My DIY film/writing school

Life is like popcorn

Life is like popcorn. And I guess writing is too.

Go too far, and you end up with burnt, useless popcorn. Be too careful, and you're left with equally useless unpopped kernels.

Burnout, or wasted potential. That's the balance I need to find every day.

Writing this screenplay has given me the opportunity to look at the themes. Unlike some who start with a theme, I need to discover it - and that usually happens after I've been writing for a bit.

I've discovered the theme of my story is that of my life in recent times: you're either running away from life or towards it. There just is no standing still.

I prefer discovering the theme later, because knowing what my story is "about" from the beginning can make for some pretty unsubtle writing.

Today I'm pulling another tool from my writer's toolkit, Power Structure. (Well, actually the demo.)

I'm going to see if it helps to see visually the plot and subplots. If the demo fails me, or is too limited, I'll see how Excel works.

Failing that, a piece of paper!

---

News of note:

Sci-Fi

• Find an old Dr Who episode and win a free Dalek (as opposed to those really expensive ones from the planet Skaro)
• More on the next Star Trek movie ... JJ Abrams seems to have great credentials for this.

Books

• From the "I wish I'd thought of that!" department: a book tracing the journey of food, from the earth to your gut.

Journalism

• Deborah Hill-Cone's report on the freelance conference I attended a couple weeks ago.

Hollywood

• Dahling. European is the new accent du jour in Hollywood.
• Real horror (Silent Hill) has taken back over from comedy horror (Scary Movie 4) at the Box Office this last weekend. Haven't received NZ BO figures yet.

Australia

• New Aussie war movie along the lines of Gallipoli and the Lighthorsemen.

NZ Film

• Nothing earth-shattering but plenty interesting in the latest NZ Film Commission update.
  
• A dialogue-free film has been accepted for Cannes. Congrats Jane Shearer.
• The latest AdMedia has a director's showcase, but aside from names and contact details, not much info about said directors. Whatever happened to those free DVDs we used to get with the mag?
  

posted by Simon @ 9:37 am