Firebug has made it to the quarter-finals of the 2017 Slamdance Screenplay Competition.
I’m experiencing warm fuzzies.
FIREBUG: quarter-finalist
STILL LIFE WITH CHICKENS: update
It’s official: Auckland Theatre Company will premiere Still Life With Chickens in March 2018. Mark your diaries.
Still Life… will be directed by Fasitua Amosa. Our actor, puppeteer, and other creative principals will be advised as we move into the new year.
I’m quietly excited.
2017 Screenwriting Research Network Conference
By Nathan Hughes Hamilton – https://www.flickr.com/photos/nat507/12468333624/, CC BY 2.0, Link
The past four days have been such a blur of ideas, conversation, food and shockingly warm weather that I’m still having trouble believing it’s Thursday already — I only flew down on Sunday to get a headstart on things and —. Did I say I’m having trouble believing it’s Thursday already?
I was very chuffed to attend the 2017 Screenwriting Research Network (SRN) Conference in Dunedin this week. It took me a good day or so to get my head around what the SRN mean by “rethink[ing] the screenplay in relation to its histories, theories, values and creative practices”.
Screenplays as more than just the starting points for film and television productions. I could dig that. Kind of.
Since Monday, academics and practitioners have rubbed shoulders and broken bread together on the Otago University campus, and I thought everyone played rather nicely together. Highlights included — beware shameless name-dropping:
- being on a couple of panels with filmmaker Tusi Tamasese, multihyphenates Steve Barr and Casey Zilbert, and producers Catherine Fitzgerald and Christina Milligan;
- enjoying talks by Rachel Lang, Fiona Samuels and Kathryn Burnett, and Alan Brash (scheduling meant I missed out on talks by fellow guild board members Allan Baddock and Andrew Gunn, and guild ED Alice Shearman);
- presentations by and/or chats with Terry Bailey, Shirin Brown, Alejandro Davila, Paul Janman, Desha Dauchan, Levi Dean, Eugene Doyen, Emily Duncan, Patrick Gillies, Mauro Giantini, Amie Taua, Rosanne Welch, Paul Wells, Gavin Wilson, and a gentleman screenwriter from Wanaka whose name I neglected to note;
- and keynotes by film maker Gaylene Preston, New Zealand Film Commission CEO Dave Gibson, New Zealand On Air CEO Jane Wrightson.
Big props to organisers Davinia Thornley, Al, Amie, Maureen Lloyd, Pippa, Katie Baddock, and a small army of volunteers for making the whole occasion smooth sailing.
The next conference is in Milan. How hard can it be to knock up an abstract on Screenwriting as discomfit: at which point did I begin to self-identify as a writer?
Why I Hide From My Lovely Wife Reason #2
I’m always writing notes for one thing or another. It helps pass the time if I’m waiting in a very long bank queue, or trying to look busy and productive.
At some point, those scribbles on recycled paper are scrutinised in the hope that something interesting has popped out of my idling brain.
Below is an excerpt of an idea I’m doodling with:
Dramatis personae
-- an idealist who will be corrupted
-- an innocent who will be sacrificed
-- a damned soul who dares to seek redemption
As I looked at that role call and its accompanying notes, I admired my subconscious mind: this could be the beginning of something. Those three characters, executed with care and precision, could exceed their archetypal origins and become players in a story that an audience could care for — cheer for, even — unaware of the cruel fates I have in mind for them. Why, this story —
INT. FORTRESS MAMEA -- DAY
Our PET WRITER turns to find his LOVELY WIFE reading over his shoulder:
THE LOVELY WIFE
(off Pet Writer’s notes)
... Another rambunctious comedy, I see.
Cultural Divide
By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, Link
The lights dim and you press Play on your entertainment system. You lean back in your seat to enjoy another entry in a well-loved genre. It’s quite likely a story you’ve seen a few thousand times by now, but you recognise the names of the creatives and you’re willing to give things a whirl.
You know the story, the one about the willful child who careens from one self-inflicted calamity to the next, while their forbearing parents, patient and compassionate (and invariably well-resourced), try their best for their child. And we know how it ends — on screen, at least: as our story reaches its appointed climax, the child — having spurned their awful, selfish and clueless parents for the preceding 80 or 345 minutes — returns to the arms of their parents, safe, secure and totally forgiven.
The earliest memory I have of exposure to such stories is from The Wonderful World of Disney television series when I was ten or eleven. That same memory includes 10-/11-year old me exchanging a look with my Awesome Sister, and together we would look at our Stern but Loving Parents, and we’d think, That shit would never fly in our family.
Process Anecdote #103
I’ve just written the end of my latest project: my fingers were a blur over the keyboard as they typed direct from my subconscious onto the screen.
It felt rather satisfying getting these last few lines down:
Here’s the thing, though: that’s all I have in script-form at the moment. I have a three-page treatment I threw together a few months ago but it’s dry and plot-heavy.
I may have eighty or so pages of script to write but confidence is high: by golly, I know where I’m headed.
Lud
The first warning signs showed a couple of years ago.
Fortress Mamea runs on 10.6 Snow Leopard, an operating system that’s now seven generations behind the current OS.
We like 10.6. It works for us. The Lovely Wife can still watch ponies galloping in slow motion on Youtube, while I can keep in touch with friends and colleagues near and far (and still write, obviously). Online schmoozing sometimes required Skype which has been a no-brainer.
Until now.
I guess the Macbook Pro is slowly but surely headed for pure writing duties.
An upside could be more efficient writing.
But I wouldn’t count on it.
Process Anecdote #79
I was doing a pass on a script recently when I resolved each and every outstanding note with an insouciant flick of the pen.
It felt good. (Too good, as it turns out a few passes later, but hey.)
And as I savoured that sweet moment, I flashed on this short by Australian writer-director Matthew Saville.
“A Writer and Three Script Editors Walk into a Bar” (2013) — Matthew Saville
Nifty
Eleven Years
Last Sunday was the eleventh anniversary of this website.
I kid you not: unless my maths is awry, we opened in 2006, our first anniversary would’ve been 2007, which means 2017 makes this site eleven. Years. Old.
I’ve a few productions under my writing belt, I’ve been published, and now I’m also writing for theatre. I have representation. Various projects are in various stages of progress. There are a disturbing number of people out there who I’ve never met who know my face and/or my work.
I reside in a new, improved (and defensible) Fortress Mamea. I remain enthralled by The Lovely Wife whose love and calming words have kept me out of jail all these years. Our children are making their way in this world. Our animals are happy and healthy and loved.
A touch over a decade on, I feel considerably more comfortable with referring to myself as a writer. I’ve a better grip on my process, my grasp of the rules and tools is less tenuous, and my slate of projects means I’m rarely short of a story or an idea to explore or develop.
… Yeah. I think I might have the hang of this writing gig now.