Broken Frontier

Forgive me for the musing nature of the column this week.  I’ve been wresting with some creative issues, and well, this is what came out.

I worked in the film and tv industry on the East Coast for a couple of years after I got out of college.  It’s remarkably like the film “Living in Oblivion” no matter how high the budget is.  That’s not the point, though.  There’s an expression used by people that’s peculiar to that coast.  “Hollywood It.”  Which, roughly translated means “Grab a Production Assistant and make him hold something instead of spending 2 minutes getting a stand to do it properly.”  In other words, use a $100 a day person to do a $10 a day piece of rental equipment’s job.  After moving out to California and spending four years working in the industry out here, I never actually saw anyone “Hollywood It,” and was chastised for saying it on sets several times.  So I started really thinking about what the expression means.  Having traversed the industry, I have got to say, it’s a bit of a misnomer. 

The entertainment industry is so tightly wound on procedure and operations that it’s almost maddening how few corners they’re willing to cut.  Running productions, the simplest solution is never enough, it always has to be the by-the-book solution.  There’s a reason Hollywood people are stereotyped into goateed guys who say “Let’s think outside the box.”  That’s really what it’s like quite a bit of the time.  The thing is that when they say “Let’s think outside the box” they actually mean “Can we make this more like the Spider-man movie that did so well last year?”

There’s quite a bit of square peg/round holing that gets done in the business, on both the production and creative end, and that’s the cross that we bear trying to make it in the entertainment business.  Sure, some companies handle source material well, others just make the movie they want to make and attach the name of the property to it for sales.  Ultimately, though, the thing to get your head around is that it’s all about money.

I don’t think it’s quite gotten to the point of having an actual scientific formula for what’s successful, but they’re certainly getting close.  Just look at the horde of movies that are obviously garbage, yet, do blockbuster business.  Sure, they fall off after a week or two, but, still, they make the bulk of their money up front that first weekend, and then a few months later on DVD, when the audiences memories of the atrocities have been dulled to a point where thinking “Oh yeah, Tomb Raider 2 wasn’t THAT bad, I’d love to see it again… and OOOH, EXTRAS!” seems borderline rational.

So, now… what does this have to do with comics?  Well, one of the major aspects of this industry these days is the relationship with Hollywood.  Forged by the hits of Marvel, and cemented by the quality of the indies, Hollywood’s seemingly going to be leeching off us for a long time, and frankly, with sales what they are these days, they’re welcome to stop by and take the load off.  But, the accusations of making comics “just for the movie deals” still fly around.  In my experience, there’s a lot of easier and cheaper ways to get a great idea packaged and into a studio.  Making a comic is a labor of love, the rest of the stuff, that’s just icing on the cake.  If you go into comics thinking “I’m gonna make a fortune on the ancilliary,” you’re crazy.  But, that doesn’t mean you don’t consider it when creating your comics.

Studios look for the bare bones.  They need to see that everything that they need to make a-paint-by-numbers blockbuster is already there.  Look at Hellboy.  “No Love Interest!?!” the studio system screamed, “We better make one up of our own!” and then, poof, ‘Liz as infatuation’ instead of ‘Liz as dynamic well-rounded character’ was born.  Now, if there was a love interest inherent in the book, they would’ve just played it up for the sake of the demographics, but, instead they had to shoehorn one in there. And that’s what it feels like. 

I suppose the best advice would be to watch any movie adaptation of any comic or novel that you really like, and see what was thrown in extra in the movie version.  Those are the things that Hollywood deems necessary and are going to end up in there whether you like it or not.  My feeling? Might as well give them something that’s done properly in the first place, so that they have less chance of turning a fabulous heroine into a pursed lip ingénue that gets in the way of the rockin’ monster bashing you really want to see.

I don’t know.  I suppose it’s looking at things from two different minds.  Am I compromising my creative vision or am I telling a better story?  That’s what it comes down to.  Filling in the blanks and executing things that are necessary to tell a good story, at the end of the day, is more important than any other contrivance or “paradigm shifting.”

So, back at the beginning.  Hollywood It.  I guess there’s some validity to it.  The wrong tool for the wrong job is a recurrent complaint about the entertainment business, but, when it comes down to it, it’s their ballgame, and we’re just following orders.