A Hollywood screenwriter explains why it's time for Hollywood to embrace the 'cli-fi' genre in no uncertain terms
by Alan Smithee
I have a warning for you.
Ten years ago, or even five, this warning would have been simple. Back then, when screenwriters got together to talk shop, it was usually about directors for being hard to work with, or cutting necessary dialogue, things like that.
But, that’s not the case anymore.
The sands under all of us have shifted. And today, as 2015 slides slowly but inexorably toward 2016 and beyond, directors and screenwriters need to one thing: embrace the new cli-fi genre and use our powers of creativity and imagination and storytelling to produce and release cli-fi movies that are both ''entertainment'' and ''wake-up call.''
When I started writing there were still a few mavericks out there; a few gunslingers who ran studios.
These were people who went with their guts and would make a movie just because they believed in it.
But that’s not the process anymore.
Today, before a studio chair can green-light a movie, that movie must also be blessed by the head of marketing, the head of foreign sales, and the head of home video.
It must be subjected to a process called “running the numbers,” which means that the movie’s cost — or, downside — is compared against its potential value because of its cast and what it might do in foreign markets.
This process takes into account every variable except the variable which actually matters — the one that can't possibly be gauged by any sort of calculus — which is whether or not the movie’s going to be any good.
We’re storytellers, which means we have to do better. Sometimes I think we have to rescue the business from the very people who own it.
The good news is, we can.
Inside every screenwriter and director and producer is the flame that has always lit the way in this industry, which is originality — that one spark of an idea, that one archetypal character, story, truth, or world that no one’s ever captured before
Do you remember the movie WALL-E, the brilliant Pixar film?
He’s in a dangerous world and he’s one of thousands who are supposed to clean it up.
But, there’s something special about WALL-E. He finds this little tiny sprig which might one day become a plant. He guards it, and saves it, and preserves it on the chance that it might some day turn into something beautiful.
Well, Hollywood is that dangerous world and you are WALL-E.
Your cli-fi movie idea is that plant and you have to protect it. If you do, it might change the world.
That’s your charge now — change the world, repair the world, tikkun olam. With cli-fi movies. Their time has come.
You have to pursue this vision of cli-fi movies every single day in everything you do; in your work ethic, in the way you conduct yourself, in who you choose to do business with.
But, that’s not the case anymore.
The sands under all of us have shifted. And today, as 2015 slides slowly but inexorably toward 2016 and beyond, directors and screenwriters need to one thing: embrace the new cli-fi genre and use our powers of creativity and imagination and storytelling to produce and release cli-fi movies that are both ''entertainment'' and ''wake-up call.''
When I started writing there were still a few mavericks out there; a few gunslingers who ran studios.
These were people who went with their guts and would make a movie just because they believed in it.
But that’s not the process anymore.
Today, before a studio chair can green-light a movie, that movie must also be blessed by the head of marketing, the head of foreign sales, and the head of home video.
It must be subjected to a process called “running the numbers,” which means that the movie’s cost — or, downside — is compared against its potential value because of its cast and what it might do in foreign markets.
This process takes into account every variable except the variable which actually matters — the one that can't possibly be gauged by any sort of calculus — which is whether or not the movie’s going to be any good.
We’re storytellers, which means we have to do better. Sometimes I think we have to rescue the business from the very people who own it.
The good news is, we can.
Inside every screenwriter and director and producer is the flame that has always lit the way in this industry, which is originality — that one spark of an idea, that one archetypal character, story, truth, or world that no one’s ever captured before
Do you remember the movie WALL-E, the brilliant Pixar film?
He’s in a dangerous world and he’s one of thousands who are supposed to clean it up.
But, there’s something special about WALL-E. He finds this little tiny sprig which might one day become a plant. He guards it, and saves it, and preserves it on the chance that it might some day turn into something beautiful.
Well, Hollywood is that dangerous world and you are WALL-E.
Your cli-fi movie idea is that plant and you have to protect it. If you do, it might change the world.
That’s your charge now — change the world, repair the world, tikkun olam. With cli-fi movies. Their time has come.
You have to pursue this vision of cli-fi movies every single day in everything you do; in your work ethic, in the way you conduct yourself, in who you choose to do business with.
If someone offers you a job on a project that has real heat, a big star attached to it, or some wonderful pedigree, and you find that you’re not waking up every morning thinking about it, if it’s not living inside of you trying to claw its way out, then don’t write it. Write with your heart. Study the climate and global warming issues and write a screenplay or produce a movie and direct that movie that will serve as a wake up call not just for theater audiences worldwide but for world leaders, too.
Remember the power of the 1959 movie ''ON THE BEACH'', starring
Remember you got here by believing in original thinking. Never forget that.
And always remember that if YOU are inspired, WE will be too.
On a personal note, I take son to his bus stop in Los Angeles every morning at 7:30. I’m at my desk working by 8:00. My wife feeds me at 1:00 and I’m back at my desk by 1:30, working until 6:00.
I don’t surf the web. I don’t gamble online. I don’t go to the local Starbucks for two hours. I don’t try to seek out old girlfriends on Facebook.
I don’t do anything that requires time. I just work.
I do this because there’s a mountaintop that I’m trying to get to and I’m nowhere near it.
I can see it from here. Creating a cli-fi movie that might wake up the world is the Holy Grail.
Back to business: The only thing that will get me to the Cli-Fi Holy Grail of Cinema is my willingness to write that 18th draft, or proofread it one more time, or be open to notes from someone who’s smarter than I am.
It may be that I’ll get notes from one of you one day. And I trust that they’ll be good ones.
I’ll leave you with one last thought:
We are living in what might be the hazy beginning of a very real Climapocalypse, some 30 generations from now. It won't be a pretty picture. Climate change is real, even Arnold is behind it now, and global warming impact events in the near and distant future are going to be devastating and put humankind are risk, put our entire civilization at risk. Hollywood might be under water. I am not joking.
So my parting words: use your time here on Earth and your love of the movie business to create a cli-fi movie with the power of ON THE BEACH. Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner are no longer with us, but surely we can find some A-list actors to fill their shoes in YOUR Cli-Fi Movie!
Do it.
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READERS NOTE:
The above is a 2015 rewrite of a 2012 keynote speech in a Hollywood event. Full hat tip to the original author for the inspiration and the post. He knows who he is. Thanks, mate.
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READERS NOTE:
The above is a 2015 rewrite of a 2012 keynote speech in a Hollywood event. Full hat tip to the original author for the inspiration and the post. He knows who he is. Thanks, mate.
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