FIVE is available to be viewed for free at film.com.
For a limited time only.*
* Cackle! ‘Ve always wanted to say that.
I’ve Got Something To Tell You
You know the point in the movie where the AUDIENCE-SYMPATHETIC CHARACTER, already keeping the peace between PLOT-ADVANCING CHARACTER and MUTE-UNTIL-NECESSARY CHARACTER, realises that Mute~ has crucial information that will affect the outcome of the film and so does the obvious thing:
AUDIENCE-SYMPATHETIC CHARACTER
(to Plot-Advancing Character)
I need to tell you something –
PLOT-ADVANCING CHARACTER
I don’t have time for this –
AUDIENCE-SYMPATHETIC CHARACTER
But it’s important!
PLOT-ADVANCING CHARACTER
(claps hands over ears)
LALALALALALALALALA!
Moments like these are vital for there to be suspense, victory and/or tragedy down the line. But it’s about as tired and welcome as the telephone call from someone with vital information who won’t spill it over the damned ‘phone.
If I was watching an okay to great movie or T.V. ep and one of these exchanges turned up, the whole thing was spoiled for me. (Nowadays I’m a little more forgiving.) Then a couple of movies seemed to turn the tide. I watched them so many times that, whether I wanted to or not, I’d studied them. Two things I learned from James Cameron‘s The Terminator and Aliens:
One: if there’s potential film-ends-right-now information to be exchanged, introduce an external interruption –
AUDIENCE-SYMPATHETIC CHARACTER
I need to tell you something –
PLOT-ADVANCING CHARACTER
I’m all ears.
A passing .50 CALIBRE SNIPER ROUND vaporizes Plot~’s head.
Two: even better, make the external interruption the pay-off of a much earlier character set-up –
PLOT-ADVANCING CHARACTER
(sotto)
I was thirsty so I got a drink from the fridge... nope. Then I rinsed the glass and set it on the shelf... not there either.
Audience~ enters, flustered:
AUDIENCE-SYMPATHETIC CHARACTER
I need to tell you something.
PLOT-ADVANCING CHARACTER
Hm?
Plot~ continues retracing their steps.
AUDIENCE-SYMPATHETIC CHARACTER
Mute~ said something. I can’t make sense of it but it’s something important.
PLOT-ADVANCING CHARACTER
Really?
(sotto)
Then I sat down to watch the telly...
AUDIENCE-SYMPATHETIC CHARACTER
Mute~ said, “Beep. Beep. Beeeeep.”
Plot~, already half-way to the LOUNGE, freezes mid-step.
AUDIENCE SYMPATHETIC CHARACTER
Does that mean anything to you?
TIGHT ON PLOT~ as he turns – and REAL-TIME SLOOOWS DOOOWN –
ANGLE ON MICROWAVE as it counts down – 0:03, 0:02, –
SLO-MO as Plot~ shoves Audience~ aside –
SUPER-TIGHT ON MICROWAVE L.E.D. as it reads 0:01 –
WIDE ON Plot~ in mid-flight, headed straight for the microwave –
SUPER-DUPER-TIGHT ON LAST L.E.D. DIGIT as it switches from 1 to 0 –
MICROWAVE
Beep. Beep. Beeeeep.
One could argue that the external interruption is a mere variation on the knock on the door or ringing telephone that cuts in on an escalating conversation. I agree: there is that about the first device.
But the second device takes it a step further: by removing the deus ex machina, it makes the characters more responsible for their own – and others’ – destinies. It gives a story that circular/holistic/karmic/we’re-all-in-this-together touch.
Y’know, like in real life. But with more guns and car chases and stuff.
Hospital Waiting Rooms
In films and television, the hospital waiting room is where our protagonists get The Bad News. (Unless it’s a comedy and someone’s about to give birth with help from a Third World-trained and -accented duty doctor.) It’s invariably Bad News along the lines of parents’ long-limbed catwalk model daughter being disfigured and will look merely average, or an athletic and square-jawed boyfriend who will Never Walk Again, or a friend who Always Loved Life and Lived It To The Full contracting a Terminal Disease. You know: plot turning-point kind of stuff.
I’m in a hospital waiting room as I type this. There’s no emergency or anything – I’m here with a friend who doesn’t like hospitals. They’re understandably nervous and anxious to get this over with. For my part, I’m cool to wait. It’s not an I’m-glad-it’s-not-me kind of cool. It’s a calmness borne of experience: a lot of my early childhood was spent in doctors’ and hospital waiting rooms. So despite decades of passive exposure to ER, Bodies and Shortland Street, I don’t find hospitals or doctors’ surgeries particularly discomfiting. They’re just a place to wait, sometimes for hours on end, so the mind must be occupied with something (and a Matchbox car or three no longer cuts it nowadays).
You’re wondering what the hell this has to do with screenwriting.
I’ve… no idea. I’m in a -, oh I’ve said that already.
… Okay. Two things.
One: a really cool thing about being a writer is that you can write anywhere.
Two: I’ve realised that – with the exception of a failed Shortland Street application – I haven’t written a hospital waiting room scene in any of my scripts. But one thing I’m going to put in it when I do? A sense of waiting that won’t require someone to stand up and huff: I’ve been waiting here for hours!
100
Gosh.
Hundredth post.
I may not have written as much as I wanted to since 1 January 2007 but I’ve –
- run a total of 558kms (97kms of that sans mongrel);
- picked up 170 books, comics and scripts, and read 137 right through;
- and sat down to watch 128 films, DVDs and TV series, and watched 105 right to the (sometimes bitter) end.
‘S not bad. And because it’s that time of the year, I give you a list of notable and recommended reading and viewing experiences (in strict alphabetical order):
- comics: Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos’ Alias, Charles Burns’ Black Hole, Brian K Vaughan and Tony Harris’ Ex-Machina, Chester Brown’s I Never Liked You, Jimbo’s Pulp Sticktion strip in DMC‘s New Ground anthology, and Alex Robinson’s Tricked;
- scripts: 28 Weeks Later, The Bourne Ultimatum, Casino Royale, Gone Baby Gone, and Perfect Creature;
- books: Carl Hiaasen’s Basket Case, Mike Figgis‘ Digital Filmmaking, Thomas Harris’ Hannibal Rising, Patrick Suskind’s Perfume, and Patricia Grace’s Tu;
- features: The Children of Men, The Departed, Everything is Illuminated, Serenity, and Stranger than Fiction
- television: Burn Notice, Green Wing, Homicide: Life on the Street, The Insiders Guide to Happiness, The Shield, and The Wire.
As for the running, I do it only so that I fit my clothes.
Happy new year.
Ho’s Galore
Shopping’s done. Work’s been (mostly) mothballed.
There’s a pile of reading material awaiting my grubby hands. Not far away is a stack of DVDs to be devoured.
And, for the first time in a while, the entire Mamea aiga* shall greet the Christmas morn with hugs, presents and a sickening amount of chocolate.
To all Beloved Readers (six**, actually, thanks to Feedburner) – a happy and loving Christmas and/or Hannukah to you and yours.
* Again, my apologies to the family for the possessory credit.
** Okay: four if I exclude the bots.
After the First Draft
INT. STUDY – NOW
YOU pull a FILE from your FILING CABINET and open it on your DESK.
ANGLE ON a BOUND SCREENPLAY with the words “First Draft” underneath your name.
You pick it up and feel its weight, a smile playing on your lips.
CUT TO:
FLASHBACK – INT. STUDY – A FORTNIGHT AGO
You type “FADE OUT” on the POWERBOOK SCREEN and lean back in your CHAIR. You press a couple of keys and the PRINTER whines to life.
TIMECUT as you savour each page as it comes out of the printer.
TIMECUT as you THREE-HOLE-PUNCH all the pages, smiling as you re-read the scenes that wrote themselves.
TIMECUT as you bind the pages with 3/4-INCH BRADS, feeling elated and all-round chuffed that this first draft will require only the most minor tweaks on its way to Oscar platinum.
CUT BACK TO:
INT. STUDY – NOW
You shuffle your buttocks to get comfortable in your chair. You turn to the first page.
The little smile you’re wearing falters, then flips itself over. The favourite scenes that wrote themselves a fortnight ago are now cliches riddled with logic errors. The remembered elation and all-round chuffedness is replaced by the realisation that set-ups and/or pay-offs you meant to include are tragically missing.
You look up, blinking rapidly. You can do this. You turn another page.
INT. STUDY – ONE HOUR LATER
You slump in your chair, the ninety pages in your hands heavy with disappointment and promise. You take a breath. And slowly release it.
Yes, that was dreadful. But you can see the idea driving it all. And despite the typos and cliches and holes and leaps, you recognise the enthusiasm that produced it. You sort of like it – the execution sucks in places – but you still like it.
You get out a PENCIL. And you get back to work.
Box Watch Postscript
Despite the promise of The Street‘s pilot, subsequent eps have disappointed. I thought their About Schmidt-ep with Jim Broadbent was a blip but when it was followed by The Crucible-ep with Neil Dudgeon, and Timothy Spall’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?-ep, we cried uncle. Four episodes into the season might be overly generous and forgiving of us but I think it shows how much the acting talent elevated the scripts. Tch.
Last man standing is Burn Notice which, though light and disposable like a LAW, remains breezy and entertaining with no soapy aftertaste. Man cannot get by on one show alone – sure, I’ve a backlog of DVDs to watch study but I need my fix of regular programming and the current free-to-air schedule is, in a word, desolate.
And thanks to the very connected Motorbike Steve, The Goddess and I’ve enjoyed the pilots for Bionic Woman and Dirty Sexy Money, and look forward to more. Arriving soon is the much anticipated Pushing Daisies and the rather intriguing Dexter.
Also – miracle of miracles – we’ve just embarked on a seven season retrospective of Homicide: Life on the Street. That series nails everything so well, it’s only things like the ubiquitous smoking and the box-shaped cars that date it. Damn, it’s good.
Summer’s not looking so shabby after all.
Pitch Engine
Last week, the mailboxes of New Zealand Writers Guild members, associates and supporters were crossed with the Guild’s revived and renamed quarterly magazine, Pitch Engine. A successor to the quarterly WriteUp that shifted online for a couple of years, PE intends to Get Out There and Build Awareness. Props galore to executive director Steve Gannaway and editor supremo Dara McNaught for getting the mag up and running in a mere few months.
Issue One includes interviews and articles from the likes of Outrageous Fortune creators James Griffin and Rachel Lang, The Ferryman and Stickmen scribe Nick Ward, and Facelift and Futile Attraction writer Benedict Reid.
Available at a Whitcoulls or Paper Plus near you.
(Disclosure: Yes, I have a couple of articles in there – one I’d impulsively pitched on the spot to them (and then had to deliver), and the other an amalgam of these two posts.)
It’s Who You Know
I thought this kind of thing only happened in stuffy American Gothic-type novels:
LADY’S VOICE
M~ & A~, good afternoon.
ME
Good afternoon. I’d like to make an appointment with Mr M~, please.
LADY’S VOICE
Are you an existing client?
ME
No.
LADY’S VOICE
I’m sorry, Mr M~ isn’t taking any new clients this year.
ME
Oh.
LADY’S VOICE
If you like, I could give you the name of –
ME
No, thank you, it’s okay. It’s just that F~ S~ referred me –
LADY’S VOICE
F~ S~?
ME
Yes, F~ said –
LADY’S VOICE
I’m sure Mr M~ would like to see you. May I have your name, please?
Point & Click
This week, in lieu of my usual witterings, I offer you:
- At The Editing Room, Rod Hilton writes ‘abridged scripts’ of popular films – but in an indecently irreverent spirit that harks back to web classics “movies in a minute” and “movies with bunnies”. Behold his takes on The Bourne Ultimatum, The Departed and Ronin.
- Bang2Write head script-reader, Lucy, is oft-name-checked in the UK scribosphere – and for good reason: her Write Here, Write Now blog has gems aplenty to offer, like no, your script idea has not been nicked, Worst. Feedback. Ever., and The List. (Collective fedora-tip: Messrs. Barron, Clague and Stack.)
- A mere twelve months ago, Severance scribe James Moran listed seven reasons why his beloved horror genre can sometimes suck ass. Read. Memorise. Avoid. (Insta-fedora-tip: Write Here, Write Now.)
- Former Paramount Theatre manager Dan Slevin used to throw together the best – the best, I tell ya – weekly e-newsletters. I may have been in the wrong city at the time (Christchurch, then Dunedin), but the reviews, descriptions and one-liners were a pleasure to read, and welcome heads-ups on what might (eventually) hit the South Island. He’s now the Capital Times film reviewer – and generously reprints his reviews at his blog, Funerals and Snakes.
- And for something different, try killer-fact.com where literary quizzes (what novel opened with “Call me Ishmael”?) gleefully rub shoulders with polls like which Spice Girl to eat first when all the food has run out on your desert island. (Fedora-tip: NZBC.)
Update: the killer-fact.com page now says “This account has been suspended – please contact billing…”. Guess you’ll have to take my word for it.