...is coming along, but not quickly. I just grab an hour or two at it when I can, I made this scene by scene plan, but realised this followed the book rather slavishly at times, so ultimately I seem to be not using that and have done essentially a quarter of the screenplay straight off the top of my head!
God knows if I can do the whole damn thing this way...it is so difficult as it is! But, if, or rather when, I finish draft one, I will be so damn proud of myself.
Then, the tricky stuff starts. Tidying it up, re drafting, redrafting, redrafting, cutting out all that does not drive the story. Can I do it? Can I do it? And what will I do when I finish it?
Monday 28 May 2012
Sunday 20 May 2012
Tuesday 15 May 2012
OPINION - Sphere and the Weakest Movie Ending Ever
As is my habit these days - dictated by my genetic scottish tight fistedness - I buy most of my DVDs from Cash Converters the UK Pawn Shop chain. Second hand DVDs for a pound or a pound fifty, viewing pleasure mined from the dismal fate of junkies flogging thier own or other folk's stolen film collections to pay for the next hit...
It's a sad place to shop to be honest, but I do pick up occasional gems there for next to nothing. Zardoz. Witchfinder General. Yesterday I bought Sphere for £1.50, the "Special Edition", of which I can safely say in traditional style, if that was the special edition I'd hate to see what the original theatrical release looked like.
The film is dreadful. That it wasn't cheap is shown by some nice big undersea FX shots, but the story is confusing, the script terrible, and the casting of Dustin Hoffman in an action movie like this baffling, as he mumbles and gumbles away like a scientist version of his Rainman character. I liked Sharon Stone's haircut, but Samuel L. Jackson, as he always is if he is underwater, was dire.
Like Contact, the attempt to make a film about alien contact that had some sort of scientific credibility produces a film that is utterly and bloodily boring.
None of this is comparable to the ending however. A big sci fi production surely needs a big sci fi ending, doesn't it? Battles, blood, or a twist so vicious it could be a theme park attraction?
What we got with Sphere was three people holding hands, counting to three, and then a big golden golf ball flies off. That was it. 80 million dollars spent on the worlds most boring seance and a lame gag about men holding hands.
Tempting fate it was...
For did they not think, the film-makers in all their sun kissed LA wisdom, that if you have an ending in which the whole point is merely for everyone to forget the whole thing, then the audience will probably do the same?
It's a sad place to shop to be honest, but I do pick up occasional gems there for next to nothing. Zardoz. Witchfinder General. Yesterday I bought Sphere for £1.50, the "Special Edition", of which I can safely say in traditional style, if that was the special edition I'd hate to see what the original theatrical release looked like.
The film is dreadful. That it wasn't cheap is shown by some nice big undersea FX shots, but the story is confusing, the script terrible, and the casting of Dustin Hoffman in an action movie like this baffling, as he mumbles and gumbles away like a scientist version of his Rainman character. I liked Sharon Stone's haircut, but Samuel L. Jackson, as he always is if he is underwater, was dire.
Like Contact, the attempt to make a film about alien contact that had some sort of scientific credibility produces a film that is utterly and bloodily boring.
None of this is comparable to the ending however. A big sci fi production surely needs a big sci fi ending, doesn't it? Battles, blood, or a twist so vicious it could be a theme park attraction?
What we got with Sphere was three people holding hands, counting to three, and then a big golden golf ball flies off. That was it. 80 million dollars spent on the worlds most boring seance and a lame gag about men holding hands.
Tempting fate it was...
For did they not think, the film-makers in all their sun kissed LA wisdom, that if you have an ending in which the whole point is merely for everyone to forget the whole thing, then the audience will probably do the same?
Friday 11 May 2012
STORY - Mixing Bowl
A bit of five minute short story writing here, screenplay duties have kept me away from my instant short stories!
I don't write about blood enough.
Copyright Bloody Mulberry 11.05.2012
I don't write about blood enough.
Copyright Bloody Mulberry 11.05.2012
Monday 7 May 2012
OPINION - Richard B. Riddick
Every so often I check in on IMDB or Wiki or whatever, to find out what the latest progress on the next Riddick film is.
Now, as I read somewhere else, Vin Diesel now looks like Tony Hart's plasticine pal Morph, but Riddick was a fantastic creation that made him a star. Pitch Black was a superior and innovative B Picture. The Chronicles of Riddick like David Lynch's Dune was hampered by some daft scripting and terrible acting - not by Mr Diesel himself - but was fantastically designed and conceptualised. The section set on Crematoria and in the choking sulphorous prison was great.
My problem with it was that it was just not from the same universe as Pitch Black. That said, I thought the Necromogers were fascinating, and was looking forward to seeing how Riddick's apparent rise to Lord Martial would develop, and whether we would see the Underverse.
Well, we've apparently all died before our due time. The latest little bit googling reveals that Riddick 3, or simply "Riddick" seems to be a stripped down affair, with some odd sounding casting for a major release - Katee Sackhoff, former WWE superstar Batista? - with Riddick stranded on an alien world fighting monsters and mercenaries. We're back in a Pitch Black universe, by the looks of things.
Karl Urban's back, although I'm not surprised that Thandie Newton isn't.
It maybe that we will see Furya and Underverse in two mooted sequels, but I'm guessing the backers want to see if the Riddick character flies, financially speaking, before going larger scale.
I hope it does. I love these movies. There's something a shade different about Riddick's universe that deserves a bigger audience.
Now, as I read somewhere else, Vin Diesel now looks like Tony Hart's plasticine pal Morph, but Riddick was a fantastic creation that made him a star. Pitch Black was a superior and innovative B Picture. The Chronicles of Riddick like David Lynch's Dune was hampered by some daft scripting and terrible acting - not by Mr Diesel himself - but was fantastically designed and conceptualised. The section set on Crematoria and in the choking sulphorous prison was great.
My problem with it was that it was just not from the same universe as Pitch Black. That said, I thought the Necromogers were fascinating, and was looking forward to seeing how Riddick's apparent rise to Lord Martial would develop, and whether we would see the Underverse.
Well, we've apparently all died before our due time. The latest little bit googling reveals that Riddick 3, or simply "Riddick" seems to be a stripped down affair, with some odd sounding casting for a major release - Katee Sackhoff, former WWE superstar Batista? - with Riddick stranded on an alien world fighting monsters and mercenaries. We're back in a Pitch Black universe, by the looks of things.
Karl Urban's back, although I'm not surprised that Thandie Newton isn't.
It maybe that we will see Furya and Underverse in two mooted sequels, but I'm guessing the backers want to see if the Riddick character flies, financially speaking, before going larger scale.
I hope it does. I love these movies. There's something a shade different about Riddick's universe that deserves a bigger audience.
Sunday 6 May 2012
OPINION -The Dreaded Maximillian
I always think that Maximillian, the rotor twirling, Anthony Perkins drilling (not that way) crimson terror of Disney's The Black Hole is one of the more satisfying, and genuinely frightening, robot designs of sci fi - and horror for that matter.
As a child, I always imagined him chasing me down corridors aboard the Cygnus. How could I get away? If I turned the corner quick enough would he miss me?
Or would I end up having my intestines blended by those fearsome blades of of his?
As a child, I always imagined him chasing me down corridors aboard the Cygnus. How could I get away? If I turned the corner quick enough would he miss me?
Or would I end up having my intestines blended by those fearsome blades of of his?
Saturday 5 May 2012
Hey, I'm writing a Feature Film Screenplay
I've wanted to for many many years, but have always been afraid to.
Now, I'm conquering my fears, my ADHD, my disorganisation, and I'm having a go. Just as an experiment. Just to see if I can do it. The presence of Prometheus inspires. As does watching all the Lord of the Rings special features...the process of creation is such a wonderful thing.
It's an adaptation, of a very very obscure sci fi novel - will worry about rights later, if it ever comes to that. I'm making changes, making it my own, trying to find something new in the story, trying to make it more relevant to 2012, trying to make a stronger story. Because my primary function is as a storyteller above all else.
I'm writing a feature film.
And I'm doing it from memory.
Now, I'm conquering my fears, my ADHD, my disorganisation, and I'm having a go. Just as an experiment. Just to see if I can do it. The presence of Prometheus inspires. As does watching all the Lord of the Rings special features...the process of creation is such a wonderful thing.
It's an adaptation, of a very very obscure sci fi novel - will worry about rights later, if it ever comes to that. I'm making changes, making it my own, trying to find something new in the story, trying to make it more relevant to 2012, trying to make a stronger story. Because my primary function is as a storyteller above all else.
I'm writing a feature film.
And I'm doing it from memory.
Wednesday 2 May 2012
OPINION - Prometheus and the Too Futuristic Prequels
Well, with many other people I sat into the first advert break of Homeland, which I never watch, to see the Prometheus trailer.
I was excited, but stupid-feeling. I had become one of the hated fanboy trailer freaks who sit through a 4 hour domestic drama set on a farm in India in order to see a trailer for the latest Spielberg attraction, while scrawling notes in a jotter at banshee pace.
I've only done it before. Honest. And only because I was keen to see what aforementioned Spielberg's martian fighting machines looked like. But I wanted to part of something; I wanted to be a member of the community of the first, and do my #areyouseeingthis - hello Corporal Hicks was it? - tweets with the rest of the UK, or world, whatever.
And I was going to write about it - ooh that's a very nostromo looking silhouette there, hmm the Prometheus ship reminds me of Serenity crossed with the Betty from Alien Resurrection; or my god Wutani engineered the xenomorphs - HUMANITY BROUGHT IT UPON THEMSELVES!!!!
But no. Leave it to proper film writers, not hopeless wannabes like me.
The point that does occur, with all the flashing lights, colourful spacesuits, super resoloution pictures, flashy computer screens, and a space jockey hologram thing where he looks far too much like the elephant man not to have a slight giggle, the whole film looks too new.
It's a prequel world. Set god knows how many years before the low tech grimey "Space Truckers" of the first Alien movie, the world of Prometheus features rinky dink gesture control displays and neon heads up displays. Alien had Apple 2 10 pixels per square yard monitors the size of a postage stamp. Is humantiy supposed to have devolved in the same amount of time it factually took us to get from the Wright Flyer at Kittyhawk to the Jumbo Jet?
It doesnt make sense!
Take David, the beautiful nazi wet dream android played by the enviable Michael Fassbender. He is supposed to have evolved into those far more attractive models, er Ian Holm and Lance Henrickson!
Logically, surely the android should thus have started looking like Kirk Douglas' scrotum???
It's a minor point I know. I'm a pointlessly cross silly geek. Of course film makers are going to want to use the nicest tricks, the fanciest shizzle, all their latest effects. But to me, it never rings true. The TV Enterprise prequel emphasised "Hey, No sliding automatic doors!!!" but still looked like it was filmed 400 years later, while the JJ Abrams Star Trek reboot prequel looked like it was shot 4000 years later.
And as far Star Wars Episode 1, it was "A Long time ago, in a galaxy far far shinier and newer, than the first one."
My ever lasting prequel bugbear. And may god curse my soul.
I was excited, but stupid-feeling. I had become one of the hated fanboy trailer freaks who sit through a 4 hour domestic drama set on a farm in India in order to see a trailer for the latest Spielberg attraction, while scrawling notes in a jotter at banshee pace.
I've only done it before. Honest. And only because I was keen to see what aforementioned Spielberg's martian fighting machines looked like. But I wanted to part of something; I wanted to be a member of the community of the first, and do my #areyouseeingthis - hello Corporal Hicks was it? - tweets with the rest of the UK, or world, whatever.
And I was going to write about it - ooh that's a very nostromo looking silhouette there, hmm the Prometheus ship reminds me of Serenity crossed with the Betty from Alien Resurrection; or my god Wutani engineered the xenomorphs - HUMANITY BROUGHT IT UPON THEMSELVES!!!!
But no. Leave it to proper film writers, not hopeless wannabes like me.
The point that does occur, with all the flashing lights, colourful spacesuits, super resoloution pictures, flashy computer screens, and a space jockey hologram thing where he looks far too much like the elephant man not to have a slight giggle, the whole film looks too new.
It's a prequel world. Set god knows how many years before the low tech grimey "Space Truckers" of the first Alien movie, the world of Prometheus features rinky dink gesture control displays and neon heads up displays. Alien had Apple 2 10 pixels per square yard monitors the size of a postage stamp. Is humantiy supposed to have devolved in the same amount of time it factually took us to get from the Wright Flyer at Kittyhawk to the Jumbo Jet?
It doesnt make sense!
Take David, the beautiful nazi wet dream android played by the enviable Michael Fassbender. He is supposed to have evolved into those far more attractive models, er Ian Holm and Lance Henrickson!
Logically, surely the android should thus have started looking like Kirk Douglas' scrotum???
It's a minor point I know. I'm a pointlessly cross silly geek. Of course film makers are going to want to use the nicest tricks, the fanciest shizzle, all their latest effects. But to me, it never rings true. The TV Enterprise prequel emphasised "Hey, No sliding automatic doors!!!" but still looked like it was filmed 400 years later, while the JJ Abrams Star Trek reboot prequel looked like it was shot 4000 years later.
And as far Star Wars Episode 1, it was "A Long time ago, in a galaxy far far shinier and newer, than the first one."
My ever lasting prequel bugbear. And may god curse my soul.
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