September Roundup, Part 1

If you’re checking out my rambling diatribes via the link that Andrew Currie graciously put on his blog’s links page, welcome to the drollhouse…. Sorry. Been saving that one for years, and this felt like the right time!

This entry appears near the end of our first month of our shooting hiatus and I am exhausted. No, not really. I’m writing this on a Monday, so it feels worse than it looks.

Mullet is recovering from his dental work and writing issue #2 of the comic book as our artist, Kam Gates, sharpens his pencils and stirs his inks. But what am I doing, dear reader, while we wait for January and our planned return to shooting video?

I’ve been reading that bestselling screenwriting book, Story, by Robert McKee. I’m doing this as part of my plans to write more scripts this autumn by edumacating myself gooder. This book has been the 800-pound gorilla on my bookcase for about a year, and I figured it was time to reduce my yet-to-be-read books by one.

I was expecting something different, based on comments I’d seen about the book, and the author’s portrayal in Adaptation a few years back. I was expecting something that was geared towards cranking out mindless action-based fun as that is what happens to the Kaufman brothers’ script after they attend a McKee seminar. But the book is, happily, a detailed examination of how we tell stories, and how to tell stories. McKee is in the neo-Aristotelian school of writing, and The Poetics is referred to regularly, especially at the beginning.

I’ve never read anything formal about this, but I’ve noticed that screenwriting authors tend to be either pro-Aristotle or anti-Aristotle, with a few straddling the fence or avoiding the argument altogether. I read The Poetics long enough ago to have forgotten anything I read (other than remembering the section on comedy has been lost to the ages), but in examining how I write and have written in the past, I can see that I’m probably closer to the pro philosophy than the anti-Aristotle philosophy. But I’m not a purist or espousing one school of thought over another—I’m a pragmatic writer. Still, any tool in the wrong hands can be dangerous, and like all those books that become the new Hollywood bible (Syd Field, McKee, John Truby and Christopher Vogler being the ones I’m aware of becoming must-read script gurus ), I can see how someone could take this book and either write crap or greenlight it, if their grasp of the concepts laid out in the book isn’t a good grasp or is beyond their reach.

(Side note inspired by that last sentence: Bob Odenkirk has a hilarious short about a pitch meeting online, and he plays both himself and the exec to which he’s pitching. Has bad words, so NSFW.)

My first screenwriting book was Syd Fields’s first book, Screenplay, about his 3-act paradigm, and I also read Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces. I haven’t read Vogler’s Writer’s Journey, which is basically a rehash of Campbell, but I have read a few things Truby has posted to the Raindance website. I have an ancient version of Dramatica Pro (running in OS 9), just to round out the screenwriting materials out there.

One of the key anti-Aristotelians I’ve read is Lajos Egri, whose Art of Dramatic Writing was really difficult to find in the 1990’s as it had gone out of print, but I managed to get a 2nd-hand copy, and I’ve seen new editions out there since then. I was urged to read Egri’s book by the 2nd screenwriting book I ever bought, whose title and author have vanished in the mists of my brain—all I remember is a white cover with purple detail—you remember the one, right?

I have a copy of Elements of Screenwriting by Irwin R. Blacker that is composed of photocopied pages of the library’s copy. I couldn’t find a new or used copy at the time, but it’s now back in print. I’ll buy the book itself one of these days….

I’ve read all of these books with an open mind, Story being the only one I had any preconceived notions about—when something becomes a must-read or must-see, I usually wait until the hoopla dies down before checking it out for myself. This approach has saved me from watching reality TV shows, for example. I’ll try to rent Season 1 of The Sopranos to see it for the first time. Yes, I’m that out of date….

Back to my point! I’ve used all of these screenwriting gurus in my efforts to try to become a better writer, and all of these books have the stench of truth about them despite their differences in philosophies and practical approaches to writing screenplays. I don’t think there’s any ultimate truths about writing anything, so each approach has things I can use.

On the creative front, I’m starting to brainstorm ideas for some more scripts. Ideally, I’d like to have a dozen ready in December to give us plenty to either reject or shoot in January. Some of the past scripts will be in that pile, but I’d like to have at least 5-6 new ones worth showing to Mullet (he’s my best critic). Our plan is to shoot some interior stuff this winter, thus taking the pressure off our schedule in the spring. At this point, I have no idea of what I’ll write, but I’ll try to keep most of them indoors. I’m following Robert Rodriguez’s recommended method for writing no-budget scripts: start with a list of things you have. His famous El Mariachi list included a bus and a tortoise. My list will be radically different.

By the way, even if you’re not a fan of Robert Rodriguez’s films, his DVDs always include his famous “10-Minute Film School” segments and are well worth checking out. He has included these on all the DVDs of his I have owned or rented, and the earlier ones are much more applicable (El Mariachi and Desperado, for instance). The Once Upon a Time in Mexico edition shows how he did a couple of shots with CGI in a surprisingly low-tech way (not the CGI itself, but rather how he shot the 2 shots with Salma Hayek and Antonio Bandaras that the CGI was drawn into later on).

And I will probably watch Lloyd Kaufman’s DVD, Make Your Own Damn Movie, again, as I’ve found myself staring at the gaudy yellow spine the last few times I’ve browsed my out-of-order DVD collection. It’s a funny look at no-budget, B-movie filmmaking, made cheap but with tons of interviews and that Troma craziness.

I like to review these low- and no-budget filmmaking sources before I start prepping for shoots, just to shake things up and maybe come up with a brilliant idea that either makes something in front of the camera better or make the behind the camera stuff better. When you’re in a comedy duo that spends a combined 2 hours per day putting on and taking off the makeup, anything that makes the actual shooting easier is much appreciated on the day.

This post is probably long enough to wade through for now. Next post, likely minutes after this one, I’ll go through the list of post-production projects I’ve got on the go.