Monday, October 31, 2005
Sunday, October 30, 2005
[TV] Some more Lost sites
Saturday, October 29, 2005
[The Limit] Writing the end
10 pages of this brainstorming draft to go. This is the Endgame.
[RPG] My Matrix RPG
Friday, October 28, 2005
[Film] The Isle (2000)
Must be my week for disturbing romance movies with sexually dysfunctional content.
The Isle is a Korean character study that slowly morphs into a thriller and then into a devastating ugly-beautiful tragic love story. It’s characterised by the almost total silence of the 2 leads – it’s refreshing to see great character development mostly unaided by words. By the time a truly shocking incident involving 5 fish-hooks occurs, we have clearly established that the romance that’s abrewing is between a very damaged pair of individuals.
This was a 5-star movie until the last 20 minutes. The reasons I turned on it (without going into spoilers) were: a character does something so ugly I couldn’t forgive it; I didn’t ‘get’ the very end and it just bled into silliness for me; and
In the same way that Trainspotting is all about the characters until the plot shows up in the form of a drug deal, here I was grooving on the film until “Things Took A Turn for the Worse”™. That stuff just throws me.
Thursday, October 27, 2005
[Film] Marnie (1964)
This is probably the edgiest Hitchcock I’ve seen (The Wrong Man, Vertigo & Frenzy appear to be its closest companions). It starts as a light salacious comedy and ends up as an intense psychodrama.
For the most part, this doesn’t play like the type of film we associate with Hitch – there are very few visual flourishes in the cinematography. Save for an unsettling flashback towards the end, most of the film is shot in a fairly straightforward way.
That means it relies on the performances and the writing. Tippi Hedren as Marnie goes through an incredible range: doting daughter, school-marm, cool thief, trapped, raging, suicidal, socialite, cold-blooded killer and a shattered Southern belle. Connery (when he’s not committing sexual assault) is super-cool. And the script is fascinating – full of the strong writing that comes from rooting for 2 well-motivated characters who are each completely in the wrong.
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Post 500 has no content!
Multi Post!
Let’s try a Mr Anderson style multi-post.
Taking a small break from The Limit today to catch up on paperwork, filing & various projects that take a back seat when I’m in full-on scriptwritey mode. Biggest thing at the mo’ is that not only was it a relief to be at the end of TP2, it was also really satisfying to be writing the big Tracy/Peter scene.
I’m also getting to better understand the nuances of each character’s motivations. Watching Buffy Season 4 taught me that you really only need to know what characters have just been through and how that makes them feel RIGHT NOW in order to be consistent. Let’s call it the ‘stay one step ahead’ mode of writing.
***
Lost, Season 2. Not only do I approve of the general direction, the stuff they’re revealing totally appeals to my inner-geek. However, what I wonder is whether the more Lost reveals & the more it locks down, then the more it shuts audience members out.
***
And here’s an expensive piece of VR estate. Someone paid $100,000 USD for a space resort amidst the treacherous but Mineral Rich Paradise V Asteroid Belt, in the virtual universe, Project Entropia.
Queen Bees & Wannabes has started dealing with girls’ first steps into dating. Some observations:
1. Groups of girls entering puberty may not want boyfriends themselves, but they want to find out about relationships – so they’ll nominate a girl and set them up in a relationship (to observe the effects).2. Queen Bees set up girls with boyfriends in order to buy their loyalty.
3. A fundamental criteria for group acceptance is to date someone that has the group’s approval.
It’s like the freakin’ Mafia out there.
***
There’s a feedback thread on
Last Breath is another 24 Hour RPG – set in a post-plague world; one of my favourites. It’s a raw, very realistic setting – there is no ‘adversary’ – no Rage infected victims, no Dark Man to defeat. It’s The Stand without any fantastical elements.
I like the set-up phase – quick, engaging. The world ends. You have to deal with it & in the process meet your fellow players. Plus there’s a really simple dice mechanic for acquiring the resources you’ll need to survive.
***
Sunday, October 23, 2005
[The Limit] So. Close.
Then I remembered how angry I am at this script. How much I want to finish it so I can get it out of my life and do something new. That anger’s built through the day until now I am fully focused on bring this thing home.
So, I’ll be even more focused on the script over the next week or so. I’ve scheduled 20 days to finish this section; hopefully I can finish much quicker. After that, organise all my brainstorming and then finalise it. And then the final ‘tighten up & proofread’ draft.
So close.
No idea how frequently I’ll be updating over the next week. This is Post 498, so I guess there’ll be a couple more.
Saturday, October 22, 2005
[TV] "Small Town"
At our last brainstorming meet, we worked up a quirky small town drama-horror, based on a poem by Vivianne Plumb. It was cool to see that from a "Northern Exposure meets The Big Lebowski and they fight American Gothic" idea, we got some fascinating characters and a nasty cross-generational story …
I've written about some roleplaying implications of the meeting, here.
Queen Bees & Wannabes
It’s an analysis of the social group formed by teenage girls in American high schools. The movie, Mean Girls, was based on it. (Here's my review of it.)
THE POINT (seems to be) At high school, you don’t realise you’re fighting a long game. Short term, the choices you make may increase your popularity – but long-term they cost you control over your self-esteem.
Part 1: The middle of the book.
(Much of this is verbatim ...)
What don’t girls like so much about their friendships with other girls? The answers tend to be about competition: over looks, style, friends, popularity and boys. (This is great – because most of the comedy I write comes from competitiveness … so knowing this just made my job easier.)
Teasing in a clique is done to put the recipient in her place (below her in the totem pole). It’s usually effective because the people closest to you know how to push your buttons best.
And a note for busybody parents: Adults seem to forget: if you get the bully into trouble, at some puoint she’ll find you and no one will be around to help. You must teach your daughter to fight her own battles. Your involvement should be limited to strategising with her about what she wants to do and then affirming that she has the strength to carry it out.
24.4 (2pm to 3pm)
Tony’s domestic life is hilarious!
Edgar vs. Marianne is hilarious. The car bomb is awesome. The whole show is basically like hanging America’s Id & super-ego out for all to see.
***1/2 (out of 5)
Friday, October 21, 2005
[TV] 24.4.whatever
**** (out of 5)
This ep resolved all the main plots 12 minutes into it. Jack rescued his girlfriend and the Secretary of Defence and then defeated the terrorists.
After the commercial break, the writers started introducing new tensions: Paul the jealous fiancé, Audrey’s dad learning about Jack and then ordering his son to be tortured, Beruz – about to be executed on the orders of his father, and then the double whammy of a the meltdown device and a traitor within CTU. Old hat by now. Like, who hasn’t been a traitor inside CTU?
Anyway, with a double cliffhanger the show is very much back on form.
24.4.whatever the next
** ½
Not so much with the return to greatness but I’m looking forward to seeing more of Tony.
This is a weird show. In order to maintain suspense, there are radical changes in the basic situation and the cast between seasons. This creates a different viewing experience from most shows. We would never expect to care about a person who suddenly appeared between seasons and started a romantic relationship with Buffy. For most shows, we expect that sort of thing – and our attachment to the characters – to be earned. 24 assumes the viewers will play along.
Thursday, October 20, 2005
[Script] Energy
Taking War of the Worlds (2005) as an example (because that's where I first noticed this), you have four different types of energy in the story. The move from the normal domestic set up to the full on terror of the invasion is almost unnoticeable. The transition between the two happens in a bravura 15 minutes set piece involving lightning strikes and a stolen car. That full on terror of being pursued is sustained for what seems like a full hour. But then there is a noticeable gear change when Tim Robbins arrives in the film. All of the action becomes confined to a single location and the emotions darken towards paranoia and despair.
After finally emerging from this location, I was almost begging the film to do something different - and it obliged by shifting first into taking the attack to the aliens and then into daylight.
The trick, I think, is to be aware of the emotions and mood you're generating & how the audience feel about that. However, what to do about it may well depend on a case-by-case basis.
*I think this applies much more to films than television because the film is designed to be watched in one uninterrupted burst, so you are more attuned to variations in tone and intensity. With TV, you are coming back from a commercial every seven minutes so there will be more emphasis on trying to re-establish mood and story.
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
[The Limit] Halfway
I'm enjoying the writing. It's starting to go faster - and I'm expecting to keep up that pace until I hit the big re-writes in Act 3.
[RPG] Left Coast wins!
This is cool. The game came together really easily - I had a lot of fun writing it. I'm glad Ron thought it had merit. Looking forward to the feedback thread.
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
[TV] Boxing with lovebites
What a conspiracy feels like
Thought I'd link to this extract from Scott Ritter's new book (he's the guy who was co-ordinating weapons inspections in
I carefully typed up a point paper outlining my concerns and specifying the information I had gathered, and requested a meeting with Duelfer in the U.N. cafeteria.
I slid the paper across the table to Duelfer, and began my brief. He listened without expressing any emotion, casually reading the paper as I made my case. He sat in silence for some time after I finished, contemplating what I had said. Finally, he looked at me. "Scott, I can't comment on any of this. All I would say is that you probably would do very well not to ever mention it again."
"Charles, we work for UNSCOM," I replied. "If what I have written here is true, we have the potential for a compromise that could not only end UNSCOM, but perhaps endanger the lives of some of our inspectors. We have to inform the executive chairman of this, and at least launch some sort of inquiry with the United States to find out if there is any validity to this, and if there is, to stop it before it's too late."
Duelfer looked at me, frustrated. "Scott, I can't make it any clearer than this. I cannot discuss this. This never happened. And if I were you, I'd drop the matter right now. If you go forward, even to tell [Rolf Ekéus, the UNSCOM chairman] you will be opening a huge bag of trouble for you. I would imagine you'd have the FBI come down on you very, very hard, and you don't want that. Take my advice and back off."
I sat there, letting Duelfer's words sink in. Was he aware of the operation?
What a conspiracy feels like
I carefully typed up a point paper outlining my concerns and specifying the information I had gathered, and requested a meeting with Duelfer in the U.N. cafeteria.I slid the paper across the table to Duelfer, and began my brief. He listened without expressing any emotion, casually reading the paper as I made my case. He sat in silence for some time after I finished, contemplating what I had said. Finally, he looked at me. "Scott, I can't comment on any of this. All I would say is that you probably would do very well not to ever mention it again."
"Charles, we work for UNSCOM," I replied. "If what I have written here is true, we have the potential for a compromise that could not only end UNSCOM, but perhaps endanger the lives of some of our inspectors. We have to inform the executive chairman of this, and at least launch some sort of inquiry with the United States to find out if there is any validity to this, and if there is, to stop it before it's too late."
Duelfer looked at me, frustrated. "Scott, I can't make it any clearer than this. I cannot discuss this. This never happened. And if I were you, I'd drop the matter right now. If you go forward, even to tell [Rolf Ekéus, the UNSCOM chairman] you will be opening a huge bag of trouble for you. I would imagine you'd have the FBI come down on you very, very hard, and you don't want that. Take my advice and back off."
I sat there, letting Duelfer's words sink in. Was he aware of the operation?
Monday, October 17, 2005
[VW] Dylan Horrock's lecture
Totally absorbed by Dylan’s lecture yesterday (unlike the 4 year old kid someone brought along). According to the blurb, the subject was:
Imaginary worlds are everywhere these days. From Hogwarts to The Sims, people are spending more and more time in places that don't exist. Dylan Horrocks takes a look at the importance of ‘world building’ in novels, comics, art and games - including Henry Darger, Dungeons & Dragons, the Bronte sisters and Star Wars - and asks what happens when stories become worlds.
1) Self revelation. You should reveal yourself, or truths about you, in a world you create. Other people will recognise and key into this. As one of the quotes that Dylan referenced said, there's the real world and how we perceive the world. In the process of creating something, "Art turns us inside out."
2)
It was also fascinating to hear the sad story of Ed Greenwood and how he sold the Forgotten Realms setting to TSR, plus cool to see Paul Czege’s Nicotine Girls get cited as an example of a game created to encourage Narrativist play.
Saturday, October 15, 2005
[Script] Stakes & Conflict
What I’ve realised is that I need to have a living stakes & conflict document right from Draft 1. It travels along and develops with the script as it goes through each new draft, constantly getting adjusted and updated – and eventually handed off to the director (hopefully me).
The reason is so that I can tell exactly what each scene is about and whether it’s contributing to what the movie is about.
With Possessions (hopefully my next script, based on Sean’s story), when I start work on a rough outline I should be keeping track of the characters’ wants, making sure they are consistent from scene to scene (which’ll be vital). As the story solidifies, I can make sure I’m driving towards conflict all the time, and build up the stakes.
[DRM] Pay per episode 2
Questions:
Who is blogmaverick?
Who is Bob Iger?
Why am I not using Google to find the answers? Answer: I'm too tired.
THE POINT: This seems to be the first readily-apparent paradigm shifting response by the Nets to the reality of internet piracy/free downloads.
Who would pay $2US to watch an episode of a show when you could BitTorrent it for free?
Answer: me, if I could be assured that a SIGNIFICANT amount of that money was going straight back towards the creators.
[RPG] Setting sucks
[DRM] Pay per episode
The more I think about this, the more obvious it becomes Apple has played Disney like a chump, and had Disney whispering "thank you, sir, and may I have another?" Apple just "allowed" Disney to bootstrap them into the number one spot in new media, even a step ahead of Bill Gates obsession with developing a "set-top box" run by Windows.
Friday, October 14, 2005
[Film] Sound Design
Key quotes for me:
Virtually every sound you hear during a film has been constructed, overdubbed and manipulated to within an inch of its life.
Action films such as Bay's opt for a "wall of sound" approach - for Armageddon, he employed a scarcely credible 80-strong sound crew - to create a cacophony of special effects that bypass the ear for the innards. Decibel meters taken into the meteor movie showed that for long stretches it would have been quieter - and healthier - to stand under a helicopter's rotor blades.
Peter Weir recalls how Alan Splet, the sound designer who worked on David Lynch's Blue Velvet, "became ill from the sounds he was creating. He couldn't finish the film, they were so eerie and so awful."
Thursday, October 13, 2005
[RPG] Left Coast
It is much much larger than expected. 27 pages. Here's the premise:
You play a semi-famous science fiction author living in 1960s California. You and your peers are all scrabbling for the Big Break, held back by your everyday lives and problems - marriage, children, rent. So they feud with each other, struggle not to go nuts under the strain of their immense creativity and try to determine which of them is really a disguised extra-terrestrial.
Left Coast is inspired by reading about Philip K. Dick, Robert A. Heinlein and L. Ron Hubbard. It was written for the October Ronnies and uses the keywords 'fight' and 'cosmos'.
Monday, October 10, 2005
[The Limit] How to write a scene
At the moment The Limit’s going really well – I’ve worked through the big rewrites at the start of the movie & now I’m at the point where I can get through vast swathes in a day. However, last time I took a break I kinda … forgot how to write.
So, for my mind-prodding, here’s some thoughts (I may have written something like this already) …
To write a scene, I – repeat, ‘I’ – need to set some stakes (What’s the question this scene’s going to answer? What do we care about?).
Then know what’s the conflict (If the question has 2 possible answers, then I need 2 characters/forces fighting or advocating for each side). As soon as one side’s one, it’s time to wrap up the scene. If at all possible, the sides of the conflict have something to do with the thematic conflict at the heart of the story. In The Limit, that’s Law vs Vigilantism (vs. Criminality). It’s all very Story by Bob McKee (c.f. Adapatation by Charlie Kaufmann).
What does each character want? These motivations need to naturally come out of each character’s previous scene.
Next I either brainstorm 20 things that could happen in the scene – issues, cool moments, motivations, lines of dialogue, things I want to see, random oddball ideas – in no particular order. It’s just stuff to inspire me.
Then I reorder that stuff into rough chronological order.
Otherwise, if I’ve got a clear idea of where the scene’s going I brainstorm a starting point, and then brainstorm again – what’s the worst they could do, to trigger a response from the other person in the scene? I keep swapping through each character’s perspective, trying to continually increase the tension in the scene.
I brainstorm 20 things because I read a book that recommended doing that.
I am a drone.
Seriously, I’ve always brainstormed multiple options for moments in my script. Off my own back though, I used to only devise about 7 different options for things – like punchlines when I was writing eps of lovebites. With 7, I found I came up with something that worked.
But with 20, I start getting oddball and insightful ideas towards the end of the process. If I don’t, I take a break and then keep going. I want to get the 'right' idea by the end of this process. Not some idealised 'perfect idea' - just have a decent range of good options to choose from, so I can move on.
Finally, I need to know the resolution to the scene. That means at some point, there needs to be a turning point in the scene where things head towards that resolution. And I need to bear in mind that that has an affect on the person who didn’t get their way.
More Blogger hacks
Here's John's list of all his hacks.
Here's a way to categorise posts - which I will be yoinking ASAP - because manually going through and indexing is a PITA.
The return of expandable posts, here.
This seems weird and complicated and maybe awesome - how to publicly notify about comments from anywhere on multi-dimensional, not just comments on front-page posts.
[RPG] Jenni’s Mean Girls game
I can’t want to play it. I think, if it's even close to her pitch, it'll make a great sellable game too. More spoilerish observations in the comments …
Sunday, October 09, 2005
[RPG] Feedback on All Growed Up
Overall, I'm pretty happy. It's a game I whipped together pretty fast, I think it's got some tactical depth to it. What's lacking is a real 'why do we care' about the events that are happening in the game - but I think there's the framework of something really fun here.
Fun but dark.
Friday, October 07, 2005
[Film] Acting
Andrew & Danyl (the directors) were great at creating a safe environment - where you can improvise and make mistakes & still feel completely supported. That was probably the best part about the weekend.
We started off with lots of trust games (which somehow ended with me being spanked by 2 women while giving a guy a shoulder massage), then watched some inspirational material in the form of Project Greenlight and Curb Your Enthusiasm. After that, we spend the afternoon of Day 1 breaking off into pairs and working through a single scene.
That was another favourite thing about the weekend: a) exploring different takes and interpretations with another actor and b) that Danyl and Andrew were very laid back about letting us come up with our own understanding of the scenes.
And then I discovered that the level of performance was much more grounded and realistic than I thought. It meant that scenes that seeemed like simple comedy beats were able to get fleshed out & made human. I think there's going to be this weird humour in The Wasps, where pain and serious dramatic issues become hilarious.
Day 2 was even more fun. We took a scene, then just improvised it. By not relying on the script we all got a deeper sense of who these characters really were & how to present them in order to bring out the comedy. It was this awesome division of duties - me & Leah having fun jabbing at each other while the directors figured out what was working and kept pulling us in that direction.
[Film] Disintegration
Well done!
Thursday, October 06, 2005
[Film] I'm sick, I'm watching
I am sick. Like all-coughing, all-complaining all the time sick. So I’ve been watching a lot of stuff.
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azakaban - ***
The first hour is the best HP movie yet, then it starts to fade away in terms of setting up and paying off the story. Exciting finale though.
Legend - **
Silly bad fun. Tim Curry is either supposed to represent dangerous mature male sexual energy or he’s been dressed to look like an inflamed penis.
Cube 2: Hypercube - *** ½
I actually liked that it was filled with ideas. They don’t hang together as a story – and in fact story basically gets deliberately abandoned & fractured and eaten – but it’s basically as flawed as the first one, just not as good.
Van Helsing - ** ½
Starts fantastically, ends in a mess. I could feel the slide in quality and entertainment as I was watching it.
The Forgotten - ** ½
It does everything right & Julianne Moore is pretty – but it’s just so obvious.
Lair of the White Worm - ****
Boy does this look like it’s going to be a dumb film in its first 20 minutes but it does a ballsy reveal of who its villain is, has a detailed backstory stretching back thousands of years that’s well worked out and effortlessly presented & it actually pulls of ‘that’ ending to a horror movie. If you see it, you’ll see what I mean. It is, however, a Ken Russell film.
Dark City – [no idea what to rate it]
Holds up way better the second time, but it’s paced like a trailer – there’s almost no grace notes or humanity in it; just the veneer of humanity. The trailer on the DVD is a perfect example of the post-Se7en industrial fear aesthetic. In other words, it’s really funny to watch now.
The Village - ****½
I love this film - it's so emotional, it's so well-motivated. I find it holds up on a second viewing because it's about people and why they do things, not about the plot. In fact, the reason I'm not fully engaged in the film (and why it doesn't get 5 stars) is because it falls down so badly when trying to address the plot. But that's minor to me. What's major is how masterful it is at misdirecting you to what story you're watching ... & how people so idealistic can also be (in my opinion) so evil.
Monday, October 03, 2005
[Biz] Anti Paypal
Saturday, October 01, 2005
[Film] Serenity Reviewed
James Berardinelli (see the sidebar) will review it later today.
I'm out of here for the weekend. Acting in a workshop for The Wasps. Hopefully, I'll have stuff to report on Monday.