He’s a really, really intelligent guy. At least Michael Colleary (my writing partner) and I were smart enough to realize he was right. So to finally answer your question: no. We didn’t mind seeing the script morph. Because it was maturing, it was getting better, and they weren’t hiring someone else to do it.
Special effects appear in almost every film nowadays. In 1994 when you wrote the screenplay to The Mask, how conscious were you of special effects and how integral they would be, given the story?
Well, I love summer popcorn films and those generally involve VFX in some form or another. Raiders of the Lost Ark was the film that made me want to get into the business. But while writing The Mask, I was less concerned with writing an “effects” film than making sure this (simple) story stood on its own. As opposed to Face/Off which took untold drafts and six years from original idea to production, I wrote my first draft of The Mask in less than six weeks. And less than two months later it was green-lit. Of course, that film is based on the great Dark Horse comix — so it wasn’t like I was starting from scratch (although, if you are familiar, there are huge differences in the leap from book to screen).
My intention was to write a screenplay that would work first as a story — and then fold the effects as seamlessly as possible into that story, not the other way around. As I said, it’s a simple story: a lonely, oppressed, but good-hearted bank teller has to become someone else in order to learn who he really is.
Of course, I was aware that certain things could not be done practically — like having an actor place a prop against his face and turn into a tornado — but that didn’t affect the writing in any way. There were a lot of VFX scenes that had to be cut for budget. I’m just happy that Milo the Dog wasn’t cut — because that character was not in the comic — and the dog really helped the climax. The director (Chuck Russell) told me the folks at ILM were fighting over who got to animate the dog. That’s about the highest compliment a writer can get.
FX supervisors and stunt coordinators are very important to action movies now. Looking at special effects and action sequences, how much collaboration takes place between the writer, director, and stunt people with regard to the balance required between the efforts and logistics to making a kick ass scene?
Article comments
1 - Phillip Winn
Now I might have to re-watch Face/Off, a movie I hated. The marketing was all about the actors, neither of which I care for. I'll have to follow the writing more closely.
2 - Mary K. Williams
Nice work Tan, what a great opportunity you had here.