screenwriting blog-o-thing



The Blog-o-thon is this weekend and I have a script selected and some thoughts that need some organization so the long post will be forthcoming. Meanwhile I’m going to declare my draft of N&D done! Even though I’m still waiting for feedback and I’m sure there’s some changes I’ll make to it between now and the end of time. I want to get it out the door this weekend and focus attention on the other script and do my usual ‘pretend-I-don’t-care’ until summertime results start trickling in. But to wait for feedback or not…?

Battlestar season finale



May in fact have been the most perfect television show ever. Or rather the last ten minutes just sheerly the most awesome ten minutes in science fiction television OF ALL TIME! Frakkin awesome.

when is a brad not a brad?



Well, we’re getting into springtime here in the states and that means contest deadlines are sneaking right on up. I’ve picked my comps this year and feel pretty good on the draft that will be out facing the harsh eyes of reality. I even talked myself out of buying the ’sooper-delux’ brads which I consider a completely good thing for a few reasons.

Tools. Now there’s a cetain amount of comfort to be found in ’standards’ when you’re blindly pursing this writing crap, getting the formatting right, printing your first whole copy- exciting as hell. But you gotta wonder, why the hell are the #5s and #6s nearly 5-7$ more at say, the scribe store, when Home Office Central has the same brand and product ID for less? Well, fill in your candied cliches here. At one point someone warned me cheap brads could totally screw you over and I immediately wondered if I’m buying the cheap brads and where to get the good stuff. But then I thought, you know what, it doesn’t matter. If someone is going to pass my script because the goddamned brads I use are an 1/8th of millimeter thinner or have some sub-standard nickel alloy substitute, then my writing is clearly wanting. And I need to remind myself that from time to time- the writing needs to overcome. Now, sure, this is operating under the fallacy that- hey, I don’t entirely suck perhaps, but going nutso over the cardstock and brads and screws isn’t helping anything, much less improving my writing. The time should clearly be spent a little more productively.

Now this is just me and I don’t distribute a lot of scripts, but I have two philosophies that I’ve held onto for when I hope to:

1) Make the writing good- Make the presentation boring.
It may be idealistic, but I want the fact my story is words printed on a physical paper in the reader’s hands to disappear. This is my first goal with regards to writing a script.

2) Present a script consistantly.
Which is to say, complete, with covers and brads and not willynilly and piecemeal. If it’s going out for one person, should look the same for any other person who gets a copy.

And I honestly don’t adhere to these two rules, but they’re my ideals for when I am in the position to be passing scripts out all over the place. If it ever comes to pass.

Anyway, so the other bit I wanted to post about is getting things in the mail early which I’m going to try to do this year. It’ll be a first so consider it an experiment. As level-headed as I try to be, sometimes I just can’t help but be one susperstitious mofo. To that end I just haven’t found the lucky hat/shoe combination for my Nicholl win and be instituting new mojo this year. And if necessary (and by necessary, I mean if someone just vaguely suggests it will help) I can bite some heads off of chickens or hamsters or something.

Honest to god, Lost



Blogging is slow, but the important writing is getting done, so it hasn’t been a priority. I am planning on participating in the Screenwriting Blog-o-thon so that will be a longer post as soon as I can narrow down my topic. Today however I want to get back into my thoughts on LOST a little, just because they’re finally getting back to my favorite character, John Locke.

BUT FIRST- I want BWAHAHAHA! Cause ARTZT is coming BACK! Dan Roebuck, the coolest dude around, is getting some more time in 3×14 “Exposé” which looks like a flashback-y type episode. The pic here is snagged from the promotional gallery for the episode over at Lost-Media. I really just am too excited about this, because while the main character arcs, crazy ass sonic fences and polar bears are all good and well, Artzt is the coolest. Now all I need is more Goodwin and I can disregard all the tiny disappointments I’ve had lately.

So last week, Locke seemed a little out of touch but last night with his crazieness her really seemed to take onmore of his usual sense of purpose. What’s really interesting in the character is how he’s evolved- first season he’s mysterious and obscure, definitely the mystery mojo man, but always with a sense of drive about him. He knew something. He was zen. Totally why I fell for the character. As we move on into the second season, layers start being pulled away, Locke is more human, approachable- we see him at his weakest moments. Fear. Doubt. Launching us into the third season, where other than finding out he’s down with ganja, he honestly hasn’t gotten a lot of time. In the odd moments he does show up after the hiatus, he’s alternated between mystic and silly. This has really bugged me, but last week he blows up ANOTHER Dharma station and this week, it takes a serious turn toward the dark side.

Locke is up to something.

Now before Patchy McRussian shuffled off he sort of directly threatened Locke by way of the secret, and Locke went all insulty by expression his love of man’s best friend and scrambling Patchy’s brains. Which was surely innocent enough at the time, but oh yeah “You never know when a little C-4 will come in handy!” John you crazy bastard, you.

And it occurs to me Locke looks an awful like Lex Luthor.

As close to a BWAHAHAHA! film as I’m likely to get.



Not that you can even correllate the likes of WATCHMEN to the sugary goodness of JLI… but in my mind I’ve got a lot of the Ditko inspired stuff tied together, which always means that I’m lumping Vic Sage in with Blue Beetle, Booster Gold and Guy Gardner.

Vic then inevitably comes to a bizarro connection with Moore’s WATCHMEN through Rorschach and I’m always partial to the Question exhibiting some of the paranoid traits of his Inky-highness.

And there’s a point to all this comic blathering, really- namely the secret image hidden in the 300 Trailer.

Which really only looks to be a proof type thing since WATCHMEN isn’t in production, but still rad. And yes, I am a total dork, but I honestly haven’t been jazzed about a comic book movie since V FOR VENDETTA. All the other upcoming adapts are leaving me lukewarm.