Comedy versus acting

When the script that would become Abbott and Costello Meets Frankenstein was presented to Bud and Lou they dismissed it - not because it was a bad screenplay but because it was not a bad screenplay. What they wanted frankly would have amounted to a terrible screenplay, a repository for their radio bits, one after the other, with little concern for story. Luckily either need for money or a persuasive director was able to get them focused and willing to simply perform written roles in a movie that actually had a story to tell. Not that their earlier films did not have stories, but this one had such a genre commitment that any shtick they imposed would have stood out. When Airplane! was to be made, executives pushed for comics to be cast but the directors held firm for the main speaking roles to be dramatic actors - what was happening and being said was the wavy line element and so the actors had to ground the piece and provide the straight-line aspect. There are some lovely comic actors brimming with personality and ready with their own material or quick improvisations that they might use to replace the scripted dialogue in a comedy so that they can feel a sense of authorship or that the humor is coming specifically from them and not the suspect "writer" who might to distinguish himself/herself with a stylistic sort of banter. In one of my own projects, I backed myself into a corner by expecting that actors knew my intention was to shoot what I wrote and that I would be casting them for acting ability and personality or presence and not as co-writers or co-directors. There are certain creative initiatives that I need to have vindicated and that won't happen if I trade out my ideas and vision to placate a cast member who is there for the wrong reason. Actors can be funny without planting their feet in a joke stance like Rodney Dangerfield. As much as I like Caddyshack, my screenplays won't accommodate stray scenes that are just riffs or tangents. One actor kept mentioning that we needed Bill Murray, which could either mean that he is mad enough to think we can cast the most unreachable actor in Hollywood or that we need the principle of the way he works - throwing out script pages (for comedies) and improvising - something that would only be tolerated from someone in his position. I know that I will always want my own writing to have its day in court. Making a "live action cartoon" requires some discipline and may not be artistically satisfying to a self-possessed comedy creature. So there are performers I may enjoy watching in live theater that I can't cast because they will not be satisfied in gearing down and just surrendering to my own sense of humor and serving as an actor. I can only blame myself for not just auditioning a wide range of people instead of just expecting real clowns to fall in line. In theory, if I had funding, I could still make a version of that film and it would be to either avoid drawing from the pool of improvisation groups or the clown community or to have a strict understanding that actors need to be of utility and willing to embrace the script and not frustrated by the rehearsal process and how rare it would be for an unwritten line to make it into the movie.

Palm Sunday

Seems like the right time to look in on Porno. The look the other way fast.

I'm spending some time today on the rewrite of the feature, The Adventures of Porno the Clown, which I hadn't looked at since November of 2008 when I sent the full draft to Jay and our then-producer Anthony who has greeted me with radio silence since February of 2009. So it's been over a year and I'd say that constitues not being the producer anymore, having let Telefilm application plans fall by the wayside without so much as a phone call, e-mail, or tweet my way.

I already know a few things will change in this draft, and a few items will be restored from the earlier versions, but I think PTC can be a likable enough character to sustain a 90 minute film. What he can't do is open on 2,000 screens in a sanitized version. I mean, the very title is a litnus test for whether people should see the film let alone work on it. We can't tell Telefilm it's called Pedro the Clown and then change it to Porno at the eleventh hour without forfeiting tax credits. Basically, it should be a movie that knows a circle (jerk) of people are going to seek it out or be delighted to find the DVD box in a store - and it likely won't be a store that can't bare the sight of the word Porno on a shelf, even if it decribes what the movie intends to satirize.

Happy Palm Sunday.