17 Responses to “Squeeze the life out of high concept…”

1. Clive on Wednesday: 15 November 2006|0334

   And …one more reason … and for me it as important as all the others.

   A high concept movie’s screenplay will read better, because it’s got a simple focus.

   The best movies have a simple throughline, around which more complex ideas can be explored.

   This doesn’t mean high concept movies can’t take on complicated ideas — the opposite is true.

2. Joshua James on Wednesday: 15 November 2006|0758

   More to follow? You’re teasing me, Unk, I want it all right now! ;)

3. Joshua James on Wednesday: 15 November 2006|0759

   I also notice you’re applying your high concept structure and strategy within the construction of your posts, very nice, very nice . . . most excellent!

4. stephen v2 on Wednesday: 15 November 2006|0938

   Found a link to your blog on the $1000 Spielberg site and read up on all your “high concept” posts. I get your idea but like all attempts to figure out why a script sells and/or why a movie is successful, doomed to failure by those who try to follow it.

   Just look at the examples you cite:

   (1) Star Wars. Not a unique story (in fact similar to many films/stories which Lucas freely acknowledged). Nobody could visualize it. Lucas hired Ralph McQuarrie to draw dozens of scenes so people could “get” the look/feel of the film. Nobody, even weeks after release had any idea it would appeal to any wide audience.

   (2) Jaws. It’s based on best selling book. Useless as original screenwriting example. Nuff said.

   (3) Citizen Kane. Box office bomb based on Hearst. Brilliance not recognized by audiences or Americans at all. Without Europe, we would not even be mentioning it today.

   (4) Magnificent Seven: Uh, pretty faithful remake of Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai…

   (5) The Great Escape. True story and then a book.

   (6) Casablanca. I assume you’ve heard of the play “Everybody Comes to Ricks”…

   So 6 examples, none of them with any real connection to your definition of “High Concept”. All of them are either an adaption/remake/based on real person & events.

   So unless you have some actual example of the connection between “high concept” and great cinema, here’s my two cents on high concept.

   High concept = great pitch. High concept is simply an idea (no screenplay needed, in fact an actually screenplay is often an obstacle for “high concept”) that “blows away” executives and producers in pitch meeting and gets people lathered enough to greenlight a project. Screenplay is most cases is secondary.

   Finally, speaking of great movies and pitch sessions, I would recommend a viewing of “The Player” and the pitch about the high concept movie about the execution/rescue film. Classic.

   And yes, “The Player” is based on Tolkin’s novel…

5. Unk on Wednesday: 15 November 2006|1109

   stephen v2,

   You might have “read up” but you apparently missed what I what I wrote…

   First of all, I didn’t cite STAR WARS and JAWS as examples of high concept screenplays although they were IN FACT, high concept screenplays at one time. If you had read up a little more, you would have read the Wikipedia link that says JAWS and STAR WARS are commonly referred to as the first high concept movies.

   You said, “(1) Star Wars. Not a unique story (in fact similar to many films/stories which Lucas freely acknowledged). Nobody could visualize it. Lucas hired Ralph McQuarrie to draw dozens of scenes so people could “get” the look/feel of the film. Nobody, even weeks after release had any idea it would appeal to any wide audience.”

   Not a unique story? For 1977? Not a unique story? Uh – sure… Okay. Whether anyone could visualize it or not, it was definitely high concept but again, that comes from Wikipedia – not me. You’re also telling me that even weeks after its release, nobody had any idea it would appeal to a wide audience? Come on, people were lined up around the block to watch STAR WARS after just a few days of release in fact, many audience members saw it over and over again. So are you saying that WEEKS AFTER its release they thought the bottom was going to fall out of it at any time?

   You said, “(2) Jaws. It’s based on best selling book. Useless as original screenwriting example. Nuff said.”

   Again, follow the Wikipedia link… I’m not the one that cites it as a high concept idea or screenplay EVEN THOUGH IT IS. Useless as a screenwriting example? In what way? It reads very well i.e., it is well written. In fact, one could learn a lot from reading it TODAY. Sure, it was also adapted from a book but again, I was simply discussing the history of high concept. JAWS is definitely a high concept book – adapted into a high concept screenplay – translated into a high concept film. It is definitely high concept through and through… LOL. Nuff said?

   You said, “(3) Citizen Kane. Box office bomb based on Hearst. Brilliance not recognized by audiences or Americans at all. Without Europe, we would not even be mentioning it today.”

   Again, came out of Wikipedia. I’m not the one who writes for Wikipedia. High concept? It’s debatable but again, you failed to either read or understand the post.

   You said, “(4) Magnificent Seven: Uh, pretty faithful remake of Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai…”

   Does that NOT make it high concept? For its time, very high concept. I could care less if it’s a remake… Somebody had to pitch the idea, right?

   You said, “(5) The Great Escape. True story and then a book.”

   And then a screenplay and then a movie. A high concept screenplay AND a high concept movie.

   You said, “(6) Casablanca. I assume you’ve heard of the play “Everybody Comes to Ricks”…”

   Uh, yeah… Several hundred times. Again, this comes out of the Wikipedia link my friend i.e., “However, some argue that blockbusters from the past, such as Casablanca and Citizen Kane, were high concept movies in that they explored broad themes with a universal appeal.”

   You said, “So 6 examples, none of them with any real connection to your definition of “High Concept”. All of them are either an adaption/remake/based on real person & events.”

   Again, I guess you failed to read and understand what I said my friend… I simply tossed out THE GREAT ESCAPE and THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN as examples of high concept movies from the past that obviously came from high concept screenplays… Trust me, even though THE GREAT ESCAPE was adapted from Brickhill’s book, it was definitely a high concept story and one of the reasons they put it into production is because they knew it would IN FACT appeal to a wide audience.

   Since it looks like you didn’t understand what I wrote, let me quote the two sentences right here:

   “Wikipedia says that JAWS and STAR WARS are commonly referred to as the first high concept movies. Thank God that it does go on to say that “some” consider CASABLANCA and CITIZEN KANE to be high concept movies as well.

   What about THE GREAT ESCAPE? THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN? Trust me, we screenwriters have been writing high concept movies for a hell of a long time but it wasn’t until somebody decided to say the words HIGH CONCEPT out loud that we had the proverbial FORK IN THE ROAD.”

   The point of my post was NOT to use the above mentioned movies as CURRENT EXAMPLES of high concept screenplays… LOL. The point of my naming THE GREAT ESCAPE and THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN was simply to point out that high concept is nothing new. Before high concept was called high concept, screenwriters were writing high concept screenplays be they adapted from books OR original material.

   If you’re trying to sit there and tell me that there are NO actual examples of the connection between “high concept” and great cinema – then I’ll just have to go on record and tell you you’re full of SHIT.

   Nuff said.

   Unk

6. Joshua James on Wednesday: 15 November 2006|1141

   I believe BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID was a spec, right? Great concept, too.

   One think I wonder about, is your posit that the story be “unique” - I’ve heard that there are basically 14 stories told via screenplays (and I think an Ancient Greek mentioned that there are only 36 possible story combinations) so I’d love to hear your thoughts on story uniqueness when you get a free moment or two - that’s kind of a big rub, right, what makes your story unique from everyone else, but still makes it a movie . . .

   Hey Unk, there’s an article link posted on John August’s site from a professional “genius” script reader in which he lists the things screenwriters should never do - write SCI-Fi is but one . . . I know you’re swamped with the rewrite, but I think you should take a peek if you’re bored at lunch . . . it may fuel your creative burnings as well . . .

7. Ann Wesley Hardin on Wednesday: 15 November 2006|1159

   Hi Joshua, you asked Unk, not me, but that doesn’t stop me from sticking my nose in ;)

   Story uniqueness comes more from the way the story is told than the story itself. Taking Seven Samurai as an example, the same story was told in Magnigicent Seven, only they told it in old west style–very appealing to people all over the world. Makes it seem fresh and new.

   Star Wars the story has been told a gazillion times, but never in outer space, IN THE PAST, with such awesome special effects.

   In my books I tell the same story over and over–boy meets, loses, gets girl. But it’s always a different way with different kinds of characters, and maybe even in different worlds.

   Marketable storytelling is all about putting a new twist on old things and making the journey exciting so people will want to come along for the ride, and it’s all about telling the story in a way ONLY YOU can.

   Now I’ll step aside and let Unk at ya ;)

8. Unk on Wednesday: 15 November 2006|1205

   stephen v2,

   I think I might have been a little too harsh with my reply… Let me restate:

   If you’re trying to sit there and tell me that there are NO actual examples of the connection between “high concept” and great cinema – then I’ll just have to go on record and tell you that I THINK you’re full of SHIT.

   Nuff said.

   Josh,

   Whew… I’ve been up for 3 days and I’m so full of coffee that I’m just going to brush my teeth and hit the rack for the next 4 or 5 hours…

   But before I do… LOL.

   Read my post on Georges Polti’s 36 Dramatic Situations… There’s even a little handy dandy PDF document you can download here:

   Georges Polti’s 36 Dramatic Situations PDF document

   True… In reality, there are probably no more than 36 dramatic situations but that’s simply the overall general concept. It’s how you ARRIVE at the overall dramatic situation that counts. It’s the changing of the structure, events, characters, dialog, locations, etc. and in so doing, trying your damndest not to be so much like another film that has a similar overall general concept.

   For instance, when I saw 8MM years ago, I immediately drew comparisons to HARDCORE. I then studied both films in depth and took a hard look at both screenplays…

   What 8MM had going for it was a CURRENT AUDIENCE that probably had never even seen HARDCORE but let’s face it, the two are so close it almost feels like cheating to me irregardless of how well it did at the boxoffice. For me, there were just too many similar scenes that reminded me of HARDCORE but even so, I walked away liking the movie. Having said that, I would have tried like hell to make those similar scenes even more different than they are.

   By the way, I read that article a while back actually. I agree with some — some I don’t.

   Rack time.

   Unk

9. Joshua James on Wednesday: 15 November 2006|1209

   I agree Ann, it’s putting a new twist on old things, and the challenge comes, for me, anyway, not in writing something familiar in a new way with a new twist, but coming up with one sentence that describes it all . . .

10. stephen v2 on Wednesday: 15 November 2006|1217

    You mentioned “wikipedia” 7 times and yes, I read the wikipedia link. I did “read and understand” but I disagree, both with the wikipedia entry and your points. Per your points:

    (1) Star Wars was not a unique, original story. It’s arguable there a few, if any “unique, original” stories, but even if we say they are, Star Wars borrowed heavily from Hidden Fortress and other Kurosawa films which in turn were based on earlier works by others. The screenplay underwent huge changes (60 year old Skywalker and green-skinned Han Solo) and Wikipedia details many of the direct influences: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Episode_IV:_A_New_Hope

    (2) My goof on Star Wars box office - I meant to say “within weeks of release”. I meant to refer to the difficulty booking the film in theaters i.e. they did not see the success coming nor did most at Fox etc. That’s clearly not what you mean by high concept.

    Per Jaws, Casablanca, Great Escape etc. You are writing about high concept for people writing original screenplays. Citing examples of adaptations of what you believe are high concept books is probably only helpful to those with deep pockets to acquire rights/options to those works. How does this help original screenwriters?

    Furthermore, you don’t cite evidence that those books/sources were “high concept” either.

    Finally you state that point of your post is that the high concept is not a new concept. But if it’s not a concept at all (and just as I argue, a pitching technique not an indicator of great cinema), then your post has a internal logic problem ie.

    High concept is valid concept for aspiring screenwriters because all these previous classic films are high concept yet you don’t have solid evidence that any of the cited films follow your high concept model and most are adaptations or remakes involving costly rights.

    If you really want to sell high concept, concrete examples of great films (or at least great box office) written and pitched of the high concept model would far better make your case. Unfortunately, many cited examples of “high concept” I’ve seen elsewhere are just post-mortem summaries that often miss much of what made a film memorable.

    I think there’s good evidence of connection between “high concept” and “great pitch”. Having a idea/script that you can pitch as high concept will get your script read, get your meetings and enhance your ability to get a script sold/movie made (again, see The Player).

    But I still don’t see much if any connection between great cinema and high concept, mostly because getting people to agree on what is great cinema is an exercise in futility and even if you settle on “great box office” or “the most awards”, the I find the concept of high concept is ephemeral at best, meaningless at worst.

    I think passion and authenticity are better base for screenwriters to write compelling stories than high concept.

11. Clive on Wednesday: 15 November 2006|1232

    I am an independent film maker.

    Four years ago I started work on my first feature film “No Place,” which wasn’t high concept.

    It was a labour of love and I not only wrote the best script I could at the time — I also borrowed $40,000 against my house to fund part of it. The total budget was $700,000.

    Now, having completed this beautiful, well written, well acted film, it now gathers dust on a shelf in the Producer’s house — because no distributor or Producer’s Rep will touch it.

    Why not, well — every single rejection letter reads exactly the same “This is a beautiful film, we really liked the story, but we don’t see how we can sell it.”

    And the reason they can’t sell it — it can’t be explained easily in one sentence that evokes the entire film, it doesn’t have mass appeal and it’s not a unique story idea.

    In other words, it’s not high concept.

    It is all well and good encouraging people to disregard high concept, but my very real experience of doing that cost me my house and put me through a rather nasty insolvency.

    Now, my experience since then, is working on exclusively high concept movie ideas, has landed me five option offers in the last eighteen months — three of which I declined, one I took and one is still pending.

    There is no rule saying that everyone should use high concept — and applying it is by no means a guaranteed formula to success — but let’s face it — what is?

12. Ann Wesley Hardin on Wednesday: 15 November 2006|1331

    Sorry Josh, I didn’t get that you were asking how to put it into one sentence, not how to write it. My bad. It *is* hard and I totally suck at it. I guess that’s why people use “Seven Samurai meets High Noon” as a pitch. Although I guess you could say, “A band of hardened gunslingers gather to save a poor Mexican village, and end up saving themselves.” I dunno. Like I said, I suck at it. LOL.

    Crawling back into my hole now…

13. Joshua James on Wednesday: 15 November 2006|1419

    Hey Unk,

    I actually have that download and read it awhile back, but thanks for reminding me!

    Get some rest, war-horse, I have battles I want to fight with you in the future and it’s no fun if you’re not at peak condition!

    Clive,

    Regarding your film, if it’s good, it’s marketable. Remember MEMENTO? A friend told me that it was the talk of Sundance, everyone loved it but they couldn’t get a distributor because not one person could figure out how to market it.

    Same situation. They thought it was great but didn’t know how to sell it.

    The producers ended up pooling some money and starting their own distribution company and it MEMENTO made 29 million at the BO . . .

    If your movie is good, really good, it’s marketable, I believe that.

14. Clive on Wednesday: 15 November 2006|1502

    No Place isn’t Memento, by any stretch of the imagination.

    And to add insult to injury, I also made one major structural error, which makes the first act drag.

    It’s good — it just isn’t good enough to make a “no name” drama economically viable.

    For me, No Place was my equivalent of spending three years at UCLA — it probably cost me about the same! LOL — from it I learned an incredible amount about story telling, the film market and also the practical process of running a professional feature film shoot.

    I don’t have any regrets about it, at all. In fact, just the opposite — because if I hadn’t failed in such a spectacular way, I never would have been motivated to do the stuff I do now.

    Believe me I’ve learned more from that film’s failure than I ever would had it been successful.

    That’s the reason I get so passionate about structure and high concept — it’s because I know the price of getting it wrong.

    (By the way — the same thing happened with Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels — most of the major distributors passed on that as well)

15. Matthew Spira on Wednesday: 15 November 2006|1559

    One of the lessons learned from “working the room” (and watching others work the room) at the Asian Film Market last month is you have the first 15-30 seconds of your pitch to get someone interested. You need to be able to talk about the essence of your film with clarity and precision.

    At least internationally this seemed to be the equation for generating interest: Attachments, genre, target audience and concept.

    Another lesson learned is there are a lot of completed films out there looking for distribution, and a hell of a lot more looking for funding.

    and for every MEMENTO there are at least ten films like MIMI’S FIRST TIME. MFT has a high concept, produced on a budget of $6 million, produced by Kevin Spacey, recognizable names in the cast like Alec Baldwin, Luke Wilson and Jeff Goldblum…

    To date, it’s grossed something like $70k.

16. Clive on Wednesday: 15 November 2006|1716

    Thanks for the info on the Asian Film Market, confirms my experience of working the room at Edinburgh Film Festival.

    To me Mini’s First Time is a good example of a high concept idea that didn’t get a high concept execution.

    The idea “Middle Aged Man is seduced by his step daughter, posing as a hooker, into murdering his wife” — could have been an interesting movie.

    But, when you look at the trailer, it falls short of the “wide audience appeal” element. It has so-so movie written all over it.

    Like the old saying goes — “You can make a bad movie from a good script, but you can’t do it the other way round.”

17. Will on Thursday: 13 December 2007|0913

    Magnificent Seven is textbook high concept. “Here’s the idea… We remake the Seven Samurai… Except with cowboys!”

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