screenwriting

Getting there

Maximum Z animation, antagonist, Black List, Christopher Nolan, Lucy Steele, Murder of a Cat, outlines, screenwriting

The rain returned today, which means I worked until noon, thereby depriving me of about 2 hours of script work time, so there wasn’t much progress today.

But there was at least some.  And it may be more significant than I realize.

My problem was I had this bad guy connected to Lucy’s past.  In fact, he plays a pretty significant role.  I was trying to inject him into the story in a certain way, but kept running into obstacles of one kind or another.  And it wasn’t working.  So I tried another approach, even though I was worried it might seem a little cliched.

But it works better within the story.  So I’ll keep it for now, and see how things develop around it.

It’s supposed to rain all week, so the overall progress may be somewhat limited.  But this latest development is encouraging.

-I finally got around to reading another Black List script: MURDER OF A CAT, by Christian Magalhaes and Robert Snow.  I’ll have more detailed comments tomorrow, but for the most part, I wasn’t that impressed.

Movie of the Moment: Watched DESPICABLE ME with V.  I enjoyed it.  It was clever, original and never condescending, which I always appreciate.  And probably the first time I could actually tolerate Russell Brand.

I always find the best animation to be in the vein of the old Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons.  At first they seem geared towards kids, but a lot of jokes are there for the adults.  Surprisingly, this wasn’t nominated for Best Animated Feature.  It probably wouldn’t win, but at least it could have been nominated.

I also managed to watch INCEPTION over 2 days.  I liked it, but I couldn’t help but keep hearing a co-worker’s comments throughout in that almost everything Ellen Page’s character asks is for the benefit of the audience. “What’s a kick?”, “Limbo?”, “Whose consciousness are we going into again?” and so on.

I especially liked the whole execution of the dreams within dreams part, and each one’s relation to the one it was set inside, which I guess really was the whole second half of the film.

More than once I was thinking “How did they do that?,” but my DVD from Netflix didn’t have any bonus features, so I don’t know how they pulled off any of the special effects.  I’m fairly certain the fight scene in the hotel hallway was similar to the space station in 2001, complete with a circular rolling set.

While the story was a little hard to follow in some parts, visually it was stunning.  Christopher Nolan is definitely one of a kind, and it makes me look forward to THE DARK KNIGHT RISES that much more.

-I applied to a potential short-writing gig.  Zombies are apparently involved, which are always fun.

Thank you, inner me

Maximum Z outlines, screenwriting

I think I may have found a solution to my bad guy problem.

Even more amazingly, it came to me while I was sleeping.  Kudos to my subconscious for being a team player.

I was hoping to work on it during a rare Saturday afternoon shift, but the roads have been busy, which means I’m busy, which means I get no writing done.

But now that I know what I want, when I sit down on Monday, I’ll be able to make the necessary fixes.

And that’s cool.

Movie of the Moment:  Tonight’s planned feature is DESPICABLE ME. K & V saw it last summer, so I’m the odd man out.  It’s supposed to be good, so I’m looking forward to it.

Where exactly do you put a 300-pound Irishman?

Maximum Z characters, Lucy Steele, Netflix, outlines, screenwriting

Not the set-up for a joke, but a question that will be answered shortly.

I took yesterday’s work on the outline and inserted it into the main one today.  Still have some gaps to fill in, but it’s coming together nicely.  This is really turning into a rip-roaring adventure story, let me tell you.

But I couldn’t help but notice one thing about everything I had worked on last week, especially those scenes from page 45 to the midpoint.  There were a lot more than I remembered writing.  While it should be somewhere around 15-18, this was more like 27.  Way too much!  Some emergency editing was necessary.

As much as I hated to do it, I was going to have to get rid of the scenes involving a character I really like.  That would be the somewhat rotund fellow in the title of this post.  He and his flunkies would have to go.  One of the many rules of screenwriting: Kill Your Darlings.  So I did.  The end result is still satisfying, but not as much as it was when I had two sets of double-crosses in the works.  Now it’s back to one.

But all is not lost.

Since I’m now focusing on the next set of scenes, the midpoint to around page 75, part of those involve a mine.  I don’t know what kind, but originally it was going to be abandoned.  Not anymore.  I’m working on turning it into a kind of hideout where this nefarious band of ruffians is currently holed up, thereby increasing the level of conflict in the story.

It keeps surprising me how writing something one day, and maybe jotting down a thought or line, even just on a whim, can really pay off somewhere down the line.  I really like when that sort of thing happens.  It’s almost a kind of self-vindication.

I’m hoping to have a Movie of the Moment for tomorrow.  I haven’t had a lot of spare time lately, so I’ve had to spread my film-watching out over a few days.  Surprisingly, parts of this film are eerily similar to DREAMSHIP.  Crazy, huh?

Now entering Euphoria. Drive safely

Maximum Z Lucy Steele, outlines, screenwriting

I am in what can definitely be considered a state of giddiness. Sheer and unmitigated joy. The heavens have opened and are shining down upon me.

For today, I hit the halfway mark. And it feels freaking AWESOME!!

But it’s more than just reaching that point in the story. It’s also about how I got there. Yesterday I was concerned about the page count from where I left off. Today I was determined to reach the Point of No Return no matter what.

I had my characters in an already dicey situation, but needed to keep making it harder for them to come out ahead. A minor story point from earlier this week paid off in spades in terms of establishing more conflict. I saw an opportunity to insert another character that would create still another obstacle. The ideas were coming in fast and furious, to coin a phrase.

Sure, some of the scenes need to be fleshed out a bit, but they WORK! And at no time whatsoever was I ever concerned with page count. I knew what I wanted and needed, and followed through accordingly.

It felt absolutely incredible to fill in the blanks for something I was really stressing over just a week ago.

It would be even more incredible if I can make this kind of progress now that the latter half of Act Two is here. A little intimidating, but really quite exhilarating.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m having an absolute blast, and the best really is yet to come.

Time to put on my editing hat

Maximum Z Lucy Steele, outlines, Pixar, plot, screenwriting

Nice progress today on the outline.  I’m getting close to the midpoint, with only a handful of scenes left to fill in.  But it also looks like I’m going to need more scenes than I expected to get there.

I’m a bit concerned I may try to jam too much into that handful.  The first quarter of Act Two is approximately 16-17 pages, and I’m nearing the end of that second quarter.  I know what I would like to happen in those pages, but worry it may run around 20 pages, or even more.

I’m trying to keep things nice and tight, but don’t want to skimp on moving the story forward.

I may go the “get it all on the page” route, and then edit the hell out of it.  I could also probably shrink down that first quarter-section by at least 1-2 pages.  I suppose the important part is it’s getting done, period.

I’m also a little surprised about how productive I’ve been over the past few weeks.  When I first started this a few months ago, I had a very basic idea of what I wanted.  But the more I worked at it, the harder it seemed to keep things moving.  The self-doubt started to creep in, but I had a good feeling about this and was determined to keep going.

I noticed that when I would read what I had written, some of it would come across in a different way than I originally intended, which really triggered the creative process.  A lot of “What ifs?” and “How abouts?” just bubbled to the surface, paying off immeasurably more than I could have expected.  So far, that feeling returns just about every time I sit down to work.

No doubt about it.  I am a creative dynamo when things are clicking.

What’s also really cool about working on LUCY is I’m really enjoying it.  I worked on BABY LIKES JAZZ for two years, and was never satisfied with it.  As much as I enjoy comedy, it just ain’t my thing.  In contrast, the spirit of adventure that runs through LUCY is quite liberating, and dare I say it?  Energizing.

Hopefully people (and Hollywood) will feel the same way when it’s done and ready for public consumption.

Movie of the Moment: RATATOUILLE. V and I watched the first half the other day. This is one of Pixar’s underappreciated gems, and I’m not just saying that because I love Paris.  And food.

It’s a clever, original story, told with the usual Pixar flair.  My one complaint is the number of chefs in the kitchen.  It was hard to keep track of who was who, and it’s Linguini’s story anyway, so when they all left, things were much easier to follow.