Writer's Block

Okay, so I don't really have writer's block.

What I have is a lack of time.

I understand why my Writing & Releasing course has so much assigned reading. So far it's all been very helpful, for example, this weeks reading (from Movie Maker Magazine's annual film-making edition) was about development and pre-production, and I found it to be very helpful. A little dis-heartening in terms of the cost of making a movie (although I knew that already), but helpful. I'm even considering a subscription to the magazine (although I'm not sure what the format is like the rest of the year).

I also understand why they require us to produce so much work. There's simply not a lot of time, and a lot to cover. It's clear that they're not assigning all this to work us as hard as they can (although they are working us hard), but that they are doing it so that we will leave the course as prepared as we possibly can be.

There's no question in my mind that this isn't the fault of the course, but of the film department as a whole.

It is reprehensible that we are only now learning about the standard structure of the script. As much as I think Blake Snyder is sleazy, the Beat Sheet has been one of the single most important things that I have learned in film school. How sad is it that I didn't learn this until my last fucking quarter? But that's not what's frusterating me. At least not right now.

What's frustrating me is that I simply do not have enough time to produce a quality product for the class. This Thursday we are supposed to have a treatment and a 2-3 page scene written. I'm not even completely happy with my pitch! I have been working on my treatment almost every day since we got the assignment on Thursday, and I feel like I'm no where close to having a completed project. Writing, for me, feels like one steps forward and two steps back. Which means I'm going backwards! (at least it feels like it) My brain is starting to hurt I've been thinking about it so hard. The beat-sheet outline of my script has changed quite a lot since I turned it in on Thursday, and yet treatment-wise I've only worked out the first act.

Ack!

Characters I thought were minor have been coming to the forefront, characters I loved have been getting tossed, I've realized the need for characters I hate... GAR! I knew I wasn't totally happy with my beat sheet, but I didn't realize I'd feel the need to change so much in turning it into a treatment. I know I don't have enough time to worry this much, so why is it getting to me? I could whip out a passable treatment and scene by tomorrow, but I Just. Don't. Want. To. I love the idea that I have... I really do. I want to devote tons of time to this.

I want a board, dammit, and I want to cover it with index cards for each scene!

I want to write character biographies for each and every person who appears in my film, I just want the damn time. It frusterates me that I'm going to have to try to just pull something together as fast as I can so that I can have something to turn in.

I guess I'll have to just keep looking at this as an exercise, and remember that once this quarter is done I'll have to start back at the beginning and do it all over again. At least, I'll have a lot done already, and it will give me a chance to re-explore things.

And hey, brightside! At least I have no job, which means I might have time to spend writing this summer!

Square One

I just heard back from my old boss, and it looks like there's not really any chance of an opening at the company in the near future. I'd say I'm fine with it, but I'd be lying. I knew that there was a huge (and I mean gargantuan!) chance that there wouldn't be an available position, but still, even though I knew what a long shot it was, I hoped that there would be.

This is the company that inspired me to drop out of UVIC and abandon my plans of CANADA! to go to community college and then to UCSC just so that I could get a degree in film. Ha. If only I knew that I'd have been better off just staying in LA trying to work than bothering with a film degree at UCSC. What a waste of time. Although I have learned quite a lot, the majority of which did not come from my classes. But back to the job.

I know I kind of sound like a weirdo when I talk about it, but I fucking love the company I used to work at. The management is fantastic, the employees are all really friendly and interesting and get along well, and there's a pool table in middle of the office. This is not your average production company.

I've met most of my friends through this company, I have family working there, and ever since my first job as a fill-in, last-minute 3 day receptionist I knew that this was one of the few companies that I would not want to blow my brains out working for (yeah, I'm not much one for office work, can you tell? and yet I love this job). Since then I've worked there on and off for 3 years in a variety of positions, and while this looks great on a resume, I had stupidly hoped that my resume wouldn't be flyered all over Burbank.

But that's how it goes. In a way, it's really good thing. I had known it was an extremely long shot, and if there had been an opening, it would have felt too easy. This way, I will really have to prove myself, and I think that more than anything will help me to decide if film is really my passion (I'm deathly afraid that I'll never really have a passion). If I can stick it out, then it really must be what I want to do. If I can't... well, then I'm going to have to figure something else out. This also means that I can explore all the different variety of jobs that are available and really get a feel of what I want to do.

That's one part freeing and ten parts terrifying.

I'm feel I'm back at square one. The funny thing is, I've never even left it at all.

Well, this is going to be one hell of a ride. I'm excited to see how it turns out.

Favorites

Lately I've been realizing that as I've been in film school, I've been developing tastes of my own (gasp! but really, for me, realizing this is quite something). In any case, I thought I'd start documenting who my favorites are. Sad realization, though, there really aren't that many female favorites on my list. I think that this has to be rectified.

Favorite Male Actors
James Spader
William Shatner
Bruce Campbell
Christian Bale
Johnny Depp
Gene Wilder
Leonard Nimoy
Avery Brooks
Patrick Stewart
Willem Dafoe
Alan Rickman

Favorite Female Actors
Maggie Gyllanhall
Terry Ferral
Nicole Debeor

Favorite Directors
Ed Norton
Tim Burton
Sam Raimi
Mel Brookes
Simon Pegg
Stephen Chow
Joss Whedon

Favorite Writers
Joss Whedon
David E. Kelley
Aaron Sorkin
Ron Moore
Ira Steven Behr
Grant Morrison
Alan Moore
Brian K. Vaughn
Neil Gaiman
Kevin Smith
Harlan Ellison (mostly commentary)


Favorite Composers
John Williams
Danny Elfman

Beat Sheet

Well, this beat sheet's already undergone a lot of changes as I've started transforming it into the treatment, but I figured I'd show y'all what it was like a couple of days ago.

Project Title: Parasite
Genre: Monster in the House
Date: April 24, 2008

1. Opening Image (1): A group of graduating high-school seniors hike up to a mountaintop to party and watch a meteor shower. A particularly bright meteor streaks across the sky, and then there is a flash of light.

2. Theme Stated (5): DRIFTER: I just like to keep to the basics.

3. Set-up (1-10): DANNY goes from drunk to cannibalistic, and GIRLFRIEND runs away from the group in fear and trips, knocking herself unconscious. While attempting to hitchhike into town, DRIFTER gets picked up by ROOKIE COP. As they drive through town, we are introduced to the townsfolk as they go about their business, finally arriving at a protest at the construction site where LOVERBOY gets arrested.

4. Catalyst (12): GIRLFRIEND wakes up after the drunken night to discover the alien’s hive-like ship. She goes to the police station looking for sex with her boyfriend, ROOKIE COP, and while there enters her feeding faze, killing QUIET COP.

5. Debate (12-25): GIRLFRIEND, now behaving in an animalistic fashion, attempts to enter the jail cell. DRIFTER instinctively realizes that she is no longer human, but LOVERBOY doesn’t want to admit that anything is wrong. DRIFTER and LOVERBOY escape from the jail cell.

6. Break into Two (25): ROOKIE COP finds DRIFTER apparently killing GIRLFRIEND, and pulls his gun. When GIRLFRIEND jumps up to attack ROOKIE COP, he is forced to shoot her instead.

7. B Story (30): MADAME MAYOR and BUSINESSMAN discuss their plans for the town while engaged in an illicit affair.

8. Fun and Games (30-55): The team (THE DRIFTER, THE LOVERBOY & THE ROOKIE COP) autopsy GIRLFRIEND and finds a pupae alien, which they kill. The team heads to the mountaintop to destroy the ship, and on the way face down many infected townsfolk, recruit MAXINE who arms them with weapons and rescue GOTH GIRL from attack.

9. Midpoint (55): The team (DRIFTER, LOVERBOY, ROOKIE COP, MAXINE & GOTH GIRL) enters the woods and finds the ship. They destroy it, and think that they have defeated the aliens.

10. Bad Guys Close In (55-75): After ROOKIE COP gets killed, the team discovers that the entire town is infested, and that destroying the ship has done nothing. POLICE CHIEF, BUSINESSMAN, and MADAM MAYOR (all now infected) take the uninfected townsfolk to the new hive, which is located at the construction site.

11. All Is Lost (75): DRIFTER kills the now infected GOTH GIRL after a tender moment in which she embraces her own death.

12. Dark Night of the Soul (75-85): MAXINE and LOVERBOY begin to turn against DRIFTER, blaming him for the death of GOTH GIRL. After LOVERBOY attempts to convince him that the world is worth saving, DRIFTER returns to his motorcycle with the intention of leaving town.

13. Break into Three (85): DRIFTER gets to the motorcycle, and realizes that MAXINE has equipped it as a weapon for him. He returns to the team.

14. Finale (85-110): LOVERBOY saves DAMSEL from MADAM MAYOR, while DRIFTER and MAXINE face down BUSINESSMAN at the construction site.

15. Final Image (110): DRIFTER and MAXINE ride away from the town towards Los Angeles to face bigger enemies.

Pitch

So to catch everyone up on what I've been working on in terms of the screenplay other than writing blogs, here's my revised pitch. I'll be posting with the beat sheet next, and then hopefully soon the treatment.

So without further ado:

Character: A stoic misanthropic drifter
Conflict: Parasitic aliens that force their hosts to act out their innermost desires through excess and destruction
Color: horror-comedy
Comparison: The comedic B-movie feel of the Evil Dead trilogy with the social satirization of a David Lynch film
Irony: A small budding tourist town has its facade of quaintness torn apart by parasites who force them to act out their inner most desires in excess.
Theme: When you engage in thoughtless excess, you ultimately destroy yourself and the world around you

Pitch: A stoic and misanthropic drifter is forced to save a small town that doesn't want anything to do with him when alien parasites infect the townsfolk forcing them to act out their inner most desires through excess and destruction. It's a horror comedy with the comedic B-movie feel of the Evil Dead trilogy and the social satirization of a David Lynch film. It's called Parasite.

Not bad, huh?

Alien Apocolypse

This weekend I watched SciFi channel's Alien Apocalypse (I know, I know, but it had Bruce Campbell in it, cut me some slack!) To put it briefly; it sucked! I thought that at the very least, since they had spent most of their budget getting Bruce Campbell, they would at least let him ramble on or something.

But no, this was not the case.

To begin with, the script was horrible. Well, let me revise that. The script had potential, but it really felt like it was a first draft. The characters had no motivations, there was way too much talking and not enough action. It hit most of the points in the blake snyder beat sheet, but did not do so with any intenstity, which left the film feeling rather plotless and boring. In addition to this, it felt like it was shot using only one take! To make this even worse, I believe all the lines were dubbed in post. Now, this wouldn't normally be that big of a problem, but Bruce Campbell seemed to be the only one who knew how to do this! He is, as he states in his book, If Chins Could Kill, a veteran of this.

Now, while the script was weak and the acting was terrible (aside from Bruce Campbell, of course), I still feel like it could have been an entertaining piece of fluff if there had just been some action and gore! So lesson learned; you can make up for a lot of problems with a horror movie if you just have enough blood. Not that I want to resort to this... but it's still good to know.

The film also seemed like it was trying to be a political commentary, but it was just too heavy handed. As far as I could tell, the theme of the film was that if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. But there was just no subtlety.

Now, the sad thing was that this actually might have been funny, if it was re-written, re-cast, and re-shot. William Shatner would have made a great president. Damn, I want to see William Shatner opposite Bruce Campbell. That would be awesome.

Heh. Maybe someday I'll remake it and it will be awesome.

For now?

*****

And this is why 'Screenplay' is the screenwriter's bible... not 'Save the Cat'

Save the Cat

"BREAK INTO TWO (25)

It happens on page 25. I have been in many arguments. Why not page 28? What's wrong with 30? Don't. Please.

In a 110 page screenplay, it happens no later than 25.

Page 25 is the place where I always go to first in a screenplay someone has handed me (we all have our reading quirks) to see 'what happens on 25.' I want to know 1) if anything happens and 2) if this screenwriter knows that something should happen. And I mean something big.

Because that's what is supposed to happen... on 25" (Blake Snyder 78-79).

Screenplay

"Throughout my many years of teaching, I've noticed that some people have a tendency to want to make a rule for everything. If there happens to be eighteen scenes in the first act of a screenplay or movie, they feel their first act must have eighteen scenes. I can't tell you how many times I've been awakened in the middle of the night by a hysterical writer on the phone saying, 'My pages are too long,' or 'Act I is thirty-five pages long,' or 'My Plot Point I happens on page nineteen'; then I hear labored breathing in my ear, followed by a plaintive cry: 'What do I do?'

I listen and always give them the same answer: 'So what!' So what if your first act is too long; so what if Plot Point I occurs on page 19. So what! You can't write a screenplay following numbers as you would a drugstore painting. It is the form of the screenplay that's important--beginning, middle, and end--not the numbers on the page. The paradigm is only a guide, not an absolute! Writing a screenplay that way doesn't work--trust your story to tell you what you need to know, what scenes you need to write, or what scenes not to write" (Syd Field 162).

I <3 Bruce Campbell

I bought If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-Movie Actor yesterday (I know, I know. I shouldn't be spending money, but I couldn't help it!) and I just have to say:

I fucking love Bruce Campbell.

That is all.

Revised Pitch

Character: A misanthropic drifter

Conflict: Parasitic aliens that force their hosts to act out their innermost desires through excess and destruction

Color: Distopian horror-comedy

Comparison: The comedic B-movie feel of the Evil Dead trilogy with the social satirization of a David Lynch film

Irony: A small budding tourist town has its facade of quaintness torn apart by parasites that force its residents to act out their inner most desires in excess.

Theme: When you engage in thoughtless excess, you ultimately destroy yourself and the world around you

Pitch: A misanthropic drifter is forced to save a small town that doesn't want anything to do with him when alien parasites infect the townsfolk forcing them to act out their inner most desires through excess and destruction.

Twin Peaks - Episode 1

Okay. Welcome to my first reflection post. Today I'm watching Twin Peaks to help me get a sense of that creepy small town feeling. I'm not normally a David Lynch fan, but I really like the pilot, and not 5 minutes in to episode one and I'm liking it very much as well.

One of the things that I've noticed about shows set in small towns is that there is always an outsider. It's the case in Northern Exposure I think this is to allow the audience to have a point of identification in the film, which of course assumes that TV watchers are typically city dwellers. Well, at least the writers are. And the producers. And the actors. Need I go on?

I really like Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan). He's got a really good creepy but sympathetic quality about him.

The score seems to be pretty critical in establishing the eerie feeling (well, that and all the blood), but I think the fairly monotone/sepia color scheme plays a big part as well.

Secrets. Everybody has secrets in small towns. That's what I'm really enjoying about the setting for my film. You can really develop the whole community, because it's just not that big. Plus, everybody knows everybody, and lots of people are related. It makes for great dynamics, and lots of potential for those secrets I mentioned earlier.

The people in Twin Peaks are also just very... bizarre. For example, one woman was obsessing about making silent drape runners. It was very, very creepy. Not entirely sure why, though. I think it's the seriousness with which the characters take their quirkiness.

Cathrine Martell (Piper Laurie) reminds me very much of the Madame Mayor character (she's even having an affair with a businessman!), and Pete Martell (Jack Nance) reminds me of the mayor's husband. I can't tell if they're supposed to be husband and wife in the show, but it would be kind of funny if they were.

Lordy, but there's a lot of corruption and depravity that goes on in that show. I'm going to need to fill my town with it.

In any case, the episode's done, so I'm going to go play Super Smash Brothers: Brawl!

Stalled

Gar.

How is it that one day I can have so many ideas and be so passionate about my film, and the next day I feel about as creative as a can of tuna? Maybe I just write better at night. That's when I do it most.

At the same time, I feel that my lack of inspiration has to do with the fact that I'm so much in my own head. Walking around and talking about the story concept--that's how all the great ideas seem to come to me/us. Syd will ask who's prominent in the town, I say a wealthy man and the mayor. So we talk about the mayor. Man or woman? Woman's more interesting. What's her role? I suggest the town's becoming more touristy. Okay, then she's concerned about appearances, the town's in particular. Syd suggests that maybe she has her fingers in the P.D. Then I suggest she's having an affair with the wealthy man. Great. He suggests that perhaps they both have kids, the kids interact... and you get the idea. It just flows. Alone, I feel like I come up with an idea and then... I don't have anywhere to go with it. The character's feel flat. An outside perspective just helps enormously.

At the same time, I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I think better verbally. That's why blogs appeal to me so much. I get to write, but at the same time it's conversational, so I'm able to process through things. And this, my friends, is why I'm so fucking long winded, and why I often say stupid things. From my brain to your ears, direct route.

On another note, we watched The Truman Show in my Reality TV Studies class today. I forgot how much I love that movie. I've been trying to keep all the things that I've been learning in Save the Cat and Screenplay in mind when watching films, but whenever I'm enjoying a movie I just find it hard to not get drawn into its world. When I was finally able to pull out a little (which was at the beginning of the third act) I realized how well that film really fits the BS beat sheet and Syd Field's three act structure and whatnot.

I have to say, it's very reassuring to be able to apply the Beat Sheet to a film I actually like. I find a lot of what Blake Snyder talks about in Save The Cat! to be very useful and applicable, but at the same time he just makes me sick! The man touts himself as an expert, but only has two bad scripts to his name - Blank Check and Stop! or My Mom Will Shoot. The man is so outrageously concerned with the commercial that I find myself slamming the book shut only to pick it right back up. I'm sorry, I personally don't want to write about idiotic 20-somethings just because that's the main movie-theatre audience. I'd much prefer the existential 40 year old he brings up only to reject. More and more I'm realizing that DIY (or even Indiewood) is the area in which I would like to work. I'm still moving back to LA, mind you, that's where I have job prospects, that's where my connections are, but I think that my ultimate goal will no longer be to work my way up, but to take advantage of the opportunity to make my own goddamn movie.

I'm enjoying Syd Field's Screenplaya lot more than Save the Cat!, but at the same time I find Blake Snyder much more concise and comprehendable (not to say that Syd Field is hard to understand, it's just that like me, he's long winded). I can see, however, why Screenplay is considered the bible for screenwriters. It's well written, he has some really good film analysis and he goes into great depth about the writing process. Unfortuately, like the bible, there's a whole lot packed between the covers. That's the one problem I'm having with this class. Sure, the reading's are all incredibly helpful, and I honestly wish I could do all the optional reading as well, but there's at least twice as much to read for this course as there is in all my other classes combined! Oh well, at least this reading doesn't make me want to gouge out my eyes, so that's something. I just wish that I actually had some time to write!

I'm feeling really excited about my screenplay. The more I think about it, the more complex and rich the world of the film becomes, and the more I feel like it really has the potential to be a great movie.

I just hope I'm up to the task of writing it.

Character List

I've been working a lot lately on developing the town in which the film is set, as well as the characters that populate it. From all of the late-night walking discussions with Syd, I've developed a character list for the inhabitants of the town. Like everything else I'm working on, it's not complete yet. But, without further ado, here it is!

The Town (to be filmed somewhere like Grass Valley or Rough and Ready)
- A small town that is on the verge of becoming a tourist spot
- Appears on the surface to be “quaint” but has an underbelly of corruption.
- Noteable figures in the town are the Madame Mayor (who controls the P.D.) and the Businessman
- First landing site of the aliens (during a “meteor-shower,” seen by kids partying on a mountain top at the beginning of the film)

The Aliens
- The monster in this film is, more than anything, excess. Humans who have been infected by alien symbiants, but are unaware of it. Most hosts function as normal human beings, with jobs, lovers and lives, however, they have become hyper-sexed, hyper-decadent, consuming children. Essentially – the prototypical American to the extreme. However, when triggered, the alien symbiant causes psychosis, cannibalistic tendancies, and eventually, death.
- Representative of excess, they drive their hosts to increased primal needs, i.e. they want to eat a lot, fuck a lot, be entertained, be comfortable, etc.
- The aliens function much like bugs, they have a pupal stage, in which they have turned their host into pod-people (this is when they begin feeling the increased desires). As they develop they gain greater control of their host. The goal is to progress to their final stage, when they will erupt from their host as a fully grown alien (could be small). However, when triggered (what is the trigger?) the development stops and becomes perverted, the hosts turn to zombie-like figures, brainless, cannibalistic, etc.

The Hitchhiker (or biker)
- Late 20s, but looks older. His hair short or shaved, he has scruffy facial hair and some piercings. His clothes are worn and dirty and seem vaguely reminiscent of a lone cowboy.
- streetwise & philosophical (not book learned)
- a product of the world, experienced
- mysterious
- Lives in the present
- Has a firm code of ethics (determined by himself, not anyone else)
- Once he has made a decision, he will stick to it to the end, and then will make another decision, they can be contradictory i.e. once he decides to save the world he will do it no matter how hard it gets, but once he has accomplished this he would have no issue with his next choice being to destroy the world
- Doesn’t mind killing, doesn’t mind dying
- He knows who he is, and thus doesn't care what other people think (unlike everybody else in the film)

The Motorcycle
- Old and well-used, but kept in good repair (aside from the part that breaks to strand him in the small town)
- The only real possession owned by the hitchhiker/biker
- Transformed by Maxine into a weapon

Maxine
- Mousy
- Shy, speaking problem
- Was about to go off to college/follow her dreams when her father’s health failed and she had to take care of him
- Lives in her father’s house
- Talented mechanic/good with metal and tech
- Artist?
- Protagonist calls her Max, she becomes Max by the end of the film
- Sidekick/squire
- Low self confidence
- Homicidal fantasies – wants to kill her husband, does?

Maxine’s husband
- runs Maxine’s father’s autoshop (renamed it after himself?)
- ex-teenage badboy
- married Maxine for the shop and the house and because she seemed like she’d make a “good wife”
- possible drinking buddy/brother to Rookie cop
- abusive and misogynistic

Maxine’s father
- permadrunk/senile
- retired mechanic
- live’s with Maxine

Maxine’s dead mother
- Died early in Maxine’s life
- Portrayed by family and town as a “good-wife”
- Many secrets, not what Maxine believes her to be

Madame Mayor
- having an affair with the Businessman
- ambitious and domineering
- concerned with appearances
- becomes a stepford wife
- has her fingers in everything
- wants the town to become a tourist spot
- controls the police and wants them to crack down on “crime”

Mayor’s henpecked husband
- TV addict (or at least addicted to some form of passive escape)
- Escapist
- Sympathetic but dies
- Paternal
- Gets eaten by the mayor

Mayor’s Daughter (The Bride)
- Wants to be a good wife
- Obsessed with planning her very over the top wedding, introduced while trying on a wedding dress?

Businessman
- Prominent land owner who wants to clearcut and develop the forest to build a mall (or something like that)
- Having an affair with the mayor
- Dresses in nice clothes, appears out of place

Businessman’s wife

Businessman’s son (The Groom)
- Already cheating on his fiancé (sleeps with a hooker at his bachelor party?)

Businessman’s daughter (The Damsel)
- Lives in excess with her family
- Protests the land development
- Ex-girlfriend of the Loverboy
- Going off to college

The Loverboy
- Looking for a purpose
- After a comedy of errors, gets arrested at the protest because he went to talk to the damsel
- Love for his ex-girlfriend prompts hero into third act
- At the end of the film, his found conviction prompts hero into saving the world, or wanting to
- Has some everyman qualities - Sympathetic
- Graduating senior (this could be set the summer after his graduation or right before it)
- Got picked on by the Rookie cop, who is was a senior when he was a freshman
- Aimless, no plans for the future other than to win back his girl
- Thinks his ex-girlfriend is out of his league
- A little Peter Parker-ish

B&B Queen (Mayor’s best friend)
- Obsessed with labels
- Has a yappy showdog he takes everywhere
- Powerwalks with his best friend the mayor in the morning, partially to exercise his dog
- Obsessed with labels, mentions the breed of his dog, the designer of his clothes, the make of his car, etc.
- Bizarre fashion sense and appearance
- What makes him sympathetic and not a stereotype?

The Showdog
- Yappy
- Big or small?
- Gets infected

B&B Bear (The Queen’s partner)

The Puppet Police Chief

The Bully Rookie Cop
- Average
- Picked on the Loverboy in highschool
- Becomes part of the hero’s team (provides conflict)
- Wants the appearance of power and its benefits without having to work for it
Cop Number III

Goth Girl
- Romanticizes death, but before her death realizes that it’s not as glorified as she makes it out to be
- Annoying, but endearing

Crazy Meth Guy

Woman Who Must Die
- gets infected but fights it
- faces death
- killed by hero in tender moment

The Dominatrix?

Early Outline of the Film

I realized that although I've given one of my earlier log-lines as well as the genre of the film, I haven't really talked much about what the plot is. Here's an outline that I wrote for class last week. Please bear in mind that the plot has changed A LOT since then, but the basic concept is the same, or at least similar (I'm even thinking about making it a trilogy)

Loose Outline

Several years after dropping out of college, our protagonist is traveling the country by hitchhiking. While passing through a small town, he chances upon a strange amulet. (Plot Point I) After touching it he finds that his reality has changed. Suddenly, the world is filled with zombies, and people who seem normal really aren’t. After assembling a small coterie of believers, the hitchhiker goes in search of information in regards to the amulet and how to destroy the zombies. His search leads him to a local crackpot/supernatural buff, who informs them that the only way to rid the world of the zombies is to destroy the amulet. They also discover that that the zombie epidemic is far more widespread than they had imagined, and actually comprises a large portion of the population. Therefore by wiping out those who have been infected, they are in effect bringing about the apocalypse. After a long search to find the method of destruction, the group is about to destroy the amulet when they learn the truth about the amulet and the zombies. (Plot Point II) Rather than creating the zombies, the amulet merely allows people to see the zombies. They discover that the crackpot is sympathetic to them and had hoped to lead the group to destroy the only method of ridding the world of the zombies, which are in fact not zombies at all, but an alien invasion sent to decimate the human population. This is achieved through the promotion of consumerism and excess, and the aliens drive anyone that opposes them insane, or just makes them into another one of their pod-people. In order to destroy the zombies the group must amplify the power of the amulet, which they learn is possible through the use of technology located at the alien’s landing site near town. After facing the crackpot and defeating him, the group manages to successfully utilize the amulet to destroy the alien invasion force, killing over half the world’s population. The film ends with a shot of the town littered with corpses, and through montage shows corpses around the world.

Viewing List

Alien Apocolypse
American Astronaut
Angel (re-watch)
Arachnophobia
Army of Darkness (re-watch)
Beyond Re-Animator
The Blob
Bride of the Re-Animator
Brisco County Jr.
Bubba Ho-Tep (re-watch)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (re-watch)
Buster Keaton Films
The Corperation
Creepshow
The Crow
Day of the Dead
Dawn of the Dead
Evil Dead
Evil Dead II (re-watch)
Fido
Firefly (re-watch)
Halloween
Halloween II
Hellraiser
Hellbound: Hellraiser II
Hellriser III: Hell on Earth
House on Haunted Hill
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Invisible Invaders
The Last Man on Earth
Modern Times
A Nightmare on Elmstreet
Panic in Year Zero
Re-Animator
Rosemary's Baby
Scanners
Shaun of the Dead (re-watch)
The Shining
Six String Samurai (re-watch)
Teenage Zombies
They Live
Twin Peaks
The Wild Bunch (re-watch)



Feel free to comment with any suggestions.

Broke

In addition to all the planning, and brainstorming and whatnot that goes into writing a script, what I keep getting told is that it's very important to do your research. This means watching films that are in the same genre as the film you hope to produce, as well as films that exemplify some aspect of your story. Well, given that I'm relatively new to the horror genre (don't ask me why I decided to do a horror-comedy given my inexperience, something just grabbed me about the story idea and about the genre as a whole), I have a whole lot of films that I need to watch. In order to aid that process, I have decided to make a list of everything I need to see. I'll be crossing the films off as I watch them, and adding new ones as they are recommended. I'll post the list in my next blog. I'll try to post reviews and any ideas I come up with after watching them.

Being a film major sure does get expensive, though. I was out at Streetlight (a local used music/movie/video game store), and I couldn't seem to keep myself from buying three movies that I felt would help me with my screenplay: John Carpenter's They Live (which apparently has a very similar plot as my concept), Alien Apocalypse with Bruce Campbell (yeah, it's a SciFi channel movie, but come on, Bruce Campbell! It looks like it could be pretty funny), and a movie that looks absolutely, wonderfully terrible called Teenage Zombies. This was after I already bought Christopher Moore's Lamb (which I've been dying to read, and was used and 20% off. I didn't realize he also wrote Practical Demonkeeping. I really enjoyed that book) and Movie Maker Magazine (it's for class, but like all of the readings for Writing/Releasing it looks really exciting). Gar. I'm not a fan of being broke. I need a job that pays real money, unlike the job I have now. I'm still dying to get my hands on the Evil Dead trilogy, but being me, I want the movies with the necronomicon covers. That's going to be both hard to come by and expensive. I'd settle for the individual movies in boring old covers, but I can't even seem to find those for reasonable prices.

Oh, why couldn't I have just become a economics major? Then I'd probably be looking at a future where I 'd have some hope of financial success.

Oh, wait. I'd shoot myself it I became accountant. Right.

The life of a starving artist, here we come!

Working Title

It's Friday morning, and although I just woke up I still feel exhausted. Usually I have Friday's off to all the work I couldn't during the week, but this one's a bit of an exception. My sister is in town, and as I was in class all day yesterday, I promised to show her around the campus and the town before I take her to her flight in San Jose. This means that working on my pitch for Writing/Releasing and the treatment for 170B (Fundamentals of Film and Video Production) will have to get pushed off yet another day.

Although all I've been wanting to do all week is have a chance to work on it (really, it's the same thing, as I've decided to make 170B of some use by turning my narrative into a chance to explore the characters, plot and theme from my still untitled film), there's a large part of me that's relieved that I don't have to work on it today. I'm just feeling the need to... mull it over, I suppose. I'm liking the concept I have but I'm just still not entirely sure how it's going to manifest, exactly. Not to mention the fact that I'm still a little gun shy about working on my 170B treatment. We were supposed to have a 1-2 page treatment to turn on Tuesday, and somehow I managed to come in with a 4 page treatment. Granted, it was in Courier, but that's still ridiculously long for a 5 minute film (don't even get me started about how ridiculous I find the 5 minute limit, or how stupid some of the other requirements are for that class, that's for another blog altogether). I know the beginning and the end, I'm just not sure how to get from point A to point B in 5 minutes! So, I know it's going to take a lot of re-writes, but at least I like the opening sequence.

But wait! Turns out my professor thinks the opening sequence, the one thing I liked and thought I didn't have to change, should go!

Well, fuck.

On the bright side, I took the advice of Brant and Ben and started pitching my film to anyone that would listen (in this case, my sister). I expected her to have no interest as it is a pre-apocalyptic dystopian horror-comedy (so not her thing), but she actually listened, and seem interested. At first she thought the plot was a little cliche and lacked "something", but then when I went into more detail, she thought it sounded like it could be interesting. She came up with a couple of suggestions that I really like, and I can't wait to start figuring out if I could incorporate them into the plot. I really think I can. So, lesson learned.

Pitch to everyone!

And I'll be pitching to you as well, my non-existent and faithful readers, as soon as I can get my pitch typed up. It's one thing to talk about it, it's a whole other kettle of fish to actually write it out coherently. For now, I'd just wish I could come up with a title, even a working title, as I have to have something to call it other than... it.

Perhaps Zombie Invasion or Attack of the Living Alive?

Meh.

Let's just leave that for another day as well, shall we?

Close to the Wire

For my first official post as an aspiring filmmaker a filmmaker (have to remember to call myself a filmmaker now), I had hoped to have something of relevance to write about. Given that it's me, however, I got stuck just coming up with a title for the blog. So, Hellstudio will have to do. Fitting, I suppose, as the screenplay I'm currently working on is horror-comedy, and lord will it ever be hell to get it produced.

To be quite honest, calling it a screenplay is a bit of an overstatement. As of now, it's really more of a vague idea. Although I'm normally horrible about actually completing anything that I write, I'm hopeful that this time will be different. As it is my last quarter in film school, and I have yet to learn anything about actually writing, producing or hell even filming a movie, I decided that this quarter would be different. In order to rectify this serious lack of an education, I enrolled in both Fundamentals of Film and Video Production, which is offered by the film department, and Filmmaking: From Writing to Releasing, which is offered not by the film department, but as a Kresge college course. So far I've learned next to nothing in the production course, and a whole hell of a lot in the filmmaking course. Big shocker there.

I'm pretty excited about the Writing/Releasing course. It looks like it's going to be quite work intensive, but by the end this amorphous idea should be shaped into a workable pitch, with a treatment, marketing strategy, casting call and everything. So who knows, maybe the day will come when I'll be able to call myself a filmmaker and really mean it.

For now, I will leave you with my log-line: A hitchhiker must save the world by bringing about the apocalypse.

In the words of the great Edward R. Murrow, "Goodnight and good luck."