| -The Classic Box Office Receipt- How to Make a Hollywood Epic By Matt Rock |
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| Since motion pictures dawned on the scene of entertainment more than a century ago, film has been the primary method of capturing beautiful, masterful, epic sagas and trading them to the masses for the cost of a movie ticket. With their massive, elaborate sets, monumental casts, and often times thousands of extras, the classic Hollywood Epic has been entertaining the movie-going public since well before the advent of "talkies." Every few years or so (usually spread a decade apart), one of the major film studios will begin production on such an epic, and the other studios will compete in-toe with their own potentially classic tales. We are currently witnessing one of these competitive collaborations with films such as Master & Commander and Troy. But unfortunately for movie- lovers, Hollywood Epics are possibly seeing their last decent decade. Computers are replacing manmade sets and the casts that fill them. Directors and producers are more worried about the cost-to-profit ratio than they are the quality of the film itself. And with the incredible rise of power in the Video Game industry, movies themselves are finding themselves in jeaprody (or at least critics and studio heads believe so). This is a cookbook of sorts for Hollywood so they can give us at least ten more years of high quality epic motion pictures. This is the formula anyone could use (given they had the money and resources) to create a beautiful, sweeping saga like those we've come to love in decades past. But be weary of the epic flop, such as Pearl Harbor: a movie that tries desperately to cash in on this formula and regrettedly fails in it's emulation. Pearl Harbor was a flop because it played too much on too few principals... hopefully this guide will help some director somewhere ignore the diamonds-and-pearls method of filmmaking and go for the glorious gold. |
| What You Need: I. Money - When filming an epic, you're going to need money... lots of money. "Epic" is a sort of split infinitive that describes a motion picture that, amongst it's many other qualities, requires massive sets, legions of extras (background actors), and a monsterous crew. You can't feed and clothe tens of thousands of people on flaming desires and stalwart ambitions alone; money is the root of all filmmaking when it comes to creating an Epic. II. Powerful, Famous Cast - The cast makes the credits and the credits make the credentials. With an epic this has never been more the case: You need serious actors who can portray the romantisism of the plot and script with dignity and power. The film must be filled with familiar faces, but actors who are so talented that the audience forgets what they'd read about these people in tabloids or saw on E!. Today's best dramatic actors are, in my opinion, Tom Hanks, Russell Crowe, and Mel Gibson... they've all got experience in Epics, even mini- epics, and their resumes are chock full of impressive performances. III. A Historical Situation - Epics always capture a moment in history, and often times they show a small portion of history that is relevant to a major portion. Also, biblical stories are considered epics, as long as they are emulating a popular story from the bible. Another source of inspiration is Roman and Greek folklore... stories such as "The Odyssey" are almost always transcribed well into film. The fame of the situation being represented always helps the fame of the film itself, unless you focus the film more towards the period of the situation than the situation itself. A few films have slipped past this rule-of-thumb (such as Braveheart and Gladiator) to become classics, but not many. IV. An Immaculate Script - Without a script, you have no film, and this is especially the case with epic films. Dialogue carries the film on it's shoulders, especially in the case of an epic. It must contain period- laden linguistics and mounds of historical relevance. Certain portions of history can be tainted/ altered to assist the story along, but only minor changes. For example, you can't change the outcome of Waterloo in a film about Napoleon just to give the title actor a romantic victory scene afterwards, but adding a few characters here and there to liven up the script is okay. Historical accuracy is a very potent tool when winning over the masses, and can be rather difficult to carry when trying to give weight to comedic relief and the other ingredients of the film that are listed below. V. Studio- Backing - I know what you're thinking: Why does someone need a major studio to support them when all the other aspects are included. I'll tell you why... studios like Warner Brothers and Universal not only have experience in producing epics, but they have experience in promoting them as well. Studios offer three basic components that no one has on his or her own: a rolodex full of contact information, backlot atop backlot of old sets and props, and most importantly, they have clout. Underestimating the importance of Studio backing would define underestimating the quality of the final production itself. |