Monday 25 April 2011

Nostalgia

Currently, I have got the nostalgia of Uni in my mind, it always comes just as things are about to end

I always think of a song. Take it Easy by The Eagles particularly this part:
'We may lose and we may win,
though we will never be here again' 

And then onto the next part of my life, but not after a scenic sunset and a JD & Coke in my hand.

You know what they say. Red sky at night, shepard's house burning.

Sunday 24 April 2011

Long time, no type

Two weeks at home came to an end several hours ago. Back to the ghost town of Southampton, I'm tired, hot and a third thing I cannot think of right now.

Back home, time, pace. It has a different rhythm to city life, not too quick as the former, nor does it go at a snails pace of a village. Not good, not bad, just home. I weighed the pros and cons between home and uni, I can sleep there but no gym to go to. I got bored, ate terribly, went through three seperate tubs of Ben & Jerrys, had plenty of free pub grub. The first week, I don't know what I was doing but I acheived next to nothing, so much for finishing my second draft of my screenplay and starting my third draft. As I type, I am twelve days away from the hand-in and I didn't even bother doing the other work, yet. But to be honest, that just feels supplementary. My final mark means nothing to me, my screenplay does.

I slowly but surely got around to finishing the second draft over the course of the last week, I luckily got upto 20 pages for two days, but in between slogged to progress but I wasn't feeling it. Sometimes I need to warm myself into it, other times I just know it isn't working and do something constructive like sit in front of the television, eating digestives.

The script slowly came along, tighter than the first draft by a while. If my first draft was a car, the engine would have dropped out after a mile. My second draft, that can get you to the shops, think about calling a taxi back. I created some great moments, I feel it could become a film, and has all the potential in the world to have a sequel.

I finally got around to reading my Cormac McCarthy omnibus, nowhere near finished. The Border Trilogy. I bought it because, I've seen several adaptions of his work, but I didn't want to read The Road or No Country for Old Men. So I got this, It took some time getting used to in the way it was written, abstract description, lack of grammer. I'm used to Ellroys Staccato sentence structure. I love it when writers change the way a novel can be written. Cormac just gives me a clear sense of Mexico in the first of the trilogy (All the Pretty Horses, which I am still reading). Rawlins, and John Grady Cole, two teenage ranchers from Texas travel to Mexico on a sense of adventure in the mid-1900s. Sometimes it is better when a character cannot explain themselves in that of an English Lit postgrad, uses the intelligence of the characters to tell the world through their eyes, yet maintaining a third person perspective all way through. Skipping over conversations with summaries where as another might just be a monologue of several pages. I can tell I am going to regret finishing the book, I don't want it to finish. The book creates a world free of Western movie tropes and just tells a story, a simple one, told well and with style. 

I wrote something pretty cool, where this paragraph currently is. Then I decided, I'd rather one of my characters says it. If you see any typos, fuck you, I'm tired, I thought regret and wrote recreate (edited). You want to read something good? Read the extract below this post.

El Capitan

The captain reached out with one hand and rapped with his knuckles against the door. You didnt have to kill him.
A keyring rattled outside. The door opened. The captain held up one hand to an unseen figure in the partial dark of the corridor.
Momento, he said.
He turned and stood studying them.
I will tell you a story, he said. Because I like you. I was young man like you. You see. And this time I tell you I was always with these older boys because I want to learn every thing. So on this night at the fiesta of San Pedro in the town of Linares in Nuevo León I was with these boys and they have some mescal and everything--- you know what is mescal?--- and there was this woman and all these boys is go out to this woman and they is have this woman. And I am the last one. And I go out to the place where is this woman and she is refuse me because she say I am too young or something like that.
What does a man do? You see. I can no go back because they will all see that I dont go with this woman. Because the truth is always plain. You see. A man cannot go out to do some thing and then he go back. Why he go back? Because he change his mind? A man does not change his mind.
The Captain made a dist and held it up. Maybe they tell her to refuse to me. So they can laugh. They give her some money or something like that. But I dont let whores make trouble for me. When I come back there is no laughing. No one is laughing. You see. That has always been my way in this world. I am the one when I go someplace then there is no laughing. When I go there then they stop laughing.

- Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses.

Sunday 3 April 2011

Winding down

University is in a state of suspension for three weeks as our easter holidays have begun. I pointed out to my mate earlier that is was only five weeks until we have to hand in our feature film scripts. Since yesterday, I've started working in the library to make some progress on my second draft. Over the weekend, I have spent ten hours in there and it is definitley not wasted time. So much progress, I have done more in the past two days, than I have over the past four months. Losing interest in recent staples of human life, such as Facebook, IMDB and Wikipedia.

The key in getting the work done though is going with another person, just so you're not too constrained to the work. Have a brief chat and continue working. Have something to eat and continue working. Read a magazine, go to the toilet. No worries about leaving your things unatteneded and it is in a very relaxed setting.

On a sidenote, I watched Source Code which whilst good and enjoyable, does not live up to Moon. Cannot say I blme Duncan Jones' choice of film, it was just the ending that took the edge off, he needs a few more films to be a top director. I've been a fan since day one, so I'll probably see whatever he makes.

My entire area has become quiet as students have descended upon their homes to raid the fridges of their parents. It is something else, all the live of the city feels like it has disipitated and every time I step out of my house, I feel like I'm in the beginning of a zombie movie.

I have five more days in the library before I descend on the fridge of my parents. I have no exact expectations but in a writerly sense put one foot in front of the other, or rather one word in front of the other and get it done.

I started rereading The Devils Guide to Hollywood by Joe Eszterhas, the kind of book I love, full of gossip driven anecdotes, something you can pick up and read at any point. It just has a breath of fresh air next to other screenwriting books of any kind. Truly funny and worth picking up every once in a while, just to remind myself that the screenwriter does not have to be a bitch for his/her employers.

"Some screenwriters hate actors.
Author/screenwriter William Saroyan hated Marlon Brando. He had his reasons.

1. When he was a young man, Saroyan discovered that Brando had seduced his wife, Carol.
2. When he was an old man, Saroyan discovered that Brando had seduced his daughter, Lucy."

Well, okay, sometimes. Good night everyone.