Writing an Original Screenplay

Jay Fernandez of The Hollywood Reporter asks, “Who’s to blame for the lack of original movie projects being submitted to film studios these days?” He points to vertical integration and a bottom-line reliance on pre-branded franchises, plus diminished film slates, producer deals, and writing jobs. Indeed, in early 2011, spec submissions were down by more than half.

The full essay is at "Writing an Original Screenplay."

Disney Re-Making Stories: The End of Creativity in Film?

Politicians running for re-election may “remake themselves.” Companies “reinvent themselves.” If the company happens to make films, are the stories necessarily reinvented—essentially being retold—too? If this becomes the norm, is the implication that storytellers have exhausted the story plotlines that the human mind can conceive? Perhaps retelling old stories is simply laziness and corporate expediency at the expense of substance.

The full essay is at “Disney”

European Federalism in E.U.-U.S. Trade Negotiations

When U.S. President Barak Obama and the E.U. Presidents José Barroso and Herman Van Rompuy announced that talks would begin on a free trade agreement between the E.U. and U.S., the hope was that a sweeping deal would “largely eliminate trade tariffs and harmonize regulations across a broad range of industries” in “the world’s biggest two-way economic relationship.” [1] That E.U. ministers meeting days earlier had decided to protect the “cultural exception” to international trade rules “for the sake of preserving” the distinctive cultures of the E.U. states was cause for concern, should the U.S. seek to exempt the financial sector in exchange. [2] France had long been concerned that the English-speaking California film industry would swamp smaller French studios to the detriment of the French language and culture. Even though exceptions threatening a broader trade deal are indeed protectionist, in this case European federalism is also at issue. This factor could legitimate the exemption such that a countering U.S. exemption would not be equivalent and thus justified.

The complete essay is at Essays on Two Federal Empires, available at Amazon.

1. Matthew Dalton, “EU Deal Paves Way for US Trade Talks,” The Wall Street Journal, June 14, 2013.

2. Ibid.

Hollywood Bribes China

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, known as F.C.P.A., “forbids American companies from making illegal payments to government officials or others to ease the way for operations in foreign countries.”[1] The practical difficulty facing American companies doing business around the world is that in some cultures bribes are so ubiquitous they are simply a part of doing business.  For American companies to refuse to participate in what is generally expected can be a competitive disadvantage, particularly if substitutes exist and the practice is widespread.

The full essay is in Cases of Unethical Business: A Malignant Mentality of Mendacity, available in print and as an ebook at Amazon.

1. Edward Wyatt, Michael Cieply, and Brooks Barnes, “S.E.C. Asks if Hollywood Paid Bribes in China,” The New York Times, April 25, 2012.

“The Great Gatsby” in 3D

It is difficult for us mere mortals to take a step back and view the wider trajectory that we are on. It is much easier to relate today’s innovation back to the status quo and pat ourselves on the back amid all the excitement over the new toy. I content that this is the case in cinema.

The full essay is at "The Great Gatsby"

Hollywood on Risk: Snubbing Lucus’s “Red Tails”

When George Lucus showed Red Tails to executives from all the Hollywood studios, every one of the execs said no. One studio’s executives did not even show up for the screening. “Isn’t this their job?” Lucas said, astonished. “Isn’t their job at least to see movies? It’s not like some Sundance kid coming in there and saying, ‘I’ve got this little movie — would you see it?’ If Steven (Spielberg) or I or Jim Cameron or Bob Zemeckis comes in there, and they say, ‘We don’t even want to bother to see it.”[1] According to one newpaper, the snub implied that “Lucas’s pop-culture collateral — six ‘Star Wars’ movies, four ‘Indiana Jones’ movies, the effects shop Industrial Light and Magic and toy licenses that were selling (at least) four different light sabers . . .  — was basically worthless.”[2] As a result, Lucas paid for everything, including the prints, to enable the film’s opening. What can explain this bizarre snub?

The full essay is at "Hollywood on Risk." 

1. Byran Curtis, “George Lucus Is Ready to Roll the Credits,” The New York Times, January 17, 2012. 
2. Ibid.

Computer Technology Revolutionizing Industries: Books and Films

Crude oil was first drilled in 1859 in northwestern Pennsylvania (not in the desert of the Middle East). It was not long before oil lamps became ubiquitous, lengthening the productive day for millions beyond daylight hours. Just fifty or sixty years later, as electricity was beginning to replace the lamps, Ford’s mass-produced automobile was taking off, providing an alternative use of crude oil. For those of us alive in the early decades of the twenty-first century, electric lighting indoors and cars on paved roads have been around as long as we can remember. As a result, we tend to assume that things will go on pretty much as they “always” have. Other than for computer technology, the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century looks nearly indistinguishable from the last thirty or forty years of the last century. As the second decade of the 21st century began, applications based on computer technology were reaching a critical mass in terms of triggering shifts in some industries that had seemingly “always” been there.  Books, music and movies were certainly among the fastest moving,  perhaps like the dramatic change in lighting and cars beginning a century and a half before with the discovery of crude oil.

The full essay is at "Computer Technology Revolutionizing Industries." 

Organizational Bureaucracy at Odds with Creativity in Film

Art through corporate bureaucracy can be likened to oil and water. The rise of the studio system to produce film as an art form thus evinces a necessary evil. To be sure, organization is necessary to literally organize the various facets involved in the production of a film. However, needless managerial levels have gone beyond what is needed for coordination, particularly in television, and have stifled good narrative in the process.

The full essay is at "Organizational Bureaucracy and Film."