Saturday, March 29, 2014

The Power of the Public Domain

Having trouble coming up with an idea for your next project? Try the public domain. Stories and content in public domain are available for anyone to use. Sounds like a great resource, doesn't it? Public domain material won the Academy Award for Best Picture this year. 12 Years a Slave was based on a public domain memoir of the same name by Solomon Northrup. Anyone could have used it for movie source material. The Bible is in the public domain. This week a big screen version of Noah is opening, starring Russel Crowe. Son of God, based on the public domain New Testament, is still raking in bucks at the box office. All of Shakespeare's works are in the public domain. Perhaps you didn't like Joss Whedon's version of Much Ado About Nothing and want to film your own. Go right ahead. Walt Whitman's poems are in the public domain. You can take "Song of Myself" and create a web series of two minute videos until you've put the whole poem on line. Want to adapt any of Mark Twain's works for the stage or television? Start typing today. The public domain is full of time tested content that's been popular for centuries and can still work today. In general, any work published before 1923 are in the public domain in the U.S. That's a lot of content. Someworks published after 1923 may be in the public domain if their copyright wasn't renewed. Some works created long after 1923 are in the public domain -- for example the 1968 version of Night of Living Dead is in the public domain. So is His Girl Friday, starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell. However, for works published after 1923 in particular be careful before you use it. Check with the U.S. copyright office to be sure. Here's their web address: www.copyright.gov. It's important to make sure that the material using is actually in the public domain before you use it. It is possible to copyright a particular version of public domain material. 12 Years a Slave, the book, is in the public domain, but the screenplay and the film adaptation are copywritten. If you print a version of Shakespeare's Hamlet with your specific notes about the script, that version of the play can have a copyright. If you compile all the poems of Walt Whitman into one book, that book can have a copyright, even if the individual poems don't have one. That being said, if you want to quote from Whitman's poem "Oh Captain My Captain," as Robin Williams did so memorably in Dead Poet's Society, you don't need permission to put those quotes in your screenplay. The works I mentioned only scratch the surface of what's available in the public domain. Other content available includes all of Greek and Roman drama and poetry, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Moliere's plays, Nathaniel Hawthorne's novels and stories, and the songs of Stephen Foster. Think of the public domain as a vast source of free ideas that you can adapt for your own content. If you have questions about what can and can't be used, it's best to consult an entertainment or copyright attorney. There's power in the public domain. It contains content hundreds or even thousands of years old that continues to thrill audiences to this day. It can be a great source for your work if you use it wisely.

Sunday, March 9, 2014

Low Budget Films Win Acting Academy Awards

All of the Academy Award acting winners this year acted in films whose production budget was $20 million or less. $20 million might seem like a lot of money, but these are in fact small budgets to most major media companies. In 2013, for example, Disney spent a reported $250 million to make The Lone Ranger, with Johnny Depp. Last week Mathew McConaughey and Jared Leto won Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, respectively, for Dallas Buyer's Club, a film budgeted at $5 million. Best Actress winner Cate Blanchett appeared in Blue Jasmine, budgeted at $18 million, and Lupita Nyongo, the Best Supporting Actress winner for her work in 12 Years a Slave, was in the biggest budget picture of all. Best Picture winner 12 Years a Slave cost a reported $20 million. How did a low budget project like Dallas Buyer's Club capture a star like Mathew McConaughey? He supposedly turned down $15 million to star in the screen version of Magnum, PI to take $200,000 (plus backend considerations) for Dallas Buyers Club. Would you turn down $15 million for a $200,000 fee? You might if you were an actor. McConaughey had already made millions from a series of big budget films that didn't provide great acting challenges or do very well at the box office. McConaughey wanted to work on projects that provided both. Years from now, people may not remember that he starred in Sahara, but they will remember Dallas Buyers Club. Actors want to act. Most big budget action films don't require a lot of emotional depth, or offer actors a chance to play characters that can help them win awards. Many actors would find a good script that offers them a chance to show their talent and range very compelling. That's particularly true if the subject matter is compelling history, like the early history of AIDS or the savagery of slavery. Therefore, the key to capturing a great actor for your independent production is to write a great script. Make the lead roles attractive to actors by offering them opportunities to create memorable behavior within a compelling story. Give them a chance to win an Academy Award. However, a great script with great parts isn't always enough. It's important to make sure you have the business side of your project in order. Try to partner with a company that has a record of getting distribution for their projects, such as Fox Searchlight, which distributed 12 Years a Slave. Actors may be attracted by your great script, but if they're going to work at a reduced rate they want to know that their work will be seen. Even a talented newcomer like Lupita Nyongo will be hard to cast in your film if she doesn't think it will be distributed. I'll discuss more about what the success of these films mean for the industry in a future post. For now, I hope those of you creating content understand the lesson from these success stories. Make your script and your story as good as you can every time. Who knows, you just may get an Academy Award winner to star in your project.