Updated April 2022
Lucid
The Lucid short is in the can and nearing release. The Lucid feature 2nd draft (along with a 3rd tinker draft) is also complete. Which means we're getting into marketing of the short + pre-production of the feature. Before that can happen, though, we need to finish putting together our business plan, write up our financials, get a securities attorney to review the pre-filings, and then go out and actually find people who want to invest in the movie.
I've been working on something for a while, which will hopefully be launching on Substack sooner rather than later. I'm excited about it, because it will be the documentation of the process of making a movie--specifically, LUCID--with the hope that it will give someone else the knowledge and confidence to pursue the path to making their own feature project, instead of always talking about it (like I've done for twenty years).
I'm lucky to have this opportunity, and I don't want to squander it by keeping the knowledge to myself. Most of it will be free. Some of it will be available for paying subscribers, but really that's just to help me keep the lights on. At any rate, more on this later. For now, I'm looking forward to seeing this project grow and become the special thing it has potential to be.
September 2021
Generative art
I've always loved the art of Piet Mondrian. The simple geometry and constrained color is deceptively complex in its outcomes, despite the rules of generation being fairly straightforward. As I research NFTs and generative art, I wanted to see what Mondrian style art would look like if generated on the fly. So each time you reload this page, you get a new, unique* piece of art.
* not quite true, as this uses a pseudo-random generator. The chances are infinitessimally slim, but possible, to generate two identical pieces. If I were to push this into NFT realm, I'd utilize a transaction-based generation technique to ensure absolute uniqueness.
July 2021
Arbitrage!
I have a table read at the end of July for my feature script Arbitrage.
I've attracted a really wonderful cast for the read, and every meeting I've had with each performer has been such a positive, uplifting experience. It's a script I'm very proud of, and even though it's not horror, I still love it. And hey, it does have murder! Lots of bodies!
Anyway, I wanted to share the poster for the read, as well as the link to register to attend the event (it's FREE).
April 2021
The Right Eyes
It only takes one person to say yes. The right eyes.
It's a common refrain among writers who try to pump themselves up for the hard slog and endless rewrites, cold queries, pitch preparation, and submissions.
It's not true. But it also... kind of is true.
To get a film or TV show made inevitably takes dozens of people to say yes along various parts of the journey. But it's not like your script is being read in commitee, passing the script around a conference table like a family at Thanksgiving passing around the mashed potatoes and turkey.
One person reads it. Their eyes light up. They get it. It hits them exactly where you wanted it to, right in the feels. They are energized. And at that moment, they may have transformed from just a person you hoped would read it into a Champion for you and your script.
The rest of the journey will be a hard, rocky path, filled with lots of people to convince, all of whom want to say yes but desperately need to say no to all but the very, very best (whatever that means to them on that particular day and time). It's those people who you have to convince. But you won't be alone at this point. You'll have your Champion. And they may not have the fastest horse or sharpest sword but if they feel it in their bones, they WILL fight for you.
So yes. It takes many to say Yes. But it only takes one Yes to begin that journey.
March 2021
The urgency of deadlines
Last week I spent about four days taking my show, called Black Mold, which only consisted of a pilot and a rough treatment of an overarching story, and transforming it into a cohesive show bible. It was an exhilarating, exhausting process, one I don't recommend unless pressed for time the way I was. But there's something to be said for deadlines.
I was under the gun. I had seen a posting on the Filmhub Market in which an international production company was looking for original shows to develop. And, yes, it was pay-to-play. But it was really inexpensive! And so I figured, why not build the show out? Force myself to do what I hadn't been able to do.
The end result is a 26-page bible that has a rough but ready overview of the show from balls to bones, including a season-wide arc, character bios, backstory, even a dictionary. And I even packaged it in an attractive package that I thought added a bit of panache and style to what is otherwise a process text.
Black Mold didn't get accepted. But now I have a show bible that I can continue to develop and build upon. It was all because I had four days to do what I'd not spent a year doing before. Sometimes the best thing in your arsenal is a deadline imposed by someone else.
February 2021
Character Inner Needs and Outer Wants
In the book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell talks about how the outer goal is often a reflection of the inner emotional need of a character in a story. In the case of a sports movie like Cool Runnings, it might be the need for national respect, to prove a nation of outsiders can belong despite the odds. In a heist movie like Heat, the need for money is to secure happiness--"one last job" for the criminal, one last crime to stop for the tired lawman, but for both these actions represent these respective man's need to prove oneself--the obsession with abiding by a professional code. In a dystopian young adult action adventure film like The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen’s goal is to survive the games, but her inner need is to protect her sister and overcome a fascist dictatorship of elites who are oppressing them. In all these examples, the inner need of the characters is reflective of or a contrast to their outward objectives.
The key to a good character arc is a character with clear objectives at the beginning of the story. Characters have wants, needs and desires. Wants are something that the character wants for themselves, like ‘I want to buy that dress’. Needs are something the character needs to do or have to make the story happen. In order for a character to be interesting, he or she has to have an internal or inner need that they’re trying to satisfy or resolve. Wants are an external manifestation of that inner conflict.
Think of this beginning as a state of disunity or incompleteness--something in their life is missing or out of balance. The audience is able to identify with those external wants because they are universal. Think of Ralphie wanting that Red Rider BB gun in A Christmas Story.
Along with that external want is the inner need that they’re trying to fulfill--again, something is missing in their life that is preventing them from wholeness or unity. For example, if your character wants to save the world, their inner need is to be a hero. Think Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs, in which her inner need is to overcome the trauma of her father's death in the line of duty. Her whole external world (as an FBI trainee out of her element) and her objective (somehow catch the serial killer Buffalo Bill before he kills again) is connected to this inner state of disunity and the need to understand and move beyond the legacy of her father's death.
A character arc is something that happens over the course of a story and affects the character’s personality, beliefs or circumstances. If you want your screenplay to have a satisfying ending, your characters must have clear objectives throughout the entire story. When you’re writing characters, it can be easy to focus on what they want, but it's arguably more important to think about what they need on the inside, and to portray how the two things (inner need / outer goal) complement or are in opposition to each other.
The inner need is, in my opinion, the more important of the two, because it speaks to the emotional core truth of the character (and why we should care about them). But the outer need is often a reflection of that emotional need. Knowing what your character wants and what they’re trying to achieve forces you to really think about what is motivating the character. Every character wants something. It could be a physical object, like a ring. It could be a person, like a lover. Or it could be a place, like the right to stand in the middle of the town square. Now what do those things represent? A ring could represent the quest for absolute power and corruption and evil (Lord of the Rings) and thus the protagonist's need to destroy it, lest it destroy him and the rest of the world. A quest for a romantic partner may actually be about coping with loss and the need for your family to be whole again (Sleepless in Seattle). The quest for the right to protest reflects the larger inner need for justice and equality in a society.
When you find that perfect synthesis between inner need and outer want, you'll find every scene will become oriented around resolving that question.