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The Perfect Formula For Box Office Success
Julez writes "According to icLiverpool, the formula for creating the "perfect" film has been discovered by a UK academic. The research will be used to assess the potential success of possible film sponsorship deals.
Apparently, the perfect feature must have: action 30pc, comedy 17pc, good v evil 13pc, love/sex/romance 12pc, special effects 10pc, plot 10pc and music 8pc
"
i always thought it was an equal mix: The Destruction of Property, The Defiance of Authority, and The Removal of Clothing. Someone got paid for this? I'm in the wrong business.
How about 100% porn?
Special effects 10pc?
Episode I and II clearly messed up the forumla.
Did anyone else feel it was an insult to those with intelligence that plot took only an 8% grab?
Gee, I guess that means the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy is a tremendous flop, doomed to failure; it's got the whole thing backwards!
Any spoon would be too big.
How About Story 80pc Just a thought.
The people get sick of the same ol' crap, and stop seeing the films.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
plot only 10pc? Is this Idiots-only recipe?
Slashdot Sig. version 0.1alpha. Use at your own risk.
That's where they all got it wrong in the last 30 years! They had plot 0.1pc.
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
10pc for plot? Oh come on, if a movie isn't 40pc plot it is not worth watching.
-----
One is born into aristocracy, but mediocrity can only be achieved through hard work.
plot 10pc
:-(
Like there's no lack of a good plot in most films already.
sad
38% Windows bash.
22% Linux worship.
16% Katz bash.
13% OS penis messuring.
8% punctuation correction.
2% spelling correction.
1% comedy.
1% math correction.
1% sig.
Neck_of_the_Woods
#/usr/local/surf/glassy/overhead
Shoulda previewed: Jack Warner.
Blatent Product Placement
Oh, by perfect film, does he mean in the perspective of the film-goer vs. the film financiers? oops
Anyone else feel that the Matrix Reloaded Heineken commercial just makes the Matrix franchise appear "cheap"?
Sehr geehrter Toilettenbenutzer!
I am thinking this MUST be a joke. Believe it or not, these kinds of scales are used in the movie business. This is the reason we sometimes get crap that horribly flops. This is also the reason why movies like "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" are considered high risk ventures.
is the fact that the perfect movie has only 10pc plot, and the only thing that rates lower is the music. seems a sad reflection on the industry as a whole.
the poll there on the site for the best movie doesn't seem to follow that sentiment, which is very encouraging - at least the viewers want something more than 10pc plot!
when it rains, it gets real soggy. when it pours, i'm under the tap just _waiting_ for the joy
Previews 100pc. I'd go.
The coolest voice ever.
Carry this study further: determine the ratios of the elements of what made for a "perfect film" for each decade since the birth of motion pictures. This would shed light on how audience tastes have evolved and where they might be going.
(Reuters) Further research also produced an Instant Film Generation Algorithm (IFGA). The Perfect Film Formula (PFF) was then programmed into the IFGA and the scientists were delighted to see Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope produced spontaneously.
Viewers of the IFGA/PFF results were astounded and enthralled until someone realized that popcorn hadn't been figured into the PFF. The project was scrapped.
Chris
That means that in a 90 minute movie you have 7.2 minutes where you don't see anything, just some black screen with music in the background?
is it just me or does it bother people that there is always a very young girl with a very old man? like for example sean connery and catherine zeta-jones in entrapment... and people are so used to it they dont even notice it but when its a older woman with a young boy (1/1000 chance) people are like ewww gross (like harold and maude)
8% music? So for 8% of the film, the screen must go blank and play tunes only? Or can we have music during, say, the action as well? Or comedy during the sex...? Or...? Or is this formula just a load of tosh?
Why would one use "pc" instead of "%", which is shorter and less confusing ?
No, seriously, that's a real question. Is this some local usage in some part of the world?
I've walked out of movies where the acting was so horrible that it totally invalidated what pleasure I may have gained from the rest of the movie.
Additionally, what about camera work? I almost got motion sickness from movies like "Behind Enemy Lines" and "The Blair Witch Project".
I think that they are putting the cart before the horse in a lot of ways here by just analyzing the statistical makeup of the movie.
They're forgetting to take into account that most of those huge movies have the acting required to let you forget that you're not watching a movie, but experiencing a story.
The fact that the percentages for the 7 `essential elements' add up to 100 pc, looks very strange to me. Does it mean that every second of a movie can be classified into one of these categories ? I wonder which criteria they are using for this.
OR
(b) sex with a mare?There was that episode where Barney and Fred (in P-31) write a song and analyze what needs to be in it to be a hit. I would not be suprised if this is just a hoax.
Living in North America, i don't think you can discount marketing as a true driver. Any movie will be a success with the correct marketer behind it.
Schrodinger's cat is either dead or really pissed off...
I'd like to see the gross earning stats on all of these movies, as well as movies that really bombed. I'm sure there are some real bunkerbusters out there that met this fantastically depressing formula.
...Actors. Big name actors, big name actresses, pop stars, pop starlets, etc. are all going to have a harder time getting those lucrative contracts to be in a new movie now. Their influence on the movie being "perfect" doesen't even show up.
Imagine that.
-Rusty
You never know...
Between Bollywood getting slightly better and Hollywood shovelling out drivel, it seems that there'd be more money in the Bollywood offerings.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Action the major ingredient for perfect film
May 13 2003
Daily Post
THE formula for creating the "perfect" film has been discovered by an academic.
To create a hit movie directors need to combine seven essential elements in the right proportions to ensure they have success, according to university lecturer Sue Clayton.
Her research has revealed that the blueprint for a perfect feature must have: action 30pc, comedy 17pc, good v evil 13pc, love/sex/romance 12pc, special effects 10pc, plot 10pc and music 8pc.
The study was based on detailed analysis of a cross-section of the highest grossing films in the UK in the past 10 years, ranging from Brit-flicks such as The Full Monty and Notting Hill to big budget blockbusters like Die Another Day and Titanic.
Ms Clayton, who is a movie director and screenwriting lecturer for the University of London and the British Film Council, was commissioned by diet Coke to carry out the research in order to better understand what the British public love about popular movies.
The research will be used to assess the potential success of prospective film sponsorship deals.
Toy Story 2, a Disney Pixar production, was the film that had the closest match to the blueprint. The animated tale grossed more than £44m at the UK box office.
Maybe this is the first academic research of it's kind published, but I think it's clear that Holywood has had a good grasp of "the perfect movie formula" for quite some time, just like the music industry has "the perfect pop record" well understood. There are of course exceptions where genuine quality counts, but I'd be prepared to bet that the majority of low grade blockbusters churned out by the big studios come fairly close to this formula.
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0067185 http://us.imdb.com/Title?0137494
that other time. Those British people attempted to find the funniest joke. But the joke wasn't funny. What they found was a joke that would be funny to everybody and anybody. There is no joke that would be hilarious to everyone, so the funniest joke is one which everyone can at least slighly enjoy. I mean, even though I didn't laugh out loud the joke did amuse me. I wish I remember what the joke was and had a link to the site, but oh well.
Anyway this seems to be the formula for a movie that will please everyone, much like the joke. I think that the relatively small amount of plot reflect the intelligence of our society. 10pc of society want plot 30pc want action. That's the way this has to be interpreted. So if you make a movie with this formula it wont be a smash super hit like Star Wars or Matrix or LotR. But it wont suck. People who see it will say "that was an ok movie".
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
You can get a lot of people to see a movie if you hype it enough, or people may just see it anyway because they're bored, but it should be noted that just because your film made money, doesn't mean it was good.
I hope filmmakers don't fall into any sort of rut when it comes to filmmaking despite findings like this, because the movies I most remember and enjoy are ones like Momento, because they are so different and force me to think about the world and how I percieve it. Moreover, what people like changes. Certainly most of the 80's movies I liked, I would scoff at nowadays.
Suffice to say, I won't be seeing 2Fast 2Furious or whatever.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
... Another academic just found out why 100pc of this formulae is 50pc crap and 50pc nonesense.
You can't just pick the best parts of different movies. This would make it the most average movie. And there is no target audience.
This is similar to taking the best features of beautiful of women and putting them together. This have been shown that the result is a very average looking face.
The article didn't really dig into what the research said, so I am somewhat hesitant about the title of my response, but...the fact that the article is scanty never stopped an intrepid Slashdotter from running his mouth, so away we go...
The "perfect film" is obviously highly subjective. From a sentimental standpoint, perhaps it is something like Casablanca. From a producer's standpoint, it may well be "Deep Throat" or "Behind the Green Door" with their respective cost to profit(!) ratios. Artistically, it could be whatever floats your boat. I'm partial to Empire Strikes Back or Unforgiven as my favorite films.
Statistical analysis of elements contained in films is only useful to the extent that the elements are cohesive, well-executed, etc. This all reminds me of the assinine film from the eighties about the robot that wrote a love song based on analysis of popular music, resulting in a meaningless spouting of bubblegum phrases.
Besides, the research only looked at top-grossing films. How much money a film earns is not necessarily a proxy for how "good" it is. It is frequently the result of pimping and media hype. It is quite possible that some of the films which were top grossing lost money (even under sensible non-film industry accounting methods) and were terrible.
The reference article is total fluff coverage and is highly instructive from a media analysis standpoint. You get no analysis of the underlying research. It in fact smells like a press release copped from some idiot researcher which was dumped almost unchanged into a "news" story. The percentage of shit that appears in newspapers that is derived in this exact manner is frightening -- it gains the imprimature of "news" instead of PR and there is no value-added journalism component. Journalists of the world, hang your heads.
Whew. Had to get out my morning rant. I feel much better now. Get me some coffee.
GF.
Lots of petrified grits
These statistics are about as useful as toilet paper, if you catch my drift.
evil adrian
It'll happen again, it always does. I hope they use this formula, because it'll spawn another chrisis just like the one in the early 70's after everybody gets their fill of our generation's "Paint Your Wagon".
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
Seriously. Jesus... What more can I say? This is just going to provide more evidence to the production houses responsible for the cinematic toxins that clog up our screens every weekend that their formula is not only economically but artistically valid, providing even less incentive to produce movies requiring anything other than open eyes to watch. Great.
Incidentally, I'm not a great nostalgia freak, but one or two examples aside, haven't films got much, much worse over the last year or two or what?
I had a dream, bright and carefree, but now there's doubt and gravity
harold and maude and entrapment
Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy takes out his phone and calls the emergency services.
. fu nniest/
He gasps: "My friend is dead! What can I do?" The operator says: "Calm down, I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a gunshot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says: "OK, now what?"
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/10/03/joke
GeekNights!
Late Night Radio for Geeks!
Search Google for "funniest joke", first item that comes up is the joke in question.
JP
Well, if you want to create the perfect horror movie, just go here!
Speaking of Catherine Zeta Jones - I think the movie Chicago proves this whole ratio thing wrong. It was an EXCELLENT movie 60% music 10% plot 10% Comedy 10% Action 10% sex/romance
...
.... Matrix
Here's the actual formula for a good movie:
Great visuals (set designers, hair dressers, costuming)
Great visuals (Special effects to a level of realistic integration)
Great talent (not just actor clout, but role accuracy)
Great music (john williams, danny elfman, or james newton howard, or fosse) Background Music made Jaws scarey, background music made the first Star Wars and Gone With The Wind emotional. and
MEMORABLE writing (good writing has memorable lines) Remember Looney Tunes are only a masterpiece of cartoon art because of the lines each character were noted for (+ all the other elements mentioned)
Arnold Swartzenager and Keanu Reeves CAN make great movies under this formula. Total Recall
There's no certain percentage.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Xulux writes "According to icBloodyWankers, the formula for creating the "perfect" Slashdot Story has been discovered by a UK pompus-git. The research will be used to assess the potential success of possible Slahvertisements(TM). Apparently, the perfect story must have: troll 30pc, childish humor / potty words 17pc, Nazi MS Users v Commie Linux Users 13pc, pr0n/goatse.cx/ASCII-porn 12pc, 'special' spelling 10pc, grammer 10pc and Katz 8pc "
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
Roger Ebert at the Boulder 2003 World Affairs Conference said the US market is driven by opening weekend momementum. And it is the teenage boys who have flexible schedules and disposable cash to see films on the first day. So you make action movies, maybe with a bit of teenage angst. Thats why you'll see mostly "comic book movies" from May 1 to Sept 1 in the USA.
Do "those British people" that you refer to happen to be the group know as Monty Python?
Schrodinger's cat is either dead or really pissed off...
action 1pc
comedy 0pc
good v evil 1pc
love/sex/romance 1pc
special effects 1pc
plot 0pc
music 0pc
water 96pc
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
They surved style, tempo, length, voice and content for the song, for example.
They also made the "least popular" works using similar techniques.
You can find the results of thier work at:
http://www.diacenter.org/km/index.html
and
http://www.diacenter.org/km/musiccd.html
- Serge Wroclawski
How many movies tend to get made vs how many are good? There are always many crappy movies for every good one, I dont think that's changed. It's not just for lack of explosions/flashy effects that Hitchcock's movies wouldnt be successful today.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
This brings up an interesting question: if all art starts to be made by following this formula, will people really be happy with it? I have a feeling that when people make the 'perfect' movie and do another test, the criteria will have changed.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that this doen't really show causality - it's just statistics based on past experience. Just because this mix did well, doesn't mean it will again. However, this is just how the big record labels and movie houses work. Interesting.
Languages aren't inherently fast -- implementations are efficient
Once you reduce an artform to some kind of 'formula' you no longer get creativity, just doggerel. If this guy actually produced films you could probably say of them, if you've seen one you've seen them all. Everyone know that pundits merely classify, catalog and explain. It's the job of the true artist to create something that breaks that mold, pushes the envelope and makes something actually new.
When you come to it, very little is actually 'new'. I think that's why our fashion leaders keep the masses focused on the 'now' - what's new, supposedly improved, etc., instead of what is 'good'. Not only does it keep them distracted from the fact that 99% of most new stuff is something from a generation or more ago, repackaged in a modern genre or idiom and presented as something 'new', when it's merely 'forgotten', but it keeps otherwise unemployable production line artists on the gravy train.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
By the way, LoR has plenty of both, as well as plot...bonus.
"Rub her feet." -- L.L.
...the IgNobel Award Commitee want a word.
:-)
It's this kind of cutting edge research (sponsored by Diet Coke tm) that has made our reasearch in the UK the envy of the IgNobel world
Slashdot looked deep within my soul and assigned
me a number based on the order in which I joined
While this woman doesn't look like a scientist, this is quite an interesting problem for Machine Learning, I guess.
;), these alleged 'percentages' that this woman is talking about... could be a fun research project on the side.
We can use learning and classification techniques to have a proper go at something like this. Rather than work out the supposed 'best' film, we can look at proposals and decide whether they're going to be a success.
See, in the vast array of films that have been produced, and their box-office takings (the metric I assume we'd use for measuring success) we have an annotated training set to train a learning algorithm with. We then run candidate films past that algorithm, and see what it decides. Might work.
The interesting thing, as with many of these classification problems, is the 'feature vector' representation we use to describe a film. I suppose we'd need things like release date, budget, some kind of 'star-quality' rating (average Kevin Bacon distance?
Henry
i don't do sigs. oops.
as they are the wons who have the most phlames coming out of their .asps.
38% Windows bash.
22% Linux worship.
16% Katz bash.
13% OS penis messuring.
8% punctuation correction.
2% spelling correction.
1% comedy.
1% math correction.
1% sig.
Slashdot - Now made from 100% recycled materials.
Just wait till some crappy band steals your nic.
A couple of guys have found the formula for the perfect painting and the perfect music.
They've also found the "most unwanted painting" and "the most unwanted music."
Here's their site. You can even order the CD of America's most wanted and unwanted song -- no piece of music before or since has ever made me laugh out loud so hard.
You can see the paintings on the site. The most wanted music is a 3-minute smooth-jazz love ballad. The most unwanted music is over 22 minutes long, with constant changes in key, tempo, and style, a huge orchestra with bagpipes, percussion and electronics, a screeching soprano talking about physics history and a chorus of kids screaming at you to repent for your sins.
I've often wondered what would happen if this were applied to film. Maybe I'll make "the most unwanted movie" as a joke. But I always realize that every day, thousands of people in Hollywood ARE trying to make "the most wanted movie" -- the next sure thing.
Virtually every movie you will see this summer is the result of someone last summer saying, "Aha! NOW we've found the formula for the perfect movie!" after the box-office numbers came in. And you know what? A lot of them will bomb.
Why? This is like saying the best-written piece of code is the one that has the proportion of semicolons, tabs, and for loops that most closely matches the Linux kernel. It just doesn't compute. You have to look at the why, not the what.
Supposedly, Robin Cook did a similar analysis for the Perfect Novel, mixed the ingredients, and came up with Coma, a best-seller.
-Joe
Lose = not win
Personally I would have to disagree with the percentages the article gives, but maybe that's because I don't always enjoy the average summer blockbuster. I'm more a fan of intelligent films or films that do things differently. That being said, the article talks about how its cross section was only based on the highest grossing films in the UK -- it'd be interesting to see what their "formula" comes up with for other areas of the world. ie. North America, Asia, etc.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
What's wrong with good, old-fashion percent signs? Sorry for the off-topic, but using "pc" seems to me to be stupid, a waste of space, and possibly ambiguous.
Lengend has it that "The Bridges of Maddison County" was written by a marketing professor who started with the question "What if I applied marketing to writing from the begining of the process? What would be the right formula?" Seems to have been a big commercial success.
A good movie is simply not a bad movie.
A movie can be bad in N ways.
Therefore a good movie is one which fails to be bad in all N ways.
What is with all the "pc" this and "pc" that? I assume it means percent (aka "%").
Is the Euro symbol shift-5 on European keyboards or what?
-Peter
Sotz artists Komar and Melamid did similar research to create ideal paintings. They broke out their results by country. They did some work with music, as well.
Wars ------ 2
Killed ---- 5
Wounds ---- 3
Legs ------ 2
Arms ------ 1
Wives ----- 2
Children -- 6
-------------
Total ---- 21
Patent it!!!!!!
Funny, I don't recall a whole lot of love/sex/romance unless you count the Potatoheads getting it on in the Lincoln Log cabin early in the movie...
Happiness is like peeing yourself. Everybody can see it but only you can feel its warmth.
I thought all movies were already starting to look alike. Isn't "formulaic" an insult for movies? I guess research is being done to change bad to worse.
Ahhhhh! If only it did not work! I am sorry but I really have to blame people for this. This is what the music industry does already. Albums are produced rather than written. AND IT WORKS! People are very stupid and they buy them. It's the same damn song folks. Over and over again.
And people wonder why I seem to egotistical. I would rather not be, but these stats just fuel my fire. I need to lie down.
[Silverman draws a standard dog]
Myers: No, no, no! He was supposed to have attitude.
Silverman: Um... wh-what do you mean, exactly?
Myers: Oh, you know, attitude, attitude! Uh... sunglasses!
Lady: Could we put him in more of a "hip-hop" context?
Krusty: Forget context, he's gotta be a surfer. Give me a nice shmear of surfer.
Lady: I feel we should Rasta-fy him by... 10 percent or so.
[the resulting dog is rather... proactive]
[all stare at it w/o any expression]
Myers: Hmm... I think he needs a little more attitude. [Silverman blackens in Poochie's sunglasses]
All Three: [variously] Oh, yeah, bingo. Yeah, that's it! There it is, right there! I love it!
-- Another cartoon character created in less than 15 minutes,
"The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show"
OK, music is 8% (or pieces?! WTF is a pc, besides a progressive conservative?) of a movie. Does this mean that there should be 8% where NOTHING ELSE is happening? No action, adventure, love/sex, or any of the other parts?
Music overlays much of a movie. Plot ties a movie together. How can you have "10% plot?"
Bad drugs, I think, is what inspired this study.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Ask yourself, would the Matrix get made today? Obviously this is now a multi zillion dollar franchise, but originally, think about it, no licence, fecking expensive to make, no guaranteed return, relatively philosophical/thought provoking storyline. I don't think a studio exec would look at it twice today.
Even a couple of years ago, "mainstream" films seemed more challenging and more willing to take risks than today, where the overwhelming majority are just dumb. Take the X-Men as an example, entertaining, but utterly, utterly forgettable, and that's one of the better films around at the moment.
I had a dream, bright and carefree, but now there's doubt and gravity
1. You read and are a registered member of Slashdot, therefore your intelligence is likely at least 40 points above the average population.
Really? Is that so? This is nothing but unfounded arrogance and propaganda. You fancy yourself well ahead of the curve (doesn't really matter whether you've been tested or not, so please don't tell me your score) and as such like to believe that all those who share your interests are well ahead of the curve as well. What makes you think that there is a correlation between being able to read and sign up on a website and intelligence? Not to mention the fact that the so-called Intelligence Quotient only measures logical problem solving and mathematical insight, a very tiny fraction of what could reasonably be considered intelligence. Or, as it has been put glibly many times before: It only measures your ability to do well on IQ tests. At a guess I would say that it is probably likely that the Slashdot crew would average above the norm on IQ tests (maybe 120 or so) seeing as a large proportion are programmers and that is a field where logical problem solving is an important skill. But what we are talking about here is appreciation of the arts. I won't argue that this may be a function of intelligence, but it is certainly not a function of the IQ type of intelligence.
2. This "successful movie formula" is geared for the masses, i.e., people with an IQ of approximately 100 or so.
IQ is statistically defined such that the mean is exactly 100.
I know that this post sounds dangerously like a flame, but the spreading of this IQ propaganda really irks me.
lysergically yours
"Ms Clayton, [...] was commissioned by diet Coke to carry out the research in order to better understand what the British public love about popular movies." That sounds to me like they will approve and sponsor films that follow the formula, hence fulfilling the prophecy of those types of films being the most popular.
The best pr0n has no plot whatsoever.
You forgot the other ingredient that makes movies successful -- hype. I can think of certain movies *cough* Phantom Menace *cough* that did well from this.
For every post, there is an equal and opposite re-post.
Q. Why is a watch called a watch?
/.ed)
A. Because it shows you the time.
OK, it isn't at all funny in English. But it's very funny indeed if you translate it into French. (expect Babelfish to get
The funniest joke was written by a British joke writer. When he read it, he died laughing.
It was translated into German and the British read it to the Gernam soldiers during WW2, turning the tide for the Allies.
Parsecs? 30 parsecs worth of adventure?
I need to get out more. These telescopes are bugging the hell out of me.
nt, you goatse loving tubgirl
Reminds me of my plan to sculpt a movie designed to get exactly zero points on the capalert scale: 15 minutes of wanton violence/crime, followed by 15 minutes of Impudence and Hate, 15 minutes of Sex and Homosexuality, etc...
Al Qaeda has ninjas!
Considering that Titanic is the Box office champion of the world, I wonder how close it matches?
Thats right, a toy story with a character named Buzz and a Character named WOODY.
Thats right, what other childrens film have both a Buzz and a Woody in it, other than toystory 1 of course!
Perfect Film, A+
Or so the article says! Don't hate me because I agree!
Buzz OUT
(I also have a Woody)
If you don't vote, you don't matter, so don't waste your time telling me your opinion
For some bizarre reason, this also reminds me of the "Funniest Joke in the World" (aka Killer Joke) sketch from Monty Python.
... laughing.
(Opening Scene: A suburban house in a boring looking street. Zoom into upstairs window. Serious documentary music. Interior of small room. A bent figure (Michael Palin) huddles over a table, writing. He is surrounded by bits of paper. The camera is situated facing the man as he writes with immense concentration lining his unshaven face.)
Voice Over : This man is Ernest Scribbler... writer of jokes. In a few moments, he will have written the funniest joke in the world... and, as a consequence, he will die
(Ernest stops writing, pauses to look at what he has written... a smile slowly spreads across his face, turning very, very slowly to uncontrolled hysterical laughter... he staggers to his feet and reels across room helpless with mounting mirth and eventually collapses and dies on the floor.)
This wasn't redundant, rather insightful, the only thing I would disagree with is the very movie given as example. Role accuracy vs clout = who in a million years would think Rene Zellwegger could look so sexy and play a part like that so well ... it was more actor talent than clout or accuracy.
;)
I do agree with memorable lines, a movie that you aren't quoting 5 minutes afterward (even if in your head) is a movie quickly forgotten.
As for music, this was the ONLY redeaming quality of the movie Solaris Note to adzoox: james newton howard
and the action aficionados leave after the first third of the film as they realise that romance and plot will dominate...
.... Lord of the Rings' plot is dismal.
A lot of nonsense that unless you are a fan of the books will explain very little about what is going on...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
There are, of course, scientific guidelines behind any art form, such as the Golden Ratio, but this isn't one of them. While I am open to the possibility that there may be some universals in human narrative, I shudder to think that the commodified culture of Hollywood might impose its formulas on us like a mental template. Or is it too late?
Whenever Taylorism is applied to a creative endeavour, we get quanity over quality and the fears of General Ned Ludd and the Army of Redressers as well as Socrates become valid.
Dehumanized art is dead art.
Damn those pesky terrorists
Has anybody seen Adaptation?
The point of the Blair Witch Project was to make you feel physically ill.
No wonder there were so many reports of people vomiting during the movie. It was not sheer horror, it was just physycal discomfort.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
But I want to know why you do think Halle Berry silicone boobs are best than the other actresses' silicone boobs. Then we can partner in making Better Silicone Boobs!!!
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
His keyboard '5' key is probably broken. This conjecture is supported by lack of the digit '5' in all the percentages he listed.
Lisp is the Tengwar of programming languages.
Anyone else think pence, not percent upon seeing 'pc'.
The perfect film is also apparently very cheap to make. Perhaps that's why the independent films are so good.
Actually, I've always been telling my friends that a tried and true formula for a good (at least action flick) is having a highly trianed, heavily armed team of anything with a task. I haven't found a movie yet that followed this formula and I didn't enjoy. Some examples are, Aliens, Navy Seals, Blade II, and the list goes on and on.
You've got a lot to learn before you can beat me. Try again, kiddo! (ha ha ha!)
It seems odd that so many in this thread are opposed to this kind of thinking, since much of programming involves the kind of templating that the Bauhaus architects describe as "measuring the immeasurable".
Some Web designers feel that a 'good' Web page should be constructed with static HTML in order to be able to express the individual mark of the designer. With a dynamically-generated site such as Slashdot, each page is required to have a similar template, but no one complains about that.
every stain tells a story
I know a lot of people who are good at logic problems or churning out code for a living, who wouldn't recognize art if it came and hit them in the face. However, most of them also think reading a lot of stuff (junk) on the net is also not worth it.
I would say something like, "if you are a reader of slashdot, you are more likely to think, or would think that you think", so more inclined towards thoughtful plots than the average population.
S
Ms Clayton, who is a movie director and screenwriting lecturer for the University of London and the British Film Council, was commissioned by diet Coke to carry out the research in order to better understand what the British public love about popular movies. ...from the article. Do you suppose that someone wants to make a Diet Coke-themed movie, or that they want to refine this formula somehow into their next soda? ("Diet Coke, now with more comedy!")
But I want to know why do you think Halle Berry's silicone boobs are better than the other actresses' silicone boobs. Then we can partner in making Better Silicone Boobs!!!
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
What about timing? Movie execs time the release of their movies precisly to maximize ticket sales.
Also how about promotion? A movie could be great but no one will see it if they don't know about it.
Fast Federal Court and I.T.C. updates
They've just described Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Or, a close approximation. Buffy trades some of that action for plot, and adds character development, which is curiously lacking from the mix.
The real problem here is that if you do what the post describes, you end up being unclassifiable, and the critics don't like that, as evidenced by Buffy's lack of serious Emmys.
vi is my shepard, I shall not font.
This really makes me sick to my stomach. I HATE Hollywood. Well off to eMule to get some good documentaries.
Imagine my surprise - I'm reading Marvin Minsky complaining that robots, etc. aren't intelligent enough, then an article providing a formula for movie making. Ironic. And if I'm missing something, no, I didn't RTFAs.
Have to say, I was on the edge with this movie. Everyone kept drooling over the thing, the Slashdot crowd would turn on you for even hinting that it risked just being another sequel. Someone compared it to Empire Strikes Back, and I tried to see it that way... I was trying to keep an open mind despite the obvious signs of empty hype. And then that commercial. Oh, man.
That one thing spoiled the entire mojo of the event-movie-about-to-arrive feeling, just completely shot it to hell, didn't it? What were they thinking? You want to feel excited to see the trailer, you want to be worked up with the expectation of that atmospheric opening to the movie, but instead you've already seen the thing coming in a beer commercial. Deflates it.
The video game made a little sense, with this particular movie, but c'mon -- Heineken??
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
yes... I was talking about the ability to tell the difference between american films and art.
also, I think the original article was actually talking about british films.
lysergically yours
Can you actually imagine Spielberg, Lucas. Bruckheimer, et. al. formulating movies based on the results of a study created by a person who has zero financial interest in movie making, and who was studying British tastes?
Today's Slashdot Effect is going to be the relevancy high point for this study. Not to disparage the Ms. Clayton, or British tastes (I mean, they brought us Monty Python), but academia and reality only sometimes intersect.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Yeah yeah! In my country there is no TP. I need TP for my BUNGHOLE!.
3ll37! Super mutant IQ!! Yeah Yeah !!
Eat at Joe's.
The earlier thing was intended to provoke people to ask why the idea of "ideal" art was so wrong... This one's just an advertiser's formula for avoiding risk.
Sorry, though -- low risk means lower gain, too. Out of Africa doesn't match up with the formula all that well, but in the mid 80s it had a huge marketing impact. That movie set fashions going -- none of the big designers were planning on a sort of "Safari" line at the time, but the movie touched it off. Banana Republic owed a ton of its business to that one movie for maybe five years. And I don't think advertisers could have figured that out using this formula; they'd have had to see the movie and get the idea it was going to look a certain way and appeal to a certain type of person.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Back in the mid-late 90s, a couple of the Hollywood studios put some serious dollars into trying to build a predictive model of film success. Problem is, they couldn't make it work. They could make the model match _prior_ outcomes, but getting it to correctly forecast the success of _future_ films was well-nigh impossible. The project was scrapped, I believe. Given how incredibly valuable a working model like this would be, though, I wouldn't be surprised if the idea keeps making a comeback.
I have to agree - After all, on the story about the chinese mining the moon we had dozens of posts worrying about the moon being overmined and destroying the earth as the moon moved away.
If everyone posting on slashdot is on top of the bell curve, it's time to ring that bell and call for darwin.
And no, I'm not flaming - after all, I'm posting here too.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
Once again this sums up the whole problem with non-scientific research, and I do mean research in to non-scientific areas I mean research that just ignores the tenets of the scientific method.
A statistical analysis of correlation that has _zero_ predicitive value. Don't waste your time thinking about it.
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
I don't think intelligence and plot appeal are really related. I mean you could have a film where not much happens, but the audience learns about and appreciates the characters which might appeal to intelligent people. Also, I think intelligent people watch more 100% porn movies than the general public because they have a harder time getting laid.
Eat at Joe's.
JEEZ People, it was a FREAKIN' Joke!!!
Go ahead, mode it down -5 FLAIMBAIT/TROLL.
Come, mode the damn comment down. It deserves it.
Who comes up with the Stupid stuff?!?!
Who needs WiFi when we can have Packet Over Sheep! http://datacomm.org/PoS-InternetDraft.txt
30% action? I guess that's a reflection of real life, but not my life.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
there was a lot more than 10% sex in that movie man. the whole thing was about sex and the dancers were pretty much like strippers. also speaking of age differences richard gere and the guy that girl was married to are both a lot older than the females in the movie
Ya know, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones all would have sucked without any music...
Eat at Joe's.
I dream of a time when the box office success of a film is concidered separately from the quality of the film itself. In my experience the two are almost always inversely proportional.
-= This is a self-referential sig =-
NEEDS A CHIMP.
There's no way that The Full Monty has the same percentage of action as Die Another Day.
So the study's just lies, damn lies, and (fudged) statistics - I guess she's angling for a job as Microsoft's next astro-turfer :-)
Diet Coke, making your movies... better.
in the very same top secret lab that also prefected the worlds funniest joke, GB's secret weapon in WW2, at least according to Eric Idle and John Cleese :)
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Perfect movie... Hmmm that's like saying that because buffalo wings & beer happens to be my favorite food, that that's all I'll be eating from now on. I don't think so. Just because buffalo wings happens to be my favorite, doesn't mean I will stop eating pizza, bacon, deep fried potatoes, cheeze whiz, and buttery pancakes and tons of yolky eggs fried in the bacon grease, and omelet sandiches on toast with lots of mayo on the toast and cheeze in the omelets. Oh yeah and salt and vinegar potato chips, and cheeze fried to a crisp in a nonstick frying pan - a cheeze crunch yum, and chinese chicken fingers and deep fried shrimp, chocolate cheezecake from the buffet, and egg-foo-yong w/ lots of gravy.. Oooh yeah, and smoked pork shoulder, and burger king whoppers with cheeze and big macs & fries and meatlovers cheeze crust gold pizza with extra bacon and taco bell mmmmmmmm Oh yeah you almost made me stop thinking about tacos!
Eat at Joe's.
Didn't Pluto Nash have all of those things, too? And in about the same proportion (well, except for the plot and comedy and action and music and love and special effects things)?
Any society that can release Puto Nash is not ready for this kind of knowledge...
That is all.
Since the perfect film is completely based on a person's mood and attitude, isn't this more of a study of what most often received a positive mark by people - but isn't that an average or mean?
Of course they only listed some vague details about the study so I also don't yet understand how they eliminated the content for these abstract concepts from the viewers surveyed, but that's a statistical-gathering debate.
Last, and perhaps most important, the article says that they only went through the highest grossing films. That means they didn't compare those parts-per-hundred of the highest grossers to the lowest grossers, right? What if they both share the same statistics?
8-PP
Let me get this straight, they've studied the formula for box-office success, "to assess the potential success of possible film sponsorship deals.", and they haven't even considered marketing?!?
Umm, riiiight.
That's the recipe. Very attractive actress takes it all off, and leaves it off. A scene like that every reel. Do this WITHOYT getting into hardcore sex.
For those interested, Sue Clayton is a British film director, and also Lecturer, Library Co-ordinator at the Royal Holloway College.
From her site it appears that she is very much a film person, more so than an academic economist with an econometric background. It would be intersting to see if the empirical part of the research does in fact stand up to scrutiny.
The Matrix was cool because no one had ever done something like that before. Star Wars (the fourth, er first one) was cool because no one had ever done something like that. And not just science fiction, look at Pulp Fiction and Airplane.
Shannon's Information theorum states that information can be measured on its surprise. We only need to transmit the parts of a signal that we aren't expecting. This is why a black frame compresses down to nothing, while a colorfull photograph is much larger (assuming the same size image.)
The application here is that people are drawn to movies for the novelty. Outside of teenagers (who seem to think everything is new) people aren't going to go to a movie to see the same thing, over and over. I'm dissapointed if a movie is exactly what I expect. On the other hand, a really good movie I will I pay to see twice, just to catch the stuff I missed.
Novelty, is of course, highly subjective, and changes with time. Right now sex isn't all that novel. We have seen it all. Photo-realistic computer graphics are not all that novel, we have seen it all. Ultra-gory war flicks, everyone dies at the end horror flicks, fairy tales, and post-apocalptic hero stories: been there, done that.
Thank you. Have a good day.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
This is not a professor-discovers-formula story. Sue Clayton is a filmmaker and composer who has apparently been teaching at a London university for 6 months. I would hardly call her "an academic." The story would be a lot more interesting if it gave a clue as to how the percentages are assigned. In another article Clayton is quoted as saying she analyzed the films "frame by frame," but that could mean anything. Plot is 10%? Of what exactly? Chalk this up to a filmmaker who finally has a captive audience.
academic n. - A person who avoids life by sitting in a classroom and continuing to stuff useless facts into their head well into adulthood. Typically disconnected with reality, so they make up their own.
-R
...before his work homogenizes and dumbs down our movies even more! One size does not fit all.
The Godfather: Comedy far less than 17%, Special Effects far less than 10%
Shawshank Redemption: Action far less than 30%, Comedy far less than 17%, Love/Sex/Romance far less than 12%, Special Effects far less than 10%
Lord of the Rings: Comedy far less than 17%
Schindler's List: Comedy far less than 17%, Love/Sex/Romance far less than 12%
Casablanca: Action far less than 30%, Special Effects far less than 10%
Citizen Kane: Action far less than 30%, Comedy far less than 17%, Love/Sex/Romance far less than 12%, Special Effects far less than 10%
Gone With The Wind: Action far less than 30%, Comedy far less than 17%, Special Effects far less than 10%
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: Action far less than 30%
E.T.: Action far less than 30%, Love/Sex/Romance far less than 12%
Bambi: Action far less than 30%
Jaws: Love/Sex/Romance far less than 12%
The Sound of Music: Action far less than 30%
The Ten Commandments: Comedy far less than 17%, Love/Sex/Romance far less than 12%
And those are samples from the Top 10 User-Rated films on the IMDB, and the Top 10 Money-Making films of all time (adjusted for inflation.)
I think these guys think that "Star Wars" and "Titanic" are the best movies of all time, and that all others are pathetic immitations.
They didn't leave much room for romantic comedies or period dramas, which traditionally do quite well in the box office and critical review, respectively. By their count, a romantic comedy only has about 47% of the "good" of a movie, and a period drama only has 43%.
In short - these guys are nuts.
Their numbers remind me very much of the diagram at the beginning of Dead Poets Society that rates the importance of a poem. It's CRAP. Rip the pages out, everyone. Go ahead, rip them out.
Education is the silver bullet.
"Her research has revealed that the blueprint for a perfect feature must have: action 30%, comedy 17%, good v evil 13%, love/sex/romance 12%, special effects 10%, plot 10% and music 8%."
What about the actor/actress/director involved in the movie? I always thought their reputations were a big factor in revenue generation.
..we call 'em Masala (spicy)films and produce them by the hundreds each year!
I don't have time to read ALL messages, but I must express my opinion...
... RIAA war.
A similar recipe was found years ago for music, and look at the results. A few styles that all sounds the same (within their styles) moving toward lower sales (you buy a sample of 2-3 CDs any more is just more of the same), unhappy customers looking to sample for free before getting scre** on buying more of the same,
This is the future of movies. No more "My big fat Greek" and no more "Blaire witch". Not that I liked them, I just welcomed the diversity and originality.
All any movie really needs is something to connect to its audience! (Oh, wait...)
And, finally, this "formula" is completely biased. It assumes that every moviemaker is a sellout. Clerks was one of the greatest films ever created... but where was the action? the special effect? the movie ticket sales? Besides, where's the innovation in following a formula? Making up your own (2001: A Space Odyssey) trumps following the leader...
Kevin Smith movies stand to prove something: that there is only one absolute truth; this is absolutely true.
Notice nowhere in this formula is any room for great performances, originality, and bucking of tradition and cliche?
Maybe it's formulas like this that cause me to lock in a $9 frown before watching any Hollywood film. Of course, on the good side, there's no percentage for "automatic star draw" either, which might be something to tell the directors who still think that we want to see Arnold blow stuff up without a good explanation.
My personal percentage:
Plot cohesion 20pc, originality & performance 20 pc, dialog 15 pc, action 15pc, comedy 15pc, special effects / cinematography 10pc and senusality (ok, hot chicks) 5pc.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
their damned % key???
pc != %
67.7234597% of statistics are made up.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
How do they score a scene where a pair of sexy naked people are snowboarding down a mountain while being chased by gun-toting, wisecracking computer-generated aliens, all set to the William Tell overture? When the aliens slide off a cliff and into a conveniently placed wood chipper, is that action, comedy, or good-vs-evil? Is any scene with Robin Williams in it automatically considered "comedy?" Is any scene with Rob Snyder automatically excluded from being classified as comedy?
They can't answer these questions, and they dare call themselves researchers? Bah!
a britton to tell hollywood how to run its business? huh! That'll be the day.
People frequently confuse plot for action. And in today's shootout/car-chase/everything-that-crashes-explode s-in-a-brilliant-gas-fueled-explosion heavy films people think that action is composed mainly of these three events.
Plot is what happens and action is how it happens. The plot of LOTR is pretty simple: Frodo must get rid of an evil ring. But how this happens is done very imaginatively, so the action is done well. Action is not just the sword battles.
Also plot is not background. The plot of LOTR is not about a hobbit named Frodo who lives in a place called the Shire in Middle Earth and whose unlce Bilbo stole a powerful ring from a creature named Gollum, etc. That's background.
The formula for box office success was discovered long ago. Check out "How to Write Screenplays that Sell" by Michael Hague.
But I want to know why you think Halle Berry's silicone boobs are better than the other actresses' silicone boobs. Then we can partner in making a brand of them called Better Silicone Boobs!!!
a long time ago as Ralph Kramden in an episode of The Honeymooners. I don't remember the figures, but he had come up with the percentages for the perefct song, which he then attempted to compose. I think it must have been episode #92:
e s5 .jhtml
http://www.tvland.com/shows/honeymooners/episod
But I want to know why you think Halle Berry's tittilating forward enhancements are better than the other actresses' tittilating forward enhancements. Then we can make the taxpayers pay for us to profit in making a brand of them called Better Bumpers!!!
Bollywood movies had been using that formula for at least last 40 years...
very sad
action 30pc, comedy 17pc, good v evil 13pc, love/sex/romance 12pc, special effects 10pc, plot 10pc and music 8pc
George forgot that 10% plot requirement.
Chip H.
First, movie makers need to check first for the following:
1) Was the movie made in a non-US country so they can get credit for someone elses ideas?
2) Are there any US -*-Fill in the Blank-*- (TV shows, Cartoons, comic books, books) left that haven't been made into a movie?
3) Can ideas be ripped off from other mediums and spun into a new movie as a unique idea?
Only after the above have been satisfied can originality begin in moviemaking.
Dolemite
_____________________
Save the World! Use a Quote!
CGI and Music often go together. Actually music is included in almost all parts of Hollywood movies, just like CGI is included in almost all parts of several recent movies.
There's not a category for special effects (sounds), though, and foley definitely isn't a negligible part of movies.
What method do they use to split up a movie?! = really poor "research".
8-PP
Starting movie score 100%
-35% -> Actors who think they have significant political viewpoints or are intellectuals
-10% -> More than 25% dialog
-10% -> Sequel or Sequel to a Sequel
-5% -> Rated R - too much exploitation filler material as excuse for story/plot/cinemetography
-15% -> girl genre actors/actresses (Julia Roberts, Richard Gere, Meg Ryan,George Clooney, etc).
-15% -> Agenda bent writer/directors (Michal Moore)
-25% -> Rehash of the 1960s
-13% -> From France or Italy
Hemos, do you just sit around waiting for the most annoying and innane "news items" to come in? Between the useless drivel and your left-wing fanaticism I must say you are the most worthless human on the planet (well... on Slashdot at least)
Titanic and Gladiators are perfect examples. They pretty much follow the template (though I don't remember a single joke from either movie) but they aren't exactly intense experiences that push the boundaries of moviemaking.
It might bother me a bit if the next sequel The Matrix Remarketed has Tank sending Neo to a Coke machine as an exit instead of a phone...
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
On the other hand, Repo Man did a nice spoof of this trend by using white-packaged "Generic Whatever" for most of the obvious consumbles in the film.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks