Haven't shot much. Too busy shooting for work, makes my side project motivation low. Will try harder.
It's warm, no complaints.
I have thought about the script:
1. Lots, 2. A lot, 3. A great deal, 4. Often, 5. Some, 6. Rarely.
It's warm here.
I shot some stuff for the mini documentary. Not enough because I embarrass easier than I thought.
More later.
John
I am traveling for work again, so the script will be stuck in park, like my Corolla which is in the shop and may never return.
As I have mentioned I have no laptop, so I can do no writing. However, I am bringing a digital camera that shoots short quicktimes and am planning a documentary on my work trip.
Stop yawning.
I will try to post with my progress. I am excited about this because themudthebloodthebeer will temporarily become production centered as opposed to pre- pre- production. Doing versus thinking.
The ultimate goal will be to put the finished product on the web.
Wish me luck.
I promise to think about the script:
1. Lots, 2. A lot, 3. A great deal, 4. Often, 5. Some, 6. Rarely.
Thanks for the plow, buddy. Luckily our car is the one on the bottom of the pic, that you can see.
I’m back to writing after a few days in Westchester County. Work, hotel, work, hotel.
I’m attacking the script from a different angle now. At first, because it was so plot driven, I decided that I would make an outline, then write the scenes that I wanted to write first. I would write the most exciting scenes: the ones I that inspired the script, the ones I couldn’t get out of my head. That worked at first. I would open the script and immediately I would write. The problem was that I would jump around from one of my favorite scenes to another of my favorite scenes and I ended up seeing very little progress.
Also, I kept avoiding writing certain scenes, mainly because they required a good amount of dialog. I hate to admit that dialog can be hard. To me that is essentially saying that I can’t write a screenplay. I read a quote somewhere that if you don’t know what your characters would say, you don’t know your characters. That scared me into inaction. So it was definitely time for a new plan.
Plan B: linear, forward motion. I’m stealing the writing process that I learned from Jessica Bendinger, (Bring It On) as she explained it on johnaugust.com. She called it the vomit draft. The vomit draft consists of all writing and (almost) no editing. It gets the colorful name from the fact that it ends up being crap. The benefit is that it is all written down. This was my writing style for Hearsay (my first script), although I finished the first draft before I realized it had a name.
Now, I am back to writing from beginning to end. What remains from Plan A, the outline, half-written scenes that I have so far will stay. It’s kind of reassuring to see the stuff that comes later because the scariest part of writing a plot driven movie for me was the ‘What happens next?’ factor. (That could explain also why I needed to steal the plot of a famous old play.)
I’m torn on how much of the plot to give away. I think it’s generally a bad idea to tell people about what you are doing because it builds unnecessary expectation, and possible disappointment. But if anyone ever reads this it would be better if you knew something about the script so my descriptions about writing it wouldn't seem so abstract.
A modern Hamlet in a housing project. There, I said it. Don’t tell anyone. Think somewhere between Throne of Blood and Scotland, PA. It’s about revenge, family, young love, growing up, etc. The truth is that hopefully it will be about all those things.
15 pages hoping for 90-ish.
The fact that I wrote on a Saturday makes me feel good about my motivation level. The fact that I spent more time writing this post than writing the script knocks that down a bit.
The links section as of today are my two favorite sites, but I really just wanted to learn how to add links to this site. I hope to have some thing better soon.
I am amazed that my scriptwriting software (Final Draft 5) treats swear words as misspelled words. I don’t know if this has been remedied in further versions. I can only imagine how much time is wasted in Hollywood, by telling the software to ‘learn’ each new four-letter expletive.
I’m writing another post before my trip. It’s not really a lie because I didn’t know I would have time to write. I canceled some work on the house because of the weather. This transformed my morning from a hectic mess, to a how can I fill this time productively, well, uh mess.
I did my procrastinating/ADD best.
I really wanted to start this blog and I promised myself it would be something that I would only post to after working on the script… as incentive. Well, unlike last night’s post I actually did write today. But I probably added only about a page.
I’m trying to think back to the first script I wrote, (or I should say completed.) It took around eight months. That is after the approximately 4 years of thinking about it. Its called Hearsay, a romantic comedy about people who get their cell phones mixed up.
As I toil with this one I feel myself wondering why the last one was so easy. Actually, that is just revisionist history. It was tough to write the 120 pages. I procrastinated, I quit, I left it unwritten for weeks at a time. Finally I finished it. I have to remember this when struggling now. And it’s not like I’m struggling now, I’m just moving very slowly. Speed may be the main difference. Because the last script was almost entirely dialog driven (a real talker), it spilled out onto the page quickly when I actually sat down to write it. I’m sure it suffered from consisting of ‘a few people talking here, cut to a few people arguing here, cut back to the first people’.
This new one has plot. This one has action. This one has sex, drugs and violence.
This one is very different. I actually wrote and outline for this one. I need to keep the action straight. Then I wrote character sketches, so I could better understand the motivation of the characters. I needed to do this so my heroes and villains and innocent bystanders would seem real when they reacted to or caused the twists and turns in the plot.
That was the plan anyway.
Wish me luck.
I travel for my job. Not my favorite part of my job for several reasons. I won’t get into all that here. I’ll just bring up the fact that I don’t own a laptop and for some reason I can’t write on anything except a computer. My theory is that I think faster than I can write by hand. I know how to type and it seems like that is the only way I can keep up with the nonsense flying around upstairs.
I type well under 60 words a minute.
I think as fast as I type.
Ergo, I think 60 words a minute.
Is that fast or slow?
Who cares, the Pats just beat the Colts. I was skeptical. I fell for the hype. I am sorry. I think the bye week just makes you forget how good a team they’ve got down there in Foxboro.
Not that I have ADD or anything but...
The whole reason for this post was to bring up the fact that I won’t have a computer to write or post while I’m traveling. So no forward progress will be made on the script. I have to make a mental note to think about the script as much as possible. More importantly, if I think of something great, I MUST write it down.
I'll have to write next weekend.
Also, although no one is reading this, don’t worry if you don’t see any posts until Friday.
Miss me.
So now I’m going to get into the reason I started this thing. I’m going to try to document my attempt to make one of my life goals come true – to write a movie, make a movie, edit a movie and have some number of people see the movie that I make. There are plenty of side goals included not the least of which is to try to make of living following the aforementioned goal.
So why document online? Is it for me or for the world? Maybe it’s an outlet for a different kind of creativity or even a way to look at the process of film creation from a different point of view. Maybe it’s to inform the world, or at least the world that knows me, what I am up to. One thing I hope this log will help with is to remind me why I’m trying to make a movie. If I document the good times I can return and try to recapture some of that when the road is bumpy.
That’s the idea anyway.
There’s probably a place I can put this mission statement type thing that doesn’t really belong in a post, but hey, I’m new, cut me some slack. If you stumble upon this and want to give me some pointers, please add a comment.
Quick progress update: I have a finished romantic comedy script. By finished I mean I’m three drafts in and probably won’t make a new draft. Instead I am about 10 or so pages into an action/drama that is deeply influenced by a really famous old play, by a really famous old English guy. Hopefully future updates will be about the progress in writing script number two and how Spielberg will be soon going into production of script number one. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.
Back from the party, went to network and didn't. Drank some free beer and hung out with work people. I expect nothing to come from it. So this is all new to me. I didn't really care about these blog things until I found one I liked. It was a screenwriting blog www.johnaugust.com, by a guy who is a successful screenwriter who gives advice to aspiring screenwriters. That was my first blogging experience and although I'm still new to this I feel like this might be a fun way to express myself (and to avoid actually writing a screenplay). More about screenwriting later.
Anyway, had akward conversations with people I will never meet again. No harm. No use. Did I mention free beer?
Okay, I'm going to bed, no one is reading this so I could cuss without reprecussions but will save that for later.
Bye.
Doing this quickly, have to go to a party tonight. I will probably leave this undone until I can find more time to waste... the least of my problems.
Here are the shorts I directed in 48 hours:
Here's a lo-fi short that took a little longer:
Here's a 48 hour short that I co-wrote:
Here's a music video I shot:
Visit our YouTube page: www.youtube.com/cohnjoyne
