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1. WBW Interview: Jeremy Bell from Foursight Entertainment
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by Samantha Plotkin

Foursight Entertainment has been very successful since it was started in 1999. Jeremy Bell and the other founders of Foursight Entertainment (Michael Lasker and George Heller) started their management company while they were all still students at the USC Film School. Recently, everything came full circle when they sold THE SPY NEXT DOOR to Dimension, since the screenwriter, Joe Ballarini, was a classmate of theirs at USC and their first writing client. They have placed clients with almost every major agency.

Q: How did Foursight get started?

A: We were at USC film school together and saw all these talented filmmakers doing all this great work and we decided we need to elp “break” their careers. It kind of spawned from seeing Josh Schwartz sell his script and get a two-picture deal while he was still in the Filmic Writing Program. That was about a year before we started our company.

People who were in college could sell their scripts and be working before they graduate. We wanted to be the guys that help these filmmakers do that. That’s how we all came together, and right away we started finding talented writers and directors.

Joe Ballarini was our first writing client. It took two and a half years to “break” him. Actually, we had already gone out with two scripts and a pitch of Joe’s. We were successful in certain respects, by getting him meetings around town, but nothing was set up.

Q: How many scripts did Joe Ballarini write before you sold “The Spy Next Door?”

A: “The Spy Next Door” might have been the thirteenth script he had written, but it was the third script of his that went out. It goes to show that for a writer, sometimes it can take that many scripts before you can perfect your art. Joe would write a script, finish it, then go on to the next one.

Joe kept plugging away and kept writing. When he finished “The Spy Next Door,” and when we set it up, it was extremely gratifying because we had been through the heartache of not selling his scripts a couple of times. That just goes to show you got to keep writing because your number will be called if you have the talent.

Q: What was the development process like for “The Spy Next Door?”

A: It was constant re-writes. Joe was developing it with a producer named, Russell Hollander. It took a lot of meetings, outlines, and re-writes until the script was ready to go out on the town.

When the script was ready, we submitted the script all over town and there was a bidding war. Dimension ended up making an offer
with Mutual Films and Karz Entertainment producing.

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Joe Carnahan - Narc
Feb 11, 2003 Author: Rita Cook

Joe Carnahan faced numerous challenges filming his latest movie Narc, starring Jason Patric and Ray Liotta. In Los Angeles, Narc billboard signs are everywhere and the movie's release around the country is set for mid-January. Carnahan is a likable guy with a pleasing phone manner so it was easy to see why Splendid Pictures wanted to work with him and why Paramount eventually took the film under their distribution fold.

script: You wrote and directed Narc. Tell me about some of the challenges you faced?
Joe Carnahan - There were numerous challenges. It was an incredibly difficult script to write and it took me almost a year to write it. So that was one thing. It was an emotionally-taxing experience and then the actual shooting of it was kind of a trip through hell. We had financial problems that plagued the shoot and everyday we were having more difficulty. We didn't have money, couldn't afford film, couldn't do this and couldn't do that. So that was a real arduous journey, but in between it was just the actual getting it into people's hands. In between the problems we were having from the writing to the actual shooting of it, I had a two to three-year process when nobody wanted to make the film.

script: The film is great. The opening scene where Jason Patric is running is an incredible scene.
JC - I had never seen a foot chase accurately depicted and what it is like to really run, sprint, a long distance and what that does to you. I thought I just really want this to be a continuous kind of sequence, a continuous run and we would do it in such a way that there is a touchstone for this particular type of filmmaking. You look at the reality show like Cops and the viewer is used to following officers into it - you know what I mean? It is kind of rough and tumble, but at the same time we wanted to be very cinematic about it and not just be a simple kind of herky jerky handheld, we wanted to capture what that was like. We did a series of runs in the dead of winter in Toronto and a situation came up where I had to throw out all the camera set-ups, I think I had 12 other camera set-ups to shoot. What I really wanted to do, and I think what I was inspired by was the opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan. I loved that you never got any further up that beach than Tom Hank's platoon and I thought there was something really brilliant in that. You are really establishing who your protagonists are and you are going to stay with them through thick and thin and that is kind of the philosophy I adapted in the shooting of that sequence. You are never going to get any closer to that junkie than Jason does and at the same time he is doing something and it is kind of cause and effect - action - reaction type of relationship. As the audience is processing the fact that this junkie has grabbed this little girl - Jason's character begins to fire and make the decision in that moment that this guy intends to kill her and it is not going to be some standoff. I think it is just the fact that we didn't cheat it and the violence of it is so harsh and quick and real that that is what kind of sucks people in. And I did not want to treat violence on the whole of this film as kind of an almost burlesque manner like Hollywood does, which is a drawn-out, poetic, overly-stylized kind of treatment of something.

script: The film is dark, why did you decide to do that?
JC - A lot of it was discussions I had with the DP. There was something about Alex's style that I really liked. He moved the camera around and after I met with him I realized he is a good guy. This guy fled Russia in the mid-70s when it was the Russia we all know and love. He just understood inherently cold and industrial and hard. A lot of what you see in the flashbacks and the opening sequence is shot on reversal stock and then cross-processed as regular negative film. So you get that great kind of de-saturated look. And what is great is that if it is cold it plays very cold and if it is hot it plays extremely hot. So, we wanted to run that kind of gamut between really hot and really cold. Alex and I kept asking what would be the natural light source in any given room that we were in because those were all practical sets. We moved from that idea that there is a window here and there is sunlight coming through so don't correct for that and let it blow out. We exposed for the interior and got this really naturalistic, almost documentary-like, look. We made sure we were timing it and we wanted it darker or we wanted it denser and to have this kind of high contrast so we were conscious of that throughout the shooting of the film.

script: How many scripts have you sold and produced?
JC - Up until Narc I had done my own film which is Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane and I had sold a cheeseball script years earlier as well as doing some work for friends. I live up North in Sacramento so it was really difficult and I don't have the same inroads ...

script: Talking about your craft - what tools do you use when you begin to write a script?
JC - I begin with a basic scene or I will start with an idea or a premise. Depending on how I feel about it and if I think it is going to entail a lot of work then I will do a fairly elaborate outline. Other than that I really begin with just writing the first scene, the scene that I will enjoy the most. I am a sucker for the big beginning. How do we start this film? I like to write in that manner and not have too much of it thought out it advance. I like to see where the journey will take me.

script: What was the difference between writing the script and then coming to the table to direct it?
JC - I think the difference was that I wanted to write it in a much more linear fashion because I thought to fragment it and to do the things that I really intended to do with it would have put too many people off. I already thought that it was going to be a tough sale given the level of violence and this particular genre and I was ensured by many that television had thoroughly eroded theatrical possibilities for a film like this. I kept it fairly straightforward and only when we got into the actual shooting did I kind of start to mix it up. Then going into the editing room, that is where I really made it the film that I intended it to be.

script: You did a good job of developing the characters. What do you think is the key to strong character development?
JC - The key for me was to make it as real as possible and to relate it as much as you possible can to your own experiences and your own life. I feel like you are always going to have good luck if you do that. Start to resemble caricatures of people you have seen in movies and you are in bad shape. I really tried to keep it a journey like of him being a cop and getting drawn back in that world. This is not unlike my journey in Hollywood where I am being called upon to spend a great deal of time away from home and it can be hard on a family.

script: What advice do you have for screenwriters that are just getting started?
JC - I would say decide very early on if you want to write for somebody else or if you want to write your own movies and direct your own films because that is going to help refine and by virtue define your focus. This decision will make it something tangible and something that you know as you are bleeding into your scripts and sweating into them and toiling away. You know at the end of the day you are going to be the one charged with interpreting that. I felt it made all the difference knowing that I was going to be the one who was charged with bringing this thing to life. I think that is the key. You have to decide are you going to be someone who writes for others and be content with that and bust your ass or are you going to direct your own stuff? As much as I love writing, I love directing and editing equally.

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Just finished:
Naked by David Sedaris
Ava's man by Rick Bragg, the pulitzer prize winning author of All Over but the Shoutin'


Currently reading:
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace

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(Ten Faux Pas of Screenwriting Contestants)

by Elizabeth A. Stevens

Having just read a towering stack of screenplays for a widely-known screenwriting contest, the common sins and faux pas of aspiring pro screenwriters are painfully fresh in my mind. Many writers nationwide - regardless of the core genius, universality, uniqueness, social relevance, horror, poignancy, hilarity, cinematic brilliance or action-abundance of their scripts - shoot themselves in the foot by forgetting or ignoring key points in screenwriting. Next time you submit a script to a contest (or to a producer) ensure, make sure and be sure that your work reflects these ten nonnegotiable criteria.

1. PRESENTATION COUNTS

Do not think that the sheer brilliance of your idea will overcome the need to submit a clean, proofread script. If you believe that readers will find the gem of your genius amid sloppy writing, stick to playing the lottery where your odds of success are much better.

Submit your script securely bound by two brads, and without heavy cover stock or plastic binding. You lose points by standing out with flashy or inappropriate packaging; strive instead to look like a seasoned pro. Make sure that grammar, punctuation and spelling are correct. You lose many points if readers get a headache trying to fathom your work. Use proper screenplay formatting, per “Elements of Style for Screenwriters” by Paul Argentini.

2. SET THE STAGE

Be sure to start your script with the era noted in the first slugline. You lose a reader’s attention if they must puzzle over whether your story is set in the future, present or sometime in the past.

In your opening slugline, note the country and region in which the story takes place. If your script unfolds in a specific city, be sure to include this in slug lines. If you fail to include this information, the reader will A) assume that the story takes place in the United States and, B) assume that the city it’s set in is irrelevant to the tale. The opening slugline, “EXT. CHICO’S MOTHER’S BACKYARD - DAY” leaves a reader in the dark.

3. BE TERSE

Write your script in terse screenplay style. Condense your narrative into short, strong sentences. If a novel is a stew, a screenplay is a reduced broth. Keep dialogue pointed and sharp.

4. DESCRIBE THE PLAYERS

Quickly and effectively describe characters as you introduce them. Give an age (or age range) for lead and supporting players. Sketch characters’ physical description so that readers have something to imagine and build upon.

5. GIVE YOUR LEAD CHARACTER AN ARC

Make sure that the script conveys your main character’s internal and external needs, and show those needs being struggled toward and met in your script.

6. USE ACTIVE VOICE IN NARRATIVE

Write narrative in an active, present voice. A script is a blueprint of action; make your narrative action-oriented.

“The store is packed with rowdy customers, waiting in line as Mamie works the cash register. Grace, in her red rayon uniform, is helping patrons find holiday gifts. Ellie is in an open area, near the cash register. She wears a large white apron and wraps packages on a work table.”

This narrative can easily be condensed and strengthened to:

“Mamie works the cash register as rowdy customers wait in line. Grace, in a red rayon uniform, helps patrons find holiday gifts, and apron-clad Ellie wraps packages on a work table nearby.”

7. USE DEVICES SPARINGLY

Keep devices such as voice-over and flashbacks to a bare minimum, since they interrupt the flow of your script and pull readers out of the ongoing story.

8. BE SPARINGLY VISUAL

Write your narrative from a visual viewpoint, but do not become novelesque. If a scene occurs at sunset, say so but don’t wax eloquent about the ombred sky and the engorged sun sliding into oblivion. When it is key to the scene, note camera information but do not load your script with directorial cues.

9. KEEP DIALOGUE RELEVANT

Severely limit dialogue that doesn’t either forward the story line or provide insight into characters. For example, trim scenes of greetings or good-byes to the minimum required to convey an arrival or departure.

10. GET OBJECTIVE FEEDBACK

Before you submit your script, give it to a handful of trustworthy people for commentary. Then pay attention to their comments and suggestions. Don’t let your own intimate knowledge of all details in your story - the “forest for the trees” syndrome - blind you to the fact that you’ve omitted key information that readers need in order to understand the tale.

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Fernando Meirelles
City of God

Interviewed by Tom Dawson
updated 31st December 2002

How hard was it to adapt such a sprawling novel for the screen?

It was a big challenge. The book is about 600 pages and there are 250 characters but it has no real structure - it's very episodic. The author Paulo Lins, who was raised in the City of God slums, presents a character and you follow him for 20 pages. When he dies, you start following somebody else, and that carries on right until the end.

We decided to split the film into three parts, each different from the other. In the first part the romantic criminals come in and there's a warm atmosphere. In the second they have moved onto drug dealing, and the camera movements are free and relaxed. Towards the end, war breaks out between the dealers and the images are chaotic and out of focus.

Was it difficult to direct so many young non-professionals?

No, it was easy to work with them because they were so enthusiastic about doing the film. They liked being respected and for people to listen to them and to applaud them. We auditioned 2000 kids from poor areas and chose 200. We spent six months working on improvising scenes. They ended up creating about 70% of the dialogue. They were so keen that they used to arrive at work an hour before shooting started.

How was "City of God" received in Brazil given its controversial subject-matter?

It was a huge success in Brazil and attracted 3.4 million spectators. It was more popular than "Star Wars" and "Minority Report". It moved from the cultural pages to the political pages - one of the presidential candidates asked to see the film and talked about it in a speech. So teenage drug-dealing became an issue in the campaign.

How did you approach the violence that is an important aspect of the film?

I think the violence in the film is totally different to what you see in American movies from people like Tarantino. I tried to avoid graphic violence: we have only three sequences involving blood and in the rape sequence you don't see the rape. Even in the gang-war scene at the end, I had a voice-over talking about something else to distract the viewer. I used music throughout the film to create a distance from the action.

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One of the most captivating films on the big screen right now is City of God. Read a brief review.

City of God

Bursting with love, hate, violence and life, this breathtaking Brazilian epic based on photographer Paulo Lin’s upbringing in the Rio de Janeiro ghetto creates sympathy for its young characters, robbed of innocence in an endless cycle of violence and drugs, while remaining honest to the pain and poverty of the streets. Director Fernando Meirelles spins an intensely visceral experience that registers well with the corrupt minds of his characters and their seedy environment. Each image singes your consciousness and refuses to dissipate. ( Opens Jan. 17, 2003.)

by Piet Levy

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1. WBW Interview: Interview with Jeff Arch, by Samantha Plotkin
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Jeff Arch, the Academy-nominated screenwriter of “Sleepless in Seattle,” took some time out of his insanely busy schedule to tell us how a brilliant script can get you into Hollywood.

Q: What made you decide to make the “big” move to Los Angeles?

A: I grew up on Hollywood movies and that’s what I wanted to make. In my early twenties, I came out to L.A., trying to be a writer. For four years I wrote pretty much the same movie over and over until it finally got optioned.

I got married and moved back east, for what I thought was going to be a year, and it turned out to be thirteen years. Eight years in to that thirteen years, I wrote, “Sleepless.” For the next four years I wrote like crazy in Virginia and started to make more and more trips out here (L.A.). I thought, ‘This is crazy I want to live out here and I don’t want to be in airplanes anymore.’

Q: What did you do in the meantime, before “Sleepless” sold?

A: I wrote a play, that got produced off-broadway. It was one of the shows that opened and closed in a week. As a writer, I learned tons of stuff. As a person trying to do business in New York, I learned more than I wanted to learn.

I learned some lessons from the play, which was not to give up, but try coming after it at a different direction. And the direction was from the inside out. The phone wasn’t ringing (when people flop, the phone does not ring), so I dove into the personal stuff.

I started building myself from the inside out. I learned that I was doing fine as a writer, but the stuff that was holding me back was stuff from the inside and I had to learn how to get rid of that. It wasn’t anything that school or graduate school or seminars were going to take care of -- no matter what I put in my brain, my heart was sending the wrong messages.

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Confronting Empire
Arundhati Roy

I've been asked to speak about "How to confront Empire?" It's a huge question, and I have no easy answers.

When we speak of confronting "Empire," we need to identify what "Empire" means. Does it mean the U.S. Government (and its European satellites), the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, and multinational corporations? Or is it something more than that?

In many countries, Empire has sprouted other subsidiary heads, some dangerous byproducts - nationalism, religious bigotry, fascism and, of course terrorism. All these march arm in arm with the project of corporate globalization.

Let me illustrate what I mean. India - the world's biggest democracy -is currently at the forefront of the corporate globalization project.
Its "market" of one billion people is being prized open by the WTO. Corporatization and Privatization are being welcomed by the Government and the Indian elite.

It is not a coincidence that the Prime Minister, the Home Minister, the Disinvestment Minister - the men who signed the deal with Enron in India, the men who are selling the country's infrastructure to corporate multinationals, the men who want to privatize water, electricity, oil, coal, steel, health, education and telecommunication - are all members or admirers of the RSS. The RSS is a right wing, ultra-nationalist Hindu guild which has openly admired Hitler and his methods.

The dismantling of democracy is proceeding with the speed and efficiency of a Structural Adjustment Program. While the project of corporate globalization rips through people's lives in India, massive privatization, and labor "reforms" are pushing people off their land and out of their jobs. Hundreds of impoverished farmers are committing suicide by consuming pesticide. Reports of starvation deaths are coming in from all over the country.

While the elite journeys to its imaginary destination somewhere near the top of the world, the dispossessed are spiraling downwards into crime and chaos. This climate of frustration and national disillusionment is the perfect breeding ground, history tells us, for fascism.

The two arms of the Indian Government have evolved the perfect pincer action. While one arm is busy selling India off in chunks, the other, to divert attention, is orchestrating a howling, baying chorus of Hindu nationalism and religious fascism. It is conducting nuclear tests, rewriting history books, burning churches, and demolishing mosques. Censorship, surveillance, the suspension of civil liberties and human rights, the definition of who is an Indian citizen and who is not, particularly with regard to religious minorities, is becoming common practice now.


Last March, in the state of Gujarat, two thousand Muslims were butchered in a State-sponsored pogrom. Muslim women were specially targeted. They were stripped, and gang-raped, before being burned alive. Arsonists burned and looted shops, homes, textiles mills, and mosques.


More than a hundred and fifty thousand Muslims have been driven from their homes. The economic base of the Muslim community has been devastated.

While Gujarat burned, the Indian Prime Minister was on MTV promoting his new poems. In January this year, the Government that orchestrated the killing was voted back into office with a comfortable majority. Nobody has been punished for the genocide. Narendra Modi, architect of the pogrom, proud member of the RSS, has embarked on his second term as the Chief Minister of Gujarat. If he were Saddam Hussein, of course each atrocity would have been on CNN. But since he's not - and since the Indian "market" is open to global investors - the massacre is not even an embarrassing inconvenience.

There are more than one hundred million Muslims in India. A time bomb is ticking in our ancient land.

All this to say that it is a myth that the free market breaks down national barriers. The free market does not threaten national
sovereignty, it undermines democracy.

As the disparity between the rich and the poor grows, the fight to corner resources is intensifying. To push through their "sweetheart
deals," to corporatize the crops we grow, the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the dreams we dream, corporate globalization needs an international confederation of loyal, corrupt, authoritarian governments in poorer countries to push through unpopular reforms and quell the mutinies.

Corporate Globalization - or shall we call it by its name? - Imperialism - needs a press that pretends to be free. It needs courts that pretend to dispense justice.

Meanwhile, the countries of the North harden their borders and stockpile weapons of mass destruction. After all they have to make sure that it's only money, goods, patents and services that are globalized. Not the free movement of people. Not a respect for human rights. Not international treaties on racial discrimination or chemical and nuclear weapons or greenhouse gas emissions or climate change, or - god forbid - justice.

So this - all this - is "empire." This loyal confederation, this obscene accumulation of power, this greatly increased distance between those who make the decisions and those who have to suffer them. Our fight, our goal, our vision of Another World must be to eliminate that distance.

So how do we resist "Empire"?

The good news is that we're not doing too badly. There have been major victories. Here in Latin America you have had so many - in Bolivia, you have Cochabamba. In Peru, there was the uprising in Arequipa, In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez is holding on, despite the U.S. government's best efforts.

And the world's gaze is on the people of Argentina, who are trying to refashion a country from the ashes of the havoc wrought by the IMF.

In India the movement against corporate globalization is gathering momentum and is poised to become the only real political force to
counter religious fascism.

As for corporate globalization's glittering ambassadors - Enron, Bechtel, WorldCom, Arthur Anderson - where were they last year, and
where are they now?

And of course here in Brazil we must ask ...who was the president last year, and who is it now?

Still ... many of us have dark moments of hopelessness and despair. We know that under the spreading canopy of the War Against Terrorism, the men in suits are hard at work.

While bombs rain down on us, and cruise missiles skid across the skies, we know that contracts are being signed, patents are being registered, oil pipelines are being laid, natural resources are being plundered, water is being privatized, and George Bush is planning to go to war against Iraq.

If we look at this conflict as a straightforward eye-ball to eye-ball confrontation between "Empire" and those of us who are resisting it, it
might seem that we are losing.

But there is another way of looking at it. We, all of us gathered here, have, each in our own way, laid siege to "Empire."

We may not have stopped it in its tracks - yet - but we have stripped it down. We have made it drop its mask. We have forced it into the open. It now stands before us on the world's stage in all it's brutish, iniquitous nakedness.

Empire may well go to war, but it's out in the open now - too ugly to behold its own reflection. Too ugly even to rally its own people. It
won't be long before the majority of American people become our allies.

Only a few days ago in Washington, a quarter of a million people marched against the war on Iraq. Each month, the protest is gathering momentum.

Before September 11th 2001 America had a secret history. Secret especially from its own people. But now America's secrets are history, and its history is public knowledge. It's street talk.

Today, we know that every argument that is being used to escalate the war against Iraq is a lie. The most ludicrous of them being the U.S. Government's deep commitment to bring democracy to Iraq.

Killing people to save them from dictatorship or ideological corruption is, of course, an old U.S. government sport. Here in Latin America, you know that better than most.

Nobody doubts that Saddam Hussein is a ruthless dictator, a murderer (whose worst excesses were supported by the governments of the United States and Great Britain). There's no doubt that Iraqis would be better off without him.

But, then, the whole world would be better off without a certain Mr. Bush. In fact, he is far more dangerous than Saddam Hussein.
So, should we bomb Bush out of the White House?

It's more than clear that Bush is determined to go to war against Iraq, regardless of the facts - and regardless of international public
opinion. In its recruitment drive for allies, The United States is prepared to invent facts.

The charade with weapons inspectors is the U.S. government's offensive, insulting concession to some twisted form of international etiquette. It's like leaving the "doggie door" open for last minute "allies" or maybe the United Nations to crawl through.

But for all intents and purposes, the New War against Iraq has begun.

What can we do?

We can hone our memory, we can learn from our history. We can continue to build public opinion until it becomes a deafening roar.

We can turn the war on Iraq into a fishbowl of the U.S. government's excesses.

We can expose George Bush and Tony Blair - and their allies - for the cowardly baby killers, water poisoners, and pusillanimous long-distance bombers that they are.

We can re-invent civil disobedience in a million different ways. In other words, we can come up with a million ways of becoming a collective pain in the ass.

When George Bush says "you're either with us, or you are with the terrorists" we can say "No thank you." We can let him know that the people of the world do not need to choose between a Malevolent Mickey Mouse and the Mad Mullahs.

Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness - and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we're being brainwashed to believe.

The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling - their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their
weapons, their notion of inevitability.

Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them.

Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.

-Arundhati Roy

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Note: look into David Foster Wallace's Brief Interviews With Hideous Men.

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