{"id":160,"date":"2009-03-11T20:53:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-11T20:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theblankscreen.co.uk\/selfdistract\/2009\/03\/11\/its-not-the-years-its-the-mileage\/"},"modified":"2009-03-11T20:53:00","modified_gmt":"2009-03-11T20:53:00","slug":"its-not-the-years-its-the-mileage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/2009\/03\/11\/its-not-the-years-its-the-mileage\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s not the years, it’s the mileage"},"content":{"rendered":"

“The way I work generally is I figure a code, a general measuring stick parameter. A thirty scene thing means that each scene is going to be around four pages long… I have a tendency to work rather mathematically about all this stuff. As I build this up, you’ll see it’s done vaguely by the numbers.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Aren’t you rushing to see the movie this fella is planning? \u00a0I think you knew it was a man. But it’s George Lucas and he’s speaking privately in the first of five story conferences, five nine-hour story conferences about Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1978. He’s spitballing away with Steven Spielberg, briefing \u00a0screenwriter Laurence Kasdan.<\/p>\n

Fancy reading the whole thing? A transcript of the entire thing is available right here in PDF<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I think I’ve said before that a reason the latest Indiana Jones film was so poor was that it was just a series of stunts with some bits to string them together. There were other reasons too, but that was one and it’s a failing of a lot of films. But as I’d thought I’d heard and now know for sure, it’s precisely how Raiders of the Lost Ark was done.<\/p>\n

More, the stunt scenes they couldn’t fit in went on to become the next couple of films.<\/p>\n

So maybe George Lucas has a point.<\/p>\n

Nah.<\/p>\n

Mathematical screenwriting?\u00a0What’s that line of Aaron Sorkin’s? I can’t find my copy of his book but it was a crack about network TV executives saying you can’t have politics on TV, can’t have people with moustaches… Sorking said something along the lines of: “People make up rules \u00a0because it’s considerably easier than learning the real ones.”<\/p>\n

Blimey. From Lucas to Sorkin in one blog. There is actually a chance these two fellas have never been talked about in the same breath.<\/p>\n

But anyway, I was fascinated by the Raiders documents: the torrent of ideas, for one thing, but more how we know so very well how Kasdan absorbed all this and wrote something so very good.<\/p>\n

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

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