When your movie is 80 min total. It might not be the wisest idea to have your protagonist take her FIRST action 60 min in. Just saying. Although I would argue it’s not so much a passive protagonist problem as it is a point of view problem. It’s all over the place.

Also. There is nothing more scary then body snatched kids. NOTHING.

Put your protagonist one step behind. Or several. Everyone always seem to know more about what’s going on then Harry himself. He (or we) always have to play catchup. That mystery propels the story forward and makes for an elegant way to reveal exposition.

Rules.

“First of all, keep him out of the light, he hates bright light, especially sunlight, it’ll kill him. Second, don’t give him any water, not even to drink. But the most important rule, the rule you can never forget, no matter how much he cries, no matter how much he begs, never feed him after midnight.”

The rules GROUNDS the fantastical. The rules set it up for us. So when it happens we not only buy it, we are actually anticipating it.

For other examples of brilliant use. See Back To The Future.

“Don’t worry. As long as you hit that wire with the connecting hook at precisely 88mph the instant the lightning strikes the tower… everything will be fine.”

When doing mystery the viewers imagination is always more powerful then what you can reveal. When you reveal to much, or in this case to confusing/to deus ex machina, the third act falls apart miserably.

Another example? Super 8.

(One of) The greatest thing the series did was starting with an young and untrained Harry and a weak Voldermort. That way we got to have those inevitable showdowns between good and evil again and again all the while upping the stakes for each movie. If that’s not a swell way to fight of sequelitis, then I don’t know what is.

Don’t ever underestimate age/sex/insertrandomelement bending. This age bended Bourne story works really well.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0993842/

Now updated with my latest spot for Kiviks Musteri.

Geek + Movie Director with a visual effects flare
blending live-action with the fantastic to craft extraordinary spots.

I’m available for meetings and pitches.
You know where to find me.

1. The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn
Steven Spielberg helms the classic adventures of Tintin with Peter Jackson overseeing the mo-cap
animation over at WETA. I’m there. I’m SO there.

2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2
Final movie wrapping up this epic franchise spanning over a decade.
Will it go out with a wimper or with a bang? You know what my bet is on.

3. Sucker Punch
Zack Snyder doing his first original film. Will the no limitations bring it to it’s knees
or will the direct tap into Snyder’s universe prove to be this years Scott Pilgrim experience?

4. X-Men: First Class
After a couple of meh sequels (and let’s not even talk about Wolverine)
maybe with Matthew Vaughn helming we can finally get our kick-ass X-Men movie
we all been waiting for. Yeah, I went there. Plus it’s set in the 60s. Plus January Jones.
Plus hopefully no toad + lightning references.

5. Hugo Cabret
Martin Scorsese doing a family friendly movie, in 3D.
With Steampunk. Need I say more? Moving on.

6. Super 8
J.J. Abrams directing and Steven Spielberg producing something described as a homage
of sorts to Spielberg’s 1970’s and 1980’s sci-fi films. Sounds dreadful. Absolutely dreadful.

7. The Green Hornet
So. The trailers look… OK. The story sounds… Alright.
But it’s freaking Michel Gondry. Doing a superhero movie.
Let me repeat that again. Michel Gondry doing a superhero movie.

8. The Source Code
I liked Moon.
I really liked The Source Code script.
But above all I’m VERY interested in seeing the trajectory of Duncan Jones.

9. Catching up on some of the movies and series I can’t believe I missed
or that had yet not been released over here in 2010:

Toy Story 3, Monsters, Black Swan, The Walking Dead, True Grit, MicMacs
and Never Let Me Go… and many, many more.

10. Extraordinaries!
Currently busy penning and develop my debut feature film that’s easiest described as Goonies meets Kick-Ass. But kicking of the year with the production of a teaser trailer you won’t have to take my word for it. You can soon see it for yourself.

So that was 10 things I look forward to in movies in 2011 and that didn’t even got me started on:
Hanna, Rango, Captain America, Kung Fu Panda 2, Thor, Apollo 18, Cars 2,
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Cowboys and Aliens, I Am Number Four,
Paul, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, Sherlock Holmes 2, Mars Needs Moms!,
Battle: Los Angeles, Green Lantern, Tree Of Life, Warhorse, Transformers: Dark of the Moon…

Looks like 2011 is going to be one wild and precious adventure.

What are you looking forward to?

2. For a place usually reserved for Tarantino movies Kick-Ass gave me the most fun I’ve had in the cinemas this year.

3. The Walking Dead. Though I have yet to see any of it, I LOVE the fact that this hugely popular show means that we will be seeing A LOT more quality genre stories on TV in the future.

4. Dreamworks Animation. The company that brought you Shrek and Madagascar and COUNTLESS sequels has, what started with Kung Fu Panda and really sold it with this years How To Train A Dragon, really come into their own with fantastic storytelling.

5. With Rare Exports and Troll Hunter we have hopefully seen the beginning of a fantastic genre movie trend from us Scandinavians.

6. Best trailer has to go to Sucker Punch for giving us a visual extravaganza that I fear works far better in it’s trailer form then the actual movie.

Runner ups in the category “Trailers that deceived us all” is Skyline and The Last Airbender.

7. The upswing of both offical and un-official illustrated movie posters that are truly more art then poster.

See for yourself…

8. Christopher Nolan using the success of The Dark Knight to go of with a carte blanche in his hands and came back with Inception. Thank you.

9. Audiences starting to call bullshit on post converted 3D movies such as Clash Of The Titans forcing filmmakers and studios to treat it with the respect it needs rather then a quick extra trick you add at the end of the line to charge a couple of bucks more.

10. And favorite scene of 2010 goes to:

What did you love about movies in 2010?