Fear of a Blank Page

29 Mar

Human imagination is ENDLESS!

Yep. Sure it is.

Let’s do a little exercise on your endless imagination.

Ready? Here we go:

Imagine a new color.

Go ahead! I’ll wait!

What did you name it? Can you describe it? No? But… but you said… human imagination is endless… right?

This isn’t a slap on your imagination, princess. It’s yet another way to illustrate “it’s all already been done.” Once you embrace this idea, you can move on from your Epic 17th Century Super Hero Russian Romance with Gigantic Monsters and try to focus your brain on what works BOTH commercially and artistically.

BOTH.

If you don’t (or won’t, or can’t…) embrace the commercial side, and all of its associated pains-in-the-ass, you’ll forever be dashing out stuff that nobody who can really get a movie made wants to read.

A child comes home from school. He holds up his drawing — a hodge podge of crayon-scribbled circles:

coloring

He smiles up, proud of the work. What is it? you ask.

It’s a spaceman landing on the moon fighting a monster!

Yeah. Of course it is. That’s imagination. And in that context, a child’s impressionable mind creating images– the ability to make up their own color — is not only perfectly fine, it’s amazing.

At a certain point in time, that fertile imagination — the one that made all of those scribbles equal an epic moon battle — changes to a fertile puzzle solving machine. And those really really tough problems are solved by making up your own color? That won’t work in this business. The very definition of the word morphs as imagination becomes the ability to creatively solve really tough problems.

Are there instances where a writer just makes something up? Just some sort of gobbledeegook?

Sure.

But the sci-fi gobbledeegook serves the big-boy story and themes, doesn’t it?

M A R K

22 Mar

And Then Shit Blows Up

I became intensely interested in movies right around 1980.
It was the dawn of the video age. The rise of HBO. Viewing options were limited (comparatively).
We had the Atari 8-bit console and home computers were just starting to show up. No internet. Making a 300 baud connection was a nightmare.
But oh, what a time for movies…
YEAR / MOVIE / FIRST VIEWING EXPERIENCE / MY AGE
1975 / Jaws / Theater / 8
1977 / Star Wars / Theater / 10
1977 /Close Encounters / Theater / 10
1978 / Halloween / HBO / 11
1979 / Alien / Laser Disc / 12
1979 / Phantasm / Movie Channel / 12
1979 / Amityville Horror / Theater (sort of) / 12
1980 / Friday the 13th / Video / 13
1980 / Humanoids from the Deep / The Movie Channel 13
1982 / The Thing / Theater / 15
1982 / Empire Strikes Back / Theater / 15
A lot of the really cool stuff (naked chicks and gore) were teased in the horror mags (Fangoria)…
fangoria9
… and their content really whet my whistle. It was exiting. Dangerous. A gateway drug towards what I imagined were adult experiences.
Let’s talk about PHANTASM!
phantasm
If this one doesn’t scare you, you’re already dead.
This one is worth the watch, but since you probably wont, let me summarize some of the high points:

Naked chick has sex in the graveyard.
Naked chick turns out to be ‘The Tall Man’ (Uh oh, uncomfortable switcheroo!)
Metal spheres zip through halls and SLAM into peoples heads. Then DRILL into the skull and shoot their blood out the front like one of this chika-chika-chika sprinklers.
An alternate universe.
Dwarves with red lights for eyes.
A gigantic fly!
An ice cream truck!
A hemicuda!
This movie HAD IT ALL!
At least everything the twelve-year old horror in me loved at that time.
The best part was it was for forbidden fruit. My folks wouldn’t let me see stuff like that, so I had to creatively sneak a viewing. And sneak I did. There was a sort of reward in that, as well, the idea that I wasn’t supposed to be seeing those things, but I did, and got one over on the man.
I remember seeing Friday the 13th part II in the theater (I would have been 14) and being FREAKED OUT. Heart pounding. Scootching up into the chair. Just TERRIFIED.
I also remember that the only movie that scared me SO MUCH that I literally walked out (after sneaking into!) was Amityville Horror.
Later, in my writing career, I’ve always remembered those times.  The way it made me feel.  Horror. Terror. Bone deep fear. Or, in the case of Empire, Star Wars, or Close Encounters, a sense of wonderment.
Last summer, I was listening to some teens review Avengers. The Avengers assemble, they said, over and over again “and then shit blows up.”
Is that an emotion? I feel like shit blows up.
They didn’t say they were scared, happy, sad, or fearful. They just saw shit blow up.
Writing 101 tells us to ‘make an emotional connection with the reader’ — how did the Avengers do that? What part of the movie made any sort of connection? It can be done, we’ve seen it.  People can relate to Die Hard’s John McClane, an everyman cop in the wrong place at the wrong time, trying to put his failing marriage back together. All the while, shit blows up around him.
Or what about Michael Bay’s ham-fisted ARMAGEDDON from 1998?
arma
You know you squirted a few when A.J. left Harry behind. Promised to look after his daughter.  There it is: emotion and shit blowing up.
“The business has changed,” movie execs will tell you. And I guess, for the most part, they’re right.  Our young folks are growing up too fast, not learning the lessons they need to learn. Not learning how to feel. To have empathy. To have compassion for each other.
Are movies to blame? Or are the movies just a  reflection of society — give the people what they want? The total take for THE AVENGERS is over a BILLION dollars. B-B-BILLION.
So what does that say?
To me, it clearly says, that people want…
… shit to blow up.
M A R K
08 Mar

A series of coincidences

co·in·ci·dence

[ kō ínssidənss ]

definition – happening without planning: the fact of happening by chance

By that definition, everything in a screenplay IS NOT coincidence. Every word, shift of character, sneeze, side-step — not coincidence.

Real-life, though, is (my opinion) really about 95% coincidence, 5% choice.

Shit happens, the saying goes.

Let’s look at … JAWS!

Jaws-Hopko-poster

(Side note: AWESOME poster!)

A man-eater takes up residence just off Amity Island, a fictional island with a stunning resemblance to Martha’s Vinyard.  Amity is supposed to be in upstate New York. Basically, that water is too cold for big sharks. Impossible? No. Improbable? Yes.

So the shark just happens to be there. OK. I can buy that. No problem. Why didn’t they just make it… oh… Outer Banks, NC? The waters gotta be like twenty-plus degrees warmer there? I digress.

Chrissy, drunk off her ass, in a performance that would put Michael Phelps to shame, swims out to a buoy that appears to be about a mile off the beach. She’s got drunk strength.

chrissie

Coincidentally, our shark is in the area and Chrissy meets her untimely end in what might be one of the best cold-open sequences ever.

But Bruce doesn’t eat her entire body! No, no. Just a few choice bites (thought she was a seal, let go when he found she wasn’t, maybe?)

No matter, because, coincidentally, the uneaten body washes back onto shore vs… oh, getting picked apart by other predators, getting washed OUT instead of IN, you get it — it was just sort of fate (or coincidence…) that drove that body into the beach.

chrissiearm

The town of Amity hires a New York City cop with some sort of baggage. He, his city-slicker wife and kids move to Amity. They’re outsiders. Lo and behold, Brody hates the water. This is never explained. He could hate a lot of things: clowns, roaches, grease, concentrated orange juice, but — no — as far as we know, his only real fear is water. Not a great move, hating water and moving to an island. That’s really quite the… coincidence. Especially if you know what’s coming next.

One more…

Ben Gardener’s boat is lost at sea. Keep in mind, when this happens in real life (someone lost at sea…), rescue forces are launched (you’ve seen this if you live near an ocean or The Gulf) and literally hundreds of planes, boats and men are sent to look for whatever / whoever disappeared. Many times they never find what they’re looking for. But Hooper and Brody — they DO find Ben Gardener’s boat (even though they weren’t even looking for it).

That’s like winning the coincidence jackpot!

BUT WAIT! IT GETS BETTER!

It just so happens the person driving the boat, Hooper, a shark specialist, wants to dive to find… WHAT?  What is the reason Hooper wants to dive on Ben’s boat? Why don’t they just pull the boat closer and then step over to it?

And then — IMAGINE THAT! – one the the shark’s teeth is embedded in the hull of the boat!

jawstooth

Surely you agree this is a preponderance of coincidence.

But it works, doesn’t it?

Coincidence is fine as long as there’s at least an inkling of truth:  Hooper’s into sharks. Sharks are in the area. Ben’s boat looks beat up. Maybe the shark attacked it? Maybe there’s a hole in the bottom that might give a clue? OK. Sure.

As we move further and further down the path of — let’s call it audience enlightenment — the ability to stack coincidence upon coincidence becomes more and more problematic. This is the age of reason. Things have meaning. We don’t see ourselves as creatures that react. We see ourselves as creatures that are the drivers of our lives — we are the authors of our own story. We’re in CONTROL. We’re not just victims of circumstance… are we?

Sure. You’re in control. Uh huh.

Keep telling yourself that, sport.

M A R K

01 Mar

Find Your Voice

He’s got a really distinctive voice.

What the hell does that even mean!?

Imagine bee-bopin’ down the road. Your favorite song comes on the radio. You crank it.

You know alllll the words and you are SPOT-ON! Damn! If that singer dies, you think, you might be able to just sort of step right in and pick up where he (or she!) left off… just like Marky Mark in ROCK STAR!

marky mark

Then your passenger, mid-song, reaches over and kills the volume and they you are, screeching like a 7 year-old. Your voice a horrible mess. Not even close to the pro you were aping. You’ve got no voice. And what you THOUGHT you had was actually just a really really bad imitation of the singer who had spent a life-time honing his (or her!) craft.

Most of us start by imitating someone else. Read a Tarantino script, think a-ha, that’s how it’s done! I can do that! then write something you THINK he’d write.

That’s not your voice. That’s an imitation of his voice.

Let’s flip the idea around.

Ever hear someone sing your favorite song, but it’s their version of it? Maybe it’s rock instead of country. Down tempo instead of up. Sung in a different key. Emphasis on a different phrase. It’s THE SAME, BUT DIFFERENT and it RAWKS!

So when some puts a distinctive mark on the content, it becomes theirs, they “own” that version, distinctly theirs.

When you look back at all of the rock stars, at their beginnings, you’ll always find some sort of version of We were just trying to imitate… Rush, The Beatles, The Stones, Led Zep, etc. etc.

That’s where establishing your voice legitimately starts (by trying to write that Tarantino movie…), but it has to morph and change from imitation into something that’s coveted.

How do you go from sounding like a club-band to sounding like The Beatles?
the-beatles

You practice. You make mistakes. You hold a cruel mirror up to the work. You learn what’s important. What’s not. Where you will compromise. Where you won’t. You go from tentatively writing to aggressively attacking the page. You toy with people and surprise them. You make a name for yourself. You become distinctive and effortless. You become… coveted.

Find your voice.

M A R K

 

 

22 Feb

Trailer for Root of the Problem

Root is starting to play more festivals. Here’s the trailer:

Oh, and here’s a temporary poster:

Root Temp Poster

M A R K

15 Feb

Back Story: What drives a protaganist through a narrative?

Is it important WHY something happens?

For instance, in Friday the 13th (the original)…

ff13th

… could the kids just have been at the camp, getting it ready for summer, without the film makers showing the audience the kids were arriving?

And then, WHY did the kids go to the camp? I guess because they needed jobs or something.

It’s all pretty simple and straight-forward. As an audience, we just sort of roll with it.

In fact, some writers will say “come in late and leave early” — a good way to make a script really zip along.

Another way to frame this: “how much back-story do you need to tell?”

The answer should be “as little as possible.” An interesting approach was THE GREY…

the grey

… where Ottway (Liam Neeson), a man troubled seemingly by the separation from his wife, gets on a plane to go home which  — (SPOILERS!) — crashes. As he attempts to lead the surviving men out of the wilderness and avoid the wolves (both inside and outside of the group) we get MORE of the back-story.

The plane crashes on page 10. The back-story is peppered in later — an effective cheat as we get to an inciting event at the right time, yet still get all of the back-story we need that shows WHY Ottway does what he does. Even more effective is, later, we find that the back-story is not quite what we expected.

Nicely done.

That’s sophisticated writing.

Why did Indiana Jones seek treasure?

indy

Do we care? Or can we just say “that’s just what the man does” and move on?

I think, when it’s all said and done, that the answer is, yes, you do have to answer the why of your characters back-story, but you can do it very quickly without getting bogged in all of the additional why’s that follow the first. And, if you’re clever, you can express your characters back-story in the actions of the present.

In First Blood, WHY was Stallone going to see his buddy?

firstblood

Do we care? Nah. He just was. They were war buddies. War buddies drop by. ‘Nuff said. After that, when all hell breaks loose, the writers pepper in more of the Rambo back-story. Decorated special forces. Lethal. Blah blah blah. Most of that is delivered NOT by Rambo, but by Trautman…

Trautman_5

… in what many might call “needless exposition,” but hey, it worked. Whilst Trautman SAID what Rambo could do, we WATCHED Rambo actually do it.

Whether we writers like it or not, Hollywood expects certain things to happen at “the right time.”  You can buck the system, but at  your own peril. When dealing with characters with complicated or interesting back story, consider a way to work this in after the first inciting event, which, in a perfect world, you want sometime around page ten.

Good luck!

M A R K

27 Jan

It escapes!

Shark-Infested-Waters-Wallpaper-Mural

There’s always something a little fun, a little edgy about taking a script wide. It’s that vibe of uncertainty. The idea that “well, here we go…” knowing some will call your baby ugly, some will come back with a non-answer “I feel strongly both ways!” and some will just get it and see the creative and business up-side.

The trick, then, is to hope that more people “get it” and want to get in bed with you.

With Ghost Light Road, we were able to send it (initially) to small groups of people who we thought would give us fair and accurate feedback, adjust based on that feedback, and then blast it out wide.

After you go through this sort of experience, you have to wonder, though, just how far off you were when you wrote those earlier drafts and how you didn’t see what they saw.

This idea — getting some distance — is writing 101. It’s in every book on screenwriting.

When I went back (after setting the script aside for about 3 weeks) I saw a bleak script, with a bleak ending, with few characters to root for, dotted with typos.

The only good side to all of that bad news was that I was able to quickly adjust and correct and get a better version completed as we went wide. Now all is left is the waiting. Dealing with more feedback. And pushing on to the next project.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

M A R K

 

 

18 Jan

Twenty pieces of advice

I recently spent some time writing to a younger version of myself. It’s a long story and it took me a while to write.

Anyway…

It came out as some snippets of advice, some for people starting out, some who have a few under their belt. No sense in keeping it to myself. Maybe it will help someone some day.

1)      Be careful about showing your work before it’s done. People will read your stuff once with open eyes. Twice you’re pushing it.

2)      Writing is never done. It escapes.

3)      There are services that will proof read stuff for all of the things that make up story – concept, pace, grammar, characters, etc. – that you can pay. Some of them are a waste of time and money, some of them are pretty good. The trick is finding a good one.  If they’re only telling you good news, suspect something is wrong.

4)      Writing is re-writing. It’s foolish to think you’ll write a page or a chapter and ta-da! GOLD! Not going to happen.

5)      You’re a writer. You need basic command of the English language. You’ll make a lot of stupid mistakes (it took me about 40 years to figure out its’ isn’t a word). When you see yourself making those mistakes, take a second to step back and understand what went wrong and how to correct it. Generally, there are some pretty clear rules for the weird stuff, but I still find myself having to look things up from time-to-time.

6)      Once you claim you’re a writer, every single time you make a grammatical mistake or make a stupid typo, people will point it out. It’s just the way it goes. It makes them feel important to have one over on Mr. Writer. Just take the hit, thank them for their sharp eye, and move on.

7)      When you’re getting feedback from someone, remember, they’re WATCHING the way YOU react to THEIR feedback. No matter what they say, listen, nod politely, and if they say something really really bizarre, just say “That’s a good point, I’m going to think about it.” Mostly, though, you don’t want to blow it with the people who take the time to give you sincere feedback.

8)      Your parents aren’t a good source of feedback. They don’t want to hurt your feelings, and sometimes feedback can sting. So what you do is, get specific feedback from the folks where everybody wins: “Hey, could you do a quick read on this and help me with a typo stomp?” That’s black and white stuff and doesn’t involve anyone’s feelings getting hurt (and they can still feel as if they’re helping you out).

9)      Don’t ask for feedback from good-intentioned people that can’t help you. If you ask your buddy to read something and he knows nothing about the craft of writing, there’s really no chance that the feedback will be worth a lot.  Conversely, when you get feedback from people that are familiar with the craft, and they say something that stings, make sure you’re paying attention. That doesn’t mean they’re right. It means they might be right.

10)   Any type of writing is a craft. And to get better at your craft, you have to work at it. Study. Read. Live. Question.  It’s a lot of work and sacrifice.

11)   A writer finishes.  This idea, by far, is what separates a writer from someone who likes to write. It’s a HUUUUGE difference. I cannot stress this enough and I cannot stress how important it is to understand that this is what makes the difference. Many people who want to be writers find that they can start, but can’t finish. If that describes you, realize that writing is a process and you need to develop a tool-set that teaches you how to finish.  There are many books, articles, and web pages on dealing with this issue. My approach is to always think of things in threes, from a macro to a micro. Everything, in my opinion, has three specific phases: a beginning, a middle, and an end. When I write (whether from detailed outline or from no outline, I always think about these three ideas — these three beats.)

12)   A story is a promise. You say to your reader, “hey, I’ve got something to show you. And it might take some twists and turns, but if you stick with me, I promise I’ll answer all of those questions I brought up back on page one.”  If you don’t live up to what your story promises, people will not want to read you in the future.

13)   Don’t ignore the simple power of allegory, subtext and cool metaphors.

14)   Characters want something and what they want drives them. When you get stuck, think “what does he want?” Of course, that can be a really complicated question. Human psychology is muy importante.

15)   Without conflict, there is no story.

16)   Beware of flat writing. Flat writing is lazy writing. Every sentence is important, and every word within every sentence is important. You are painting a picture, and it’s your job to give enough description to bring the picture to life.  For example, if you had a sentence “John put the pot on the stove.” Well, that might be OK, but couldn’t you do a lot better? “John put the scratched and blackened pot on the stove and twisted the burner knob. The gas hissed and then ignited with a soft THWUMP. As he set the pot down, the water sloshed over the edge and almost doused the flame below.”  You get the idea: paint a picture (that’s the job!). There are actually lists you can use to search for weak verbs. Put, for instance, is weak. Using the word ‘is’ in a description is weak. You can find lists on-line and in books.

17)   Stories are not about hooks (plot contrivances), they’re about PEOPLE. Folks that aren’t writers, folks that CONSUME STORIES, have a hard time with this idea.  A good example is, sure dinosaurs are really cool, but how long could you watch them stomp around in the jungle? A few minutes, maybe? Now put in people in peril and you have a MUCH different story. Now, take those people and give them agendas and histories. Suddenly, the dinosaurs (the external pressure) can fade into the background as personal conflicts (internal pressures) take center stage.  As humans, we really can’t relate to dinosaurs, but we can relate to the people dealing with dinosaurs.  Plots are cool, but characters make the difference.

18)   Break the rules – at your own peril. Want to break convention? Maybe you’re going to tell a story about a person that only talks in one-consonant words. Cool idea, different – but is it too different from what we’re used to?  Want to spend three years writing a book with that character only to find that an editor or publisher goes – no way! I just watched LOOPER. It had no likeable characters. Nobody to root for. That’s a massive red-flag no-no. Yet it got made. Made the best of 2012 lists. And made money for the people involved. So in that example, the writer Rian Johnson broke the rules… and it worked! That’s the exception, though.

19)   “You eat with your eyes before you eat with your mouth.” – that’s really a saying in the restaurant business and that’s the reason they put kale on your plate.  The lesson though, is that the page itself must have a visual appeal which means you – the writer – have to manage white space. Ever open a book, see that the entire page was one long paragraph in tiny print and think “no thanks”? Same thing.

20)   Create an emotional connection to the actions and don’t leave those emotional connections up to the reader. For example, “He looked at the dead dog in the road.” OK. Well… how did he feel when he looked at the dead dog? Gleeful? With sorrow?

M A R K

11 Jan

Warming up the steam shovel

As we move from one project to the next, I begin to get the sense that I’m yet again about to embark on a journey.

steam shovel

It’s as if I took some time off. Gathered my thoughts. Checked to make sure that all the gears are greased. And now we’re getting ready to go again. To push the button and feel that big engine rumble to life. To hear it run rough for a few minutes before the engine warms up and beings to purr. To move those gears and watch the big bucket peel back earth.

Right now, there’s nothing. The literal blank page. A sea of white space called opportunity.

It’s exciting.

M A R K

05 Jan

Looper

LOOPER made many of the TOP X BEST MOVIES OF THE YEAR lists.

looper

I enjoyed it, but didn’t really think it was all that engaging. It certainly didn’t suck and had many clever touches that really made it stand out. I enjoyed the way the production didn’t force the future on you with sweeping sci-fi vistas. That stuff was there, but it was in the background.

The second half of the movie seemed almost completely disconnected from the first part. You would think that Young Joe and Old Joe would team up to take down ‘the man’ (Jeff Daniels) or to change the course of history together by figuring out who the Rainmaker is and changing HIS course, thus giving them both a literal, non-sexual, happy ending.

But that didn’t really happen, did it?

S P O I L E R S !

Stop reading now if you don’t want to know some important parts of the plot of LOOPER.

Here’s my problem. Neither Old Joe or Young Joe were likeable. They were both ruthless, heartless killers of the worst sort. Both would as soon as kill you as to tip their hat ‘hello’. They worked for a ruthless organization who murdered people left and right.  Both Young- and Old Joe were homicidal psychopaths.

Name me ONE other movie where both leads, set up vaguely as heroic, had leads that would kill a child at the drop of a hat? That’s like making a movie where the officers at Auschwitz were heroes. It just does not /  can not work.

Remember, there was no White Knight riding in. These people were vile. All of them.

In fact, when Young Joe kills himself at the end, it’s not really to save the kid (presumably the Rainmaker), it’s (selfishly) to save himself with the side benefit of saving the Rainmaker and his mom. Did he sacrifice for them, or for himself?

So once you realize, about half-way through, that both of the young and old version are scum, how are you supposed to care when they die? In fact, I wanted them to die. I rooted for no one. We’ve already discussed the two Joe’s. The kid was creepy as hell. The bad guys were the bad guys (and why didn’t they show how Old Joe escaped?) and the Rainmaker’s mom was a bitch. A bitch who abandoned her freak son due to her party lifestyle and now wanted to win back his trust after a blatant abandonment.  So I should root for her?

So, swinging this back to the ole’ writing conundrums. How did this movie get made? Start with the script. Rian Johnson has some serious heat around him. Why, I’m not quite sure. He must have parlayed that heat into people buying into his script. Maybe he had some really good agents. It just goes to show you that pretty much every writing rule can be broken depending on where you are in the food chain.

What are your thoughts? Did LOOPER work for you?

M A R K

 

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