The Hunger Games and Human Sacrifice

Here is a good story analysis of the truth behind The Hunger Games (THG). I have not seen the movie or read the book, but as I've said all along in my Moral Premise writings, any project that connects with audiences well (and THG may be ready to set an all time record for connecting with the masses) there is truth at its core. Fr. Barron suggests what that truth is, as well as providing a good and concise analysis of the human condition throughout history and the story antecedents for THG. This also reminds me of Polti's "The 36 Dramatic Situations" -- it's hard to come up with something truly unique.

MARTY. Thanks for Considering.

Marty said he's too busy to come to our conference. Understood. But I worked so hard at getting this graphic to look like it was really on the side of this bus, I'm going to leave it up.

Backstory: We had been trying to get Martin Scorsese's answer to our invitation to come to the Biola Media Conference, May 5 and be interviewed on stage. But he was so busy with the attention that HUGO received and the subsequent Academy Awards that the film was nominated for and won, that we were far down the pecking order to even get someone to call us back. We sent several invitations to him at his NY office, to his publicist, his business partner, we've sent flowers to the publicist's assistant. No response. So, the sign on the bus was next-to-the-last effort. We didn't have enough money to actually rent bus-sides and parade them up and down 5th Ave, so we found this image of a bus,  created the ad to match, printed off an 8 x 10 print and  priority mailed it to his office.  Someone thought Donald Trump paid for them. Who knows. Maybe Marty actually saw this and told his publicist he was too busy to deal with such people. LOL! We still like his movies. He's in a class by himself.

The 11 Story Imperatives & Log Line Mugs

Trying to be of help, here. Imagine, as you're writing, and every time you grab for your drink you're reminded of the 11 Story Imperatives or the Log Line elements that every story needs to succeed. I've culled these from my experience consulting on screenplays in Hollywood, my own writing, and research form successful and not so successful motion pictures.

They are available at The Moral Premise Story Shop at Cafe Press. Only modestly marked up.
http://www.cafepress.com/moralpremisestoryshop


Readable graphics of what's on the mugs, tumblers, glasses, etc are available at the Moral Premise Writing Aids web page.  http://www.moralpremise.com/storyaids.php

An written explanation of the Log Line mug and its graphic is HERE:

An written explanation of the Story Mug Shot mug a its graphic is HERE:

 Let me know if these help. The more you grab for that mug, the more you'll learn.

Creating Emote Pacing Charts of a Story

Alex Melii asked how the emote charts were created in an earlier post on Rollercoaster Story Pacing Charts.

I recently created a chart for a different version of the same screenplay mentioned in the above post. It's now titled PARABELLUM. It's an teen-wartime-actionier story. 

In 1943, near Berlin, a rebellious 14-year old German girl dares to battle her mother's fiancé, a blood-thirsty S.S. Colonel, to rescue her Jewish friends from the ghetto before they’re liquidated. If you wish for peace, PARABELLUM. 

That genre and log line will explain the severe up and down slopes of the chart below, and the sustained high emotion of the final scenes.

As I explained in the earlier post about charts, the first time we created this chart for the script, there was this long slow (no action) part in the middle that obviously was out of place in a wartime-actionier script. So, those scenes were brushed, which also helped to shorten the story and get it below the 120 page limit, and closer to the 110 ideal.

At this point I explained (in a previous version of this post) how I took the Scene Length and Dialogue information from a Final Draft Report, and converted into data that generated the above chart. But in trying to do it again, the instructions were just too long and confusing, so I deleted it all.

What I would do to day is discussed here: https://moralpremise.blogspot.com/2019/07/ensuring-good-roller-coaster-ride-for_3.html

The Writer's 12 Step Program

I "teach" a Story Symposium once a month for 3 hours on a Saturday afternoon. As is typical of these "teaching" experiences, the first 1/2 of the class (first semester, first year) goes swimmingly, and everyone does their homework, and comes prepared. (Well, mostly.) 

Then comes the transition (after the theory) to actually write their own stuff and prove their substance -- or to justify their reason for occupying space and depleting the Earth's resources (like food and oxygen). It happens every time to me -- students fall-off like flies deprived of sugar. We need a transformation, but it only happens if the student writer has a passion for what they're writing or their career. Like I say about a good story. You need a passionate writer and a passionate protagonist. Without both you have nothing. 

So, my Story Symposium Class is struggling with this stage. We're meeting this Saturday for our first W.A. Meeting. That's "Writers Anonymous" ... as in the 12 Steps. And here they are:

The Writer’s 12 Steps to Getting It Done

1. I admit that I am powerless to write like I should—that my creative life has become desolate and unmanageable through disuse.
2. I believe that a power greater than myself can restore me to sanity, and get my quota of words written each and every day. 
3. I have decided to turn my will and my life over to the care of God, as I understand Him.
4. I daily search my life and make a fearless moral inventory of my motivations and whatever else has prevented me from applying my butt to a chair and my fingers to the keyboard.
5. I admit to God, and to another human being the exact nature of my wrongs from the previous step.
6. I am entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character so that I will complete the story that God has set before me.
7. I humbly ask God to remove my shortcomings and expect a completed work in the not too distant future.
8. I have made a list of all persons we I have harmed by not living up to and disciplining my creative potential, and I am willing to make amends to them all.
9. I have made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. I continue to take personal inventory and when I am wrong I promptly admit it.
11. Through prayer and meditation (or medication, depends on how bad off you are) I seek to improve my conscious contact with God praying only for knowledge of His will for me and the power to carry that out in my creative life of writing.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, I will carry this message to other writers, and to practice these principles in all my affairs.

BTW: The 12 Steps of A.A. are sometimes used as the basic structure (or inspiration) of a story; MY NAME IS EARL is a great example.

VIRTUES OF HORROR

At the onset, come clarifications:

(a) I have not studied horror as some have. There are some books (which I have not read) but which look valuable, and there are excellent articles on this topic that I have read, carefully, and recommend.

(b) My taste for horror is limited to those stories where the meaning is rich and thick, and the effects minimal.

(c) Most horror gratuity (explicit effects) is moral excess that can serve to dull and numb the conscience.

(d) I think well-crafted horror services a valuable purpose and I recommend such films, e.g. ALIEN, I AM LEGEND, THE DESCENT, (and the like) and THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST (yep, that's horror).

The best article I’ve seen is Brian Godawa’s AN APOLOGETIC OF HORROR that examines the horror genre in light of Christian theology and what is found in the Bible, both Old and New Testaments.  I highly recommend it, and will again. I won't attempt to summarize Brian's work, because it is efficient and exhaustive, and doesn't need my spin. It stands alone.

In my consulting and teaching a question keeps popping up, and so I need to answer it briefly, and let other experts expound and correct me, like Brian. The question is this:

"If the popularity of a movie is proportional of the truth communicated by that movie, how do horror movies (which are very popular) teach truth?" In other words, “Why are horror movies so dang popular?”

I think there are a host of reasons. Here is a brief list, which assumes that the movie in question connects with audiences on a large scale. All of these reasons relate to “the moral premise” -- characters make moral choices that have physical consequences that correlate with natural law. In no particular order, and with considerable overlap which I am too per-occupied otherwise to correct at this time:

• Horror movies emotionally involve the audience and remind them that their soul is in danger of damnation. Pay attention ye mortals.
• Horror movies cause us to identify with the protagonist. We fear for him or her, we yell out to watch out. In short, we practice compassion...a virtue... and, thus we are taught to warn our friends of evil lurking in dark places.
• Horror movies reveal the consequences of characters who are sinful or foolish or weak. Such stories remind us “DON’T DO IT”. They “scare the hell out of us.” (And that’s a good thing.)
• Horror movies, as in all well-crafted movies, prove that SIMULATION is safer than ACTUAL EXPERIENCES. See what happens to others, but don’t go near it yourself. Learn from experiences or learn from simulation. I’ll take the simulation.
• Horror movies boosts our self-confidence by reminding us (hopefully) that we will not be as stupid as the girl who just got killed.
• Horror gives those in the audience who have experienced abuse, a way to get control of their emotions by CHOOSING to walk out of the theater, even at the end, and know that my life isn’t as bad as what was portrayed in the movie... or if it was that bad, to walk away from it.
• Horror in many (if not most) circumstances is social commentary. Zombies might refer to mall rats or greedy predators. Vampires remind us of the monsters that tyrannical dictators lord over their populaces, controlling them with evil seductions. Monsters (on skyscrapers or in caves) metaphor social powers, physical abusers, or unconfessed sin dodging us as guilt.
• Horror can remind us that suffering can be good, when the common or greater good is served.
• Horror reminds us that no one is entirely innocent.
• Horror presents commentary about the consequences of sin to a society that that has avoided softer words of warning. It instills a holy fear of sin, as well as a fear of foolishness and stupidity.

I discuss some of these points in my two posts on CLOVERFIELD and THE DESCENT.

And again, I recommend you study Brian’s excellent article referenced above.

HORROR RANKING

It also seems that there is a ranking of horror sub-genres from realism to fantasy. By no means exhaustive, here is a short list that might be useful when comparing and contrasting stories for critique or for consideration by an author.

1.    Stark Realism (PRECIOUS, SCHINDLER’S LIST)
2.    Psychological Horror (BLAIR WITCH, THE VILLAGE)
3.    Spiritual Realism (THE EXORIST, THE RITE)
4.    Magical Realism (THE GREEN MILE)
5.    Gothic Horror (BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA)
6.    Monster Horror (CLOVERFIELD, KING KONG)
7.    Sacramental Horror (all Vampire and Zombie stories)
8.    Slasher Horror (gratuitous exploitation of all the above)

HANCOCK

You can learn the principles of story structure discussed in this post by taking the on-line Storycraft Training workshop linked to in the right column of his blog.
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HANCOCK Structural Analysis based on The Moral Premise

Director: Peter Berg
Writers: Vincent Ngo, Vince Gilligan

John Hancock – WILL SMITH
Mary – CHARLIZE THERON
Ray – JASON BATEMAN
Aaron – JAE HEAD
Red – EDDIE MARSAN

Released: July 2, 2008
Budget: $150MM
Domestic: $228MM
World Wide: $624MM

THIS ANALYSIS CONTAINS A MAJOR SPOILER. If you have not watched HANCOCK yet, please stop reading and go watch it first. It’s worth the effort. For me this film contains the most surprising audience sting in the history of cinema. So wonderful is it, that I didn’t tell my wife for 3 years until I finally got her to watch it the other night on BlueRay. At 54 minutes I was glued, not on the screen, but to Pam’s face. Her reaction was priceless. She about fell off the coach. END OF WARNING.

HANCOCK is the story of an immortal “superhero” who has lost his identity to alcohol, his memory to amnesia, and the respect of the public who don’t hesitate to call him an “a--hole.” And although his deeds bring criminals to justice, they’re also a huge financial burden the city of Los Angeles inasmuch as his crime fighting has resulted in over 600 warrants for felony destruction of property. When Hancock rescues well-meaning trapped-in-his car-Ray from being killed by a train, Ray asks Hancock to “drop” him at home where he invites the “super” for dinner. It’s then that Hancock meets Ray’s wife, Mary, and son, Aaron.

Suffice it to say, Hancock redeems himself with Ray’s help. Ray is perhaps the biggest heart in Public Relations, and demonstrates an altruistic effort to change the world, with Hancock as Ray’s latest project. We should all have managers like Ray. As Mary, his wife says to Ray: “You see good in everybody, Ray -- even when the good is not there.” 

PHYSICAL GOALS
Here briefly are the physical goals for the main characters:

Hancock: 

-->To physically find himself and his true identity, and to act on his physical purpose in life. This sounds ambiguous but the portrayal makes it visceral. This is also well-crafted insofar as his physical want is clearly the consequence of neglecting his psychological need—to pursue with dignity his in-born identity. It is clear that the reason he lost his physical knowledge and ability to fully act on his identity (when he was mugged in Miami) because he purposely ignored his identity as a super and tried to live a normal life with Mary.
Hancock has subplot goals as well, as do the other characters:
a) Public: To be respected again. (Redeem his character.)
b) Personal: To get out of prison.
c) Professional: To stop crime and save lives.
d) Family: To have a woman in his life.

Mary: To get Hancock out of her familiy's life, so she can life a normal life as Ray's wife and mother to Aaron.

Ray: To help the world be a better place by getting corporations to embrace his charitable "All Heart" logo and terms. And related to that, use  Hancock to prove his philosophy to the world, that the world can indeed be a better place with love and respect.

Red: To kill Hancock out of revenge for taking his power away, (and his hand).

These physical goals are important because they become metaphors in each character's life for what the movie is really about — the moral premise. To the extent that each character psychologically embraces the vitreous or vice side of the moral premise we will see the metaphor lived out on the physical side of their life.

MORAL PREMISE

HANCOCK is an action movie involving mythic gods a.k.a. superheroes. The movie references Greek mythology as its antecedent. In Greek myths the heavenly action is motivated by the moral choices and soap opera behavior of the characters. Likewise, the action in HANCOCK, while eye-candy to be sure, is entirely motivated by the moral choices of Hancock and his co-protagonists and belligerents, to accept or reject who they are called to be. If they accept their in-born identity with grace and dignity they are successful, if they reject who they are by a faux self-rationalization or through self-loathing, they fail, or come to a diseased demise.

Thus, Moral-Physical Premise Statements that apply to HANCOCK are:

Ignoring our in-born identity through excuse or self-loathing
leads to
an unhealthy and aimless life;
but
Pursuing our in-born identity with dignity and perseverance
leads to
a healthy and purposeful life.

Short-handing that a bit:

Rejecting our God-given identity
leads to an aimless life;
but
Embracing our God-given identity
leads to a purposeful life.

Or, in the vernacular of the movie:

Choosing to avoid what we were created to be
leads to being an a--hole;
but
Choosing to pursue our calling
leads to being a “super” hero.

Looks look briefly how this effects the arcs of our three main characters:

Ray accepts his calling perfectly. He’s the perfect public relations manager, who sees the good in everyone even if there’s no good to be seen. He is faithful, loving, and kind. He demonstrates mastery of this virtue with fat-cat executives who arrogantly are unwilling to give away 1% of their wealth in order to help change the world. And he demonstrates the embrace of his calling with belligerent, superhero, self-loathing drunks -- that would be Hancock.

Hancock is the opposite. He does not know who he is (something brought on by an attempted mugging 80 years ago). But even before the mugging Hancock had rejected his calling. He was created to save the world, and gave it up to live a “normal life" and in the process screws up his life.  I can’t help but contrast Hancock’s backstory beats of his rejection to embrace his superhero status, with the climactic beats of Scorsese’ THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. In that movie, Christ is tempted to come down off the cross, live a normal life by getting married and have kids — e.g. not die on the cross for humanity. But Christ refuses the temptation to be normal and chooses to embrace what he was on earth to do — die on the cross. Christ’s calling was to choose to be a superhero and save the world. He did. And in that way Scoresese is faithful to the Biblical portrayle of Christ.

On the other hand... the mythic Hancock is also sent to earth to protect it. Ray says, “You have a calling, you’re a hero...” Hancock can choose to be who he was created to be. But, 80 years ago, in the backstory, Hancock rejects that calling, gives into the temptation to be “normal,” opens himself up to the susceptibility of mortality, and while walking home from the theater (Boris Karloff’s FRANKENSTEIN) with Mary (his superhero "wife") he’s mugged, forgets who he is, and seems destined to live the rest of his life in a drunken stupor. Thus, in the backstory, by rejecting the truth of the moral premise, Hancock chooses to lead his life down a deeper, tragic path, further rejecting his natural gifts as the world’s crime stopper.

Now, this arc is also true of Mary, in a mythic, historical sense Hancock’s goddess wife. Sometime before the backstory they chose to dismiss their calling as mythic gods or angels to protect humankind and pair-up to live normal lives. As the diegesis rules go, when the “pair” are physically close they become morals and lose their super strength, but also end up being able to love and die. In living so, 80 years ago, they’re mugged and Hancock is seriously injured. He suffers amnesia and can’t remember who he is.

Mary, in a moral dilemma over her calling (and his), leaves him. Her intentions are partly noble. She hopes Hancock will regain his strength (with her away from him). There’s a suggestion that she also wants to assuage her guilt at turning away from their created calling. When Hancock tells this story to Ray and Mary at dinner, watch the multiple takes of Mary and her eyes; at this time Hancock does not remember who Mary is and she's not willing to tell him. Hancock laments that nobody claimed him at the hospital after the mugging, and since then he has had no clue about his past. Mary's guilt is palatable. But there is something special about Hancock; she says to him late in the movie:

MARY

You’re built to save people, more than the rest of us. That’s who you are. You’re a hero. The insurance policy of the gods. Keep one alive. You. To protect this world.

She further explains that “they” (implying their super enemies) always try to destroy Hancock by coming through her. Thus, to keep Hancock alive, Mary has tried to say away and keep them apart. But Hancock always seems to “find” her, as if by fate, although she’s quick to point out that fate doesn’t control all our lives, sometimes we can choose.

[A LITTLE CATHOLIC SIDEBAR. Probably unintended by the filmmakers, but if you have some Catholic sensibility you'll notice that this piece of story exposition parallels the Catholic teaching that that you can't come to Christ without coming to him through his mother, Mary. It was her choice (not fate) to obey her created calling to be his mother that allowed Christ to come into the world as its savior. Thus, you'll often hear in Catholic circles that we come to Christ through Mary, or we come to the Church through Mary. This was why, at the Council of Ephesus in 431 in order to protect Christ's identity as God incarnate, the Church proclaimed Mary "the Mother of God." The enemies of Christ were attacking Mary to get at Christ. The proclamation by the Council of Ephesus wasn't to elevate Mary, but was designed to protect Christ's identity. Thus in HANCOCK we see Mary trying to protect Hancock's identity as the mythic savior, and the bad guys using Mary to get at Hancock. On second thought, the parallels are pretty strong... wonder if they were intended allegorically???]

TURNING POINTS

Movie Story Length: 84 min

Inciting Incident (Ideal: 12:5% or 10.5 minutes. Actual: Begins at 10.5 minutes.)

The inciting incident is that moment or scene where the protagonist is reminded that his life is not perfect, and yet it could be, if he would just go on a journey of redemption.

In HANCOCK, our protagonist rescues Ray from a train. When Hancock first taps on Ray’s hood to announce his arrival, we’re about 10:15 into the movie. Hancock lifts the car off the tracks at 10:30. But the rescue doesn’t sit well with the many people watching. Hancock has destroyed a few automobiles, a locomotive, and derailed a long train. As the people remind him, he could have chosen to do the rescue differently and not destroyed any property. They all call him to change, to go on a journey. But he calls them all idiots.

Ray then steps to Hancock's defense: “I’m alive. I get to go home and see my family.” The scene ends with Ray asking Hancock if he’s flying by the valley and could he (Hancock) “drop” him (Ray) off. Indeed, Hancock “drops” Ray and his car at his house. Ray invites Hancock to dinner, where he meets Mary and Aaron. After dinner, as Hancock leaves the house, Ray INVITES Hancock to go on a journey of change and redemption. Ray becomes Hancock’s mentor. These beats are perfect in terms of story structure. And as all protagonists should do, Hancock rejects the journey -- at first – only to return to go on the journey.


Notice that just after the train rescue, Hancock is also encouraged to go on a journey of change by the public who demand that he should have rescued Ray differently. But Hancock just ridicules them and rejects their invitation.

Crossing the Journey’s Threshold or End of Act 1 Climax (Ideal 25% or 21 minutes. Actual: 21 minutes.)

It’s Hancock's return to Ray’s house (around 21:00) that signals Hancock’s wiliness to be guided on the journey, but he has reservations, and doesn’t really cross a physical threshold until he agrees to go to prison for the past warrants for felony destruction of property (at 26:58). Thus, we see two thresholds crossed. First is Ray's doorstep and willingness to talk about what he has to change, but the second is the admission of his faults at a press conference and then entering prison.

While the threshold can be thought of as either or both of those two moments, I prefer to think of it as the first because: (a) he makes a conscious effort to consider the explicit offer, and (b) it fits with an audience’s need for a bump or beat to see the story advance. Indeed, at 20 minutes, just before Hancock greets Ray outside the house, there is a foreshadowing of Hancock’s arc when Hancock meets Michel, the neighborhood French bully of Aaron. When Michel calls Hancock an a--hole for the third time, Hancock throws Michel skyward and is caught moments later. Michel has traveled one of the faster arcs in cinema, literally, and emotionally. He leaves the street (aiming for the stars) as an arrogant bully, and returns to Earth a humble crybaby. The arc is similar to what we’ll see Hancock travel, from arrogant, dismissive, destructive “god” to humble, accountable, and constructive superhero.

Thus, the first half of Act 2 is in two sequences. The first sequence is at Ray’s house where Ray tries to convince Hancock that he can change and he needs to change, and that in changing, Hancock will better know who he is and (re)discover his purpose in life. The second sequence is Hancock in prison, where he comes to accept his need to do public penance and deal with his anger issues. Indeed, it works. After only a few weeks of an 8-year sentence, with crime on the rise in the city, Hancock is called out of prison by the Chief of Police. And we have a MOG.

Moment of Grace (MOG). (Ideal 50% or 42 minutes. Actual 40 minutes, with Hancock actually showing up at the bank robbery scene at 41 minutes.).

I’ve written somewhere before that MOG’s are essentially the time when a character figuratively looks in a mirror and sees a different person. Filmmakers sometimes, at the MOG, have the character literally look into a mirror. HANCOCK offers us a perfect example. At 40 minutes into the film, shortly after Hancock gets a call from the Chief of Police, there are several shots of Hancock looking into his prison cell’s tin mirror and then saving off his scruffy beard (with his fingers). Thus, every shot of Hancock before the MOG he wears a scruffy beard and a belligerent expression. Afterward the MOG he’s clean-shaven and accommodating.

Hancock shows up at the robbery scene at 41 minutes. For the first time he walks among the police and with a clean-shaven demeanor says to the cops in a staid silly way, “Good job.”(the actor playing the cop, by the way, is Will Smith's personal trainer.)  It’s a line that Ray rehearsed with Hancock during their PR training sessions in the prison visiting room. Needless to say, Hancock gets the job done in super heroic style and is rewarded with grand applause from the by-standers and the reinstatement of his popular hero status.

Near Death/Act 2 Climax: (Ideal: 75% or 63 minutes.) Actual: 63 minutes.

If mythic gods are going to fight in the heavenlies, then movie “gods” must do battle on the streets of Los Angeles (makes sense -- I guess.) The battle here is between Hancock and Mary, who is determined to keep Hancock from ruining her happy life as a mother and wife, and is likewise determined that he live his life apart from her so he can continue to be a superhero. After a bit of exposition at Hancock’s hilltop “trailer complex” she tells him they were (before) "brother and sister," But, he knows better and calls her a liar and flies off to tell Ray. Afraid that Hancock will ruin her marriage, she’s determined to stop him.

After an aerial chase that ricochets off a few hills they do battle on a street in downtown L.A. -- as Ray watches from a presentation boardroom in an office building, of which Mary and Hancock have stripped of its windows in a super sideswipe. The whole battle is the climax of Act 2 where Hancock battles Mary to discover who he really is, his goal. Her goal is to keep her "normal" life intact. She holds a secret and in an effort to reject HER created purpose and live a normal life, she wants to keep Hancock’s relationship with her and his past a secret as well. But Hancock is determined to not let that happen. It’s at 62:50 that Hancock calls her “crazy” to which Mary responds, “Call me crazy – one more time.” He says: “Cuckoo! Cuckoo!”  And at precisely 63 minutes she picks up a truck and slams him into the pavement. It's near death for most of us, and super eye candy for the rest.

Following the street battle, Hancock and Mary fly back to her home, just after Ray shows up. And the “Dark Night of the Soul” scenes commence with all three of them none too happy about the revelations and their tangled relationships.

Final Incident (Ideal: 87.5% or 73.5 minutes.) Actual: 75.5 minutes.
(followed by hand-to-hand combat to the death)

Red and his escaped cons attack Mary and then Hancock in hospital and would kill them both if it wasn’t for Ray who comes to Hancock’s rescue. Hancock is vulnerable becasue of his close proximity to Mary, who lies in a hosptial bed from a gunshot wound... something she sustained because she was so close to Hancock.

Final Climax/Act 3 (Ideal: 95-98%/ 80 min-82 minutes.) Actual: 81 minutes.
Hancock struggles to get away from the hospital so that Mary and he will both live -- and so he can live to fight crime another day, e.g. live to be who he was created to be.

The Dénouement finds Ray and Mary at a county fair as he drills her about the  men in her life and what they were like. He:" Attila the Hun?" She: "Cross-eyed." etc. Meanwhile, Hancock has relocated to the peak of the Empire State Building in Manhattan, where he stands guard with an Eagle at his side.

What’s next?

Rumor has it that HANCOCK 2 is in development.

Do you want to know more about how movies connect with audiences? You can get more out of the movies you watch if you understand how good stories are constructed. The Moral Premise: Harnessing Virtue and Vice for Box Office Success is a book that will explain it to you, and make watching movies more enjoyable. Order it at the link above and the author of the book and this blog will be happy to autograph it for you.

Character Management

I came across an old overhead projector cell (remember those?) from a workshop I gave to corporate managers on management styles. I was about to toss it, when I realized that these ten Management Styles could easily define Character Styles, or how a character interacts with the rest of the world. This could be useful for envisioning what a character is like and how to write him or her:


Management by Control (MBC, aka Theory X)

Autocratic, demanding, threatening. Or manipulative, detailed, or use of sanctions.

Management by Walking Around (MBWA)

Letting people see you watching them. Being curious about what they're doing and asking questions that helps them think about the consequences of their actions.

Management by Objective (MBO, aka Theory Y)

Getting others to accept mutually agreeable goals and deadlines.

Management by Listening (MBL)

Getting others to talk to you about their problems and talk them out. Usually the person, if they're interested, will solve their own problems, by you just listening.

Management by Motivation (MBM, aka Carrot Theory)

If you have something others want, barter. Could be for a benevolent or sinister end.

Management by Encouragement (MBE)

 Cheerleader for your goals, or so other will like and follow you.

Management by Exception (MBX)

Ignore anything unless it is really irritating, then use another management style to fix it.

Management by Hearsay (MBH)

Do your research by asking for the opinion of prejudice individuals around you.

Management by Assumption (MBA)

Don't ask. Don't research. Just jump to the conclusions. It's faster.

Management by Theatrics (MBT)

Jump up and down and yell all the time. The sky is falling. 

EXERCISE

Take a current script or story project and assign one of the Management Styles to each of your main characters. Are there going to be sparks, or is it a slumber party?

FREE E-BOOK: Top 10 Reasons Why It's a Great Time to be a Filmmaker Vol 1

My publisher for The Moral Premise, Michael Wiese, came up with a promotion idea for a free e-book. It came out today: Top 10 Reasons Why It's a Great Time to be a Filmmaker Vol 1.

Sure, it's a great promotion for his filmmaking books, but it's more than that. A lot more. Fifty of his authors, including myself, responded. We wrote fifty short chapters that promise to inspired storytellers and filmmakers for years to come.

You can get it for FREE by going to Michael Wiese Productions.com. On the front page you'll see the promotion. All you have to do is give them your email address or confirm it, or buy a product from their website, and you'll get an email to download the e-pub free of charge.

My contribution, THE INSPIRING PROVIDENCE OF FILMMAKING, you'll find near the front on page 11.

Dr. Henry Russell On the Role of Cinema in The Great Conversation

An Interview with Henry Russell, Ph.D.
by Stanley D. Williams, Ph.D.

Henry Russell

Henry Russell, Ph.D. is a classics educator, headmaster of St. Augustine’s Homeschool Enrichment Program (founded with his wife Crystal), and president of the SS Peter and Paul Educational Foundation. He is known particularly for The Catholic Shakespeare Audio Series. His writings have been published in various journals.

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STAN WILLIAMS: What do you make of this idea that narrative cinema can participate in The Great Conversation.

HENRY RUSSELL: Well, film is primarily a visual and auditory medium. It can’t easily handle the complexity of philosophical ideas that words allow. So, film demands that the director and producers spend enough time with the ideas to understand them, and then pick which ideas to make the movie around. Filmmakers have to know which 10% of a book to make into a movie. The selection process probably needs to be more collaborative. Because what will happen is that one person, who knows the ideas really well, selects the book’s topic, and the director in exasperation says, “Good, God! How am I going to visualize that?” Consequently, directors default to the ideas that are easiest to visualize. And, as a result society experiences this discontinuity between a good book and an important film.

STAN WILLIAMS: Is there an example in modern cinema?

HENRY RUSSELL: Sure. Peter Jackson in THE LORD OF THE RINGS (TLOTR) had generally no idea what major ideas Tolkien was getting at, such as the patient certainty of Aragorn and his complete confidence in his destiny. The film’s portrayal of Aragorn is one of a man with an identity crisis. Another thing Jackson misses is the power of words. When said relatively slowly and cumulatively, words can change the human heart, and define eventually what is true.  Literature, unlike philosophy and theology, functions by the accumulation of words. Like chipping away at a stone, a little bit at a time. But a film functions by large scale visual declarations. In the TLOTR books the telling of tales to each other is a big deal. But that doesn’t communicate easily to film. When characters talk all the time you lose the line of action that drives the film.

STAN WILLIAMS: Because you’re telling not showing.

HENRY RUSSELL: Yes, but it’s the telling that is how people function.

The Kite Runner and VALUES TABLES

Dir: MARC FORSTER
Writers: DAVID BENIOFF (SP), and
Khaled Hosseini (N)

AMIR: Khalid Abdalla (adult), Zekeria Ebrahimi (young)
HASSAN: Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada
BABA: Homayoun Ershadi
SORAYA: Atossa Leoni
RAHIM KHAN: Shaun Toub
ASSEF: Abdul Salam Yusoufzai (adult), Elham Ehsas (young)
GENERAL TAHERI: Abdul Qadir Farookh
SOHRAB: Ali Danish Bakhtyari (Hassan's son)
ZAMAN: Mohamad Amin Rahimi (Orphanage Director)


IMBD's KITE RUNNER

(It was late when I posted this, so please advise of typos.)

Synopsis 

Amir, Baba and winning kite.

It's 1978 in Kabul, Afghanistan. A crazy place with humans trying to find dignity in the midst of hell. A puppet Communist government thinks it's in power. But the Islamic Mullah's really control the the people through intimidation. At the same time the Afghan guerrilla Mujahideen movement is born. The Russians invade the next year. When the Afghans defeat Russia in 1989 killing 40,000-50,000 Soviets, with help from U.S. shoulder fired rockets,  there is more fighting.

In 1992 there are elections under a tenuous run Mujahideen Islamic State. More fighting. In 1994 the Taliban with their version of extreme Islamic fundamentalism (believe or die, or die because we don't like you -- tyranny) they make rubble out of Kabul. There is Pakistani and Iranian interference. More fighting. Mass killings by the Taliban, and the Hazaras sect is massacred.

God tries to slow the Taliban down by bringing Earthquakes to the country that kill tens of thousands. But the Taliban tries to out-do God. Osama bin Laden makes plans from within Afghanistan, attacks the U.S. (NY and Washington), setting up the U.S. attack in 2001. This is a very crazy place, and the irrationality of it all is the reason many didn't want the U.S. to get involved, even to stop the Taliban -- who seem to have been infected with the same demons that possessed the Nazis.

Not Without My Daughter

Director: Brian Gilbert
Writers: Betty Mahmoody (book), William Hoffer (book), David W. Rintels

Sally Field as Betty Mahmoody
Alfred Molina as Moody
Sheila Rosenthal as Mahtob

STORY SUMMARY
(This summary includes political observations mostly from the book. The movie leaves out many dramatic beats that help to understand the story's meaning and moral premise.)

NOT WITHOUT MY DAUGHTER is the true story of Betty, an the American-Christian wife of the Americanized and trained Iranian doctor, Sayyed Bozorg Mahmoody, D.O. (Moody), who was born-in-and raised in a strict Islamic family in Iran.  Betty and Moody lived in Corpus Christi, TX and later Alpena, MI, where Moody was an anesthesiologist. They met when he treated her for back pain. When the American backed Shah of Iran (the last of 2,500  years of Persian monarchs) was deposed, allowing the Iranian Revolution on 11 February 1979 (and the rise of the Islamic Republic of Iran), many Iranians longed to go back to Iran. The idea of a strict Islamic state (where men ruled with impunity -- a family level terrorism) is very attractive, in a demonic way, to the male ego.  Moody was one of them, and in the process of re-embracing his Islamic heritage, also embraced the Islamic revolution's anti-American ideology.

Virgins waiting in paradise for Islamic fundamentalist men.

[There is a fundamental anti-conscience aspect to radical Islam where rote ideology supports a culture where suppression of another person's conscience (the inner sense of what is right or wrong) is allowed and encouraged. This is done in order to bring about the outward observance of Islam, if not by free-will, by fear and oppression. It is a culture where the disposition of the heart is meaningless, i.e. the individual's right to determine moral right and wrong is suppressed.  It is a form of tyranny where a few control the lives of many through fear. In Nazi Germany the central figure was a man backed by a political machine. In radical Islam the central figure is a perversion of God's character and a religious machine.  Islam's version of paradise (for a man) promises the attention of virgins when he gets to heaven. This is hilariously parodied in the picture above.]

MOODY by Alfred  Molina

Thus, Moody manipulates Betty to take their daughter back for a 2-week visit to Iran to visit his family, but secretly he has no intention of leaving, or letting them leave the deeply misogynistic culture.  Betty realizes this, in part, because of Moody's involvement in pro-Iranian/anti-American student activism here in the U.S.. She knows Iran is not a pleasant place, especially if you are American and female. But she loves her husband and wants to please him. Upon arrival in Iran, it appears that her worst fears are realized: Moody declares that they will be living there from now on.

Why would Moody (an American trained doctor) stay in a culture that seems to have jumped backwards 1,000 years in terms of hygiene, medicine, science, human rights, freedoms, and basic knowledge about the human condition? Several reasons. (1) It's revealed that his political activities in the U.S. have resulted in his termination from two jobs, in two states, and two different hospital systems -- further resulting in the loss of his Green Card.

[Some may see this as racism here in the U.S. or cultural prejudice. But prejudice is an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand without knowledge, thought, or reason. And there is reason to not trust an overtly active, anti-American doctor, treating American patients, in the American Hospital system, like Moody.]

BETTY by Sally Fields

(2) The second reason Moody relapses to his upbringing is that (as Betty surmises in the book) there is an basic inability of the Islamic culture to think independently -- a trait ingrained by the educational system upon her daughter, where all learning is by rote repetition. There is no opportunity in the system for reasoning or independent thinking, or creativity. In other words the conscience is improperly formed. You are taught only to say and think what is spoon fed to you. This becomes evident in Moody's refusal to do anything his ego does not want him to do, and Moody's cousin who, when in America, refuses to take a entry level position in a bank as a teller. The only job the cousin is willing to consider is an offer to be president of a company. Being the CEO sounds like a creative, take-initiative position, until you realized that the cousin's demand is the product of a rote ideology ingrained culturally into the male ego. The culture, thus, only survives through severe autocracy of various kinds and at various levels.

Betty conscience tells her to return to America. When he finally allows her return he refuses to led their daughter, Mahtob, go back with Betty, insisting that Betty (under the pretense of attending her Father's funeral),  sell their extended American assets (homes and checking accounts) and send the money to Moody in Iran. Moody is desperate for money because his license to practice medicine in Iran has not been approved due to his American training. Nothing from America has any value to the government. And so, with some-half-efforts on the part of her female Iranian friends (who love intrigue, which is brought on by their suppression), Betty is determined to escape from Iran. But the obstacles to taking her daughter with her seem insurmountable.

BOOK vs MOVIE

MAHTOB by Sheila Rosenthal

I often think the book and movie are both good, although movie versions always show less. But in this case, the movie is sub-standard in terms of story telling and production value. Some of it is the director's decision (or budget requirement) to minimize the visuals-on-screen because the Iranian culture is visually minimal. (Shot in Israel.)  Everything is stark, gray, black, and sensual. In the book, even the food is bland and apparently unappetizing.  But the camera angles chosen, framing, lighting, and the "god-awful" music (more German classical than anything Persian or Iranian) was distracting and seemed like a cheap library afterthought. Indeed, some of  the scenes could have used music but were barren. "Barren" does depict the production values. But the acting was very good, especially little Rosenthal as Mahtob. How little kids get their timing and emotional arcs amazes me. Good direction, helps. The screenplays choiceof scenes seemed right, but left out major plot points that would have confused me had I not read the book. Being from Michigan, I was disappointing that Atlanta stood in for it.

THE MORAL PREMISE
Throughout the book, Betty reiterates that her father brought her up to believe: Where there's a will, there's a way. This engenders in Betty, a perseverance in the midst of persecution, that allows her achievement of the goal -- getting out of Iran with her daughter. And the odds and obstacles for the unlikely, common hero are immense -- natural structure for a successful movie.

Now, consider "Where there's a will, there's a way" in light of the cultural artifacts that I've discussed above, namely the autocratic Islamic culture of rote learning and behavior, -- or the training that dislodges a properly formed conscience from what it means to be fully human. In this story, Betty retains or embodies the practice of listening to her (properly formed) conscience (or will) while her antagonists (the autocratic Islamic culture, represented by Moody) embody a rote-mentality (or suppression of the will) and a willingness to live under tyranny.

Thus, this becomes the story's moral-physical premise statement (where "conscience" is understood as the natural, organic, true-to-natural law sense of right and wrong):

Suppression of the conscience leads to tyranny; but

Preservation of the conscience leads to freedom. 

or stated with words from Betty's father:

Suppression of an individuals will leads to tyranny; but

Preservation of an individual's will leads to freedom.

The paradox of all this occurs when one individual's will has the goal of suppressing another person's individual will.

Book Jacket: Mahtob and Betty

Reading the book (and watching the movie) was at the same time a fearful and hopeful experience, that reminded me of my own failings as a man, and the promise of being fully human. It was revealing, satisfying, and even a sacred time of reflection on our world and much redemption is needed.

It reinforces what I write at the end of The Moral Premise: 

Vanquish Fear, Bestow Hope

 

The Pillars of the Earth

The Pillars of the Earth is a emotional book-movie combination of Metaphors and Premises. It is one of those rare marriages of novel and motion picture (i.e. TV mini series with big budgets) that define the concept of epic literature and the motion picture arts. I would classify this with the Lord of the Rings, but without the fantasy. While some historians of 12th Century Western Europe would no doubt whine about it's accuracy, my joy is seeing a story told well, in both mediums. It also reinforces my observation that the best stories are not short, nor limited to 120-page screenplays, or is it 90-110 pages, now?

The MOTION PICTURE (IMBD link)

Eight, 60-min episodes on STARZ or DVD

High production value, fabulous casting, directing and acting and seamless special effects.

Accuracy: Fictional based on real events, but structured for story with a true moral premise.

Directed by: Sergio Mimica-Gezzan

Written by: Ken Follett and John Pielmeier

Starring (L-R, above)

Ian McShane - Bishop Waleran

Rufus Swell – Tom Builder

Matthew Macfadyen – Monk Fr. Philip

Eddie Redmayne – Jack Jackson

Hayley Atwell – Aliena

Donald Sutherland - Bartholomew

It was a year or so ago Pam and I watched the Episodes 1-8 on our Apple Box and big screen display with our nearly voice-of-the-theater speakers. What a great experience. We tried to spread it out over 8 nights, but the production was so well done in every respect, we watched 2 or 3 episodes a night... and then were disappointed when it was over.

Episode Titles:

1. Anarchy

2. Master Builder

3. Redemption

4. Battlefield

5. Legacy

6. Witchcraft

7. New Beginnings

8. The Work of Angels

 The NOVEL (Amazon link)

I'm reading the novel now. I bought a used Library binding, Morrow edition. (I still like paper books, that I can mark up and hold in my hand without running on reserve power half way through a transcontinental flight and then using even more energy off the power grid. Yes, I'm into killing trees...they're a renewable resource and have proven to benefit humankind over the millennium.) Nice smooth, off-white paper, clear serifed font.  I've estimated the word count, for what some say is Follett's most popular novel, at  405,000 words. Bring it on. I love epic stuff that takes a long time to read. Problem is I read before bed, in a nice leather chair in our bedroom. I keeps me up. But, Pam is always asleep across the room when I do this under LED glasses or a focused reading light. In spite of the drama in what I'm reading (last month is was the Padre Pio and Vatican corruption, now it's Medieval rivalries and hypocrisy) , my wife sleeps soundly, safety within eye-sight. I enjoy those times immensely. Deep joy. 

The MORAL PREMISE

But it wasn't until this morning during prayers that I came across (by "accident") what I'm sure was the moral premise or thematic basis for the story. For the first time I happened to read the Canticle of Anna (1 Sam 2:1-10). There, toward the end are these words written thousands of years ago:

The pillars of the earth belong to the Lord; on them he has set the world. He guards the feet of his holy ones, but the wicked perish in the darkness; he grants the wish of him who asks and blesses the years of the just. For it is not by force that a man prevails: the Lord it is who shatters his enemies.

Reading that on my iPhone's iBreviary sent chills up my spine. I played back (in my head) the entire series, and re-read the first sentence of the novel:

The small boys came early to the hanging.

Classic first sentences, like the first image of a movie, can show us a lot. 

Here's stab at the moral premise statement for the story

Wickedness leads to years of darkness; but

Holiness leads to years of blessing

(after generations of hardship and testing, I might add)

The moral-physical premise statement of course, is embedded organically into the 1 Samuel 2 passage, and properly imbued into every one of many chapters of the book, and 8 television movie episodes.  When done right, you can read the statement, and connect it to all the events and actions, heroes and villains, settings, and (especially) motivations. Exciting, focusing stuff about what the story is REALLY about.

The METAPHORS (SHOWING not TELLING)

In all story telling metaphors (showing) always work better than didactic (plain telling). and when you do both, organically, all the better.  Follett's first sentence "The small boys came early to the hanging" paints a picture of evil in high places and its consequence. At first it seems that the evil is whatever the man being hung had done. But it doesn't take long to come to the telling moment in that Prologue -- and how the curse will be passed down to successive generations through the values of the "fathers." Follett doesn't use that word "fathers" but the implication and layered meaning of the term is there.  Here's the passage, faithful reproduced in the movie version. This happens at the base of the gallows as the man is being executed.

    There was a scream, and everyone looked at the girl...

    The girl turned her hypnotic golden eyes on the three strangers, the knight, the monk and the priest, and then she pronounced her curse, calling out the terrible words in ringing tones: "I curse you with sickness and sorry, with hunger and pain; your house shall be consumed by fire, and your children shall die on the gallows; your enemies shall prosper, and you shall grow old in sadness and regret, and die in foulness and agony. . . ." As she spoke the last words the girl reached into a sack on the ground beside her and pulled out alive cockerel. a knife appeared in her hand from nowhere, and with one slice she cut off the head of the cock.

    While the blood was still spurting form the severed neck  she threw the beheaded cock at the priest with the black hair. It fell short, but the blood sprayed over him, and over the monk and the knight on either  side of him.  The three men twisted away in loathing, but blood landed on each of them, spattering their faces and staining their garments.

Enough said. Do you see the showing, both in her telling curse, and the metaphor of her actions. She is not telling us her "feelings" but is painting a visual picture of them.

AND THE PILLARS? The title says a lot. Mankind (especially the male variety) think of themselves as the pillars upon which everything, of any "good," gets done. I know the feeling. I'm a man recovering from rotor cuff surgery in my right shoulder, and something similar but less sever to my right knee. Both sailing injuries. I want and think I should and can do it all. It's humbling when your wife has to dress you. Hopefully, I'll heal... physically, but in the meantime healing of the spiritual kind is working on me -- the consequence of suffering. And that is what The Pillars of the Earth is significantly about -- male, patriarchal egos. The image at the top of this blog (from STARZ TV) is constructed like six vertical pillars (these are the characters about which the story is about). Then there are the pillars of the cathedrals that Tom and others are building... not all successfully (when not properly designed, resulting in death). And then there are the Angels that build the Church. And to make sure you really, really get the connection between the moral decisions, the natural physical consequences of attention to natural law, and the story's metaphors, the final scene (in the movie at least) SHOWS us the corrupt, egomaniac bishop as he takes a suicidal plunge from the properly designed and built pillars of the cathedral.

The pillars of the earth belong to the Lord; on them he has set the world. He guards the feet of his holy ones, but the wicked perish in the darkness; he grants the wish of him who asks and blesses the years of the just. For it is not by force that a man prevails: the Lord it is who shatters his enemies.