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| WHAT WAS IT CALLED AGAIN? One of the most crucial decisions for a feature film, yet frequently the one given the least thought, is what the title should be. A title is much more than just a name. It's going to be the handle that people pick up the movie with. It's the hook, the grabber. It should be poetry blended seamlessly with marketing. It's usually one of the very few concepts that a potential customer is aware of, when they are considering whether to see your movie. I have two interesting theories about titles, and the first one is this: It's usually the title that's the key factor in determining commercial success or failure. Laugh this off as absurd, but you might regret it. Just a few simple words can potentially be the difference between a box office bonanza or a failure that fizzles out and cripples the careers of the filmmakers. But it's deeper than just "good titles = good returns". I will explain my theory in the course of this essay. I put it to you: an average movie with a hot title has eminent marketability (Saturday Night Fever; The Texas Chainsaw Massacre; Independence Day; Gone in Sixty Seconds). And vice-versa: a quietly good movie with an awkward or forgettable title will usually get buried (Bulworth, Hope Floats, Welcome to Sarajevo; The Hi-Lo Country). I put it to you: a strong film can sometimes overcome a weak title (Trainspotting; The Matrix), but heaven help producers and distributors who are saddled not only with an weak film, but a forgettable title to boot. (Remember "Rounders"?) They won't stand a chance. The multiplex crowds will crush them like a herd of stampeding elephants. There's a joke in an episode of The Simpsons, where Homer repeatedly asks a group of people, one by one, if any of them ever saw Tron, and is met by a series of "No's". I put it to you: it's no coincidence that when we study a list of the most popular films of all time, we generally see brilliant, memorable, highly marketable titles. Whilst bad titles actually repel people away, special titles act like magnets, pulling audiences into theaters. Time to get subjective: here's some memorable titles that leap to my mind. (Yes, of course they also happen to be memorable and popular movies. With these magnificent titles, the writers were virtually compelled to deliver something special.) Citizen Kane ...Casablanca ...High Noon ...Rebel Without a Cause ...Psycho ...Easy Rider ...Planet of the Apes ...The Godfather ...The Exorcist ...Star Wars ...Close Encounters of the Third Kind ...The Empire Strikes Back ...Blade Runner ...The Terminator ...Back to the Future ...Dances With Wolves ...Terminator 2: Judgment Day ...Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown ...Saving Private Ryan ... You disagree with my choices? Fine. Quickly write down your own favorite titles (no, not your favorite movies). Don't think about the actual content of the films. In fact, don't think at all. Just write down the titles as they hit you. Done your list? Study it. Are most of them fantasy films? And mostly American? Wondering why? Easy - because they have they most audacious titles. The best American titles sink deeply into your mind - and stay there. The key aspect of the amazing titles I have listed is their specificity. They could only be used for one film - the one they describe. They are accurate and focused titles. (It's also extremely interesting how the "great title sweepstakes" have been hijacked by the fantasy genre. Is it any coincidence that in the list of the most popular films of all time, fantasy is the #1 genre? I don't think so.) But if you're lazy, and call your project something like "Cause and Effect", that's a very poor decision, because you could slap that generic moniker onto just about any movie. It's too vague. Walk through a Blockbuster video store and just look at how many movies are out there with names that are easily interchangeable with other movies. It's no coincidence that many of them went "straight to video". However, if you can come up with a unique title that can only be used once (excluding sequels), only for your film, you've probably got something special that people would be willing to pay for. The easiest way to make it unique? Just use your main character's name as the title. It's been done a thousand times, but it often works. (As long as it's not a stupid name, like Eliza Fraser, Mrs Soffel, Billy Bathgate or Billy Elliot.) Just look at the most popular Australian movies: Mad Max (1 & 2 & 3), Crocodile Dundee (1 & 2 & 3), Phar Lap, The Man From Snowy River (1 & 2), Babe (1 & 2), The Wog Boy, Chopper - they all refer to the main character! Amazing! (It's odd that no film theorists, as far as I know, have picked this curious fact up and analyzed it more closely. No other country has such a sturdy track record of embracing eponymous fare more heartily. But before an Australian producer snap his fingers and go "Ah-hah! Name the film after the main character! Brilliant! Sure fire profits!", he should study a list of the most popular films in Australia overall - and quickly realize that this strategy is not a guaranteed path to riches.) The very best titles are not only specific, they also - - describe the essence of the film; - give an indication of genre; - hint at the basic action of the story. Consider "Saving Private Ryan". Now, suppose I knew nothing whatsoever about this movie. Except the title. And suppose I were to guess as to what it might be about. Well, obviously, it must be a military drama, right? It mentions an army rank. It sounds dramatic - saving someone - from death, I figure. And it must be set in wartime, since if it's about the military, they must be off fighting somewhere. Am I getting warm? Probably one of the major wars? And the basic action of the story? Gee, I guess it's about some soldiers who go about Saving Private Ryan. Did I guess right? And I'm very happy to be proven correct. So that must be a good title, for that reason alone. However, it's an excellent title for several other reasons. It has a pleasant melody. It rolls easily off the tongue. When people ask for a ticket to it at the box office, they're in no danger of lisping, and embarrassing themselves. It's an easy title to remember. Also, and this might seem downright eccentric and arcane ...when Saving Private Ryan is turned into an acronym, it still sounds nice - SPR. It sends a gentle 'ding' through the musical cymbal of the mind. SPR also looks like CPR - cardio- pulmonary resuscitation. Saving a life. Another positive tick. All these points would be subconscious for the typical ticket-buyer, but they add up. (The cynical will point out that it didn't hurt that Spielberg's name was on the poster. Well, his name was also on the poster for 1941, Always, Hook and Amistad, but not many people showed up.) Now it's time to have a look at the bad part of town. The areas you don't want to be caught in. WORDS TO AVOID IN TITLES The following are general guidelines. There are always exceptions. But please think twice about using the following: Cold, Cool, Ice, Snow, Rain, Chill, Mist ... Films with these chilly-sounding words in the title invariably bomb. Who wants to spend two hours in the damp being chilled? Grey, Shadows, Pale, Ash, Dust ... Goes against the desire of the audience to see something vigorous and substantial. Tiny, Small, Little, Micro ... People pay money to see something big on the screen. Big faces, big emotions, big stories. Even if the story is about atom-sized dust mite creatures, they better seem big. Thing, Things ... Too vague. C'mon - what kind of thing? Which things? A number for a title. We've had 187, 1941, 1900, 1492, L.627, 54, Twentyfour-Seven ...and they all tanked. Numbers just don't set an audience's imagination on fire. Nothing, Nil, Negative, Zero, Never, Down, Don't ... Hmm - why do those words conjure up negative connotations in the mind of the potential ticket-buyer? Dead, Fatal, Lethal, Final, Last, Dark, Black, Big, Blood, Love, Man, Men, Boy, Boys ... All these words have been overworked to the point of cliché. Suicide. You might as well burn the negative. Any movie with this on the banner is always found at the bottom of the Variety Global B.O. Chart within days of it's release. This simple fact has been proven over and over again. You might say it's a suicidal decision on the part of the distribution company. POINTS TO KEEP IN MIND • Don't make your title too obvious: imagine if "Jaws" had been called "The Big Scary Shark", or if "The Godfather" came out under the title "The Mafia Family". "On the nose," as the Americans say. • Not all film titles must be meaningful (A Clockwork Orange). But they must be catchy and memorable (Eyes Wide Shut). • Avoid plagiarizing, alluding to or spoofing a previous title. This sends the following message to the audience: "We're a bunch of tired hacks who can't come up with anything original." In recent years we've had "Death In Brunswick" (alluding to Death in Venice) and the television series of short pieces called "Five Easy Pizzas" (evoking Five Easy Pieces). I can fairly ask: why? Most of the audiences who saw these projects wouldn't have seen - or even heard of - the original films the titles were lifted from. It doesn't mean anything to them. The real reason, I fear, is that their creators can smugly pat themselves on the back for their supposed cleverness and awareness of film history. But it's too precious, too "in-house". DISASTERS Now, this really hurts, but let me list a few recent titles that struck me as particularly bad. So bad that they killed the movie. They do not leap to mind. They're here because I noted them down before they vanished from my consciousness. The Well ...200 Cigarettes ...Angel Baby ...Nil By Mouth ...The Abyss ... Nothing to Lose ...Girl, Interrupted ...A Cool Dry Place ...A Life Less Ordinary ... Two If By Sea ...Event Horizon ...The Postman ...Crackers ...Muggers ... Angst ... Is it any wonder they failed? Did you notice that none of these titles tells you anything about the movie? Think of that poor sucker in front of the box office - hard day at work, tired, money in hand, trying to make a quick decision on what to see. None of these titles sell themselves. In fact, that poor sucker isn't even sure of what "Angst" means. Their eye quickly moves on to the next listing. Spend a lot of time trying to come up with a great title before you write your script. This brings me to my second interesting theory. Ignore it at your peril. It is simply this: Poor titles are usually an indication of a deep malaise in the material. If you're about to type FADE IN after a title page like, say, Cold Shadows of the Suicidal Things, you're probably going to write yourself a turkey. Consider "Event Horizon", an enormously expensive failure. What does that title mean? What is the story really about? Did the writers have a clear and simple vision of what they wanted to say? You would suspect not, and if you gamble your time and money to sit through the movie, you find that unfortunately you are right. You discover it's the name of a space-ship. Oh. But so what? That title is meaningless to the average punter. It's fine to name a movie after a ship if it's famous, like Titantic, but otherwise, forget it. It's the old chicken-or-the-egg question. Which came first - the brilliant script, leading to a brilliant title; or was it the brilliant title that led to the brilliant script? I think the latter: if you'd been clever enough to come up with a title as wonderful as Saving Private Ryan, you would have sweated blood making sure it came out superbly. It would have led you on a positive-feedback loop: you'd have been forced to create a film that lived up to that title. Terrific or terrible? The line between them is often a fine one. PREDICTIONS If you've got this far, you might be thinking "Sure, but everyone's a genius with hindsight. It's easy to look back and see that movies with titles like Angst or Muggers have no hope of attracting a large audience." So I'll go out on a limb here to prove my theories. I've looked ahead at what's supposed to open in theatres in the near-future. I'm going to guess the future popularity of a few movies. (This is being written in September, 2000) I know little or nothing about the films in the following list - which places me in the position of the average punter. It is not a comprehensive list - just a small sample of the ocean of content out there. (I was utterly defeated in my search for a stand-out brilliant title.) The following are my predictions, based on titles alone, on whether the average punter will part with their hard-earned cash. I'm not saying the following are particularly bad, or particularly good. I'm just guessing whether the average person would pay to them. NO: quills walk the talk squelch the dish Dr. T and the women ring of fire the old man who read love stories Billy Elliot the legend of Bagger Vance O brother, where art thou? million dollar hotel tigerland the closer you get coming soon sexy beast bones the monkey's tale the monkey's mask antitrust double take house of 1000 corpses knockaround guys save the last dance traffic the forsaken getting over Allison sugar & spice the wedding planner the bridge between two shores state & main town & country the invisible circus shadow magic shadow of the vampire in the winter dark the brothers center of the world 13 days YES: unbreakable get Carter bedazzled what women want meet the parents MODERATE BUSINESS: lucky numbers men of honor bamboozled the ladies man dungeons & dragons ART-HOUSE HIT: woman on top DARK-HORSE POSSIBILITY monkeybone © Joe Winterson 2000 If you would like to see some good titles - with a good script attached to them - give Joe a call! jwinterson@vtown.com.au |
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