Like wow, man

Maximum Z JJ Abrams, Movie of the Moment, screenwriting, Steven Spielberg
A purely internal and organic chemical reaction

Sometimes when you’re working on a story, you get into this groove or rhythm where everything seems to mesh together in just the right way that you experience what could possibly be described as the writer’s equivalent of a runner’s high.  Before you realize it, you’ve completed X pages and time has passed in the blink of an eye.

This is one of those good things about the writing process.  It really helps make up for the days where you get absolutely nothing done, or spend a lot of time accomplishing not much or something you’re not happy with.

Although I haven’t had a lot of time to write the past few days, when I have, the results have been quite exhilarating.

I’m inching my way through three separate storylines, each dancing around each other until they finally converge in one important story-changing moment.

It’s also forcing me to edit on the fly because my outline had a lot of scenes that went on longer than necessary, but as I work my way through the pages, I’m able to cut a lot of those down to scenes of 1-2 sentences, and maybe a line of dialogue.  And each one is pushing the story ahead.

So overall, lookin’ good.

-Movie of the Moment, Two-fer edition: SUPER 8 (2011). I made sure to watch this at night so it recreated the theatre atmosphere.  It helped. This was definitely a throwback to late 70s/early 80s Spielberg, and a lot of fun.  Nothing fancy; good solid storytelling.  It was also a refreshing change to have unknown actors in the kid roles, all of whom seemed well-suited to their characters.

Just two things I thought about during and after: 1. How were they able to drive off the military base? and 2. Why did the monster eat certain people but kidnap others?

I couldn’t help but wonder if this would have gotten made if JJ Abrams wasn’t involved.  I was also thinking if the monster was going to look like the one in CLOVERFIELD, albeit much smaller.

And…THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN (2011). Also a Spielberg joint.  We introduced V to the Tintin books last summer and she loves ’em. The plots may be a little over her head, but she seems to get the gist of it.  She was quite psyched to see the movie.

Turns out she loved it.  I also enjoyed it, maybe not to the same extent, and thought the writing was well-done (which it should be, especially with Moffat and Wright as 2 of the 3 writers).  The action sequences were great and definitely kept things moving.  As always, I liked how it didn’t talk down to the audience.  The filmmakers assume you have a brain and can follow along with any hand-holding.

I didn’t have a problem with the motion-capture format, but wondered if this could have been done in the style of Herge’s art style.  Though the 3-D may have been harder to pull off.  It’ll be interesting to see if they move ahead with a sequel.

-Happy holidays to one and all.  Here’s to writing success for everybody in 2012.

*sigh* (rub temples)

Maximum Z screenwriting, writing gigs
How it feels

I’m starting to have some issues with this director, in that I’m making a serious effort to not go completely mental over this project.  He did not care for the latest draft of his short, claiming several reasons why.  I agree with maybe one of them, but seriously disagree with the others.

It’s not the story he wants, even after two attempts, so he’s going to take a crack at it this weekend. I’ll be interested to see the results.

At least one positive spin I can put on this experience so far is I’m fairly certain this is how things work for professional screenwriters, so in theory I’ll be a little more prepared for it if/when I encounter this sort of thing on a feature project.

Air! Stat!

Maximum Z contest, creativity, Movie of the Moment, screenwriting, script doctor eric, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, writing gigs
And...exhale

Despite a busier-than-usual weekend, I managed to crank out a kinda-sorta decent revised outline.  It’s far from perfect, but hopefully the director will find it acceptable.  When your subconscious is screaming at you to wake up and get to work, you tend to listen.  Especially when you only have so much time to work with.

Sometimes a tight deadline can make you come up with things from completely out of nowhere.  For a while I thought I was stuck, but took a step back, considered “how about…?” and out it came. It’s nice when your brain cooperates.

-This is the director I wrote a 10-minute short for last year.  I got a pair of DVD copies of the finished film, but it’s also on YouTube here.  Overall, not too bad for a first produced effort.  Only problem is he cut out a key scene in the middle that really tied all the subplots together.  He included it on one of the discs; I’ll see if I can post the entire film in the Portfolio section.  Give it a look-see and let me know what you think; feedback is always welcome.

-I found another motivator to finish DREAMSHIP here.  The logline always seemed like it was almost perfect; this is the chance to make it so and see how the script fares.

-Movie of the Moment – WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT? (1988) This was playing at the movie theatre I worked in after graduating high school.  We were the only theatre playing it for what felt like the entire tri-county area, and had the crowds to show it.  I’ve seen this more times than just about any other movie that doesn’t involve Jedi Knights or flying DeLoreans and can jump right in to any spot in the dialogue and follow along.  Some of the luster and novelty has worn off, but it’s still a tight story and definitely told in an original way.  It’s also better enjoyed in a theatre, rather than at home.

K suggested V and I watch it.  One thing you should know about my child is that at the end of a busy day (i.e. school, or in this case day camp), she tends to slow down. Significantly.  Not to the point of actually falling asleep, but darned close.  She wasn’t as full of questions while we watched, but sometimes would ask why something was happening.  I don’t think she has a full understanding of what constitutes a traditional cartoon, so a lot of the jokes and gags went right over her head.  Maybe we’ll try again in a few years.

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.

As a bee

Maximum Z Apple, Black List, screenwriting, writing gigs
the result of growing up in the 80s

Hokey smokes, is there a lot going on this week!

Might as well get the bad/not-great news out of the way. After all that time I spent slaving away on the outline for the short, the director got back to me within an hour saying that while he could “see” my story, it wasn’t what he wanted. While my first immediate thought was “you arrogant bastard. Of course this is what you want. You’re just too thick to realize it,” I had to remind myself that ultimately it was his movie and I should be a bit more flexible about it.

He wants something a bit more…traditional, in terms of a mystery. For the most part, most of the pieces are there.  I just need to rework them.  Shouldn’t be too hard.  I’m talking to him again tomorrow night. Should be interesting.

-Since I’m still learning how to use a Mac, I got both jack and shit done on both LUCY and DREAMSHIP during my cross-country flights this weekend.  My sister put it rather succinctly: When you’re so used to working on a PC, making the switch to a Mac forces you to learn a completely new way of using a computer. So while I may want to do something the old PC way, I can’t do it exactly the same and have to figure out how it works in the new Mac way.  This is going to be a work in progress.  I still have to schedule my one-to-one meeting with somebody at the Apple store.  My list of questions has been steadily growing.

-Really, really hoping to get back on track with both LUCY and DREAMSHIP. I hate these big gaps in productivity, but you do what you can.  For the most part, any concept of a target end date has been thrown out the window.  My goal now is to finish them. No matter what.

-I’m currently working on a project for a client that requires me to put together a short video script.  This has been quite a challenging experience.  I knew a video script was completely different in appearance from a film script.  I really thought my screenwriting program would have something for it, but doesn’t appear to.

So for now, it’s been manipulating a Word document with two columns.  I don’t mind the work. It’ s been fun.  But again, quite the challenge.

-The 2011 Black List came out today. I skimmed through it, but nothing seemed to really jump out.  The friend who sent me last year’s batch has offered to do it again.  I’ll look through it again and try to pick about 12-15.  Of the ones I selected last year, I think most, if not all, are being made.  Not a bad record.