I haven't done any writing this week. I am a terrible person.
I've been thinking a lot about it though. is that any better? I was thinking about turning points. I always struggled with them because I always thought that your protagonist had to make a decision to go on their adventure at TP1. Now, when I watch movies it often seems more like the turning point just happens to them.
In THE DESCENT TP1 occurs when the cave in traps the women in the cave. However in STAR WARS TP occurs when Luke's aunt and uncle are barbecued. he makes the decision to go with Obi Wan then. Well he always wanted to but it was his responsibilities that stopped him. Maybe that's more to do with the heroes journey though. He refused the call and then he is railroaded into it.
The real complicated stuff is integrating everything, making everything relate back to the central problem. In STAR WARS it's all about the droids. The stormtroopers have a Lars bbq specifically because they're after the droids.
Maybe I'm over complicating it. If it feels right, if it's satisfying, if it's what I want, is that enough?
So it's all this thinking that has had me off writing. I have to resolve these issues before I can carry on writing. I mean what's the point in doing it if it's all wrong?
I sent a script to LIME PICTURES. They make HOLLYOAKS. I am desperate for money and no one wants to give me a job type job so I thought maybe I should try and get a job doing what I want to do. Because writing isn't really a job. I mean it's not is it? It might be hard work but it's not a job. Data entry is a job. Loading biscuits is a job. Jobs I've done.
So I got a reply saying they'd read it and let me know. I think what happens is they send you a premise (apparently it's "A fridge is delivered to Hollyoaks") and a list of characters and I'm supposed to write a scene. But I mean what then? What's supposed to happen at the end of the scene? Who actually owns the fridge? Who is supposed to end up with it? Do I even need to resolve any of this? Am I supposed to decide before I write the scene who owns it and write from there or does no one own the fridge and the characters are just arguing on who gets to keep it?
I have a couple of people I can ask about this but I'm not going to do so until I hear back from LIME. My tutors can give me the advice. The guys who came in from HURRICANE FILMS said they'd give us advice and ROY BOULTER even used to write for HOLLYOAKS.
I'll be honest. I don't actually like HOLLYOAKS. I don't watch any soaps any more. I don't even watch much British TV. But maybe that's a good thing? Maybe they would like a new spin? Or maybe (more likely) they think they're doing pretty well as they are and want someone who can deliver more of the same (and do it better).
My girlfriend has threatened me not to ruin HOLLYOAKS because she likes it and she doesn't want me to destroy it. As if I would. I might try and drop in a Star Wars joke here and there ha ha
I would assume there will be an interview too. What if they ask me about HOLLYOAKS? What if they want to know what my favourite characters and storylines are? I have one answer already. What do you think HOLLYOAKS greatest strengths are? And I'll say comedy and cleavage. When my girlfriend is watching HOLLYOAKS (I'm usually trying to sleep at this point or showering) I usually manage to laugh at something that happens. Also there's usually a girl in their underwear in every episode. Most of the time they do it in that opening dream sequence thing.
It's a real shame they don't make GRANGE HILL any more.
However ALL3MEDIA who own LIME also own the company that make SKINS, again not something I watch but I reckon I could write it.
I should write something for this CBBC series thing they're doing. Maybe that's what they need. Right here in this post. A new GRANGE HILL. The brief is the 6-12 age range. GRANGE HILL in a primary school?
I'm rambling now, just thinking out loud. But that's what this blog is, just somewhere to record my every idiotic thought.
Sunday, 31 May 2009
Sunday, 24 May 2009
Getting on with it...
Procrastination and moving onto the "Next thing" have always been a real problem for me. I have ideas thick and fast and always seem to be juggling a few at a time.
I'm supposed to be writing a script for my MA. The one I pitched to my tutors was the horror/western BLOODRUSH. I haven't even looked at this one since I pitched it to them. Instead I've tinkered with an older idea, a stoner alien invasion movie. Not so much a comedy as a movie with a few wisecracking characters. This is the one with the alien masturbation. Then I started a new movie. 5 girls and 1 guy in a log cabin. Sounds like a fun way to spend a week. Then I had to go and throw in a murderous BIGFOOT.
The whole alien masturbation thing works. That whole chunk works. The only trouble is it's all superfluous, it has no story function. What was useful was that in writing those scenes I felt like I got t0 know those characters. Seeing them walk around and do their thing really helped me get a feel for them. Maybe it's something I should do for all of my characters in every film. I should write a scene just so I can get to know them. Hell the scene could even be used to audition actors if it ever gets made (I can dream).
So it works, what's the problem? Cut the scene out of the movie and we're missing a few laughs and not much else. Maybe their entertainment value would be reason enough to keep them in. Maybe. What would be better is if the scenes performed some function other than giving the audience a laugh. Maybe later on in the movie some ball bearings are required. Presto, my alien gets his schlong out and fires a few cum pellets. Suddenly a scene of gratuitous alien self love becomes a plant for later on. Sadly I can think of no apocalypse scenario that would require the use of ball bearings.
As for Bigfoot. Do you know how few movies there are about Bigfoot? I suppose it's because we all think of HARRY AND THE HENDERSONS when we think of Bigfoot (Sasquatch and Yeti however - they sound foreign and therefore must be evil). I remember one that scared me as a child. Terrified me. An American family staying in some sort of cabin in the woods (actually looked a lot like a Butlins chalet). Not much happened that I remember except a teenage boy getting thrown through a door. SNOWBEAST scared me when I was younger too. I watched that again a few months ago and quite enjoyed it, at least I did until the other half pointed out to me that I was copying at lot of the sound effects and music out loud.
So I'm wondering what tone I should take for the movie. Should I try and be serious (which to me means boring) or go all out CABIN FEVER on this? I have 5 girls and 1 guy. I can get at least 2 sex scenes out of that. Boy girl and girl girl, maybe even a girl boy girl. Maybe more. I could have the girl the guy did it with killed and have him move on. When faced with death at the hands of a psychotic mythical simian offshoot I think all bets are off. I've got to be honest, I enjoy the all out approach more. I like sex and violence and sarcastic characters. You're supposed to write the kind of movies you want to see, movies with your own voice but I honestly think I'm too obnoxious for a modern cinema audience.
OK I'm being needlessly harsh on myself. I'm just playing.
I have "trapped" on my old computer I can no longer turn on a few films that are totally different to the kind of thing I do now. A story about a family who come together over a life (baby) and a death. A family with a secret of sexual abuse. It's about how the oldest son is frightened by the prospect of becoming a father who willingly to becomes that father to his own siblings when his mother dies and he discovers why his older sister left home like she did and what has been happening with his younger sisters. No giant robots in that one.
Another is a road movie. A mismatched couple. He's a criminal, she's a rich (ish) policeman's daughter. She picks up a stray kitten and then soon picks up a young prostitute deciding to mother them both. The road trip (I believe it had something to do with a drug deal) goes bad, the kitten dies because they leave it in the boot and forget about it and eventually so does the young girl. The kitten was like a symbol for the girl. Once the kitten dies those paying attention will soon see that she's not far behind. So we at least have a schoolgirl in that one, but she's not an assassin or a mutant killing ninja.
The last was about a guy who constantly makes the wrong decision. As he gets poorer and poorer he spirals further and further into the criminal world. Eventually he runs away with the money, thinks he's found peace but soon he loses both that and his lady in one spectacular swoop. His last act is to call the people he stole the money from and let them know where he's going to be. They come. They kill him. So it was a kind of suicide.
At the time I was really into Larry Clark and I thought these dreary depressing movies were the only ones likely to get made in Britain. It seems all the arts council is interested in is reminding us how grey and shit life is. Now I'm all about entertainment. I like indy films, I like to think of myself as quirky, left of centre and part of the counter culture but dammit I went to be making JERRY BRUCKHEIMER movies! I want to write movies that defy the recession with the amount of stops I've pulled out.
I'm going to have a Japanese schoolgirl drive a real car through a real building with real explosions going off whilst chased by giant aliens. As the camera passes the building I want to see boobs in at least one of the windows. The car will emerge through the other side and crash into some evil ninjas, slicing them up with it's razor blade bumper, blood and body parts flying everywhere. The car will then transform itself (via seamless cgi) into an armoured battle suit for my schoolgirl who will battle with, hell, anything!
For the moment though its back to Bigfoot hiding in the forest. With the "the less you see, the more scary it is approach". It's all going to be mood, suggestion and aftermath. I better get writing.
I'm supposed to be writing a script for my MA. The one I pitched to my tutors was the horror/western BLOODRUSH. I haven't even looked at this one since I pitched it to them. Instead I've tinkered with an older idea, a stoner alien invasion movie. Not so much a comedy as a movie with a few wisecracking characters. This is the one with the alien masturbation. Then I started a new movie. 5 girls and 1 guy in a log cabin. Sounds like a fun way to spend a week. Then I had to go and throw in a murderous BIGFOOT.
The whole alien masturbation thing works. That whole chunk works. The only trouble is it's all superfluous, it has no story function. What was useful was that in writing those scenes I felt like I got t0 know those characters. Seeing them walk around and do their thing really helped me get a feel for them. Maybe it's something I should do for all of my characters in every film. I should write a scene just so I can get to know them. Hell the scene could even be used to audition actors if it ever gets made (I can dream).
So it works, what's the problem? Cut the scene out of the movie and we're missing a few laughs and not much else. Maybe their entertainment value would be reason enough to keep them in. Maybe. What would be better is if the scenes performed some function other than giving the audience a laugh. Maybe later on in the movie some ball bearings are required. Presto, my alien gets his schlong out and fires a few cum pellets. Suddenly a scene of gratuitous alien self love becomes a plant for later on. Sadly I can think of no apocalypse scenario that would require the use of ball bearings.
As for Bigfoot. Do you know how few movies there are about Bigfoot? I suppose it's because we all think of HARRY AND THE HENDERSONS when we think of Bigfoot (Sasquatch and Yeti however - they sound foreign and therefore must be evil). I remember one that scared me as a child. Terrified me. An American family staying in some sort of cabin in the woods (actually looked a lot like a Butlins chalet). Not much happened that I remember except a teenage boy getting thrown through a door. SNOWBEAST scared me when I was younger too. I watched that again a few months ago and quite enjoyed it, at least I did until the other half pointed out to me that I was copying at lot of the sound effects and music out loud.
So I'm wondering what tone I should take for the movie. Should I try and be serious (which to me means boring) or go all out CABIN FEVER on this? I have 5 girls and 1 guy. I can get at least 2 sex scenes out of that. Boy girl and girl girl, maybe even a girl boy girl. Maybe more. I could have the girl the guy did it with killed and have him move on. When faced with death at the hands of a psychotic mythical simian offshoot I think all bets are off. I've got to be honest, I enjoy the all out approach more. I like sex and violence and sarcastic characters. You're supposed to write the kind of movies you want to see, movies with your own voice but I honestly think I'm too obnoxious for a modern cinema audience.
OK I'm being needlessly harsh on myself. I'm just playing.
I have "trapped" on my old computer I can no longer turn on a few films that are totally different to the kind of thing I do now. A story about a family who come together over a life (baby) and a death. A family with a secret of sexual abuse. It's about how the oldest son is frightened by the prospect of becoming a father who willingly to becomes that father to his own siblings when his mother dies and he discovers why his older sister left home like she did and what has been happening with his younger sisters. No giant robots in that one.
Another is a road movie. A mismatched couple. He's a criminal, she's a rich (ish) policeman's daughter. She picks up a stray kitten and then soon picks up a young prostitute deciding to mother them both. The road trip (I believe it had something to do with a drug deal) goes bad, the kitten dies because they leave it in the boot and forget about it and eventually so does the young girl. The kitten was like a symbol for the girl. Once the kitten dies those paying attention will soon see that she's not far behind. So we at least have a schoolgirl in that one, but she's not an assassin or a mutant killing ninja.
The last was about a guy who constantly makes the wrong decision. As he gets poorer and poorer he spirals further and further into the criminal world. Eventually he runs away with the money, thinks he's found peace but soon he loses both that and his lady in one spectacular swoop. His last act is to call the people he stole the money from and let them know where he's going to be. They come. They kill him. So it was a kind of suicide.
At the time I was really into Larry Clark and I thought these dreary depressing movies were the only ones likely to get made in Britain. It seems all the arts council is interested in is reminding us how grey and shit life is. Now I'm all about entertainment. I like indy films, I like to think of myself as quirky, left of centre and part of the counter culture but dammit I went to be making JERRY BRUCKHEIMER movies! I want to write movies that defy the recession with the amount of stops I've pulled out.
I'm going to have a Japanese schoolgirl drive a real car through a real building with real explosions going off whilst chased by giant aliens. As the camera passes the building I want to see boobs in at least one of the windows. The car will emerge through the other side and crash into some evil ninjas, slicing them up with it's razor blade bumper, blood and body parts flying everywhere. The car will then transform itself (via seamless cgi) into an armoured battle suit for my schoolgirl who will battle with, hell, anything!
For the moment though its back to Bigfoot hiding in the forest. With the "the less you see, the more scary it is approach". It's all going to be mood, suggestion and aftermath. I better get writing.
Sunday, 3 May 2009
Alien Masturbation and Emily Booth
I've had a little step outline hidden away for a while now. I find it best if I leave new ideas alone in a draw to germinate before having a go at them. I decided it was time for this one. I also decided to just cut loose with it. No planning, to just sit down and write, just for the hell of it. I know it's not what you're "supposed" to do, right? But techniques are all just tools, not rules, and I want to be a writer because it's something I enjoy doing, so every now and then I want to let rip and have some fun.
Anyhow, somehow I've ended up with a scene of an alien masturbating to some alien porn.
How does this just happen?I had my aliens on their ship and they were all in separate rooms, doing their thing and I wanted to characterize them. I suppose, looking back now I should have put them all in the same room and had them conflicting and reacting differently (but in character) to the same thing but I didn't. Shoot me. I blame this on EmilyBooth.
They showed a bunch of Emily Booth movies on Zone Horror this week and for my sins I watched a couple. Well actually the only one I watched all the way through was Jake West's Evil Aliens. Cradle of Fear and Pervirella I just skipped through and realised I wasn't missing much but a load of crap and few tit shots. Well in Evil Aliens there's a couple of Alien/Human sex scenes. It must've filtered through. The thing is I don't want to be writing some stupid crappy spoof movie. I want it to be funny but funny like CRANK or CRITTERS or PLANET TERROR. I mean a guys dick falls off and turns into a monster in that, but it doesn't come across as some cheap piece of crap. But I suppose that's in the production values. Like I have a grasshopper alien, but I want him to be a puppet and not some crappy Sci Fi channel TV movie CGI embarrassment. Sigh. I suppose we have no control over these things.
I watched a Sci Fi channel movie this week. DECOYS. Title had nothing to do with the story. Unless the boobs were the decoys. Distracting you from the alien appendages. The synopsis described the aliens as having chest tentacles which made me thing straight away chestacles, but sadly no one in the movie said that. Why do they make these Sci Fi channel movies? Is someone making money out of crappy movies that no one watches? It's like they just don't care or something. I don't think anyone is going to sit and watch them and enjoy them in 20 years the same way I sat and watched GHOULIES this week. Or even CHILLERS.
I recorded a bunch of horror movies from Zone Horror and skipped through to about 54 minutes in to see what they were like. If I didn't like the look I just deleted them. My girlfriend didn't understand why I kept CHILLERS which she thought looked the worst out of all of them but I put it on and she got hooked. Yes it was crappy, the story and script and effects sucked, but somehow I still enjoyed it, more than any of these Pterodactyl or Giant spider movies you get the Sci Fi or Horror channels making these days. I'd like to think I'm not just suffering from nostalgia.
PLANET TERROR I absolutely loved. It just reminded me of all those old horror movies from the 80s and yet its a new movie. What are they doing wrong these days? Remakes? No way, I prefer the remade TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and THE HILLS HAVE EYES to the originals. And FRIDAY THE 13TH was good too. It's not the big horror movies that suck, its these lower budget TV ones. The ones which are supposedly produced by people with genuine love of the genre's they're working with as opposed to studio executives who just want to make money.
Ah ignore me, it's early and there are men banging in the house.
I'm writing this one on Celtx as opposed to Scripped which I had been using but I just find to be bloody awful. It's annoying that I can't work out what my pages are but what the hell, I'm only writing it for shits and giggles anyhow. I'll just export it as a PDF and work off that for my rewrite, the one where I try and fix all the structure. Saying that though I have got plenty of stuff in my opening which I know I can use to pay off later. Little seeds planted in act one, to nurture in act two and have bloom in act three.
I pitched a comic idea a week or so ago to a friend for him to illustrate. The kind of thing we can shop around. I could use it to illustrate my writing and he could use to illustrate his...err...illustrations! He still hasn't gotten back to me about it yet. I did a little research on the ever reliable wikipedia to find that a similar idea called BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL exists. I decided to change mine from 1000 bad guys to 666 to make it different (vastly! ha ha) also, mine doesn't involve magic worms. I think it's pretty goo,although I would. It already has a lot of depth and quite a bit of mileage in it.
In swine flu news, if you break out in a rasher just rub on some oinkment.
Anyhow, somehow I've ended up with a scene of an alien masturbating to some alien porn.
How does this just happen?I had my aliens on their ship and they were all in separate rooms, doing their thing and I wanted to characterize them. I suppose, looking back now I should have put them all in the same room and had them conflicting and reacting differently (but in character) to the same thing but I didn't. Shoot me. I blame this on EmilyBooth.
They showed a bunch of Emily Booth movies on Zone Horror this week and for my sins I watched a couple. Well actually the only one I watched all the way through was Jake West's Evil Aliens. Cradle of Fear and Pervirella I just skipped through and realised I wasn't missing much but a load of crap and few tit shots. Well in Evil Aliens there's a couple of Alien/Human sex scenes. It must've filtered through. The thing is I don't want to be writing some stupid crappy spoof movie. I want it to be funny but funny like CRANK or CRITTERS or PLANET TERROR. I mean a guys dick falls off and turns into a monster in that, but it doesn't come across as some cheap piece of crap. But I suppose that's in the production values. Like I have a grasshopper alien, but I want him to be a puppet and not some crappy Sci Fi channel TV movie CGI embarrassment. Sigh. I suppose we have no control over these things.
I watched a Sci Fi channel movie this week. DECOYS. Title had nothing to do with the story. Unless the boobs were the decoys. Distracting you from the alien appendages. The synopsis described the aliens as having chest tentacles which made me thing straight away chestacles, but sadly no one in the movie said that. Why do they make these Sci Fi channel movies? Is someone making money out of crappy movies that no one watches? It's like they just don't care or something. I don't think anyone is going to sit and watch them and enjoy them in 20 years the same way I sat and watched GHOULIES this week. Or even CHILLERS.
I recorded a bunch of horror movies from Zone Horror and skipped through to about 54 minutes in to see what they were like. If I didn't like the look I just deleted them. My girlfriend didn't understand why I kept CHILLERS which she thought looked the worst out of all of them but I put it on and she got hooked. Yes it was crappy, the story and script and effects sucked, but somehow I still enjoyed it, more than any of these Pterodactyl or Giant spider movies you get the Sci Fi or Horror channels making these days. I'd like to think I'm not just suffering from nostalgia.
PLANET TERROR I absolutely loved. It just reminded me of all those old horror movies from the 80s and yet its a new movie. What are they doing wrong these days? Remakes? No way, I prefer the remade TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and THE HILLS HAVE EYES to the originals. And FRIDAY THE 13TH was good too. It's not the big horror movies that suck, its these lower budget TV ones. The ones which are supposedly produced by people with genuine love of the genre's they're working with as opposed to studio executives who just want to make money.
Ah ignore me, it's early and there are men banging in the house.
I'm writing this one on Celtx as opposed to Scripped which I had been using but I just find to be bloody awful. It's annoying that I can't work out what my pages are but what the hell, I'm only writing it for shits and giggles anyhow. I'll just export it as a PDF and work off that for my rewrite, the one where I try and fix all the structure. Saying that though I have got plenty of stuff in my opening which I know I can use to pay off later. Little seeds planted in act one, to nurture in act two and have bloom in act three.
I pitched a comic idea a week or so ago to a friend for him to illustrate. The kind of thing we can shop around. I could use it to illustrate my writing and he could use to illustrate his...err...illustrations! He still hasn't gotten back to me about it yet. I did a little research on the ever reliable wikipedia to find that a similar idea called BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL exists. I decided to change mine from 1000 bad guys to 666 to make it different (vastly! ha ha) also, mine doesn't involve magic worms. I think it's pretty goo,although I would. It already has a lot of depth and quite a bit of mileage in it.
In swine flu news, if you break out in a rasher just rub on some oinkment.
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