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How to write/direct a great movie

By Eric Robinette | Thursday, July 13, 2006, 11:36 AM

With the summer movie season hitting a bit of a lull this weekend, I thought this was a good time to post some “rules” of good movie-making by some great Hollywood filmmakers. The movie I shall be reviewing Friday breaks a lot of these rules.

Howard Hawks, a master of multiple genres, directed many classics including Bringing Up Baby, Red River, The Big Sleep and His Girl Friday. A plaque outside the Howard Hawks stage on the Fox lot says, “Don’t try so hard on every scene. If it’s a real good scene, go to work on it and work hard, but if not, get it over in a hurry and don’t annoy the audience.”

Ron Howard pretty much ignored that directing the leaden Da Vinci Code.

Billy Wilder was the greatest writer director ever to work in Hollywood, having made Sunset Blvd., Some Like It Hot, Double Indemnity and The Apartment. Even his lesser movies still tend to be very entertaining. He had 10 rules for screenwriters:

  1. The audience is fickle.

  2. Grab ‘em by the throat and never let ‘em go.

  3. Develop a clean line of action for your leading character.

  4. Know where you’re going.

  5. The more subtle and elegant you are in hiding your plot points, the better you are as a writer.

  6. If you have a problem with the third act, the real problem is in the first act.

  7. A tip from [director Ernst] Lubitsch: Let the audience add up two plus two. They’ll love you forever.

  8. In doing voice-overs, be careful not to describe what the audience already sees. Add to what they’re seeing.

  9. The event that occurs at the second act curtain triggers the end of the movie.

  10. The third act must build, build, build in tempo and action until the last event, and then—that’s it. Don’t hang around.

Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Sir Critic muses

Comments

By MisterG

July 14, 2006 1:28 AM | Link to this

As for screenwriting, I have only two words: Syd Fields.

By Kei

July 13, 2006 3:06 PM | Link to this

I’m thinking what they were trying to go for with “You, Me and Dupree” was to latch on to the “one of my old college buddies is a mooching loser” that some people go through at one point in their lives and make it funny, but I don’t think it’s going to work. Honestly, I’m a fan of “stupid comedies,” but even this passes a point-of-no-return on stupidity. I’ll probably end up taking a look at it when the library gets the DVD, if even then.
 

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