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Squeezed, Screwed and Hardballed
Two screenwriters-turned-digital moviemakers discuss how to navigate the marketplace while still making a movie your way
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| L to R: Roy Frumkes, Joan Jett, Barbara Sicuranza and Rocco Simonelli celebrate The Sweet Life. |
When they came up with the idea for The Sweet Life, a story of two very different brothers in love with the same woman, they knew that to tell the tale their way, they would have to make the film independently. But as MovieMaker readers know, talking about making a film and finding a way to do it are two different things. In the case of The Sweet Life, salvation came in the form of digital video.
Jennifer Wood (MM): What’s been the most drastic change you’ve seen to the role of the screenwriter since you began your careers?
Rocco Simonelli (RS): The chasm between the A-list writers and the grunt writers in the trenches is wider than it has ever been. It mirrors what’s happening among actors, in that if you give a Travolta or whomever $20 or $25 million, how much is left for the supporting players? The answer is “not much.” So, as a working writer, unless you’ve got some monster hit under your belt, you’re going to constantly get squeezed and screwed and hardballed. The suits are going to stall on your payments and try and extort as many free rewrites out of you as they can, and God help you if you dig your heels in and say no.
Roy and I are uniquely stubborn. In the past, when we’ve thought we smelled unethical behavior lurking just around the next corner, we’ve resorted to holding our pages hostage until checks have been placed in our agent’s hand.
MM: Congratulations for taking a stand. Has the so-called “digital revolution” changed what you do, or how you work?
Roy Frumkes (RF): More options are available. I wouldn’t have gone looking for money for The Sweet Life if my options were 35mm or Super16. The difference between 35mm and digital was a budgetary reduction of over 60 percent—and we had the same shooting schedule, dealt with SAG and only reduced the crew by two.
RS: It’s changed me in that it made it possible for me to become a director—to direct my own script without having to take marching orders from anyone else. I don’t think that digital alters the process of directing very much, other than to relieve the pressure of getting what you need in a minimal amount of takes because you can’t afford a lot of film stock and lab costs. Digital tapes are cheap and there are no lab costs, so you go in knowing you can do a few extra takes if you want or need to. I think, consequently, because that particular concern is eliminated, you end up doing fewer takes because you’re working with less fear and more confidence.
MM: What is the most welcome freedom the digital medium offers screenwriters?
RS: The opportunity to get your own vision on screen at a greatly reduced cost.
MM: Do you think there are any “impossible” movies to make on DV, or do you think that any story, genre, etc. is fair game?
RS: I think most genres aside from the epic are fair game, but it depends on what you mean by “digital video.” Is it the version of DV George Lucas is utilizing for his Star Wars crap-o-rama? Because then there are no limitations in regard to scope. You could do Lawrence of Arabia if you so desired, with computer-generated armies and sand dunes. However, if we’re talking about the kind of digital video Roy and I used to shoot The Sweet Life, then I would certainly shy away from stories that are epic and/or primarily visual in nature, and stick with material that’s more intimate—more story- and character-driven.
MM: Is there one film that—to you—illustrates the perfect marriage between story and medium in the digital arena? A story that you think worked well with the look of digital?
RF: Rebecca Miller’s film Personal Velocity claimed to use digital in all sorts of canny ways that justified the form. I certainly liked what it did. But I spoke with Barbet Schroeder about his choice of HD to shoot Our Lady of the Assassins partially to keep himself from being killed on the streets of Colombia, and that seems a more telling and vital reason for using the digital format.
RS: Digital has been a boon and a curse. In other words, the means to produce film stories have been made accessible to a lot of folks who, unfortunately don’t possess the talent to do it well. Just because you can suddenly afford to shoot your own movie doesn’t mean you should be allowed to do so. What’s happening now is that festivals and film markets are being flooded with a ton of really bad digital movies, and it tends to cast a negative light on the medium itself.
MM: Is it fair that the term ‘digital’ still suggests ‘low-budget’?
RF: Yes, it is synonymous with low-budget filmmaking and should be, because the primary importance of digital thus far has been to liberate independent filmmakers from the terrible constraints of budget and the debilitating dependence on Hollywood, in order both to produce their projects and get them out to the public.
MM: When writing a script for what you’ve already determined will be a digital movie, are there certain aspects that would be better emphasized (character, etc.)?
RF: I would move the script more toward a pseudo-documentary feel in look and dialogue, and that occurs in the script stage. I’d also be nervous about writing anything that would require extreme long shots.
RS: It’s more about writing to the budget than to the production medium. My feeling about digital video is really an extension of what I feel works best for low-budget moviemaking in general. An audience will cut a film a lot of slack in regard to its technical aspects—image quality, lighting, etc.—if the story works; if the characters are believable and interesting, if the dialogue is sharp and well written, if the performances are good. Look at a film like Chuck and Buck. Transferred to 35mm film and projected in a theater it looked like bad VHS—I’ve seen old porno loops that looked better. But audiences didn’t mind because it was well written and well acted, and those elements will always carry the day.
MM: What changes—if any—were made to your script for The Sweet Life as a result of deciding to shoot on digital?
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| James Lorinz and Joan Jett in a scene from Rocco Simonelli and Roy Frumkes’ digitally-shot romantic-comedy, The Sweet Life. |
RF: As I recall, the changes were mainly in the art department: stay away from hot whites, etc. And looking at the end result, we could have done even better there: clothes or props with horizontal lines don’t hold up well when projected.
MM: What tips would you offer those aspiring writers with an idea in their head, and the means to finance a digital movie?
RS: Without compromising your vision in any way you can’t live with, make every attempt possible to balance your own creative needs and desires with those of the marketplace. There are any number of genres that are commercially viable, that distributors understand and feel comfortable in marketing. With The Sweet Life, Roy and I chose to do a contemporary romantic comedy set in New York. Distributors know this genre, they understand it; they’re not put off by it. Creatively, we never indulged any of the clichés of the genre; rather, we subverted them.
Love does not conquer all in The Sweet Life; the hero doesn’t win the girl in the end; no one learns anything; and everyone makes the wrong choice. However, we made the film as funny as we could. We kept the tone light and brisk enough that test audiences have never seemed to pick up on just how inherently dark the material is, we kept the length under 90 minutes and we got a name (Joan Jett) in a marquee supporting role to give the video shelf-life. These were the compromises we were willing to make, and we made them unreservedly. In brief, make the film you want to make, but give yourself a chance in the marketplace.
RF: Read our book. It’s really the best guide out there at the moment because it’s so fresh. I’m already working on an update for the Website, which will deal with my experiences at AFM. MM
You can track The Sweet Life’s progress through the distribution and release phases online at www.TheSweetLifeMovie.com
For more information on Roy Frumkes & Rocco Simonelli’s
book, Shoot
Me: Independent Filmmaking from Creative Concept to Rousing Release,
visit Allworth Press at www.allworth.com.
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COMMENTS | POST A COMMENT 
- Comment by Sweet Love Quotes on 12/14/08 at 5:52 am
Fantastic article. Thanks for sharing it with community.
- Comment by maxsikiş on 10/22/10 at 4:13 pm
An audience will cut a film a lot of slack in regard to its technical aspects—image quality, lighting, etc.—if the story works; if the characters are believable and interesting, if the dialogue is sharp and well written, if the performances are good
- Comment by would you rather on 5/17/11 at 11:25 am
Sweet life is one of my faves… great technical quality!
This story was published in the Spring 2003 MovieMaker Magazine. The headline was:
Squeezed, Screwed and Hardballed / Two screenwriters-turned-digital moviemakers discuss how to navigate the marketplace while still making a movie your way
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