Trailer Tuesday: SCHLOCK! (1973)

Halloween is today! So... the ultimate horror film!

SCHLOCK (1973) written and directed by John Landis.

This is one of my favorite films... and you have never heard of it.



Directed by:John Landis.
Written by: John Landis.
Starring: John Landis, Saul Kahan, Richard Gillis, Eliza Rayfiel-Roberts,and Eric Allison.
Produced by: John Landis, George Folsey, jr, Jack H. Harris.
Music by: David Gibson.


First, a bit of background... In the 70s there were a bunch of skit comedy movies like THE GROOVE TUBE (with Chevy Chase and Richard Belzer and "Brown 25" - we make dolls out of it) and TUNNEL VISION (with Phil Proctor and Howard Hessman and Kissinger grilled on a Sesame Street type show about Viet Nam). And they were okay... and then came KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE and it was 100 times funnier than the others. I saw KFM in my local cinema, and when I drove to Los Angeles I saw it in some funky old Hollywood Blvd cinema. That movie was made for me! I was alternating between short super 8mm thrillers and skit films, and KFM was the ultimate skit film. So much better than GROOVE and TUNNEL. Who directed it? Some guy named Landis.



I had a subscription to National Lampoon Magazine, which was huge back then, and they decided to make their first movie, called ANIMAL HOUSE. And who did they get to direct it? That Landis guy from KFM!

I landed a job managing a movie theater, part of a small chain that began as Jerry Lewis Family Cinemas, but that company went bankrupt and this guy bought all of the ones in the San Francisco Bay Area. I was managing one out in the East Bay, and my biggest problem was that the owner never booked a studio movie. He booked all kinds of weird crap, and then expected us to sell tickets to this junk! We showed a comedy spaghetti western called ONION BREATH about a cowboy who wasn't a quick draw, he just had really bad breath, starring Terrence Hill, and that was one of the *better* movies. We had a low budget horror movie with Christopher Lee that had the worst special effects I have ever seen. We had one bad film after another...

And then we showed SCHLOCK!

Directed by that Landis guy!


It was his first film, it had been sitting around on the shelf for years, and the guy who owned the cinemas made some sort of deal to show it for a week. The doorman in my cinema, who was an artist and drew some amazing pictures (I hired him because he was talented and needed a job), actually drew and inked the poster... because whatever poster there had been previously we didn't have access to. Tim drew this amazing poster, and they made copies, and that poster went from cinema to cinema around the Bay Area along with the single print of the film.

But the amazing thing - SCHLOCK was funny as hell! We had a college nearby, and I made up mini posters and put them up all over campus (did the same for my Halloween show of PSYCHO) and we packed the cinema every night. Because it played 3 times a day and 5 times on weekends, I could quote every single line of dialogue from the movie. And it was *funny*.

The film opens with a playground filled with at least a hundred dead teenagers - bodies on swings and other playground equipment in the silliest positions possible and covered with banana peels, as a diminutive detective (Saul Kahan) and his uniform cop sidekick (Richard Gillis) survey the carnage - another banana murder - and he says, "When I discover who or what is responsible for this... they're gonna be in *big* trouble."

My favorite part - after the ape kills a whole playground full of people, the coroner puts all of the body parts into Hefty Trash Bags to take to the morgue and try to put them together to figure out exactly how many victims there were... and the local TV news guy, a Ted Baxter type played by Eric Allsion, surrounded by dead bodies, smiles and says.... “The full body count so far is an amazing 239, although there is some disagreement on that depressing figure. It seems that several cadavers were so badly torn apart that it will be quite impossible to ascertain exactly how many individuals those pieces will come up to. From what I understand these grisly relics of death have been put into plastic bags or baggies, and are to be sorted out back at the morgue. The first viewer to send in a correct estimate on exactly how man individuals those baggies contain - could we have a shot of the baggies please? - will win a free Kentucky Chicken Dinner with all of the trimmings, and enough cola for a family of six. So be sure to send your entries right away to Body Count Contest, care of Joe Putzman, WAOH TV Channel 6, your community minded station. And be sure to watch the dinner time movie tonight at 6 on 6: Tonight its “See You Next Wednesday” starring Charles Laughton, Claudette Colbert, and Mickey Rooney. This is Joe Putzman saying, Have a happy!”

Later, the local TV New guy interviews Professor Shirley Shlibovitz (a bearded Emile Hamaty) who explains the entire concept of evolution, and explains that the banana killer is probably a "Homo Erectus".... and the TV News Guy's reaction is priceless. Shirley explains that his helmet (which is obviously part of an air conditioning or heating duct) was designed by a team of scientists... but he has no idea why he is wearing it.

Plus, there is a cute blind high school girl (Eliza Rayfiel-Roberts - who would go on to become Eric Roberts wife and Emma Roberts mom) who has been dating a guy for years and has just had eye surgery and when the bandages come off... will she like the way the guy looks? The killer ape tries to attack the blind girl, but she thinks he's just a big lovable dog and plays fetch with him... And the killer ape is less that happy to keep chasing the damned stick and giving it back to her. If she wants it back, why does she keep throwing it away? The whole thing is leading up to the big high school dance where the cute blind girl's bandages come off and she gets her first look at the guy she's been going out with for the past couple of years... and that's where the killer ape attacks, takes her hostage, and we get a parody of the end of KING KONG.

All kinds of other silly gags and little movie parodies are part of the story... anything that could be done for $60k (half of which was from Landis' pocket). Landis plays the killer ape in a Rick Baker costume and manages to pull off a great performance without speaking - I particularly liked the sweet scene where he terrorizes an ice cream parlor, steals an ice cream cake, sits on the curb to eat it... and two little girls come up, so he shares it with them and they have a little party. And the scene where the killer ape plays the piano with a bland musician and they really click.

Landis plays the killer ape, who is just misunderstood... and some dude named Rick Baker did the make up... his first credit! This film was made for pocket change, but is so packed with jokes it got Landis on THE TONIGHT SHOW! If you are ever wondering where the film SEE YOU NEXT WEDNESDAY (from that line of dialogue in 2001) comes from, this is the flick. Because it's a cult film, it's now on blu-ray, but for a movie made by a group of friends for pocket change it has lots of laughs.

Not every joke hits (it may be around 50/50) but there are enough jokes that work and enough charm that it has a loyal following. I loved this film - it was the only thing we showed at that cinema that wasn't complete crap!

PS: All of those body parts in the baggies were assembled into 4 bodies, and the winner of the contest was the cute blind girl's mom who served the chicken dinner on the night of the big high school dance. This was a great way to segue from the Detective and Newscaster as protagonist to the Cute Blind Girl as protagonist.

- Bill

Emma Roberts Mom...

THRILLER Thursday: Parasite Mansion

Best Of THRILLER: Parasite Mansion.

Next week another new entry! A Robert Bloch story!

The spider web fills the screen, it's Boris Karloff's THRILLER!

Season: 1, Episode: 30.
Airdate: April 25, 1961

Director: Herschel Daugherty
Writer: Donald Sanford, based on a story by Mary Elizabeth Counselman.
Cast: Jeanette Nolan, Pippa Scott, James Griffith, Tommy Nolan and Beverly Washburn.
Music: Morton Stevens
Cinematography: John Russell
Producer: William Frye

Boris Karloff’s Introduction: “Hospitality. Good old Southern hospitality. That’s what I like about the South. This is a room in Parasite Mansion, the name of our story tonight and the home of the Harrads. A fanily plagued for generations with a horrible curse. Parasite Mansion is a terrible place to visit, but obviously an excellent place in which to die. Featured in our story tonight are Jeannette Nolan, James Griffith, Beverly Washburn, Tommy Nolan, and Pippa Scott. One of these poor unfortunates is doomed to die before your eyes. Oh, oh! Don’t try to guess, you might be right and spoil all the fun.”

Synopsis: A stormy night somewhere in the backwoods of Louisiana. Marcia Hunter (Pippa Scott) takes a wrong turn after encountering a detour when the main highway is closed for construction... and sees a rambling old house through the pouring rain. Maybe an old plantation house. She drives towards it... and someone begins shooting at her! Marcia spins the steering wheel, hits a tree and crashes her car... hitting her head against the steering wheel and blacking out.

From the house, Victor Harrod (James Griffith) and Granny (Jeannette Nolan) brave the rain to investigate. Victor says they need to keep that rifle out of Rennie’s hands, he keeps doing stuff like this.

Marcia wakes up in an ancient bed in the old house... wearing only her underwear. What happened? Just as she works up the nerve to get out of bed and get her clothes on the other side of the room, perpetually drunk Victor and Granny enter the room and she gets back under the covers. Marcia wants to leave, Victor says that’s not possible. No phone to call for help (nearest phone is ten miles as the crow flies through the swamp), and it’s going to take a couple of days for Victor to fix her car so that it runs. Plus, she needs her rest, Victor had to put five stitches in her head. Marcia says, so you’re a doctor? Victor answers, “Not a doctor. We gotta learn to do our own doctoring out here.” Marcia pleads to leave: she was headed home to her parent’s in Shreveport... but Granny has gone through her purse, and read her mail, and knows that she’s actually headed to New Orleans to meet a man. They have completely violated her privacy. Victor tells her to just get her rest and they leave.

Marcia waits until night, puts on her clothes, and sneaks out... noticing a door at the top of the stairs with a massive padlock (what could be inside there that they need to lock it in?) on her way down to the front door... but once outside, Rennie (Tommy Nolan) starts shooting at her! Yelling that “She’s one those folks who took ma!” Victor wrestles the gun away from Rennie and Granny grabs her, “You can’t leave here alive!”

Marcia wakes up in the bed again. She tells Victor she doesn’t blame Rennie, she understands that the authorities came and took his mother to an asylum and he’s afraid he’ll be taken as well. Granny comes in with food, mentions the house’s dark secrets. “The Dark Fear”. When they leave, Victor locks Marcia in the room.

Marcia tries to find a way out... the windows are boarded up, door locked... but she notices a door frame behind the wardrobe. Pulling the wardrobe back (no shortage of cobwebs) she opens the door... into more webs and darkness. Grabbing the lantern, she finds a staircase and climbs up to a room... where a frightened teenaged girl Lolly (Beverly Washburn) is hidden. Lolly’s room is behind that padlocked door upstairs. Weird drawings on the walls of the room. Lolly says “You’re here to take me away!” Marcia calms her, says she’s a friend, offers Lolly her broach... and suddenly the broach levitates and flies across the room on its own! Lolly screams, her arm has suddenly begun bleeding. Granny is at the doorway, says now you’ve seen the whole family, time to go back to your room.

Back in the room, Granny asks if he has any last requests? Marcia tries to bribe Granny with her engagement ring, Granny says she’ll get that one way or the other anyway...

Downstairs Victor wants to let her leave, Granny says “She saw!” Now she can never leave. Victor tells her they will *all* have dinner in the dining room tonight. Marcia and Lolly and Rennie.

Marcia finds the door unlocked, goes downstairs, tells Victor that what Lolly has is stigmata, and he has read about it. Victor says he has, too... shows her a wall of books on stigmata. None of them have the answers. “We’re afraid of *it*: the thing that threw your broach, the thing that scratched Lolly.” For the past couple of generations the Harrod family has been cursed by *it*. Do you know what a poltergeist is? “An invisible parasite that attaches to people... it has attached itself to every woman in the Harrod family for the past three generations. Granny says you get used to it, like lice and other crawling things.

A tense dinner. Marcia notices that there is an extra place setting at the table. That’s for the poltergeist, she’s told. Wham! Lolly’s cup jumps off the table and begins striking the little girl in the head again and again! Granny laughs. The cup beats Lolly’s face and she begins bleeding... she runs away! Everyone is scared except Granny. Marcia says poltergeist or not, she’s going to destroy it and get the hell out of here!

When Marcia goes back to her room, Granny tells Victor they have to kill her. If she messes with the poltergeist, it’s just going to take it out on the whole family. They can kill her, put her in her car, and dump it in the swamp.

Marcia sleeps as the secret door opens and Rennie comes into the room with a knife. He creeps to the side of her bed and gets ready to stab her... but can’t. Granny whispers “Kill her! Kill her!” from the secret doorway. Granny takes the knife from Rennie to kill Marcia herself. Marcia wakes up, fights Granny for the knife, knocks it out of her hands... but Granny makes the knife levitate! The knife zips across the room into Granny’s hand! *Granny* is telekenetic! The family curse began when Granny married into the family and moved into the house. Granny has made everyone think that it’s a poltergeist haunting the Harrod women, when it was her all along! Victor comes in, hears all of this, wrestles with Granny... but Granny is more powerful! Except they have knocked over the oil lamp, and it ignites Granny’s dress, setting her on fire! She runs out of the house in flames and dies in a burning heap in the swamp.

Marcia asks Victor if their poltergeist ever acted up when Granny wasn’t around? The poltergeist is gone, the family curse is lifted... it was Granny.

Review: Nice creepy entry. They must have used a ton of cobwebs to dress this set! The cobwebs on the secret door are particularly cool because they stretch when the wardrobe is pulled away from the door. Though this was made before wires could be digitally removed, the effects are really good! You can’t see the wires at all, and the cup and broach and knife move convincingly.

One of the great things is how the story evolves. At first we think the “curse” is insanity, then it’s a poltergeist phenomena in teenage Lolly, and it finally becomes evil Granny who is secretly causing all of this dark fear in the family so that she can control them. It is a house of secrets, and when one secret is revealed it just creates another. The mysteries drive the story, with Marcia thinking that family insanity is the secret only to discover Lolly locked away, only to discover the poltergeist activity. But even that isn’t the secret, and she keeps digging until she finds out. Just when you think you know what’s going on, another secret door opens and you realize you are still in the dark.

I really wanted to read this story before writing this entry due to Granny’s line about the lice and crawly things, which are parasites like the poltergeist. I was wondering if there was more about that in the story... but the book is out of print, and my local library branch didn’t have a copy. They could get it for me, but not by “press time”... so I will have the answer to that whenever all of these entries add up to an ebook.

I know that this was one of Stephen King’s favorite TV shows, and since one of the elements of this episode is a teenage girl who seems to have telekinetic powers which includes knives shooting across a room, I wonder if this was an inspiration for his novel CARRIE?

The spooky old mansion will return in a few episode in Stephen King’s favorite episode, PIGEONS FROM HELL... but next week we have a fun episode starring Edward Andrews who did three episodes of THRILLER and specialized in whimsical malevolence. You know his face from every TV show ever made plus movies like GREMLINS. He is the adult image of mischief!

Bill

Film Courage Plus: You Need To Keep Writing!

FILM COURAGE did a series of interviews with me at the end of 2014, and then again at the end of 2015. There were something like 12 segments from 2014, and probably around 24 segments for 2015... and that's around 36 segments total. That's almost a year's worth of material! So why not add a new craft article and make it a weekly blog entry? All I have to do is write that new article, right?

You have to keep writing after making a sale!



Welcome To Your New Day Job!

The good news is that you just sold a screenplay or landed an assignment or had a screenplay go out wide - you’re in the business, baby! You can quit that awful day job you have struggled with and finally have time to write full time!

Except for one small problem...

You have a new day job. All of the business bullcrap of being a professional screenwriter. If you think you are now a full time writer, think again! One of the things that happens when you have a script go out wide or sell is that everyone in town wants to meet with you. When I had scripts go to 50 studio based producers, I usually ended up with around 48 meetings and at 2-3 meetings a day that is a full month of your time driving from one studio to another... and you will never have all of your meetings on the same lot! My meetings were always on 3 different sides of town with insane traffic between them. One meeting I was late for because I blew a tire on the freeway and ended up dirty and frazzled when I finally got there. Great first impression!

And no writing got done when I was doing all of those endless meetings. I *wanted* to write, but at the end of the day I was just too tired.

But after that month, you are free to write, right?

Nope. One of the side effects of meetings is the “busy work” of “pitching your take” on projects. Out of those 48 meetings, none of them bought me screenplay but many of them had writing jobs they thought I might be a good fit for - so they gave me books and magazine articles and all kinds of other stuff to read and then return with my take on. Of course, I wasn’t the only one doing this - every writer they had met with over the past few weeks was reading the same book and pitching their take. But you end up spending a lot of time doing this... when you should be writing.

Meetings becomes your full time job, and you have to squeeze in writing in whatever spare time you have left over. It’s like you are back to having a day job!

But here’s the problem: Once you get done with all of the meetings and the meetings generated by the meetings? You need a new script in order to get new meetings. The hope is that one of these scripts sells or one of your takes gets you an assignment. But you need a constant supply of new screenplays.

One of the things I learned the hard way was that it’s a good idea to have a stockpile of scripts ready to go. Though I had a bunch of scripts written, most of them needed some rewrite work to match them with the current market... and that slowed things down a little. The more prepared you are for that big break, the better you can handle it. And you will need to adjust from writing in your spare time with your old day job to writing in your spare time with your new day job... and getting pages done!

Your career is going to be like a treadmill where you need to keep running!

ONE FOR ME

But what if your script sells or lands you and assignment? Will you still need to do all of those meetings?

Yes. That’s part of the problem: you will need to strike while the iron is hot. It’s common for a screenwriter to do all of those meetings for the next gig while you are supposed to be writing the assignment you were just paid for. It’s common to “stack” assignments - use the heat from one job as bait to get other jobs and end up with two or three assignments with similar deadlines.... and now all you have to do is write them all! I once ended up with walking pneumonia because I was working non-stop on a couple of different screenplays that were going into production. A man’s gotta know his limitations - and I learned where mine are!

Your so called career will always be about the next script and the next gig. But even if you land an assignment, you will need to figure out how to squeeze in a new spec script so that you can do the next round of meetings and land your next assignment - because once you finish that assignment you are unemployed! One of the things I did on assignments was treat everything as “one for them, one for me” - I would make sure that I had enough time and made enough money to write a spec script that I could send out as bait for new assignments (or maybe even sell). Even in the years where I had three scripts go to screen (the mid 90s were very very good to me), and all of the rewriting on those three projects; I made sure to write 2-3 scripts a year for myself. So I wrote 5-6 scripts a year, 3 of them got made and went through all of the hell of rewrites. But I had new scripts to recharge my career if need be... and it often did. You are always breaking in!

One of the problems with those extremely low budget gigs that you see on places like Ink Tip is that you can’t earn enough money to pay for the time to write that one for me script, and it’s like the treadmill moving faster and faster. So part of every script deal you make needs to include some plan on your part for writing a new spec script. If you take one of those low pay gigs, you need to make sure you are paid enough to write a one for you. That probably means asking for more money, but if that ends up a deal breaker: “Reading Periods” can be the answer.

One of the wacky things with assignment contracts is that they spell out how much time you have to write each draft, and how much time the production company has to read the screenplay and give you notes before the next draft. Now, *you* must turn in your draft on time... but they often screw up when it comes to the reading period. It might be 2 weeks in the contract... and end up a month! Hurry up and wait! But that 2 weeks which may end up a month? That’s the one for you. When I was having three scripts filmed a year, if they weren’t all happening at the same time, I would use the reading period to work on my own project. A great “palate cleanser”, and I would end up with some work done on the “one for me” script.

The important thing is not to get so tied up with *their* project that you neglect *your* project. I don’t expect you to have three projects going a year for a few years like I did... but that *could happen*!

CELEBRATE GOOD TIMES!

There is a tendency when you sell a script or land an assignment to relax. I think in another of the Film Courage interviews I talk about selling COURTING DEATH to the company with the deal at Paramount and then holing up in my apartment and just leisurely writing - living the dream! But the problem became that after my 2 years of money was gone, I had some new scripts but had done nothing to network or get those scripts to market... and had to scramble to find a deal. I know some people who didn’t even write new scripts... and were in real trouble! You have to keep generating material, even after you are “successful”. Every month there is a new “flavor of the month”.

Here’s the problem with waiting until you *need* a gig to write a bunch of new screenplays - you will be writing from desperation. Instead of having fun writing your spec scripts, you will be trying so hard to make this the one that will start the deals and meetings happening again that the script will suck. I have a friend on FaceBook who has been single for a long time and is at the point of begging women to date him. Do I have to tell you that doesn’t work? Well, it doesn’t work with screenplays either - they can read in your writing that you are trying desperately to make a deal. You want your scripts to be so cool they think they don’t have a chance to date them, not so desperate and needy that they are the nightmare date. So don’t wait until the last minute! Make sure writing new screenplays is part of your “business plan” and included in writing those assignments!

You can have a sale or assignment and think that you have “made it” and can take it easy for a while... but you can’t! You have to keep writing, keep generating new material, and keep getting that material out there in the world so that when this deal has run its course you have a new one waiting. Yes, take a vacation... but that’s a week or two, right? Taking a vacation for a month or six months is probably a mistake. When you are not on vacation, you need to be working! This is a career - a marathon rather than a sprint. You need to always be writing new screenplays... even when you think you have “made it”. The problem with being a freelance writer is that once you have sold a screenplay or completed and assignment... you are unemployed! You will always be looking for work. Which means you will always be working.

Make sure you have a plan to keep writing scripts after you have landed a gig!

Good luck and keep writing!

- Bill

Gus Van Hitchcock's PSYCHO

From back in 2009... so that must have been Raindance 2004

Five years ago at the Raindance Film Festival, I met these crazy guys from The Media Lounge who make film collages that play in London night clubs. They had a feature length program playing in the festival called BRING ME THE HEAD OF ROB LOWE, which had me laughing so hard I almost passed out. Basically it was a bunch of great short pieces connected by DVD extra interviews with Robe Lowe where he said *the exact same thing* in a different location. One of the great short bits was where they mixed up the audio track of one movie trailer with the video of another... and they matched! So, the audio voice over from some cute family film with the video from some violent action flick - and the words seemed to describe the images.

I wondered what those guys were up to... and they have a bunch of collage movies on YouTube, including this mash up of PSYCHO and the remake, set to music.





- Bill

Of course, I have my own books on Hitchcock...

HITCHCOCK: MASTERING SUSPENSE

LEARN SUSPENSE FROM THE MASTER!

Alfred Hitchcock, who directed 52 movies, was known as the “Master Of Suspense”; but what exactly is suspense and how can *we* master it? How does suspense work? How can *we* create “Hitchcockian” suspense scenes in our screenplays, novels, stories and films?

This book uses seventeen of Hitchcock’s films to show the difference between suspense and surprise, how to use “focus objects” to create suspense, the 20 iconic suspense scenes and situations, how plot twists work, using secrets for suspense, how to use Dread (the cousin of suspense) in horror stories, and dozens of other amazing storytelling lessons. From classics like “Strangers On A Train” and “The Birds” and “Vertigo” and “To Catch A Thief” to older films from the British period like “The 39 Steps” and “The Man Who Knew Too Much” to his hits from the silent era like “The Lodger” (about Jack The Ripper), we’ll look at all of the techniques to create suspense!

Films Included: NOTORIOUS, SABOTAGE, STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, THE 39 STEPS, REBECCA, TO CATCH A THIEF, FRENZY, FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT, THE LODGER, THE BIRDS, TORN CURTAIN, SABOTEUR, VERTIGO, THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1934), THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1955), SUSPICION, and NUMBER SEVENTEEN. 17 Great Films!

Only 125,000 words!

Price: $5.99



Click here for more info!

HITCHCOCK DID IT FIRST!

We all know that Alfred Hitchcock was the Master Of Suspense, but did you know he was the most *experimental* filmmaker in history?

Contained Thrillers like “Buried”? Serial Protagonists like “Place Beyond The Pines”? Multiple Connecting Stories like “Pulp Fiction”? Same Story Multiple Times like “Run, Lola, Run”? This book focuses on 18 of Hitchcock’s 53 films with wild cinema and story experiments which paved the way for modern films. Almost one hundred different experiments that you may think are recent cinema or story inventions... but some date back to Hitchcock’s *silent* films! We’ll examine these experiments and how they work. Great for film makers, screenwriters, film fans, producers and directors.

Films Examined: “Rear Window”, “Psycho”, “Family Plot”, “Topaz”, “Rope”, “The Wrong Man”, “Easy Virtue”, “Lifeboat”, “Bon Voyage”, “Aventure Malgache”, “Elstree Calling”, “Dial M for Murder”, “Stage Fright”, “Champagne”, “Spellbound”, “I Confess”, and “The Trouble with Harry”, with glances at “Vertigo” and several others.

Professional screenwriter William C. Martell takes you into the world of The Master Of Suspense and shows you the daring experiments that changed cinema. Over 77,000 words.

Click here for more info!

Film Courage: Are Writers Damned?

FILM COURAGE did a series of interviews with me, around 36 (or more) segments total. That's almost a year's worth of material! So why not add a new craft article and make it a weekly blog entry? All I have to do is write that new article, right?

And the first segment...

I had done a full day of classes at Story Expo, it was the hottest day on record in Los Angeles (since broken a few times), I was seriously dehydrated after running from class to class all day, and the first question they ask me is...

A softball questions to start out with, like...

"Are Writers Damned?"

How the hell do you answer that?

Well, yes.



In Woody Allen’s Oscar Winning ANNIE HALL, there’s a great scene where Alvy Singer, who’s perfect relationship has fallen apart, sees the perfect couple walking down the street and decides to ask them the secret to the success of their relationship, and their response is: “I’m very shallow and empty and I have no ideas and nothing interesting to say.” And the woman responds, “And I’m exactly the same way.”

Writers are not shallow and empty, and we have something to say. Where “civilians” move through life not thinking about other people’s secret motivations and hidden agendas and all of the other things that your Mom might be *really* thinking when she says that you could use some new shirts, writers can’t help but think about these things. We know 57 ways to kill someone with a ripe tomato, thanks to research on that screenplay, and when we are in the produce section of the grocery store and see the seemingly nice little old lady trying to find the perfect tomato... we wonder just who she is planning to kill. Is it me? I don’t even know her! But what if this is some sort of STRANGERS ON A TRAIN club, where a hundred people swap murders so that there is no way for any of them to be a suspect, and she ended up doing the murder for some long forgotten person who considers me their enemy? Someone like that guy from SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE who has spent his life tracking down Billy Pilgrim for splashing mud on his trousers decades ago? I once spilled a drink on a guy in a suit in a bar, and that guy had been hitting on this woman, and maybe I ruined his love life forever and now he was part of this Murder Tanda and had given my name to that nice little old lady in the supermarket who was going to kill me with that tomato that she has just selected? As a writer I am constantly thinking about stuff like that - which is probably why I have insomnia - not only is my mind still working and I wish that I could shut it off, but I am a little worried that tonight might be the night that the nice little old lady strikes. I don’t really want to sleep through getting murdered with a tomato.

So we tend to look at the world a bit differently than most people, and over-think things and we can be a little bit paranoid because we know what evil can lurk in the hearts of men... and nice little old ladies. So we are probably damned.

But what about the writing part, Bill?

NO RESPECT!

The other way that we are damned is that nobody knows that screenwriters exist. There’s that line from IN A LONELY PLACE about how the audience thinks that movie stars make up the dialogue themselves, and if they become big enough stars - they do. Heck, even screenwriters don’t know who screenwriters are! A few years ago, for fun, I made up a quiz about who wrote what famous film and posted it on my website... and none of the screenwriters who frequent the site could get all of the answers right (without looking them up). Lots of “I didn’t know that writer wrote that!” Heck, if screenwriters don’t know who wrote the screenplays for movies that they have seen and loved, why would civilians, let alone hot underwear models (you may choose whatever sex you want - they will not be choosing you in return). So screenwriters are never famous. If you subtract the famous *playwrights* who became screenwriters, and writer-directors and famous novelists who became screenwriters, you probably don’t know the single name of a screenwriter who just *writes screenplays*. Like you want to.

So your plans to become a famous screenwriter?

The other common fantasy that goes along with famous is rich, and we have all seen those deals in the trades where some new writer’s screenplay was in a bidding war and sold for $1.2 million. Hey, I can write 3 screenplays a year if all I do is write one page a day, that’s $3.6 million a year... that ought to attract the underwear models! I can buy a Lamborghini every year! I can live in a mansion! I can eat my weight in lobster twice a day! I will be rich! Except, that’s not really how it works. Because that $1.2 million works like this: The $1 million is when and if they make the film - and only around 10% of the screenplays they buy or develop ever get made. So the odds are against you ever making that $1 million. The $200k is what you will be paid - for the screenplay and all of the rewrites, and these days they sometimes decide not to do the rewrites (great! until you realize that you won't be paid that part if the $200k)and you might end up with just over $100k total. That still sounds pretty good, right? But that’s for a screenplay that sold for $1.2 million - which is a huge sale that makes the trades. And a sale - you see, most screenplays don’t ever sell. There are around 1 million screenplays in circulation in any given year and fewer than 100 sell to studios. Okay, there are screenplays that sell to low budget genre companies and companies that make films for Lifetime and SyFy Channel and Hallmark... for much much less. A friend of mine sold a screenplay to a company that makes SyFy Channel movies... for $2k. I didn’t leave out any zeros. This is a tough business to make a living in! Most of the professional screenwriters I know make an okay living... But I often joke that if I had kept my job at Safeway Grocery I would probably be making more now (as a District Manager or something).

So your plans to become a rich screenwriter?

And if you are looking at those million screenplays and fewer than a hundred sell, that means that a whole bunch do not sell. The writers wrote them for nothing!

Or did they?

And that is the key to avoiding being damned.

The writing itself needs to be its own reward.

MOTIVATIONS

If you're having a problem getting your scripts finished it may be tied to your motivation - maybe you aren't writing because you want to tell a story, perhaps you're writing because you want fame and glory. Guess what? There is no fame and glory in the screenwriting world - name the three Oscar winning writers of CASABLANCA. You probably can't, and you're the MOST LIKELY person who could do that (you want to be an Oscar winning screenwriter). So if your motivation is fame, is having people acknowledge and love you... you're in the wrong business. Screenwriters are either ignored or blamed or crapped on.

If your motivation is "I like to write" or "I need to write" then it's all about writing and writing is what you should be doing (actually, you'll already be doing it). This is the motivation you want to have - the need or desire to tell stories. That way your motivation is all about the work - not the rewards. I hate to be a cold blanket, but this is a business where the rewards are few and far between and usually out of our control. The only thing really in our control is doing the work. So writing needs to be its own reward!

If your motivation is "I want to write to prove I'm somebody important" or "I want to write to prove my enemies were wrong" then it's not about the writing - it's about your personal problems. If you are writing to solve personal problems (and trying to solve them by changing OTHERS) your focus isn't going to be on writing, so you WILL have trouble finishing scripts or starting them or anything else that has to do with WRITING. If your motivation for writing is anything other than "to write", you're going to run into problems because those other motivations will get in the way of your writing.

If you aren't in the biz because you have to tell your stories, because you're PASSIONATE about writing, you're in for a future of heartache. You don't see screenwriters on eitherr of the Jimmys or Colbert. You don't see them interviewed on ET or Access Hollywood or any other TV version of National Enquirer. Screenwriters just toil away in obscurity... we write because we have stories inside of us that they have no choice but to tell. We are writers.

A writer writes.

I have a stack of unsold screenplays that I am now planning on adapting into novels. I also have a stack of unread screenplays - no one ever requested them. Many of those are from early in my screenwriting "careeer" where I was writing typical genre screenplays instead of focusing on an amazing high concept that could attract producers from the logline alone. Those unread screenplays are good - just not interesting enough. Some I have rewritten with a “high concept injection”, others I have figured out how to adapt into novels with a more interesting central idea. Everything that I have written, from my very first screenplay, is written. It is not just some idea bouncing around in my head, it is something that was fleshed out and set on paper or floppy or whatever. It actually exists. And that is the key to being a successful writer - actually writing.

A writer writes.

A sure fire way to be damned as a writer is to focus on the things that you do not control, instead of the things that you do control. If you focus on the prestige or the money or the respect or anything else that is completely outside of our control... you are going to end up damned disappointed. Even if you are a successful screenwriter, not everything you write will end up on screen, and I guarantee that what ends up on screen isn’t going to be the way you wrote it. Probably mentioned the huge list of unsold and unproduced screenplays by multiple Oscar winner Robert Bolt, and even Oscar winners will get rewritten by a string of other writers. That’s just how it works - out of our control. If you focus on the stuff that you can’t control, you will go crazy. But there is one thing that you control 100% - that is the actual writing. Getting pages done every day. Writing a stack of screenplays that may or may not sell - but they are accomplishments! You wrote that screenplay! You got to Fade Out!

So you probably aren’t ever going to become rich and famous and respected and have your choice of underwear models to fly to Europe with for a weekend with The Countess, but you are going to actually accomplish something that very few do - you will have a growing stack of screenplays or short stories or novels. So if you want to be a writer, you need to enjoy (in some way) the writing part.

Writing needs to be its own reward.

That’s the way to avoid being damned.

Good luck and keep writing!

- Bill

Only 418 Pages!
*** BREAKING IN BLUE BOOK *** - For Kindle!

Should really be called the BUSINESS BLUE BOOK because it covers almost everything you will need to know for your screenwriting career: from thinking like a producer and learning to speak their language, to query letters and finding a manager or agent, to making connections (at home and in Hollywood) and networking, to the different kinds of meetings you are will have at Studios, to the difference between a producer and a studio, to landing an assignment at that meeting and what is required of you when you are working under contract, to contracts and options and lawyers and... when to run from a deal! Information you can use *now* to move your career forward! It's all here in the Biggest Blue Book yet!
Print version was 48 pages, Kindle version is over 400 pages!
Only $4.99 - and no postage!

Fridays With Hitchcock: Richard Schickel Interviews Hitch - Masterclass!

Here is Film Critic Richard Schickel (Time magazine from 1965–2010) with a 96 minute interview of Hitchcock in front a live audience!



Of course, I have my own books focusing on Hitchcock...

HITCHCOCK: MASTERING SUSPENSE

LEARN SUSPENSE FROM THE MASTER!

Alfred Hitchcock, who directed 52 movies, was known as the “Master Of Suspense”; but what exactly is suspense and how can *we* master it? How does suspense work? How can *we* create “Hitchcockian” suspense scenes in our screenplays, novels, stories and films?

This book uses seventeen of Hitchcock’s films to show the difference between suspense and surprise, how to use “focus objects” to create suspense, the 20 iconic suspense scenes and situations, how plot twists work, using secrets for suspense, how to use Dread (the cousin of suspense) in horror stories, and dozens of other amazing storytelling lessons. From classics like “Strangers On A Train” and “The Birds” and “Vertigo” and “To Catch A Thief” to older films from the British period like “The 39 Steps” and “The Man Who Knew Too Much” to his hits from the silent era like “The Lodger” (about Jack The Ripper), we’ll look at all of the techniques to create suspense!

Films Included: NOTORIOUS, SABOTAGE, STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, THE 39 STEPS, REBECCA, TO CATCH A THIEF, FRENZY, FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT, THE LODGER, THE BIRDS, TORN CURTAIN, SABOTEUR, VERTIGO, THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1934), THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1955), SUSPICION, and NUMBER SEVENTEEN. 17 Great Films!

Only 125,000 words!

Price: $5.99

Click here for more info!

OTHER COUNTRIES:


UK Folks Click Here.

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And....

HITCHCOCK: EXPERIMENTS IN TERROR

USA Readers click here for more info!

HITCHCOCK DID IT FIRST!

We all know that Alfred Hitchcock was the Master Of Suspense, but did you know he was the most *experimental* filmmaker in history?

Contained Thrillers like “Buried”? Serial Protagonists like “Place Beyond The Pines”? Multiple Connecting Stories like “Pulp Fiction”? Same Story Multiple Times like “Run, Lola, Run”? This book focuses on 18 of Hitchcock’s 52 films with wild cinema and story experiments which paved the way for modern films. Almost one hundred different experiments that you may think are recent cinema or story inventions... but some date back to Hitchcock’s *silent* films! We’ll examine these experiments and how they work. Great for film makers, screenwriters, film fans, producers and directors.

Films Examined: “Rear Window”, “Psycho”, “Family Plot”, “Topaz”, “Rope”, “The Wrong Man”, “Easy Virtue”, “Lifeboat”, “Bon Voyage”, “Aventure Malgache”, “Elstree Calling”, “Dial M for Murder”, “Stage Fright”, “Champagne”, “Spellbound”, “I Confess”, and “The Trouble with Harry”, with glances at “Vertigo” and several others.

Professional screenwriter William C. Martell takes you into the world of The Master Of Suspense and shows you the daring experiments that changed cinema. Over 77,000 words.

UK Folks Click Here.

German Folks Click Here.

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Canadian Folks Click Here.