Lady in the Water

*** SPOILERS ***Despite its many flaws, I came close to loving M. Night's latest movie. It's a fairytale in modern times; its twists come in the telling of the story, not at the end; the characters are incredibly fun & the film continues to have that style of comedy that I love in his films - humour when the stakes are incredibly high (cf. the son with the gun in Unbreakable, listening for the alien signal in the car in Signs).

Unfortunately, Lady in the Water (LitW) totters on the edge of ridiculousness for almost all of its running time, which of course means it quite often falls and wipes out completely. I appreciated the risks it was taking, but it also handles its middle of Act 2 exposition badly & has a few too many plot points (I think, about 3 too many - Madame Narfs, Takamuks, and the giant eagle).

But what's most interesting to me are the flaws, and how they're actually necessary to the story M. Night is trying to tell:

The animated beginning (which I'd heard was studio imposed) is horribly overlong and expository and emotionally manipulative BUT it serves the purpose of making us believe in who Story (Bryce Dallas Howard) is, which helps Cleveland (Paul Giamatti) believe in her instantly.

But Cleveland's lack of disbelief is the second great flaw. Most reasonable modern people figuring out what Story is would go, "No. Not possible." But the film isn't interested in playing out disbelief beats. And as more and more people rally behind Cleveland and Story, without really questioning why they're doing so, their reactions become more and more implausible.

But, their belief not only fits into the overall mythology of the fairytale - it leads the ideas I enjoyed most in the film: that people who look completely normal can be imbued with mythological power and move among us undetected. Which leads to the final flaw.

Too much stuff. It's cool stuff - people with powers, three or four different creatures, a fairytale being told to Cleveland that's staggered over an hour, precognition, hypnotism, symbolism ... it goes on and on, the script overloading itself even though it's really telling a very simple story - find a special person, then return home through many dangers.

Huh, I just realised it feels like an adaptation of a 600 page Stephen King novel.

Anyway, I find myself in partial agreement with Sean (thanks for the robust post-screening discussion!) LitW feels like a first draft - it's filled with great stuff, good plot points, characters who you really get a sense of their past and future but it needs to be a) leaner, and b) flesh out a few things (the final fight, especially, felt like it was missing a beat).

But the film is not a mess in the same way as Pirates of the Caribbean 2. LitW knows what it wants to do (to bring back wonder), and for all its flaws it got there in the end, for me.

Filed in: film review

The Limit - Relaxing will be good

Whoa.

The Assembly Draft is done

It took four hours from the start of Act Three to the end. And the rewriting got faster and faster as I went through. That's always the way with this script, I find; the ending is tough to conceptualise, and a breeze to write through. Hopefully that doesn't mean that I'm ignoring some fundamental problem (cf. The Midpoint).

Lots of new stuff added. Lots of exposition shifted and deleted. Did I cry at the end? Not this time, no, but (a) it was such a radical shift that my mind had to be on the process not the emotions, (b) I think I'm going for catharsis more than tears now, (c) this is like the 15th time I've through this end, and (d) I'm not defensive about not crying, ok? Not at all. Now just back off, ok?

Hmm.

The script itself is down to 99 pages, and that's before the fine-tuning draft and the final polish chop out all of my notes to myself.

So, time to relax. I'm giving myself three days off. I think I'll probably tackle a rewrite of the Lucky Jones rules to clear my head ... and then back into it.

Relaxing will be good.

Filed in: limit script

The Limit - The Way forward

Today, I looked through everything I had to do from the start of Act 3 to the end, solving problems as I read through the script, and by the time I reached the end of my reading I realised I'd found a way through.

And it is good.

Then I started to procrastinate / freak out about finishing, again. So after letting that happen for a few minutes, I bit off the smallest part of the very next problem I had to solve and tackled it. Which worked pretty well.

The point: I can finish this pass on the script now.

Filed in: limit script

A little update

The silence has been due to (a) getting together a successful application for a new-ish job, and (b) slowly but successfully cracking the end of The Limit's second act. Oh, and (c) looking after my hands.

Other stuff in the last couple of weeks includes:
A little bit of script reading and feedback for a feature and a short.
Preparing to play in a new SF game, Burning Empires (summary of our set-up, here; fuller details, here)
And finishing off our game of betrayal in Feudal Japan, The Mountain Witch. The actual play thread is here.

I've also seen Silent Hill, which was (in order) interesting, scary, dopey, disappointing and, ultimately, has the best ending of any Silent Hill game I've played so far.

Oh, and Nightwatch, which I stopped watching twice & didn't finish before it was taken back to the shop. Who wants to see yet another movie about people with special powers fighting vampires and trying to stop the end of the world? Not me.

Not unless it's really really good.

Filed in: limit personal rpg film review

Some more writing table thoughts

If someone is really enthused about an idea, but the rest of the table isn't fired up about it, ask the Someone what's at the core of what they're excited about.

If the rest of the table is fired up about about an idea, but someone isn't really enthused about it, ask the Someone what their dislike is really about.

Write those answers down.

In fact, try and write everything down, not matter how small. It's all stuff to get inspired by later, and it sends a signal that everyone's contribution is important. Bring a couple of big pages of paper to write it all down in front of the group.

The point: Promote a shared understanding between the group about the things they're enthusiastic about, in common. Try to create a healthy brainstorming environment where everyone listens to each other. Get everyone talking and contributing - including yourself - and then keep a good ear out for interesting ideas.

And keep in mind that it takes guts, sometimes, to point out an interesting idea. Be brave about doing it yourself, and make sure everyone else respects someone who's doing it.

Filed in: tv howto

Sapphire & Steel

Sapphire and Steel fans, make yourselves known. You will be contacted.

(And I'm talking big fans - you reference it in casual conversation; you speculate about what happened next; you either own episodes or you've seen them multiple times. I'm talking love here, people.)

Filed in: rpg

Silent Hill is coming

My god, that trailer is great.

Sean and I will be seeing Silent Hill on Tuesday 5 September after work. Details posted closer to the time, but feel free to join us if you know what you're getting yourself in for.

Filed in: film personal

Thanks, D

What you said last night gave me a real boost.

Filed in: limit

Michael Mann, I love you

Miami Vice.
I want to write a film like this. This was absolutely the perfect movie to see at this stage of writing The Limit, and I went into it perfectly primed.

*** IT'S SPOILERS, ALL THE WAY DOWN ***

Here's what I was told: the movie starts in the middle of a police operation, and it keeps going from there - you really have to pay attention to follow what's going on, because Mann doesn't ease you into the world of the story.

1. It's like Brick. You have to listen carefully to everything everyone says & figure things out for yourself.
2. This is a perfect companion piece to The Wire. In fact, I'd say it's almost compulsory to watch a season of The Wire before seeing this film. It'll get you in the mood for the tone Mann is going for.
3. That mood is 'Hollywood' + 'Miami Vice' + 'The Wire'. Schmaltz + Cool + desperate people (on both sides of the badge) having to be as smart as they possibly can, to stay alive.

Here's what I didn't like:

- the script needed one more beat in the first meeting with the Fed to establish Crockett & Tubb's emotional connection with the case. That would have sustained us a lot more easily during their initial moves undercover.
- the performance of their fixer was over the top.
- where'd they get that grenade?
- the dialogue during the second meeting with the Fed was over the top.
- bringing the people they did to the club. It was a stupid move, and they should have known it. Biggest plot flaw of the movie, but it also sets up such an intense ending.
- Crockett & Tubbs needed to get proactive after what happened to Trudi.
- the story didn't return to the initial sting on Neptune.

Here's what I liked:

- Farrell & Foxx.
- starting in media res. I'm really coming to understand the advantages of this, for me as a writer.
- the jeopardy in their first meeting with the drug dealers. Smart people doing smart things because they know they could die at any moment.
- the seduction on the boat. A classic Mann scene.
- the romance. Absolutely unbelievable, but so necessary to (a) get in, (b) create tension in the finale, (c) be sexy.
- how will they respond to Trudi?
- the intensity of the ending & how it builds. Competent people doing deadly things.

The film is filled with music, it has a relentless pace, and its use of video captures the world in such a way that I was seeing the streets outside Reading when I stepped out like I was still in the movie.

Miami Vice is sleazy. Maybe it represents the real Miami; maybe it represents the degeneration of Michael Mann from the stylisation of Manhunter and Heat. All I know is I loved it.

Filed in: review film script

The Limit – Anatomy of a Scene

Not so much procrastination in the re-starting of the writing this time. Maybe because I’m already three-quarters of the way through the script – because it’s in media res, I’m immediately interested, whereas starting from the beginning involves slowly relearning why I like the characters and then building up interesting situations for them.

Anyway, I took a crack at the confrontation scene between Tracy and Forster on Tuesday. By about halfway through Draft 1, I stopped. Here’s what I wrote about that:

Fuck, I really want to mine the subtext – but I think I have to write the scene out first, then figure out what it’s about – and how that adds to the About of the film (‘2 dads vying for the love of their son’), and then simplify the scene down. I’m talking about writing and editing, really … and then re-reading the whole thing in sequence, so I can see how it all fits together. So … no need to panic about ‘getting it right’.

All I was doing here was taking the pressure off myself - to remind myself that while I was doing the best I could with the scene, there were going to be plenty more opportunities before the script was finished to judge how it worked.

So I backed up, started a Draft 2, and stalled again.

Time to take a break, think through it again. In the middle of doing dishes, I realised what each character wanted, that it was actually a pretty simple conflict (and that I’d been circling around articulating it that simply for about 2 years). Tracy wants Forster to live and face justice, while Forster wants to die, in a very specific way.

I also realised that I wanted to create a connection between the 2 of them, to show that they had common ground, having been through the same stuff. It’s a technique I admired in Lost, in the Sayid/AnaLucia conversations after Shannon’s death.

So, I worked yesterday, mulled over the scene and came back to it this morning after a bit of internet procrastination.

First things first, what’s at stake? Well, I know that the lead character will live, and I know that she’s going to ‘get’ Forster. What’s at stake is how she’ll do it: will she use the law and reason, or anger and brute force. It help, having already written the brute force scene that I know I can make that plausible.

I wrote down the fundamental beats I want to see in the scene, and ID’d the next point to get to – which is Tracy’s realisation that Forster wants to die. I decided that Tracy had to be the one who realised, because (a) it makes her active, and (b) it shows her doing some detecting.

The dialogue came easily to start with, because the characters’ Wants are so diametrically opposed. I was handwriting everything, and if I couldn’t get an exact phrasing, then I just jotted down the idea behind the dialogue – to work it up later.

I came across a couple of things repeatedly:
1. An impression that some lines were either clichéd, or contained a repetitive subtext. (Have I talked before about how (for me) subtext has to be deliberately constructed and hammered into a scene? That was certainly the case here, with Tracy’s concern for her Dad.) Anyway, I decided to leave judging all that to the next readthrough.

2. If the audience knows some information is coming, withhold it. Create tension. It’s very natural to pop that stuff too early.

Toward the end of the scene's second act, Tracy learns some bad news. It's a Bang - I'm fascinated in how she'll react because I have no idea what she'll do. So I start brainstorming 20 ideas. At #8, I get to one I like - that she confronts the situation. I'm able to write out two or three more lines between Tracy and Forster, and then the dialogue dries up. After half an hour, I admit that to myself & back up, brainstorm some more ideas and adopt a subtler, softer approach. The scene flows pretty easily from that point to its end.

I wasn't sure exactly how Tracy would subdue Forster, so when I reached that moment I wrote from the heart. The end result is probably way over-long, but I was really INTO it while writing.

Anyway, I’ve roughed out the scene, I’m ready to move on now. Tracy has a real hero moment; I understand the characters better; their conversation NEEDED to happen; and it’s probably made the remainder of the film about 70% to 240% more interesting than it was before.

Filed in: Limit script

Talking with Sean

During our lunchtime stroll, we talked about another two things to be alert for in creative groups.

The first is ‘dead points’, areas or ideas that one or more people just aren’t interested in. The flipside is when there’s an idea that only one person is interested in, but they’re PASSIONATE about it. I experienced this during our first 48 Hours competition; there were some elements of the story that only a few people were into it, and each time the story focused on those there was a drop in energy and contribution. So, some solutions:

- Talk about why they are or aren’t interested.
- Accept you can’t make someone interested in something.
- Try to massage a story so it contains only elements that everyone’s interested in.
- Be generous in attempting to become interested in an idea. Really try to understand and internalise it.

The second thing to be alert for are conversations that go awkwardly. There’s usually something going on behind that, and although it takes bravery to bring it up for discussion, you’ll usually come to (a) a better understanding, and (b) develop more trust that you can work through creative differences.

Sean, anything else you want to add?

Filed in: howto tv

Personally, I'd read #2

Two incredibly useful threads at the Forge.

One, discusses how to start conflicts in Primetime Adventures – and it’s suggesting taking a WAAAAY less overt approach than I’ve used in my games. Jenni, I think you’d be particularly interested in this post. Look how it’s saying you don’t explicitly describe how a conflict will play out; you just identify that the conflict is a-brewing, play your cards and take the results into account.

That's very different to how we approached our Buffy game, and it really makes me want to play PTA right now, to try it out.

Two, which discusses the RPG 'Bachannal', and how to approach roleplaying that has an erotic content.

Filed in: rpg design howto tv

The Limit - It begins again!

Well, having cleared the decks of Lucky Jones design, it's back to The Limit. I left it just at the end of Act 2, about to start a big rewrite of an action scene. So, let us see if I have my usual day of procrastination. (To try and prevent it, I started the morning with a big, uphill walk, to try and get the endorphins flowing. I'll have to see how that works).

... and Matt, yes, there was a Mystery Post, and yes, I took it down after half an hour. There are good reasons for that, and it’ll be reposted soon, probably in another location.

Filed in: limit script

Tips for working at the Writing Table

Over the last year or so, I've been involved in semi-regular get-togethers to brainstorm ideas for TV shows. Here's a few things I've learned from that, about working as part of a creative team:

Like the people you're working with.

Listen. Plotting is like jazz; you have to listen to everyone's contribution. Make sure you (and hopefully everyone else at the table) is committed to the principle that it's not about getting your ideas across, but making everyone else's shine.

Accept that it doesn't have to go your way; other ways are just as good. The end result won't be like you thought, and that's fine. However, you do need to buy in to what the idea's become.

Assume everyone's adult and friendly - you can raise objections and alternatives in a mature and reasonable way.

Proceed carefully when disagreeing with people. If you think an idea is lame, wrong or stupid, DON'T SAY THAT. Ask what's behind their suggestion. Seek to understand and keep trying, until you either buy in to it or get what their goal is. Asking them to explain is better than saying ' No '.

Play with the idea and the characters. Have fun.

Filed in: howto tv

Pointing out problems at the writing table

This is an addition to the writing table post, below. It's inspired by a conversation with Sean, yesterday, where we were talking about how you need to create a team where everybody feels like they can contribute (in order to bring out the best in them). It's also about getting everybody on the same page, and trying to improve a show by solving the problems that will have the most benefit on other areas of the show.

It's pretty simple:

Tell everyone we're going to list out all the problems we have with the show.
Tell them we're not going to try and solve them yet. We're not even going to say WHY they're a problem. We're just going to list them and move on.
Once everyone understands that we're going to try and keep the big picture in mind and not get bogged down (and everyone feels free to point out if the conversation starts getting down into specific details and justifications) ...
Get everyone to list out all the problems they have, on a whiteboard.
Get everyone name their top prob, or top 3.
Look for patterns, priorities. See if there are problems that everyone has in common.
Choose the problems that, if you solve them, they’ll have the most flow-on effect
Brainstorm solutions. Brainstorm a lot of them.

Filed in: howto tv script

Joining a Writing Table - some tips

As I've found, it's not easy to be the new person at the writing table. I've mentioned before how I'd like to be part of a table that listens to each other and tries to bring out the best. Here are some tips on how to do that:

- Just ask questions – try to get a feel for what’s important, the reasons why something was done, and where the reasoning is weak.

- Don’t prepare a 40 page document filled with all the problems I've identified and how I'd solve them. This sort of stuff has to come out in conversation.

- Do bring a page of questions, organised in order of importance.

- If I do have to ID problems, keep the list very very short. Either, (a) Point out why I find them problematic, and suggest a couple of solutions, or (b) do a deep analysis to find out what I think the basic problem is – and then see if others at the table agree with me.

- Don't get anxious about joining an established team. It takes quite a while to fit in with them and get a sense of their style (like a month to six month quite a while)

- Try to keep the Big Picture in mind.

- Be co-operative.

Filed in: howto tv

My new writing process - a rough outline

Hmm, here's the stripped down, mechanical version of the writing process I want to try.

Intro characters. Present them with a Kicker, a situation that cannot be ignored
Brainstorm 20 (B20) ideas for each character’s reaction.
Choose the most interesting.
Write down on a separate page for each character, what I’ve discovered about them in making that choice.
Create the new situation based on that choice.
Write a synopsis of it on a Word doc.

Characters have to react to the new situation. Intro any new characters that that situation demands. Repeat the B20, writing process.
Soon I’ll have ‘character sheets’ filled with traits that allow me to make decisions that are consistent with their characterisation.

If I come up with awesome new ideas, write them down on a page that says Act 1,2,3. But keep going with my current story – to see what I learn. Why? Well, the idea is that I won’t know if these new ideas are the 'right' ones – all I’ll know is that they’re better – but I could come up with more if I keep going. So rather than keep getting distracted by - let's face it - an inexhaustible supply of new possibilities, I'll work through the entire story and then be able to make a decision based on overviewing the whole thing.

Read aloud. Record.
Take notes.

Go back to the start and start with the most interesting situation I've now devised. Rebuild.
Repeat till I’m confident.

Pitch.

This whole process is more character based, with a structure that (I assume) will naturally get imposed on it over time. The question of what it's 'about' also needs to be answered - but I have another post on that coming up, based on my recent consulting work on this TV show.

Filed in: howto tv script

Some Lucky Jones playtesting

So, we played my family sit-com game, The Lucky Joneses on Tuesday night. The nuts-and-bolts write-up is at the Forge.

Filed in: rpg

Filed in: luckyjones

How to design a 600 page roleplaying game

Burning Empires is high on the list of games I want to play in the next couple of years. Thor, who was involved in its production, has started a series of blogposts backgrounding how the game was created.

First post is the background - inspiration, legal processes, ethical challenges, and what the game is 'about':

"The first thing we settled upon was that the underlying metaphor for the game would be disease. The Vaylen were a parasitic infestation infecting the bloated, dying body of humanity. Once we had that concept down [we could] explore the ways in which we could extend that metaphor throughout the game ..."

Second post reveals some stuff I hadn't really taken onboard about the Burning Wheel system:

"Luke and I began focusing on Vaylen culture, which we needed to understand before we could create any rules for them. Burning Wheel’s lifepath system, which we had decided to keep for Burning Empires, requires that you thoroughly understand the structure of a society in order to create lifepaths for it."

The process of developing the Vaylen (parasitic worms) and Kerrn (geneered warriors) is pretty fascinating stuff - and obviously these few paragraphs of description boil down hours and hours of intense game-designy conversation. But, parasitic worms as fully playable characters = Wow.

This post also talks about beginning to come up with implementations of the rules - how Firefights have to be 'about' something; how Psychology (a mind control ability) needed to be balanced so that it wouldn't create player vs. player dysfunction.

And there's this great insight into Luke Crane's design process:

The very first step Luke takes when designing a project (before logos, layout, etc.) is to select fonts.

“Fonts are the foundation for the look of a book." [says Luke]. They’ve got to knit together all the other elements. So for BE, I knew I wanted a different look than BW. It had to have a classic look to it, like BW, but also had to be modern.”

Luke went through his font database of several thousand fonts and made a short list of the fonts that suited his needs.

Third (and last, so far) post has a great comment from Iskander that skim-illustrates how to use theory to improve a game for everybody.

It also talks about playtesting the big rules at a macro-level, so you can run through entire campaigns (or, in this game's case, Worlds) quickly, and shows the gruelling yet valuable work of playtesting. There's some great stuff about how the game is designed to force the creation of a story

There are insights into editing, artwork, and project management (in the form of co-ordinating playtesting when rules are being revised, and every group could have a slightly different draft).

And there's this quote, which I think is key:

"One thing that Luke and I and others at the Forge have seen very clearly is that role playing texts in general are pretty poor at teaching players how to use them. Invariably, creators do things when running their games that are essential to making the games function as they should, and yet some of the most important of those things never make it into the text. We do things that are so ingrained that we take it completely for granted that other players, who learned to play in other environments, do them too. Once you release a game, if you interact with your fans, you quickly start to see patterns in the questions they ask. Pretty soon, the conclusion is inescapable: you’re doing something at your table that is not actually in the text. Burning Wheel is no different than other games in that regard.

Luke and I pledged that we would do our best to hard code the way we played into Burning Empires by critically evaluating every nuance of how we played our games, and making sure it made its way into the text.

Filed in: rpg theory game design

The Scott Pilgrim movie

Well, according to AICN, Edgar Wright is going to direct the/a Scott Pilgrim movie. This makes me happy because he'll be really frickin' great/ideal at it. This makes me sad because I want to do one/them/it. Hopefully it'll turn into a Harry Potter franchise and I'll get my shot.

Filed in: film