Author: Maximum Z

Even better

Maximum Z movies, orson welles, outlines, screenwriting, story

Progress is coming along nicely. I was able to make some changes to the new beginning I worked on yesterday, and it really meshed with most of what I had written before.

And it also seems like it will only need some minor readjustments here and there to really bring it up to speed. Which means I can finally focus on moving forward.

Regarding one subplot of which I was very concerned, I realized I might be able to tie it in with another, thereby tying more of the whole thing together.

I like when this kind of serendipity happens.  Or is it?

-Regarding GHOST TRAIN, I didn’t get a chance to read it during those brief minutes between traffic reports because the Adobe Reader in my studio computer appears to not be working. Knowing this company the way I do, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s been removed altogether.

So I’ll have to read it at home, and with K heading out of town, I’ll have plenty of spare time to do that.

As is typical of my scatterbrained nature, I also forgot about the remaining Black List scripts. Hopefully once the Adobe reader is working again in my studio, I can knock a few of those out of the way.

-I think I’ve mentioned Scriptshadow’s Amateur Friday before, but just in case you’ve forgotten, the site’s moderator chooses a script from those submitted by his readers (accompanied by a note explaining why he should pick this script), reviews about it and posts his comments. A lot of the time the script is made available to the rest of the readers as well.

I sent in DREAMSHIP and WOK & ROLL aka the Chinese restaurant script. I’ll be surprised if he picks either. But you never know.

-Movie of the Moment: a completely forgettable B Western called MAN IN THE SHADOW from 1957. It was on Encore’s Western channel, and the only reason I watched it was because Orson Welles is in it. He appears to be about 40 or 50 pounds shy of his TOUCH OF EVIL weight. This may also be around the time he appeared on an episode of I LOVE LUCY.

Apart from him, there’s nothing unique about the film. I’d heard Welles had been in a Western, purely in an acting capacity. Poor guy. His wunderkind days were far behind him and he probably needed the work to fund his own projects.

Can you imagine being the director on that film? I wonder if the guy ever asked Welles his opinion about how a shot looked. I guess that would be like coaching a community softball team with Tim Lincecum as your pitcher. (That’s the long-haired SF Giants pitching phenom, for you out-of-town baseball fans.)

Totally unexpected but much appreciated

Maximum Z anime, blog, I Blame Ninjas, loglines, Netflix, outlines, screenwriting, scriptshadow

After weeks of agonizing self-doubt and re-examining of whether or not the outline works, I may have stumbled onto the solution I’ve been looking for.

And I owe it all to a guy I’ve never met.

During some of my downtime earlier today, I was checking out some of the screenwriting blogs I like. Some of those led to links, which led to some I’ve checked out once in a while, to a few I’ve never seen.

This guy falls into the middle category.

Patrick Sweeney lives in the Sacramento area and runs the blog I Blame Ninjas.  He wrote a script called GHOST TRAIN, which is also a western-adventure, but apparently with a more supernatural bent.  I asked him if I could take a look and he sent it without hesitation.  I plan on reading it tomorrow.

I also asked him what his logline was.  He sent it.  It is totally kick-ass, and put mine to shame; anything that includes the phrase ‘a train carrying phantom gunslingers to Hell’ has to be good.  But instead of wallowing in self-pity, I realized mine could be almost as good.  So I tinkered.  Now I’m definitely closer to a better one than I was a few days ago.

It also got me thinking that my existing outline is NOT written in stone, and that I CAN make changes and take liberties and all that.

So I did.

Right now I’ve got a completely different beginning, which I like a lot.  I still need to work on the rest of it.

And by reading a script review on Scriptshadow, I also discovered what had really been holding me back before in terms of my antagonist: his motivation.  Why does he do what he does?  For now, it’s one of the two standards: money or revenge.  I’m not sure yet, but both have definite possibilities.  He can’t just be bad because it suits the script.

I also thought of introducing yet another subplot about a treasure map (to tie in with that whole ‘money’ motivation), but I don’t need any more headaches over this thing, so I’ll stick with what I’ve got.

No Movie of the Moment today, but I’ve been enjoying the risque anime MOUSE about a cat burglar and his three buxom assistants.  More or less PG-13 material, but typical Japanese sex humor and not for kids.  Unless you’re a teenaged boy who gets a big kick out of skits on Benny Hill.

Amazingly, I’m not the one who put this on our Netflix queue.  That honor goes to the lovely K.  But I’m really grateful she did.

Really grateful.

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.