screenwriting

What, again?

Maximum Z ideas, Rossio & Elliott, screenwriting, The Lone Ranger
There wolf, kemosabe

I try to come up with original ideas for my scripts. Maybe something entirely new, or at least slightly different from something else.  Example – how many scripts have you seen about a Jewish cook in a Chinese restaurant? See?

A few days ago, it was reported that THE LONE RANGER had been scrapped due to a bloated budget, not to mention a ludicrous storyline involving werewolves(?!) and that it would focus more on Tonto.  I don’t have time to go into why all of these are WRONG to begin with, but I just found out that the new draft is going to feature three major sequences involving TRAINS.

Hmm.  A Western where a whole lot of the action takes place on trains. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? (not to slight the efforts of this guy either)

Apparently Mssrs Rossio and Elliott are tapping into my mind and extracting the ideas.

Yes, I know there are only so many ideas floating around out there, but this isn’t the first time there’s been a weird connection between me and them.

A few years ago, I came up with what I thought was an original idea  story about zombie pirates terrorizing a coastal town.  Just as I’m finishing up my initial outline, I read that Disney’s tentpole release for the following summer is PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN (the first one).  I sally forth and get a draft done. By now, their movie has come out and is a huge smash. Knowing there will be a deluge of similar scripts, I change my villains from pirates to cowboys.  I crank out a draft, create a clever query letter campaign, but no interest.  That script is in a virtual filing cabinet now, waiting to be retrieved and rewritten at some later date.

Once I’m done with my DREAMSHIP rewrite, I’ll get to work on LUCY, even though it may now be an even harder uphill climb.  But I still like the story, and think it would make for an impressive script.

And just think, maybe someday in the future, you’ll catch the latest hit from Rossio & Elliott and be able to say “I bet that was Paul’s idea first.” And chances are you could be right.  Especially if it’s THE 3 STOOGES: UNDERCOVER G-MEN!.  Then all bets are off.

A few undotted i’s and uncrossed t’s

Maximum Z outlines, screenwriting, scriptshadow
Jeez, the end is pretty far away, ain't it?

My writing time has been severely limited the past few days, what with the school year starting, working extra hours, and reading and commenting on a few scripts.  But that changed today.

What originally started as hoping to fine-tune the 3rd Act turned into a slight overhaul of the entire story.  Scenes which had been giving me trouble before have been handled; there are still some left, but nowhere nearly many as before.  All that remains now is wrapping up several subplots at the end.

My biggest decision now: whether or not to have the antagonist make one final appearance.  Would it be appropriate, or would it drag things out?  I’d rather have it be more like the blonde terrorist at the end of DIE HARD and less like the forty-two endings of RETURN OF THE KING.  Maybe I’ll try each scenario and see which is a better fit.

-I was originally planning to catch a matinee of COWBOYS & ALIENS this week, but my schedule won’t allow for it.  Maybe next week, but it seems more and more inevitable to be caught on Netflix.  Unless you can convince me otherwise…

How did I miss THAT?

Maximum Z outlines, rewrite, screenwriting
How I felt afterward...

The editing continues. Still liking the whole tightening and fine-tuning aspects. Really seems like the whole thing is getting closer to what I want it to be.

I picked up where I left off yesterday – the midpoint. No big changes needed so far. Then I decide to do a quick scene count between the midpoint and the page 75 twist.  Okay…let’s see. Got it. 26.

Wait. What?

26? 26 scenes? Seriously? No wonder this thing seems so freakin’ huge! Something has got to go. But what? Oh yeah. That completely unnecessary sequence. Zip! Out it goes. Back to around 21.

Much better.

Some quick adjusting and rewriting of the two scenes that bookended the now-gone sequence and you’d never know anything had been taken out. That big chunk of fat is not missed whatsoever.

I also realized a small subplot that was introduced in the removed sequence would serve the story better if it occurred earlier. A quick perusal and I find it: much earlier in Act Two. Don’t know why I didn’t see this before.

Next up – figuring out how much of an overhaul may be necessary for Act Three.

My niece and nephew are in town this weekend, so I expect to be busy playing tour guide, which means no writing work until sometime early next week.

It’s been a while, but I’ll ask anyway.  Seen anything good lately?

The planets are aligning…

Maximum Z outlines, rewrite, screenwriting
Just a little more to the right, okay Saturn?

…and I’m that much closer to a stronger, completed outline.  Maybe about 5-6 more scenes to fine-tune and I’m ready to go.  Confidence definitely running at higher levels.

I have to be careful because a few of those scenes are key to both their individual storylines AND to the overall plot.  Some of them don’t need too much work. It’s more of rewriting what I already had, but in a way that sounds better and stronger.  V is out all day tomorrow, which means I should be able to take care of most, if not all of the remaining scenes-in-progress.

Before I went into 2nd-rewrite mode, I was hoping to have a draft done by Labor Day. Ain’t gonna happen.  But school starts next week and for now my upcoming schedule appears to be on the light side, which I hope translates into 3-5 pages a day.  At that rate, I could be done by mid-September, which is also acceptable.

No Movie of the Moment. Been too busy bein’ a Dad.

Fasten your safety belts

Maximum Z action, Bill Murray, Movie of the Moment, mystery, outlines, rewrite, screenwriting
The Thunderbolt at Kennywood Park in West Mifflin, PA

After some nice progress on fixing problems at both ends of the first act, I ventured into Act Two and was able to make some good changes there as well.  A lot of on-screen action takes place, and I want to make sure it really grabs you and doesn’t let go until absolutely necessary.  I think I was able to do that, and made it to the midpoint as a reward.

I opted to stop at another point that’s been giving me trouble. My hope is that I’ll be able to get past that and continue on to at least the end of Act Two.

I’ve noticed when trying to convert a scene from the outline to the pages that it’s really easy to say in the outline what I want to happen, but things suddenly get a lot harder to translate into something on the page. I know in my head want I want to say, but have trouble getting it out the way I want to say it.

We’ll see how it goes.

-Movie of the Moment – THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO LITTLE (1997), a clever pseudo-homage to Hitchcock-style mysteries.

Bill Murray is a video store clerk who pays a surprise visit to his wealthy brother in London.  But the brother is hosting a dinner party to finalize ‘the biggest deal of his life’, so sends Bill off to an audience-interactive show, where scenes are played out throughout town.  But he intercepts a call meant for a secret agent, and follows the trail of clues, thinking the whole thing is part of the act.

Only got about halfway through it, but really looking forward to finishing it.

I was worried it would be more like WHAT ABOUT BOB?, but it’s actually smarter than you might think.  What’s really fun about it is how something is set up, followed by a payoff, but there’s also a twist in interpretation or context, thereby giving even more effectiveness to a well-structured double plotline: the one Bill sees as the theatre experience, and the one we the audience know is the actual secret agent storyline.

All that and Joanne Whalley’s gams.  What more could a film geek want?