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IFH 764: Where Writer's Go Wrong with ACTION Screenplays with Robert McKee · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast

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  Speaker 1: You are listening to the ifh podcast Network.
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  Speaker 2: For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Indie Film Hustle Podcast, Episode number seven
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  Speaker 1: sixty four. Storytelling is the most powerful way to put
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: ideas into the world today.
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  Speaker 2: Robert McKee broadcasting from the back alley in Hollywood. It's
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  Speaker 2: the Indie Film Hustle Podcast, where we show you how
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: to survive and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the
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  Speaker 2: jungles of the film biz.
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  Speaker 1: And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another
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  Speaker 1: episode of the Indie Film Hustle Podcast. I am your
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  Speaker 1: humble host, Alex Ferrari. Today's show is sponsored by Rise
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  Speaker 1: of the Film Entrepreneur How to turn your independent film
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  Speaker 1: into a profitable business. It's harder today than ever before
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  Speaker 1: The book is available in paperback, ebook, and of course audiobook.
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  Speaker 1: Dot filmbiz book dot com. That's film bizbook dot com. Well, guys,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: today on the show we have the returning legend of
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  Speaker 1: screenwriting and store telling, Robert McKee. Now, Robert and I
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  Speaker 1: had a fantastic conversation about his new up and coming
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  Speaker 1: book Action. He wrote an entire book dedicated to the
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  Speaker 1: genre of action, how to do it right, how not
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  Speaker 1: to be cliched about it, and how to create a
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  Speaker 1: script that sells Intoday's marketplace. And I can't tell you
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  Speaker 1: how invaluable this essentially free masterclass by Robert in this
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  Speaker 1: episode is going to be in your writing. Oh and
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  Speaker 1: by the way, at the end of this episode, I'm
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  Speaker 1: going to let you know how you can get ten
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  Speaker 1: percent off a live Robert McKee seminar and lecture that
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  Speaker 1: he is going to be doing in New York, LA
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  Speaker 1: and London. These are his first seminars coming back after
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  Speaker 1: the pandemic. So if you've only heard of the legend
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  Speaker 1: that is the story seminars that Robert McKee gives, now
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  Speaker 1: is your chance to check it out. So stay tuned
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  Speaker 1: for the end of the episode to find out about
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  Speaker 1: that discount. And this is not just for screenwriters. If
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  Speaker 1: you're a director listening to this, please pay close, close
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  Speaker 1: attention because there's so much fantastic content in this conversation
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  Speaker 1: about how to tell a good action story and what
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  Speaker 1: the elements are. We go into Plato and his list
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  Speaker 1: of elements, among many many other things. It is really
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  Speaker 1: jaw dropping, so I can't wait for you guys to
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  Speaker 1: hear it. So without any further ado, please enjoy my
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  Speaker 1: conversation with Robert McKee. I like to welcome back to
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  Speaker 1: the show returning champion, Robert McKee. How are you doing Robert,
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  Speaker 1: I'm a I'm doing very good. Thank you so much
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  Speaker 1: for coming back on the show. Our last conversation, as
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  Speaker 1: you might might have known, it did very well. People
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  Speaker 1: love love you, and love what the way you approach
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  Speaker 1: story and dialogue and character. Now, and this episode, we're
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  Speaker 1: going to talk about your new book, Action, which I
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  Speaker 1: when when I when you guys reached out to me,
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  Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, he's got another books.
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  Speaker 1: He's going crazy. He's just releasing books left and right.
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  Speaker 1: I remember A story was like for a long time
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  Speaker 1: the only book, and then now you're popping them out
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  Speaker 1: left and ready.
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  Speaker 3: You know. In my my method is to teach something
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  Speaker 3: before I write about And I do that because I
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  Speaker 3: want to hear the questions and and then I have
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  Speaker 3: to finally answer. Uh. And so I when I taught
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  Speaker 3: enough about dialogue, I wrote a book. When I quest
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  Speaker 3: been teaching about character for decades, I wrote a book.
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  Speaker 3: And and now and Action, I've been doing seminars and
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  Speaker 3: webinars on Action for some time. So so yeah, and
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  Speaker 3: now and and in fact, as we speak, I am
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  Speaker 3: busily writing story too. Oh now, but chapter three and
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  Speaker 3: so it's been twenty five years since I wrote a story,
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  Speaker 3: and I learned a lot in those twenty.
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  Speaker 4: Five years, and so I'm going to do a whole
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  Speaker 4: new version of story, and I'm going to come in
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  Speaker 4: from the very different perspective and approach.
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  Speaker 3: I'm the same fundamentals. But so anyway, yeah, I keep writing.
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  Speaker 3: I don't know what else to do.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, might as well just keep going. My friend, Well,
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  Speaker 1: you're doing a service for this for screenwriters and storytellers
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: around the world with your work, and that's why I
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  Speaker 1: love to highlight what you're doing here on the show.
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  Speaker 1: So my very first question is what is principal versus
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  Speaker 1: presentational genres? In action?
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  Speaker 3: That's good? Uh. One is content and the other is formed. Okay,
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  Speaker 3: So the principal genres give you content. Uh. And so
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  Speaker 3: you have action. The content is life and death. And
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  Speaker 3: then you have love stories for example. The content the
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  Speaker 3: value there of course, there's some love hate. You have
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  Speaker 3: family growms, domestic growms. They're the content is unity versus
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  Speaker 3: a breakoup. Uh, and and on goes. They have these
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  Speaker 3: these principal genres crying and where the content justice injustice
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  Speaker 3: and so you have these principal genres and there's about.
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  Speaker 1: That.
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  Speaker 3: I list and they give you the value at the
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  Speaker 3: heart of the story. They give you the principal characters,
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  Speaker 3: they give you the principal emotion you're trying to express
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  Speaker 3: and cause people to feel. And they give you the
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  Speaker 3: core scene of the essential turning point of the whole story.
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  Speaker 3: And so now that is content. But now you have
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  Speaker 3: to express it. And so now you have to present
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  Speaker 3: that story. And so you could tell it realistically that's
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  Speaker 3: a presentation, or you can tell it as a fantasy.
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  Speaker 3: You could put it in the contemporary setting, or you
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  Speaker 3: could put it in a futuristic setting, or in history.
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  Speaker 3: You could sing and dance it as a musical, and
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  Speaker 3: on it goes. And so you have all these various
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  Speaker 3: styles of presentation. And there's a dozen or so adults
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  Speaker 3: and so a principal graena. These are the rock, This
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  Speaker 3: is the poor storytelling. These are the great reforms, the
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  Speaker 3: modern epic, the ancient epic, and so these are the
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  Speaker 3: thousands of years old content and what we tell stories about.
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  Speaker 3: And of course there are great principal graenres that are
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  Speaker 3: about the human change. And so there are stories about
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  Speaker 3: the changing morality of a character as they move from
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  Speaker 3: immoral to moral and redeem themselves where they and they
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  Speaker 3: moved from Morald immoral and damn themselves. There's stories of
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  Speaker 3: characters evolving as human beings in a positive way, becoming
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  Speaker 3: more complete realizations of their human potential. Or you have
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  Speaker 3: stories for people of distoy, drugs or whatever destroy their
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  Speaker 3: their humanity. And so you have half a dozen of
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  Speaker 3: these primary genres about character change, and then another territory
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  Speaker 3: of genres about changing the outer circumstances of a character's life,
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  Speaker 3: as we do in crime stories and you love stories
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  Speaker 3: and so forth. Those are the foundations, and and action
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  Speaker 3: is one of those. Action is a principal primary genre.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
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  Speaker 3: And there's lots of ways to do action. You can
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  Speaker 3: do it as a fantasy, you can do it in
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  Speaker 3: sci fi, you can do it in realistically, whatever, in history,
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  Speaker 3: et cetera. All of those presentations are our at your
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  Speaker 3: disposal of as an action writer. She's got a lot of.
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  Speaker 1: Choices, a lot of choices, and all.
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  Speaker 3: Of those primary genres of principal genres can be merged.
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  Speaker 1: I feel like something like Braveheart has a lot of
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  Speaker 1: those genres inside of that it's a romance, it's a
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  Speaker 1: love story, it's action, it's a revenge film. There's so
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  Speaker 1: many things in Brave Heart.
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  Speaker 3: Yea, yeah, it's it's frequently not for its commercial love
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  Speaker 3: story with a with an action story where you know,
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  Speaker 3: the love interest or it gets in the way you
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  Speaker 3: because of the protagonic that make choices you never would
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  Speaker 3: have had to make otherwise. And but uh, and crime,
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  Speaker 3: of course, crime and action get merged a lot. Thrillers
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  Speaker 3: and action get merged a lot. And so see all
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  Speaker 3: those principal genres and they get can be mixed and merged.
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  Speaker 3: Mixed meaning you cut back and forth between the genre.
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  Speaker 3: Merged means that the two cause one another. And so
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  Speaker 3: the reason for the thriller causes you to get into action.
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  Speaker 3: And in fact, you know, the variety then.
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  Speaker 1: Is infinite, it's endless without questions. Now you talk, you
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  Speaker 1: talk about the four core elements of action. Can you
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  Speaker 1: discuss a little bit about those core elements?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's you see, all those principal genres have four courts.
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  Speaker 3: You have a core cast, what is the essential, pass
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  Speaker 3: the minimal, essential cats. So in a love story, you've
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  Speaker 3: got two people, you've got lovers, right, In a family story,
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  Speaker 3: you've got you know, usually a husband, wife and kids. Right,
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  Speaker 3: in an action story, you've got a hero, a villain,
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  Speaker 3: and a victim, and those three are essential. If you
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  Speaker 3: eliminate the victim, there's nothing, there's no point in the
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  Speaker 3: hero and villain to fight it out. Nothing's in state.
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  Speaker 3: If you eliminate the hero, then it's a thriller because
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  Speaker 3: the victim hass to survive, and that's they're not heroic.
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  Speaker 3: And so you have and so you have those three
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  Speaker 3: core characters, then you have a core value. And in
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  Speaker 3: action it's life and death. Justice injustice is the value
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  Speaker 3: in a crime story, but justice injustice is irrelevant in action.
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  Speaker 3: The core value of action is life and death. Whether
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  Speaker 3: or not laws are broken or kept doesn't matter. So
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  Speaker 3: you have a core value, you have a core event,
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  Speaker 3: and the core event in action, the most difficult scene,
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  Speaker 3: by far to right is the hero at the mercy
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  Speaker 3: of the villain, weaponless, defenseless, back to the wall, totally
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  Speaker 3: at the mercy of the overpowering villain, and from a
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  Speaker 3: position of complete helplessness at the mercy of the villain. Somehow,
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  Speaker 3: the action hero has to find the resources to turn
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  Speaker 3: the tables on the villain and in that scene come
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  Speaker 3: out on top, go from at the mercy on top
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  Speaker 3: and that well, that will break your back. Try to
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  Speaker 3: figure that creed that scene. Do they have core values?
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  Speaker 3: The core value, core characters, a core event, and the
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  Speaker 3: core emotion? What do you want people to feel when
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  Speaker 3: you're writing in any of those principal genres and in action,
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  Speaker 3: the emotion you want them to field is excitement. A
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: thriller is full of tensions m r H. Because the
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: swimmers are all about dark but it's all about figuring
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: out who can you trust, what's really going on here?
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: What do they want? What are they got? I mean,
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  Speaker 3: there's all these questions and then and you're lost in
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  Speaker 3: the elaborateth of the of the througher. But an action
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  Speaker 3: though it's there, You're it's happening right in front of you.
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  Speaker 3: And so what you're trying to get people feel is excitement.
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  Speaker 3: That's why I put it in the subtitle of the
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  Speaker 3: of the book's action the art of excitement. And you're
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  Speaker 3: trying to create that. That's a you know, that's a
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  Speaker 3: wonderful experience. Go to a movie and really feel the
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  Speaker 3: excitement of the act. Uh and not boredom, not you know,
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  Speaker 3: not mystery excitement. Uh so you know it was in
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  Speaker 3: the four course and in each of the principal genres
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  Speaker 3: that listed in the first chapter of the book in
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  Speaker 3: order to orient the reader to the action. Each of
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  Speaker 3: those genres has those four cooks. You all have wordcasts
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  Speaker 3: or emotion Corey event.
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  Speaker 1: When you were talking, I was thinking of the scene
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  Speaker 1: and Terminator too, which illustrates everything that you're talking about,
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  Speaker 1: where where you got Arnold fighting of obviously a much
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: more superior villain which is a T one thousand and
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: to the point where he's helpless against them. Literally he
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: gets stabbed a spoiler alert, gets stabbed with a giant
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: metal rod and he's stuck there and everyone thinks he's dead. Yes,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: and then he has to come back and save the victims,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: which is Lynna Hamilton and John Connor, so Sarah Connor
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: and John Connor. So it's in that ultimate And as
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  Speaker 1: I'm talking about it and starting to get chills because
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  Speaker 1: it's playing in my head, it's that's that's how good
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: James Cameron is, That's how good.
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: Acts, and that was it was fantastic and uh they yeah,
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  Speaker 3: those Terminator films are wonderful and the that if that,
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  Speaker 3: if that Corey meant the hero at the mercy of
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  Speaker 3: the villain, if I'll tell you that the action of course,
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: he is the wonder reason that wrote the book, because
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  Speaker 3: I teach others wrongs, you know, comedy, luxuries and so forth.
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  Speaker 3: And it's act in the greatest demand, not not just
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  Speaker 3: in films but in games. Mm hmm, right, even more
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  Speaker 3: in games than you know who knows, and of course
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  Speaker 3: in long form on television and novels. The action genre
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  Speaker 3: is because of that, I think, because of the tremendous
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  Speaker 3: pressures in society today to get into an action story
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  Speaker 3: is a great leisure action huh.
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  Speaker 1: No, No, so like I was saying that that if
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  Speaker 1: you look at the top ten, even the top twenty
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  Speaker 1: biggest blockbusters of all time, even the animated ones have
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  Speaker 1: action in it. They all have action. And then a
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  Speaker 1: perfect example is the latest you know, The Messiah, that
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: is Tom Cruise with with Top Gun Mavericks Gun. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I mean that movie. Did you get a chance to
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: watch The Top Gun?
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  Speaker 3: Oh?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it is. I was on the edge
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  Speaker 1: of my seat, I was bawling, I was crying. I
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: was excited that of excitement.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was great. It was just great. And those sequences,
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  Speaker 3: those fighters fantastic stuff. Question. So, so you know, if
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  Speaker 3: somebody wants to uh to find success uh in Hollywood today, Uh,
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  Speaker 3: writing action is the widest built door there is. But
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  Speaker 3: it's also an ask here, why is that it's so hard?
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  Speaker 3: For two reasons? Why it's been done today? Yep and
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: so and the writer has to win the war on cliches.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: Can you dive into that a little because a lot
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: of people don't understand that. I would love you just
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: to talk a little bit about cliche.
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  Speaker 3: Ah, A cliche is a great idea.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
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  Speaker 3: That someone had one hundred years ago. Literally, Okay, great idea.
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: I mean one of the first movies of all time
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: in nineteen o three was a chase across the desert,
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: you know, stagecoat to pick whatever right. And it was
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: a great idea. People love it. And because it's such
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: a the original, it was such a wonderful idea, it
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: has been copied and copied and repeated and done and
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: done and done and done for decades until everybody has
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: seen it. So many times that even though originally it
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: was a great idea, it's now the most predictable and
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: boring choice. That's a cliche an action because we have
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  Speaker 3: told action stories before the movies. I mean, you know,
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: allion you actually it's one big log cop action piece, right.
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: And so because we've been telling action stories for literally
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: thousands of years, all of these great ideas have been
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: collected into us what we you know, would call cliches,
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: and and we know them all. We've seen them too
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: many times, and therefore they are instantaneously boring people because
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: they sit there and thinking, I've seen all this before. So,
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: despite decades, if not centuries, of a certain genre, the
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: contemporary writer has to go to battle against these cliches.
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: They've got to do what the story, the genre requires.
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: They've got to create a villain, but not the kind
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: we've ever seen before. They've got to create a hero,
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: but not the kind we've ever seen before. They have
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: to create a victim, but not the kind we've ever
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: seen before. Got to put that victim in jeopardy, but
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: not the way we've ever seen it before. We've got
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: to arouse that hero to action, but not the way
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  Speaker 3: we've ever seen it before and all of the strategies
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: and tactics of action have to be worked with, but
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  Speaker 3: in fresh, fascinating ways. And the most difficult of all
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  Speaker 3: is the hero at the mercy of development. How are
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: you going to turn the tables from a position of
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: helplessness that we've never seen before? And if some make
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: them take on action, write a screenplay, write a novel
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: or a game and bring it to the point of
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: hero at the mercy of the villain, and have them
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: hero turn tables und villain in a way that is
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  Speaker 3: true to the characters, true to the setting, but unlike
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: anything we've ever seen quite that way before. It's you,
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: You of the novel will sell, Your strict will be bought,
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: your game will be played. I mean because that for
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: those of us who love action, that is what we
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: are living for. To build that story to that great
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: moment and have it. This happened in a way that
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: we didn't see coming, but when it happens, it makes
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: beautiful sense mm hmm, and surprised with a rush of insight.
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: So I wrote action to give you writers the understanding
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: of the drama that they need in depth so that
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: they tackle it. They don't they they They don't just
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: leave elements out by mistake. They know what they what
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: the drama requires, and I give them tons of examples
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: so they see how it's been done. Wonder play and
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: sometimes battling in the past. And then I, you know,
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: young Bush and stick up, we'll do it.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: Go with God, let's see what you can do. So
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: there's two things. As you were talking, came to mind.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: One movie that turned cliche on its head while poking
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: fun at cliche was Scream, which is an action horror
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: and a thriller in a way, and it was brilliantly done.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: But the definition of cliche of a more modern time
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: is a film like die Hard. When Diehard came out,
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: there had never been a terrorist takeover, or if they had,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: it was not like die Hard. And then now and
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: then now die Hard on a plane, Diehard in a boat,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: die Hard in the stadium, Diehards. It's everywhere now. So
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: now it's a constant cliche and.
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: Cliche because Diehard one was superbly original mm. It captured
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: all of the great a structure of that, the nature
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: of the genre. It executed everything, but in a way
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: you didn't see coming, you didn't care, you were all
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: caught up in the stroke and the mercy scene. It's
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: the greatest mercy I don't why, certainly the greatest mercy
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: scenes in action and so and so. Then it gets
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: repeated and it becomes a cliche, right, very.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: Much like what forty eight Hours did and Lethal Weapon did,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: which was the buddy cop movie. Yeah with the down Jesus,
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, how many see since those movies came out.
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: Well, it's easy to see why, because, I mean, writers
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: are under a tremendous pressure to create something that people
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: want to see. Investors are under tremendous pressure to make
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: sure that their investment makes a profit. And so when
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: you you know, when you can go into a producer's
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: office and say, you know it's it's die Hard on
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: a runaway train or whatever it is, Well, we've had
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: runaway trains, we all know Diehard, etc. Okay, And and
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: you put it in certain boxes for them, then they
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: know what you're trying to do. So then they read
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: the screenplay and see if you did it, did it
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: in a fresh way, And if you turn the cliches
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: upside down, if you did it with enough originality, the
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: people aren't going to sit there and going it's die
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: hard on the trade offs. You know this all before.
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: I mean, winning the war on cliches and the hell
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: of the thing, because we are so prolific in our storytelling.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Mmm.
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: I mean, when you think about it, people today, between
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: going to the movies, watching TV at night, reading novels
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: that they do playing games, if they do, spend almost
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: as much time inside of fiction as they do inside
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: of reality. In the nineteenth century, for example, how much
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: time did the average middle class person spend in fiction
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: per week. Well, if they were a reader, they might
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: might read over.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: But an hour a day, hour two a day if
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: they yeah, yeah.
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: Let's say that's a lot, but let's stay an hour day.
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: And if they lived in a city of enough size
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: there was a theater where they could go to the
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: theater once a month, that's some two hours. And so
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: you know, in a month's time they might spend all
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: together if they really have thirty hours in fiction. People
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: do that now every week.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: M hm.
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: And so the amount of time people spent in fiction
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: has quaddupled, maybe tenfold. Uh and so and so with
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: all of that storytelling, all of these elements get repeated
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: and they become cliches.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: You know what's funny. I have by my daughters. I
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: have have young daughters, and I watch them watch television
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: with me sometimes and it's so fascinating that they're so young,
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: but yet they're able to like, that's the bad that's
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: the real bad guy over there, or that's like and
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: they're calling it, and I'm like, how are they They're so.
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: And they're calling it right, Yeah.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: They're call and they're calling it almost all the time,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: perfectly right. They're going, that's not that, No, it's the
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: other guy. He's the real bad guy. We'll be right
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: back after a word from our sponsor, and now back
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: to the show, and it's and then you and I
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: could probably look at that movie and go, yeah, it's
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: obvious it's going to be this guy. I mean, we've
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: seen it a million times. But they're like young, they're
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: very young, and they're calling it. So can you imagine
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: when they're twenty thirty years old, how much content story
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: they've gone through, much more than I did, definitely much
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: more than you did over you know, as we grew up.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: So it's so much more difficult for the writer to surprise.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: That's why when something that does come out that is
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: new and fresh. People lose their minds and they're like, oh,
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: I can't see.
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: That that's right. And that's why. Because it's so difficult,
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: people resort ReSpectacle.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: Which which is And I want to ask you something
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: about spectacle, because I think there's a lot of spectacle
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: in Hollywood right now. Do you believe that the success
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: of like the Marvel films, which are obviously taken over
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: the theatrical experience pretty much if you take Marvel out
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: of take Marvel, Star Wars and Harry Potter out of
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: out of the theaters for the last ten years, ten
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: fifteen years, we wouldn't have a theatrical business. So is
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: it because there's we've seen spectacle before and there's been
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: bad spectacle. I mean, really a movie like Battleship I
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: remember years ago that was all spectacle, all spectacle. Or
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: Transformers seventy two, which is all spectacle, and people are like,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: you know, I've seen a transforming robot before. I need more.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: What is it about the Marvel films that is connecting
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: with audiences because it's not. I don't believe it's just spectacle.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: There has to be something deeper. I'd love to hear
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: your thoughts.
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: Well, it is spectacle, but the the visual artists who
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: are working on those films have imaginations and the techniques
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: to execute those imaginations that are really superior to anybody else.
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: They have simply gone out. It's like a sports team.
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: They've gone out and got the best players in every
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: position available in the league, right, and so they're gonna
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: win every game thirty seven or nothing, right. And so
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: it is spectacle in that in that they just do
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: it better. M and so that you know, there's you
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: see that a spectacle on one level does create curiosity.
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: It's not about outcome. How will this turn out? Because
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: we know those stories, right and your daughters know it's
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: going to turn out, okay. It's it's how will they
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: do it in order for it to turn out? And
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: so the curiosity is about the execution of the action.
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: And if the execution of the action is fresh, original,
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: and really I believe in stunning to watch, and the
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: music and the sound and all the rest of it
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: in the editing all goes together, if it creates a
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: spectacle of a quality that you've never seen before. They
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: can do the same old thing, but they do it
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: in a whole new way. Or in a way that
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: is more impactful visually than you've ever seen before. So
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: it's still doing and that's why it's it's very successful.
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: Maybe just it's talent, because it's not in s Spectacle
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: has no quality. Of course it does, and they had
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: no importance. Of course it has, right, I mean Aristotle
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: listed all the six elements of the story and Spectacle
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: was the last one, and he said the least important.
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: But it's on the list.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: Top gun, top gun without those fighter sequences. I mean
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: it's it's a fun movie, I guess.
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: But well you see in the action Graenre, you've got
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: to take Spectacle and elevated up. Yeah, it's not number six.
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: It's number six from aristyle point of view in the
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: theater two thousand and five hundred years ago. But now
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: you know it's it's it's it's I don't know, like
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: number three on that list. I mean, you still have events,
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: still have to tell a great story in character, still
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: have to have great characters. But then in action that
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: those events with those characters have to be executed in
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: a fact that fantastically brilliant way, surprising, pleasing. Uh, And
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: so in action, Spectacle has a lot of value and
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: and and so you know, people go to the Marvel
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: uh films because they know that it will be a
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: visual treat.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: Mhm.
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: And uh. Hopefully they'll do the same thing we've always
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: seen in a whole new way, but they will at
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: least express it in a whole new way. And so
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: and so it's a nobbage to look down your nose
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: it's spectacle and say, well, it's just spectacle. Uh. But uh,
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: if it's not, if it's not well done. But that's
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: true of anything. The characters are not well done, they're boring.
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: If it's the same damns a turning point we've seen
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: times a boy, and so everything you do has to
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: be well done, you know. And spectacle is just one
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: of those things.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: If Jurassic Park would have come out and it wasn't
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Michael Crichton, and
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: it would have just been those dinosaurs with a bad script, yeah,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: it would probably have been somewhat successful because of the
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: spectacle of it. But because of the story, the execution,
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: the people behind it, it turned into the masterpiece that
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: eventually it became so something like Avatar, which is I
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: think now still the number one. I think it bumped
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: back up after the pandemic number one, something like Avatar.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: Now James is coming out with four or five. I
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: think he's he says he's going to die on Pandora,
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: but this is where he's going. He's not. He's like,
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be ninety one doing are six of
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: this thing? But this is I'm dying on this hill,
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: he said. But something like something like Avatar is I
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: think almost is perfect of a combination of character, event,
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: story and spectacle because I remember seeing it three times
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: in the theater, because of the three D aspect of
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: it and this amazing world that they created, the visuals
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: of it, and the story was a very basic, simple
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: story that we've seen before, but it was wrapped in
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: this beautiful way, right exactly.
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: The inspiration that the core of Avatar, of course is
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: that you have a second self, and this stappel Ganger
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: has adventures.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: Mhm.
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: It's a it's not even that, it's more than a metaphor.
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: It's a photograph of day dream right right. It's every
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: kid's life where they dream about having adventures that you know,
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: obviously sitting in there in their living room and home.
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: They can't have, and so Avatar made that literal and
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: so that his second self, his Avatar, goes off and
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: has adventures. Uh. Matrix was similar in that way. And uh,
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: and so that you know, that's a wonderful idea because
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: it tapped into an experience that is so you know,
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: you know, every every kid has that experience. Every kid
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: day dreams about life that they don't have, the living
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: adventures of one kind or another. What are And it's
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: the premise of the Avatar was inspired and then the
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: execution was excellent. And then then and then there's this,
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: and this is wonderful in an action story, you can
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: make this work. There's a hidden truth it's always been
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: there for the whole story that you haven't seen literally,
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: but the moment the truth comes out, you go, of course.
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: And the truth of Avatar was that the planet itself
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: was a living thing.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: Of course, and you go, of course, right, yeah, and.
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: That that revelation yea of a hidden truth.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: Uh. It makes you the cause of the audience to
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: go back and reconfigure the whole story they've been watching
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: and to realize it was always there. It was in
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: some sense inevitable that these human beings would just go
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: too far. And when they just they went over you know,
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: that planet had a line, okay, and they finally went
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: all over the line. Okay. And then and AND's and
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: the planet is squashed him like a bug on right.
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: Uh and uh and it and it expresses something we
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: really want to believe that there, that nature has a
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: greater power. And then we've been pushing nature and prodding
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: nature and spoiling nature and poisoning nature, and sooner or
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: later nature is going to just go that squatch right
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: if we don't stop what we're doing in time. And
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: so it's a master metaphor for the for the right,
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: for the the the destruction of the environment, and it's
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: the environment's revenge. And so that's the truth we all
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: want to believe. And uh. And so they're writing, I mean,
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: you know, yes, the directing is wonderful and all the
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: rest mhm. But these ideas tapping into the the fantasy
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: life and bringing that to life and creating a beautifully
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: told story that has the truth at the heart of it.
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: The nature is going to have the last word MHM.
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: And bringing that into and putting that in the film.
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: Is is the reason you know why people like James
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: Cameron and the great suggestion they have is because they
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: and they know the form, they know how to write,
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: you know action. Uh, but it's about something.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: It always is, which with Jims, with Jim's work, it's
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: always about them. And you go back to Terminator, he's
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: saying something Terminator too, he's saying something. The Abyss, which
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: was basically a precursor to a lot of the themes
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: of Avatar and Aliens, is it's about a mother. It's
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: about two mothers protecting their young. I didn't even realize
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: that I saw him talking about in an interview Goes,
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: I made this entire movie about two mothers protecting their
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: young because it couldn't just be just about aliens and people.
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: Was like, my god.
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: I was there when Wood, you know, the movie out
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: Westwood watching Aliens and I was one of the greatest
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: moments in my experience in film, the active climax when
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: Ripley says I'm going back for the kid. The audience
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: almost poured the theater down. I mean they just went not.
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: I did too, We all went not. I'm going track
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: for the kid.
• 43:31
  Speaker 5: Ah uh and and uh that's the mercy scene.
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: M She's at the mercy of that monster. And what's
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: more the that the monster has the victim in its
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: clutches from a position of powerlessness. She's going back to
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: the kiddo age. So yeah, we love the genre and
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: when an action writer gets that right, creates a world
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: that's really we've never seen before and tell that story
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: and executes those those great those great turning points in
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: ways we've never seen before. It is is that, you know?
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: Is that indicating the title of my book? It is
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: the Ace of excitement.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: And still he wrote one of the greatest sci fi
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: lines of all time, get away from her, you bitch,
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: get away from one of the best lines ever written
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: in with our question, it's up there with me, the
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: force be with you. I mean, it's just like, it's
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: not get away from her. It's a little better. I'm
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: gonna say. I'm gonna say it's a little.
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: Bit better now.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: It's not spiritual, no, no, no, get away from her, spiritual.
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: Bitch right down to the ground.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: Oh and every one of us and everyone was watching
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: that movie just like, oh oh, it was just so
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: as we're talking I'm still getting like goosebumps. I'm getting like,
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: you know, the blood's flowing talking about it. And that's
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: what a good movie does. When you're explaining the movie
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: to somebody else and you still get excited about it,
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: you've hit it. You've hit the mark ye.
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: That the form comes to life, The form comes to
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: life inside of you. All the spectacle is the memory,
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: but it's the form. It's the turning point. I'm going
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: back for the kid, get away from me, you big.
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: It's the turning point. The courage of that line and
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: both of those whatever the turning point hits your heart problem.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: Now in the book, you also talk about the action
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: McGuff Now, I am familiar with the mcguffin. So what
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: is the action mcguffin, or if you can explain the
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: mcguffin to to the audience who might not know what
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: the mcguffin is, what is an action mcguffin.
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: Well, there's there's mcguffins and a lot of stories, and
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: there's a mcguffin and crist stories often but certainly in
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: throwers uh In ethics, it's defined as the thing that
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: everybody wants and when you get it, it gives you power.
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: That's the magoverin. It's the it's the the thing, that's
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: the actual physical thing. It gives you power. So like
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: in them in Aliens, it's the kid. M right, the
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: kid is in the macgoverin Monster wants the kid in
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: order to impregnate, so to speak, human beings to reproduce. Right,
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: and and so it's the thing everybody wants. And when
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: you get it, it gives you power. So it could
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: be the secret to the to the.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: Some nuclear launch technology.
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah. An in fact, in certain films Alfred Hitchcock that
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: people credit Hitchcock with coining the term mcguffin. That actually
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: he didn't. He was a writer friend of his who
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: coined it and he repeated it because Hitchcock used it
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: and became famous. Hitchcock came to realize, you don't even
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: have to tell him what it is. So in a
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: film I'm going to work by Northwest, the mcguffin is secrets.
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: There's some kind of secret, probably a formula, some some
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: probably for a weapon, something like that. Okay, but there's
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: a secret and it's encapsulated and people are chasing after
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: the secret throughout the movie. But Hitchcock never tells you
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: what the secret was for. I mean, what what what
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: was that? What was in the secret? What? What were
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: people going to do with the secret? He didn't tell
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: me about it because he thought he realized it doesn't
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: really matter. It's the thing that everybody wants. When you
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: get it, it gives you power, and everybody's chasing after you.
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: Everybody wants it, everybody's struggling to get it. And so
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: from Alongag's point of view, you're thinking, well, if all
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: those characters want that thing so badly, it must really
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: be important.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: So is that the action secrets or is that something different?
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: The action? It's a it's a motivation.
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: It's just a motivation. It's the action.
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: Motivation said, The pursuit of the mcguffin is driving you know,
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: is driving the characters. They are pursuing the McGovern. If
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: the hero can get his hands on the mcgoffin or
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: her hands on the McGovern, Uh, then they can't use
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: that to defeat the villain. If the villain keeps the mcgofflin,
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: he's going to destroy the world.
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: So uh.
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: And so the pursuit of the mcguffin is the you know,
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: is driving the story and is often the mcguffin, like
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: in The Alien the mcguffin is the victim. H although
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: not necessarily the mcgofflin can be something that, you know,
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: quite separate from that. And so, like all of these
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: elements in story design.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: Will be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: Coming up. Creating a really fresh, unique, wonderful, truthful, fascinating
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: mcguffin and and and and generally speaking, generally speaking, it
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: needs to be portable mm hmm, because whoever has it
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: has power, and so the hero can get the McGovern
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: back and then the villain takes it back again, and
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: I mean they can they can exchange this, they can
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: lose it. They've all go searching for it that drops
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: into the ocean and the hero and villain vot you know,
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: under whatever, and and so, uh, it's got to be
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: a thing that's portable. But uh, in in it can
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: be just an idea, but it's kind of be an
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: idea that you know that's written down, it's on a
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: piece of paper or whatever.
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: Or someone has it or someone knows the.
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: Infimating that, yeah, something that you can move that helps
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: generate the sequences of the action.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: So something like written Raiders of the Lost arc, it's
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: obviously the arc of the Covenant in pulp fiction, it's
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: the suitcase with the mysterious light that nobody what's.
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: In that suitcase? And you and.
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: He still won't and he and Quentin still won't.
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: Say, doesn't bother to day he does not.
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: He's not gonna. And every time I asked him, he's like,
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: I don't know. What do you think? It is like,
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: it's it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter.
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: It's the thing that everybody wants. He gives you power.
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: And you know, they said they actually you do actually
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: need to know more than that.
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: No, that's funny because one of the conspiracy theories about
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: what's in the what's in the suitcase is that it's
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: oh God, Ving Raims's character Marcellus is soul. Literally, it's
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: his soul that they're carrying around in there. I was like, oh,
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: that's kind of interesting, his soul. And that the little
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: the little band aid about on his back of the
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: neck is where the soul got away. These are things
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: that were like, Wow, that's pretty interesting.
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: Really, isn't that a fun It's it's wonderful people hear
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: that much that they worry about that, and even so
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: how did they get out of the body?
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: I mean fantastic. I mean, you know you're talking about
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: film geeks thinking about that movie for decades trying to
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: figure out what that is. Now you also talk about
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: action set pieces. Can you talk a little bit about
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: what a good action set piece is?
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: Well, there are sequences in action. I mean, how many
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: different ways physically get a hero pursue of a villain
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: in effort to rescue the victim? Right, And so there's
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: a limit. You can go forward something right and invade
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: that's a that's a tactic, that's an action, uh sequence,
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: or you can be caught an escape, you can rescue
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: the victim or or not right or lose whatever. And
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: so there are there are certain actions moving toward, moving away,
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: moving around, moving through in the labyrinth, across the desert,
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: and so forth, that there are a certain limited number
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: of ways in an in time and space that hero
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: and villain can interact. And and so I go through
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: them in the book and given lots of examples of them,
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: and I make the point and just the writer asked
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: to understand it's limited time and space. You know, have
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: certain limitations. You can go toward, you can go away,
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: you can chase someone or be chased. H and so,
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: so once you have a once you you know you
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: studied the genre as I have, and you see the
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: possibilities of it, and you see the way it's been
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: executed Briant laid by three tellers in the past. Now
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: those are the colors on your palate. And so instead
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: of sitting there just learnering, well, why what could my
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: hero do and just hitting a wall, if you study,
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: you see the tactics involved, and you see, well, I
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: have choices, moving toward, moving away, moving through Jason Bean, Chase,
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: et cetera. They're you know, rescuing, escaping. Uh, there are
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: choice and so you let those choices play in your imagination.
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: Something likes Eyron, I know at this point the story,
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: you know he would, she would, and it comes comes
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: to life and so and so one of the purposes
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: of writing a book like acting is to the front door,
• 55:51
  Speaker 3: is to my front door. Uh is to uh open
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: up the possible, the least for the reader. So here's
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: the genre, here's what has been done for thousands of years,
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: and there are limits, and so you can go within
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: these limits as you must. Uh, but you but that's
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: not a straight jacket. It's just possibilities. And every one
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: of those possible tactics can be done in a whole
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: new way to a different environment for a different reason,
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: different characters. And I don't know, but you have to
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: understand what the elements of the draenre that are central.
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: Now, I'd love to break in your book, you break
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: down a bunch of the bunch of action movies inside
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: of your book. Is I love to just break down
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: a couple of them, even slightly, something like The Dark Knight. So,
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: something like The Dark Knight, which is arguably one of
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: the best super quote unquote superhero films in the genre
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: ever made. Honestly, it's it's it's it's up there without question.
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: And I always you know, someone like my wife who
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: doesn't like superhero movies. She puts up with them because
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: of me. But but when you watch something like The
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: Dark Knight, I was watching and I'm like, oh, if
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: you just take Batman and the Jokeer out of this,
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: this is just like heat. It's just a crime. It's
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: a fantastic crime thriller, Like you take this. So a
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: lot of times in superhero movies, you can't do that.
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: You take the super out of it, it's over. But
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: Dark Knight it's just I mean, it really felt like
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: Michael Man loaded and directed it in many ways because
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: it was so visceral. So can you break down The
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: Dark Knight a little?
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: A film like The Dark Knight so wonderful? And this
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: is true? Then the whole action genre is the nature
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: of the villain. No so good. The villain is the
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: key to action. If you have no villain, there's nothing
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: for the hero to do. If the villain is an idiot,
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: there's nothing for the hero to do. He will trip
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: over himself right without your help, right. And so the
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: more brilliantly realized the villain is that forces the hero
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: to rise to the occasion. The hero can only be
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: as fascinating and compelling as the villain makes him makes her,
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: And so Dark Knight and the Joker. The Joker is
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: a fantastic villain, and his villainy is so profound that
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: at the end he creates a dilemma. The villain creates
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: a dilemma that the hero will have to solve. And
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: uh and analyst spoiled for people. But it's one of
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: the great crisis in action stories. And and because this
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: villain and absolutely ruthless is a weak word that he
• 59:25
  Speaker 3: is so maniacal, niacle and sadistic. He likes causing pain
• 59:34
  Speaker 3: in other things, and so he creates this great dilemma
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: at the end where human beings will have to make
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: a choice to deliver or die, and uh and and
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: then and that's beyond the hero's control.
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: And it's it's also the movie seems to me to
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: be a story about two men's will be right back
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: after a word from our sponsor and now back to
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: the show view on the world.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well they have, they have, they have.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, Joker thinks everything should be everything's in chaos
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: and we're just a second away from completely falling into
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: complete anarchy, and he enjoys that. But Batman doesn't believe that,
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: believes that no people are good, they're going to make
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: the right choice.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: And so then the Joker creates still I'm going to
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 3: approve his point.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: Right, And that's the it's it's a brilliant film, which
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: also brings me to another problem with there's a specific
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: superhero who I've yet to see a fascinating film made of,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: but it's the most famous superhero of all time because
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: it's the first superhero Superman. Superman's a character, and I
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: want and I want. I'm bringing this up because I
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: think it's a really good illustration. Batman and Superman have
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: always been on both sides. One's light once the arc
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: wants much more. Batman's a much more interested character, to
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: say the least by far. But there hasn't been a
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: really great and I'll get a lot of hate mail
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: for this fantastic like Superman film. Maybe obviously the Christopher
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: refilm was excellent. I think Christopher A. Superman two was
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: excellent in the seventies, but in recent years that when
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: they try to reduce.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: Super reason okay, because I think Superman won is brilliant,
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: which Mario Puzo.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it's it's brilliant.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 3: He put he puts Superman into the elevels.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: Now, so that why hasn't anyone else been able to
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: So why hasn't anybody else been able to do that?
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: Because in Superman one he was fighting a villain who
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: was superior intellectually but not physically, and then in Superman
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: two he fought someone who was superior. Quote unquote superior
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: mentally and physically, which was a general zod quote unquote,
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: and also much more physical, and three of them fighting right,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: so there was a there was really stakes there. And
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: then they took his powers away and and then he
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: had to try to find them back. It was it
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: was such a well done. Those are the two best
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: Superman films in my opinion, beside the Richard Pryor one.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: The third one, which is interesting to say the least.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: But what was it about the first one that made
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: that Superman interesting?
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: Well, he had he had a moral imperative. Then he
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: owed to his father who had told him that he
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: must not use his superpowers on earth. He must not
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: interfere in human destiny. He's godlike in his powers, as
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: he demonstrates by reversing the spin of the Earth and
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 3: turning back time.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: Fantastic by the.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 3: I know and uh, And he mustn't use those powers,
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 3: he must give It's like you seem like often you know. Uh.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 3: The religious people are challenged by the question why does
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: God allow evil? Mm hmm, And the answer traditionally has
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: been free will. God wants hidden beings to have free
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 3: will so that they can choose between good and needs
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 3: and and that's that's the rationale and so Superman Maria
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 3: Fluzo called upon that same idea in Superman won Superman
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 3: is godlike, he has that, you know, that that power,
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: and why would he, you know, allow evil? And his
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 3: father tells him, you have to allow evil. You must
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 3: not interfere with human destiny, which means let human beings
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: do what human beings will do. And we know that
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 3: half of human beings are evil, that there's an evil
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 3: pride the human nature. And if you let human beings
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: do what human beings do, there'll be a lot of
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: evil in the world. And so Superman has to make
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: that great moral choice to keep his father's sacred commandment
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: or rescue the woman that he loves, and he chooses
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: love and breaks his father's holy commandment. And so it has,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: you know, it has the idea in Superman one is
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: rooted profoundly in Christianity.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: Oh God, yes, no fun at.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 3: And Superman is a metaphor for Jesus Christ, right denis
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 3: uh And so these things really connect with people because
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: it's about something, it's about moral choice and uh uh
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: uh uh, and that's and that's why you know it
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 3: was it was a great one. The difference between Superman
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 3: then and Backman is in Superman, if there's evil, it's
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 3: really not dark. Mm hmm, okay, it's just kind of
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 3: passed out.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: Lex Luthor is not moniacal.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 3: Nobody's funny.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 6: And then you know he's you know, yeah, he's very
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 6: fun Odisville, I mean he's very fund.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: Forgot about that otis Bill so uh uh.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 3: But the Joker is a different thing. Joker is not
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: resolutely The Joker really is evil, and he's sadistic. He
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 3: enjoys causing people to sell he lives for Because the
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: Joker in Batman, he's so dark. Batman has the potential
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: man to to create stories that are really compelling and
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 3: rich because Superman operates in a world where evil never
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 3: gets to that kind of darkness.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: Uh.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 3: It's more about the adventure in the spectacle of it. Uh.
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 3: And so that's why you might feel that the Superman
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 3: movies are less impactful than the Backman because Batman's taking
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 3: that that's that whole genre. That character is drawing on
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 3: the a much darker source of ability, and it's not
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 3: as it's not as nicely. It's just not nice. Batman
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: really suddenly some of those Batman films. I mean, the
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 3: way these are inos and victims, the citizens of black
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 3: and the horrible people.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: Absolutely right.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 3: It's a question whether or not the same one who cares,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 3: you know, I'm destroying himself. So uh, it brings up
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 3: moral questions. I mean, that's the end. Batman brings up
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 3: moral questions that are more profound, darker, deeper than the
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 3: moral questions Suitingman.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: And then something like what Marvel has done with the
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: cast of characters they have, because Marvel's doesn't have dark
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: dark really doesn't have darkness as dark as The Joker's.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: It's very pastel, like you say. But one of the things,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: and people always ask why do you think that, you know,
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: they're so successful over these years. I'm like, yeah, and
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: we've talked about some of the reasons. But they've done
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: something that no other film studio has ever done, which
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: is carry characters over a decade. I mean, by the
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: time we get to the Avengers Endgame and iron Man,
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: we've been with iron Man for ten years and seeing
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: him in multi in multiple films, and we have such
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: an emotional connection, so you know, what happens in that
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: movie is so impactful because of that, and that's not
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: done in cinema, hasn't been done in cinema ever. I
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: don't think I don't think anyone's been able to do
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: that at that scale by any stretch.
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 3: They imagine, you know, there's a secret sauce there that
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 3: is is kind of wonderful. I mean they got you
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 3: when you were kids, when you fell in love with
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 3: those parrots, right absolutely.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 7: And so that you know that may they and they
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 7: are evolving, they are revealing, and and that those.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 3: Are the two elements. How do you create a series?
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 3: You know? What what keeps a series alive? Uh? Well,
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 3: every day now writers are facing that problem in long
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 3: form television. What will bring people back episode after episode,
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 3: season after season, even for years, you know, And the
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 3: two things that seems to me that bring people back
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 3: are uh revelations. Number one.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: Will be right back after a word from our sponsor.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: And now back to the show.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 3: You think you know these characters, You think you understand
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 3: their dimensions and their their their their strengths, their weaknesses,
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 3: their power or whatever their natures. You think you understand,
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 3: and that you don't. And in the future there will
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 3: be episodes in which there will be a revelation, uh,
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 3: of who that character really is. That will make perfect sense.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 3: But you didn't see fire. And so those revelations about
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 3: the depth and complexities of characters that you that you
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 3: thought you knew that now you realized I didn't really
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 3: know altogether. That fascinates. It's a revelation and change. You know,
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 3: the these these key characters are at the beginning of
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 3: the series, and then you watch them undergo over time,
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 3: change becoming better morally, worse, morally more, will will pull, more,
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 3: weak more whatever they're changing, usually for the depends, but
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 3: generally for the better. And uh. And so revelation of
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 3: qualities and characters you didn't see before and change in
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 3: the nature of characters that you didn't see coming. Those
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 3: two things keep the series alive and and Marvels has
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 3: not got that down. And they know how to parse
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 3: out revelations of characters. They know how they have a
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 3: vision that's years and years into the future about where
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 3: will these characters go. So as long as there's revelations
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 3: and change, they can do it over and over and
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 3: over because it adds to the to the audience's understanding
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 3: of the characters. And that is a.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: Pleasure, right, So it's just against a character like you know,
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: I don't know how much you know about these characters.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: With a character like Thor at the beginning was very
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: different to the Thor that we see now. And he's
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: and he's become one of the most popular where at
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: the beginning he was one of the least popular exact characters.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 3: And they and now if you talk to the writers
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 3: and they say, we had no idea where Thor would go, Okay,
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 3: I'm afering that. My answer to that is, well, consciously
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 3: you didn't h right, but subconsciously you knew that character
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 3: had potential, and you improvised, you experimented, and it turned
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 3: out the new You know their aspects, and that's just
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 3: coming out of your channel, your creativity, and you know
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 3: what fascinates, revelation and change, and so you're revealing and
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 3: changing this character and you know, the results are wonderful.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: And to be fair, I mean, they had fifty or
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: sixty years of writing or seventy years of writing, millions,
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of stories with these characters,
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: arcing them, moving them, moving them across time over decades.
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, Spider Man is I mean, how many times
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: have we seen a Spider Man story, But the latest
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: one blew, you know, blew the box office out of
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: the water. But because of a nostalgia too, there was
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: a little bit of nostalgia the old Spider Man's coming back,
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: but that was something new. We hadn't seen that before.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: We haven't seen you go.
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 3: And there's a whole generation of the who didn't see it.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 3: They want.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: My daughters were like, is that the original Spider Man?
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go yeah, can we watch those movies? Okay,
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: let's go back and watch those movies. Yeah, because they
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: were like, who's that Spider Man? They only know the
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: one Spider Man and they're like, is that another spider Like, yeah,
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: there's two movies of him. Kid did three movies and
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: he's the one that started it all. And I was
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: like really and like yeah, so they so this is
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: And also when you build something like what Marvel has,
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: they've built an ecosystem a world of these characters in
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: these movies, and same thing for Batman and and those
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: kinds of characters. There's a bunch of them. And when
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: you run into like James bond More, you know, an
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: older reference of James Bond. When you watch one Daniel Craig,
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: you're gonna want to watch all the Daniel Craigs. But
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: then you watch Pierce Broun's and you're like, oh, that's
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: not like Daniel Craig. But maybe you like Pierce s
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: Brons or you watch Connery or more one of these
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: fun things. So it's fascinating, Rob Robert, I could talk
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: to you for.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 3: Hours about it. It's fun talk about things you love.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: Now, tell me about Tell me where we can when
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: the book comes out, and where we can get.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 3: It Bok, Amazon dot com, the usual suspect on Barns
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 3: and Obles whatever, but at Amazon certainly. And it comes
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 3: out on the sixth Today is the second and so
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 3: in four days that you know, be out and the
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 3: pre orders have been spectacular. Uh. I hope, I hope
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 3: that it does. What I wanted to do is to
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 3: take action as a genre to yet another level. I
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 3: want to get really creative, talented people to love the genre,
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 3: not to look down and those not to sneer, but
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 3: to love it and embrace it and see it as
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 3: a modern metaphor the life and death struggle the human
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 3: beings now and in the future, and that you know,
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 3: we've been telling action story since Homer and it's not
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 3: going to go away. Life and depth is the core
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 3: value of action and that that is the struggle that
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 3: you know that that is eternal obviously, So so I
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 3: it comes out in the sixth and I hope that
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 3: not only the people who love action today, but of
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 3: course all those people who UH could consider it will
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 3: read it. And what they're going to discover is it's
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 3: a hell and a lot more complicated and more difficult
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 3: than you booked.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: Mheh, just a bunch of explosions and guns.
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 3: I will make it very clear that this is far
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 3: more complex, much more sophisticated, and much more difficult than
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 3: you thought. But if you put your imagination to it,
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 3: you can do something we've never seen before. So I
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 3: hope they'll I help all writers, We'll give it a chance,
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 3: read it, see if there's something in that that attracts them.
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 3: And I hope that you know, in the decades to
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 3: come that the book will help. That'll be the action
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 3: drama to something UH continuously progressing and growing and capturing
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 3: our imagination.
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: Now, Robert, there's one question I always ask my guests,
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: and I don't remember if I asked you this first time,
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: and I'd love to hear your thoughts and please it's
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: a very very difficult question. I'm not sure you're going
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: to be able to answer it, but I'm going to
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: go to give you a shot at it. Three of
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: your favorite films of all time?
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 3: Who well at the you know, the the the bear
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 3: trap in that question is is giving yourself away? And
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 3: just how pretentious are it? Right?
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: How many berms are going to be on that list?
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 3: A number of them, But I'll tell you number one.
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 3: If if if it was two o'clock in the morning
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 3: and I was traveling to you know, Auckland, New Zealand,
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 3: full of jet flag, unable to sleep, what would I
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 3: hope was on television? Well, my first hope would probably
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 3: be CHINATOWND so good. And if not Chinatown h then
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 3: maybe Groundhog Day, oh so. And if not Groundhog Day,
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 3: the number three, please God, please give me Godfather one
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 3: or two of the three.
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: All three of them back to back.
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that would make a nice I you know, eventually
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 3: I had to get to sleep, so yeah, those those
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 3: would be three of my first choices. They're a wonderful
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 3: film and and uh. They they're very satisfying, and that
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 3: you know the reason I picked those three because I
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 3: realized over the years, you know that when you are
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 3: in that situation and you're giving the channel.
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 3: Looking for something to watch. You killed Tom Okay. I
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 3: have seen the last half of China Town, the last
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 3: half of ground bow Day, and the last last halves
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 3: of Godfathers. Wanted into so many times because it's in
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 3: the middle option of Scott and you just stop.
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: Right exactly and you know what's funny. On that list
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: you put Groundhog's Day, which I considered one of the
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: greatest comedies ever written, and it doesn't get the kind
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: of attention and analysis that it should because people write
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: it off because it was a comedy, which I love.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: It's not saying it's not that it's not exactly, but
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: it is so brilliant, so brilliantly written. And I mean
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: obviously the direction in the the and the Bill Murray
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: and n McDonald. I mean, it's masterful. But that was
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: was there a film prior to Groundhog's Day that used
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: that idea of repeating time like they're caught in a
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: loop because there's been again. The cliche is now there
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: are multiple films like that, But I don't remember anything
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: like Groundhogs Day before.
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 3: I can't either. It probably was, but I can't remember.
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 3: I know that there are certainly time travel stories. Sure,
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 3: people go back in time, forward in time, sideways and time.
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 3: I don't know. But living the same day over and
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 3: over and over again.
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: Until you change as a human being. Never seen that.
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 3: I say that if we googled. It seems to me
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 3: there's a little echo in my memory here saying back
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 3: in the nineteen thirties there was a play m h
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 3: and not a film, but a play where somebody was
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 3: living the same day over and over, and that play
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 3: was probably considered a lot dark.
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: I'm looking I'm actually looking at it right now. Mirror
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: of a Hero in nineteen eighty seven. Uh, Run Lola, Run,
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: Run Lola one. But that's not the same that Edge
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: of Tomorrow. Edge of Tomorrow, but that was way after. Yeah, No,
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: all the other ones have been after. I haven't seen anything.
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: The only one that was Mirror of a Mirror for
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: Hero nineteen eighty seven, which was like five six years earlier,
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: but other than that, not really, and well obviously nothing
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: as good as I'm a little.
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 3: Run about living the same day three times, right, living
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 3: the same day three different ways.
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: Right, And that's Russia.
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 3: And that's Russian. That's that's not the same day over
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 3: and over, and that's the points of view exactly. So
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 3: they're all there have been stories where where the time
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 3: I mean, when they're great was of course Pieran Dallos
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 3: played in the nineteen twenty six Characters in Search of
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 3: On Off. So they these characters come to life that
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 3: they want, they need actors to act out their lives,
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 3: to freeedom so that they can go to the next
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 3: life or the next world or whatever it is. So
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 3: the notion of multiple realities and the reliving things, that's
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 3: that's not new. But Girl Dog Day, if it is
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 3: as an original, it's the best name has ever done that.
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: It is the diehard of of repeating day movies.
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 3: And what I you know what I love about it
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 3: is I think another great favorite of mine, for example, would.
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: Be The Verdict, Oh yeah, fast.
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 3: And the reason I like the Verdict same reason I
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 3: like broundhog Day, it's the redemption plot.
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: Mh.
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 3: The bad guy turns good story. You know, we all
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 3: hold out in our herd of hearts. Can I become
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 3: a better human being?
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: Mm?
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 3: Hm, Well, I just make the same mistake over and
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 3: over and over, misfeat myself and other people the same
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 3: old way over and over. Can I redeem myself? And
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 3: in stories like that like UH roundhog Day Verdict, UH
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 3: redeem the character in a beautiful way, and so the
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 3: the the idea of redemption is very.
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: Powerful, Robert. Like I said, I can talk for you
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: for hours about movies and about story my friend, thank
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: you so much for coming on the show, and thank
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: you for all the thank you and thank you so
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: much for all the hard work you've been doing for
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: these these decades trying to educate storytellers and help them
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: hard work.
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 3: It's been pleasure.
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 3: I seriously I do what I love, and you know,
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 3: as I said, I'm writing a story too, I'm gonna
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 3: do uh I love in a whole new way again.
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 3: It's you know now. So I hope I hope people
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 3: will check out Action m give it a look and
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 3: and UH let's try to take the genre to UH
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 3: to a hire more beautiful level.
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: Thank you, my friend. I appreciate you.
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 3: Thank you all. Stay here now.
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: I want to thank Robert so so much for coming
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: on the show and dropping his knowledge bombs on the
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: tribe today. Thank you so so much, Robert. If you
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: want to get links to anything we spoke about in
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: this episode, including how to get Robert's brand new book Action,
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: head over to the show notes at Indie Film Muscle
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: dot com Forward slash seven sixty four, and if you
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: have it already, please head over to Filmmaking podcast dot com.
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: Subscribe and leave a good review for the show. It
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: really helps us out a lot, guys. Thank you again
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: so much for listening. Guys, as always, keep that hustle going,
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: keep that dream alive, Stay safe out there, and I'll
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: talk to you soon.
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle podcast at
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 2: Indie Film Hustle dot com. That's I N D I
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 2: E F I L M h U S T l
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 2: E dot com.