Author: Maximum Z

That’s more like it

Maximum Z adventure, movies, outlines, plot, Sherlock Holmes, Star Wars, story

After spending more time worrying about whether or not I’d make progress with the LUCY outline, I managed to punch out a good portion of the first act over the past 2 days.

My mantra for the time being is ‘just keep going!’  What I have now is chock-full of action and excitement, and while it was supposed to end around page 17, it doesn’t.  And I feel oddly fine with that.

Of course, the group may have something to say about that on Sunday, but that’s okay too.  I doubt they’ll be too much in a snit about it, anyway.

As always, this is still a rough draft of the outline and will need a lot of work when it’s done, but it was a great feeling of excitement being able to write like this again.  Thinking of a scenario, plotting it out, making it sure it’s logical and realistic, while also inserting the fantastic into it to make it cinematic.

Boiled down to one statement: It’s what I live for.

And tomorrow, I get to do it again.

The weird thing is as I make progress, the way the story is developing keeps changing.  While I work on the story, I have to try and stay on track in terms of keeping it along what I want it to be.  It feels like it would be too easy to let the events drive what happens, but I have to really make sure I stay in control.  I hate when I don’t.

But as long as I know where it it I want to go, it should be fine.

Tomorrow – the push towards the end of Act One.

Movie of the Moment: not a movie, but a fantastic show from the BBC.  SHERLOCK, the incredibly re-imagining (a word I hate) of Holmes and Watson in modern London, courtesy of Stephen Moffat (spelling?), who was also a big part of the relaunching of Doctor Who.

The writing is crisp, the acting is great.  Overall, mind-blowingly great.  It is such a pity that American writers can’t be this good.  American TV would be an entirely different animal if they could.  Thank God the British have such higher standards.

-As part of her birthday, I took V and a friend to see MEGAMIND.  It was also well-done and a lot of fun.  I also got to thinking about how kids movies today are so much better then when I was that age.  All we had back then were crappy Disney movies.  At least until STAR WARS came along.

Then it all changed.

Whyizzit?

Maximum Z Uncategorized , , ,

This is going to be a short one, since I’m in the studio and technically working on the air, so my attention is directed all over the place.

Early during this shift, I worked on my script stuff, which I usually do when I’m in here. Today it was an attempted rewrite of the LUCY plot points.

And once again, being in here makes my creative juices flow (which sounds more provocative than it should). I wanted to try and put a more solid story together, and that’s what seems to have happened.

The midpoint could be a little stronger, but it’s all coming together a little easier.

I wonder if not focusing entirely on the story and constantly being distracted by actually having to do my job is the key. Maybe my creativity is more effective when I’m supposed to be doing something else.

If I did this every day, this script would be done in no time.

And that would be cool.

Well, dog my cats!

Maximum Z analysis, Dreamship, screenwriting, ScriptQuack

About a month ago, I got an email telling me that the company known as Script Quack was following me on Twitter.  They do script analysis.  So no big deal.

A week after that, they posted a general tweet saying the price for the basic analysis package was reduced from $75 to $50.  Interesting.  Maybe this would benefit DREAMSHIP.  But there’s that cost thing.

Would it really be worth the money?  I’ve never had this done before, but I really like the script and want to know how to make it better.

I decided to bite the bullet and do it.  Hope the $50 is worth it.

The days go by.  I hear nothing back after a few days.

More days pass.  It’s approaching the one week mark.  I start to fear I have been taken by a con artist.  I even dream the end product came in the mail and was sitting on the dining room table (which it wasn’t).

Saturday comes and goes.  Still nothing.  I’m not feeling very positive about this.  I decide to wait until Wednesday to drop them a line.

Just to verify their legitimacy, I go to their website.  There on the homepage is the disclaimer “Get your notes back in under a week or they’re free!’

That’s interesting.

Sunday.  We’re getting ready to go to the airport to pick up K.

My phone DINGS!  New email.

And there are the notes.  Legitimacy verified.  I skim the opening.  They seem very enthusiastic about the script, which is nice.  I stop there, since we have to leave in a few minutes, and write back to them saying I haven’t looked at the notes yet, but gently bring up their disclaimer.  I run a worst-cast scenario where they try to weasel out of the deal.

A few hours later, I get an email saying I am right, that it took 8 days, I’m entitled to my refund, and I get to keep the notes.

And it ended up being free!

Even better, this is the start of a blueprint for a new draft of DREAMSHIP that, if done properly, could be sent back to the Nicholl next year.

Cool.

Epilogue:  I look at the notes.  Very detailed and helpful, even though they got the villain’s name wrong.  I printed them out for further study.

What’s really cool is that I can work on this and keep going on developing LUCY.  I may even be able to take lessons learned on the former and apply them to the latter.

Really cool indeed.

Movie of the Moment:  Not necessarily right now, but I watched IKIRU and FORT APACHE over the weekend.

IKIRU started out slow, but got very interesting as it moved along.  I was very surprised at some of the subject matter being discussed, especially for when it was set.  You’d never hear the word ‘diarrhea’ in an American film from the 50’s!

FORT APACHE was a typical John Ford western.  Henry Fonda did a good job, though.  John Wayne still had the swagger, albeit turned down.  But once you see a modern-era western (OPEN RANGE, DEADWOOD, etc), it’s hard to look at these and not think ‘why is everything so clean?’ and ‘why isn’t anybody swearing up a storm?’  A bit predictable, but still fun.

Slow, steady and all that

Maximum Z birthday, comic books, movies, outlines, plot, screenwriting, story, Uncategorized

No post yesterday because I was completely spent.  Wiped.  Totally pooped.  There wasn’t much to write about anyway, since I didn’t get to do any writing.

Today, which also happens to be my birthday, saw a little progress on LUCY.

I tightened up the first 10 pages, and am now moving on into that 10-17 range.  I have to keep reminding myself that everything is still in the ‘putting together’ phase, and not to stress out about it.

It’s easy to forget that this is one of the harder parts of the whole process.  Almost a ‘throw everything at the wall and see what sticks’ method.  Seeing what works and what doesn’t.

Most of all, I can’t get discouraged.  That would be too easy, but it’s also not an option.

Movie of the Moment:  I finished THE LOVELY BONES earlier today. I watched it over the course of three days.  At 2:10, it probably could have been about 20 minutes shorter and still worked.

I liked the concept, but there was a little too much ‘Hey, check this out’ in terms of what was going on with the dead girl in the afterlife.  Also a lot of expository narration and odd metaphoric images.

I didn’t read the book, so can’t compare them.  The subplot about the mother running away didn’t really seem to accomplish much, and it’s a shame they wasted Susan Sarandon in such a comedic way.  I do recall Stanley Tucci was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, and I guess that works.  His character is really creepy, but I don’t know if it warrants a nomination.

SUPERMAN is on Encore, and Glenn Ford just died. How can you not get choked up at that?  But in the scene where Clark tells his mom he’s leaving, Phylis Thaxter’s makeup looks awful and unrealistic.

That being said, this really is an outstanding template for what a comic book movie should be like.  Too bad Bryan Singer blew it with SUPERMAN RETURNS.  Man, that was boring.