Month: January 2011

Title? We don’t need no stinkin’ title!

Maximum Z Bad News Bears, Filmsack.com, hockey, Lake Tahoe, loglines, Lost In Space, movies, outlines, plot, screenwriting, story, Triggerstreet, Veronica, Walter Matthau

Okay.  I’m back from a rousing hockey tournament at Lake Tahoe, where V’s team came in 3rd out of 6, including their 2 wins with her in goal.  In fact, she was awarded the MVP puck for their 8-1 victory on Saturday night.  Overall, it was very exciting.  Cold, but exciting.

Just before we left, I was introduced to Triggerstreet.com, a screenwriting review/forum website (Kevin Spacey is one of the founders). Part of the way they work is having members review other members’ scripts.  I haven’t submitted anything yet, but plan to in the near future.

But it was the forum that especially intrigued me.  I decided to take the plunge and posted a question about my logline for LUCY.  I did that on Thursday afternoon.  By the evening, I had a few responses and something like 75 views.  What’s cool about the set-up is that you can opt to get an email notification that somebody’s responded to your post.  A lot of the drive up to Tahoe was spent checking them out.

I have to say I got some really good feedback, and even better, got what I feel is a stronger logline for the story.  I thought about posting that 3 Stooges one just to see what people think, but I’ll hold off for a little while.

Speaking of which, I sent in the old LUCY logline and the 3 Stooges one to the logline contest.  Neither one won, but honestly, I don’t really think that much of some recent winners.  I may try again with the new LUCY one.  It’s a wait-and-see situation.

-As much as I thought/hoped it might happen this weekend, I didn’t get a lot of work done on the outline.

So now that I’ve got an outline I like much better, I felt I had to start over with it, albeit with a few minor changes.  But as I was looking it over, there didn’t seem to be much I thought had to come out.  There are still a few places where I may have to make some slight readjustments, but it may not be as daunting a project as I originally thought.

And I may have stumbled onto a solution for moving the story along.  All I have to do now is figure out how to incorporate it into the story. Which I think I can do

Movie of the Moment:  A few to go over. First the original BAD NEWS BEARS. The other girl on V’s hockey team owns this, and we watched it on Saturday afternoon.  Watching it now as a parent is a lot different than when I was a lot closer to the age of a lot of the cast.  It was really weird watching Walter Matthau, especially since I’ve seen more of his work in recent years.

But the story and the writing still hold up.  Some good jokes sprinkled around here and there, but more would have been nice.  It’s also really weird to have a PG movie from the mid-70s have so much mild cursing in it.  From a writing point of view, the character development is strictly textbook, but effective.  What was also clever was that only a handful of scenes are set inside; a majority are set at the ball field.  And you get to know almost all of the kids on the team; just a handful don’t serve much purpose.  I know they made a remake with Billy Bob Thornton a few years ago, but I don’t see the point.

The other movie was LOST IN SPACE, only because it was on TV today while I was working.  I saw this in the theater back in 1998, and enjoyed it.  Not a lot, but worth the $6 for the matinee.  Incidentally, this would be a great choice for the Filmsack guys.

But looking at it today, it really drags in some places and the dialogue doesn’t really do much for me.  I still don’t understand why they didn’t just kill Gary Oldman’s Dr Smith.  He tried to sabotage their mission and they still let him live?  Ridiculous.  And don’t get me started on the cgi monkey alien.  Lame.

Akiva Goldsman, who wrote it (as well as BATMAN & ROBIN, but also A BEAUTIFUL MIND – go figure), has become more of a producer and has thankfully let his writing career diminish.  While I love the concept of the movie, this one just felt forced and could have been a little shorter.  Still, to me it’s one of the slightly better 60s-TV-show-based films, as opposed to that big ol’ chunk of cinematic Velveeta known as WILD WILD WEST.

Now just try to get that gigantic steampunk spider-tank out of your mind.

You’re welcome.

A little better

Maximum Z Lucy Steele, outlines, plot, screenwriting, story, subplot

After wielding my mighty editing pen, I went through a previous outline and cut out everything I didn’t want to use.  It helped.

I also kept a lot of what I’d written in the previous draft, but after the editing, it seems to flow along a little smoother.  Nice.  Today’s effort got me to around page 41 or so, which means I’m a few pages from the page 45 twist, which I’m still going with, based on my plot points.

Unfortunately, right after that the assorted storylines need to start intersecting, but I’ve got a few ideas.  I’m also concerned about the villain’s storyline.  So far, he’s only been shown once.  I’m trying to avoid having him be Marlon Brando in APOCALYPSE NOW and only show him at the end.  Can’t do that.

While I work on the main storyline and the bounty hunter subplot, I’m still trying to figure out how to incorporate the bad guy subplot so it not only feels natural, but also helps move the story along, builds tension, etc.

It would be nice if creativity whacks me upside the head sometime over the next couple of days.  I could use it.

Is this uphill climb getting steeper?

Maximum Z hockey, Lucy Steele, outlines, plot, screenwriting, story, Veronica

So I got to around page 22 or so today on the outline.  It’s slightly different than the previous version, but something still seems…off.  I can’t exactly put my finger on it, but it’s like you know there’s something important you have to do, but can’t remember what.

I still like the way the story is developing, but since I’m essentially eliminating one of the subplots (for now), it makes moving ahead a bit harder.

I also seem to keep going back to the previous draft, and that may not be helping.  Especially since that’s what I’m trying to move away from.  That may become more evident as this draft advances.

It also doesn’t help that I’m not plotting ahead enough, so to speak.  I don’t like just taking a stab in the dark and seeing what could work.  I really need to figure out where things are going and how to get there.  I already developed the plot points, and now need to fill in the blanks between them.

Surprisingly, the only version of the previous draft I have is a hard copy from about 2 months ago.  This was the super-detailed one, where each scene breakdown was about 4-5 sentences long.  Even though I won’t be using all of them, some of them I had completely forgotten about, so seeing all that detail and characterization was quite the pleasant surprise.

And even better, I may be able to salvage some of those for this latest draft.  Which would be cool.

V has a hockey tournament up at Lake Tahoe this weekend, so what I’m hoping is that during some of the downtime, I’m able to make some good progress.  Because Lord knows, I don’t plan on being outside if I can help it. A high of 30 degrees?  Are you kidding?

As long as I come home with all my extremities intact and functional, I’ll be fine.

Darned baby steps

Maximum Z Uncategorized

Quick post this time, so no lengthy write-up about my trials and tribulations.  Just the meat of the issue.

Started a spanking new outline today.  Slightly different than the previous one, but more or less still similar.

I’ve thought about writing it all out in prose form, but realize that would result in a lot more tangents and lack of focus.  Which I don’t need right now, so instead it’s 1-2 sentences about each scene.

I also find I’m revisiting those old chestnuts of “What’s the conflict in this scene?  Does it move the story forward?  Does it adequately showcase the theme?”  Yes, a pain in the ass now, but will be totally worth it later.

I think for now I’ll be happy if I can get close to where I reached last time, and then see how far past that I can go.

 

I have no excuse

Maximum Z assignment, documentary, Filmsack.com, loglines, Lucy Steele, Netflix, outlines, plot, story, writing gigs

I was really bad about posting this week.  Only once.  That’s just wrong.

Part of the problem was frustration with the outline.  While I liked it, something seemed to be missing.  It also felt as if I had written myself into a corner, creatively speaking.  I had the set-up, but not the solution, which is not the way to do it.

So even though I told myself I wouldn’t do it, I started over.  All the way back to the beginning, which in this case means the logline.

Something about it just didn’t seem to click, so I noodled around with it and came up with 2 versions.  One was a little more…intense, and one was just different.

I sent them both to writer friends and got very helpful feedback.  Then I consulted with my most valued critic, aka K.  She liked what I came up with as well.  She also said how much she likes the idea and can’t wait to read it when it’s done.

So now I need to start a slight restructuring of the story itself.  Do I keep the sidekick?  Is there a way to simplify things, but also keep them moving at a steady pace?  These and many more questions I hope to answer in the coming weeks.

-Interesting follow-up to my short-writing experience from last summer.  Apparently all the post-production is finished, so the release party is in a few weeks.  But it’s on a Thursday night, starting at 8PM, which for a creaky odl traffic reporter like me, that’s kind of late.  And it’s at a dance club-type place, which is REALLY not my kind of environment.  Highly doubtful I’ll go, but you never know.

The director sent me a note a few days ago, saying he’s going to be working on a short documentary (approximately 12-15 minutes), and wanted to know if I’d be open to writing the script for it.  And he’ll have a budget, which means $$$ for yours truly!  Actually, more like $.

I’ve never written a docu before, but I love watching them, so I have a general idea of how to go about it.  The subject matter is something completely foreign to me: DJ school.  As in club.  Not radio.  Although the latter would be kind of cool, I don’t think they have those anymore.

I’m meeting with him on Monday to discuss it, so I’ll post how that went, along with the usual LUCY updates.

-Strong recommendation for a hilarious podcast about movies . filmsack.com.  4 guys talking about what they liked or didn’t like about the movie selection of the week.  All types of genres from various decades, but the 80s seem to get the most representation.

What’s really great is that a lot of the movies are available on Netflix via streaming, so watching them isn’t too much of a hassle, provided you have the time to watch.  Even if you haven’t seen the movie in a while, it’s still a blast to listen to.