#for you must remember (if nothing else) the first and most crucial rule of comedy: humor stretches only as far as propriety allows.

[zhongli-lover-69]

no pressure tags! @rabbitmotifs @corvids-corner @seafoamwolf @theautistichalflinghole

Not me having some kinda type... Who shall I tag? I think I wanna tagggggg... @mybugsmybugsmybugs @mexicangela @lunar-years @biscuitboxpink but no pressure!! I just thought it would be fun!

[phoenixofultimatechaos]

Peeves about fanfictions

If you don't like rants, ignore this post. And yes swear-words are included. I am focusing mostly on  Fairy tail FF, but any of this peeves applies to any other FF out there.

Also warning for spelling and grammar.

We all know fanfictions are more or less... “write it freely thing”,no rules or “you must do this and that”. I get it. But for fucks sake, it dosent mean you can blame everything on the write-as-you-want thing. Hell no. Professional or amateur writer docent matter, nobody will read your fanfiction or

Here are some of the biggest peeves about fanfictions:

1)  Despite this fanfic taking existing characters, the characters used could be someone else.

If you use an existing character, get their personality right. If the characters you use act different and talk different than the ones from the anime or movie you chosen to write your fanfiction about, you can as well change their names to something else. Even if we interpret things different,and why they act certain way does not mean a character can do a 180 degrees turn in their personality.

Sometimes the character from anime/movie acts as the real one would do, and then change into a...well.. a really bad OC.

2)   Author says the fanfiction is based in the already existing world of manga/movie, but none of the existing rules we already know exist in the story, the characters are way off (or only one or 2,while the others act as they normally would), the plot of their fanfictions is disconnected from the world and breaks most of that worlds rules.

No. The “Im just creative” - excuse does NOT excuse your ignorance to details,existing most important rules and simply not wanting to keep yourself within those said rules. If you want to bend rules, learn what they are first. When you know them, you will know:

* how to break them in right way

* what consequences and impact it will have on the story line and the characters

* what those consequences will lead to, and with options will be off-limits due to the rules being broken,and what new possible opportunities have opened up and why.

Remember. IF a rule that exists in the world your characters live in is broken, consequences is a MUST. If you re-invent a rule/rules in that world, you have re-made the world itself with is fine, but do NOT pretend that those characters are still in the same world they are in the anime. Be CLEAR about what is different and what isn't.

3) Pacing goes from 0 to 100 within one paragraph.

Chill.The hell. Out. there is so many details and information missing that NOTHING makes sense here. take time to explain how,when,why and where.

Take us slowly from beginning to the middle and to the end.

4) writers OC is the so called Mary Sue.

I don't believe in Mary Sues,only in bad writing.But holy shit, I know what people mean with Mary Sue. Fairy Tail fandom (and a lot of others too) are FULL of those. When your FT character can:

*open gate to Celestial world (or any other world) at any time without consequences, enter that said world without problem, and is a celestial dragon slayer,and then is an amaaaazing healer, and lets not forget that character sounds like a Lucy Heartfilia,Natsu Dragneel and Wendy mix, then you know you have created a character based on traits you admire in main characters, so you take those out,and put them into one character to show how a “good character looks like”. No offence,but if this character can do all this things, whats the point of having any other character in your fanfic? This one can already do everything, knows everything, uses magic left and right, have no issue travelling to other worlds and is well known powerhouse then sorry princess,your oc have serious issues.

*the OC is. EVERYWHERE. At all times. Sees every single crucial to plot thing, sees all problems that  arise, know why and how, and know automatically how to solve them.

*the OC knows other characters from the very beginning even if they haven't met them. If the other character is well -known (like Natsu aka salamander), then they can react surprised or shocked or happy or whatever you want when they hear his name as in “Oh so HE is from FT and he is the famous Salamander”. They should NOT know who is who after 5min with one of the other characters we already know.

The reader is probably a fan,so no need to go into super-deep detail about an existing character people have been followed in the series your ff is based on. the details about your own OC(s) you kick into their world is the interesting part. The new rules that you have added (maybe linked to previous events fans had seen? ) and why they exist is the interesting part, and how the characters deal with that. Does it affect them? Does it destroy their life? Does it interfere with their job or life, making it harder/easier?

New stuff need explanation, the stuff we seen can be named to and described to help us see what is happening where.

3) Flirty characters end up being written as stalkers, perverts, rapists, or someone who dosent respect the opposite genders “no”, intrudes into their personal space and is in  constant “I wanna do them”-mood.

Dude. I know. Interpretation thing again yea yea. There are still lines between “a little OOC” and “so OOC the character became someone else”. 

Yes I look at you who write about Loke damn it. Or Ezio. Or any other existing flirty character. Stop it. Take your time to get FAMILIAR with the character.

If you intend to overdo a character for comedy's sake,you will need to make everyone else behave off as well. If ALL other characters behave exactly as you would expect them to expect in anime/game/movie and only the character you make as the main one for your FF behaves WAY off, it makes your fanfic unbelievable not to mention a pain to read. And IF there is a reason why the flirty one acts off and not the rest of them, you need to have a reason for that.

4) writers dislike of certain character makes them change that character into a total dick who gains everything for free, and any relationship that hated character had is eliminated or changed so much it makes that character into someone else.

Poor Lisanna Strauss.

when she came back, people hated her. For no fucking reason. And most fanfics that involves her (In the Fairy Tail FF-world) go like this:

*Lisanna is a bitch

*Natsu-team is a bitch to Lucy

*Lucy cries and runs away, and either becomes evil, or ends up screwing around with someone 24/7 and now hates FT because Lisanna is back.

What.The actual FUCK.

Okay.If you want to write about Lisanna being mean, you need to start with an idea WHY. Basing it on “she was with Natsu first” does not hold for more than 1 second. They were not a pair when she poofed from FT. They were not MARRIED.

Biggest insult becomes the “Lucy you are weak go to hell”-attitude ENTIRE guild ends up having. You broke the biggest damn plot-related rule.

““NAKAMA SUPPORTS TOGETHER. NAKAMA IS FAMILY,AND NAKAMA HELP EACH OTHER OUT IN THE TIME OF NEED.“

Second thing you need is slower progression to WHY she is a dick. Why is she going against her nakama? Why are her old friends siding with her?

And no. No. Lucy being weak is your damn opinion. While you can write as if Lisanna thinks that, the OTHER characters change in one second flat. if they start thinking like Lisanna, you need. A freaking reason. WHY. And keep them in character as much as possible.

Can you really imagine Makarov say “yea they are right you suck” to one of FT members? If he decides to side with Lisanna, you need to keep his way of talking intact. Act as an actual old, wise and calm adult, not like some teenager who sides with his bully-buddys.

5) Characters that are not known for being power-houses in series become described as weak-ones. And everyone else thinks so too! No valid explanation, just pure hate from start to end.

Not being a official powerhouse in the movie/manga sucks. If they are not official they always end up being hated in FF. Once again, writers personal opinion takes over and creates this weird “let us kick down this character” instead of neutrally look at the weakness and strengths of that character.

6) “I found a girlfriend for The King so now I can live in human world forever and loose nothing” (Fairy Tail Fandom strikes again).

LucyxLoke shippers. Oh dear gosh,so many idiotic reasons they can find to make Loke stay in human world forever is... countless. few of those reasons are good.

yes Im sure he would abandon his comrades in Celestial World just because of that. Mhm. You are not convincing me with that. Or anyone else for that matter.

7) Blaming every plot hole, bad details, badly laid out information, bad character development, bad personalities mm on “I am amateur author”.

And this is why your writing never gets better.

-------

and with this,I end my peeve rant thingy for now XD this was just the biggest peeves about fanfiction in general. there are more. A LOT more.

[themastercylinder]

(Left) Tobe Hooper (Right) Richard Kobritz

RICHARD KOBRITZ-Producer

Richard Kobritz is a creative producer in the Thalbergian sense. He is, in other words, a benign monarch. He believes in hiring the most talented cast and crew available to him, establishing the ground rules before shooting begins, then setting them loose to do their best work. As vice-president for production at Warner Bros Television, Kobritz monitors all of the studio’s TV output, a task which only allows him time to personally produce one film a year.

Strong willed producers are, of course, nothing new in television, where individual expression is stifled and a director’s personality is no more evident in a weekly series than in the commercials that interrupt it. But Kobritz, apparently, is different than most producers. His need for control is less a matter of ego than a desire to create a quality production. Kobritz trusts his intuition and wants to surround himself with collaborators who agree with his basic concept, yet will not hesitate to offer suggestions or changes. The measure of his formula’s success is that Tobe Hooper, still reeling from disastrous producer interference on two features and a fruitless 18 months at Universal Pictures, emerged from SALEM’S LOT with nothing but praise for Kobritz.

Kobritz entered the film industry in 1964 at age 23. He worked as an assistant director on several Doris Day comedies, then served as production manager on three films directed by Gene Kelly: A GUIDE FOR THE MARRIED MAN, HELLO DOLLY and THE CHEYENNE SOCIAL CLUB. He toiled briefly as a producer in the exploitation field for a few small companies, notably Fanfare, a now-defunct outfit. “Everything you’d do for a company like Fanfare was horror in some way, shape or form,” says Kobritz, who remembers the unreleased HOT SUMMER WEEK as representative of the firm’s exploitation horror product. Kobritz later worked as an associate producer for director Martin Ritt on “a couple of features,” including CONRACK (1974), starring Jon Voight. He has also been under contract to Twentieth Century-Fox, for whom he produced a number of television pilots.

You produced John Carpenter’s SOMEONE IS WATCHING ME.

Right, which was called HIGH RISE when we shot it. The network changed it. It didn’t look like an NBC made for-television movie. It had a much more distinctive style. A lot of NBC’s TV movies all tend to look like THE ROCKFORD FILES.

That’s obviously intentional on our part, and I think you’ll find the same thing is true of SALEM’S LOT. I only personally do one of these a year, because I’m also in charge of production here, which doesn’t permit me to do more. I guess I’ve got a few rules. Number one is I try to find a director who has never directed television, and who has probably never directed a union film, but who has directed a nonunion feature in Carpenter’s case DARK STAR and ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, and in Tobe Hooper’s case THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. It’s kind of a strange process I go through. It’s hard to find something you really want to do if you don’t have to do one, so you tend to be choosy within your own parameters. I generally gravitate toward the same kind of material, you know, horror, terror, something like that in a kind of Hitchcockian mold. To put it that way sounds very egotistical, but I don’t mean it like that. I’m just trying to get us into clear categories. Anyway, once I find that material we progress to the screenplay and in the meantime I try to see every movie I can, try to come up with somebody who is young and who is inexperienced with all of the problems of working a heavily unionized major studio operation.

Why is that?

Because I’m looking for somebody who is visual, who isn’t wasting his time worrying about the politics of what the unions are doing, that’s my job. More than anything else I want a director who is visual, who knows how to tell it in terms of camera, not in terms of dialogue, or not in terms of conventional camera coverage. There are two rules I always stress, and in both John and Tobe’s case, they not only embraced what I said, but that’s the way they would have done it anyway. I don’t want a zoom lens on that camera and I want to keep that camera moving. That’s, unfortunately, become the way of television. So what I try to do is a small feature within a short shooting schedule which is difficult, but that’s television.

What changes did you have to make in the novel in scripting SALEM’S LOT for television?

We went with the concept of a really unattractive, horrible looking Barlow. We went back to the old German NOSFERATU concept where he is the essence of evil, and not anything romantic or smarmy, or, you know, the rouge cheeked, widow peaked Dracula. I wanted nothing suave or sexual, because I just didn’t think it’d work, we’ve seen too much of it. The other thing we did with the character which I think is an improvement is that Barlow does not speak. When he’s killed at the end, he obviously emits sounds, but it’s not even a full line of dialogue, in contrast to the book and the first draft of the screenplay. I just thought it would be suicidal on our part to have a vampire that talks. What kind of voice do you put behind a vampire? You can’t do Bela Lugosi, or you’re going to get a laugh. You can’t do Regan in THE EXORCIST, or you’re going to get something that’s unintelligible, and besides, you’ve been there before. That’s why I think the James Mason role of Straker became all the more important. And he is, I must say, perfect. That sounds like puffery, but he was well worth it. We wondered if he would be available, if he would be attracted to the material and he was available, and he loved the material. It’s just an incredibly good piece of casting. We were fortunate. It’s a very good part, but he gives it so much himself he’s such a classy actor.

What was Stirling Silliphant’s involvement? He’s listed as executive producer. Did he also do a script at any time?

He wrote a script for the theatrical version, which was never used—and of course, it was not used for this one. In fact, he has nothing to do with this picture. There is an agreement with the studio because of his prior involvement with the project. He made some encouraging phone calls, and I think showed up a couple of times to say hello to people, but he has nothing to do with the production. I understand there’s a Writers’ Guild arbitration underway challenging Monash’s solo credit on the script. We should know the outcome of that soon. No other scripts were ever considered. Monash was never even offered the other material. Obviously, the source is the same everybody read the book, everybody wrote his own screenplay. This is the one we went with. I would hope Paul would get sole credit. Of the three other what we’d call “contributing writers,” Stirling Silliphant has not protested, Bob Getchell has not protested, it’s just this Larry Cohen who had a really lousy screenplay. That was back before we were ever involved with it, back when the feature department had this very hot book, went through three screenplays and could do nothing with it.

What other changes were made from book to screenplay?

The changes we brought from Paul’s original draft, which was very much like the book to what we ended up with from him make for a very classy movie. The major changes included Barlow, and that the Marsten House must never be clean and immaculate inside like Straker is. The house was very crucial, it must look like a veritable cesspool. I even put the line in the script myself that it must look like a shithole, only being that graphic just to get the point across. I wanted the audience to say, how could this man of Edwardian dignity live in such a place? And yet he does. And the third point was not to have Barlow in Eva Miller’s cellar as he was in the book at the end. it just doesn’t work I mean, from a point of sheer construction in a well written screenplay, he’s got to reside inside the Marsten House. He’s a major star in the picture the third or fourth most important character he’s got to be there. It may have worked in the book, but not in the movie. That house is the essence of evil God knows, Ben Mears talks about it till he’s blue in the face so to me that was very important. And one last thing I pushed the death of the last vampire to the end of the film. There were three violent deaths right in a row Straker, Barlow and her and all of a sudden, the killing and the device of killing became a really nothing, you know? So I changed that.

In what way does the inside of the house resemble a cesspool?

It is a house of horrors. I don’t mean with ghosts and that, I mean the dirtiest, filthiest house you’ve ever seen, as opposed to being pristine, which it is in the book. I like that dichotomy of Straker being immaculately dressed all the time, without a piece of lint on his lapel, and yet you walk into this mansion with him, the interior we created on a stage and you know the plumbing doesn’t work, the walls fairly seep with moisture, and you say to yourself they must defecate on the floors and in the corners because you know there are no bathrooms in here. And that all adds to it. I just couldn’t believe the beautiful Victorian Gothic mansion in the book it was like the last scene in 2001, and I felt that would play against the horror. It worked well in the book, it wouldn’t work for us. I believe that to be a distinct improvement, I really do.

One of the gossip magazines said David Soul was drinking on the set.

No, I didn’t notice any of that. It’s a very difficult script in that there is very little dialogue and the story is very intense. The pressure was hard on him. I even told him one day, “Let the neuroses play it’s working for the character.” He was not doing a normal script, with a lot of dialogue and everything explained. He was doing a very serious genre piece, dealing a lot in effects. I don’t mean special effects only, but where scenes tied into other scenes because we’re going for a special optical and stuff like that. In the same way that Cary Grant could question, in NORTH BY NORTHWEST, “Why does my character react this way? I would never be walking into a wheat field in my suit” and finding five very logical reasons why not to do it. But that unfortunately is the way it has to be done. That’s the whole thing with that THIRTY-NINE STEPS, SABOTEUR, NORTH BY NORTHWEST, MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH genre of Hitchcock. By the same token, we were going for a genre piece here that was not always explainable in normal script language and normal dialogue, and I’m sure that would be very frustrating to an actor who takes his work seriously.

Did you realize how much Lance Kerwin and Soul would look alike?

Yeah, but they really don’t. They’re both blonde, but, David is incredibly so he’s this blonde, beautiful, California young man. Lance is also light haired, but there’s this astonishing kind of forlorn, haunted expression to him. And he’s a remarkable young actor, without a doubt the most talented young actor I’ve ever worked with. He is good, that boy, because there’s an innate sadness not as a person, but as an actor. He’s able to portray a depth and a profundity you just don’t find in kids that young. You mentioned effects a moment ago.

Were there a lot of opticals, or mostly physical effects?

Almost all physical effects, very few opticals. It’s not a picture where we’re going to spend weeks with miniatures or in post production ironing out the details in the opticals.

There’s a superimposition of Barlow’s face on the moan in the last page of the script.

Yeah, I wrote that. We’re testing it and we’ll see if it works out. I put that in myself as a blue page, only because I kept thinking of it and finally I decided, why not? Lees have a final little laugh at the end. For the rest of the picture there’s no laughs at all, and this is kind of cynical and a little ironic.

Another effect is the disintegration of Barlow, will we see that? On TV, usually you see it but it’s so abbreviated.

I know. I hope you see it. We shot it. That’s obviously out of my hands, but the network approved the script and it’s in there. There’s a still of Ed Flanders impaled to a wall of antlers. I can’t imagine how we’ll see. You will not see that. You’ll see what’s in the script we fly up to the wall with him and the moment of impact is in his face. The long shot would be strictly for European theatrical, like the stakings.

How did you show the town burning at the end?

We never show it for two reasons, (a) we didn’t have the money to show it properly and (b) it’s too time-consuming to show that. I really want to wrap the picture by that time. I think the audience has caught up with us as far as what vampires are, the killing of vampires, the appearance of vampires in a sense we must now go to the ending in Guatemala as quickly as possible.

Another change was the use of hawthorne instead of garlic.

Yeah, you know why? I was tired of garlic. And I was tired of every cheap joke, is it gonna be an Italian vampire, all that kind of stuff. So I said, lets go with something a little different, and our research people came up with hawthorne. I’m just tired of all the NIGHT GALLERY business where you hold up garlic and he says, “I’m not Italian,” or a crucifix and he says, “But I’m Jewish” I just didn’t want to get near a line like that, to wind up with an unintentional laugh at a moment when I definitely don’t want it.

You obviously did more than just “produce.” Were you on the set?

Constantly.

And that didn’t bother Hooper?

Not at all. I don’t want to put words in his mouth here, but I think it added security. It was a very good collaboration. Things were discussed when we shot, before we shot. It was a very close relationship. I’m sure that doesn’t happen much.

And you shot on location

Yes, during July we shot two weeks in Ferndale, just outside of Eureka, sort of a New England Victoriana village, about 100 miles south of the northern California border. Then we came back here and shot an additional six.

The location brings to mind HARVEST HOME, the NBC miniseries based on Thomas Tryon’s book That was like four hours of boredom with a half-hearted climax.  Did you see it?

I did, and that was my feeling, too, unfortunately. Again, I think we have better material going in. Number one, the screenplay is better. They just had Bette Davis and were hanging their hat on one performance. What we’ve tried to do in everything from our vampires to our head vampire was to be different. We’re using a remarkable contact lens which is like half a ping gong ball, fits over the whole eye, and can only be worn for 15 minutes at a time before it has to be removed to let the eye rest for 3O minutes. They’re not just bloodshot eyes. I wanted an effect like the eyes in VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED and its sequel CHILDREN OF THE DAMNED I wanted them to be sick and decayed and, I hate to use the word but pus-filled. We also added one element which had not been done before, we put a reflective material in the contact, and when we turn our lights on it, they glow back  at us. That way we didn’t have to do burn ins, we didn’t have to do opticals, all of which you never have the amount of time to do thoroughly. I looked at VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED three weeks ago when it played here, and I realized how seldom their eyes really glow in the picture. For us, when there’s a vampire, his eyes are shining, and that is important. Another thing was that we didn’t fly our vampires in on wires, because even in the best of films you can see them.

In THE EXORCIST you can..

Yes, exactly. We wanted a method whereby we could actually fly a person in through a window. So we took a normal crane, like a Titan crane, and we put a long pole at the end of it, and we put the actor in a body harness at the end of that, so we were able to shove him into a room, and at the same time control his body movements. He could fly in, he could straighten up, he could tilt to one side, as long as the pole was not visible in the shot. We wanted to get a feeling of floating. And the effect is horrific, because you know there’s no wires, we’re shooting the whole window including the sill and wall above it. It was also something we were very nervous about, because you haven’t got the time, in a television show, to make a special effects mistake it had better work. We also did something else we shot the whole thing in reverse, and are projecting it forward, in the levitation and floatation scenes, because we want the smoke to be behind the vampires. That way we have more control over it. I think it turned out better than we had even hoped for it has a very spooky, eerie quality to it. And the key, again, is getting a visual director, because if you read the script, you’ll see there’s not much dialogue. That’s not to say there aren’t those expository scenes, those getting acquainted scenes but for a four-hour movie of the week, it is what you’d call “light on dialogue.” And that’s all the more reason why it has got to be visually strong.

Are you shooting a hard and a soft version to accommodate the foreign theatrical release?

Not in terms of nudity or anything like that, but in terms of intensity.

You mean, in the TV version, a stake will be driven through a vampire’s heart and go out of camera range, while in the European theatrical, the audience will see the blood and —

Exactly. We’re protecting ourselves. It’s a different market out there, one where you have to pay, not where you see it for free. But in a horror picture done primarily for television, you’ve got to deal in scares instead of blood, which is what we’re trying to do. What we want is to have the bogeyman jump out of the closet at the audience every few minutes. If it works, were successful. If we’re not successful we’re not successful. And that’s the hard part—trying to find someone who can pull that off. I’ve been lucky. In Carpenter’s case, he’s a guy we’ll come to recognize, not just because of the success of HALLOWEEN, but in the next few years through universal recognition, as a major talent. And the same is true of Tobe. Because I happened to like THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, which I think is brilliant. I saw it a few times and I know they did it for $100,000 in 20 days with a student crew, and all those things that don’t help to make a picture good and still there was an incredible visual quality. What was hinted at and never seen really intrigued me.

There isn’t that much outright blood and gore in TEXAS CHAINSAW. You just think you see it

Exactly. There are some beautiful touches. My God, I saw the way the camera was moving, the way the exterior of the house was established, things you don’t normally see in big features, let alone television.

Dollying in under the swing after the girl as she enters the house..

Right—that scene in particular. I couldn’t believe how well that film had been made, especially under those conditions. But once I saw it, I had my director.

How did you find Hooper? After losing his Universal contract, and the fiasco with THE DARK he just disappeared.

I didn’t know anything about a Universal contract or any of that. I heard about that later. For me, I find the best way to operate is to find the project first and then the director. I just ran a lot of films, some of them by people who were very well hyped. Some were okay, some were really terrible, and there were just none that compared to TEXAS CHAINSAW. I hadn’t seen it before, when it came out. It was just a title I knew of— it’s obviously a very memorable title. I knew it had made some money. I had heard Billy Friedkin had liked it and had recommended Hooper, that he’d worked on a few subsequent projects, some of which were aborted —one, EATEN ALIVE, was made. That I never did see. But once I saw TEXAS CHAINSAW, my mind was made up. I didn’t even know whether Tobe lived here. We found he had an agent, and we called him up. Obviously I had to have a meeting with Tobe, to tell him how I worked, which was probably totally different than anything he’d been exposed to even at a major studio, even at Universal. I said I work very closely. It’s essentially my decision what the final script is. Not to say your voice won’t be heard, but—

But you’re the boss.

Right, and this is what I want to make. Last year I did this kind of picture, this year I’m doing this kind of picture. They’re in the same genre, but it’s a dissimilar subject matter. I like a very fluid camera, I want incredible visual style on the picture and I also want to make sure it is cast impeccably well. We naturally have to deal with some television names to satisfy the network, but I really want to make sure it’s a classy act we’re putting together.

That’s an unusual list. I would never expect a TV producer to say he wants a fluid camera, he doesn’t want zoom lenses. Was Hooper impressed?

I don’t know. Well, yeah I think anybody who hears that is very surprised. I know I can keep a pace going and there’s certain things I can change or modify as we go along. But I care that the thing ends up looking like a feature, that it just is not something that looks like every other television movie with a modern jazz score behind it. Then again, it’s a subject matter that I’ve always liked and want to see dramatized well. I’m not into that, I don’t collect stills or anything, I just feel I want to make an interesting horror movie one with class, with believability. After I met Tobe, I decided he was the man to direct SALEM’S LOT. So I went to the network, they said okay I don’t mean they were overly enthusiastic. They didn’t even know who a Tobe Hooper was and I just said, “Don’t worry.”

Was any other director ever considered?

No. There were a lot of directors that wanted to be considered, but weren’t. The book was originally purchased by our feature department, which then had several screenplays done on it and this is going back a few years ago and not one of the screenplays worked. The president of our TV division thought if we could sell it to a network as a four-hour, we might put out another screenplay with a brand new writer and see if we could lick the problem. We got Paul Monash and structured some things very much different than the book and totally different from the previous screenplays I mean, they were just bad screenplays. In a crazy way, SALEM’S LOT works better in a longer version than in a normal, theatrical version.

Not much happens in the book for the first half and then everything explodes.

Also, the more you read of Stephen King—I’m like you, I’ve read most of his stuff—he’s damn hard to translate to the screen.

The characters all think to themselves. .

And all those internal monologues that give you goose-flesh while you’re sitting alone reading area real problem to deal with cinematically. So we had to work on that.

I heard somewhere that George Romero was considered to direct.

Well, I always liked NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and his name was one that I’d thought of. But I never contacted him because I’ve got all the problems of, will he come out here, can I convince the network when a man only makes pictures in Pittsburgh? It was easier with Tobe. But more important, I just liked TEXAS CHAINSAW better. It’s a film that has gone, I think, beyond a cult status, which it always had.

In theatrical features today, its probably safe to say no holds are barred in explicit horror. Since, on TV, you can’t show that, and even if you could, you’d panic the average home viewer, can SALEM’S LOT satisfy both the horror buff and the mainstream audience?

I think we can. It is really superbly cast. Even in the supporting roles, we always went for actors instead of stars. We have in Ed Flanders who plays Bill Norton, the doctor a man who just got an Emmy nomination for TRUMAN AT POTTSDAM. We wanted complete credibility, complete believability. That to me was the real horror, a nice little town that’s slowly being eaten alive by vampires and all of a sudden wakes up to that realization. We had to get actors of a caliber that could give us the credibility, not just nice TV names who are limited in their acting ability. That’s Number One. Number Two is playing Barlow the way we did. He’s not in competition with Frank Langella, not in competition with Bela Lugosi it’s back to German Expressionism in the final analysis.

And it’ll be the first time most people will have seen that, anyway.

Right! And again, trying to give it believability by not having him talk. He’s a monster, a fiend. And one last point, to me and I’ve heard this before and never quite believed it, but now I do, you’re frightened more by what you don’t see than by what you do.

The credo of the Val Lewton films of the 1940’s . .

That’s it exactly. There’s that off-screen noise. . .and you don’t have to see a person’s neck ripped open, just that quick cut of the vampire or whatever, a hand coming into frame, is more frightening. HALLOWEEN was the best horror film I’ve seen in the last five to seven years in that respect, because you were jumping out of your seat every two minutes, and every scene was manipulated but it was a valid scare. And that, to me, was important. You really weren’t seeing a bloodbath up there. It was almost like seeing a 3-D movie, because things were jumping out of the screen at you. In a way, I think that’s what any good horror film tries to do.

Specifically, whose idea was the NOSFERATU look yours, Hooper’s, the make-up man?

Mine. We brought the concept to the make-up artist, and he made a few sketches. We’d say, “No, we want the eyes darker”. . . and it was his and miss, trial and error. It went like that until we had what we wanted. And early on, 1 knew who the actor was going to be. Even back when I worked with Paul on the screenplay. Barlow, once he was determined to be ugly, was always going to be this one actor in my mind, if he was living in the United States.

Reggie Nalder-had you seen him in MARK OF THE DEVIL?

No, I remembered him from Hitchcock’s film THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, the remake, and I thought he had a really unattractive face then. He was the one for me.

Curtis Harrington used him in a TV movie a few years ago, THE DEAD DON’T DIE (1974).

Really? He obviously works sporadically because of his face, unfortunately. But I knew that if the man was in town and available, that was my Barlow. Nobody else was considered or even discussed.

So you telescoped the book a great deal—binned dialogue, combined characters

Only because there was no way of doing everybody in the town, especially when their fate was relatively the same. Its a small town of 2,000 people and we tried to concentrate on the doctor in the town, the sheriff in the town, the children in the town, and some other peripheral characters-a representative cross-section. But where possible—except in the case of what wouldn’t translate cinematically or was just too long—we are very faithful to the book.

Everybody I’ve spoken to on SALEM’S LOT says CBS wants the movie on in November. Can you do that?

I know they’d love to put it on during their November ratings sweep, and I think its a good piece of material for a sweep week. But I also know that in this sort of movie, a good, atmospheric, old-fashioned, Bernie Herrmann type score is essential, and weve got to get that done yet.

Do you think one season CBS might be anxious to get it on in November is they don’t want a vampire movie on after 1979, that the crest will have passed?

No, I don’t think that’s it at all. This craze is going to go far beyond the end of this year. Especially when you’ve got so many important movies coming out, in particular Kubrick’s THE SHINING, another Stephen King novel which I’ve got to believe is going to be a masterpiece that’s going to lead all of them. I would think thats going to carry the genre even further in success and longevity.

Are you concerned about TV censorship of SALEM’S LOT?

Well, my problem is obviously going to be Standards and Practices what they’re going to allow us to show and what they’re not. The script went by them. They approved it. But I know they’re going to come back and say they want a horror film but they don’t want to scare people either. I have no doubt that’s going to be the battle. I wouldn’t mind a disclaimer at the beginning, “Viewer Discretion Advised” if anything, that usually lifts the rating points up. I just don’t want to start cutting out the horror of the picture. To make a horror picture and then start cutting out the horror, why make the damned thing in the first place?

– Bill Kelley Cinefantastique – Volume 9, Number 2 (Winter 1979)

(Available at Amazon) Salem’s Lot 1979 Blu-ray

SALEM’S LOT (1979) RETROSPECTIVE -Filming Horror for Television (Part 3) (Left) Tobe Hooper (Right) Richard Kobritz RICHARD KOBRITZ-Producer Richard Kobritz is a creative producer in the Thalbergian sense.