movies

Random thoughts, general musings, that sort of thing

Maximum Z comic books, contest, creativeness, DC, editing, encouragement, exposition, goals, Guardians of the Galaxy, ideas, inspiration, loglines, Marvel Comics, Movie of the Moment, Nicholl Fellowship, old time radio, perseverance, productivity, rewrite, scenes, screenwriting, script, self-confidence, spec, story, storytelling, The Thin Man, westerns, writing , , ,
Nothing to do with today's post. I just love their chemistry.
Nothing to do with today’s post. I just love their chemistry.

-My western failed to make it through the first round of Scriptapalooza, which makes me 0 for 4 so far this year. I’m not counting the top 20 percent ranking for the Nicholl; that’s like getting Honorable Mention. At this point, I’ve pretty much written off its chances for Austin.

My problem was overconfidence in the script. I thought it was solid enough, but apparently not. It’s not the first time this has happened to me, but I’ll be more careful about it in the future.

I still believe in this script, which is why I’ve been so gung-ho about rewriting it. The past two weeks have been all about making it better. After completing the latest round of edits, it’s now 8 pages shorter, and still some further fine-tuning to do, which hopefully won’t add more than 2-3.

-Never realized how much my characters repeat things in dialogue. “I need you go to the store.” “The store? Why?” Must be the influence of listening to so much old-time radio. Cutting all of those probably amounted to at least half a page.

-I cut at least 5(!) separate situations where the Wilhelm Scream could be used.

-Had a great lunch-chat with one of my working writer pals yesterday. While he was very supportive and encouraging, he also reminded me of the almost insurmountable task of a new, unproven writer breaking in with a high-budget script.

“Your chances improve when you offer something that won’t cost a lot to make. A lot more people can get something made for under $5 million, rather than $50 million, let alone $100-200 million.”

As it should have, it got me thinking. Do I have any stories like that? It took the bike ride home and digging through some old flash drives to discover I did. Maybe about 5 or 6, all of them just a logline and not much else.

It’s a start.

-Movie of the Moment: GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (2014). Loved it. Great story, great characters (and their development). Maybe my only complaint was the bombardment of exposition in the first 20 minutes. Other than that, a lot of fun.

Biggest pleasant surprise: Dave Bautista as Drax.

Biggest almost-catastrophe: Adam Sandler as a potential voice for Rocket. Somebody thought this was a good idea?

It’s really impressive how much of an effort Marvel puts into their stories and characters. I sincerely hope DC and Warner Brothers can take a lesson from this.

Building up to what it all comes down to

Maximum Z antagonist, characters, goals, Godzilla, guidelines, hero, inciting incident, monsters, Movie of the Moment, Pacific Rim, payoff, plot, plot points, protagonist, San Francisco, scenes, screenwriting, script, story, storytelling, structure, subplot, Uncategorized, villain, writing
What he's holding represents what's at stake. Think about it.
What he’s holding represents what’s at stake. Hint: It’s not a rock

Time now for a very, very important question every writer needs to face:

Do you know how your story ends?

You come up with an idea, then proceeded to develop, shape, and organize all the stuff that happens in the middle, which eventually has led us to the where we find ourselves now: the big payoff. What the whole thing’s been about.

Everything your characters have been doing have been leading up to this. In theory, your first two acts have been about the protagonist’s world undergoing some drastic changes, how they dealt with it and now it looks like the bad guy’s going to win.

Which brings us to the grand finale that is Act Three, where our hero must somehow find a way to overcome these seemingly insurmountable odds, defeat the antagonist and hopefully come out of the experience a different person than the one they were way back when we first met them.

That being said, there’s still more to it.

-Your protagonist has a physical goal (what they want) and an emotional one (what they need). They can achieve both, just one or neither. Which applies to yours, and have you effectively steered the action to ensure that result? Can we see the changes they’ve undergone?

-Working with a subplot or three? If they haven’t wrapped up by now, better make sure to do it soon. Do you really want the reader to wonder “Hey! What happened to the part about ____?”

-Even a supporting character needs an arc to complete. Have you given each of them enough attention throughout the story to make this happen, and does their story wrap up in a convincingly believable way?

One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned about putting a story together is that the central question (“Will the hero achieve their goal?”) is raised with the inciting incident around page 10, and each subsequent plot point raises it again, albeit with the stakes a little higher each time.

What happens in Act Three is where you show us how the central question is answered.

-And now, the much-heralded return of Movie of the Moment! This time, a way overdue look at GODZILLA (2014).

Wow. Everything PACIFIC RIM should have been. Instead of non-stop giant monster action, we get only glimpses as the focus is directed at the human aspect of the story. A much more effective approach.

While it’s not hard to suspend disbelief when it comes to a movie about giant monsters rampaging/duking it out in the downtown area of the city where I live, perhaps the most amazing piece of cinematic fiction (as observed by both K and myself) was in the background of one scene where a garage sign read “All-day parking $15”.

Now that’s make-believe.

Damn you, Seth MacFarlane

Maximum Z 3:10 to Yuma, A Million Ways to Die in the West, Blazing Saddles, Clint Eastwood, comedy, Django Unchained, genre, history, Howard Hawks, John Ford, movies, Rossio & Elliott, screenwriting, script, Seth MacFarlane, spec, story, Tarantino, The Lone Ranger, True Grit, westerns, writing
Let us sincerely hope the sun has not set just yet
Let us sincerely hope the sun has not set just yet

If ever there was a need for a man in a white hat to ride in and save the day, now would be a good time.

First THE LONE RANGER is the mega-bomb of 2013, followed by the much-heralded crash and burn this weekend of A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST.

Mea culpa – I’ve not seen MILLION, and based on what I’ve read, have no real desire to do so. It doesn’t bode well when a lot of the reviews generate more laughs than the trailer.

The western just can’t catch a break. Every once in a while you get something incredible like TRUE GRIT, 3:10 TO YUMA or DJANGO UNCHAINED. Jeez, even RANGO had a little redeeming value. Films like these come along and hope grows in our hearts, but then we get dreck like JONAH HEX or COWBOYS & ALIENS, and back to movie jail goes the western.

I had no real hopes for Mr. MacFarlane’s latest, but at least he was attempting to do some kind of western. Granted, it was trying to be this generation’s BLAZING SADDLES, but apparently failing miserably.

This goes beyond another nail in the coffin. At this point the coffin’s already in the ground with a few shovelfuls of dirt on it.

As a writer offering up a totally kickass western spec, my hopes for success seem to diminish just a little bit more with this kind of news.

I can imagine every potential recipient recoiling in fear. “A western? Eek!” followed by the frantic pressing of the ‘delete’ key.

Contacting a friend repped at a high-profile agency, I asked if anybody there might be open to reading it.

“I wrote a western, and they won’t sell it,” was the reply. “They don’t believe there’s a market for them after THE LONE RANGER.”

Well, sure. Because every western is going to be an overpriced, convoluted bloated crapfest.  It doesn’t help that a lot of them actually have been exactly that.

Why have so many recent westerns been bombs? Wish I knew.

Skimming the credits of some of the great westerns of the past shows that the people who made them had a real understanding and appreciation of the genre – John Ford, Howard Hawks, Clint Eastwood, just to name a few. And it shows in the finished product.

Hopefully somebody else will give it another go in the near future, sooner rather than later, and know how to do it right.

Did I mention I’ve got a totally kickass spec?

Why we do this

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You mean they'd pay me to do this? Where do I sign up?
You mean they’d actually pay me to write? Where do I sign up?

I had lunch the other day with my friend the working writer. Among the many things he’s always reliable for is honest feedback.

After updating each other on our latest project developments, I off-handedly quipped “I hope I’m a real writer someday.”

“You are a real writer,” he responded. He’s read some of my stuff, and doesn’t hesitate to give praise or suggest changes where applicable.

“Okay,” I said. “I hope I’m a paid writer someday.”

Which is really what it all boils down to – making a living at this.

This is not to say I see this as easy money (which it definitely isn’t), or won’t be happy until I make a million-dollar sale (although I wouldn’t complain if that actually did happen).

I’ll assume you’re in a similar situation and just really enjoy writing, hoping somebody will like your stuff enough that they want to buy it, or be interested in having you write (or rewrite) something for them, and being able to do it on a steady ongoing basis.

But it’s not enough to sit around and dream about it. Like our protagonists, we have to be the ones who make things happen.

Are you being active in your pursuit of a writing career? Are you constantly striving to make your script better? Are you a positive and supportive member of the writing community?

This is a massive undertaking, not to be taken lightly. It’s hard work, pure and simple.

My aforementioned friend, the working writer, spent twenty years getting to this point. And now every time we reconnect, he tells me about his latest assignment or some potential new ones. He put together a short he’s considering entering in some festivals, and to top it all off, he’ll be on set for a feature he wrote that begins production in a few months.

He’s not going after the big paycheck stuff – just solid, steady work.

Not everybody can write the box office blockbuster or mega-hit TV show, which is fine. There’s a ton of other stuff out there that requires solid writing skills and a dedicated work ethic.

As much I like the idea of the former, I’d be perfectly happy being the guy who gets to keep working on the latter.

-This is my 500th post. To paraphrase the genius of Monty Python, if you’ve enjoyed this blog half as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it, then I’ve enjoyed twice as much.

So there.

Out, damned trope! Out, I say!*

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Do whatever you can to avoid falling into this perilous situation
Do whatever you can to avoid falling into a similar perilous situation

(*A slight variation on the actual line from MACBETH – Act V, Scene I. We’re all about accuracy around here.)

The more I work on the story of the monster spec, the more I realize how flimsy the villain’s plan is. I know what their objective is, but the biggest roadblock is figuring out HOW they’re going to accomplish it.

Part of the original story included a monster with shape-changing abilities taking the place of a high-ranking figure in world politics. At the time, it seemed good.

But now it just seems tired and stale. It really is something we’ve all seen before, which totally goes against what I’m trying to do. Coming up with a fresh, original story is one thing; telling it in a fresh, original way is another.

How often have you read a script or seen a movie or TV show and thought “Seen this before” or “Saw that coming a mile away”?

It’s easy to fall into the trap of using something that’s been used or done many times before. Cliches. Tropes. Clams. Call ’em what you will.  There’s nothing wrong with them, but it’s lazy writing.

Why would you go through the trouble of working so hard to create something new and exciting, but fill it with material that isn’t?

Read through what you have. Does anything come across as too familiar, or at least expected?

Look at that tired old chestnut as purely temporary, then go back and brainstorm a few alternatives which are totally opposite (or at least really different) but also accomplish the same thing.

Take a look at scripts and movies similar to yours. Can you see how they did it? Maybe it’ll inspire an approach you hadn’t thought of.

Feeling stuck? Ask for help. Twitter’s usually pretty good. You’ll soon discover that writers have the amazing ability to easily come up with ideas when it’s for somebody else’s project.

You’re a creative type, so get creative. You know there has to be a better way out of this. It may take a couple of tries, but you’ll get there.

In the meantime, I’ll be busy figuring out a new way for monsters to take over the world.