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Lights, Camera, Reaction!

Likely you’ve heard talk about formula films. Revealed here for the first time are the various elements that go into those formulas presented in handy periodic table form.

There are only so many elements available which are used over and over, as are the formulas. The trick is getting the right amounts of the right elements in the right order with the right formula. It’s all more like alchemy than chemistry because nobody really can predict when the mix will result in box office gold or sink like lead.

If you have dreams of making movies yourself, study the table carefully. Determine which elements you want to use. Insert these in your formula of choice. After that you will need a big-name director or superstar actor because your movie will exist only in theory unless you have a catalyst, called a player.

Players work, and get work because they have what’s referred to as juice. Don’t look for juice on the table because it is not an element but a form of energy. Juice is the lifeblood of Hollywood.

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Players are the main sources of juice. An alternative source of juice is industry buzz. Unfortunately buzz is highly unstable and can vanish as fast as it appears. To date nobody has found a sustainable source of buzz as buzz exists only because it exists. Which is circular logic, which is Hollywood.

Juice is produced and controlled by players. Only they don’t control their own but everyone else’s since a player has juice only if other players believe they do. Once they stop believing, juice vanishes like buzz, a non-player’s money or Tinkerbell for an audience of grumpy old men.

You might think money can generate juice, but it’s actually the opposite. Players with juice attract money. Sort-of the reverse of the way hot goes to cold in thermodynamics, cold cash flows to hot players in Hollywoodynamics. And you will need money because money is the fuel juice feeds on.

Once you combine all the elements, juice, and money fuel into the right formula it may attain a bright green glow. That’s the sign it’s working, in Hollywood parlance it’s greenlighted. In which case your movie might eventually see the light of day, or rather the dark of a theater. Good luck.

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