Script Blitz: April 2

So! Last night went better.

Took a little time yesterday to write more notes about the characters and their histories, plus their relationships to each other. I didn't touch on half of the characters, but the ones I did write about, I have a much stronger grasp on. As Chris Hartwell would say, "Ganar." *

Last night went well, I was actually happy with the stuff I wrote this time. I actually wrote a 5 page scene, which was pretty cool. I don't have limits for the scenes I write, I just let the scene dictate how long it should be, with the general idea of 3 minutes is a good average length for a scene. It was actually kinda cool that I was 2 pages above par (even though that sounds bad if you are a golfer). I don't know in the long run if I want this scene to run 5 pages, it might be a little long, but I suppose I won't be able to tell that until I have written much, much more.

This scene is about the STRANGER, who is sort of a Man With No Name / Clint Eastwood type and HIP HOP, who is sort of a combo of Lando Calrissian and a black version of Sawyer from LOST. Their interactions are going to be very fun to write, I can already tell...

Well, that's all for now, overall things are looking up. This weekend I'm going to do more legwork on the outline. Right now I have this sort of amorphous muddle of scenes, arcs, and characters in my head, I think it will do some good to organize that a little.

Until next time, good afternoon, good evening, and good night.


* Yes. It's Spanish for 'win.'

Script Blitz: April 1

O-kay! so. I have a long month ahead of me.

About a month ago, a friend of mine told me he was going to try to write a 90 page screenplay in the month of April. Three pages a day. And I said to myself, "Clyde," (that's what I call myself) "...that sounds both fun and difficult. You should try it."

So I did. I am. I know this is technically a day late, but I actually did start off on April 1st (no joke) and began to write. I have had a concept in my mind for a while, and I have only a rough pitch and some notes to go off of, but sometimes having too clear of an idea of what your story is going to look like can be a good way to restrict the creative juices. So diving right in, I started writing.

Now I'm going to blog about my exploits. I'll try to do one post for every day I write. They may be brief, but we'll see how it goes. Please feel free to comment if you want to know more, or if you have any questions.

April 1
The first day was pretty difficult. I had a lot of loose ideas of scenes, and not enough detail about the backstories to really feel like I knew the characters yet. I realized I'm going to need more of an outline before I go much further. But, struggled through it, and wrote 3 pages. Not too proud of it. But it felt good to have accomplished the 3 page quota, and I started to get a better idea of who one of the characters is.

This scene was about one of the leads, ETHAN. He's a small town kid who is tired of a small town life and wants to go out and do something BIG, go on an adventure or something. He's going to be easy to write, because I had more than a little of that in me when I was growing up.

Anyhow. I'm pleased with myself for accomplishing the first day of writing. Huzzah.

The Best Films of 2008

Okay... So the Academy has just recently released their Oscar nominations for 2008, and as usual, they have selected a whole bunch of boring, depressing, and well, predictable Oscar fodder films in their lineup.

And sure, they're entitled to their own opinions, but heck, so am I, right? So here's the REAL list of best films that came out in 2008. And by best I mean my favorite.

...Or do I...?

But seriously, on with the list:
(btw - click on these images to attain full effect in Hi-Res)

10. CloverfieldWhat? This movie came out this year? Oh yeah, in JANUARY. It was awesome! Bringing the moster movie genre back from the dead! ROAR!

9. My Blueberry NightsNo words can describe this film. Just watch it and prepare to fall in love.

8. City of EmberGrossly underrated and no one saw this movie. But it is teh aw3s0m3.

7. The Curious Case of Benjamin ButtonA lot of people hate on this movie, but I find it oddly inspiring. And beautiful.

6. Burn After ReadingI don't know what's funnier, the movie or that moment after the movie when you realize this movie is about nothing actually happening. At all.

5. Slumdog MillionaireEver since ruining the zombie genre with 28 Days Later, Danny Boyle makes movies For The Win!!!

4. AustraliaBaz Luhrman making an epic romance tale... and with style!

3. HancockNobody saw this, but it is actually one of the most excellent Superhero stories of all time.

2. WALL-EI identified more with this robot than any other film character this year. WALL-E for Best Actor!

1. Speed RacerFast, fun, beautifully shot, and turbocharged by the Wachowsky brothers. It's escapism at it's best and it took me back to my childhood... and then blew me away with an awesome story. Go Speed Racer GO!!!

(Honorable Mentions: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Iron Man, Baghead, The Dark Knight, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Be Kind Rewind, Rambo, The Pineapple Express, and The Happening.)


Okay, I also feel like I should mention the worst films I saw this year. Just as a way of warning any of you who may be still thinking about watching them.

First of all, the Runner-Up Movie Fail award goes to...
The Quantum of Solace!!!
Yes. They replaced James Bond with Jason Bourne, and the result? it sucked!!!

3rd worst: Vantage Point

I think I gagged on this movie taking itself too seriously. And where did all this cheese come from?

2nd worst: Wanted

Everything about this movie screams angst and immaturity. Oh yeah, and they REALLY wanted to be as cool as Fight Club. Was this directed by a college student?

1st worst: The Spirit

'First worst' doesn't even begin to describe how bad this was. Try 'Worst movie ever made' and you will get close. Hopefully after this they won't allow Frank Miller to urinate all over the Buck Rogers franchise. (Gag)

There you go. Watch the movies on the first list. Avoid like the plague the ones on the second list. It's just that easy.

Ciao.

The New Year

I guess I'm learning, I must be warmer now
I'll soon be turning, round the corner now
Outside the dawn is breaking
But inside in the dark I'm aching to be free
The show must go on.

-Queen


I'm not much one for new years resolutions.

I just never felt the need. In all the new years celebrations I've been to, even though everyone cheers at the extremely anti-climactic shiny ball dropping in Times Square, and toasts with their respective champagne and sparkling cider, I have never felt like anything new was really coming. I always felt the same mixture of hope, dread, and uncertainty that I always feel about the future. And since I always forget about the last New Year and everyone's resolutions after about a week into January, I see resolutions as being rather pointless exercises to make one feel better about oneself for the new year.

But this year has been different. Not dramatically, not even substantially, but I've felt something coherent about this new year nonetheless. Perhaps it's because since graduating college, my slightly less chaotic routine during the year has made it easier to have a more holistic view of the passing years. But I think mostly it's just a sense that I've been getting of where we are and where we've been as a culture.

I really can't express where this feeling has come from, but I just feel it in my gut that we are stagnating, that we are caught in some sort of downward spiral, that we really, really need something fresh to take us out of our current slump. Somehow, the never-ending grind of life is wearing on us, I've seen it in the people I know, the people I see around me, I see it in people through the online portal we call the internet, I see it in our music and movies, and worst of all is when I see it in myself.

I mean, obviously no one is perfect. And life IS hard, it's a fact that everyone has to deal with. our lives are full of challenges and hardships, and it can often feel unfair. But in the 1930s, when people's lives were exceptionally bad because of the great depression, entertainers and movies helped pick their lives back up again. People would go to adventure movies like King Kong, or comedies by the likes of Charlie Chaplain or the Marx Brothers.

But we don't seem to have a modern-day equivalent to those things. Instead we seek out dark and depressing films, we look for the morally ambiguous, and praise how well they reflect 'reality'. Now, these films can be good and artistic, and I am not knocking them in any way, but where are the films about fun, and goodness? Where are the films about the good things in life, about hope? Oh, that's right. We rated them the worst movies of the year. (see: Speed Racer. Honestly, it is a great film, yet everyone bashes on it, often before they've even seen it.) If we refuse to go to films, or bash them simply because they are fun, and don't reflect our ideas about 'reality', we are cheating ourselves from a good and healthy view of life, and we will merely continue to sink into a stagnation. I really hope that doesn't happen, but I fear that may be the path we're on.

I wish I could do something. I wish I could create something that would help us as a culture, as a people. But I suffer from the same problems as everyone else, I'm stuck in the same hamster wheel, and I seem to be powerless to do anything about it. But I will not give up. I am not going to make any new years resolutions, but I am going to try and live to the best of my ability. I am going to try to read more books, spread my horizons, I want to engage in creativity more, with drawing, filmmaking, music making, singing at the top of my lungs if I have to. I refuse to be dragged down and cower before the oblivion. I will strive against my shackles to be free until the day I die. The show must go on.

* * *

My soul is painted like the wings of butterflies
Fairytales of yesterday will grow but never die
I can fly - my friends
The show must go on
The show must go on
I'll face it with a grin
I'm never giving in
On - with the show -
I'll top the bill, I'll overkill
I have to find the will to carry on
On with the -
On with the show -
The show must go on...

Will James Bond Return?

"James Bond will return." The words scroll up the screen as the last end credits song slowly fades out and the movie is over. I, along with millions of other people around the world had gone to see 'The Quantum of Solace' on opening day yesterday, and the experience left me with a mixture of joy and sadness. I have seen 'Casino Royale', and now 'Quantum of Solace', but I haven't seen James Bond since 'Die Another Day.' All I've seen in these last two films are a man that might some day be James Bond. He has high James Bond potential, but he is not James Bond.

When I was in high school, the cool thing to do was to listen to grunge rock. The point of such 'rock' (and I am using the term very loosely here) was to sound as depressed as possible, sing about how much life sucks, and make the music sound as gritty and dirty as possible. And all the high schoolers in the 90s heard it and said, "Woah, I identify with this because I feel depressed and life is hard!" And the music consequently became very popular. Epitomized by such bands as Nirvana, grunge music proved un-selfsustainable when all of it's contributors commited suicide and there was no one left to play the music.

So the Grunge fad faded from the scene and was replaced by other 'rock' movements, some with a bit more emotional range, some without (see: Emo) but the sole consolation to me was that Rock could become fun again. 'Rock' would never be that uniting force it was in the 70s and 80s, in fact you couldn't even call it 'Rock' anymore, but at least it was more fun to listen to.

Now we arrive at the early 2000s. Just when I thought we had finally seen the end of 'Grunge', the fad suddenly moves to the film world. In 2002, a movie called 'The Bourne Identity' comes out, a film that told an old and cliched story in a new way. It was dirty, it was gritty, and it focused on how much it's hero's life sucked. Hmm, sound familiar to you? Me too. I like to call this style of filmmaking 'Docu-Grunge,' as it seems to utilize the documentary style of filmmaking while applying a grunge ethos to it's visuals and content. Now, I want to pause here and say that I have nothing against this style on principle. I am not trying to make blanket statements and be a 'hater'. But I can't help but cringe when all of a sudden the word 'realistic' is commonly associated with this style, and it is implied that all other styles lack realism. Is it realistic to be depressed ALL the time? I'm not depressed all the time, does that make me unreal, or fake? The trend seems to be that in order for something to be good, it has to be uber-dramatic, dirty, and depressing. But in the long run, I'd rather watch Speed Racer than The Dark Knight.

But back to James Bond. Casino Royale was a 'reboot' of the James Bond franchise, which seems to mean that the producers looked around and said, "what's cool these days?" They found the Bourne films, and decided that in order for James Bond to be cool, he had to be presented in the all new 'Docu-Grunge' style. Gritty. Dirty. Depressed. At least when Martin Campbell directed Casino Royale, he preserved some of the visual flair that is characteristic of James Bond films with his sweeping camera movies and allowing the action scenes (though few and far between) to play out in longer shots and impress the audience with their excellence in execution. But now in Quantum of Solace, the camera has to be shaking and zoomed in as far as it will go and any one shot can't last longer than 1.5 seconds, reducing the film to a series of energetic bursts that force an intensity onto the situation instead of more subtle methods and allowing us to enjoy the scope of the visuals and appreciate the action. In trying so hard to copy the Bourne films, Bond has inherited the problems of the bourne films, and reduced itself to a bunch of camera tricks and gimmicky action scenarios. Ian Flemming intended his books to be a form of escapism, something more fun than realism, and the apple has seemingly fallen far from the tree.

Now, I don't want to sound too pessimistic here. The Quantum of Solace had a lot of things to like about it as a Bond film. Exotic locales, hints of the James Bond theme, plenty of action, and they finally re-introduced the silhouetted dancing ladies during the opening credits. But those things are only part of the combination that made Bond films awesome. Bond has always been different from other action heroes. Characteristically smooth and suave, while still calculating and precise, the way the films have been presented has always reflected this, and Bond has never had to 'compete' with other action heroes, and I don't feel like he should. Now, there are hints here and there that these last two films, since they are prequels about Bond becoming Bond, that they are slowly transitioning back into Bond being the awesomely suave and the coolest action star ever, and I dearly hope that they do, because I want my James bond back. I want the real James Bond. And I am hopeful that someday he WILL return.

A dream of mine...

(click on image for high resolution version)

Space Mountain: the movie... This is pretty much my dream movie right now, and some day I'm going to pitch it to Walt Disney Studios and make it into an awesome film that kids and adults can enjoy!

Josh and I came up with this idea while at Disneyland, and it would be a retro-futuristic sci-fi adventure with all the cool stuff in it, like space heroes, scientists, rocket trains, black holes, orbiting hotels, and Gantry 44! Pretty much all the coolest things in the universe.

Someday I'll make this movie... someday.

Lost Highway

The following is an account of what happened to me on November 6th, 2008. And while memory is a fleeting and abstract thing, I have tried to remain as true to the fact as possible, not adding any details for dramatic effect. The goal here is to merely relay my experience for those who have not had the chance to hear me tell it yet.

6 PM, Northeastern Arizona. I was 9 hours into my trip to Canyon de Chelly (pron. 'shay') and half an hour from the hotel where I was to stay for a week and film the canyon and ancient Native American ruins for my employer, Finley Holiday Films. My rental SUV was loaded with my camera equipment and supplies for the trip. I had hoped to reach my destination before it got dark, but unfortunately because of daylight savings, the shorter November days, and the time zone change, the sun had gone down half an hour ago and the last rays of light had just disappeared behind the black hills.

Now it's rather difficult to fully explain my thought process as everything happened in the space of about 5 milliseconds, but I recall glimpsing in the corner of my eye the ghostly figure of a horse bolting across the road, illuminated only at the last split-second by the edge of my headlights, immediately followed by a snapping and smashing sound, and a waterfall of glass pouring over me. As soon as I had realized something had just hit me, I hit the brakes and pulled off to the side of the road. I was rather stunned, but the first thing I noticed was that a section of the windshield had wrapped itself back and was a few inches from my face, so I pushed it forward roughly back into place. In a shocking moment, suddenly all memories of what had just happened came flooding back into my head. I must have been going 60 MPH, actually 5 below the speed limit due to the darkness, but the horse had run out at full speed and collided with the front left side of the hood, it's head snapping forward and shattering the windshield before being thrown upwards by the curve of the vehicle's roof.

Sitting on the side of the road, I opened the door of the SUV with some difficulty as it had been dented in, and spit glass dust out of my mouth. As I did so, I noticed something dripping from my forehead. I was bleeding, and I hadn't even noticed. The coolness of realizing that this was what being in shock feels like was quickly replaced by the terror of not knowing how badly I was injured. I grabbed my duffel bag and snatched a t-shirt from inside and held it to my face and applied pressure to try and stop the bleeding. When the section of windshield in front of me had wrapped back upon itself, it had cut me on the left side of my face and right hand. Not to mention that the shower of glass beads had given me hundreds of tiny cuts all over my face. Fortunately the near-freezing night temperature of the high desert sped up the cauterizing process for my smaller cuts, leaving only the big ones to deal with.

At this point a family drove by and saw my condition, and told me they would drive up to the gas station nearby and call the police. Being in the middle of nowhere, it took 15 minutes for the fire department to arrive, followed shortly by an ambulance and the police. The fire department busied themselves with blocking off the road where the dead horse lay (I must have killed it instantly), and the paramedics took me into the ambulance and checked me out. No major injuries, miraculously, and other than my forehead, everything had stopped bleeding already.

So, despite the long story involved in getting home with no car (not totaled, but completely undrivable) and no cell phone reception, I realize that I was extremely fortunate that the horse had not gotten further out in the road, where a direct hit could have almost certainly been fatal for me, and I was most likely lucky that I didn't see the horse in time to try to avoid it, as a sudden swerve at that speed could have rolled the vehicle, or I could have driven into a ditch or something on the side of the road. The way the windshield had broken was in a way that I could have received serious damage to my eyes, but those had somehow remained safe as well. A kind Native American police officer drove me back to the hotel where I was going, and assured me that they had had problems with the family who owned the corral leaving gates open on their property, and that there would be no danger of them asking for compensation. Yeah, thanks. Still, that's good news, considering I wasn't technically in America at the time. The park I was going to was on a reservation and politically, the entire area is Navajo Nation.

So, after spending a night with no cell reception by myself in the middle of nowhere (the nearest town was an hour and a half away), I finally got home Friday around midnight (much thanks to the help of my employers for getting me another rental car), and was at last able to relax and rest, a much needed exercise as being in a car wreck is a very nerve-wracking experience. I never realized how much I enjoyed being around people I knew, friends of mine and familiar faces have never been so comforting. I am also anticipating even more my return home for Thanksgiving to see my family and relatives. It's not that I've taken them for granted until now or anything, but I guess near-death experiences have a way of making you enjoy the good things in life even more than you did before. Funny how that works, isn't it?