I'm all right

More later.

Oh, and this draft of the script's finished. So that's cool.

[TV] Some more Lost sites

This is an article about the online marketing of Lost - and this is a site that people who've seen Ep.3 of Season 2 may be interested in checking out. Make sure to click on the Terms of Use after you've finished with everything else. I found that the funniest of all.

Filed in: tv

[The Limit] Writing the end

This is it. I’m back at the farmhouse for the finale. Feels like a long trip; feels – almost – like I’ve actually been shooting a movie & now I’m returning to a previous location.

10 pages of this brainstorming draft to go. This is the Endgame.

Filed in: film script limit

[RPG] My Matrix RPG

My latest contribution to RPG culture can be found here - an adaptation of Dogs in the Vineyard to The Matrix. I've never found the idea of a Matrix role-playing game even remotely interesting, until I asked, "What if you played the Agents?" ...

Filed in: rpg

[Film] The Isle (2000)

***** → *** (out of 5)

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.

Filed in: Film

[Film] Marnie (1964)

**** ½ (out of 5)

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.

According to Donald Spoto’s “The Art of Alfred Hitchcock”, Marnie sits inside 2 sets of Hitch’s films. The first is the sex-theft quartet: To Catch A Thief, Psycho and Family Plot. The second – and I think more fascinating – is that it’s the culmination of a series of three films about psychological damage: Psycho (discovering the problem), The Birds (trying to treat the problem) and Marnie (healing).

Filed in: Film

Post 500 has no content!

Of all the things I thought I'd be posting about, this ain't it. I've just followed the instructions here at blogfresh to add tags to my posts. Soon you'll be able to see new posts being indexed (sort of) automatically over at my del.icio.us page.

Filed in: Admin

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.

Remember how its initial appeal was its universality? "People struggling to survive". We could project ourselves onto their plight. Well the show's definitely abandoning that for increased specificity about what it's about. Has it given too much away – or created fresh grounds for speculation?

I thought they’d locked down too much with Episode 3 ‘Orientation’ but on reflection, there’s still a HUGE mystery to be solved (for instance, all the information we’ve just been given could turn out to be completely misdirecting the audience while simultaneously laying out future story-points to be explored). There’s the fact that Locke was healed on the beach. There’s the character stories on the island and their entwined backstories before the plane crashed (and the unanswered question of exactly how much of a coincidence it is that these particular people have landed here).

Lost may well have pulled off what it needed to: seeming to provide answers while still maintaining its inscrutable charm. For me, this’ll be its crucial season though – the season I pass judgment.

Also: I’ve never sided with Sawyer in the Jack- Sawyer debate before Episode 3. But give Michael & Sawyer their own spin-off show. Call it “Angry Men on a Raft”.

***

tech.memeorandum is my new favourite site. It not only aggregates blog entries, it also lists other blogs that are writing on the same topic. For instance, now I've learned that 2.6GB from Google can turn out to be very expensive and that Zombie PCs. are out to get advertisers.

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.

In the ‘Girl World’ that Wiseman describes, boyfriends are crucial because they a) increase self-worth, b) make a girl’s friends think more highly of her, and c) prove that she fits into teen culture.

***

There’s a feedback thread on Left Coast at the Forge.

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.

***

Do you think anyone wrote Vader/Leia slash-fic before Empire came out?

Post 499.

[The Limit] So. Close.

I’ve mapped out this rewrite on four A3 pages – and today I crossed over into the fourth and final page. Once again, I slowed down - kind of freaked out & scared – and began a massive blast of procrastination.

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.

[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

By Rosalind Wiseman

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)

“Don’t you think you’ve made me miss enough TV today, Jack?”

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)

[TV] 24.4.whatever

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.

[Script] Energy

Another way of looking at storytelling in the movies* is that each phase of the film has a different 'energy' about it.

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.

[The Limit] Halfway

Halfway through this brainstorming phase of the draft. Taking a day off to let my mind refill with creative goodness & get some distance from it.

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!

Holy cr@p! I just won a Ronnie for Left Coast. That's a $25 prize (US) + feedback and mentoring from Ron, if I understand the terms of the contest correctly.

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.

[TV] Boxing with lovebites

Spent a lot of Sunday with Ainsley and Sean, moving and sorting through boxes of contracts and tapes that Ains has been storing since the liquidation. Lots of fun, lots of memories & some teary-eyed moments as we came across photos of all of us hanging out back then.

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 Iraq in the mid-90s). Towards the end of the extract, he goes to tell his boss that he suspects his organisation has been infiltrated by the CIA:

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

Thought I'd link to this extract from Scott Ritter's new book (he's the guy who was co-ordinating weapons inspections in Iraq in the mid-90s). Towards the end of the extract, he goes to tell his boss that he suspects his organisation has been infiltrated by the CIA:

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?

[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.

It was very entertaining, using lots of slides, images from comics, quotes and film clips - including a stunning remix of the starwarskid download.

Condensing the talk down into 2 points, here's what I took from it ...

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) Worlds implicitly convey that self revelation. What that means is that even when you remove the characters and what they do from a story, the world that you're left with (its geography, population and history, for example) still convey themes and conflict.Worlds have meaning.

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.