High Concept
Submitted by jim on Mon, 08/30/2004 - 09:00
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Can someone explain to me exactly what it means when a movie is described as "high concept"? This is a phrase that has leapt out at me at least three times in the past few days. Take this example from The Hot Button's excellent fall preview:
Ocean's Twelve - December 10 - Did anyone really expect the first one to be quite as popular as it was? For a high concept film, it was remarkably leggy.
Thanks in advance!
I always took it to mean a concept that was so high up as to not be able to easily understand. That is how I have been using it. I am concerned about my use of language. If people have been thinking of the definition stated above, and I am citing some obfuscation, as high concept. I need a new word.
...and to top it off, in checking the spelling of obfuscation, I stumbled on the fact I have been using the adjective "Obtuse" incorrectly as well. I was correct with the angle, but incorrect with the metaphoric use. I used Obtuse as though it was describing something difficult to understand as opposed to someone that is having a difficult time understanding something.
Always learning,
andnot afraid to correct myself
K3v1n
love the pun - "obtuse ... I was correct with the angle"
(geometry refresher - an obtuse angle is one that is greater than 90 degress, acute is less than 90 degrees. Funny how the other meanings are essentially opposites, as well: obtuse - having a hard time understanding; acute - sharp, keenly perceptive or discerning). ooh, i think this now goes on my "words" list...
Not fully knowing the meaning of a word never stopped me from using it :-)
I think the problem is that "abstruse", a very similar word, means something difficult to understand. People could get them confused.
I think your understanding of "high concept" is more intuitive, but I guessed pretty close to its correct meaning from the context. And thanks for straightening me out on "obtuse"!
Thanks for the replies everybody! If I ever use the term "high concept" in my own writing, you each have permission to slap me hard, once, upside the head.
The best article I've ever read on 'high concept' exists here, written by Terry Rossio, the co-writer of Aladdin, Pirates of the Caribbean, and a great Godzilla script that was nixed for Emmerich's crap version.
Boiled down, high concept is an intriguing idea for a movie stated in one sentence.
Some of the best ideas include:
"A teenager is mistakenly sent into the past, where he must make sure his mother and father meet and fall in love; he then has to get back to the future."
"A group of ex-psychic investigators start a commercial ghost extermination business in New York City."
"A child's wish that his father, a lawyer, can't lie for one day, is granted."
Good link! So which movie is this: "A rotten kid captures the monster under the bed. He gets seduced into the dark underworld, to the point where he almost becomes a monster himself."?
Lol! That's something I was wondering myself! It may be for a screenplay they wrote: Little Monsters. I have the script but haven't read it.
I also think it's strange to say that high concept movies usually aren't leggy. I understand why one would think so, because high concept usually means that the story hinges on a novel idea that, once exhausted, will wear off quickly. But bad legs is not at all typical of high concept movies. Look at the legs of films like The Sixth Sense and Shrek (I guess Shrek 2 is high-concept, too, but it's a sequel so it's not an original high concept).
For example, for the movie Bulletproof Monk, it's:
Monk, only protector of all-powerful ancient scroll, must choose successor. Chooses Stifler. Hilarity ensues.
Concept stolen from http://www.fakes.net/bulletproofmonk.htm,
'What does the term "high concept" mean in the film business? It's simply a term used to describe a script or a film that a person can easily understand after hearing just a few words. Robin U. Russin and William Missouri Downs define "high concept" in their book Screenplay: Writing the Picture as "a movie's premise or storyline that is easily reduced to a simple and appealing one liner."'
http://www.screentalk.biz/art043.htm
Excellent definition. And then I hit the link and I got confused.
I had trouble seeing how many of the films cited are "high concept". I don't think that I could describe Casablanca (for example) in just a few words: Rick owns a bar, an old girlfriend shows up with her husband, who she was married to all along... and Nazis!
I suppose that Singin' In The Rain could be "high concept" if you pitch it as "Gene Kelly in a musical" but that's not a screenplay. It might be a marketing strategy (and that certainly could fit the definition.) But that example and others leave me befuddled.
I'd like to propose a definition that I didn't know I had until forced to articulate it. Something is "high concept" when the details are inherent in the label. "Label" does not necessarily mean "title".
So Deep Impact, Dude, Where's My Car? and The Hand that Rocks the Cradle are high concept: Big comet + Earth, Two Stoners - Car, Nanny From Hell. But Citizen Kane is low concept: a search to find meaning in a man's last words... based on the life of William Randolph Hearst... um, the corrupting influence of power and money on innocence, ideals, love... err.
Perhaps the star or director attached to a movie can make it "high concept". The Ahnuld has to get a special Christmas toy, gets pregnant, goes undercover... as a kindergarten teacher! and he has a twin... and it's Danny DeVito! Or it could be M. Night Shyamalan's newest film. Jim Carrey, Robin Williams and Charlize Theron are examples of actors moving from high to low concept. Nicholas Cage is moving in the opposite direction (and is dragging John Woo down with him.) I hope this makes some kind of sense.
Thanks for the definition and the link. The link especially, as my first thought was "aren't most movies high-concept then?", but it clears that up a bit with the "Bored Housewife" example.