New Metasaurs episode on the way?

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.

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?

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!

Double feature Sunday!

I did something today I haven't done in a while--saw two movies at the theater.

First one I saw was the Melissa McCarthy flick The Boss. This was more for research than anything else--I'm working on something myself that's in a similar vein.

Overall, I'd say it was okay. I actually did laugh out loud a couple of times. I had my little notebook I take with me when I go to see movies and didn't write anything in it about this one. While that means I didn't love it, it also means I didn't hate it, either. Inspiration-wise, I figured out a couple of things about my own project from watching this one, things I need to do and one pretty key plot element I've been neglecting that i need to emphasize.

I'd give it a B-. If you like McCarthy's previous movies you'll like this one, too.

Second film was Disney's The Jungle Book, which I saw in 3D. This was a totally different kettle of fish.

I'm a fan of the old Disney cartoon, and Shere Khan is one of my favorite all-time movie bad guys, so my expectations for this were pretty high. I have to say that this film exceeded them. It was wonderful. Idris Elba's performance as the voice of Khan was spot-on and brilliant. Billy Murray was great as Baloo the bear. Scarlett Johansson as Kaa the snake was very good. Ben Kingsley as Bagheera the panther brought heart and wisdom to the character. The only thing I had a quibble with was the whole bit set in the temple of the monkeys. It just didn't work. King Louie (Christopher Walken) is menacing young Mowgli (Neel Sethi) and suddenly breaks out into this silly, light-hearted tune? I could understand it if the song had some menacing undertones but this was just a goofy little kids tune. It just sort of threw the vibe for the scene out of whack. I think the intention was to strike a note of silly but scary but it didn't quite get there. It wasn't enough to ruin the movie for me but it mars an otherwise outstanding effort.

The story itself is rich with symbolism and metaphor, as well as being an entertaining tale for its own sake. Director Jon Favreau and DP Bill Pope created a film that is visually stunning and worth watching just for the sheer beauty of the images on the screen.

I give this one an A. And a hearty recommendation that you see it.

Getting started is so very hard to do

Gods. I've just started wrestling with this comedy, writing the first draft, and let me tell you, it ain't easy.

Starting anything new isn't easy, but starting a new story is even harder. You have to establish the characters, the setting, put the plot in motion, get the damned thing started. All of those are heavy stationary objects, too, so it takes some effort to get them rolling.

Once you get them rolling it gets easier, as they all take on some momentum and the story starts telling itself. Then, it becomes hard to stop.

This thing I'm working on is a comedy, too, which is a bit of a new thing for me. Comedy is incredibly difficult. It's the only genre where you can't afford to miss the target. If a horror movie isn't scary--and very few of them are, really, these days--you can still enjoy it as an adventure story or something else. A mystery can be entertaining even if you figure out whodunit in the first act, if the characters are interesting or the story is compelling. A comedy that isn't funny, though? Dead before it gets started. Doesn't matter how well acted it is, how clever the story idea is, how well shot it is. If you ain't laughing, it ain't working.

So, writing comedy is intimidating. I know there are people out there who do it successfully on a consistent basis, but those people are rare and should be considered national treasures. (See Dave Barry for an example. If you don't know who that is you owe it to yourself to check him out.)

Anyway, my story is sports-related, which should provide its own opportunities for hilarity.

Will I be successful? We'll see. I can be pretty funny, if I set my mind to it. At least, to me. Maybe to a few other people, too.

On a separate note--this week we said goodbye to Prince. While I've never been a huge fan of his music, I always admired and respected him as an artist, and was in awe of his genius. His death hit me pretty hard, to be honest. We're running out of those guys, the true innovators with the nerve and courage to blaze their own trails and the integrity to protect their vision from those who would corrupt it.

It's been a brutal week, in more ways than one. Hopefully, next week will be better. It has to be. Dammit.

New projects and life developments

I can't really go into details, but I've received some unsettling news this week. It doesn't involve any of the projects I talk about here and I'm not at liberty to talk about it quite yet, but it's going to result in a major life change for me.

Basically I'm being forced into doing something that I've been thinking about doing for a while now, as a friend reminded me recently when I was whining to her about it. The only thing is now I don't have a choice, where before I could do it, or not, at my leisure.

Anyway, as soon as I can I'll post it here so the one or two of you who read this thing will know what's going on.

As far as projects go, I'm in a bit of a quandary there, too. I've been writing the first draft of a science fiction story that I love, and I'm almost at the end of the first act. And I also have an idea for a comedy that will not go away and leave me alone.

Right now I have to be a bit cold-blooded about it and look at it objectively. Which one is more likely to have a shot at getting made?

A significant part of the science fiction story is set on a space station, with zero gravity and other special effects. Those things ain't cheap.

The comedy is set in the here-and-now but it's about a football team so there will be several scenes set during a game, and those can be really tricky and expensive to shoot. But not nearly as expensive as shooting someone floating around on a space station.

So, I'm going forward with the comedy thing now, and putting the science fiction story on the back burner and letting it simmer a while.

Tomorrow I'm planning on going to see The Boss, as it's in a similar vein to the comedy I'm working on now. I'll probably also see The Jungle Book, too, just because I want to.

Have you watched my first short film yet? If not, check it out here.  And while you're at it, check out the video to my song, "Far From the Sun."

My first short film

My first short film, The Metasaurs, episode one, is now available online here. Click on over to take a look.

I'll be adding new ones when I can. I'm planning about six, altogether.

Anyways, take a look.