Month: May 2011

Taking care of this and that

Maximum Z rewrite, screenwriting, Tron: Legacy

It was a busy weekend, what with the 100th running of Bay to Breakers. I ran/walked with V, who was quite the trouper.  Time: 1:57:49. Not too bad.

Suffice to say, I didn’t get to do much with the rewrite.  Just a little development around the end of Act Two and working into Act Three.

Although I did come up with two possible significant developments.

First – slightly changing the rules of how this world works.  I’d been very stubborn in trying to come up with something different I liked, not that I wasn’t trying.  But I think I may have found a solution that works for me and for the story.  I’ll have to see if it fits.  Sure hope so.

Second – I forget where I read it, but the article was about how a mentor character usually has to be gotten rid of in order for the hero to show growth.  As much as I hate to say it, I think I know which character is going to have to kick the bucket.  Which is a shame, because I really like this character a lot.  But they go down fighting – literally, and for a very good reason. Oh well.

Movie of the Moment: TRON: LEGACY. Man, what a disappointment.  I can see why it bombed.  It was a great concept – updating the ‘inside the computer world’ for the modern digital age, but oh-so-poorly executed! Why couldn’t they have spent as much time on the script as they did on making it look good?  A quick check of imdb shows that this had FOUR writers on the story, two of which did the screenplay.  Four?  Four guys and it still sucked?

And don’t get me started on this whole ‘computerized Jeff Bridges face to look younger’ thing.  That was awful AND distracting.

There were just way too many plotholes and inconsistencies to make it really work. What was stopping Clu from finding where Flynn was hiding?  What was stopping him from getting to that outgoing message-beam-thingy?  Where did all of his soldiers come from?  I thought Sam was changed by that laser cannon thing in Flynn’s office into digital information, so then why was he bleeding on the Grid?  How the hell did Quorra become real when they got out of there?  How did Flynn know that Rinzler was really Tron? How did Tron survive getting killed by Clu?  Why didn’t they ever show his face (probably blew the budget on youth-ifying Bridges, so they couldn’t afford to do Boxleitner as well)?  I really thought the snotty ENCOM guy in the boardroom was going to play an important role, but was just in that one scene.

These are just some of the things I was thinking while watching this.  Once again, too much hype, and a big fat fail on the execution. I suspect this will not become the cult classic the first one was.  While that had its fair share of story problems, at least it wasn’t on the same level as this.

Did I mention the cg was good?  Probably the only good thing about it.

One happy fanboy

Maximum Z post-production, Skywalker Ranch, sound, Star Wars

There was no work done on the rewrite at all yesterday because I got to do something I honestly never I thought I’d get to: visit Skywalker Ranch.

If the name sounds unfamiliar, it’s the compound in Marin County (the one north of San Francisco) where George Lucas had set up Industrial Light & Magic after the success of STAR WARS.  ILM has since moved to the Presidio in SF, but Skywalker Sound and a lot of the administrative offices are still there.

A mom of another student at V’s school works at Skywalker Sound.  In fact, she won an Oscar earlier this year for Best Sound Editing for INCEPTION (her and two other guys).  One of the silent auction prizes at our school’s spring fundraiser was a private tour of the grounds.  Since there was no way we could afford that (I think it went for something like $275), I ran into her about six weeks ago at a school function.  I casually mentioned missing out on the opportunity to take part in the tour, to which she said she’d see if she could arrange something.

A few weeks later, I got an email saying that if we could be there during her lunch hour, she’d be happy to show us around.  Deal.

Our dilemma now was whether or not to bring V, because that would mean taking her out of school early.  My first reaction was it would be worth it, but the more we discussed it, we decided that this wasn’t an amusement park-type environment, but more an actual production facility, which your typical 8-year-old would probably find boring.

But I had heard they had a gift shop, so we’d get her something.

The Ranch is way out there on Lucas Valley Road, and it’s quite easy to drive right past it if you’re not looking for it. No signage; no big-ass Star Wars logo anywhere.  Just a nondescript driveway off a quiet country road.

You get through the gate and up to the security guard booth.  While the guard was contacting our friend, I couldn’t help but notice the EMT-type patch at the top of her sleeve.  Like a fire department logo, except with an X-Wing Fighter in the middle.  Cool.

We got our map and directions where to go, then drove ahead.

My first reaction was “It’s a lot smaller than I expected.”  And it is.  It’s not the sprawling estate I thought it would be.  Everything was a lot closer than the map indicated.

We passed the ball field, then the horse corral, the organic garden on the other side of the road, and then pulled into the Tech Building parking lot.  Our friend was waiting for us and took us inside.  The first thing you’ll notice is the abundance of movie posters for US films but in foreign languages.  They’re all over the place.

If you’re into sound or audio production, you’d feel as if you’d died and gone to heaven.  There are studios of varying size throughout the whole building, each equipped with sound boards that would seem more appropriate for the Starship Enterprise.  What was also cool was that the larger ones had a theatre-like design, so each room got the maximum results for what was being worked on.  We also got to see one of the humongous rooms that they would record orchestras in, complete with adjustable walls so you can actually tune the sound of the room.

Our friend is currently working on the sound for COWBOYS & ALIENS, but she didn’t show us any footage.  The movie comes out in July, and all of the post-production will be done up until just a few weeks before the release.  We found that very strange, expecting there to be more lead time between wrapping it up and the release, but apparently that’s become common practice for most studio films these days.

Although we were only in it for a few minutes, the screening room was simply incredible. About 300 or so seats with a nice big screen.  Apparently they were setting up for some kind of demonstration later in the day, but we got to see a short snippet of a scene from RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK in black and white, but with only the dialogue sound.  No music, no effects; just “throw me the idol, I throw you the whip.”  It sounded strange to hear it like we were on the set.

Then we stopped in the Foley Room, where traditional sound effects can be created. Walking on certain types of surfaces, dropping, smashing or manipulating something to get a particular sound.  Very similar to how they did sound effects for old-time radio.

We were then asked if we wanted to see the main building, which is the one in the photo above. Very Victorian-era architecture, reminiscent of a New England beach house. In some of the cabinets just off the main door are the only proof that George Lucas is connected.  On display are some lightsaber handles (I’m fairly certain they’re the originals), the fertility idol from the opening sequence in RAIDERS, the Crystal Skull, an AT-AT model from EMPIRE, Indy’s hat and whip (also originals, I assume) and what I thought was incredibly cool – Charlie Chaplin’s cane and derby.  I’m pretty sure Lucas could afford to buy them.

Our first stop was the library, which is two floors, with a wooden spiral staircase and a gigantic stained glass window in the middle of the ceiling.  No matter what department you work in, you can come here and do research on whatever you’re working on to get the utmost in accuracy.  I asked if George’s office was in the building.  It is, but I thought it would have been presumptuous to ask if we could see if he was there.

I asked if the gift shop was here, but it was in another building.  We zipped over to another building.  The gift shop is a whole lot smaller than I expected.  We got a t-shirt for V, one of those EMT-style shirts for me (Millenium Falcon in the logo – nice!) and a pair of lightsaber chopsticks (Luke green and Darth Maul red, which also have magnets in the bottom for the complete double-bladed effect).

Our friend had to get back to work, so we thanked her and headed home.  On the drive back, K asked what I thought about what we had just done.  I said I was really glad we did it.  I also confessed that I couldn’t help but think I’d love to go back someday when they’re working on a film that I wrote.

That would be quite awesome.

About…that much

Maximum Z Dreamship, rewrite, screenwriting

Act Two is slowly drawing to a close, but something feels a little off.  There doesn’t seem to be that same sense of momentum from last week.  It feels weird.  I’m going to put that getting-out-of-the-house thing to the test next week and see what happens.

I may do some fine-tuning on what I have so far, but I only have a few gaps to fill and then it’s on to Act Three.  This whole restructuring of the previous draft has caused a slight shift in some plot points, but I think it’s for the better.  In theory, it should help wrap things up faster.

I like to think that at the rate I’m going, I may actually have a more-or-less solid outline done by the end of the month, followed by a hopefully short editing and tightening-up period.  And then…on to pages!

But for now, one step at a time.

No Movie of the Moment today. Sorry.

I also realized I haven’t read a Black List script in way too long, so I’ll try to get back on that train in the near future.  Probably once the rewrite’s done.

Fitting the pieces together

Maximum Z 500 Days of Summer, Dreamship, Movie of the Moment, Nicholl Fellowship, plot, rewrite, screenwriting, ScriptQuack

While I was working on the last quarter of Act Two today, I realized I didn’t have any hard copy of the previous draft: outline OR script.  Which means I didn’t have anything to really reference as part of this rewrite.  I know how I’d like to move forward, but once again find myself streamlining how that’s being accomplished.  A lot of unnecessary fat is being trimmed away. For the better.

An interesting side note  to all of this is that I took a look at my notes from the fine folks at ScriptQuack and discovered I’ve put a lot of their suggestions into play, which in turn renders a lot of their notes irrelevant.  I should probably X out all the parts I don’t need anymore, which would enable me to focus on what I haven’t used yet (or may not need at all).

This heading toward the end of Act Two is really presenting a challenge: how to best have the situation increasingly worsen so that all definitely seems lost for my hero.  I’ve got a few ideas to work with, but I’m not in a rush, so this can be carefully planned out.

-Nicholl deadline has come and gone. I’m glad I didn’t try to rush through this; it would not have yielded good results.  Better to give myself more time for next year.  Very interesting to see some critique comments on Facebook.  Who couldn’t read those and hope it was their script being praised?

I’m sure a lot of people enter only one or two contests a year, if that often, the Nicholl probably being one of them. Have winners of less prestigious contests ever gone on to fame and fortune?  Not that I know of, but I don’t research them that much.

-Just wondering – I get more done on a script when I’m where I really shouldn’t be working on it (read: actual paying job).  Does this happen for other writers?  I can get some work done at home, but the creative juices really flow when I can spare a few minutes between on-air reports.  Again, just wondering.

-Movie of the Moment: 500 DAYS OF SUMMER.  We watched it over 2 days, despite it only being 95 minutes long.  I didn’t really know what to expect, and that I’d heard good things about it.  One line in particular stood out for me in the beginning: “This is not a love story.”  Boy, ain’t that the truth.

I liked it, despite how sad it is.  Like they set out to make an anti-romcom.  It was kind of refreshing to jump past the meet-cute and avoid any kind of wacky hijinks and cut straight to the beginning of the end.  The whole jumping-around-in-time aspect was also well-executed.  I had a little trouble keeping track of things when the jumps were significant (Day 348 to Day 22, etc), but it was better than just letting it all happen in a traditional linear way.

Another benefit to that is how it doesn’t treat the viewer like an idiot, which is always important.

Ain’t no stoppin’ me

Maximum Z Dreamship, rewrite, screenwriting, seminar

Today was quite the milestone. While I didn’t actually advance past the page 75 twist, I did type up everything from the midpoint to there, and I really like how it’s coming along.

It seems a lot more…streamlined than the previous draft. Things happen much quicker, there’s less lagtime, and I like to think it’s showing my hero in a more active role.

All that remains is getting to the end of Act Two and the whole of Act Three.  The former may be somewhat similar to earlier incarnations, but the latter may have to be totally redone.  At first, that sounds a bit intimidating, but that’s how I felt about this whole project since the beginning.  Happy to say my expectations have been a bit overestimated.

We’re supposed to go away for a few days near the end of June. I’m really hoping to have some kind of rough draft for K to read on the plane.  She enjoys doing that, and I appreciate her feedback.

-If you’re a screenwriter in the Bay Area and are free next weekend (May 21 & 22), click here for what sounds like a great opportunity.  I can’t do it because I’ve got prior commitments.  I don’t know if it’s still available, but it couldn’t hurt to check it out.

-No Movie of the Moment today, but THE KING’S SPEECH, 500 DAYS OF SUMMER and TRON: LEGACY are due up next. Always welcome to comments on any of them.