Year: 2011

Darn my sense of parental responsibility

Maximum Z 3-D, Kung Fu Panda, movies, parenting, radio

I can honestly say I have done practically NO writing in the past couple of days. Not because I didn’t want to, but just couldn’t.

I was busy being a good dad.

With school out and the budget tight, we opted to have V spend her first week of summer vacation at what we call Mom and Dad Camp. She went to K’s office on Tuesday, got dropped off at my office late yesterday morning, and has been with me since 4:15AM this morning.

Side note – I get up at 3:15AM in order to be at work by 4:30, including the bike ride.  V’s been coming in with me every once in a while since she was 3, which usually involves a ride from K or in a taxi.  She loves it because for 4 hours she can sit in the conference room and watch DVDs, or lately, play with her iTouch, and even better, has started reading.

But I digress.

I enjoy having quality father-daughter time, but that feeling of not working on a script always nags at me.  Then I realize she won’t always be this age, or willing to be seen in public with her dad, so I should treasure days like this while I can, and worry about the writing later.

Part of today’s agenda was going to see KUNG FU PANDA 2.  It was a little different from the first one; much more action-y.  Basically, the idea is ‘gunpowder comes to China’.  There’s also a nice b-story about Po needing to overcome his demons and find inner peace.

V seemed to enjoy it, especially the more slapstick-y parts, and I liked the subplot about Po trying to find his roots.  Fortunately, there was only one time she asked about a joke; I didn’t have time to explain anyway.

Since last year’s LAST AIRBENDER debacle, I’ve tried to steer us clear from seeing films in 3-D.  It doesn’t seem necessary.  There were some scenes in KFP2 that appeared designed specifically for it, but seeing it in 2-D didn’t take anything away from it.

V heads out of town next week with K’s sister, so I’m already planning to catch THOR (if it’s still around), and K is still on the fence about SUPER 8.  X-MEN: FIRST CLASS and GREEN LANTERN are also possibilities.

My inner movie geek loves the summer.

Re-charged

Maximum Z Dreamship, Francois Ozon, French, Movie of the Moment, rewrite, screenwriting, Sylvain Chomet, The Triplets of Belleville

It’s been a busy couple of days.  School’s out. It was Memorial Day weekend. I’ve been working a lot of extra hours.

Moving ahead with the rewrite has been slower than I had hoped, but it’s coming along.  I got to the halfway point yesterday, so I’m still working on being completely done just before the annual trek to the in-laws in late June.

In some ways, the rewrite has been really cathartic.  Changing or completely cutting something I had previously thought untouchable feels so…liberating.  I’m no longer hindered by second-guessing myself, and now feel like I can really make this thing work.

Even better, story ideas or subplot points I thought would be necessary have been easily removed, thereby streamlining the overall story. I like when I can do that.  Having good writing days does wonders for the self-esteem and confidence levels.

I had a great time writing DREAMSHIP the first time around, and am fortunate enough to have recaptured that feeling for the rewrite.  At least so far.

-Movie of the Moment.  A double bill of French.

Since we watched THE ILLUSIONIST last week, we followed it up with THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE, also by Sylvain Chomet.  Highly recommended.

The second film, viewed only by myself, was RICKY, written and directed by Francois Ozon, who was also responsible for SWIMMING POOL and UNDER THE SAND.

The story about a working-class single mom who has a fling with a co-worker, resulting in a baby boy who for some inexplicable reason, grows a pair of working bird-like wings.  At times heart-breaking (especially from the perspective of her daughter, who craves her mother’s love), and with a lot less comedy and light-hearted moments than I was led to believe (which makes it definitely French in nature), overall, just kind of okay.

I get by with a little help from…

Maximum Z Raiders of the Lost Ark, screenwriting, writing group

I had a good talk today with a friend of mine from our old writing group.  The new group hasn’t met since February, despite word from the organizer that “she’s working on it.”  So my friend and I reconnected, and it was nice.

We each described what we were working on; me and the rewrite, her and her new story idea.  Then we talked about what we’ve seen lately, and talked about possibly bringing back another former member.

I don’t know how many writers like me take part in a writing group, but if you don’t, you really should.  And if there aren’t any around, try starting one.  Craigslist is a good place to start.

It’s like a support group made up of people just like you. The skill levels are for the most part equal, and confidence levels adjust with each meeting.  Being part of one has been incredibly beneficial to me.  I get feedback on my work, and give feedback to others.  It’s really played a significant part of helping me become a better writer.

-I worked the midday shift yesterday, and was making some good progress on the rewrite, but then there was a fatality around the halfway mark, so I kind of had to focus on all that work stuff.  Which was probably for the better.  Especially with the GM constantly coming in to ask questions.

I also made the decision to cut out a part of the story I still love, only because it  wasn’t really working in the overall scheme of things.  On a positive note, this forces me to think of an alternative idea, which will most likely be more effective than before.

-Question time! Is 8 1/2 too young to watch RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK? Today was the last day of school, and K suggested we celebrate by watching it as a family.  I wasn’t sure if it would be too scary.  Your thoughts?  Experiences?  And let’s avoid the ‘depends on the child’ argument.

Once upon a time…

Maximum Z anime, screenwriting, Snow White and The Huntsman, Summer Wars

A rainy morning equals me staying later at work, which means less time to do my own stuff.

So before I sat down at the producer’s desk, I knew I wanted to finally read a script picked from several a friend had sent earlier this year.

I chose SNOW WHITE & THE HUNTSMAN by Evan Daugherty, mostly because it sounded interesting, and I knew it was in production.  What I didn’t know was that it was a spec script that sold for $1.5 million.  For that much cash, it must be an incredible piece of work.

It’s a clever take/spin on the traditional Snow White story, except here Snow is on the run from the Wicked Queen, and the dwarves are supporting characters lifted straight out of LORD OF THE RINGS who don’t come in until about halfway through.

Basically, the Queen uses alchemy and a little magic to keep herself young and beautiful, but no matter what she does, Snow will always be the fairest in the land.  Snow runs, but the Queen recruits the Huntsman to bring her back.  This goes off without a hitch, but ends with Snow and the Huntsman on the run.

They endure several sequences of adventures, getting away from comic relief in the form of bounty hunters, and each growing a little as characters, which is expected.

The whole thing ends with all the characters done wrong by the Queen attacking the castle while the subplot involving the Queen marrying the brutal king of a nearby kingdom reaches its conclusion.  I can’t remember what happens to that king, so I may go back and re-read it.

I liked the idea of the Magic Mirror having a more human appearance, but didn’t understand why it fought for the Queen during the aforementioned battle.  The concept of fairies as mercenaries was clever, but they were only in one sequence (attacking the dwarves’ den). It’s almost as if Daugherty thought of a few ideas connected to fairy tales, and tried to incorporate as many of them as he could into the story.

Overall, I enjoyed it.  It was easy to follow the story, and there’s definitely a strong sense of adventure throughout the whole thing.  Because of that, I was paying more attention to how it went from one sequence to the next, rather than
as a whole.

I wasn’t sure what to make of how Daugherty did that.  First Snow and the Huntsman are getting away from the bounty hunters at a humongous waterfall, which they go over, then all of a sudden they’re emerging onto an icy tundra-like environment.  It’s like he had each sequence planned out, then just went from one to the next.  I wonder if those transitions could have been smoother, or maybe a little more smoothed out.

The writing itself was pretty good, but not as “wow”-inducing as I was expecting.  Sometimes it almost seemed sloppy.  A scene where Snow and the Huntsman take on the Queen’s guards is over before it begins; something like “within moments, they are the only ones left standing.”  Part of the story is Snow getting the Huntsman to train her to survive in the wild, and this is the big payoff.  It should have been a little more fleshed out.

From what I could find, this is scheduled for release next year with THOR’s Chris Hemsworth as the Huntsman, TWILIGHT’s Kristen Stewart as Snow White and Charlize Theron as the Queen.  The only one I’m not sure about is Stewart.  Will she be believable as a princess turned warrior/survivalist?

I can see getting this through Netflix, but not paying to see it in the theatre.

-Movie of the Moment – SUMMER WARS, an anime from 2009.

Imagine the Internet, but on a much grander scale, with practically every aspect of life controlled on it or through it.

Now imagine an AI program made exclusively to hack programs taking control and basically screwing up the way the world runs.

In other words, Facebook has turned evil and is out to destroy the world!  I realize some people already feel this way, but this is just a bit different.  And it’s set in Japan.

Oh, and the only three people who can stop it just happen to be in the same place at the same time.

This was a fun and brilliant combination of standard Japanese animation (a family reunion of sorts for the matriarch’s 90th birthday at their country house) and eye-catching CG (almost everything set in the virtual world).

Basic set-up: girl asks two computer geek friends if one will help her with something, which turns out to be posing as her boyfriend/fiancee at her great-grandmother’s party.  The boy who goes is also a math whiz.

One of the cousins is the best gamer in this virtual world, and the black sheep uncle created the hacking program, which the US military decided to test, but soon lost control of, and now the program is running amok and has taken over almost half a billion accounts.  See? Just like Facebook.

The three must work together in order to stop the evil program from not only basically taking over the Internet, but dropping a satellite onto a nuclear power plant, resulting in the death of much of humanity.

And you thought all the Japanese ever fought were giant monsters attacking Tokyo.

While I prefer to watch foreign films in their original language, I went with the English version for this one.  No reason; just felt like it.  But it’s always weird to hear Western voices talking with a Japanese sensibility. I think it adds to the charm.

Break out the party hats

Maximum Z blog, screenwriting

This is my 200th post since starting this blog two years ago.  That’s a lot.

I’ve certainly enjoyed writing it.  When I first started, I was really bad about posting, then hardly posted at all. For months at a time.  K would occasionally ask “Did you write something on your blog today?” I would grumble some kind of response, then feel guilty for doing so, then feel even more guilty for not writing anything.

What kind of writer doesn’t want to write?

I decided to try and post on a much more regular basis sometime last July.  I couldn’t do every day, but maybe 3-4 times a week.  I figured if I could do this, then there’d be no reason I couldn’t do more script stuff as well.

It seemed to work.

Although I abandoned my attempt at comedy, I came up with what I consider a great idea for my next script, and decided to go through with the rewrite of a previous script.  It’s been fun.

I’ve tried to keep the topics interesting, even though I usually end up talking about my progress.  Hopefully it hasn’t bored you too much.

It’s also been a real kick to write about scripts I’ve read, or films I’ve seen.  There are so mnay great examples of each out there, and I love finding them all.  Suggestions or recommendations are always welcome.

Sure, there are lots of other screenwriting blogs, many of which get a lot more hits and traffic than mine, but I don’t mind.  I enjoy documenting my progress, ruminating on any number of random subjects, and occasionally opening a window into the non-writing parts of my life.

I hope you’ve enjoyed it as well, and thanks for coming along.