The speech went well. Only snag was my friend just *happened* to be sick that day so I was stuck with his class for the entire three hours when I had only prepared enough for and hour and a half. (Well, one hour with half an hour for questions/discussion.)
Sadly, many of the writers in the class were asking me about how to make it in Hollywood, what types of scripts will sell, how to break in to the business. I say "sadly" because at that stage the only thing they should worry about is *writing*. You can buy a one-way ticket to Hollywood any time you want but if you don't have a suitcase (3-6) full of the scripts that you are confident about then you're going to have a very hard time getting anywhere. And most importantly you need to have learned all the basics of how to write a script, story structure, format, etc. as well.
Then you can worry about how to fit a dozen young starlets into a 10-seat Hummer limo.
Anyway, as part of preparing for the lecture I had dusted off my Universal Studios Monsters collection and re-watched some of the classics. If you've never seen them, I highly recommend them. There is much to learn, and they are just great films. Most only run 60-70 minutes because at the time (the '30's) a feature film was only part of the show, which also featured newsreels, cartoons, live organ playing, etc.
The Wolfman, for example, has some GREAT lines ("A man can get lost in the mazes of his mind,") and is the origin for the werewolf poem featured in the new version, and many other places. All the films' screenplays are much more "on the nose" in the style of their writing. That is, things are usually clearly stated, in a manner that would sound awkward in real life. (Like when a man, alone in a room says, "Perhaps he left the will in that chest over there!") But besides the antiquated style the films are very effective. The stories are told quickly and clearly, yet they never feel rushed.
So far I've rewatched The Invisible Man (fantastic- the effects must have blown people's minds back then), Frankenstein (also fantastic, probably the best of the bunch), The Wolfman (yup- fantastic, I even prefer the tranformation scenes in this to the modern, CG version. They are really creepy.), The Mummy (great, but a little slow), Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (it sounds silly with that title, but it's also a great film). Next up is The Invisible Man Returns (which I've never seen), and Dracula (which I recall not liking that much, we'll see).
Go rent (or Netfilx) any of these movies to expand you knowledge of film making and script writing. Please don't think that all these so-called "great" old films are just fond memories in baby boomers' minds and outdated and not worth your time. Trust me- besides Dracula none of the recent remakes improves on the original, and most are much worse. (I think of Hollow Man as a The Invisible Man remake and good lord- if there was ever an argument that money and fancy effects alone won't make a good film this is it. Hollow Man's effects are absolutely amazing, yet the low-tech 1933 film blows it away). You'll also get to enjoy some really amazing performances by the likes of Boris Karloff, Claude Rains, Lon Chaney, and Bela Legosi as the monsters.
And trust me, I have no soft spot for old, "classic" films. I remember watching Citizen Cane in film school and thinking "
This is the greatest movie of all time? No . . ." But there
are many amazing old films and you shouldn't be afraid to explore them just because they are old and don't have the technical finesse that you've become accustomed to with newer films. (Or Dolby Digital THX surround sound, computer-generated spaceships levelling cities, buckets of blood, and
3D.)
I just hope you don't get
too scared-
