Black List

As a bee

Maximum Z Apple, Black List, screenwriting, writing gigs
the result of growing up in the 80s

Hokey smokes, is there a lot going on this week!

Might as well get the bad/not-great news out of the way. After all that time I spent slaving away on the outline for the short, the director got back to me within an hour saying that while he could “see” my story, it wasn’t what he wanted. While my first immediate thought was “you arrogant bastard. Of course this is what you want. You’re just too thick to realize it,” I had to remind myself that ultimately it was his movie and I should be a bit more flexible about it.

He wants something a bit more…traditional, in terms of a mystery. For the most part, most of the pieces are there.  I just need to rework them.  Shouldn’t be too hard.  I’m talking to him again tomorrow night. Should be interesting.

-Since I’m still learning how to use a Mac, I got both jack and shit done on both LUCY and DREAMSHIP during my cross-country flights this weekend.  My sister put it rather succinctly: When you’re so used to working on a PC, making the switch to a Mac forces you to learn a completely new way of using a computer. So while I may want to do something the old PC way, I can’t do it exactly the same and have to figure out how it works in the new Mac way.  This is going to be a work in progress.  I still have to schedule my one-to-one meeting with somebody at the Apple store.  My list of questions has been steadily growing.

-Really, really hoping to get back on track with both LUCY and DREAMSHIP. I hate these big gaps in productivity, but you do what you can.  For the most part, any concept of a target end date has been thrown out the window.  My goal now is to finish them. No matter what.

-I’m currently working on a project for a client that requires me to put together a short video script.  This has been quite a challenging experience.  I knew a video script was completely different in appearance from a film script.  I really thought my screenwriting program would have something for it, but doesn’t appear to.

So for now, it’s been manipulating a Word document with two columns.  I don’t mind the work. It’ s been fun.  But again, quite the challenge.

-The 2011 Black List came out today. I skimmed through it, but nothing seemed to really jump out.  The friend who sent me last year’s batch has offered to do it again.  I’ll look through it again and try to pick about 12-15.  Of the ones I selected last year, I think most, if not all, are being made.  Not a bad record.

Don’t count me out just yet

Maximum Z Black List, Dreamship, screenwriting

Really nice progress on the DREAMSHIP rewrite today. While I like what I had to begin with, what I came up with today is quite an improvement.

I also realized I was taking my ScriptQuack notes too literally.  I don’t have to accept everything they suggest.  While some of their comments definitely have merit, it’s ultimately MY script, and I can pick and choose which of their suggestions to use.

If I can keep up this kind of pace between now and the end of the month, I may make that deadline after all.  I’m not saying it’s definitely doable, but the odds are slowly working their way back in my favor.

-The stats feature for WordPress tells me what categories are leading readers here.  Several of the more recent ones are connected with some of the Black List scripts I reviewed earlier this year.  This reminded me I have about another 12-15 to check out.

I’d forgotten what great reads they can be, but they’ll have to wait until after the rewrite.  Time for a nice cup of GET BACK TO YOUR SCRIPT.

Closing in*

Maximum Z Black List, Last Son of Isaac Lemay, Lucy Steele, Movie of the Moment, outlines, screenwriting

*This was intended for Thursday, but was delayed until today due to my child’s soccer practice, followed by a hockey game. Suffice to say, I was wiped.

Really good progress today. I managed to get through that gap that was hindering me over the past few days, so there are about 4-5 scenes left until I hit the end of Act 2. And since I did that ‘working backward’ thing last week, the basic blueprint is ready and waiting. All I have to do now is flesh it out a little.

Then I move on to Act 3, and voila. An outline is born.

It’s no understatement to say I’m quite psyched as I get closer to starting down the home stretch.

-I got to read Black List script THE LAST SON OF ISAAC LEMAY, a very dark Western by Greg Johnson. I call it dark because there is a tremendous amount of violence in it, which I didn’t have a problem with because it really emphasizes the brutality of that time.

Issac is an aging outlaw roaming the West in search of his numerous progeny, convinced that since he is evil, they must be as well and therefore must be eliminated. We see him kill a good-natured son, and in a daring move, a 5-year-old girl (offscreen, of course).

But as if to justify his quest, there’s Cal, who has no qualms about shooting somebody. You know these two are going to have a showdown before this is over, and it’s going to be a bloody trail while we get there.

There are also subplots involving a half-breed Army lieutenant searching for a stolen Gatling gun, a stepfather out for justice and a whore who never seems to leave her room. (That last one is my only complaint about the story; the character is a key story element, but it seems like all she ever does is stay in her room and wail.)

What I liked the most about this script was how Johnson says so much with so little. His use of just the right handful of words paints a clear mental picture. I also enjoyed how all the characters, even down to the minor ones, are developed so as to really give each one a personality. All of this really helps keep things moving at a good clip.

Even though I’m also working on a Western, mine is a little lighter in mood and leans more towards adventure, whereas this is more of a thriller and a lot more violent. Always room for diversity within a genre.

I couldn’t find any record of this being bought, but it is listed for potential release in 2013.

Movie of the Moment: THE SOCIAL NETWORK. Since I haven’t seen THE KING’S SPEECH, I can’t determine which was the stronger Best Picture candidate. But I can see why this one was.

I’m still trying to determine if Mark Zuckerberg is supposed to be the protagonist or the antagonist. Either way, he makes for a fascinating lynchpin connecting all the subplots together.

This may have been the fastest 2-hour movie I’ve ever seen. Aaron Sorkin’s script really zooms by. Easy to see why he won Best Adapted Screenplay. As a co-worker put it, he took a boring subject and made it interesting.

Exhiliration & frustration

Maximum Z Black List, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Last Son of Isaac Lemay, Lucy Steele, outlines, screenwriting, westerns, Wondercon

Definite progress today.  Still not to the end of Act 2, but the gap is closing.

I like what I came up with, but am already trying to figure out whether it’s the perfect fit.  For now, it works and will help me move ahead.

One particular scene starting getting too silly and seemed very out of place, so I scrapped it and started again.  The benefit being I now know what NOT to use.

I may actually have semi-normal hours tomorrow, so I can work on it a little longer than I have been.  I’m really hoping to be done with the whole outline by the end of the month, or at least before Wondercon, which is also rapidly approaching.

I also plan on reviewing the Black List script THE LAST SON OF ISSAC LEMAY, a gritty Western. Lots of blood and gunfire seem to be the two main focuses.

Movie of the Moment: MICMACS, by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who also did AMELIE and THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN. Off to a very whimsical and entertaining start, but that means cutting this short since I have to pay attention to the subtitles.

Feels like I’ve seen this before…

Maximum Z adventure, anime, Black List, screenwriting, scriptshadow, westerns

Unfortunately, no LUCY progress today. I worked until noon today, had a parent-teacher conference, followed by some extra time with V on her homework.  But I’m working the midday shift tomorrow, so here’s hoping I can finish Act 2.

I did spend part of today reading ALL YOU NEED IS KILL, a Black List script by Dante Harper based on the Japanese novel by Hiroshi Hakurazaka.  It’s definitely an original take on what seems to be becoming a popular concept: reliving the same time period over and over again (a la GROUNDHOG DAY, DEJA VU and the forthcoming SOURCE CODE).  Only here it involves aliens, futuristic weapons and a wide variety of ways to die.

Earth has been invaded by a seemingly unbeatable alien race called the Mimic, capable of instant adaptation to a situation.  Humanity seems fated to be the losing side.

Cage, a poor excuse for a solider, is part of the latest military operation to take on the Mimic.  As he gets thrust into a particularly gruesome battlefield, he becomes hit with the oily black blood/internal fluid of a unique-looking Mimic.  And dies.

Then wakes up in his barracks, 36 hours before he died.  He’s seen all of this before, so he knows what to expect.

He soon figures out that he’s constantly repeating those 36 hours over and over again, each time ending with him dying.  As “time” progresses, he becomes more and more skilled as a warrior, eventually becoming just as good as mega-soldier Rita.

SPOILER ALERT!  As a young, awkward solider, Rita was also hit with the oily black blood, which resulted in her constantly reliving this time period until she figured a way out – kill the alien that sprayed her before it does.

Now Cage has to do the same.  But it’s not as easy as it seems, and there are some good complications thrown in to make sure there’s no happy ending.

Carson Reeves at ScriptShadow says the action scenes are some of the best he’s ever read – “visual, kinetic, unique – You really feel like you’re inside that battlefield battling those aliens.”  I’d agree with that, for the most part.  I couldn’t help while reading some of the battle scenes that either Hakurazaka or Harper might have been influenced by the battle scenes in STARSHIP TROOPERS.  Seems like all aliens really want to do to humans is tear them apart.  Whatever happened to good old-fashioned disintegration?

But I digress.

ALL YOU NEED IS KILL is definitely a visual screenplay.  It moves fast, but requires close attention due to everything that’s going on.  I had to re-read the pages where Rita explains how the Mimic always manage to be one step ahead of humans.

While there’s a lot of attention paid to the battles and effects, there’s also some good character development of not only Cage, but some of his fellow soldiers.  We get little glimpses into their personalities so we see more than just caricatures or cliches.

Also a nice touch: every time Cage starts over, he writes the number on his hand, which is the opposite approach to how it was done in the anime THE GIRL WHO LEAPT THROUGH TIME.

This would look great on the screen, but a lot of it would have to be CGI, unless Warner Brothers plans to blow a lot of the budget on makeup and special effects.  They purchased it last year, making sure to include a clause that comes really close to guaranteeing it would start shooting within a year.  Which is around now.  It appears to be tentatively set for release next year, which seems to be the case for a lot of these Black List scripts.

Harper also wrote the script for the remake of THE BLACK HOLE, which I really enjoyed back in 4th grade.

Movie of the Moment:  Another two-fer.  We finished LET ME IN, and I have to say, I ended up being disappointed.  It was trying too hard to stick to the Swedish version that it raised questions that could/should have been answered.  What happens after the cop is killed?  Was Abby following Owen, which is why she was there when the bullies had him in the pool?  As K said, it was too European.  A little more Americanization would have worked better.

I took V and her friend to see RANGO, which I had heard was better than you would expect from an animated western about a chameleon.  While the story is clearly lifted from CHINATOWN (including a turtle resembling John Huston), there were some good laughs in it that sailed over the kids heads and some of us adults in the audience really liked.  On the way home, V asked what I was laughing at; it was too hard to explain.

It was a lot of fun, and even more so if you appreciate a good western.  One thing I couldn’t understand: this appears to be set in the present day, but this little anthropomorphized town is straight out of the Old West.  The reason why is never explained, but in the end still works for the story.

Lastly, there’s a subplot involving a hawk with a silver-tipped beak that I didn’t realize until the next day must be an homage to Lee Marvin in CAT BALLOU.  Very cool and clever, Mr Verbinski.