Month: November 2008

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Fan Mail

From the mailboxes at dfmamea.com:

Hello,
My name is Michael and I have just viewed your film “Five”. I must say i’ve seen many movies in my day and yours was by far the worst I have ever seen. You have robbed me of 90 minutes of my life that I would have happily spent watching paint dry instead of watching this crap. You have failed as a person and a writer may god have mercy on your soul.
Thanks Michael Ibbotson.

 

hello Michael
thank you for watching Five and for taking the time to email me your thoughts.
regards
d f mamea

I look at Mr Ibbotson’s email and I smile. I’m not sure why.

Is it the novelty of his being the first email of its kind?

Is it that its grammar and spelling are a hop-skip-and-jump ahead of most of the emails I get from people I don’t know?

Is it that on his MySpace profile, his favoured films include ‘Shooting and killing movies, funny movies, and surfing movies’, and under books he lists ‘Motor Mag, Tracks Mag [and] Surfing Life Mag‘?

Or is it that he took the time to share his thoughts and put his name to it in these days of internet anonymity?

Whichever the reason, ‘Ibbo’ has given me cause to smile today, and I thank him for that, too.

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Tick Tock

You know those black-and-white films where –

INT. NEWSROOM – NIGHT

Several strata of cigarette smoke span this large room. A handful of reporters sit at their desks, hands and fingers stabbing and massaging their typewriters.

An OFFICE DOOR opens to reveal THE EDITOR, cigar in a corner of his mouth –

EDITOR

I want five hundred words on string theory using words of three syllables or less! Which one of you bums feeling lucky?

One dozing JOURNO pushes his fedora up from his eyes and sticks a well-chewed pencil stub into his mouth:

JOURNO

Give me ten minutes, chief – five if Miss Stanton brings me a cup of joe.

How do they do that?

(Okay-okay-okay: it’s a movie.)

I was flashing on those kinds of scenes when I took up a 24-hour theatre challenge last weekend. Twelve hours to write a ten-minute script (to be followed by another twelve hours where the director and actors would make the script a reality). I’d spent the first two hours thus: 30 minutes to find out the actors’ strengths and weaknesses (the director couldn’t make the meet-and-greet so I’d have to wing the content and style); 15 minutes to drive home; 45 minutes of quality time with The Goddess; and 30 minutes of, among other things, making coffee, adjusting my seat, realigning the rubbish on my workspace for optimum feng shui, scheduling my chocolate intake, and surfing the net.

… Maybe the quality time was more 30 minutes (and no less) and the fart-arsing writing prep/warm-up was 45 minutes.

So. There I was, in my cave, mentally juggling the following elements:

  • three actors – one male and two females – to play with;
  • two props – a length of rope and a violin case – to work into the story;
  • and less than ten hours before I had to hand in a script.

The first opening riffed on Waiting for Godot. Maybe too self-referencing. I stopped after the second line of dialogue.

The second opening came straight out of Casablanca. I stopped the moment I typed (V.O.).

I had beginnings but no ends. With the nine-hour mark rapidly approaching, I tried to tackle it more from a production point of view instead of my usual story-is-king position.

I had my props, both meat and inanimate. I had a running time. I was one of six writers, and my position in the playing schedule was four – after an intermission. Assuming the first three plays were trend- and bar-setters, I needed to get right into the action. I needed to stake a claim on the audience’s attention, and keep it.

A filthy smile formed on my lips: What if we returned from intermission to some good ol’ bondage?

I laughed out loud.

The stage is BLACK as --

HAYLEY

(unseen)

Aow! ... Yes. ... Agh! ... Yes!

LIGHTS UP on --

And in that beginning was the ending, too.

Sometimes, I’m just too cool for school.

POSTSCRIPT: As it played out on stage, all I could see were the bits of dialogue I could have trimmed, all the action I could have written, as well as an act that is one long fridge moment. But it has a beginning, middle and end. It has a set-up, exposition and pay-off. And it got some laughs, none of them cheaply, and moved. Thank the gods for actors – and the director, of course.

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Aktors

When making small talk at gatherings, once all the parties’ occupations have had their two questions, an inevitable question thrown in my direction is What’s it like to work with actors? My usual answer is that they’re a necessary evil – a cross to be borne in order for us writers to tell our stories.

It gets a laugh – obviously I don’t give this answer when in the company of actor/s – but just between you and me, I’m a little afraid of actors.

Being a working screenwriter might be all about getting paid and buying things on TradeMe but it don’t count for a slab of Whittakers’ finest if you don’t get produced. And to get produced, amidst the small army of collaborators who will trample your ego, mince your work, and sully your vision are… actors.

Unless you take up puppeteering, anime or cartooning, you’re going to have to accept the fact that someone – not a clone of you, not some doppelganger of you – is going to take your words and –

– and what? At worst, expose you to be the hack you’ve been all along.

At best – and this happens more often than you think – bring your characters to life in ways you never imagined.

Of course what you see in readings/rehearsal/shooting/editing it’s not what you had in mind. Those uppity actors are asking a million questions about motivation, moulding your characters this way and that, challenging the backstory you created. They’re taking over… and as they put a face and tic and walk to your characters, they’re irrevocably changing them.

Change is good.

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Being There

Theatre director (and good neighbour) Duncan was over for a beer the other day and we talked a bit about technology making things like sets and locations and actors redundant. (I’m exaggerating.) He looked forward to the future promised by Sin City and 300. I struck back with Stars Wars Episodes I-III, and misremembered/misquoted Roger Ebert‘s essay on Werner Herzog which mentioned the rapturous truth of being on location.

Even though we were only talking about hypotheticals, the discussion camped out in a corner of my head. Surely there was more to my response than cynical pop references?

As always, the universe provides: last week, Stevo patiently guided The Boy and I through an afternoon and evening of a pool game of the FIFA U-17 Women’s Football World Cup*. At first, all I could think about was the physical discomfit of the cold plastic seats, exposure to the elements (a cold wind, passing showers), and the stench of fried food and stale beer. But somehow this was overcome by the immediacy of the game playing out right in front of me, the roar of the sizable crowd, the chanting and singing of blocs of fans supporting the teams. I got caught up in the spirit of the game. I started watching.

I’m not a sports fan to the dismay of my longtime male friends but I’ve been exposed to enough televised sport that I know when a player’s off-side, where the gully and slip are, what a zone defence entails, and the joke that is ‘non-contact’. For all that, I don’t care for it, really. When it’s on the box, I’ll just as readily watch Banzai! as world cup rugby. But take me to a live game –

– where I’m a short physical distance away from the action with little to no possibility of instant replays –

– and there’s a polite controlled mob hysteria that I’m happy to be swept up in –

– where else could I be as exhausted and aghast with each and every close call that happens on the field? Where else could I not care for the shrieking from the woman in the seats behind me?

I can’t speak for actors but the wannabe filmmaker within me believes that the let’s pretend approach can only take you so far. The environment and your senses inform what you’re doing. Whether you’re fighting frostbite at a rugby game or racing against the light on location, nothing beats being there.

*  When Bern asked, What were you guys doing at a women’s football game?, I flashed on my niece’s look of Yeah, riiight when I tried to explain to her that I watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer for its brilliant and daring storytelling.

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Resuming

You’ve watched all of The Wire – Season Four that you bought with your Borders voucher (chur Ash). There’s no more of The Shield until next week. The toilet’s clean and sparkly. You’ve been for a run, and The Dog, at least, is happy.

Time to write.

This is worse than starting with a blank page – most times I bring up a blank screen, I’ve an idea of what I’m writing. No, this is when you have to pick up from where you last left off – a day, a week, a month, or years ago.

You’ve had some time-out, right? You’re refreshed! You’re raring to go! Bring it on!

Except… the last CUT TO: sneers at you from it’s right-alignment: And then what happens, sparky?

You open a NeoOffice window and your fingers, previously frozen, erupt onto the keyboard:

Okay. Okay. Back to basics. Whose is the dead body in the alley? H. E. Roe.

How did s/he die? S/he did the right thing.

And what was that? S/he stepped up. S/he took a stand. S/he took a chance (and lost – but the point is that s/he backed hirself).

Anything specific? … Nothing comes to mind.

You don’t know, really, do you? … Nope.

…

How’s your Christmas shopping going?

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Naming Names

In the beginning, I didn’t care much for my character’s names. They just were, know-what-I-mean? Didn’t serial killers just happen to be called Gacy and Bundy? Didn’t Stallone and Schwarzenegger become action film brands? So what if my sister and I were named after our neighbours? (And why do people find this amusing?)

Names are important, though:

A name is like a tightly-wound DNA molecule, capable of conveying information about characterisation, tone, story and theme.
– Elliott & Rossio

I’ve long since run out of first and middle names of friends, family and acquaintances. Unlike John August, no streetnames I can remember or think of lend themselves to being affixed to my puppets characters.

I have to work at it. But maybe I learnt from the best:

INT. LOUNGE, MY PARENTS’ HOUSE – EVENING – SOME TIME AGO

My MOTHER cradles her week-old grandson, DAVID (not his real name), and makes coo-ing noises. My FATHER peers at the packet of swaddling and wrinkles.

FATHER

What’s his name?

ME

(proudly)

David.

My mother wrinkles her nose.

MOTHER

What sort of name is David?

ME

‘S a great name – direct and unambiguous.

My father nods slowly and, after a beat, clears his throat:

FATHER

(to child)

We will call you... Safune.

DAVID/SAFUNE

Gurgle.

MOTHER

(to Father)

He likes that.

ME

(getting a little cross)

What’s wrong with David?

Safune and his grandparents ignore the recently-minted father and leave the room.

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