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 Complete!

I decided to re-read Scott McCloud's three books on comics now as I was trying to decide whether or not to write a script for a graphic novel/series of strips during Script Frenzy (starting Wednesday!!!). I've had a great time re-reading them, and it's certainly given me a lot to think about in terms of telling stories with sequential art. However, after a bit of reflection I don't think that I am quite there yet in terms of being able to write something like that. I have ideas which I am still trying to draw together - and they are coming together, slowly but surely - but I think for Script Frenzy I am going to go in the direction of a film... More on that in another post.

One thing that the three books have done is to make me realise that I definitely do want to do some kind of comics project in the near future. The ideas I've had might not be in a shape where I feel ready and able to do something with them, but I know that I want to achieve something.

And I will. Watch this space.

A Couple of Classics

My friend Cyran was asking what my definition of a classic film was recently, and I realised that I don't really have a definition that I was using for Thing 71. In my mind I was thinking something like "a film that is considered by many to be great" and for the purposes of Thing 71 it had to be something that I hadn't seen yet.

Well, the two films that Cyran loaned me last week certainly fit the bill. On Friday I watched The Maltese Falcon which I vaguely knew of (I knew Bogart as Sam Spade and that was about it), and then yesterday I watched Citizen Kane, which I thought I knew about but clearly I didn't. I didn't know just how much of it I was familiar with from a Simpsons episode (the one where Mr Burns misses his old teddy bear), and as I didn't know that much about the story - other than it being the life of a wealthy man, and it beginning and ending with "Rosebud" - there was a bit of a disconnect for me as I sat down to watch it.

That's not to say that it wasn't enjoyable: the framing device of having the journalist trying to figure out what Kane's last word meant was brilliant, and the jigsaw puzzle story that this results in is well put together and well told. It's by no means the perfect movie or the "best" that I've heard many critics call it, but it's brave and it doesn't do anything by half measures. From what I've read about it before, there always seems to be a focus on Welles the writer, Welles the director, and his performance always seems to come last in his list of accomplishments (indeed, in the closing credits he gives himself last billing as a performer). It's a very clever performance: starting off extremely big and larger than life, but becoming more and more subtle I think as Kane's life becomes a greater excess (the opera house, Xanadu).

The Maltese Falcon was my favourite out of the two films though; a genuine mystery, perfectly executed and with stunning performances from all concerned. I've only ever read one story by Dashiell Hammett before, The Thin Man, and I knew nothing about the core mystery - though I vaguely knew that Peter Lorre was in the film as well, and Sydney Greenstreet, both excellent. The film is brilliant precisely because it is a mystery, and remains a mystery until the final moments. Many thrillers and mystery films today have their secrets revealed halfway through the final act, to leave some kind of action sequence/chase for the final reel, whereas this keeps the suspense going and you know that there is some final revelation to come... Bogart is brilliant, an absolutely perfect performance; his sly smile, his confidence and the seemingly out of place music that accompanies him through the film - only turning more dramatic as the mystery begins to unfold towards the end.

I have a few classic films on DVD that I haven't watched yet, and should do soon. Yojimbo, The Godfather Part II, and when I get the chance I think I would like to buy some westerns starring Clint Eastwood (especially Unforgiven). And watching all of these great films stands me in good stead for Script Frenzy which is just around the corner...