Mr. Lloyd. Whenever you want to start a movie, how do you go about it? What kind of screenwriter do you have on hand? Where do your ideas generally come from? How do you transform your creativity into production?
As for the screenwriters, we actually didn't call them screenwriters at that time, they were called idea man or gag man. There was no dialogue at that time. It's completely business, comedy business, this is the first. I have a group of writers under me, three people, sometimes seven or eight. Give them a high salary, with a weekly salary of at least $800. At that time, we didn't use scripts. We started from an idea and enriched it little by little. I gathered all the creative men in a room, and everyone closed the door to discuss. I would go there in the morning or evening. They threw the ideas they came up with to me one by one, and asked for my opinions. I just judge the ideas one by one. Whether it is suitable and whether it can be used in the film. Then I put these joke men out to work alone, with two people, or several groups, and come back every day to give me an idea. Perhaps some proposals are not exceptionally good, but we can work together to concentrate on processing it.
Are these ideas specific jokes (gag)? Or something else?
It's almost a joke, but don't forget that we already had a story at the beginning. The joke is the most important, the story is second.
When you start thinking about how to create a film, for example, are you looking for a series of connected jokes, or are there any core ideas that allow all jokes to develop around it?
Take a specific film as an example, just use the most famous Safety Last, which is well received by everyone. Let me talk about how it was born. One day I was walking on 7th Street in Los Angeles and saw a lot of people watching the excitement under a tall building, the Brockman Building. When I asked, I knew that there was a "Spider-Man" climbing a tall building with his bare hands. Naturally everyone wanted to see it, a rare skill. I also stood and watched for a while, and saw a young man coming out with an advertisement on his back, and he quickly began to crawl. When he climbed to the third and fourth floors, I couldn't bear to witness it. My heart was touching my throat, and I hurried away. I walked a block, but I couldn't help but look back to see if he was still there. I stood at the corner and couldn't see him anymore. But I still can't help sticking my head out to see, I still can't believe anyone can accomplish such a feat. In the end, he successfully climbed to the top of the building and rode a bicycle around the edge of the roof top of the building. Seeing this, I decided to go back, and met the guy upstairs and gave him my address. I was at the Hal Roach studio at the time. I called the guy to meet me. His name was Bill Struthers.
As a result, he came. We offered him a salary and planned to use him, but in fact, we haven't figured out what to shoot. But the idea of climbing stairs lingered in my mind. Just imagine that if an idea is very attractive to me, it will be equally effective to the audience. So we began to think about how to find a motive to cause the incident of climbing stairs. I found the writers, sat down and talked, and they gave a basic plot-a young man came from a small town to a big city, got an ordinary job in a department store, and then wrote a letter to his girlfriend to brag about himself He was so awesome that his girlfriend wanted to see him. He was panicked, so he discussed a way with someone to talk to the manager and said he would climb a tall building to advertise the company. This is the basic plot, which was later polished and revised. This process is equivalent to having a hanger first, and then hanging the clothes one by one. The clothes are what we want to sell. So we need to improve the jokes. We can't do it right away, take a few thoughts, then stop, go home and continue thinking. As the filming progresses, the story will continue to change and move the whole body. In short, this is very flexible.
In fact, for most films, we shoot the ending first. In this film, we first shoot the passage of climbing stairs. After success, we have great confidence and passion to look back and then shoot the previous ones. We had a preliminary idea for the beginning, but we haven't decided yet. The American football game at the end of The Freshman was also filmed first for two days, but we haven't found the passion and feeling that we should have, so we temporarily gave up and started shooting from the beginning. The Freshman film first had a theme structure. The boy wanted to be the most popular person in college, but he messed it up from the beginning. His father was right. He would be repaired. It's very miserable. It's the truth. That's the theme. He wants to become the most popular person in the school, and then he has a series of difficulties and troubles.
You mentioned the theme. Do all your films have some kind of theme or similar clues?
Yes, yes, you have to have a theme. The more useful the theme, the greater the chance of making a good film. The so-called theme is right, let me give another example, the climbing stairs in Safety Last, my friend in the film, he should have climbed. But he was in trouble, and the police were looking for him. He said that there was no way to climb unless the police was thrown away. So he asked me to pretend to be him and go to the stairs. I only need to climb one floor and then slip back through the window. We are right. In exchange, I climbed the rest, I was so afraid that I could not climb even the first floor, but he persuaded me. I started to climb the first floor, but unfortunately the police found him. He ran into the building and the police chased him. I climbed one floor. He asked me to climb another floor and waited for him to get rid of the police and change back. As a result, I climbed another floor. He couldn't get rid of it, so I kept climbing. He always said, "Climb another floor, and wait for me to get rid of the police."
This is what I’m talking about is something useful. Every time the audience thinks I should be liberated and I don’t have to climb anymore. This makes the story more powerful, because you lifted the audience’s expectations-when will that guy be able to To help him get out of trouble?
For comedy, trouble is one of the most important elements, because it can undergo many changes. Find a newspaper. Troubles and tragedies are the most frequently published in newspapers. At least 75% of them are. This ratio is very conservative. The same goes for news on radio or TV. I think this is because people look at themselves when they see bad news and feel that they are fine, which is pretty good. If everything is fine in the movie, no one will watch it. If someone wants to kill you or catch you, if your money is gone, the audience will think, how can he solve it? Comedy is the process of overcoming these obstacles.
When you and the joke guys are thinking about jokes, how do you decide which ones to use and discard others? How do you judge whether the audience will share your preferences?
There are a few points. I will have experience over time. This is a basic skill and an instinct to judge what is really funny and what is boring. In other words, this process is "removing the rough and picking the fine." There used to be a joke man who gave me more jokes than anyone else, but I still have to say that he has only one-twentieth creative ideas that are good, and most of the others are not so good. Later, I closed the film and introduced him to other people. Others told me that the person you introduced was terrible, and most of the ideas he gave me couldn't be used. Those people are wrong, they always think that every idea has to come in handy, that's impossible. The essence that can only be obtained occasionally is worth all the useless ideas. You have to make your own judgment to discover good ideas. This is my strength in the comedy industry. I don't know if it was trained or innate. I don't know too much.
It should be born with it. I want to ask, you experienced a lot of professional training when you were in the theater. You tried a lot of comedy roles before, and finally decided to specialize in "Glasses Man"-the guy we are most familiar with. Do you think that through organized training, everything can be learned? For example, if a student enters our university and passes certain training, can he become you?
This matter cannot be precise for that purpose. I think anyone who succeeds must love that line, and then start to study, observe, and practice repeatedly to know whether he is a talented person or a common man. But I do think that most people don’t have comedy cells; maybe someone can train for a lifetime, but the only thing they find in the end is that they have gone the wrong way. Maybe some people in daily life are very funny. Whether they are men or women, they are hilarious when they smile. When you have a party, it is the joy of friends. So some people say that you should really go to comedy. Well, if you really use that person to act, you will find that he is at a loss when facing the audience. His laughter, which only close friends find funny, is completely ineffective to ordinary audiences. It's another matter entirely.
On the contrary, a successful comedy star, whether he is a vaudeville troupe, a filmmaker, or a TV player, no matter what his media background, you go to observe him in the audience, it is very likely that he is not a funny person at all, he is also There is no desire to play humor with others in life. Maybe this is a disguise like most people, but they do want to appear in front of people in another image and express themselves in a different way. An actor always expresses himself in a different way.
Can you sum up, what is the essence of your comedy and what is the essence of your comedy image for so many years?
My character is usually your boy next door, wearing a pair of glasses. His ideas are slightly different from those of ordinary people. In most of the stories we make up, he never seems to have a chance to succeed, or he is facing difficulties that he cannot overcome at all. But he always tried his best, no matter how desperate he was, he went forward courageously and finally won. So he should be a character you can like, so you will be sympathetic. He is a weird man, funny and miserable, and finally impresses you. You can make fun of him, but that is not only making fun of him, but also encouraging him. If you want to explore the essence of comedy, there is no end.
For me, I always feel that your role reflects the image of our country better than all other comedians. All the roles in your film are the personality incarnations of the United States. What I mean is to always pursue success with hope. , There is a big relationship between these, do you think so?
I have read some articles and made similar observations. But as I said, I played ordinary people on the streets, passing by you every day, wearing ordinary people's clothes, his glasses may be the only feature. That is the way he sees things, his weakness, and the starting point for him to overcome difficulties. Comedy comes from here. You can't think of him as a normal comedy character, and I don't want to design him as a weird person-many comedians like to do that. He is an ordinary boy you would like. You will be interested in his troubles, because his troubles are your troubles.
Perhaps it is these ordinary qualities that make him universal.
Of course, everyone has their own ways of doing everything, and if you let ten people handle the same situation, everyone must be different. You will find that someone can do a great job, but others may not. For example, I think of George Gobel, who has a very personal style, and so does Gleason.
What are your favorite works below?
There are three. Grandma's Boy, Safety Last and The Freshman.
I noticed that most of your comedies are based on adventure, suspense, danger, and romantic love. This was a great success in the silent film era. Do you think that the appearance of sound films has brought great difficulties to your style?
Yes, sound movies do bring some difficulties. First, we must have a clearer story, and then put the dialogue in. Before, we can think that the silent film period is a pantomime, and action comes first. It is impossible for the audience to read your lips, but the dialogue comes in, which means you have to sit down and say something in life. This is different in the production process. Although I made a sound film at the beginning, I didn't have any trouble with adding sound, but I thought it would be much better if there were a few good dialogue screenwriters at the time. In fact, the early comedy of the sound film era relied too much on verbal gimmicks rather than actions. The pantomime performance disappeared, but it has recently started to resurge. For a long time, comedy has become a competition witty, a sentence that will shake three burdens. The comedy of visual streaming disappeared, so it came back later. For example, Red Skelton used a lot of pantomime techniques, and Jack Benny cleverly put the pantomime method into the TV show. Jackie Gleason also did a good job, and Danny Kaye, a lot of people. I think they are very clever, that is about to become a lost skill. They all realize that there is no need to talk every minute, and it is not like that in real life. George Stevens, a very good director, is the best comedy director who practiced this method. His films can be without dialogue for a long time, which is very real. John Ford is another one doing this. But for a long time, people thought that they had to keep talking.
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