Category: Scriptwriting

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2013 on Screen

2013 went by rather quickly, didn’t it?

Here’s my best–of, in no particular order.

Features

2013 was a year when, more often than not, the fifteen or so bucks I paid to watch a feature on the big screen felt like money well spent.

Zero Dark Thirty
Iron Man 3
The Big Year
Chronicle
The Guard
Utu Redux
Gravity
Unit 7
Martha Marcy May Marlene
Saving Mr Banks

Television

For Mr White and friends, it was the end of an era — long live the king. As life goes on, Florrick & Associates continues to pull strongly, the Houses of Stark, Lannister, et al, remain compulsive viewing, and Nurse Peyton prevails in her adventures with prescription medicines.

Arrow — Seasons 1–2
Secret State
Hannibal — Season 1
Top of the Lake
The Americans — Season 1
The Newsroom — Season 2
The Fall — Season 1
Run

In another box–heavy year, honourable mentions to Boardwalk Empire, Mad Men, Endeavour, Karen Sisco, Last Resort, Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD and The Fosters. Not perfect, some no longer with us, some not really my cuppa, but good, well–made telly.

Onwards, ho!

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Notch Update

After a couple of months of no running, I bought a bike — meet Gazza:

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I took the bike on a couple of my usual running routes in what I assumed would be an easy transition back to sweaty guilt-ridding exercise.

The five–kilometre clover–leaf route on asphalt should’ve been a doddle on a bike. Except I’d forgotten that:

  • it had been a long couple of months since I’d had any aerobic exercise; and
  • the terrain around Fortress Mamea is a bit hilly — good for virtuous hill-climbing but not so good when going downhill and flashing on a down–hill biking accident I had when I was younger (and lighter) (and fitter).

Undeterred, I thought the local forest trail — a not–quite–eight–kilometre return route — would be pretty straight–forward.

Ah, no.

If I thought going downhill on asphalt was retraumatising, going downhill over gravel the size of my fists was — there are no other words for it — fucking terrifying. After the first moderate hill decline, I walked the bike down the long steep portions and, due to my lack of fitness, pushed the bike up those same long steep portions.

I was so grateful to be alive I took a selfie on the way back:

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I’d like to resume running now, please.

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Notch

I haven’t been for a run since late August. Despite my favourite exercise dichotomy of No pain, no gain and If it hurts, stop doing it, discomfort got to a point where I thought I’d better take a small break.  A week’s self-prescribed rest, two trips to the specialist and four weeks prescribed rest later… and I’ve gained a notch on my belt.  And I have another fortnight of rest before I can attempt light exercise.

Persistent readers know I’m not a big fan of running but I persist because 1). I like to fit my clothes, 2). I like to eat as much as I want, 3). it’s as easy as stepping out the door and just bloody doing it, and 4). it provides thirty to sixty minutes of concentrating solely on putting one foot in front of the other.  I suppose I’ve been busy enough to not get too crotchety and/or fidgety.

But that notch on the belt.  It’s a worry.

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White vs Crawley

Fortress Mamea had been pretty good at hoarding recordings of the final eps of Breaking Bad, until loose lips in the real world threatened to spoil the surprise. A little bit of binge-watching has remedied this somewhat.

INT. SCREENING ROOM, FORTRESS MAMEA – NIGHT

Our WRITER and his GODDESS remember to breathe again as the end credits roll on ep 14 of “Breaking Bad”.

GODDESS

Oh what will we watch when this is over?

WRITER

Season four of “Downton Abbey” returns soon.

GODDESS

But not it’s not the same.

I suppose not.

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Spinning

(I could’ve sworn I’ve used the plate spinning metaphor on this blog but nothing’s popping for plate, plates or spinning. I await the sigh-and-eye-roll of the librarians amongst you to school me on my own blog.)

One of the banes of this writing gig has been the resounding radio silence that almost always follows the dispatch of a script to interested parties. I’m more patient than most but the waiting and wondering and imagining has always been difficult:

  • I know the script has been received;
  • I know the interested parties have other things on their plates;
  • and I know that I – just – have – to – be – pa-tient.

But my imagination can run riot:  was the script downright terrible?  was the script really badly received?  have I fallen from favour?

The anxiety of not hearing hasn’t been so crippling the last couple of months.  There’s been a deadline every few weeks and as each one has been met or pushed, there’ve been other projects in my queue to leap into.  I’m busy enough that I’m aware that I haven’t heard back from whoever, but I’m not really concerned:  I have another deadline to meet.  It’s nice.

Actually, it feels pretty damned good.

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Legacy

Last month I was asked what kind of legacy I wanted to leave behind – that if I had ten years left in my writing career, what would I want to be known for – film? television? theatre?

I was stumped in that moment as the following questions fizzed and Twister-ed through my head:

  • did I want to keep writing for the silver screen?
  • or did I want to try a running jump for the golden-age-of-television train?
  • or was theatre – with all its in-built ‘Nam-movie-like flashbacks to the terrors of Sunday school – my metier?

All I managed in reply was a drowning fish impression.

The past few months has seen me more focussed than usual on a number of projects*. Whenever I’d stall encounter a problem challenge – like a question of plotting, or a certain character inconsistency, or finding the right typeface for the title – the question of a “D F Mamea legacy” would flick about my head like an annoying insect.

I can understand the motivational aspect of thinking about a legacy. I already know what I want to achieve in five/ten/twenty years’ time. For me, the thing about the question of legacy is that 1). it assumes a level of control from beyond the grave, and 2). it infers the kind of ambition that I don’t think I have.

I want to tell stories. I want to keep close around me the people I enjoy working with. I want to hold onto my loved ones because they’re a dream come true.

So. The plan is to a). continue writing whatever turns me on – and/or pays handsomely – over the next five/ten/twenty years, b). enjoy the process not just by myself but with my fellow creatives and collaborators, and c). persuade The Goddess that the installation of an half-ton AS/NZS3809-compliant safe is a heckuva deal for as many Kaimanawa ponies as she wants.

Legacy, schmegacy: write it – and if people like it, good.

 

* Winning a couple of awards is a wonderful intermittent reinforcer.

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Toy Throwing

Saw Man of Steel with The Boy a couple of months back. Besides the decidedly age-based concern about the amount of (inevitable) real estate damage in the final showdown, I couldn’t help thinking about the little people. (I wasn’t alone either.) As buildings were pulped and dust billowed every-which-post-9/11-way, I kept flashing on this film:

By chance, the aiga had watched Chronicle the week before – and during that film’s climactic showdown I was flashing on this:

Yes, Alan Moore‘s Miracleman.  I doubt we’ll see any film or television adaptation of this revisionist beast (a protracted rights wrangle is approaching its twentieth anniversary) but Chronicle‘s tale of three friends who gain superpowers and whose good intentions go wrong not just for them but for the puny humans around them, is a nice and engaging substitute.

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Meet and Greet

The past few days’ burning question has been: Would I still write this post if I hadn’t been an award recipient?  Close behind it has been this Schrodinger follow-up: Would I still be an award recipient if I hadn’t decided the day before to attend the event?  (Employees and families of employees of the organisers are not allowed to answer the second question.)

So, yeah, wow. Last Thursday I went along to the SWANZ awards, cheering for the competition because that was the only way I could deal with the pressure… and Goodbye My Feleni won.  And the night itself, viewed in the preceding fortnight with dread and anxiety, turned out to be a very pleasant evening indeed.

I got to meet and talk with:

Ahh, networking. Not always as painful and dreadful as I imagine.

* I know they’re more than playwrights.

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