A TRIBUTE TO ROBERT RISKIN

A lot of fans don't like Frank Capra, the director of films like "It Happened One Night," "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" and "It's a Wonderful Life." I guess he's too sentimental for some people. That's a pity. His best films always feel directed and they always feel written, and that's no small achievement.


A lot of the credit goes to his long-time collaborator, writer Robert Riskin. I just saw "Mr. Deeds" and I have a copy of the screenplay in front of me so I thought I'd pick a couple of pages and talk about what I like about them.


Synopsis of the sequence: Mr. deeds takes his girl to a restaurant where a bunch of writers make fun of him for being a greeting card poet. When he realizes what they're up to he stands up and gets mad.



Let me digress for a moment because the context of these pages is important. Immediately before the restaurant sequence people in a cramped, crowded car driving in the rain were frantically yelling, "Hurry! Hurry!" Capra fades to the dry and spacious restaurant interior where dreamy, romantic music is playing and the camera tracks past busy waiters and customers to Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur.The sequence is wonderful already, and nobody's even said anything yet!

I forgot to say that the restaurant is neat, beautiful and civilized but not gaudy. The film celebrates civilization. Capra (as he always does) fills the scene with a kazillion extras and the gypsy violin music is to die for. What a contrast to the frenzied shouts in the last sequence!

The cuts are incredible! The shots are clipped and have an avant-garde feeling but the gypsy violin and the friendly faces of the stars soothes over the drastic cuts and we hardly notice them.

So what does all this have to do with Riskin's script? Everything! The script allows the visuals and the ambient sound to carry the beginning of the sequence!!!! Nobody says, "Isn't this a beautiful restaurant?" The waiters don't talk to each other. The script knows how to be quiet! It's a cinematic script!

There's some terrific dialogue between Cooper and Arthur, and that part has it's own build and climax, then the wicked, big-city writers invite the couple over to their table.

The writers speak fast and furious and each taunts Deeds with his own style of speaking. The word music is incredible! Imagine that! The writer wrote this section with word music in mind! When has an animation writer ever done that? This whole part of the script is a set-piece to show off the sound of the human voice!

OK ,that takes us to the beginning of the script that I reproduced below.

Mr. Deeds gets mad and the word music shifts to oratory as he scolds. I love oratory! I read a how-to book that advised writers to avoid it...bad advice! Audiences love to hear the roar of the aroused (the right word?) lion!

Deeds punches everybody out and one of the writers apologizes and offers to take him and his date out on the town. This doesn't exactly move the story forward but the dialogue is beautifully written and the actor that delivered it did a tour de force job. He was able to do such a good job because the writer had the courage to write a literate and complex piece of word music for him.

I also call your attention to the fact that Riskin gave this beautiful performance piece to a non-essential actor who we hardly see again in the film. Animation story editors would delete set pieces like this without hesitation which is why the Deity will no doubt send them all to Hell someday. Screen writing is more akin to opera than to straight narrative, as Riskin rightly perceives.

WERE SCRIPTS EVER USED IN ANIMATION'S GOLDEN AGE?

I'm not an animation historian and I've done no original research on the subject. If I had to make a guess I'd say some scripts must have been written because it's inconceivable that penny-pinching studio owners would have always, in all situations, resisted the common practice of live action, which was to use scripts. Also, just guessing again, I'd say that scripts couldn't have been very common. If they were, then where are they now? Why did books and articles written at the time (like "Art of Animation", above and below) emphasize story boards as the preferred way to write stories? Walt himself is on record in print and film saying that he didn't use scripts.

Bob Jaques says he owns a Fleischer script and Floyd Norman said he saw scripts being written while he worked at Disney's. Mike Barrier interviewed non-artist Bill Cottrell who wrote for Disney, and Mike put up Cottrell's script for "Cock Robin" on his site. Steve Worth was not impressed and says Cottrell's script was probably written after the storyboards were made, as a sort of handy synopsis or recording script. Mike disagrees and wants to throttle Steve, but Steve remains adamant. Here's an example of Cottrell's script, below:

It certainly looks like it was written after the story was already made and shot, at least as a Leica reel, but Mike says it contains things that weren't in the finished film, so it must have originated earlier. Maybe it was made from an early Leica reel. Gee, if a script this detailed and anal-retentive was written early, at the creative stage, it would certainly lead me to pity the poor animators whose creative input would have been zilch.

Steve says no scripts (meaning, I assume, creative scripts by non-artists that were more than just dictation) were written during animation's Golden Age. I winced when I heard that because there are exceptions to every rule, and I could imagine someone pulling out that exception from an attic somewhere. Mike says "Snow White" used scripts in addition to storyboards. Animation critic Charles Solomon says no scripts were used at Disney until "101 Dalmatians." I'm not an historian so I can't comment.

Myself, I think scripts are an absolutely terrible way to write animation, but I imagine that I can occasionally see the influence of non-artist writers in some classic films. "Lady and the Tramp" looked beautiful but the writing was full of cliches that are still used by non-artists today. "Aristocats" made after Walt's death, had an abundance of them. I simply can't imagine artists coming up with ideas as visually impaired as these. But maybe I'm wrong.

SCRIPTS OR STORYBOARDS?

It won't come as a suprise to anyone that I'm on the storyboard side of that controversy, especially if we're talking about animated cartoon comedy. I've written in both script and storyboard formats, and the boarded stories always turn out funnier. That's because a board provides constant feedback on how the visuals are going. Some ideas just don't look funny when drawn and it's nice to be able to toss them in favor of something that draws better.

It's also because scripts are a form of book. They're a medium of their own and what feels good in the medium of print often doesn't feel good in animation. As an example, scripts tend to be dialogue-heavy, even when they're written by artists. That's because ddialogue driven scripts are leaner and easier to read. Dialogue comes in trim little columns surrounded by oceans of white space. It looks better on a page. You can read it faster. It's an amazing but true fact that dull, dialogue-heavy, talking head cartoons get made for the trivial reason that their kind of script is easier to read.

Here's an example. This is an excerpt from a first-draught script I wrote for Animaniacs. A witch's candy-covered house attracts the Animaniacs and she tries to eat them. They turn it around and harass the witch to distraction. The script reads OK whenever it depicts dialogue but watch how hard it becomes to read when it describes visual gags:
Which part would you rather read?

It's also true that stories that originate on storyboards tend to emphasize visual gags, the thing that animation is best at. When I'm drawing I naturally pay more attention to the way a character looks in clothes, the way he bends to pick things up, etc. Sometimes these details are so funny that I end up building a whole sequence around them. That feels right to me. Comedy is best when it's about little things. Scripts, on the other hand, favor the overview, the big things and the complex subplots.

Now that scripts dominate there are very few funny cartoons. Since scripts are uncongenial to visual comedy the powers that be have decided to eliminate visual comedy. This is the shocking price we've had to pay for our script addiction.

ABOUT "PSYCHO"

In 1998 Gus Van Sant did a shot-for-shot remake of Hitchcock's "Psycho," which was done in 1960. It was a pretty courageous thing to do, and I for one am glad he did it. Poor Van Sant suffered from the comparison, and it probably hurt his career, but I envy him for the lessons he must have learned, and I'm grateful for the light he was able to shine on the original.

Van Sant's version really underlined the importance of casting in the earlier film. Janet Leigh (above) has an arresting face that seems to reveal everything that's going on in her soul.  Hitchcock thought of her character as "bourgeois," but Leigh adds dignity and gravity to it, so that we care about what happens to her.  I love the throaty voice she has here. I heard that he looped all her dialogue to make sure that quality came through.

Here (above) she's being taunted by a flock of unearthly white car demons. She's only just stolen the money and already Hell is opening up behind her. Hitchcock believes that you should never flirt with evil. Doing so puts you on the radar of a frightening supernatural netherworld.

This long road sequence (above) is the best thing in the film for me, even better than the famous shower sequence. Hitchcock believes in the importance of mise-en-scene, where script and characters are less important than visuals, editing and sound in conveying deep meaning.  He strives to get effects through pure film.

Hitchcock said the shower scene (above) was the most important thing in the film for him. Every thing else in the story was there to lead up to it or take us out of it. Fascinating!

That's how I've done storyboards over the years. I search the script for the most important sequence in the film, the one the audience is likely to remember...the thing the story is actually about...and I'll board that first, giving it the star treatment. Everything else in the story is just what leads into that and out of that, and is subordinate (still creative, hopefully, just subordinate).

Anne Heche (above) played Janet Leigh's character in the remake. Heche made bad choices here. Her character has no gravity, no depth. You don't care what happens to her. She's said to have asked Van Sant if she could play the character as being amoral. Baaaad idea! A situation where a good person steals money is full of potential for inner conflict. An amoral person does the same thing and it's just an event.

By the way, who did the sucky lighting (above) in the Van Sant film?  Look how flat and unappealing it is in black and white. Compare it to the frame grab of Janet Leigh.

My friend Chris had an interesting observation about the Van Sant film. He said Heche doesn't seem to care deeply about the guy she's with (above) in the opening scenes. I guess Van Sant thought that detachment would make her appear more modern. But if that's the case, then why would she go to all the trouble of stealing money so they could be together? It doesn't make sense.

Hitchcock's lovers were also a bit detached, but only enough to remind us, noir style, that they were trapped in some situation larger than themselves. We never doubted their affection for each other.

And what's with the candy color anne Heche is wearing?




Here's Hitch in the original trailer for the 1960 film. I kinda like it.

EDDIE DRAWINGS

Here's part of a doodle script I did for a film that was never made. We were between shows at Spumco and John allowed me to write this while we were were waiting for the next thing.

Doodling is a great way to do a script for first-time, try-out characters because you quickly find out whether the characters work visually. In this case the girl character worked fine, but the guy didn't.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO ANIMATION DIRECTORS?

Is it just me or does anyone else wonder if the job and the job title are disappearing? In TV animation the director (often called a producer) is simply a sort of art director. The closest thing to a director in the traditional sense of the word is the writer.

The writer determines what the tone of the series will be, what stories will be made, all the details of the story, what characters will be used, and sometimes even what voice talent will be used. The writer is not answerable to the director, the director is expected to take the script that's handed to him and do the best he can with it. If he doesn't like it, well... there's the street.

A popular book for animation writers outlines the process:

Notice what's missing here? The script goes directly to the storyboarder. No nosey, interfering director to get in the way. What on Earth could a director contribute anyway? The advice to writers, "...nothing is left to the imagination of others", says it all. The director is one of those pesky "others."

I don't mean to say that the author wants to dispense with directors. My guess is that the director was omitted simply because the modern director's role is too unimportant to list in a short summary (obviously this doesn't hold for artist/creator-driven shows at places like Cartoon Network).

SOME ANIMATION DRAWINGS

I just unearthed some of my old doodles and photos from a box in the garage. Some of these pictures are admittedly terrible and were never meant to be seen by anyone, but...what the heck...it's OK to blog about trivial things sometimes, isn't it?

The cat here (above) is even bigger than the dog, which is a mistake, but then again...this isn't a storyboard...it's just a visual way of writing a script. Oops! I spotted a misspelling but hopefully you won't see it.

Here's a REALLY quick doodle from some other cartoon. The dog and the human walking him are going in different directions because I changed my idea in midstream and didn't bother to redraw.

I saved this because it made me realize that there's something surreal about walking in a world where everybody else is walking at the same time. Anyway,
nothing ever came of this because it would have required too much animation.

I don't know why this would interest anyone except my mother, but here's (above) a photo of me at work at Filmation way back in 1980.

Above, the same timid dog we saw in doodle form, a little later in the cartoon. Even squirrels push him around. Once again, this is a fragment of a visual script rather than a storyboard.

I love writing prose but scripts work best when they're drawn out rather than written. There is one drawback to that technique, though. You can unconsciously lose your feel for structure when the story's drawn. That's why it's useful for an artist to outline a story first with words, if only in bullet points.

WHEN STARS CHOOSE THE SCRIPTS

Big stars have more power in the film world than ever. I'm not sure why. Maybe it has to do with the changing ways that films are financed. Overseas money is more important now and foreign backers are even more star conscious than Americans. Or maybe it has to do with a cultural shift. Whatever the reason, you have to please the big stars to get a film made now and the way to please big stars is to write the kind of script they like to play.

What do stars like? Stories that are about them! The plot's irrelevant. What matters is the character dynamics. So what if the city's going to blow up if somebody doesn't find the nuclear bomb? Who cares? What the star cares about is that their character comes off as strong and appealing, with a wide emotional range for reviewers to comment on.

The kind of scripts that stars like determine the kinds of films that get made. For comparison, here's (below) a picture gallery of films made in the era when studio bosses picked the scripts:

These are my kind of films, real stick-to-your-ribs stuff. And here's (below) an example of the kind of scripts favored by studio bosses:




The studio chiefs had pretty good taste! I love the lines, "I'm gonna kill you right now, Lone Ranger!" / "Oh, no you ain't, Cal steward."

Well, that was then and this is now. Here's (below) a gallery of pictures from the star power era:

See the difference? Stars like those intimate, psychological, Stanislavskian scenes. When they pick the scripts the film is always about emotional confrontation. In the old days when two characters had a disagreement one hit the other guy, and the guy fell down dead. Nowadays it's more nuanced. Here's (below) an example of the kind of script actors like:

Stars are running the show now so you better get to like nose-to-nose psychological confrontation. You're going to be seeing a lot of it!

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PERFORMANCE?

That's a terrible headline when you consider that either one of these actors (above) could run rings around me. Even so, I have it in me to criticize my betters, so here goes.....

The first thing that strikes me is that these are both nice, shy people. That's a mistake isn't it? Isn't there more dramatic tension if they're somewhat different? The play is "Biloxi Blues" by Neil Simon and there are plenty of personality conflicts in the rest of the story. Maybe Simon actually wanted these guys to be the same. Maybe, but...even so...there still has to be conflict, don't you think?

What if the guy had a chip on his shoulder like Garfield and the girl was alternately attracted and repulsed by him? Or what if the girl was really plain and had even lower self-esteem than the guy? I'm thinking of the girl in "Marty." What if he was comedic like Woody Allen and she was more serious? What if she knew her girlfriends were watching?

Dramatic acting is really scary. What if you don't like the script? You can't customize it. What if you're good at farce and the script requires method? What if the girl hates you in real life?

I have my usual criticisms about elocution and stage movement. Add to that the requirement for emotional music and word music. Aaaargh! What do you think?

THE UNKNOWN CHAPLIN

Steve Worth recently invited visitors to the ASIFA Hollywood Archive site to a get together at his house for a session on how Chaplin wrote his stories and gags. To get things started he showed the first part of a terrific DVD set called "The Unknown Chaplin." It was the part of the set that focused on outtakes from Chaplin's Mutual shorts. If you weren't there...too bad!...you missed a great night!

Well, if you had to miss it, all's not lost. I'll talk about a couple of the points we covered here. The opinions expressed are my own.

Here's (above) a set that Chaplin made for a short called "The Floorwalker." He had this entire set built, including a real escalator, with no script and no idea about what gags he'd do (he never worked from a script when he did the shorts). He just had faith that everything would come together when the time came to film it. And it did. It was a funny film.

He was right about scripts. They're fine for drama, but too often inhibit comedy. Slapstick live-action film is all about you and your talented friends doing what you're enthusiastic about, and what you have a proven knack for. Comedy is fragile. It resists being made from blueprints that were hammered out by a committee.

Here's (above) an unused shot from another short: "The Cure." The set is a spa hotel where the guests drink restorative water from a fountain. There's a big open space for outdoor gags, and a revolving door for...revolving door gags. It's OK, but Charlie felt that something was lacking.

After some trial and error he figured out what was missing....a hole! Putting the water in a hole in the ground was more iconic, and had more opportunities for gags.  What a brilliant idea! In the new version, anyone wanting to enter the hotel had to pass over the hole without falling in. The hole created an enormous amount of tension just by being there.

Back when the fountain was still there, Charlie played a bellhop. Here (above) he laboriously wheels in a big, Type-A, rich man played by Eric Campbell. He tries a few takes where he overshoots and slams Campbell into the wall and into the other guests. I thought the gags were fine, but Charlie thought they were just a rehash of Max Sennett, and this sequence was never used.

After the fountain was replaced by a hole, Charlie had a "Eureka" moment: the best way to maximize the hole was to have Charlie play a swaggering drunk who was always on the verge of falling into the hole. He was right! The bellhop was funny but the drunk was even funnier.

Now at last the main character was a perfect fit for the props. A bellboy can interact with a hole and a revolving door just like anybody else, but a drunk...he has an especially hard time with things like that!

Was it worth all the takes it took to figure this out? Yes! The bellboy made me smile, but the drunk made me laugh.  That's a big difference. If you've ever seen good prints of Chaplin's Mutuals with an audience, then you know what it's like to be surrounded by howls of laughter for an entire film.  Out loud laughter is the gold standard of comedy. It's worth the extra effort. It's worth staying flexible and making changes til you get it right.