That good old screenwriting mindset

I was thinking about sitting down to continue with my script frenzy screenplay, and I started getting into that screenwriting mindset that I'm sure most are familiar with:

"I need to churn out a few more pages. Hmmm, first I think I'll reorganise my CD collection for the third time today, but this time I'll make sure all the CDs are orientated correctly inside the case."

I'd written enough pages to on the first day to cover the day's progress, so I played Guitar Hero all evening with a big grin on my face. I'd taken it up to the next level and for 20 minutes I couldn't play anything, but after a bit of practice, I still rock!

There is a down side to all of this; I was tempted to go onto iTunes and download seventies rock music (on dear!).

I'll have to be more disciplined tonight and churn out my 3.33 pages :)

Later

C

I Rock!

It's true. The Nintendo Wii told me so.

I watched an episode of South Park the other week, where they were playing this game called Guitar Hero. I never thought anything of it until in town the other day when I was in a shop selling it. I read the box and it looked like it may be fun. It was bonus month at work (not a big one but better than a kick up the arse), so I bought it.

Now, I'm 33 - no scratch that, 34 (there proof I'm getting old), but prancing around the room attempting to play a pathetic plastic guitar type thing, made me feel like a kid again.

I highly recommend it :)

Regards

Chris

Earth Hour

So I turned on my Macbook this morning to take a trip around the good old interwebnet, and Firefox informed me it was installing a new version and would start in a moment or two.

It did.

google.co.uk came up (I've got it set as my home page), and I was presented with a negative version of the search engine (white text on black).

"Oh Bugger!" I thought. Firefox has screwed up. Then I realised I was being a bit slow (I'm ill and it was 06:30), and Google had put it that way for a reason. On closer inspection I found the following link:

Earth Hour

Now I know tree hugging has become a bit 'main stream' nowadays, and stuff like this may be considered a little 'passé' by some, but I think it's a good idea.

If you can't be bothered to follow the link, the idea is to turn off all the lights in your house between 20:00 and 21:00 tonight in a collective bid to save energy (doesn't matter about time zones, just flick the switches wherever you are when the clock ticks 8).

Come on, join in. Don't worry about the dark, the light from your 57 inch LCD TV should provide more than enough illumination ;)

Later

C

One story at a time please. Not two at once!

I've never attempted one of those screenplays that tell two or three stories at the same time. I'm not talking about a plot and sub plots, but a screenplay with many characters (a family or group of friends), where they all seem to be the protagonist and all have their story to live out. So perhaps before I bitch about one I've seen I should have a go at writing some good examples, but I believe if I can't make money with crap, no one should!

I fondly remember a film called Parenthood with Steve Martin and a load of other well known actors. Now, I'm not going to watch it again after writing this in case I spoil my memory of it, but I remember it working well. There were many characters all living out their own story (many were complex stories), and when it came to the end, all had been resolved and I remember a balanced film (but I think a lengthy one - I could check IMDB but...).

The other week I watched Trust the Man.

What on earth was that about?

Advertised as a Rom Com with Mr X Files, I sat down to watch to it and found myself confronted with that (minus the 'com') with another story running in parallel. Yes, it tried the many story model. The writer probably understood it is difficult to pull off so only went for 2, but God it was painful to watch. The stories were rushed (to be fair that could be the director's fault), and I guess there was some 'Rom' but the 'Com' was so out of place it seemed unnatural, and what did exist was a poor attempt at bad verbal slapstick (unless I invent a word that's the best description I can come up with).

I'll put my soap box away before I get to the ending, but it missed 'Romantic' by three solar systems.

I think that there isn't enough room in 90 to 120 minutes to tell more than one story well (unless you are a writing God, but there aren't many of those and they know a tough job when they see one), but I guess people will always try; and produce stuff like this.

I WANT MY MONEY BACK!!!!

Hmph! Rant over :)

Writing and a Software Update

Not much to report of late but Jason prompted me to post in a comment, so in a desperate attempt to hold on to the people who take the time to read this blog I'll give you an update.

During my trips to London I have been plugging away at 'Only in Dreams' on the train. This has involved some re-writing and some new pages and if I gauge things correctly, it should pan out at roughly 85 to 90 pages long. Currently I've got 55 pages (not continuous) putting the script at about 61 to 64% complete, so in short; I'm getting there.

I'm really not sure if what I've got works any more. It's something I've had running around in my head and on paper for such a long time that I don't think I can see the wood for the trees. I'm afraid that if I stop and take another step back I may never get it finished, so if I carry on to the end, I'll at least have something complete to fix.

In other news I've been participating as a beta tester for the new version of Movie Magic Screenwriter. After trying others I always fell back to MMS and I can say that this new version (version 6), is a vast improvement on version 4.x/2000, so users wanting to upgrade won't be disappointed. It brings into the software some basic outlining features. Up to now I'd been using another piece of software for that so I'm quite happy, plus it finally shows misspelled words with a red underline. For a bad speller like me I find that much easier as I can correct on the fly without having to fire up the spell checker like I did with the old version. I don't know where you can buy it in the UK (I haven't looked), but you can buy it on Amazon.com.

Anyway, I'm off to London again next week so the page count should creep up some more.

Later

C

Dry Spell

I have no idea why, but I have no motivation to write at the moment.

When in London I found other things to do and haven't put finger to keyboard on a script since. I have said before that blogging comes in seasons, so perhaps writing is the same. It could be the weather because let's face it; when it is raining outside and has been for days, it can be difficult to find inspiration.

Anyway, things will pick up soon (my glass is half full) :)

Not a good start.

So here I am off to London and I have to say things have not gotten off to a good start.

First the train was cancelled so I had to wait for the next one. No so bad but read on; it get’s worse.

We are stuck in Retford, because of the weather and flooding; the train guard is currently announcing that they are waiting permission to go into the flooded area (do trains float?).

I am sharing this tiny bit of internet bandwidth with 7 other people I can see and probably a ton more, but it’s internet on the train so I shouldn’t complain (Hey! I can rhyme!).

And to top it all the train is leaking and people are getting wet! I quickly had to move the laptop before it went “pop fizzle”.

And for some reason GNER (the train company) are directing me onto the internet via a proxy server in Germany, so all of those helpful websites out there (Blogger included) are displaying their menus, buttons and other non-user generated text in German. I could struggle along in French, but German is totally foreign to me.

Well it looks like we may be here for a while so I guess I’ll fire up Movie Magic.

Later

C

Progress

I really feel like I'm making good progress for a change.

The re-write of Good Guys is past the 50% mark (just), and my new spec 'Only in Dreams', is at 10% after only a few days. It doesn't sound like much but I'm quite pleased considering I have a day job and a family :)

C

Final Draft Demo

As promised I’ve downloaded the demo of Final Draft 7 and am writing my newest screenplay with it (see ‘Only in Dreams’ in the progress section on the right).

I won’t compare it with Movie Magic Screenwriter just yet, but there are some things it does better than MMS and some things it doesn’t.

I’ll post more later.

C

Movie Magic Screenwriter

I don't know if this is old news to any of you but Movie Magic Screenwriter 6.0 is out next month.

I've used MMS for what must be at least 5 years now after buying version 4.0. Updates have now moved this on to 4.7, but since then I've heard nothing about the next major version (I've no idea what happened to version 5).

I think Movie Magic is great. It has NEVER EVER CRASHED on me. It formats everything for me and saves/exports in enough formats; native, rtf, pdf, ASCII,and a ton of others. It will even convert to final draft version 4 format (although I'm sure no one uses version 4 anymore). The formatting is correct "out of the box" (as far as I know) and I've never had to touch any settings. The inline script notes are a great help and it even has the silly stuff like that talking robots to read your script back to you.

From what I've heard the "Final Draft industry standard" thing isn't as true as it used to be, and FD's support is infamous.

I have used both Final Draft and Movie Magic Screenwriter before and MSS wins by a mile, however in the interests of fairness I will download the latest Final Draft demo and post back if I decide to eat humble pie :)

Either way I'm still looking forward to the upgrade.

Later

C

It's no longer my space

After my last post I found myself wondering why I bother having a page on MySpace?

I couldn't come up with an answer so I removed it. I'm not advertising my blog on it. I'm not using it as any sort of CV. I've found it easier to find information on like minded writers through blogger. I just couldn't see the point on keeping another site up to date.

If I feel alone out there in the virtual world I may re-subscribe, but until then MySpace is my space no longer.

C

What on earth is MySpace?

I know I said I’m ill but before I went to bed I had a random click around MySpace.

I do have my own page there (click here to take a look) and it would seem I’m a bit of a Billy-no-mates as I have only 3 friends. To make it worse you get one of those for free when you join. Since I signed up I have yet to define what MySpace is.

On one hand it seems like a world wide competition to get yourself more ‘MySpace friends’ than anyone else. I’ve had more people requesting to be my friend than I’ve had hot dinners. No reason offered and when I view their profile I have nothing in common with them at all. It just seems like they need to have more virtual friends than the next person.

One the other hand… well I can’t think of anything, apart from 75% of the profiles have been modified so badly it is impossible to read them.

It seems to offer you a blog, but there are much better blog offerings out there. You can upload pictures (again, countless better places out there) and videos (youtube?). The fact that all of these are in one place is let down by the fact they are so inferior.

Perhaps it is just a fad - just like this whole interwebnet thing ;)

Cough, splutter!

Guurppphhaawwwhhh.

That sound is me feeling like crap. I’m ill with some evil virus thing that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

I doubt any writing will happen for the next few days but I have a few posts queued up so I should be able to keep the blog active.

Now, where’s my wife, I need sympathy.

C

I like to push the pramalot

I put a link in a comment on another blog and can’t resist posting it there:

Click here

Enjoy