I’ve been editing a hard copy of the first half of DREAMSHIP, and it’s so much easier than doing it on the laptop. Actually seeing what’s being cut, changed or moved around makes a really big difference.
And as predicted, at least one scene was completely cut, another was drastically shortened (necessarily so), and a majority have been tweaked in some manner. And I’m only up to page 24.
Sometimes while I’m out on a run, even though I’m listening to podcasts, I’ll still go over the story in my head. It’s actually quite helpful. I came up with the solution to two small subplot problems, but now need to figure out how to work them in in an effective, organic manner.
Fun stuff, believe you me.
Movie of the Moment – TANK GIRL (1995). Imagine a mega-hyperactive 5-year-old dressed in a punk rock thrift store wardrobe and armed with souped-up military hardware, then set it in the desert. That’s this movie. I think it was part of the mid-90s “let’s snatch up a semi-obscure comic book property and turn it into a movie!” mindset.
I’ve never read the comic, but this felt like they were trying too hard. It wasn’t a slog to get through, but it wasn’t fun either.
This scene consists of TWO short, spot-on lines of dialogue
It’s always recommended that when you finish a script, you should put it in a drawer and not look at it again for at least two weeks. That way you can look at it with fresh eyes.
That’s what happened with the LUCY outline. Since I’ve been so pre-occupied with the DREAMSHIP rewrite, I haven’t looked at it since around Halloween.
I thought I had to get to a certain plot point in Act Two, but I’d forgotten I already had. A pleasant surprise, and it just needs a little tweaking. Nice.
Then I read the rest of Act Two.
Oy.
What was I thinking? Way too overwritten. It drags, taking forever to get to where I want/need it to be. A lot of unnecessary scenes. And worst of all – my protagonist isn’t driving the action.
Strictly amateur hour.
I now see this as a challenge and opportunity to not only make some major fixes in this section of the story, but to do a massive overhaul in terms of editing and trimming the whole thing down. If I can cut something and it doesn’t impact the story, then it shouldn’t have been in there in the first place.
This will also have to happen with DREAMSHIP. My midpoint’s on page 60, and that’s around 5-10 pages too many.
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?
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.
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.
