{"id":3048,"date":"2019-05-27T08:40:47","date_gmt":"2019-05-27T15:40:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/?p=3048"},"modified":"2019-05-27T09:39:17","modified_gmt":"2019-05-27T16:39:17","slug":"the-movie-biz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/archives\/3048","title":{"rendered":"The Movie Biz"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"firewood<\/a><\/p>\n

My fourteen-year-old daughter Alexandra has launched a movie company, Windsor Montoya Productions, and I have agreed to work for her as an idea person, writer, actor, and caterer\u2019s assistant. Elisha, Alexandra\u2019s mother, has also joined the company as an idea person, actor, continuity maven, and caterer. Conor, Alexandra\u2019s older brother, will be an idea person, writer, actor, art director, cinematographer, sound tech, and editor. Sylvia Espinosa, Alexandra\u2019s best friend, who is fifteen, will be an idea person, actor, writer, and co-director of the movies. Alexandra will be the producer, co-director, and head of operations.<\/p>\n

I thought interviewing Delia Krantz, who is ninety-six with lots of show biz experience, would be a fun way to help launch the new movie company. To that end, Alexandra and Conor and Sylvia and I meet with Delia at Mona\u2019s<\/i>\u2014the one and only bakery\/caf\u00e9 in Carmeline Creek. Elisha is working the counter during the interview and is able to hear most of what Delia says. Conor is also recording the interview with a brand new super duper Balzini microphone plugged into his laptop so we can access the interview in the future.<\/p>\n

Delia was born in Chicago in the 1920s and worked as the personal assistant to seven different movie producers in Hollywood in the 1950s, 60s, 70s, and 80s before moving to Carmeline Creek twenty-eight years ago. She lives in a cottage a block from the beach at the north end of town with her dachshunds Greta and Harpo.<\/p>\n

\u2206<\/p>\n

Alexandra: Did you know Marilyn Monroe?<\/p>\n

Delia: I did not know her, but I met her a few times when I was working for Mel Katz. Mel wanted Marilyn for the femme fatale in a cowboy remake of The Three Musketeers. <\/i>If she\u2019d said Yes<\/i> the movie would have gotten made, but because the original part for Marilyn wasn\u2019t big enough for her, Mel had his writers expand her role, and when they did, the script fell apart.<\/p>\n

Alexandra: What\u2019s a femme fatale?<\/p>\n

Delia: A dangerously attractive woman.<\/p>\n

Sylvia: What did you do for your job when you were assisting those movie producers?<\/p>\n

Delia: I made all their appointments, attended most of their meetings, took notes during the meetings, typed up the notes, called people and gave them good news and bad news and no news. Things like that. I was on the phone constantly, juggling appointments and dealing with a thousand details. As Jerome Purcell said, I was his adjunct brain. I took dictation, wrote letters, made lunch and dinner reservations, arranged for transportation, and a million other things.<\/p>\n

Conor: Who was Jerome Purcell?<\/p>\n

Delia: He was one of the biggest movie producers in the world in the early seventies. He made Totally<\/i> Goofing Around<\/i>, Crazy Insane Killers<\/i>, and You Gotta Be Kidding<\/i>, to name a few.<\/p>\n

Alexandra: I\u2019ve never heard of those movies. Should we watch them to get ideas?<\/p>\n

Delia: No. Watch Frank Capra movies. Watch Kate Hepburn. Watch Neil Simon. Watch Truffaut and Alec Guinness and Jimmy Stewart and the Marx Brothers.<\/p>\n

Sylvia: Do you ever watch YouTube videos?<\/p>\n

Delia: Sometimes. People send me links to videos of dogs and cats, but why would I watch videos of dogs when I have dogs? I mostly watch detective shows and old movies and British game shows. I\u2019m addicted to Would I Lie To You<\/i>, and truth be told, I\u2019m still in love with Humphrey Bogart.<\/p>\n

Alexandra: We watched The Maltese Falcon<\/i> a few weeks ago.<\/p>\n

Delia: Did you like it?<\/p>\n

Alexandra: Kind of, but I didn\u2019t really understand what was happening and it was kind of scary, though it wasn\u2019t violent or anything, just creepy, especially that one guy.<\/p>\n

Delia: Peter Lorre. It\u2019s a confusing story. Verges on Kafka by today\u2019s standards. You\u2019d like the movies Bogie made with Lauren Bacall. Talk about chemistry.<\/p>\n

Alexandra: Would you like to hear the idea for our first movie?<\/p>\n

Delia: Love to. And by the way, Alexandra, I think it\u2019s marvelous you\u2019re getting into the movie business. You remind me so much of Mary Martin.<\/p>\n

Conor: Who was she?<\/p>\n

Delia: Who was Mary Martin? She was Peter Pan on television. In the 50s. Live. Every year. With Cyril Ritchard as Captain Hook. Rogers and Hammerstein wrote The Sound of Music<\/i> for her. She was the original Maria. A genius.<\/p>\n

Alexandra: And I remind you of her?<\/p>\n

Delia: In so many ways. Now tell me about your movie.<\/p>\n

Alexandra: Okay. So\u2026 it\u2019s about a man who goes on a walk, and he\u2019s just walking along. Maybe he has a little dog on a leash. We\u2019re not sure about the dog yet. Anyway, he keeps going by weird things and the things keep getting weirder and weirder, only he doesn\u2019t seem to notice them. He\u2019s just going along and maybe whistling.<\/p>\n

Delia: Like what kind of weird things?<\/p>\n

Alexandra: Well\u2026 we haven\u2019t thought of them all yet, but the first thing will be a person holding a little balloon and hovering a few feet off the ground.<\/p>\n

Sylvia: The second thing will be a cat sitting at the bottom of a tree and there will be dog up in the tree. You know, like a reversal of the usual dog on the ground, cat in the tree scenario.<\/p>\n

Delia: And the man doesn\u2019t notice these things?<\/p>\n

Alexandra: No, he\u2019s just walking along whistling.<\/p>\n

Delia: Speaking of Kafka.<\/p>\n

Alexandra: Who was Kafka?<\/p>\n

Delia: He wrote a story about a man who turns into a cockroach. Dark depressing unsolvable emotional conundrums.<\/p>\n

Alexandra: Oh. Well our movie won\u2019t be dark and depressing. It will be funny because the man never notices these strange things no matter how weird they are.<\/p>\n

Delia: Why do we care about this man?<\/p>\n

Alexandra: What do you mean?<\/p>\n

Delia: As Boris Zverev used to say, if we don\u2019t care about the main characters, why should anybody care about the movie? And so he always tried to give us reasons to care about a person? To like them.<\/p>\n

Conor: To identify with them.<\/p>\n

Delia: (touches her nose) Exactly.<\/p>\n

Conor: So maybe if we saw this man for a minute or two before he goes on his walk, and he talks to his cat or sings along to the radio while he makes breakfast or\u2026<\/p>\n

Delia: Yes. Humanize him, as Boris used to say.<\/p>\n

Sylvia: Who was Boris?<\/p>\n

Delia: Boris Zverev was the<\/i> go-to script doctor in the 1960s. He saved a hundred movies from certain failure.<\/p>\n

Alexandra: Do you have any other advice to help us with our movies?<\/p>\n

Delia: You need a good story, to quote Frank Capra.<\/p>\n

Conor: What makes a story good?<\/p>\n

Delia: As Bernard Fuchs used to say\u2026 Bernard was a brilliant writer way back when\u2026 a good story involves interesting people trying to overcome an external challenge or challenges that also represent inner dilemmas. The only way the character or characters can successfully solve the mystery or win the battle or transcend the challenge is to go through some sort of internal transformation that can then be expressed on the outside. People love stories of transformation.<\/p>\n

Alexandra: So once you have a good story, then what?<\/p>\n

Delia: Then you have to write a good script, which means you have to have interesting, believable characters saying and doing interesting and endearing things, overcoming difficulties, falling in love, and keeping the audience wondering what\u2019s going to happen next, all the way to the surprising and satisfying ending.<\/p>\n

Alexandra: Do people always have to fall in love for a script to be good?\u2019<\/p>\n

Delia: In one way or another. The falling in love doesn\u2019t have to be romantic, but who doesn\u2019t like a good romance? It all goes back to creating a story and characters the audience can identify with, so we root for them to succeed. They, in a sense, are versions of us.<\/p>\n

Conor: I think movies have changed since you were in the business. Not that what you\u2019re telling us isn\u2019t helpful, but movies now are more about imagery and sound and action. The story isn\u2019t so important anymore.<\/p>\n

Delia: (shrugs) If that\u2019s what you like, but people will always love a good story. That will never change. It\u2019s in our genes to love stories. (muses) May I give you a little history lesson about movies?<\/p>\n

Conor: Yes. Please.<\/p>\n

Alexandra: (excited) You know what we could do? We could make a movie about Delia teaching us how to make movies.<\/p>\n

Sylvia: Yeah, and we would try to do what she tells us and fail hilariously.<\/p>\n

Conor: A tragic comedy.<\/p>\n

Delia: Who would play me? Don\u2019t tell me. Me?<\/p>\n

Alexandra: Of course! Who else?<\/p>\n

Conor: So\u2026 the history lesson.<\/p>\n

Delia: Okay, so in the beginning there was no sound in movies. Everything had to be conveyed with the setting and very obvious situations in which characters, archetypal characters, acted with their bodies and their faces and the occasional dialogue card. So just from looking at them you knew who was the villain, who was the victim, who was nice, who was bad. Their actions and facial expressions told the story. Then in the 1930s when sound arrived and actors could talk, most of the first screenwriters were recruited from among playwrights, people writing for the stage. And so most of the first movies were, by and large, plays or vaudeville acts turned into movies. Hence the term screenplay<\/i>. A play for the screen. Now the thing about a play is, you\u2019re limited to action taking place on a stage with one or two sets. That\u2019s it. So those writers were very good at writing interesting dialogue because that\u2019s what made for a good play. Movies don\u2019t depend so much on dialogue, but dialogue is still extremely important. As is good acting. But there is a fundamental truth about plays and movies that has never changed. Which is\u2026 we learn the most about the people in the movie or the play by what they do<\/i>, not by what they say<\/i>. If a person walks by a person floating in the air and doesn\u2019t notice them, we learn that the person walking by is not very observant and this influences how we think about him. In other words, actions speak louder than words. So I would say when you write your scripts, be aware of the non-verbal messages being conveyed by what people do.<\/p>\n

Conor: Maybe the guy doesn\u2019t notice anything because he\u2019s lost in his own thoughts and he\u2019s trained himself not to notice things because everything in his world is so weird.<\/p>\n

Alexandra: Or maybe he does<\/i> notice the person floating and the dog and cat reversal, but he doesn\u2019t think it\u2019s weird because everything in his reality is weird.<\/p>\n

Delia: What happens at the end?<\/p>\n

Conor: He goes by one last weird thing and we fade out.<\/p>\n

Delia: No transformation?<\/p>\n

Conor: We don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

Delia: I don\u2019t see the point.<\/p>\n

Alexandra: It\u2019s about how weirdness is normal now. What used to seem crazy is just how things are now and the man just accepts it.<\/p>\n

Delia: Oh. So there\u2019s no story. It\u2019s what we used to call an experimental film. You\u2019re trying out ideas to learn how to use the medium.<\/p>\n

Conor: No, there\u2019s a story. It\u2019s about how life is now. People being oblivious to how weird everything is.<\/p>\n

Delia: I guess that\u2019s kind of a story. In an abstract way. Speaking of Kafka.<\/p>\n

Alexandra: You\u2019ve given us a lot to think about, Delia. Thank you so much.<\/p>\n

Delia: You\u2019re welcome, sweetheart. I\u2019m very happy you asked me. I enjoyed remembering some of the people I knew so long ago, hearing their voices again.<\/p>\n

fin<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My fourteen-year-old daughter Alexandra has launched a movie company, Windsor Montoya Productions, and I have agreed to work for her as an idea person, writer, actor, and caterer\u2019s assistant. Elisha, Alexandra\u2019s mother, has also joined the company as an idea person, actor, continuity maven, and caterer. Conor, Alexandra\u2019s older brother, will be an idea person, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5470,5467,5469,5487,5468,5522,5523,2318,439,5525,5463,5521,105,5524,3968,51,3477,5520,5526,9,134,33,5514],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3048"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3048"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3048\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3051,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3048\/revisions\/3051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}