The Wannabe Screenwriter Extraordinaire

Switching Over to Tumblr

2010-06-15T12:54:00.002-04:00

I've decided I like Tumblr better than Blogger - follow my continued weirdness at http://mikemizov.tumblr.com - hope to see you there!

"Effed" - 48 Hour Film Project 2010 Entry

2010-06-01T10:06:00.001-04:00

Another year, another 48 Hour Film Project. This time we did it in Philadelphia and overall had a MUCH better experience. Last year's (click here to watch it)was a ton of fun but I thought we had a better team and a better film this year. My thoughts on the weekend are after the film.

Effed - 48 Hour Film Project Philadelphia 2010 from Michael Mizov on Vimeo.

Required Elements -
Genre: Comedy
Character: Joe or Jeannie Mandanda, Municipal Employee
Prop: Lettuce
Line of Dialogue: "Be sure she gets the message."

Cast:
Shawn Erickson as Joe Mandanda
Joe Maggio as Todd
Kat Maggio as Amy
Sean Flanagan as Sebastian
May Sobhy as Jeannie
Michael Sabatino as Big Boss
Jesse Griffith as Office Guy

Crew:
Executive Producer, Writer, Co-Director: Michael Mizov
Co-Director, Editor: Jesse Newton
Director of Photography: Kevin Merinsky
Camera Assist: Amber Barrera
Sound: Barry Merinsky
Grip: Jenny Keris
Security: Brian Dougherty
Pants Wrangler: Jordan Forman

Thoughts: I think I wrote too long of a film this year. We can only do a maximum of 7 minutes and when all the editing was finished we clocked in at around 8.5 minutes. The cut material is most evident towards the end when the film just kind of... speeds to a conclusion. I think we'll be adding that time back in to the movie so we can use it for some other film festivals. It's a bit broader than last year's martial arts entry, that's for sure. Everyone that worked on the film was very professional and did a fantastic job, plus this year the set wasn't around 110F the entire time, so everyone was a lot calmer.

Will I do it again? Maybe, I'm not sure. Last year I said I would never do it again and now here's the 2010 entry, so, I'm not necessarily a man of my convictions when it comes to making movies. Even so, I think I want to branch out and work on a script I've already written, it's just a matter of getting a crew and interested folks together. I'll have more info on that as I work out the details.

After the Fact - Adding a Story After You Have a Game

2010-04-29T10:04:00.001-04:00

As soon as Backlash was released, the questions started.

What is this ball doing in  the machine? Why does the ball want out of the machine? What is the ball  at all? Who put the ball there? What does the machine do? Why do I want  to help the ball?

The aforementioned questions were all actual questions I either had  e-mailed to me or was asked on message boards. I couldn't really give an  answer as to why any of those things were occurring, I just wanted  people to enjoy the game and have fun.

If you follow me on Twitter/Facebook or know me in real life then you know that Backlash has been released onto the iTunes App Store. It's a fairly straightforward physics puzzler where you flick the ball into the goal while bouncing it around the level, taking advantage of the different types of blocks that affect the ball.

For the design of the game we decided to go with a steampunk feel, just because steampunk is cool. There is a lot of brass, turning gears, pneumatic things and what-not. The usual steampunk flair. I thought that would be enough to satisfy people and they would be content to figure out how to get the ball into the goal.

Are you familiar with the game Ragdoll Blaster? In that game you launch little guys out of a cannon and make him hit a goal, and there's usually a bunch of crap in the way. Do they get these sorts of questions? Fruit Ninja? Ninjas hate fruit, quite an engrossing piece. Don't even get me started on Doodle Jump and what's going on there. I'm not saying they're bad games at all, in fact I own all of them and they're fun... there's just not much of a story.

Maybe they do get these questions but choose to ignore them, but I'm not really that type of person. So, now we'll figure out how to get a story created around a game that's already made. The why behind the what so to speak. We need to analyze what's going on in the game that can translate to a story.

1 .What is the point of the game?

2. What is the player doing in the game?

3. What is the setting of the game?

4. What is the ultimate goal?

There are dozens more questions you can ask of course, but these are the most straightforward that cover the majority of the game. Obviously you won't be able to craft a role playing game from this, but if you released a role playing game without a story you have other problems.

People tend to enjoy games more when they're invested in the outcome, they want someone to root for and a reason to do so. Of course this doesn't apply to super-simple games such as Doodle Jump - a game like that has one action and you go until you mess up. If there's no end there's no need for a story. If there is an end, you have to explain why you've come to that end - and that's what has to be done for Backlash.

To answers to the questions for Backlash were:

1. To escape a giant machine

2. Navigating a ball through through the machine, level by level to escape

3. A giant steampunk-styled machine

4. To get out of the machine

This story practically writes itself! What needs to be done is to personalize the ball. Is the user inside the ball? Is the ball actually a creature itself? What is the purpose of the machine? How does it work? Why does it work?

Once all of these questions are answered I'll have a vague outline for a story and can craft a complete one from there. Of course whether it's good or not will really depend on how well I answer those questions - it can either be epic or silly, but it'll be a story (I'm leaning towards epic).

So if you're reading this and have a story-less game out yourself, have you given thought to adding one in an update? Why did you decide to forgo a story to begin with? I'm just curious to hear from other people. 

Video Game Dynamic Dialogue, Branching Stories and You!

2010-04-15T11:15:00.002-04:00

Watching a movie is a relatively static experience - there's one set path that the movie follows and it is what it is. Playing a video game, most of the time, is also a pretty static experience. There is a linear path for you to figure out, certain things happen, and you go through it all. A select few game in the past and a growing number today are allowing the player to determine what type of character they want to be, how they wish to interact with NPCs and choose their own way through the game. 

A lot of American role-playing games follow the latter method (See: Mass Effect, Fallout, Dragon Age, Knights of the Old Republic, etc) while first-person-shooters follow the former. Adventure games are kind of a hybrid between the two. You have to figure out what's going on by going your own way through the environments and seeing how everything fits together. All three have the convention of an overarching mission with side missions throughout, it's just how hard they push you through them and your amount of freedom. 

This does reflect back to writing, so bear with me here. 

The more options you give a user, the more complicated your script is going to become. The more dynamic your conversations, the more complicated your script is going to become. If you allow the player to have their character be nice, neutral or mean there will be yet more complication to dialogue. 

If you want your video game script to be great and allow levels of freedom to the user and let them come to their own conclusions you're going to be putting a ton of work in and unfortunately that work is going to be long and complicated. 

So what's the best method for keeping track of these things? I've found a great program called Chat Mapper that I've been using and it really seems to be doing the trick. It allows for branching dialogue options and I can connect various bits of dialogue together in case one part leads to part of another and etc. 

Even so, Chat Mapper is the tool, not the solution. It only does what you want to put into it. While writing the script for an adventure game we plan to make I've been using Chat Mapper to handle the dialogue options in separate files but ultimately I have to figure out how I want those options to play out in the script as a whole. If the player is mean to a character early on, will it affect how that character is utilized earlier? If the player is nice to everyone all the time, does it make the game easier, or should people not take them as seriously? 

It's a long road to write a script of this magnitude, I feel as though I'm writing several scripts at once, and there are dozens and dozens of branching points, starting from the very first scene. It seems like a lot of work but a clear script will make the programming of the game that much easier. I don't do any of the programming, I do the writing, so I have to make sure that my vision of what happens in the game is as clear as possible to make that process as smooth as possible. 

So I will go so far as to say I'm working on an adventure game, here's how I have organized my script thus far: 

SCENE 1, LOCATION 1: PLACE (This way, if locations are revisited, there's a quick reference)

SCENE DESCRIPTION : (Here I will write the relevant details of what it looks like, what should be there, where people are and a vague description of what they look like. We do have artists after all)

NARRATION: (Since this is an adventure game, this is the equivalent of looking around, with a description done in the protagonists voice. It's not in all scenes but it points out information they may know that the player does not)

CLICKABLE OBJECTS: (This is the interactive part of the scene, it lets players feel as though they're in a dynamic environment and will pop up some dialogue regarding the object. I also put it what NPCs are available to talk to in the scene, this is a simple list and then I reference a Chat Mapper file with what happens)

BRANCHING DIALOGUE: NPC NAME (Here I will reference my Chat Mapper File, I will list this for as many characters as the player can talk to) DIALOGUE SCORE (Dialogue score is a simple integer based on the options the player chooses, it can be positive, zero or negative)

That integer I just mentioned is where the script gets complicated. Down the road, certain dialogue or even scenes will only be available to those people with a certain dialogue score with a character, so depending on how the player goes through the game they may not be privy to certain information. 

This, of course, dramatically increases the replay value of a game. This also allows me to write multiple endings, special scenes, really weird dialogue or off the wall events just based off of a dialogue score. If the player is excessively mean to the potential love interest through the story, maybe I'll have her try to kill him. That's the fun of being a writer! 

Now that you have the know how, get out there and write some awesome and fun adventure games for me to play.  Sinecure Industries' will have one in time, it's hard doing all this fun work with not that many people. In the meantime, I'll be going through my 5th play through of the  awesome Heavy Rain!

Apparently someone jacked www.screenwronger.com

2010-04-13T15:20:00.000-04:00

I don't know if I wasn't paying attention or missed the e-mail but my registration for www.screenwronger.com expired and is now owned by someone else. Guess it's back to blogspot hosting until I figure out a different clever name. Weird.

Video Game Scripts

2010-03-24T14:54:00.004-04:00

Hi Folks! Long time no post, eh? I've been working hard the past few months getting Sinecure Industries up and running and while I haven't stopped writing I've certainly been ignoring this blog. I need to get back into it so I can not only keep track of what I'm doing but go through what I've been learning. 

I've written a few outlines for film scripts but haven't had the drive to turn them into full script yet. I will eventually, but in the meantime I've started focusing on video game scripts. This isn't an arena I'd given any thought to previously and so far it's been a lot of fun. It gives me a chance to think outside of the norm and add in a whole layer of interactivity for the player.

Right now I'm adapting one of my finished scripts Perfect Ending into an adventure game, and it's fun to figure out how a player can interact as the main character and what I need to do to nudge them in the direction of the story without making it boring or too linear. Converting the dialogue to draw the player in and give them enough hints on where to go next is a real challenge and so far I've been enjoying it. 

I've also been working on a lot of game concepts, and fleshing some of them out. Right now we're in the midst of making a puzzle game that should be out in the next few weeks. I came up with the initial idea and then my business partner and I worked out all of the details to its current state. It's pretty cool but unfortunately I can't share any screen shots yet. I will soon though. 

I'm not going to put a lot of detail into this post, I have to ease back into things. I'll be posting more often though so I can share what I'm working on and what I've learned. Hopefully you readers will be able to check these out as they're released. I figure if they hit it big I can use the money to fund my own movies - mwahaha. 

Until next time! 

Added a Twitter Feed

2009-11-13T11:43:00.000-05:00

Since I don't update this nearly as continuously as I used to you can follow me on Twitter (or just look on the right side of the page) and see what I'm up to.

Things are going well with Sinecure Industries, we'll be coming out with our second app in a week or two. I am also continuing to work out the details for The Last Sermon (my 15 minute drama) with the people that would help me make it/star in it.

Other than that, things are pretty busy! Once I make some time to dive headlong into my ghost story I'll post some updates about what it takes to really get into a good horror film that doesn't really show much (and not like Paranormal).

Holy Crap, Where Have I Been?

2009-10-09T10:05:00.008-04:00

Good question, my apologies for not posting for the past few months! Instead of my usual ramblings I'll make a handy list of what I've been working on:

1. Finished the outline and am working on a first draft of a traditional ghost story

2. Wrote a short (15 minutes or so) drama that I plan to film in late November or early December.

3. Started a business developing iPhone apps Direct purchase link and you can follow us at twitter.com/sinecureind there's also more info on our website at Sinecureindustries.com

5. Had my romantic comedy viewed by Village Filmworks, Big Picture Studios, Crandall Productions, LA Feature Film Academy, Ryan Spindell and Sunipa Pictures. Unfortunately I haven't heard back from any of them but you never know.

6. Ling Pan has had 350 views on youtube without me really pushing it, so that's kind of a cool feeling, I should really look into getting that in a short film festival somewhere

7. Today's my birthday, yay.

I'm hoping this new business venture will pan out so that I have both the free time and money to keep filming my own films. Why focus on selling a screenplay (though it would be nice) when I can make the films myself exactly how I envision them? Ling Pan was such a wonderful experience that I'd love to keep doing it. Here's hoping! And hey, for $0.99 you can contribute to my dream :p

P.S. - I'll be looking for actors for my drama in the next month or so; if you're in the NJ area, like working for free and keep weird hours, drop me a line

48 Hour Film Project Film, "Ling Pan and the Keys of Deception"

2009-05-31T22:07:00.003-04:00

This is a short film entitled "Ling Pan and the Keys of Deception" as created for the 48hour Film Project 5/29-5/31 2009. For the project our genre was "Martial Arts" the object was "Keys" the character was "Bethany Grimes, professional organizer" and the line was "You're not going to believe what I just heard" so we put all those in there! For contact info for anyone involved, please find my e-mail to the right!

The 48 Hour Film Project

2009-04-10T10:00:00.001-04:00

Hiya folks. I signed up on Monday for the 48 Hour Film Project in New York and am currently getting my team together. After reading about it and watching a few of the videos it looks like it's going to be a ton of fun.

I'm always open for different ideas and if you're going to be free the last weekend in May, drop me a line and we'll see about finding something for you to do. I've got almost ten people so far to help out, a plan for renting equipment and a few people that actually might know what they're doing, so that's a plus.

Also more fun news, my FINDING DAVID short film will be up on Amazon soon, so that's fun. I'll have more info on that as it comes. Whee!

Horror: Seeing vs. Imagining

2009-03-24T08:56:00.003-04:00

I've been working on an outline for a new horror screenplay the past couple of weeks (and neglecting my updates) and I've decided to take a different approach from my slasher/gore fest.

I got to thinking about what is scarier, what someone else thinks is scary, or what you personally think is scary. The answer is obvious of course, which is why when you're laying in your bed late at night you're way better at giving yourself the heebie jeebies than any movie could muster.

That lead me to come up with a list of movies that don't really show you anything scary but instead let your imagination run wild - and really create a much more memorable experience because of it. The monster isn't the star such as a slasher movie, but the location, the feel; the sense that something is wrong and you want to get the hell out of there.

The Haunting (1963)

This movie doesn't show a thing in terms of monsters/ghosts/etc. It merely sets up the scares, increases the tension and then lets you do the rest. You watch the characters reactions to what's going on around them and they're just as in the dark as you are. One scene that really sticks out is when the large, wooden door is being pressed in, almost to the point of breaking - you're sure that whatever is on the other side is about to burst through and do something awful... and then it leaves. It was a very tense moment because the stomping through the halls had been building and building to that moment. The women were safe for now, but, what if it came back?

The Changeling (1980)

The scariest thing you see in this movie is George C. Scott, by and far. The only real representation of the "ghost" in this story is a wheelchair in a hidden room in the attic, other than that it's the house that is the real scary character. There was no need for special effects (or if it were made now, a weird CGI ghost) to represent what was scary, it was just the atmosphere and the sense of something being wrong that built the tension through the story. What I love about the movie is when things finally seem to be calming down, the problem had been solved and things feel like they're going to be okay, one of the biggest scares of almost any movie ever comes. All it has in it is a mirror and a quick cut - and it was perfect.

The Wicker Man (1973)

From the moment Woodward arrives at Summersisle you know that something is wrong with that place but you can't quite put your finger on what. I wanted him very much to just get out and leave that place but I also had an interest in him finding in the missing girl, so he couldn't leave until his mission was fulfilled, one way or the other. There is a definite eerie atmosphere throughout the film that starts to get to the main character and the audience as well. Even though the remake has Nicolas Cage punching women while wearing a bear suit, this one is superior.

Les Diaboliques (1955)

A man's wife and mistress conspire to kill him, and they do so fairly quick into the film... but did they really kill him? This story deals with guilt and deception and is very tense as the main character seems to be losing her mind over the course of the story. I wouldn't say this is a straight horror film but it certainly delves down that path with the supposed haunting and hallucinations and it has a fantastic story taking place in a French boarding school.

It really comes down to what you don't show in these films and the general discomfort the audience feels when watching the film. A good ghost story doesn't have to have any ghosts in it, it just has to have the right feel, the right atmosphere, and some people that stick around to get to the bottom of things instead of getting the hell out of there.

There are a lot of other films that don't reveal who is doing the killing/haunting until the end such as Psycho but I was looking more into the haunted house/place stories that really struck a chord with me. I've got my location all worked out and I'll be starting on the first draft soon enough, and I'm really going to work on the feel of the story and the deteriorating mindset of my poor protagonist.

As for my query letters, I've been pretty slow about getting that in motion but I signed up for my logline to appear in the Inktip paper newsletter that is going out the end of April (I think), so that's a good step. Also through a friend of a friend I managed to get my slasher film in the hands of a reader for the Yari Film Group. They have some great credits but I don't think a slasher is really their style... but hey, you never know!

The Great Query Blitz

2009-02-17T10:48:00.004-05:00

I've been going through my Screenwriter's Marketplace book and I've been finding a ton of producers and agencies to send my query letters out to. They say that only a small fraction of queries get replies, and of those, even fewer with a positive response so I think by sending out a crapload of them, I'm upping my chances.

Of course that's lottery mentality, it's really important to have a strong logline and query letter. In my last post I put up the logline for NO REFUGE and thanks to the help of an anonymous commentator that has a great deal of insight and advice regarding loglines it has since morphed into this:

"After accidentally killing his best friend, a small-town popular teen makes a deal with the cops to set up his troublemaking friends. This leads to him uncovering a dark secret: the cops have been appeasing a group of cannibals with the town's undesirables"

Which tells way more of what the story is actually about. I think my problem was that I was basing my loglines off of blurbs when you press the info button on your cable box as opposed to a detailed, albeit brief, line about what the work is exactly about.

Of course this is still a work in progress logline and I'm always open to new suggestions. It's funny having to sum up 117 pages into two sentences and having them make sense, but I think I've finally got it here. I think.

Regardless, my list is up to over forty places and I'm not even halfway through the alphabet, so that's a good sign. These are all places that are interested in new people and horror features. I have a separate list going for my romantic comedy, but I think I'll just focus on NO REFUGE for now. Hopefully if one place likes it they'll be interested in my other work as well. I may even have a chance to break out my noir thriller PERFECT ENDING, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

I've also been receiving e-mails from readers and that's really motivating. It's nice to know people are in the same situation as me. I'm always up for reading people's screenplays and having mine read, so please shoot me an e-mail if you'd like to talk, my address is on the side.

I'll post again once the letters start flying - and I'll also be posting some of my thought process as I work on the outline for my new screenplay: a traditional ghost story, sans gore. Should be fun.

Up and Running (and post #50!)

2009-02-03T12:26:00.004-05:00

Hard to believe I've made 50 posts here - guess I wrote a little more than I thought. At any rate I have two versions of a query letter and a whole lot of determination at this point. My first version is the quick "here's the logline, here's my name, kthx" while the other has a small synopsis and a little bit about me. After much debate, changes, alterations, cursing and whatnot I decided to run with the logline as so:

"Strange things are happening in the picturesque town of Pine Falls—the local trouble making teens are going missing and showing up dead."

So - we've got a perfect town in which teenagers are getting killed... little bit of conspiracy? How are the teens troublemakers? Who's behind it all? Strange indeed. Hopefully that will be enough to entice some agents and/or production companies to want to read the entire thing and fall in love with it. Or something.

I ordered the 2009 Screenwriter's and Playwright's Marketplace so I can look up some contact info for people that might be interested in my screenplays. My romantic comedy is good to go as well in case they want to look at more of my work, so I got that going for me.

While waiting for the book to come in I've taken it upon myself to submit to three different places I've found through google the production companies Paradiso Picture, Newlove Films, and the agents of Greyline Entertainment. I did not see them on any of the "beware" lists I checked and I always get a little antsy, haha.

The wheels are in motion, I just have to keep going. Consequently if any production companies or agencies are reading this, feel free to shoot me a line!

Back from Vacation

2009-01-15T10:10:00.004-05:00

It's been a little over a month since my last update but with finals, Christmas and a vacation it's been pretty hectic... so here I am. I've been tossing around ideas for what story I want to start working on next, I think I may go towards my non-graphic horror story, it has a fun premise I think I can get a lot out of.

As for "Blood in the Trees" I finally settled on the new title of "No Refuge" - it is shorter, which is good, and easier to say, which is also good. I changed a reference of the woods about 10 pages into the story to say "wildlife refuge" and there it is. I think it works and frankly I'm sick of trying new titles with this damn thing.

I've also been working on some query letters for this and my rom-com, they're coming out fairly decently and I'll be using Script PIMP's forwarding service contact thingy to see if i can get it out there to some producers and agencies. The horror film would be cheap to make so there are a lot of options out there, hopefully someone will like it. I'd much rather just go and make it myself, but hey, you have to start somewhere. My rom-com I'm just holding back on a little, doing some tweaks here and there. It seems that every woman that has read it has really liked it whereas every guy (all two of them that I could con into it) said "I hate it but it's well written," par for the course I suppose. As I said before in reference to the rom-com, it's a little formulaic as most of them are but with that genre you already know where you're going to go, it's the getting there that's fun.

Aside from all that I've just been watching a bunch of random movies to see what's out there since I have the streaming Netflix now, my recent views were "Teeth," "Dead & Breakfast" and "The Charge of the Light Brigade" which were stupid, silly and good in that order. I also watched the first two seasons of "30 Rock" which was hilarious... good stuff.

I'll update once I figure out a good query letter and get it out there, persistence is key.

Oh! And a bunch of people commenting really solidified my "no contests" standpoint now, good looking out. It's always great when someone that knows things a lot better than I do gives me some advice, it's motivating. Thanks!

Submissions, Rewrites and Titles

2008-12-12T10:25:00.004-05:00

I've submitted my romantic comedy to the Bluecat Screenplay Contest so that's fun. They provide notes with their entries so hopefully I'll have those by February. Script P.I.M.P. has also started their contest once again so once I receive my latest notes on my slasher film I'll be entering that contest as well. The problem with screenplay contests is that it takes so long to hear back, there are a few monthly screenplay contests floating around but I'm not quite sure of their legitimacy.

At any rate, BLOOD IN THE TREES went through its umpteenth rewrite and I think I finally have my narrative flow down well. The problem before (I hate when a problem is pointed out that's been there all along, I feel silly finally realizing something IS a problem) was that the narrative followed the characters along for the duration of the story. Essentially from page 25-90 the characters were all together doing their thing, so I've added in a complete subplot which allows breaks from the actions of the main characters as well as provides a different perspective on the events that are happening.

Tuesday I'll be submitting it back to the development service. Each time I get their notes back I seem to be a closer to where I need to be so hopefully I made a big jump with this. Just as a little motivation I read what happens to the people that are recommended by them, there are a couple dozen options, people finding representation, and a few movies that have been made, so that's good. It would also explain why it's so hard to GET that rating but I suppose I shouldn't mind going through the trouble of writing a great story.

Speaking of great stories I've gone fishing for some opinions on my romantic comedy and thus far everyone has really enjoyed it, so that's a plus. I actually enjoyed writing it more than the slasher film if only because my characters weren't brutally dispatched halfway through. It's nice seeing a happy ending, haha.

Ah, to the issue of a title. I still think BLOOD IN THE TREES is an okay title but there COULD be a better one. Just looking at the titles of horror movies out there, they're generally silly. I suppose mine rates up there on the silly scale but I'd like something a little stronger. BEHIND SUBURBIA was a decent title as well but for some reason I was the only person to think so and "it left the reader unsure of the genre of the film" ... so that's bad. I'd hate for people to expect a poignant drama of the struggles families have living a suburban lifestyle and end up with a bunch of dead teenagers. So if anyone has a horror movie title they've had laying around that they always wanted to use, send it my way.

My ultra low-budget mocumentary FINDING DAVID is just about finished. I know I've been saying that but the end of this month is the ultimatum because I want to get it into the Garden State Film Festival. I think it's decent enough to be in it. Well, after going last year I'm pretty sure it is, but of course I don't know what the heck they'll ultimately choose. Even so, we'll be getting a website for it set up soon enough and you can own your very own copy, exciting, no?

At any rate, I'll update once I get my notes back and have some more FINDING DAVID news.

The Standard Characters in a Romantic Comedy

2008-11-25T11:51:00.003-05:00

In every romantic comedy there is certain criteria that has to be met. Obviously it has to be funny and even more obvious, it has to be romantic. When a character is being romantic they can't be funny (unless we're laughing at them) and when they're being funny they can't really be romantic. Being the suave doofus that I am my attempts at romance are funny but that's not really what I mean here.

There are mainstays that work their way into every romantic comedy because of these needs and I thought I'd outline them here, since I'm done with my first draft now, to ensure that I have covered everything that needs to be covered. So, we have:

The Protagonist: Male, female, robot, whatever. Generally the protagonist can go two ways; they can be so unsure of themselves that they have trouble starting a relationship and can easily screw it up (Anything without Hugh Grant) OR they can be so sure of themselves that their pride screws things up for them (Anything with Hugh Grant). No matter how you approach the situation, they're going to screw up a relationship at some point in the story. Whether they're dumped in the beginning, dumped in the middle, or dumped at the end their shortcomings are going to bite them in the ass. So, naturally, in order for the romantic comedy to come to completion we must have them fix their problems, win their heart's desire, and that's that. Or you could leave the theater feeling disappointed as in The Break Up.

The Interest: This is who our protagonist desires. They're perfect (for them) in every way and you want to see them together, you know you're going to see them together... but HOW are they going to get together? Will our protagonist overcome their problems so that their interest can see the real them and fall in love with them? Probably. Even so, the goal of the romantic comedy is not the getting there, it's HOW you get there.

The Best Friend(s): Our protagonist and our interest both (usually) have best friends and they are generally the comic relief. They are able to point out what's wrong with life, provide some advice that may or may not work and to generally take the pratfalls when things go wrong. The protagonist gets the blame, they get the funny, of course. These characters are generally scene-stealers because they're very entertaining, they're there to lighten the mood and really bring out the comedy in a romantic comedy. Look at Jack Black in High Fidelity. I was highly invested in John Cusack fixing his life but every time Jack was on screen he stole my attention, BUT, when he was not there I wasn't pining for him to come back. They have to be entertaining but not overly likable, that's your protagonist's job (even is they are a jerk). One best friend is fine, but it's fun to see the best friend get to know the interest - for better or for worse.

The Plan/Problem: Our protagonist's plan or problem (the foil of the story, our inciting incident as well as our climax decision) is in itself a character. It drives our protagonist along and forces their decisions and moves the story along. If the protagonist was perfect and had what they wanted, we wouldn't have a story, simple as that. So our protagonist must fix what is wrong with their life (if it's a plan, usually a way to happiness/money, if it's a problem, they realize at the end they were Hugh Grant all along).

The Antagonist: Now I haven't mentioned an antagonist directly because in a romantic comedy there usually isn't a REAL antagonist. The "sort-of" antagonist is usually someone that's either interested in the interest as well, already with the interest, was with the interest at some point, or steals the interest away - but they're not out to DIRECTLY get our protagonist, they're just kind of in the way. They don't have to be stopped/killed/destroyed/etc. merely pushed to the side by our protagonist coming through on their plan/solving their problem. Look at Tim Robbins in High Fidelity. He was living with John Cusack's interest, and John was pissed about this (and acted out in his fantasies) but by the end of the story John has solved his problem and Tim Robbins goes on his merry way - presumably home to Susan Sarandon.

Everyone Else: The rest of the characters in the story are people either helping along or detracting our protagonist with their plan/problem solving but are generally there for a laugh. You don't need a lot of subplots going on in a romantic comedy or you end up with Love Actually. While that was a good movie and entertaining, it seemed more like a lot of half-stories than a complete story. While Hugh Grant's was the most developed I was the most interested in the "Christmas All Around Me' guy.

So, that's pretty much everyone in a romantic comedy. I can go down this and check off each part and it's fully covered, so I'm in good shape (in my own eyes anyway). I've passed around the script a little to get some opinions and I'll be entering it in the Bluecat contest on Monday.

Fun fun!

Rom-Com Draft #1 Complete

2008-11-24T14:43:00.003-05:00

I don't know why but I found my romantic comedy so much faster to write than my other scripts - it just felt fast. That's probably a good thing, meaning I did not get stumped anywhere or try to figure out what happens next (regardless of having an outline).

In fact I think I'll skip the usual development service and submit it to the Blucat Screenplay Contest, which has an early-bird special on December 1st. They provide notes back by January for the early-birds so I can see where I stand on the screenplay and hopefully do well in a contest. The Bluecat contest seems to lean towards emotional or touchy-feely stories, so hopefully a rom-com can squeeze in there somewhere.

As for Blood in the Trees I'll be resubmitting to the development service as soon as I have some extra cash, which may or may not be next week depending on if I go shopping for Christmas presents or not. Decisions, decisions, eh?

Just a quick update today, I'll post some news when it happens.

So Much for Updating More Frequently

2008-11-14T11:43:00.002-05:00

But still, what's the point of updating if there's nothing to update? Now that I have a few things I can make a semi-coherent blog entry.

*ahem*

At any rate, I received more notes from the Script P.I.M.P development service and have made some changes and added a few scenes to Blood in the Trees (I'm still open for a better title, by the way) and I'll be resubmitting to them in the next week or so. Here's to hoping that I've finally covered everything that needs to be covered without making any more problems. It's either that or they're just stringing me along, hoping I'll keep paying for that coveted "recommend" rating. It's a dysfunctional relationship but I think deep down they still love me.

My romantic comedy is coming along nicely, I'm 1/8th of the way into having a first draft. That's sort of swimmingly I guess. I do have a completed outline and a fun hook. I must say that the first fifteen pages are packed with everything that's needed to suck an audience in and set up the rest of the story, so no more of my "waiting too long to get started" problem. Plus it's fun writing witty dialogue and having it expected as opposed to being out of place in a horror setting. Even so, instead of selling the movie if someone can cut me a check I'll just go make the movie myself... that would be way more fun.

I also came up with a great idea for a classic ghost story. I think horror movies wherein the atmosphere is scary (i.e. The Haunting) as opposed to be scared of something are a lot creepier than the creature features that have been around. Think of The Ring; before you actually saw the little girl and you were getting bits of information with that air of foreboding it was really creepy. That's also why The Ring 2 was crap! Crap I say! I'll be working out that script after the rom-com, I've had enough of horror for awhile.

A reader (I presume the only one) contacted me the other day and told me about stuff he's working on and how he's hoping to get his name out there. He is working out a distribution deal right now for his first feature, a quirky/funny horror movie Hamlet the Vampire Slayer which I've conveniently linked for... well for me. I hope he has good luck with that... then he can hook me up!

Finding David is almost finished (just some editing tweaks to do) and hopefully we'll be able to get it into a festival or two and have even a fraction of success that Aaron is having.

So... more stuff happening and I'll update when they do!

Blood in the Slasher and Romance in the Romcom

2008-10-09T09:48:00.004-04:00

I've retitled my slasher movie "Blood in the Trees" since that sounds... hmm... more slashery. I was told that "Behind Suburbia" sounded too artsy for a horror movie - and wouldn't be perceived as one just by the title. An odd observation but an accurate one though I don't know many people that randomly pick a movie to see based on the title alone. If anyone has a suggestion for a BETTER title, please let me know.

At any rate, I resubmitted "Blood in the Trees" to the Script P.I.M.P. development service (seeing as how it was technically "Behind Suburbia" version 10) to see what they say about all the changes. I think the last time they saw the screenplay was version 3, so it has definitely come a long way since then. At least I hope it has. I think the visual writing went pretty well and the screenplay is a lot smoother and more dynamic. POW!

I've also put my eccentric comedy on hold in favor of a semi-formulaic romantic comedy. The eccentric comedy was getting a little TOO weird so I may have to go back and change things, but while doing so a great idea for a romantic comedy popped into my head and I decided to run with it. I'm partway through the outline and so far it is really shaping up. Of course, the plot of a romantic comedy is pretty easy to hash out, it's just a matter of creating characters that people love and can identify with.

Here's my formula for a romantic comedy, please swap genders depending on your protagonist:

1. Guy has a lousy (or too perfect) life.
2. Comes up with plan to improve life (or a plan backfires).
3. Meets and falls head over heels for someone they meet during plan.
4. Other person reciprocates.
5. Plan blows up in face, loses other person.
6. Redemption.
7. True love (but at the opposite of original expectations).
8. The End.

Easy, no? Don't get me wrong, there are a ton of mutations on the genre but if you break them down enough this is essentially what they boil down to. Some stories come in at step 5 (High Fidelity) then retell steps 1-4, but all of those steps are there.

The trick to being successful in this genre is to find a unique way of going through the steps. I'm not talking make it a Momento-esque retelling, I mean find something unique. Give the protagonist a unique job/interest, give them an original plan to go through with, make the other person outside of the norm for true love (The Holiday: Cameron Diaz + Jude Law = romantic comedy. Kate Winslet + Jack Black = what?). Or you could always write several half stories, slap them together through odd coincidences and you have a complete movie (Love Actually, which I really enjoyed).

So - you know where you start, you know how it's going to end - you just have to fill in those little bits in the middle and you've got yourself a romantic comedy. The plus side is that romantic comedies have a built in audience, even the crappy ones seem to be decently successful at the box office, especially if they have some star power behind them.

My previous post was right, having school work to do definitely gets the creative juices flowing!

The Pangs of Withdrawal and the Agony of Defeat

2008-09-29T08:48:00.006-04:00

The other day I just realized I had not done any writing for the past two months. That's a bad thing. The feeling I had started as kind of an empty feeling, deep down in the pit of my stomach, then it kind of worked its way into my extremities and finally settled into my brain. I felt sort of... off. It's somewhat hard to describe but it is kind of a jittery, not finished feeling. As if there is something to do and I cannot remember what it is - but it's driving me mad.

That's what I put two and two together and sat down to do some writing. I knocked out fifteen pages of my comedy script (which I'm debating whether to start over on) and came up with two new ideas. Another horror film, this time not a slasher, and a romantic comedy of all things. the romantic comedy sort of stems from my own screenwriting issues so I can draw from a lot of real life instances with that.

The more I thought about writing and the more I wrote things and came up with ideas the more settled I seemed to feel. Of course now I need to keep up with it. I woke up today in a rather melancholy mood, bordering on severely blah. It being Monday certainly cannot be helping but I feel an underlying dissatisfaction with the way things have been going lately.

Behind Suburbia has not placed in any screenplay contests even though it has gotten unanimously positive feedback - in fact - all of the feedback thus far has said to make no story or dialogue changes whatsoever (I'm still "off" on my visual/descriptive action lines though, not bad, could be better). So what's the problem?

I'm thinking the slasher genre is not something that wins screenplay awards. Even horror screenplay contest awards. Mind you I'm not copping out on this one, but reading the log lines and summaries of the winners it's apparent that I did not create a screenplay that was innovative enough to merit an award. It's a solid story, the dialogue is great, it stays within the genre but promises to go above and beyond story wise (which I've been told it does) - but when it comes down to it, it's a slasher movie. I think it's good, reviewers think it's good, it's just doesn't have that genre-breaking completely innovative never-been-done-ever feel that they want to showcase as winners.

Maybe I'll throw in an M. Night Shaymalan ending and have the kids be already dead. Oh! Or the kids are being killed because THEY are the monsters. Yeah! Cop-out! No! No! The kids are dead monsters that-

If this were the 80's perhaps I'd have a leg up on the competition but then again I was 8 years old in 1990, so that may have been rough. Maybe I can invent a time machine, go back, and reinvent the slasher genre when it was more popular - thus making it so the future me wouldn't write the screenplay because it was already finishing making it so I don't invent the time machine and and and *explodes*

I am getting a lot of views on inktip, so that's something. I have a good log line but so far there have been no contact from anyone that has downloaded the screenplay. After Dark films has looked at my synopsis and log line four times. FOUR TIMES! If a low budget slasher isn't perfect for that horror fest, I don't know what is. I went to that festival last year, I liked Bordertown (Borderland?), Tooth & Nail and The Many Deaths of Ian Stone was interesting but the rest were pretty bleah. I think Behind Suburbia would be a good fit simply because you can low ball the budget and not come out with special effects that look like something Troma would put out. Nothing against Troma, they put that stuff out on purpose, that's all. All I need is gore, in fact, go buy a bucket of entrails from a butcher and mission accomplished!

AT ANY RATE - I'm sprucing up the visual descriptions (again) with more adverbs. I'm gingerly adding adverbs. Or furtively. All that science in college did not leave much room for visual descriptions aside from "it turned red" so this is really something I have to work on. Maybe I can saunter to the bookstore and nonchalantly skim a few books before hunkering down to sadistically tap away at my keyboard. I think.

Once I do that I'm going to resubmit it for Script P.I.M.P. development to see if I can bump it up a notch. Maybe I can have some more people look at the script and garner some more interest from people that want a slasher movie. Heck, I'll give the thing away if it means it will actually get filmed - because once you have a credit to you, you have it, darn it.

Oh! In other news, my film (well, my short film) Finding David is nearly complete. I took some seminars on editing, got a sound editor, did a lot of work and the craptacular piece of garbage Snubbing David Cross has been transformed into something I'm actually kind of happy with. Maybe I'll be able to get it into a festival and someone will say, "hey, this guy should get a budget to make a real movie" and I will squeal with delight.

As long as I'm dreaming I'd like to also hit the lottery - but we'll see.

Now that business school has started (I'm working on my MBA to see about making more money to fund my screenwriting/film endeavours) I'll be looking for ways to avoid homework so expect some more updates, well, relatively speaking.

Hotel Guignol and Other Matters

2008-08-19T08:27:00.003-04:00

I haven't been doing much writing lately which of course is the reason behind the lack of updates. I had LASIK eye surgery last month (it's amazing, I highly recommend it) so staring at a large white page on the computer kind of irked me. I'm doing great now though, I've just been lazy and in that antsy stage of waiting to hear back from contests.

I've heard back from a few, but it was earlier drafts of Behind Suburbia so they didn't do as well as I would have liked, but I'm more looking forward to the contests which received the later drafts... which means more waiting anyway. I've been plodding along in my comedy, but I'm not all that sure how I feel about it thus far, but I think I'll finish it as planned and then give it a good evaluation from there. If I have to toss it and start over, so be it, but there are enough things I like that I can probably save a great deal.

In other news, I received an odd e-mail from a website called "Hotel Guignol" which asked for a 5-10 minute short screenplay taking place entirely in a hotel room, the more messed up and weird the better. I wrote up a 10 page supernatural horror story, did a few drafts of it and submitted it, I called it "The Best Room in the House" so hopefully they like it. They contacted me though Inktip, so that was pretty cool. I looked at their website and they claim they're receiving 300 submissions a day (wow) so it'll take a few months before I hear back anything.

Other than that, just kind of trucking along. I'll get back into the swing of things soon, and considering I star grad school in a little over a month I'll definitely be making more time for writing since for some reason I write the most when I have something else I should be doing. When I become a writer full time I'm going to have to have some looming, unrelated deadline hovering over me to keep me motivated.

Ah, also, one of my readers (I didn't know I had those) contacted me over AIM and told me I needed to move out to California. To be honest, I'd love to get out there but there are too many things holding me here in New Jersey to up and go. Maybe in a couple years I can go, but for at least the next two I'm pretty much stuck. I'm also not entirely sure what I'd do when I got out there, I have no contacts now so that wouldn't work... I would have to resort to assaulting people outside studios with my scripts which of course is a big no-no. Regardless, I think I'd like the sunshine. Maybe a coastal change is in order, but for now, I'll bide my time here and keep plugging away.

I'll write an update once I get motivated/hear some news.

Inherently Silly Words in Dialogue

2008-07-02T09:47:00.005-04:00

Dialogue always has to have a purpose, it's used to create and amplify tension, conflict, and move the story along. A character saying "There's a small animal biting my testicles" to which another character replies "bummer," while silly, really does not do much for your story - unless it's a story about testicular reconstructive surgery or small animals of course. For the sake of this explanation though, let's use this line to see how it can be made funnier.

The idea itself while sophomoric is still humorous, so that's covered. Anything involving a great deal of pain without permanently injuring the character is always funny (re: slapstick) so just showing that alone would be funny to a lot of people. Let's say the character has to explain what's happening to a friend over the telephone, or is in the other room, then he has to describe the situation. As it reads above, he states exactly what's going on, a small animal is chewing on his testicles. How can this be improved?

The English language is handy in that there are more words than any other language and it's easy to make up new ones, invent slang, and misconstrue the meaning of other words (which is also slang, but go with it) for a situation. There are also words that make people smile. Just a certain way that they sound that brings out the comedy. It's been said by many people that anything with a "k" is funny. I tend to agree simply because "k" is a funny sound. Pickle. Say it out loud. Then say it out loud three times really fast. Whee! Of course don't limit yourself to talking about the Ku Klux Klan molesting a duck simply to cash in on an idea, I'm just saying a "k" word here and there never hurt.

So let's look at the first part of our sentence "a small animal." There are a lot of small animals in the world, so let's think of some funny ones. If we want to go with "k" we could say muskrat or skunk. I, personally, think a weasel is the funniest sounding animal. If we want to throw a "k" in there as well, we can call it a stink weasel. So our sentence has transformed into "There's a stink weasel chewing on my testicles!"

On to our verb, "chewing." This is where a thesaurus comes in handy, there are a lot of ways to convey that something is chewing, so let's look through the list until we find a word that just seems silly. Here's what we have: bite, champ, chaw, chomp, consume, crush, cud, deliberate, eat, gnaw, grind, insalivate, manducate, masticate, mull, munch, nibble, ponder, ruminate. There are more, but let's look at these. We don't want to use a word that not many people would understand or anything too outdated. The word should also sound painful while still being inherently silly. To narrow it down, we can use "gnaw" or "nibble." In my own personal opinion things with two unconventional letters in a word usually wins, but in this case I like the idea of gnawing. The idea of a stink weasel either gnawing (just going balls out) or nibbling (saving the delectable feast) on testicles is pretty funny either way, but I'm just a fan of the gnaw. Our sentence is now "There's a stink weasel gnawing on my testicles."

We're now down to the "testicles" part of the sentence. While descriptive, the word testicles is both a mouthful and not that funny. Here's where we can use some tried and true slang or just make up our own. As long as the audience is seeing what's happening we can get away with just about anything. People have some interesting pet names for their balls. At any rate, just for a sampling, let's go to the urban dictionary and see what we've got. So under "testicles" we've got: balls, nuts, scrotum, sack, testes, bollocks, gonads, nutsack, nads, vagina, ballsack, sac, genitals, family jewels, teabag, junk, nut, chode, jewels, bag, nards, rocks, berries and grundle. All of those are fine, but we should make up our own slang word here. If you know your character well, just think of what they would call it and go from there, but in this case I'll just make something up (and remove "on" from the sentence). Our sentence is now, "There's a stink weasel gnawing my happy sack!"

Not the best, but hey, I'm making this up as I go along. It sounds a little close to "hackey sack" but we'll just go with it. So our sentence has gone from "There's a stink weasel biting my testicles." to "There's a stink weasel gnawing my happy sack!"

A vast improvement? Not really. A decent improvement - yes. With this line our scene is halfway there, especially if the visual is spot on. In order to make this a complete comedy exchange, the reply to this line has to be unexpected, that's where people will laugh. Let's look over the scene now.

Chip is walking through the park arguing with his girlfriend Kandy (stripper name?) on his cell phone about her jacking a guy off in exchange for a meatball sub. Then, in the midst of the argument, a small animal darts out of a nearby bush, runs up Chip's pant leg and goes right for his nuts, and he lets out a scream.

CHIP

"There's a stink weasel gnawing my happy sack!"

KANDY

It's always you, you, you.

There are a million unexpected replies to this. That's what makes a comedy fun, make your characters not care about each other and see where it takes you. In retrospect this was kind of a dippy example, but using funny words will get your that much farther.

Red Inkworks Words of Encouragement

2008-06-17T13:11:00.003-04:00

I entered the Red Inkworks contest in the middle of May and this past weekend I received a nice letter from the head of the contest, Larry Myles. He was actually really impressed with my story and thoroughly enjoyed the screenplay. It feels really great to have that sort of boost; encouragement from someone within the industry.

Here are some excerpts:

"I consider your premise as engaging, and a solid foundation for an entertainment vehicle. I am impressed with your ability to expand a solid premise into a viable story. In the case of SUBURBIA, the story is entertaining, as well as complete. And although there are areas of concern, your story is better than advertised as a cutting edge horror-thriller – as it delivers the goods."

So all those blogs I wrote about what was lacking in slasher/horror films and my lofty goals of actually trying to incorporate character change and deeper plot elements in the story actually helped me. So I've got that going for me.

"The development of your characters plays an integral part in the story and will certainly assist in making the final translation (screenplay) work. I appreciate how you have found success in making the combination of story and characters matter. "

"It is obvious the premise supporting SUBURBIA holds genuine value – evidenced by an abundance of energy, vitality and ‘edge’ found in both story and actions of the characters."

"Clearly, you have invested time and hard work into your story, paying attention to detail. From the lead-in right through to the (rewarding) climax, you are able to draw upon the energy generated from working the tension levels between the controlling idea versus counter idea."

That feels really great to hear. I may have to resubmit to Script P.I.M.P. and see what their thoughts are on all the changes I've made since I submitted my script to them (about 4 versions ago). It may be worth a second shot there, but, of course, not everything is perfect.

"In essence, what I am suggesting is to set aside your marvellous story-telling abilities aside and start thinking as a visualist – showing us your story, rather than attempting to tell us your story."

I can completely understand where he's coming from with this. Instead of showing what a character is thinking through their actions I may just describe their emotional state - which of course doesn't really translate well onto screen. I don't think it's an inability to accomplish that, it's more of an easy way out. Instead of showing how a character is impatient, they're just impatient. Fair enough.

I've since gone through and fixed just about all of those problems. I more or less did a search for the word "look" in my screenplay and then made the line far more dynamic. That solved a lot of the problem right off the bat.

What I do appreciate the most out of everything was the last paragraph:

"What I would like to see you do is address the issues I have raised. Once complete, email me the first six pages of your script. I will be able to sort out if you are practicing economic and visual-only action descriptions. No additional reading fee would be expected or accepted. I only want to make sure you are on the right path when it comes to mastering the craft of screenwriting. "

So it's nice to know that he'll sit down and see that I'm on the right path for fixing my little errors. It's also great to know that my story is solid and that all of my time and effort are paying off in a great screenplay. I also know of another pitfall I need to make myself more aware of when writing, and solve another problem before it even starts.

I'm also curious to see how the new and improved visual style of writing does in comparison to the other style, so I'll be entering a few more contests. I'll pepper my name out there best I can, sooner or later it will fall into the hands of someone looking to make a horror film.

Opening a Comedy

2008-06-11T12:48:00.004-04:00

Starting a comedy script is a lot different than starting a horror script. In horror, you want to save the best for last, the big payoff involving the killer, the last survivor and whatever else you've cooked up in the course of the story. Sure, you open with a token death, or the remnants of the latest kill (or both), but you want to entice the audience to stay longer to find out just what's going to happen. In a comedy, it's the exact opposite, you want them to be laughing so hard they have no choice BUT to stay.

Your comedy should start with something hilarious.

You want to get your audience in the correct mindset to laugh, and put them in the mood to do so. Sometimes, this gag can be your inciting incident and other times it's just a brief introduction to the character that you're going to be getting to know through the rest of the film.

American Pie opens with the main character masturbating and getting caught by his parents, a relationship set up that plays out through the rest of the film. Annie Hall opens with Alvy discussing directly to the audience why he's so messed up, something that plays out in every Woody Allen film. Dr. Strangelove opens with a deluded general initiating the start of global thermonuclear war while the rest of the film is everyone else scrambling to deal with it. Duck Soup opens with Groucho being put in charge of an entire country - and opens with a song and dance number.

The examples go on and on for comedy - if it works, it works. The thing with modern comedies as mentioned previously is that they are now going for more gross out humor than really thinking about why things are funny. Eating poo or being high? Hilarious. Watching dysfunction impair social relationships even though the main character relates to everyone he knows because of that fact? Not so much (to audiences anyway).

You Don't Mess with The Zohan opened with Adam Sandler being naked and catching things in his butt. I thought the movie as a whole was funny but that gag was just... odd. The audience seemed to love it though, so whatever works (I personally found the "fish out of water" jokes to be funnier).

All in all a comedy has to be funny to a lot of people but you cannot neglect the story in an effort to fit in as many jokes as possible. The situations that arise from the protagonist solving the effects of the inciting incident should be what makes the movie funny and memorable. Subplots and ancillary characters are perfect for the really awkward/hilarious moments, but whenever the main character is involved, the plot should always be moving forward. That's the key - but a lot of comedies muddy the water towards the end.

By the end of most comedies the plot has taken a turn for the serious as the character(s) attempt to right things and a lot of the earlier humor is gone in favor of trying to cram the plot that should have been developing since the beginning into the very end of the film. It's a case of too much story in not enough time. I love a good, well told story but the pacing is essential. Jokes without merit are funny, sure, but if that aren't moving the plot forward they're just filling up time that will have to be made up elsewhere.

These are just a few things that the writer needs to be aware of when constructing a comedy. The story is the most important part of any screenplay, and if you're setting up a hilarious situation just for the sake of setting it up - you probably don't need it. Find a reason in the plot for that hilarious situation, and you've got yourself a memorable comedy.

Just about any Judd Apatow movie (40 Year Old Virgin, Blades of Glory, Semi-Pro, Superbad, Walk Hard, etc.) has some hilarious, gut-busting moments, but for the life of me I can't really think of what they had to do with the plot, and unfortunately I remember them more than the funny things that happened within the actual story. This leads me to not wanting to see the movie again, not because they were bad but because some things are hilarious once. Randomness is funny but then loses its luster, but a great story will always be a great story.

Finding the Point of Comedy: Expectations, Sub-Genres and Silly Crap

2008-05-29T10:50:00.002-04:00

"What's funny?" is one of the hardest questions to answer simply because it's different for everyone. What one person may find hilarious another may find just silly, or worse, stupid. For instance I find fecal humor to be too gross to be funny. My prime example is Stifler's scene from American Wedding... it was just a little too over the top for me -- but most people had the intended "Awwww, ha ha ha" reaction, uncomfortable laughter indicating "I'm glad that's not me!" Another prime example is that men love The Three Stooges... women don't. I know there's the exception to the rule at all times, but I speak in general terms since movies are for general audiences. When you write for too specific an audience you're going to fall flat.

Now the fun thing is that you can take just about any premise and make it a comedy. Comedy, traditionally speaking, is making fun of (or satirizing) an established convention. That's why there are so many sub-genres; if you take the expected results and flip them over to something absurd, you've made a funny.

Example: A bank robber is trying to open the safe in the back room of the bank. He sets up the plastic explosive and primes the charge, with a countdown of ten seconds so he can get to safety... only his sleeve is caught! In a serious movie, he would explode and be dead. In a comedy, it would blow up and depending on the sub-genre would:

A) Blow him into the police station
B) Leave a sooty mess on him
C) Not explode at all
D) Blow up and not open the safe
E) Blow up and not open the safe... but the safe wasn't locked in the first place
F) He frees himself, the safe blows open only to reveal another safe inside

or my personal favorite

G) Kill him anyway, but the janitor finds the open safe and has a decision to make

And so on and so forth depending on whatever mood the writer was in that day. This is of course a simple example, but that's the essence of comedy. Take what you except to happen and run the other way with it.

I just finished writing the outline to my comedy spec. I've written my characters into some humorous situations but it's the approach to the humorous situations that I need to narrow down before first draft writing commences. There's no point in switching comedy styles halfway through, you've established an action/reaction standard and the audience expects that prevail. I also personally hate going to a comedy and winding up in another genre entirely ("Man of the Year" anyone?) that just sets the movie up for failure because of false expectations, but that's a discussion for another day.

There are several schools of comedy before it comes to the sub-genre, they are: Fantasy, Observational, Irony, Satire, Slapstick and Tragicomedy. They are very broad so sub-genres came about to further differentiate between the schools themselves, and most comedies can be lumped into a few sub-genres, but for the most part it's easy to differentiate.

So let's look at our sub-genres: Black (not African-American, but that's one too), Criminal, Mocumentary, Farce, Horror, Family (for, Domestic is about), War, Musical, Parody/Spoof, Romantic, Satire, School, Slapstick, Sports, Teen and Urban. I don't think that's all of them... but that's all I can think of off-hand.

All sub-genres have built in audiences. If you want women to come to your film, make it a romantic comedy. If you want teenagers, make it a teen or school comedy (or just put in nudity). If you want to appeal to weirdos like me, you make a black comedy. Again, I'm speaking in generalities, but these hold true regardless.

Now, all comedies are satirizing or parodying some established convention (be it an actual institution or a belief) so those are umbrella terms, but it is in the way the humor is presented that would narrow that comedy into the sub-genre of satire (Zoolander, Anchorman, Idiocracy, Dr. Strangelove, Dogma) or parody (Blazing Saddles, Walk Hard, Scary/Epic/Super Movie). I hate lumping in Blazing Saddles with Epic Movie, but it's essentially the same thing, just one is presented way better than the other.

To put that into specific film terms: the protagonist is in conflict with the antagonist with unintended consequences, whether those consequences are surprising, ironic, weird or whatever is up to the writer.

Comedies winning the academy award are almost unheard of, the only ones doing so being It Happened One Night (1934), You Can't Take It With You (1938), Going My Way (1944), Tom Jones (1963), The Sting (1973), and Annie Hall (1977). There were a few hybrid comedies that won (and these were all comedies with dramatic elements, "sophisticated" comedies) but these were the only comedies that fell directly in the "comedy" genre umbrella. Recently though, comedies have been up for Best Picture, the first time in quite awhile, so that really opens the door to making sophisticated comedies once again.

That's where I'm trying to come in. I'm not talking about a high-brow masterpiece or anything, merely a comedy that also makes you think, examine life in general, and question the conventions of thought that society has given us. Sounds like heady stuff, sure, but my first goal is to make you laugh, then later, think about why you were laughing.

If I had to narrow down the sub-genres of my comedy I really would not be able to do it. This may be going against my aforementioned audience expectation caveat but the establishment of the tone and theme of the film in the first five minutes will alleviate that problem. As long as I maintain the same feel for the entire film, that is what's important and that's what comedies need to do.

A good comedy does this: in Annie Hall Woody Allen came right out and said that love sucks but you do it anyway, and he spent the rest of the movie showing us why, and it was great. American Pie let is know that it was going to be about the awkwardness of sex in the first two minutes and spent the rest of the movie showing us how, and it was funny. I could go on with all the comedies that I love, but I think I've made my point.

Then again I may have just rambled on, but I feel more focused anyway. On to the treatment!

NYTVF Comedy Script Contest and Other Happenings

2008-05-29T09:24:00.005-04:00

Hey folks, I've been pretty busy with some new developments. I've been going around looking for contests for "Behind Suburbia" .... thus far I've entered it into Shriekfest and Red Inkworks with plans to put it into Final Draft Big Break, Screamfest, Script Savvy, and Slamdance. I want to get it out there as much as possible... quite unfortunate how quickly these add up though. Anyone want to sponsor me? I'll split my imagined winnings :p

At any rate, I found a really cool contest a few weeks ago, the NYTVF Comedy Script Contest ... Fox Broadcasting is sponsoring a contest wherein the winner receives $25,000 and a development deal. Hello! It's even free to enter, the only catch is that they're only accepting 1500 entries, so you can be sure I'll be clicking madly when entries finally DO open.

I'm already on the third draft of my spec pilot, an animated series. I actually came up with this idea a few years ago and wrote the majority of the first season, it was something I worked on in my spare time between feature length scripts, helping me to keep my writing fresh while working on the prep work for the features. The show has slowly evolved into what it is now, thanks to the development ideas of Shawn and Sean (I wish they spelled it the same way, then I could say "The 2 Shawns" ... maybe I can just say "The 2 S's") and it's really come a long way.

The pilot itself has had several versions, the latest incorporating all of the things I've learned in the past year. I was able to take a few of the ideas from the previous pilot and upgrade them, so to speak, really making a strong, funny story. In my opinion anyway.

Bearing in mind my chronic cynicism we're actually going to be ever so slowly working on creating the pilot ourselves. I would love to get it into a festival or two and have it noticed, I mean, that's how Seth MacFarlane got started, isn't it? Even so, I think this show would be better compared to a "Friends plus Seinfeld with the weirdness that animation allows" than the current animated shows on television. I've been trying to make the show more intelligent (so to speak) while still allowing for the anything can happen feel of an animated series.

I don't expect to see the pilot anytime soon but forward progress never hurt. In the meantime I'm also still working on my outlines for my sci-fi and comedy spec features. Hopefully "Behind Suburbia" will do decently in the contests, just so long as it does BETTER than "perfect ending" I'll know I've made progress as a writer, and that's what counts. I think.

Behind Suburbia finished (in theory) and Moving On

2008-05-02T11:09:00.002-04:00

I've completed my version 5 (tenth rewrite, approximately) of Behind Suburbia and finally submitted it to a few contests. I got the notes back from Script Pimp but I did not find them nearly as helpful as the previous set. I saw that I did solve all of the previous problems except for one though (which version 5 rectified) ... but I still received a "pass" rating because of it. Aside from that one helpful hint the rest of the notes were something along the lines of "you need more horror movie conventions but don't make this a conventional horror movie."

All righty.

Needless to say I did not follow them as closely this round and now it's time to see what some contest judges have to say about it. I submitted to the PAGE Awards and something else I can't quite remember off-hand. Regardless, if this places better than "perfect ending" I'll know that I've improved and will feel pretty good about myself. If I won I'd feel awesome... but anyway, I'm happy with the script.

I'll be sending out some query letters soon to get some feelers out there to try and find a producer or an agent. I have two solid scripts and several more in the works so I'm building a decent base to work from. Hopefully I'll get some decent responses and I'll write an entry about query letters soon.

In the meanwhile I've had two good ideas come to the surface. One is a reworking of a comedy script I wrote when I first got interested in screenwriting. I enjoy that version but the overhaul I'm envisioning would have me start over from scratch. The second idea was a modern-day sci-fi movie, i.e. takes place now but has futuristic elements the common populace is not aware of. I've already started the character backgrounds and the outline, and I think it has a lot of potential. I'm just tired of being so serious.

My first set of notes compared my dialogue to Woody Allen and Kevin Smith. Not to toot my own horn but I have a knack for observational and conversational humor, and I really want to do something where I don't have to kill off a bunch of characters. I know, what fun would a slasher flick or murder mystery be without the dead bodies... and the premise of my sci-fi film would require some killing. Not a lot, mind you, but a few. Plus it would be a serious film.

The comedy would be fun, so I'm actually thinking about working on both at the same time. Then I can alternate my entries between comedy and sci-fi genre conventions and explore two things at the same time. Mind you that would entail me watching a ton more movies to cover both genres, but hey, I think it's a task I'm willing to undertake. I don't think I'd be able to WRITE both of them at the same time, but I can certainly do all of my outlining and pre-planning.

So, that's fun. I'll keep you all updated as things move forward. If anyone is curious to read "Behind Suburbia" feel free to e-mail me. Especially if you are a producer looking for a writer/director ... I'd really be up for that.

Resubmitted and Moving Forward

2008-04-22T08:55:00.002-04:00

Just a quick update, I've resubmitted "Behind Suburbia" to the Script PIMP development service, I've requested the same reader so they can see the progress I've made and that I actually paid attention to their suggestions. I got tired of waiting for my editor to read the latest version, but I think I caught all of the errors throughout. Structurally it's sound, I'm, sure on that.

I also noticed I've been rather antsy lately, kind of restless and agitated. I was just going with the flow until last night, when I was just in a very agitated state. It took me until this morning to realize that it's because I haven't worked on anything new in awhile. A writer has to write, no?

I've been up to my ears in slasher movies for the past six months, and I've been been rewriting the same piece of work since mid-February. I think after the results come back I'm going to just make some minor adjustments (it's never perfect) and then submit it to the Script PIMP contest and the Nicholl Fellowship. If I can make it to the later rounds at least I know I've improved a lot since last year.

As for the writing bug, well, I think I'm going to be moving on to a comedy. I've killed enough people in my last two screenplays, it's time for something lighthearted where people aren't allowed to die, though I can hurt them for comedic effect so long as they can stand up and say, "well that sucked!"

So expect a thorough analysis of the comedy genre in the coming months as I analyze what works, what doesn't work, some of the genre conventions and my own insights into the characterization of an amusing, albeit identifiable character.

I don't mind rewriting, mind you, but after staring at the same characters for the past few months I need someone new to mess around with. I'm proud of Behind Suburbia. I think it's come a long way since the first draft, and I think this draft has some real potential. I think that even if the development service gives it a "pass" (it's a 50/50 shot) I think I'll still send out some query letters and try to get it into the right hands anyway.

I mean come on, if the last few movies that have been released in the horror genre are any indication, I think my script should be able to stand up just fine. Maybe.

I'll have an update with the results later or next week, as for now it's time to break out my trusty composition notebook (I was using yellow legal pads but the ones I buy have lousy binding) and get crackin'!

Motivation. AKA: Please don't kill me, I have to feed my fish!

2008-04-01T15:22:00.007-04:00

I've just finished the 3rd rewrite of "Behind Suburbia" today based off of the notes I received from Script P.I.M.P ... I wrote the 2nd version immediately after receiving the notes and have spent the past week and a half pondering if the changes really had the desired effect. After having someone re-read it yesterday (and being helpfully super-critical)... no, they didn't.

Hence my 3rd rewrite. As mentioned in the notes it's important to show the reader (or viewer) the genre of the film in the first five or ten minutes. If they're in a horror movie, it's best that they know it soon, otherwise they'll learn to like the characters too much and be really upset when some guy starts hacking them apart. It's also important that all of your characters have significant motivation.

What is motivation? I always though that in a slasher film, it was the desire to live. It's your life! What more is there than that? Well... lots. I gave my characters a semblance of depth in my first version but now I have "raised the stakes" so to speak. Living is one thing, but having a reason to live is a whole new ballpark, and a whole new level of story telling as well.

Let me give an example of what I mean by this:

Fred is 23, fat, watches a lot of television and is an unfortunate college dropout. He is a recently unemployed copy machine repairman, lives in a cheap apartment (he thinks he's too good for mom's basement) and has frequent midnight runs to Wawa for a meatball sub. This, in Fred's mind, is the pinnacle of life. He comes and goes as he pleases, doesn't have anyone to answer to, sleeps late and has no drive to fix any of his flaws.

Johnny is 22, average build, and a senior in college, class of 2008. He is majoring in microbiology and plans to go to graduate school. Doing so would make his parents proud but, more so, it would make Johnny proud of himself. He hopes to one day settle down with a nice girl (or guy), but that's in the future, and he'll take one day at a time as he works towards his goal.

So... what's the difference between these two guys? On the superficial level, Johnny is goal-oriented and Fred is a loser. Johnny has purpose in life and Fred just kind of bumbles along taking whatever comes. Johnny has a reason to live and it's obvious to everyone around him, and no one would miss Fred except Fred's goldfish.

Poor Fred, right? Not so fast.

We're just superficially looking at these people, they're fairly one dimensional as described. To make a true character they need to have depth and complex relationships... as I've mentioned in previous entries they must be multi-dimensional.

If we put both of these characters into a story I think Johnny might sound a little boring at first. He studies, goes to bed early and is pretty cookie-cutter. But what exactly is Johnny researching at school? Is he studying under a professor (Dr. Ezra) that is actually working for the department of defense, making a new bio-weapon with the unwitting Johnny as his loyal lackey? That adds quite a bit of depth, no? Let's take it a little farther. What if Johnny stumbles on his professor's notes and figures out what he's working on. If he takes a stand against this, Johnny has transcended into protagonist, and someone we want to know... what's his ultimate decision?

Now Fred is bumbling through life, as I've mentioned, but he has a lot of free time. What if one night he sees a panicked young man at the Wawa, suffering from some sort of terrible illness? Fred, although a little self-centered is not a complete bastard, and stops to ask the man if he's okay. The man thrusts a small vial into Fred's hands and tells him that this is the only known cure, and that he has to take it to... Dr. Prentiss in Walla Walla, who will know how to replicate it and make sure that no one gets hurt. Dr. Ezra's not evil... just... not well... and the poor man drops dead at his feet, leaving Fred holding the vial.

Fred receiving the vial is the first scene of Fred's story. All of the other stuff mentioned about Johnny and Fred is their past, it's what makes them who they are... but what we want to know is, what does Fred DO with the vial? Suddenly this loser has the fate of the world in his hand and the question becomes not only will he do it... but CAN he do it? Fred on the top level has the world in his hands, but his is actually a story of redemption, to prove to everyone, and especially to himself, that he's not a loser after all.

Knowing where your characters are coming from is important in understanding the decisions they make at that crisis moment... and it was that little bit of background that was lacking from a few of my characters in "Behind Suburbia" which I believe has now been fixed.

These characters have to want more than the live, they have to have something to DO with their lives should they get to keep it! That's what makes them interesting, dynamic and of course... watchable.

Whew. I'll be resubmitting as soon as I talk my editor into looking for all the tiny little errors I seem to miss. Stay tuned.

Resubmission Imminent

2008-03-24T12:07:00.003-04:00

I received back the development notes last Monday and I really got a lot out of them. There were five pages worth of helpful criticism and great suggestions for improving the script overall. I think these notes were far better than those of HollywoodLitSales.

To just brush upon a few of the things they mentioned, I actually violated one of my own slasher movie rules without realizing it. Instead of getting to things within a half hour or forty five minutes, I actually waited a full hour. Whoops! I just got very carried away with introducing the characters and going into their complex relationships that I had them prattle along for a good length of time. So much in fact that the killing seemed kind of crammed into the last third of the movie.

Even so, the dialogue was compared to a Woody Allen film (my favorite writer/director) so I have that going for me. Unfortunately it's kind of out of place in a slasher film. They also said I needed an incident that would make the viewer (or reader) more aware that this was a horror film. So naturally I created a new character and killed them in a horrific manner, if only to help satisfy a few of their other critiques, such as "why are they in the woods?" and "exactly who out of these six strong characters is the true lead?"

It's funny that I added two scenes in and a new character but the script is now fourteen pages shorter than I had originally started. Regardless, it has a lot faster flow, better interactions, faster dialogue, and a more coherent ending. Mind you I had a coherent ending, but this has more of a set up/pay off feel to it. These characters have a lot on the line after all, they're fighting for their very lives!

Still, I'll be resubmitting for further critique (at half price) fairly soon. Money has been an issue lately as I've just paid to take the GMAT test ($250! ugh!) since I want to stop working in a lab environment and get paid more. Kind of hard when your degree is in the sciences so it's back to school I'll have to go. Still, soon as I get that straightened out and I get the go-ahead from a few people I know reading it, I'll resubmit and hope for the best.

If anyone is interested in reading the script, my e-mail is on the right.

"Behind Suburbia"

2008-02-28T08:21:00.004-05:00

Well, it's finally finished and has a title. It's been a few months, one of which was sitting around coming up with terrible titles, but it's done. Today I registered "Behind Suburbia" with the WGAw and the Library of Congress, meaning that the script is now ready for the world.

I came up with this title because of its dual meaning, one of which becomes apparent after the reading (or hopefully someday viewing). The literal sense of course is that the story takes place behind suburbia, so it works regardless. A few people don't like it, a few people do, but I really like it and I think it's a strong title. I remember the struggle I had coming up with the title for Vengeance, which ultimately became "perfect ending" ... it's just not easy for me for some reason.

At any rate, tomorrow I'll be submitting the screenplay to Script P.I.M.P. for their development service. Hopefully they like it and can provide me with a little insight into some improvements. Either that or they're going to hate it and I'm going to feel bad and have to make major changes. Maybe change the killer could be an escaped hippo in heat, that always sells well in the mid-west.

At any rate, if anyone is interested in reading "Behind Suburbia" and hopefully offering to option it, just shoot me an e-mail and I'll send a handy-dandy pdf of the script. I'm pretty confident in the story I tell as well as the characters I developed. I tried to go for the difficult goal of having a full character arc told within a slasher movie and I think I've done just that. I've had about fifteen people read the script and they all liked it, so that's a good sign. Then again maybe they're just humoring me... but we'll see next week. Stay tuned!

What was that called again?

2008-01-30T06:01:00.000-05:00

I've asked several people to help me come up with a title for my slasher screenplay and the most common response I get is, "pick a good line from the script and there's your title." Unfortunately either I'm not very good at picking lines or just the thought of a character having the titular line just kind of throws the audience off a little.

Every time I hear someone say the titular line I always chuckle a little, even if it's a serious movie. I think that notion comes from a sketch from the Upright Citizens Brigade. There was a video store clerk that claimed he had the titular lines in Out of Africa and Star Wars. For Out of Africa he said it was when Robert Redford was teaching Meryl Streep to drive, there was a lot of traffic and he pulls of next to them and says, "Boy I'm tired of all this traffic, I can't wait to get Out of Africa." and he had just filmed himself and put it into the video tape. I guess you had to see it, but that stuck with me... hence my avoidance to using one.

Picking a theme or an event in the movie is another popular method of choosing a title, but there's really not enough going on in the movie to merit a theme. It could be called "Reggie's Party" or "The Last Get Together" but I don't know. The former could be mistaken for a Reggie Jackson biopic and the latter would probably be about old people or a cancer patient. Not really slasher movie-esque.

Slasher movies (and horror in general) have a pretty standard title formula: place, date or monster. Friday the 13th, Halloween, Prom Night, Black Christmas, April Fool's Day, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Poltergeist, Psycho, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Evil Dead, The Haunting, House on Haunted Hill, The Changeling, The Exorcist, so on and so forth. Mundane things turned deadly! Unfortunately all the good ones were taken so I'm left with Arbor Day or obscure holidays no one will get yet are relevant to the story. I could call it Mabon but then my audience would consist of Wiccans even though the date is relevant to the story.

The same two ideas keep coming back to me and I really can't work them out to fit a slasher movie. As I mentioned in a previous blog I came up with "_____ Woods" or "_____ Park" but I just can't find a proper noun that would fit the theme of the story. I mean, a random name isn't really going to cut it in this case but giving the name of the woods would just be... naming the woods. Perhaps I'm over thinking it but maybe those are just lousy titles. "Reggie's Woods" "Scutter Park" ... who knows.

There are always the semi-descriptive titles that tell a little about the story but don't give away too much. Most of the characters know each other from the past but a few new people are introduced to the group, so it could be called "Old Friends, New Acquaintances" but that sounds more like a romantic comedy than a slasher film. In fact, I think I WILL use that for a romantic comedy, so now that you've seen it, don't steal it. Okay, hmm, some of the characters have some loose morals in regards to their relationships, so I could call the movie "Loose Morals" ... but once again that doesn't sound like a slasher movie. It kind of sounds like an 80's teen comedy, but not a good one, one of the bad ones with Andrew McCarthy. The only decent ones I can come up with would give away the whole story so they're completely out of the running and I won't even mention them.

So, in light of this I'm leaving it up to you, dear reader, to help me come up with a decent title for my slasher screenplay. Just e-mail me or leave a comment and if it's awesome, you'll have earned a special thanks.

Just a space filler

2008-01-17T09:23:00.000-05:00

I know I haven't updated in forever but I was on vacation for almost a month travelling around and othe than that I've just been polishing my slasher movie. It's nearly complete with only a few formatting issues to work out (I hate when I add something in everything else gets shifted around ><) and I'll be submitting it to the Script P.I.M.P development service to see what they think. Hopefully they'll like it. If you're interested in taking a read, send me an e-mail

So, since I haven't done any deep thinking about writing I thought I'd just put this here :p

And He's Back

2007-11-29T10:34:00.000-05:00

I can't believe I haven't updated (a real update anyway) in over a month, but I've been busy at any rate. It just seems that the older I get the faster time seems to move, and the month of November has come and gone in the blink of an eye.

So let's see... I received the feedback from the development service. They like the story but they feel it could stand to be tightened up a bit, be a little more original, and not have such a sad ending. I received "fair" marks for everything but the dialogue, which was rated as "good" ... so I have that going for me. The story was compared slightly to an episode of CSI only becuase I thought to use some forensic science in the casework. My lead character isn't a forensic scientist. The forensic scientist doesn't solve the case. At no time is there a scene of the forensic scientist doing the lab work. He merely reveals some information about the case and then goes on to do his own thing. Naturally since there is a forensic scientist in the movie it has to be related to CSI... which bugs me (obviously) since I dislike the show.

I have a few ideas kicking around to make the supporting characters a little more solid and to change the ending to make it slightly more happy. Not sunshine and daffodils happy or anything, just slightly moreso than what it is now. I'm glad I went to the development service, they had a number of good suggestions so I'll be working on that soon.

I finished my slasher movie. It still doesn't have a title but I'm thinking something along the lines of "_____ Woods" or "_____ Park" since it takes place in a woods/park behind a housing development. Simple and to the point is what I'm looking for, plus it seems that all the holidays have been taken. "Arbor Day... the trees strike back" ... nah.

I've had a few people read the screenplay and they all seemed to like it. I put into practice all of my previous blog entries to try to make the best slasher movie I could without breaking the genre conventions. I've gotten some good feedback about the first third of the movie where I tried to build up the characters as much as possible, and of course I tried to go for over the top with the death scenes, so overall it's a pretty fun script.

I suppose I'll go to a development service with this one as well to see what they say. It's a shame these things are so expensive or I'd do it sooner rather than later. Still, aside from contests that I generally dislike it's really the only "in" that I can think of. I suppose I could send a query letter to a few agents, with the strike going on maybe they're not all that busy. Then again, maybe a million other people have the exact same idea.

Another avenue I could explore would be the Inktip preferred newsletter, so I'll be looking more into that (the deadline is Friday to get in, so maybe next one). I think a bit more sprucing of both screenplays will put me in better shape regardless. If any of you are interested in reading the slasher movie (and giving me a title) I'd be happy to send it on over.

Still Trucking Along

2007-11-07T13:56:00.000-05:00

I'm almost finished with the first draft of my as yet untitled slasher movie, just thought I'd give an update on things. I also received back my development service notes, I'll elaborate more once I'm done with my draft.

What's REALLY Scary?

2007-10-17T09:13:00.000-04:00

I'm about twenty pages into the first draft of my untitled slasher movie and since it's getting closer to Halloween I thought I'd explore what people (namely me) find truly scary. There are a metric ton of horror movies out there but how many of them do you still think about days, months, even years later? For me it's not many, but there certainly are a few that will stick with me for the long haul.

It was this line of thinking that got me wondering exactly WHY they were so scary, what about them when compared to other horror movies made them actually frighten me? Before I get into what's scary, let me first go over what isn't scary, and why.

Vampire movies are out. The sheer coolness of becoming a vampire (of the non-Nosferatu variety) far outweighs the scariness they bring. Look at most vampire movies... they're out there living the high life. They live in mansions, are very wealthy, go out partying. Heck, I think being a vampire would be tops so long as you don't have some self-righteous jerk off chasing you around with a silver stake or something. Look at Blade, Underworld... heck even Bram Stoker's Dracula lived in a castle. You get to stay young forever and do your thing. Even an episode of Sliders had vampires that started bands through the ages, were famous for a few years, would fade away and come back as a new genre. How fun is that! Once again though, Tommy Chong played a guy that just had to kill them. When will people learn? If there are any vampires reading this, come turn me, I need a few hundred years to hone my craft and I'm more of a night person anyway.

Zombies aren't scary either. The only idea frightening about them is the idea that there are so many and there are more of them every day. A frightening situation, sure, but the lone zombie is as threatening as a nursing home patient. It's when there are ten thousand of them between you and what you have to do that you worry. If you wander into one, push it over and go on your merry way. For the record, running zombies aren't "real" zombie. When you're dead you're all messed up, come on, you don't have the coordination anymore to run around. They're scarier, sure, but they still go down easy. Oh, and "28 Days Later" people are infected with a disease, they aren't zombies, it's not a zombie movie, it's an apocalyptic thriller, dammit. Crazy bastards running after you is pretty damn scary, infected or not.

Werewolves. Mmm... nah. A silver bullet solves your problem and they only come out for 3 days a month if it isn't cloudy (except in An American Werewolf in Paris with that weird drug. And I think Underworld... maybe. I can't remember). They're just big, angry dogs. I like the method of dealing with them introduced in Big Fish, just play fetch.

Slasher movies aren't scary. I know I'm writing one but I personally think they're not all that scary, which is why they generally go for the BOO scares as opposed to instilling fear. I know there are a lot of people that think getting chased/stalked is very scary but that's only because someone can chase or stalk you in real life. Which is scary, yes, but if someone in a Halloween/hockey mask is wandering after me without running, I'll hop in the car, go to the airport and move to Belgium. Problem solved.

Scientifically reanimated corpses (i.e. Frankenstein) ... just no. Plus if you read Mary Shelly's Frankenstein all that damn monster does is talk talk talk. Rip some heads off! The creatures from Re-Animator were kind of creepy, not necessarily scary though. Frankenhooker is also a good one. No scary though. Supercrack is kind of scary, but that's neither here nor there.

So what's actually scary?

The unknown is scary. I know that sounds kind of vague but stick with me here. Things we do not understand, cannot comprehend, or things that could happen in real life SOMEHOW are the kind of things that are actually scary. There are a few ways to narrow this down:

Religion. Yes, religion is a mainstay and source of comfort for many, but what about the dark side of religion? Pazuzu, the demon in The Exorcist is a prime example of this. He was able to infiltrate a perfectly nice family and cause multiple deaths, psychological terror, strange telekinetic happenings all within the body of a twelve year old girl. What's scary is that exorcisms were performed all over the world. I don't know what they entailed or what was happening, but the idea of the darker side of religion is kind of scary. For something more fanciful there is of course Constantine, but on the whole, religion is a scary thing. I'll avoid that obvious pitfall of what religion causes normal people to do in real life and move on to the next example.

The Supernatural. Gauge in Pet Sematary, the house in The Haunting, that chick in the corner on the ceiling in The Grudge. They are all scary because we do not understand them. Gauge was the spirit of the Wendigo (or possibly the returned vengeful spirit of the wife's sister, but I'm sticking with the ancient Indian evil spirit, the Wendigo!) killing fully grown, capable adults in the body of a not even two year old child with Achilles' tendon cutting terror. That, to me, is VERY scary. A haunted house is scary because you don't know what to expect. You know something is in there, but have no idea what there is. That's why people like adventuring in real life to abandoned places, going into something completely unknown is a thrill. A place that seems perfectly normal today, if left alone for a few years, suddenly takes on a foreboding presence. As for supernatural creatures, such as the girl from The Ring or the girl from The Grudge... they are scary because they do not have to obey the laws of this world. They have their own agenda, popping out of televisions, sitting the corner of the ceiling, coming and going at random. Even the tall man from Phantasm has that unknown element to him because you have no idea why he's doing what he's doing or what exactly is on the other side of his portal.

To be honest, the questions that "the unknown" bring up are questions that you do not want to find out the answer to. Poltergeist, House on Haunted Hill, Pulse, House... they're all creepy because you can't figure out the what, the why, or the how. The unknown throws things at you from every direction with no rhyme or reason and there's nothing you can do about it. To get to the heart of the matter, it's the loss of control and reasoning that really drive people over the edge. You can deal with vampires, werewolves, slashers, Frankenstein and zombies because they're "real" ... aside from the ghostbusters, how the hell do you stop something that doesn't exist?

Sorry to end on a question, but I'd like to hear some answers. E-mail is on the right (or leave a comment).

Horror Movie Dialo-- Did you hear that? I'll be right back

2007-10-10T08:22:00.000-04:00

The Scream trilogy turned the slasher/horror genre on its ear by being a slasher movie that was aware of how stupid everyone sounded in slasher films. Aside from reciting the rules, etc. it had a line that really stuck out to me, said by the killer to Randy (Jamie Kennedy), "Never say "who's there?" Don't you watch scary movies? It's a death wish. You might as well come out to investigate a strange noise or something."

In the Pre-Scream days the slasher genre had pretty formulaic dialogue. Before the killing started everyone would have typical vapid teenager dialogue that really didn't reveal anything about their characters or go anywhere, then, once the killing started it would degrade into a series of "No!" "Ahhh!" "Please don't!" and "Die you son of a bitch!" or very close facsimile. Nobody was allowed to know what was really happening until it was too late, they never ran away correctly and frankly, you were kind of glad to see them go. The Post-Scream environment brings about an entirely different type of slasher film. Of course pickings have been slim since then but it added the idea that characters could fight back and defend themselves for the whole movie (not just the end), can run away and stay away, can get the police involved early and can be fully aware of what has happened, what is happening, and what needs to be done. There are even adults involved!

Scream had characters with back stories, complex interpersonal relationships, changing relationships, moods, intelligence, ingenuity and semi-rational behavior. No longer was a character subject to summary execution, they had a fighting chance! Of course most of the cast got killed off anyway simply because it's cheaper to higher different people in the sequel, but hey, they had a fighting chance. Scream also introduced a vulnerable killer but of course that's been addressed already.

The slasher movie today, in my opinion, needs a healthy mix of the pre and post Scream dialogue conventions. Characters shouldn't be blissfully unaware that something is wrong while they hump things but they also shouldn't ban together with Uzis to take out the killer. There has to be a happy medium in there between the two. One has to be aware that each slasher franchise does what it does and does it right, it's up to the writer of a new film (such as myself) to find the true voice of the characters, to give them their personality.

Dimensionality has been discussed previously so we can focus primarily on what the characters are talking about. Normally in a horror film it's sex, sex related things, bad jokes, juvenile pranks... basically anything that goes in one ear and out the other. There are no profound discussions in horror films simply because you can't kill a character that an audience perceives as intelligent as them (or god forbid more intelligent) because in that situation, they would know EXACTLY what to do. So it becomes almost commonplace that any character that has a well developed personality can't die. Scream of course, once again, threw this out the window with the death of Randy and the rest of the crew (in the first film anyway), but I'm speaking in general terms.

So, it has become my own personal mission to avoid the pitfalls of generic horror movie dialogue. I'm not going to have characters investigate anything, they aren't going to be pretty faces with empty heads nor are they going to go look for anyone else. Of course now that I've gotten rid of every conventional thing for them to talk about they are going to have actual conversations. They're not going to discuss existentialism in Bolshevik Russia or anything, but they can't simply talk about screwing either. Some sort of happy medium... which is going to be the hard part of the story. My treatment is finished and the story is perfectly worked out, now I have to start the actual writing and for the first time consider what these characters are going to say.

That's what first drafts are for though, and there's always the mainstay of reading a line out loud to see if it sounds like something a person would say. I also have to watch out for all the characters sounding the same. They're all an extension of myself in some way, it's just a matter or having them draw from different things to make them truly unique. Then again I'm going to be killing them off after a half hour... and does anyone REALLY care what happens to them? I want them to, as I've mentioned in the past. All of my blog entries regarding this topic have been building up to this as I am now starting the first draft of the screenplay.

Of course now that I've covered all the aspects of the slasher film (well, most of them. Some. I think) I'll have to think of something new to talk about next week. I'm sure I can come up with something Slasher related though. See you all then.

Ending the Madness: Chair Jumper or Warm and Fuzzy?

2007-10-03T08:55:00.000-04:00

I've finished my outline and as I've been plodding along through the treatment I've been giving some thought to the ending. The slasher movie and of course the horror genre as a whole has surprisingly little variation to the endings. In this case though, that's okay, it's how you get TO the ending that really matters, but of course you don't want to leave people feeling cheated at the end. Here are the most popular ones:

1. "The Chair Jumper"

The chair jumper is the granddaddy of all horror/slasher endings. Just when you think everything is going to be okay... it's not! It's one last over the top scare, which is either followed by a very short concluding scene or the credits. This is the ending that usually leaves the audience talking the most about the movie, mainly because the chair jumper is so completely unexpected that it really gets you.

My personal favorite chair jumper is the ending to Friday the 13th. I know I talk about that series a lot, but come on, it's completely derivative, formulaic and there are ten of them to work with. I'm talking about the original though. Poor Alice Hardy (Adrienne King) has just woken up from the night from hell and the police are pulling up to the lake. One of the policemen spots her and waves when suddenly... Jason jumps out of the lake and pulls her down! Holy crap! Traditionally when the cops come it's over, you're safe. The police give off an air of security so this chair jumper was completely out of the blue and was fantastic.

A few other chair jumpers worth mentioning... the end of The Evil Dead, Phantasm, Friday the 13th Part uh... the one where Mrs. Vorhees jumps out of the lake... and uh... that's about it. That I can think of anyway, here's your chance to leave me some comments.

2. "It's Not Over!"

The 'it's not over' ending implies one thing: sequel. This is a fairly popular ending for the slasher/horror genre simply because horror movies are fairly cheap to produce so they're almost guaranteed to turn a nice profit... which means they need more. Lots more. The endings are intentionally ambiguous, or in some cases, clearly left wide open. I'm talking "if there isn't a sequel I'm going to be pissed" open. Endings such as these are the easiest to do, just remove the last scene and cut to the credits and just like that, you're ready for a sequel. Throw the "alternate ending" on a special edition DVD that comes out six months after the regular one and you've truly gone Hollywood.

My favorite example of this is the ending to Halloween. Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasance) comes to the rescue of Laurie Strode (you know who plays her), shoots Michael Myers three thousand times, knocking him out a window... only to have him disappear. Oh no! Is he going to come after Laurie? How did he survive that? What's going to happen now? Was Dr. Loomis shooting blanks? So many credits and only two lines before the credits roll. Thankfully the sequel picked up eight seconds after the original left off. Okay, make that two favorite examples. The end of A Nightmare on Elm Street. Somehow all of Nancy's (Heather Langenkamp) friends have mysteriously returned to life, her mother is fine and it's off to another day of school... when Freddy locks the car and pulls Nancy's mother through the little window on the door. Not so much as a chair jumper as a "it's not over" simply because it seemed a bit fishy from the start of the scene. Very fun though, very fun.

A few more examples of the "It's not over!" are: Evil Dead II, The Ring, Hellraiser, Jason X... uh... geez. I'm off my game today. There are a lot more, I know it, I just need a nap.

3. "How Ironic!"

This is not irony in the literal sense so much as just silly. They're usually ambiguous and are coupled with the "It's not over!" ending because of the situation the lead character ends up in right before the credits roll.

The best example of this is the ending of Evil Dead II. Ash just went through so much crap that it's not even worth going into and then he somehow gets sucked into the portal that was supposed to save him. Briefly mentioned earlier was a passage from the lost pages of the Necrinomicon stating that someone came from the future and was supposed to have contained the evil then... and he's even wearing a blue shirt, just like Ash! Needless to say he ends up back there and goes from being almost killed to being a savior only because of his shotgun. The camera pans back and it's the page from the book! Poor Ash.

I think the only other movies with endings such as these skirt out of the horror genre and go for a little dramatic irony as well. This ending could also be considered the "surprise!" ending as well, but people will find it "ironic." Anything done by M. Night Shaymalan does that. It's the "Hey, you just sat for two hours for the film school 101 ending." It is though, in the first year one of the first assignments is to do a five minute "surprise" ending. Mr. Shaymalan simply expanding all his ideas to two hours. Well, I don't mean to go off on a tangent but... stop doing that.

4. "Whew, we're okay..."

Sometimes the prerequisite of the "Chair jumper" as well as the "How ironic" this ending has the survivors happy that they survived whatever it was trying to kill them. If this is the actual ending it usually has them walking off into the distance with their arms around each other or the cops showing up... or both. Kind of sappy, kind of relieving, but watch out for the bait and switch. Sometimes you think it's okay... but it's not.

A good example of this is every movie where you don't have another type of ending. Friday the 13th II, III, V, VI, VII, VIII, A Nightmare on Elm Street III, IV, V, VI, Child's Play I, II, III, Hellraiser II... mostly sequels. Sequels do this simply because they're not sure if the profit margin will be big enough to do another one so they don't want to leave fans disappointed if they can't muster the cash to make another.

I'm glad the characters are okay and all, but this ending is kind of boring. It's how most movies in general end. Why not have a character say, "Whew, I'm glad that's over with" and have them fall and break their neck. Now that's an ending.

So which do I prefer?

I'm a chair-jumper/it's not over fan myself. One last good scare coupled with the idea that no matter how hard they tried the survivors couldn't stop whatever was trying to kill them. They're a lot of fun and I think they leave the audience with the best impression of the movie due to the fact that when they finally start to relax you play with their emotions one last time. If done right, it's awesome. If cheap and stupid (Scary Movie, though that was intentional) it'll just make you laugh, but you'll remember it. Now back to the treatment and time to work on that ending.

Wait, there's more!

Oh, as an aside I've finally found a new title for "Vengeance" ... it will now be called "perfect ending" (Thanks to help of my perpetual editor SE) The title is worlds apart from Vengeance, which now that I think about it sounds more like an American Gladiator that a movie. The title also has a lot more meaning to the story itself and if you want to know more, send me an e-mail and I'll send the script over.

I've also finally gotten a little extra cash and am going to submit to the Hollywood Lit Sales development service. According to their FAQ, only 5% move on so I've already braced myself for a "pass" rating but it's the constructive criticism that I'm after (though I think it should garner at least a "consider" rating, but I may be biased. I like it. A few other bloggers that have read it liked it.... my mom liked it...). So in four or five weeks I'll talk about how that went. In the meantime, I'll be focusing on my horror movie. See you all next week.

Get to the Killing Already!

2007-09-26T08:26:00.000-04:00

As I work on my outline I've had one question in particular that has been really bothering me: How long before the killing starts?

How long can I develop my characters before I start to bore my audience? In order to create a bond between the average moviegoer and the characters in the story I have to have a certain amount of development. There has to be something to latch onto and in order to do that I need a little bit of time. If I wanted one-dimensional throwaway characters there would be no problem, in fact I could have a group of thirty people, kill one every three minutes and there is a feature length film... but that's not what I want.

The flaw in the majority of horror films is that the characters are entirely one-dimensional. They are a means to an end, which in the case of a horror movie is to up the body count. They have one small purpose to their character, with no reason why, no back story, no change, no conflict and their lives end with little to no emotional impact on the audience. For a good example of what I mean let's look at Annie and Lynda (Nancy Kyes and P.J. Soles), Laurie Strode's friends from the movie Halloween. They're typical teenage girls, saying typical teenage things and they expressly want to get laid that night. Next thing you know, they're dead.

That's it. Who cares? I know they're Laurie's friends and all but honestly, all they wanted to do was get laid and now they're dead. These things happen. Laurie on the other hand loves her parents, works hard in school, is a babysitter, is a comforting figure, has a crush on a boy... so on and so forth. I feel like I know Laurie Strode, I feel like I care about her and when her friends get killed it's not them I feel emotion for but Laurie... I worry that something might happen to poor Laurie. She's got a lot going on and so much to live for, she can't get killed now!

The trick to having a good, well developed character that people care about is giving them a back story, internal as well as external conflicts, goals and, more or less, a life outside of the scope of the film. They have to be real people that we're watching for the course of the story... what they did before we're aware of but not explicitly told and what they're doing after is dependent on their transformation through the story. Laurie Strode, unfortunately, did not change as a character... she didn't have a chance to, the movie just kind of ended as it is with horror movies. Halloween II picked up immediately where Halloween left off and introduced a whole new batch of forgettable characters, such as the nurse, who could have been walking around saying, "I'm a nurse... I'm a nurse... I'm a nurse" and had roughly the same impact. Laurie Strode did change eventually though, she went from victim to killer in Halloween: H20. It may have taken twenty years but she finally confronted her demons and made a real character change after which she could really move on and continue changing her life.

Larry Zerner e-mailed me last week, amazingly enough, and said something regarding horror movie characters that struck me as both funny and true, "In Friday the 13th Part 3, all the characters were three-dimensional (if you wore the glasses)." Replace "Friday the 13th Part 3" with just about any horror movie and it applies, there just isn't any character development. Laurie Strode was one of the few examples of a three-dimensional character but she lacked that final crisis decision to solidify change and instead let Dr. Loomis pull the trigger (she could have grabbed the gun or something, work with me here).

I've digressed a bit into the last topic but it applies to the question at hand. Can a three dimensional character be fully developed in the time before all the killing starts? The Halloween example proves that yes, it is possible and if the movie is constructed right it should play out completely by the end. How much time then should be devoted to this? Also, what about all the other characters? Should they just be killed fodder and have no real purpose except to be there?

The answer, in my opinion, is no. The problem then arises of how long until the killing starts? I've informally polled twenty people at work and got their thoughts on how long they're willing to wait before someone gets it. The median answer was a half hour. A few other answers were, "horror movies are retarded," "the opening credits," "all at once," and "who are you?" So, a half hour or so is as long as the majority of people will watch character development before someone has to die. I suppose I agree with this, but if done right, the time before the killing should be interesting and engaging.

If the characters develop well, have their own interesting plot lines and intriguing interpersonal relationships, the viewer may not even notice the time devoted... then again they did buy their ticket and sit down to see some hapless folks get killed. So it remains a double edged sword, try to develop the characters and have the audience connect, but don't drag it out so long that they get bored and want them to die anyway.

One movie in particular I know of that I was really getting antsy for the killing was Hostel. The first hour or so was porno, the rest was gross-out horror. Needless to say I was bored out of my mind for the first hour mainly because I didn't care about the characters. They weren't very deep and I was kind of disappointed that Paxton (Jay Hernandez) survived. Good luck playing the piano, chump!

Regardless, careful planning must be done to ensure I get these characters right and that my audience doesn't start to lose interest. Engaging characters, interesting subplots, complex relationships, the whole gamut, must be explored in thirty minutes because right around then this goes from character piece to "Hey, where's Barry?"

Still, I think I'm on the right track. I have one outline written but while writing this entry a few ideas came to me (I guess writing this actually DOES help) so a new outline must be written. I'm on the right path!

Next time... "Killing Your Characters: Gorefest, Quick and Easy or The Cutaway"

Another Dead Teenager Movie?

2007-09-19T08:23:00.000-04:00

While working on my outline for my new script I got to thinking about what sort of people I was going to throw in the way of the killer. Were they merely fodder for gore and violence, or should there be something more to them? Does being able to relate and connect to a likable character make the movie scarier... or sadder?

It's a fine line to walk, between being empathetic for a character and merely liking them. The more you can relate to a character, going beyond just the surface, the more you're going to feel the sting when the character ultimately bites it. There is a problem with going this route though, if you start to have people connect with all your characters, how are they going to react when you start killing them off? Odds are that the people that connect most with the characters that survive till the end (or close to it) are going to have a more enjoyable experience than those that connected with the character that got killed off first.

Here's an example: In Friday the 13th Part 3 there is the character of Shelly played by Larry Zerner. Shelly was kind of dumpy with a bad hairdo but a very empathetic character. He wasn't as attractive as the rest of the people and was kind of uncomfortable with himself as well as around strangers so he resorted to silly tricks to get people to pay attention to him. This was a well developed character because we could all relate to being in that sort of situation. Well, I know a few people that can't and I hate them, but the majority of people can relate to feeling that way. This gave Shelly some depth, and we were rooting for him through the course of the movie to come to terms with who he was and become a better person... and ultimately to do it with that cute Spanish girl before Jason killed everybody.

Unfortunately Shelly was killed off without much fanfare. He wandered into the barn in his wetsuit and was not seen again until towards the end of the movie where apparently he was wandering around with his throat slit for the past couple of house. I felt cheated. Shelly didn't have a chance to change as a person or score, he had such build up and I ultimately was let down without even a gruesome death scene. After he was gone I was ready for the rest of the characters to get it and the movie to end, the only person I cared about was gone anyway.

So here's the problem I'm having: do I develop all the characters, some of the characters, one of the characters... or none? If I develop all of them then the movie will be very long and more of a soap opera than a slasher flick. If I develop some of the characters, will the other characters seem silly in comparison? If I develop one character, how I can ensure that it's the character that the majority of people will relate to? If I decide to kill them off, will the audience lose interest in what happens to the rest of the characters? I know that developing none is a bad idea, it would be the equivalent of watching a snuff film... or Hostel.

I think my best bet will be the develop all of the characters in the script, but in different ways. Giving them their own agendas will help not only to develop them but to differentiate them from the rest. Thus far I've written down their names and given them all a little biography and by doing that I've also set myself up to look at their individual goals and personal relationships. I don't want to create a character like Ben-Hur but I don't want to set up the disappointment of Shelly. It's going to be a very fine line to walk.

The Slasher

2007-09-11T07:29:00.001-04:00

So I was talking with my friend Jesse last night, who has a friend Peter that might possibly be getting some movie equipment with an inheritance he received. Since I'm the only writer they like (or know I guess) I've been asked to start kicking around some ideas for a cheap horror movie. I mean really cheap. I have no idea if anything is going to materialize but it's nice to have a new idea regardless, so I sat down last night and started thinking about the different types of cheap horror movies. There was one resounding sub-genre that came to mind, the quintessential cheap horror movie: the slasher flick.

The problem with the slasher genre is that it's been done to death. Psycho started it all way back in 1960 and it's evolved from there. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Black Christmas, Halloween, Friday the 13th, Sleepaway Camp, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Silent Night, Deadly Night, Child's Play, Scream... and a million little ones that I'm not listing. They have spawned such iconic figures as Leatherface, Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees, Freedy Krueger, Chucky and some less than memorable ones such as the people from those other movies.

What makes a memorable villain? Out of the four I listed, two don't talk, one grunts and the other two make wisecracks. I can strike Chucky off the list immediately as after the first Child's Play they all stunk. Freddy Krueger stopped being scary after the second film as he then became more of a humorist than a villain. Leatherface is Leatherface, there's not much to him, it's more the family atmosphere that made him an iconic figure. Jason Vorhees didn't appear until the second Friday film and evolved into a supernatural being of unlimited regenerative power with a phobia of water for some reason, then got very silly towards the end (though was redeemed in Freddy vs. Jason). Michael Myers, presumably just a regular guy (so was Leatherface) was very scary, in my opinion, simply because he was just a regular guy... so far gone mentally that pain was negligible. Now that's creepy. Of course the latter Halloween films, from three onward, were just damn goofy, but the first two were fantastic.

So what do all of these killers have in common? They kill people. Aside from that, they're all very different, yet all memorable. So they obviously all have human origins and the sequels all went off in weird directions, but let's for the analysis' sake just look at the first films in the series (and Friday the 13th, Part 2. Mrs. Vorhees can take a powder as when she was a "hey surprise" in the film, not even introduced until the last fifteen minutes). Supernatural origins, such as Chucky and Freddy are immediately out. With the boon of supernatural horror in the last ten years it's best to stick to more mundane origins (yes I know, Jason aged at the bottom of a lake, but let's pretend he's some guy with a fetish for burlap). Leatherface was a result of him family, so he's out as well since I plan to stick mainly to killer and victims... plus a family needs a house so that's an extra location, so that's an extra strike. So we're left with Jason and Michael Myers.

Between Jason and Michael Myers, I'm leaning slightly towards Michael Myers if only because you knew his origins. There was even Dr. Loomis popping in and our making cryptic statements about the blackness of the soul and whatnot, Jason was on his own with no one touting his scariness. Even so, that caused Jason to have the element of surprise on his side as no one knew he was there at all.

Time to back it up a bit. I don't want this to completely devolve into who my favorite movie killer is, it's about the development of my own slasher. So I'm going to make a list of questions that need to be answered to really develop a true slasher genre villain. Here goes:

Origins: Known or unknown? (if known, by the audience or by someone in the film?)
Strength: Human or unstoppable? (if human, how do we know they are human?)
Victims: Known to him or random? (if known to him, will there be a time they meet or only an assumed time?)
Motives: Known or unknown? (regardless of Victims answer)
Face: Masked, in the shadows, completely hidden, or seen? (if completely hidden, first person perspective (done to death!))
Weapon: Found, carried or none?
Clothes: Normal, rags, found or stolen?
Ending: Definite or open?
Base of Operations: Woods, suburbs, urban, beach, house or other?
Victims: Hidden or displayed? (Does he create fright with bodies or make people say, "Hey, where's Molly?)
Future Victims: Knowing or ignorant? (this is dependent on the victims answer)
Name: Known or unknown? (Can be approached that origins are known but name is unknown or vice-versa)

I'm sure there are more that will come to me, but these are the questions I think I will answer for the time being over the course of this week. It's like Mad Libs: Killers. These can be answered so many different ways with a lot of combinations, so it would be easy to make several different killers and see which one you particularly like.

One I have my questions answered and I'm really happy with them I'll then start crafting an outline of the killer based around the answers and see what I come up with from there. Hopefully I'll be able to craft a unique and memorable killer that avoids the major cliches. Still, a little cliche is fun in the slasher genre.

Up Next: "The Victims: Who are they and why do I care?"

Breaking In: Horror or Comedy?

2007-08-30T09:41:00.000-04:00

I recently gave some thought as to what it takes to break into the industry. When looking at those that have recently hit it big, whether writing or directing, they seem to fall into only two genres: horror and comedy.

I know there are a lot of new indie directors that make poignent masterpieces that illicit deep thought and question the moral compass of the everyman, but very few of those are true breakout hits (though there are some). So, statistically speaking, the surest bet would be to go with the aforementioned horror or comedy.

Two problems spring to mind though within each of these genres; modern horror was gone from scary to torture porn or remakes of Japanese movie and comedy has moved into BIG ACTOR DOING FUNNY JOB (with notable exceptions). I like going off in my own direction when it comes to writing and that may pose so problems, most of all being the commerciality of the script. If you want to do your original, daring work you have to be established first, so in order to do so, should one sacrifice a little originality for commercialism?

I don't know the answer, which is why I'm writing out this blog and not working on a script. Most people are going to say "go with your gut instinct, write the script you want to write, be original and daring!" and as much as I like doing that, it's what I did with the soon to be retitled "Vengeance" after all, is that really the course of action that's going to get me my in? A solid script is a solid script but the hardest thing is to get a studio to take a chance on an unknown without something that has a built in audience. A psychological thriller may not be the way to go, so I've been looking at, once again, horror or comedy.

A low budget horror movie has been a huge jumping point for a lot of writer/directors: John Carpenter, Wes Craven, Sam Raimi and Eli Roth. They got their script and directed their own movie, which ultimately is what I'd like to do, but I wouldn't mind selling my screenplays either. Horror movies have established audiences. If it falls into the horror category, a certain amount of people will go regardless of what critics say. If I were to write a horror movie that could be filmed cheaply, would that help my chances of breaking into the film industry? Possibly, but should it be original? Derivative? What do people want to see... it's a lot of guesswork. Ultimately I could try raising money myself and write a movie that could be filmed cheap enough, without taking away from the feel, and just doing it myself and screening it at festivals. A possibility, if I knew some people with money.

A comedy is very hit or miss. Scary is scary but funny is subjective. I have kind of a dry humor, with a lot of observational, situational and societal humor. In short, I don't do slapstick. Once in awhile maybe, but overall I go for the dialogue laughs so the view has to pay semi-attention to what's going on. The question is should I balance the slapstick with the dialogue, stick to what I prefer, or go for straight slapstick (Slapstick to me is not just bodily humor but one liner after one liner after one liner. Like a Will Ferrell movie). Society as a whole today seems to prefer this sort of thing, escapism perhaps, than a Clerks type of movie.

Still, I have one horror script and two comedies that I'm working on at the moment (not at the same time) and I'm trying to figure out which one to focus on the most. I'm leaning towards horror in the off chance I might be able to make the movie myself and go down that route. Still, I really enjoy the comedies and may develop those and take my own advice and balance out the dialogue with some throwaway silliness. I'll keep at it regardless. If anyone has any thoughts, I'd be happy to hear them.

What's in a Name?

2007-08-21T14:41:00.000-04:00

Brian, one of the writers of "Whale Farts" came across my blog (presumably by typing "Whale Farts" into Google) and left a few comments regarding "Why Whale Farts?" and the answer, in short, was "buzz."

The title needs to draw the reader in, in his own words, "...believe me, we wrestled with it for ages. In the end, we threw out the banal, expected, commercial titles and opted for one that we thought would at least make a potential reader wonder, "Hmm, I wonder what the heck this is about." Gotta say, seems to have worked." I will say it worked on me. I picked his title at random from a field of about 300 in the Scriptapalooza semi-finals (quarter finals?) and decided to extrapolate my own story from it.

Even so, in my previous entry Brian backpedaled a little saying, "Don't throw in the towel. I think the lesson is that it's the material, not the title that matters." Which I would agree with (even though he still hasn't revealed what "Whale Farts" is about) but what about the initial hurdle of getting the reader interested in what lies beyond the cover page? That's where a razzle-dazzle title will come into play. Then again Brian has left me with one small nugget of wisdom, "Of maybe the lesson is that 'fart' equals big bucks. I'm still not sure yet." And to that I have to agree. Fart appeals to the lowest common denominator, and looking at the majority out there, that's who you need to impress.

Let's look at the title of the script I've been entering, "Vengeance." Perhaps that's a little too high-brow for some people. Maybe they don't know what the word means? I can scale it back and re-title the script, "Revenge" ... but vengeance means violent revenge, more specifically infliction of injury, harm, humiliation, or the like, on a person by another who has been harmed by that person. It's exactly what my story is about. I could title it "The Revenge" and just go with a word that everyone knows what it means, but to me it's just not powerful enough. Revenge is to exact punishment or expiation for a wrong. Kind of run of the mill... people seek revenge for a stolen pen. Vengeance is an entirely different league or revenge. It's Revenge plus. That's a good title, "Revenge Plus" ... or I could change a few scenes to a wedding reception and call it "Revenge Plus One" or even a restaurant, "Revenge: Part of Three" since that would also encompass the three characters the story focuses most on.

I could also go the silly route as "Whale Farts" has done. I could call it "Junkies in Lust" or maybe "Killing Sam." Both of these sound intriguing, there's a specific topic that comes up, it makes you wonder, "what kind of junkies? "how are they going to kill him" and more importantly, "Why?"

I could also just go really silly and call it "Cock Goblin" and somehow incorporate a rooster or maybe a penis into the script. Maybe both, no? The goblin part really has nothing to do with anything but it sounds funny.

All in all though, Shawn from Nuke It From Orbit went the extra mile and helped me out. I must say, a little tweaking to a back story here, a line there and the title could have real meaning. It screams out bad 50's B-horror/sci-fi movie (mainly because he told me it did) and I think in all honesty, I'll pick a contest and random and enter it with this title. What's thirty dollars compared to seeing this:

Finalists
"Sam and the Junkies in Lust VS. The Cockgoblin of Ft. Bledsoe!" by Michael

Still Truckin' Along... with Whale Farts?

2007-08-20T10:07:00.000-04:00

After a few weeks of focusing on writing and getting back into a good groove I've been making some decent progress on several stories. Nothing is finished yet so I'll still be pushing "Vengeance" on the unsuspecting masses for now.

In one of the comments on a previous post someone named Chris (I'd link but everytime I click I get an error message) mentioned DoneDealPro and I thought it wise to check it out. The site looks pretty good, going over the latest Hollywood business happenings, what sort of script studios are looking for, and if they're even looking. The price is pretty cheap so I think I may sign up for a subscription and see if I can get my name out there a little more.

I'm a little torn on whether I should wait till after I go through the development service or before... or to do both at the same time. I'm a little (a lot) strapped for cash this month with a flux of bills that seemed to come out of nowhere so I think I'll push back the development service until next month. Another few weeks of polishing up other things isn't exactly going to hurt.

On a side note, I just went to the Scriptapalooza website... and Whale Farts won. I'm not even kidding.

Dear readers, you are now witnessing a turning point in my screenwriting career. I will now and forever more never enter another contest unless I get such a strong recommendation that I can't possibly pass it up. Other than that... this is it. On a single title alone I can't possibly bring myself to give any contest anymore money. I don't care if Whale Farts is Citizen Kane meets Casablanca with a twist of Usual Suspects all wrapped up in a Forrest Gump sweetheart package. It's called Whale Farts.

Maybe I'll develop my own Whale Farts concepts from a few posts ago.

/sigh

Bluecat Screenplay Feedback

2007-08-09T08:51:00.000-04:00

After having completely written off the Bluecat Screenplay contest and going about other business I checked my e-mail last night and saw that they sent me feedback on my screenplay. I'll spare you guys the explanation of what they specifically liked in the script (as it would also ruin the story and ending, it IS a mystery) and skip right to the end. This is straight from a section of the analysis entitled "What I Think Needs Work":

"Nothing at all. This is a great story, it is written very well. The pacing, the plot, the characters, everything here works. I think you have a great shot of placing this script with a studio. Best of luck!"

So what's the problem with these contests exactly? Have I really gone down the "too commercial" route to win these contests? Maybe I should look into some studio contests. I know I'm not giving the "more of the same" type of story, I have a lot of unique elements and a fun approach to things, but come on, at least let me get to the finals!

Even so, I then scrolled up in the e-mail to see what else was mentioned in regards to the contest itself and I found this paragraph squeezed in the middle:

"I was very moved by the personal nature of the writing submitted this year. I love when writers tell us how about what they know about life, what they care about life, by making themselves truly vulnerable in their writing. When a writer creates from within, they love what they write, and in turn, so do we. BlueCat will always recognize and reward this brave writing."

Personal nature of the writing? Of course the writing is personal, I wrote it! The thing I have a problem with is "writers tell us how about what they know about life, what they care about life, by making themselves truly vulnerable in their writing." Grammar aside it sounds as though in order to win the Bluecat contest one must make a heartfelt drama that gets to the depths of human emotion. Naturally I'm going to write Steel Magnolias 2: Cry Harder and blow everyone else away next year. I create from within, I love what I write, so what if I write a murder mystery, it comes from the heart... and so help me god I'll kill you if you don't believe me!

Brave writing... how could writing be brave? It seems that the majority of personal stories out there all cover the fragility of human emotion, suffering as a result of the human condition: jealousy, hate, greed, love, lust, etc. Bravery in writing is kind of a misnomer... you're putting your characters through events and sure, you're supposed to get sucked in emotionally to the story but come on, it's my character suffering through cancer and then finding out they had sex with their biological sister that they didn't know was their sister because of adoption. Oh wait, that's bravery in the world of Funky Winkerbean.

In short, it seems that they want an emotional tour de force, not a murder mystery roller coaster tour de force. Still, it's studio material, I just need to find a way to get Vengeance in the hands of a studio! Now the script development service seems like a very promising avenue.

Also, here's what they said about the winner, "On that note, I want to congratulate again our winner, Ana Lily Amirpour, and her screenplay, THE STONES. Her script is so beautiful and important, and from what I've gathered in the week I've known her, Lily is quite a person."

Important? I think it's all coming into perspective, Gordy Hoffman wrote Love Liza a movie about Phillip Seymour Hoffman's wife (hey, they're brothers, what a small world!) killing herself and him delving into model airplanes, or.... model somethings and huffing gasoline fumes and then finding himself. Or killing himself too, I fell asleep before it ended. THAT'S the kind of importance he's looking for, I should have known.

As an aside, with a name like Ana Amirpour and a movie called THE STONES... it kind of reminded me of...

"Drop them Dr. Jones! They will be found, you won't!"

...and that comes from within.

Scriptapalooza

2007-08-06T08:42:00.000-04:00

According to an e-mail I received the other day, I've made it to the Quarterfinalist round of the Scriptapalooza competition. This being the second quarterfinal round I've made out of this past round of contests I'm not too sure I'll make it past this, but hey, it's nice to make it somewhere.

I'm still on schedule for sending my script to the development service as mentioned in a past post and I'm trying my best to keep up with my two hours every other night campaign. I know I may not sound particularly confident in regards to this contest, but I am up against scripts that blow mine away, just from the title alone. These are going straight to the top, those with such compelling titles as:

Whale Farts by Brian Price and Samuel W. Gailey

Now, call me crazy here, but what could this possible be about?* There are two roads this can go on and I shall explore them both, just for the benefit of... myself.

Whale Farts is a compelling look at the future of our nation. In a time when our fossil fuel reserves are at an all time low, and the instability in the middle east has lead to broader conflicts across the region and a halt to all exports. Global Warming fears have taken a frightening new twist as increased carbon emissions in the atmosphere have actually thickened the ozone layer, making it almost impossible for solar panels to function while still increasing temperatures to unbearable conditions, causing hurricanes to batter coastal cities year round. In the midst of this crisis, Dr. Gregory Handcrotch bucks the trend, and on a small fishing trawler with a surly crew of New England natives sets out to test his new invention, one that would surely change the course of human history... that which can harness the awesome power of a whale's fart.

Alright, interesting. The Sum of All Fears meets A Perfect Storm meets The Day After Tomorrow. I like it. Get Beck to do the soundtrack and we're there. Okay, let's try this again, only without any thought (yet I'm sure more money):

Whale Farts is the latest comedy creation from the director/producer/key grip that brought you Wedding Crashers and some other recent comedy comes the story of Petie, played by that chubby guy from Knocked Up, a marine biologist fresh out of grad school starting his first real job at Sea Fun Adventure Village. His first assignment? Training Patches, the baby humpback whale. With his friends Joel, that fat guy from Superbad and Larry, the older looking friend of the main guy from Boy Meets World he must try to get Patches ready for his opening performance in two weeks. There's only one problem though: Whale Farts. Nobody will come see a performance that smells like week old krill, so it's up to Petie to fix the problem, reaffirm his friendships through adversity, and win the heart of the pretty dolphin trainer Julie, played by one of the chicks from That 70's Show, possibly the older sister of Topher Grace's character.

There. Whale Farts.

If you're a producer and you'd like me to turn Whale Farts into a feature length screenplay, feel free to drop me a line. Of course this would be selling out my artistic integrity, but hey, I promise I'll do an indie flick for my second one, I promise.

*As an aside, though, I'm not trying to knock anyone else's work, I know people are sensitive out there, I'm just having some fun with a title.

A Clear Head

2007-07-30T20:02:00.000-04:00

As dreaded an activity as mowing the lawn can be, it does provide me a chance to be alone with my thoughts. As I mulled things over, walking back and forth, back and forth, back and... and so on, it came to me that I needed to have some sort of routine. A way to keep expanding my knowledge of screen writing as well as honing my skills. This sort of stability would help me to not only expand my mind on the topic but also help me to feel a sense of accomplishment. I need to know that my fate is not in the hands of a faceless contest judge but in my own, and the only way to do that is through focus and dedication.

I'm not saying I'm not dedicated now, but as far as dedication is concerned I could use a little improvement. Waiting for a contest for months on end is no way to start a career and hindsight being 20/20 as it is I have come up with the following stipulations for myself:

Every other evening (starting tomorrow) from 9pm-11pm (minimum) will be, hmm, let's call it "Form and Function"

The form aspect being that in that time I could choose to read up on the how behind formatting, story, selling and that ilk and the function falling into actually writing. Working on my outlines, treatments, loglines, synopsis and of course actual screenplays.

I think that this re-dedication to what I want to do with my life is a much needed kick in the pants. It will allow me to focus and of course will not pigeonhole me into a particular exercise, you can't really force creativity, it has to come. I don't want to write, I need to write, and I think this funk I've been in lately could be attributed to not letting myself do so. Standing on a precipice wherein salvation is in one direction (winning a contest) and chasm of despair the other (losing) is no way to bring about my dream. That thinking has put me in a state of flux, keeping me aloof in a lot of aspects and really making me kind of flake out. With this new routine I will regain my focus and moreover, my composure.

Things are looking up already!

Reminder: 8/15 submit to the Hollywood Lit Sales development service

Whilst I work on my craft I should also learn how to improve it through more means than my own interpretation of books and lectures. To the future!

Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting... Denied

2007-07-30T18:13:00.000-04:00

At least this time I received a hand signed rejection letter, I must be moving up in the world. With two contest failures in as many days it seems yours truly has just solidified his case to go to a development service to figure out exactly what is wrong with "Vengeance."

I suppose it's always hardest to critique your own work, but I have had a lot of people read it and they all seemed to enjoy it. Seemed being the operative, maybe they're all humoring me, but who knows. If any of you would like to read it, please let me know, contact info is over on the right. It seems that this blog is turning into the emo pity party that I so wanted to avoid, but, with rejection comes that little but of sting that your best just isn't good enough.

The letter I received was well written, but the last paragraph kind of struck me as odd, it read "In January of next year, we'll send you a 2008 application form, which will include a list of the recipients of the 2007 Fellowships."

Now that's just kind of rubbing it in the losers faces, they might as well preface the application, "Boy, don't you wish you were these people?" Oh well, out of 5050 entries 254 made it onto the next round, and unfortunately mine wasn't one of them.

All that's left is Scriptapalooza, which I'm investing any stock into, so perhaps on the 15th of August (my next paycheck) I'll send my script off to the $75 development session to figure out exactly what needs to be improved. In the meantime, I think it's time to really put some time into rewriting One Night in Jersey... a broad comedy might be the route to take. We shall see!

BlueCat Results

2007-07-28T20:26:00.000-04:00

Well unfortunately I haven't made it to the finals, but hey, it was nice to be a quarter-finalist in something. Looks like I only have two more contests to hear back from, but judging from what's happened so far, it's not looking promising. Even so, I have to keep a positive outlook, not all judges are the same, and referencing an earlier post, it's all subjective.

Even so, I think I may finally have to submit to one of those professional services; the ones that give you notes on how to fix your screenplay, and hopefully make it more marketable.

I found two that seem like the could be useful:

Script P.I.M.P. Development Services

Running at about $250 it's not exactly a bargain, but if you receive a "recommended" rating you then have the ability to submit a query letter to some of the bigger studios. Of course who knows if that's going to get you anywhere, but at least it's a step in the right direction... although they claim they will help you in sending your screenplay to producers, studios and managers. So that DOES sound pretty good.

Hollywood Lit Sales Coverage Special

The places claims to do the same thing as Script P.I.M.P but for only $75. That's a heck of a price difference for what appears to be essentially the same service. What does that mean? I have no idea. Is one better than the other? I also don't know.

I think what I may do is submit it to the Hollywood Lit Sales people and see what they have to say, see how it goes, follow their recommendations... and if that works out I'll then send it over to Script P.I.M.P. By that logic, someone is bound to want to see the script provided it gets a recommended rating from both places.

Since the contest route does not seem to be working out for me, I'll have to look down another avenue, and this may be it. In the meantime I think I will start to work on one of my unedited scripts, just so I don't get too out of practice sitting on my hands. Who knows, maybe a comedy will fare better than a psychological thriller. We shall see! I'll keep you guys abreast of what happens, as well as what happens with the other contests.

Loose and Lose

2007-07-12T14:45:00.000-04:00

I figure it's time for a non-screenwriting related post. I'm writing this because at my day job I've run into a problem receiving e-mail from people that write "loose" instead of "lose" ... i.e. "I'm loosing days" or "I hope we don't loose this customer."

Now... when did this start happening? I've even seen it in several newspapers, are copy editors taking a vacation? I know that kids today can't spell for a damn, mainly because of the shorthand from text messaging and online sites, but come on, these are supposed to be professionals I'm working with!

Let me show you guys a few examples of what I'm talking about:

Why Did They Loose --- I'll tell you why, they can't spell.

Does it hurt for men when they loose virginity?Does it bleed when the foreskin is torn? --- What? So not only do they not know the difference between loose and lose... but uh... well I'm not even going to field this one.

We Win, They Loose --- I just thought I'd point out the terrible irony of the tag line of the page being "Mom is Always Right!" Now before anyone gets bent out of shape, it's not dramatic irony, it's merely "an intention or attitude opposite to that which is actually or ostensibly stated" ... ironic, though not on a deep level, merely silly. Had this been a script, we could have written her so she was valedictorian, got a 4.0 in college and went on to write this world famous blog... only to slip up loose and lose. Of course that would be an ironic commentary on the state of education today as doing less is accomplishing more, but I digress.

Ah well, I suppose that's enough venting. In the future, if someone happens to mess this up and you want to call them out on it, feel free to link them to loseloose.com ... it's about as straightforward as you can get and hopefully they'll learn something.

I doubt it... freaking loosers.

Bluecat

2007-07-03T11:48:00.000-04:00

Bluecat

The top 10% of entries have been posted to the Bluecat results page and yours truly has made it into the top 10%. Judging by the amount of scritps in this percentage, they must have had a lot of entires. So that's good, I made it this far which makes me feel kind of good.

Even so, as usual I decided to take a look at some of the entries to see what I'm up against. We have Mother of Frankenstein by Ian Simpson and...Mother of Frankenstein by Robert Ian Simpson. The odds of that happening are simply astronomical. That or this person submitted their script twice, under two different names, and they BOTH made it! He must be thrilled.

Some of my other competitors have submitted things such as "A Guy, a Girl, a Chimp, and a Lake," "Crazy Thunder," "Every time I go to Staten Island Something Bad Happens," (I kind of agree with that one) "Hannibal," "Life Without a Face," "Sizzlean," "The Maltese Falcon."

And my comments, in no particular order, Two guys, a girl and a pizza place. I still agree. Do you mean the killer or the guy from Carthage? Man without a face. Sane thunder. I don't know if that's a word. Been done.

Hey, I haven't read them and I'm competing against them for my life's dream, I'm allowed to belittle them without actually having read their scripts. Even so, the "Life Without A Face" really also reminds me of This comic.

Oh well, I'll post again when I get more results!

Script P.I.M.P.

2007-06-25T11:40:00.000-04:00

Script P.I.M.P.

Well, according to the latest newsletter I didn't make the cut into the final round of the competition, here's a list of those who did.

I always look over the titles of finalist scripts to see if they jump out at me as something particularly interesting. In most cases, they don't, in fact some of the titles are downright silly, such as "Birdman McGee" ... who knows what that can be about.

One though, in particular, drew special attention to me. In an earlier post I mentioned the logline for my script "Vengeance" and a brief logline. The mystery/thriller is essentially about a series of murders that happen in a number of hotels... in California... so the script titled "The California Hotel Murders" really kind of grabbed my attention.

Isn't that, in essence, what my movie is about as well? I mean, who knows about the details and how it's written, but come on. Maybe I should have titled my movie something a little more obvious as well. Maybe I could call it "The detective that solves the murders" ... you know, something with pizazz! That title's got legs!

Ah sorry, it's just a little frustrating. I'll post more results once I get them.

Still Waiting

2007-06-02T11:32:00.000-04:00

Still Waiting

While I'm still waiting to hear something my creative drive has kind of stalled out. I've had a few good ideas but I haven't really sat down and put a few hours into something in quite awhile. I think it may have a lot to do with waiting to hear back from the contests.

My own assumption is that I'm looking for some sort of validation... someone to say "hey, you're a pretty good writer" so that I can then move forward and put more time and energy into things. Even so, deep down inside I know that this is the wrong mindset to have; I should keep plugging away just to create.

I'm expressing my own duality. I have a strong desire to write, it kind of makes me antsy when I don't write for awhile, but I also wnat someone to tell me that I'm a good writer, that I have a lot of potential, that I should keep it up. A validation for continuing. I have ideas I want to flesh out and plot outlines I want to bring to life but I keep making little excuses and finding other things to occupy my time, and when I do finally sit down to write, "oops, it's bedtime!"

Does anyone know how to get around this? I know I should be writing, I should be practicing and improving, but it's just frustrating in creative limbo.

I suppose I'll flip through my little notebook and look for a blurb or two I can flesh out a little more, just something to keep the creative juices flowing.

The Interim Period

2007-05-13T10:54:00.000-04:00

The Interim Period

Waiting to hear back from contests is always the most frustrating thing to me. I have a lack of patience at times and it definitely is one of my biggest faults. I'm filled with both hope and dread in regards to the contests. I'm confident in "Vengeance" but will the subjectivity of the industry play against me?

What DOES it take to win a screenwriting competition? I was looking at the past winners of these contests and a few of the people have gone on to have their movie made, but that is a few people overall out of the dozens of contests I was looking through. So even if you do win, it doesn't necessarily mean that anyone will care about your writing, so what does that mean?

Back to the previous question, what do these contests look for? Well written scripts or novelty scripts? Things within genre conventions that are well written and tell a good story, or nonconformists that try to break boundaries and, to paraphrase Peter Griffin, insist upon themselves? I see no general guidelines in these contests aside from "we're looking for great scripts!" but what is the definition of great? A great Godard is quite different from a great Kubrick which is different from a great Gilliam, is it not? So where are there boundaries?

Are they all looking for the novelty of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or the action blowout that could be the next Die Hard?

It really makes me wonder. Subjectivity is both the enemy and the draw of Hollywood, is it not? What I was talking about was just what the contest organizers might say overall about the contests, not about the mindset of the individual judge that's looking at your screenplay at that particular moment when they may have an inflamed hemorrhoid.

Maybe I should send cookies and Prozac with my next contest submission

On the Road to Fame and Fortune

2007-04-30T10:31:00.000-04:00

On the Road to Fame and Fortune

Well, not yet, but I can dream can't I?

I've found several decent contests to enter "Vengeance" into so I thought I'd share those so we can all keep track of the progress. You know, it honestly amazes me how much it costs to enter some of these contests, I mean, it's nothing outrageous but it adds up after some time.

Maybe I shouldn't try to win these contests, maybe I should start my own! Then I could rig it so that I win the contest, under a pseudonym of course, so I don't have to give up any of the prize money. Only a $30 entry fee! Enter as many times as you like! Then I just need about 470 people to enter and I could buy this! Ah, who am I kidding, that's probably illegal. All of my REALLY good ideas are illegal... what a shame.

Anyway, here's what I've entered:

The Don and Gee Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting --- a screenplay contest sponsored by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science themselves. Well, that would be a nice stepping stone I'd have to say. The interesting part of the fellowship is that they give you $30k to write another screenplay for them, and you're not allowed to have any other job. How perfect. Cost: $30

The Bluecat Screenwriting Contest --- I entered this with the pre-McKee version but I still entered it. Plus they provide feedback after the contest, so that's fun. Hopefully they don't mention all thing things I fixed between then and post-McKee. Cost: $45

PAGE International Screenwriting Awards --- They're all about providing new screenwriters the connection they need to the industry, and by golly, that's me! They also provide some feedback as well.. but it costs $60 extra, so oh well. Cost: $69

Script P.I.M.P. Competition --- I got a free submission to this contest for signing up to the writer's database for 5 years. I have yet to hear a response from anyone I queried from the database, but hey, who knows. They also do a writer's workshop to work on your script which gives you access to big name studios in the database, that costs $250 so I may look into that in the future. Cost: $96

American Screenwriting Competition --- Sponsored by Flatshoe Entertainment, whomever they are. Decent prizes, decent exposure which is the more important aspect. I don't know much about them, but it's worth a shot. Cost: $65

Scriptapalooza --- It had a funny name so naturally I had to enter. Another contest that promises exposure, fame, prizes and a firm handshake. Cost: $50. (I actually entered this on the deadline 4/13 with a mostly rewritten post-McKee version, do'h!). Cost: $30

That about does it for contests for now, I figure I'll enter more somewhere down the line, but I'm curious to see the results of these, which unfortunately won't be for a few months. The wa-a-a-a-ait is the hardest part.

Whew

2007-04-29T10:16:00.000-04:00

Whew

After a few weeks of reading, rewriting, reading, throwing away, erasing, lighting on fire and weeping I think I might maybe have something viable to send to a few screenplay contests.

The script is called "Vengeance" and it's the mystery/thriller I previously mentioned. My log line is (I need to work on this) ...

"A detective must battle his addiction and the ghosts of his past in order to find a killer."

It's short, it's catchy, it has a beat you can dance to. I think I'm going in the right direction with it. Who knows, maybe my readers are script agents and Hollywood producers basking in the anonymity of the internet. Wait a second... do I have any readers?

At any rate, if you're interested in reading it, just drop me a line and I'll send a .pdf your way.

I'm pretty happy with it at the moment, of course since everything in this field is subjective, you may hate it entirely, but hey, you may love it. I may rewrite it again somewhere down the road, but for now, I think it's good enough to enter in a few contests... now to find some.

Story Seminar

2007-04-03T09:49:00.000-04:00

Story Seminar

I recently attended Robert McKee's Story Seminar in NYC. Let me just say that it has totally revolutionized how I look at my screenplays. I know this sounds like a plug, but after reading his book, Story, I knew I had to attend one of his seminars. It filled in all the gaps, presented new ideas and really pointed me in the right direction.

So I'm going to begin the third rewrite of my mystery/thriller and see where I go with that. My brain is still pretty frazzled from the experience (about 30 over Fri/Sat/Sun) so I won't be writing anything long winded today, but I wanted to share what a worthwhile experience it was.

He opened by saying that in Hollywood, not too many people anymore know how to write a good story, and honestly I must agree with him. All too often these days I leave the theater wanting more, and not in the "I wish it never ended" way but in the "That was it?" way, which is not good. The nagging feeling of wasted time when walking out to the parking lot is never a good feeling.

Therefore I'm taking it upon myself to totally redo my scripts, from beginning to end. Maybe then I'll be able to generate some more interest in contests, and hopefully begin to get somewhere. Hopefully.

Maybe.

The Opening and Closing of Rockstop Studios

2007-03-18T09:08:00.000-04:00

The Opening and Closing of Rockstop Studios

Since I'm going to be as honest as possible with what I do and how I'm doing it, I figured I should talk about one of my other plans to break into the film making world, which was by starting my own movie studio (the website has since been taken down).

I wrote a short script called "Snubbing David Cross" and I wrote it in such a way that there were a minimal amount of scenes, a minimal amount of action, and a minimal amount of comedy (whoops).

The idea was to write a script that could be filmed on as small a budget as possible, that I could get together with a few people and we could do it ourselves. In January of 2006 this task was accomplished, I think the website is even still up at www.snubbingdavidcross.com/ and I may still even have a few copies of the DVD laying around if you're in a masochistic mood.

Initially, I was proud of the movie. It was done on a budget of only $400 and a borrowed camera. Everyone worked on it for free, and I worked as the producer/director/actor/co-editor/make-up artist. I had no experience whatsoever and kind of learned how to do things as I went along, from setting up scenes and framing to not looking at the camera when I was supposed to be looking at someone behind it.

Even so, cutting corners ultimately has its downfalls. The sound quality was terrible, some of the scenes sounded like a fan blowing into the microphone, there was no color correction, and a lot of the scenes were static and dull. None of these faults really became apparently until we tried submitting this monstrosity to several film festivals, falling flat each and every time.

My co-editor (and the one in charge of the Power mac G-5 that I bought) decided that he didn't see a reason to re-edit the movie and so it was shelved and nothing more was done with it. It was onto the next project.

The next project was something I had grand ideas for. It was an animated series pilot that we'd enter into festivals. I spent a lot of time writing and re-writing the pilot episode until I was happy with it. My two business partners and I recorded the audio for the episode in April of 2006 and it was that day that began the decline and dissolution of Rockstop Studios.

My two business partners were Shawn, a lifelong friend of mine that had lived up the street and majored in English in college, he helped me polish my scripts and basically did miscellaneous things as needed. Sean was the other one, he was in charge of the technical aspects of things, such as sound, websites, and starting character animation on our new animated pilot.

Rather than going into the gory details of April to November, I will just summarize that, when promised a finished, working pilot to submit to festivals that I had already paid for, I was met with the disappearance of Sean. He didn't actually disappear, but after finding him in person I found out that no work whatsoever was done. Not even a little. I suppose in retrospect I could have done more in person assessments of progress, but he was always busy... so everything kind of started to make sense.

Being the nice (stupid) guy that I am, I decided to give him a second chance. I even hired on a girl named Kori with her masters in computer animation, I figured with help things would get done. Once again, I was horrible mistaken, and in January of this year I took the computer back and began to make reparations to all the people I borrowed money from to get things for the company since Snubbing David Cross didn't make any money at all.

Even so, I had the computer back in my possession as well as all the original clips of Snubbing David Cross. As an aside, the day I went to get the computer back he had to spend four hours deleting and cleaning off his and all of him family's personal files from the "work" computer which was used as their home computer. I appreciated that I could pay every month for something the whole family could enjoy. Yes, I know I sound bitter, but that was almost an entire year of my life wasted on someone not telling the truth. Rockstop Studios officially dissolved and I haven't talked to Sean since.

Anyway, Kori stuck around and we tried to find new character modelers only to have several quit on us and it got to the point that Point Blank was put on permanent hold, and we decided that should things every get going again, we'd pick up where we left off.

Aftermath

I want to do more movies, but I want to do them right, and the problem is money. This is what ultimately brought me to where I am today, wanting to break into the industry with a good script.

I want to establish myself, get my name out there, and when I do direct another movie I want the crew, the equipment and the funding to do it right. Conversely, if you'd like to get me started, I'd love to own the RED 35mm digital HD camera ... only $14,000!

/cry

As an aside, I've been very slowly reediting Snubbing David Cross into something more interesting, and when it's interesting enough to watch, I plan on re-dubbing all of the audio so it sounds like it should. I've also bought several books on using Final Cut so I've also learned how to even make it look better... but that's neither here nor there until it's actually finished.

So, from here, onwards and upwards.

So What Do I Hope to Accomplish?

2007-03-11T14:14:00.000-04:00

So What Do I Hope to Accomplish?

I get asked this question a lot. It's phrased differently every time but it essentially comes down to "why bother?"

Short Answer

I love movies

Long Answer

I really love movies.

Actual Answer

The first movie I clearly remember going to was The Little Mermaid shortly after I turned seven way back in 1989. I stayed home from school that day for some reason and my mom and I went to see it. It was then that my love of movies really started. It's just seeing something on the screen, getting involved with the story, investing emotion in the character, wanting/waiting/dreading the outcome, for the better or the worse.

Even though this is cliched answer, said by people over and over since the Greeks were putting on matinee showings Antigone, it's still true. People go to the movies and they want to care about what happens to the characters on the screen and they want to have a good time. They want their emotions played with without actually having to do anything besides sit in a chair.

I've seen thousands of movies, some excellent, some stinkers, but I can honestly say that I've always had a good time. As my movie knowledge base expanded and with the advent of DVDs I began watching the behind the scenes features. The how of the movie. It was there that I fell in love with what I saw. The people involved, the work, the thought, an randomness, the structure, the creativity and the sweat that, when combined and shaken well, put out movies that can boggle the mind and heighten the senses.

Haven't you ever come out of a movie saying "Maybe I should learn to do that" or "I can't believe that happened!" You're a changed person after every movie you see. Everything you take in changes you, sometimes imperceptibly, but it does, and that is what I want to do.

I know I've tiptoed (charged) back into cliche answer territory, but hey, it's the truth.

So What's the Plan?

The plan is that I want to get my name out there, get a screenplay optioned and eventually direct a movie. This, of course, isn't an easy task at all, but it's what I want to do. I hope that this blog will help me in that direction, but I also hope that it's a way for me to look back and take stock of what I've done, and what I should do to move me forward.

Heya!

2007-03-02T08:13:00.000-05:00

Heya!

Hello, welcome, thanks for dropping by. I just started this blog so I thought I'd provide a little primer on who I am and what I'm trying to accomplish, as well as a few interesting anecdotes to liven things up... which essentially is what everyone else with a blog does, but different!

Who I Am

Well, I'm Mike.

More Specific

Since you're at least a little curious, I'll provide some quick snippets just to give a general idea, if you're really curious I suppose I could answer questions, but just go with it for now.

I'll be turning 25 this year. I have my BS in Biology from Philadelphia University, I'm a med school dropout, I work in the adhesives field fixing problems with industrial glue (why yes, it is a sticky situation) and I'm engaged to a supportive girl, May.

So... Screenwriting?

It's not just screenwriting, I want to direct what I write, see it come to life. At the moment though I want to break into the industry as a screenwriter. I'm not against seeing someone else use what I write, in fact I'd love it, which is why I started this blog, to help get my name out there along with the people that took all the good blog names.

I started writing as a lark in medical school. I say a lark because I did it during class and kind of stopped paying attention to what was going on. It's kind of a good indicator that what you thought you wanted to do really isn't what you wanted to do when you can so easily entertain yourself doing something else during it that in turn is what you actually want to do (no, really). I just wish I hadn't taken out a $50k loan to find this out, but hey, these things happen. So in early 2005 I left school and tried to find a day job to support myself while I worked on my writing.

Thing started off kind of shaky, since being a Biologist I really had no training whatsoever in anything having to do with writing. My first draft of a screenplay more or less looked like a list of what I wanted to happen as opposed to anything coherent. I mean, I could have made a movie from it but it would have made Eraserhead look normal if anyone else picked it up.

So, over the next year and a half I wrote several screenplays, rewrote a few, then I actually started researching how to write an actual screenplay. Since I wanted to direct them I wrote them as shooting scripts, which of course is a silly mistake in retrospect, but hey, what did I know?

I had entered the screenplays in a few contests to unanimous results that they were improperly formatted, so I bit the bullet and bought a few books. The first one was The Screenwriter's Bible which really showed me that I had no idea how to format a speculative script, and Story by Robert McKee which showed me that I also had no idea how to do a coherent narrative.

A few months later and two books under my belt I was ready to rewrite my scripts into usable formats. I started first with Vengeance, my mystery/thriller story that I particularly enjoyed. I finished the second draft a scant few hours before the March 1st deadline for the Bluecat Screenplay Competition and sent it off. I also signed up to attend Robert McKee's Story Seminar at the end of the month, so hopefully that will go well.

That about sums up where I am now, and this blog will track what happens next. I hope you stick around.