scottStories

I was just reading an article in Creative Screenwriting magazine about the new Coen brother’s offering No Country for Old Men. Again, I apologize for referring to yet another film I’ve not yet seen, but I’ve heard Oscar buzz regarding their unique adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s acclaimed 2005 novel and you all can please feel free to let me know what your opinions are, as well. The thing is, after learning that the film is a bit of a formula-bucking departure from traditional action fare, I find myself applauding Joel and Ethan’s ethos while at the same time crinkling up a print out of the first 23 pages of my latest script. Why? Cause ain’t nobody interested in my unique take on spooky cautionary tales and there likely never will be. Listen, I’m not trying to hate the player or the game here, but I have to ask myself why we, as writers, get example after example of thrillers, science fiction, fantasy and horror that the industry allegedly loves (Lord of the Rings, King Kong, Pan’s Labyrinth, Momento) yet flat out rejection when we attempt to emulate those examples? I’ve tread in this water before, but I’ve still not found an answer. The security of putting fresh paint on the old has created a murky, and seemingly unfordable moat between existing talent and new talent. We’re told to write “this”, yet they’re spunking over “that”. So unless I decide to max out my credit cards and make my own damn movie, no one is going to care that I have this really cool idea involving a large crustacean attacking New York City that we can only see via the viewfinder of a camera. Come on, nobody’s touching that fucking screenplay in Hollywood unless the name on the front is the co-creator of “Felicity”.

Crowds flock once again to an engaging, three hour sprawl of story-telling, yet I’m restricted to 120 pages of by-numbers clown portraits. A “master” kills off his heroine in the first act, giving a thrill that makes audiences shriek and take notice, and my main character needs to collect a mentor and a couple of sidekicks, face his heart of darkness, find the fucking elixir, and bring it back to the old tribe for the audience to follow my narrative. We’ve got filmmakers showing the world how it’s done, and industry careerists at the gate with a new writer’s script in one hand (provided it’s won a competition held by another group of literary ambulance chasers) and a copy of The Writer’s Journey in the other. What gets through goes straight to fucking DVD accompanied by cover art done by an agency half a world away who’s never even seen the damn movie. What’s wrong with that picture?

I know what you’re thinking: shut up, play the game, win one of the godzillian competitions out there, and then open your mouth once it’s your ass on the line. Believe me, I’m trying. But I like my new screenplay. I think it’s riveting, engaging, challenging, fresh, kind of funny in parts and fucking scary. But in the back of my mind I hear this voice – the voice of rejection letters past – telling me to shell out another $100 for a seminar by Robert McKee or some other cottage industry closet self-help guru prepared to sell me bullshit based on TV shows from the 70′s and move on to the next school of mackeral in Podunk, Missou. I may appreciate the basic building blocks of storytelling that anyone can learn from a good, dirty joke but I don’t feel like stripping my story of all its original voice (something we’re always hearing we should have, but are flat-out foolish to try and use) just so it hits all the checkpoints of some reader’s meticulously stenciled score sheet. Half these readers don’t even like reading scripts, let me tell you. For all the shit they must receive, I don’t really blame them. But the way the industry ladder is set up right now, they’re better off trying to find the lowest common denominator fare that they can in order to move up a rung. Once there, they may be able to jump on a pet project that they’re passionate about, but by then they’re better off finding an adaptation. It’s the hellish circle of shit development, that only murks up the water even further.

There are some agencies and production houses out there that do operate with one toe in the deep end of the pool, and I can’t blame them either for trying to keep the lights on most of the time. This entry is not about blame, really. It’s more of a rant about what seems to be broken that isn’t being fixed because the way it is serves a few over many. The examples are everywhere, most notably a writer’s strike putting thousands out of work in order to increase the salaries of about a thousand writers. It’s very easy to ignore the passion for risk and fairness in favor or trying to be 1/1000th of the issue. And to be totally honest, I would take one of those spots and do what I had to do to stay there. More honesty means I would never look back to offer a helping hand unless I was safely a few rungs up and there was possibly something in it for me. That’s how it’s played, and things can turn against you in Hollywood very, very quickly. It’s like high school that way. Get caught at the skating rink with one stoner, and the next thing you know, only the guys from marching band will talk to you because they think you play guitar.

But still, there is something that might help cut through the murk. It’s the honesty of believing that one must write what they’re passionate about and what’s in their heart because if they ever thought that was a truth, it would be the pinnacle of dishonesty to stop doing it. Sometimes, you have to lock, load and head into the fray, at peace with where the spent shells will fall. Sometimes you have to stake your claim, no matter how much the land is worth.

Ah well, I promise to see something soon. Hmm…maybe McKee’s written something I can check out that doesn’t have a fucking wah-wah pedal over the soundtrack.

Has anyone run across this yet as they explored new frontiers in the internet galaxy? If my sci-fi genre nomenclature is correct, what we’re seeing are the views from four different surveillance cameras that have something to do with The Starship Enterprise. If you play with the buttons and stuff at the bottom of each, individual screen, you can advance the movement of the camera and in some cases view some more detailed imagery that’s been recorded in that specific area. The sound is pretty cool, too. But other than what I’ve described and what you can see in the picture above, that’s all the information you get.

Unless you read my last blog entry, that is. SNAP!

I could be completely wrong about this, but I believe what we are seeing is the start of a new viral campaign for the next Star Trek film. It will be the eleventh in the series, and quel surprise, this one is being directed by none other than J. J. Abrams. By several accounts and about as many reviews, Cloverfield has satisfied its audience. I can’t yet say as my difficult work schedule has prohibited me from seeing it. I sincerely hope the monster flick as seen through the eyes of a video camcorder is more than just a cheap, 9/11 inspired gimmick because the idea is pretty clever and fresh in terms of a blockbuster smash-up.

But back to Star Trek for a second; what could we be seeing on that page? Better yet, what might we see in the future? It appears that the action – a man welding – takes place inside a shipyard somewhere (Captain Obvious, at your service). Are we soon to catch a glimpse of something entering the frame(s)? Will we see something be built over time? The page looked fairly up-to-date in terms of web technology when I first discovered it so I didn’t think I’d stumbled upon (read: found on another blog) anything very five-minutes-ago-dot-com. So what do we do when we come across a strange new cultural phenomenon and we need to know what it’s about that instant? Why, we consult that oracle of interwebatron knowledge…

…Wiki! And lo and behold, down towards the bottom of the entry under “Marketing” we see that, not only has a trailer been featured before showings of Cloverfield, but an “alternate reality game” has been created where we get to see “CCTV footage of the ship under construction”. Apparently, the latest ST installment involves the early days of the famous crew’s classic interstellar voyage, so we’re talking prequel here. Which in turn means that the production needs to find the right actors to play the key roles. With that in mind, Uhuras and Scotties, I give you the new (erm…and old, I guess) James Kirk and Mr. Spock. One of the actors is from that show so desperate to be hip that it’s devastatingly corny called “Heroes”, and the other guy is from some movies with girls and young love and crying and stuff in them. I can’t be arsed to care about either of these guys just yet, but good job landing the roles and you can find out more about the other roles also via that Wikipedia link.

So that’s great, huh? Neato?! Hmm…what else is going on…oh yes, speaking of alternate reality games – no I’m not talking about the presidential debates – my new screenplay currently titled Shh… is underway and going well, I think. I’m having fun and writing quickly, which is surely a good sign. It’s one of those creative projects where, as the writer, you’ve got a really big secret that you’re saving for the end and you get to plug in all kinds of clues and red herrings along the way. But its not a whodunnit? as much as a wherearewe?, if I may coin a literary term that will probably go nowhere. The trick with these things is to not overdo it, I think, but in a first draft it’s often advised to just open a vein and let it flow. So I am, and I’m about to flow some more so off I go.

Oh, and I don’t really rake cockles for a living. It’s just a hobby. For now.

Or should that read, I Vampire? Either/or I guess, depending on which substitute title for the latest Will Smith vehicle where he finds his environment besotted with CGI albino clones provides ample warning. Is it possible that I could have found myself wishing they’d used the vampire costumes from Blade II? Yes, yes it is.

I can’t exactly fault Smith’s performance, or at least some attempt at clever, subtle story-telling. The Flesh Prince really dug in, and practically broke my heart in “that dog scene”, although he was already halfway there given his character’s circumstances. Other touches such as a flirtation with one of the mannequins placed in various spots throughout the city to counteract his loneliness (also seen in Heston’s Omega Man) comes off as believably heartbreaking, emphasizing his gradual descent into madness when it could have easily descended into morbid slapstick. Then there’s a resurrection of the magic of Bob Marley that must have had hundreds of college students cheering in the theater. Cause, like, he smoked pot and people still worshipped him and thought he was responsible. Dig?

But I don’t want to collapse into a windy, sloppy, sarcastic and cynical rant because lots of other blogs have done it much better and are far more funny with that sort of thing. My beef will be mostly focused on how fucking stupid and coldly scene-stopping the “vampires” were and what kind of message that sends to a screenwriter and storyteller like myself. I tend to avoid blockbuster yarns like this one because they completely sap the reserves of enthusiasm and confidence that I desperately need for this writing career lark. What I Am Legend tells me is that old, classic source material (the kind that my writing will never be, as I try and write stuff that hasn’t yet been written, like) will always be available to pump up and distribute to IMAX theaters after the inherent soul of a piece has been replaced with the recognizable soul of someone like, say, Bob Marley to humanize a world constructed almost entirely of 1′s and 0′s.

The original story’s antagonists were, well, antagonizing. They were pissed, not just hungry, and they played on Neville’s loneliness and guilt. In at least one version, they went straight at his geometrically escalating horniness, the likes one can barely imagine. They toyed with his sensibilities, played with his head. They may have been changed in a number of fundamental ways (although none were able to roar like a constipated T-Rex) but were still able to access the socio-political file-cabinets located in the back of their mental cubicles. Towards the end of the film, when it became apparent that there was a cure, one wondered if it was too late to reverse what those that had been turned had learned by no longer being a member of a society arguably more cruel and misguided than the night-dwelling one in which they presently existed. All that was to be gained was a return to a day in the sun. In other words, there was a chance to draw on some universal themes about the cultural graying and desensitization of our global, daily grind coupled with a technologically self-sufficient isolation (do any of us really leave the house anymore like we used to?) and perhaps what it must be like to not only be the last man on earth, but – gasp –the last black man on earth. Surely a film based most recently on a film released in 1971, coming off the comet tail of such social and political turmoil, still held possibility for comment on what is happening today beyond the dangers of meddling with science regardless of the good intentions involved.

Or did I miss the point, entirely? The computer technology on display alienated my experience, had me looking at the film rather than feeling it, and never really invited open my more psychological senses so that a deeper message might be effectively set. Instead, I was numbed by the hostility and the stereo surround sound assault, and the story of a lonely man fighting for his and his dog’s life became about only that. And as I checked out his pad searching for cool, little post-apocalyptic tidbits (an integral part of the story in much the same way running amuck in a shopping mall ignited the child-like forefront of our imaginations in Dawn of the Dead) I tried my best to care about what happened to his wife and daughter; has there ever been a more overused detail shamelessly implanted into a narrative lately than “the family plugin bundle”? Just add kids for high stakes, and stir. Easy!

I guess I just want to know if I can differentiate myself in my work beyond the next “wild ride”. Do I really have to find new ways to have the undead scale the heights of athleticism and sonic weaponry to get a look in? Boyle’s 28 Days/Weeks was a comment on rage, so the infected were a – pardon the pun – running commentary on a specific detail of our post-modern (sorry) existence. But that’s been done, so I need to find another raw societal nerve to poke. Or two. Or three?

Hmm…maybe I can have them burrow really fast! Maybe they could originate from an infection in China like in Max Brooks’ excellent follow up to his The Zombie Survival Guide entitled World War Z (which I also understand is headed to theaters thanks to Brad Pitts production company, Plan B) and dig their way to…let’s see…Des Moines, Iowa! Nah…Austin, Texas! That’s a hip setting, right? They could infest and infect the music festival and business men and women from as far and wide as Dallas and Houston could at last shed their spirit-stifling monkey suits, throw on some chaps, saddle up a few steer, and ride into the throngs for a good old-fashioned, Alamo-style whoop-ass. They would then make peace with the pierced queer teen counter-culture and join forces to rid their beloved Lone Star State of this new, foreign pestilence (which would, in turn, teach the Mexicans a lesson, sending them scrambling back over the border where they belong). Hell, I’ve never seen a zombie killed with a crushing blow to the skull from a flying V! Or better yet, opened up like a pinata with the crack of an oil executives Sharper Image briefcase. Yeeee-haw!

Sigh. I’ve gone all windy and sarcastic, now. And I still feel bad for the dog.

She deserved a better movie.