ED WOOD Offers Great Examples Of How Movies Get Made by Scott Kirkpatrick

Watch the video interview on Youtube here

Film Courage: You wrote a blog post (I think) a few years back maybe that mentioned Tim Burton’s 1994 biopic on ED WOOD…excellent film by the way.

Scott Kirkpatrick: One of my favorites.

Film Courage: Yeah…would you say this film is really important because it shows still current examples of how films get made today. Any thoughts…[films getting made] on a lower level?

Scott Kirkpatrick: You know, in truth those budgets back then were massive today, like the kind of films that were getting made or the Roger Corman-era of making films.

One of the opening scenes of that movie (ED WOOD), The Christine Jorgensen Story (that’s what is was), it was basically a transgendered individual back in the 50’s and some schlock producer was making a film about it. So Ed Wood sees the opportunity, walked into the door, set up a meeting with Mr. Weiss and pitched himself as the guy who had to make the movie. And because he was so enthusiastic because in truth he was a transvestite but was very secretive about it and he just understood the compelling elements of the story that had to be created, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And then, the producer’s response was more or less “I don’t care. I need a producer. I need a guy who can make a film in three days and make me a profit. That’s all I care about.” And the reason was, he’d already pre-sold theaters and all of these states and needed the movie to cater to that. He needed a movie that was so many reels long (using old film terminology), that was a certain budget level, that could be shot in a certain amount of time and didn’t care about the quality. He just needed the product to fill-in the gaps of where it was pre-sold.

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It still happens today. It’s no different. It’s the same concept in the indie space today of the movies that get kind of pre-sold, pre-created, pre-developed and then they need writers, producers, very creative-minded people to put that that together in a short period of time and make it happen.

That’s the real job of a creator is creating, making things happen. Getting from Point A to Point B quickly and effectively, that’s why at the studio level, major talents get tons of money and they receive ridiculous sums of money for screenplays at the studio level because frankly it takes a lot of work and it’s a very, very rare talent to be able to produce on that level. So that’s kind of why it works that way. But if you haven’t seen it…for anyone in the audience who hasn’t seen it [ED WOOD] it’s a great movie, very fun and in the whole process throughout you actually learn a lot of great lessons about the filmmaking process. And even though it’s from the 90’s and talking about an era in the 50’s, the principles are exactly the same. It still works the same way and always will (I think)...(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).

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