household servants, she's probably using Somalies.
"I needed to know that many white men were making a living through ivory hunting during this period.
"I needed to know about the government situation: was it a colony or was it a protectorate, who had the authority to do what, and what was the relationship between the government and the settlers?
"I needed to know the history of World War One in East
Africa. You don't normally think of World War One as having any effect in Africa, but the fact was, it did."
All of the many details—the slow pace of life where long stories are part of the evening's entertainment, the behavior between the colonists and the natives, the free-roving wild animals, and the economic instability of life on a coffee plantation—exemplified the considerable location research that helped make these characters work.
THE IMPACT OF OCCUPATION
Sometimes the context is the character's occupation.
Someone on Wall Street has a different pace and life-style from a farmer in Iowa. A computer analyst has different skills from an Olympic runner. A gardener and a podiatrist might have different attitudes, different values, different concerns as a result of their work.
James Brooks was attracted to the idea of Broadcast News because he was a real news buff. He had also spent some time in network news, but even with that background he still needed to devote about a year and a half to researching the script. As part of this research, he spent considerable time talking to newscasters and being an observer at news stations.
"I cared about the subject," he says, "and I'd say the first few months of the research were to get rid of my caring so that I could be as objective as possible and unlearn what I thought I knew.
"I started my research by talking to a lot of women— starting specifically with two, a Wall Street woman and a reporter. I was interested in the women who had made a mark, very fast, right out of college, well educated, top school, something good happened professionally right away.
"In some ways, the questions I asked were no different from the questions you would ask at various stages of a relationship, but it just felt more clinical."
Besides talking to people, James Brooks read up on the field. "I read the long biography on Murrow, I read some essays on news and broadcast, and whenever I'd hear about anything interesting, I'd track it down.
"I spent a lot of time in the city, hanging out with the people at the workplace. And if you spend enough time researching, your chances of being in the right place at the right time are enhanced."
By simply "hanging around," James Brooks saw many details that were incorporated into the film. "I saw someone run—physically run—when something went wrong with a tape."
I asked Kurt Luedtke how he would go about researching a certain character, for example, a safecracker. Since Kurt was once a journalist, he's very comfortable with the research process. He explained the process he would use to gain both character and story information.
"If I were doing a story about a safecracker, the first place I would go would be to the law authorities. I might ask, 'You haven't put anybody away lately who's literate and has half a brain and would be willing to talk to me?' Now one time in five or six somebody might say, 'Yeah, there's a guy who might be willing to talk to you, probably want to be paid, but if you give him a couple hundred bucks, he might be willing to talk to you.'
"Now I'm not necessarily looking for character information, but for vocational information, scene information. I'm surely going to ask him about the five times that a boost went wrong, what happened, just for the funny stories of how things go wrong. I'm probably looking for everything other than information about what the specific character would be because the guy in jail probably is not going to be useful to me. He's probably a true felon, while I'm probably writing about a less
"I needed to know that many white men were making a living through ivory hunting during this period.
"I needed to know about the government situation: was it a colony or was it a protectorate, who had the authority to do what, and what was the relationship between the government and the settlers?
"I needed to know the history of World War One in East
Africa. You don't normally think of World War One as having any effect in Africa, but the fact was, it did."
All of the many details—the slow pace of life where long stories are part of the evening's entertainment, the behavior between the colonists and the natives, the free-roving wild animals, and the economic instability of life on a coffee plantation—exemplified the considerable location research that helped make these characters work.
THE IMPACT OF OCCUPATION
Sometimes the context is the character's occupation.
Someone on Wall Street has a different pace and life-style from a farmer in Iowa. A computer analyst has different skills from an Olympic runner. A gardener and a podiatrist might have different attitudes, different values, different concerns as a result of their work.
James Brooks was attracted to the idea of Broadcast News because he was a real news buff. He had also spent some time in network news, but even with that background he still needed to devote about a year and a half to researching the script. As part of this research, he spent considerable time talking to newscasters and being an observer at news stations.
"I cared about the subject," he says, "and I'd say the first few months of the research were to get rid of my caring so that I could be as objective as possible and unlearn what I thought I knew.
"I started my research by talking to a lot of women— starting specifically with two, a Wall Street woman and a reporter. I was interested in the women who had made a mark, very fast, right out of college, well educated, top school, something good happened professionally right away.
"In some ways, the questions I asked were no different from the questions you would ask at various stages of a relationship, but it just felt more clinical."
Besides talking to people, James Brooks read up on the field. "I read the long biography on Murrow, I read some essays on news and broadcast, and whenever I'd hear about anything interesting, I'd track it down.
"I spent a lot of time in the city, hanging out with the people at the workplace. And if you spend enough time researching, your chances of being in the right place at the right time are enhanced."
By simply "hanging around," James Brooks saw many details that were incorporated into the film. "I saw someone run—physically run—when something went wrong with a tape."
I asked Kurt Luedtke how he would go about researching a certain character, for example, a safecracker. Since Kurt was once a journalist, he's very comfortable with the research process. He explained the process he would use to gain both character and story information.
"If I were doing a story about a safecracker, the first place I would go would be to the law authorities. I might ask, 'You haven't put anybody away lately who's literate and has half a brain and would be willing to talk to me?' Now one time in five or six somebody might say, 'Yeah, there's a guy who might be willing to talk to you, probably want to be paid, but if you give him a couple hundred bucks, he might be willing to talk to you.'
"Now I'm not necessarily looking for character information, but for vocational information, scene information. I'm surely going to ask him about the five times that a boost went wrong, what happened, just for the funny stories of how things go wrong. I'm probably looking for everything other than information about what the specific character would be because the guy in jail probably is not going to be useful to me. He's probably a true felon, while I'm probably writing about a less
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