Today I was inspred by Studio System News’ list of the top 10 worst book to film adaptations (http://blogs.publishersweekly.com/blogs/PWxyz/2013/05/16/10-biggest-book-adaptation-flops/) to share this list of what some people consider are the worst movies ever made. I must stress that these are only movies I have personally watched. I can also stress that if the filmmakers read this, I want those hours of my life back.

But I’m not just being snarky, honest. What can we learn from this list of crimes against the imagination? That’s it darned hard to make a movie. Making a good movie is an acheivement on the scale of building the pyramids. And making a great one? Well, that’s almost always a happy accident.

In chronological order:

ROBOT MONSTER (1953)

In glorious 2-D!

Arguably the worst film dialogue of all time!

Consider:

“PROFESSOR: He’s dead, and there’s nothing we can do!”

or

“RO-MAN: I cannot – yet I must. How do you calculate that? At what point on the graph do “must” and “cannot” meet? Yet I must – but I cannot!”

PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE (1959)

As if it wasn’t bad enough watching a morphene-addicted Bela Lugosi struggle to do a bad Dracula impersonation, the quality control of this production is so bad I’ve seen children create more convincing plane cockpits out of furniture. Forget this “classic” turd and watch the Johnny Depp biopic instead. It’s way more entertaining.

THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES WHO STOPPED LIVING AND BECAME MIXED-UP ZOMBIES!? (1964)

This drive-in “cult classic” definitely does what it says on the tin. And that’s it. If you like shots of people pretending to eat chopped liver interspersed with forgettable song and dance numbers, this is your kind of movie.

JAWS 4: THE REVENGE

The original “Jaws” is one of the greatest horror movies of all time. This is not.

Featuring a rubber shark. An ending that copies Jaws 2. A whole film that is basically clips of the original. A shark that appears to have a personal dislike for the Brody family (maybe they have a shark grapevine). And my favourite, the roaring shark.

TROLL 2 (1990)

“Troll” was a daft but surprisingly entertaining film about a four foot troll that causes magical havoc by turning the inhabitants of a block of flats into monster-generating plants. The sequel bears little if no relvance to the original, is downright mean-spirited, contains some of the hammiest acting ever seen and dialogue that clunks louder than the chain-rattling ghost of its predecessor which can still be heard in the background.

BATTLEFIELD EARTH (2000)

Prepare for.. Travolta in dreadlocks?

This one is a humdinger, and one of the few terrible films that it’s worth watching just to see Travolta in “that” costume. A misfire on all levels. It has everything a bad movie needs: unintentionally funny scenes, awful dialogue, ridiculous plot twists (a caveman flying an F-16; aliens ignore the gold stored on Earth for centuries and resort to mining for it), bad SFX (said F-16s attacking in all their primitive CGI glory), and incomprehensible pseudo-alien babble like:

“CHIRK: I am going to make you as happy as a baby Psychlo on a straight diet of kerbango.”

THE 2000s!

Ah, the new milennium. So ripe with possibilities thanks to the wonderful filmmaker’s tool that is CGI. So many bad movies have been made using [insert CGI giant animal/weather effect here] that it is impossible to list them. May I suggest tuning into the SyFy channel any week night? This decade is noteworthy for filmmakers who just don’t give a damn about the end product.

Some noteworthy big budget disasers include…

CATWOMAN (2004)

Turned into part-cat (and all woman!) for some no good reason, Halle Berry wanders around in a bra and leather pants, ocassionally purring and eyeing up fish, while her CGI counterpart climbs tall buildings in stilettos. The script is such a mish-mash of rewrites that Berry’s cat changes from a “she” to a “he” during the movie. Berry later said, on collecting her Razzie award, “First of all, I want to thank Warner Brothers. Thank you for putting me in a piece of shit, god-awful movie… It was just what my career needed.”

ANY SYFY CHANNEL CREATURE/DISASTER MOVIE (2000s)

Dire programing at its best (and worst). These monster/weather mash-ups are like a child’s attempt to imitate a remotely successful picture. Featuring CGI! Models-turned-actors. Dull dialogue. Boring plot twists. A nonsensical catalyst that sets the ludicrious “hi-concept” premise rolling. Stereotypical characters with no depth. And one out-of-work formerly decent actor who fails to keep the whole thing from descending into the gutter.

Examples abound. but take for instance… DINOCROC! SHARKTOPUS! BOA vs PYTHON! MEGA PIRANHA!  DINOCROC vs SUPERGATOR! MEGA SHARK v GIANT OCTOPUS! MEGA SHARK vs CROCOSAURUS! MEGA PYTHON vs GATOROID! MEGAFAULT! GHOSTQUAKE! SNAKES ON A TRAIN! DINOSHARK! MAGMA: VOLCANIC DISASTER! VOLCANO IN NEW YORK!  QUANTUM APOLCALYPSE! POLAR STORM!

It’s a croc, all right.

The list goes on…

There are plenty more terrible movies out there. Movies that have cynicism ingrained in their pores. Movies that exist to make a quick buck and for no other reason. Movies that only a 13 year-old boy who has never seen movies and only plays the most retarded video games will enjoy. Movies like… ALONE IN THE DARK. SUPERBABIES 2. JACK AND JILL. EPIC MOVIE. DISASTER MOVIE. MEET THE SPARTANS.

There are also others that are not “bad” per se, just incompetent or botched or just down on their luck. Many of these movies go straight to DVD if we are lucky.

But what can we learn from the plethora of terrible CGI-driven creature/weather features?

1) A “hi-concept” is not always a good thing.

“It’s Jaws in Venice” might sound like a good movie. But it isn’t. Trust me.

2) Parodies and spoofs must go beyond simply reproducing scenes from original movies.

Unfortunately it appears that satire was killed off in the 19990s and has yet to make a return.

3) No amount of star power can save a turkey.

Consider “Movie 43”.

No go and rent some good movies!

When writing sci-fi or fantasy, you have to make the world even more believable than when writing straight fiction. This is because there are often fewer familiar points of reference for the viewer or reader. If you establish a rule in your universe, be careful not to break it, or you risk frustrating the reader, who is reminded that this is “just a movie”.

When watching the $130 million dollar blockbuster “Prometheus” recently, I was reminded about this. The writers noticeably worked on “Lost”, a TV series which existed by reversing the expectations of the viewer constantly, with little regard for plot logic or research. Now I love director Ridley Scott, but not as a writer. And in this movie, several daft plot devices revealed that logic was being sacrificed throughout the movie.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

For instance:

1. The Sumerians and the Babylons were never connected.

Despite the fact that the Babylonians were descended from the Sumerians, the “scientists” in the movie state that they had no contact with each other.

2. Aliens will destroy mankind for no apparent reason.

The aliens turn out not to be nice E.T.s but instead are intent on exterminating life on earth… which they created. Why? Who knows. They changed their minds. Maybe they watched Jerry Springer.

3.  Alien viruses will infect only the exact person you choose to infect, and will only cause female characters to have alien babies.

When the indiscriminate weapon of mass destruction is unleashed on the crew, it has a very specific effect. Despite having sex with someone infected, the heroine only manages to have a squid baby of her own.

 4. Aliens weapons of mass destruction are very very messy

So the alien ship is in fact a weapon. And the best way to exterminate another planet is… to breed a whole host of genetically unstable mutant monsters which can infect your DNA. If the Engineers were so advanced, surely they would have  a cleaner way to destroy planets. Like a really big laser?

5. Our ancestors were much bigger and blue

Maybe the writers had just watched Avatar.

6. Androids are confused

David the homicidal android (sounds like Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy) decides to punish Daddy for being a disappointment. How does he do this? By following his orders implicitly. Hmm.

7. You can achieve immortality by killing mankind

Peter Weyland’s big plan for living forever? Infect the crew with the DNA altering disease. But how does this help his plans, you ask? What if they return to Earth and infect the planet? What indeed…

8. Caesarian surgery isn’t too bad after all

A few minutes (no seconds actually) after having  caesarian surgery (performed by a machine designed only for male patients, no less) our heroine is up and about, running around and trapping her squid baby. Hours later, the pain of surgery will come back to cripple her at inopportune moments when running from bad guys.

9. Iceland must be a nice place to visit

The big opening shots of Icelandic volcanos, ice fields etc. which segue to the Engineer in Iceland swallowing poison serve…no purpose whatsoever. Unless it’s to hammer home the fact that alien poison is a VERY BAD THING. Cut to pointless shots of DNA.

Sadly, the opening shot of the alien also serves to rob the first hour of the film of any tension. What could have been an interesting journey to discover our origins turns out to be a moot point. We already know there are aliens. So when we find them, it’s not much of a surprise.

10. Dead characters can come back and attack you for no reason

When one of the characters died horribly (his face melted off no less), imagine my surprise when he appeared a half hour later, very much alive and with his face! Said character then attacks crew for no reason, looking like a very frazzled extra from the Matrix.

11. Scientists are stupid

When the crew reach the alien mound, they can’t wait to take off their helmets and expose themslevs to any virulent alien disease that might be there, even though they know the aliens died unexpectedly from… something.

12. Don’t stroke the wildlife

An extension of the above. When you see a large and threatening alien snake (that even hisses at you!) do not be tempted to pat it on the head and tell it how beautiful it is. Chances are it won’t appreciate the gesture.

13. Steven Stills played accordion

According to the ship’s captain, who has the legendary 1960s guitarist’s very own squeezebox. WHY does he have this squeezebox, you might ask? You might ask. But you will never find out. It’s one of those “character tics” lecturers in film school tell you to give every minor character.

14. Androids have very weak necks

These supreme advacements in robotics are notorious for their very weak neck joints. So if one attacks you, you can always rip its head right off.

15. Human+Squid = Xenomorph

It’s true. Although the alien might not “look” like a combination of human and giant squid, it actually is. Oh, and it can reproduce asexually. And you thought it needed a queen to lay all those eggs… tsk.

16. Aliens have ego issues.

The most promoted image of Prometheus was the big giant head in the spaceship. Which serves no purpose whatsoever. One scientist muses that they might have a god. That’s it.

17. When running from an enormous spaceship, go in the wrong direction.

This one was a doozy. Two women run from an enorous crashing hoop-shaped spaceship. Which way do they run? Not to the side, of course, but underneath it. Oh, and when one of them does have the sense to dive to the side at the last minute, the ship comes crashing down on her, only to be stopped from crushing her by a bit of rock. Seriously, this is a million ton spaceship. Wouldn’t there be a crater or something?

I’ll stop there, because just like the writers, I can’t be bothered any more. “Prometheus” does have its moments. But the horror is more the squirmy, icky kind than the suspenseful kind, which made the first Alien movie so effective. What’s more infruriating is that the characters are so forgettably stupid and inconsistent. When Shaw says “I’m still looking” at the end of the movie, we wonder… for what?

I’m sure the writers don’t care about this column. But if you want to write a really great script, make sure your plot makes sense and doesn’t rely on stroytelling gimmicks. Then maybe your movie will last longer than its opening weekend.

Most people’s attention span is

See what I did there?

Yep, people hate doing… pretty much anything actually. And if they do positively have to do something, they do it with the minimum of effort. Just the natural law of conservation of energy.

Sometimes that means forgetting to read right up to the

See what I did again?

Just checking you’re still with me.

For some writers, that natural laziness takes another form. Spewing forth a torrent of textual diarrhoea without editing it.

Failing to edit action lines is my number one pet hate. When you’re trying to read scripts, several in a day, the last thing you want is to be faced with impenetrable blocks of 10-line textual description of how someone pulls up in their car, gets out of their car, closes the door, locks the door, walks up to a building, searches for his keys, finds his keys, puts them in the lock, opens the door, and goes inside, shutting the door behind him.

Especially when you could just say: “He pulls up in his car, gets out, and enters the house”.

In fact, why do we need to see his car? He could just enter the house.

Yes, you will see huge amounts of text in some celebrated produced screenplays. But when you’ve got that Oscar, then you can afford to be lazy too. Maybe.

In the meantime, your path to success may be much imporved by some judicious editing. Read produced screenplays. When I was starting out I loved Eric Red’s screenplays. I tried to copy their style to get the feel of Hollywood scriptwriting.

Hollywood action lines are…

Punchy.

Confident.

Terse.

Use non-literal verbs to whammy you into a reaction!

Are short.

The emphasis is on the last one. NO MORE THAN 3 LINES IN A PARAGRAPH. There, I said, it. And if you’re realy good, fewer will suffice. For example, here’s the opening scene of “Blade” written by David S Goyer:

INT. HOSPITAL, INNER-CITY TRAUMA WARD – NIGHT

It’s 1967, the Summer of Love and —

BOOM! Entry doors swing open as PARAMEDICS wheel in a FEMALE BLEEDER, VANESSA (20s, black, nine months pregnant). She’s deathly pale, spewing founts of blood from a savagely slashed throat —

A SHOCK-TRAUMA TEAM swarms over her, inserting a vacutainer into an
artery to draw blood, wrapping a blood pressure cuff around her
arm —

NURSE #1
(with stethoscope)
She’s not breathing!

SENIOR RESIDENT
Intubate her!

Goyer is very clever here. He uses very few words to set up a complex, exciting scene. It’s helped by his use of precise medical terms which are nevertheless clear enough so a layman knows what he means. The blood “spews” from her throat. The team of medics “swarm” over her. The non-standard verbs are powerful, descriptive.

So… hone your word count down. Never use two words when one will do. Get rid of redundant words like “down” in “he sits down”. Where else would he sit?

Screenwriting action lines is like crafting scrimshaw. You score away at it until what is left is hopefully beautiful.

Less is definitely more.

Yes, it’s true.

“Vicious Verses and Reanimated Rhymes” from Coscom Entertainment has been out a while now and it’s sold pretty well. So well, in fact, that there’s only one copy left on www.amazon.co.uk.  Well, what are you waiting for? That copy could be yours!

It’s not like any garden of verses you’ve been in before!

I’m pretty happy with the way this one turned out. And I get to brush literary shoulders with the likes of Steve Rasnic Tem. I may have to write some more poetry soon…

You can find it here http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vicious-Verses-Reanimated-Rhymes-Zombie/dp/1897217951/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1366048742&sr=1-4&keywords=eric+ian+steele

Been a while since my last post, so here is something I hope is truly useful.

HOW TO SELL TO HOLLYWOOD

Hollywood is a long way from Britain. A very long way. Yet, thanks to the Internet and telephone, it isn’t!

Over the years I’ve devised a number of plans to get my scripts into the hands of people in LA. I’m not saying this is THE way to sell a script. If I was, I would be so rich and successful I wouldn’t NEED a blog. But these are steps that have worked for me in the past .

So in no particular order, here are my steps for selling to Hollywood.

Just don’t forget to thank me when you write that blockbuster.

1. Write a really, really great script.

Possibly the hardest step.

2. Feedback

They say insanity and genius are separated by a hair’s breadth. But how to tell if you’re one or the other?

Ask people.

BEWARE. There are many “gurus” who will take even more money to give you generic, unhelpful, even destructive “feedback”. Even well-meaning folks can send you on a wild goose chase. More on this in another post. But at some stage you will need to navigate this potentially expensive minefield to find out if you have chicken breast or chicken shit  (as my dad says).

3. Go to Oxbridge or Eton, come from a long line of film or theatrical producers, be born into the aristocracy, or join RADA at the age of six.

Sound discouraging? Good.

Because these are the TOP ways that people in the UK become Hollywood screenwriters. There, I said it. Your suspicions were justified. Nepotism is rife. Pod people really are everywhere. Don’t believe me? Go check out their bios.

Yes, it’s disheartening to know that the odds are stacked aginst you. In fact, this is the number one reason everyone I know who quits screenwriting uses to justify their decision. As William Goldman says in his excellent “Adventures in the Screen Trade”, in Britain, if your father is a blacksmith, you better like shoeing horses.

Of course, if you’re still reading this, then you have the burning ambition and drive to succeed against the odds. You are Han Solo piloting your rusty, war-torn script through the asteroid field of Hollywood gatekeepers, pursued by the Imperial Star Destroyers of poverty and family pressure.

Good for you. Now read on…

4. Get familiar with Word and Excel

For us mere ordinary folks, we need more than just a pedigree worthy of Shergar.

You need to keep a record of everyone you’ve sent your script to. This will avoid the embarassing mistake of sending it out twice to  the same agent/manager/producer.

5. List your own industry contacts

I always try these first. Be selective. Don’t bug them too often. Treat them like the customer who comes into your literary restaurant and always spends well.

6. List companies and individuals who accept unsolicited submissions

This is the equivalent of Will Smith going head to head with all those alien fighters in Independence Day but sometimes, just sometimes, it can pay off. Think of it as a numbers game. After all, you resulted from the same process…

7. Get help from other companies

This requires some discretion on your part. There are many companies who will gladly take your money (lots of it) and promise nothing in return. It’s up to you which companies you choose. But experience has taught me that producers do not respond with rapt enthusiasm to yet another unsolicited, mass-produced email landing in their private inbox. Logically, you are more likely to have success with targeted submissions, or submissions to people actually looking for new material.

Listing sites offer the best value for money. Some of them are even free. Producers scouring the net for scripts sign up for these sites and can then search under specific criteria. So you are less  likely to get a producer who specializes in family-friendly pet movies soliciting your R-rated slasher script (Now there’s an idea).

8. Use online tools

Again, there are many of these. I haven’t used it yet myself, but IMDB pro looks like a very useful tool to find out who is making your kind of movies. Whether they will accept your submissions, however, is another story.

9. The dreaded query letter

Remember when people used to write letters, using real paper?

Some gurus say the query letter is dead. But remember, this is an industry where nobody knows anything.

Just don’t do anything CRAZY… like sending your script out in a radioactive container with a guy in a HAZMAT suit (been done, honest). That is not the way to win friends and influence people.

Also, don’t do what someone else did recently and take our a full page ad in Varierty telling Harrison ford you’ve got the perfect script for him. Something tells me Harrison won’t be calling any time soon.

10. The even more dreaded actual telephone call

Amazingly, you can actually speak to an agent in LA by picking up the phone. Turns out these people have offices. Sure, you might get the bum’s rush by the receptionist who can’t understand your thick Geordie accent, or the gatekeeper who gives you a stern “no unsolicited submissions” then hangs up. But so what? Just don’t lie to get through to the agent. Yes, I did that once.  Well, it wasn’t technically lying… and actually they agreed to read my script, which sucked (See step 1).

11. One step beyond

Don’t, repeat… DO NOT…. pitch in social situations. Not unless you’re asked. Do not follow execs into toilets and pitch them at the urinal (yup, been done… not by me, I hasten to add). Do not give your business card to your studio tour guide while on vacation.

A tip if you ever go to LA (and you should)… EVERYBODY wants to be in the movies. From your barrista to your taxi driver.

Separate yourself from the herd by being professional. For the sake of sanity.

I’m about to embark on some major selling sprees, so I’ll keep you updated as to the progress of these steps.

Meanwhile, keep writing!