How stupidity can lead you to your own voice

I'm one of those writers who has a personality on the page, the kind you get all mad at because my style of writing can occasionally overcome the actual content in the story. Mind you, I never ever write something without putting my best effort into it, but I get a lot of credit for the way I use my words.

I enjoy saying things like "homeskillet" and "heavens to Betsy." In real life I say "Oh for heaven's sake!" on an hourly basis. This is my style in life and it is my style in writing. I have been told that how I talk is exactly how I write, that there is no filter between me and my written words.

Not everybody knows how to do this, so I will tell you how.

The secret is, I am dumb and impatient.

The other day my boss emailed the English department a form for us to fill out with statistics and jargon and lots of complicated details about how we plan to improve learning in our classrooms. I read this form like twice and did not understand a goddamn word. My brain does not function that way. I can bullshit by copying what other people write, but I am completely faking it. I often have no clue what the hell I'm talking about. This is how I survived Astronomy class.

Of course, with this particular document, I might have asked for help or read it another two times, but I am impatient. Instead I deleted the email, and prepared to say to my boss, "Look, dude, I don't know what this bullshit means, but I can tell you what I'm doing in the classroom and why." Fortunately he never called me in to talk about it, probably because he's met me and he knows how this conversation will go.

When I was in band, I sucked at sight reading. I am too impatient to look at all those black notes and figure out what they mean, so I'd just start to wander off with my flute and make up my own music. It sounded pretty good, way better than the sound I squeaked out when I tried to play Mozart. I shake my fist at Mozart. I do not have the patience to, like, practice or whatever.

You can see where this is going.

I am dumb and impatient, so I don't even bother trying to figure out what anyone else wants me to say. I just say what's in my brain and figure they'll all just deal. Miraculously, so far everyone has.

It's weird. Somehow what would get other people in trouble has been my greatest advantage, much to the chagrin of one particular coworker who always does what he's told and doesn't understand why I never get lectured. I'm fucking charming, that's why. Or everyone's afraid I will punch them in the face.

So I guess if you want to learn how to harness your own voice, act dumb and impatient. Just forget about how you're supposed to sound and say, "fuck it" and let your brain loose on the page. You're telling a story to someone who really wants to be entertained. You're explaining something to someone who may be dumb and impatient, like me. So if you can put yourself in dumb and impatient mode, and you can rip out that filter and let those thoughts fly directly to your fingers, you too can have a distinct voice.

And the most important thing is, just accept that you're dumb. Don't try to sound smart. Remember that you can always go back and use bigger words later. Right now just let yourself sound stupid. Embrace that shit. Be the best idiot you can be.

It's also possible I'm completely full of shit and am too dumb to know better.

And it's not just because I want to bang the male lead, I swear

Seriously, look at this dude.

It's Monday. Know what Monday has become to me? Lost Girl night. This post will come as no surprise if you follow me on Twitter. I cannot shut the fuck up about this show.

It started in college. Or maybe not. Maybe it started when I was six and obsessed over Fraggle Rock. I didn't want to go to bed; I just wanted to spend more time with the Fraggles. It got so bad my parents took the TV away until I was 14. I read books. I went outside to play.

Then in college I got my own television.

One day I flipped some channels and found a show where some girl was holding two Pez dispensers up - one a witch and one a wolf, because she was a witch and her boyfriend was a werewolf. And I decided not to change the channel.

Probably in the same week, I saw a tiny gray puppet wandering around on a space ship calling himself a "Dominar" and negotiating with a gigantic space bug.

So I don't remember which came first, Buffy or Farscape, but in both cases I remember the exact episode that got me hooked. I'd been out of the TV loop for so many years that this was fucking amazing to me. And I started to obsess. I wanted more, always more. When Buffy gave her life I cried. Shit, I still cry even though I know she's coming back. When John Crichton destroys entire armadas to get Aeryn back in his arms, I cheer.

And that's probably when I really began to appreciate moving pictures. I write features, not TV, but the truth is, my love of visual story telling began with two great genre TV shows.

Remember when Veronica Mars opened the door at the end of season one and we had to wait an entire summer to find out who she saw? That shit drove me crazy. I thought about it all the time. Who's at the goddamn door?

And the horror I felt at the end of the last episode of Firefly as I realized there would be no more story - I don't want to relive those moments.

But then I became a very mature adult. I still enjoyed television. I loved Lost and enjoy Doctor Who very much, but I don't download wallpapers or search for spoilers or join fan forums. I moved on with my life. If I missed an episode of television, that was okay. I had a life to live and these people weren't real. I was a grown-up now, not a kid who imagines what character she would be if she was in this show. Not that I ever did anything so nerdy as that. I mean, come on, I'm pretty cool.

Then one day after Being Human on Syfy, I stuck around to see the pilot for Lost Girl. And fuck me. The little genre-obsessed girl inside never left. She was just waiting for the next great show. I was in from the minute the credits rolled.

I am obsessed with this show. In case you don't know about it, it's an incredibly popular Canadian production about a bisexual succubus named Bo (Ana Silk) learning about a Fae world hidden from humans. They're already filming season 3 in Canada, but Syfy's only beginning to air season two now.

I couldn't wait. I kept going online and looking things up and getting spoiled. As soon as I found out about Dyson (the wolf man pictured above, played by the sweltering Kris Holden-Reid) giving up his love to protect Bo, I immediately went online to see if he ever gets it back. And of course I spoiled myself on that and other things in the process.

I realized at this point that if I didn't go ahead and find these episodes and watch them, I was going to ruin the show for myself. It was the whole "Who's at Veronica's door" thing all over again, only now I can actually look it up and find out. And that just makes watching it later not as much fun. So this weekend I found them online and marathoned them all. I have now seen all of season two, and I am relieved. But now I can't wait for season 3.

But it's Monday today, and that means I can watch the episodes again on Syfy. And I will. Because I am once again reminded of how easily I get addicted to good stories. Some people can't stay away from their cell phones. Some people need food or booze or meth. I just need a weekly injection of a genre show with a great love story and some action.

And I am Team Dyson all the way.

Update, podcast and a piece of advice

My podcast is up! Here's all the information I'm too lazy to type out for myself: http://www.scriptdoctoreric.com/2012/04/scriptcast-42-emily-blake-strikes-back.html

This episode was really long. The one they posted on ITunes is trimmed down from the original broadcast, and it's still really long. I am a tangenty individual. But we had a grand time. I love these guys and I am always up for talking about what makes scripts work.

Meanwhile, I haven't actually written any screenplay pages in months. I've been working on treatment after treatment but not any scenes. Last weekend I kicked off the first few pages of a new script and it was fun. This morning I cranked out the first big action piece, and the words just flowed. It's like they were backed up behind the fence and then I released them into the world. Feels good.

Writing is fun. Now if someone would just pay me to do this, I'd be golden.

The best thing about having a fiance who's in law enforcement is that he's always got clever and realistic ways to pull of action sequences. He's like my action scene consultant. I say to him, "Beefcake," says I, "if you were trapped in a mine and needed to get past some bad guys to get to the entrance, how would you do it?"

And then he'll give me a three-hour lecture on different procedures and what kind of weapons would be best.

Sometimes I'll be like "Hey Beefcake, what kind of gun would you use to shoot zombies if you were trapped in a mine?"* And he'll give me a list of possible options.

Plus he has friends in like EVERY branch of law enforcement, so if I ever need to know about some procedures I can just find someone to ask. It's a pretty sweet deal for me.

So if there's one piece of advice I could give to writers in search of a career in action films, it would be to marry a law enforcement agent who really likes talking about how to shoot shit. And get him to take you shooting because it's fun, even if he does get embarrassed when I pretend I'm shooting zombies with the shotgun.



*I am not actually writing a story that takes place in a mine or anything about zombies. But maybe I should be.

You should see this movie

Many years ago, a roommate rented a movie called Mating Habits of the Earthbound Human, and I fell in love. You probably have not seen this movie, which is why I have a copy of it; so that anyone I know who has the least inclination to watch it can always borrow it from me, as long as they give it back promptly. It's become my go-to suggestion whenever a friend asks for a recommendation for an obscure comedy.

The film stars Mackenzie Astin (brother of Sean, son of Patty Duke, fully adorable) and Carmen Electra as a mismatched couple that meets, falls in love, and experiences various forms of birth control until they finally make a baby. It's a faux documentary, narrated by David Hyde Pierce. Lucy Liu and Marc Blucas are also in this movie.

Okay so Carmen Electra, who works in some kind of office setting but wears the sluttiest fucking clothes to work since Shannen Doherty on Charmed, goes out to a bar wearing what appears to be a wash rag over her gigantic fake boobs. Mackenzie Astin mans up and hits on her, and the dating ritual begins. David Hyde Pierce tells us all about it.

After some basic datey type events, they get it on, and that's when the fun stuff happens. During their sex scenes, we cut to a track where men dressed as giant sperm act out the fertilization process. When the gun shot goes off, they all race for the zygote at the end of the track, later represented by an X mark on a tiny trampoline. But at this time they do not reach the X, because Mackenzie Astin has put on a condom. All the sperm men SLAM into a giant gym mat put in their way.

Later she puts on a diaphragm, and uses birth control, and there's a scene where he either masturbates or pulls out - I can't remember which - but the sperm guys just keep running and running and running until they sort of stop and look around and realize the zygote is nowhere to be found. They're very disappointed.

Basically, this movie is hilarious. Carmen Electra wears slutty clothes and gets naked with Mackenzie Astin, and David Hyde Pierce narrates it all in his Niles Crane voice, and there's giant dudes in sperm costumes racing each other to babyland. And somewhere in there is a romantic comedy and some dialogue and shit. So you should see this movie if you enjoy awesome things. There are no explosions in it, but there are some magnificent fake boobs and a dude dressed as Arnold shoots a machine gun at some point, so there's something for everyone. Look it up: Making Habits of the Earthbound Human. It's available on Netflix.

Finally, something to work on

AN IDEA HAD BEEN APPROVED!

I am now prepared to write a screenplay again. And it is rock 'em sock 'em wall to wall action: my favorite. It only took four months to get here. In that time I have learned a whole lot about what makes a marketable script, so hopefully next time this won't be so difficult.

Maybe Han Solo likes to dance, you don't know

And now, Spring Break is over. Today I have to grade papers and do lesson plans, and next week our yearbook is due so I'm going to be wrapped up in that. But this week was great for screenwriting. I got a ton of work done - work I can't talk about, which is awesome.

I also got and played Kinect Star Wars. Overall, pretty fun. It's not a perfect game, but I'm enjoying it. The weird thing is, the constant clenching of my fist is actually making my bad hand hurt. I have to start playing with an open hand or something. And my shoulders hurt. This game is an excellent substitution for an upper body workout if you're like me and can't really pick up weights.

I know people have been complaining about the whole Han Solo dancing thing, but I don't think it's that big a deal. In case you don't know, there's a side game that involves dancing in the Star Wars universe, structured like the game Dance Central. The first level is dancing with Princess Leia in Jabba's palace. Later in the game you dance with Han Solo.

And everyone's losing their shit about Han Solo and how undignified his dancing is.

Hey, people, Leia is undoing her chains and dancing for Jabba, and then gets all pissy when she doesn't win the contest, as she walks back to put her slave chains back one. How is this more dignified than Han getting his swerve on in Cloud City? But nobody's talking about Leia.

But whatever. It's just a game. The game is meant to be fun. It doesn't even have a good plot.

Sure, I miss Knights of the Old Republic. I miss that brilliantly constructed plot with the love story and the side missions and the characters that had more depth than any of the Star Wars prequels. But this isn't that game.

It probably would have been cool to have a story like KOTOR where it's in the same universe but without any of the same characters. Then you don't have to worry about offending people with Han Solo's dance moves or that rockin' tune about how glad he is to be free from the carbonite.

I don't mind the Han Solo dance or the Leia dance. I don't think you needed that, but it's not like I'm offended. A game should get a little more leeway than a film. It would be nice if every game could be KOTOR, but it's not. This is about throwing lizard guys through the air and waving your light saber around. And then dancing and raging around as a Rancor and podracing, at which I am fucking terrible.

Anyway, whether it's right or wrong, I'm gonna go play it until I can't fake grip a light saber anymore.

Podcasted again

I'm going back on Scriptcast Friday morning at 10 because it's fun and I'm on Spring Break. This will be my second appearance, but I'll be back. I'm going to be the John Goodman of this podcast.

Script Doctor Eric posted about it.

If you have any stuff you'd like me or us to talk about, email Eric or tweet at him: @scriptdreric and he will ask.

We'll be discussing the past few months, surreal as they've been, general meetings and how to define style. Or that's what we're supposed to be discussing. I'm sure I'll find a way to careen off subject in spectacular fashion.

This shit will drive you crazy

I've bounced back and forth through so many ideas over the past couple of months I've lost count. I've asked friends about this, and a lot of them had similar experiences. Apparently this is completely normal.

Just to recap, after I got signed, I could not find the right spec to work on next. None of my ideas were right, and plenty of ideas I would have worked on had I been on my own were rejected because they weren't the ideal project to sell. I understand completely why these ideas were rejected, and I know that it's important to start with the right idea from the jump, but holy Christ, this is a frustrating process.

At first I was all "It's okay, I'll think of something!" Then I was all "Okay I'll really sit down and think of something and one of these will work." Then I was all "THIS IS THE IDEA! I KNOW IT IS!" Then I was all "Well fuck me with a fucking post hole digger, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing." Then I was all "Maybe I should just throw some shit on a piece of paper and smear it around with a fork." Then I just threw up my hands and danced around shouting out random words, hoping they'd form an idea.

After a while I realized I was trying too hard to write something that would be approved without paying attention to what I WANTED to write. The best ideas come to you on their own. I relaxed, let my brain go to casual observation mode, and wrote down the top tier ideas I've ever had, adding something as I went. I made two lists - Ideas I Just Had, and Ideas I've Been Thinking About for a While and Want to Write. If Idea I Just Had sticks around for a couple of days, it moves to the Ideas I Want to Write list.

I took the two stories most likely to be approved and am writing a treatment for both. Best case, Manager approves an idea and I can shoot him the treatment. Worst case, I got practice writing treatments for ideas I will write later.

Because I am an optimist.

Yay for the Hunger Games

This picture is not relevant to this post, but I got tired of waiting for a relevant post to slide it in there. So feel free to enjoy it as much as I do.

Anyway...

The kids are all abuzz about Hunger Games today. Several of them have asked me if I plan to see it, even more already saw it at midnight screenings, and most of the rest plan to see it over the weekend - especially the freshmen. I honestly think it was evenly split between girls and boys.

Lots of kids wanted to see Project X. Before that it was probably a horror movie. Sometimes they get all OMGTRANSFORMERS. But I don't know if I've ever seen this many kids just assume everyone is going to see a movie. They all keep asking each other WHEN they're going to see it, not if.

Some of them are excited because they read it, but many of the kids who have read it have spread their excitement to everyone else. Hopefully this will mean an uptick in library borrowing after they all fall in love with the movie and want to read the books. The kids who have seen it all loved it.

Side note, how are all these kids allowed to go to midnight movie screenings on school nights? My parents NEVER would have allowed that. You kids can't wait 15 hours and watch it after school? Kids these days.

Anyhow, I know it's already huge, but it's cool watching the kids get excited about a story that's actually good, ESPECIALLY when it's a story based on a meaty book. And it's just gravy that this action movie has a female protagonist. So go, Hunger Games, go!

I am trying to read

I'm doing things now that I can't talk about, which is pretty awesome. Not sure if it will go anywhere in the long run, but I'm doing stuff. Doing stuff is always good.

I'm reading more these days. You know when you were a kid, and you had like, a whole day to just read? You'd pick a book up and just keep rolling on through until dinner time? Well, I did, anyway. I probably read all the Little House books in a single weekend.

But then you grow up and there's landscaping and dog walking and work and car repair and grocery shopping and going out with friends (because by now, presumably, my friends are no longer my books) and then you just lose time for reading. Oh sure, I still dig into screenplays every so often, but I miss prose.

So now every weekend I try to hang out for an hour or two in the mornings just reading. Right now I'm reading Tales From Development Hell, a book about movies that were never made, or that took a million years to get to the screen. It's fascinating, and a good lesson to learn about this industry.  I love biographical stuff about this business, and this book is filled with interviews and info about how great ideas get fucked by development. My favorite examples so far is the exec who wanted a scene where the human in the Planet of the Apes reboot teaches the apes to play baseball, and his insistence on this one silly scene sabotaged the entire project. This is the version that eventually became the Tim Burton remake, but it started off as a really cool original idea.

Speaking of Development Hell....

I'm also reading more comic books. I realized today that as much as I love Wonder Woman, I've never read any of the actual comics. I read the script for the film and the pilot, I used to watch the show religiously, and I've seen many a Justice League, but I've never gone to the source material. This seemed a tragedy, so I went to House of Secrets in Burbank (a place I highly recommend because they have always been so nice to me even though I always pester them with a zillion questions because I don't know much about comics) and picked up a couple of The All New Wonder Woman issues. Now I want to go back and get more, but I didn't want to look like a massive dork going to the comic shop twice in one day, because, you know, I have a reputation of coolness to uphold, one I have really cemented by wearing this awesome Admiral-Akbar-caught-in-a-Chinese-finger-trap shirt.

I also got the third collection of Y The Last Man because that's my favorite graphic novel.

I'm also working on a post that's been a long time in coming about the various books people have sent me over the years. I feel pretty guilty because at least five people have sent me screenwriting books to read and review and I didn't finish any of them, so I'm trying to read them so I can post here about whether or not they were useful. Then I'll write about books I've read on my own that ended up being useful.

Then there's all those fiction books I keep meaning to read. I'm kind of a failure as an English teacher because all I ever read is nonfiction. Funny how much our lives change our reading habits. Maybe I'm just inundated with TV shows or something. Speaking of which, time for The Walking Dead. Because I love zombies. I was going to get an issue of the comic book today, but then I forgot.

Chico

The following is completely unrelated to screenwriting.

On Friday at school we found this Chihuahua / Jack Russel mix running around downstairs:

There was some Keystone Cops style scrambling, but eventually I grabbed him up and took him to my classroom. At first he wigged, but after "Laura," one of my students, calmed him down and got a makeshift leash on him, he calmed down. He spent the rest of the day under my desk. Laura clearly wanted to take him home. She's a great dog owner, already has a bunch of them, and her mom said it was okay. She decided to call him Chico.

At lunch I went across the street and bought him a can of food, which he gobbled up with glee. I talked on the phone during my planning period, pacing around the room. He followed me on my march. Everywhere I walked, he walked.

He wasn't skinny, but he was filthy, and his nails hadn't been clipped in some time. He was obviously someone's pet at one time, but that looked like it was a while ago.

At the end of the day, I told two of my students they could take him for a quick walk downstairs before his new mom came to pick him up.

They came back without him. They said some kid called him and he ran to the kid, so they sent him home with his real human. Laura was upset. This morning she told me he would already have his shots by now. But I was glad that the dog was returned to his real home, although the circumstances of how he ended up at our school seemed a little weird.

Then, during second period, several of my freshmen said they saw some girl walk him to the stoplight by the school, take his leash off, and release him into the street. He ran away down an alley and disappeared. A few of them saw him around the area over the weekend.

I am so pissed off right now I can't even see straight. I don't understand why someone would do that. Why would you take a street dog away from a home and send him back to the street? What the fuck is wrong with people?

Laura is really upset and I really regret not taking him for a walk myself.

The only way I'll feel better is if we find this dog and get him back to Laura. I offered my kids a cash reward plus some extra credit if they find Chico, catch him and bring him back to me. We'll see. Some of them seemed pretty confident. They really want that $20.

I just don't get people sometimes.

Thought on the film: John Carter

Saturday I decided to see John Carter out of curiosity. I left Hollywood after choosing my wedding invitations and drove to Burbank, where if you miss the showing it's okay because you can walk to two other theaters. I had to walk to all three because the last theater on the walk was the one showing it soonest.

This walk involved a trip through the mall where two dudes in bunny costumes were murdering people entertaining kids or something. I don't know how anyone enjoys that. Also, some woman in the mall was singing "America the Beautiful" but to a completely different melody. I know Whitney Houston made a splash when she did all those crazy things to the National Anthem way back when, but that does not mean you can just completely change a melody and keep the words to songs about America. Somebody worked really hard to come up with the best melody for the song and you, mall singer lady, do not get to overrule them just because you have an army of creepy bunny men behind you.

I digress.

Anyway, I ended up at a 3-D showing, and even thought I still hate 3-D it no longer gives me headaches since I got Lasik, and I figured the studio can use all the dollars it can get on this one, so in I went.

It was 2pm on a Saturday in a theater next to a mall and an Ikea. There were maybe two dozen people in there - and none of us under 25. That cannot be good.

They gave me a coupon for a dollar off a Coke float, and I considered it but knew I'd have to pee halfway through the movie. Then in front of me sat a dude so obese he had difficulty walking with his mountain of popcorn and his bucket of soda, and I was glad I had not ordered the float. When it takes you three whole minutes to sit down in a theater seat, you might want to consider switching to diet popcorn.

I digress again.

Anyway, there were previews. This is what I learned.

The Avengers: This movie has explosions!
Battleship: This movie has explosions!
Men in Black 3: This movie has jokes!

There were like 40 other previews, and then there was a movie.


John Carter was entertaining. There were some really great scenes. I especially loved all the intercutting between his past with his wife and kid and what he was going through in the present. I liked some of the relationships and the characters and the chemistry between the leads and whatnot. But I also felt like just when I started enjoying the story, it was podrace time.

I feel bad saying this, because it's not the movie's fault. Star Wars owes a lot to the novel this film was based on, so even though a lot of scenes in this movie reminded me of the prequels, that's hardly fair.

But remind me it did. The scene in the gladiator ring reminded me of Attack of the Clones. The flying bike thingee reminded me of a podrace. Pretty much every other action scene reminded me of how much the prequels sucked. I tried to shake it off, but I couldn't. And I'm sure it unfairly clouded my ability to properly appreciate what I was watching.

Also, James Purefoy was underused, but I think James Purefoy is ALWAYS underused.

I don't mean to imply that it's a bad movie. It's not. It's a solid film. I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with it. I just didn't think it blew my mind either. When the movie was over I marveled at the amount of names in the credits, watched the obese guy struggle out of his seat, then left, got in my car and drove home and didn't really spend a lot of time thinking about it.

So I dunno. What did you think? Did you see it?

Time to evolve

I have officially decided to quit my day job.

Well, not exactly "quit". More like modify.

Today was a good day, but I am circling toward burnout. The accumulation of kids who have set out to make my life hell over the years has finally gotten to me, and I no longer feel enthusiastic about going to work every day.

Funny thing is, today has been so good that I'm rethinking my position.

But I can't. I must steel myself and move forward. It doesn't matter how awesome their Great Gatsby projects are. In fact, The Great Gatsby projects are a sign. My first year teaching, I saw another teacher's projects. Her kids had made 3-D models of New York and Long Island with all of the locations on from the novel on it, and I just thought that was the coolest project. I promised that some day I would teach Gatsby and I would do that project. And now, I am. My dream has been realized.

Among others, I've taught Hamlet, Animal Farm, Siddhartha, and The Joy Luck Club, all books I just wanted to share with the kids. I've done screenwriting and poetry and essay writing and short stories. I've taught almost every thing I ever wanted to teach.

And like today, I still have really great days. I'd rather quit while I still remember really great days.

But it's not totally up to me. Our enrollment is shrinking, so again in June teachers will be displaced from this school. Every year since the economy crashed, teachers have been forced to find new jobs. I've always avoided the chopping block because I've been here long enough, and last year I was skipped because I do yearbook. Teachers who'd been here longer were displaced over me, for which I was grateful. But it caused such a fuss that the principal has already said he won't do that again. This year, seniority is the only factor, and I'm second from the bottom. I don't want another school. I've put too much into this one.

My boss is retiring. I love my boss. I hate all other bosses.

I don't have a screenwriting career yet, but I am taking meetings. Eventually I will have scripts passed around town. I am focusing more on writing, and there is a possibility I will be able to launch a career within the next year. If I start a new year at a new school, I can't leave in the middle of it, and I don't want to take a million days off, because then the kids would suffer.

So for all these reasons I've decided to become a substitute teacher. I can stay at my school, only working when requested by teachers who know me. I won't have papers to grade or lessons to plan, and if I need to walk away in the middle of the year I can. I can still teach lessons whenever a teacher leaves me nothing to do, and if I hate it, and somehow I sabotage my screenwriting chances, I can always go back into the classroom. In the meantime, I keep my benefits and a full time job. Even though I will take a pay cut, I can still pay the bills.

It's time for me to shift priorities. Writing will come first now.

Thought on the whole John Carter ad campaign debacle

Last night I watched The Killer Elite, which was not remotely the movie it was purported to be. It was not a bad movie, but it wasn't that movie in the previews, which was about Jason Statham and Robert DeNiro kicking ass together. Yeah they didn't kick that much ass together. Most of the movie was about Jason Statham kicking ass with Dominic Purcell in a very British kind of way. This film was much more British in style than American, so I guess the marketing department didn't really know how to market it to us.

And it bombed.

I hate when that happens. It happened with Bridge to Terabithia, and It's happening right now with John Carter.

This film is based on a novel called Princess of Mars. You can't have a movie called Princess of Mars if you want to attract boys, so out goes the princess. You can't have a movie about Mars if you want to attract girls, so out goes the Mars. And now we have a movie named after some frat guy I dated in college.

That's okay, because the trailer that features all the awesome special effects will reel them in. Look! We have gigantic monsters! We have cool battle scenes between vague enemies! A hot girl with interesting posture!

I asked my kids if they want to see it. They think it looks stupid, and these are kids who think Saw sequels and Transformers are the best films ever made.

If you haven't seen it, here's the original trailer:

What the hell is that movie about? Did he travel in time? Is he in some crazy fantasy land? Is he in Victorian England? What movie are we watching here? My first thought on seeing this trailer: "That looks expensive, whatever that is."

Unless you're Transformers, you can't just throw pretty pictures in a trailer and expect people to flock to it. As much as we bitch about modern audiences not having any taste, they still want to watch a good story unfold.

So take Project X. My students all want to see it. "But there's no plot!" you say. Ah, but they know exactly what that movie is. The trailer shows debauchery, and they'll go into the theater expecting exactly that. But John Carter looks like it wants to be about something. No kid wants to go see a movie that tries and fails at being a story.

And have you seen the billboard?

From the distance of my car it looks like a movie about two gorillas. I almost crashed trying to figure out what was that tiny thing in front of them. Oh, it's the protagonist.

What the hell is this movie about?

And then I saw the fan-made trailer. Have you seen it? Take a look:

Oh, this movie has a plot! And it looks kind of like Star Wars! I might like it!

I know I'm not alone in this, obviously, but it's really bugging me. If people don't know what movie they're going to watch, they will hate it. If you try to trick them, it will backfire. This film is getting high ratings on Rotten Tomatoes (77% as of this posting) and it's directed by the great Andrew Stanton. After seeing this fan trailer, I actually want to see it. But they're shooting themselves in the foot with the ad campaign. Instead of trying to hide bits that might alienate certain demographics, hence alienating ALL demographics, let the movie speak for itself. People are not as stupid as we make them out to be. If a movie looks good, they will flock to see it.

I'm not an ad person, but I am a person who will go to see movies based on an awesome trailer, and I do have my own little market research pod in my classroom. And my research in this capacity has proven time and time again that a good, solid trailer will bring the kids in every time, but only if they know what they're getting.

It's complicated

Writing is hard.

I worked so hard over the last bazillion years I've been at this to get some good scripts written. I wrote stuff that was actiony, not really worrying about attracting talent. I figured if I just wrote an awesome character, the actors would come.

I have new respect for writers who get commercial scripts produced.

I just wrote an outline for my newest idea. I took a long time with it, really put a lot of thought into it, got a solid document written and sent it off to my rep. I finally got a story with a late twenties male white protag who is good looking and talented and put him with a hot love interest. The problem is, I have a small story, and I spend almost as much time with the antagonists as with the protag. Before, when I was writing for the reader, that wouldn't have been an issue. But now I'm not writing for the reader. My stuff is getting past the reader. I'm kind of writing for the producer, but really at this point, I'm writing for A-List Star. This outline I just did? Not good enough for A-List Star.

At first I was really frustrated. I need to do another outline? And for a minute I panicked. This is the second outline. Am I terrible? Is everyone going to abandon me now that I can't produce the right script? This is the end and now I have to kill myself.

I'm very melodramatic when I get notes. Then I shake my head and get back to work.

Anyway, the more I thought about it, the more I got it. I know actors. They love being the center of attention, and they love looking cool. If I want A-List Actor on board, I have to make him look cool a lot. And big and important.

So now I'm back to the drawing board, trying to figure out how to make a story about a late-twenties hot white male who is cool and also in almost every scene. Plus explosions and fight scenes and a love interest and somewhere in there, a motherfucking plot.

This shit is hard.

A day with Cinemagic and 007

Yesterday I took 13 kids on a field trip to visit Pepperdine University, where the Cinemagic folks put together a cool presentation for young filmmakers. Cinemagic is an Irish group that started as a film festival and has grown to be an educational powerhouse for young filmmakers in the UK. Now they make regular trips to the US to do presentations.

So naturally, when I heard about the opportunity, I jumped on. I will be assigning short film scripts later this year, and hopefully following that up with mini films, so I chose the kids who went by who wanted to be project leaders on the assignment.

We saw three short films - one from a Pepperdine film student and two from teenagers in the Cinemagic group. That was some really impressive filmmaking from high-school age kids. The college kid's film was fun, and he followed up with a Q&A, which I know did my kids some good. They learned a lot. I did chuckle a bit when the director talked about how this 10-minute film took him an incredibly long time to write - two weeks.

At one point the presenters asked how many of us want to make films. I raised my hand, as did most of the kids in the room. How many want to be writers? Of course I raised my hand. How many of you want to make comedies? I raised my hand. One of my students said "Put your hand down, Miss, you don't do comedy." So much they don't know.

We got to sit in the control room while a group of college kids put together a show called Buenos Noches, Pepperdine. That was cool. Never been in a control room before.

But then came the kicker. The one and only Pierce Motherfucking Brosnan showed up and sat right fucking in front of me to do a Q&A. They showed some clips from Manions of America, Mrs. Doubtfire, The Ghost Writer, and Goldeneye. During the scene from Mrs. Doubtfire, during which he stood in all his hottest glory, tight chest exposed on a diving board for all to see, the older Pierce called out: "I'm still the same!"

Here he is right in front of me, talking on the phone to Joe Sargent, getting permission to show Manions to the kiddies. I did not take this picture, but the student who did was kind enough to send it to me:

He's still so damn cool. 


He really pushed the kids to stay in school because he wishes he had, and he talked about the process of working with a great director. He said the best thing a director can do is leave him alone and let him do his thing.

So it was a nifty experience. The kids seem to have gotten a lot out of it.

Thoughts on the film: This Means War

Lots of people have been asking me what I thought of This Means War, so I will post about it for all to see.

Overall, it was okay. There were some really cool action sequences - the opening scene and the paintball bit, specifically - and a neat one-shot that was cool to watch even if it was a ludicrous premise because it was like a little dance with the principles. In fact, there were a lot of really beautiful shots; McG knows how to do a good one shot for sure. There were some funny jokes and some great chemistry between the guys. And you can't ignore how damn pretty everybody is.

Fortunately  I read the reviews and knew to go in with lowered expectations, so I wasn't disappointed. The movie was exactly what I expected it to be - fun, but kinda fluffy.

There were two main things I would have changed.

THERE BE SPOILERS AHEAD


First of all, there's this bad guy who's barely in the movie, and it turns out that he's been watching our guys date this girl for some time. Know what would have not only kept him more relevant in the film, but added a bit of extra absurd comedy? If we had seen him occasionally tracking down our guys. He would have been witness to these guys both violating  her privacy and competing for one woman. It would have been a great opportunity for some laughs as the bad guy says what we're all thinking.

Second, this is a MAJOR violation of this woman's privacy. She gets mad when she finds out they knew each other, but fuck that. She's not perfect; she was dating two guys at once and didn't tell either one, so she doesn't really get the right to be indignant about that. What she does have the right to get indignant about is the fact that these guys bugged her house and an entire surveillance team watched her have sex.

But it never comes up. She never finds out what they did. The one element of your story that would cause the most conflict, and it's completely ignored. Imagine what these guys would have had to do to win her back if she found out what they did. So I guess what I'm saying is, I would have focused more of the script on the privacy violation. I think it was the elephant in the theater for me. You could have kept the competition between the guys, but added another element that would have given the film more depth.

There's no reason pretty people can't fight and love and laugh and still be about something substantial. There were missed opportunities here.

Why I will see This Means War

Yeah, I read some of the reviews. I saw the Rotten Tomatoes score (25% as of this posting). My carpool buddy said it looks like the dumbest movie ever and seems to have lost respect for me as a human being.

I don't care. I'm seeing this movie. It's been a long time since simple previews have gotten me this excited about seeing something.

This Means War looks fun. So much fun! I watched those previews by God, I laughed. I smile every time I see the billboard. I watched that segment of Tom Hardy blasting his way through a paintball game and I was filled with joy. I want to have written that scene!

This is exactly the kind of story I want to be writing: fun stuff. So critics be damned, I will see this film. And then I will go eat pizza in Redondo Beach so the Beefcake and I can discuss how much joy it has brought into our world. And that will be the highlight of my weekend.

Ignore the critics, movie. Go ahead and bring me some goddamn joy.

Listen to this podcast

I've started listening to a lot of podcasts at lunch lately. Naturally I listen to Scriptcast and Scriptnotes, but over the past week I've really gotten into the Nerdist podcast.

Are you listening? I remember tuning into one of the earlier Nerdist podcasts and being a little underwhelmed. They mostly shoot the shit and talk about things I don't understand. I thought I was nerdy, and then I listened to these guys and realized how cool I must have always been.

But recently I was looking around for something new to listen to, and I picked out a few of these podcasts. I don't know if I've gotten better at listening or they've gotten better at focusing, but they're really good now.

Today I listened to the one with Conan O'Brien, and if you write comedy at all, you should listen too. He gives a really philosophical discourse on the emotional toll of comedy writing.

He asked this question: Would you rather be funny or happy?

I had to take a second. You'd think the answer would be easy. Happy, right? Except the idea of not being funny struck me as horrifying. How could I not be funny? Who would I be without jokes? Deep, deep stuff.

He talks about the Tonight Show debacle, why he doesn't do insult comedy, his regular battles with self-loathing, and how much of himself you see on stage (hint: all of it). It's one of the best discussions on comedy and this business I've heard in a long time.

Character Development

This week I was sick and grades were due, so I vacillated between sneezing half my brain out and reading some pretty depressing essays.

I took a sick day yesterday and spent all day in bed watching Game of Thrones. I could probably write a pretty cool paper on feminism in that show. But anyway....

In between the sneezing and the murder plots and the essays, I took some time to start plotting out my new spec.

Even if you've got a really fantastic, high concept plot, you MUST know your characters if you want your script to be any good. I used to get a lot of notes about how the characters didn't seem like real people, or how their decisions didn't really make sense. That was because I didn't spend the necessary time developing those characters.

Now I sit with my characters - not just for ten minutes while I crap out a brief bio and shove it in a file - but for days, weeks even, while I figure out what their life has been like to get them here.

So let's say my story is about a fast food employee who foils a robbery. I want him to be a marketable age, an age that's easily casted with a star. So he's 28. Why would a 28-year-old, good-looking (because he will have to be good looking if you expect an attachment) guy work in fast food?

-Maybe he's dumb and could never get through high school, which means he'll have some extra challenges to face when he goes up against bad guys who are clearly smarter than he is.

-Maybe he's a recovered drug addict and he's trying to get his life together. Maybe he's the inside man on the robbery, and he has second thoughts at the last minute because he really likes his boss.

-Maybe he's lazy. So now it's a slacker movie. He foils the robbery by accident, and now he's a hero to the whole restaurant. He doesn't want to be a hero. He just wants to eat burgers and pick up a paycheck.

Each of these choices about this guy's past leads to a whole different type of story. If I just said "I dunno, he's just some guy who works there" I'm missing a whole host of opportunities to make nifty choices with the story. Each of these 28-year-old guys is a different person and would do different things in the same situation. I have to know which person I am dealing with if I want to know where my story goes.

So that's what I'm doing now. Character building. I'm thinking about my two leads, figuring out who they are, imagining conversations they have together that they may not end up having in the script, but that help me figure out their natural dynamic.

Take the time to create the characters before you rush into the script. It will save you time and energy in the long run, and it will make your story that much better.