A few readers expressed strong disapproval of my recent post Warning: Unpunishable Plagiarism. Not of the subject matter per se – they agree that gorging on other people’s creativity—whether in business, science, or arts—is despicable and the law that doesn’t protect it is fucked up. But they were upset with the examples I’ve chosen to illustrate the idea-snatching in pop-culture.
Instead of picking on absorption of mythology, folklore, and literary inheritance in the beloved Harry Potter—they say—or making vague allegations about the possible origins of Hannah Horvath, why didn’t you talk about the simultaneous releases of Pixar‘s A Bug’s Life and DreamWorks‘ Antz(both in 1998), or of a superior Chris Nolan’s The Prestige and subpar Neil Burger’s The Illusionist (both 2006)?
The answer is simple: as peculiar and suspicious concurrent developments of very similar ideas by different production companies are, it is practically impossible to uncover the back stories behind these incidents, or make even vague attempts to point a finger at the alleged perpetrators. So, I wrote about the instances that seemed somewhat obvious and transparent to me. Otherwise, the post would consist of nothing more than just one anecdote from my own professional life and a non-descriptive list of dubious cultural references. Maybe it would be more sanitary, but also boring.
Let’s take, for example, The Prestige/The Illusionist case. What can we dig up? Well, both screenplays were based on legitimate and independent literary sources.
The first one is an adaptation of a novel with the same title written by an English novelist and science fiction writer Christopher Priest and published by Gollancz in 1995. Priest is a well-known and highly respected writer: the themes of his A Dream of Wessex, for example, were used as a framework for David Cronenberg’s fantastic eXistenZ. The year The Prestige hit the book stores, it was nominated for four sci-fi and fantasy awards and won two of them. While the movie differs from the book (the latter being darker and more complex) all the main ingredients and the plot turns were taken from the novel: the characters’ names and descriptions, Priest’s fictional practice of stage illusions (the setup, the performance, and the prestige), the nature of the competing teleportation uber-acts, and even the guest appearance of Nicola Tesla.
Various sources indicate that several Hollywood producers had approached Priest for an adaptation of the novel and it was Valerie Dean of Newmarket Films (they also produced Memento), who told Chris Nolan about the novel in 2000. After he read it, Newmarket Films purchased the option. I can see how adapting a novel constructed as shifts between entries of two diaries could be very difficult, especially considering that the work on Insomnia had already began. Yet, the Nolan brothers had it finished in 2003 and were ready to start filming, but it wasn’t meant to be: Batman Begins production got escalated and The Prestige was postponed. The pre-production didn’t start until October 2005 and the film was released by Touchstone exactly one year later.
The Illusionist is based on an even earlier short story by Pulitzer Prize winner Steven Millhauser Eisenheim the Illusionist – it was a part of his 1990 collection The Barnum Museum. The Hollywood mythology has it that, even though Neil Burger’s debut Interview with the Assassin was a terrible flop, its producers desperately wanted to work with the said writer/director again. In 2002 they asked Neil what would he like to do next and he said, “There is this short story I always wanted to adapt…” I’m guessing it took a couple of years before the idea could be sold and budgeted (unlike Chris Nolan, Neil Burger had no other projects on his hands), and the movie didn’t go into production until early 2005. It was released 10 months ahead of The Prestige.
Thus, on the surface all facts point to the accidental concurrency of these two movies. However, who the fuck knows how the little impulses that churn the Hollywood machine work? You see, as soon as any creative property is optioned, the fact becomes a matter of public knowledge. Ok, let me amend that: I don’t really think that the “general public” is following that kind of information. But if you are in the trade or have some sort of a vested interest in filmmaking, you can and must know all tinseltown’s moves.
I mean, Variety, the oldest American entertainment-trade magazine, had been founded in 1905 (!). Since then, its been reporting on every single production and celebrity move imaginable. The Hollywood Reporter joined the action in 1930. Nowadays, you can have paid subscriptions to both publications online. However, the Internet access to filmmaking trade news is dominated by DoneDeal Pro ($24 a year), which delivers basically a live feed of every option, screenplay purchase, new project announcement, talent attachment, etc.; and IMdB Pro ($125 a year) with its remarkable search capabilities allowing you to see what every producer has “in-production” and “in-development.” And I know for a fact that all production companies and studios have staffers and interns, whose job is to deliver the digests of all these daily news to their bosses.
So, it is easy to imagine that the knowledge of The Prestige waiting its turn since 2000 could’ve been a pressure point in The Illusionist pitch: “Look, we can beat their timing with our own movie about a magician…” Is this a qualified example of the unpunishable plagiarism? I really don’t know. You decide for yourself.
Some readers also said that my post, by making a case that “everyone steals,” might give unsavory elements a carte blanche for encroaching on others’ creativity. Well, first of all, I hope I was explicit enough in stating my position on the issue. Secondly, I honestly don’t think that my two cents have the power to change the situation in either direction. And finally, I am not Huffington fucking Post – I don’t have that kind of exposure!
Of course, I cannot just end this post without letting the movie critic in me to use this opportunity to make the following comment. If somebody referred Christopher Nolan to Eisenheim the Illusionist, he wouldn’t care for it. It’s a story of the “and I will do anything for love” kind, and this writer/director is not interested in that. Think about his movies (including Man of Steel, which he only co-produced) – they are all about a Man and His Mission, a Hero and His Obsession. Love, even if it’s present, is just a plot point; it is seated in the last row of the Nolan bus.
Plagiarism – the wrongful appropriation or purloining, and publication as one’s own, of the ideas, or the expression of the ideas (literary, artistic, musical, mechanical, etc.) of another.
OED, Vol. 11: 947
As OED’s definitions go, this one is pretty straightforward: you create something, another person passes it as his own – that’s wrong. It is also linguistically polite. Authors unrestricted by the structural conventions of dictionaries, can be more blunt about it. Late Alexander Lindey, a copyright attorney and author, in his 1951 Plagiarism and Originality wrote: “Plagiarism is literary – or artistic or musical – theft.”
Note that OED’s definition includes both ideas and their expressions. Legally, however, only actual products are protected. The United States Copyright Office clearly states:
“Copyright does not protect ideas, concepts, systems, or methods of doing something. You may express your ideas in writing or drawings and claim copyright in you description, but be aware that copyright will not protect the idea itself as revealed in written or artistic work.”
To simplify: Copying Van Gogh’s Sunflowers to a stroke and passing it as your own work is illegal, but producing endless still-lifes of vases with flowers in Van Gogh’s style is absolutely OK. By the same token, reproducing somebody’s words verbatim without giving a proper citation is plagiarism, but recasting somebody’s original idea with your own words, details, and attributes cannot be legally challenged.
Generally speaking, the intention behind the exclusion of ideas from the copyright protection is founded in the possibility of several people coming up with the same thought at the same time. This indeed happens from time to time. However, more frequently than not, the law, as it stands right now, makes what I call an unpunishable plagiarism an okay thing.
Of course, it is infrequent that someone copies a painting, or steals a score from another musician’s computer. Actions like that can lead to criminal and/or civil law suits. From time to time, we hear about people being expelled from schools or lose their jobs and professional creditability on account of plagiarism.
Sometimes, such allegations are unfounded and cleverly used to mar the innocent competition. The fabulous Alan Rickman, whose character in the Broadway production of Theresa Rebeck’s Seminar became a victim of such a scam, moaned with all the heart-wrenching pain his ample talent was capable to deliver: “Oh, to be accused of such a thing…” For him it’s the worst possible shame. A rare man!
However, when it comes to original ideas, only individual morals stand between one person’s precious imaginative jewel and another person’s grabby hand. Unfortunately, morality being what it is in the present time, theft of the original ideas is far more common than pickpocketing and purse snatching. As originality becomes more and more of a deficit, the stealing of it becomes more and more pervasive. I personally don’t care whether it’s legal or not. To me it’s worse than a theft – it’s an intellectual rape, a snatching of babies born in a torrent of a creative labor.
In business environments it happens every day. Those who watch NBC’s popular series Grimm know that the show’s core feature is to give a fairy-tale spin to contemporary life. In a second season’s episode Nameless, a video game company celebrates the development of a groundbreaking code. Everyone involved in the programming of this extraordinary algorithm stands to make millions. As it turns out, however, none of the people taking credit for it had actually authored the breakthrough idea. It was appropriated by the team leader from a tech guy who came to reboot her system and offered the brilliant solution in exchange for a date. Not only that she had no qualms about accepting the praise and the rewards, she wasn’t planning to keep the date promise either. She didn’t even remember the guys name.
Whether in business or arts, the worst idea thieves are your peers, especially those who work with you. Trust me, I know it first-hand. One such incident occurred during my time as a high-tech CFO. We were preparing for a teleconference with our venture-capital investors. My fellow board member, the VP of Marketing, strolled into my office and asked for my opinion about the topics to be discussed. You know, at the time the Internet companies were marked by a sense of democracy and camaraderie. So, I let my guard down and laid out my thoughts. All these years later, I still remember the shock I felt, when this guy took the lead of the meeting and repeated everything I told him verbatim, without giving me any credit, of course.
It goes without saying that the world of arts and entertainment is a fucking snake pit that lives by the motto “Everybody steals.” It’s pretty much an every-day practice.
No matter how many musicians and fans scorned Vanilla Ice’s shameless “re-phrasing” of the Queen/Bowie genius bass riff, “Ice Ice Baby” made millions, was nominated for a Grammy and won the American Music Award. It only got worse since. I happened to personally know a human equivalent of a music encyclopedia, and I constantly hear from her: “Wait a minute, I already heard this on…”
In Woody Allen’s Vicky, Christina, Barcelona Penelope Cruz’s character Maria Elena bluntly states that Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), a commercially successful artist, stole his entire painting style from her. First, he reluctantly acknowledges that, yes, she was “influential,” and later admits that “maybe he took from her more than he likes to admit.” Really? With a hint of sarcasm Maria Elena says: “It’s okay. We worked side by side for many years, and you adopted my vision of the world as your own.”
Speaking of movies, it’s impossible to get an unknown writer’s script into a decision-maker’s hands. 99% of studios and production companies do not accept unsolicited (i.e. not represented by an agent) material. And even if you do get someone to read your script or to hear your pitch, the first thing you will need to do is to sign a legal document promising that you will never-ever sue that entity for stealing your idea. Why? Because, if they don’t like the script but like the idea, they will most definitely steal it.
There is this tiny (in terms of viewership – $342K gross) Craig Lucas’s movie called The Dying Gaul (2005). It is a feeble attempt to expose Hollywood’s perversity and corruption. In spite of the presence of indy VIP’s Campbell Scott, Patricia Clarkson, and Peter Sarsgaard, whose pull must be responsible for a $4 million budget, the movie is an unremarkable failure. (Let’s be honest, ever since Robert Altman’s The Player (1992), you really need something extraordinary up your sleeve to embark on this theme.) Yet, the film has one valuable tidbit of a real truth in it: When the main character refuses to change his script from a tragic gay love story into a heterosexual romance, the big-time producer with a $1 million check in his hand warns, “If you refuse, you will walk out of here with nothing, and I will give your story to someone else to rewrite.”
But don’t think that only the unknown writers fall victims to Tinseltown’s shameless pilfering of ingenuity. The moment I saw a poster for Night in the Museum, I had a bizarre thought that Ben Stiller somehow managed to convince Gore Vidal to lend the movie a brilliant plot device from his novel The Smithsonian Institution (1998) . You see, it was Vidal who made the historical characters come to life, most notably Teddy Roosevelt (but not dinosaurs). Apparently, I was not the only one who noticed the uncanny similarity: the great writer himself openly spoke about it in various media. Of course, he wasn’t going to attempt any legal action – he’s been around the block way too many times (his first publication is dated 1946 and his oeuvre includes 14 screenplays).
Some occurrences of unpunishable plagiarism are simply ridiculous. In 2007, Joe Swanberg (another semi-known indy writer/director) made a practically unseen ($23K gross) movie called Hannah Takes the Stairs: Hannah (Greta Gerwig), a recent college graduate, is an intern and an aspiring writer, who is cruising from a relationship to relationship, trying to find her direction in life. Hmm… Wait a minute… Doesn’t this Hannah live on HBO now? Wasn’t she shoved into everyone’s face by the hipster media for the past 18 months or so? Wasn’t she supposed to be an alter ego of her “oh-so-original” creator, a “genius” on the list of “100 Most Influential People,” the one whose name I promised not to mention in my posts anymore? A coincidence? Nope. If anyone did see the 2007 movie, it would be this HBO’s you-know-who. After all, she is a friend and a collaborator (Nobody Walks) of Ry Russo-Young, who co-starred in Hannah Takes the Stairs.
Speaking of those Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, it is my firm opinion that the biggest scrounger in fictional writing ever is J.K. Rowling. Don’t get me wrong, I love Harry Potter, but that woman sponged her material off everything she ever read (granted, she is a very well-read person). Let’s not drown ourselves in the boundless sea of magical names representing wizardly attributes: Lupin = wolf (Latin); Sirius = dog (Latin via Greek); Severus = serious, strict (Latin); Dumbledore = stream of gold (a combination of “dumble” – a Nottinghamshire local for a forested stream, and French “d’Or”), etc., etc., etc., etc. Instead, I’d like to point out a few very specific items:
Let me remind you that in 1961 Roald Dahl wrote a very popular book James and the Giant Peach about an orphan boy James Henry Trotter (Harry James Potter, anyone?!), whose loving parents were destroyed by a brutal rhino and who is forced to live with cruel aunts until a magician helps him to get out.
In Gaudy Night Dorothy Sayers’s lead character Harriet Vane describes her alma mater, Oxford’s Shrewsbury College, as an incredibly confusing place with seemingly moving stairs.
During Victorian times, British citizens started depositing their money in the banks in increasing numbers. Funny, they developed a slang term for the sovereigns the deposited – they called them “goblins.”
Actually, my list is so long, I can write another book. How about “Harry Potter Genesis, Or Did J.K. Rowling Come Up With Any Original Ideas?”
Obviously, I am very apprehensive about the usurping tendencies all around us. I know talented young people bursting with artistic ideas. Extraordinary pearls of originality simply roll off their tongues.It’s painful to admit it, but instead of enjoying their creativity, I behave like a robotic warning machine: “Keep it to yourself! Don’t share it with anybody! Stop dropping your pearls publicly! Why did you post that brilliant thing on fucking facebook?!” I know it makes me sound like a paranoid maniac (and it makes me feel real shitty), but what else can I do to protect them? Their artistic expressions are incredibly unique. Their verbiage is so catchy, their “friends” not only repeat it, but have the gall to claim it for themselves.
How can we possibly control this? How can we safeguard the originality? We can’t: There is no legal way and most humans lost any shreds of shame a long time ago. The only way to protect your ideas is to constantly convert them into products, so that you can stake your ownership via the copyright. And even then, as examples above show, you are not secured from various brands of scavengers.
This commonplace entertainment for the masses is actually very heterogeneous in its nature. Cinema is a chimera: part visual crafts, part performance art, part continuous technological advancements.
Since pre-historic times artists tried to capture the movements of their subjects. The best painters can make you feel as if the sea foam is forming right there on the canvas. But it's just your imagination. And so, since 3200 B.C., innovators applied mechanics, optics, and chemistry to images in order to imitate the magic of natural motion.
The fathers of cinema, the Lumiere brothers, viewed it as nothing more than a natural transition from still photography. Their perforated film and the cinematograph gave birth to a huge industrial machine that to this day generates products in multiple copies deliverable to millions of consumers.
The newly found ability to record real life and chronicle historical events has revolutionized the planet's infosphere, continuously providing us with documents of great achievements and horrendous atrocities. However, entrepreneurs of moving images have immediately recognized an opportunity to use the new medium as a portal for escaping the reality for a short while and introduced the performance arts into the mix. Why not film actors in dramatic or comedic situations? Why not utilize the camera's mobility – take them off the stage and place them into natural settings; bring the actions into a garden, on the street, on the beach?
(Aside: Movie theaters still provide the most affordable route of escape. They get you out of work and home surroundings, hide you in the darkness, bring you into the places you may never visit, and show you lives of people you will never meet. Yet, you don't need to go very far or pay too much money for the adventure. That's why the experience of going to the movies persists no matter how advance home and handheld entertainment media get.)
Before long, the makers of moving pictures realized that the technology at their hands could also be used as a dramatic tool. To this day, phrases like "cut for emotion" signify how the mechanical process of editing (cutting and gluing of the film) has a potential of creating unforgettable, heart-stopping moments, which elicit deep emotions in the viewing audience.
Thus, imagery, performance, and technology were merged together by people standing behind the camera and shouting commands at everyone. Sergei Eisenstein (Battleship Potemkin, Alexander Nevsky, Ivan the Terrible) was immortalized as one of the first innovative film directors precisely because of his great talent of telling powerful stories by combining panoramic shots that make you feel threatened with close-ups that fill your soul with sadness. In fact, European theorists call him the "Father of Montage."
It goes without saying – filmmaking is a director's art (for many, the word "craft" is more appropriate). The director's job is to take a story and make it alive on the screen. To achieve this miracle, he or she, akin Dr. Frankenstein, need to combine different elements and put them through multiple processing steps. It's an intricate creative process, but it is also a tedious organizational endeavor, not much different from a job of a manufacturing general manager.
Each main element of filmmaking has multiple subdivisions. Performance arts: story development, screenwriting, casting, performance directing, acting, stunts, music, sound, wardrobe design, makeup. Image-making: lighting, cinematography, visual effects, production design, set decoration, art direction. Technology: special effects, props, production management, animation, editing, etc. Each of these larger functions are further divided into subgroups, sectors, tasks… It doesn't matter whether all these duties are performed by 10 people or by a crew of 2,435 (The Avengers – the longest credit roll I've ever witnessed) – it's up to the director to make sure that all the parts work together and everything congeals into the final product.
Nowadays, the advancement of digital applications blurs the lines between the visual and technological aspects of filmmaking. The development of computer-generated images (CGI) has become its prominent property. We even have famous directors (James Cameron, George Lucas), who are involved first-hand in scientific innovations of moving-image technology.
Thanks to CGI, creators can conjure any situation born out of their imagination. Now, intergalactic spaceships and aliens look real; characters can turn into monsters right in front of your eyes; they fly through the sky and jump out of airplanes. Frequently people go to the movies just to see the spectacle at its maximum potential – in 3D, on IMAX screen, with surround sound. Who cares what the movie is about? I cannot wait for the time, when at the entrance instead of glasses you'll be handed a helmet. Then right from your seat you will be transported onto some planet, where hoofed creatures with striped tails and dragonfly eyes will take you by the hand… What plot?
That said, with a humongous moviemaking machine remaining unseen (and largely unknown), at the end of the day, cinema is all about the actors on the screen. They are the bait that lures the majority of moviegoers into spending their money. Yeah, the trailer looks good, and maybe the effects will blow your mind (literally), and the story will knock you out cold, but people cannot be sure of it until the movie is over.
On the other hand, everyone knows in advance that Anthony Hopkins can transform himself into anybody, Harrison Ford at 70 is still enticing, Kristen Wiig is batshit funny, Megan Fox looks fucking awesome in high-cut shorts, and Daniel Craig makes the most outrages 007 shenanigans believable. Even picky (some say snooty) cenophiles like me, who are concerned with the subtext, depth, dialogue and directorial mastery, will excuse sub par filmmaking for the sake of watching an actor creating magic on the screen (the late Heath Ledger would be a good example for me).
Besides my personal endless fascination with the cinema, there is a legitimate reason for going into the extended discussion of its components in the context of the financial enumeration. The proportions of elements used in manufacturing movies not only yield distinctly different types of products, they also drive its financial aspects.
On a general level, a movie's Income Statement is fairly straightforward. We've got tickets, DVDs, TV rights, etc. revenues on one side, and the cost of ingredients required for making the product on the other. The total amount spent on a project is customarily called a "budget," regardless of whether it was set in advance or just accumulated to be a certain sum. This is a very important industry indicator, which is frequently made public.
The budget elements may have multi-million price tags or cost nothing at all, and anything in between. Any "name" (i.e. famous) ingredient will cost a lot of money. Any unknown, trying to break in, component can be obtained for free. This is literally true about everything that goes into the pressure cooker of filmmaking. I would have to write another book just to go over every single line of the various movie budgets, but let me provide a few guidelines.
It is safe to say that, as of right now, abundant CGI and megastars are the most expensive ingredients in the movie-making cupboard. The high-tech companies specializing in movie magic charge by the man-hour. And it's not like the rates are outrageous (the computer nerds make similarly decent salaries everywhere), but the processes are extremely time-consuming. So, if "the vision" calls for a team of 200 people working for 12 weeks, a moderate average of $150 per hour will set you back by nearly $14.5 million. For a team of 1000 people, multiply that by five, and so on.
Actors in high demand (Will Smith, Tom Cruise, Robert Downy Jr., Tom Hanks, Jude Law, etc.) have compensation structure that includes a salary base plus commissions. The latter can be defined as gross participation, backend, box office bonuses, or residuals. If the up front salary is $15 million but the movie returns several times over the invested budget, the total take could be around $50-$70 million.
My favorite, even though outdated, example of the stars' budgetary impact is the 1992 mega hit and critics' favorite A Few Good Men. The three top-billing actors, Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, and Demi Moore (in that order) had the respective base salaries of $12 million, $5 million, and $3 million. The total of $20 million took up 50% of the $40 million budget.
The movie's director, Rob Reiner, whose company Castle Rock Entertainment also produced the film for Columbia Pictures, took the base salary of $4 million, plus a share of residuals. Just like with the actors, this is a common structure for directors. The bases vary, of course. Steven Spielberg's base for directing War Horse was $20 million; Martin Scorcese's base salary for Hugo - $10 million; Guy Ritchie's for the Sherlock Holmes sequel – $7.5 million (25% up from what he got for the original).
The directors, who, like Rob Reiner, produce their movies, tend to take smaller salaries in order to maximize their back-end returns. It works especially well if you've got a real blockbuster on your hands. One of the biggest earners in Hollywood, the incredible James Cameron (Lightstorm Entertainment is his production company), so far personally earned $350 million on his uber-hit creation, Avatar. But it's all good, since the movie has collected 12 times of its original $237 million budget ($2.8 billion) in worldwide box-office sales.
Mr. Cameron is an auteur – he writes, directs, produces, and frequently edits his movies. His $115 million Titanic's earnings, for example, break down like this: $600,000 for the screenplay, $8 million for directing, the rest – production residuals.
These numbers reflect the monetary treatment of creative talent in Hollywood with an uncanny precision. Comparatively speaking, the writers don't really make that much money. Especially the ones who write original screenplays based on their own ideas (aka specs) as opposed to the ones who take studio assignments. Of course, the writers who have the knack for consistently delivering tent poles (i.e. movies that support studios' lavish existence) can get themselves into seven digits, but even the record-high screenwriting salaries do not exceed $4 million.
The rest of the filmmaking functions (supporting cast, extras, cinematographers, line producers, designers, editors, etc., etc.) are performed by skilled professionals whose minimum wage rates are protected by their respective unions and the maximum depends on their track record and their individual level of demand. If someone's rate is $200 per day and he manages to contract himself for two 10-week engagements in a course of one year, the resulting earnings will be $20K.You are doing better with $800 per day rate and a higher demand.
If you become a sought after specialist with a proven delivery of high quality work, your compensation most likely will be switched to a flat weekly rate, or maybe even per-engagement compensation. It is rumored that Rodrigo Prieto, the cinematographer whose impressive portfolio includes such visual gems as 25th Hour, Brokeback Mountain, Babel and Lust, Caution, has received $250,000 for the 10-week shooting of Argo. Relatively speaking, this is quite impressive. However, he shoots on average two movies a year – you do the math.
From the executive producers' point of you, Mr. Prieto is a pretty fat budget line, but the "look" he creates is a big contribution into that "Oscar buzz" they vie for. And it's true about everything – locations, sets, costumes, cars, stunts, quality of light, even the food catered to the cast and crew. You want a good soundtrack with famous, recognizable songs, then you have to pay large licensing fees to both the owners of the music and the publishers who released the particular recording. You want Alexandre Desplat to write the original score… Well, that's a man in extremely high demand! He's been scoring on average 5-6 movies a year for over 20 years now; 11 (!!!) last year alone. So, his per-film prices are definitely in seven figures.
On the other side of the spectrum are the beginners, who will and do work for free just to get their names out there. Not just writers/directors/producers, but also actors, composers, camera and sound specialists, editors, techies – there are plenty of aspiring people, who are not even members of any unions yet.
Ok, here how the movie mixology works. An aspiring filmmaker writes, directs, shoots, and edits a movie with her school friends and family members covering all the basic functions, including second-camera work, light set-up, boom holding, etc. There is a minimal cast of non-union actors, who are grateful to receive $100 per day pay. The action takes place in one apartment generously provided by a friend and the shooting is done in three days. She uses her own HD camera, but hires a freelance sound engineer with his equipment at a rate of $80 per hour. And here you have a microbudget (a few thousand dollars) film that can be sent out to festivals and garner some screenings.
You can have three friends writing a screenplay, one of them directs the movie, another one stars in it – none of them get paid. Practically everyone on the production crew is a first-timer. Most of the action takes place in one apartment. The $60,000 budget is primarily spent on renting equipment, light, sound, and minimal wages paid to some of the 60 members of the cast and crew. Over 100 benefactors donate either money or services. The result – Darren Aronofsky's cult masterpiece Pi, which goes to win nine international awards, including Sundance, and makes $3.2 million in the US alone.
In another recipe, based on a dramatic play, adapted by the playwright himself (his first feature, so he is not asking too much), the filmmaking can still be fairly simple, almost as austere as the theatrical version itself: no CGI; mostly inside a studio with a few Manhattan, London, and British seaside shots; four protagonists and only 16 extras; basic crew. Essentially, this movie could've been made for less than $1 million. But it's a psychological drama and the studio that acquired the successful play hires a daring director who's been dissecting human dynamics for 40 years ($8 million). He, in his turn, picks the four actors that he believes at the moment (2004) to be the best match for the main characters (one of them reprises his stage performance) - an actress with a record-high salaries ($20 million), an A-list actor ($9.5 million), a painfully beautiful 23-year-old actress on her 12th movie (two of them were new Star Wars installments) ($1 million), and a prominent British actor on his way to become a major Hollywood player (salary not reported). These five people pretty much make the entire $40 million budget of Michael Nichols's Closer.
Now, mix together a hot international star playing an iconic character for the third time ($12.8 million); a highly respected director who won an Oscar for a movie that became an instant classic ($5 million); a team of Hollywood writers specializing in high-octane action blockbusters ($2 million); a cinematographer who shot, among others, every single of the Coen brothers' movies ($600 thousand); a supporting cast of 50, including a knighted actress, a Spanish superstar, and Ralph fucking Fiennes; hundreds of extras; a theme song by a pop star who broke all records with her album sales and Grammies; a score by a composer nominated for 10 Oscars; an Oscar-winning production designer; an Oscar nominated editor; filming in London, Scotland, Shanghai, and Istanbul; Smithfield Market car chase and helicopter shots; CGI that makes jumping out of the air into a fast-moving train look real and took 389 visual and special effects professionals to design; a stunt staff of 72 – and you got yourself an MGM tent pole with a $200 million budget, i.e. Skyfall.
You've got the principle, right? You can do it yourself – pick any movie, break it down into cost items, and estimate the budget. Making movies is an expensive business.
The funding for these cinematic cocktails may come from various single or multiple resources: family and friends, high personal wealth individuals with interest in arts (Michael Bloomberg, for example, has been investing in movies for decades), firms specializing in film financing (such as Future Films), financial institutions, strong production companies with sufficient capital, and, of course, studios. It's up to the producers, whether it's the beginning filmmaker himself or a Hollywood power player, to pull together the sufficient funding to cover the movie's budget.
Theoretically, all projects financed by any means other than a big studio's funds are considered to be "independent" movies. Not too long ago we believed that the positive side of not having big bucks from the Big Bad Wolves was a filmmaker's ability to avoid the market-demand concerns. Those were the good old days…
Like with any other form of arts and entertainment, there are two distinct types of "success" for movies: the inexact, flawed, and unfairly subjective artistic achievement (measured in festival wins, awards, critical praises, and cult-like fan following) and simple, solid, and undeniable commercial success (measured in dollars and cents). Most of the movies achieve one or another, rarely – both.
Of all branches of entertainment, the motion pictures industry scores the largest audiences. Miranda July's Me and You and Everyone We Know, commercially speaking, is a small movie – it was made on a $2 million budget and grossed $3.9 million in the box office (it also won 17 international awards, among them four in Cannes, including the Camera d'Or). However, this means that 300,000 people went to see the movie – 39 times more than those who bought Miranda July's collection of stories No One Belongs Here More Than You. If a music album achieved a number like this it would be certified as a triple platinum.
Now, think about really big hits – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, part II made $169 million in its opening weekend in the US ($1.33 billion worldwide gross to date). This means that in the first three days of its release here, over 12 million people went to see this film.
The theaters showing the movies pay either a bidding fixed amount or a percentage of the box office for the right to show the movie; the balance is remitted to the distribution company (the same pattern applies to DVD sales and TV rights). The distribution company that picked up the movie for sale from a studio or a production company also takes either fixed fees (leasing model) or 10-50% of the net profit (profit-sharing model). Whatever is left comes to the producing entities. Hopefully this remainder covers the budget (pays back the investors) and leaves the room for the residuals.
Clearly, the business of making movies is a high-stake financial gamble. The funds are invested into making a product of frequently unpredictable quality and then you wait and see what happens. No matter how much money studios spend on the market research, no matter how strong the producers' sixth sense is, you just never fucking know. Who could possibly predict that a first feature written and directed by a 26-year-old Steven Soderbergh, Sex Lies and Videotape, will not only multiply its 1.2 million budget by 20 in the box office, but will make the filmmaker the youngest person in history to win Cannes top prize – Palme D'Or.
Essentially, every single movie project is a start-up business. I will let my readers to go on IMdB and count how many businesses the Hollywood powerhouses, like the Weinstein brothers or Scott Rudin, originated and brought to a full success.
Suffering from the recent loss of my dear kitty, nowadays I frequently find myself opting for a lighter than usual entertainment fare. I guess, at the moment, my ability to absorb sorrow and turmoil is at its limit. This is not a good time for Lars von Trier. So, at midnight on Saturday I idly let my remote to surf me to a sterilized version of Bridget Jones's Diary on some random non-premium cable channel.
I must say that, when it comes to art, I strongly oppose any form of censorship. This Film Is Not Yet Rated disturbed the hell out of me. And I am offended by YouTube's barring the viewing of Marina Abramovic's art for users under a certain age. For me, this is an equivalent to preventing teenagers from entering the Met.
Someone like me couldn't possibly imagine that a benign movie like Bridget Jones's Diary would require alterations for a late-night showing on a "digital value" channel. Of course, there is some sparse cursing (which, by the way, sounds much milder with the British accent), but other than that…
Well, the false morality defenders found a way to shuck the most whimsical parts out of the movie, leaving only soppy husks. Let me give you a little taste. In the original, when Bridget quits her publishing job, she tells Cleaver, "If staying here means working within 30 yards of you, frankly, I'd rather have a job wiping Saddam Hussein's ass." Snap! The neutered version offers, "washing Saddam Hussein's car" instead. And that "home movie" of 4-year-old Bridget and 8-year-old Mark at the end – it completely disappears.
The problem isn't only in the censorship as a principle. The whole point of Helen Fielding's character, the innovativeness of her novel (which gave rise to the whole slew of books, movies, and TV shows – from Sex and the City to Girls) is in these feisty details. So, when somebody butchers it like that – it's nothing less than a desecration of artistic prerogatives.
Moreover, Miramax and Working Title Films, the production companies that brought the novel to the silver screen, are famous for the edgy, breakthrough movies. The former, for example, is responsible for bringing Pulp Fiction into our lives. Go on IMdB and see the complete rosters of these companies' impressive achievements.
But here is how the money-making in movies works. The production companies facilitate the creation of the product and in this case Miramax was even responsible for the US theatrical release. But after the big-screen runs are over, most movies get pushed through other distribution channels, usually handled by home entertainment divisions of big studios, far removed from the creators and the ideas of artistic integrity. These companies cover DVD and Blu-ray releases as well as the television circulation. While the alteration of DVDs has been ruled by the courts in 2006 as an "illegitimate business" and a violation of federal copyright laws, the decision doesn't apply to television versions. Those can be mutilated.
The question is, whether the moviemakers, who sign contracts, which give distributors rights to rape their artistic creations any way they like, do it knowingly. Are they such whores that they would sacrifice their creative integrity and sell their children to bordellos of family-friendly television for an extra buck?
Well, call me a hopeless idealist, but I don't believe that all of them are. At least some of them do care. (Hey, counting money is my profession, but I know that there are more important things in life than raking the dough.) But what I can absolutely guarantee is that 99.99% of them don't have any understanding of business and legal matters. They rely on their agents, managers, and attorneys to defend their interests. Well, that's just silly.
At the end of the day, the only people who have an incentive to protect the art are the artists themselves. The elementary business education and rudimentary understanding of how their industry works would do them tons of good. At the very least they should be able to ask the right questions and request the correct clauses to be included into the contracts before they ink their famous names on the signature lines.
My dear readers, I wish I could stop writing about it, but it never ends – there are always more examples to share. I already wrote The Curse of Private Business: Nepotism and then More on Nepotism, but I cannot resist the urge of giving a space to yet another example. And even though it concerns the entertainment industry, it is an important financial issue as well.
You see, in the deteriorating economic environment (and it will continue deteriorating), there is only a handful of industries that have a chance of surviving. Filmmaking is one of them. Not the whole of entertainment, but cinema in particular. People already pretty much stopped reading books, and who knows what's going on with the music industry. Only a small percentage of population can afford to go to the concerts, sporting events, or theater.
But no matter what happens, people will continue seeking an escape from their dreary lives in the darkness of movie theaters or in front of their TV screens. So, whether we like it or not, it is socially important that Hollywood spreads their financial resources wisely and survives. It would be even better if the production funds were also distributed with artistic responsibilities in mind, but that's a subject for another post (or, perhaps, even another blog).
From a strictly financial point of view, I cannot even complain about the stupid Michael Bay's movies – at least they make money. But I have a problem with irrelevant films that get pushed through studios and independent production companies with the help of connections and familial relationships. Some of them are not able to cover even 10% of their budgets. And not because they are complicated intellectual creations (I don't mind money being spent on actual masterpieces), but because they are simply crap. And it is not about the nepotism per se, as I previously wrote. It is about mediocrity and losses caused by nepotism. In any business, not just filmmaking, if nepotism results in success and profits, objectively it can be tolerated.
So, how is it done? The August 29th issue of New York Magazine had a little interview with Zoe Kazan – Zoe Kazan Needs Coffee, conducted by one of my favorite magazine writers, Jada Yuan. It is actually in the theater section, because on top of having her screenplay being made into a movie (He Loves Me), in which she also stars together with her boyfriend Paul Dano, this 28-year-old has a play, commissioned by Manhattan Theater Club, opening this fall in New York (!).
Of course, Ms. Yuan shines the light on the grounds of this first-time screenwriter's ability to penetrate Hollywood's entry barriers. She starts by defining the interviewee as Elia Kazan's granddaughter. Then she goes on to point out the connection between the directors spearheading He Loves Me – Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, and the boyfriend (they directed Paul Dano in Little Miss Sunshine). Finally, in her last question she names Zoe Kazan's parents – both screenwriters: Nicholas Kazan (who co-wrote Frances, adapted Alan Dershowitz's Reversal of Fortune, and penned excellent, but underrated Fallen) and Robin Swicord, who has a good knack for adapting highbrow sentimental literature (Little Women, Practical Magic, Memoirs of Geisha, The Jane Austin Book Club).
And again, the nepotism would be okay (after all, we know how lazy people are – nobody wants to work hard and look for new talents), if writing was Ms. Kazan's genuine calling and her ideas were original. But He Loves Me is just another rehashing of the Greek legend of Pygmalion. And here is how she answers Jada Yuan's question, why did she start writing:
"Because when I was first trying to get acting jobs, there would be these huge slots of time, where I wouldn't have work…"
Soooo, she started writing because she had free time? Are you joking me? True writers write because they cannot live any other way. Not, because they need to kill some time or as a form of "self-actualization." The saddest thing is that I happen to know incredibly talented young writers with original ideas, who try and try again, querying agents and production companies just for a chance to get their excellent scripts read. Robert McKee says that one of the main concerns of the screenwriting professors is preventing their best students from killing themselves.
But Ms. Kazan? Whatever she is going to write, will be read by someone with a finger on the green-light button. And then, money and resources will be invested on something that only a small group of people (most of them also connected) will be interested to see.
The Frustrated CFO 