A Guide To Movie Music - What Is Incidental Music?

As a screenwriter, I got into incidental music to find the power it would give a scene I was writing.  The scene I had written was the beginning of the Battle.  My three heroes make their grand entrance onto the battlefield, ready to kick the bad guy’s butts.  As if all the elements in the universe came together to be my muse, Phil Collin’s song In The Air Tonight began playing on the radio as I read the scene.  The synchronicity blew my sox off!  As a producer, I get to have the instrumental version of the song to act as the incidental music to bring out the power of the scene.

THE HISTORY OF FILM MUSIC

Filmmakers have always understood the power that sound and music have to enhance storytelling.  Music enhances the emotional impact and power of a film by reinforcing the mood of a scene or by hinting at unspoken conflicts or feelings.

Its effectiveness was so well understood that even “silent” movies were generally accompanied by some type of music.  Some early filmmakers’ commissioned musical scores from well-known composers, as Sergei Eisenstein did for his 1925 silent film The Battleship Potemkin.  In 1933, Max Steiner composed the first modern-style score for the film King Kong.  Steiner’s innovations set a standard for Hollywood film scores that is still followed today.  His score provided a musical illustration of the story, and he also pioneered the use in films of individual themes, or leitmotifs, for different characters and situations.  A good example of a leitmotif is the two-note theme that signals the appearance of the shark in Jaws.

Although silent films were, well, silent... organists, pianists or full orchestras supplied live musical accompaniment in theaters, and often sound effects were created on the spot by sound-effects specialists.

Many of the world’s top early filmmakers and executives believed that this would be sound technology’s ultimate usage, as silent film pantomime had created a “universal” language.

Watch a short scene in a movie without the sound and note what information in the scene is conveyed just by the visuals.  Then do the opposite: listen to another scene without looking at it and write down what you think is happening in the scene.

Amelie and The Black Stallion are both good films to listen to without pictures.  Other suggestions are the airplane crash scene in Cast Away and the opening shipboard scene in “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World”.  Consider what is known about the age, gender and personalities of the characters, the tone, time of day, historical period and setting of the scene from the sound alone.  Then watch and listen to the scene and think about the way sound adds to the experience.  Look for instances where the picture and the soundtrack are giving different or perhaps even conflicting information simultaneously.

MUSICAL SCORE

Using rhythm and tempo, melodic harmony or dissonant tones, a film score conveys mood, emotion and character in ways that dialogue alone cannot.  As early as 1908, French composer Camille Saint-Saens wrote the first score tailored for a specific film, the silent L’Assassinat du Duc de Guise, and Russian director Sergei Eisenstein commissioned a forceful percussive score from composer Edmund Meisel for his 1925 silent film The Battleship Potemkin.

Generally, however, silent films were released without musical accompaniment.  “Fake books” helped theater organists or musical directors find appropriate compositions for each scene.  These books included compositions to cover almost any on-screen situation from romance to battles to comedy.

During the early days of sound film, composers condensed or adapted existing musical pieces.  Then, in 1933, Max Steiner wrote an innovative score for the RKO film, King Kong, which still influences movie scores today.

Rather than a series of musical interludes, Steiner provided a musical illustration of the film’s narrative content.  Steiner and the film’s director Merian Cooper agreed not to employ a score during the first part of the film, which showed the realities of Depression-era New York.  Instead, the music begins when the characters enter the dream-like fog surrounding mysterious Skull Island.

From then on, music accompanies most of the film’s action.  A few scenes, like King Kong’s fight with a dinosaur and his battle with circling aircraft from on top of the Empire State Building, were so full of sound that music was judged unnecessary.

Following a nineteenth-century operatic model, Steiner used leitmotifs, or themes, for different characters and situations.  (One of the best-known examples of a leitmotif is the two-note theme that signals the appearance of the shark in Jaws).  Although King Kong does not speak, his complex personality is depicted through music.  The giant ape’s brutality is conveyed by dissonant tunes and the use of brass instruments, for example, while his tragic loneliness is represented by a yearning melody.

As Steiner proved, musical scores can provide more than just a background to the rest of the film.  The 1945 film The Lost Weekend, starring Ray Milland as an alcoholic on a weekend bender, was originally screened without a musical score.  When the audience laughed during the dramatic drunk scenes, the film was immediately withdrawn, and composer Miklos Rosza was hired to write a score.  The newly scored film went on to win Best Actor, Best Picture and Best Directing Oscars.

Music can also underscore the humor or pathos of a scene by playing against what is seen onscreen.  For example, in Life Is Beautiful, light-hearted music performed on the soundtrack while a tragedy unfolds intensifies the sense of loss.  Intercutting the cheerful song “Whatever Will Be, Will Be” (Que Sera, Sera) with attempts to free a small boy from his kidnappers heightens the tension in the 1958 film The Man Who Knew Too Much.

In some scenes, absence of music is the most eloquent accompaniment.  Peter Weir, the director of Master and Commander, requested breaks in the underscore so the audience could hear the sounds of the ship and sink into the daily life of the characters.

Before composing the score, the composer attends a “spotting session”, a meeting with the producer, director and music editor, during which they decide how and where to use music in the film.  The composer then begins to compose the musical phrases or “cues”.  Cue sheets indicate each place in the action where the music enters and exits.  When woven together, these cues make up the score.

The composer’s choice of instruments is often guided by the content of the scene.  In The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, composer Howard Shore used a Norwegian fiddle to subtly allude to the Viking-like qualities of Rohan culture, and the jittery sounds of a hammered dulcimer contribute an unbalanced feeling to “Gollum’s” scenes.

To demonstrate this, look at a scene from a film of your choice and identify as many different musical themes or leitmotifs as possible.  Some suggestions are Batman: The Dark Knight, Jaws, Star Wars, E.T.  The Extra-Terrestrial or any of The Lord of the Rings trilogy.  Identify the tone or mood of each motif.

The purpose of a musical motif is to provide a musical phrase that represents and recurs with a character, situation or emotion.  A great example is the musical phrase in Jaws that lets you know the shark is close at hand.

Screenwriters should consider the way each theme adds to character development and the ways it helps communicate the storyline.

Musical Score Terms

Cue: A short piece of music written and performed in relation to one of a film’s scenes or segments.  All the cues together make up the film’s score.

Leitmotif: A short musical phrase representing and recurring with a character, situation or emotion.  The device derives from 19th-century opera.

Song Score: When songs completely or principally make up a film’s musical score.

Spotting Session: A meeting between the composer, the producer and the director where they decide how and when to use music in the film.  Usually the composer does not begin to work until after the spotting session.

SONGS

Instrumental music is only part of the composer’s tool kit.  Songs are often employed to emphasize or comment on the dramatic action in non-musical films.

Songs in films, whether they are existing popular songs or composed specifically for a film, express or emphasize the thoughts and emotions of the characters or heighten the mood of the film in both musical and non-musical films.  They may highlight a single dramatic moment or represent the theme of the entire movie.  Movie theme songs often become so popular that people enjoy them long after the film has left theaters.

Composers can employ well-known songs to set the film’s historical period or evoke the music of a foreign country.

Characters in musicals often break into song when they cannot express the strength of their feelings in any other way.

Songwriters will search the script for places where the story lends itself to songs.  Sometimes a line of dialogue provides the first words of the song.

While movie scores are usually written after the film has been completed, songs and song scores for musicals are written and recorded before filming begins.  (Often a musical existed as a live-theater production well before it became a movie musical).  The actors then lip-sync to the recorded songs during their performances.  This ensures the songs will sound “perfect” and allow the actors to concentrate on their visual performances.  Often actors who cannot sing well lip-sync to pre-recorded singing by another performer.

Song Terms

Melody: A linear sequence of notes that make up the most recognizable part of a piece of music.  Melody is usually pleasing to the ear.

Pitch: The relative highness or lowness of a musical note.  In general, bigger objects make deeper noises and smaller objects make higher-pitched sounds.  Low-pitched sounds and music can sound threatening or sad, while high-pitched sounds tend to be perceived as happy or carefree.

Rhythm: A regular, repeated pattern formed by a series of notes of differing duration and stress which give music its character.

Through listening to the song “When She Loved Me”, in Toy Story 2, the audience learns the sad story of the character “Jesse”.  Whether a song is heard on the soundtrack or performed live in the film, the lyrics may express or emphasize the thoughts or emotions of the characters, as they do in Toy Story 2.  Or a song may be deliberately chosen to play against them, as in Chicago, when slick lawyer Billy Flynn sings “All I Care About Is Love”.  The audience knows he feels exactly the opposite, and Billy’s duplicitous nature is exposed.

By using existing popular songs, the composer takes advantage of the audience’s prior associations with the music.  Well-known songs can establish an historical period as in Pleasantville and “O Brother Where Art Thou?” or evoke a foreign country as in Frida.  Songs are so evocative that Lawrence Kasdan, the director of The Big Chill (1983), played 1960s music on the set to help his actors get into the mood of that period.

When songs completely or principally comprise the music, as in The Big Chill or the 1973 film American Graffiti, it is called a compilation song score.

Original songs, written specifically for a film, such as the Oscar-winning songs “The Hands That Built America” from the film Gangs of New York and “Moon River”, from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, may either highlight a single dramatic or emotional moment or make a statement about the entire film.  The popularity of theme songs like “My Heart Will Go On”, the Oscar-winning song from Titanic, is often exploited to promote the film.

In musicals, songs function as a type of dialogue.

The music and especially the lyrics of the songs are closely interwoven with the script, whether written expressly for the musical as in Chicago (2002) and the 1991 animated film Beauty and the Beast, or when historical or contemporary popular songs are used, as in Singin’ in the Rain and the 2001 film Moulin Rouge.

Finding the right words and melodies to fit the characters and the story is the job of the songwriters, who look for moments in the script that call for a song or for a line of dialogue to inspire the first words of a song.  Characters in musicals often break into song when they experience strong feelings they cannot contain.  The makers of Chicago, worried that contemporary audiences would find this improbable, presented the musical numbers as being in the imagination of the main character, Roxie Hart.

Unlike typical film scores, which are usually composed after the film has finished shooting, songs for musicals are written and recorded before production begins.  Then, during filming, the actors lip-sync to the pre-recorded numbers.  Moulin Rouge exploits this practice to make the audience aware that the film they are watching is a work of fiction, as for example, when a character seems to be inventing the song “The Sound of Music”, although the audience is fully aware that the song was composed years after the period of the film and years before the movie they are watching.

A song’s use of rhythm, instrumentation, lyrics and melody reveal or comment on the nature of the character or situation it accompanies.  Listen to other sections of the score in a movie where the song is reprised or worked into the underscore.  Ask yourself why you think the composer chose to use the song again in these places.  Is it associated with the same characters or the same emotions?

Many musicals such as Cabaret, Funny Girl, The Sound of Music, All That Jazz, Topsy-Turvy and Chicago are based on real life events.  Do you think the characters and situations are enhanced by the songs or do they make the story seem less real?

The 4 Lies Amateur Filmmakers Tell You About Hollywood

Hollywood is pretty simple to break into, if you understand some basic concepts.  The basic concepts can be learned pretty quickly, despite what amateur and fake filmmakers tell you.

  

There are some basic bullshit that surrounds us in the industry that keeps first-timers and those trying to get ahead in the Industry away from writing, directing, producing or even starring in a movie.

  

First Lie: Filmmaking Is Art

If filmmaking were art, you would get some film stock, rent a camera, make your “art” and then line up in Pitt Street (Syd) or Bourke Street Mall (Melb) with the other buskers and try to sell your art to a passers-by or give it away for free for others to enjoy.  But we both know that it doesn’t work like that.

  

To make a movie you need to write cheques--and lots of them.  When your movie is finished, you will want to negotiate the best possible deal for the greatest amount of revenue.  Therefore, filmmaking could be discussed as writing cheques, negotiating and revenue potential.  To me, that sounds like a business.  And everything in the Australian film industry is about business.  The sooner you realize this, the sooner you’re likely to succeed.

  

2nd Lie: Filmmaking Is A Filmmaking Industry

The film industry spends more money marketing a film than making it.  You have probably heard about the way a distributor “opens”, “releases” or “markets” a film.  So if it costs so much to, open, release, or market a film, then surely the film industry is more concerned with this, than with the actual making of a movie.  Technically, in the film industry, the marketing budget is called the P&A budget (prints and advertising).  In addition, the two elements of a movie that the industry markets are: Who is in the film, and What is the budget.

  

When you make your first independent feature film you should know what it costs to strike a print and what ads (print, radio, TV, etc) cost.  At the very least, you must know this to market your film to distributors at a professional film festival such as Cannes, the Hollywood Film Festival or Moondance International Film Festival (the American version of Cannes).  But please, always remember that the film industry is a marketing machine that creates perceived values every weekend.

  

Hint: You’ve made a film.  A film has no value.  No one pays for a film.

  

Everyone pays for a movie.  When does a film become a movie?  The answer is, “when it’s in a cinema”.  When it’s in a cinema you see newspaper ads and movie reviews in newspapers...  When you see a newspaper ad, you think it’s a movie.  It’s in a movie theatre.  Are movie theatres free?  Answer: “No!”  Movies cost money to see.  Films you can see for free.

  

When your film is picked up by a distributor and they put in their “P&A” money, it now has a value of $18 or so.  This is the normal cost of buying a ticket at a movie theatre.  In Australia, there are 22 Million people and if only 1 out 100 people see the movie this translates into 2.2 million ticket sales times $18 for a GROSS of $39.6 million.  Couple this with ticket sales in America: there are 300 Million people there and if only 1 out 100 people see the movie this still translates to a whole lot of money.

  

Distributors and Filmmakers don’t see that $39.6 million+.  That’s what cinema owners collect.  Box Office Gross!  Do filmmakers see Box Office?  Of course not.  But the moviegoer has now been taught that your free film is now worth $18.  Of the other 99 out of 100 potential ticket buyers what do they do?  Probably, at least half of them, when they see the newspaper ads, say, “I’ll rent it”.  Is it free to rent at Blockbuster or QuickFlix?  No, that costs money too.  When you walk into a video store and see a piece of plastic, you know you could buy blank from a stationer for 40 cents, yet now with the wrapper on it, it is worth over $24.99.

  

That’s how Hollywood works.  Hollywood takes a film that has no value, puts in the newspaper ads and gives it a $18 value knowing that, at the most 1 out of 100 will see it at the theatre.  However, the other 99 people thinking it’s worth $18 will now rent it at the video store because it only costs between $4.95 and $7.95 for a new release.  The Film Industry is a film marketing industry, not a filmmaking industry.

  

3rd Lie: What The Budget Is

Is there any industry that tells you the cost of manufacturing the product you want to buy?  Why is it that in the film industry we always seem to know what the budget is?  Do you think the film industry really tells you the truth?  And if anyone asks you what the budget of YOUR` film is, tell them to mind their own business!

  

There are only 4 budgets in the movie industry

(1) The Blockbuster Budget,

(2) The Hyphen Budget,

(3) The Million Dollar Budget and

(4) The Micro Budget.

  

The Blockbuster Budget is a budget so big that it is marketed as the most expensive film in the history of cinema.  The first was Gone With The Wind, the next one, the first million-dollar film was Cleopatra.  Films like the Titanic, Waterworld etc are marketed as hugely expensive so we, the punters, will go to see what 100+ million looks like on the screen.

  

The Hyphen budget is marketed as between 40 and 45 million, as if the anal accounting department can't remember what happened to five million dollars!  Can you believe that?  It is the budget of a standard Hollywood film, and the actual production costs on a thirty - seventy million-dollar film are at most a few million, with the balance spent on stars and promoting the film.

  

The Million Dollar Budget is your typical entry-level independent film and the budgets are expressed as: 1.4 mil (sex, lies and videotape), or 800 thou (Lock Stock), 1.1 mil (Shallow Grave), 1.1 mil (Blood Simple).  These films don’t usually have stars, and are story driven.  The actual budget of these films most probably ranged between $5 to $12 million.

  

The Micro budget is broken down into four sub-categories:

Under $5 million = “low budget”

Under $2.5 million = “Micro Budget”

Under $1 million = “No budget”

Under 500 hundred thousand dollars/Euros/pounds = “Amateur Films” like Pi, Blair Witch, and Clerks fall into this category.

  

The budget of your feature film is going to be one of those 4 budgets.  But stop thinking that you know what the true budget of a film is.  The film industry lies!

  

4th Lie: The Film Industry Makes Deals With Filmmakers

The problem with all filmmakers that want to make a film is that they are perennially attempting to make a deal to get the money to make a film.  This will never happen.  You are putting the cart before the horse.  You must first make a film to make a deal.  I know this is confusing, so allow me to use some numbers to understand the concept, which is “First Make A Film to Make A Deal”.

  

If you want $20 million to make a feature film, you must go to one of the 7 major distributors (Warner, Paramount, Sony, Disney, etc).  And, all they ask you to do to get their $20 million is to first make a film with a $2 million budget… that makes money!  Because Hollywood (Lie #2) is a film marketing industry and the distributors want to be able to market “From the Producer Of...”, “from the Writer of...”, “From the Star of...” on the poster and ads.

  

If you want $20 million, make a $2 million Feature Film… that makes money!

  

Now, how do you get $2 million to get that $20 million?  It’s simple.  First, make a film!  Make a $500,000 feature film that makes money.  Are you getting the point?  And how do you get $500,000?  You first make a $100,000 Feature Film!

  

First, make a film!  And if that film makes money… then you’ll make a deal!

 

(Based on an article by Elliot Grove)

Tackling Bullying

What Your Child Can Do About Suppression

If you haven’t already grabbed your backpack and headed for the mountains, you must be wondering how to cope with the problem of suppression.

Identifying Symptoms Of Suppression

The first step is to observe that kids do rollercoaster emotionally, they do experience frequent unexplained illness, they do make senseless blunders, and they do suffer occasions when they lose their ability to smile or joke.

Sometimes you will discover a whole pocket of suppressed kids—an entire family, department, classroom or organization.  In the middle of the chaos, of course, you will find a bully.

Locate The Bully

Study the traits of the Antisocial Personality until you can recognize them in all their variations.  If you notice one or more suppressive characteristics in an individual, look for others.

Once you have unmistakably identified the bully, a quick solution may come to mind.  Unfortunately, it’s illegal, and you would get arrested.  It is better if the bullied child should build up one of the bully’s minions to the position where they can fight back against the bully as a new ally.

Taking Action

There are three major solutions to suppression:

1. See the bully as little as possible.

2. Make the bully stop suppressing.
3. Become invulnerable to suppression.

Which alternative we select and how we implement it depends on the depth of your child’s relationship with the Antisocial Personality or bully and what we want to accomplish.  In dealing with any specific bully, we must first answer this question: What end result do I want?

Observe

The lightest, easiest treatment of an Antisocial Personality consists of merely having the child recognizing what the bully is doing as he does it.  This is mental awareness, and is usually effective only when the relationship is superficial.

SCENE: Carl complains about an older sister who continually demands that Carl visit her.  Carl puts off these visits until conscience forced him to go.  “She’s a miserable old biddy", Carl says.  "It always takes me a few days to recover from a visit up there.  I really dread seeing her.  I don’t know why”.

What should our child Carl do?  It depends on what you want to accomplish.  As a suggestion, you could probably have Carl say, “You know, don’t think I’ll have to do anything.  Just knowing what to expect seems to clear up things for me.  Just knowing that she’s doing it is enough.  I was beginning to think there was something wrong with me!  I don’t think she’ll bother me any more”.

The bully is expert at making kids feel that they are at fault if they get upset by his oppressiveness.  He is skilled at camouflage and prefers that they question their own sanity instead of his.  When we understand the bully’s game in advance, we identify him as Suppressive and cease to condemn ourselves for non-existent child deficiencies.  So, sometimes simply understanding suppression is enough.

Temporary Relief

Rollercoastering, as I’ve mentioned before, often causes sleeplessness, which is a result of emotional and mental exhaustion.

If your child suffers only occasional suppression (coinciding with a rare visit from dear old Grandma Clobber), they may find immediate relief in exercise.  Bicycle, run, play tennis, dance, swim.  Have the ally have the child engage in some activity that will exhaust them physically.

Change The Basis Of Association

Sometimes the bully so overwhelms your kids that the only effective solution is to see the person as little as possible.

If they are repeatedly victimized and upset by a bully—if they are convinced they cannot fight back—it’s best to arrange their lives so that they decide to have few, if any, dealings with them.

In some circumstances, this treatment is no problem.  In your own life you would avoid these people most of the time.  You don’t go to their homes, nor do you invite them to yours.  In fact, now that you know better, you wouldn’t form friendships or do business with suppressive people in the first place.

Sometimes, however, staying away from a bully is not so easy for the hero or child, because there must be a union of opposites.  The hero might be economically dependent on a boss who could jeopardize future employment by damaging their reputation.  They may be strongly attached to the person emotionally and worry about hurting him or her.  Often we feel guilty about our past acts against a person, and these feelings loom up to haunt and paralyze us when we try to turn away.  Your kids should be no different.

Combating a bully is never an easy job… for the child or anyone.  If it were, they wouldn’t be overwhelmed by the bully in the first place (and our stories would be pretty thin).

When your kids are connected to a bully, each line of connection, whether it is emotional, financial, familial, educational, or social, is an avenue of vulnerability.  They can be hurt in each of these areas of connection—hurt badly enough to cause them to rollercoaster.  It is up to us as writers to figure out ways to change those connections where possible, so the bully has less hold on the hero.

Simply altering a few circumstances may relieve a great deal of suppression in a child’s life.  This could entail choosing new lunch companions or inviting a different group of kids for play on Saturday.  Alter your child’s patterns or routines to exclude the Antisocial Personality as much as possible.  If your child must deal with him or her occasionally in the classroom or local pizza place, you can keep their contacts brief.

SCENE: George rollercoastered continually.  He was often ill with severe colds and annoying allergies, He worried greatly about his business.  After a long talk one day, his friend Hank learned that his business partner was the source of most of his concern.  The partner was obviously a bully, and George had discovered recently that he was cleverly stealing money from their mutual account.

“Do you have to stay with him?”  Hank asked.

“Oh, yes, I have to.  We’ve spent eight years building up our business.  It would be suicide to leave it now.  And I can’t afford to buy him out”.

“Is there some way you can have less to do with him?”

After a few minutes of thought, George brightened up and smiled.  “Yes, there is”.

It seemed that their business was divided into two distinct categories: George dealt in industrial insurance and his partner handled only personal insurance.

Since they were currently constructing a new office, George realized that the building could be separated into two distinct office spaces, sharing only a common hallway.

He arranged for accountants to go through the books and set up two individual business structures.

When I talked to George a few months later, he was highly pleased with the arrangement.

“You can’t imagine the change this has made in my life.  I feel as if a huge weight has been lifted off of me.  I go for weeks without even seeing him.  Sometimes I talk to him on the phone.  But now that he’s no longer hooked to me financially, I find that he’s just not suppressive to me”.

Challenging The bully

As long as your kids do not fight back, they’re fair game to the bully or an antisocial child; he will continue to bore in and make life miserable for your child.  On the other hand, if the child lets the bully know that they no longer intend to be intimidated—that they will fight back—the bully generally retreats.

Several years ago, after giving a talk in Los Angeles on creating characters, I met a young man, let’s call him Jerry, who told me he was going to hairdresser’s school at night while at film school.  He liked this work, he said, but one of the other male students continually made personal remarks and overtures to him.  Jerry wasn’t interested and told him so.  He continued to torment Jerry, however, and when rebuffed he made sly, cutting remarks about him to the other students.  These attacks so disturbed him that he considered quitting the school.  “This guy’s driving me crazy.  I don’t know what to do.  I’m getting so I hate to go to class in the morning.  Can you suggest something?”

“Yes”, I said.  “Don’t suppress your emotions.  Let him know exactly how you feel.  It’s what your hero would do at about the second revelation just before the Battle”.

“That’s great!  I’ve been holding back all the anger I feel towards the guy.  I thought it wasn’t right to get mad at him because he’s gay.  Thanks a lot”.

It wasn’t until a year later, during another visit to Los Angeles, that I talked to Jerry again.  He reminded me of our earlier conversation.  I asked, “How did that situation turn out?”

“You told me not to hold back my emotions.  So I took your advice.  The very next day this guy said something to me.  I grabbed him by the shirtfront and threatened to beat the daylights out of him.  I told him that if he ever pulled any of that stuff again or said anything about me I would put him in the hospital”.

Jerry laughed and continued.  “I just wanted to thank you.  I found out later that a lot of the other students there were plagued by him.  They despised him, but no one knew what to do.  They were grateful to me for curbing the guy’s suppressiveness!  He was no problem to anyone after that.  In fact, after a while he left.  And to think—I almost quit!  I never realized that what we give our good-guy kids to do can also be done in real life.”

The counter-attack needn’t be that heavy-handed.

While giving talks and seminars, and even while posting on Twitter, I frequently encounter Chaos Merchants in my audiences.  They ask sly questions meant to invalidate me or the subject.

I deal with the attack in a throwaway manner, returning with a bit of humorous ridicule, which makes the audience or my followers laugh.

Once, in the course of conducting a weekend workshop, John Truby was giving the correct answers to a quiz when a man in the front row challenged one of his answers.  “No,” he said flatly.  “I see that answer as...”

He was telling John rather than asking him.

Since this was the fourth time he had interrupted with suppressive comments, John replied, “Oh?  I guess I’ll have to chalk you up as my first one hundred percent failure”.  Everyone laughed.  Being laughed at is even more intolerable to a bully or antisocial person than to most of us.  He shut up immediately.

John didn’t direct a heavy attack on the bully under such circumstances, as this would be upsetting to the rest of the audience—and thereby the guy would have achieved his disruptive purpose.

Name What He Does

To minimize the effect of a bully, it helps for the child to identify each act of suppression as soon as it occurs.  When he speaks in generalities, the bully should be asked, “Who said that exactly? “  If he tries to discourage your child in some way, they should identify his tack as such, and refuse to accept it.  Label exactly what he is doing.  Most of the time the bully will retreat if his specific actions are immediately named.  He has been found out.

In a discussion group I once belonged to, we had always enjoyed lively, constructive talks until a bully began attending the meetings.  The convivial spirit of our group soon dissipated.  Driving to the meeting one night, my riding companion and I discussed the problem.  We decided we wouldn’t let the bully get away with his game any longer.  Tonight we would attack every suppressive communication.

The Suppressive spent a frantic evening.  We challenged his generalities and demanded specifics.  We caught his altered communication and corrected him.  We indicated wrong targets when he mentioned them.  We interrupted his critical comments and talked him down.  To my surprise, our fellow members joined in as if we were of one mind.  I later learned that several other individuals in our group had also decided to squelch the bully that evening.  Incidentally, he never returned.

The Retreat

Sometimes a strategic retreat will serve the hero’s purpose better than an attack.

SCENE: Linda arrived for a luncheon date with a friend, looking frustrated.  “Oh, that boss of mine…”, she sighed as she sat down.

Linda was moving to another city where she had lined up a new job.  She had planned to give notice on her present job as soon as she worked out all the arrangements.  To Linda’s embarrassment, however, her future employer called her present employer for a reference.

Her current boss was furious (a nearly chronic state anyway); he accused her of deception, ingratitude, inconsideration and betrayal.  She tried to explain the circumstances, but he refused to listen.

“I’m supposed to see him again this afternoon”, she said.  “What should I do?  He won’t even listen!”

“What is it you want to accomplish?  Do you expect to change his mind or simply want him off your back?”

After a thoughtful moment, she answered, “I know he won’t change his mind.  He’s never changed his mind about anything since I’ve worked for him.  I guess I’d like to get him off my back”.

“OK.  Then make him right”, her friend suggested.

“How?”

“Tell him you’re sorry.  Tell him you really thoughtless and inconsiderate and selfish.  You’re not changing your plans, mind you.  He won’t expect you to.  Just agree with him.  If this doesn’t mollify him, there’s one last thing you can do”.

“What’s that?”

“Look at him and ask, ‘What can I do to make it right?’  He’ll probably say, ‘Nothing’, but that should stop his attack”.

Later Linda called her friend.  “It worked out exactly as you said it would.  In fact, after I asked him what I could do to make it right, he did say ‘Nothing, ‘and he stopped criticizing me.  He was actually decent the rest of the afternoon”.

I don’t advocate that you make a doormat out of yourself—but you may find times when a shrewd retreat offers an immediate solution.

The Mock Surrender

Here’s a variation that can be fun.  Determine the covert intention behind the words the bully is saying, and have the child name it in the form of a mocking surrender.

SCENE: Frank was enthusiastically describing a new project of his to Kirk when he interrupted, “But that’s going to take years!”

“You’re right", Frank replied instantly.  “I’ll give it up”.

“No, no.  I didn’t mean that.  Don’t get me wrong.  I just...”  He quickly backed off.  That was the end of his attempts to discourage Frank.

Discipline

Sometimes simply establishing a strong discipline in your child's environment will be enough to control suppressive activities.  “Tell Mary Squelch from next door that she is no longer welcome in your house unless she can stop criticizing your children”.

If you discover dishonest behavior in their office—padded expense accounts, brazen goofing off, too many coffee breaks, extended lunch hours, pilfering of supplies and equipment—issue firm corrective policy; demand stronger discipline.  You will find that decent people straighten themselves out immediately. This can also apply to schools.

The bully will grouch loudly, complain about the discipline, and probably leave.

Becoming Invulnerable To Suppression

Although your child may have been crushed and thwarted by suppression, you can recover his self-determinism.  You can erase those sensitive areas that make him vulnerable.  He can strengthen himself and cease to be the helpless effect of the bully.

It’s an over-simplification to regard the bully as the big, bad ogre and your chil as totally innocent, lily-white victims.  We each have played our own part in bringing suppression down upon ourselves.

Summary

1. See Less Of The bully.  This is the quickest solution—and immediately effective.  My own inclination is to have the character your hero is helping have as little to do with the bully as possible.  Who needs them?

2. Stop The Bully.  By fighting back, your child is letting the antisocial guy know that he won’t be intimidated.  There are several ways to do this:

Spotlight the suppression.  Demand that he gives specifics instead of generalities.  Correct his wrong-targeting.  Identify and verbally indicate all instances of warped communication.  Stop him from passing on bad news.  Do not permit him to interrupt your child’s actions.

Discipline.  When your child’s relationship makes it possible, set down strong rules and policies that will control the bully and nullify his harmful effects.

Confrontation.  Have the child face up to the Antisocial Personality and tell him he doesn’t intend to let the guy suppress him.  Ridicule him where advisable.  Take him to court if necessary.

Exposure.  Have the child discover exactly what the bully is doing and expose his actions to fellow students, family members, teachers and/or legal authorities.

3. Make Yourself Invulnerable.  This is the ultimate guarantee of personal serenity.

End any dependency.  Allow the bully’s allies to become independent of the bully and this will automatically eliminate most of the hold he has on them.

Get emotional and physical support from Allies.  Talking it out with allies while gathering their team ready for Battle can help most kids become immune to suppression by eliminating the raw nerves that the bully can probe.

These are not all the solutions you can use against the bully and other assholes in your scripts or in your or your child's lives, by any means; they’re offered only as a guide.  You will find others; perhaps better ones that will help restore your child’s peace of mind.

Not every human ill can be explained in terms of suppression.  There are other causes, other answers.  But if you find a bully in your real life, you do something about the situation.

Your sanity—your life—may depend on it.

Suppression is not a pleasant subject.  It’s a dark, ugly, side of living.  But understanding suppression and knowing how to conquer it can bring us, your child and your hero out into the sunshine again.

Good luck!

What Is A Screenwriter?

When you look at life, you realize that a certain amount of discipline, a certain amount of punishment, a certain amount of agony is bred into life.  But when you have your allegiance to a species or a culture and it comes up against the bumpers on the track and it’s slowing down and starting to lose its sense of direction, as writers you’re entitled to do something about it.

You’re entitled to disturb what is laughingly called Self-determination, and that in essence is more or less what I envision a screenwriter is doing: getting the wheels turning, getting the show on the road and keeping a culture from falling on its face.

I would say he was somebody who brought light and humanity to Man and his sciences because Man neglected to bring humanity in when he brought in science.

There's nothing at all wrong with physics, chemistry or mathematics, electronics or anything else, until some little slap-happy guy who doesn't even know he has a next-door neighbor decides that the machine is far more important than men.

And when he decides that, the Screenwriter, of course, has a perfect right to shoot him.

A Screenwriter is a troubleshooter.  Suddenly, life's going along, your hero is doing all right and suddenly the gates sort of drop across his track and they just can't get out of that much trouble.  Well, nobody in the past could get a person out of that much trouble.  Here's a fellow, he's going along all right, the baby is born, and his wife has, all of a sudden, dizzy notions that she ought to kill the child.  He's in too much trouble.  His life for the next thirty or fifty years is going to be a burden to him.

Well, a Screenwriter can very well do something about that.  But that isn't all.  What about the fellow who just thought it was wonderful to go around and have big adventures and, all of a sudden, found himself falling into the traps of criminality?  Nobody would let him have any adventure.  And he found out he couldn't have any adventure and he finally sunk down to the level of being a criminal.

What right does this society have to keep men in cages?  Well, I'll tell you what right it has.  None!  A Screenwriter can do something about that, very definitely.

He's a troubleshooter for the individual, for children, the family and the political and economic group.  He knows what life is about; he knows whether it's on its rails or it's off the rails.  He knows whether a corporation is failing or not failing, simply by estimating its level on a Scale.  How simple.  What's the state of internal communications of a corporation?  Well, if you just look at that, "What's the state of your interoffice communications around here, boss?"

"What interoffice communications?"

You say, "Well, I'll give this company about six months".  That's about it.  It'll drag along that way.  Here will be a lot of guys out of work suddenly.  Here's management not taking its responsibility like it should.  That's the economic group.

And what about a political group?  Well, there isn't too much you can do about political groups because they come and they go.  But, there is one thing about the world today which is intensely interesting, is that there are two parasitic groups in the world today which are at war with each other and which are causing more commotion—everybody is so flabbergasted, they don't quite know what's happening.  And one of them is a dictatorship, the other is capitalism.

A “dictatorship" is a military aristocracy which depends upon the worker, and "capitalism" is a money aristocracy which depends upon the worker and the guy who is going along is the manager.  The manager, the worker and the people who service the managers and workers—that's the society.  Those are three groups.

Everything just goes along fine.  There's the manager—the entrepreneur, the fellow who manages things, the foreman.  And then there's the fellow who's really got his hands on the tools and who's building things.  And then there's that vast class of tradesmen and wives and movie theater owners and all these other people that service the worker.  He won't get anyplace servicing managers, there aren't enough of them.

So you have these three operating groups and they're just going along splendidly until a military aristocracy comes in and says at the point of a pistol, “We are now going to sit down and you're going to feed us, on account of we can shoot and it's in the law that we can shoot and you can't”.

And the other one is the fellow who says, “I control all the buying power of the entire community, therefore you are all slaves”.

Those are two political groups today that aren't letting us do too well on the world at large.  Our income taxes today are directly attributable between these two parasitic forces, capitalism and a dictatorship.

The Screenwriter can remedy and rectify conditions unfavorable to the survival of desirable life forms and conditions unfavorable to the survival of desirable life forms.  He has to make up his mind what's a desirable life form.  Well, he always has things that he's siding with.  Right now, you're siding with Man, therefore flies aren't desirable.

And he remedies and rectifies conditions favorable to the survival of undesirable life forms and favorable to the survival of undesirable life forms.  I tell you if you had mosquitoes all over the place here or had them all over Jersey, it'd be a pretty good project to go out some Sunday with some kerosene cans and throw some kerosene on those ponds and, boy, the mosquito population would suddenly take a nosedive.  That's well within your purview, because it's part of the contest of Man and life against the environment of the universe.  And some forms of life have taken it into their minds that they must be the only thing that eats.  And when you get a form of life which takes that into its mind that it's the only thing that's going to eat and it's not going to let anything else eat, anywhere—that's bad, that's real bad.  What's bad and what's good?  Well, that happens to be bad.

When the capitalist says, “I am the only one that can have two Lexus” shoot him.  If a guy running a machine press down there is producing good stuff and so forth, let him have a Lexus, too.  What's the matter with that?  Nothing.  Not a thing.

But it wouldn't be a distinguishing badge that somebody could wear as he drove down the street.

Understand, I'm not beating the drum for either of these two insanities, I'm just trying to talk about something that's pretty good sense.  And neither one of these are good sense, I assure you.  I know both of them.  They're just not good sense.

Now, a Screenwriter is a counselor for problems of culture.  Isn't that a nice broad statement?  Well, the funny part of culture is, culture consists of the productivity, the art forms.  Here's where you would enter that immediately.  You might know of starlet who was doing just fair.  A little too self-conscious.  You go to a show, you see this little girl, she looks like she'd do all right, but she just isn't up there anyplace, You got to have enough brass to go back of the scenes and pull her up the scale and make an actress out of her.  You're helping culture when you're doing that.

You would be amazed today, for instance, that there are forms of culture out across the world which are astonishing in their beauty, which still survive over many centuries, and so on.  Somebody’s helping them along.  And they're really all that's left of an entire flourishing race—these forms of art are still there and practically nothing else is.  If you want to deal with survival in the raw, deal with art forms.

Another thing a Screenwriter could be is a counselor for those responsible for the conduct and planning of political and economic groups.  You know, there's an awful lot people around that are carrying a terrific weight on their backs.  They just don't think there’s anything at all that could possibly help them out.

Somebody said one time, "The world is carried on the backs of a few desperate men".  That’s very probably true.  If you find any of these desperate men, why, give them just a little more back.

A Screenwriter would be a teacher of doctrines useful in the tasks of survival, things like the basic drives of existence.

The doctrines all by themselves have a potency up on the screen which you shouldn't neglect.  Somebody comes in and sits down, you talk to them for a little while and they go away.  They think they know what Screenwriting is.  No, they don't know what it is.  It's a codification of an understanding of existence which is assimilable by Man.

A Screenwriter would be a social catalyst dedicated to the mission of raising the standards of happiness of Man and bringing him to recognize his brotherhood with the universe.

A Screenwriter would be a leader in Man's conquest of his environment and that's about the summation that I would care to make of it.

That's a lot of things.  It's very easy to be or do many of those things.

Let's look at the drives of life and we find out that as soon as a character is much more willing to be the himself, the more willing he gets interested in kids, he gets interested in groups, so on.  And the truth of the matter is that this universe is a tremendously interesting place.  A character has to talk about it being a mean place once in a while, simply because nobody will agree with him about anything else.

You are capable of making a universe of your own, certainly.  That's Screenwriting, that's something that's a little bit out of our range of understanding when we're dealing with this universe alone.  We needn't worry about that.  Because you'll find that you probably (and probably the majority of your characters) will come upscale in terms of motion alone—up to the point where your audience is no longer able to stay disinterested.  It's a tremendously interesting universe.

Your hero gets into motion.  He gets into action.  He can remember times when he was a Kid, when life just looked too doggoned deliciously beautiful to be left alone.  So he could feel like that again if he worked at it.  And what do you think will happen to him when he finds life is just too good to be left alone?  He'll start living it.  Wherever he suddenly moved into that phase and stayed there, he'll hit it a few times and then miss it.  A little more writing and you'll start to hit it more constantly and away you'll go.

It's not near as hard to write a number of people at the same time.  That's a fact.  You can write a lot of people much easier than one character.  That's why I say groups are very good.  Yet, one might very well find, for years to come, a great deal of interest and satisfaction in writing characters.  That's all very well, too.  But remember there's a lot of other things that you can do.  And if you start concentrating all the time upon the unable and the sick, you really won't be in there pitching hard for the culture at large.

You should be pitching an optimum solution and that's not working continually in favor only of those who are incapable.

The society is running because of capable people.  There's a lot of things that can be done for it.

It depends to a large degree upon initiative and imagination, but you have the tools with which to bring yourself to a level of such initiative and imagination if you do not have it already.  Therefore life at large is actually waiting for you with open arms.

And who will thank you?  You will thank yourselves: That's the only person that can thank you.

So, on the uses and future of Screenwriting, one can look at an entire universe, but the writer looks at a universe not of speculation but of action.  You don't have to think twice or give notice to people who are thinking about it.  People who are thinking about it are not dangerous.  They don't handle guns, knives, they don't run fast.  Most of the time they don't even talk bitingly.  You could sit and think about it for fifty years and neither you nor anything else would be any better for it.

So when I talk about Screenwriting and its uses, please don't think about it—just do it.

Now, what do you mean by action?  Action is just motion.  Any motion is better than no motion.

When I was a young writer they used to tell me, "Never under any circumstances write action for the sake of action.  Never".  They taught the artist to work with restraint.  The one thing art isn't, is restrained.  It is directed motion, which means a certain amount of discipline has to go into any motion an artist makes.  But is that restraint?

What is, then, the optimum use of what you know?  One of it is teaching it so that others can know.  But how would you teach it?  By going over it little by little?  No, you could best teach it by example.  You can give the rudiments, the integrative data which suddenly sparks another mind.  But it would be unfair of you if you did not give him, as well, the techniques which, having moved him into thinking, would not again move him out.  You see?  Action.

The difference between a young man and an old man is an old man knows he can be hurt and the young man doesn't care.  And the difference between a young girl and an older woman is essentially the same thing.  When it comes to esoteric matters on the part of a young man or the young woman of beauty and so on, do you realize that animation always arrives at the finish line, while beauty is thinking about it?  I have been at embassy balls and dinners, time after time, to find the belle of the ball a young girl?  Oh no, the young girls were over there against the walls hoping somebody would ask them to dance.  Some old gal who really had a beautiful line, she understood and knew life.  And all the desirable young men weren't over there by the wall.  There was beauty and here was charm.

What is charm?  Charm is the ability to reach out, be and admire.  Your personal appearance, outside of the fact that the society objects to a dirty shirt, doesn't mean very much when it comes to charm.  Anything you build up on charm in way of a mock-up is that much more gratifying, of course.  But you practically with an idea, with knowing what you are doing, with certainty, with poise, with the ability to laugh or the ability to be dignified, each in its place, you to go out into this society ... You don't know it sitting here.  It's fantastic that people don't know this, but life out there is so far gone.

You just start walking through it and it just goes apart like grass.  There's nothing-nothing interrupting your line of motion.  Nothing.  It's fabulous.  But life today has no great resistance in this society.  Its pioneer period is at end.  The vitality of the country is very definitely on the wane.  There's no opposition.

I found out that whenever I trained a writer well.  When he walked out into the society, there was a spreading pool of light going from him.  In other words, more and more people knew what they were doing.

And so we have a possibility by, you might say, super-training some of those already trained, to bring about this condition in several parts of the country or the world.

What I am going toward is better dissemination of information and better writers—that even might mean fewer writers.