The movie industry is huge business. The amount of money that producers have to shell out for actors (half the budget right there, if you’re looking for A-listers), writers, special effects, crew and marketing is astronomical. That’s why you see less and less original work coming out of Hollywood. Any film requiring a budget over 50 million (I’m guesstimating here) must have an installed audience to guarantee box office sales. That means more movies based on existing work like a previous movie (remakes), book or other work like a video game. It makes sense and it’s smart business. What I don’t get is why video game movies have to suck so much.

First, let’s handle the problem of cross-media adaptation. Video games are highly interactive, therefore there’s going to be some enjoyment lost for the gamer who goes to see the movie version of his or her favorite game since the acts on the gamer, rather than with the gamer. I’m OK with that idea and I think most gamers are as well. The real pitfall in the translation is that most video games have weak story lines. Or, if they do have a decent story, it doesn’t follow the typical three-act structure that most films swear by. This forces the screenwriter to create a bunch of characters and story beats that never existed in the game in order to compensate, which can only disappoint fans of the source material.

The other problem is that video games - and the video game community as whole - still isn’t considered to be sophisticated. By and large, people of that opinion are correct. Many, if not most, gamers are comprised of children, teenagers and people who prefer reality television over scripted story. It seems as though screenwriters and/or producers look at the demographics and decide, “Well, our target audience won’t know the difference between a good movie and a bad one. Let’s just throw something together.” While I agree that there’s the fringe population that actually liked Double Dragon the movie, I think that for the most part, your average moviegoer can tell if a movie sucks.

I think this is the one thing that the likes of Uwe Boll can’t understand. The man has singlehandedly ruined a generation’s opinion of all films based on video games. He’s baffled us time and time again with inexplicable directorial choices and errors in movies like House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, Bloodrayne and the recent In the Name of the King. And yet, with each movie, he gets a better cast! I don’t know about you, but watching Oscar-Winner Ben “Mahatma Gandhi” Kingsley play a vampire in Bloodrayne was tough to watch.

And yet, some filmmakers know how to handle the brand. I enjoyed the Tombraider movies, for instance. Silent Hill was also very entertaining. Let’s not forget DOOM, which I think took the best care of the video game audience to date. The extended first-person perspective scene was a very nice touch. Still, in all of these examples, the creators did their best to make the movies enjoyable as movies, even for people who aren’t familiar with the games; that has to be the primary goal if video game filmmakers want to escape this stigma of “cash cow milkers.”

Keep playing and keep watching.

In my younger days, I was a pretty shy kid. I did, however, have a wild imagination, which I allowed to consume me when no one was around. I’d run around the house fighting imaginary monsters or go adventuring off in some fantastic land. I was extremely extroverted in my introverted-ness, if there is such a thing. Which is why it took me a bit to get into acting, even though it seemed like the natural thing to do. I started in my sophomore year of high school. My girlfriend convinced me to audition for a the annual Shakespeare play, which was A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I can’t remember which principal role I tried out for, but I ended up getting a part as a guard. I might have had a line, even.

Anyway, as luck would have it, the guy playing Oberon: King of the Fairies had to drop out and the theater teacher needed to fill the role quickly. I stepped up and next thing I knew I was delivering five-minute long soliloquies. Like most people who discover theater, I fell in love with it immediately. It’s hard to describe how thrilling it is to have all eyes of an audience focused on you and all attention hanging on every word. There are two movies that capture theater perfectly. The first is Shakespeare in Love. The scene when Mr. Wabash steps out on stage to start the play is exactly how it feels to be up there performing for the first time. The second movie is Waiting for Guffman. Every theater actor worth their craft needs to see that movie.

I fancied myself to be quite good. I was a fast study. I even memorized my co-actors’ lines so I could feed them when they forgot their places. Moreover, I understood what I was saying and had a firm grasp of motivation. It was only natural that I thought I could pursue a career in professional acting. So, a couple of years after high school, in between jobs, I replied to an ad for a management firm looking for new talent. I drove out to Burbank and basically got taken for a ride. Last I checked, the firm was dealing with a class action law suit when it finally went under.

After that, I did a bit of theater now and again, but nothing serious and definitely nothing professional.

This is actually all just a long-winded preface to say that I was recently in a friend’s short film. The film is OK for what it is - actually, it’s kind of incomprehensible - but I’m particularly disappointed with my performance. Granted, the writing is sub-par and I only had 30 minutes or so to memorize a good chunk of some of the most unspeakable dialog, but just the same, I simply don’t think I was ever intended to be in front of the camera. The other thing is, I don’t like my voice. It’s actually kind of annoying. In my head, it sounds deep and manly, sometimes velvety. Recorded and played back to me, it sounds like an electric razor, buzzing incessantly.

I’ll ask the director for permission to post the short on my site, including the gag reel. It’s hilarious. The gag reel, that is.

Living without television has kind of put me out of touch with pop-culture. More than a year ago, I’d watch my favorite programs and catch blips of movie trailers during the commercials I’d fast forward through. If I saw some skin or someone getting punched or shot, I’d rewind to see what it was all about. These days I’m forced to crawl the Internet to see what’s new and advertising on the Web is so eclectic, my subconscious just isn’t bombarded enough to get me to check something out. This regrettable state of affairs also includes movies that I should want to see, but totally forget to because I never saw the trailer. Fortunately, I Stumbled! on a site featuring the new Indiana Jones teaser trailer. Here it is, if you haven’t seen it yet:

I don’t know how you all feel about it - and it’s hard to tell from the small YouTube video - but it does look a tad cartoonier than the rest of the series. I think it’s those moving pillar thingies that just scream CGI to me. Regardless, it still looks cool and I think of all the returns to successful intellectual properties (Die Hard, Rambo) Indy 4 will probably be the closest to capturing its old feel. Plus, Harrison Ford looks pretty good, too.

See you at the movies on May 22.

I had a small scare this morning when my site wouldn’t load. I figure it had to do with my domain renewals kicking in. The strange thing is that my domain provider called me at work to thank me. I had no idea they had my work information. Weird.

The other night I also met with the potential director for my short. My cousin, our video editor, the director, his wife and I all cruised over to Long Beach for some dinner while we talked shop. The place we wanted to go to was packed (since it was a Friday), so we slipped in to the sushi place next door. I really like this guy for the film. He’s knowledgeable, even tempered and, most of all, excited about the material. Enthusiasm carries a lot of favor with me. Anyway, my cousin and I are pretty set on him, but we’re still considering meeting with other people for other production roles, just to cover our bases. It’s exciting to see our little team coming together.

On a personal note, I’ve been feeling a slight surge in my will to write/blog. Expect to read more posts and reviews while I ride this wave for long as I can.

So. Did you watch the Oscars? I don’t know about you, but I was terribly bored. It just felt obligatory. Where was the fanfare? Where was the over-production? Instead, we got an awards ceremony that was just as predictable as most industry films. Daniel Day Lewis had to win for There Will Be Blood. He raised the bar so high, actors who win the same award in the future will feel like charlatans. On the other hand There Will Be Blood couldn’t win for Best Picture, because it was horribly dull. The academy might be eccentric in its voting, but they understand what entertainment is. Heck, I haven’t even seen No Country for Old Men and I knew it was going to win. It was also a sad night for Original Songs. The Disney songs were serviceable, but horribly staged and/or performed, though hats off to Amy Adams. I think she’s a natural performer and could probably hold her own on Broadway. I think it was the big faces she made that sold me. The Once song - the one that won - was just not something I would ever listen to if given the choice. I’m sure within the context of the film, it’s magical, but outside its setting, performed on stage, I just wanted to fast-forward the whole thing. At the end of the day, all I can say is, “Thank God for Jon Stewart.” His dry wit was probably the most entertaining part of the whole show.

One day, I hope to see the show live.

Like everyone else, I love movies. It’s a wonderful feeling to be swept away into another world for an hour or more and live through a portion of someone else’s life. Granted, not everyone’s life is interesting (or well told) and I’m, more often than not, disappointed. Whenever I am, I can’t help but think that I could do better. And that’s one of the reasons I fell into screenwriting.

Another reason is that it’s just easier for me. That’s not to say that writing a screenplay is definitively easier than, say, writing a book. I find that - for me - telling a story through a movie saves me a lot of pre-writing, which usually consists of researching whatever it is I’m writing about. As a storyteller, there’s a certain amount of authority you have to build in order for your audience to lose themselves in your tale. Take, for instance, a scene where a character is about to snipe a another character with a long-range rifle. You want to make sure the audience knows that the sniper is a professional. To establish your storyteller authority in a book, more than likely, you would describe technical details of the rifle, like accuracy, reload time, weight, etc. You might describe sniper methods, like breathing, adjusting for wind, stances, whatever. When you have this kind of foundation, your audience will be with you when you portray your sniper as a veteran.

Now, consider the same scene from a screenwriter’s view. The screenplay isn’t meant to be read by the audience. In a roundabout way, it’s meant to be seen. Therefore, the burden of storyteller authority is significantly reduced for screenwriters. Depending on the kind of story, I don’t have to necessarily research all of minutia about rifles. I can simply write: MAC pulls out a sniper rifle and aims without hesitation. When the audience sees the gun and how the actor is behaving, they understand that that character is a veteran. Not only does concept of writing visually save me research time, but it also saves me a lot of writing for foundation-building.

The craft of screenwriting is also just easier for me to understand. When I consider books, I think of meandering plots that don’t necessarily rise or fall. It’s just full of things that the characters do. That’s probably an ignorant statement to make, so if it is, I’ll just chalk that up to my not reading enough books. With screenplays - industry versions, anyway - I can totally get behind the three-act structure. I don’t mind knocking out the inciting incident within the first 20 pages. I like figuring out character arcs. Best of all, I enjoy the inverse necessity of pages. The target for screenplays is 120 pages whereas I’m sure publishers want authors to write more pages to justify book prices.

Anyway, my screenplay is now in the hands of a working film actor and if he likes it, he’ll sit down with a couple of bigwig directors and give them his thoughts on it. I’m trying to keep my excitement to a small warmth in my chest. I’ve lived long enough to discipline myself into not getting my hopes up. If it happens, then I’ll celebrate. If it doesn’t, I’m no worse for wear.

With that said, wish me luck.