight that went on to win an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and gross over $120 million at the box office.

Does Juno live up to the hype? No. The story with Juno is not the story that the movie is about, but rather the story behind how the movie got made. Case in point, the movie is basically an average John Hughes type teen movie updated for the year 2007. It’s marginally about a teenage girl who gets pregnant after a one night stand with a boy friend of hers and how she deals with her pregnancy. No reinventing the wheel here.

Compare this to the story of how Juno got made. A stripper turns to the web and writes a blog with the salacious name The Pussy Ranch. A Hollywood talent manager surfs the web for porn and comes across said blog. He contacts the stripper and finds a publisher for her memoir Candy Girl: A Year In The Life Of An Unlikely Stripper.

The book does all right. Meanwhile, the manager tells the stripper to write a screenplay. The result is Juno. Now you tell me, which is the more interesting story. They certainly didn’t sell the movie to all the talk shows. Only in Hollywood does there exist the stripper/hooker with the heart of gold.

For those of you who haven’t watched the movie, it comes out on DVD today. Let me be the first to tell you, you aren’t missing much if you haven’t seen this movie. Little Miss Sunshine it ain’t. Don’t get me wrong, the movie isn’t awful. It just isn’t good.

A lot of the problem lies in the script. The story is about something that happens in every day life which means that the potential is there for it to be very good or very boring. The writer, Diablo Cody, desperately doesn’t want the story to be boring so what she does is infuse every single character with non stop witticisms and one liners. The result is that movie doesn’t unfold like a story but rather like a sitcom as filmed by a an indie director. There are no fully formed scenes really. Everything is just a set up for Juno’s witty and sarcastic one liners. There’s also the very amateur problem of trying to make all the characters extra-quirky so that they stand out. For those of you who want to read the script, you can buy the shooting script to Juno here.

But then how did the script for Juno win an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, you may ask. Because story is king and Diablo Cody has a killer “Hollywood” story. As for the rest of the movie, I beg to differ with everyone about the performances. The actors are a little too self-aware and the performances are kind of strange hybrid acting halfway between film acting and sitcom acting.

I didn’t really find any of the characters believable except the step-mom at times. Especially the character of Juno. For what she’s going through, she seems awfully nonchalant about it. No morning sickness, no loss of self-esteem over her pregnancy. None of the problems that affect most women during pregnancy.

Of course, those on the Diablo Cody bandwagon will say that Juno is not meant to be a reflection of reality but rather Diablo Cody’s own wicked take on teenage pregnancy. I can see that argument but that would mean that Diablo Cody sees the world as a big sitcom where everyone can get cool points and indie cred with a little sarcasm and name dropping. Sorry, but to me that’s not a very interesting or entertaining world.

Don’t believe the hype. Avoid this movie unless you have nothing better to do. You’re better off renting a teen movie with James Spader in it then watching this dreck.

“Y’know, I grew up in a different generation. I grew up after World War II, and boys did different things in those days. You went camping. You went hunting. You boxed. And the image of a writer, to someone starting off in those days, was not some schmuck who went to graduate school. It was Jack London, Nelson Algren, Ernest Hemingway. Especially coming from Chicago–a writer was a knock-around guy. Someone who got a job as a reporter or drove a cab. I think the reason there are a lot of novels about How Mean My Mother Was To Me…is because the writers may have learned something called ‘technique,’ but they’ve neglected to have a life. What…are they gonna write about?”

The Moose is a huge fan of Mamet and his work and am very excited to see his next movie, Redbelt, described by Mamet himself as an American samurai movie in the tradition of Kurosawa. While I can’t stand Kurosawa, I think it will be interesting to see how Mamet tackles the martial arts genre.

I read the script and found many things to like. The story is not as good as House Of Games, The Spanish Prisoner or Heist but it is still better than most scripts I have read. I will say that, from reading the script, it seems that Mamet suffers from the same idealized notions of martial arts as other white men who idolize Asian martial arts. You can read the screenplay for Redbelt here: Redbelt script.

Redbelt opens in Los Angeles and New York on May 2nd and everywhere else on May 9.

More trailers can be found here: Redbelt trailers.

Table of contents for Famous Writers and Books In The Public Domain

1. Famous Writers and Books In The Public Domain: A-G
2. Famous Writers and Books In The Public Domain: H-P
3. Famous Writers and Books In The Public Domain: Q-Z

Continuing the list of famous writers and books in the public domain. This is by no means a complete list, merely a starting point for entrepreneurial screenwriters and filmmakers. Please remember that this list is for the original stories by these authors. Many of these works have already been produced for film and television and contain famous story elements particular to that adaptation that are not in the original works. Those story elements are not in the public domain. Only the original story from the original work by these authors.

For example, the original story of Snow White by the Brothers Grimm differs greatly from the story in Walt Disney’s more famous animated version. If you were to adapt a version of Snow White and used elements from Disney’s version like the Prince waking Snow White up with a kiss, then you would be in violation of Disney’s copyright. Another example is Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein which is in the public domain. If you’re adaptation includes a version of Frankenstein’s monster with bolts in his neck, then you would be in violation of Universal’s copyright of Frankenstein with Boris Karloff.

If you know of other famous books and writers in the public domain, please let me know and I will update this list.

Rudolf Erich Raspe

All of his works are in the public domain including his most famous story The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen.

William Shakespeare

The Bard’s been dead for a long time, hence, all of his work is in the public domain. Knock yourself out with your own version of Hamlet, Macbeth or Romeo and Juliet.

Mary Shelley

All of her writing is in the public domain including the ever popular Frankenstein. Her other famous books include The Last Man and Matilda.

Robert Louis Stevenson

All of this writer’s work is in the public domain including the popular stories Treasure Island, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, Kidnapped, and New Arabian Nights.

Bram Stoker

All of this writer’s work is in the public domain including Dracula, The Jewel Of Seven Stars, The Lady Of The Shroud and The Lair Of The White Worm.

Mark Twain

All of this amazing American literary genius’s work is in the public domain. His most famous stories are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Prince and the Pauper, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Jules Verne

All of this entertaining French writer’s work is in the public domain. His most famous works include Journey to the Centre of the Earth, From the Earth to the Moon, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, The Mysterious Island and Around the World in Eighty Days.

H.G. Wells

Only some of Wells’s stories are in the public domain but they include The Invisible Man, The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau and The War of the Worlds.

Oscar Wilde

All of this witty playwright’s work is in the public domain. His most famous stories are The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest.

Johann David Wyss

This writer’s most famous story The Swiss Family Robinson is in the public domain.

Table of contents for Famous Writers and Books In The Public Domain

1. Famous Writers and Books In The Public Domain: A-G
2. Famous Writers and Books In The Public Domain: H-P
3. Famous Writers and Books In The Public Domain: Q-Z

Continuing the list of famous writers and books in the public domain. This is by no means a complete list, merely a starting point for entrepreneurial screenwriters and filmmakers. Please remember that this list is for the original stories by these authors. Many of these works have already been produced for film and television and contain famous story elements particular to that adaptation that are not in the original works. Those story elements are not in the public domain. Only the original story from the original work by these authors.

For example, the original story of Snow White by the Brothers Grimm differs greatly from the story in Walt Disney’s more famous animated version. If you were to adapt a version of Snow White and used elements from Disney’s version like the Prince waking Snow White up with a kiss, then you would be in violation of Disney’s copyright. Another example is Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein which is in the public domain. If you’re adaptation includes a version of Frankenstein’s monster with bolts in his neck, then you would be in violation of Universal’s copyright of Frankenstein with Boris Karloff.

If you know of other famous books and writers in the public domain, please let me know and I will update this list.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

I can’t stand his writing, but it’s all in the public domain so go ahead and try to make a watchable version of The Scarlet Letter or The House of the Seven Gables.

Homer

Not Simpson, but the Greek guy who wrote the epic poems the The Odyssey and the The Iliad, both of which are in the public domain.

James Joyce

You’ll have to wait a few years before you’ll be able to film an adaptation of Finnegan’s Wake. If you start now, you might be able to finish reading it by the time it falls into the public domain. Until then, you can adapt some of Joyce’s other well known works like Ulysses and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

Franz Kafka

This unique writer from Prague has a few stories that have fallen in the public domain. The most famous being The Metamorphosis.

Rudyard Kipling

Some, but not all, of Kipling’s work is in the public domain including The Jungle Book.

Jack London

All of this pioneering American writer’s body of work is in the public domain. His most famous stories include The Call of the Wild and White Fang.

H. P. Lovecraft

All of this bizarre horror writer’s work before 1923 is in the public domain. For his post 1923 work, do your research as many of his stories are involved in complicated copyright disputes.

Herman Melville

All of this author’s work is in the public domain. His most famous story is the required reading for high school students Moby Dick.

Edgar Allan Poe

Roger Corman has exploited much of Poe’s work and you can too. All of this macabre author’s work is in the public domain. His more famous works include The Raven, Murders In The Rue Morgue, The Mask Of Red Death, The Fall Of The House Of Usher, The Black Cat, The Pit And The Pendulum and The Tell-Tale Heart.

Table of contents for Famous Writers and Books In The Public Domain

1. Famous Writers and Books In The Public Domain: A-G
2. Famous Writers and Books In The Public Domain: H-P
3. Famous Writers and Books In The Public Domain: Q-Z

Following my last post about adapting creative works in the public domain, I thought I would follow up by providing a list of famous creative properties in the public domain. This is by no means a complete list, merely a starting point for entrepreneurial screenwriters and filmmakers. Please remember that this list is for the original stories by these authors. Many of these works have already been produced for film and television and contain famous story elements particular to that adaptation that are not in the original works. Those story elements are not in the public domain. Only the original story from the original work by these authors.

For example, the original story of Snow White by the Brothers Grimm differs greatly from the story in Walt Disney’s more famous animated version. If you were to adapt a version of Snow White and used elements from Disney’s version like the Prince waking Snow White up with a kiss, then you would be in violation of Disney’s copyright. Another example is Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein which is in the public domain. If you’re adaptation includes a version of Frankenstein’s monster with bolts in his neck, then you would be in violation of Universal’s copyright of Frankenstein with Boris Karloff.

If you know of other famous books and writers in the public domain, please let me know and I will update this list.

Horatio Alger

Dime store novelist famous for his rags-to-riches stories. All of his work is in the public domain. Famous stories include The Store Boy and Ragged Dick.

Hans Christian Anderson

All of this famous Dane’s works are in the public domain. Famous stories include “Thumbelina“, “The Ugly Duckling“, “The Little Mermaid“, “The Emperor’s New Clothes “, and “The Princess and the Pea“

Jane Austen

Well known novels include Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, and Persuasion. All of her work is in the public domain.

Honore de Balzac

The “French Charles Dickens” whose famous stories include The Girl With the Golden Eyes and Father Goriot. All of his works are in the public domain.

Charlotte Bronte

All of her work is in the public domain including her most famous novel Jane Eyre.

Emily Bronte

Just like her sister, all of her work is in the public domain. Her only novel is the oft filmed Wuthering Heights.

Frances Hodgson Burnett

Best known for the children’s stories The Secret Garden and A Little Princess. All of her works are in the public domain.

Edgar Rice Burroughs

Creator and author of Tarzan of the Apes. Only some of his work is in the public domain including the original Tarzan of the Apes and At the Earth’s Core. Please check the availability of his other stories before adapting his other works.

Lewis Carroll

Famous mathematician and author whose works include Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Through The Looking Glass and The Hunting Of The Snark. All of his work is in the public domain.

James Fenimore Cooper

This boring writer of frontier life is stiff as a board just like his writing which is all in the public domain. His more famous tales include The Last of the Mohicans and The Deerslayer.

Daniel Defoe

All of his works are in the public domain. His most well known stories are Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders.

Charles Dickens

All of Dickens’s work is in the public domain. Famous stories include A Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield and Great Expectations.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Most, but not all, of his works are in the public domain. The later Sherlock Holmes stories may not yet fall under the public domain but all of his stories before 1923 have including many involving his most famous creation Sherlock Holmes. Other well known stories include The Poison Belt and The Lost World

Fyodor Dostoevsky

All of his works are in the public domain including Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

All of this German writer’s works are in the public domain. His most famous works include The Sorrows of Young Werther and Faust.

Brothers Grimm

Two German brothers who were famous collectors of fairy tales. Their versions of the famous fairy tales are all in the public domain including such cherished gems as Cinderella, Rapunzel, Snow White, Hansel and Gretel, and Little Red Riding Hood.

It’s a phrase referring to the writer’s plight in the entertainment industry and is used to appease frustrated writers by emphasizing the point that their work is all that matters. It implies that none of the bull honkey of endless meetings, pitchfests and asinine studio notes matters. Only the work. It means that in the end, everything will be all right and you will get what you want as long as the story is good. In other words, it’s a phrase used to calm the infantile, like something you say to a child to get them to stop crying.

In Hollywood, story is not king. It’s more akin to something like a serf; that is something to be exploited by the blue suited penguins that rule this business. In Hollywood, a good story and three dollars might buy you a cup of coffee. For all their blustering about looking for great material, producers and studio executives could care less about story. If you want proof, just go to your local multiplex.

But, like all stereotypes and great lies, there is truth in the saying “story is king”. You see, what the blue suited penguins care about is money. And they make money by selling widgets. In the case of the movie industry, the widget is a marketable story. What is a marketable story? A marketable story is something that can be easily sold to the public. And while a marketable story is still not “king”, it is at least, in this medieval analogy, the equivalent of a knight.

This year’s Oscars makes an ironic case for the phrase “story is king” with the awarding of the Best Original Screenplay award to Diablo Cody for the movie Juno.

For those of you who are living in a cave or are supporters of Hilary Clinton, Diablo Cody is the pen name of stripper turned blogger/author/screenwriter Brook Busey-Hunt.

While working as a stripper, Diablo Cody wrote a blog about her life as a stripper titled The Pussy Ranch. The popularity of her blog landed her a publishing deal where she wrote the memoir Candy Girl: A Year in The Life of an Unlikely Stripper.

Her manager, Mason Novick of BenderSpink, discovered Diablo Cody when he was looking for porn on the internet. Novick encouraged her to try screenwriting and the result was the script for Juno. After a stellar theatrical run that exceeded expectations ($132 million and counting), Diablo Cody walked away with the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

What makes Diablo Cody unique is that she is the living embodiment of the phrase “story is king.” While her script for Juno is competent, no literate or sane person would call her update of an 1980′s-John Hughes-type teen comedy a literary or cinematic achievement of note. The marketable story in this case is not that of the screenplay, but of the screenwriter.

In real life, there is no such thing as the stripper/hooker with the heart of gold. It only exists in Hollywood movies. But the colorful history of Diablo Cody allowed Hollywood to sell a “real” stripper with a heart of gold story (“and she has brains too!” cried the marketing guru) to the public.

To her credit, Diablo Cody has a personabe writing style and a distinct voice. That Juno was watchable and didn’t completely suck helped as well. The penguins had a widget to sell. And sell they did: to the public and the Academy.

Can Diablo Cody remain marketable to the powers that be? That remains to be seen. Already, there is a backlash surfacing over Diablo Cody and Juno. Nude photos have surfaced online.

Diabo Cody has tried to spin it in a favorable way by claiming she published the photos herself. Only time will tell if she emerges as a viable screenwriter or merely one in a long line of widgets sold by Hollywood.

For those interested in reading the Juno script, click here: Juno screenplay.

Some Like It Hot

The Apartment

Double Indemnity

Sunset Boulevard

He had a great skill with actors that started with his ability to deliver a tight script with meaty roles. His movies are all marked by an unobtrusive shooting style, tight plotting and memorable dialogue.

Here are 10 screenwriting tips from Billy Wilder out of the book Conversations with Wilder by Cameron Crowe.

1. The audience is fickle.
2. Grab ‘em by the throat and never let ‘em go.
3. Develop a clean line of action for your leading character.
4. Know where you’re going.
5. The more subtle and elegant you are in hiding your plot points, the better you are as a writer.
6. If you have a problem with the third act, the real problem is in the first act.
7. A tip from Lubitsch: Let the audience add up two plus two. They’ll love you forever.
8. In doing voice-overs, be careful not to describe what the audience already sees. Add to what they’re seeing.
9. The event that occurs at the second act curtain triggers the end of the movie.
10. The third act must build, build, build in tempo and action until the last event, and then—that’s it. Don’t hang around.

Table of contents for Writers Strike 2007-2008

1. The Cinemoose Guide To The Writers’ Strike
2. The Cost Of The Writers’ Strike
3. The Writers Went On Strike And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt

The writers strike of 2007-2008 is officially over. Did the writers win? That depends on what you consider winning. While I have not been able to find the particular details of the agreement between the studios and the WGA (Writers Guild of America) that ended the strike, I do know that it is based on the deal on the deal the AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers) made with the DGA (Directors Guild of America).

So what was the final cost of the strike? The AMPTP posted this picture on their website:

And to quote the LA Times, “Jack Kyser, the chief economist for the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp., estimates the walkout cost the local economy $3.2 billion. Of that total, an estimated $772 million came from lost wages by writers and production workers, $981 million was lost by various businesses that service the industry, including caterers to equipment rental houses; and an additional $1.3 billion from the ripple effect of consumers not spending as much at retail shops, restaurants and car dealers.”

So did the writers win? Were the gains realized by the writers from the strike worth the cost of the strike? The short answer to that question is no. What’s the long answer? See the short answer. Most writers admit that the deal isn’t great. Many don’t even think it’s that good. It certainly will not make up for the lost wages that the writers have lost from the strike. Good going WGA leadership, you guys rock!

Table of contents for Writers Strike 2007-2008

1. The Cinemoose Guide To The Writers’ Strike
2. The Cost Of The Writers’ Strike
3. The Writers Went On Strike And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt

In the words of those infamous Australian intellectuals, for those about to rock, we salute you. And for those who follow the news, you will know that the writers have been on strike since November 5, 2007. There is a lot going on with the strike that I’m sure the general public is not aware of.

How much has the WGA writers’ strike cost the writers so far? Well, here is a counter from the studios’ collective bargaining organization’s site www.amptp.org.

Estimated losses are based on data supplied by WGA West on initial compensation paid to its members in 2006. For the purposes of this estimate, last year’s reported initial compensation of $1,051,320,000 is averaged over a 365-day year beginning when the WGA went out on strike on November 5.

What about the rest of Hollywood? Well, it’s hard to know for sure but the AMPTP have another counter for the cost of the strike to members of IATSE. What is IATSE? IATSE is the union that represents all the below-the-line workers on a film or television show. This is everyone from hair and makeup to set dressers and grips. Pretty much everyone who isn’t a producer or a member of the WGA (writers), DGA (directors, assistant directors and production managers) or SAG (actors).

Wage losses to Los Angeles-area IATSE crew members are estimated from an analysis of contributions to Motion Picture Industry Pension & Health Plans. As you can see so far, by striking the writers have already cost themselves more than what they are supposedly striking about.

What about the income lost to director and producers? Well, so far I have not been able to find any numbers on this so if anyone out there has got some numbers please send them my way.

In addition, agencies and production companies have been laying off workers. Warner Bros. alone may lay off close to 1000 jobs because of the writers’ strike. Many studios have been cutting off their deals with independent production companies thus forcing more layoffs.

Oh, but there’s more money lost than what has been mentioned so far. According to The Los Angeles Time, the writers’ strike is costing the city of Los Angeles over $20 million a day. How is that possible? There are many businesses that depend on revenue from the entertainment industry. For example, prop houses, special effects companies, floral companies, equipment rental companies, payroll companies, etc. The list goes on.

And this is all because the WGA is trying to make a power play.

“We’ve gotta protect our phoney baloney jobs, gentlemen!”.