My Screenwriting Career: Day 5

Screenwriting is not for the weak of heart. It takes skill, talent, patience, and a lot of hard work. At least according to the un-sold.

The pros make it look like going fishing. They make the end result seem like it came down out of Mount Ararat. They're masters of storytelling... and I hope one day to be one.

For today I'll just have to settle for telling a few stories that are important to me. Zombies that devour Los Angeles, astronauts and other dimensions, a guy with such bad luck that he might destroy the world.

My Screenwriting Career: Day 4

So I've got this script (among others) finished and pared down. It's my masterpiece I think, my Citizen Kane, my Chinatown. It's exciting, dramatic, heartbreaking, and epic. I can't imagine anyone not wanting to make it into a major motion picture...

...and then I post it to the screenwriting forums.

The feedback I get basically tells me that in no uncertain terms, my opus is garbage. A proper agent or producer wouldn't touch it with a twenty foot pole and latex gloves. I should quit writing and go back to scraping the lichen off of rotting trees in the Yucatan.

I am shattered. I am utterly and completely broken both as a man and as an artist. What do I do now?

I start over. I drive all the way back to where the road diverged in the wood and I choose the other path. I re-think and completely re-write the story from a completely different angle, using all the story elements I've created and the characters thus far. I burrow in and drive all night if I have to, to get the story moving in the right direction.

It's the plight of the writer nowadays. Everyone IS a critic, and like it or not, their opinion matters. Maybe not to you, maybe not to an agent or producer or actors or anyone but themselves, but it still matters. Over the past few weeks I've come to the staggering realization that when you find the guy that actually hates what you've written, you've found solid gold. He's the guy that won't pat you on the back and say "nice try". He's the guy that WILL tell you when your shit stinks and how to un-stinkify it. He's the guy that just saved your ass from making a fool of yourself and the only guy that even knows which way IS the right way. Or at least he thinks so.. and he's often right.

Listen to that guy.

My Screenwriting Career: Day 3

Still looking for an agent. Today, I'm doing a lot of research. Research on yoga, research on future propulsion systems. Related stuff. I find that the beauty of film is that it can be anything that you want it to be... literally anything. If you want a goat eating ice cream off the ass of William Shakespeare while painting Van Gogh's Starry Night, it can exist in the medium of film. I think film is sort of the majestic meeting place of all the other arts. Let me explain. Film is basically the meeting point of three other forms of art. Literature (in other words, a story), Music, and Photography (well moving photography). You can read a book and your imagination takes over. Your brain is forced to create a little world that you can't even really see, except in your subconscious. The words tell you what is there, and you perceive it in a very personal way, creating your own interpretation. Music, on the other hand is very literal. What you hear is what has been specifically put there. There are horns, you hear horns. There are drums, you hear drums. There isn't a whole lot (if any) personal interpretation about what a song consists of, until you get to the lyrics, but I feel that falls into the literature category because it's not music, it's words. Photography is also very literal, but the meaning and the emotion it draws is extremely personal. Two people can look at a photo of a man on a horse and see two very different things depending on their own interpretation of what the man and horse are supposed to signify. Film, to me, is the pyramidial point at which all of these things meet. When it's done right, it's something to behold. Something to tell others about. It's something that makes you feel an emotional reaction that, again in my opinion, none of the other art forms can quite reach.

My Screenwriting Career: Day 2

Day 2: I Quit!

Just kidding. I don't quit. I just get told eventually that it's not worth my time, and apparently at that point my time begins to be worth more, which is great! I was never good at math so maybe that's why I'm so stubborn. In any event, writing is tough. If you've ever tried to write something meaningful, then you know what I'm talking about. A poem, a story, a Birthday Card for someone you only sort of know. Words can be fluid and beautiful and when they come together properly, it's like magic. It's like finding a twenty dollar bill on the street. At all other times, writing is frustrating to say the least.

Writing something with a particular set of structures, like a screenplay, is doubly tough. Not only do you now have to write something mesmerizing and gripping, you also have to know, with a high amount of exactness, the proper format in which to write your opus. I see on the writing boards all the time, writers whose grasp of the english language is comparable to that of a soft shelled crab, who seem to be living under the delusion that they are the next Robert Towne, or Charlie Kaufman. I myself suffer from this malady from time to time... A writer really needs to do two things to be successful, and neither of them is "make money". In my opinion, a writer needs to 1. Write well 2. Write often. That's it. You do those two things, and you can be proud of yourself.



Here's a list of the 100 greatest screenwriters of all time. Well in one guy's opinion anyway, but I agree. I think he got em all:

http://littflicks.blogspot.com/2008/06/100-greatest-screenwriters-of-all-time.html

So, Day 2. On the hunt once again for a screenwriting agent, and putting out another of my works for review on the boards. If anyone would like to read MAN-X, feel free to email me or just imagine how good it is... or isn't.. Hagga Dagga.

My Screenwriting Career: Day 1

Well, technically it's more like Day 78, but I'm officially blogging about it from now on, so that would make today Day 1, right? Right.

Okay, so I started writing a screenplay back in May when I got fired from a really crummy job. I decided then that I would pursue my lifelong passion of making a film. I soon realized that to make a film you need at least two things: 1. camera 2. money. Since I had neither, I thought maybe I could take my talent to the page instead. So, to make a long and boring story, slightly shorter and possibly just as boring, I started writing my first screenplay titled I AM BECOME DEATH. The title is from an Oppenheimer mis-quote that I happen to like about the end of the world. I think he got it from the Baghavad Gita. I'm sure I spelled that wrong. Anyway, I wrote the script and have been passing it around to any friend or flake that says they'll read it. Thus far, I've gotten positive reviews from several people who have absolutely nothing to do with the industry, and here we are.

Day 1. Trying to sell it.

Trying to get anyone to even read a screenplay is like asking if you can move in with them for a couple weeks. They say, "of course" "no problem", and then when you have all your stuff in the car, they don't return your phone calls for a year and won't answer the door no matter how many jelly donuts you throw at their windows.

I've just scooted over to the very helpful and uber friendly screenwriting forum called Screenwriting Goldmine



and the guys and dolls over there have been the bear's tits at helping me navigate the world of what to do with a finished screenplay. I highly recommend at least checking out the wealth of info on that site, even if you don't want to post anything.

I'm also looking at Inktip.com which seems like a pretty legit site to get your screenplay at least looked at, if not outright sold. Hopefully something will come from that as well. I'll keep you posted.

Ciao for now.

Woodpecker

Woodpecker: a movie that will touch you in ways that I never could... and you wouldn't want me to. At turns touching, idiotic, fantastic, sad, inspiring... Just watch it and thank me later. The film is about the search for the long thought extinct Ivory Billed Woodpecker. Directed by Alex Karpovsky.