Retired

Resolutions

Now is the time to put your New Years resolutions into effect. Don't tell anyone, just get started.

A year ago, I started to change by choosing to eat a certain way. Ever since then I've been growing as a person and I don't plan on stopping.

You can do it.

Untitled Chef Project and Roundtable

Two screenplays in one week. Not bad. Two specs scripts as well, yet to be made.

Untitled Chef Project - Steven Knight, he of The Detectives writing fame, brings us a story of American/French chef who tries to sort his life out. How? By disappearing after a drug bender in his restaurant in Paris and reappearing as clean and sober in London. What I like about it is the fact that the protagonist is horrible to other people. There is reason,  but it is a twisted, selfish one. Quite a fun third act as well.

Roundtable - by Brian K. Vaughan, he of Runaways comic writing fame. Four modern Knights of the British Realm must unite to fight ancient evil. Who better to defend us than, a Richard Branson surrogate, a faded athlete, a scientist and Sir My Cocaine. It didn't grab me too much, but who am I to judge a script that was sold. Plus, no one pushes the pram a lot. 

A couple of apps that are worth checking out: Blinkist for reading summaries of non fiction books. The other is called Focus@will, a productivity app that plays music that improves your concentration as you work. I just used it for two hours with a five minute break in between.

Little Miss Pac Rim

Two more scripts in two weeks.

Little Miss Sunshine (shooting script) - KISS. That is the best thing to take away from this script, it is brilliantly simple. I'll keep reading this script over and over.

Pacific Rim (Early Draft) - I prefer the film and this draft was solely written by Travis Beacham. When I saw the film, I enjoyed it a lot for what it was. It was fun. This script has the beginnings of what will become the script. What I took away from this was that the apparent collaboration after this draft and how it improved it. Making some good into something great.

As for my writing: the script reading has helped me to approach screenwriting with another mindset and I managed to write a four page scene during lunch. It was not amazing, but a start. I'll print out my first six pages tonight and work on improving them before pressing forward. The biggest focus I have at the moment is how does it look of the screen and how would people react to seeing thse moments.

I'll probably read another script this week as it is helping me with my approach to writing.

Good times.

At The Mountains of Madness

Hello,

Happy new year and all that.

Not quite sure what to say, aside from the fact that I am finally lifting weights again (after being a sloth) and just read a second screenplay of the year.

The first was Vlad by Charlie Hunnam. I am by no means a reviewer, but I decided to track a draft down after listening to him on the Nerdist Podcast. The greatest part of the script by Hunnam is the air of the situations, he makes you feel the characters reactions and it struck me as something that should not be taboo.

Let me explain. In university, one of our lecturers was focused on writing so well that a director could not take credit for your work. I don't agree with this, it should be about making the film the best it can be. Perhaps it feels like overstepping your boundaries as a writer. I can see parallels with Hunnams approach that focuses on the actors behaviour.

It left me with a questions: do you worry about writing other people's roles to their annoyance?

I think it should be put out there and if it doesn't work as a project rolls forward, then it should be discarded. If it works, it works, if not, oh well. 

You could write an action scene that will not work and the experts come in and sort.

I'm clearly no reviewer, because I didn't say what the premise was. Vlad the Impaler origin story.

At The Mountains of Madness

I own a massive hardcover book by HP Lovecraft, I barely got through a few of the stories. I wanted to talk about this screenplay to someone, but I don't know who. I didn't think a scary script actually existed, seriously scary. A film I would love to see. It is basically a bunch of sailors and scientists in 1930 going on an expedition to the Antartic and lots of unexplainable things occur and nobody can do anything about it. Just really fucking scary. 

I believe the draft I read was co-written by Guillermo Del Toro and was close to being made with Tom 

Cruise,  but it fell through.

Like I said not a reviewer. I took a lot from reading these screenplays. Mainly because I over complicate things in my head, making the entire process much harder than it needs to be.

It also gave me faith that I can write something good.

I think that is what I get most out of scripts isn't story structure or character development. It is more in the way of the style of writing from each script and finding a new way to approach screenwriting.

Good shit.

Eve

You are on the eve of who you want to be. That is if you are willing.

The motivational vacuum

I don't know why I'm down, but I am. All the work I've done, how ever little it has been. I feel like I just can't be bothered. I've had a busy week and people have been pissing me off.

I just couldn't be bothered to do all the little things that have helped me be a better person up to now.

As I write this I remember the things I have learnt. Trying to find the best version of yourself is like like a Diet Version Prometheus, except I can give up.

In my life so far, I have seen or heard of people I know, just give up on the dreams. That  is the most depressing thing I have ever heard. Wild animals have dreams, usually to eat and have sex. Let's focus on the hunt for food, we all know what happens to lions if they don't capture anything, they die slowly from malnutrition and starvation. Surely giving up on a dream no matter what leads to malnutrition  and starvation for your mind and then in turn, your body. 

What I find difficult is that someone I work with has goals, just like me. Yet, she struggles. A common theme in everything. Yet, when she's not doing well, she tries to drag you down, feel bad about yourself, lash out. Because she struggles, she feels everybody else should. I really want to tell her to fuck off, because she is like a tumour to everyone around her. She is a motivation vacuum.

If you knew this person outside of work, you would avoid them. If you do work with them, you will face big challenges. I don't discourage, I also try to give her support. She on the other hand has no clue, how to support others. She is self involved, she only talks about herself (more than me).

I can feel she will throw in the towel soon. I can't be like her, I can be like the people who fall into the paradigm of a mundane life. I'm getting back to editing my script.

I have no motivation right now, other than fear. Fear that I'll end up like them, sucking the colour of life from you.

First Draft Revisited

I forgot about writing in this blog for a short while. That was quite nice, as I don't have much of value to express in this blog, except battle with myself. It doesn't read well. Like a child doing minutes in a psychiatrists office.

However, with this time off, I hid the script away. Read some books, saw some films. Give myself time to worry that I was falling back on my ways, losing the muscles. 

Finally looking over the first draft. It's not too bad at the beginning. It's a nice relief, I just know that it will get worse as it goes on. So glad that I get a second or more chances to work on everything.

It can be made better and it shall be.

First Draft

Hello, welcome to what readers call a "depressing" blog. I just see it as cutting to the vein of things. I mean core, I mean. 

Onto the good news. First draft complete. Hanging around screenwriter friends helped me burst thigh the last part. Made me realise that you change according to who you are surrounded by. Thanks people, you inspired me. Not so fucking depressing now is it.

Apart from I am fed up of my job. Well now it's depressing again. Thanks Laura.

Thinking about the screenplay. I need a few things, to embellish on some details and cut a lot away and figure out the relationships for all the secondary characters. Also the opening is nothing special and a little drawn out. However with some work and a detailed beat sheet, the second draft should be heads and shoulders above the rest.

I honestly wish I lived closer to my screenwriting friends, because their presence helps me write so much more. No idea if that is the same for them, but it works for me.

I remember putting my friends through horrible first draft reads, quick tip, do that to your enemies. If you have them, I honestly don't have time for that.

There are some moments that I know are going to be hilarious, and some need some work. I also have to work on my fixation with writing in such a gory manner in fight scenes.

At least I have built a foundation.

Growing

I have lost a stone, written 100 pages, earnt a bit of money and had some good experiences this year. However if you read this blog (that is if you are me in the future who has lost his memory and is trying to piece together who I am by reading it. Yes, I am the only one who will read this!) then I always write about doing little bits of stuff and doing lots of nothing.

Now I am starting an experiment to see what happens. There is no hypothesis, except to have interesting experiences in a process of development. I will try to tailor it to make it easy enough for me not to wuss out on.

I just wrote an 800 word manifesto of the project. I think it starts tomorrow.

Now future me is thinking "So that explains why I did that thing which cost me my memory"

Side Characters

I don't know why my brain produces these, but for some reason it creates side characters who have just one scene and disappear. Perhaps it is freeing to do this. Build up a character in a matter of a few actions and lines of dialogue with no expectation or real bearing to the story.

Perhaps it is my way of saying in a script to the protagonists that the world doesn't fucking revolve around them, despite it actually revolving around them. Take them down a peg or two.

PTSD

It's been a week and I can't get over what I learnt and experienced. The problem is I now hate my job. For all the inane thigs that didn't bother me, now piss me off. I've seen what is possible and this job is dragging me down. 

It is clear to me, that it is not possible to obviously find a job in the industry I want, but also to find a way to grow. However, as things go on I have noticed I usually slow down for a bit, then get back on track. The problem is that I do not have a map to guide me in the areas I want to grow. 

The only logical next step is to come up with a map to become who I want to be, to figure shit out. Let it be said that the "perfect me" is not an assortment of magazine articles formed into a mesomorph on a conveyor belt in a really nice suit, oh no. It is in fact an abstract avatar as I do not know what the end product might be... In a really nice suit.

I've figured out the categories and now I have a syllabus to construct. I have signed up at the university of me, where I shall be studying for a bachelors, a masters and then a PhD. Then I can pretty much get  a job there as lecturer. Get tenure. All that kind of crap.

Thoughts on film school

If I could afford the money to do just a year at film school, I would throw myself into it. I would sacrifice a lot of today's expectations: three meals a day, Internet, TV all that just to learn and grow.

We wannabe screenwriters write way too much action for them actors. They'll be happier to find their own interpretation of punching someone that isn't:

"Earl throws a hookercut onto Steve, a hybrid of uppercut and hook. It lands directly onto his chin"

They can figure it out for themselves.

If you're getting used to filmmaking and don't have much time, don't sweat the small stuff. All those fancy angles and shots that you want, will probably not happen, just shoot the fucking thing quickly and move on. 

Everything should be planned out. Rehearse, prepare.

If you are using a camera that records digitally, then you don't need two takes of the same angle. I tint works, it works.

The editing phase really is when you get to control the story.

Sound is king, get the sound right and everything else can kind of suck.

Have fun.

Please don't tell actors how to do things and explain the "subtext".

When I asked the actors to show me how they would do the scene, they did it their own way. Better than I would direct them, so I said "okay, let's do that". Because I could not make them better, but worse and the weather was bound to take a turn. I am not an acting teacher, it would be like stories of script meetings where a person in pr or some other department begins to make inane suggestions.

Man, I wish I could go to film school.

Failure #4

I had the chance to direct a scene yesterday. My direction worked in ways and failed in knowing what I wanted exactly, then missing some coverage shots of the area, due to rain.

It came together quite smoothly in the editing though.

Wow

I am exhausted from a weekend of film school. Almost 18 hours of non-stop work, and I loved every second of it.

It was actually the best weekend of my life, I learnt so much that gives me enough confidence to become a filmmaker. I am floored by what the actors could do with what seemed like a very simplistic script. 

I wish I had the money to go back to film school next week and start a one year course.

There is so much I could write about the experience. So much.

It would be pathetic to go back to my job and not do anything with this new training, wouldn't it?

Failure 3

The failure to act. To endure procrastination in the works or other people. To not progress, to grow stagnant.

That is my chief failure. That is everyone's chief failure.

I always know what I am going to do, but I never act upon it. A shame for the sperm and the egg that "won".

I

I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I.

That is the entirety of the blog, no need to read anymore.

The Larry David Method

Pretty sick of writing scripts for today. Slowly getting to another point in my life where it is time to change... Again. Because changing is fun, and I'm a little bitch with change, so it proves interesting and provides material where I can write characters in funny situations and pretend I came up with it. This is known as The Larry David Method.

The Larry David Method is the writer's version of the Stanislavsky acting method. You go out, fuck up in abundance, feel stupid. Go home, laugh at yourself, and then try to sell someone fucking up in the same way as you did.

I think more people would read this (not that I care) if I put more pictures in it.

First Draft

Lars

(Breathlessly)

Thanks.

Lars looks around and notices a RECEPTIONIST in her forties and another fifty something man JULIAN. 

Receptionist  

Does it smell?

Lars

Yes.

Receptionist

God's green earth! Do you see what I mean? Some people need to sort out their diet.

Receptionist pulls a can of air freshener from beneath her desk and walks around it and out of the reception and closes the door.

We can see through a tiny pane of the door and hear the "SHUHHHH!" of the air freshner and it sprays out white gas.

Receptionist (CONT’D)

(Muffled)

It bloody stinks out here!

Receptionist opens the door and walks back to her desk.

Receptionist (CONT’D)

How are we supposed to make a good impression to clients if they walk into a cloud of that?! I swear Julian, this is going to cost so much in aerosols. You need to talk to security.

Julian

I did. The building is responsible for the toilets, not the companies. As such anyone on any floor can use any toilet on every floor. We can't stop them. Some people are so boring they play toilet bingo, trying to use the facilities on every floor.

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Just working through my first draft as of Monday. I was so happy to be done with the treatment that came to 26 pages. The funny thing is I didn't include the end sequence, because that would've took 26 pages. 

As I continue, I don't need to look at my treatment as I know the piece intimately now, and just look back at it now and then. Spending all this time on it, writing on index cards and all other things, I must've written 90 pages on it, before I even started.

However, now I have started and it is good to be back. Writing screenplays feels good. It's not perfect, but it's the first draft. 

The beginning of the piece was the hardest, I just hit a wall straight away. Now I am almost knee deep in it and have hits my stride as the screenplay is going in the direction it is supposed to. A lot of foreshadowing at the moment. 

I 'm at page 34 at the moment. I have about another hour of writing left in me today. The thing I am struggling with is finding the main character's voice and the fact that he seems to be a victim or witness to things, rather than an instigator. I know events change this in the screenplay, but I get the feeling if someone read this, they would chuck it away quickly.

I should finish the draft somewhat soon. Then in two weeks, off to film school to learn the basics of filmmaking.

Mission: Success

Huzzah! The treatment has been completed. Onto the screenplay. Huzzah!