Tuesday, March 31, 2009

look who's talking

Okay, you guys wanna know something scary?

I think I've actually got a pretty good movie on my hands.

Now the next step (once I tighten up a few loose ends) -- is to find an agent? Isn't that what people do? Writers, I mean.

Sorry, I know this blog post isn't that monumental. But I thought I'd mention that I'm really excited about the way the script has turned out. And I was kind of wondering if anyone knows of anyone I can send this mother trucker off to.

By the way, as I've thought about it more and more... I think Oldboy should be required viewing for anyone who reads my blog. That's right. I just gave you a homework assignment.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

the thoroughbred of sin

For those of you who've asked to see the script...


HOLD THE PHONE.

There's still a lot of work I want to do on it, before I send any more copies out. I had a bunch of brain storms that (I think) add a lot to the story... but I'll need to add those in first.

Here's my plan. I'm going to open a new Final Draft document next to the old script, and entirely rewrite it. I'll turn the new file into my official Second Draft. Some things I'll be able to just copy and paste, from the old to the new. Many other things will probably be changed slightly. Overall, it should result in a nice all-around improvement. If I do it right.

If I don't -- it'll result in a massive downgrade... so that's why I'm keeping the two files separate. Capisce? :)

Once the second draft is done, I'll send it out to whoever wants it. I'm saddled up, there's no recourse. It's Hi-Ho Silver! signed: Bad Horse.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

[rant]

I sat in on a church women's book club tonight. It gets weirder.

My mother was actually the one who invited me, because I suggested the book that she picked for them to read this month: Watchmen. That's right, I told a bunch of church ladies to read Watchmen and then discuss it over tea and crumpets. I was invited, along with a couple of my close friends, to serve as kind of a "panel of experts" about the book.

I think Ma Iggy was just worried that all the women would HATE the book, and she wanted me around so I could defend it.

The violence seemed to be a concern. The sexual content was absolutely no problem. Many women reported being "disturbed" by various plotlines -- particularly the Black Freighter side plot. Not surprising. I'm a jaded '90s kid, and even I was disturbed by that story.

One woman (who I've always respected as an elder) absolutely refused to read the book. She simply could not bring herself to take a "comic book" seriously. That pisses me off so much, and I'll tell you why.

When film was first invented, people went to see movies about such wild and fascinating topics as: riding a train, workers leaving a factory, watching a soccer game, or looking into a telescope. These movies were showed in dinky little theaters called "nickelodeons". Film was about as un-artistic during these times as you could imagine, and they appealed to the lowest common denominator.

Then narrative films came along. Birth of a Nation signaled the birth of a potential new art form... and the greatest of these early films came from slapstick comedians like Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. Finally, the advent of sound -- followed quickly by the advent of color -- and suddenly movies like The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind were hitting theaters.

But if Mrs. Ho-hum had been around back then, she would have REFUSED to see any of these great movies -- because her mind would have been stuck in the "nickelodeon" era, and she'd still believe the stereotypes -- that films were only made for kids and poor people to watch.

It's people like her, who don't take chances and stay safely in their comfort zone, that have stifled creativity and invention ever since people began to create and invent in the first place. It's people like her who starve artists and hold back the evolution of art itself. It's people like her who make it profitable for Hollywood to continue putting out remakes and sequels. Why do you think the same ten plug-and-play screenplays are rereleased every year, and they ALWAYS make a profit? It's people like her who buy the ticket every single time, because they're too afraid to broaden their horizons, too afraid to step outside that bubble of comfort.

Why take a comic book seriously? Well, maybe because it's one of the best books of the 20th century -- full of political allegories, religious debate, philosophical angst and meticulously crafted melodrama -- and it's so dense that you could read it thirty times straight, and still discover something new every time. Maybe because it's the most well-structured graphic novel in human history. Maybe because it could only be effective in comic-book form: in fact, it's the rare kind of work that embodies and defines its own medium.

Maybe because it elevates its medium to the level of true art.

Or maybe I'm just a fan boy. But maybe there's something to it, after all.

I'll tell you right now: I don't want those kind of people watching my movies. I want to stretch the limits of "what's been done". I'm strapping myself into a starship and heading for outer space, and I certainly don't need the extra drag on the wings. Keep an open mind, or keep away.

But I digress.

Most of the group seemed to appreciate having read the book -- because it was so unlike what they usually read. A few of them LOVED it. We had philosophical discussions about all kinds of Watchmen-related topics until the final bell sounded.

What's the point of my story? None. I just wanted to write another update so you people would quit complaining that I never update this blog.

[/rant]

Monday, March 23, 2009

double feature

I treated myself to a double feature last night. Hey -- I have no friends, and I'm on spring break, so screw it.

Bought a ticket to Coraline 3D. I felt like a super cool dude, buying that particular ticket, all by myself. The gum-smacking teenager behind the counter thought so anyway. I distinctly saw a lifted eyebrow when she slid me my change. $13.50 for one fucking film. Are you joking?

I'd already decided I was going to theater-hop, but that was insane.

Walked in about five minutes after the show started. Fumbled with my itchy 3D glasses for a couple scenes. Then proceeded to be completely dazzled, and then lost, in the world of Coraline. If you haven't seen the movie... seriously... va. AHORITA.

Coraline is an endlessly inventive grab bag of whimsy and eye-popping visuals. Either that or it's a blow-by-blow recount of a particularly bad acid trip. The storyline is pretty simple: a brave, headstrong little girl moves into a new house -- she doesn't like her neglectful parents, so she's ecstatic to discover a little door behind the wall that takes her to an alternate reality, in which her Other Mother and Father live. They look exactly the same as her real parents, except they have buttons for eyes, and they give her everything she could want. It seems too good to be true -- and of course, it is.

I respect Neil Gaiman as a writer, and that's mostly the reason I paid full price. I could actually get into a long discussion about the story of Coraline, but I'll leave it that I was satisfied and totally drawn into the plot as it unfolded.

But the way it played out, I was too busy being stunned by the visual imagery to worry about much else. The director of Nightmare Before Christmas, Henry Selick, also directed this film, and the same aesthetic is applied here. (I think it was executed even better in Coraline than in Nightmare. Blasphemy?)

One more note: it felt like the film was meant to be viewed in 3D. It was very much "an experience", and I don't think it'll have the same effect on a TV screen without the funny glasses. But Coraline has real heart, as well as a certain magical quality, that mean it's probably going to stick around for years and years to come.

After the movie finished, I headed into the bathroom. Then turned around and walked straight out, into another theater.

I Love You, Man was playing at 10. It was 9:20. I had a spare fifty minutes to kill. Don't question my math. Regal always shows some bullshit previews before the real previews start. It's not worth it to show up on time to movies anymore.

I walked into a showing of Race to Witch Mountain. The alien angle caught my interest, being that my script is somewhat alien-related, and I wanted to see how another writer was handling the issue.

The long and short of it: not well. I'm lucky I changed my main character's name. He used to be named Jack, which is such a cliched "hero name" in movies -- and also happens to be the name of The Rock's character in this movie. They must have said his name fifty times in the first twenty minutes. The bad guys all called him "Jackie". I really dodged a bullet here, I think.

It opened with The Rock as a cab driver, ferrying some fares around Las Vegas -- before a mysterious pair of kids shows up in his backseat and makes him drive out to the desert -- where it's revealed they're not really kids at all, but aliens in kid form, and they're being chased by the FBI. Then one of the kids wrecks an SUV just by standing in front of it -- (why would the FBI try to run him over, if he was an alien in kid form??) -- and I'm sure you've seen that scene in the previews.

Now to be fair, I didn't see the whole thing. Hell, I only saw part of the first act. But here was my biggest problem with the movie.

The dialogue was lame and felt totally "written". I'll give you an example, if you're still reading. In one of the opening scenes, The Rock drives Carla Gugino to a random Strip hotel. They have an obvious conversation about living on other planets (foreshadowing??). And wonder of wonders, it turns out that Carla Gugino is in town to give a speech at the UFO convention. She hands him a brochure and exits the car. The brochure has a list of the speakers at the convention. Now keep in mind, SHE NEVER GAVE HER NAME. Yet The Rock reads down this list and then says out loud: "Dr. Alex Friedman." Hmm. That must be Carla Gugino's character's name. Thanks, The Rock. I don't know what I, Joe Moviegoer, would have done without you. I wonder if she's going to end up figuring into this plot somehow?

Thankfully I didn't stick around long enough to find out. Once The Rock went into the pimped-out fridge, it was time for Paul Rudd and Jason Segel, and judging from the previews, Lou Ferrigno.

I Love You, Man has a great concept. Being a straight-laced guy and finding a new "best friend" is not easy. I should know. I'm a farmer.

Rudd plays the awkward "girlfriend guy" who relates easily to women, but is incapable of "guy talk". His attempts to be one of the Dudes fall hilariously flat, until he meets Sydney Fife (Segel) -- the brutally honest, comfortable-in-his-own-skin, macho foil to Rudd's fundamentally uncertain economic girlie man.

Jason Segel = comedic gold. That pretty much sums up my review. Any time he was on screen, the movie had an anchor and stayed on sure footing. When he was off screen, the emphasis shifted to the ultra-formulaic, by-the-numbers plot, and that's when the movie faltered. With the exception of some brilliant work by bit players (Thomas Lennon and Jon Favreau nailed their bits out of the park), and some inspired pieces of improv comedy by Paul "Slap da bass" Rudd.

I wanted to love this movie like I loved Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Instead, I liked it. The script needed two or three more drafts. But overall, the actors transcended the material and made the end of my self-date pretty enjoyable and satisfying.

What do you call it when you date yourself, anyway? Masturdating? Now there's a movie.

Anyway, that was my night tonight.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

by the way

If you want to read my first draft, shoot me an email:

pillarsofsand "at" gmail "dot" com

I already registered it with the WGA. (Yeah, I'm THAT serious about this. Plus it was really easy to do online. I could register this blog post with the WGA if I wanted. They take anything and everything over there.)

So don't get any funny ideas.

a machete in the jungle

A few bullet point notes.

- When I say "it's finished"... I don't really mean that. No creative work is ever finished. If da Vinci came back from the dead tomorrow, he'd go to the Louvre and add some extra touches to the Mona Lisa. Do you know how many times people have reimagined Macbeth? Well I just reimagined it with a full cast of drag queens, so add one more to the list. (The LGBT market is still pretty much untapped. Look what happened to Hairspray. Instant $100 million box office.)

The point I'm trying to make is... "#667" isn't finished, and it never will be. But I did get the first draft out of the way. (Thank the Lord God, the Father and Jumping Jack Christ Almighty.)

- Lots of things change when you write a screenplay. The most important thing you can do is HAVE A PLAN. But you also have to be ready to alter that plan.

Sometimes you have an idea in mind to be the "core" of the story. You already know what you're going to write: it's like sketching leaves pressed under a canvas. All you have to do is take a pencil and shade over it, and the impression of the leaf forms itself. I used to do that in elementary school.

Then the main character changes names. Somebody tells you the twist needs an extra layer, so you create an entirely New Plot Device -- which means the end of Act Two needs to come backward eight pages, so you have to cut two great scenes and three minutes of dialogue -- so what do you cut? And once you decide where to swing the axe, you realize the New Plot Device doesn't play into your dramatic climax at all, and mixing it in throws off the whole balance, so you have to rework several of the final scenes.

Then you realize all the clever foreshadowing and set-up you've established in Act One is now irrelevant, because the ending's been changed. So you head back into the jungle with your machete and hack away -- cutting this line, adding three more, shifting that scene into Act Two, and removing a couple of extraneous characters -- and suddenly you discover that the leaf you THOUGHT you were sketching is actually a flower, or a stick, or a dead bird.

But when it's done, it has to look like you knew what you were sketching all along.

Whoever said writing a movie was easy?

- One of the main differences between a book and screenplay -- obviously -- is that eventually, people see a screenplay. But they only ever read a book. So it's important to describe things visually, and not get too wrapped up in the details, because some prop manager down the line will ultimately control those details.

A side result of this is that some people think of the "writing" in a movie as being equal to the dialogue. My movie could have the most stupid and implausible plot -- but if the dialogue is snappy/smart, Joe Moviegoer will say "well, the MOVIE sucked, but at least the WRITING was good". Because the only thing Joe Moviegoer notices about my screenplay is the words coming out of the main characters' mouths.

The truth is, movie execs will buy a script with crappy dialogue, knowing they can hire a more experienced writer to fix it... but if the plot itself is crappy, they won't touch it with a ten-foot pole. So it's crucial for a screenwriter to focus on Plot first, and Witty Banter second. Even though Joe Moviegoer will only notice the latter.

- Has anybody actually read this far?

- One more observation. It took me about two weeks to write the first forty pages, using Microsoft Word and formatting it all myself. Then I grabbed a copy of Final Draft 7. The last seventy-four pages took a total of five days to write. I can't stress enough how much better it was -- creatively -- to use a professional program. The ideas flowed quickly and easily, and it all looked very sexy, as well.

- OK, an opinion poll for whoever's read up to here, and feels like sharing. Have you watched Tough Love? There's a new episode on tonight.

I'm assuming you haven't. Duh. I know you readers personally for the most part, and I know none of you watched it. But I'll keep talking anyway. It's my god-damn blog.

My thoughts on the pilot episode: it's not a bad concept. The "matchmaking" idea carries some interest. Steve Ward is a natural host -- I thought this even when I met him in person. He's a big, tall, loud guy. The whole idea of putting all 8 girls in a house together is a little played-out, as it seems calculated to "create drama", and cause catfights (which it does). When Steve had the girls walk around the pool, in front of three asshole dudes, and then made them listen to the asshole dudes make snap judgments about each of them -- that was pretty fucking cold. Almost as cold as it was shallow. Then the second half of the episode wasn't shallow at all... Steve Ward actually had several good insights (after a mixer where the girls met a bunch of new guys) and gave the girls tips that would help them change their ways, rather than simply tearing them down. So Tough Love is a little schizophrenic -- it can't decide whether it wants to be a serious, Dr. Phil-esque relationship counseling show, or a trashy VH1 "reality" show.

At least it's better than "Bromance".

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

guess what?

It's finished.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

look! i exist!

My television show premieres this Sunday night at 8, on MTV's older, less-Ritalin-addicted cousin network known as Video Hits One.

Watch it.


Also, again I have to apologize for stringing out the posts so thin. I went through a blogging phase a few years ago where every daily occurrence made it to the Internet. Now I'm going through the inverse phase, where I keep everything to myself, and hide from everyone. Don't worry-- it's just a phase.

I wanted to let you guys know, though. I've been working on a new project. A screenplay.

It's already a vast improvement over my last effort. If you're unfamiliar, I did write a full screenplay last year... It was called "Jack is Dead" and it was kind of a modern-day spin on the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern story. I honestly think there's a good movie in there-- but I sure as shit couldn't find it. Maybe someday I'll rehash the whole mess and work it out. As it is, the finished draft of "Jack is Dead" is missing the one crucial ingredient in a good film: interesting and creative ideas.

This time, I think I've got a few pretty sweet ideas to toss in.

I won't give a plot summary yet, because it's probably still too early to do that, but I'll point you in the right direction. (Most of these comparisons are for overall mood and tone, as well as themes... NOT specific plot details.)

Mix Fight Club with War of the Worlds, in the style and atmosphere of 12 Monkeys. A little bit of Memento, a spritz of Tarantino (I can't resist), and even a dash of Oldboy to shake things up-- and you've got an idea where my project is going.

It's called "Six-Six-Seven", and when it's finished, I want you to read it.