Crazy Time

It's been a bit of a crazy year, in good and unexpected ways. The unfortunate downside is that my online maintenance has fallen by the wayside and this blog had virtually disappeared from my to-do list.  Time for a well-deserved update.  But after eight months or so, how do you climb back on the horse in a sensible way?  Does it even matter, in our attention-fractured society, if there's any continuity? Best to just plunge back into the bloggy waters...

I've found a weird thing happening over the past few months -- work breeds work.

The more projects you have going, the more people you come in contact with, the more opportunities you are presented with. I've been unexpectedly busy the last six months, partially because of this kind of chain of events.  Also, the importance of networking and network maintenance, as in my earlier postings, comes into play. One of the projects currently the most active is one with a friend from film school.  It's been a long time since those days, but because this guy's part of my network, when a project in my wheelhouse came up, I was on his go-to list. Now we're on the brink of shooting a TV Pilot.  More on that later as it develops.

Ride the wave.  When the crazy time strikes, be happy you've got too much work.

The Human Network

Occasionally I'm asked to speak on writing or entertainment industry issues and during the course of those events, especially with young writers, I get asked certain questions with some regularity.  This past week, the question was, "how do you develop your network?"  The answer to that question has many components, too many to cover in a brief blog post, but subsequent events in the week highlighted one particular thing not to do when developing or maintaining your human network.

Don't waste people's time.

When you ask a fellow writer to read your material, you're asking for a commitment of their time, their experience, and their critical acumen.  You're also asking them to devote their own limited creative energies on your behalf.  Before you decide to call in that favor, ask yourself: why do I want this person's opinion?  If you're looking for a rubber-stamp, "hey, this is wonderful," send the work to your mom.  I assume if you send it to me, you want an actual, critical evaluation and that you're somehow looking to improve your work.  I treat those requests with a professional's eye and try to be as honest as I can.  That type of professional evaluation bundles together my decades of experience, my attention to detail, and a significant amount of mental effort.  If, when you make the request, you have absolutely no intention of listening to anyone's opinion other than your own, then you have wasted my time.

In that case, you have self-selected yourself out of my network.  You will not be on my go-to e-mail list for job opportunities or future connections.  Your name will not come up in cocktail chit-chat as "someone worth knowing".  Your e-mails will no longer be acknowledged.

Networks are fragile.  Respect the value of a professional's time.

The Bi-polar Nature of Writing

Apologies to the mental health community for co-opting the term for a clearly-defined condition in service to a loose analogy; no harm or slight intended and in no way am I trying to minimize what people with bi-polar disorder suffer.  It's just the way my own brain is working this morning and certainly I'm not original in pointing out the similarities between the impulse to write and mental disorders in general.  But I got to thinking...

Writing requires two particular and somewhat conflicting abilities.

First, the need to submerge yourself in the waves of culture and humanity -- not just the books, magazines, comics, films, tv, and music that media presents, but general contact with other humans sharing communal experiences.  Time with friends, family, colleagues.  Eating, drinking, discussing.  Sharing opinions and thoughts, hopes and desires, annoyances and pet peeves.  For any writer, living a life fully and richly provides the context for your work.  It's research, in a way.  You absorb experiences you can then use and modify to tell the stories that mean the most to you.

But, and let's face it, there's always a "but."

Writing also requires the ability to totally disengage from those necessary and valid connections to actually, well, do the writing.  When you're actually at the keyboard, you need to be able to focus on that project, immerse yourself in that world, and not be pulled aside by the scrolling of the twitter feed or the pings of Facebook updates.  It requires a force of will not to constantly worry about "maintaining your brand" on social networks and actually generate content.  It's difficult in our world of constant connectivity to focus on one thing at a time and that's one reason why writer's retreats are popular destinations.

It requires the ability to turn down invitations from friends, to eschew the very things you love, like reading and watching tv, in order to create something.  The creative impulse isn't an easy one to obey and you should never underestimate the toll it demands.  However, producing something brings other rewards, sometimes monetary, sometimes simple satisfaction, so you have to find the balance.

It's a constant tightrope walk between artistic engagement and having a fulfilling life.  It's possible to navigate, with constant work and maintenance, but don't minimize -- or allow others to dismiss -- the effort required.

A lot of thought...

Cinematographers, process junkies, gadget-coveters, film-lovers, geeks: this one's for you.

Film vs. Digital.

I've been giving this a lot of thought lately, and doing a fair amount of reading, too.  This morning, I reached the tipping point when the BFI tweeted a quote attributed to Martin Scorcese.  “No matter where the cinema goes, we cannot afford to lose sight of the beginning."  My simple rebuttal to this is: why?

I suspect it has more to do with tradition, stagnation, and fear than it does with anything else.  I don't mean Scorcese personally in this case (although even the notion that there is one coherent "cinema" is ridiculous), but the whole cadre of tradition-bound folks who seem determined to choke off the forward  progress of movies.

The "beginning" of cinema is a time of great unevenness, much of it lost, and the great bulk of what remains is really, really boring to today's general audiences.  I agree with the idea you can learn from great films, but I dispute the notion that anything achieves greatness and deserves reverence simply because of its place in the timeline.  With that mentality, we'd buy bottles of leeches instead of Advil for the collective headache we've gotten over these traditionalist arguments.

Which brings me to film vs. digital as a method of originating a cinematic story.  "Originating" because the use of film in theaters -- except in specialty theaters -- is essentially over.  The business decision has been made and the film corpse is leaving the theater.  So, how do artists originate their stories?  What is the best way?  What is the true way?  What is the way they did it in "the beginning"? (Just kidding with that last one.)

The real answer is: you'll always have choice and it should be your artistic decision.  Like vinyl in the aftermath of cds, film isn't going away, but it's going to be more of a specialty, more of a particular artistic niche.  For the layman, without a color scope, and watching a film on their home flat-screen (on which they haven't bothered to change the factory picture-settings), there's simply no difference in the end result.

The real answer is: when you evoke the "beginning" of cinema, you imply that all the collective learning of the past 130 years isn't encapsulated in today's forms, which is backward thinking.  Future generations of filmmakers are going to take "cinema" in directions the early progenitors never thought of and you can either go along or become increasingly an historian rather than artist.

The real answer is: Skyfall.  Shot digitally, projected digitally.  It's simply beautiful.  The visuals run a complete dynamic range and serve the story in a synchronization that contributes to the audience's pleasure in the film.  As a filmmaker, what more would you really want?

The real answer is: digital.

Now, let's all move forward, shall we?

The Thing With Prometheus...

People always ask me about films.

This, despite knowing that part of my academic job is learning and teaching how to rip films apart.  Not necessarily in a negative way, but in a critical way that examines how the films are put together.  This is a core component of know how to make a film.  Also, people ask me what I think about films even knowing what a cynical bastard I am.

So, you know, if you ask me about a film, fair warning: I'll tell you what I think.  Perhaps I overthink it, but you asked.  If you'd rather not have an actual answer, then just asked whether I liked a film, don't ask me what I think about a film.  See, I spend the head time that most people devote to Roth IRAs, stocks, and performance reviews considering movies, so you're going to often get a detailed answer if you ask.

Prometheus is a case in point.  LOTS of people asked me about Prometheus and I kind of dodged an answer because frankly, I don't want to spoil your enjoyment of the film.  However, a bunch of people know my admiration for the original Alien, my fondness for Sci-Fi in general, and my peripatetic admiration for Ridley Scott.  So, they asked.

Let me first say, there is much that is wonderful about this film: the beautiful visual extravagance of the opening 3D images and the imagining of the alabaster aliens in general was stunning, there were some wonderful performances from Charlize Theron and Michael Fassbender, and the sheer optimism that we will ever be able to build a ship that can travel like Prometheus was refreshing.

It is however, despite all talk of sequels, a disappointing story.

People have argued with me over this, but I bet I can ask you five questions about Prometheus that will change your view of the film.  If you don't want your view changed, then stop reading now.

1. What kind of "doctor" is Elizabeth Shaw?  Many are tempted to say archeologist, but at various points in the film she discourses on astrophysics, medicine, biology, sociology and more.  The real answer to this question is that she's a doctor of exposition -- a convenient mouthpiece to explain whatever plot point needs explaining at a given moment.

2. If you have hovering, wireless, 3d mapping robots, why wouldn't you toss those into the big, dark, dangerous alien ship BEFORE you actually go in yourself?  It may be the future, but apparently no one has ever played a video game.

3. Why are the archeologists forever rushing blindly into new discoveries without any remote hint of site protocol?  Moreover, why are the touching everything, including the moving black goo?

4. I can't imagine ever designing my own trillion-dollar spaceship, but even if you were, would you think it smart to make your quarters look like a spa?  I get the Weyland's are rich, but why must they be stupid as well?

5. Does anyone really believe you can give yourself an auto-surgical cesarian, then just hop up off the table and run around like an action hero?  Talk to a woman who's actually had a c-section, or do some basic anatomical research: cut the abs and you're doing no moving for a while.  Drugs strong enough to kill the pain will also knock you out.  I honestly thought this was going to be a dream sequence it was so outrageous and, when it wasn't, I couldn't seriously stay engaged in the movie.

These are really only the top of the heap.  I could keep asking these questions on and on and that, to me, is the sign of a flawed film.

Now, you asked me what I thought, so what I really think is I'm really no longer too excited about the rumored BaldeRunner sequel.

Stumbling Around

In my recent internet ramblings, my metaphorical hikes through the electronic woods, I came across some blogs with little nuggets of help for writers and artists.  In lieu of any actual thinking of my own, I pass them along to you:

How To Steal Like An Artist serves up a refreshing insight on inspiration and creativity.

Best Blogs For Aspiring Writers is just a list, but a good starting point to poke around for what you need.

Lester Dent's Master Plot is the famous pulp wordsmith's breakdown of how to create a story.

Of course, the best advice -- the advice most frequently ignored -- is to keep writing, always.

Storytelling Crystal Ball

If you're interested in writing/filmmaking/video games or entertainment in general, you may have noticed some seismic shifts in the way stories are told and the way entertainment is offered to you (Angry Birds, anyone?).  A couple of friends and I discussed the future of storytelling in the first of an ongoing series of podcasts that's just hit the internet.  It's worth checking out, and following all those who are involved.

Future of Storytelling Podcast

Thanks to Paul Montgomery and the Fuzzytypewriter blog and to Dave Accampo for a very thought-provoking chat.

Spring Cleaning for the Screenwriter

I've been blowing the dust off some mental stuff and wanted to share a few things with the writers out there, starting with this link:

Script Lab Scene Questionnaire

Writing, as they say, is rewriting, and I think this list is an interesting way to approach individual scenes. One of the main things to remember is: each scene must operate on multiple levels, moving character, plot, and story simultaneously.

Shameless Promotions

What's a blog for, after all, except indulging all your own narcissism?

First, let me give a little cyber-ink to the people running the Farce/Film blog and podcast. They give interesting and insightful written reviews of films -- all kinds, not just art-house stuff that never plays near you -- and have a rollicking, rambling, sometimes inebriated podcast that serves up dueling opinions of weekly releases amongst a rotating cast of semi-regular commentators.

In the interest of full disclosure, I admit they are all mostly former students of mine, but if you know me at all, you should realize that doesn't mean I'm cutting them any slack. What I'm saying is: these people are the real deal. As proof of that, when they invited me to sit in on a podcast episode, I agreed. The best students are the ones you want to keep working with, even after the formal Professorial relationship has ended and the Farce/Film group falls into that category. Of course, I claim some credit for them being the thoughtful critics they are, because that's what all good narcissists, er, Professors, do, right? Bring it always back to themselves?

Anyway, the actual shameless self-promotion is when I say -- go listen to the podcast with me in the guest chair. I talk about Green Hornet, Hot Tub Time Machine, Cameron Diaz in underwear, and NC-17 ratings. Beware, we cuss. A lot. We're all adults, even if I knew everyone else when they weren't.

If you listen to the cast, let any of us know what you think, even if you hate it (although don't hate the one I'm on). Follow any of those good people on Facebook or Twitter, and you won't regret it. Follow me on Twitter, and you might.

In The New Year

Ah, that first day back to work after the holidays... the rude shock of being back to work and all the fun being over. No more sleeping in, no more pastries and coffee for late brunch, no more wine in the early afternoon. It's like Christmas shat you out and left you at the curb.

And that's all I have to say about the holidays.

Let's move on to 2011, shall we? I don't even want cast a fond glance over my shoulder at 2010, because, you know, it's over. Forget all the top ten lists, I want to start a clean page and move forward. So much of my life is spent looking back and over-analyzing things I can't change - should have zigged instead of zagged, etc. - that I'm just beaten down with the past. I don't want the baggage anymore, and this is fair notice. If I fucked you over unfairly in the past, I'm sorry, really I am and you can bet I've beat myself up about it, but I just don't care anymore. I want to shake all that off my shoulders and have a little fun. What do you say, 2011?

What does that really mean? It means I want to focus on the things that really matter to me: my wife and kids, my friends, friends I haven't met yet, cooking and wine, writing and reading. I gots to work to pay the man, but you know what? I'm not doing any freebies for the man anymore. I'll work when I'm supposed to, but the rest of the time is mine, so back off.

Ready, 2011? Let's get it on.

Dirty Little Secrets, Part 1

I've been thinking a lot about writing lately, which sounds kind of obvious, since I'm both a writer and a professor of screenwriting. I've found that one of the things that happens as you develop professionally and artistically, is that you assimilate all the steps in the creative process and these individual steps become part of your subconscious which manifest only in the act of writing. So, you tend to see only the end result, with the process being mostly handled by a subroutine somewhere low down in the brain programming.

The key to teaching and understanding writing is dragging all those particular steps back out of the brain-basement and shining a light on them, so you can look on them as part of a system that others can then replicate and assimilate. Most writing instruction, from the time we enter school in kinder-garten (or before) until the time we graduate at any level, is focused on defining these steps in the process: learning the alphabet, learning to spell, sentence structure, topic sentences, etc.

I'm not going to concern myself with any of that.

Writing instruction that focuses on developing the process also leaves certain items -- vitally important to writers -- untaught and sometimes even unmentioned. The purpose of this series, and there will be five parts in all, is to air all the Dirty Little Secrets that writing classes don't always tell you. If you've heard some of these topics before, then you had a first-class mentor. If this is all brand-new to you, then let me be your guide.

Part 1: We're Not Holding Our Breath

The sad, naked truth of it is, no one cares whether you become a writer or not. Okay, maybe your parents, but other than that, not so much. In Hollywood, both the industry in general and other writers in particular, would prefer if you just fucked right off. The industry, because they're scared you might actually come up with something interesting that proves they're the emperors without clothes, the screenwriters because no one is looking for more competition.

There's no shortage of writers, or written material. The internet is inundated with would-be writers and their ramblings. Blogs like this one, for instance. Go to your local bookstore and see just how many books are published every week. The WGA is inundated with script registrations for material so awful it has less than zero chance of ever getting turned into a movie. In none of those places do you see a place-holder with your name on it.

It's "easy" to write when you're in high school or college, because you have some benign person looking over your metaphoric shoulder and gently forcing you to meet deadlines. When you hit the real world, the truth hits you: we can all go on with our lives very comfortably if you never write another word in your life. The challenge then becomes whether you can force yourself to write in the absence of external pressures. As a writing professor, I can teach you how to write, but, no matter how much I seek to inspire you, I can't give you the will to write.

The first step to becoming a professional writer is, in fact, writing. Initially, you're writing for your own pleasure only, not for money, fame, or the adulation of readers or filmgoers. If you can allow yourself to not write, maybe you should consider another career path. Writers work at it, always. We're compelled at some fundamental level to put thoughts on paper, regardless of anyone asking our opinion on anything.

Professional writers also write regularly.

The myth of the "inspired" writer, that one who only sets ink to paper when the muse strikes, is someone who may be fun to have a drink with, but this is not an actual writer. This is the dilettante who gives writers a bad name. They also fall into the category of "binge writer." You know those stories? The guy who wrote the script in a weekend. The thing they don't ever tell you is the script sucked. Binge writing is like binge drinking: it may be fun, but you're usually left with a pile of puke.

So, if you want to write, you need to do it regularly, and, since no one's fate hangs on your latest masterpiece, you need to make yourself do it. If you don't have the will, you'll never finish anything. That, of course, means you'll never actually be a writer (and probably weren't one in the first place).

And... I'm Back

Yeah, I know you missed me.

For the next couple of posts, I'm going to be talking about writing stuff, so if that isn't where you're interests lie, then you can go elsewhere for a bit. I probably won't be able to stay away from politics for long, so eventually I'll start bitching again. Check back.

I've got some fairly serious things I'm going to lay on you about writing, but for now, all I'm going to say is: if you have any serious intention of writing for films or television, you need to be aware of this article from last week's New York Times:

Branding Comes Early in Filmmaking Process

Seriously?

So, I'm in a hotel room in a deserted east coast beach town in the middle of January, playing scrabble with my kids, while my wife's got the Golden Globes telecast on the TV. Foolishly, I had forgotten to load up on booze from home, so I was stone cold sober during the whole process, ergo my take on the old GGs was perhaps a little too unforgiving, but still, this was the worst telecast since the year after 9/11, when they just held a press conference.

It was a uniquely awkward, unpleasant experience where even the attendees didn't seem to be having much fun, and most of them weren't sober. Here, in bullet list form for those with short attention spans, are my top five things wrong with the Globes this year:

1. A painfully unfunny Ricky Gervais. Catwoman jokes? Way to keep up, Rick-o.
2. Mariah Carey's continuing love affair with her own boobs.
3. James Cameron's discussion of his "need to pee" during both acceptance speeches. They're called "Depends", dude.
4. Sandra Bullock's joke about someone "buying" the award for her. If you know anything about the Globes, you'll know this wasn't a joke. (I think this was Sandy, but if it was someone else, please correct me.)
5. -Tie- James Cameron's Na'vi speech, which enabled you to clearly imagine him speaking klingon at a Trek convention. -Or- James Cameron ordering the audience to give themselves a round of applause. Considering Avatar will end up making more money than, oh I don't know, the annual income of the entire nation of Haiti, that seemed in particularly bad taste.

I could go on, but it's self-evident, if you were watching. Which brings up the larger question, why were we watching? If I wanted to see a bunch of rich people at a self-congratulatory party, C-span is on all the time. Of course, the really frightening thing about that comparison is most people know more about the folks on the Globes than those on C-span, but the people on the globes don't really affect most of our lives directly.

Now, don't imagine I'm on a high horse, because I was watching the telecast, too. If I hadn't been, maybe my 10 year-old son wouldn't have beaten me in Scrabble. Evidence! Entertainment shows do rot the brain.

On Being Compelled

I swore to myself - as opposed to swearing at everyone else, which is what I usually do - that I was going to maintain at least one blog post per week through the end of the year as a run-up to a major re-design of the blog and my web presence in general, which I plan to launch in the new year. Some weeks, though, it's a little hard to focus. It was a week where everything got swept away.

Now, I could take the common route with blogging, which is to form all my general complaints into some king of entertaining narrative, but complaining seems a bit pointless. It's not like you care, right? You might get a good laugh out of my misery, or maybe just toss me a knowing nod because you've been there, too, but whining is a little too self-indulgent for me. Besides, no one would believe most of my gripes because they sound like a bad stand-up routine. I mean, who would buy that both my toaster and stove broke in the same week? That's like a weird conspiracy against heating elements.

I could do my standard political riff, but politics this past week has mostly been about Sarah Palin and I really think I need more of a challenge than that. Although, I did see a "Sarah 2012" bumper sticker this morning, which actually made me seriously consider the Mayan Prophecies for the first time.

I haven't talked about writing in a while, but considering the amount of student work I'm slogging through, now is probably not the best time to discuss that particular subject. The weird thing about teaching writing is that not only are you bombarded with difficult and troublesome material, the process takes so much time and energy that it salts the earth of your own work. After reading student scripts all day, one of the last things I want to do is sit down and work on my own stuff.

Oh, wait, I've found a point to make today after all, because this is the key difference between professionals and amateurs: we pros are compelled to do it. Even after the long day of mediocre grammar, I still make myself do some real writing. Even with no real plan in mind, I sit down to blog because that's what I committed to. It's not always inspiration and latte, sometimes it's brain sweat and angst. Welcome to my world.

Monday - Shotgun Rules

So, it's Monday morning. I've got a mountain of work I'm trying to climb. Only one cup of coffee aboard the system so far, no coherent thoughts in my brain - and isn't that just a great reason to keep reading? - but I want to not disappoint all the readers out there. All, like, three of you who tune in regularly. So rather than have something organized and coherent, I'm taking the shotgun approach, hoping that if I fire enough little nuggets, one or more will stick in you.

• Glenn Beck is a moron. He's an hysterical little girl, with a shaky grasp of both politics and history, who hopes that if he's shrill enough you won't realize how asinine his ideas are. The irony is that his listeners/viewers apparently don't recognize his tactics as those favored by the very shadowy political movements he wants you to fear. Hitler could shout with the best of them, just like you, Glenn.
• Nancy Grace seems to come from the same journalistic school. If you're loud, you must be right. Her confrontation with John Gosselin did something I didn't think was possible: made me feel bad for him.
• The Phillies played baseball in 20-degree weather last night. This to me is a clear sign that places where winter falls this early should not have baseball teams, and that THE SEASON GOES ON TOO DAMN LONG! In the 1970 World Series, with the Oriels of my boyhood dreams, there were two games played by this time in the calendar, and we aren't even out of the playoffs, yet.
• I have to admit, the Yankees played a couple of great games. I still hate them.
• Although I can appreciate the historical symmetry of a Dodgers/Yankees series, that's only marginally more interesting than a LA/LA series. Go Phils!
• Cub Scouts has come a long way since I was a kid. Camping in a fort, with an outdoor movie and indoor plumbing really isn't "roughing it."
• It's frighteningly easy to get yourself piled with work, just by being a nice person and having a genuine desire to help people out. So I've heard.
• Many parents don't understand the concept of movie ratings. Apparently, they think: "Yeah, R. That means it's something the family watches together." On a psychotherapy note: if you take your little kid to see Zombieland, you can't complain at them for not being able to get to sleep, or if they start gnawing on your fleshy parts.
• Nobel Peace Prize. I'm just sayin'.
• And finally, dinner with famous comics guys is a lot of fun. Listening to Mike Mignola and John Arcudi go at it and getting a glimpse inside the Hellboy universe... good times.

So, there, in no particular order was my week. Go ahead, pick out the pellets.

Leno a-go-go

Did I miss something? I must have, because from where I was sitting, The Jay Leno Show looked and played exactly like the Tonight Show, just at 10, instead of 11:30. This is what Leno took 3 months off to come up with? Yeah, he got a new set, but he didn't get a new set of anything else. It's the same old white guy brand of humor with musical guests selected to connect with the kids. Overall, the show was not only boring, but uncomfortable. Jay clearly doesn't do well in the "two chairs" interview format and even Jerry Seinfeld's Schtick couldn't make it less painful to watch.

Presumably, it comes down to whether you like Leno. He's never been a particularly daring, or insightful comedian and as he ages, his humor has become noticeably rigid. You need a rim-shot after every punch-line. As a performer, he's about as supple as an I-beam. He can't roll with punches in his set or in his interviews. It's like watching Don Rickles' stand-up routine circa 1957. That might have been okay 40 years ago, but on prime time?

Leno's been doing the "headlines" bit since even I was a kid and of all the things to carry over, it seems the least likely to translate to today's audience. Newspapers are dying faster than his jokes, but he still wants you to send him headlines? That's the definition of "behind the curve".

The "interview" with Kanye West -- an accidental coup since the rappers were booked well in advance of Kanye's MTV VMA performance -- was ridiculous, serving only West's own narcissistic desire for more airtime, when what would have been fair would have been to bump him altogether and give the platform to Taylor Swift.

I'm well aware of the economics involved in making the show, and how low the threshold is for Leno to be considered a success in prime time. Hell, he's even cheaper than a reality show to produce. But if this is all he's got up his sleeve, we'll all be bored to death by sweeps.

Bookstores Suck

I never thought I'd write those words, but Borders really blows. Today is the drop date for what many critics are calling the last significant release of a CD for the entire format: the Beatles Remasters. If you've avoided the hype or aren't that into the Beatles, fine, but honestly, I was ready to plunk down a big chunk of cash to listen to those discs today. Since I didn't pre-order online, I figured I'd drop by a store and actually buy one retail.

Who would have imagined that any store selling mass media would not have a copy of the box set? Not just one store either; both the stores in my area were sold out. I don't live in the middle of nowhere, some place where they still rail against that newfangled rock-n-roll. I live in the Philly area and we tend to take music seriously, so you would think that the stores would have actually stocked a new release someone was likely to buy. Except they didn't, or at least didn't have enough. I humbly ask: what the fuck?

Now that Borders has put almost every independent bookstore out of business and then essentially become the wal-mart of people who read, Borders can't even properly handle their supply of product. I realize I'm talking about music and not books, but they can't handle the book business, either. If you shop in a Borders regularly, it can't have escaped your notice how many linear feet of books have disappeared from your store lately. As their quarterly earnings tumble, Borders continues to scale back on inventory, rapidly turning into a big fat version of an airport kiosk. I've got nothing against bestsellers, but I find the whole turnabout ironic: Borders put all the independents out of business because their big-box bookstore could carry a deeper selection of books. Now, unless you want to purchase 30 or so copies of Twilight, you're probably going to be shit out of luck with books, as well as I was with cds.

I tried: two different stores and an hour out of my day traveling around just to support a bookstore. I was willing to pay a little more for it to support the retail establishment. Times are tough, right? I'm also the kind of guy who buys something from them on principle, even if I don't need it, because I love going into stores and looking at books and I don't want them to disappear. Now, I've revised that notion. Under this business model, they deserve to go down the toilet. You won't find anything in their doors that hasn't already been pre-sold to you, and you can get that cheaper elsewhere.

So, I went home and ordered my box set from Amazon. It took about a minute, will be delivered to my door cheaper, and I didn't have to use any "member coupons." Borders hasn't really been Borders for a bunch of years and when the shadow finally fades, I don't think I'll miss it after all. I've got a library right across the street.

Screenwriting Lessons From Baseball

If you're expecting a discourse on Bull Durham or Pride of the Yankees, you're going to be disappointed, here. We're going to start today's lesson from the trenches with a dissection of what's wrong with pro baseball. I'm pretty sure this applies to most pro sports, but I don't give a flying fuck about them, so you're stuck with baseball as the metaphor of the day.

Some of my fondest memories from being a kid were of the evenings when we'd pile into the car and drive down to Baltimore to catch a mid-week Oriels game; we'd leave when my mom got home from work, drive the hour to the stadium, buy a couple of tickets, watch batting practice, try to cage autographs, eat hot dogs, then watch the game, drive the hour home drowsy in mid-summer torpor, and be in bed by 11. My family didn't have a whole lot of money, but we didn't have to skip any meals to afford a couple of games a month. If you look at it in today's terms, I could never do this with my kids. Seats comparable to those we used to get are now $60 in Philadelphia. You can easily spend $100 on food and not be sated. What the fuck happened to baseball?

I can understand that ticket prices go up. I don't think prices rise in proportion to any real market influence, but let's just leave money out of it for now. The real baseball crime is that it now takes four hours to play a game, and mostly what you watch is a pitching duel. You're lucky if you see five hits in a game. I gotta tell you, this is boring as shit. Watching managers shuffle pitchers to match individual batters is frustrating and annoying for the fans. It's sucking every last bit of fun out of the game. Therein lies my point.

When it comes to writing scripts, you need to keep the fun. By that, I don't mean you have to be writing comedy, but that you have to keep the enjoyment of what you're doing in the front of your mind. Most of you aren't get paid to write, so you better be having fun on some level, and it better show in your scripts.

When people gripe about Hollywood movies - and this summer's crop has been especially bad - they're griping about the pitchers' duel: films so neutered of any kind of creative enjoyment in favor of some committee-created entertainment processed to be marketed to some particular demographic that they've sucked the fun out of going to the movies. Your first draft script is about the only thing in the process you can actually call your own, so enjoy it, let a reader sense that, and swing for the fences.

Rain on my Brain

It's been nearly two weeks since we've had a day without sustained rainfall on Philadelphia and it's left me feeling murky in more ways than one. All the gray is depressing, the inability to work in my yard is depressing, and the damp smell permeating everything is depressing. I totally dig that I could go out in the rain and garden, it might even be easier to weed that way, with the ground all moist, but I garden for fun, and being damp and cold doesn't spell fun in my dictionary. Endless indoor activities leave me feeling restless and bitchy. I never thought I'd get enough of watching movies and reading comics, but enough is enough.

If I were a more positive up-speaker, I'd say, "let's make lemonade." Let's get all that house-cleaning done, let's do those indoor maintenance projects, let's file all those old financials. But the rain puts me in a negative mood, which you probably got from the first paragraph, so none of that is gonna happen.

I could do some real work. I have a script that's ready to be rewritten, a couple things to research and plan for a new script, or I could digitize some documentary footage that ain't gonna edit itself, but it's raining and I just want to stay inside. But if I do that, I'll probably want to watch baseball and the Phillies do nothing but lose these days, so that won't help my attitude.

You see my problem? It's what I call a blue funk. It doesn't require medical intervention or a leather couch and sympathetic ear or prescriptions, it just begs for drawn shades, whiskey, and Chet Baker on the stereo.

School's In Session

The gates have officially opened and the summer movie season has begun once again, in all its CGI glory. Reams of print and gigs of storage will be devoted to the joint reverence and griping these films will inspire from professional and amateur critics, as well as bloggers with no real business writing about films.

What's going to rule the box office? What will be the designated indie darling that all the "adults" will go see? What will be the biggest disappointment?

You'll have to wait until September for the answers to those questions, and I'm not going to even attempt making a guess. What I am going to do is take all the would-be writers out there back to school for session of "What can you learn from Hollywood?" It's quite fashionable (especially in film schools) to thrust your nose in the air and piss on everything that Hollywood does, claiming it's the end of cinema. If you have that attitude, good luck to you, but stop reading right now. All I'll say in this column is: ignore Hollywood at your peril.

So, if you're a writer, your lesson this week is based on Star Trek, the reboot of the entertainment franchise that's been running since the late 60s. The film has been doing well at the BO, which you can read about if you want, and we all know that box office alone is not a judge of quality; well, at least all of us who saw Wolverine. The interesting thing is that this film seems to transcend the fanbase, and is crossing over to the movie-going public at large, something Watchmen failed to do.

How does Star Trek do it? Certainly, the special effects are up to Hollywood standards for sci-fi movies, the score is rousing and energetic, the performances are competent; in other words, all the elements are there, but frankly, that's not enough. Yes, writers, the reason for the success of the film is, in fact, the writing. There are plenty who will disagree with me, but oddly enough, they've all been bitter writers, and there's nothing more bitter than a writer who sees something better than his or her own work.

In a nutshell, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman found a solution to the curse of any franchise film, which is how do you actually tell a new and engaging story, while not violating any of the previously established canon in the franchise? They concocted a way to both acknowledge the 40+ years of Trek entertainment, and free themselves from it at the same time. Their time-travel solution was doubly-elegant because time-travel plots are a staple of the Trek universe. What is truly admirable, from a writing standpoint, is that they use one of the most basic concepts of film - the reverse - and apply it to our story expectations. Time Travel, as a concept in most sci-film films, and especially Trek, is usually about going back to correct something that sets their current timeline back to "normal". In the film, they reverse that concept, and abandon the future "normal" which contains the 40+ years of things we know (and that the fanboys would continuously hold the filmmakers to) in favor of the new past. That the writers executed this with a grace and elan rarely seen in a Hollywood blockbuster gives them enormous amounts of credit to expend on the next inevitable film.

Take the lesson for the day and apply it to your own writing. Make it smart and clever, no matter what the subject, and you'll have a better film.