OK, in as few words as possible some parts of the plot puzzle. This will be far from the finished script as motives, relationships and dramatic turning points have to meld into a workable structure. So take this as a bunch of scenes that seem to fit at this point.

Don't keep the ghouls in the audience waiting, straight to the blood in the opening credits.

• POV nurse (may sound a little like Egor). Looks into terrified patients face. "Don't worry. The doctor is very good. He will make it all very much better for you".
  
  Nurse then tightens the leather strap restraints around the patients wrist with a sharp tug.
  
  Credits play over the shiny display of medical equipment. The nurse passes instruments to the doctor at his request and returns them dripping blood and gore back to the tray. Drilling and scraping noises should play at high decibels.
  
  
• Doctor Annetta Rosen enters through the imposing gates of the Asylum. They locked behind her. She then walks down through the otherwise pleasant gardens to be greeted as the new Doctor in charge as she enters the grand old building.
  
  
• The daylight exhibits a pleasant setting for employee and patient alike. A nurse takes Annetta on a tour of the facilities. First stop is the gallery of Head Doctors. She is told that she is to become a member of this esteemed group. The camera focuses on the last doctor...

I actually saved this post as a draft the other day. I've since realised that much of the authority and power that Freidrick requires is in his position as head of the hospital. Annetta therefore needs to have a different reason for being at the hospital, and for Freidrick to take a special interest in her. Freidrick is therefore not the last deposed doctor as I began to intimate.

One thought is that the poor patient in the credits ends up being the sister that Annetta was searching for.  I'm just worried that Annetta will not have enough emotions to go around a nemesis, a love interest and a blood relative in danger!

Suggestions appreciated.

 

Two more characters to introduce then I can start getting the outline from brain to the page.

KIM LAUTENS - This meek patient has over time - with patience and calm - reduced their sprite to a minor irritation. They just want Annetta's help to get out of the asylum. Annetta just sees him/her as another deluded patient at this point. Kim needs to convince Annetta of the danger she is in before it is too late. Too late! Kim needs to help her out of the danger she is now in.

TORR - This behemoth of a man is never more than a shadow away from Freidrick. He is something like a Lenny in Of mice an men. He jealously guards his mentor - so maybe he is like Luca Brasi who ingratiates himself to Don Corleone in the Godfather. He is not too bright, and is driven by his emotions. He feels he is losing Freidrick's attention to Annetta which stokes a burning rage to a murderous crescendo.

So now we have a character who can fill Annetta in on back-story and explain some of the bizarre goings on.

We already have our main antagonist in the action line - Freidrick - who is driven by his intellect to understand and control these supernatural manifestations and get reinforcement of his genius from fellow doctor and scientist Annetta. Morality will certainly not get in Freidrick's way.

We now have Torr who can switch from child like naivety to brutal violence in a snap. Large raw emotion.

I was really going to start an outline with this thread but these characters needed to be posited first. (Don't you love it when a word like "posited" pops into your head unbeckoned - then you look it up in the dictionary to find the definition really did make it the perfect word. Definition).

So outline take 1 next post.

tagline out.

I came up with this idea a while ago, that all those little aches and pains that just seem to persist are in fact the spiteful work of little elemental sprites. They are unfortunately (fortunately?) beyond the spectrum of our vision so despite numerous visits to doctors and specialists no one can help us.

Thing is, they don't have to be invisible. A relatively unutilised part of the brain, when activated, allows us to see these tormentors. There are witchdoctors and faith healers - not all of them are charlatans - that are able to see these demons and in some cases exorcise them. There are others who are able to see these sprites that are sent mad by the torment and specter of these beings beyond their comprehension.

I'm going with this story as:

1. The horror genre has gained a certain popularity at the moment
2. Supernatural has come back into vogue (The TV show of the same name for instance)
3. The horror genre is forgiven its low budgets and dodgy special effects more than any other style.
4. Computer graphics are now up to creating these sprites in an effective manner
5. For the four reasons above horror is popular with the indie crowd.
   

Seems logical to me.

So then,

The protagonist will be ANNETTA ROSEN - a psychiatric doctor who is taking a new job at an asylum. She is thrilled with the new appointment as being doctor in charge at such a young age is a rarity. Poor girl. She is in for a hell of a scary ride.

I'm thinking that the exclusion of her family and friends from the film will help with the sense of isolation that she and the audience will feel. I might change this if the evolving plot requires.

The primary antagonist will be FRIEDRICK KERCHNER - a charismatic patient who we later find out was the previous doctor in charge. After years of studying these patients whose persistent delusions just showed too many similarities, he became obsessed with seeing these for himself. He can now see these sprites after assisting an operation on himself to re-establish an unused junction between the Occipital Lobe (responsible for visual processing) and the Temporal Lobe (responsible for memory and perception).

Additional characters:

• ABOUDJA - A Haitian Priest who becomes Annetta's savior. Will he be a patient? Nurse? External? There is even potential that he is the love interest.
• Frederick's henchmen (patients he has following him). These are all affected by sprites. When we first meet these characters their ailments appear bizarre. Once we see the sprites it all becomes pretty clear why they act so strangely.

Others will come as the plot develops I suppose.

Any feedback hugely appreciated through this whole process. I'll have to get the wide world to come visit of course.

tagline

Writing has taken a siesta since a recent shoulder reconstruction. Having your right arm out of action is a fair inconvenience. I have a habit of loosing trains of thought - side tracked if you will - which is exaggerated when i'm slowed to one handed (left hand) typing. It also doesn't help that the pain medication seems to have the ability to clear your mind - useful as a Zen thing, but not from a creative POV.

I want to tell you about the procedure and the interesting hospital stay, but i'm getting cramps in my left hand already. A break is in order then i'll get back to it.

I've also promised to write a script through this blog and for said reasons above that hasn't progressed either.

We'll get there.

tagline

I expect that this is a common problem, but as soon as i'm halfway through an outline I'll have a new an infinitely more interesting story idea come into my head. I feel sincerely bad that my newly created characters are left to fend for themselves in a partly developed never to be finished plot. I feel that perhaps I should give them a proper burial and not leave them in movie limbo. More to the point I should probably stick to something if I want to make progress. It maybe more fun to endlessly invent shallow unrealised plots, but I see it being ultimately unfulfilling. This kind of script writing I imagine is the definition of literary one night stands.

So, I think that I might begin the next piece in the cyberworld and post ideas and scenes and dialogue directly to this blog. Hopefully I get  a little feedback and it might be an interesting approach.

Lets see how it goes.

tagline.

I feel like I might be metaphorically crossing the picket line by writing a spec, but I take umbrance from UNK who in this linked blog entry says that if you are a wannabe writer who is not a WGA member then you don't have to take a writing vow of celibacy - just don't be a scab and sell it to the majors.

I'd be glad if a youtuber wanted to film it; dream if an indie producer with a bit of kit wanted to give it a go.

I'd like to be down in LA hauling around a picket sign, showing my solidarity with the industry. It sounds like there is a real camaraderie in action. Geography kind of rules out my attendance with Perth, Australia being almost directly opposite on the globe from California. If I should start to dig straight down from here I would surely not end up in China. If writing doesn't work out, then perhaps digging might be a profitable enterprise?

So anyway, can't be there in the flesh to meet and greet all the writers that I'd like to chat to. Closest I can get is vicariously through these great blogs: John August, Jane Espenson, Ken Levine and Joel Haber. Ken's need to write is particularly evident with his last post on the strike effectively being the script for half a Simpson's episode.

I'm reading these blogs and I'm particularly enjoying the famous writer name dropping. You get fed up with the actor name dropping and slightly less with the producer / writer name dropping so this is a breath of fresh air. It's about time that the writers got some airtime / column inches.

I'm just thinking now that an example TV guide for mid 2008 - assuming an ongoing strike - would be hilarious. I might mock one up later on if I can make time.

And now to finish off a completely scatterbrained blog entry I'll just mention that listening to local radio yesterday (Australian local) I heard the suggestion that a good chant for the strikers would be:

    "Studios are wrong, we are Right...ers".

Blindingly awful, but at the end of the day it might be hugely amusing.

Cheers, tagline.

NB: By the way, everyone should be signing the petition at: WGA Strike Petition.

I've just had the grave misfortune of watching Spiderman 3. Self inflicted I know, but I just wanted a piece of light entertainment. Hey, the first couple of films passed the acceptability test, so why did the third have appalling dialog, irrelevant scenes, and convoluted storyline with insipid set pieces? Perhaps the protagonists character arc that started at boring geek moved to wanker then back to boring geek again was to blame? Perhaps because every plot element felt contrived and wholly improbable even in a comic book world?

So who is to blame? What changed? Lets see:

Same actors? Check.
Same Director? Check.
Same Budget or bigger? Check.
Same Writer?... Lets see:

Spiderman 1 - David Koepp
Spiderman 2 - Alfred Gough, Miles Millar, Michael Chabon
Spiderman 3 - Sam Raimi, Ivan Raimi (his brother)

Sam, you've a cool director, but leave off the writing. You may feel that you owe your brother a cushy writing job on a high profile project, but you should have left it to the real writers. Guys like David and Alfred just have a better feel for story and can get some real emotion from their characters. Some of the dialog in 3 was so inane and childish it was embarrassing to have to hear it.

Now thinking about this I am now dreading the impact of the writers strike. If you write for film, then you probably love to watch the odd film too. If the good guys have put down their pens I really am afraid of the result. I really hope that AMPTP come to their senses and shop a workable deal soon.

tagline

Now as an amateur screenwriter in Australia this issue seems a million miles away. Does this impact me in any way shape or form? Now i'm guessing that the hoards of other amateurs out there are probably only dimly aware of what is going on. They are still likely to be writing those spec scripts and sending them in to agents / studios / favourite directors and actors?

Should all writers in a stand of solidarity hold back on their scripts? It would be kind of funny to see hollywood try and make film and TV with no scripts at all - no professionals, no amateurs no nobody. And when you say: "Well what do you think reality TV is all about?" then think about the announcers, voice overs and all the scripted elements that make a story from the foolish one liners, arrogance, tears and anger.

Film started something like funniest home videos, with slapstick played by unemployable actors. Writer's gave them structure and emotion (then directors flounced them up as art or dumbed them down in to blockbusters).  But somewhere along the way the writer as God (think Shakespeare) didn't take or ask for credit. The actor on the screen - a valid role that does deserve credit - took all the credit. We took a baby step back in the right direction when the dawn of the director as draw card came about with Scorsese, Spielberg and Lucas stepped on to the scene. But the time of the writer has come again. We have come full circle.

Maybe we haven't come full circle but by god we are going to get paid right for getting ignored for our creations (see how I make myself important by including myself in a group that i'm really not yet a part of )

So through all that waffle I was basically trying to say that I think writers are undervalued and like all undervalued industries (Go Teamsters) strike action is the only way to show how important you are. Now we'll see who the genius is when Letterman wings it for an hour!

All glory to the writer!

tagline

It has been a while since I have been blown away by an Australian film.

I think the first one that really stuck in my mind (Apart from Storm Boy - although that was really the book) was a great thriller piece called Dead Calm. (I almost spelled that Dead Clam . I don't think I realised that "real" films were made in Australia until I saw that. Tight drama that was heightened by the minimalist cast and locations.

There were some other classics like Bad Boy Bubby and Romper Stomper that showed we could make films with the best in the world. But that all seemed very short lived.

We then fell into a phase of pandering to the rest of the world. We made a nice little piece called Strictly Ballroom that was a good film, but light and fluffy. This became the template for all future films that would necessarily come out of Australia. So we worked to that form and there were some good films. But then the funding dried up for all but those type of films. And when the world tired of those sort of films the Australian film industry went all introverted and hasn't made a world wide hit ever since (Excluding kids movie Happy Feet).

Maybe it is the shame that comes from our little brother New Zealand turning out the Lord of the Rings Epic? Or maybe some failing of our film industry or the government sponsorship of such. Perhaps there can be some reprise? The government is putting forward new tax incentives for film and television production. This article tells us that: "The new measures include a tax rebate allowing producers to offset their investment against profits or get a refund. They can claim up to 40 per cent of production costs for film and 20 per cent for TV". Now that might be incentive enough if you are a script writer in Australia to get up and write that film you've been mulling over. There may actually be a chance that great idea gets made.

If this doesn't get more and better movies made in the Great Southern Land, then I might have to take up a more practical career like painting or sculpture!

Ok, so not likely to be the be all and end all of movies. It is pixar though, and they have managed a few hits that follow structure to the letter and make the formula work. So this movie followed the structure, but the magic wasn't quite there.

I think the issue was that Linguine as a main character didn't follow a satisfactory arc. He began as a klutz, took glory from another without deserving it, showed amazing dexterity in a waiter scene that came out of no where and was unbelievable, then ended the picture as a no body. Hardly exhilarating.

I guess the rat story was supposed to be the core, with a reconciliation with the father. Thing is that story was sidelined so much that it felt flat and under developed.

Never mind.

Now if you read the script will you feel that half baked emotion? I'll have to try find it sometime. This is important as obviously many a project has looked good to the producers on paper, but turned into your proverbial turkey. There must be a method to see proof before the pudding.

Apologies for the many poor cliches you have just endured.

Tagline