He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother.

Conversation with my Brother.

KID
You gotta watch this, it's a great film.
Meaning: You gotta watch this,
it's a great film.

MY BROTHER
But is it actually good?
Meaning: Is it good like 'normal'
good, or good in your artsy,
foreign, nothing-happens,
filmy-person type way?

To say our tastes differ is an understatement. Although, we both love 'Cool Runnings.'

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Life Is Just A Series Of Facebook Events, But Your Screenplay Can't be.

"Remember the time you drove all night
Just to meet me in the morning
And I thought it was strange you said everything changed
You felt as if you'd just woke up"
-Bright Eyes.

Life is basically just a bunch of appointments and Facebook events. You leave the house at 7am, you go to work. You have a 39 minute lunch break, you go to the doctors, then you go and meet your friend for a quick drink which ends sooner than it should because you need to be home to watch that thing on TV, then you go to bed because you have to be up at 7am.

When we write in this manner - it really kills our screenplays. Often when you're writing, you dream ahead in obvious, logical ways. For example, your characters are sitting in their apartment, and you need to get to the office scene. So after the INT. HOME scene, you have the EXT. HOME scene, followed by the INT./EXT. CAR scene, followed by the INT. OFFICE scene. It's logical. It's how life is. It's also very boring.

If you find yourself writing in this logical way, it's time to close the laptop and dream a bit further. Unless your story is about the mundanity of life, then it's important, I feel, to go in a different direction.

Don't write about the time you met a friend to go see a movie, don't write about two guys walking into a meeting, don't write about two stoners sitting playing Xbox. That might be a part of your life - but it's not the part of your life that is interesting.

Write about the time you showed a girl a part of her neighborhood she's never seen before. Write about the time you turned up at your friend's house at 4am to deliver a birthday cake, write about the time your girlfriend accidentally dropped a kitchen knife on your foot (okay, maybe that wasn't an accident), write about the time you stayed up all night singing songs with strangers, write about the time you stole something, ran from something, changed something.

Now, what is it which makes a scene interesting? If you see a man coming through a doorway, it means nothing. If you see him coming through a window - that is at once interesting.
-Billy Wilder.

If you have a scene where two friends are meeting by a parked car, you may be tempted to write this scene.

EXT. CAR
Katharine sees Will, standing by the car.

KATHARINE
Hey.

WILL
Hey.

KATHARINE
You ready to go?

WILL
Sure. If the car is working.

But by taking an extra nine seconds to think about the scene-- you can do it in a more original, and interesting way.

EXT. CAR
Katharine arrives. Will is nowhere to be scene.

WILL (O.S.)
I'm here.

Katharine looks around.

KATHARINE
Will?

WILL
I'm under the car.

KATHARINE
Why?

WILL
Trying to fix it.

KATHARINE
You don't know anything about cars.

WILL
I just snapped something.

Katharine looks around, panicked.

KATHARINE
Hold on, Will, this isn't even your car!

Or something else:

EXT. STREET - DAY
Katharine storms into view and throws her hands up in the air.

KATHARINE
Where is the car?

WILL
I thought we were going by bicycle?

KATHARINE
No.

WILL
Oh.

KATHARINE
You don't even have a bicycle.

WILL
I thought you would bring them.

Life is mostly boring. We meet our friends for coffee, we talk about our struggles, and then get home safely in time to watch our favorite TV shows. This is life. BAD writers write about this; lots of hispter people sitting around coffee houses talking. You know you're having a bad day when these are the scenes you are writing.

Instead, have the characters sitting on trees, making fires in the forest, making fires on 5th Avenue, have them dancing in offices, have them doing paperwork during dance class; do something different. It can still be realistic. Realism in film isn't about having characters who are home for dinner at 6pm. It's about having characters eat their dinner at 8am in the morning and having the audience believe that they would.

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Creatively Bankrupt.

I feel a really strong urge to write a blog post tonight, but have nothing to say. It's strange, feeling compelled to create something despite having absolutely nothing of interest to say.

This must be what it's like to be a Hollywood film producer.

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Thinking & Dreaming: In Search Of Me At 13.

There is a channel changing kind of process that happens in the mind. It's what happens when you're trying to get to sleep, and you're thinking about that hot girl who works in the shop near where you live, when suddenly-- without realising it, you start thinking about a dancing elephant who goes by the name of Dave, who keeps yelling "I want more turkey!". You snap out of it. You laugh to yourself about the fact you were just thinking about an elephant called Dave who demands more turkey.

The thing is, the place where you found the elephant --- that's the place where all your greatest ideas are. It's just so hard to get there.

When you open up FinalDraft and stare at the clean white page; you have a very specific job. To write stuff. So you start doing a very purposeful, conscious thing, you ask yourself; who are the character's? What are they doing? Why are they doing it? How will they do it? What is stopping them doing it? If you're lucky, you may at some point hit a button on the keyboard. But more often, you won't.

I love making my way home from the local train station-- knowing I have a fifteen minute walk with just me and the music in my ears. It allows me to dream and drift in ways I am not totally controlling. It is inevitable that during this process; it happens -- the magic genie presents, out of nowhere, a perfectly conceived idea for a film about a baseball team who tragically die in a train crash only to be reincarnated as expert sandwich makers. The idea, at this point, is at its most golden.

Getting back home and in front of the page; it's difficult to hold onto the spirit of that idea. And it's because you kind of clock-in as a writer, and the dreamer gets left behind.

The interesting thing about the moment when a good idea first gets delivered in a small envelope to the little imagination dump in your brain-- is that it is completely clear of any kind of critical voice. I think we've all had this moment-- the moment where you're laughing hysterically with a friend at 2am because you're certain that the incident where you fell over an ice cream cone and landed on a small lady called Mrs. Fudgebaker would make for a perfect movie. The idea is SO golden at this point of time.

If only we could stay there! Unfortunately, the minute you get into the idea; a little ugly man appears in your head saying "Pathetic! You're useless! Your ideas suck! You're not relevant! No-one will buy it! No-one will understand it! You're not a writer! You're not worthy! No wonder she dumped you! You are not allowed dinner tonight! Forget it! Give up!" And then you write nothing.

Your favorite movie is your favorite movie because it's your favorite movie. It is better than the movie that you just thought up - by virtue of the fact that it actually exists. Someone dared to make it. Before that, someone dared to write it. And as you count up the times you chickened out of writing a film, as you count up all the scattered 3-pages of notes that pop up in random corners of your home --- the realization dawns; the ugly voice in your head telling you that you suck is COMPLETELY RIGHT; up until the point you ignore him, or at least send him out for groceries and get on with writing. At some point, before the day you die; you may as well just at least attempt to write what is truly in your heart, or at least go in search of it. Because only then can you, or a producer, or anyone, do anything with it.

To do that, you need to access the dreaming part of yourself. The part that gets excited. The part of yourself that abandoned normal life, aged 13, and instead opted to watch films again and again and again. Where can you find this part of yourself? I don't know. I can only talk for myself. When I was younger; I loved making mix tapes for people, I loved getting lost in music, I loved watching all of Tom Hanks' films again and again and again. I loved watching really crappy movies on TV at 2am.

BUT WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME I DID THOSE THINGS AND DID THEM CONSISTENTLY? Do I do them enough -- or am I too caught up in trying to succeed? Trying to make a living? Trying to pay the bills? Trying to impress people around me? Trying to be what people expect of me? ------ What happens when I focus on them things?

When I worry about what people expect, or what script readers want, or what I need to do to succeed--- that is when Mr. Ugly pops up in my head and tells me my writing and life is a train wreck. But he never did that back when I used to excitedly discover dozens of amazing songs every night, or when I would go to the front porch and pick up a shiny new VHS copy of the Tom Hanks flop 'The Money Pit'.

There's a boxing fight taking place. In the red corner, are all my passions and joys; all the things that make this stuff amazing. In the blue corner, are all the pressures and assumptions and all the things that make this shit HARD. And the blue corner has been ruthlessly smashing the red side to pieces.

It's time to wake up. It's time to remember where I came from, remember how it felt; give myself an Al Pacino pep talk; and get on with business. I could be wrong, and I hate to assume - but my inclination, is that some of you need to do the same.

Self-criticism only tends to come around when the stakes are high. The voice in the mirror is more likely to tell you that you look pathetic before a date than before making a piece of toast. The point is - every time you go to write, you have your trusted friend to smash you to pieces. Find ways to alleviate the pressure. I don't know how. But the more you return to the original joy that inspired you back when you were 13, the more you will be able to find and nurture original and personal ideas -- and put them down on the page.

Am I in tune
Yea can't hear much
But the melody coming from you
Baby please don't rush
Keep the tempo slow and you
Let me hear the words you say
Let's go and get tangled in chains of golden days
-The Damnwells

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Where Did That Idea Come From? And Why Today?

Ideas are strange. You can be sitting around for four months desperately trying to force something out, and nothing happens. And then on a random Tuesday morning you have an idea about a German Politician who is mistaken for a waste disposal expert; and you realize it's GENIUS. You begin writing immediately.

Why does it happen on a random Tuesday? And why does it happen when you were preparing to spend the day watching 'Curb Your Enthusiasm'? There are many reasons where the source of ideas are obvious. Mainly, if you are someone who is social, or meets new people a lot, or goes to interesting places. But if you're me, it's more likely you'll spend four days sitting at home eating cereal. In which case, naturally - creative ideas are hard to come by. But why, 3.2 days into 4 days of nothingness do you suddenly, without explanation, get the sudden idea for a thriller-mystery about the kidnapping of the entire staff of the Coca Cola Company.

I am beginning to find the fact I have ideas more interesting than the ideas themselves. I sit there thinking 'wow, all I was doing was buying books on eBay and talking to Natalie on Facebook when suddenly I got an idea about an environmental activist who gets killed by an angry bunch of wild animals.' Why now? How did that happen?

It's very strange. The other morning, after an extended period of no-interesting-writing-happening-at-all, I wrote a short 16 page script in about forty minutes. And it's unlike anything I've written before (although it uses the same 26 alphabet letters). Where it came from, I have no idea.

So; where do these ideas come from? If we find out, can we go there more often? Also, if my mind knows instantly whether an idea is great or terrible, then why do I spend so long, so often, trying to work on the really bad ones?

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