I've been using my holiday to record the dialog for the new Metasaurs episode. I'm planning to shoot the video portion later on this week, and maybe edit it all together this weekend. This one is going to be a little tricky for a couple of reasons so it might take me a little longer than that.
Anyways, look for episode two sometime in the next couple of weeks. In cased you missed it, click here for episode one. And subscribe to my channel so you won't miss any updates.
I was maybe two-thirds of the way through a first draft of a comedy screenplay when the Queen of England screwed me over.
A big plot point of my story was a couple issued an invitation to their wedding to Queen Elizabeth via social media and she accepted. Problem is, she actually did that recently, in real life. Which completely kills my entire story. To add insult to injury, the author of the article I read about it used a lot of the same gags I was going to use.
Oh, well. I liked the characters and the setting. Maybe I'll come up with something else that I can use them in.
In the mean time I'm working on a drama I'm calling The Shadow of The Talon, about a journalist who is trying to discover the secret identify of a costumed vigilante (who calls himself The Talon, hence the title). It'll deal with some themes I've always found interesting, about the need for myths and legends in human society. Read Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces to get an idea where I'm coming from with this.
Plus I'm resurrecting my story for The Harvester of Faces. I've had some ideas recently that make that project attractive to me again, though I still have the problem I had before--the back story was far too complicated. Maybe I can figure out a way to simplify it enough to make it writable, finally. That story deals with a lot of the same themes as The Shadow of The Talon, but with a decidedly darker overall take on them. It'll be more horror/science fiction, whereas Talon is more straight drama.
Anyway, that's what I've been doing over the past little while. I'll post an update when the new Metasaurs episode is up.
Monday, May 30, 2016
Saturday, May 7, 2016
The Babadook
It's been a long time since I've seen a horror movie that actually gave me a good case of the creeps.
Mostly, it's because filmmakers don't seem to really know how to effectively make a horror movie. They spend all of their time designing the creature at the heart of the movie--and try to show it in all of its glory as early as possible--and forget about the people the movie is actually about.
That's right. While the movie may be named after the monster, the actual movie is about the people. If you have stock characters getting hunted and killed by the monster, it isn't very scary.
And, granted, that's what people expect nowadays when they see a "scary" movie--one that isn't really scary. Log onto your Netflix account and see how many movies listed in the "Horror" category are also listed in the "Comedy" section. And many of these aren't even parodies.
While you're logged onto Netflix, go into Horror and click The Babadook. That one is right where it belongs. You won't find it in Comedy, unless somebody has made a big mistake.
It's a good old-fashioned horror movie. The central characters are complex and sympathetic--they aren't perfect, but you can honestly say you know people like them. When the terrible things begin happening you are invested in them coming out of it okay. You care what happens to them, and you find yourself hating and wanting to lash out at this awful thing that is terrorizing them.
This movie is an example of my idea that big budgets are a bad idea for horror movies. This one was obviously made on the cheap, so the production had to find inexpensive ways to show the monster, ways that didn't burn through the budget but were still effective.
Those are the most effective ways to tell the story. If you spend millions creating a CGI masterpiece of a creature you want to show it as much as you can. Which effectively destroys any aura of mystery, the thrill and fear of the unknown--we see the damned thing in the first act of the film and, even if it is the scariest looking thing you can imagine, you know longer need to imagine it, so it's not quite as scary anymore.
Lovecraft said the oldest emotion is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. He is dead right. The more your audience learns about your monster, the less terrifying it is.
We can see what the monster does. We can feel its effects. We can hear it, moving around. But we don't know exactly what it looks like, or what it wants, or what it's actually doing. The longer you can prevent anyone from answering those questions, the scarier the thing will be.
And, in the end, don't really have a Big Reveal--show more than you've shown before, but you still haven't shown everything, you haven't answered every question. Which will make your monster scarier than ever.
Watch this thing to see what I'm talking about. Let's make more movies like this, okay?
Mostly, it's because filmmakers don't seem to really know how to effectively make a horror movie. They spend all of their time designing the creature at the heart of the movie--and try to show it in all of its glory as early as possible--and forget about the people the movie is actually about.
That's right. While the movie may be named after the monster, the actual movie is about the people. If you have stock characters getting hunted and killed by the monster, it isn't very scary.
And, granted, that's what people expect nowadays when they see a "scary" movie--one that isn't really scary. Log onto your Netflix account and see how many movies listed in the "Horror" category are also listed in the "Comedy" section. And many of these aren't even parodies.
While you're logged onto Netflix, go into Horror and click The Babadook. That one is right where it belongs. You won't find it in Comedy, unless somebody has made a big mistake.
It's a good old-fashioned horror movie. The central characters are complex and sympathetic--they aren't perfect, but you can honestly say you know people like them. When the terrible things begin happening you are invested in them coming out of it okay. You care what happens to them, and you find yourself hating and wanting to lash out at this awful thing that is terrorizing them.
This movie is an example of my idea that big budgets are a bad idea for horror movies. This one was obviously made on the cheap, so the production had to find inexpensive ways to show the monster, ways that didn't burn through the budget but were still effective.
Those are the most effective ways to tell the story. If you spend millions creating a CGI masterpiece of a creature you want to show it as much as you can. Which effectively destroys any aura of mystery, the thrill and fear of the unknown--we see the damned thing in the first act of the film and, even if it is the scariest looking thing you can imagine, you know longer need to imagine it, so it's not quite as scary anymore.
Lovecraft said the oldest emotion is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. He is dead right. The more your audience learns about your monster, the less terrifying it is.
We can see what the monster does. We can feel its effects. We can hear it, moving around. But we don't know exactly what it looks like, or what it wants, or what it's actually doing. The longer you can prevent anyone from answering those questions, the scarier the thing will be.
And, in the end, don't really have a Big Reveal--show more than you've shown before, but you still haven't shown everything, you haven't answered every question. Which will make your monster scarier than ever.
Watch this thing to see what I'm talking about. Let's make more movies like this, okay?
Thursday, May 5, 2016
A quick update on this and that . . .
I've recently posted a new video based on my song "Contact." I'm particularly proud of my guitar's tone on this one. It's thunderous and perfect. Give it a click and take a look. And also guess the story the video and song are working together to tell. If you're curious, the guitar I used is my Gibson SG. That axe is a total badass.
I've also been struggling to decide on a new project. I've been working on this comedy thing I mentioned previously but it seems to be fizzling. I was never especially wild about it anyway. I'm going to start working on another comedy that I'm a bit more excited about and which shouldn't be quite as difficult to plot out, as no sports are involved--writing about sports contains it's own set of problems, over and above the issues you encounter when you're trying to also write a comedy. So, Team Grandma is going on the back burner while the new project goes on the front with the heat up and the ingredients being added. I don't feel like I'm struggling to find the plot for this one quite so much so I should be able to at least get through a first draft on it in a couple months.
Anyways, that's all for now!
I've also been struggling to decide on a new project. I've been working on this comedy thing I mentioned previously but it seems to be fizzling. I was never especially wild about it anyway. I'm going to start working on another comedy that I'm a bit more excited about and which shouldn't be quite as difficult to plot out, as no sports are involved--writing about sports contains it's own set of problems, over and above the issues you encounter when you're trying to also write a comedy. So, Team Grandma is going on the back burner while the new project goes on the front with the heat up and the ingredients being added. I don't feel like I'm struggling to find the plot for this one quite so much so I should be able to at least get through a first draft on it in a couple months.
Anyways, that's all for now!
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