Fan To Pro - The Blog of Professional Geekery

Blow Your Mind: Should Apple Buy Hollywood?

Think about it.

- Steven Savage

Why You Shouldn’t Keep Your Projects A Secret

As someone who works with intellectual properties, and someone who knows a lot of people who also work with intellectual properties, I can safely say that a lot of us like to keep our ideas to ourselves.  There is a fear that if your idea is leaked, then there’s a team of coordinated and efficient coding enthusiasts that will take your idea and do it faster than you.  Probably better than you too.  And they all wear sunglasses and matching black leather uniforms with lightning bolts...

Where was I?  Oh, right, the fear of being copied.  This fear has a less-paranoid-but-still-paralyzing twin: the fear of someone coincidentally doing the same thing as you, making you look like the copycat nonetheless.

My advice to you is to fight that fear and show off (or at least talk about) your works in progress.  There are several reasons why this will help you rather than hurt you.

Scary Logos, and the Importance of Hitting Your Target Audience

Let me tell you a story about . . . TV corporate logos. You know, those short little bursts of sight and sound at the end of a television show, telling you what studio produced them? Short, forgettable little things, right?

Wrong. From the '60s to the '90s, a bunch of TV logos were produced, and in wide circulation, that literally scared children. To this day, people tremble in fear at the memory of them. They were an example of something with good intentions that went horribly wrong.

They also provide a valuable lesson to all of us in the importance of knowing and catering to your target audience - say, for instance, a potential employer looking at your resume.

Guess What - These Films Weren't Flops

io9 does a roundup of films that were actually successful on production-versus-take, despite what people may think.  A few surprises, a few non-surprises, and an unholy truth about The Last Airbender.

Honestly, the idea something is a flop, unpopular, unsuccessful can easily go meme, and obscure the reality of the situation.

- Steven Savage

 

The TV Recycling Bin

Entertainment Weekly has released its list of Hottest TV Projects of 2012. And they look familiar. Very familiar. It's because most of them are remakes of classic TV. From the already-discussed-here remake of The Munsters - which sounds like a head-on collision between Tim Burton and Twilight - to Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane's reboot of The Flintstones, everything old is new again.

Which begs the question - why do they think all this unoriginality can work?

Tamara's Predictions for 2012

Most of my predictions for the future are long-term.  This means going beyond 2012, but over the next few years I expect:

- Greater austerity measures in the US.  Now that the war's over, they'll be tallying up the cost and it might be a wake-up call that money's not free.  This will be bad in the short term, because it's the people who will be bearing the brunt of the cutbacks, but in the long run it might help if it gets those in power to take money seriously.

2012 Predictions: It's Not The End of The World As We Know It

We have one big prediction hanging over our heads as we try to decide what lies ahead of us in the next 12 months, and it has to do with a certain calendar put together by a certain tribe a long, long time ago. Given the number of apocalypses that have come and gone over the years . . . this looks like yet another one.

So, given that it's not The End Of The World As We Know It, what's ahead of us during the coming year? Let me get out my crystal ball and figure this out . . .

Lost in Translation - Recap 2 - Eclectic Boogaloo

Over the past ten weeks, I've looked at a mix of hits, misses, and cannonball caroms. What can we take away from the morass? Well, again, taking care of the original work plays an important part.  How the Grinch Stole Christmas! is a sterling example of not only having the creator take part in the process but also finding the right people. In contrast, Johnny Mnemonic, shows what happens when the creator is left out of the loop. The former had Dr. Seuss involved at several levels, including producing and lyrics. The latter had an exec take the final product and recut it before sending it out to theatres.

Executive meddling can be an issue. Flash Gordon had producer Dino DiLaurentiis and his wife casting the leads and making deals for cross-promotions that could have torpedoed the movie. However, the director was able to cast for the supporting roles and brought in veterans who could hold their own and make the inexperienced lead look decent at the same time. Coupled with a kick-ass soundtrack by Queen, the movie survives as a cult classic. Sure, not a financial success, but the movie is remembered. Having the right people can save a movie.

As Steve pointed out, sometimes the best thing is finding the right fit for the work.  A Game of Thrones definitely fit best as a TV series over a movie. There is just too much happening that is too important to cut. The build up of the threats and conflicts required the time that a weekly episodic format allows for. Likewise, the weekly format is working for Once Upon a Time, allowing for the mystery of the story to be built properly. As movies, both would lose far too much in the translation.

Sometimes, going from TV pilot to cinematic feature causes problems. Star Trek: The Motion Picture was originally the pilot to a second Star Trek series. However, the decision was made to turn the script into a full-fledged feature film. Unfortunately, this required the script to be extended. Most of the filler came from loving shots of the USS Enterprise, as the camera flew around and over her. Long shots became the order of the day, giving the movie a far slower pace than a pilot would have. Compare Star Trek: TMP to "Encounter at Farpoint", the pilot for Star Trek: The Next Generation. Both are cerebral, but "Farpoint" builds up the action through character interaction and twists while TMP relies more on lengthy approaches in space.

What about works where the creator is either long gone or a corporation? Where the work is part of a larger franchise? For this, I looked at three movies.  Rookie of the Year adapted the game of baseball into a family narrative. The plays on the field were believable; in fact, there have been stranger in the game. The movie was faithful to the sport while telling its story. It is obvious that the writers, the cast, and the crew have been to a ballgame or two. The other two, however... Oi.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra was, in short, a mess. It had several good scenes tied together with a plot a 3rd grader could find plotholes in. The promise of the opening scene - Cobra's assault on an US Army convoy - provided a glimpse of the potential that was never reached. Meanwhile, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li just really wasn't a Street Fighter movie. What happened? In the case of GI Joe, it looks like the license was available and was used with a quick script that did take into account the characters and groups but, well, forgot about cohesion.  Chun Li, on the other hand, felt like an available script was taken and had the Street Fighter aspects grafted on. Both movies had potential never realized.

And that leaves Dungeons & Dragons. The movie had decent scenes and a decent plot, but completely fell apart during execution. It seemed to be suffering from having the wrong people involved. It missed on what made the game D&D interesting and didn't have many of the game's iconic monsters. Unfortunately, many studios decided that the takeaway was, "Don't make movies off tabletop RPGs".

Overall, again, respect for the creator and the work heads the list of how to make an adaptation successful. Followed, though, is making sure the adaptation is in the right format. The right format can get the work's full impact; the wrong one can mute it or draw out the impact to the point where it's not felt at all.

Next time, year-end round up.

 

Rogers and Bell Buy Maple Leaf Sports

Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, owners of some of the best known and most valuable sports brands, is now owned by the two biggest communication companies in Canada.  Rogers and Bell jointly acquired 80% of MLSE, announcing today their $1.3 billion deal. When asked about competition or conflict of interest in their partnership, they replied that Rogers and Bell had previously worked together (covering the Olympics).

The Hidden Danger of Remakes and Repeats

Ask anyone over a certain age what the scariest movie ever was, and they will probably tell you “The Exorcist.*”  But if you’re under a certain age, and you see it, you’ll probably raise an eyebrow and wonder if you got the right DVD.

“That’s not so scary,” you think.  At least, that’s what I thought when I saw it.

But then again, if you ask someone over a certain age what the scariest part of “Exorcist” was, they’ll tell you about Linda Blair spinning her head around and spewing pea soup.  Disturbing, I’d imagine, if I wasn’t expecting it.

But I was expecting it, as were you if you’re in my generation.