Year: 2011

Location, location, location!

Maximum Z Dreamship, Jacques Tati, Oscars, rewrite, screenwriting, The Illusionist, The King's Speech, Whip It

I can’t explain it, but I think trying to work/write in a traditional setting is counterproductive.

When I do the midday traffic reports and am firmly planted in the studio, I’m practically gushing with creativity.  Sitting in the bleachers at the ice rink while V has hockey practice, I can get past a scene that’s been bothering me for a few days.  Today while V had her dentist’s appointment, and I’m sitting in the parental waiting area, I came up with a sequence that perfectly fits into my first ten pages.

When I sit anywhere inside our place, such as at the desk or at the dining room table, I get nothing. Zilch. Nada. A big fat goose egg.

Which leads me back to my opening line.

I’m going to have to figure out the best way to take advantage of this newfound enlightenment.  I can’t afford to hang out in a coffee shop, even if I get tea, so that’s out.  San Francisco has a bit of a homeless problem, so sitting on a public or park bench is also not a great choice.

There are two public libraries nearby, and finding an empty seat or table is usually pretty easy, so those are maybes.

But with the weather turning nicer, I keep returning to one spot that may be ideal.  Our place has a very small deck off the dining room.  About 5 by 12, with very high frosted glass walls.  If it’s a nice day, I can step outside, plop myself down in a lawn chair and see what happens.

Definitely an experiment worth trying.

-Movie of the Moment: A triple-header today.

Finished THE KING’S SPEECH. Since I have to see a few more Best Picture nominees, I can’t compare it to them, but I enjoyed it.  I was expecting something a little more complex, but there were only a handful of characters and a minimal number of settings; it seemed much more play-like.

I can see why Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush were both nominated; each gave a phenomenal performance.  Their scenes were a joy to watch.

Movie #2 was WHIP IT, the roller derby movie directed by first-timer Drew Barrymore.  I loved it.  I thought it was a blast.  Some of the storylines and characters may be a little cliched, but the sum is definitely greater than the parts.  Just a lot of fun.

Movie #3 was THE ILLUSIONIST, the third of last year’s three nominees for Best Animated Feature (the other two being TOY STORY 3 and HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON). This was done by Sylvain Chomet, the brains behind THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE and based on a script by Jacques Tati; the title character is even drawn to look and act like Tati.  The wonderful but incredibly sad story of an unremarkable stage magician fading into obscurity as TV and rock & roll gain in popularity.

I read a couple of reviews that say the young woman who follows him from a small Scottish village to Edinburgh believes that his magic is real, but I didn’t catch that.  I thought she saw him as a fascinating man living a life of adventure, and wanted to tag along.

For the most part, this really is a silent picture.  There are some snippets of dialogue in English and French, but the storytelling is all done visually, and quite beautifully at that.

Don’t go into this thinking it’s a film for kids, ’cause it ain’t.  Nothing bad happens, but *SPOILER* it’s not easy to explain why the magician has to let his rabbit go into the wild, or why the ventriloquist’s dummy  is marked down to ‘free’ in the pawn shop window.

If you watch this, prepare to have your heartstrings given a good solid tug.

Oh so close

Maximum Z Dreamship, James Cameron, rewrite, screenwriting

I haven’t posted in a few days because I’ve been in ‘focused writer’ mode, concentrating on getting through Act Three.

And after much thought and consideration, I’m happy to say that for the most part, it’s done.  (Insert cheers and applause here)

There are still some little things to take care of, such as handling the notes to myself like “Work on this,” “Expand!”, or “How about/What if…”, as well as fleshing out some scenes here and there, but I don’t expect that to be too hard.  I’m hoping to get something workable out of it by this time next week.  Fingers crossed.

It was also nice to give the whole thing a quick read-through.  It moves a little quicker than the previous version.  And parts I thought would be hard to take out weren’t really missed at all.  I guess that’s the benefit of the streamlining process.

No set deadline for finishing, which may actually be helping me make this kind of progress.

-No actual Movie of the Moment, but we started watching THE KING’S SPEECH. Really like it so far.  I also can’t help but think of Helena Bonham Carter when she did the upper class voice in WALLACE & GROMIT’S CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT.

I caught some snippets of TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY on AMC.  It’s easy to forget what a great writer Cameron can be.  It’s definitely one of those movies you can watch from any point and be entertained.

I’ve never read the scripts, but I suspect this and ALIENS are good blueprints for how to properly put an action movie together.  Couldn’t hurt to at least use them as examples.

Something to keep in mind for this and when I start back up on LUCY.

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.