Beyond the Frame

Yesterday I used Ted Hope to illustrate what producers want.  Not surprisingly, it is more difficult to tell what they don’t want (other than a film that loses money).  To illustrate how difficult it is to point point, I’ll use Universal Studio’s chief Ron Meyer as an example:

“We [Universal Studios] make a lot of shitty movies,” Meyer said, “and every one of them breaks my heart.” While swearing that they always “set out to make good ones”—and reserving praise for films like United 93, A Beautiful Mind, and Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (while also lamenting that they didn’t make enough money)

“One of the worst movies we ever made was Wolfman… It’s one of those movies, the moment I saw it I thought, ‘What have we all done here?’ That movie was crappy. We all went wrong. It was one of those things… Like I said, we make a lot of bad movies. That’s one we should have smelled out a long time ago. It was wrong. The script never got right… [The cast] was awful. The director was wrong. Benicio [del Toro] stunk. It all stunk… Wolfman and Babe 2 are two of the shittiest movies we put out.”

~ Ron Meyer’s recent speech at the Savannah Film Festival

For any chance of success, directors and producers must work together as a team on source material that is rich and meaningful.  The well-known independent producer, Ted Hope, opines on the ten things you must do before you submit a script for consideration to the person in charge:

1. Cut at least another 10% of the script. Even when you think you are finished, there’s always another 10% that can come out.
2. Clarify what you feel the themes are and how they evolve during the course of the narrative.
3. Figure out some of the ways that the story can be expanded onto other platforms.
4. Know what the historical precedents are for your story and how you differ from them in how you have chosen to tell it.
5. Review the script from each characters’ point of view and make sure that their dialogue and actions remain emotionally true for each of them in their different situations.
6. Recognize what some of the mysteries contained within both the characters and story are that you are committed to protecting — as not everything should be explained.
7. Understand why you are truly prepared to tell this story at this time – or not.  
8. Make the world that the characters inhabit truly authentic; don’t just give them jobs or apartments or hip music to listen to.
9. Make it somehow provocative, intriguing, audacious, or thought provoking — something that will make it stand out.
10. Make sure it is more than just a good story told well. Be truly ambitious. Take us somewhere new, or take us there in a new way.

The key thing with this list or any list is still to put yourself in the shoes of whom you are submitting the project to.