writing is sorrow; having had written is sublime
This amazing short film is trending on youtube. I don’t always check to see what’s trending on youtube because usually there are only inane things I have no interest in; however, I may have to start checking more often if there is the chance that there is more quality art to discover such as this quality production.
Interestingly/oddly, the film is based upon a video game created by Lucas Pope.
Perhaps there is hope for humanity after all…
#prayforartforartishumanityshope
So, I was thinking (yes, I understand the risks)…
But, I was thinking, just imagine if each of the 25,109 and growing followers of this humble site were to donate just $1.00 to help me fund my film LEAVE…
Just imagine how much that would be!
Keep in mind that I am a product of the United States public school system, and that, by design, my higher level degrees have absolutely nothing to do with math, so my calculations may be a bit suspect…
But I believe that if every one of the 25,109 followers were to donate $1.00 to help me fund my film, that would come to the heavenly financial figure of… [finger cipher]…
$25,109.00!
Now that there would be a whole lotta of cheeze and it would help me in a whole lotta ways in realizing my cinematic dream called LEAVE.
Now, I’m a practical man (not!), and I know all 25,109 of you donating $1.00 each to support my dream is an impossible expectation…
But, let’s consider what you get here for free 24-hours a day, 7-days a week, 365-days a year non-stop and in perpetuity for as long as our pretty yet petulant planet revolves around the sun that may help motivate you towards donating that $1.00…
You get to publish your work to the RELATING TO HUMANS feature…
You get the IABS&R…
You get occasional “PRO-TIPS”…
You get LITERARY ZEN…
You get ARTWORK?…
You get HUMOR…
You get HEALTH advice…
You get MOTIVATIONAL ADVICE…
And you get so much more.
But, even with all this free stuff created just for you forever floating around here, I understand that my hope of everyone donating even just $1.00 is an impossible expectation.
But then again…
AND SO IS THE TRIBE WINNING THE WORLD SERIES!
BUT IT’S THE YEAR OF “BELIEVELAND” BABY!
THIS YEAR, ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!
WHICH MEANS, WITH YOUR HELP
LEAVE IS POSSIBLE!
…
Uhm…
Too much, right?
Yeah.
Sorry ’bout that…
Anyway…
Please donate what you can, if you can, my friends >> BELIEVE IN LEAVE.
Thank you.
What a night at the Oscars, eh?
Big night for diversity and sexual assault awareness.
While it’s no longer cool for us to say “boys will be boys”… I believe it’s still within the legal PC bounds of good taste to say “Chris will be Chris.”
He did a pretty good job of calling out all the major inequality themes re: Hollywood that’s been on everyone’s minds and tongues for the past few months. Though he did go a little easier on the Establishment and a lot harder on Jada than I expected.
I thought his most pointed call-out wasn’t a race issue but a gender equality issue when discussing the absurdity of having both a Best Actor and a Best Actress category. “It’s not as if they are running a track and field event and Robert De Niro has to say, ‘Whoa, I better slow down my acting so Meryl Streep can catch up…” It’s worth your time to search for and watch Rock’s opening monologue. It should be easy enough to find.
I was pretty bummed when Lady Gaga didn’t win the award for Best Song (or whatever the official nomenclature is) after her highly emotional and powerful performance of “Till It Happens To You.” But when Sam Smith gave his amazing acceptance speech calling on for equality and encouragement for the LGBT community I was like, okay… he’s cool.
But to me, Lady Gaga’s performance was definitely the highlight of the night and one of the most moving performances I’ve seen in a while. At least since her performance of the US National Anthem at the Super Bowl… which was also quite impressive. She’s quite the talent, that’s for sure.
As far as the movie stuff goes, I can’t really comment much because until I see the Oscars I never realize how many movies I haven’t seen throughout the year.
I’m happy and unsurprised that Leo won for Best Actor. Pretty impressive speech he gave re: The Environment. Of course it was a given he would speak about environmental issues knowing how passionate he is about the subject. And it also makes sense to discuss it seeing how critical Nature was to the success of his film. [See: The Revenent: It’s Really Good (for a laugh)]
I’m less happy that Tom Hardy did not win Best Supporting Actor and very surprised that, if Tom didn’t win it, they didn’t just give it to Sly Stallone for sentimental reasons (it certainly wouldn’t be for any acting reasons). As a former Intelligence Community (oxymoron, I know…) guy, I have been meaning to see The Bridge of Spies so I cannot judge the dude who did win. I cannot even judge him based on his past performances because I don’t even have clue who he is (although there is a tinge of familiarity so I’m sure I’ve seen him in this or that).
As for Best Actress… didn’t see “The Room” or is it just “Room,” but just based on the clips shown Brie Larson looks like a worthy winner. As for Best Supporting Actress… didn’t see “The Danish Girl” but Alicia Vikander is definitely the “It Gal” of the moment so I assumed she would win.
While Mad Max swept all the technical and nitnoid whatnot awards, I thought for sure The Revenent would sweep the Big Three. It got two with Alejandro González Iñárritu winning Best Director (two years running now), and Leo’s win, but missed on the biggest of all.
Haven’t seen Spotlight, the winner, yet. I’m still waiting on it to hit Redbox and then I’ll have to wait until Redbox texts me a free movie night before I do. Yeah, I’m cheap like that.
As far as the presenters go… it seems that there is a budding bromance between Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling. They were quite funny together and could make a pretty good living as a comedic duo.
And did anyone else get confused between Kate Winslet and Patricia Arquette? Did they look like copies of each other because they were sharing the same pair of glasses? Or are they secretly Pond Crossing Twins?
Speaking of Patty Arquette, you should check her out on twitter and see the work she’s doing with the #EqualMeansEqual documentary that is in the works. As you probably know she’s a major, outspoken proponent for Women’s and Gender Equality Issues. She believes because she called out Hollywood last year in its poor record of equality in pay between men and women that she has lost several potential acting gigs from it. Check out the good stuff she has going on at @PattyArquette at the tweet machine.
As typical, Sasha Baron Cohen provided the most cringe-worthy moment. His “Ali G” skit is no longer fun(ny), as it now comes off to me only as being stale and rather desperate.
Still, all in all I thought The Oscars overall was a great show. One of the most entertaining in a long while.
I’m really looking forward to seeing what impact all the awareness to diversity this year will have on next year’s nominees.
Aaand… that’s a wrap.
One of my resolution solutions at the beginning of last year was to become involved in the art of script writing.
Of course, if you are a Newsletter Love subscriber – and why wouldn’t you be – you already know this.
But anyway…
I figured, heck, I love watching movies and I kind of love to write, and since I’ve already conquered the art of novel and poetry writing and have become wildly successful in these endeavors*, why not try something new.
So, I did.
But before I tried the writing, I did much, much reading about the “how tos” and “whatnots” of how one should go about writing a movie script.
Man**, little did I realize that Hollywood was so anal retentive when it comes to formatting.
Anyway, after surfing the web for some time, I found what has since become my go to resource:
There are many reference books out there for screenwriting but this one, I’ve found, is very easy to read and navigate through and David Trottier seems to have the Hollywood street cred so it satisfies my present incipient needs.
However, before I committed to his book, I spent a significant chunk of time at his awesome information-and-resource-filled website – you’ll find it easily enough by searching his name.
But more important to the establishment of my script writing foundation than Trottier’s bible has been – what you’ll find most successful writers recommending any newbie writer do, which is reading a ton of what it is you wish to write – reading and reading and reading Hollywood movie scripts.
They’re easy enough to find on the web. I even found a clunky but useful app for Windows. Just think of a movie you love and do a search. Chances are pretty high you’ll find an online copy of its script somewhere.
Hands down and without any doubt in my military mind the best script I read is Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction.” Pure genius and light. (Can’t wait to see “The Hateful Eight.”)
Second would probably be Zach Helm’s “Stranger Than Fiction.” Wonderful writing.
Hmm… I just realized that my two favorite scripts both have the word “fiction” in their titles.
Coincidence?
Or prophetic?
Anyway…
I enjoy playing the movies in my mind as I read through the script.
It really is magic how dreams can transform into words and how words can create reality… everything.
Typing that just gave me chills.
Here’s my first formatting tip for you: Notice the space after the ellipse in the sentence that just gave me chills? Yes, that is how Hollywood requires them to be written… one space will follow all ellipses.
You’re welcome…
So I began writing scripts of my own. Short scripts.
It wasn’t easy for me, especially at first. Like I said, the formatting requirements are ridiculous – and I don’t mean that in a good way like the kids are using the word these days.
Apart from the formatting requirements, the toughest adjustment for me was having to write everything – and here comes my second formatting tip – in the present tense.
And then, of course, when, after several months of writing in the present tense, I went back to working on my present novel WIP, I had a helluva time adjusting back to the past tense.
It was almost painful, actually.
Typing that just gave me chills…
But not the good kind like the last kind.
—-
Here’s an oldie but goodie:
The Past, the Present, and the Future all walk into a bar…
It was tense.
—-
Anyway, after a while, I then decided to adapt my short story “Leave” into a short film script.
Long story short (you can bet I’ll be drawing all this script writing stuff out for a long, long period of time here), I have an actor friend who has a director friend out in Hollywood who read the script and has agreed to film it (Name dropping to follow in subsequent posts).
How about that?
Sometimes New Year’s Resolutions do come true…
Well, we hope. We’re right at the beginning of the process so keep your fingers and toes and eyes and nose (nose crossing can be done if you commit yourself to it) crossed for me and the production. We’ll need all the support and hope and prayers we can muster.
We’re planning for a film shoot in March of this year out in Los Angeles; however, there is much that has to be aligned and completed before that can happen.
It mostly has to do with raising money, of course.
But more on all that later.
Much more…
In the interim, I invite you to check out “Leave” the short story that the script is based upon. You can get an e-edition at Amazon and elsewhere. But if you really can’t afford that 99 cents asking price (Amazon won’t allow me to give it away since it’s not enrolled in KDP), email me through my contact page and request a copy and I’ll send you one.
Cool?
Write on…
*at least I have in my own delusional/narcissistic mind…
**non-gender specific