characters

From the archives: Darn my sense of parental responsibility

Maximum Z career, characters, encouragement, family, Kung Fu Panda, movies, screenplay, screenwriting, script, story, writing , , , , , , , , , ,

Another repost today, but for a very good reason – my daughter wraps up her collegiate career this weekend, so cross-country traveling has been undertaken to bear witness.

One of the many father-daughter activities we’ve both enjoyed was going to the movies. On top of watching for the simple pleasure of just watching a movie, a post-viewing discussion about the film would usually take place. Did we like it? Was it a good story? What about the characters?

Little did I realize the impact all of this would have on my own writing.

I like to say I write scripts for films that would appeal to both 14-year-old me and present-day me, but I strive to write films that families could watch together – definitely nothing too cutesy or along those lines. More like “this is something both you and your kids would enjoy watching”.

It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that the experience of watching all those movies with my daughter were a significant influence on my writing.

So enjoy this post from June 2011.

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.

From the archives: Active, not reactive – OR – C’mon, do something!

Maximum Z action, characters, comedy, draft, protagonist, screenplay, screenwriting, script, spec, writing , , , , , , , , ,
Never has a call to action been more necessary

One of the things I’ve noticed as I work my way forward with the first draft of the action-comedy spec is that my protagonist isn’t doing as much as she needs to – especially in terms of moving things forward. Again – first draft, so lots of work in the days ahead.

But that detail about the protagonist still applies, and is just one item on an ever-growing list of “Stuff to fix in the second draft”.

I suspected I’d written about this before, so I had to go all the way back to March 2014 to find a short but concise post about dealing with a passive protagonist.

Enjoy.

As you work your way through your latest draft, among the numerous questions to keep in mind is “Is my main character the one driving things forward?”

It’s a common complaint: a protagonist who is too passive. How do you make sure they aren’t?

Start with this: Do they make things happen or just react to them?

Your story is about this character going through some ordeal as they try to achieve their goal. Are they taking the steps needed and doing what they have to in order to do that?

Their normal routine has most likely been drastically altered. How are they reacting to all these changes while trying to get things back to normal?

How does the character factor into each scene? Are they having some kind of impact? Does the outcome of each scene depend on them? Does what they do here get them closer to reaching their goal?

A scene can be about them even if they’re not part of it. Maybe it’s the other characters’ reactions or the ramifications of what they’ve done.

You don’t want a main character who just sits around, waiting for things to happen. Get them out there and throw them right into the thick of it.

Action first, comedy second

Maximum Z action, characters, comedy, determination, draft, editing, jokes, perseverance, persistence, plot, rewriting, screenplay, screenwriting, script, spec, story, writing , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Another shorty today, but one worth mentioning.

Current progress on pages for the action-comedy spec averaging about 2-3 a day, which is pretty good. The first act is just about wrapped up. This is more of a “just it get written” draft.

This isn’t to say there haven’t been moments of going back and making little changes here and there. That’s actually happened quite a bit.

The focus now is more on how each scene advances the plot, story and characters, and not as much on “is it funny?” or “what’s the joke here?” It’s actually kind of refreshing to not have to worry about it . Some scenes are even totally lacking comedic elements and are there for the purpose of moving things forward.

That’s what the next draft will be about, undoubtedly involving a lot of “how can this be funny/funnier?” I find it easier to apply comedy into an action-oriented scene than the other way around.

I’m enjoying it so far, and it’ll be very interesting to see how this plays out.

One inch at a time

Maximum Z beats, characters, creativity, development, emotion, enthusiasm, excitement, ideas, inspiration, motivation, perseverance, persistence, screenplay, screenwriting, script, spec, story, storyline , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A lot of my time lately has been jotting down ideas – and lots of ’em – about the new spec. Some random, some of a “this leads to that, which in turn results in this” nature.

As I recently said on social media, it’s a big beautiful jumbled mess, and I’m absolutely thrilled about it.

Just a few weeks ago I was stressed there wasn’t enough to the story, but then the gears started turning and the ideas started coming, and it was off to the races.

Since then, I must have filled in at least half a dozen pages in the notebook for this project with every single thing that popped into my head about it. Even more surprising is how much of it came from out of the blue – all kinds of stuff that never would have occurred to me before. Can’t really say that some kind of ‘on’ switch was tripped, but something was ignited somewhere.

Not only are ideas covering aspects of the story making themselves known, but so are ideas about the things you don’t see onscreen – emotional beats, character development, and so forth. It begs the question – what took it so long to show up?

There’s a lot to go through, and confidence levels are running high that there’s more on the way. There’ll be a lot to sift through to figure out what to keep and what to put aside for potential use at a later time (or another script).

This may be moving at a slow pace, but it’s definitely starting to take shape. What that shape is remains to be seen, but I like it.

From the archives: FBD is a BFD

Maximum Z characters, concept, determination, frustration, ideas, originality, perseverance, persistence, plot, scenes, screenplay, screenwriting, script, story, writing, writing process , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This post from July 2024 is about when I was first starting on this new story idea. I’d put that one on hold to spend a lot of time polishing and rewriting another script, so work on this one has resumed. There has been some progress on figuring out the story, but a lot of what’s mentioned in here still rings true – especially the subject.

Enjoy.

Working on this new script idea is proving to be quite a challenge. It’s still in the very early development stages, so any and every idea is being written down for potential use. No doubt some will stay, some will be trashed, and some will be altered/revised/modified to varying degrees.

Adding to all of this is that a big part of the story is similar to parts of a very beloved and well-known film – so similar that it’s one of my comps – so I also need to come up with ideas so my story safely falls into the category of “Familiar, But Different” – FBD.

It’s my goal to have this story be reminiscent of that other one, but not so much that it feels like I’m totally ripping it off. I’ve read a lot of scripts that fall short of that, so doing what I can to avoid falling into that trap.

This film also has a lot of iconic scenes, so it’s even more important I put my own spin on the concept to really hammer home its FBD-ness. The absolute last thing I want is for somebody to read this and think “There’s nothing new here”.

A key part of this is breaking down the components of the original film – not just the story, plot and characters, but seeing what worked, how the various storylines and subplots were laid out AND how they were connected. I can then use all of that as a springboard to putting my story together, and then fine tune as necessary.

Challenging, but not impossible.

Great as it would be to have the final result ready now, finding a new way to tell this familiar story is part of what I enjoy about doing this. I like to call it “go for the hard turn”; Just when you think things are going to go a certain way, there’s a yank on the steering wheel and all of a sudden things are heading in a whole new direction that makes you want to keep going.

One thing I’m fairly certain will play a factor in putting this together is that I’m just enjoying working on it. I don’t think there’s anything like it out there, so there’s a certain thrill to exploring the unknown, so to speak. It’s a priority for me that when it’s totally done – no matter how long that takes – it makes a strong impression for both the story it’s telling and how it’s written.

Even though it’ll take a while for me to figure it out, I’m confident I can make it happen.