This appeared in my in-box, along with an official-looking IRS banner:
"Over 130 million Americans will receive refunds as
part of President Bush program to jumpstart the economy.
Our records indicate that you are qualified to receive the
2008 Economic Stimulus Refund.
The fastest and easiest way to receive your refund is by
direct deposit to your checking/savings account.
Please click on the link and fill out the form and submit
before May 01th, 2008 to ensure that your refund will be
processed as soon as possible.
Submitting your form on May 01th, 2008 or later means that
your refund will be delayed due to the volume of requests we
anticipate for the Economic Stimulus Refund."
I'm like, "cool, more beer money." Click through to the form. And it needs a credit card number, security code on the back of the card, my debit's PIN, my mother's maiden name, social security...
Bullshit.
It's a very good replica of a government site page. Just for fun, I click on the "links" to other areas of the site. Guess what? I just get the "verification form" again. What a coincidence.
Just thought I'd throw out a word of warning.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
30K
Last night, I hit 30,000-words in FRANKENSTEIN'S MONSTER. About a third of the way through a 100,000-word first draft. This week has been great for writing, really flowing. I worked on DEMON all this past weekend, wrapped up the rewrite and swung right back into FRANK. The momentum carried from the screenwriting to the novel. I'm a happy guy. Would've been farther along if I didn't work on IMPLANT and DEMON, but it was for a good cause.
The original FRANK screenplay, upon which this novel is VERY loosely-based, was a much clunkier animal, full of stops and starts and weird pauses and expo downloads. It was a product of the level of craft I had at the time, back when I was still in film school. These days, I just shake my head at it... but I realize that's just a function of moving forward.
Hagakure tells us we should be better today than we were yesterday, and better tomorrow than we are today. I try to apply this to the day job and the writing. That concentration -- the act of waking up in the morning and literally thinking I'm going to be better today -- has paid off in a very tangible way. Not like I'm this brilliant genius, because I'm very aware I'll always have to improve, every day of my life. But I can look back and see the road traveled. If there's any value to old writing, it's that.
In a similar way, I roll my eyes at some of the shit I worked on in the first couple of years as a producer. And since I'm talking to people every day who know a fuck of a lot more than me, I'm well aware of the vast chasm of knowledge I want to acquire. I'll always be learning new ways to be a better manager and a better producer. I always want to know everything about everything, and that makes me somewhat doomed to a career of Sisyphean unhappiness.
(As a sidebar -- if there's anything that sucks about being mortal, it's the fact that, by the time you get a decent pile of experience, knowledge and wisdom together, you're dead. If you're reading this and you're a vampire, please give the office a call. I'm usually here after the sun sets).
In this current version of FRANK, I'm applying what I've been doing in my scripts for years now, and I think I've gotten pretty good at: taking about all the boring parts. You can always tell an amateur script when the characters stop at a bar or coffee shop to sit down and trade exposition. I'm not hatin': I used that device a lot in my first ten scripts, including the original version of FRANK -- in this case, a diner.
I'm also applying a 20/80 story structure to the novel. At 30K, we're already well into the first half of act two. We've already had a fight with ninjas, a set piece with an office buiding full of robots, a couple of rad explosions, the bad guys lost a man and the main baddy's sworn revenge. I've gotten comfortable with the truncated first and third acts, to the point that it's kinda my default structure unless the story demands otherwise. For example, I tried it with IMPLANT, but the set-up felt strangled and the peeps suggested I shift it into standard three-act, with plot point one coming in the early-30s. That worked a lot better.
And the character work has been coming along very nicely, IMHO. It's a matter of threading the beats together so the character's internal journey moves forward, while making it as organic as possible so the strings aren't showing. I'm a somewhat lazy and shallow guy, so I usually use jokes as a fall-back, and try to dovetail it into a backbeat with some shading. I'm not very good at scenes where characters do nothing but chit-chat about their fucking feelings; I'm too much of a lout to make that shit ring true. I almost always have to keep stuff like that super-short, or leaven it with action (or sex, if it's a script). I'll just chalk that up to one of the many things I'll improve tomorrow... and tomorrow... and tomorrow...
The original FRANK screenplay, upon which this novel is VERY loosely-based, was a much clunkier animal, full of stops and starts and weird pauses and expo downloads. It was a product of the level of craft I had at the time, back when I was still in film school. These days, I just shake my head at it... but I realize that's just a function of moving forward.
Hagakure tells us we should be better today than we were yesterday, and better tomorrow than we are today. I try to apply this to the day job and the writing. That concentration -- the act of waking up in the morning and literally thinking I'm going to be better today -- has paid off in a very tangible way. Not like I'm this brilliant genius, because I'm very aware I'll always have to improve, every day of my life. But I can look back and see the road traveled. If there's any value to old writing, it's that.
In a similar way, I roll my eyes at some of the shit I worked on in the first couple of years as a producer. And since I'm talking to people every day who know a fuck of a lot more than me, I'm well aware of the vast chasm of knowledge I want to acquire. I'll always be learning new ways to be a better manager and a better producer. I always want to know everything about everything, and that makes me somewhat doomed to a career of Sisyphean unhappiness.
(As a sidebar -- if there's anything that sucks about being mortal, it's the fact that, by the time you get a decent pile of experience, knowledge and wisdom together, you're dead. If you're reading this and you're a vampire, please give the office a call. I'm usually here after the sun sets).
In this current version of FRANK, I'm applying what I've been doing in my scripts for years now, and I think I've gotten pretty good at: taking about all the boring parts. You can always tell an amateur script when the characters stop at a bar or coffee shop to sit down and trade exposition. I'm not hatin': I used that device a lot in my first ten scripts, including the original version of FRANK -- in this case, a diner.
I'm also applying a 20/80 story structure to the novel. At 30K, we're already well into the first half of act two. We've already had a fight with ninjas, a set piece with an office buiding full of robots, a couple of rad explosions, the bad guys lost a man and the main baddy's sworn revenge. I've gotten comfortable with the truncated first and third acts, to the point that it's kinda my default structure unless the story demands otherwise. For example, I tried it with IMPLANT, but the set-up felt strangled and the peeps suggested I shift it into standard three-act, with plot point one coming in the early-30s. That worked a lot better.
And the character work has been coming along very nicely, IMHO. It's a matter of threading the beats together so the character's internal journey moves forward, while making it as organic as possible so the strings aren't showing. I'm a somewhat lazy and shallow guy, so I usually use jokes as a fall-back, and try to dovetail it into a backbeat with some shading. I'm not very good at scenes where characters do nothing but chit-chat about their fucking feelings; I'm too much of a lout to make that shit ring true. I almost always have to keep stuff like that super-short, or leaven it with action (or sex, if it's a script). I'll just chalk that up to one of the many things I'll improve tomorrow... and tomorrow... and tomorrow...
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Film School
I'm really looking forward to this weekend's film school session. We're rolling up our sleeves on Italian horror. On deck, we've got an Argento double-header with Tenebre and Deep Red, followed by Fulci's Demonia. We had a lot of choices for the third pick, but were ultimately swayed by the creepy zombie nun on the cover.
This past weekend, I watched Wrong Turn 2. I got it mostly because my man Texas Battle -- he of Hitting the Bricks fame -- is a co-star. I scored it from Netflix just for Texas, but as a bonus I discovered Henry Rollins plays a crazy ex-Marine-turned-reality-show-host, and Erica Leerhsen, one of my favorite scream queens, is in there, too.
Texas is great. His reaction to the chick getting naked in the stream is priceless. Erica's fine, though she has to try to sell some awful dialogue at times. ("I don't know if you've noticed, but I can be kind of a bitch sometimes." Groan...) They dyed her red hair blonde and jet-black to make her look Gothed out. It didn't do anything for me, especially since it was in service to a genre cliche -- we see a lotta Goth chicks showing up in horror movies these days. And Henry has some choice moments. It's pretty smart casting -- both Henry and his character are big, aggressive guys with a media-savvy streak. Good stuff.
Outside of the fun casting, the rest of the movie plays at the level of a DTV knockoff of The Hills Have Eyes remake. Weirdly enough, I had very similar feelings about the first Wrong Turn -- a mediocre movie somewhat elevated by good casting. In that flick's case: Desmond Harrington in the lead, Jeremy Sisto and another of my fave scream queens, Lindy Booth.
I know they stuck Eliza Dushku on the poster/cover, but I wasn't crazy about her character's default setting to "formless anger for no good reason." I understand the desire to build a character with some strength and edge, but is being as persnickety as possible at all times the best way to build sympathy with the aud?
Not to say the Italian movies I love so much are these brilliant works of cinematic genius, but they make up for the ludicrous plots and atrocious dialogue with imagination and all-out, batshit insanity. I'll take nightmare imagery over by-the-numbers gore fests any day.
This past weekend, I watched Wrong Turn 2. I got it mostly because my man Texas Battle -- he of Hitting the Bricks fame -- is a co-star. I scored it from Netflix just for Texas, but as a bonus I discovered Henry Rollins plays a crazy ex-Marine-turned-reality-show-host, and Erica Leerhsen, one of my favorite scream queens, is in there, too.
Texas is great. His reaction to the chick getting naked in the stream is priceless. Erica's fine, though she has to try to sell some awful dialogue at times. ("I don't know if you've noticed, but I can be kind of a bitch sometimes." Groan...) They dyed her red hair blonde and jet-black to make her look Gothed out. It didn't do anything for me, especially since it was in service to a genre cliche -- we see a lotta Goth chicks showing up in horror movies these days. And Henry has some choice moments. It's pretty smart casting -- both Henry and his character are big, aggressive guys with a media-savvy streak. Good stuff.
Outside of the fun casting, the rest of the movie plays at the level of a DTV knockoff of The Hills Have Eyes remake. Weirdly enough, I had very similar feelings about the first Wrong Turn -- a mediocre movie somewhat elevated by good casting. In that flick's case: Desmond Harrington in the lead, Jeremy Sisto and another of my fave scream queens, Lindy Booth.
I know they stuck Eliza Dushku on the poster/cover, but I wasn't crazy about her character's default setting to "formless anger for no good reason." I understand the desire to build a character with some strength and edge, but is being as persnickety as possible at all times the best way to build sympathy with the aud?
Not to say the Italian movies I love so much are these brilliant works of cinematic genius, but they make up for the ludicrous plots and atrocious dialogue with imagination and all-out, batshit insanity. I'll take nightmare imagery over by-the-numbers gore fests any day.
Friday, April 25, 2008
I Saw Hulk Hogan the Other Day
Hanging around in front of the Gold's Gym in Venice. He was with the blonde chick, and talking to a guy. It's true, I wouldn't lie about this shit. There's no mistaking the Hulkster.
The Hobbit
You're probably already heard about this, but I had to talk about it... according to this article in Variety, Guillermo del Toro is gonna direct The Hobbit.
Wowwie-wowwie-wow-wow-wow!!!
Del Toro and The Hobbit is cause for a worldwide geekgasm. That shit's on par with... I dunno, Evil Dead IV? A Zatoichi series on HBO directed by Takashi Miike? A Boba Fett stand-alone feature film directed by Peter Jackson?
The term "beloved childhood classic" has become this kinda hackneyed cliche. But man... if any book is a beloved childhood classic of mine, it's that one. I can easily say I read it over a dozen times when I was a kid. It still resonates with me.
And Del Toro is one of our strongest fantasy voices today. I've seen Pan's Labyrinth three times now, and it keeps holding up. What a brilliant movie. I'm not quite as crazy about Blade II and Hellboy as a lotta people are -- I'm more of a Devil's Backbone guy.
But, end of the day, I know he's gonna turn in an amazing movie. I can't wait to see what comes out the other end of this process.
Wowwie-wowwie-wow-wow-wow!!!
Del Toro and The Hobbit is cause for a worldwide geekgasm. That shit's on par with... I dunno, Evil Dead IV? A Zatoichi series on HBO directed by Takashi Miike? A Boba Fett stand-alone feature film directed by Peter Jackson?
The term "beloved childhood classic" has become this kinda hackneyed cliche. But man... if any book is a beloved childhood classic of mine, it's that one. I can easily say I read it over a dozen times when I was a kid. It still resonates with me.
And Del Toro is one of our strongest fantasy voices today. I've seen Pan's Labyrinth three times now, and it keeps holding up. What a brilliant movie. I'm not quite as crazy about Blade II and Hellboy as a lotta people are -- I'm more of a Devil's Backbone guy.
But, end of the day, I know he's gonna turn in an amazing movie. I can't wait to see what comes out the other end of this process.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Bearwatch Bulletin April 23, 2008
According to this article in the LA Times, the "trained" bear from Semi-Pro bit some dude on the neck and killed him.
Allow me to point out that the dude in question was an experienced animal trainer, not some tourist with Doritos in his pocket.
You can't trust these furry assholes. Or, I guess you could, but that would mean you're asking to get eaten. Suicide-by-bear is not the way to go in life.
In the immortal words of Billy Milano:
Don't go in there
You best beware
And please don't feed the fuckin' bears!
Allow me to point out that the dude in question was an experienced animal trainer, not some tourist with Doritos in his pocket.
You can't trust these furry assholes. Or, I guess you could, but that would mean you're asking to get eaten. Suicide-by-bear is not the way to go in life.
In the immortal words of Billy Milano:
Don't go in there
You best beware
And please don't feed the fuckin' bears!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
