Here’s to 2010

Unk

Saturday: 2 January 2010|0213|Under Screenwriting

12 Comments 

You Don’t Make Me Feel

emotionsEmotion that is. How come? You’re a fucking writer but you won’t fucking GO there. Why? What are you afraid of? Maybe YOU don’t know how to feel. That would certainly explain why YOU don’t make me feel…

Anything.

You’re so caught up in creating some GAG that you forgot to make me feel anything about your story… Your characters. Your screenplay.

Seems simple enough yet the majority of the SHIT I read these days never makes me feel…

Anything.

No anger. No sadness. No NOTHING.

Did you FORGET? Did you get so caught up in creating some kind of WHAMMO every ten pages that you forgot to elicit some kind of emotion from me?

Fuck yeah you did. Did you know that even Joel Silver likes emotion?

But hey… It’s only MY opinion. Maybe we’re just not as passionate today as we used to be back in the day… LOL.

Or…

Maybe we just don’t give a shit.

You think you have conflict because you’ve shown me two characters with differing opinions… Is that the NEW conflict? Sure, I see passive-aggressive behavior just about everywhere I turn these days but I sure as SHIT don’t want to pay $7 or more for the privilege (?) of seeing it on the big screen.

Or on NetFlix.

Conflict is supposed to elicit an emotional response in the reader if he or she reads it or the viewer if he or she views it. Combine REAL conflict with visuals and sound and WHOA… You’ve got my attention.

Or maybe you don’t even know what fucking CONFLICT is. That really wouldn’t surprise me in this day and age where everyone strives to pursue WIN-WIN or political correctness resolutions even though their own agendas are most certainly behind both.

In other words… It’s all bullshit.

I guess what really has me rethinking this is Hollywood. Maybe they’re to blame in more ways than one… Some of the very best screenplays to have been made into movies over the past 50 plus years were screenplays that got rejected time and time again…

Why?

Well guess the fuck what?

Too much emotion! Too much conflict! The initial idiots that read these screenplays got too scared that these same emotions — GOOD OR BAD — would most likely be elicited in prospective movie goers IF of course, the script ever made it to the screen.

So they PASSED.

And then the next one passed. And the next and the next but eventually, these screenplays find a home and they did very well because they elicited EMOTION. They make the reader and then of course the audience member actually FEEL SOMETHING.

Hollywood is afraid, plain and simple. Afraid to take a chance or risk anyone feeling anything too extreme. Of course there will be exceptions to the rule and for those extremely rare exceptions, I THANK WHOMEVER had the fucking balls to get the project off the ground.

Seriously.

But these movies sure aren’t coming to my theater(s) very frequently. Yeah, I guess SHIT rolls downhill… Hollywood makes emotionless tripe for the most part so WE end up imitating the ever enlarging piece of shit rolling down the hill.

Cool.

I got it now.

Unk

Sunday: 6 December 2009|0135|Under Rants, Screenwriting

28 Comments 

The Seven Rays Script-a-Scene Adaptation Competition

Stick-It-by-Jessica-BendingerOkay… You know me. I don’t normally do this but this is one of our own and because I actually DO admire her work, let’s talk about it… Ever heard of Jessica Bendinger? I actually heard her speak in Austin once and was motivated enough to check out STICK IT. So I rented it… And I gotta tell ya… Normally, that type/genre of movie is not my cup of tea but this movie is structurally about as perfect as a movie gets.

I liked it so much that I had to get the script and give it a read… It took me a while to find it… Had to ask for a few favors and if you know anything about this business, you don’t want to ask anyone for a favor unless it’s something big… LOL. Why? Because they always ask for a payback… Usually a lot sooner than you expect. But I really liked STICK IT that much so for me… It was worth it.

It doesn’t take one very long to watch STICK IT and realize whomever wrote it, definitely had some inside knowledge of gymnastics competition. And even IF, like me, STICK IT is not your cup of tea, it’s completely worth watching because of the way the story is told.

But enough about that… Let’s talk screenwriting competition. The Seven Rays Script-a-Scene Adaptation Competition. Very much like the scene challenges over at johnaugust.com — from what I understand, you take a scene from Jessica Bendinger’s book, THE SEVEN RAYS and turn it into a screenplay scene… Oops. A KILLER SCREENPLAY SCENE.

From THE SEVEN RAYS website:

Find that special scene that speaks to you and inspires you to get cinematic! Use the book as a springboard for your untapped creative energy, and put it on the page. This is a chance for screenwriters of all ages to explore a different side of the craft of screenwriting: the art of adaptation.

Contest Opens November 15 — closes February 15, 2010.

To Enter:
Read The Seven Rays and adapt any scene from the book into a 2-5 page screenplay using Final Draft screenwriting software. Read MORE about the competition here.

Winners get a personal, one-on-one script consultation for any screenplay you have written with acclaimed director and screenwriter Jessica Bendinger, author of The Seven Rays, valued at $10,000.

Damn… Maybe I should enter… LOL.

Unk

Thursday: 19 November 2009|1729|Under Competition

16 Comments 

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