The Mortal Instruments Review

I was so excited to see this movie.  The trailers had me hype.  Let’s face it, after Twilight and Harry Potter ended there hasn’t been a really good supernatural thriller series on the scene and The Mortal Instruments seemed to fill the void.  Notice how I said seemed.  It came with a lot of promise.  The Mortal Instruments is based on a six-volume book series, written by Cassandra Clare and is classified as fantasy young-adult fiction; a genre that box office history tells us translates well to film. I haven’t read the books- but I did go see the movie based on the first book, City of Bones, on opening night in IMAX and I was not impressed. 

The problem with a great movie trailer is that it builds one’s expectations that there will be a great movie as well.  Sometimes our expectations are met and sometimes they are not.  Other, less frequent times, we wish we had waited for others to see the movie to make sure it’s great before we spend our money.  Since I review movies I don’t have that luxury but like those who have overcome bad life decisions I can at least warn others. 

This movie is bad for several reasons but for the purposes of time I will only address three:

1)   The main character, Clary Fray, played by Lily Collins, is SUPER annoying.  I mean before it was over I’d completely lost interest in her survival and her plight.  Though her champion, Jace, played by Jaime Campbell Bower, kept calling her brave, I was hard pressed to find the proof of said bravery in her performance.  Couple that and the absolute lack of any realism in her character- down to the fact that after climbing buildings, running from vampires and fighting demons this chick’s manicure is still impeccable- and you have an altogether uninteresting protagonist. 

2)   This movie is dark.  Very dark.  The whole time you’re in the theater you want to cover yourself in holy water and anointing oil and call on the Lord!  An atheist would be praying after watching this movie.  I couldn’t believe how harsh it was.  Even in the supernatural fantasy genre there is some trait about the main characters that lightens even the most intense parts of the story.  Example- in Harry Potter we had their childhood innocence and the universally relatable experience of school life.  In Twilight there was the timeless and pure love between Edward and Bella.  Here we had three semi-humorous lines from the Jace character that barely balanced the intensity of the scene much less the whole movie.

3)   The storyline was not well crafted.  There is a reason why stories work.  There is a clearly defined hero and villain.  There is a clearly defined mission, a climax, and a resolution.  When I tell you this movie had NONE of that I’m not exaggerating.  Not even a little bit.  You couldn’t tell who were the good guys and who were the bad guys.  The whole time you did not know who to root for or whom you could trust; it was frustrating.  The characters weren’t well developed at all.  You knew very little about who they were and for what morals they stood.  To increase your frustration a budding romance between Clary and Jace gets crushed to smithereens when Jonathan Rhys Meyers’ character, Valentine, reveals a very Flowers in the Attic-type plot twist.

City of Bones did have great special effects and a kick-ass sword fight scene toward the end.  But that wasn’t enough to make going to see it worth the time or the money.  Just trust me when I say that unless you’re cool with all I’ve listed above, you may want to choose a different movie. 

2/5 Stars

Negotiation in Entertainment

Negotiation is a vital part of the entertainment business.  Whether you’re a grip, an actor, an agent, or the head of a network or studio chances are you will find yourself negotiating at some point along your professional journey. 

I recently had the opportunity to interview Fred Shaheen who is the Vice President of Acquisitions at family entertainment cable network, INSP.  Shaheen is a television industry veteran with a career that has taken him from Ohio to Los Angeles back to Ohio and finally to the east coast in the Charlotte, North Carolina area where he currently resides.  He has produced such shows as the original People’s Court, Press Your Luck, ABC’s Home Show (that eventually got replaced by The View), and HGTV’s Room by Room.  Now, as the VP of Acquisitions for INSP he finds himself constantly in the middle of negotiations with major distributors for content.  For this reason I decided to get his input on the negotiation process.

Q:  Positional Bargaining is basically defined as haggling.  It’s arguing over positions only, not interests and it involves holding on to a fixed idea or position while How do you utilize positional bargaining in your negotiations to acquire content?

A: Yes!  First I research, that is a large part of what I do- researching to find what shows we want for the network, about how much they cost, sometimes I even check with other networks to get a good idea on pricing.  

Once we’ve decided that we want to pull the trigger on a show, we’ve done our due diligence and we know it will be good on our network and about what we want to pay for it I start off by making a phone call to the distributor.  Because our deals are multifaceted depending on exclusivity (full exclusivity means that no other network can air the content purchased during the entire term of the contract, partial exclusivity can be for a certain time period during the contract or that only one other network can air the content during the contract) and number of telecasts (runs on the network during the contract).  Both of these factors contribute to the overall price.  The first thing I do is make the distributor give me a price first to start negotiations.  If I have to go first I will present a number lower than what I think it is.  After the initial phone call I will send my terms in writing via email, which is a common request.  I will have this email ready before I make the phone call so I can get it to them right away.

Q: Are you ever in a position to use a BATNA or Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement?   In your situation this question would translate as do you have a back-up plan should you not be able to reach an agreement with the distributor?

A: That’s one thing I wish we did differently in our acquisitions process.  What generally happens is we do our research and we identify a specific show we want and I start negotiations.  We never have a back-up title where I can say in a negotiation, “This is my bottom line either meet it or I’ll go elsewhere.” 

Because of this I lack positioning power when I go in to negotiate for content.  So I at this point I don’t have a best alternative but we’re working towards it.

Q: In your negotiations for content have you ever come across the use of dirty tricks on the part of distributors?

A: Yes! Yes, definitely.  I’ve noticed some schemes with one distributor in particular.  Without naming any names it’s known throughout the industry how this certain distributor conducts business. 

Q: How do you deal with them when they use tactics like dirty tricks?

A: I’m definitely more skeptical.  In addition to doing my research and getting everything in writing like normal I will be sure to check and recheck every correspondence to make sure none of the terms have changed.  I also have to gear up mentally to interact with them.

Q: In difficult negotiations, such as ones where the distributor is using dirty tricks, do you find it difficult to separate the people from the problem?

A: It is.  I mean the person that I work with is great and probably very nice but she is the mouthpiece of the company she represents in the negotiation. 

I know she’s only doing what she’s told and at a different place she probably wouldn’t act the same but in this case she represents the company I’m negotiating with and I can’t view her individually apart from that.

Q: How did you learn how to negotiate, specifically for the position you’re currently working?

A: I’ve been negotiating my entire television life.  As a producer I would negotiate for crew, with hotels for a good price to put up my host.  I feel like up to now God has been preparing me for this position.  I like negotiating; my father was in broadcast sales.  I negotiate as part of my everyday life- for cars, for services.  Why pay more if you don’t have to?  You’ve got to be up for the game and plan ahead.