Sometimes It Simply Needs A Little Bit of Makeup
By Craig Kellem

Recently, I worked on a project with a young writer who now has something substantial going in the big Hollywood arena. Her project is terrific, she's acquired a first-rate agent in record time, and he's shopping it big-time.

But, of course, there are always a few obstacles to overcome before moving into Malibu Colony next door to Matt Damon. Show business can be tough. The problem is that, although people really like the material, they don't quite see it as a "big enough movie."

Those familiar with Hollywood business culture will undoubtedly groan at hearing this, because it only echoes what they've undoubtedly heard so many times before.

What the heck does it mean, you ask? The theory goes as follows: movies today, more than ever, need big concepts (preferably pre-established "franchises," if possible); need to be big star-driven vehicles; and need stories that are larger-than-life in their scope, vista, cinematic possibility, etc. In other words, big is in, small is out. And heaven help you trying to figure out how to do this.

I was reminded of this kind of thinking recently after watching a movie called The In-Laws on TV. This was a "newer" version of the classic movie, which now starred a favorite of mine, Michael Douglas. The original film was a charmer about a con man whose offspring is marrying into a nice Jewish family (Dad's an anal retentive, New York dentist), and how this con man charmingly sucks the naive dentist into doing innocent "favors" for him (which enable him to perpetuate a scam) that escalate deliciously, inch by inch, into increasingly outrageous situations that lead to disaster. (In fact they both end up in front of a firing squad in Central America). It's all done for fun of course.

It's a character piece that works in spades.

The newer version was basically the same thing, except that in the interest of making it BIGGER, the film was overwhelmed by unneeded techno-pizazz and bigger-than-life situations, which in my view pushed it out of the all-important reality orbit, and into schtick and gratuitous Hollywood overindulgence.

Anyway my writer client had a dilemma, which was how to take a perfectly workable script, retain its integrity but to make it appear to be, you guessed it-- bigger, more, etc. We also wanted to make sure that in accomplishing these notes, that the script wouldn't have to be torn apart (which can be a depressing prospect when something is working, but notes that come with adrenaline and real career promise often seem like dictates to rebuild the building). I remember how many times I had seen writers in Hollywood seemingly stagger out of note sessions, dog-eared pages abounding and how they would return with a crisp revision within weeks that satisfied the customer but for which they barely broke a sweat. The point is this-- cosmetics can be effective on more places than one's face.

Here's what we did:

--created a sense of jeopardy earlier for our hero. Easy to do and effective;

--made situations that seemed ominous and threatening a bit MORE ominous and threatening. Bold lettering and harsher words can be a writer's best friend;

--made the protagonist a little more isolated and seemingly guilty. He already was and it didn't hurt to turn up the heat;

--gave antagonist a slightly more lethal sense of being-ness, and did it earlier;

--used more ominous-sounding adjectives;

--increased rhetoric regarding level of suspicion;

--created more situations in which people seemed against the protagonist, and made peripheral characters in her life less friendly, thus helping to isolate her;

--raised her level of fear;

--start investigation of her earlier;

--and yes, made big things a bit bigger but stayed in the right orbit.

Please note that these simple changes were not done cynically or in bad faith. But they definitely were more COSMETIC in nature than anything else, and went a long way in not only giving the powers that be what they wanted on a creative level, but also satisfied the necessity in such situations to give people in power ego satisfaction. It never hurts to say yes.

The lesson here is pretty obvious: give the customer what they want, but sometimes you can do it and still retain what you honestly believe is working.

I wish that some of the films that I've seen lately could have adopted a similar philosophy, and not be so grossly heavy-handed trying to satisfy the myth that bigger is always better.

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