Script & Flickr

The end of Script Frenzy was slightly anti-climactic for me, because I finished over a week early. Going along to all of the write-ins after that point were good, and even though I was working on various bits of writing I felt like a little bit of an impostor, that maybe I was disturbing people who were trying to get things done.

It did give me the chance to get some photos taken as well, and a couple of those along with some I took at the start of the TGIO Party can be seen over on Flickr here!

Script Frenzy has been good for me, but not, perhaps, in the way that you might think. It's given me a lot of motivation, a real creative kick up the arse, a real hunger to get things done. I enjoyed writing scripts, but not as much as I enjoyed being sat down with my Moleskine and just getting stuff out. Sometimes frantically so. Sometimes just needing to write and feeling free to do so and to just see what happens as I write.

I've made new friends, become closer to people I've known for a while and am feeling... I guess I'm feeling pretty happy all in all. April was a good month. I wonder what May will bring?

Script = Frenzied!

On Sunday the 19th of April 2009, at approximately 1:30pm, I finished the main challenge of Script Frenzy! 100 pages, typed, let loose from several cubic inches of tissue behind my eyes. The idea to switch to several shorter scripts when my original film wasn't working out did wonders for my creativity, really freed me up.

My method of writing out notes for several days in a Moleskine and then sitting down to blitz out an act of script was a good one too I think - for me at least - in order to get a draft out fast and after thinking through what it would look like filmed. What's crazy as well is that my pilot - for a genre show, which, due to the plot and circumstances might be HBO rather than FOX - has a beginning, middle and end, and it feels like I have actually put down some teasers as well, laid out the ends of threads which could be developed if the series was picked up...

...what am I saying??? I wrote a pilot for a TV show in the space of about a week, and I'm already planning the first season's arc! A piece of fun, something to stretch me and provoke me in April, and my mind can't quite stop thinking about where it could go next, the people that the characters could meet, the situations that they could get in.

Being part of a good, supportive group of writers has definitely helped. In particular, our magnificent and marvellous Municipal Liaison Anna, who has been our coordinator and cheerleader and a great one too. And the month's not over yet! Today is the 21st, and there is still over a week to go. I'm taking a few days off from working on scripts in order to think about some other things; however, although I've finished my Script Frenzy challenge, I am not done with Script Frenzy itself! I think I still have a few short scripts in me, and now is as good a time as any to get them out and written. For now though, I am very, very happy to write

19. Complete a Script Frenzy. - done! 19/4/2009

Script Frenzy Check-In

53 pages in total. Not bad. But have had those 53 pages since last Friday, and not written a single page since. However, that's not to say I've not been busy. I guess my approach to Script Frenzy has changed a little to what I thought it would be, and may be quite different from how other people in my region are doing it.

Since, in my previous post, I decided that I was going to abandon the thing that I had started writing in favour of doing something - or some things - that I actually liked, I have written three short scripts, all a bit different, and written notes on several other projects that I might try at some point soon. But in writing all these notes I got to thinking about a few short stories I've written - pieces of flash fiction - and trying to decide if I wanted to adapt one or more of those as part of Script Frenzy. In the end I decided I would leave them as they are for now, but instead I would try my hand at writing a pilot for an American style genre show.

I've spent the weekend expanding on my notes for that, trying to figure out who my characters and writing at least half a page for each of them in my Moleskine, as well as a little back story for where things take place. I've watched several episodes of Buffy to get a feel for where the story beats fall, and also how long the parts are. I'm going for a 42 minute episode, so hoping to get things worked out as neatly as possible to the genre show formula while at the same time writing something new and fresh.

So tomorrow I sit down and will try to hammer out the first couple of acts! I might get to 100 pages as a result of the pilot, but will still be using the Moleskine to get ideas down, and if possible my plan is to get 100 pages of things on top of the aborted 32 that was my beginning of a film script.

Really loving doing Script Frenzy again. Great to be part of a good group of people doing it!

More soon.

A Frenzied State!

So. Script Frenzy. 32 pages after seven days. Not bad.

What is bad? My script. And not just in some aesthetic sense - which it is - but in my own personal enjoyment. I hate it. I got to 24 pages and realised that it was just ridiculous, and wasn't going to go anywhere. I decided to take an out, thought about something that had happened in an early scene which might give me an escape clause and I started re-writing reality.

All of a sudden, who is this guy? When is this happening? Who are those other people?

Except... After eight pages I hated that. It was pointless. I had ideas, but as soon as they started getting put down I realised that it was just drivel.

I came close to hitting the big DELETE button. Anna and Sarah talked me down from the ledge. I thought about stuff a bit last night; now decided that I am going to just write scripts for short films, little vignettes, and just keep writing and writing them until I'm over the 100 pages! I haven't deleted the 32 pages I've already done, because Anna and Sarah were right, that's something I've achieved during Script Frenzy. However, at the moment I am hoping that I can get 100 pages of these short scripts between now and the end of the month.

So. Things are not as I imagined they would be a week ago (and that applies to many more things than Script Frenzy), but maybe that's not a bad thing in terms of creativity.

Entering the Frenzy

Things are going well I think. Am trying to keep the script as light on detail as possible, but I can see some of the details in my head, and want to get them down on paper. I don't want to jinx things (either by calling down the Inner Editor or Writer's Block) but I've had a good session this morning when I started to write.

I got my opening sequence, which I think was needed in order to set up where the protagonist had come from. Also I thought - even though audiences would see trailers for this and know where it was going to end up - it would be nice to have a bit of a reversal. I love how Psycho and From Dusk Till Dawn set you up to thinking that they are very different films to what they actually are. Or how at the start of Terminator 2 you don't know for certain who is a good guy (well, I guess that's only true if you have no idea at all about the plot and haven't seen the trailers). I didn't want to have a huge lead up to the change over, and I wanted to keep it moving along a fair old lick if I could.

That might change. I want it to be a bit noirish as well. Space opera noirish.

Times like these that I wish I could draw so you could see some of these characters...

Have first write in this evening; still umming and ahhing over taking the laptop. I'll definitely get pages done, but perhaps it will be better if I just take paper and plot out the broad strokes of where it is going.

I had hoped to wrap up the opening in about four pages. Have gone slightly more than that, but maybe the credits sequence can be wrapped up quickly with a minimum of description to show what's going on. By page 12 Jacob needs to meet Ares, and know why he is there.

Page 13 is the reveal of the location for the rest of the film, a special effect shot that I want to have the same resonance as the opening of the first Star Wars film.

By this point you might be thinking that I am losing the plot a bit myself. I just don't see any point in not aiming for the stars with it!

Anyways, back to it I think!

Script Frenzy! Tomorrow!

I've been looking forward to Script Frenzy for the last few weeks; it's been great because I'm part of a group who are all looking forward to it too, so we've been letting ourselves get quite excited about it all! Now it's only a day away, and I'm slightly panicking, just as I always do before NaNoWriMo - what if I don't have an idea that will actually spin out to the length it needs to be? What if I just don't have the time to do it? What if life gets in the way? What if it just isn't good enough?

Well. The last question isn't a problem, because Script Frenzy isn't about quality, it's about quantity, and writing towards a goal: that goal being to write 100 pages of script in 30 days. Not 100 good pages. Not 100 finished-send-it-to-Warner-Brothers-or-maybe-Fox-if-WB-don't-pick-it-up pages of script. Just 100 pages. That's only a problem if I don't spend time.

What if life gets in the way or I don't have time? One of the truest things I've discovered through NaNoWriMo and through work in general is that busy people can always fit in "one more thing" - April looks like it is going to be quite busy. I've taken on another workshop which is in a week's time, and have to prepare an introduction/welcome for it, and that's something I've not done before. I've taken on two more students for private tuition. But I'll find the time, I will.

Which just leaves the question of whether or not I have an idea that will actually make it through to 100 pages. And that is something I don't know. I don't even have a title. At the minute I have the pre-credits sequence more or less completely in mind. I have the overall plot I think, what I think happens.

It's a murder mystery. I think. I know whodunnit. I need red herrings. I need other problems. I need to get a handle on the protagonist, who he is, what he is like, how he would respond to the situation that he finds himself in.

Here are some words about my script that I'll leave you with:

Screenplay. Whodunnit. Noirish.
Sci-fi. Far future. Deep space.
Future shock. Changing attitudes. Transhumans.

Tomorrow: GET WRITING!!!

Thing 78: Understanding Comics

In an effort to try and generate some creative momentum for myself I'm pushing on with a few different things at the moment. My broad idea for Script Frenzy - the first time that I've taken part in it - is going to be something comic-related. Kind of. More on that soon.

To try and get some of the philosophy of comics going through my veins, apart from reading them on a daily and weekly basis as I do, I thought that now would be a good time to tackle Thing 78 on my list of 101 things, to re-read Scott McCloud's three books on comics, Understanding Comics, Reinventing Comics and Making Comics.

I'm currently reading Reinventing Comics, I finished reading Understanding Comics over the weekend. It was just as interesting as I remember it being when I got it some years back. I can't quite remember when that was. Within the last five years probably. The central points of it (in my opinion) are that:

1. comics are not a new phenomenon, although they are taken that way because of the various genres that adopted comics as a framework for telling stories in the last century;
2. there is something very special going on when people read comics - which isn't to say that there isn't something special going on in your mind when you read a book or watch a play or film, but there is something about comics that is universally understandable - paradoxical since so many people partition off comics as being just for kids;
3. comics are an artform, comics have a value.

It's certainly given me a lot to think about again, and following hot on the heels of it are the ideas of Reinventing Comics, which focuses a lot more on the ideas and situation as it was in the 90s, as well as pointing out what might happen in the future.

(of course, Reinventing Comics was written in 2000 or so, so we are already seeing whether or not some of McCloud's predictions or ideas are coming true)

Hopefully this will give me some inspiration as I sit down to map out my Script Frenzy; it's not a graphic novel - well it's only going to be scripts in any case, not illustrated except in my own notes maybe - and it's not intended to be a comic strip in the traditional sense. The working title is "Emergence" - and that's all I'm going to say for now, I've got off topic!

Understanding Comics is a brilliant piece of work, presenting in a simple way some really complicated ideas about what comics are. If you have any interest at all in comics and what they can be, you should give it a read.