Archive Twenty-three
January 6,
2007 - The New Year
Wisdom from one hyphenate to another ...
Met with
the writer/director (a friend) of the film I just worked on, and
had a frank and intriguing discussion with him about his film.
He gave me a strong piece of advice. (I'm paraphrasing
here.) "Whatever you do, for sure do your film. Don't
let anybody discourage you, or talk you out of it. For me,
it was the the most work, the most stress, and the hardest time I ever
had, but also the
most fun ever. It was very gratifying, and I wish I
had started doing this 30 years ago." We're about the same age, so
I guess that dates us, huh? Then I asked if there was
anything he'd do differently. He said the main thing he
didn't do well enough was plan. "I'm sure I would have had
many less surprises if we'd only planned more. We did no
rehearsals for the actors. Only a table read. And we
didn't have must of a prep for the crew. What a mistake.
We were always playing catch-up. Whatever you do, plan,
plan, plan." 'Nuff said ...
I figure
that's a good way to start the new
year. With new energy, new resolve and a new plan.
Yup, I've pretty much decided to get this production rolling by
this summer. Getting all my ducks in a row now. Just
about finished with the fifth script draft and will probably just
need a polish or two. In fact, I'm up here at Shasta right
now working on it. Also, am going to start beginning my
search for a DP, Casting Director and Line Producer real soon.
(Anyone out there interested, or want to refer me to someone?)
And very importantly, getting all the cash together, which is a
whole other story in itself ...
Speaking of being up here at Shasta, it was exactly a year ago
that we found out about the development going in next to our
property, giving rise to my concerns about shooting up here in the
midst of all that. Well, we just got word that they are
going to start logging the property in the spring. So it
appears this whole thing is going forward. We had been
hoping that with the latest housing market softness that the
developers would not be so gung-ho about laying waste to the rural
ambience here. Hopefully, this will not interfere with our
plans. I don't want to have to go radical here and develop
some new found rural rage ...
Tidbits: Some various and sundry links to check out:
Future of Web Video,
CustomFlix Distribution,
L A Times Media Predictions,
Lost in Light,
Indiewire Year-End Poll,
Film & Media Studies,
Big Pictures ...
J-Alden
January 14,
2007 - The 6-Page Itch
Coming down the home stretch with just one last dangerous curve ...
I pretty
much finished up the latest script draft, except for this one
scene, the longest scene in the whole script. A six-page
hand wringer. Yup, I've rewritten this scene at least a
dozen times, and I still can't quite get it the way I want it.
So, what's the deal? It's a very pivotal scene, in which I
think practically the whole story hangs on. Meaning, I get
the feeling if this scene is good, so is the whole film. If
not, it dies right there in the theater seat. Problem is,
it's mostly a dialogue scene that has a lot of exposition, in
which a lot of information is dished out to the audience ...
Another
problem is, it's probably too long. I don't think there's an
official rule or anything, but about every screenwriting teacher I
ever had and every screenwriting class, workshop or seminar I've
ever been to, usually dictates that a scene of about four pages it
about the limit. If you start getting more than that, then
you're probably getting yourself into some trouble as today's
audiences just don't have the attention span to stay interested
that long. If you have to do it, you'd better make that
scene very intriguingly special. Wow, you think this is
true? It doesn't seem to cut it at four pages, and at eight
pages it is too winded. I wonder what would happen if I just
cut it out? Oh, hell ...
Another
problem with it is the amount of exposition. I've cut quite
a bit out, but still it seems a bit too thick. They say (who
does? -- you know the screenwriting gurus) that if you really have
to dump some exposition out (because all script have some of it),
you'd better figure out a way to make it invisible. As ol'
Bogey used to say, if he had to spit out exposition there'd better
be camels humping in the background. OK, so where do I get
the camels? ...
Well, just
so happens I may have a few ways to get one, or in other words a
few ways to hide that exposition and distract the audience in the
process. It's been said that there are several techniques
for doing this: A) Dramatic Irony - essentially
letting the audience in on info the characters don't know about,
making the dramatic tension more important that the revealed info;
B) Active Exposition - creating a situation where the
character can only get what they want through dramatic action by
giving the info out to another character they need something from;
C) Conflict Exposition - deliver and surround it with
physical conflict, fights, chases, life and death situations; D)
Emotional Need - have the character active in pulling the
info out of another by forcing it from another using the basest
human emotions; E) Emotional Want - more about the audience
wanting to know because info has been kept from them so long their
curiosity is piqued. In some ways these are all related and
can be used in conjunction with each other. In my case, I've
been trying a combo of B, D & E with a touch of C. Yet, I
still haven't quite been able to scratch that itch right.
But I think I've almost got it in my sights. I just can't
quite reach it yet ...
J-Alden
Comments --
RE: The 6-Page Itch -- 1/16
I am probably one of the last people to give suggestions in this
area because I am too wordy in my dialog, but is there a way
though C of splitting it up giving some action relating to it and
then going back to it?
ML
January 24,
2007 - Done Deal
Wrapping up wordsmithing and hopefully on to next phase ...
Sorry it's
been so long since I posted an entry. A couple days after I
reached a milestone with the script I got food poisoning.
Man, I can't remember ever being that sick. I upchucked my
guts for about a day and then it took several to recover. A
couple times I thought I might be checking out. It certainly
gave me pause to consider my mortality. Which oddly enough,
fits into the theme of the script. In addition it make me
think how in a way each day is a gift, and we'd better make the
best of it. More motivation to get this thing going ...
Anyway, I
finally did it. Actually finished the latest script draft
(fifth), and now have a couple polishes ahead of me down the road.
But I'm not going to worry about that too much right now, as I'll
probably be making changes right up until we shoot, and actually
between takes when we do shoot ...
That scene
I was obsessing about in my last entry did finally come together,
even though I am still not 100% happy with it. It's passable
for now, but I'm sure I'll be tweaking it again and again (I
actually did something similar to what the comment suggests
below). So, why's it so important? Well, it's the
point when several layers of the script start to coalesce and make
sense. The story starts out as a family drama, then morphs
into a spiritual mystery and finally grows into a mystical
adventure. Hopefully the audience can follow the
transitions, as I'm trying not to get too trapped by the
conventions of any genre. But it may not always be easy to
follow, and in fact I doubt this is nourishment for a general,
conventional audience ...
I probably
already stated this before, but wanted to re-emphasize what the
theme of the story is: COURAGE. Each character has an issue
with it, but of course the main character, Hope, is where most of
that is focused and through which that comes out. The
content involves the idea of immortality and that the most common
fear we all face is the fear of death. And that because of
that, we don't live out our lives to the fullest, but are actually
afraid of life because of it. This may seem like a
depressing, unpopular subject to tackle, but not the way I handle.
Of course, that comes into play, but I play a little 'what if?'
throughout the story. Such, as: what if death is a type of
illusion?; what if life is a simulation?; what if religion is a
con and only a way to control us?; what if no one but ourselves
can actually 'save' ourselves, each of us individually?; and what
if someone stumbled across a way to do this?; and what if the
powers that be didn't like that?; and what would you do if you
were in the middle of that? Well, our main character is
right in the cross hairs of that, and doesn't even know it, until
...
Well,
you've got to see the film to find that out ...
J-Alden
January 30,
2007 - The Next Step
Moving on and stepping up to the plate ...
Several
things going on now. I've started receiving reels and
resumes from Cinematographers, Line Producers and Casting
Directors. Once I get through the mountain of stuff, Ill let
you know how that goes. It's always an intriguing process
finding people and hiring them, and seeing the different ways to
come at the same job. But most of all, to see the vast array
of people that populate this world, and who does actually work in
this industry. Totally amazing. I love it, and am in
awe of it ...
I started
doing a schedule for the production this week, using the
Axium
software. Seems fairly easy to use, and fairly powerful.
A little different than not doing strips for a production board.
Although, I guess you can use a feature in this program to print
those out. I'm just doing a preliminary one, and will let
the Line Producer hone it out for a final one. I've already
done a budget, though not a real one. Just based on the
actual funds we have to shoot with. I wanted to do a
schedule to see how it fit with the budget I'd drawn up.
Hopefully they'll match up, or I'll have to force it somehow ...
I've also
been playing with this pre-vis software,
FrameForge 3D Studio.
It goes beyond normal storyboarding and allows me to pre-visualize
my shots in 3D and use whatever camera setup I can dream up.
While I was up at the Shasta house earlier in the month I measured
every room that has a scene in it, and now I can input that into
this program to set up those interior shots based on the actual
location. So this allows me to do pre-vis, do overhead
diagrams and shot lists. Hey, let's get those actors in
here, and now all I gotta do is direct ...
J-Alden
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