Open Hatch

Here is a script for something I’m going to shoot soon - my son will star.

With his permission, I’m copying these words of Mahonri Stewart (an LDS playwright and active voice in the LDS literary/art community, and who occasionally writes over here) which he wrote at the AML-list, where the topic emerged (in response to a link to my Harry Potter predictions at this blog) of the morality presented in the final Harry Potter book. I liked what he had to say about the book; here it is (with minor edits for clarity/syntax). There will be spoilers here if you haven’t read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

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New blog design (for this and the past three new posts in a row) in progress here. Here’s a page about it.

Just so’s if I’m right I can say I said so, before the final Harry Potter book is out this weekend I’d like to make some predictions. I arrived at these on my own and then discovered that big networks of Harry Potter fans have speculated the same. By the way, this portrayal or illustration of Severus Snape, which I love, is taken from Leaky Fan Art, a huge art forum full of Harry Potter fan art, much of it excellent (and much of it not).

These are spoilers for anyone who hasn’t read up to book 6, The Half-Blood Prince.

Oh, I just noticed that with the spoilers in this entry hidden there is a delightfully odd visual juxtaposition between this entry and the last. Click the psychedelic image in the banner to see that layout
On with the predictions.

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In reference to the desired features expressed in this entry (and not minding those amusements), I found personal journal software that has them. I think this application is great. Makes keeping a digital journal (I’m bereft of more fashionable journaling abilities) much less intimidating, once you grasp how the thing is laid out and organized. I only found a hang quirk deleting old entries with it (but who wants to do that? Honesty, honesty..) but they still delete OK, and other than that it’s much better than a lot of things I’ve tried. Intuitive, not too fussy, secure, and exporting to one big Word or .rtf or many other kinds of files is a snap (again, if you get the hang of the program).

[This entry is rated PG-plus-ish!]

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[I wrote this and asked many people if I should send it. Their answer was yes, though possibly not to this recipient.]

Dear Senator Hatch,

I’m not really sure if you’re in my district, or whatever, but sometimes I think I like you, so I’m writing you anyway. I might even write you if I don’t like you.

I’ve been thinking about house prices. It’s weighing heavily on my mind. Like so many mortgage payments. And I’m thinking, if I want to move into the Nevilleson’s mansion when they move out, how am I going to secure the right price? I’ve heard there are so many Californians moving into our state, right out of theirs - who said they could come here? They aren’t Pioneer stock! - and gobbling up all the expensive houses by selling their half-million dollar homes in the Bay area and driving out here. Right after they sell! And this drives prices up. I know I’ve heard that Utahns are stingy - I’m proud of it - but doesn’t that strike you as wrong? It feels like an invasion. My daddy worked hard in the soil all his life and his lot is now inherited by someone from L.A. It seems like the wrong kind of Eminent Domain, if you ask me. Where are the border patrols? I’m not sure how they even watch the border. I’m sure it must be a bigger problem than Mexico, with a flood of Californians like this! But then I got thinking about why they are buying those homes for such high prices, anyway. And I realized: it’s because the credit bureaus all report their revolving debt, right there on the credit report, which anyone can look at for even the most marginal reason, such as wanting to haggle me with mail solicitations by chopping up more of the trees in Panguitch! And Panguitch is my middle name, so I doubly resent that! And when they look at that credit report, with the revolving debt, they know just exactly how much they can extort from their buyer, no guesswork at all, no fudging and lowering of the price just in case they can’t pay that much - I mean, Supply and Demand never had less guesswork in the Red Scare! Talk about another invasion! Keep their eyes off how much I’m making! That’s private! Can you do anything about that? You’re a Senator, after all. This also got me thinking about taxes. It seems like a lot of people pay high taxes on homes and then businesses find ways out of paying more taxes. In fact it seems almost conspiring how much businesses get away with loops and multiple special exceptions in the tax system over consumers and general lay domestics. It’s as if they get to make more money just because they are smarter. What is right about that? Should someone get less tax just for buying a hummer? Or structuring their company one way vs. another? They seem like arbitrary concessions devised solely from politicians buckling to too much pressure from too many lobbyists who somehow have themselves convinced that they must be worthy of less taxation just because they are more special for doing something some way or owning some thing. Or some people. Like we thought blacks were a worthy tax exemption for a while. Like Communists owning peasants. But I think the tax should be completely flat, everywhere. Like Kansas. Then we would all lay up in store treasures as if from heaven, and the Mormons could stop being so frugal. Or stingy, I guess. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Someday, Senator, someday.

Floese Panguitch Louisa, Jr.

I think Rhapsidiom’s comments in his post here are right on target.  We exchange comments after his post.

I went to look for Movie Magic Screenwriter and typed in the wrong URL. I found this page. Something it says is so good I’m going to reference it in Google’s cache in case the page changes.

They’ve got these blurbs from guest speakers who are very successful screenwriters. I believe the one, Paul Haggis, is the type that a certain book I’m reading sneeringly refers to as a “Creative Protectionist” type; one who makes art for art’s sake, and who happened to be one of the one in fifty thousand who made it big doing so. Because such successes are rare (or are they just a matter of lining up the right business plan behind the art?), folks on the purely business, pragmatic side of the spectrum (who are in the habit of deluding themselves that they can “eliminate” risk) advocate going with what is tried and true - in other words, what has been done before and made money. That approach by definition demands formulaic, unoriginal, and therefore to the audience, drab films.

Which is what Haggis’ comments get at. And whatever else I might be - I think my film ambition may demand more pragmatic people at my side - I think I’m a “Creative Protectionist”. Now mind, though I counter-sneer at that term, the book from which it comes (THE PRODUCER’S BUSINESS HANDBOOK) has some absolutely indespensable loads of details on the actual operational and organizational procedures of the most successful independent film production businesses. I will not ignore the loads of wisdom and business know-how in that book. It’s just a matter of deciding what of it to take for granted and what to question, if your insticts ever tell you otherwise on anything. Because film is a business of risk, and I would think that sometimes you have to know when to knowingly take a risk, do something “untried” and “unproven”. The same kind of thing goes for listening to what folks on the fiercely independent creative artist side of things have to say; decide what to take for granted and decide what to challenge. And I don’t mean to say make rules out of any of your conclusions; I mean feel it out for every work of art you want to put forward.

To get back to where I was going, I find myself more inclined to first listen to the “creative protectionists” for creating stories, and then use the business side of things to decide what to do with my art.

So here are three excellent answers to questions by Paul Haggiss via screenwriter.com, referenced in google’s cache:

QUESTION:
Sometimes I go to sleep at night and say to myself that this isn’t working and I don’t know what I’m doing and I’m not going to write anymore. The next morning I get up and my characters are yapping again. At this point in your career, do you ever have such insecure thoughts?
ANSWER:
Every single day. You deal with it by writing. You just sit your ass in the chair and write through it. It’s the only way to solve your problems. When you come upon a problem, write directly into it. Embracing the problem is often the way to find a really interesting scene. My other trick is to say, ‘What awful thing could happen to them right now?’ Because sometimes, things are going too well for your characters and you have to give them the worst possible thing that could happen to them. [Ah ha ha! This sounds like God meddling with his lazy children who are too comfortable. “Let’s give them a trial!” - RAH]

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QUESTION:
What type of scripts are hot in Hollywood right now?
ANSWER:
Never ever ever ever ever ever think that way. That is the road to failure and hackdom. I just met with Linda Obst this afternoon, and she bemoaned the fact that all young writers are looking for a payday and therefore are writing what they think she wants to see rather than writing what is in their gut, something they have to say. I cannot stress this enough.

I wrote two spec scripts that I was absolutely sure no one would ever buy: Million Dollar Baby and Crash. They both sold within a couple of years of me writing them, which is very fast.

If you try and second guess what people want and then provide it, YOU WILL FAIL.
Guaranteed.
And never listen to any agent who tells you any different.
You want to write something unique, something only you know.

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QUESTION:
How does an unknown make it to Hollywood?
ANSWER:
You have to understand that for all intents and purposes, I was “unknown” to the film business four years ago. I had no more advantage or disadvantage than you have. You may not think that truth, but it absolutely is because I had no “heat” coming off any great television show. It was all about the script. If you write a great script and put it in your drawer at your cottage in Muskoka Lake, someone will track it down and find it. If you write a bad script and send 100,000 copies out, it still ain’t gonna sell. The trick is really simple: write a great script. And I don’t mean to be flip. That’s just the truth. Write something that’s in your heart, and if you have your craft down and if you’re really honest with the characters, it will sell. It just may take some time. I guess that’s what you should ask yourself. Not how to sell or market something, but have I written enough and experienced enough to write a good screenplay? You write, you research, you write, you research… What makes a good writer is thousands of pages written.

Where I am dubious of these comments: excuse me Haggis, but at some point someone picked up your work and put a lot of money behind it. And then audiences loved it and got more money behind it. Don’t discount that. Your success was not all pure art. It was pure art with filthy money behind it.

Other than that, he sounds just like the writers in this “ZEN” book I constantly refer to, which Richard Dutcher recommended to me - and I like what I hear. Haggis doesn’t say it’s easy, he says it’s a lot of work, but he says to go with your gut. I should also say, though, that the whole premise of sharing ideas before they are even written in first draft form - sharing them in schools and for example this online-organized writer’s workshop - that goes against what I read in ZEN. There are ideas I’d share with others, and there are ideas I won’t until I’ve got a first draft written.

One more against “doing what has been done before” - what is one of the major complaints about films? That too many of them are FORMULAIC. What does this imdb reviewer of Napolean Dynamite have to say positively about it?

I think where the film ultimately succeeds, aside from the casting of Heder, is that it doesn’t fall into the traps of predictability and stereotyping.

Whatever the writer’s gut tells them to do will be original. Actually, that could mean doing something that has been done before. Maybe in a different way, but still.

Oy. So, a first draft.. oh yeah. That’s why I went to get a program that will output screenwriting format (right now there’s Haggis again at that page: he’s hot, he’s everywhere, he’s the Indie Hero); ZEN recommended writing 120-ish pages of pure rubbish in screenwriting format to defeat the fear of the written page. That’s what I need to do, and that’s what I’m going to do.

I am also reading another indespensable book on independent film marketing: THE COMPLETE INDEPENDENT MOVIE MARKETING HANDBOOK. Though I have the same singular criticism for it that I have for the (afore-linked) PRODUCER’S BUSINESS HANDBOOK - it takes formula way too seriously - I emphasise that it is indespensable.

Lastly, I haven’t forgotten the other two books I mention here (though I haven’t finished reading them), one of which an anonymous commenter mentioned helped him get his first film off the ground, picked up by Fox Searchlight. Who left that comment? One of the folks who made Napolean Dynamite?

Look at this! Look at this entry! LONG! This is my contract with the world.

Wandering through the wastes of the ruined world, they encountered the machines. Hallowed in chambers of dark and abandoned dustiness, as the Creatures plugged in their electrolimbs, the machines whirred back to life. Relay after relay across the land, they revived the interconnections, and mindscaping the electronics and codes, they deciphered the meanings, unlocked the vast internetwork, and found what used to mirror the great life of the civilization. The messages, the meanings, and the struggles came alive in their minds, and it was Chlonthluthlu who first posted a message through the network:

“I sympathize with the plight of the Democrats.”
And Nachtholab replied: “I hate you.”

As I’ve noted here, Richard Dutcher recommended the ZEN AND THE ART OF SCREENWRITING books to me.

I devoured the first book when it arrived (via Barnes and Noble order) and it’s been back on my bookshelf for some time now. Unfortunately I forgot some of its particulars of advice (which I’ll show), but the general advice I remember. I may skim back through it and post more detailed notes later.

The book interviews many very successful screenwriters, interspersed with short chapters of advice from the author, William (Bill) Froug, who founded and headed a reorganization of the screenwriting program at UCLA. It goes through the art and craft, and the business, and also morality, which encouraged me the most, and I’ll address it first.
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When I eventually finish a novel or novella, I’ll probably sell it at Amazon.

After/or follow(ing) the advice of this excellent book.

I’m making it a project to read these two fictional blogs. Oh my heck, I think they are funny.

It started here at cougarmolly.blogspot.com, and branched out in June 2005 to ponderingpeter.blogspot.com.

As a note to myself I’ve read both to their June 8th entries. Sadly they both seem to have been abandoned.

I look at these as inspiration on the weird/dippy side of mormondom (though I need a lot of research) for a writing project.

Clark (to whom I have previously blogged, later to argue with his guests) at libertypages.com draws my attention to an article by one Josh at melbournephilosopher.com. Someday I will understand the references Clark makes. I may also only half grasp what Josh is saying, but I’ll respond to what I grasp.

Clark conscisely summarizes Josh’s argument:
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[Ed. Afterthought - I find myself somewhat dreading this may come across as bitter invective, that you might think I hate a person who hates clichés. I hope not. I’ll yet review and re-write this if that seems the effect.]

IGN.com reviews a fantasy book, entitled Eragon, that has become a “publishing sensation”.

Their review mixes overt adulation with cynicism that the book employs clichés:

One can’t help but notice the clichés in place.

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A book drove a good point home to me: if there aren’t a lot of people who know you would bleed for them, you won’t have a lot of people bleeding for you (there were a lot of other useful and disturbing things in that book).

.. I’ve realized I need to volunteer on small independent crews on weekends. Folks working on small projects can be found all over the place. Some of them online at the Yahoo groups Utah Film and Theater and Utah Extras Community. If I’ve helped someone else they won’t mind lending direction or help in small ways.

I need to find a bluescreen stage for Applicant to Hell.

Outside of a bluescreen stage for now, I’ll do a very fun splice screen test of Neverending Story.

And.. the day before yesterday I realized my focus is too narrow. I’ve awakened an acting ambition, but that’s not the “whole mell dell”. I feel that I must write and direct. For the writing, at least, I can actually participate (not lurk) in critters.org.

Another strong point: don’t count on people who don’t have your interests at heart, or have wrong interests at heart against you. I’ve met them. The things they do are not pretty.