Movie of the Moment

A nice breather

Maximum Z Movie of the Moment, museum, screenwriting, The Green Hornet

With V out of town, K and I have had more opportunities to do stuff that we like to do, which includes getting outside and being active, or in this case, going to a museum.

There was an exhibit at the Palace of the Legion of Honor featuring works by Isabelle de Borchgrave, a Belgian artist who would recreate an outfit from a painting in the medium of paper.  Literally.  The entire thing was made out of paper, but done in such a way that unless you knew it was paper, you would have to peer in very close to tell the difference.

K had heard high praise for the exhibit, and this was the last weekend for it, so we went.  It was amazing.

But this isn’t a review of the work.  After we left the building and were heading back to the car, we stopped to take in the gorgeous view of the area west of the Golden Gate.  It was also amazing.

My point for all of this is that instead of staying cooped up inside and plotting out the next sequence, or whether or not a particular scene works, I allowed myself the chance to step away from the outline and go and do something enjoyable.

Yes, I probably could have gotten to a desired point in the script, but at the cost of spending time with my sweetie and letting myself relax and broaden my cultural view.  Every writer should allow themselves the luxury of doing such a thing.  It really does help in the end, and on several levels at that.

Besides, I’ll be diving back into the outline tomorrow.

-Movie of the Moment: THE GREEN HORNET. Oh man, was this bad.  I like the old radio show, and have seen a handful of the 60s TV show, but this?  This was just lousy.

My biggest complaint is the lack of motivation for Seth Rogen/Britt Reid. What’s at stake?  What does he stand to lose?  For the most part, he’s really a passive protagonist; Kato does a lot more than he does.

As K succinctly put it, it’s like he becomes a masked vigilante because it seems cool.

And Rogen as a heroic lead is just a bad idea to begin with. I didn’t realize he and his partner Evan Goldberg had written the script, which reeked of lazy writing.  I’m probably one of the few people who didn’t think SUPERBAD was fantastic.

I’ll admit I laughed at a few of the jokes, but if you’re going to do a modern interpretation of a semi-obscure crimefighter from 50 or 60 years ago, you should start with an appreciation of the character and what he/she is all about, THEN work on adapting it to the present day.  This should have been more of a slick noir-type film, not a lame action-comedy.  I think George Clooney and Greg Kinnear were both considered for the lead about ten years ago.  They would have been so much better.  And the script would have been significantly better too.

A guy I used to work with thought this was a great movie.  My opinion of him has dropped slightly.

Re-charged

Maximum Z Dreamship, Francois Ozon, French, Movie of the Moment, rewrite, screenwriting, Sylvain Chomet, The Triplets of Belleville

It’s been a busy couple of days.  School’s out. It was Memorial Day weekend. I’ve been working a lot of extra hours.

Moving ahead with the rewrite has been slower than I had hoped, but it’s coming along.  I got to the halfway point yesterday, so I’m still working on being completely done just before the annual trek to the in-laws in late June.

In some ways, the rewrite has been really cathartic.  Changing or completely cutting something I had previously thought untouchable feels so…liberating.  I’m no longer hindered by second-guessing myself, and now feel like I can really make this thing work.

Even better, story ideas or subplot points I thought would be necessary have been easily removed, thereby streamlining the overall story. I like when I can do that.  Having good writing days does wonders for the self-esteem and confidence levels.

I had a great time writing DREAMSHIP the first time around, and am fortunate enough to have recaptured that feeling for the rewrite.  At least so far.

-Movie of the Moment.  A double bill of French.

Since we watched THE ILLUSIONIST last week, we followed it up with THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE, also by Sylvain Chomet.  Highly recommended.

The second film, viewed only by myself, was RICKY, written and directed by Francois Ozon, who was also responsible for SWIMMING POOL and UNDER THE SAND.

The story about a working-class single mom who has a fling with a co-worker, resulting in a baby boy who for some inexplicable reason, grows a pair of working bird-like wings.  At times heart-breaking (especially from the perspective of her daughter, who craves her mother’s love), and with a lot less comedy and light-hearted moments than I was led to believe (which makes it definitely French in nature), overall, just kind of okay.

Fitting the pieces together

Maximum Z 500 Days of Summer, Dreamship, Movie of the Moment, Nicholl Fellowship, plot, rewrite, screenwriting, ScriptQuack

While I was working on the last quarter of Act Two today, I realized I didn’t have any hard copy of the previous draft: outline OR script.  Which means I didn’t have anything to really reference as part of this rewrite.  I know how I’d like to move forward, but once again find myself streamlining how that’s being accomplished.  A lot of unnecessary fat is being trimmed away. For the better.

An interesting side note  to all of this is that I took a look at my notes from the fine folks at ScriptQuack and discovered I’ve put a lot of their suggestions into play, which in turn renders a lot of their notes irrelevant.  I should probably X out all the parts I don’t need anymore, which would enable me to focus on what I haven’t used yet (or may not need at all).

This heading toward the end of Act Two is really presenting a challenge: how to best have the situation increasingly worsen so that all definitely seems lost for my hero.  I’ve got a few ideas to work with, but I’m not in a rush, so this can be carefully planned out.

-Nicholl deadline has come and gone. I’m glad I didn’t try to rush through this; it would not have yielded good results.  Better to give myself more time for next year.  Very interesting to see some critique comments on Facebook.  Who couldn’t read those and hope it was their script being praised?

I’m sure a lot of people enter only one or two contests a year, if that often, the Nicholl probably being one of them. Have winners of less prestigious contests ever gone on to fame and fortune?  Not that I know of, but I don’t research them that much.

-Just wondering – I get more done on a script when I’m where I really shouldn’t be working on it (read: actual paying job).  Does this happen for other writers?  I can get some work done at home, but the creative juices really flow when I can spare a few minutes between on-air reports.  Again, just wondering.

-Movie of the Moment: 500 DAYS OF SUMMER.  We watched it over 2 days, despite it only being 95 minutes long.  I didn’t really know what to expect, and that I’d heard good things about it.  One line in particular stood out for me in the beginning: “This is not a love story.”  Boy, ain’t that the truth.

I liked it, despite how sad it is.  Like they set out to make an anti-romcom.  It was kind of refreshing to jump past the meet-cute and avoid any kind of wacky hijinks and cut straight to the beginning of the end.  The whole jumping-around-in-time aspect was also well-executed.  I had a little trouble keeping track of things when the jumps were significant (Day 348 to Day 22, etc), but it was better than just letting it all happen in a traditional linear way.

Another benefit to that is how it doesn’t treat the viewer like an idiot, which is always important.

Eureka! (You don’t smell so good yourself)

Maximum Z anime, Dreamship, inspiration, Movie of the Moment, rewrite, screenwriting

Sorry.  Couldn’t resist.  Old 3 Stooges joke.

The reason behind that exclamation of wonder is because of what I was able to accomplish on yesterday’s DREAMSHIP rewrite effort.

Reading other scripts, especially those from the Black List, has really helped open my eyes in terms of how a good script looks, not only in terms of story, plot and character, but also regarding how it flows from scene to scene, and its actual appearance on the page.

As much as I’d like to name the fantastic actioner I read last week, I promised the person who sent it to me I wouldn’t, so I’m not.  But reading it made me realize I could take the same approach to my script. Great set pieces. Showing character through action. You get the idea.

Part of my problem with rewrites is that I always tend to not veer too far from the original material, so things don’t change that much. So far, that does not seem to be the case.  It’s kind of a thrill to take what I had, see if there’s a way to turn it around, or at least do something completely unexpected with it.  Even better, the new result is stronger, and also strengthens the story in ways I had never thought of or anticipated.  I like when that happens.

-Movie of the Moment: another two-fer. First, TALES FROM THE SCRIPT. A documentary consisting of interviews with screenwriters about their craft. Informative, fascinating, funny, and necessary viewing for writers trying to break in.

Second, AIKA R16: VIRGIN MISSION, anime from Japan. A prequel of sorts for a female adventurer, explaining how she got her start. Apparently this was released ten years after the original series, which I’ve yet to see. A clever concept and fun to watch, but way too many gratuitous panty shots. Just not my thing; in fact, it got a bit monotonous after a while.

Anybody got an anime series or film they’d recommend?  I lean more towards the sci-fi/comedy mix. I’ve seen just about all the Miyazaki oeuvre and most of the more well-known ones (AKIRA, STEAMBOY, COWBOY BEBOP, PROJECT A-KO), but gladly welcome something new.

*Last-minute item. This was supposed to post yesterday, but I wasn’t paying attention and inadvertently erased it.

While I was writing the above content, I got an email from my rewrite client from last week. They thanked me for my work and wanted to know what I thought about the script.

If you’ve been diligently following along, you’ll recall I did not have the highest of opinions.  Therefore, I’m working on a response I can only hope that will be politely and tactfully helpful.

From one grind to another

Maximum Z characters, Man of the Century, Movie of the Moment, plot, screenwriting, story, writing gigs
Yeah. Something like that.

And I’m back. My script rewrite is now in the past tense.

Maybe not an out-and-out rewrite per se, but taking a script and reformatting it into script form.  My instructions were to work my magic on the action lines and leave the dialogue alone. Mea culpa – I tinkered with some of that too.

I’ll start off by saying the idea behind the story was good, and there were faint glimmers of potential, but I had lots of problems with the execution.  I don’t know if this was a first draft, but it sure looked and read like one.

-Huge blocks of text in both the wide margins and the dialogue.

-Starting a scene in one room, then having it go to one, two or more locations, without starting a new scene

-Not giving the reader any idea who the main character is, nor establishing what was at stake, if anything.

-Characters who disappear for long stretches of time.

-Tons of unnecessary and unfilmable details.

-Story details that come out of nowhere based on nothing the reader has already read.

-Dialogue that’s pure exposition.  Sometimes repeated several times in several different scenes.

-Scenes without any conflict, or at least nothing to move the story forward, that drag on and on.

-Characters saying each other’s names over and over and over again in each scene.

-Using the same verbs and adjectives throughout the whole thing.

The whole time I was working on this, there were quite a lot of times I couldn’t help but roll my eyes in disbelief.  But the main point is: I’m done with it.

The Nicholl deadline is next week.  No way am I going to make it.  I figure I can work on the DREAMSHIP rewrite, then pump out a first draft of LUCY.

Movie of the Moment: MAN OF THE CENTURY.  A fun, small independent film from ’99 about a man who lives in then-modern NYC as if it were the 1920s. I’d heard about it when it was originally released, which was for about a week in the arthouse circuit.  If you get a kick out of the early days of talkies, or at least the dialogue, then you’ll enjoy this.  Only complaint – they never explain why the guy is like this.

Turns out the star and director also wrote it.  They must have spent a lot of time researching the slang and catchphrases of the day, because they’re prevalent throughout the whole thing.

I was also impressed with how they had about eight different storylines each tie up nice and clean in the last five minutes.

I’d love to know how they got Frank Gorshin involved.  I thought he was in it for a cameo, but he was one of the subplots.

-I got to read a phenomenal action script yesterday.  It was fast-moving, exciting and just a blast to read.  It’s what I hope LUCY can be like.