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Posted by Jody at 02:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack A Smaller Circle of Struggle
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60 of 120 pages polished (50%) |
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These Changing Times
March 30, 2006
Did the old "whoah" with this one.
Al Jazeera To Help Finance TV and Theatrical MoviesI doubt they'd be interested in any of my films anyway.Al Jazeera, the Arab all-news cable network, is moving into the film business, launching a $1.4 million fund to aid independent TV and theatrical film producers.The announcement of the fund was made at an Arab TV documentary festival sponsored by Al Jazeera, which opened Tuesday in Doha, Qatar, where Al Jazeera is headquartered, and continues through today (Thursday). In addition to direct production investment, the fund will also provide training and technical services for young filmmakers.
Posted by Jody at 12:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
My Life, Measured in Words
March 23, 2006
There are so many days I think I'm not doing any freaking work towards my future -- that life is just getting away from me. Then, I pop open this blog, scroll back through the entries, click on the "On Writing" category, and find recent entries showing what, indeed, I've done.
Since the entry linked to above, I've also completed the draft of yet one more screenplay, the only mention of which is a "Coming Soon" tag I added to this page. No blog entry to remind me -- or whine to y'all -- that I cranked out another 50 some-odd pages between Feb 18th and March 16th on another creation, plus a 15 page report on a multi-national cable company, read a half-dozen screenplays and television scripts, polished off two non-fiction books (read, before bed) plus interned 20 hours a week.
I'm not trying to brag here -- far from it. I'm just a little... amazed, that's all. It might be hard to believe, but in my head I have this vision of myself as "slacking." Since I haven't had a day job for almost two years (has it really been two years since I walked away from the Department of Children and Family Services? Wow!) it's just so easy to see this past time as having "goofed off."
Writing really is about daydreaming. I can teach anyone the mechanics of writing the way its been taught to me. I can tell you how to format a script, how to streamline a scene, how to create better drama, deepen characterization and sharpen themes. At the end of the day though that's just stitching a basket to hold a dream, to a daydream. Screenplays, stories, are really just daydreams, and I've been daydreaming for the past two years.
I think that's what feels so odd -- I've been lost in daydreams. I haven't spent this much time daydreaming since I was a kid. As a kid though, I also didn't churn out 2000 plus pages of product either. I've got a stack of reports out the ass that I wrote these past two years, coverage, notes on others screenplays, plus four, 100 plus page scripts that only existed as a wish in 2004. Damn.
No wonder I feel tired.
No wonder I came home tonight and said fuck writing, fuck reading, fuck playing Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth on my X-Box, and really fuck turning in one last assignment for this quarter for class. I just want to watch TV and zone-out.
And even now, even as I write all of this, I still feel as if I haven't been productive.
It's utterly and unbelievably insane.
I graduate from UCLA on June 16th. More or less I have 3 months, say 12 weeks give or take, before I'm back out in the world. In two weeks, the third and last quarter of the year starts. I'm scheduled to revise one screenplay (which means re-write 75 to 95% of a 110 page script), produce, direct and edit a 25 minute short film, continue my wonderful internship, and quite possibly teach a class. Plus I have to find a job for when I graduate so that I can continue paying my mortgage and making my car note. That's another wow.
That's also utterly and unbelievably insane.
No wonder I don't have boyfriend. Hell, no wonder I'm not getting laid regularly.
Ack. 12:54 AM.
Still have time to complete that journal thing for school and get to bed before my internship in the morning. I started this just to post yet another in my endless series of graphs, this one outlining my progress on polishing a totally-unrelated-to-anything-I-mentioned-before screenplay called "The Dark Place.". There are four or five writing contests that have due-dates starting next week and I have to get this baby done before Monday or Tuesday.
Yes, I'm insane.
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41 of 120 pages polished (34.2%) |
Posted by Jody at 12:08 AM | Comments (0)
Indecent?
March 18, 2006
Is this clip indecent?
Since the broadcaster was forced to pay $3.6 million dollars for showing it, (note: on appeal) if you think yes, what should you be forced to pay to the government for having watched it? If you think no, what are you willing to spend to stop the government from fining others?
Posted by Jody at 10:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Dead, Buried and Waiting some multiple of three for Its Resurrection
February 18, 2006
The ELE 120 re-write is done!!
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But it's now called HOUR 120, so I guess the graph should look like this:
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Its also been called MANDRAKE, MANDRAGORA and GOLEM.
No, I'm not going to put a graph up for each one of those.
HOUR 120 still has two or three more drafts to go before it's really, really ready. Be that as it may, it's going into the hollowed earth for a while. Midnight for it won't come around until the summer, because I've got a polish yet to do on THE DARK PLACE (one of my best to date) and another 40 pages to add to THE LINE before the end of the quarter.
I have no life.
Posted by Jody at 12:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Progress...
February 08, 2006
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Done today. Promise.
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Just In Case You Were Wondering
February 04, 2006
Here's how things stand with the writing and revisions of three of my current projects.
Those progress bars sure have pretty colors on them. Now if only they'd all hit 100%.
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Posted by Jody at 01:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Soon Jody, Soon
January 09, 2006
I'm going to get my chance, yet:
L.A. Times: Go for more 'Broke'? Maybe
The critical success of "Mountain" may help other gay-themed projects. As usual, it's all about the box office.
After the runaway success of "Wedding Crashers" and "40 Year-Old Virgin," Hollywood scrambled to make R-rated comedies. Now that "Brokeback Mountain" is drawing acclaim and audiences, some in Hollywood are pushing to get new gay- and lesbian-themed projects off the drawing board and into production.I've got the goods, with more coming soon.Screenwriters and producers across Hollywood have been dusting off old scripts and brainstorming about new ones ever since the Ang Lee film about a love affair between two cowboys began collecting critics awards and nominations, including seven Golden Globe nominations, four Screen Actors Guild nominations and one Directors Guild of America nomination...
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That Darn Cat: The Problem with "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe"
December 18, 2005
Saw Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (LWW) over the weekend.
Sucked.
Some of you instantly went "Well as he's a godless atheist, that figures."
Some of you also farted.
Believe me, my lack of a belief in Super Santa Clauses had nothing to do with my dislike for LWW. I remember reading some of the Narnia books as a young kid -- or at least I think I do. I also remember being visited by space aliens who sang Abba tunes while dressed in drag. I was a queer young kid. -- and being pretty taken with the story: evil witches, magic wardrobe, talking animals, Aslan. I have an even better memory of the 1979 CTV animated film of LWW -- the shaving of Aslan is particularly horrific in my mind -- and the later BBC "muppety" production. Those were cool takes, told well to my young adult eyes.
Alas, this take is not.
Whose @#$#$!!!@ Story is it?
Simply, the key problem with the film is that there's no main character. It's a jumbled mess of shifting focus from one Pevensie child to Aslan to another Pevensie child to Aslan to yet another Pevensie child and so on. As it never picked one character's journey to follow and then built the other characters' around that, there was no journey for me to follow, and the whole movie fell apart.
The tricky part of screenplays (and the movies made from them) is that no matter how many characters you feature and how many story-lines you undertake to tell across those pages and frames, essentially a movie is about one character and what happens to them. Everything else is secondary to that one main journey. With a central character, things happen in a film because of what that character does. They make the choices that set into motion a series of events -- the movie we see. Most of the time these events force that character to change, usually for the better (though there are great films where the opposite happens,) often even altering the world around them in some fundamental way in the process.
Movies aren't novels. You don't have pages and pages to devote to each character's life, both internal and external. You are severely limited by the visual nature of the medium, by an imposed running time, and by a conventional sense of an act structure articulated by Aristotle lo those years ago. If you don't have that one person driving the narrative forward -- even marginally so in the case of ensemble films or thematically oriented "Sundance" cinema -- you're left with lots of visual images but no through line, no coherent whole, no "rocket engine" propelling the story to an inevitable conclusion.
It's that lack of a rocket that grounds LWW. Adamson, the director and co-writer of the film, fails by leaving out that dramatic center. While it seems at first to be Lucy, who first pushes her way through the wardrobe, meets Mr. Tumnus, starts the Witch-war, and later brings her siblings to Narnia, she quickly gets "lost" when the spotlight later shifts to Edmund and his treason, then over to Peter and Susan and their troubles, then makes a jump to Aslan the center of the action, and then tacks back to a convoluted mess of semi-motivations and miasmas of everyone at the climax.
The fact that the children are rather bland in characterization (a little less so with Edmund -- more of that in a moment) doesn't help matters any. The kids in the film squabble with each other because "that's what kids do," not because they have any real disagreement between themselves or, because of personalities, they can't help but to fight with one another. They have no inner life -- at least not one that Adamson ever lets us in on. Because of this, the heroes who will determine the fate of Narnia remain blank spaces, with motivations that change not just from scene to scene but from shot to shot.
Why were these children picked to be champions of Narnia over the Musson-Von Houseburg family the next estate over? We don't know. Why are Lucy, Edmund, Peter and Susan so important, as opposed to those Musson- Von Houseburg children: Soong, Juan, Muffy and Skip, who are far more interesting if for nothing else than their first names? If they had crossed over in their magic bidet (had it only arrived as it was supposed to instead of getting lost in a tragic FedEx / Pizza Hut delivery foul-up) would the outcome in Narnia been any different? I don't know. But had the children in the movie been written stronger, there would be no doubt.
In Defense of Edmund
I mentioned Edmund as marginally interesting. With his pissiness, impulsivity, selfishness and resentment, he at least provoke an emotional reaction in me: slap the kid senseless for all the dumb-shit he does! Edmund at least acts a real kid might: with a father dead, mother gone, little sister the apple of everyone's eye and big brother a fraking jerk, it makes some sense (when you sit and think about it) as to why he'd cling to a frigid mother figure like Jadis.
What's maddening here though is that despite my (slight) enthusiasm for his character, the ramifications of his endless betrayals of people as well as any sense of guilt over what he's done are never shown in the story. They're told. Spoken aloud. By one character to another. For our benefit: We're told he's a traitor. We're told he feels guilty. We're told he's forgiven. But we're never shown this.
His actions cause no real danger for the success of the war. His confession to and forgiveness by Aslan, a dramatic moment for him and his growth, all happen effectively "off camera." Yes, we see Edmund and Aslan talking, but we have no idea what is said. We don't feel it. Contrast this to the character of Spinner in the long running young adult soap Degrassi: The Next Generation, whose inner turmoil and feeling of being unforgivable plays week in and week out, culminating recently with his Christian girlfriend's testament that through her faith he can be. Granted TV has more time to illustrate such themes, but movies can do as good a job -- if you know what you are doing when you are writing.
In LWW, when the witch shows up, demanding the blood of Edmund the Traitor by rite of the laws of "Deep Magic," I did a Jon Stewart, rubbed my eyes and wondered where the hell that came from. (Yeah, I know the books. Shut-up.) An 11th hour law that binds everyone, including Aslan, to the death of a traitor, is supposed to be a gut punch, an "Oh, Shit" moment that makes us all wonder how things will ever get made right. In this movie though, as that idea was never set-up, it falls utterly flat. Bad writing, folks.
It's All Aslan's Fault
For all of this we have to blame Aslan.
"Now the atheist writer reveals his true colors," some of you say. "You don't like the movie because you don't believe."
Oh, please. I get movies pretty well, thank you. I write the damn things.
Edmund's betrayal of his siblings through his selfish alliance with the White Witch Jadis is supposed to doom the revolt. It's a big deal. Aslan's forgiveness of Edmund is also a big deal. The Law of Blood, the promise of a traitor's life to the Witch, "deep magic" and "deeper magic" -- all rank up there. The biggest thing of all? Aslan's sacrifice.
Aslan is a great literary character. His role as savior and guardian is quite wonderful. But the way he's shoe-horned into the film version deflates what little energy the flick has. Aslan saves the day constantly in the movie. He's the real hero, the real main character. The kids are just bystanders in an unfolding narrative. While this works in a book, it's death on screen. Since none of the work was done in the script to set focus, characterization, or dramatic tension, Aslan -- the creator of Narnia, the Just One, the Noblest Being -- and his sacrifice on the Stone Table had no emotional weight, no feeling of consequence within this film. It's an "ok" moment instead of an "Oh, My God!" one.
In The Gospels, it's all Jesus' story. Those tales are about the Son of God, the "adventure" he goes on, and how his sacrifice changes the world. It's the ultimate act, the Highest Thing That Can Be Done. It's Salvation. And it's on every page of the story. People sing hosannas in church as participation with this tale, to be "in on the action." Like paying $12 bucks for a film, its a (free) way to be part of a larger narrative. Pick a faith. Pick a religion. It's the same thing, over and over again.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, (the movie) is supposed to be an echo of this Christian tale. It's a primer on the faith, a way of introducing the subjects of sacrifice, justice and transcendence that the faith can later expound on. But because so much of the movie fails, it never becomes anything more than a flat film. No bridging ever occurs. No "transcendence" ever takes place. Titanic actually does a better job of illustrating self-sacrifice than this film does.
Had the whole movie been told from Aslan's point of view ("The Passion of the Kitty Christ") it might have worked. Or if everything had been seen through Edmund's eyes where, because of what Aslan does, he rises to the occasion and plays a key role in the victory of Light over Darkness that he otherwise wouldn't have, then the themes the film wanted to get across might actually have been. (I could have then launched into a discussion on the barbaric "blood sacrifice" fixation at the core of this movie, so many religions and in Christianity itself.) In the end, it's enough to say LWW is a weak film, flat, unmotivated, boring.
If you really feel the need, read the book.
Posted by Jody at 05:10 PM | Comments (0)
Some writing news before I go. *UPDATED*
November 21, 2005
Got this news over the weekend: One of my film scripts was forwarded to one of the Executive Producers of one of the TV shows on one of the special interest networks as an audition piece for a writing gig for the second season of the TV show.
Hmm.
Could I be even more wordy and vague?
Anyway, it'd be a fun, fun job to get, very much in keeping with what I like to write. I have no idea though if it will even happen. I'm such a skeptic that I can give you 20 reasons why it won't. I can also give you 10 reasons why it might.
It's just fun to dream.
Updated:
While cranking on that previously mentioned script, this line came out of a character's mouth:
It wasn't until the drive home that I realized "Tyler" summed my feelings sloppily written above, far more deeply and eloquently than I'd managed to.I realize the odds are weighed against me, but that place in the heart that holds dreams close doesn't believe in odds.
That's why I love to write.
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The Future continues to trickle forth....
More news of how you'll be watching TV and Video in the next decade. Read "your home multi-media TV system" for "iPod." TiVo to Support Video Transfer to iPod
The New York Times reports that TiVo is announcing both iPod and Sony PSP support for its Digital Video Recorder (TiVo).The newest version of its TiVoToGo software will allow users to transfer recorded television programming to either an Apple iPod (5G) or Sony PSP.
According to a press release the feature will begin testing in the coming weeks, with full availability to TiVo Series2 subscribers as early as the 1st quarter of next year.
According to the New York Times, there will be a one-time fee to users to enable this feature which will cover the licensing fee for MPEG-4. Another article notes that the encoded video will contain digital watermarks
to discourage internet sharing of the resultant video files.
It's the end of the quarter and I'm a little pressed on a script. Regular blogging will continue once classes are done.
Posted by Jody at 09:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
On Demand
October 12, 2005
True, legal, cheap, portable, easy video on demand is finally here.
This is really big. No matter how it morphs from here, this is where the dynamics of TV and Movies explodes into a myriad of new forms, new content and new marketing possibilities.
And you are there.
Posted by Jody at 02:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Pitch
October 04, 2005
Since some of you emailed me to ask what my pitch was, here's the high concept sci-fi idea in a nutshell: "An inexperienced FBI agent's pursuit of an international arms dealer takes a turn for the extreme when he discovers that neither the arms nor the arms dealer are from planet Earth."
I'd go see it.
Posted by Jody at 11:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
It's just a movie....
October 03, 2005
Hollywood Doesn't Show Consequences.
What part of "fiction" didn't they get?
Posted by Jody at 11:33 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
A guy can dream, can't he?
September 20, 2005
Writers Needed For New Star Wars TV Show
*Sigh*
Posted by Jody at 08:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A Dark Place
September 19, 2005
Finally got the re-write completed on The Dark Place, the first of two projects I'd scheduled for revision over the summer. Yes, I realize summer is technically over, but you see, classes at UCLA don't start for another two weeks, so I've got more than enough time for the dextrous digit dancing required to complete the other project. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Oh hey look, new X-Box Games...
As to that completed re-write -- when you move from the puke draft to the first draft, is that a re-write, a write or just more writing?-- I'm pretty pleased with it. While it's far too long, still a bit unfocused and it does meander about (not exactly pluses for a thriller), I discovered a depth in the tale that I hadn't expected to find. There's a tension, an inner conflict evident in every character over how they, and by extension us real people, both love and hate and hate and love the Ones They (We) Love -- and Hate. If that's a little confusing, it won't be after your mom, or your partner says something that, with no effort at all, manages to push all your buttons.
When I first started scribbling stuff-to-be-filmed as a fresh faced 21 year-old, most of my characters were infused with balked ideals and a reactive cynicism. (No connection should be made to the fact that my day job at the time was as an AIDS counselor to terminally ill clients.) The scripts were lived in by caustic characters revealing their dashed hopes to other naive neophyte dwellers who in turn were learning, often rapidly, how painful, unfair, and down right depressing life happened to be.
What's cool now is that the spawns of this 36-year-old scribe are people with a more nuanced collection of faults, foibles and pains. Sure some of them are caustic and shattered for thats about as low as you can get as a person, but all of them now struggle past such places and endeavor, some successfully some not, to deal much more forthrightly and honestly with the worlds they encounter. (Insert standard "no-connection to the current life of the writer" disclaimer here.)
For pretense sake, I'm going to leave out that all of those characters, no matter what the script was or the age I wrote it, were encountering worlds populated by monsters, mob lords, space aliens and genetically engineered master plans, hopefully thus leaving you with the idea that I write Masterpiece (and not Monsterpiece) theater.
Dear Diary, sometimes I feel so ashamed of loving and writing Genre...
Not really. Good writing is good writing and good writing in Genre pieces is good writing none the less. Take Joss Whedon, one of my favorites, who's able to capture honest feelings regarding both growing up and being grown in this excellent bit of dialogue from the "Lie to Me" episode of Buffy,The Vampire Slayer: Buffy: Nothing is ever simple anymore. I'm constantly trying to work it out: who to love or who to hate; who to trust. It's just like the more I know the more confused I get.
Giles: I beleive that's called growing up.
Buffy: I'd like to stop then, okay?
Giles: I know the feeling.
Buffy: Does it ever get easy?
[Vampire erupts from the grave. Buffy spikes him to dust.]
Giles: You mean life?
Buffy: Yeah, does it get easy?
Giles: What do you want me to say?
Buffy: Lie to me.
Giles: Yes it's terribly simple. The goodguys are always starwarlt and true the bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns and black hats. We always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies, and everyone lives happily ever after.
Buffy: Liar.
Mark Verheiden had an equally cool "Life is--" comment in side bit of dialogue during a recent episode ("Final Cut") of the phenomenal revision of Battlestar Galactica: D'anna Biers: Does this ever get any easier?
Petty Officer 2nd Dualla: No, ma'am. It gets harder.
Damn, I hope I do half as well when I get my shot.
Posted by Jody at 09:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Self Abuse III: The Spewing
August 26, 2005
So 120 some odd pages are spewing out of my laser printer, and I'm wondering now how I chop the shit out of this bloody story.
At my magic coffee shop, between Cobb Salads, endless cups of coffee, almond skinned cuties with sea-blue eyes and wave white smiles, I figured that the best thing to do to deal with my previous quandry was to just write all of those scenes that I was so resistant to scribing. They added something on the order of another 10-12 pages to an already bloated screenplay, but I at least had every last idea that I thought needed to be in the piece, in the piece.
Right now, I can hear the pages curling and collecting on the floor of my desk in the loft above (the little arm-holder thingy on my Brother Laser Jet just doesn't hold more than a few pages before floating them free from its plastic confines), prefiguring the next step of hacking, slashing, grafting and growing the source pages into a 100 pg. streamlined Porsche.
I hope.
Posted by Jody at 06:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Self Abuse II
August 24, 2005
Frell.
I'm back to banging my head against the wall. The script is 110 pages and the pieces are there but they just won't line up right.
Grrr.
I keep staring at the pages, changing words and writing new scenes but there's a growing, inner cacophony trilling that I'm going in the wrong direction.
And the water is off in my place so I can't shower. Or shave. I look like Grizzly Frelling Adams.
Argh.
I have to go to the gym and meet with the trainer shortly. Maybe something will jog loose as I'm lifting stupid barbells over my head or twirling my legs around on the bleeping bike. Or not.
I'm taking the whole damn thing to the Coffee Shop tomorrow and seeing what I can do there also. Perhaps I'll just move on to the other script I need to revise.
ARGH! [Bangs Head] ARGH! [Bangs Head] ARGH!! [Bangs Head]
Posted by Jody at 01:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Self Abuse
August 18, 2005
Frack.
This revision is just sllllloooooowwww, slogging work. I keep getting bogged down in the details, worrying if everything is hitting the right spots, at the right time at the right page length and it's driving me mad. I'm trying to do a thriller, old gothic, hidden secrets, year long plots of revenge but with strong character arcs and "realistic" moments. I've revised up to page 70 (of a 105 existing) and I'm just in the middle of my second act. I'm not sure where the mid point of the story is anymore -- it's not where it was on my outline -- I'm no longer certain I'm on track to hit the end of the second act / low point at the right moment but I'm fairly clear that the end of the first act occurs far, far too late. I know I'm on the desperate side because I keep flicking the page formating options in Final Draft between "tight," "normal" and "loose" just to see the page length, and the act breaks, bounce around ten pages a click. I'm obviously letting all the wrong things fill up my brain and distract me from just making the story entertaining.
And the worst part is I can't mindlessly surf the internet for porn because I'm writing in my favorite Hotspot-less (coldspot?) cafe, precisely because of that.
Argghhhhhhhhhh.
Maybe I'll go buy another piece of cake.
No.
Must work more, must work more.
Caaaaaakkkeeeee.
UPDATE
Two hours after I wrote the above, I'm at the 78 page mark. I think I've figured out how to juggle a piece or two around and get the act breaks back to where they need to be. But while I can move the pieces to where they need to go, it's still going to take a few more days to figure out how to move the -story- around to where it needs to be. And then there's the characters. I'm better now, but still a bit lost with the story. and no, I didn't have any cake. Instead, I spent ten minutes staring at a stubbled Anglo/Asian stud in cammo shorts, a Matrix Revolutions crew jacket and reading the instruction manual to a Good Guy's open box buy Cannon digital camera.
There's cake for the stomach and then there's cake for the soul.
Posted by Jody at 09:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Resurrecting Entrails
August 11, 2005
With the clock slowly ticking away to the end of September, I'm cranking on the revision to my script The Dark Place. The first draft -- affectionately called the "puke draft" -- was done back in March. It laid out all of the basics of the story, the general beats, movements, characters and dialogue. But there's a lot that doesn't make sense in the puke draft: all of those piece that I just mentioned are really dirty ("covered", to carry the metaphor to a disgustingly forward.)
I've slipped on the plastic gloves, pulled out the literary equivalent of Formula 409 and am rubbing away the mess to expose the real surface beneath. It's a messy job.
The goal here is to have a real "first draft," something that I can share with my peers and say "okay, tear it to shreds." (Fuck agents and studio heads; If you have a good group of writer friends, they're the best at disemboweling your story, your wordplay, your heroes and your very soul.)
After they've shredded the damn thing, then I get to tower over the mess of eviscerated body parts, chant my magic words, and resurrect the entrails of my original piece into a better, stronger and faster beast than I had before. More or less.
The tough goal though is that I have a second screenplay -- no link yet on my screenplay page -- that I've got to get to first draft stage before the end of September. When school starts again, work on the aforementioned scripts grinds to a trickle, as I'm forced to delve deep into my bag of tricks and come up with three new ideas, one for each quarter, that I will puke out into a puke draft over each of the ensuing blocks of 10 weeks. This, dear friends, is the joy of being a writer.
And I haven't even gotten paid for my work yet.
Posted by Jody at 11:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
That's Right Handy As a Pocket on a Shirt.
August 07, 2005
Google has launched something called Google Print, allowing you to search the contents of existing non-fiction books in addition to web searches. Looks pretty cool to me.
Updated: Google has paused adding new books to the index.
Posted by Jody at 04:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Archive Note
April 11, 2005
In the recent upgrade to MT 3.5, about 12 months of entries between 2004-2005 were corrupted. The back-up files still exist. It's just going to take me a while to enter them again. Until then, there are quite a few "gaps" on these archive pages.
Posted by Jody at 10:45 PM | Comments (0)
End of Line
May 12, 2004
For those of you TRON heads like me, here is an interview with Steve Lisberger, the director of the movie.
I need something light and breezy to take my mind off of yesterday's Iraq news.
Posted by Jody at 09:12 AM | Comments (0)
Well, that was unexpected.
April 20, 2004
Seems as though out of 4212 scripts submitted to the Project Greenlight screenplay competition, mine is one of the top 100 selected, and is in the running for being one of the top 5 chosen.
Shazam.
Posted by Jody at 11:26 PM | Comments (8)
It's a fine life, Mr. Paris.
December 05, 2002
In August, I mentioned that I was starting a new screenplay called A Queer Sort of Paladin. Well, four months later, right now, this very moment, I just completed the fucker. Geez. It's where most of my energy has been and why my postings have been rather light.
So, in keeping with grand symmetry, I bring you now the -last page- of said screenplay (renamed "Paris") for your reading pleasure.
For me, after some sleep, the fun part begins.
Rewriting.
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INT. PIERCE ESTATE
QUINN (V.O.) (cont'd)
Like I said before, it's a fine
life I have.
A SERIES OF IMAGES...
Quinn walks down the MAIN HALL.
Pierce opens the drawer.
Quinn walks past the KITCHEN and out the door.
Pierce reaches out to open the envelope.
QUINN (V.O.) (cont'd)
Full of fun people.
Quinn walks down the FRONT STEPS.
Pierce unzips the ENVELOPE.
Quinn puts on his helmet.
QUINN (V.O.) (cont'd)
Interesting places.
Pierce pulls out a folded piece of paper. He opens it:
21 Redfern Lane
Valencia, CA
He notices the back of the piece of paper has WRITING on it
also.
Quinn kick-starts his motorcycle.
QUINN (V.O.) (cont'd)
Grand events.
Flipping over the paper:
YOU FORGOT TO ASK ABOUT THE BRIEFCASE
Pierce SEES the briefcase hidden behind the chair Quinn sat
in.
The envelope falls... a "sparkler" tumbles onto his desktop.
A light on the face of it turns RED.
EXT. PIERCE ESTATE -- PALOS VERDES
There is a swift and sudden EXPLOSION, as the back of the
MANSION is obliterated.
QUINN (V.O.)
All goes with the job.
EXT. SANTA MONICA BLVD. MISSION
COATED IN NEW PAINT, with the doors repaired and windows new,
Skyler pulls open the FRONT DOOR. A plaque reads "SKYLER
DEMBROSE PIERCE the FIRST, MEMORIAL SHELTER." A line of the
homeless, dispossessed and thrown-away hanker to get inside.
Latonasha, bright-eyed and eager, bounces through the door.
Sky pats her on the shoulder and looks ACROSS THE STREET. For
a moment he can just make out Quinn. A RAGGEDY MAN passes in
front and obscures his view.
Looking out again, the street corner is empty.
QUINN (V.O.)
Yup, it's a fine, fine life.
In the distance, the Hayabusa growls.
FADE TO BLACK.
Posted by Jody at 12:51 AM | Comments (0)
By Any Other Name Still Isn't Sweet
August 12, 2002
In response to my post on altering artistic works Justin Katz writes on his page:
...A film's creators cannot possibly imagine that they have any control over, or any right to control, how I choose to watch a movie presented to me for viewing in the home. I have every right to fast-forward through sex and violence, hit mute when bad language is thrust through the television at my child, or even watch scenes out of order with the TV upside-down and covered with blue cellophane. Likewise, I would have every right to purchase technology that automates these actions for me...
I wrote back:
".....you are perfectly right that you do have the right to fast forward, mute or turn off a movie that you don't like. Any artist who creates a work for film or video recognizes that people will do that. In fact, they agree, more or less, that such things will happen in exchange for the chance to create their work.
What they don't agree to is another company coming along and editing their creation towards a set of standards that they have no say in.
The artist who created the work, has a say -- traditionally, historically and, in this day and age, legally -- on how his or her work is displayed or conveyed. There is an intent behind the work, a point to be made. Taking pieces from it, without the artists approval, destroys the intent of that speech.
It would be the same thing as someone decided that every occurrence of the letter "e" as well as every fifth word on your blog page was somewhat offensive or objectionable.A certain set of readers would be much better off reading your page if all those items were removed. The effects of such things would, of course, render all of your glorious thoughts unintelligible.
You write (slightly up the page) "...I have to write this book, it has to be poetry, and it has to be perfect. It is as if the book exists apart from me and won't leave me alone until it's written..." I'm not sure you'd stand for me coming along later and changing those 16 syllables that you worked most of the day on. Not just changing them, but removing them all together. How about changing your book of verse into one of prose, because I know that it will then reach a wider audience?
If I'm right, you want your book to be hard, challenging, involving to be read. You don't wan't the reader to have a passive time of it, but to rather make an effort to understand and appreciate the verse involved. It's not for me to change that.
Hollywood is defending the creation of movies because, all of the profits, fame and paparazzi exist because of the artistic creation that is done there, day in and day out. That much of it is piss poor and horrible is beside the point.
The fact is that people who do not have the right to change a work are in fact doing so. They are censoring, simply put.
J
Katzy, baby, have your people's people call my people's people's people. Will do lunch at this fabu little bistro I found on the West Side....
Posted by Jody at 10:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
It's not Yours
August 09, 2002
The Salt Lake Tribune -- 'U'-Rated Edits in for Fight
The debate in Utah began four years ago when an American Fork company, Sunset Video, found a profitable business in clipping a nude scene from hundreds of video copies of "Titanic" brought to them by owners. The concept of so-called "family-friendly" videos was well-received in Utah and other religiously conservative parts of the country, spawning ever more creative video-editing technology and marketing.The companies involved in the business believe the edits are legal because they are done to film recordings after they are purchased by consumers, video clubs or co-ops.
But Coolidge and other filmmakers argue the films are the creative property of the filmmakers and cannot be altered without permission. A person who is troubled by the content of a film should simply not watch it. Censoring it even temporarily is not an option, she argues. "We are talking about a technology that obliterates the intention of a movie. Parents can control what their child sees by not allowing it in the house."
While I can understand these families wanting to be able to see movies in a manner that they think is appropriate for their homes, the simple bit is that these works aren't theirs to change. Creating a visual work, a good one or a bad one, is rather sacrosanct, in my book.It's what the artist wanted, or what, under the terms of the contract that s/he signed inorder to have the funds to make the work, agreed to make.
While many artists know going in that their movies will be edited for television and airplanes, many also have a say in how those edits will be made and what language or alternative scenes will be put in there. They are the ones who actually film the alternative, non sexual or less violent scenes that are later inserted. They also are the ones who decide what alternate swear word goes into the film in place of the more adult one in the initial product.
Some artists even make the statement that they will not compromise their vision at all and choose to work with less money, second tier actors, or inferior equipment, all because the vision on the screen is totally theirs. The "offensive" bits are there because they believe it makes the point for the story they wish to tell. Y tu Mama, Tambein was as god as it was because the story, script and direction included all of the shocking bits. Far from being gratuitous, they were necessary to the story. Taking them out -- with a red marker which is what this software does -- violates the ethics behind artistic expression.
Yes one can get pissed that something was made. (Don't see it.) Yes, one can be offended about something they saw within a movie. (Tell others not to see it.) But no, no one has the right to take a work of art and line through the bits they (or those like them) don't like or agrees with.
One has the choice to view art, hate art, complain about art, even deny funding for art to be created. But tampering or changing art? No. It's not yours to do with as you please.
Posted by Jody at 10:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Speaking of writing
August 05, 2002Okay, as I promised a few days ago, here are the revised, first 20 pages of "A Queer Sort of Paladin." If you've been following along, you can see that most of the changes I've made have been in terms of slicing and cutting the rather laboured prose and dialogue. "Kill your children," is the old saying about what a writer needs to do. I am a butcher, yes I am.
Also, one other change. Owing to a comment from Vaara, I changed Quinn's last name from "Peerman" to "Paris." Sounds cooler.
Posted by Jody at 04:06 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
the door opens, just a bit
So I've been accepted into a writing program that I didn't even apply to.
Seriously.
I'm taking an extension class from admission and learning a lot. I get an email from my professor last Friday saying that he loved my work, thought it had a lot of professional potential, and that he recommended me to the Graduate Certificate Program at admission. I talked to the director of the program later that day and she said that I was in -- I just had to send along the paperwork and my check for several grand.
Bam.
That's amazing. Totally unexpected. Totally wonderful.
Didn't even have to pray for it...
It's funny too. I've been spending a good chunk of time writing a spec script for a writers program at Warner Brothers (due August 16th) and then this admission thing drops right into my lap.
While I have no illusions that I've "made it," the door in has opened just a bit. While there are still thousands of thousands of other people competing for success (or for a living) I'm entering into a smaller set of perhaps tens of thousands in competition. By the end of this year long program at admission, I'll no longer have an ice-cube's chance in Hell of making it in Hollywood.
I'll just have a snowballs'.
(See... snowball has more mass than an ice cube... more mass can survive longer in the heat... You guys still aren't laughing, are you? ...this is why I write drama and not comedy...)
Posted by Jody at 02:59 PM | Comments (2)
Return of the Writings
July 27, 2002Okay, I'm slowly digging out the old screenplays and putting them up here, on the new site. I've just posted the oldest one "The Waning of Warmth" for your enjoyment. The format for the entry will change a bit in the future, but for now it will have to do. I'll post the rest of the ones from the old site over the next few days. Click over to the right in the "Screenplays/Teleplays" section for the story.
And, I will update you on "A Queer Sort of Paladin." Quinn and his Los Angeles are really starting to come to life.
Posted by Jody at 02:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Set Up...
July 13, 2002Without further adieu, here are the opening scenes for "A Queer Sort of Paladin." This is just a first run through. Keep in mind (if you care...) the differences between this series and the edited ones that I'll post down the line.
If you are interested at all in writing, try to figure out why changes were made, what was cut, what wasn't and what you, yourself might do if you were a slave to the tormenting godess called Writing.
INT. SHOPPING MALL -- COSMETICS COUNTER - NIGHT
Suburbia. Late evening at a major department store, thin with
people do to the late hour. Dr. DARDICK, 57, curly white hair
and goatee stands next to his wife, SUSAN, a bored look
hanging crookedly on his face.Susan is busy looking at several samples of cosmetics.
INTERCOM VOICE (O.S.)
Ladies and gentlemen, the mall will
be closing in fifteen minutes.
Please finish your purchases and
head to the nearest exit.Dr. Dardick, suddenly quite happy, touches his wife's
shoulder.DARDICK
Susan, I'll just be a minute. Two
cokes is tw