Disney

Thank you, gods of creativity – surefire hit #2!

Maximum Z action, adventure, animation, creativity, Disney, screenwriting, writing
Do you know how hard it is to find a picture of these guys looking badass?

After the debacle that was the recent THREE STOOGES feature, I’m not holding my breath for the studios to come a-runnin’ and embrace my much, much better idea.

But my muse has once more slapped me upside the head, resulting in…

A Disney cartoon version of DIE HARD set in the Magic Kingdom.  I know!  Brilliant, right?

Initial thoughts: The traditional Disney villains, tired of always losing, have taken over the park, and it’s up to Mickey, Donald and Goofy to save the day. Mickey as the John McClane-ish hero, Donald as his Justin Long-type sidekick (but without the whole computer angle), and Goofy as the Reginald VelJohnson cop.

Tell me the public wouldn’t flock to this. The possibilities are endless!

Why hasn’t anybody thought of this before?  It practically screams “MONEY-MAKING MACHINE!”

Disney execs, you know how to reach me.

Adventure covered in feathers

Maximum Z adventure, comic books, Disney, history, reading, Scrooge McDuck, story
Rich on so many levels

Apart from seven longboxes of comics taking up a lot of space in the closet, I have about 2-3 bookshelves of assorted material that could be classified under trade paperbacks and graphic novels.

I’m kind of choosy when it comes to what I read.  First and foremost, it has to be well-written.  If it ain’t, then I’m not interested, no matter how pretty the art is.  Boring material is boring material.

George R. R. Martin, author of GAME OF THRONES, has said that comics contributed heavily to his love of reading. I’m working on passing that love to my daughter as well.

While V has been tearing through the Harry Potter books for school, a few weeks ago she asked if she could read one of my comics.  We pulled out a few she might be interested in:

–POLLY AND THE PIRATES by Ted Naifeh. I got this at APE a few years ago, complete with autograph

–SUPERGIRL: COSMIC ADVENTURES IN THE 8TH GRADE by Landry Walker. A tpb of a miniseries from a few years ago.  Fun take on the character.

But she seemed especially interested in THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SCROOGE MCDUCK and the supplemental COMPANION, both written and drawn by Don Rosa.

I’m not a huge Disney person; Pixar’s stuff is more to my liking.  But I like adventure stories. And I like historical fiction.  These books have both.  And keeping with the Disney theme, most of the material is G-rated, with a hint of innuendo thrown in here and there.

We follow important chapters in Scrooge’s life, starting with his youth in Scotland and the ensuing adventures around the world.  Each story incorporates real-life history and tidbits from Disney duck-universe creator Carl Barks’ decades of work.  I didn’t have a problem with Rosa utilizing as much as he could of the latter, but knowing where a minor story detail came from didn’t have much of an influence on my enjoyment of the story.

V started off reading them herself, but I think she enjoyed it more when we would read them together, which basically meant me reading all the dialogue aloud, incorporating appropriate accents where necessary.  I suspect K enjoyed it as well.  It was fun, but harder than you think.  Amazingly, all my Scottish lines made me sound like the chief engineer on the Starship Enterprise.

I’m just glad V is warming up to the idea of reading for pleasure, and not seeing it as a homework-related chore.

Into the home stretch!

Maximum Z Disney, Lucy Steele, Movie of the Moment, outlines, screenwriting

Where have I been these past few days?  Why, making tremendous progress on LUCY, that’s where. I managed to get through the high-action parts of Act 3 and wrapped up yesterday with the death of my bad guy.  No big spoiler there; if you read the story, you know it’s inevitable.

All that remains now is the resolution and denouement, then going back and tightening a few things up, including a recent idea for a small subplot.  I may actually make my self-imposed pre-Wondercon deadline by a few days.  Nice.

I hadn’t looked at it as a whole for almost a week, so I had forgotten how big and imposing it seems at first glance.  Once this draft is finished, I’ll probably go through and hack it down. More darlings may be killed, but I’m willing to sacrifice a sequence like the buffalo stampede rather than keep the whole thing bloated.

I have to keep reassuring myself this is just a first draft and the end result may be extremely different.  Lucas’ original draft of Star Wars about Luke Starkiller is a good example of the benefit of rewrites.

Movie of the Moment: SALT. I’d heard it was a good, fast-paced thriller clocking in at 90+ minutes.  Pretty accurate so far. I can’t remember the last Angelina Jolie movie I saw where she wasn’t utilizing an accent.  Some of the movie requires much suspension of disbelief (freeway chase, assassination of Russian president), but it really moves and keeps you wondering how she’s going to get out of each particular situation.  I also find it amazing that any piece of clothing she steals fits her perfectly.

V is off for spring break this week, so there’s a lot of TV and Wii going on at our place (more than I’d like there to be, but that’s another story).  I took a break from the outline yesterday so we could watch ALADDIN.  I’m fairly certain this was from the tail end of Disney’s “animated Broadway show” period.  I didn’t realize two of the four credited writers were Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio, future writers of the SHREK and PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN series.  A quick check of IMDB shows that there were 19(!) writers connected to this.  Further proof that story is everything.

It’s still a fun movie, especially the Robin Williams/Genie scenes.  Talk about perfect casting.  V really liked some of those parts.  Although it was a little sad to see some of the very dated pop culture references such as the William F Buckley and Arsenio Hall impressions.  I suspected she’d like it, but I’m not holding out for THE LITTLE MERMAID.  All that girly stuff just ain’t her thing.

Sorry for the delay

Maximum Z Disney, running, screenwriting, script doctor eric

I haven’t written/posted in a couple of days because I’ve been out of town.  For THE RACE.

The Legs of Steel are now on the mend following my running the 2010 Disneyland Half-Marathon.  My time: 2:02:30, which is 2:31 more than the last one I did. Three years ago!  There’s hope for me yet.

I am sooo grateful it was cool and foggy.  If it had been sunny and warm/hot, I don’t know how I would have done.  There were times I felt like I wouldn’t be able to finish, but my body overruled my brain and I kept going.

Once again, K put it in perspective.  If I had trained more, I would have had a better time.  So, I’m going to really have at it in order to be ready for New Orleans in February.  I’m hoping to get at least 1:55.

And our time in Disney was fun, too.  Hot, but fun.  V discovered a love of rollercoasters.  Except for that big one in CA Adventure.  She didn’t like that.  Or Indiana Jones.

K also commented that I was born to steer the boat on Jungle Cruise.  Can’t argue with that.  We also noticed a lot of multiracial families and a TON of tattooed patrons.  There were also a lot of overweight folks, but that’s expected…

On the writing front:

-I talked to that life coach from the logline contest last night.  He was really cool and had some helpful things to say.  I didn’t know what to expect, but was hoping he wouldn’t be some kind of Tony Robbins ripoff.

Quite the opposite.

He used to work in the industry, but has since moved on.  He mentioned a lot of his clients still do, which is very interesting.

He liked what I said about myself, and suggested trying to get involved with some networking.  Only problem – I’m up here and they’re down there.  I think there may be some ways to accomplish this online, so that’s something to investigate.

He also offered to try and send some potential event leads my way, which means I may be heading south again.  I’m thinking November-ish.   Provided, of course, that this doesn’t fall within the ‘Hollywood shutting down for the holidays’ timeframe.

It also seems like the man behind the contest is also a great contact to have, and is worth establishing more of a connection with.  His basic script analysis package is $99, which isn’t too steep; just more than I can currently afford.  I’d like to do that soon as well.  I think if he likes it enough, he’s willing to pass it on to more industry folks.  And that would be awesome.

-I re-did the first act outline of BABY LIKES JAZZ, using my notes from BABY BOOM as a reference point.  Problem is, apart from these changes, I like how it all unfolds later on.  I also noticed a few holes that need to be taken care of.  That might be harder to take care of than I anticipate, but I’m not too worried.

No Movie of the Moment tonight, but we’ve got IN THE LOOP and the first season of PUSHING DAISIES in the house.  One of those tomorrow, so hang in there.  Suggestions are always welcome, too…