Novelizing a Movie Never Made

Imagining a story as a movie is much more exciting than imagining a literate exposition. I love the way words can weave details with commentary to form a rich tapestry, but I find wordsmithing can digress from the storyline, a considerable hazard.

Therefore, I'm attempting a fusion between the two forms, first writing a screenplay, or at least the treatment for a screenplay, in order to chart the story spine, and then writing the novel. I might in some cases follow this plan scene by scene, so that what happens in the story, and the meaning of that action, remain connected.

I don't know how anybody else works, and I don't care to find out. Creative workflow solutions are idiosyncratic.

What this amounts to is a novelization of a movie that will never be made.

Much of the inspiration for this approach came from the extras on the Harry Potter movie Blu-ray discs, where J.K. Rowling and Steve Kloves discuss their creative relationship. She had final approval of all divergences from her novels, and Kloves had great discretion in proposing changes. They trusted each other.

Having read all the books at least twice, and having seen all the movies at least three times, after viewing these extras I went back to some of the books and some of the movies for another look. This experience could be interpreted as a case study in the differences between novels and movies, but I took it as a lesson in the complimentarity of these two forms. To me this could be the foundation for a working method if the order of the tasks were flipped.

I think some scenes in the movies were better handled than they were in the books, and would have worked better if originally written that way. They were cleaner and more dramatic, tying into story and character themes better.

A movie must get to the action quickly and stay with that action relentlessly. A movie is like white water rafting; you hang on for a wild ride. A novel allows the reader to drift contemplatively upon slack water and take side trips up slot canyons. These digressions can prove relevant to how the characters experience the story, if the story spine is well defined. Eventually, the characters are back in the raft, sliding fast down the tongue of the rapids, beating hard against the overwhelming waves of fate, trying to control their destiny.

What I hope my amalgamated method will accomplish is a story flow that can be enriched with observations.

Indies and Social Media

I was challenged to consider how social media could be used to distribute and promote independent films.

My ignorance about social media makes the challenge an ideal topic for a blog post.

An honest post could only pose questions. I know nothing but what I would like to know.

Hollywood is adept at marketing mainstream films, including the exploitation of social media, but independent films seem to have a different audience. I should say, different audiences, as the particular enthusiasms for nature documentaries, provocative fiction and social exposés do not necessarily coincide. Which leads to Question #1: Do the audiences for independent productions differ from the audiences for mainstream films in the way they use social media to comment on films?

I suspect that if the demographics, tastes and values of particular audiences are different, their use of social media will be different, but that's only a guess.

Social media video sites increasingly cater to mobile platforms. There seems to be some movement on the hardware side to accommodate this. Apple is rumored to be developing a 13 inch screen version of the iPad, which would be much better for viewing streaming movies portably. (Let us all hope and pray that Dave Letterman does not label this the MaxiPad.) Which leads to Question #2: Are audiences for independent productions also early adopters of new mobile devices?

I suspect there would be some diversification on this issue, but I'm wary of making a prediction.

At social sites for movie enthusiasts, like Rotten Tomatoes and Megacritic, the movies under discussion are mostly long form, mainstream features. I'm not aware of any breakout at these sites for Indie productions, unless they become marginally mainstream through buzz generated by festivals like Sundance or Tribeca. Which leads to Question #3: How important to social media buzz about films are these hub sites dedicated to film reviews and discussions?

I suspect that these film criticisim hub sites are essential to generating buzz through social media, and that the Indie categories will need either a distinctive presence on these sites, or sites of their own, in order to rise above the threshold of social media awareness. People talk about what is being talked about. We live in a hashtag #universe.

Mainstream movies are reluctantly moving to social media distribution, even though channels like iTunes and Netflix have solved the monetization problem. Mainstream buzz depends fundamentally on theatrical release, however. Which leads to Question #4: How can distribution and promotion through social media succeed for Indie productions that have no theatrical release?

I suspect that this is the biggest problem of all for Indie utilization of social media. Theatrical release puts a film on the cultural agenda, even for those who see the film long after release on Blu-ray or Netflix. It is a guarantee that the film will be talked about. I think the market for Indies that do not have widespread theatrical release would resemble the market for apps, where product differentiation is very difficult.

In closing, I'm going into opinion mode, where ignorance is neither a disadvantage nor an asset, it is simply irrelevant. Isn't that why blogs exist?

My opinion is that Indie productions should target their markets at the outset, and utilize the social media channels of those markets. If you want to make a documentary with a liberal point of view, develop the liberal channels to promote it even before you start shooting. If you want to make a nature film, let nature enthusiasts know about it through their social media environmental channels and invite them into the process (up to a point) so that they will feel invested in the outcome. My opinion is that Indies shouldn't manipulate social media for buzz in anticipation of release, rather, they should utilize market specific social media channels for relationship building from the very onset of production. 

One Medium To Rule Them All

Images, sounds, words. These are but means to stimulate the one medium where a story actually happens: the audience's imagination.

Always an audience of one, preferably resonant with others.

When I write with the reader in mind, my writing is better. When I write to impress myself, my writing is rotten. The stuff I like to read inspires open eye daydreams. The stuff that puts me asleep doesn't even know I'm there.

Would a screenplay follow this rubric? In a strange way, yes. People who make movies desire ample allowance for their own contribution. They want to play the movie in their heads as they read the rigidly formatted page. The strict confinements of the screenplay layout make this possible by granting subliminal liberty. The words are caged so the imagination can roam.

Can a lesson be drawn from this special case, that writers of novels or short stories might apply? I hope so.

In the high drama of movie making the screenplay writer is cast as semen donor. Everybody else gets to gestate and raise the baby but the semen donor's job is finished before the first take.

The screenplay writer finally makes a sale and then everything in the screenplay gets changed by the people who can't come up with a story of their own. Their changes might make the movie better at the cost of making the story different. I'd like a more intimate relationship with the story consumer. I'd like to link up directly with readers, and let them make the movie in their imagination.

This is why I'm intrigued by what screenplays can accomplish, even as I resist their fatal attraction. There is something inherently fascist about movies, their power to evoke the masses by circumventing circumspection. The screenplay is the enabler, the Mien Kampf that leads to The Triumph of the Will. I think all movies, even the well intentioned, flirt with an evil more profound than mere morality. I think movies marshall the imaginations of movie makers in order to control the imagination of the audience.

Hyperbole, but it tattoos the point indelibly.

Let's rewind the movie making process back to the beginning, to that first kiss on the lips between the screenplay and the prospective director, leading to seduction and consummation and a lasting desire to further pursue a relationship. How can a novel or short story achieve the same effect?

Writing a novel in screenplay format would seem a gimmick, and reading the screenplay format is an acquired skill. Besides, the essence of its effectiveness is not the format itself, nor the requisite structure of stories told with screenplays. Rather, a screenplay works with its intended audience because bare bones storytelling allows the reader to supply flesh and blood.

I aspire as a fiction writer to use words evocatively. The reader's imagination is rich with references and associations, with conventions and confusions, with desires and fears. Words are but a means for calling these players to the stage. Words are fingers strumming the heart strings and mind strings in the key of each reader's idiosyncrasies. The one medium to rule them all is the reader's own imagination.

I don't want the audience to suspend disbelief as they submit to a prefabricated imagination. I want the audience to empower the grand theater of their own minds, bringing my stories to life.

Movies About Movies

Cruising through the iTunes App Store to see what is available for stereo 3D cinema, my brain glazes over. Technique doesn't seem as interesting as it once was. The technical basics in grasp, it is time to move on to what really matters: "The Story."

Let the stereo 3D technicians fret over implementation, I'm the auteur!

Ha! Vanity preens before the mirror of delusion.

Laboring over story ideas with ironic detachment, watching movies with ironic detachment, viewing everyday life with ironic detachment, reading my own blog drafts with ironic detachment, shaving in front of the bathroom mirror with ironic detachment, I'm coming to realize that ironic detachment is the thread that weaves through my perception of everything.

Ironic detachment is exactly this sort of inner exile--an inner emigration--maintained with humor, chic bitterness, and a sometimes embarrassing but abidingly persistent hope.(R. Jay Magill Jr., Chic Ironic Bitterness, The University of Michigan Press, 2007)

I'm not so inclined to chic bitterness as R. Jay Magill, Jr. proposes. Blunt truth will do.

Can stereo 3D express ironic detachment as the auteur's vision? I think this would be very hard to do and I very much doubt anyone has attempted it. It is hard enough to conceive a compelling story that way.

Any movie, even as a treatment or screenplay, will more likely be about movies than about life. The ambition to make movies and the infestation of the imagination with cinema tropes are one and the same. Cinema and TV are perhaps the most derivative of media.

"The Story" has to be a movie story. It has to be structured by time-tested rules. Its production has to be conducted by industry-tested rules. It has to succeed by audience-tested rules. To create a story is to follow the rules of storytelling, rules that derive from a century of cinema, five centuries of printed books, and thousands of years of oral tradition.

The rules of storytelling in any form have become detached, not always ironically, from reality. Life does not happen the way we tell it and show it. A reporter for the New York Times can write a story that wows his editors, not despite the fact it is all made up, but because it is all made up. Story trumps truth anyday.

I have a problem with this. The problem is very similar to the reason most scientists and engineers don't bother with movies except when their brains need a rest, but then they don't get any rest because they find too much to criticise. Scientists investigate how the natural world works, engineers design how the built world works, and both declare after nearly every movie they see, "The world just doesn't work that way!"

Wouldn't you know that the stories I want to tell are about how the world of science and engineering actually works, and I want to tell this truth with fiction, and I want to do it in stereo 3D? Don Quixote would be proud of me.

So, I'm standing alone on the plain, looking up at an immense mountain I wish to climb, can't see any good routes, and haven't much time left to make the journey. But I have some magic in my pack that withstands any fate. I have ironic detachment.

Realism and Reality

Intermediated realism is just a set of tropes.

Explosions don't go bang in space, don't expand in a vacuum with billowing clouds. Yet, an audience considers these visual tropes to be more realistic than reality would be.

We build our expectations of reality on our experiences. We've seen explosions in the atmosphere, so that is the way explosions should look, even in computer graphic renderings of outer space beyond our atmosphere.

This natural tendency to confuse realism with reality gets dicey as our experience becomes increasingly intermediated. Just as it is hard to find a feature film these days that isn't more influenced by a century of cinematic practice than it is by the drama it portrays, it is also difficult to find expectations about realism that are not based on what we've seen in movies and TV.

Therefore, realism that is reality based is very likely to be rejected by audiences. People want realism that looks like what they have already seen and heard in movies.

This is why I say the Matrix is already here. Western consumer culture has moved into an intermediated bubble, especially for children.

You still have the option to "keep your boots muddy," as Bo Landin says. Kids should be playing in the mud long before they get to play with an iPad.

Hello, Dolly Zoom

By the accounts I've read, the dolly zoom was first used by Hitchcock in "Vertigo."

You've seen dolly zooms in a lot of movies and TV shows. Sometimes the technique is obvious and sometimes it is not.

In "Vertigo" and "Jaws" the technique is obvious because it causes a dizzy imbalance, mirroring a character's state of mind. Jimmy Stewart is fearful of heights, and Roy Scheider sees his worst nightmare unfold. The dolly zoom puts the audience inside their heads.

The most subtle use of a stereo 3D dolly zoom that I've seen was in "Hugo" when Ben Kingsley took the stage near the end of the move. The dolly zoom brings his head into close up even as it broadens the view of the backdrop curtain with its Man in the Moon motif.

This technique can be accomplished in 2D by laying a dolly track away from the actor and starting at the farthest point with a telephoto framing. As the camera moves forward on the dolly, the telephoto is smoothly zoomed to a wide angle setting. Or the effect can be created in reverse, starting close and wide for the background, and ending far and narrow, with the main subject image size remaining pretty much the same all the way through.

Performing a dolly zoom in 3D introduces another variable, the camera separation, usually called the stereo base. The stereo base could be broad at the telephoto setting and narrow at the wide angle setting, or it could be adjusted any way the movie maker desires in order to achieve an intended effect.

The clip below shows my demonstration rendering of a stereo 3D dolly zoom. The YouTube 3D option is available only on Windows based browsers.


The first thing to notice is that this clip answers the question I raised in the previous post: How much of a rounded object do you see in closeup, compared to the same object seen from a distance?

You see less of a rounded object in closeup than from afar, when the image sizes are held equal. Specifically, you see less, or none at all, of the sides of the object in close up. Imagine viewing the Earth from the Space Station. In close orbit, you see only what is below, up to the horizon, but nothing beyond the horizon. From the moon, you see very nearly an entire hemisphere, the horizon defining the circumference in view.

This is why I rendered the breathing globe in the previous post with telephoto lenses. I wanted to show a whole hemisphere to each eye, and only a very narrow angle of view shot from a distance can do this.

What seems a natural view of the globe is actually quite surreal. You could not show a real globe or the real Earth this way in stereo 3D, unless you positioned the taking cameras extremely far away from the subject and extremely far apart from each other. Even in CG this is complicated.

How easy it is to accept as natural something that is not natural at all!

In the stereo 3D dolly zoom of the head model, notice how the facial features seem to lunge forward, even though the head itself is immobile. I've yet to see anyone use this technique in stereo 3D to conjure a moment of menace.

Hitchcock, the master of menace, would know how to do it.

Violating the Rules

A stereo 3D production maximizes the perception of roundness by shooting "wide and close." That means, the stereo 3D rig uses moderately wide angle lenses and is placed moderately close to the object.

If the object is an actor's head, it will seem most rounded in a closeup that is shot wide, the head positioned in front of the screen plane.

This is not the way 2D directors of photography usually work. The ideal 2D closeup lens is a moderate telephoto, called a portrait lens. A portrait lens foreshortens facial features pleasingly, while a wide angle view seems to stretch out and enlarge the most forward parts of the face, such as the nose.

When a 2D director of photography shoots 3D for the first time, he or she will likely utilize the unfamiliar tools in familiar ways. In other words, they will probably shoot 3D in the manner they shoot 2D.

The result is the cardboard cutout effect a portrait lens creates in 3D, depth without roundness. Likewise, when a 2D production is converted to 3D, seldom is the effort meticulous about the fine depth distinctions in a face. Again, depth without roundness.

Given that the people most likely to work on new productions are those who have established their reputations for craftsmanship on previous productions, most stereo 3D movies, especially blockbusters, are made by 2D movie makers at the behest of studio executives who desire the extra revenue a stereo 3D release can bring.

Consequently, most stereo 3D productions have a 2D look and feel to their composition and editing, with the added effect of depth, most often a depth without roundness. If you see a stereo 3D movie and think, this could just as well have been made in 2D, it is very likely it was shot as a 2D movie using 3D cameras. The full potential of stereo 3D is not likely to be realized by people who think of it as just another special effect, or who even wish 3D would go away.

Would it shock you to learn that the very clip I made to illustrate the previous post was rendered using extreme telephoto CG lenses rather than the standard "wide and close" technique?

It is entirely possible, as you can verify from viewing the clip on the previous post, to show roundness with a pair of telephoto lenses. In the real world, however, this would not be practical. The image below shows why.

Roundness with dual telephoto lenses requires extreme camera separation at great distances from the object. It would be very difficult with live action to align two cameras that are so far apart they cannot be physically connected. Additionally, the two telephotos would see distant backdrops very differently between right and left views. And finally, only a CG lens has the circle of coverage that allows extreme offset of parallel right and left views. In the real world it would be necessary to "toe in" the cameras so that they point at the object and later, digitally correct for the headache inducing distortion this creates. (My apologies for technical terminology; I'll be explaining these concepts in future posts.)

Thus, my use of CG telephoto lenses to create roundness serves as proof by exception that "wide and close" is the best practice.

I leave you with a quiz question. Why did I use telephoto settings instead of moderate wide angle settings to create a 3D screen depth comparison movie? Hint: Think about how much of a globe you would see from close up.

Stereo 3D Relativity

Here is a stereo 3D clip I made, that shows roundness.


To view the stereo 3D option, you need a Windows based web browser. YouTube does not present the 3D menu on an iOS browser.

It is easy enough to show stereo 3D depth with no roundness at all. Flat cutouts posed at different distances from a stereo camera can accomplish that effect. So can binoculars, even when the objects in view are naturally round.

Roundness in stereo 3D is a continuous, noticeable variation of depth along a surface, like a face. It is curvaceous in concavity and convexity, compounded. Roundness is the way we perceive objects intact and whole, enveloped in their identity.

The clip shows a semi-transparent globe which is convex outwardly and concave within.

The next time you watch a stereo 3D movie, look for roundness. You won't find much in most live action movies, but you will find a lot of roundness in most computer graphic (CG) movies.

The reasons for this difference in roundness portrayal have more to do with the way Hollywood functions than with any inherent difference between real cameras and CG cameras. I will pursue that thread later, but for now, I want to talk about how you, as a viewer, can assert some control over perceived roundness in a stereo 3D movie.

Certainly, there are circumstances beyond your control, set in stone when a movie production is in the planning stage. What remains within your control, however, is where you sit in front of the screen.

Watch this movie in stereo 3D by any means available via the YouTube 3D menu. (PC browsers only) Set the resolution and size to 1080 full screen. Few people have 3D monitors or 3DTVs connected to the Internet, but you owe it to yourself to keep a pair of cardboard framed red/blue anaglyph glasses somewhere within reach. Red/Blue anaglyph is an an option from the 3D menu.

Pause the YouTube player when the globe depth is most pronounced. This is what you will notice:

The closer you are to your screen, the less round the globe will seem. The farther away you are from your screen, the more round the globe will seem.

Of course, the screen fills more of your view when you sit close to it, and much less of your view when you sit way back.

So you have a choice: enjoy a sprawling image with shallow depth and little roundness, or a narrow window with great depth and pronounced roundness, or something in between.

Roundness in stereo 3D is relative to the way you choose to perceive it, by deciding where to sit.

Calibrate Your Eyes and Ears

We know how to see and hear instinctively. We pay attention to this information selectively. Most sensory input we ignore or process unconsciously. Our awareness and assessment of sights and sounds are largely shaped by our unexamined expectations.

All this makes it possible to communicate with images and music and sound effects. If we couldn't be deceived, we would not enjoy movies, television and the Internet.

This blog is about being observant, about discernment when watching audio visual media. I am not posing as a guru here, just giving voice to a lifelong interest in the art and science of noticing. Sometimes it is useful to substitute for the suspension of disbelief an analysis of how the media exploit this voluntary gullibility.

So here is the premise of this blog: When we indulge in audio visual media, there's a lot we think we sense that isn't really there. There's a lot presented to our senses that we miss entirely. There's a lot we should notice by its absence. There's a lot of absence that is mistaken for insignificance. There's a lot we sense subliminally without scrutinizing the process and its consequences.

One could as well say the same of real world experiences. We notice much more in nature, in a city, even in a social setting, when we have some guidance about what is going on around us. We spend an increasing proportion of our time in the mediated world, however, where our eyes and ears receive highly processed signals laden with ulterior intent. Interestingly, there are few guides to the mediated world; we are pretty much on our own there.

Starting out, the particular objects under observation in this blog will be visualizations created from data. That might seem an esoteric category, but it includes anything shown on a viewing screen and heard through speakers. Yes, movies and television in the digital era are data visualizations, pictures drawn by the numbers. And computers are much better than our voluntarily vulnerable minds at crunching numbers. Using computers, artists and scientists can create realistic images and sounds representing things that don't exist.

But for people who notice, realism in media is just a set of tropes. They know the Matrix is already here, and they hold it at bay by turning it into just another phenomenon subject to scrutiny.

First Blog

I'm writing this on an app.

Learning an app for a tablet like iPad is very different from learning how to use an application based on a PC or a Mac. I'm used to getting in trouble first, and then combing through the help file and even a web search to find the way out. But apps provide meager help, and usually none at all.

There might be web video tutorials available for some apps. Rarely, a help video is provided within the app. The only one I've encountered so far was recorded at a screaming pace by the app developer, who swallowed his words so badly I had to play and pause sentence by sentence to figure out what he was saying. To paraphrase Henry Higgins, Why Can't Americans Learn How to Speak?

Quibbles aside, I find apps appealing because they throw you into the water without swimming lessons. Maybe there's a life ring, but it barely floats. Apps are explored with your fingers, and this tactile learning experience helps the user take possession.

I think there are parallels to this design approach for any medium. Throw your audience into the water and let them discover their ability to swim.