Story Notes for The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

What’s great –

• Nicolas Cage. Bolder and more passionate than we’ve seen him in decades. He’s channeling the heart energy that fueled him in Moonstruck and Raising Arizona. Cage plays a sorcerer who’s over 1000 years old and has literally seen it all. Yet, this wild-haired character has his sweet, vulnerable side.
• The apprentice, played by Jay Baruchel, a nerdy physics student who experiments with a Tesla coil. When he shares his secret lab with a pretty coed, he choreographs the electric charges to the music she loves to play on her radio show. Sounds corny, but it’s a loving, sexy scene, making this the best date movie of the year.
• The marriage of science and magic and the terrific results it produces. The Tesla coil scene dramatizes this brilliantly, focusing on the magic of love. In many variations, this potent science+magic theme runs throughout the story.
• The sorcerer’s car.
• The catcher’s chest protector and face guard that Dave uses while he learns to catch and throw plasma bolts.
• —SPOILER ALERT—Giving the love interest, Teresa Palmer, the guts to climb the tower and kick the satellite dish enough to disrupt the final curse. (Too bad we didn’t spend enough time with her to really care about her struggle, the romantic one—how she felt when nerdy Dave had some “issues” related to runaway mops and cancelled their date—as well as the intellectual one—how she so easily embraced Dave’s unusual apprenticeship. It took him over a decade; she was okay with it in about 22 seconds.) There are other things wrong with the satellite kicking scene, but I’m in the wrong category, and there’s really a lot of great stuff in this picture, like:
• The great line delivered by Cage: “Love is a distraction.”

What’s recycled and put to good use here—

• Alfred Molino, who plays Cage’s foe, a sorcerer who was formerly Cages friend and ally, but who feels betrayed and has gone to the dark side. In a way he’s resurrecting his role from Spiderman II, but that’s a writing and casting gaff, and Molino is so good in the part nobody will care.
• The apprentice reprising Toby McGuire’s reluctant superhero. Granted, the reluctant hero=good drama. (But another nod to Spiderman? At least no one in the apprentice’s family had to die to motivate the hero to act.)

What’s old and worn out –

• The Frankenstein of fantasy/villainous elements: Russian nesting dolls, magical rings, urban car chases, Chinatown (though the dragon scene was worth it). It’s not that any one of these elements is wrong or bad, but the string of stitched together gimmicks are less than elegant.
• NYC as the only, edgy contemporary setting. Yes, the abandoned subway station makes a neat lab, but I there’s a neat underground city in Seattle, too. Probably lots of places.
• The villain Morgan le Fay as evil sorceress. It’s the male-written, recent media that’s made her so. Ancient and even contemporary authors describe Morgan as a healer, an adviser, and even the architect of King Arthur’s successful round table. Trapping Morgan in a Russian doll was a clever invention; Couldn’t the writers have spent their energies on a more interesting villain?
• Not one, but two frenetic prologues, neither of which was necessary. In fact, they make the story seem contrived and predictable. Allow the backstory to be revealed.
• And in the same vein, not one powerful villain who can shapeshift, but rafts of them. (All called “Morganians,” as if the le Fay connection carries more weight. – SPOILER ALERT—It doesn’t, because we don’t actually meet your most evil-of-evils Morgan until the very end. I’m not counting the prologue.)
• The music for the namesake scene. The one based on "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" sequence from Fantasia. Sure it's a wonderful homage, but either update the orchestration to match the contemporary soundtrack, or design the rest of the music in the 2010 soundtrack to match the original score of the 1940 Disney animated picture. Other aspects of the soundtrack worked well, some beautifully. (See the comments about the Tesla coil music scene above.) What happened here? Though the “live action” mops were delightful to watch, I wondered if the oboes and flutes of the Dukas song got lost in the subway tile and stone.

Final note: Despite the over-worn elements (that bother me more on reflection than when I was in the theater), Cage and director Turtletaub and their entire creative team have made some of their own magic here.

• The final scene—I can’t give it away—but trust me: It’s visually stunning, brimming with action, yet tender. Best of all, it brings out the absolute best in our apprentice. We love to love our hero.

Congratulations, boys. On a scale of 10, this summer movie sizzles at an 8.

Evoke

This from Jane McGonigal:

EVOKE trailer (a new online game) from Alchemy on Vimeo.

Dear, Lucky Agent

Today I'm entering a contest run by Chuck Sambuchino, the editor of Guide to Literary Agents Editor's Blog.

"Dear, Lucky Agent" is a recurring contest. So, even though I'm submitting the first page of my kids' novel, next month Chuck will shift to another genre. So, if you're writing any kind of material--fiction, non-fiction, YA romance or adult mystery--bookmark his blog, or subscribe to the feed like I do.

Here's what I'm sending:

Entry:
Green Tara, a 42,000 word middle-grade novel

Author:
Kalynn Huffman Brower (That's me, the storygoddess.)

Logline:
Should Virginia Maderas, teen of the 24th century, jump ship in her red-hot space coupe in hopes of finding the legendary planet, Green Tara? Is a blue star hot?*

page 1:
I never thought I’d get caught.

I made it out and back and even managed to park on K-deck without attracting attention. To remain inconspicuous, I popped open the back hatch of my Galaxy Blast and slipped out. Then things went pathological. Something about my landing protocol must have set off an alert, because two sentries met me on the ramp.

I whispered to Dot, who was wrapped around my arm in our normal travel mode, “Why didn’t you warn me?”

She just gave me that I-told-you-so look, and her screen went blank.

Great. Nothing like being abandoned and left in the custody of a couple of hyper-vigilant sentries who, as it turned out, were there to escort me to lock-down. Me! I never, ever expected to be taken there. Lockdown is the place they put frightening, high-security-risk rebels. Not a teenage girl.

Now I was going to have to explain to my dad how I’d gotten off the ship without a license.
. . .
* Yes, a blue star is hot. It's the hottest kind. But you already know that astronomical fact.

Writing the Short Screenplay

For my screenwriting students --
DUE this week: short screenplay, 1-5 pages
Last week we pitched original story ideas and developed story treatments. Today (Tuesday) we workshopped first drafts. Thursday the screenplay is due.

The evaluation criteria is the same as what we used in our workshop. I'll be looking for:

• Who wants what? and the ironic situation
• Opposition
• The dramatic moment and how that changes the character
• A dimensional main character and a visualization of his or her inner life
• A big idea or theme

Out of this handful of core story assets, a successful short will be strong in at least a couple of ways, and in other ways, possibly not as strong.

(For example, the readers who read my "Party Girls" script today noticed that there isn't much in the way of a big idea--It's based on a fairly small, unprofound, though authentic idea. But the sense I got from my readers is that the irony/character dimension and visualization of inner dynamic tension is strong -- strong enough to make the whole work.)

TIP: If it's fun to write, it's fun to read.

Sara Grant at the Sweet Shoppe

Yesterday, Saturday the 19th, I got to meet Sara Grant, editor and author of children's books. I feel triply lucky because:

1. Grant is funny, warm, and inspiring. (I love to be around people who love what they do, so it was a wonderful afternoon.)
2. Grant read the first few pages of my novel and said, "Lots of action and adventure!!!" (She had some more comments, too, specific points about lack of clarity and confusing orientation, the usual suspects when creating a fantasy story world. But overall, I feel like I've gotten a green light on my space adventure from someone who really has her fingers on the pulse of the marketplace.)
3. Grant gave a talk on the revision process and the energy of her ideas has left me refreshed. (Since I'm knee deep in alligators in a couple of revisions, it's great to hear some new angles on the same old problems. I really need perspective right now.)

Some of her tips on the revision process are fairly basic, but bear repeating. Do the macro edit before going into the micro edit. It's silly to spend time on word choices when a work still needs attention with respect to structure, charcter progression, or voice (both dialog and narrative).

Some of her notes are specific to how to tackle those macro edits. I'll get into some of those in my next post. I want to test drive one of the techniques first. Hint: It includes lots of colored markers. And if a technique feels more like play than a dreaded rewrite, I might actually get some traction here. Let's see, pink for emotional arc, green for setting, blue for action . . .

Credits:
Sara Grant: Collaborative Creativity-- a Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) event, hosted by Trish Batey, Regional Adviser of the Indiana SCBWI Chapter, held at the Simply Sweet Shoppe in Carmel, Indiana.

Sara Grant is here from London, representing her interests in children's fiction. And her interersts are both broad and deep. She's a successful author in her own right (currently revising a near future dystopian YA novel) and a commissioning editor with Working Partners, a company that packages several successful children's book series.

The Quick Pitch

That's what my friend Jim Fisher calls the elevator pitch. But whatever you call it, wherever you deliver the essence of your story idea-elevator, writers' conference, coffee shop, or cocktail party-if you can't hook the listener in a minute, one-and-a-half at the outside, the story hasn't hit its mark. And if the story doesn't hit its mark, the book won't get published and film won't get produced.

The art of the quick pitch shares some of the same skills as writing a full-length fiction piece, because it requires a precise sense of what makes a story work. But, from my experience it's a tough form for many writers. Creative types have so many ideas flying around, it's sometimes hard to focus on the few elements that create a dynamic situation, full of ironic possibilities for the main character. The many ingredients that serve to create a rich fictional world and a dimensional cast of characters, can get in the way of boiling the story down to its most basic dramatic question.

The Guide to Literary Agents has a series of articles called "What's In a Pitch?" The most recent examine successful pitches for two new novels, The Undomestic Goddess, chick-lit, and Alibi Junior High, middle-grade.

Each article reprints the book's pitch, and then unpacks the "promise of the premise" (term courtesy of Screenwriter Blake Snyder). Greg Logsted managed to distill his book for young people in six sweet sentences. Scroll down to September 7, 2009, of the "What's In a Pitch?" series to read about a kid who's grown up with his undercover spy dad. He's faced danger all over the world. The question is--can he survive junior high?

What Is It?

After the introduction of Save the Cat, in which Blake Snyder tips us off about the importance of an early scene that will build empathy for our main character, no matter how anti-hero-ish he or she may be, the first chapter asks the deceptively simple question, "What is it?"

What is it that will invite me into a movie theatre, to the rental store or kiosk, to a listing on television or Hulu? Even if I'm not spending any hard-earned cash on the unit of entertainment, what will entice me to spend my time, which is scarce, with a set of characters? What is there about this story that leaps off a page and into my imagination. What will snag my interest? What will make me care?

Here's the real kicker. How is it possible to distill all the delicious stuff--images, sounds, scraps of dialog--swirling in a writer's mind into one solid sentence?

Loglines. Deceptively simple. Good thing Snyder gives us some benchmarks.