In Search of Citizen Z.E.D.

Two types of movies that I lose patience with very quickly: time travel, and "found footage."

So, needless to say, a project that came to me a while back, and which now has a title (see above), is both a time travel story and a "found footage" one.

I'm really excited about it, because I've finally managed to think up a story that I think will address a couple of issues that I think are important, and do so in an engaging and entertaining way, without becoming preachy.

Beyond that, I don't really want to say much more right now. It's still in the early stages. Next step will be to write a treatment for it, and that will require some more thought.

In the mean time I intend to focus on this idea for a short, "Niobe," which I will begin plugging away on as soon as I post this update.

I've finished the first draft of Two Many Tonys and I'm letting it sit for a little while, as I work on these other things. By the time I come back to it hopefully I'll be able to read over it with fresh eyes and know what changes need to be made--beyond those that resulted in me changing my mind about some things as I was banging it out.

So, I'll be plotting and writing "Niobe," treating In Search of Citizen Z.E. D., and trying not to allow any more projects crowd my already limited attention. It's not easy. For some reason I've been coming up with other ideas that I really like, and older ideas I've had are sort of waking up and clamoring for my attention, too. One of the curses of doing what I do, I guess.

Anyways, time to work on this short thing, and hopefully manage to pound out something that'll be both engaging and under twenty minutes or so in length.

And watch football. Because I just can't help myself.

Projects on deck, in queue, and at bat . . .

Okay, a more normal posting from me now, about what I've been up to lately.

I'm maybe 2/3 of the way through the alpha draft of a screenplay for a mystery that I'm calling Too Many Tonys. I call it an alpha draft because it's not quite together enough to be considered a first draft. I've changed my mind about some key plot elements and I'll have to straighten all that out with a rewrite later. Right now, if somebody besides me read it, it wouldn't make much sense, because of that.

Once I get to the "Fade out:" for that project I'm going to put it aside for a couple of weeks to work on a short project I'm calling Niobe. It's more of a drama, and I don't expect it to be longer than 10 script pages. Maybe less. It's going to take some intense concentration on my part to get it down to that short because I've got a lot of story to tell and I'm not giving myself much time to tell it. It'll take some thinking to get it down to that length without making the story seem choppy. I'm also planning, eventually, to shoot this one myself, which is another consideration. That won't be until sometime next year, though, at the earliest. I'm not going to be setting this one aside--I'm going to focus on it until it's done.

Then, once I'm done with that script, I'll jump back onto Too Many Tonys and begin the rewriting process. Within a couple months hopefully I'll have this baby to the point where I can copyright it and register it with the Screenwriter's Guild.

After that, I've got another short project I want to do--this one is more horror than anything. I'm calling it Inside, and it's based on my own song of the same title. I plan on shooting this one myself, as well. I'm expecting it to be around 10 pages or so in length.

By that time I should be ready to start on this project that, right now, has me a bit intimidated. I don't have a title for it yet, but it'll be a science fiction piece that involves time travel. Yes, I know I've said I hate time travel stories, but this is such a good idea . . . anyway, it's one of those stories that could really make some statements I feel need to be made, and be entertaining at the same time. It's also going to take some intricate plotting, and the pacing is going to be especially tricky. It's one of those things that'll either be great, or really suck. There won't be any in-between.

Then there's another drama about a preacher with something to hide, based on a short story I wrote years ago, that I think would make a decent little movie.

At this point it gets a bit nebulous, but I do have some things I'm considering--most of these would require me acquiring the movie rights so they'd fall into the area of pipe dreams at this time:

• A prequel to the Predator movies
• An adaptation of Michael Moorcock's The War Hound and the World's Pain
• An adaptation of the Karl Edward Wagner and David Drake novel, Killer
• A romcom about a couple who has been living together for over a decade deciding to get married--and the Queen of England winds up attending the wedding (due to various and sundry hijinks and escapades . . .)
• A "bitter home boy" story set in a small Southern town I'm calling Misery Creek.
• A horror movie set on a space ship

Of course, all of this is subject to change. Hopefully I'll live long enough--and somehow find the time and money--to do all this. We'll see . . .

Hopefully this will clear up some of the confusion . . .

I was chatting with my goddaughter the other day, and we were discussing movies that are out now and which one, if any, I should see. She suggested Pan. I told her that I don't particularly care for Peter Pan.

She was aghast, and horrified, and thought I couldn't love her anymore because she adores Peter Pan. I told her that, first of all, I don't hate  Peter Pan, it's just not something I care for. Also, she is free to continue loving it all she wants, and I'd even watch the movie with her if she wants. I also explained that I don't expect her to like the same things that I like, and she's free to watch or read or listen to whatever she wants, as long as she enjoys it.

She accepted this and was overjoyed that we might get to see Pan together.

My goddaughter is 11 years old, and even she could grasp a concept that seems to elude an awful lot of people these days.

Choice:

 the act of choosing : the act of picking or deciding between two or more possibilities: the opportunity or power to choose between two or more possibilities : the opportunity or power to make a decision: a range of things that can be chosen

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/choice

See, I've been seeing all these memes on Facebook posted by people who oppose abortion about how it's the first step in eliminating people who may oppose those in power. It's just another tool for keeping people down. This from mostly people on the far right.

Of course, for something like this to work, abortion would have to be mandatory. There would be police officers rounding pregnant women up to force them into clinics to have abortions. While I've seen that happen in other places in the world, I just don't see it happening here anytime soon.

See, what gets their dander up is choice. They don't seem to understand that just because you can do something, it doesn't mean you must do something. If something is legal they seem to think it's mandatory.

This is one of the tools in the lunatic fringe's toolbox. They did the same thing with marriage equality--skipping right over the fact that all it does is give gays the right to marry each other, and making it seem like it's required now, for everybody, or will be in the future.

The folks who buy into this seem to have problems grasping that concept. It's not just politically, either--if you don't like the movies they like, or the food, or whatever, they think there's something wrong with you, not that you just don't care for it.

So, here's my deal. You can marry who you want, you can go to whichever church you want, you can believe politically whatever you want, you can read whatever books or see whatever movies you want. The fact that I may disagree with you is not a slap in your face, and the fact that you may make decisions that I wouldn't make is not offensive to me.

But when you decide that you know what's best for me, and use lies and misinformation to try to limit the choices I can make simply because you don't like them, it's a step too far, and then I will get offended, and I will say something.

So, please, understand what the word choice means. Use it in a sentence. Try to apply it in your daily life.

If you still don't get it I know an 11 year old who could probably explain it to you.

The Visit, directed by M. Night Shyamalan

M. Night Shyamalan's latest film, The Visit, compares favorably to his more successful efforts, The Sixth Sense, and Unbreakable, though it is a bit of a departure from those two earlier films.

The basic plot is a teenaged sister and brotherr, Becca and Tyler (Olivia DeJonge and Ed Oxenbould) are sent to visit their grandparents by their mom, (Kathryn Hahn), while mom takes a trip with her boyfriend. Since mom has been estranged from her parents for years, the two kids have never seen their grandparents, and know very few details about them.

Of course, all sorts of strange things happen, and the suspense builds until the kids find out exactly what is really going on. The film is presented as a documentary filmed by Becca, who is a budding filmmaker, and that is something you'll need to keep in mind as you watch it.

Like The Sixth Sense, there is a twist that will change the context of the story. Unlike that other film (which is on my list of all-time favorite movies, btw), the twist here is quite sinister. The Sixth Sense is an even better movie if you see it while knowing the surprise at the end. I'm not sure I can watch The Visit again, knowing what's really happening.

Shyamalan made some odd choices as far as his staging goes--many of his shots have all of the activity in the shot going on to the left of the screen, with nothing at all on the right. I'm sure this was deliberate, and possibly it was his way echoing what was going on in the plot--by the end of the film staging was a lot more traditional, and we also know a lot more of what was going on with the story.  I'm sure that the conceit that it was supposedly shot by an amateur filmmaker had some bearing on it as well.

Performances were solid all around, and the film has the look you would expect from Shyamalan, with a gorgeous color palette and interesting contrasts. There are plenty of shocks and scares, and, while the ending isn't quite as satisfying as I'd like, it was still wrapped up nicely.

I'd recommend it. See it, at least once.

On a side note--I was a bit disconcerted, during the previews, at the number of movies that were "based on a true story." I find those incredibly tedious. I don't mind films based on true stories per se; it's when they are marketed that way that I find them annoying. Why? Because an awful lot of people forget about the "based on" part and just assume that every shot, every word of dialog, every bit of action, is what really happened. Uh, no. Don't ever use a narrative film to help you decide how you feel about a historical event, because chances are an awful lot of it was just made up to fit whatever narrative the filmmaker wanted to relate.

Okay, those are my thoughts about The Visit. Have you seen it? If you did, what did you think?

How to eat an elephant

I've made some personal decisions over the past week or so that I'd like to share here.

After going through a good bit of personal struggle, I've decided that I'm just going to give up writing fiction. There are reasons for this decision that I'm not going to go into right now, but it's the best way for me to go.

I'm going to concentrate on films now. For the next few months I'll be working on writing screenplays and treatments. During the next year or so I'm going to begin accumulating the equipment and software I'll need to start shooting and producing my own films.

Which means I'm about to get into directing, which is something I have no clue how to do. I'm going to start small, maybe shooting a short film or a music video or something, and hopefully work my way up to bigger stuff.

Until I start investing in this rather expensive new hobby, though, I'm going to educate myself as much as I can.

I've got a lot to learn. I don't have a great deal of time. Most people who get into this do so when they're a lot younger than me--most filmmakers at my age at least have a ton of short films under their belts by now. I'm going to take it a little at the time. I used to have a manager at my day job who was fond of saying, "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at the time." Which means, even if the task is monumental, it can be done if you just break it down into smaller, more manageable, tasks.

For example--I'm working on a screenplay for a crime drama, and the plot is going to be a bit complicated. There's a mystery at the heart of the story and those are always tricky.

So, I started by breaking it down into broad, basic statements that outline each act. Then, I develop each of those a little more, giving a bit more info, and going into some detail about the ending. This is the treatment, and having the basic outline is very helpful. Just remember not to go into too much detail unless you must--you need to spell out the ending because that's what any producers who are interested in the project will want to see, but a lot of the smaller details of the plot can be referenced broadly or even omitted entirely.

To give you an example, here's my own outline for a movie I know you're familiar with, my personal all-time favorite, Alien:

• Act I: The commercial towing vehicle Nostromo lands on the planetoid LV-426 to investigate the origins of an alien radio transmission. One of the crew is infected with a parasite. Back on-board the ship, the parasite erupts from the crewmember and escapes onto the ship.
• Act II: the parasite has grown to enormous proportions, and it begins grabbing members of the crew and taking them away for reasons unknown.*
• Act III: Warrant Officer Ripley escapes the Nostromo using the emergency shuttle, and blows up the Nostromo in the process, after the creature kills the two other remaining crewmembers..
• Act IV: Unknown to Ripley, the parasite has taken refuge on the shuttle, too. She manages to expel it. She makes an entry into the shuttle's log before climbing into the stasis tube to go back to suspended animation and hope someone finds the shuttle.

See? Of course, there's a helluva a lot more than that, but this is a pretty decent summation, I think. Now you can take each act and expand it, giving more detail, working out the plot. It should be no more than a page or two when you're done. Then, you start writing the thing itself, where you finally start worrying about the details, but only for the particular piece you're doing.

Easy peasy, right? Well, it helps. I'll be taking the same approach toward learning my new hobby, directing, too. One bite at a time.

So, that's what's going to be eating up all my time and money over the foreseeable future.

*To get a pretty good idea what the xenomorph actually did to Dallas and Brett see Ridley Scott's 2003 director's cut. You owe it to yourself.

My top five film list

I'm planning to get quite a bit of work done on this screenplay thing this weekend. So, right now I'm indulging in a time-honored tradition of all writers, everywhere--I'm screwing around with something trivial to put off getting into something important.

So, I decided to post my top five films, along with my thoughts about each. I will reiterate that, on my list, while numbers 2 - 5 will change positions depending on my mood (but it'll still be the same five films), #1 has consistently been #1 since I first saw it in the theater in 1979, and I don't see any upcoming films that have the potential to dethrone it.

So, here you go:

1. Alien. There. I said it. Anybody who knows me will tell you I'm obsessed with this movie, and they'd be right. The sequels--not so much, really. Why? Because the characters are relatable, the setting looks and feels authentic, the creature is terrifying. It's a film that has an agenda--to scare the hell out of its audience. It succeeds. It's a perfect organism, with no fear, no remorse, no delusions of morality. Everything about it is perfect--the film score sort of puts the viewer in a place of unease from the opening titles, the soundtrack is disconcerting throughout. The pacing is perfect. The cast doesn't spend any time winking at the camera like in so many other horror movies--they take it seriously, allowing the viewer to buy into the idea that the stakes are life-and-death. And, yes, this is a horror movie, with science fiction trappings, but still, its primary bloodline is horror.
2. The Sixth Sense. People seem to consider this a scary movie, or a horror movie, and I don't really see why. Sure, there are ghosts, but they aren't very scary. It's actually a touching, beautiful story of a young boy and his mother adjusting to life after his father leaves them. I watched this with my eleven-year old goddaughter recently and she didn't find it scary, though she loved it. She also got to see me cry, as I always do, at that scene near the end, with the boy and his mom in the car. When he says, "Grandma says she saw you dance," the waterworks switch on for me. Dammit. Every time. One reason I love this movie is because it's even better when you watch it after you already know the big surprise at the end. Watching it again, knowing the big secret, will reveal a lovely, sad, touching story of a woman mourning her husband, unable to move past his murder. Beautiful performances all around. I know he has his detractors but I like Bruce Willis in a role like this. He was wonderful. As was everyone else.
3. Citizen Kane. This is the only movie on my list that I don't actually have in my collection. I realized that yesterday and promptly ordered the 70th Anniversary edition on BluRay. Considered by many critics to be the best film ever made--I wouldn't go quite that far, but it's a damned fine effort, especially considering it was Orson Welles's first feature film. Welles knew nothing of making movies when he got the gig with RKO to make five of them, so he was learning as he went. He and his brilliant cinematographer, Gregg Toland, found a way to shoot a deep background shot where both the foreground and the background are in focus. The screenplay, by Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz, tells a compelling story of Charles Foster Kane, a man whose life story bears a striking resemblance to that of William Randolph Hearst. It's not one of those movies that'll put a spring in your step and a song on your lips--it's kind of a downer. But it's one of those that, if you say you love movies, you have to see at least once.
4. Casablanca. Yeah, another black-and-white movie. This one mixes a dark sense of humor with a gripping story. When you watch it, remember the context of the time in which it came out--it was 1942, and the war in Europe was far from decided. Keep that in mind in particular during the "La Marseilles" scene in Rick's café. That one scene is my favorite in any movie anywhere. It'll get your blood to pumping. It's also an example of an economical scene, too--it shows why Victor Laslo's followers are willing to die to protect him, why the Germans were so afraid of him, and why Ilsa was so in love with him. It's also a dramatic f@ck you! to the Nazis. My god, I love that scene so much.
5. The Godfather. A great example for writers to use when learning their craft. How much exposition to you absorb during the first, say, ten minutes or so? You aren't even aware of it, even though quite a few times you have a character who is just explaining what's going on. It's so interesting you don't care. Brando's performance shows why he was considered one of the greatest actors ever. Duvall was wonderful, as always. Pacino was great, able to handle the dramatic evolution of Michael from an honest citizen and war hero to the head of a major crime family--trust me, there aren't many actors out there who could pull something like that off. Diane Keaton turned in a performance of great subtly, too, as a deeply religious woman in love with Michael, even though he becomes someone she considers a monster before the end. I'm not as big a fan of the sequels, though the second one is very good, but see this one, anyway.

Okay, I think as soon as my copy of Citizen Kane gets here I'm going to have a film festival!

So, what would your list be?

Progress report and randomocities

I've decided what I'm currently doing with my screenplay Yod-17 shouldn't really be considered a first draft.

Yes, it's a screenplay, and a draft per se, but I know that the final draft will have little resemblance to what I'm doing now. All I'm doing is telling the story in screenplay form. Basically, I'm just laying it out, and when I'm done I'll write a treatment for it, since I'll finally know where the story is going. After that I'll begin the first rewrite, which I will then consider the first draft.

To me, this is the most organic, natural way to do it. Others may have other methods. This is what works for me. I'll do a rewrite, let it mellow a while, then do another one. Then another one. Usually after four rewrites, maybe five, it'll be in good enough shape for me to consider letting other people look at it. I hope to be at that point by the end of the year, maybe early next year.

There isn't any hurry, really. Any timetable I have is one I'm imposing on myself.

One reason I'm doing this is to have a script I'm completely satisfied with available to submit to contests, or to use as an audition for any screenwriting jobs. I have a couple of others but both of those have strings attached to them so I can't be sending them out willy nilly for people to look at. The only other script I had was a pilot for a TV show that I've mentioned here in the past--a series I'm calling Strange Aeons. I just submitted that one to a screenwriting contest, so it's kind of tied up right now, too, for a while. Anyway, it'll be nice to have some finished work available that I can actually show to people if I want.

Here's an example of a writing exercise I indulge in sometimes, just for your amusement. I went out to breakfast this morning, taking with me the Orson Welles biography I'm currently reading. At the IHOP I made eye contact once or twice with the gentlemen sitting at the booth next to mine--he was also eating alone. He had his newspaper, I had my book, to keep us company.

In another booth across from us sat another man, also alone. He had no book, nor did he have a newspaper. When I first noticed that I thought maybe he was waiting on someone, but no. He placed his order and the waitress brought his food, which he ate, looking straight ahead as he did so.

For some reason I find this fascinating. I usually have to be doing something while I'm eating--reading, doing a crossword puzzle on the app on my phone, watching TV, something is keeping me company. To me, this is only natural, and I think most other people are like this, too.

Am I wrong? What do you think this man's story is?