Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Reading is hard


I have some really cool screenplays on my computer that I haven't read. Thanks to some of you and your awesomeness and the general awesomeness of other people, I've been lucky enough to have about 100 screenplays on my laptop right now. I've read about 5 of them. Some of them I've been wanting to read for ages.

I think the reason I haven't read most of them is that they're just so time consuming. It's easy to read a novel when you're waiting for your oil change or sitting on the toilet or generally bored or getting ready for bed. You can read one chapter or two and stop whenever you're ready, picking up right where you left off the next day.

But for some reason I can't do that with a screenplay. You're not supposed to watch a movie in half hour increments, you're meant to plant your ass in a chair for two hours and glue your eyeballs to the screen. And since a script is usually terse and only includes necessary information you kind of have to pay attention.

And that means devoting at least an hour of your time to reading it.

I try reading them at work sometimes but it's hard when you have five bored seniors eating lunch in your room and drawing rainbows and shit all over your paper covered desks while they giggle and flirt.

They want me to tell them which girl in their class I think is most likely to get pregnant. They also eat a lot of Cheetos with lime.

I really want to read the new Will Smith movie about the alcoholic superhero but it seems that every time I settle in to reading something comes up. And it's just so hard to understand what's going on when your attention is sapped every two minutes by some kid who wants to know if you've seen his textbook.

My yearbook staff is working on an art project they seem pretty pleased with. It's a Project Runway style thing where I had them choose an image in a magazine and use that as inspiration for a two-page spread. So far they have done some really creative shit.

But they really only need me to walk around periodically and make suggestion, so I think I'll attempt to read that screenplay during fourth period today. I hope it's good.

4 comments:

  1. I agree ... it's hard to read screenplays if you can't devote the time to read them straight through. But it's hard for me to find the time, so I've learned to read them in 20 page chunks. Not ideal, but it works for me.

    I'm intrigued by the description of the Will Smith script ... how might I obtain a copy of that script?

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  2. Anonymous3:17 PM

    Not that it really matters, but I just stumbled upon info that there is another film in production titled "Not Dead Yet." Totally different story, but...

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  3. Well God dammit.

    At least it looks like a somewhat small picture so maybe my title isn't screwed.

    Because I love my title.

    And I think it's far more appropriate for an action zombie story than it is for some weepy thing about aging actors.

    Dammit.

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  4. Anonymous5:32 AM

    I was just reading about how the artificial yellow color in Cheetos (also mac n cheese & lots of candies) is linked to hyperactivity, ADD, and stuff like that. It's banned in most European countries, Japan, Australia, etc.

    Don't know if your kids will care, but maybe some will stop eating it if they know. Whole Foods has better tasting Cheeto-type snacks without that dye.

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