December 2008 Archives

30 December 2008

Pots on the Boil

INT. LOUNGE, HOME – EVENING

I lie in the arms of THE GODDESS.

I haven’t done ANYTHING this year.

THE GODDESS

Oh rubbish.

I’m serious.

THE GODDESS

What were you busy doing at the beginning of the year then?

... The short film.

THE GODDESS

And what have you been doing with those playwrights, hm? And that stuff for the guild?

I open my mouth, then close it.

THE GODDESS

And then there’s your radio play. Well?

You can’t just let me feel sorry for myself, can you?

She kisses my forehead --

THE GODDESS

No, I cannot.

What have I achieved this year then?

I wrote a ten-minute play in twelve hours, and watched it premiere (and close) twelve hours after that;

I’m facilitating a disparate group of Pasifika playwrights (four months straight and counting);

I’m an (increasingly) active Board member of the New Zealand Writers Guild;

I’ve had a short radio play accepted for broadcast on National Radio;

and I did some script consulting on a couple of projects.

I’m tempted to skew my stats a la the police leadership in The Wire but, for me, a project isn’t finished unless it’s finished, knowwha’Imean?

So:

To’ona’i crawls towards completion;

I’m co-writing a play, to premiere in 2012;

I have my own play to push – and thanks to the joys of ~~misery likes company~~ peer pressure, the first act is due by mid-January 2009;

the diversionary feature spec has copious thematic and strucutural notes… but an actual story has yet to emerge;

enamoured with the short radio play’s ‘success’, I’m writing an hour-long radio play: I’ve got the opening and closing acts while the middle is currently all rough notes – forty pages to go!

and the long awaited spec feature of 2007 has been roughed out and is approaching a proper first draft.

[Takes a few steps back and squints]

Okay. I suppose it’s just about perspective.

INT. LOUNGE, HOME – LATER

Maybe this is my dash. Maybe this is IT. Maybe –

THE GODDESS

Maybe you needed a year to consolidate.

I thought last year was a consolidating year.

THE GODDESS

It’s a bit hard to consolidate when you’re juggling paying work, don’t you think?

I mumble something.

THE GODDESS

Pardon?

... I suppose.

She nods, knowing, as always, that She’s right.

25 December 200825 September 2013

Ho Hum

What are you doing reading this postdated post, hm?

I won’t tell if you won’t tell.

And, Beloved Reader: as you listen to David Sedaris‘ Santaland Diaries, a very merry Christmas/Hannukah to you and yours.

24 December 2008

Point & Click

I’ve done my shopping. I can do whatever I like now.

Danny Stack has ten essential ingredients to becoming a professional screenwriter (the first step? read.)

John August has some solid advice on what to do with your ~~ill-gotten gains~~ hard-earned ch-ching: money 101 for screenwriters.

Lynden Barber has a posted an excellent article on The non-cinematic art of David Lynch (with part one of seven here).

Another Kiwi scribe hits the ‘sphere: Sanjay Patel asks, in the context of local stories having global resonance, What makes a Kiwi film?

It would be just like Lucy Vee to be an agent of the universe and provide some online resources for writing a play.

Lee Lofland has a list of suggested pressies for the protagonist in your life (no Barretts or miniguns, but).

Jane Espenson has a post about writing comics, while —

— the Lair of the Kung Fu Monkey has a been taken over by comic scribes Mark Waid and Michael Alan Nelson. (“[A] comic story is made up of frozen moments” – I mean, who’d a thunk?)

And I’ve just read the final volume of Brian K Vaughan and Pia Guerra‘s Y the Last Man. Having swallowed tears aplenty, I have vowed to read the whole series through again (once the libraries reopen).

Ladies and germs – happy holiday reading, viewing and relaxing.

20 December 200819 October 2012

Apple-Shift-S

I don’t have a writing diary like The Daily Screenwriter.

I kinda/sorta used to. In the early days – a holdover from my old nine-to-five life – I used to have various spreadsheets that tracked the hours per day I was pouring into whichever projects. I don’t do it so much now.

What I still do – and it’s another holdover – is save each and every iteration of a script. Having been burnt in my formative wordprocessing years by M$ Word crashing and losing hours of work, every time I open a document, I immediately SaveAs and rename the file. No, I don’t rename it whatever strikes me at the time – I have a system. Here’s a typical filename:

081219 Bangers script 2.1.odt

From the above, I can see that:

it was generated or amended (as it was in this case) on 19 December 2008 (“081219 Bangers script 2.1.odt”);
it’s for my project, Bangers, a feature script about a socially inept butcher’s foray into adult entertainment (“081219 Bangers script 2.1.odt”);
it’s the script document (sometimes it can be the pitch or treatment or general notes) (“081219 Bangers script 2.1.odt”);
it’s version 2.1 meaning it’s on its first revision of the second draft (“081219 Bangers script 2.1.odt”);
and I’m using open source, baby! (“081219 Bangers script 2.1.odt“)

A directory listing of this file and its friends would look something like this:

081207 Bangers script 1.9.odt
081210 Bangers script 1.9.1.odt
081210 Bangers script 1.9.1.pdf
081216 Bangers notes 1.9.1.odt
081215 Bangers script 2.0.odt
081218 Bangers script 2.0.odt
081219 Bangers script 2.1.odt

Yes, a directory listing for any project I’m working on can run into the hundreds of files.

Yes, it’s anal.

But it’s comforting. It’s more a paper trail than a writing diary, but it’s proof that I’m progressing, one document at a time.

12 December 200819 October 2012

A Running Allegory

(Or should it be A Writing Allegory? It’s Friday afternoon and it’s all a bit much.)

INT. HOME – EARLY MORNING

I stumble through the FRONT DOOR, chest heaving and soaked through with sweat. THE DOG trots in after me.

Mindful of my appearance, I gingerly give THE GODDESS a hug --

THE GODDESS

How was your run?

Two poos, three wees, one dog and one false alarm.

She then crouches down beside The Dog and asks --

THE GODDESS

And how was it for YOU?

Next time you’re banging your head on a concept or synopsis or treatment, keep in mind that for all the hours and energy and eye-for-detail you’ll pour into your finished product, sometimes your reader just won’t care. And it’s nothing personal: Yes, your pitch was spot-on – but there’s a change of director, and they’ve got some specific visual and script ideas.

Take heart. It’s not you, it’s them: your product is as good as everything that you’ve put into it. You’ll have learned something from describing – planning, even – a project rather than just writing it. The experience will inform you as a writer. Learning and experience make you a better writer.

Now do it again.

And again.

And again….

INT. HOME – CONTINUOUS

I put my hands on my hips --

Oh ha ha.

-- and The Goddess, never one to tell me to calm down or shut up or get over things, gives me a hug anyway and says --

THE GODDESS

Can I make you a cup of coffee?

-- and I hold her and think: I am one lucky sumbitch.

8 December 200819 October 2012

‘Tis the Season

I find this time of year pretty hard. The world winds itself up for Christmas and the retail hell that that entails. Exercise that I’d promised to have started months ago has finally, belatedly, lurched into action. (What’s that? Eat less? Eject the person who said that this instant.) And projects that I’d hoped to have finished already recline in various corners of the cave, sighing heavily, and I try to attend to them when and where I can, very, very aware of the remaining ~~days~~ hours of 2008 flicking by with alarming speed.

But when I step outside the house, and The Dog’s on her bestest behaviour because we’re either a). going for a run or b). I’m about to play fetch with her, the warm perfume of jasmine envelopes me and I can’t help but inhale, and smile. For thirty minutes, I need only worry about a). moving one foot in front of the other or b). keeping The Dog from hoovering up chicken poo.

Afterwards, when I return to the house, I have more immediate concerns like chest- and leg-pains, or a canine who collapses in places where I’ll trip over her. I remember that if I don’t leave the cave, I won’t be caught up in the season’s rioting. I’ve assuaged my exercise guilt. And the projects lean forward, body language quietly screaming Pick me!, and things don’t look so bad after all.

2 December 2008

Point & Click

These haven’t been as regular as they ~~should~~ used to be. Let’s not get overexcited and think it’s been because I’ve had more to say of late.

Warning: some old news in here (I’ve been hoarding).

Why aren’t I all a-jingle with news of Bad Lieutenant being remade with Werner Herzog helming and Nicolas Cage in the title role? Maybe Abel Ferrara, who directed the 1992 original, says it best with “It’s lame” and “[Herzog] can die in hell“. But then I can’t help but be swept up by Mr Herzog’s response to hearing that: “That’s beautiful!” and then, with regard to Mr Ferrara himself, “I’ve never seen a film by him. I have no idea who he is. … Maybe I could invite him to act in the movie!” (Fedora-tip: Eyes Wide Open.)

In similar vein to Lotto’s What would you do? campaign, here’s some straight-up advice on what to do when you’re burning to make a film… and a lot of money falls into your lap. (Fedora-tip: a Headstrong Forum denizen.)

Check out fellow Pitch Engine contributor Gordon White‘s blog, smallscreens.com, in which he’s charting his progress as a screenwriter in the UK. (Fedora-tip: Dara McNaught.)

Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane is expanding his empire – o yea! (Fedora-tip: Gordon White.)

And finally, James Henry wonders what it might be like to do police work but with a screenwriter’s work ethic. My favourite: 4. Getting bored with writing up crime reports, so ending them with ‘and then a load of zombies arrived’.