Philly Screenwriter

Over the last 2 weeks I’ve made my way down to old city on numerous occasions to catch a few flix at the Philadelphia Film Festival. Alicia and I have been talking about going for the past 2 years or so but never made it  there. This year we caught 4 good movies and 1 not so good one. The first was Half Nelson staring Ryan Gosling which I liked a lot more then I thought I would. I picked this one because I’m fan of his and the director was giving a Q&A afterwards. While I thought some parts were very awkward I enjoyed this very much and got to ask the director, Ryan Fleck a question. Also in attendance was the young female lead in the film Shareeka Epps. She did a great job and was very excited to be in Philly as she wants to attend a local college here. Great movie followed by an even better Q&A.
The next film was the documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated which is about the MPAA ratings board and the rating system it uses. I highly recommend this one. Go see it when it’s released wide. The cut we saw was different then the one in Sundance and the director, Kirby Dick said he still has a few things to tweak before it’s released wide. The film uses film clips from well known movies to expose the hypocrisy of the ratings system in a funny, informative and entertaining way. The Egg people explaining what can and can’t be done in movies is classic. The film also interviews well known directors (John Waters, Kevin Smith, Kimberly Peirce, Matt Stone) who’ve had to deal with the MPAA’s self-righteous maneuverings.  Afterwards Kirby Dick fielded some questions and entertained the crowd before running out of time before the next movie screening. This movie was well worth it and made me want to see some of his other films.
Next was LOL. Before LOL the short film Fly was screened and received a warming applause. It was a funny 12 minute movie about a young man’s compulsive attention to his “fly.” After seeing this I had a feeling it was going to be better then the feature to follow. I was right. LOL is an 82 minute film that could have been cut now to the 12 minute running time of its opening act Fly. Most of the cast was in attendance as well as the director, and after the movie ended they took some questions from the crowd. The director announced that they film was not scripted and you could almost here the audience exhale and say, “That’s why it wasn’t good.” The Q&A did add a little incite which made some things make since but it was not enough we make me like the film even though I wanted too. After the Q&A they gave out CD’s which was cool but it was music from the movie, so it really didn’t matter. This film has been compared to the film Funny Ha Ha which I hated but many people love. I think the same thing that pulled me into that film pulled me into this one. A Young cast, young director and good trailer. The one thing I liked about this was that they were all happy to be at the screening and seemed truly excited.
On Saturday April 9th, we saw Hard Candy. Hard Candy comes out this weekend, GO SEE THIS MOVIE. This is an awkward and tense work of beauty. Ellen Page’s performance was amazing. One of the best torture scenes ever! Once again, GO SEE THIS MOVIE! The gripping suspense will have you stuck to the edge of your seat with an unease that’s gut wrenching but engaging. Do it, go see it, do it.
And lastly we saw One Last Thing… which has local ties with the writer, director and some cast members being local as well as some of the movie being shot in Marcus Hook, PA. This movie was very funny despite of the subject matter - a young man with a terminal illness makes an unconventional request on local television. The writer did a great job making you care for every character and handle the inclusion of religion with out making it seen preachy or forced. This is a great movie to see with a great cast to boot.In all, I had a great time at the film fest and will be attending next year. One thing I would have liked to see more of is people hyping there own films. I only had one person hand me a flier to go see his movie. I wish there were more people pimping there films. Hopefully next year I can hand out fliers to my film at this festival.

Dear Mrs. Muse,

Recently I’ve called on you a lot to help me with most of my writing. Sometimes you came, other times, not so much. Most of the time I sat around waiting for you to appear or pop into my head like you usually do. Well, Friday morning while I was at work, I waited and waited and waited some more, but you never came. If you didn’t know already by the way I’ve been avoiding you all day, I’m pretty mad! I count on you to help me write. I can’t do it all by myself, if I could, I wouldn’t sit staring at a blank page watching a cursor blink until my eyes blur over.

Lately we’ve done some pretty good stuff together and I appreciate your help, I really do. But, I’ve been doing some thinking. I know your a little on the Diva side and you want to come and go when you please. I totally understand that, it works for you. It’s just not working for me.

Now don’t get mad. I’m sure if you pop up again I’ll talk to you or even listen to what you have to say, but right now I’m going to have to do without you. I know your saying it will never work. Maybe it won’t. I just can’t sit around and wait for you anymore. How about this? I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll show up every day and write. If you want to, you can show up too. If you don’t feel like it then you can just go talk to my inner critic. I haven’t talked to him in awhile and I’m doing fine without him.

Best,

Cecil.

First, what I’m not doing:

I’m not hating myspace anymore.

I signed up after swearing I would never. For what I want to do it’s the perfect application. (More on that later)

I’m not buying a Canon XLs (Also more on that later)

Being indecisive about buying a mac.
I want a laptop and was considering getting the new mac book pro but the reviews aren’t favorable for what I want to do with it. It doesn’t run Final Cut Pro yet (as far as I know) and that’s the only reason I’d want to get it. I have Adobe Premiere for editing but I really want to learn and use FCP. So, right now, I’m not getting it.

Not checking comments posted to my blog (Sorry Carrcakes). I thought all comments were approved.

What I am doing:

I’m planning to shoot a short script that I wrote sometime this summer. I have a few more polishes and then it’s on to casting and location scouting. There will also be a lot of begging for favors

I am buying a PANASONIC AG-DVX100B with my tax return. I was planning on getting the Canon XL1s but after doing a little research I’ve found this is just what I need and at the right price

I also signed up for a myspace account to help promote this short. I have a myspace film account and once I figure out how I want to use it I will link to it from here.

I started thinking about ideas I want to write for a spec script of Grey’s Anatomy. I just watched all of the episodes from the first season and started to work on an outline. This is purely for my entertainment only as I have no plans for this once I’m done. If I think its any good, then I will let others read it. If they think its any good, I will maybe, maybe send it out. As of right now I’m only doing this to practice writing for T.V

Trying to find a way to make my page look right in Internet explorer.

I’ve been messing with code for a while and can’t get it to look right. It looks fine in firefox, Internet explorer, not so much

And lastly, I will be going broke and crazy very soon but it will be very fun.

A couple of months ago I took an online writing class at the Writer’s University in Television writing. I wrote a post about it here. In that class we had to pick a show to start the beginnings of what would become a spec. I chose Grey’s Anatomy because I had just started watching it around that time and had all the episodes on my DVR. The class didn’t turn out to good for me but I did learn a lot. One of the main things was to know the show before you start to try to write for it.

If you’re not a fan of Grey’s Anatomy, the main character is Meredith Grey. She usually starts and ends the show with a voice over. Last night when the show started I set expecting to hear the voice of Grey, as she’s called on the show, but in place of her voice I heard George, another character on the show. Immediately I thought, they cheated! How could George be doing the voice over? I didn’t have a problem with what they did, I thought it was actually cool, but isn’t this against the rules?

One of the problems I had with the online writing class was the instructor made a point about a show’s story being able to take place only in that show, otherwise it wouldn’t be that show. Example being, you could never write a CSI episode for Law and Order because that’s not the show Law and Order is. CSI wouldn’t work in that show. Since I picked Grey’s Anatomy as my show I had a hard time with this. Although I think Grey’s Anatomy is unique to it’s self, I think you could take an episode of ER and replace the characters and it would work. Another reason I  had a hard time with the class was because I thought the main character, Grey, was not the focus of most of the episodes or at least, the other character were more interesting then her. So I would write my episodes around the other characters. I was told that was wrong, but that’s just what the episode did last night.

Being as Grey’s Anatomy has a blog by the writers, the first thing I did was head over there to see what the writer said about this. Here is what she said:

The important thing to remember, though – is that while Meredith wishes things could go back to the way they were before the sex… (the way, I think, most of us have felt – or would feel - in similar situations…) George does not. And that’s huge. Because… before the sex – George was in limbo. But after the sex? As painful as the outcome was – he’s suddenly not. George knows exactly where he stands. There’s finally some closure. And that’s a good thing. It’s what will fuel him through the rest of the season…

Which is also why it was so important to break from tradition, and let George do the voice over for this episode. We needed to be inside HIS head. Hearing HIM tell us about karma. We needed to hear George explain how karma isn’t unfair – it isn’t unexpected – it just evens the score. Hearing George say that is what assures us that – even after all of this, he’s going to be just fine.

And so are we.

Will we be fine? I posted a comment over at the blog asking:

Isn’t George doing the voice over breaking one of the shows rules? If someone wrote a spec and did this, wouldn’t it have been looked at as that person not knowing the show up until this point? Now that it was done with George, can it be done with Izzy or anyone for that matter? Or was this a one time thing?

The posts are moderated and mine hasn’t been posted yet, but I hope it is and these questions answered. We always hear about how you need to follow the rules in Hollywood and know what you’re doing to break in, but how can we do that if the rules are broken by the very people who tell us not to do it?

UPdate: My post was posted along with a few others. Its funny, Alex Epstein thought the samething I thought saying:

Thought it was interesting you gave the VO to George. Together with Meredith’s increasing toxicity… I wonder if you’re moving away from Grey as a central character, given that she is the least interesting of all your fascinating personalities…

Read more about what he has to say on his blog here.

I’ve been planning to move this blog to another domain for awhile, while still in the works and not yet done, I plan on moving over to phillyscreenwriter, my new blog. I will keep this blog up because there are people, few people who do have live the beat as a bookmark. I will no longer post here though. I’m moving to wordpress so I can have more control over my post. I also plan on writing about more topics then just screenwriting so look forward to that.

The reason I’m moving early to a blog that is not completely designed the way I want it to be, is because 1) I’m not posting things that I could be posting because I was working on the design of the new blog and didn’t want to make any post until I start the new blog, 2) I really don’t have an idea about how I want the blog to look so instead of waiting and not writing I thought I would just start using the new domain and blog and work on it behind the scenes.

With that being said, head on over to Philly Screenwriter.com and check out the new blog.

I’ve updated the books I read last year as well as some new ones from 2006. I still have plans to move this blog to another name, my domain name, but I’m having trouble with setting up wordpress. Once all is said and done, the books from 2005 will get their own link/page and only the 2006 book will be on the front page.

The benchmake for every independent film is the Sundance film festival. Why? I have no idea. There are other film festivals that will do the same thing for an filmmakers or and actors career, but for some reason this is the first and only place that really count in peoples minds. Chalk it up to good company branding as well as marketing. Everyone wants the “Official Sundance selection or winner” placed on their film.

I plan on shooting a short this year and having it edited in time for, you guessed it, Sundance. This week the festival kicks off in Park City with a more films then any one person can see. The part of this film festival that I like the best is the Online Film Festival that they do for shorts. One reason is, you get to see what kind of films get into Sundance and find out if you may be able to come close to any one of them. This doesn’t seem hard with the quality of the films online, but being that I haven’t shoot a film yet, in my life, I’m sure its much harder then it looks. The second reason I like the online film festival is, I can’t get to Park City and see the films play at the theater and this may be the closest I ever get to see a Sundance.

Early today I watched the film DIVORCE LEMONADE which is only 7 minutes long but was very well done. You can check it out here
As well as some of the other short films. Next year keep an eye out for my short coming to a browser near you!
Divorce Lemonade

I don’t watch many award shows but I try and catch a few of the major ones. The Golden Globes happens to be one of the few I actually like. That being said I didn’t know about them being on until about an hour before they started. As I already had a date with a little show called 24, I figures I could just catch the after show or find out who won on the net the next day.

First the good. I was happy for Philip Seymour Hoffman who has been my one of my favorite actor for a long time. Very underrated. Boogie Nights, Almost Famous, Red Dragon, 25th Hour. The list goes on and on. If you don’t believe, just watch Along Came Polly and see how he took a small part in a movie and made it the only thing good about that movie. Also underrated, Mrs. Rachel Weisz’s win was well deserved.

It’s nice to see some of the older actor making a come back. Last year it was Teri Hatcher, this year it was Geena Davis. That was cool. I wish it could have been a three way tie between Zach Braff, Steve Carell and Jason Lee. I hope Steve Carell’s win will draw a bigger audience to The Office. Being in the new Thursday night line up, which is pretty good, should help. Sandra Oh’s win was also well deserved. Terrence Howard’s nom was cool too. Great actor!

The Bad. I know this was Hollywood’s year to come out of the closet with Brokeback Mountain and Transamerica’s Felicity Huffman winning big. But for Crash to go home globeless is really a shame. Crash was by far one of the best movie of last year as well as one of the best films to come along in awhile. When was the last time a movie came out, a fiction movie, and sparked people to have discussions about what they just saw on an intellectual level? Here in Philly, where I live, there were group discussions held after screenings of Crash. I haven’t heard or read from anyone who didn’t like this movie. I know they exist, because they have to. Not everyone likes everything. I find it hard to fathom that the screenplay didn’t at less win. And to not even get nominated for Best Picture – Drama is just blasphemy. Maybe it was the subject but I doubt it. Anyway, I hope that it wins an Oscar for something, anything!

I haven’t posted in awhile. Just chalk it up to plan old laziness. With the New Year, here is a new post.

Last year I did a lot of things I set out to accomplish. Most feel short. I had planed on reading 15 – 20 books. I got to 11 as you can see on the side of this blog. The highlights of those were Improbable by Adam Fawer. Making Memories by a co-worker of mine was an also a favorite. I’ve never read an unpublished book and doing so was a wonderful experience. I wish I had the means to keep focused on one thing that long. The broker was the worst book I read this year. Another thing set out to do was take more classes in subjects that interest me. Last year I took the beginning television writing class at the writer’s university. This class was way too hard for me. I wouldn’t say this was a beginner’s class. Maybe it was but not for me. I did learn a lot from this class, one being that I have a lot of work to do.

The other class I took was an acting class. This was my second acting class. I’m not sure if I took the class the first one in 2005 or 2004. This class was with Mike Lemon of Mike Lemon casting here in Philly. I had fun in this class and met a lot of cool people I hope to keep in touch with.

Here is a list of all the movies I’ve seen this year. The ones I saw in the theater will have a (T) next to them. All others where on DVD.

Assault on Precinct 13

Hitch (T)

Diary of a Mad Black Women

Hostage

Sin City (T)

A Lot Like Love (T)

Crash (T)

Mindhunters

Layer Cake

Star Wars: Episode III (T)

Mr. and Mrs. Smith

High Tension

Batman Begins (T)

Wedding Crashers (T)

Hustle & Flow

The 40 Year-Old Virgin (T)

The Exorcism of… (T)

In Her Shoes (T)

Elizabethtown (T)

Saw 2 (T)

Jarhead (T)

Rent (T)

The Family Stone (T)

Of all those, I enjoyed Rent, Crash, Hitch and Sin City the most.

The one that I wanted to like the most but turned out hating; Elizabethtown.

The one that I wanted to hate the most but turned out loving; The Family Stone.

Enough with last year. Let’s look forward. I plan to continue taking more classes this year. I plan to read 20 – 25 books this year as I read better and faster then I did at this time last year. This year will be the year where I shoot the short script I wrote. I have two feature scripts I plan on having done by the end of the year.

I want to post more on my blog, so the subject matter will be a little broader. There will also be a new website where I will host this blog under a different name. So check for that soon.

I’m pretty sure I could list more stuff but I’m to tired and have a New Years Cold so I don’t feel like doing anymore. 2006 will have more post, I promise! May you have as much success in 2006 as you allow yourself.

With my acting class approaching fast I had to choose which monologue I was going to perform. As I said in the last post my last monologue was a little too hard for someone with no acting experience. With this class I wanted pick something that was more on the comedic side, but with a little drama mixed in.

I chose a monologue from the play Dinner With Friends by Donald Margulies. The monologue goes as followed:

I don’t know about you, but I’m at the point in my life where I want to enjoy myself. I don’t want to go through life hoping I’m gonna get lucky with my own wife. You know? You go to bed and you think you’re gonna have sex and then you say something, some kind of offhanded remark of no consequence whatsoever, and it pisses her off and the mood is gone and it’s lights out and that’s it. I must’ve masturbated more then any married man in history.

I’m not asking for it twenty-four hours a day, all I’m asking for is a little affection.

No, Gabe, there were no other women. There were opportunities, though. I mean, when you’re out of town as much as I am… You’re lonely, you’re far from home, it doesn’t seem like you’re living in real time. I’d be in a hotel bar and strike up a conversation with a female colleague, or some divorcee with big hair, and I’d make them laugh and they’d look pretty and I’d feel competent again, you know?, and think, gee maybe I am still clever and attractive after all. There’d be that electricity in the air, that kind of buzz I hadn’t felt since college, remember?, when a single move, and move at all, and there’d be sex? But I’d get scared and say goodnight and go back to my room and call Beth out of guilt, or hope, and get some shit about something I neglected to do or did badly. Well, by the time I met Nancy — she made me feel good from the first time I talked to her on the phone — I hadn’t even laid eyes on her yet — she booked all my travel.

She had this great laugh and this flirty sense of humor, and she said, “We’ve been talking for weeks, I want to meet you already!” And I began to think, Why the hell not? What am I saving myself for? This hypercritical woman waiting for me back home? Who looks at me with withering disappointment. All the time. This accusatory, how-could-you-be-so-thoughtless look. So, on one hand, there’s this delightful women who makes me feel worthwhile and there’s this other women, my wife, who makes me feel like shit. Who would you choose?

Nothing to hard but challenging enough. The class starts on Tuesday Nov. 15th. I’ll update on the Wednesday after. Wish me luck!