Monday, February 26, 2007
Let The Creative Juices Flow
Last week was crazy - particularly the first half. This is partly due to my own procrastination and ability to get easily distracted, and also due to the fact that I've just had an insane amount of work to do. I had two articles printing on Thursday in which I had to call and interview some filmmakers and actors. I was also going to be writing a review of Ghost Rider, but I just didn't have time, so I handed it off my friend/neighbor and fellow Technician scribe Morgan McCormick. My two-word review: It sucks.
Most of Sunday night was spent hammering out the first ten pages of what's going to eventually become my first feature-length screenplay. Given the nature of my script, this was extremely hard to do, and the final result was hit-and-miss. I've spoken at length with my professor about what I want to write, and we've both come to realize what my main problem is going to be. Everyone in the class is going to have one major problem they need to solve before their script can really start to develop. Mine is structure, and how to establish everything that needs to be established in the beginning for the film to make sense. The beginning is always probably the most important part of a script (which is why we're going to spend around 3 weeks going over everyone's first ten pages with a fine-toothed comb), but I'm in an even more difficult situation given my choice of genre and subject matter.
My teacher had suggested I give him an outline by our next class, but I wasn't anywhere close to figuring out how the plot was going to progress until Monday afternoon. I was sitting in my Weather and Climate class, bored out of my mind, and I decided to pull out my notebook and just start jotting down ideas for characterization and plot events. I ended up getting incredibly inspired and turning out a loose outline of the entire film. I spent the last part of Monday night typing it all up and working out the details.
After meeting with him for around 45 minutes on Tuesday, I think I've finally come up with a potential way to solve my structuring issues. Tomorrow is "Pitch Night" where we pitch our screenplay ideas to our classmates and get feedback, so hopefully it will go over well and come to fruition.
I figure it's about time I reveal what the subject of my screenplay is going to be. Basically, it's a zombmock. A zombie mockumentary slash phodocumentary (phony documentary). That's really all I can say so far about it, since I'm still working out all the details of context and tone. It was partially inspired by catching bits and pieces of Incident at Loch Ness television last year and watching how it melded fiction with a medium of fact. The idea for a zombie mockumentary has been floating around in my head for a while, and now I'm going to be putting pen to paper and making it concrete. Given the fact that it mixes genres and mockumentaries aren't usually about fictional phenomena (since they're supposed to mimic documentaries) it's going to be tough to write, but I think it's an idea that has potential to be a really unique, funny product. My Netflix queue is filled with zombie films and mockumentaries, in the hopes that they might provide inspiration for scenes.
***
My article about Billy Bob Thornton and the Polish Brothers can be found here. The headline they picked for the story is awful.
***
Went to see The Beach Party at the Threshold of Hell. It was a pretty decent movie, for what it was (an extremely low-budget film). It had some really interesting mythology and I'm hoping to see the story continue, whether it be in the form of sequels or a television series that the director is preparing to pitch. Afterwards, I hung out with the group for a while. Nice guys. There's a very slim possibility I'll be working with one of them in April. We'll see.
***
The Oscars were last night. The ceremony was nothing special, as usual. The Academy really needs to learn how to edit. Four and a half hours is way too long, particularly when there's no reason it couldn't be two and a half hours max. Get rid of the pointless montages and the stupid songs, and you've probably already cut out an hour right there. Also: Ellen DeGeneres wasn't that great as a host, as expected. She did a so-so job, but her style of humor definitely doesn't compare to that of someone like Steve Martin. Her jokes are "cute." They're the kind of jokes that maybe make you chuckle or smile (if that), but rarely get a full-fledged laugh.
The biggest surprises for me were Best Cinematography, Best Song, and Best Animated Film. The Academy clearly are a bunch of Al Gore lovers, and it affects their decisions. The only reason they got Al Gore to show up was probably by saying, "Look, if you make an appearance and give a speech about global warming that really has no point in the context of an awards show, we'll give your movie Best Documentary AND Best Song." Dreamgirls got owned. And what's up with Happy Feet getting Best Animated Film? From what I heard, that movie didn't even deserve to be nominated, let alone beat out Pixar for the win!
Cinematography definitely should have gone to Children of Men. The only reason they gave it to Pan was to make up for the fact that they weren't going to give it Best Foreign Film. That's how the Academy works. George Clooney said it perfectly last year when in his acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actor he said something to the effect of, "Well I guess this means I'm not getting Best Director." Just like Brokeback Mountain got Best Score, some technical awards and some acting nominations to make up for the fact that it wasn't getting Best Picture, so Babel also got Best Score, some technical awards and some acting nominations. I have concluded that that is how the Academy thinks: "We know this movie probably doesn't deserve this award, but since we're not giving it that really big award and it's still a good movie, we can go ahead and give it this one." Not cool.
However, the ceremony's flaws were almost made up for by seeing Martin Scorsese finally get an Oscar after decades of quality films and six nominations. A major wrong in the land of cinema was righted. Good for you, Marty. Good for you.
Quote of Da Moment:
"Zak, why exactly am I wearing a g-string bikini?"
"Because you are a model and you're a sonar operator."
--Incident at Loch Ness
Most of Sunday night was spent hammering out the first ten pages of what's going to eventually become my first feature-length screenplay. Given the nature of my script, this was extremely hard to do, and the final result was hit-and-miss. I've spoken at length with my professor about what I want to write, and we've both come to realize what my main problem is going to be. Everyone in the class is going to have one major problem they need to solve before their script can really start to develop. Mine is structure, and how to establish everything that needs to be established in the beginning for the film to make sense. The beginning is always probably the most important part of a script (which is why we're going to spend around 3 weeks going over everyone's first ten pages with a fine-toothed comb), but I'm in an even more difficult situation given my choice of genre and subject matter.
My teacher had suggested I give him an outline by our next class, but I wasn't anywhere close to figuring out how the plot was going to progress until Monday afternoon. I was sitting in my Weather and Climate class, bored out of my mind, and I decided to pull out my notebook and just start jotting down ideas for characterization and plot events. I ended up getting incredibly inspired and turning out a loose outline of the entire film. I spent the last part of Monday night typing it all up and working out the details.
After meeting with him for around 45 minutes on Tuesday, I think I've finally come up with a potential way to solve my structuring issues. Tomorrow is "Pitch Night" where we pitch our screenplay ideas to our classmates and get feedback, so hopefully it will go over well and come to fruition.
I figure it's about time I reveal what the subject of my screenplay is going to be. Basically, it's a zombmock. A zombie mockumentary slash phodocumentary (phony documentary). That's really all I can say so far about it, since I'm still working out all the details of context and tone. It was partially inspired by catching bits and pieces of Incident at Loch Ness television last year and watching how it melded fiction with a medium of fact. The idea for a zombie mockumentary has been floating around in my head for a while, and now I'm going to be putting pen to paper and making it concrete. Given the fact that it mixes genres and mockumentaries aren't usually about fictional phenomena (since they're supposed to mimic documentaries) it's going to be tough to write, but I think it's an idea that has potential to be a really unique, funny product. My Netflix queue is filled with zombie films and mockumentaries, in the hopes that they might provide inspiration for scenes.
***
My article about Billy Bob Thornton and the Polish Brothers can be found here. The headline they picked for the story is awful.
***
Went to see The Beach Party at the Threshold of Hell. It was a pretty decent movie, for what it was (an extremely low-budget film). It had some really interesting mythology and I'm hoping to see the story continue, whether it be in the form of sequels or a television series that the director is preparing to pitch. Afterwards, I hung out with the group for a while. Nice guys. There's a very slim possibility I'll be working with one of them in April. We'll see.
***
The Oscars were last night. The ceremony was nothing special, as usual. The Academy really needs to learn how to edit. Four and a half hours is way too long, particularly when there's no reason it couldn't be two and a half hours max. Get rid of the pointless montages and the stupid songs, and you've probably already cut out an hour right there. Also: Ellen DeGeneres wasn't that great as a host, as expected. She did a so-so job, but her style of humor definitely doesn't compare to that of someone like Steve Martin. Her jokes are "cute." They're the kind of jokes that maybe make you chuckle or smile (if that), but rarely get a full-fledged laugh.
The biggest surprises for me were Best Cinematography, Best Song, and Best Animated Film. The Academy clearly are a bunch of Al Gore lovers, and it affects their decisions. The only reason they got Al Gore to show up was probably by saying, "Look, if you make an appearance and give a speech about global warming that really has no point in the context of an awards show, we'll give your movie Best Documentary AND Best Song." Dreamgirls got owned. And what's up with Happy Feet getting Best Animated Film? From what I heard, that movie didn't even deserve to be nominated, let alone beat out Pixar for the win!
Cinematography definitely should have gone to Children of Men. The only reason they gave it to Pan was to make up for the fact that they weren't going to give it Best Foreign Film. That's how the Academy works. George Clooney said it perfectly last year when in his acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actor he said something to the effect of, "Well I guess this means I'm not getting Best Director." Just like Brokeback Mountain got Best Score, some technical awards and some acting nominations to make up for the fact that it wasn't getting Best Picture, so Babel also got Best Score, some technical awards and some acting nominations. I have concluded that that is how the Academy thinks: "We know this movie probably doesn't deserve this award, but since we're not giving it that really big award and it's still a good movie, we can go ahead and give it this one." Not cool.
However, the ceremony's flaws were almost made up for by seeing Martin Scorsese finally get an Oscar after decades of quality films and six nominations. A major wrong in the land of cinema was righted. Good for you, Marty. Good for you.
Quote of Da Moment:
"Zak, why exactly am I wearing a g-string bikini?"
"Because you are a model and you're a sonar operator."
--Incident at Loch Ness
# posted by Andrew Johnson : 2/26/2007 11:40:00 PM 
