Danielmedley.com

Saturday, May 26, 2007

Coming Vacation

Anna and I had to make some changes to our vacation plans this summer which really sucks. But, that’s the way it goes.

That being said, we are planning to disappear for a week in June. I’m telling you, I need some time away from work in a bad, bad, BAD way.

I’m really burning the midnight oil in an attempt to finish the first draft of aforementioned screenplay in the hopes of taking it with me and working on it while on vacation. Why the hell would I want to do that, you may ask. Well, the place we’ll be going is the place that in my mind’s eye the story takes place and I think that it would be rather stimulating to work on a rewrite while walking through the country side and terrain in which everything occurs in the script. Plus, you never know when the muse will strike and I want to be prepared. Better to have a script and not feel the muse than to feel the muse and not have the script.

Or something like that.

Anyway, if all goes as planned, I’ll have a complete first draft on the jump-drive and my handy, dandy notebook puter. I can see it now; I can plant my ass ‘neath the shade of a huge Ponderosa Pine and type away.

Which reminds me. The Ponderosa Pine is my favorite tree. I grew up around them and they will forever represent my notion of what the Mountain West is all about. Unfortunately there aren’t too many of them around in Utah which is a bummer. In order to get my Ponderosa Pine fix I have to go back to the place I grew up in Central Idaho.

By the way, Justin and Julee (Anna’s going to kill me for talking about this). You know that thing you’ve told us about? You know, that thing that scares the shit out of you. Something you said you’d never do, but now you’re thinking you may do? Anyway, I know of a huge Ponderosa Pine on the Salmon River that worked wonders for Anna and I while on an overnight camping trip. We pitched our tent under that sucker, and what do you know… During the night a Great Horned owl roosted in the tree and managed to intrigue us with his ghostly hooting. Couple that with the full moon we were blessed with, and ... Like I said.

Anna seems to think that the thing of which I so cryptically speak of actually probably happened a few days earlier, but my overly romantic side refuses to believe her. It was the Ponderosa Pine. That particular Ponderosa Pine. With the owl and the full moon. 

I’m just planting some ideas, don’t you know.

Comment Notification

My comment notification seems to not be working well. Sorry about not posting comments in a timely manner. It’s odd in that the problem seems to come and go.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

About Screenwriting

Lately I’ve been consuming as much screenwriting material as I possibly can between sleeping, family life, and actually writing.

If you are even thinking of writing screenplays I heartily recommend going over this site with a fine-toothed comb. The columns by Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio are worth paying good money for. On a regular basis you come across gems such as this:

A full theater is far smarter than the average studio executive.

In fact—I’ll go so far as to say, there are NO EXAMPLES of solid story-logic stories that were too difficult or demanding for the audience to understand.

The irony of most studio notes is that, in an effort to ‘simplify’ the story for the sake of the audience—so the audience will ‘get it’—the story is made nonsensical. And then no matter how smart the audience is, they will never be able to find the logic—because it isn’t there.

There is so much to be learned here.

Friday, May 11, 2007

Oh, And…

Remember the other day how I was bitching about it snowing?

Well… Right now it’s 90 (32c) out side!

I’m Just Saying

Almost finished with the first draft of below mentioned script. Now, lest you assume that I simply had an idea pop into my head and then pounded it out in three weeks, you couldn’t be more wrong.

I’ve been thinking about this story longer than I at first thought. I came across notes from five years ago. I was shocked, really.

One thing I realized is that many of the problems that needled me for some time didn’t get resolved until after I just sat my ass down and started tapping away. What this means is that you don’t necessarily have to have everything all figured out before you sit down and get to work. Actually working on it will provide a variety of ideas from which to choose to solve a particular problem. In fact many of the ideas will not even be apparent until you start working on it.

On a somewhat related note, I read a couple of screenplay newsgroups on a regular basis. In response to one poster I mentioned what I believe to be Hollywood’s creatively incestuous nature. What I’m talking about is the fact that, for the most part, Hollywood is not exactly a bastion of creativity. Oh, sure, some great, creative stories do come out of Hollywood, no doubt about it. But the ratio of crap to gems is pretty high. I believe much of the reason is because Hollywood is mostly interested in creative talent that resides in Hollywood. Writers living in Hollywood mingle with other writers in Hollywood. They talk, they network. By its very nature, it can’t help but be incestuous to a degree. The incestuous part can be best exemplified by the fact that you can count on that right now, at this very moment, there are probably hundreds of people sitting at their desks frantically working on the next 300 or variation thereof.

I was called to task by a real screenwriter. When I say real I’m talking about a guy who has written a ton of scripts and actually had them made in to real, honest to God movies. He’s quite well known and successful. He stated that Hollywood does not make movies for Hollywood, but rather the whole world. True, but I believe that Hollywood’s version of the whole world consists mainly of those between the ages of about 15 and 25, and whatever hit the mark in that age group last week, will almost guarantee similar coming down the pike next week.

My main point is that I believe that there is a huge market of more mature movie-goers who are interested in a great story more than a high concept, heavy on the FX, BOOM, BOOM, rollercoaster ride.

Not to say that high concept, heavy on the FX, BOOM, BOOM, rollercoaster rides don’t have a place.

I’m just saying.

Saturday, May 05, 2007

Update And Snap Must Die

My posting frequency is a good indicator of how my writing is going. If I’m posting a lot it means that I’m not getting much writing done. If my posts are few and far between, you can rest assured that it’s because I can’t find the time because all of my free time is being spent writing. I haven’t been posting very much at all. That’s a good thing.

I’m actually forcing myself to take a bit of a break from the screenplay I’ve been working on. It’s been in my dreams, most of my waking moments: driving to work, most of the time when I’m supposed to be devoting attention to my wife, etc. Anyway, I’m almost finished with the first draft. I know exactly where and how it ends, the scenes leading up to it. I figure that I’ll be finished sometime next week. I already know the gist of some of the rewriting that needs to be done, but I’m trying to avoid that for now. What I’ve been doing is making notes when I come up with a solution for a particular problem or scene. It’s everything I can do to not get ahead of myself. So, now I’m finding it necessary to force myself to take a bit of a break from it, at least a few hours. That means I won’t be talking about it …

…

…

Hey, you know, the weather seems to be very typical here for the Intermountain West. Last week it was 88 degrees (31 C for the rest of the world) which required the use of the air conditioner. Right now as I write this it’s 41 (5 C), wind blowing, and snowing.

Ok, enough of the trivial, meaningless bullshit. I’ve tried, but it just rings hollow.

Let’s see, what else can I talk about that is not related to said script?

Ah, I got it. A bitch. When in doubt, bitch about something.

Snap is the most evil atrocity to happen since Al Gore invented the World Wide Web. Nothing is more fucking annoying to the reading experience than stupid windows popping up over every damn link. Snap is particularly insidious because it’s a bell and whistle that a lot of people seem to be installing on their web sites. Usually, when I come across a site that has implemented this disgusting trinket I’ll exit it immediately and never come back. The only exception is if the site’s content is particularly good. It has to kick ass. It has to rock beyond belief. A site with Snap has to be way, way, WAY, WAY good for me to not plunge an ice pick through my skull and run away screaming. Take this site for example. Even though it implements the evil Snap, I find myself crawling back to it like a junkie picking up cocaine crumb off the floor after a two day binge and the junk’s all gone.

The evilness of Snap is summed up quite nicely here.

Snap’s preview anywhere gizmo is ruining the reading experience for millions of people. Its intrusive, obstructive and unuseful in almost every respect and use case. The fact that so many big blogs are using it, big well respected blogs, does not mean that it’s useful, it just means that they, like most bloggers, have all the self restraint of a magpie in a sparkly things factory.

That’s not to say im any better, but it is true. As a group , most bloggers are only a small step away from the flashing, rotating logos of 1997 or the neon pink backgrounds and blaring teen pop auto play bollocks of your average 17yr old MySpace user—and I include myself, though i dont use SPA, im as guilty as the next blogger of “bling envy”.

SPA is not helpful, it’s not cool, and it’s not winning you readers—It’s bling, a silly little shiny thing designed specifically to increase awareness of Snap.com—not bad thing, and certainly a shining example of how to use widgets to gain links and attention, but, come on ladies and gentleman, show a little self restraint, show a little consideration for your users.

Let’s see, what else can I bitch about.

Snowing, did I mention it’s snowing outside?