Big week of development. Pulling my heart and head together. Tossing shards of doubt and anguish.
Thumbed through Crafty TV Writing by Alex Epstein again, focusing on chapters on sitcom beats and pitches. A good basis for Project Hostage but I feel the examples aren't detailed enough and perhaps outdated in terms of genre and pacing. Sorry, Magnum PI.
Listened to the commentary for Extras - Season 2 Christmas Special featuring writer-director-star partners Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. I wouldn't recommend it. The men even admitted they didn't know what to say. One bronze nugget I took away is that George Michael is a very natural actor and genuine personality.
Listened to Scriptcast episodes on scene writing, favourite superhero movies, selling loglines with Marie Rose, rising actress and blogger Alexandra Choi, The Big Lebowski, and web shorts. Matt Hill examined one argument that superhero movies were preventing quality films from being made. Hill was skeptical, figuring the superhero film phenomena was merely replacing last decade's mediocre action flicks. To his and my surprise, according to US box office stats, the most successful films of the 1990s were not action movies, but comedies and science fiction genre films. The list was impressive (and nostalgic): Liar Liar, Sister Act, Mrs Doubtfire, Jurassic Park, Independence Day and Terminator 2: Judgment Day . Compared to 2000s, superhero movies and their sequels absolutely dominated the US top ten. Hill lamented that movies like Terminator 2 probably wouldn't get produced in today's movie climate. That is a sad thought indeed.
I also took away the script doctors' tips to consider a scene going in three or four radically different directions - a very surprising and hilarious exercise for comedy writing I have found. In other news, apparently Larry David is the engineer of A and B storylines intersecting and resolving each other!
Watched Singing In The Rain and turned it off. Such corn and colour and rapidfire dialogue. At least Donald O'Connor and the noisy cinema scenes still impress.
Watched Girls season 2 episodes 3 and 4 and loved them. Three was a return to form. Four was a risky stand-alone, short-film-ish, thought-provoking triumph. I questioned Patrick Watson's place in it at the beginning, but ultimately, he delivered. As long as Lena Dunham continues to write, produce and act so fine, hey, by me, you are most worthy of nuding up if that's what you really like to do and want to share with the world and be essentially remembered for.
Watched season 1 of The Drew Carey Show which was a delightful reacquaintance. I paid close attention to the story beats and was finally able to attribute a joke that has stayed with me for years:
Drew meets his friends before a date. Oswald recoils.
Drew: What? Too much colonge?
Oswald: Too much - there was more??
Even so, if shot today, I don't believe I would watch this sitcom. While the comedy still stacks up and the tone is fundamentally charming, I feel the format is outdated (hint hint, Big Bang Theory; even you, Two and a Half Men; you shall never escape my scrutiny, Whitney). What's more, the 'Average Joe' premise doesn't appeal to me without that particular cast/generation of comedians.
Fleshed out 6 characters for the premise of Project Hostage I don't believe I'd have been able to do this as effectively going back twelve, even six months ago. The traits and backstories I used to think were cliche, now appeal to me quite considerably. With the right tweaks and detailing, I see many opportunities for nail-biting conflict and stew-brewin' tension.
Redrafted Project Homeless following some feedback from a friend. He didn't understand the underlying point/theme and I admit there wasn't one. The ending wasn't satisfying; I merely saw an opportunity for irony, which would do fine if it were a sketch. I considered writing a typically happy resolution, which bored me at first. But damn, it works for the story and writing it sans the corn has been a terrific challenge. It's closer to resembling a short film now, though, it is trajecting rather expensively.
Head aches, rain pours, waiting tables soon. Will draft tonight.
Claire.
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