Example of Police Morality.

Was just listening to the radio while making my lunch. Debates going on (in Scotland) about police officers who have been assaulted receiving treatment pay from the offenders. 

Personally I don’t care, controversial debates are better off somewhere else. Not in a film / writing blog. 

My problem with it, was the police officers morality. Those who’re familiar with character arcs may recognize a Martyr character.  Positive side of the martyrs is they will put themselves in danger for what they believe is right.

The negative side is when they enslave other people by saying “I put myself in danger for you, so I want you to do something for me” Which was this officers major point backing up his argument, and for me this is where his entire argument fell down. 

Thought this was really worth taking note. It’s a good example of how even “good” people with jobs that are seen in a good light can be bad characters. 

A major problem I have explaining characters to actors is that characters aren’t 1 dimensional, (characters) people are complicated, it’s not all black and white. 

I was making this point when we were talking about making one of my characters more empathetic, their solution was to give her a good job. Nurse, Police Officer, Vet, even a nun were the ideas they threw around. Ended up saying it was all irrelevant. There are stories of nurses murdering people, there are vets that overcharge, there are cops that abuse their power.  

The entire point being occupation doesn’t define who people are. It doesn’t set a moral standard. Saying the nurse is a better person than the truck driver because they have a job where they care for people? No, that’s just as shallow as judging someone off the money they have in the bank. 

Anyway, to sum up the officers argument, it was “we’re good people, we put ourselves in danger for you. We deserve your support” - which is wrong, and it’s a perfect example of the martyr.

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Character and story influence can come from anywhere. It’s easiest to spot immoral behavior, then think how you’d correct it, and you’ve just created a character.

No one’s completely moral, everyone has flaws but having immoral behavior that contrasts a moral job make the best stories. Vice versa as well, an example of that would be a lawyer that’s a good person. The movie Philadelphia is a good example. Denzel takes the job because it’s going to benefit his career but he ends up caring for Tom Hanks. 

Pain and Gain

Michael Bay’s new film, looks like he’s going back to his roots. Believe it or not there was a time when Michael Bay was incredibly popular, during his era of Bad Boys, Armageddon and The Rock. Which are all fantastic action movies.  

Unfortunately started receiving a lot of criticism because of Pearl Harbor. That’s what happens when you get an action director to make a movie about a sensitive subject. Action genre’s incredibly shallow, it needs to be grounded by comedy otherwise it becomes very pretentious. Can easily see how it’s a bad idea getting an action guy to direct such a deep subject. Also see Red Tails, so over the top it’s unintentionally funny and that totally undercuts the seriousness of the subject. 

Also not too much a fan of the incredibly popular but incredibly controversial Transformers films. Transformers 3 being so popular (in the top 5 highest grossing films of all time) Paramount made Bay a deal so he could make a fourth. Which I’m not keen but they say they’re “taking it in a new direction” we’ll see. 

Pain and Gain’s what I’m looking forward to, and Bad Boys 3 which everyone has been waiting a VERY long time for. If he does it right Bay could be setting himself up for more positive feedback. Kind of like what Tom Cruise did in Tropic Thunder. 

Battle of Titans

Talking about writing, that moment in plot when the protagonist and antagonist have a massive battle. 

Watching these two heavy weights go at it creates memorable moments in film and sometimes in cinema. One of the major reasons a film would be successful.  

I’m going to be using Dwayne Johnson as an example.. A LOT.. A few of reasons for that. 1, because he’s constantly used in heavy weight battles. Secondly he’s on fire at the moment and 3rd, he’s a pretty cool guy and doesn’t afraid of anything. 

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You need this massive battle, audience loves to see two heavy weights going at it (not necessarily big guys physically fighting) I mean experts. For example, cities best detective vs criminal mastermind. You’ll see that in the Usual Suspects and LA Confidential. It’s just not as exciting if you see average detective vs average criminal, there’s potential for it to be much more. 

Fast Five is an example of not only a heavy weight battle, it also places two heavy weight actors Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson against each other. Another great example of this is Heat, two leading actors of that time Robert De Niro vs Al Pacino. 

Also another example that DIDN’T happen, it should have but it didn’t. Arnold Schwarzenegger vs Sylvester Stallone. There was a prime time someone could have done this battle and ended up with a historic battle in cinema, but the opportunity was totally missed.  

Using Fast Five again (because it’s a very simple example) the film also uses these two heavy weights coming together, forming an unstoppable team that faces an even bigger enemy. Unfortunately, in Fast Five it wasn’t as powerful as it could have been, maybe because we didn’t see the real antagonist being a bad guy. He pops up and it’s like oh, there he is, he’s bad… go get him. 

One of the reasons writing in wrestling is so damn important. They have heavy weight battles all the time.. most recently The Rock vs John Cena. That was heavily hyped up and it paid off massively.

It wasn’t as hyped as The Rock vs Hulk Hogan, if you haven’t seen it. here’s the link…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK_1uzHKXLA&feature=my_favorites&list=FLgeXSfPvjaYVZPETERW4NIQ

 It’s a perfect example of what I’m talking about. You’ll also notice at the end they make peace. They also end up teaming up and becoming an unstoppable force against a greater enemy.  

You can also go the opposite way and get comedy, actually just watched Walking Tall today (yep Dwayne Johnson film). One thing I noticed was in stead a battle of titans they have these 2 utterly useless characters that go at it and you get comedy. They’re both useless, they’re shooting each other but all they manage to do is miss and destroy everything in the room. 

If you want the battle of heavy weights you have to really set up these two characters. If one character’s weaker than the other it will fail. 

Do it right and you’ll have a battle that the audience will love and remember.   

I AM LEGEND - BUTTERFLY

For those that have seen the Alternate (original) version of I AM LEGEND, there’s A LOT of butterfly symbolism.

Went through it and print screened a few scenes I can remember seeing it in.

As far as I know (with the help of google) it symbolises transformation.

Which is a key part of the alternate version of I am Legend. Especially when Neville realizes he himself has become the monster. 

It’s unfortunate so much was cut out from the theatrical release.

Directing Actors

Little but rusty on directing, it’s been 2 years since I’ve properly been giving actors directions or sat down with actors.

Went through a line reading last night with 2 of my actors in this scene that I purposely made the blocking a bit more complicated (since this is my film that’s supposed to help me get in to uni, wanted to show off blocking and staging)

It went really well, everything it started off good, but not what I was looking for. It’s just a case of working with the actors and help them mold in to characters, help them understand where they’re walking, how they’re moving in a scene and how to deliver the lines.

These line readings and rehearsals are a fundamental part of getting the performance you want since it does take time. You can’t really waste your time doing it on set. Sometimes you have to reinforce it on set, I mean. It really helps if you’ve already sorted it out.

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I’m going to plug this book though.. Since it’s the best thing out at the moment for Directing Actors… and you should buy it..

I consider this my bible and guarantee (if you haven’t read it already) it will vastly improve how you direct and you’ll be able to get great performances out of your actors.

Hollywood Camera Work (who are also brilliant) are in the process of making a set of DVDs all teaching how to direct actors. It should be out in 2015 but that’s really something to look out for as well.

Learning the hard way.

Just had to spend £94 on a codec (A CODEC!) so I can actually edit my footage on PC.

Lesson learned, next time I’ll set aside part of my film budget for first world problems.