outlines

Good and not-so-good

Maximum Z creativity, loglines, mystery, outlines, screenwriting, scriptshadow, writing gigs
much nicer to be thinking out here

Working with this director is becoming an exercise in keeping my sanity in check. We had a brief conversation the other night about what exactly he wants, or at least is looking for, in this short project.

I came up with something I thought was pretty unique and, according to a friend who actually writes mysteries, contained some good setups with a “sucker punch twist” at the end. I’ll take that as high praise.

But it didn’t jibe with what he wanted.  Because he’s been reading some mysteries on his own, including a few Sherlock Holmes.  He says there’s a pattern to be followed. Victim, clues, solution.  And he also has a list called something like “50 rules of mysteries”.  Oh dear lord.

I offered that if you saw 4 mysteries, and 3 of them followed the same pattern and the 4th was different, wouldn’t you be more likely to remember the different one?  Didn’t work.

While he appreciated my take on the story, he wanted the more traditional approach, but also to punch it up even more. “Go bigger” seemed to be his mantra.  For some reason, he again referenced INCEPTION. I really hope he’s seen more movies than just that.

He wants the outline by Tuesday, which I’m fine with. Most of the story is in place. I just need to move a few details around.  But he wants a ready-to-go draft by January 1st so he can immediately start on pre-production and casting.  Based on how his previous project progressed, I think he’s being a little too ambitious.

The only positive spin I can put on this is that it’s really testing my abilities.  On several levels.  I don’t mind. It’s good exercise, writing-wise.

Now, while I probably should have been spent time on his outline, I opted to do some more work on DREAMSHIP.  I had two scenes that seemed way too similar, and my protagonist was being more reactive than active.

Implementing the changes wasn’t as hard as I expected, and I think both turned out better than before.  Honestly, this thing is really coming together.

-Just a brief note on something going on over at ScriptShadow. The First Ten Pages competition is taking place this week. Readers were invited to send in their log line and first ten pages, and the rest of the readers would vote on which ones looked the most interesting.

I meant to take part, but never got around to it.  I don’t know what kind of chance I would have had. After reading some of the 50 finalists, I can’t help but wonder if some of these people have a grasp of what is expected of them.  Some of the loglines were just too confusing, or didn’t make the story sound interesting.

I always thought the logline summed up the protagonist’s objective, who/what stands in their way and what could happen if they don’t achieve that objective, all in a way to make the reader/viewer want to know more. How do you screw that up?

Apparently quite easily.

Done!

Maximum Z comedy, Mike Myers, Movie of the Moment, outlines, screenwriting, short films, writing gigs
how it feels, which is good

This post was originally going to be called “Sad Face” because I’d been struggling to get the outline for the short done before tonight, and didn’t think I was going to make it.

My original idea wasn’t panning out. The one after that was becoming too complicated.  The more I tried to figure things out, the deeper my self-dug metaphoric hole of frustration was becoming.  It got to the point that I was having dreams about it, and that’s just scary.

Would I have to accept the fact that I wasn’t going to make it?  Well, maybe.  But I wasn’t going down without a fight.  I just needed that one spark of creativity to get me going again.

And that spark came to me in the shower, of all places.  I already had a lot of the story elements in place.  What if I tried a different approach in tying them all together?  But how?  How about if the question of what happened is an absolute unknown?  That’s it!  Brilliant!

Oh, wait. That sounds like THE HANGOVER. Okay. Don’t want to seem like I’m completely ripping that off.  Maybe a variation on that.

And I was off.  Two and a half hours of writing, editing, researching and double-checking later (occasionally saving to prevent heartbreak if it accidentally got erased), I had the outline for what I think is a pretty good story.  It has now been happily sent to the director.  I hope he likes it.

-Movie of the Moment. THE LOVE GURU (2008) aka The Movie That Almost Destroyed Mike Myers’ Career.  Bad doesn’t even begin to describe it.  Non-stop, rapid-fire jokes that aren’t funny.  Despite a running time of 1 hour, 27 minutes, we zipped through it in about 45, and it still seemed too long.

This seemed like another case of a megastar project where nobody wanted to say ‘no’. How else to explain a Morgan Freeman vocal cameo, or Sir Ben Kingsley  making an ass of himself?

Only high points: Stephen Colbert and Jim Gaffigan as hockey announcers.  Sorry to say their scenes were the funniest parts.

If you value your time and sense of humor, DO NOT SEE THIS MOVIE!  And if this wasn’t proof that Myers has gone to the ‘throw every joke at the wall and see if anything sticks’ well more than once too often, I’d forgotten that there’s another Austin Powers movie in development.

I’ll do my best to rectify this situation with my next scheduled Netflix delivery: SUPER 8.

Progress squared

Maximum Z comic books, outlines, parenting, rewrite, screenwriting, writing gigs
Figuring out a story can sometimes feel like this

It took a while, but I was finally able to sit down and work on both LUCY and DREAMSHIP, and I like how both are coming along.

With LUCY, I’d been stuck trying to figure out how to get to the page 75 twist, and after several attempts, I finally made it.  I’m not entirely sure if the sequence leading up to it is the absolute best way to approach it, but I’ll keep it for now.

Now the fun really begins, with the drive to get to the end of Act Two. I haven’t looked at what I came up with for Act Three, but if I can work it out, there may not be a need for many changes.

As for DREAMSHIP, I got through a good sequence and am nearing the page 45 twist.  Lucky for me, the next few scenes are drawing from what I had in a previous draft, so there won’t be much call for change with that either.

I also realized there’s a super-important plot point I’ve yet to introduce or else the ticking-clock aspect is completely shot. But fate and the writing gods have smiled on me, or at least I hope they will, because there’s a scene in Act One that would be a perfect place to put it in.  Time to break out the pen and paper again.

-Materials for my next short project arrived, but I haven’t looked at them yet.  That’ll be part of the weekend stuff.

-V turned 9 over the weekend. K asked me if I thought she’d be able to handle MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL. I didn’t think so. K’s argument that she (K) would have enjoyed it when she was 9. But K was a very logical child, whereas V, as much as I love her, isn’t. My argument was that after watching WILLY WONKA, V asked if Oompa-Loompas were real.  I rest my case.

And by fortunate happenstance, JURASSIC PARK was on AMC last night. Again. I casually mentioned to K that I wish V could handle watching it. Then the T-Rex scene came on. Without saying a word, we both knew that wouldn’t happen for quite some time either.

-Movie of the Moment: X-MEN: FIRST CLASS (2011). I loved it.  More proof that a smart comic book movie is possible.  Why oh why didn’t the writers of GREEN LANTERN have the same sensibilities?  But I digress.

I really enjoyed the dynamic between Charles and Erik, and the gradual drifting apart of two friends.  Kevin Bacon made for a great villain, but I thought January Jones’ Emma Frost would have had a larger role.  Beast has always been one of my favorite characters, and it was pretty clever how they worked in his change to blue and furry.

I liked how they worked in a lot of stuff from the comics, as well as maintained continuity with the Singer films. (Face it. X3 sucked.)  Just a lot of fun to watch. Very curious if the inevitable sequel will take place in the 70s, which would be the smart way to go.

Voice from the past

Maximum Z outlines, rewrite, screenwriting, writing gigs
early model not-so-mobile phone

Completely unexpectedly, the director I co-write the short with last year rang me up. After much delay, he’s finished all the post-production work and is making copies of the end product.  I should have my own copy within a month or so.  I’ll update the link in the portfolio section once I get it.

He moved to LA about a year ago, and is currently working on directing trailers.  As he succinctly put it, I now know somebody working in the industry.  Always a good connection to have.  Gotta start somewhere.

But he was also calling because he wants me to help write his next project: a 30-minute short he hopes to eventually submit to the student Oscars. I’ll have more details in a few days, but it’ll be some kind of crime thriller.  Yeah, I can write that.

While I was originally hoping to have the DREAMSHIP draft done by the end of the year, this may slow that down a little, but working on that, the short and the LUCY outline is a good challenge.

They say you should write every day, which I try to do. Some days are really productive, some not at all. But the effort is always there.  Sometimes it’s how much drive you feel inside.  I can’t explain why, but that feeling’s been stronger for me the past few days.  I think I’m feeling more confident in the strength of my stories and how things are developing overall, which always yields better results.

Suffice to say, I’m expecting great things from myself between now and the end of the year, and am fairly confident I can pull it off.

More days like this, please

Maximum Z comedy, found footage, Movie of the Moment, outlines, screenwriting, story, Willy Wonka
We all deserve one

In terms of writing, Monday was fantastic.  I got to the midpoint of my revamped LUCY outline, and I really like how things are developing.  It has a genuine pulp-y feel, which is kind of what I was going for.

The rest of Act Two still looms, so how that works out is still being developed.  The previous draft has a lot of stuff I can’t use anymore, so getting through it will be a bit of a slog.

Didn’t get to work on DREAMSHIP pages, but the editing of the first act continues. Hoping to get back into that sometime next week.  Over the weekend I realized it’s been about a year since I got my Script Quack notes. That really was the kick in the pants I needed to get started on this rewrite.  Definitely worth it.  Click on their link over there on the right to check ’em out.

-You’ve probably noticed the growing trend of the ‘found footage’ genre.  THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, CLOVERFIELD, and the forthcoming CHRONICLE.  And the spec market seems to be growing with more and more unique takes on it.

I think I’ve stumbled onto a potentially great idea for one.  And even better, it fits perfectly with a story idea I came up with years ago.  I don’t want to divulge any details just yet, but I’ve got the logline down on a long-standing list of story ideas, with the intent of coming back to it later.  What’s nice is that I can keep track of the market and see how any new scripts compare with mine.  Knowing me, I probably won’t get to this until sometime next year, but it’s definitely an idea worth holding on to.

-Movie of the Moment: BRIDESMAIDS (2011). It must be me.  I didn’t think this was the comedic work of genius I was led to believe it was.  There were some funny moments in the second half, but overall I wasn’t impressed.  Some of my co-workers thought it was hilarious, so maybe I would have enjoyed it more in the theatre, rather than at home.  But this isn’t something I would have paid to see.

I bet as soon as this was a hit, they announced plans for a sequel.  No doubt this time it’s Annie who’s getting married.  Such originality!  Puh-leeze. Spare me.

-On a more positive note, we watched WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (1971) because V had caught the second half on TV and wanted to see it from the beginning.  She loved it.  One of those films that holds up after numerous viewings.  We’ll probably see the Tim Burton version this weekend.  While Gene Wilder definitely makes for a more interesting Wonka, I like the Danny Elfman songs in the Burton version a little more.

If we’re really lucky, we may even very slyly ‘convince’ V to read the original book for school.  That would be quite a coup for us.  And even better, she’d probably like it.