My DIY film/writing school

I feel better than I look. Mostly.

That is one swollen eye! I look a little wasted here because I've just woken up, but thought this blog could use a little visual stimulus.

Mm.

Perhaps my next movie should be Red Eye, or maybe Goldeneye? As it is, my next movie just arrived in the post yesterday: Alien. A little break from the romantic comedy, and finishing up the Alien series which I've been carefully studying.

Anyway. I got over the crucial emotional mid-point of the script yesterday, and then hit a bit of a blank. Went to prayer meeting at our church last night, and in a silent moment got the inspiration for what happens next. Silence is cool; and sometimes we need to go somewhere else to get some really good quality silence.

Now the only thing I'm worried about is that it's become too short. I'm up to card 24 of my 28 index cards, and the screenplay is only up to page 60.

I guess the only way I'll find out is to finish it as is and then rewrite. Some writers talk about starting their writing day with a rewrite of the previous day. I'd never get anything done if I tried that. I'm writing the whole thing first, then worrying about rewrites. It'll be interesting to see if I can see the 'join' from that euphoric first three hours of writing where I got 17 pages in one night, compared with the 1 or 2 page spurts that have ensued.

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Seems like my plan to rule the world - or at least make a living - writing for magazines about the film industry won't work out so well as I'd thought. Maybe everyone else had the same idea; otherwise why would two of Australia's leading film publications pay their writers 5 and 10 cents per word respectively? At least they take freelance submissions; NZ's excellent industry mag has no freelance budget.

Still, there are plenty of other industries and opportunities there, and a story is a story is a story. The bright side is, writing about other industries opens me up to ideas I can make a movie about. Writing about the film industry isn't so conducive to a great script - we don't want to turn the mirror on ourselves, and rightly so.

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Today's news of note:

• Billy Mernit of Living the Romantic Comedy has a great post on Titlemania. I didn't realise "nuh-uh" was so translatable. I could hear it as I read it to myself in my head. I'm really lucky to have a title already for my script that even brings a smile to people's faces when I tell them it. Not so for my next two ideas, percolating away. Early days.
• Be afraid! Be very afraid! Bean is back.
• Happy endings please audiences. Surprise.
  

posted by Simon @ 6:36 am