A few thoughts on the bad guys

I've been checking out reviews--professional and otherwise--of recent superhero epic flicks, and, to be honest, they have not been good. While most of the critics had their own issues, there was one common denominator that ran through all of the reviews I saw.

The bad guy. What the hell did he want? What was he trying to do?

It's like this--you get a team of superheroes together, or you have a situation that's so desperate you put a team of super-villains together, you had better spend some time convincing your audience that your antagonist has both a huge, sinister plan that makes some kind of sense, and is capable of pulling it off.

The bad guy wants to destroy the world? Why? Doesn't he have to live here, too?

The bad guy wants to rule the world? What does that mean? Does he want everyone to pay taxes to him? Does he want to be able to order everyone around? Does he want to have absolute control over each and every person on the planet? Again, why?

Because he's evil doesn't count as a motive. Even if he is evil--and I cringe when I hear characters defined in that way--even if he's crazy, he still has a reason for doing what he does. There's something, real or imagined, in it for him.

I'm willing to forgive the recent Ghostbusters film for having this issue because it's a comedy, and I enjoyed the cast so much I was willing to cut them some slack on this aspect of the story. However, for an action adventure movie it's kind of hard to overlook.

Not that I don't understand. Coming up with a convincing, scary bad guy is really difficult. I'm having that issue myself with a project--I need an incredibly powerful antagonist who had dark designs on humanity. And it has to be a global threat, not one aimed at just a certain person or persons. And he has to have a reason for doing what he's planning to do, and that's the hard one--there just aren't all that many motives out there for doing something like threatening all of humanity. Individual humans, yes, but as a species? No. Unfortunately, my protagonist wouldn't be interested in anything less. Damn her.

But you know something? You come up with a truly bad-ass villain, with a dark and global but viable plan, and with an understandable motive, and you got a story, baby! Most of the movie will write itself.

That's the basic problem, I think. Most of these films coming out now start with the heroes, and, let's face it, there just ain't all that many villains out there that Superman couldn't handle. You need to start with the guy Superman is going to be facing off against, and make him someone that Superman could possibly lose to. Make it so that Superman is required to deal with it. Or Batman. Or whomever.

Anyway, I hope all that makes sense.

Project updates - Citizen ZED

I asked a friend of mine to read an early draft of Citizen ZED and she didn't get the ending. Which is a bummer, as the ending is what makes it dramatically satisfying. So, I'm shelving it for a little while as I work on another project. I'll come back to it shortly, probably in the next few days, hopefully rested and ready to fix the problems with it. I still love it, and I think the story works, it just needs some clarification. There's something missing and I can't quite figure out exactly what it is. One thing I'm doing, which may help, is making a slight change of the title, to The Making of Citizen ZED.

The other project I mentioned above is a short short film I'm calling "My Creature." I actually wrote a draft of the script last week but it was too long and it just didn't work. After obsessing over it all week I finally figured out the problems with it, and hopefully this current draft addresses all of them. I know I'm a lot happier with it.

The plan for the short short is for me to shoot it myself, some time down the road. I plan to play a part in it, opposite my goddaughter. I've never acted before but this role is personal for me so hopefully I can pull it off. My goddaughter is an accomplished actor already,  so I'm not worried about that role. This will be two firsts for me--as director and as actor.

Of course, this is down the road a bit. I have a personal situation involving my day job that needs to be resolved before I'll be able to devote the resources I need towards making a film, even a short one.

I'll need to hire a Director of Photography and a professional to handle sound for "My Creature," not to mention I'll probably need to rent a soundstage, and some equipment and props. And get insurance for the production. Fortunately there are a lot of local resources available as a lot of movies and TV shows are filmed in this area. Atlanta is third in the country, behind Los Angeles and New York, in that category. Plus, I'll need to arrange transportation for my co-star and her mom. Accommodations won't be a problem for them as they can stay with me, or with grandma, who lives in the area.

As for me acting in this thing--I've always heard that every director needs to act at least once to understand what actors have to do to perform their job. This is as good a shot as any for me to do that. Also, if I do it, I won't have to pay somebody else to play the role. Save money!

Of course, that's assuming I find the money to do this thing. To do it right it'll probably take at least five grand. This, for a project that'll probably be around five minutes long. Yes, filmmaking is expensive!

So, after I finish this short short I'm going to go back to the feature. Hopefully by then I will have been away from it long enough for me to see ways to address the problems with it.

Here's hoping situations resolve themselves in a way that'll help me to go forward with all these grandiose, crazy-assed plans!

Progress Report - Citizen Z.E.D.

I've begun the rewrite for this project, and it's coming along swimmingly.

Perhaps too swimmingly. I've re-read it several times over the past day or so, tweaking and whatnot, and I'm totally in love with it. Which may not be a good thing, as being in love with something sort of makes one oblivious to its flaws.

I'm mostly worried about it being coherent. It makes perfect sense to me, but then I'm writing the thing, so I understand all the subtexts and the contexts and all the other -texts. I'm going to ask someone to read over it for me if she has time to see if it makes sense to her, too. This will be, of course, after I've re-read it once or twice more. And, of course, my friend will have to agree to read it--she's pretty busy. She knows absolutely nothing about this thing so her opinion will be pretty accurate, I'd say.

I also added a couple of scenes because there were places where a transition was needed. This, of course, has made it a little bit too long. I'll be going in and trimming it presently. Right now it's exactly 122 pages. It needs to be 120, at most. I know, two pages doesn't sound like much, but often it's hard to cut enough to meet that target.

This is a good thing, though. I've never had to trim a script where it didn't improve it. No matter how long your script is, you can be sure that there are things in there that need to go, and they will improve the project by their absence.

So, that's where I am with that. There's a contest for science fiction scripts that has a deadline of August 1--I'd like to be in a position to enter it. But if it's not ready by then, so be it--there are always other contests.

Citizen Z.E.D. first draft

I just typed FADE OUT on the first draft of Citizen Z.E.D.

What does this mean? It means it's done!

Now what? Well, I'm going to let it sit a few days while I mull over other projects. Maybe a week or so. I'll come back to it next weekend to begin working on a second draft, hopefully with fresh eyes that'll see the problems I missed when I was writing it.

This is the fastest I've ever reached this point. It's taken me longer to write short stories. I guess I was fired up about it.

This is the most political thing I've ever done, and hopefully it won't come across as preachy. I hate that. There is a point to it, and I am hoping people will take something away from it, but if that overshadows the story then that would be a Bad Thing.

Which is why we rewrite. And rewrite. And rewrite. And rewrite. This one is going to go through some serious revisions before it's ready to be seen by anyone but me. Maybe this story will contribute towards making the world a better place, in some small way. I hope it does.

But, above and beyond any messages I'm hoping it'll spread, I'm hoping people will dig the story, even if they disagree with the message. That would be the best possible outcome.

Anyways, that's where I am with this thing.  Now, on to developing a mini-series I've been toying around with, and some other, non-screenwriting things I need to do.

The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the author . . .

So, I've been writing a particularly intense scene in Citizen Z.E. D., one that pushes several of my personal buttons.

And dammit, I'm letting the anger and vitriol flow. Mostly because it's a first draft, and that's what first drafts do--I can get this crap out of my system and then go in and edit it down so that it's not quite as painfully obvious. Nobody wants to get beat over the head with the message when they see a movie. Not even me. Not even when I agree with the message. Which I do, in this case, the title of this post notwithstanding.

It's coming along pretty well. I'm maybe a third of the way through it now. After I reached the end of the first act I thought I'd take my traditional week off before diving into Act II, but just couldn't stay away. Which is a good sign.

So, I'm going to keep banging away at this thing, and hopefully I'll be done with the first draft by the end of July. Or even sooner, maybe.

I know I've said this before, but it can't be emphasized enough--don't expect the first draft to be perfect. If something isn't working, don't worry about it. Get the whole story written down first. Then you can go back and start hacking away at it. It's amazing how much easier it is when you take that attitude. It's also amazing how often you'll think of something later in the story you can use to fix a problem from earlier. We're using computers now, so it's much easier to do rewrites!

Just so you know, episode two of The Metasaurs is available. Check out episode one, if you missed it. Just so you'll be caught up. I'm mulling episode three right now, when I'm not hammering away at the first draft of this feature film thing.

So, I've been hacking away most of today. I think I'm due to give myself a break and let the well of inspiration start filling up again. I'm also about to kill off one of my central characters, so I sort of have to brace myself.  I'll take a nice walk and let my subconscious start putting the pieces together. Nothing like moving around to get the juices to flowing!

Okay, that's all the unasked-for advice I'm giving out today.

Citizen Z.E.D. is in progress!

I finally got motivated enough to begin writing the first draft for this film project I've been thinking about forever.

Basically, I finally sat down and thought it through and came up with the ending. Unlike many writers, I need to have an ending before I get started--I need to know where I want to end up, before I set out. The hard part of this one is the ending is a realization of something that is key to the plot, something that the characters in the movie don't realize they've discovered until after the movie ends. My problem was dramatizing that realization.

In other words, how do I show that a character has realized something? That's tricky. In a novel it'd be easy because a novelist can always say what the character is thinking. In a movie you could do that, maybe with a voice-over, but it'd be kind of hard to do in a way that didn't seem overly manipulative or as just out-and-out lazy writing. You could have a character say, "You know, I just realized . . ." but that's only marginally better. No, you need a way to show the realization.

And that's really hard to do, especially in a way that is meaningful to the audience. Want a good example? Go back and watch The Blair Witch Project again. The ending to that is exactly what I'm talking about, and I've talked to people who are highly intelligent and perceptive who didn't understand exactly what was going on there. However, if you were paying attention, you'll know exactly what is happening, and that knowledge informs and provides a lot of emotional impact to that ending. It's powerful when that happens, which is why I love that movie so much. To me, it's a masterpiece.

So, after a lot of thought, I came up with something that'll be a little through-line for this film that'll turn out to be a key to the ending. Something that all of the characters think is trivial that'll wind up becoming the key to understanding the whole thing.

And, here's the kicker--the characters in the film won't even realize that they've answered the central question of the movie until after the movie is over, though the audience will know it immediately.

To see what I'm talking about you'll have to see this thing for yourself. If I can get it made. If, of course, I can finish writing it. I'm about to finish Act I so I am well on my way!

Of the first draft, that is . . .

Metasaurs episode 2