I traveled to Cape Cod a few weeks ago for personal reasons. I grew up there and had to spend a few days there last month for a family obligation. While I was there, I was convinced to go to a cast and crew screening for a film directed and produced by a couple of local guys. They had done some short films that did well at festivals and they just finished their first feature and were hoping to get it into the Toronto Film Festival. There were actors in the film that you would definitely recognize and the production value was consistent with a low budget indie film, so shooting it documentary style actually worked to their advantage and was a good idea in that regard. I wasn’t in the mood to critique a film, but I do enjoy finding indie gems so I indulged my mother’s friend and went to see it. Almost from the beginning I thought to myself, “These guys are big fans of Christopher Guest or Modern Family or both.”
They were clearly paying homage to that documentary style of film making, but not doing it nearly as well.
Plenty of filmmakers pay homage to those that came before them. Think Mel Brooks paying homage to Alfred Hitchcock in High Anxiety.
Or Mike Myers paying homage to James Bond and the spy movies of the 60’s with Austin Powers.
Quentin Tarentino pays homage to someone in almost every film he makes.
It’s an accepted practice in Hollywood, and usually fairly tongue in cheek. The only difference between paying homage and ripping off someone’s style is that you’re admitting that you’re doing it.
The premise of this particular film was a prestigious local competition was taking place, and the film was following three groups of contestants as they prepared for what they hoped would be the life changing event of winning said competition. If it sounds familiar to Best In Show, that’s exactly what I was thinking about 10 minutes into the film. I kept an open mind about it for as long as I could until it became clear that the filmmakers were trying to make a film just like Christopher Guest would, but they’re not doing nearly as good of a job. And that’s really too bad because the premise was sound and could have led to a good, if formulaic film that would have at least shown that they know how to play by the rules before they break them rather than looking like the incompetent hacks they came across as .
Perhaps that language is a little too harsh. These guys did do something that not a lot of people accomplish and it should be applauded. It is an incredibly hard undertaking to make a feature film, especially when you have to raise all the money, hire the crew and the actors, and all of the other details that go into getting the thing made. The problem is that you have to have a good script.
If you don’t have a good script, you don’t have anything.
And these guys didn’t have anything. So what could they have done differently? Again, the problem with making your movie in the style of a Christopher Guest film, or in the style of Modern Family is that those films and TV shows are made by incredibly talented people who do what they do very well. When Mel Brooks payed homage to Hitchcock, he still made a Mel Brooks film. It may have had several of Hitchcock’s conventions, but there was not mistaking High Anxiety as anything other than a Mel Brooks film. When Mike Myers made the Austin Powers films, they were his films. Yes, they had the conventions of James Bond films but they were satirizing them more than anything.
The trick with paying homage is that you have to find your own voice.
These filmmakers tried to make a Christopher Guest movie, and the problem is that Christopher Guest already makes his own movies, and he makes them way better than imitators. They should have been trying to make thier own movie using Best In Show, Waiting for Guffman, A Mighty Wind, and For Your Consideration, along with Modern Family as a jumping off point from which they could find their own voices as filmmakers.
Are you trying to pay homage to a particular filmmaker through your own script? At Monument Script Services, we are well versed in film history and can help you identify the styles of several different filmmakers. See the following link for quotes from some of our favorite films.
http://monumentscripts.com/category/movie-quotes/
We can then help you combine that style with your own to create a unique voice. Visit the link below to find out how.