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Lessons from Lord of the Rings, Part 1

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Photobucket - Video and Image HostingTherese and Kathleen readily embrace their “inner nerd” when it comes to The Lord of the Rings. They, along with fellow nerd and writer buddy Elena Greene, even wrote an article about Peter Jackson’s movie version of the story, focusing on choices he made that all writers can learn from. The following is the first part of that article.

Lessons from Lord of the Rings

Even if you’ve never read the books or seen the films, you’ve undoubtedly heard of The Lord of the Rings. The 1,000 page story is so complex and broad in scope that even the author of the books, J.R.R. Tolkien, said they could never be translated to film; word is he sold rights to MGM for a mere $10,000. There are many people, including the three of us, who are elated he was proven wrong.

As a writer, it’s practically impossible to read or see interviews with Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, the triumphant triumvirate who adapted the book for the big screen, and not take notes. Copious notes. (Henceforth, we’ll refer to Jackson, et al., as ‘filmmakers,’ though we feel it’s about as adequate as labeling Viggo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom and Sean Bean as ‘passably handsome,’ not to mention Elijah Wood, Karl Urban and David Wenham…not that they have anything to do with our love for the movie. Ahem.) So much of what the filmmakers did in creating and then editing their work is what we writers strive for when polishing a manuscript: pinpoint the heart of the story and stay true to it, cut what can be lost, and always direct conflict and pacing.

Okay, how did they do it? [Read more…]

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ANALYSIS: KING KONG, Part 2

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Yesterday, Kathleen and Therese dished--and disagreed--about the effectiveness of Peter Jackson's remade classic, King Kong. Here's part two of their roaring debate. Therese: What did you think about the authenticity aspect of the film? Kathleen: One thing PJ and co. do really well is set a mood. The music, the Depression-era culture, the rust-bucket boat...it was spot on. Show-biz America was just a fig-leaf over immense suffering, which fed everyone's desperation. So returning to Jack … [Read more...]

ANALYSIS: KING KONG

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Therese and Kathleen are both nerds extraordinaire when it comes to Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings. In fact, they crafted an article (along with co-nerd, Elena Greene) about writerly lessons that can be derived from the film, and the article was published last November in the romance association’s craft magazine, the RWR. So when we heard Peter Jackson and company were tackling King Kong together, we were excited, but—surprise!—we came away with very different feelings about this remade … [Read more...]

Sequelitis

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Before I start the main post, WU would like to wish everyone a happy vernal equinox. Go forth and clean out those closets! Disney has made a cottage industry of direct-to-video sequels of their famous classic films. As a parent, my DVD library is replete with Lion King II, Lady and the Tramp II, Little Mermaid II, Cinderella II…you get the picture. This year, Disney has finally come up with a sequel for their classic Bambi, called, yep, Bambi II. As far as their direct-to-video efforts go, … [Read more...]

Secrets of the Silver Screen: Escalating Tension

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One of the reasons I love talking about screenplays is that the story must be tight in a movie--characters and plot must be developed in ~2 hours--and so screenplays can yield easily highlighted lessons for the writer. As it turns out, I did take my kiddos to see Disney’s newest baby, Eight Below, this weekend. I’d read a few reviews about this flick, and I was especially interested in examining what Roger Ebert had to say about it working due to the emphasis placed on the dogs’ POV. While … [Read more...]

Secrets of the Silver Screen: Motivation

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I’d been thinking about Silence of the Lambs just the other day, so when I stumbled across it the other night while channel surfing, I set down the remote. SotL won five Oscars, including one for best adapted screenplay, so obviously the entire team did a lot of things right. But what I find most notable about this film from a writer’s perspective is the emphasis placed on motivation. In SotL, motivation isn’t just a necessary bit of fuel propelling the character toward his goal; it’s a … [Read more...]

Secrets of the Silver Screen: Authenticity

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I posted on the importance of authenticity in storytelling a few days ago and promised a glimpse at one of the big screen’s biggest authentic successes: When Harry Met Sally. If you ever have the opportunity to listen to the movie notes with director/producer Rob Reiner, take it. (In fact, I highly recommend viewing director notes in general, with a notebook and some form of writing utensil in hand. The directorial revelations are almost always enlightening from a writer’s POV.) If you listen to … [Read more...]

The Importance of Authenticity

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Truth: No one’s going to care about a story unless a goodly amount of their brain is sparkin’ along with you - invested, your willing captive for a few days or a few hours. Engaging a reader, or a viewer, requires authenticity on many levels, especially when it comes to characterization. I recently broke down and watched the most recent Star Wars movie, episode III. I’d been so disappointed with episodes I and II that I almost let it slide. I’m glad I didn’t. I nearly couldn’t breathe during … [Read more...]

Secrets of the Silver Screen: Telling

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Last week, I highlighted the novelist's golden rule: show but don’t tell. Well, guess what? Screenwriters break this rule all the time themselves. They can get away with writing, for example, “character is suddenly passionate” and “he’s really mad.” What the heck? Doesn’t this fly in the face of what I said about screenwriters showing through dialogue? Nope; it works with it. And I’m going to tell you why… It works with it, because the screenwriter is counting on actors and … [Read more...]

Secrets of the Silver Screen: Showing

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A script can’t be written like a novel. But can a novelist learn something by leaning over the shoulder of a screenwriter? Clear character action/reaction and dialogue make up 99% of a good script; a character's musings are nearly impossible to convey on the big screen. A novelist, on the other hand, can linger in character thought for pages—even chapters—on end. Bottom line: The screenwriter works on a girdled canvas. One book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Screenwriting points out an … [Read more...]

ANALYSIS: Serenity

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One of the things we like to do is analyze movies for the storytelling structure. Our latest film analysis is the Joss Whedon sci-fi flick, Serenity. Whedon’s movie is an outgrowth of his t.v. series Firefly. Fox TV abused the show by giving it crappy time slots and showing the episodes out of order before pulling the plug due to bad ratings (Whedon has famously declared he’ll never work with Fox again). The series found a home on the SciFi Network, and the respectful treatment helped it … [Read more...]