How to write a better logline

Almost every single time I read a logline someone posts for notes, I ask the same question: "What does your protagonist do?"

People always make the same mistake. They give the setup, not the plot.

For example: "When a group of kids take a vacation at a cabin in the middle of nowhere, they awaken an ancient evil that wants to kill them all."

Okay, that's act one, then what? Because right now, which movie am I describing? Cabin in the Woods? Evil Dead? Dead Snow? I bet you can think of others that fit this logline. It's too generic. Pass.

A logline tells me what I'm watching for two hours, not just the first act. It needs to tell me what this story is about in an interesting way, a way that makes me want to see how you pull it off. If all you give me is Act One, it sounds like a million other movies I've seen.

It also doesn't tell me what people DO. What do these kids do? Is it simply about escape, as in Dead Snow? Do they try to kill the evil, like in Evil Dead? Is it a mystery to solve, like in Cabin in the Woods? Am I going to watch a teenage slasher movie, or a movie where the kids turn it around on the bad guy? I need to know these things if I'm going to get interested.

So a better logline would be "When a group of teenage friends unlocks an ancient evil hidden in the basement of their isolated cabin, they must find a way to kill it before it forces them kill each other."

Now you know which movie I'm talking about, right?

It still sounds like a cheesy B horror flick, but at least this time it adds something different. I'm not just going to be watching kids track and kill an ancient evil, I'm going to be watching kids try to kill each other, people who used to be their friends. There's suggested interpersonal conflict there. I also now see a goal. I know what I'm rooting for - they have to destroy the evil. Now I've got a reason to read it.

My point is, if you want someone to read your script, you have to give them enough information to want to read your script. Make it sound irresistible. Don't worry about spoiling the ending. Nobody's going to get to that great ending if they don't see a reason to read your story.

Just do it well

Screenwriting is not math. There is no magic formula, no perfect template that will guarantee success. You just have to write the best script you can.

If you come to a scene and you're not sure if it's okay to do ______, the answer is, yes. If whatever it is you want to do is the best way - not necessarily the only way, but the BEST way - to tell that part of the story, do it. You don't need to ask permission.

I don't mean you should never get notes or advice. Of course you should ask for help if you're stumped. Just this week I asked a friend of mine for notes on a treatment I put together because I knew parts of it didn't work and I wanted some suggestions on how to fix it.

But if you're thinking gee, I'd like to use voice over here but I've been told never to use voice over - fuck that. Use the damn voice over as long as you can use it well.

That's the key - using it well. Before you decide on your risky decision, make sure it's the best possible decision for the scene. Voice over, for example, tends to be a crutch for new writers who don't know how to let the action do the job. Look at your scene. Does the voice over need to be there, or can you give us that same information in a less talky way?

My rule for voice over is that I only use it for one of two reasons: style, or to tell the audience something they can't see. For example, I have a script where a character is pretending to be someone else, so the only way we know she's pretending is through her voice over. I've never had any complaints about its existence.

As long as it's used well, nobody will care what you do. They just want a good story.

So whatever it is - flashbacks, asides, nonlinear storytelling, nudity, foul language, foreign language, using music - use it if you know you can use it well. Don't be so scared to do it wrong, be scared to do it poorly.

Now go write something.

Thanks, Bruce

Many years ago I took a screenwriting class as part of my graduate degree in creative writing. It was okay. At that time I didn't really get the whole screenwriting thing. Not sure why. Maybe the story I was working on was meh. Either way, I learned the basics, then mostly forgot everything and went back to working on that novel.

A couple of years went by, and although I'd manage to plunk out several short stories, even get one published, I hadn't gotten very far on that novel.

And I never would.

That Christmas, my then-boyfriend and I both unwittingly gave each other the same present, which made for a goofy Christmas morning. It was a copy of Bruce Campbell's first book, If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor. I don't know if he ever read his copy, but I flew through mine. It was the beginning of a long love for Hollywood autobiographies.

The book, if you've never read it, was basically the story of how Bruce Campbell came to have a career in this business, so it goes all the way from Sam Raimi and Evil Dead to life as Billy Zane's audition nemesis and trying to eek out a living on B movie salaries. This was before Burn Notice.

It was the Evil Dead thing that got me. They wanted to make a movie, so they did. Sam Raimi got a bunch of his friends together and they put together a story. Then they made it. It wasn't easy of course - I'm glossing over all the hard parts, but it boiled down to the idea that if you want to make a movie you make a movie.

This had never occurred to me before. You can just go write screenplays and then people make them into movies? This is a thing?

I guess it had never occurred to me before, even during my screenwriting class or all the years I'd been writing stories and watching movies. I was floored by the idea that anyone can write a movie.

First I did what every idiot like me does: I emailed Bruce Campbell and said "How do I start writing screenplays?" Thankfully, he ignored my email.

I bought a couple of format books and started reading websites. I reread the Syd Field book I'd bought for that screenwriting class, as well as the script we were required to purchase - Dead Man Walking.

Then I sat down to write. The novel I'd been working on? In a year I'd written eight pages. That day I took the same idea and I wrote TWENTY pages in the screenplay format I cranked out through Word.

I was home.

I never tried to write a novel again.

What happens at a General

I just did a whirlwind of general meetings, so I thought it might help others if gave a vague description of how they go down for people who haven't gotten there yet.

Note these are GENERALS. Generals are meetings that happen when someone reads your script, likes it, and wants to meet you. The idea is to develop a relationship with a producer you may get to work with in the future. It's your grand introduction to the town.

Pitch meetings are different. This is not about pitch meetings.

So you go on the studio lot or into the building, depending on where you are, and the assistant will shake your hand and ask you if you'd like something to drink. Of course you take a water. I've never tried asking for anything else.

Some studios will offer an ice cold bottle, some a glass with water from some mysterious source. Sometimes it will be room temperature. Sometimes it will be in a plastic cup. Sometimes nobody will remember to offer you anything, but most of the time they'll hand you a bottle. Either way, if there's water, take it. You'll be talking a lot. But, especially if you live in the valley like I do and will be in traffic for an hour after this meeting, clock the bathrooms as soon as you walk in. Otherwise you'll be peeing in a Ralph's on the way home.


So after the assistant hands you a water, they will call the boss who will bring you into his office or a conference room of some kind. I've noticed that usually the couch is for you, the chair is for them, but not always.

They will tell you they read your script and thought it was great. Sometimes that's all they'll say; sometimes they'll lavish you with praise. Drink that shit in. I like the ego boost, so I just let them tell me all the reasons I'm awesome and then say thank you.

Sometimes they'll ask you about yourself. They'll ask about your job, how you got to LA, how long you've been writing, what made you think of this idea, how you got your rep... If you have an interesting job like, say, teaching public high school, sometimes they'll ask about that too.

Then they'll get to what kind of projects you want to write. I usually throw out a couple of examples of the kind of my favorite films in my genre so they know where to point their ideas. This usually leads to a discussion of how awesome those particular movies are.

This is my favorite part of the conversation, because it gives us both a chance to be the film nerds we truly are. I've had some really great discussions with execs about why certain great movies work, and what I'd like to see in movies of the future.

Sometimes, that's the meeting. We met, we wooed, and then I went home with my half empty bottle of water.

Sometimes they'll pitch you something. They have a list of ideas they're working on, and after they've met you they'll give you a project they've been thinking about so you can go home and ponder it.

Sometimes they'll let you pitch an idea. They'll tell you what they're looking for, and if you've got anything like that in your script stable, bust it out. Initially I had this one awesome idea I'd pitch to everyone, but it became pretty clear that each studio is looking for something different. Some are more broad comedy guys, some are looking for the unusual and creative, some want you to do more of what you just did. So I now have a few ideas ready to throw out depending on the tenor of the room.

Often they want to know what you're working on now, so be working on something. Sometimes they'll ask to read it when you're finished.

They'll wind it all up, give you a business card, and shake your hand. And that's the meeting.

Sometimes they'll go for 15 minutes, sometimes an hour; it just depends on the purpose of the meeting and what kind of exec you're dealing with.

And that's how general meetings work.

Time for change

....And I'm back.. I slept for NINE HOURS last night. That's like the most hours I've slept in a year. I would have slept even longer, but the dogs woke me up with a squirrel alert. That's how tired I was.

I am no longer a teacher. It's weird. I was sad walking out of my classroom for the last time, but I know it was the right call. Morale at our school is in the toilet because next year we'll have a new boss, and the people who get to choose that boss are not trustworthy. They're in with the latest trend to make everything in education about tests. The guy who's been angling for the principal's spot thinks we shouldn't even teach novels anymore; just test prep all year. Imagine turning English into year-round test prep. No thank you. I weep for what's coming.

I'll miss the kids. I'll miss creating the yearbook. On the way out I'm sure my replacement was getting irritated with all the things I was telling him - "The door sticks, so you have to slam into it sometimes to get it open, and the computer doesn't read flash drives but it does print, and I left you a scanner/printer but it's out of ink, and I think you should get a wireless router...." I loved that classroom, and I loved yearbook, and I want to make sure they're okay.

And now I transition into writer first, educator second.

I think it helps that I'm still really busy. I've got meetings like gangbusters right now, and in between I still have wedding planning and several screenplay projects to work on. I haven't felt the loss of my job because I've got a new one. I have a few more things to say about meetings, but that can wait for another day because I have to go get ready to drive to the next one.

Lost Girl fan video #3

All that stuff I said yesterday that I had to do? I dealt with the stress of that by doing this instead:

Busy

I haven't abandoned this blog. I am not going to abandon this blog. But right now I am super incredibly busy.

Not only was the network at school not letting me log in to Blogger again (It's sort of a crap shoot each week as to which websites will be blocked) but it's my last week as a teacher. Ever. I have many essays to grade and a room to empty.

Then there's screenwriting stuff. Then there's social stuff. Plus I'm getting married in a month.

My brain is having difficulty keeping up. I have noticed myself getting stupider this week. Hopefully that will stop when I'm officially on vacation since I'll have one less job to do.

In August I'm going to collapse in a heap, just in time to start over a new school year as a sub somewhere.

Not really an update

I was really hoping this would be one of those crazy 24-hour sales, but that doesn't really happen anymore. At least, not like it used to.

So I'm still waiting for all the studios to decide what they'd like to do. I am already taking meetings while I wait for offers, which is the objective. Even without a sale I'm still moving along. The script is doing its job.

My script is hot. That was pretty neat, seeing my name and "hot" beside it. That and reading the Tracking Board thread where people talked about me.

My phone has been glued to my hand since Tuesday, waiting for "Birdhouse in Your Soul" to play because that is my agent/manager ringtone. (Who watches over you?)

So in other words, my update is that there is not really an update - just people moving around behind the scenes.

Me

 
This is the most self-absorbed thread ever in a history of self-absorbtion.

My script going out (How My Wedding Dress Got This Fucking Dirty) has drawn some attention to my blog so there are new people coming by to see what all the damn fuss is about. (There's damn fuss!)

So hi! I'm Emily Blake. I am from North Carolina and I teach high school English in South Central LA. I live in the valley.

I've been writing stories since I was in the fourth grade and last week I had a spec go wide for the first time. I'm repped at Circle of Confusion and APA. I write action comedy mostly, more action than comedy. My favorite movies are Grosse Pointe Blank, In Bruges, Pitch Black and Terminator 2. I love Wuxia tales and Hong Kong action, and I think Korea is where it's at in the film world right now. (Did you see The Good, the Bad, and the Weird? That movie fills me with so much joy.) David Twohy is my favorite screenwriter. Danny Boyle is my favorite director. Emma Stone is my favorite actress. I want to make sweet dirty love to Kris Holden-Reid. And Jensen Ackles. And Timothy Olyphant. Possibly all at the same time, if my dreams have anything to say about it. My fiance has accepted this.

I was interviewed on two podcasts. One here: http://www.scriptdoctoreric.com/scriptcast/page/3 (Scriptcast 10 at the bottom of the page) when I hadn't really done anything except talk.

And here: http://www.scriptdoctoreric.com/scriptcast (Scriptcast 42, currently second on the list) after my script was a finalist in TrackingB and I'd been signed at Circle.

By the way, if you're not listening to the Scripcast podcast, you should. In addition to having some good screenwriting stuff, Matt and Eric are just highly entertaining. I love those guys.

Say hi if you like. I like people. I'm a Southern girl who teaches English and writes so I really enjoy talking - that's like the blabbermouth trifecta. Ask questions, say hello, tell me how much I suck. Actually don't do that. I'm not ready to be told how much I suck yet. I teach children and I moderate over at Done Deal, so I take enough abuse as it is.

The Best Note part 2

I didn't set out to write romantic comedies. I don't even really like most romantic comedies. The closest thing to a romantic comedy that I have in my DVD collection is Grosse Pointe Blank. Oh and I guess Shakespeare in Love counts.

But for some reason, when I write my little action movies, I love to explore a romantic comedy style relationship. I have a sort of fascination with a woman who has secrets and a man who loves her anyway.

Writing the female characters is easy for me, obviously, because they are all me. As a Gemini, I can switch back and forth from hero to villain to meek little girl to angry evil bitch pretty easily. What I cannot do is have a penis, so I have to work a lot harder at writing interesting dudes. I can do it, but it requires more of my brain.

And that's where this next note comes in. I'm afraid I can't remember who it came from - someone in an online writers group, I believe - but it was a good one. It's a common sense note, but something I had been ignoring up to that point.

I was working on a script that had my usual dynamic - a girl who's got a secret and a boy who thinks she's the bees knees because he doesn't know he's being lied to - and they are held captive by some bad guys. He's mad at her because he's sure she's hiding something from him, so they just sort of grumble at each other until she gets away from the bad guys.

The note I got was, why don't they work together here? This way we can see them as a team, despite the problems they're having, and really get why they love each other. Plus it makes your male lead cooler. He needs to be cooler.

My male lead was okay, you see, but when you write a relationship you need to really establish why these two people love each other. And that means the boy has to be AWESOME.

Enter the scene of my leads working together. If in this moment, even through their mutual enmity, they can work together to get the bad guys, the audience can see why they like each other, and can get a moment to fall in love with the male lead.

I took the note, and one of the first comments I always get on that script now is how much everybody loves my male lead. That's not the only scene where I made him cool, but it's the most important.

So to sum up, the second-best note I ever received was to make my male lead unmistakably likable by having him work TOGETHER with my female lead to solve a problem.

I've been doing it ever since.

The Best Note

 I've gotten a lot of great notes in my life as a screenwriter, but I can still remember the best one because I think of it every time I write. I got it from The Unknown Screenwriter. So thank you, Unk. I hope you're okay with me giving you some credit here.

I had this zombie script about a family traveling across post-zombopocalypse America (This was before the current zombie explosion) and there was this scene where my female lead was stuck in a drug store with zombies coming after her.

In my original draft the zombies come at her and she doesn't blink. She grabs a broom and swings it around, taking out zombies left and right until she has a pile of bodies at her feet and runs away.

Unk pointed out that it's far more interesting to watch her fail, to get backed into a corner so bad we had no idea who she'd get out of it. And he was 100% right.

I rewrote the scene so that this time, she has no weapon. She grabs whatever she can use from the store shelves and throws them at the zombies, but they keep coming and coming until she ends up against the freezer section, keeping them at bay with a glass door.

The next person who read the script said that was their favorite scene because they seriously thought she was about to die.

And that's when I realized how to write.

From that point on, in every script, I made sure to have at least one scene where our protagonist is good and truly fucked. They're a badass, sure, but that doesn't mean they're invincible. It's tough to root for someone who will always win no matter what the odds. It's a lot more fun to worry they're not going to make it.

And that's the best note I ever got.

Tracking

My script hit the tracking boards yesterday. So that was pretty cool.

Here's the It's On The Grid posting. The description on other boards has listed it as a romcom in the style of "Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" which is just awesome because I think Guy Ritchie is the bee's knees.

They got the title is wrong. The title of my script is not "How Did My Wedding Dress Get This Fucking Dirty"

The title of my script is "How My Wedding Dress Got This Fucking Dirty"

It's not a question, it's a statement. A question implies a confused protagonist, taken on an adventure out of her control. More comedy than action.

A statement implies certainty - a protagonist who now needs to explain how all this went down - more action with the comedy.

So the title matters, especially to my mom. She does not approve of the cuss word in my title.

But I'm still excited to be out there.

Now we wait.

In the meantime, if you have any questions I can answer, ask away. I need something to pass the time.

No you (Lost) Girls

I made another Lost Girl fan video. This one is about Bo and Kenzi.

This is the best show ever, you guys. Ever. Making videos about it is fun.

Watching the kids in action

Last year I gave my students an assignment to write short film scripts as their final project. It went so well that this year I decided to expand it. Not only are they writing scripts, but they're filming them.

It's the greatest thing I've ever done, and I wish I'd thought of this years ago. The kids are really getting into it.

I'm going to focus on one group in particular. All names are fake.

So Julie has told me numerous times that she wants to be a director some day, and she definitely has the personality for it. She's bossy, opinionated, but well liked. Right now I'm watching her sit on a table, surrounded by her groupmates, as she lists the changes they will be making to the script after I gave them notes.

Annie, the script writer, is off in the corner, waiting to be told what changes to make.

Dariah, who was supposed to be the co-director, is so obviously the producer. She came to me for the notes on the script, she's planning all the locations, and when Julie got off topic, Dariah reminded everyone to focus on the material. She's taking money from the group to pay for props they want to use. (I do not require them to spend money, but they really want to.) And she has an assistant.

Kris, who is the star of this particular horror film, wanders around the room, occasionally cracking jokes, checking his cell phone, not able to focus on anything for more than five minutes.

The rest of the kids chime in with suggestions on how their characters should die.

Whitney, the DP, only cares about where they want her to put the camera.

I gave them notes to make the characters more developed because in their first draft people just go to a party and die and don't really exist outside that event, so now they're discussing how they can expand their scenes to create more conflict between the characters.

It's beautiful to watch.

My take on the whole Disciple Program thing

Last week The Disciple Program sold to Universal for big bucks and with Mark Wahlberg attached to star. And the arguing began.

For those of you who have not been obsessing over this particular development, let me 'splain:

A while back, aspiring screenwriter Tyler Marceca entered the Industry Insider Screenwriting Contest, in which he was given a vague logline (After waking to find his wife dead in their backyard, a man conducts his own investigation, and uncovers the hidden life of a woman he thought he knew) with which to write the beginning of a screenplay. The top writers were then given guidance from professionals to build an entire screenplay from those initial pages. Tyler won and developed a script called The Disciple Program.

While he was already gaining some traction with his contest win, Tyler submitted this script to Carson Reeves at the Scriptshadow blog for notes. Carson loved the script and generated a lot of buzz for it, and Tyler was signed by WME and Anonymous Content. On Friday, The Disciple Program sold with a director and actor attached. And Tyler is on his way.

I don't know Tyler personally. These are just the facts as I have gleaned them.

This whole series of events has generated some rather aggressive discussion among the screenwriting populace. There are those who are in a kerfuffle over whether or not Carson is responsible for Tyler's success. Carson helped in a big way, no doubt, but let's get one thing straight: Tyler is responsible for Tyler's success.

No matter what you think of the script (I think it was great with pacing and an easy read because I have an English teacher's vocabulary skills, but a bit predictable), you have to respect Tyler's devotion to the craft here. He entered a contest where the prize wasn't money so much as it was hard work under a mentor's supervision. But he didn't stop there. He knew he could do more with the script, so he sought out more help in the form of notes from Carson.

I have my issues with paying for notes. Namely, there are very few screenplay consultants who are worth the price. I can name four, although I personally have never paid for a note in my life. For some people, though, paid notes are a very useful tool. See This Post by the Bitter Script Reader for really good advice on the subject.

Anyway, Tyler worked on this script, and then worked on it, and worked on it again. That much is obvious from his story. And when he hooked up with WME, they gave him notes and he worked on it again. He could have rested on his contest-winning laurels and imagined himself a perfect writer with nothing left to learn, but he didn't.

Honestly, all this fighting people are doing over whether or not Scriptshadow helped Tyler out or not, over whether or not the script is truly amazing, it doesn't matter. That's not the moral of this story. The moral of this story is, this guy worked his ass off to make this the best script he could possibly write, and now he's a professional screenwriter.

Stay classy, kids

I've noticed a trend with the kids ever since Myspace and then Twitter and Facebook came along: less filtering, more blurting. They think every thought they have is worthy of sharing, and as you can imagine, it drives me batty.

I have a regular saying in my classroom: "Just because you have a thought, does not mean it has to come out of your mouth." I say it so often they'll say it with me and nod, agreeing, promising to stay quiet, and then five seconds later they're sharing at top volume whatever thought popped into their addled brains regardless of the instructions I'm in the middle of giving.

The kids don't feel like stuff is private anymore. Everybody's innermost thoughts are just out there where we can all see them, and every thought they have is worth sharing.

Okay I know what you're thinking. "You're one to talk, Sharey McSharington," but the stuff I overshare is awesome. You should hear some of the crap these kids say and then repeat thirty thousand times if it gets a single laugh. It's terrible. The same damn jokes over and over, jokes that weren't funny the first time.

Most of the time when they're funny it's not on purpose.

Anyway, that's not why I started this post.

With all this social media out there and free sharing and lack of privacy, people seem to have lost their sense of etiquette.

Just because it says someone is your "friend" on Facebook does not make them your actual friend. Because you follow someone on Twitter does not make them someone you pal around with. If that were true, I'd be in a hot tub right now with Kris Holden-Reid, getting it on.

In case you haven't been following my TV star crush progression, Kris Holden-Reid is the new Jensen Ackles. But I digress once again.

My point is this: These people have business hours and business email addresses. Facebook is for personal time. Twitter is for spewing out random thoughts to anyone who will listen. It is not for you to use in pestering people.

You wouldn't go up to an agent you've never met before at a party, tag him on the shoulder and say "Read my script" would you? Okay, if you would, punch yourself because you're an asshole.

Querying through Facebook is considered by most agents and managers to be a really tasteless act. They also don't seem to enjoy you sending loglines via Twitter. There may be exceptions, but not many. And while we're at it, I discovered through personal experience that they get overly upset when you email them your query letter on a Sunday.

So here's a public service message to anyone who doesn't have boundaries - make some. If your logline is good someone will request it through the proper channels. Have some class. Just because you see this person online does not make them your friend.

Screenwriter code switching

There's this term we use in education - one of those jargony terms I don't know if people use in other industries - "Code Switching." Code switching is the ability to turn your brain from one mode like test-taking brain to creative brain, or academic classroom brain to lunchtime fuckaround brain. John Cleese talks a bit about something similar in this video on creativity somebody linked on Done Deal. It's a pretty good speech, but I am too lazy to look it up right now so you're just going to have to Google.

Anyhow, I realized this morning that I have a total code switch going on when I start to work on a screenplay. I suppose we all do, but I was surprised at the way I do it.  All this time and I never realized how super serious I get.

I have been working on a thing with a person, and yesterday I sent a copy of the latest version of a treatment. I got back a list of casual ideas to explore, questions, suggestions, NOT notes. But my brain had switched to screenplay mode, which means everything is a problem to solve. Suddenly I was fucking Sherlock Holmes trying to decipher the Mystery of the Screenplay Notes.

And the guy was like "Hold up, kid. This is just a discussion." And I was like "Oh." And that's when I realized that although I always tried to pretend I could easy in - easy out of screenwriting mode, the truth is I have a very clear mindset when I'm in that mode. I code switch to screenwriting and I'm super focused. My sense of humor is poured into my characters and I am left with none.

To my fiance I've always said "Hey, if you need me while I'm writing it's cool. Just open the door and I'll break off. It's not too tough to get back into it."

What a fucking lie. Last week he went to walk the dogs and called me out of the office to see if I thought the neighborhood smelled like pot. I nearly ripped his head off his body and threw it over the fence. I guess he learned his lesson about that one.

Do you guys do this? Because this has come as a revelation to me.

B story is the answer

The story always follows the same plot. I write a first draft of a treatment, the beginning is great and the enging is great, often set in stone. I rarely make major changes to either of those from the day I first type them up. But the middle, well, you know. The dreaded Act 2. How do I get from this awesome beginning to the awesome end? It's not easy.

So the first draft of my treatment is always really thin. I throw some placeholder events in, finish it up, then sit back and look at it, dissatisfied but happy to at least be on my way.

After thinking for a couple of days and maybe having someone read it over, I always come to the same conclusion: Needs more B story. I get so caught up on my protagonist's journey that I can't see any other stories in the mix, and then I start thinking about what everybody else is doing while she's not on screen. Sometimes they do interesting things. Usually they're trying to get her. And there it is. While my character is trying to stop the bad guy, she has cops/robbers/aliens/zombies/jealous rivals making her life complicated by trying to stop her from saving the world.

This is almost always the answer - see how many times in this post I used that word, "always" - but I still go through this process each time. When the first draft comes out lacking I'll say to myself, "It needs a B story." But then I stare and stare and can't come up with anything, even though I know full well what the problem is. And then one night while I'm trying to sleep, or while I'm singing in the car, or while I'm louffaing in the shower, I realize what my B story is. And then I'm off to the races.

I made a video

I finished my fan video. I bring you "Bad Boyfriend," a tribute to the character of Dyson on the Showcase/Syfy series Lost Girl.

I was surprised at how all-consuming this became. I will probably make this my new hobby.

Please to enjoy if you like alpha males. Or if you don't.

I'm learning to edit

At work this week they blocked Blogger. They do that at least once a month, then it will reappear for a while, then disappear again. I honestly think the IT guys are just fucking with me.

But I've also been busy. Not busy writing screenplays, which I am kind of doing but not enough, and not busy grading papers, which I've decided to pretend don't exist anymore, but busy editing a Lost Girl fan video.

I've had editing software and an external hard drive for a couple of years because I was going to learn to edit, but I never could figure out what to edit. I took some videos of my dog running around, but that's not really plot heavy, and after I proved to myself that I'm lukewarm about directing, I didn't really want to shoot anymore short films. So the dream of learning to edit kind of disappeared. I never had it in mind to actually be an editor or anything, I just wanted to learn to do it. But I never really did.

Then after I became obsessed with Lost Girl, I started watching fan videos on Youtube. There are some really good ones. This one is my favorite:

I think this video is amazing, and I envy this person's skills. I decided to nerd out and make one of my own using this as a model. I'm only following one character and using a much simpler song, but I've been at this a week and already have learned quite a bit about using the software. I wish I had thought of this ages ago, because it's much easier to learn to do this when you have two seasons of great shots to pull from and the story has already been told.

So that's what I'm up to. It's fun. Or, it was fun until I realized three days in that I had imported all my files using the wrong aspect ratio and had to start over from scratch. But this is how we learn.