The anatomy of a movie

Ever wonder, when you’re watching a film, or afterward, what went into putting it all together that way and onto the screen? If it’s captivating or engrossing, you’ll be drawn into it’s setting and action and the characters will be real and the filmmaking behind it will never cross your mind. And then there’s the “what were they thinking?!” experience…

Here’s some interesting insight by my friend Barb Nicolosi on her blog, Church of the Masses, revealing the genesis of one great film.

Screenwriting is such a weird activity, in that you go from complete ignorance on a subject to the level of unbelievably abstruse intelligence. Screenplay research requires a minuteness for detail so that you can allow the audience to experience what I think of as the rush of arena fascination. They want to learn without realizing they are learning, and this all happens in the teeny little flourishes of detail that the screenwriter picked up in a letter that she found in a long-out of print book at a Church used book sale on an island somewhere in the geographical middle of the Black Sea….

Someone who writes a blog post like this is going to put together one fantastic screenplay.

The weird part is how much you want to share what you have written, while at the same time dreading having people read it. especially people who know you. I want to sit under the elbow of every one who reads my script registering every flicker of muscle movement on his or her face as they traverse it line by line. “Why are they laughing there? That wasn’t supposed to be funny.” “Why aren’t they laughing there?! The Neanderthalism! That is hilarious stuff! Or else maybe I have no sense of humor?! I might need therapy instead of more screenplay jobs…

Not a chance. Actually, as Barb and I and everyone else who’s blessed to do what they love…knows…is that working on your passion is good therapy in itself. She is so witty and intelligent and gifted and deeply knowledgeable, and Hollywood needs to be populated by armies of Barbara Nicolosi’s. Fortunately, she started Act One to help advance that cause.

But, back to the blog…

Anyway, then, you turn in the script, as I will today, and it’s not just yours any more. Your pat them on the shoulder and send your characters and ideas into the treacherous and often (for the characters) barbaric terrain known as Notesville. Notes. When people who have read your script once quickly in between watching The View and picking the kids up from kindergarten, get to tell you that a character’s choice is unmotivated. Notes. In which a moment you thought is haunting and profound ends up becoming just one more derrivative proof of everything that is wrong with movie writing today. Notes are very great when they are good, and they are necessary, but wow, is it humbling.

I often experience envy of the guy down at the hall who bags groceries at Mayfair. Nobody ever takes him aside at the end of the night and says, ‘What did you mean by putting that shampoo in with the Raisin Bran? And in a paper bag?!??! Don’t you realize that every other grocery bagger is packing ceral and hair products just that way? How could you be so unoriginal? It just doesn’t work for me. And that weird little thing you did with letting the lettuce peak out of the top of one of the bags? What the hell was that? The customer isn’t going to get it, when the lettuce is all wilted by the time she gets home. You are going to have to find another way. Tomorrow we will talk about this weird cliche you use in putting the heavy stuff on the bottom of the bags. Get over it already.

I really look forward to that movie, so those folks holding the screenplay now better move it along quickly. Meanwhile, I suggest the book at Barb’s blog, “Behind the Screen”, for your summer reading lineup if you’re a film fan. Here are a few chapter titles: “Why Do Heathens Make the Best Christian Films?”, “The World’s Most Influential Mission Field”, “What Would Jesus Write?”, and “Love the Cinema, Hate the Sin.” It’s funny and insightful, and makes you realize there’s hope in Hollywood after all.