Sometimes the best advice is given by those who failed.
Considering Stephen King only directed one movie, Maximum Overdrive, and it is generally seen as a failure (though not by me), the iconic horror novelist might not seem appropriate for a Filmmaking Tips column. But he can share a lesson learned from that erroneous attempt, as well as advice from his experience dealing with Hollywood for more than 40 years. Also, he has written movie and TV scripts, and some of his best tips for aspiring authors is applicable to any sort of writing or other creative endeavor.
Study the Mediocre
Since part of this column is going to deal in what not to do anyway, here’s one of King’s tips from his book “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” that isn’t typically included in lists posted online summing up points made in that best-selling guide.
“We read to experience the mediocre and the outright rotten; such experience helps us to recognize those things when they begin to creep into our own work, and to steer clear of them. We also read in order to measure ourselves against the good and the great, to get a sense of all that can be done.”
Of a similar nature is King’s advice to the creator of the new Spike series based on The Mist. Here’s Christian Torpe telling Cinema Blend about the email he received from the author of the source material:
“He was just incredibly kind and generous and said as long as I didn’t do anything ordinary, then he was completely on board with allowing me to fire away and do what I wanted. That was such a generous thing and so kind of him.”
A Good Story Will Work for Any Audience
Hollywood likes to aim for all demographics with a lot of movies, and often we think that’s a bad way of creating art. But King recognizes that good storytelling is good storytelling and should always be able to reach a broad audience.
Here’s an anecdote on his experience seeing Carrie for the first time in a preview attached to a blaxploitation movie:
You Don’t Learn Just By Jumping In
Another myth about filmmaking is the idea you can learn by doing. Yes, practice makes perfect, and yes some screenwriters and others have been handed a movie to direct and they’ve had their hand held along the way, but King was not.
Perhaps that’s because he was too famous and therefore intimidating. There’s a quote from him on IMDb regarding his gig directing Maximum Overdrive that has no attribution but sounds about right:
“I didn’t get the job because I went to film school. I got the job because I’m Stephen King. If you become famous enough, they’ll let you hang yourself in Times Square with live TV coverage.”
And here’s a quote from King from the 1986 magazine special “Stephen King at the Movies” as reprinted in the book “Guide to the Cinema of Stephen King“:
“I wish someone would have told me how little I knew and how exhausting it would all be. I never expected to learn so little about the mechanics and method of making movies. People circle around the director as if to say ‘Don’t wake the baby.” No one wants to tell you this, that, or the other thing, if it’s bad news about the film.”
Don’t Overplan
Here’s King going even further on his mistakes with Maximum Overdrive, particularly with regards to overplanning, which isn’t even something he does as a novelist:
What We Learned
Stephen King is a master storyteller and knows the movie industry from a lot of different angles. Some of those angles were from the bottom looking up, as in from a deep place of error. Fortunately, he’s quite honest and vocal about what he’s done right and wrong and has tips to share from both sides. There are tons of resources, mainly taken from his book, on the advice he has from positive experience and a place of genuine talent and success. In this column, we focused on what doesn’t work, much of which is tossed out as general advice from others. A lot it can be summed up as this: stick to what you’re good at or figure out a way to adapt yourself to what you’re not.
The article 6 Filmmaking Tips from Stephen King appeared first on Film School Rejects.
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