So I didn’t get the Simpson’s scene where Principal Skinner chases Bart in The Boy Who Knew Too Much (1994), let alone the episode Itchy & Scratchy Land from the same year.

The Original Terminator

Michael Crichton wrote the novel that Steven Spielberg turned into Jurassic Park (1993), which is essentially the same story as Westworld if you substitute dinosaurs for people. When Malcolm (Goldblum) in that movie says the “Pirates didn’t come to life and kill people”, he is obviously referencing Westworld. Another one I had missed.

A major character in this film – and in our clip below – is The Gunslinger (Yul Brynner). As homage to The Magnificent Seven, he wears the same outfit as in the Sturgess western: all black, like the TV version’s Man In Black.

The fans often refer to the Gunslinger as the original Terminator. Schwarzenegger reportedly based his performance on Brynner’s. You get it: for an overall better entertainment experience, watch Westworld. You’ll definitely have more fun if you watch the HBO show after savouring this feature.

Have We Got A Vacation For You

The movie did well at the box office. It cost only $1.5m to produce, made nearly three times that amount during its first release, and it took even more during the re-release a few years later.

You wouldn’t think this success came as a surprise, given the terrific high concept. Nobody had seen anything like this before: a thousand-dollar-a-day resort where people go on a holiday to act out their forbidden primal desires. Then, of course, things get out of control.

The truth is: despite the great concept, Crichton struggled to get it financed, the film was troubled with all sorts of production nightmares and the story doesn’t really hold up very well today.

Even back then, writer/director Crichton completely re-edited the first cut of the movie because he was depressed by how “long and boring” it was.

After Westworld, he learned a thing or two about basic screen story structure.

Westworld’s Structural Malfunctionings

[SPOILERS] Westworld’s realism, its tremendous attention for detail, and its slow build reminded me of 2001 A Space Odyssey.

It seems Crichton wanted it to look like pure sci-fi. If you can appreciate this, and you can transport yourself back to the 1970’s, you’ll enjoy the movie. If you prefer fast-paced however, skip straight to HBO.

Until the movie’s mid point, nothing really happens that is out of the ordinary in Westworld. In fact, the encounter with a malfunctioning rattlesnake is the real (and much overdue) Call To Adventure. How so?

Everything before this moment really belongs to the world our characters have been in during the entire movie. As long as it is functioning properly, the resort is the movie’s Ordinary World.

Doesn’t Anything Work Around Here?

A strong Call to Adventure (CTA) is an event that has never happened before, that has an impact on the main character, and that calls for action. It is always an Event happening to the hero, never an Action by the hero.

Here, in response to this CTA, our heroes should no longer trust the safety of the park, and the appropriate action would be to leave.

Remember Jurassic Park? That structure worked. When you’re developing a feature, it is always helpful to find successful precedents with a similar concept, and study their structure.

To make a screen story work for today’s audiences, the story catalyst should sit at least half an hour earlier.

Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, creators of the HBO’s show understood this, and introduced the inciting incident/CTA (the first on-screen malfunctioning ‘host’) within the first half hour of Episode 1.

Bring In The Gunslinger

Apparently Yul Brynner was one of only two actors in Hollywood who wouldn’t blink during the firing of a gun. Okay, that’s a piece of totally useless trivia, but still fun(*).

In this clip from Westworld, Brynner delivers an extraordinary blend of cowboy cool, and techno cold. “Get this boy a bib,” he taunts Peter (Richard Benjamin)… “He needs his mama.”

The moment is retained in the TV series, when one of the heroes spurs the other on to start a fight. They’re invincible anyway… Even though we know that the Gunslinger’s bullet can’t hurt our heroes, the tension is palpable…

Oh, and in case you were wondering, yes that is indeed Christian Bale who traveled back in time to play John Blane (James Brolin).

-Karel Segers

(* the other one: Clint Eastwood)

https://ozzywood.wistia.com/medias/0rb0058th9?embedType=iframe&seo=false&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=1080

Karel FG Segers

Karel Segers wrote his first produced screenplay at age 17. Today he is a story analyst with experience in acquisition, development and production. He has trained students worldwide, and worked with half a dozen Academy Award nominees. Karel speaks more European languages than he has fingers on his left hand, which he is still trying to find a use for in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. The languages, not the fingers.

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Stupid auteur theory
(Billy Wilder)

“What does the director shoot—the telephone book? Writers became much more important when sound came in, but they’ve had to put up a valiant fight to get the credit they deserve.”

The best plot is no apparent plot
(Stanley Kubrick)

“I like a slow start, the start that gets under the audiences skin and involves them so that they can appreciate grace notes and soft tones and don’t have to be pounded over the head with plot points and suspense hooks.”

Always use acting adjectives
(Quentin Tarantino)

“You shouldn’t try to predestine where you’re gonna go and what you’re gonna see. You can hit the nail on the head, but you want the kind of freedom that allows for something you hadn’t even imagined to happen. I’m very much a man of the moment. I can think about an idea for a year, two years, even four years all right, but what ever is going on with me the moment I write is gonna work its way into the piece.”

Trading scraps of paper
(Wes Anderson)

“We do a lot of talking about what we’re going to write for a long time before we ever start to write. And when we do start writing, it’s a lot of trading scraps of paper back and forth for a long time. That sort of grows into something.”

Get ideas for 70 scenes
(David Lynch)

“If you want to make a feature film, you get ideas for 70 scenes. Put them on 3-by–5 cards. As soon as you have 70, you have a feature film.”

Things I hear the characters say
(Jim Jarmusch)

“A lot of times when I’m writing I’m just sort of writing down things I hear the characters say, and I really don’t believe it came from me.”

Writing is just a tool
(Sofia Coppola)

“I find that [writing and directing] are both part of the same process for me, because the writing is just a tool to getting to the final story. But writing is so hard for me—it’s the most challenging part [of the writing process]—so when you finish it and print it out, that’s the most gratifying.”

Have no limits.
(Pedro Almodovar)

“A film has thousands of shots. You have to ask for a lamp or you won’t get one, you have to ask for a color or you won’t get it … everything has to be very organized at the time of shooting. But in writing and conceiving the film, my way of being sincere and honest is to have no limits. To let things happen almost from the most irrational point of view.”

You can be a terrible writer
(David Cronenberg)

“It’s a very pared down, simple form, really, the screenplay. The only thing that goes directly on the screen is the dialogue and the narrative structure. You can be a terrible writer, but if you write good dialogue and have a good sense of narrative structure, you can be a good screenwriter and still be functionally illiterate, which a lot of good screenwriters in my experience are. Very different.”

I prefer collaboration
(Jane Campion)

“I prefer collaboration because it’s not so neurotic-making. You can check things through and laugh. The other person can help you feel better when things go badly.”

Rewriting is for pussies
(P T Anderson)

“The passages you have to labor over are invariably worse than the ones that seem to write themselves. This notion that writing happens in the rewriting is something that I’ve never agreed with. I’ve always hated rewriting. Rewriting is for pussies! Send it out, zits and all, is my feeling.”

I just do it.
(Nora Ephron)

“When I work with my sister Delia, we outline everything we’re doing. Completely. The outlines are endless, at least fifty pages long. But when I write by myself, I almost never have an outline; I just do it. I know the structure. I know the beginning, the middle, the end.”

Everything becomes fodder.
(Lena Dunham)

“To my own detriment, everything that happens to me becomes fodder. Sometimes I wonder if I would be a bit happier if I were more in the moment, and less trying to translate the moment into a piece of writing or a piece of film. I have never known another way to express myself, whether it was writing weird confessional poetry in fourth grade or my first play, which was closely based on what I thought the relationship between my mom and her two sisters was.”

Script, script, script
(Alfred Hitchcock)

“To make a great film you need three things – the script, the script, and the script.”

I write essays
(Jean-Luc Godard)

“I write essays in the form of novels, or novels in the form of essays. I’m still as much of a critic as I ever was during the time of ‘Cahiers du Cinema.’ The only difference is that instead of writing criticism, I now film it.”

Karel FG Segers

Karel Segers wrote his first produced screenplay at age 17. Today he is a story analyst with experience in acquisition, development and production. He has trained students worldwide, and worked with half a dozen Academy Award nominees. Karel speaks more European languages than he has fingers on his left hand, which he is still trying to find a use for in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. The languages, not the fingers.

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Totally unfair, if you ask me. It is a brilliant picture. It beats many winners over recent years. But hey, that’s my taste.

Perhaps I relate to the film because I once knew my own Fletcher. By today’s standards, my piano teacher’s military methods were downright abusive. Yet, to this day I am grateful he taught me. Without the discipline I learned from him, I would have given up. I might have never learned how to express myself through music.

Whiplash Thematic Question

For me, Whiplash cuts to the core of this dilemma: Should one sustain abuse in order to achieve creative freedom?
I guess each has to answer this one for themselves.

In an early scene, we learn that Andrew knows exactly what he wants. This can’t be said of Nicole (Melissa Benoist), his love interest. She lacks ambition, and doesn’t really care about her future. Andrew shows razor sharp focus. He goes to Shaffer, because it’s the best music school in the country. He has bigger plans, and he’ll be supported by studio band instructor Fletcher.

Or so he believes.

Drill Sergeant Fletcher

Whiplash contains an ample amount of expletives. Sometimes, it’s simply part of the jazz lingo. Early in the movie a rehearsal session starts with the line “Milk the c***!” In the scene that follows, Fletcher opens the floodgates of foul language.

He shows his true colours for the first time, as he abuses brass player Metz. He makes him believe he was playing out of tune, after which the musician breaks down and is sent away.

Writer/director Damien Chazelle modelled Metz after ‘Gomer Pyle’, from Full Metal Jacket. Kubrick fans may notice that J.K. Simmons’ body language, rhythm and vocabulary in the scene reflect R. Lee Ermey’s performance in the same movie.

Chazelle included this line in the script: “I’m sorry, Tria, Neyman did want to give you a reach-around, he just couldn’t reach.” Reach-around is a direct reference to a line improvised by Lee Ermey, and which Kubrick didn’t get at the time. Ermey explained, and Kubrick decided to keep it. (If you don’t know the term either – I didn’t – look it up, in the Urban Dictionary.)

The Prelude

The mental torturing of Metz foreshadows Andrew’s fate. And this brings us to a classic movie moment…

Great scenes often build up their power from the opposite value, allowing for steadily increasing tension. This movie moment is preceded by a deceptively calm scene. A brooding meet in the hallway outside the rehearsal room.

Fletcher checks in with Andrew, pretending to make sure he is okay. The mood is almost amicable. Fletcher behaves like a caring father would – an aspect of their relationship that is critical to the film. Fletcher understands Andrew so much better than the boy’s own father does. This is why Fletcher is able to abuse his power, and exert control over Andrew. He is a master manipulator.

He goes on to subtly degrade Andrew’s parents. Then, as if he’s caring again – but really to prime Andrew’s ego for what’s to come – he insists “You’re here for a reason”. It works. An unsuspecting Andrew enters the rehearsal room, beaming. Not for long.

Rushing Or Dragging?

J.K. Simmons embodies Fletcher as a walking time bomb. We have seen him go off in a previous scene, so the tension is palpable. When he seemingly enjoys the first bars of Whiplash as the band plays, we don’t believe it.

It takes exactly 37 seconds before all hell breaks loose.

The scene that follows is a mirror of what happened to Metz earlier. Where Metz was tortured about ‘flat’ vs. ‘sharp’; Andrew suffers the rhythm equivalent: ‘rushing’ or ‘dragging’. But Fletcher is not done just yet. Unlike Metz, Andrew is not sent away.

Fletcher has indeed bigger plans with him.

-Karel Segers

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What is your purpose? #whiplash #jksimmons #milesteller #movies #filmmaking #screenwriting #art #jazz I once knew my own Fletcher. A piano teacher who was quite abusive in his approach. Yet I will be forever grateful, as he taught me an important form of creative expression. Without his teaching, would I have had the discipline to learn what I needed?

A post shared by Karel Segers (@ozzywood) on Aug 25, 2015 at 7:27pm PDT

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Karel FG Segers

Karel Segers wrote his first produced screenplay at age 17. Today he is a story analyst with experience in acquisition, development and production. He has trained students worldwide, and worked with half a dozen Academy Award nominees. Karel speaks more European languages than he has fingers on his left hand, which he is still trying to find a use for in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. The languages, not the fingers.

Subscribe to our YouTube Channel!