When I go to a movie, I want it to be good. If I've paid $10 (35 if I see it at Boston Commons during the weekend), I want to be entertained by the immensely interesting and intricately detailed universes these handsomely compensated artists create. As the box office and critical reviews indicate, a good movie is the exception to the rule.
So why can a hundred-plus-year-old industry run by the creative and organizational cream of the crop armed with billions of dollars fail so often? As I learned working at a film production company last summer, making a movie is far, far harder than you think. Let's look at a typical example of movie development.
Every movie starts with a script. Every script starts with a premise. Premises range from good ("The bus has to stay over 50 mph or else it explodes") to medium ("A group of 11 con men rob a casino") to brain-meltingly terrible ("The 'American Idol' winner and runner-up go on spring break!"). A bad premise is like Napoleon Dynamite on a date: completely doomed. Fair premises can be salvaged ("Ocean's Eleven"), but even a great idea can go horribly, horribly wrong ("Aliens vs. Predator.")
But for our case study, let's pretend we have a script, and that script has a great premise. As a bonus, it is well written, too. The pacing serves the story, the dialogue is snappy and the characters are deep. Now, pretend a studio has bought our script. It goes into the magical phase of pre-production.
Hold on! Before anything important happens, the studio may want rewrites. But, for the sake of argument, let's pretend the rewrites were minimal and didn't suck the soul out of the movie to serve an executive's vague, unresearched and underdeveloped notion of what appeals to a mass market.
The attaching process begins. First, and most importantly from a business point of view, the studio picks the actor. The right actor can give a character nuance and life while bringing hordes of people to see a movie that may not seem interesting (Tom Hanks in "Cast Away"). Bad casting, such as Anthony Hopkins playing a black Jewish boxer in "The Human Stain," can leave the people that do end up seeing the movie scratching their heads.
After the principle star is cast, the director is the next most important decision. This is because the director has immense power to mold the film into his image. Quentin Tarantino still won't see "Natural Born Killers," because he believes that director Oliver Stone butchered his script.
Fortunately for our pretend script, a great actor and excellent director that work well with each other have been attached. Their schedules match up. The rest of the cast and positions are filled, and the movie moves forward into production. This is where the film is actually, well, filmed.
Now that the script is actually being made into a movie, what is left to go wrong? Hmm, let me think. Acting, locations, lighting, camera placement and movement, time constraints, sound, art design, budget problems and onset conflicts are potential pitfalls. Multiply each of these factors by the number of shots (around 1500 for an average non-action Hollywood film) and we have the minimum amount of ways production can go bad. Add to this other unforeseeable problems (director Tom DiCillo had his entire wardrobe stolen from the set of his first film, "Johnny Suede") and the fact that having a smooth production period is statistically similar to winning the lottery.
Fortunately for us, our pretend actors and pretend director had a great time shooting our wonderful pretend script with little interference from the pretend studio. Now the film enters post-production. This is where the editor gets control over the movie. Hopefully the editor has control of pacing and flow. Hopefully the editor understands the director's tone. And hopefully the editor can recognize good acting.
A small math break. As I said before, the film has roughly 1500 shots. The amount of takes from each shot can vary widely from one (certain special effects shots in lower budget movies, like a car blowing up) to hundreds (Kubrick was a perfectionist). Let's take a conservative average of three takes a shot. That means there are roughly 4.8 x 10715 ways the film can be constructed (not counting editing shot length and special techniques), but only a few of those constructions will give the movie its maximum effectiveness.
As the editing continues, music is added. Choices in music can create legendary moments ("Jaws"), elevate the film to a new level ("Garden State"), or split eardrums wide open ("Daredevil").
Our film, our special, beautiful film, has been crafted into a masterpiece by the post-production process. Now the movie is entirely in the hands of the studio. Pray that the ad campaign works, the viral marketing is clever, it tests well with sneak preview audiences, and the trailer generates interest. Trust that the studio has chosen the correct time of year to release our gem of a film.
After an average of two years, our excellent work is finally released on the market. We've avoided the hundreds of thousands of problems that make the majority of movies unwatchable. And that is worth my 10 bucks.
