A little like this…Comedy writers everywhere breathed a sigh of relief a week or so ago, when the California State Supreme Court ruled in the case of Amaani Lyle vs. Warner Brothers Television.

Ms. Lyle, who had been working as a writers’ assistant for the show Friends, alleged that she experienced sexual harrassment on the job because the writers spoke graphically and disturbingly about sex.

She’s right about that second part. You can read her description of the sort of things they said (and her account seems accurate enough to me) here.

She lost.

Thank God.

Put aside the fact that Ms. Lyle was warned before taking the job that she would be required to be in a room where writers often spoke graphically and offensively. Put aside the fact that Ms. Lyle’s response to that warning was “No problem.”

Comedy writing rooms are, and must be, completely free. The entire point of comedy is to subvert. That’s what makes things funny. Anything that any one person finds funny is sure to be found obnoxious or offensive by someone else.

Anything.

I will go on record with the following.

I work in comedy rooms. I have committed the following sins in comedy rooms, all in the service of trying to be funny.

Racism, sexism, ageism, elitism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, mockery of the disabled, mockery of the mentally ill, mockery of the mentally retarded, mockery of Jesus Christ, mockery of children, mockery of child abuse, mockery of rape, mockery of domestic violence…and last but not least…the occasional celebration of pedophilia, necrophilia, beastiality and any other paraphilia you can think of.

On occasion, those sins lead to some very funny jokes that mass audiences have paid to see and enjoyed.

A lot of times, those sins either lead to jokes that never saw the light of day, or led to other, cleaner jokes, that did.

People often enjoy comedy that tiptoes up to the line. To write that sort of comedy, though, you need to be free to cross the line entirely…and then pull yourself back. It’s essential, really. It doesn’t make me a racist, Jesus-hating homphobe who kills children and porks dogs. It just makes me someone who likes making people laugh with touchy issues.

How else to characterize comedy writers…like the guys who wrote the following monologue for The 40 Year Old Virgin?

Mooj: Life is about people. It’s about connections.
Andy Stitzer: It’s all about connections.
Mooj: It’s not about cocks, and ass, and tits.
Andy Stitzer: Yeah.
Mooj: And butthole pleasures.
Andy Stitzer: It’s not about butthole pleasures at all.
Mooj: It’s not about these rusty trombones, and these dirty sanchez.
Andy Stitzer: Please stop.
Mooj: And these cincinatti bowties, and these pussy juice cocktail, and these shit stained balls.
Andy Stitzer: Mooj, just please stop.

Amaani Lyle is a woman who apparently wanted to be in the steak business, but when she was asked to mop up the blood in the backroom killing floor, she decided not only that it was gross…but that it was harming her to be there.

And so, she sued Warner Brothers Television for subjecting her to the hazardous environment of the Friends writing room.

The judges happily disagreed, although they didn’t really go far enough. The majority opinion ruled that being offensive is obviously a necessary freedom for creative people, and that since the writers clearly weren’t singling this woman out or even referring to her in any way, it was obviously not a case of harrassment.

The other judge, Justice Chin, agreed with the decision, but wanted to make the ruling on 1st Amendment grounds.

Creativity is, by its nature, creative. It is unpredictable. Much that is not obvious can be necessary to the creative process. Accordingly, courts may not constitutionally ask whether challenged speech was necessary for its intended purpose.

Well put, brother Chin.

The way I think of it is this: it is impossible to conceive of an America in which filmgoers could sue the filmmakers for offending them with violent, sexual or otherwise objectionable film content.

Why should the people paid to take our notes be able to sue us for creating that content in their presence and speaking it aloud?

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Don’t get fooled again…A few months back, I wrote about the prospective peace deal being hammered about between the Writers Guild of Amerca, west and the Writers Guild of America East.

At that time, I felt that the deal wasn’t a bad one because at the very least, we’d finally get the WGAE to improve their membership standards, which are basically non-existent.

Here’s what’s happened since.

The membership standards thing never came to pass.

And even worse, new language was thrown in that now means that credit arbitrations involving WGAE writers can be administered by the WGAE. The problem with that?

Well, if you’re a first writer or a spec writer, you should know that the WGAE is slanted towards rewriters. Far more disconcerting however, is that they do not have a real Credits Department. They don’t have the staff, the don’t have the lawyers, they don’t have the experience.

Credits arbitration is extremely time-consuming, difficult, potentially litigious and always stressful. Our credits staff, which is nearly the size of the entire staff of the WGAE, barely keeps their heads above water…and now we’re going to outsource credit arbitrations to an organization with little to no experience or resources?

Folks, I believe in finding and making a good deal with the WGAE. I want peace. I just don’t want bad peace. This agreement was rushed to meet artificial deadlines. Important rights, like the right of any WGAw or WGAE member to choose the union to which they’d like to belong are scheduled for outright elimination.

It’s bad. Bad, bad, bad. Do NOT vote for this thing.

If you are a member in good standing of the WGAw and you’d like to support my efforts to defeat this very flawed scheme, consider lending your name to a statement written by a former Board member against the proposals. Here is the text. If you want to support it, simply email Barbara Ditlow at the WGAw and say, “I wish to add my name in support to Tim O’Donnell’s statement against the proposed changes to our constitution.”

You have until Wednesday to get your emails in. If you know other WGAw members, please alert them as well. If these poorly thought-out changes are approved, we are in for some very rough days.

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Even grouches have
good days…At this point, it’s fairly safe to say that Scary Movie 4 will be the number one film this weekend, and it will have opened to a rather large sum of money.

That’s a good thing.

I’ve been through this opening weekend ritual a few times now. Sometimes, it’s been good. Sometimes, it’s been tragic. It’s always fascinating, and as a writer, I inevitably face a weird moment where I try and decide if I actually succeeded or not.

Seems like it would be an easy thing to determine, right?

On the one extreme, occupied by some critics and graduate students, film is a qualitative absolute. There is good, there is bad, and they will use their amazing minds and sharpened perspective to tell you what films are which.

I reject that, merely on the evidence that these absolute arbiters of quality routinely disagree with each other.

On the other extreme, there’s total relativism. All criticism is rejected as meaningless (“They hated Citizen Kane!,” say those folks), and popularity is viewed as a better determinant of success.

The problem is that total relativism isn’t very useful either, because it’s impossible to write something specifically to be popular. In order to be popular, you have to be something…and what is that something? If we reject the notion of some kind of inherent quality, then what the hell is guiding us when we do this stuff?

And so, we descend into the metaphysics of quality. Given that this very question is part of what drove Robert Pirsig insane for a while, I’m not going to gaze into that abyss too deeply.

I will, however, address a few of my critics.

Scary Movie 4 got the same range of reviews that SM3 got, and according to David Zucker, it’s the same range of reviews that Airplane! got and Naked Gun got as well.

They run from “This is lowbrow stupidity and it’s incredibly unfunny” to “It’s occasionally funny but not funny enough” to “It’s often funnier than not” to “This was really funny and smartly stupid.”

I’ll paraphrase a few things that critics say over and over and over (don’t they read each other?).

“If you don’t like one joke, wait ten seconds. Another is on its way!”

“It’s not up to Zucker’s classics like Airplane!, but it’s still funny.” (for Airplane!, it was the same review, but replace “Airplane!” with “The Marx Brothers” or “Bily Wilder” or some other comedy totem)

“Scary Move 4 fails to scare up laughs.” (good lord…there’s like 1,000 versions of that crappy pun)

“Another stupid movie full of mindless, pointless slapstick aimed at the bottom of the barrel.”

“Scary Movie 4 isn’t a parody at all.”

Those last two annoy me. I honestly don’t mind if a critic doesn’t think the movie is funny, and our comedy is definitely mindless and pointless, but I really hate it when they insult the audience. One critic complained that this movie couldn’t possibly appeal to anyone like her with a three-digit IQ.

At the risk of being proud, odds are I’m smarter than her. And I love the movie.

The parody comment is also odd, because when critics complain about Scary Movie 4 not being a proper movie parody or spoof, what they really seem to be complaining about is that it’s not a satire. They bemoan the lack of insightful barbs or witty critique.

They don’t get it.

We don’t do satire. We like it when other people like Moliere and South Park do satire, but it’s not what we do.

I fear that I’ve turned this essay into a bitter complaint about our critics, when the truth is that I was really happy with the reviews. The vast majority, both good and bad, were honestly fair.

My favorite is probably this one, not just because it’s very favorable, but because the reviewer truly understands how we approach these films. I don’t mind if people don’t like the results, but I really hate it when they misunderstand our intentions.

Anyway, after all that, it’s as clear as day to me that the film was a success. It achieved our intentions.

We really wanted to entertain our audience. We know who they are. We know what they like. We did our best to make the majority of them laugh for the majority of the time. We could have done better. I’d like to do better next time (and yeah, you know there’s gonna be a next time). Still, we did pretty damned well, and I think we did it all with love.

See, unlike some of the nastier critics who scorn the audience itself for laughing, we love them, because we are them. We may be older than many of them, but David and I have a very healthy love for the juvenile and silly. We always will. When we make these movies, the two of us are really trying to make each other laugh…and if we’re both laughing, we just assume the people we love will also laugh.

Usually they do. Sometimes…not so much.

But if we can ignore the distractions and the smirkers and satirists and irony-peddlers and the jaded and fight our way through the schedule problems and the production problems and the budget problems and still get something “cleverly stupid” on screen (as the New York Times said), and the people we love enjoy it…

…then I feel like a success.

So if you’re one of those people, and you know whom you are and whom you ain’t, I’m honestly sorry if you didn’t like the film, and I’m honestly thrilled if you did.

The rest of ya? Give it a chance. You might turn out to be a merry idiot like me.

The takeaway for those of us who write films for a living is simply this. Who do you love? Write for them. If you love the critics, write for them. If you love women, write for them. If you love young people, write for them. But always write with love.

You just might get loved back!

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If you’re a new arrival from Creative Screenwriting or the L.A. Times or any other place in which I’ve been shilling Scary Movie 4 and this site, welcome to our humble abode. Most of the articles are under The Craft & Trade, but there’s lots to see and do here. Use the navbar near the top of the page, or scroll through the archives in the right column.

Also, join our Forum, an active discussion community of aspiring and pro screenwriters. The forum includes a chat room, and without giving away too many details, at least two users have laid the foundation for screenwriting deals in the chat room, so it’s good for the purse as well as the mind.

This is a busy weekend (natch), but I should have an essay up tomorrow ruminating on critics, success and what it all means for screenwriters.

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The premiere of Scary Movie 4 is this Monday. What better time to contemplate what an enormous failure I am? Of course, it’s not my choice. Stupid blog tag things. Stupid, stupid, stupid blog tags! Why must you torment me? Well, the way I see it, once August does it, I’m a jerk for not doing it.

Thanks, August.

This latest survey comes from frequent commenter Kevin Arbouet. I shall do my best to answer these questions honestly, although it hurts. It really hurts.

WHAT’S THE WORST THING YOU’VE EVER WRITTEN?

Hmm. Probably the first script I ever wrote with my then-partner. We thought we were so goddamned funny, and we were. Unfortunately, the script read like a 100 page live-action Simpsons episode. Had it been filmed, it would have been the worst movie ever. Ever. EVER.

WHAT’S THE WORST LINE YOU’VE EVER WRITTEN?

In my adapation of Harvey, a female character confronts a womanizing guy with what her friend once said about him.

KELSO: What was Lara’s line about you? (remembers) “Dr. Sachs, the man who put the comma in ‘drop dead, gorgeous’.”

Wow. Where to begin? Well, for starters, I loved that line when I wrote it, because I thought it was ohhhhh so clever. Unfortunately, it feels like a line. In fact, it’s a line about line. No, it’s a line about a line about line. There’s single quotes inside double quotes inside dialogue! Ridiculous. And precious. Argghhh.

WHAT’S THE WORST ADVICE YOU’VE EVER GIVEN?

“Don’t quit Princeton. You’ve only got one year left. If you drop out now and don’t get your degree, you will regret it for the rest of your life.”

That’s me in 1992 talking to a friend named Linus Upson. Linus dropped out. Then he went to work for Steve Jobs. Then he invented AvantGo. Then he invented some other crap I don’t understand, but it made him a lot of money. Then he invented this new spam filter called Qurb. He’s doing fine. I was wrong. Totally, completely wrong.

WHAT’S THE ONE TIME YOU KNOW YOU SHOULD HAVE SPOKEN UP BUT YOU DIDN’T?

When I was a kid, someone made a nasty comment about Jews. See, I don’t have a very typical Jewish last name, and I look vaguely Italian or something-ish, so I suppose this other kid figured I was Catholic like him.

I said nothing.

I think I said nothing more to avoid his embarrassment, but the result was that I was the one left feeling shame.

WHAT’S THE WORST PITCH MEETING YOU’VE EVER HAD?

This is an easy one.

Years ago, my then-partner and I worked with Betty Thomas on a pitch, and then went to pitch it to a producer we’ll call Eric. Naturally, it was a comedy, and I was already friendly with Eric, so it was very casual and fun. About five minutes into the pitch, Eric’s assistant walks into the conference room, which is highly unusual, as assistants are trained to stay out of pitch meetings.

She’s ghostly white.

She says she has a call for Eric and he needs to get it RIGHT NOW.

He gets up and walks to his office. All of us are left in the room, hoping that it’s not something awful. About a minute passes, and then Eric goes RUNNING BY, yelling at us as he goes.

“I HAVE TO GO!”

And he’s gone. We’re shocked. The assistant returns. I ask her if everything’s okay. She’s crying. Crying! “No. You guys should go.”

Shaken, we all head over to the reception area, when the assistant comes running back toward us.

“Don’t go! Eric’s coming back.”

Are you kidding?

He rushes out of the elevator, back into the room, out of breath, pale. Apparently, Eric’s wife put their newborn daughter in the crib, took a shower, came back out…and the baby was gone. Kidnapped. Stolen.

Turns out the babysitter had arrived on the wrong day, took the kid for a stroll around the block, and all’s well.

Eric asked us to finish the pitch.

Ouch.

WHO’S THE ONE PERSON YOU’D NEVER WORK WITH AGAIN AND AREN’T AFRAID TO NAME?

James Gunn. Not that there would ever be a circumstance in which we would work together again, but you asked, so I’ll answer. I think James is a really talented guy, but he’s not my cup of tea. At all. And I ain’t his.

WHAT’S THE WORST SCRIPT IDEA YOU’VE EVER HAD?

Probably this one.

WHAT’S THE WORST THING ABOUT YOU BEING ON SET?

I tend to get blabby with the actors, and that pisses the 1st AD off.

WHAT’S YOUR WORST WORKING HABIT?

John August described his as going back over yesterday’s work before moving on to today’s work, which I also do, but I think of that as a good habit, so there you go.

My worst working habit is feeling like I need to know the scene before I start writing it. Sometimes, I think I’d be better off just starting the writing and seeing where it takes me.

WHAT’S THE WORST MISTAKE YOU’VE EVER MADE?

Starting smoking. So stupid. Seven years of it. I quit ten years ago, and thank God, but it was really hard, and I hope I didn’t do any permanent damage.

36 Comments »

Oh baby…Ladies and Gentlemen, I have seen the future. You can too, in ten days. On April 14, Scary Movie 4 will be the first major motion picture release to have been filmed with the Panavision Genesis HD system. It’s not the first film to go into production with the Genesis, but because we’re so damned speedy, we’ll be the first to the marketplace. This summer, you can see another small film shot on Genesis called Superman Returns.

First, let me apologize for this essay, which has absolutely nothing to do with screenwriting. I’m just so damned enthusiastic about this thing, and I want to sing its praises.

The Genesis uses standard 35 mm lenses, and the image quality is exceptional. It doesn’t look like video. It looks like incredibly detailed film. What’s more, when the digital files are ultimately scanned to film, they look exactly like film…because they are film.

The real benefits of the Genesis are in the way it makes production and post-production so much easier.

With film, you’re always checking the gate after your setups. You still check “the gate” with the Genesis, but it’s not really a gate (the chamber through which the film travels). It’s the gap between the lens and the camera body. As such, there’s almost never any hairs or dirt in there to necessitate do-overs.

The HD tapes are long, so you don’t waste as much time changing mags, and you never have to worry about spooling out during a long take. Watching dailies is a joy. With film, you can usually “rock n’ roll” backwards and forwards, but sometimes the projector won’t even let you do that, so it’s once through and then back to work. With HD, you can freeze frame dailies and replay moments at will. The Genesis dailes also look much much much better than your typically under- or over-lit one-light 35mm daily transfers.

But the real benefits are in post. All visual effects are less lossy; instead of going from 35mm to digital back to 35mm, you stay in digital until you’re ready for the final film out. Opticals are not lossy at all…no need to do optical fades, optical dissolves, etc. Also, you have a TON more latitude when it’s time to color correct. Digital images are much easier to manipulate and adjust than photochemical ones. It’s the difference between using a laser and a shotgun.

There’s no such thing as negative dirt or film scratches, and because there’s no film travel, the registration is perfect, so the subtitles and credits don’t dance around.

There’s no negative cutting! Think about that! No splices to deal with EVER.

Maybe the single greatest benefit of the Genesis, however, is the way it allows you to blow images up. The need for blow-ups is almost inevitable. There’s a boom that dips into frame, or maybe there’s a flag peeking in, or maybe you wish you had gotten a more extreme close up than the one you shot…etc.

With 35mm, you can blow stuff up about 15% before it starts to get really grainy and milky and take you out of the movie.

With the Genesis? We blew one shot up by 250 percent. We can barely tell. The audience? Not at all…especially after you film-out all of the HD so that the blown-up shot gets the same proportion of grain as the non-blown up shots. 250% vs 15%! The media is unbelievably versatile.

One thing to be aware of is that the viewfinder on the Genesis isn’t a reflex lens like the kind you find on a 35mm camera. It’s actually a video tap, and as such, there’s a (very) slight delay between reality and what the operator sees. Therefore, if you’re shooting things like sports or car chases where you need perfect precision operating, the Genesis might not be for you. Of course, this will be perfected in the near future (it’s currently like this because of shutter and light issues…give it two or three years and they’ll have a new system with a reflex viewfinder).

In about 15 years, when the studios and exhibitors finally get their acts together and come up with digital delivery systems and digital projectors, it’s my belief that film will be dead. Images will never touch emulsion again. And from what I’ve seen, abandoning film will cost us little or nothing in warmth and quality, and gain us so very much more.

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