Film Courage: What does a good opening of a movie have to have? Chris Gore, Founder/Owner
of FilmThreat/Author/Filmmaker: It's just really simple I want to know what's going to happen next
and I can't tell you how many times I've seen the first five or 10 minutes of a movie
and I don't want to watch the rest of it. For a couple years I was a programmer at the Sonoma
Valley film festival and was a program director and I watched films and you can tell within the
first few minutes, you want to know what's going to happen next. You have to be engaged,
you have to be drawn in, it's got to be something emotional. You have to connect
and you just really have to know what's going to happen next. You can have like a great opening
and and that can actually if you don't have that great opening it's not gonna propel the rest of
the film because the middle of the movie can get muddled. I think middles of films are tough but
if you blow the opening I mean there's no point in watching the rest. I can't tell you how many
first 10 minutes of movies I've watched. So you have to grab the viewer in the first 10 minutes
and it really comes to do I want to continue on the story with this character? Film Courage:
Can you think of one that's like the perfect opening, that stands out as a model,
that you would never feel you could live up against? Chris: See my taste is so weird.
I'm a terrible person to ask that question of 'what's a great opening,' but I'll say that
probably one of my favorite independent films of all time is Richard Linklater's Slacker.
It's a totally non-traditional narrative. It follows different people's stories sort of
set in a day in Austin Texas. It's very much the flavor of that town at that time and I love that
movie. I don't know what it is? I think it's some of the stories are more engaging than others, but
I want to live in that world. So that's a terrible example because it's not a traditional
narrative structure. It's a series of pieces of stories leading you through slice of life,
truly slice of life. Film Courage: What are three mistakes that most filmmakers or screenwriters
make in the first act of a film? Chris: I would say that the biggest mistake that I see
that a filmmaker will make in the first act is sort of lack of world building. To me I
would say that this probably applies more to genre pictures. World building is incredibly important
to set up those rules, set up expectations and defy those expectations and if you have
not established that, nothing in the rest of the film is going to work. So in that first act world
building is incredibly important. Film Courage: What are you looking for in a story? Chris: What I
always look for in a story is take me on a journey and make me feel something. I want to feel moved.
I don't have to agree with everything in the film but I want to be taken on a journey where
I'll feel different out the other side. I think the films that have always impressed me the most
are the ones that have just made me look at life differently. There's a short list of films that
fit that category. I would say that Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing is one for me that I remember.
When I saw that film when I was a kid it blew my mind. A chain might change my perspective
of the world it has an incredible opening scene with that music blaring is like it's that title
sequence is so incredible. But there's a sweetness to that world and it's such an original vision.
I don't know, I remember seeing that film and just feeling different afterwards and
that applies to other more mainstream movies like a Star Wars or a Lord of the Rings. But
make me feel something, move me in some way and surprise me. Make me want to go
on this journey and then if we're luckyI have a changed perspective. Film Courage: What is the
purpose of story? Chris: Wow, that is such a...these are big questions you're asking.
I really believe that the purpose of stories is for us to experience things we may never
experience in our lifetime as a way for us to heal based on our own personal experience. So
experiencing a story that may have to do with the death of a loved one may help myself deal with the
loss of a loved one in my own life. I feel like there's almost films when I talk to friends and
they'll say they're going through some you know trouble whether it be work related or
love life or whatnot or something tragic that's happened I often prescribe a movie
because through the experience of a character in a film we can help heal a part of ourselves
and that's what I think story is about to impart those lessons in a way that's safe. You know
I've never been to war, I've never experienced what it's like to be in war. I've had relatives,
my grandfather fought in World War II. He was in the Navy. I had an uncle who was in Vietnam
and having never gone through that experience I won't know what that's like
but having experienced films like Saving Private Ryan, Dunkirk, some of the great war films
Platoon among others. Oliver Stone's Platoon, those visceral war films really put you in that
seat. Full Metal Jacket by Stanley Kubrick like so that comes to mind. I'm grateful that I've never
had that kind of experience but I do think that really the purpose is to teach us things
and to hopefully teach us something about ourselves and a really good movie it's just a very
personal experience. That's why I think people get offended by bad reviews and by that I mean
as someone who has spent a good chunk of my career as a critic what's weird is the reaction of people
when they look at your reviews for example no one gets angry at someone who gives a
bad review to a car in consumer reports or a bad review of a food from a restaurant right
but when it comes to something like film if you give a bad review it's like a personal attack but
i i believe i like when someone has a completely different opinion from my own i feel it's an
opportunity for me to learn something about that person i don't i i wouldn't say to someone
who disagrees with me about an opinion that i have about a film that they're wrong
i want to hear what their justifications are for how they came to that conclusion but i do
find it humorous sometimes that people will be angry for having a strong opinion about a movie
um i think that that's a personal choice and um i i so i find that very strange
do you think that you're able to withstand um punches more maybe some people are sensitive
yeah i do think that me not giving a is really helpful in the sense that it's like it's like a
shield that protects me from just not caring what other people think i think that that's i think
the longer you think what other people think that can be that could be creatively crippling and so
i try to avoid that at all costs try to avoid like giving a [ __ ] what people think i mean
you know it's it's um a worthless exercise i like that writing a prescription for cinema
yeah i mean look i've had friends that are just like oh you're going through this oh you should
watch that movie with george clooney up in the air you just lost your job that one was good jerry
maguire is probably good too you know what i mean like life is a house yeah just yeah stuff like
like it's just like um yeah i mean you know here's a prescription for you're going through this thing
having a problem like an ann landers column which i don't even know if that exists anymore
like an advice column but you're prescribing movies instead of advice
um but yeah i know there's certain movies like i watch over and over again
that i think kind of helped me i mean i know for a fact like it is there is there is such a
thing as movie therapy um and that's why i think that people you know that's why i think that this
this medium's not going away it's certainly going to evolve in terms of the way we see it um but uh
take two steel magnolias call me in the morning yeah exactly yeah exactly
Questions For The Viewers: When was the last time
you saw a a great movie?