Outside History

Doing a historical fiction is fine, just let you're audience know that you're ignoring it. Many pictures are close, but altered for the audience, which is controversial, but overall okay. Many are severely altered but are presented as true, which tends to tank.

So a couple good examples of letting your audience know that you're not going by the book.

Shakespeare in love:

Well, Romeo and Ethel the Pirate's Daughter is a good clue, then there's the coffee mug at 4 minutes and 45 seconds that assists, etc. Point is, we've established that it's not another Historical Drama, but something different.

Another example is:
A Knight's Tale:

It opens at 3 minutes and 9 seconds to "We Will Rock You" including the crowd singing it, we know that it isn't going to be entirely accurate, so we can forgive the couple hundred years of armor changes.

A minor Change would be
Braveheart:

Primas Nocte is a Victorian Invention, and the princess involved wasn't in England (not to mention being 7), and they're missing the river and bridge at the Battle, and that they invented pikes, They're wearing kilts centuries early, etc. Even though it pushed the limits of alterations, it had a strong enough story to carry it beyond the problem.Though the standard set of Hollywood armors is a bit annoying, they're near to the realm of feasibility.

And then there's
Beowulf

Where they decided digital effects were better than story *Sigh* Luckily I didn't spend money watching it.

Beowulf & Grendel:

A much better variation of the tale (on a smaller budget and with less digitization).

There's also plenty of errors in judgment in production. Bad costuming, peasants all in grey or brown. Armor from the wrong period or worse, from the usual Hollywood suppliers who use some really bad stuff because everyone else did.

Then there's things that i'll live with. Metal rimmed wheels before they were used. Incorrect carriage design,

Part IV - Book Review - The Big Picture by Edward Jay Epstein

You might want to begin with my first, second and third posts on The Big Picture : The New Logic of Money and Power in Hollywood by Edward Jay Epstein.

This is on the Social Logic of Hollywood.
Chapter 22 About the difference between only making movies for money, and those for social reasons.
Chapter 23 Hollywood community vs. the outsiders
Chapter 24 about the Elites of Hollywood (categorically)
(Stars, Directors, Agents, Writers, Producers, Execs, & Gurus)
Chapter 25 Reasons for work
Chapter 26 Hollywood Deceptions (Psuedoheroes, Psuedorealism, Psuedoyouth, Psuedoacting, Psuedopraise, Psuedo credits, & Psuedonews)

Political Logic of Hollywood
Chapter 27 Shaping the views of people watching
Chapter 28 Politics & social pressure groups and Hollywood
Chapter 29 Politics that affect Hollywood globally.

Epilogue The Future of Hollywood and movies.

I'm off to the library to get the book I read years ago that just arrived by inter-library loan, and there's another few books that I'll probably read next week, plus maybe a DVD or two.

Part III - Book Review - The Big Picture by Edward Jay Epstein

You might want to begin with my first and second post on The Big Picture : The New Logic of Money and Power in Hollywood by Edward Jay Epstein.

We start with Production aspects.
Chapter 6 - details Developmental Hell.
Chapter 7 covers getting the green light.
Chapter 8 is a short synopsis of pre-production work, post-greenlight.
Chapter 9 is a synopsis of production shooting.
Chapter 10 is a synopsis on CGI and sound in post.
Chapter 11 covers editing and the costs of getting it caught up in a clearing house.

We move onto creating (or finding) the audience.
Chapter 12 covers the basis to create an awareness of a movie.
Chapter 13 covers the publicity and marketing campaign and costs for a film.
Chapter 14 covers theatrical release dates.

On to the economics of hollywood.
Chapter 15 deals with how theaters make (or lose) money, ratings, length of stay for a film, etc.
Chapter 16 deals with foreign market distribution and advertising.
Chapter 17 covers the the home video revolution (in all formats).
Chapter 18 covers television distribution.
Chapter 19 covers basic merchandising.
Chapter 20 covers why violence, or nudity may be added or subtracted to fit the audience, regardless of the story.
Chapter 21 talks about winning rough formulaes, especially those in relation to the billion-dollar-earning movies.

That's about it for now, tune in for part IV.

Part II - Book Review - The Big Picture by Edward Jay Epstein

In my first post on The Big Picture : The New Logic of Money and Power in Hollywood by Edward Jay Epstein, The first chapter covered 60% of the old system and 40% of the new system.

Then it moves into Part I: The New System which consists of chapters 2, 3, 4, & 5. Chapter two is about those who created the new Hollywood entertainment conglomerates and how they did it. Chapter three is on the problems with moving product into foreign markets, and how they overcame them. Chapter four covers the "Big Six" in entertainment. Detouring around problems, and creating the various axis of controlling the market. Chapter five covers, in a nutshell, how they make money while rarely making a profit.

It's truly interesting stuff, and while I can understand their wish not to pay the gluttonous governments of the world their over-taxation beyond the minimum due. It also serves to fill their greedy pockets. Well, if they avoid paying most of the taxes, the government raises business rates across the board to compensate, thus further burdening other businesses often most detrimentally, small businesses. Second it provides that they can shelter themselves from paying much in the way of back-end to anyone. Now I'm not against anyone making a profit, nor even a big profit. However, when it doesn't help your workers who are helping make that profit, or worse, you screw them to make your profit, then you are really just a greedy bastard.

Part of this can be stated because they are publicly traded companies & that their bonus' are paid in stock. Therefore rather than concentrating on dividends, they focus on raising stock price. Of course, the fact that the government always wants more in taxes, rather than coming up with ways to reduce spending, means that they are at least as much of the problems as the companies themselves.

Bah, anyways, 5 chapters down, 24 to go, plus epilogue, notes, acknowledgements.

I'm going to I.L.L. Planning the Low-Budget Film by Robert Latham Brown on Tuesday and probably be able to pick it up later in the week. If you haven't heard of it or him, I'll sum it up. He is a well known line-producer who doesn't go over budget. His book, contrary to it's title, covers budgeting any movie, regardless of budget, and is basically the industry bible as far as books on the subject go.