SabreScribe

Delgo: My Pathetic Post Mortem

2008-12-30T11:22:00.011+02:00

Neglecting, I know. And this blog isn't even in preschool yet.
I'm too busy pulling my hair out over the second act.

But, I just have to say this.

Delgo failed because of one thing: Naivanity™.
That's right. It's not pure vanity as they didn't really prance around thinking they're better than everyone. But they did erroneously assume they know best when it came to their pioneering project.

And dude. That was case closed before you even started.

All the star stud won't do diddly to garnish the plexes if you don't spend your HR on a more important department first: Story.

If you come out of nowhere, telling a story nobody has ever heard of, you best fatten that script like the golden foie gras poultry you need it to be.

You bring in Chris fucking Vogler to tell you your script's stock is showing and how you should go about stitching it up.

You hire Brenda Chapman or Chris Sanders or Burny Mattinson (If you can't afford Ted & Terry, no offense, guys.) to doctor the shit out of your screenplay because you need a big Primus Pilus gun to lead your campaign if you're going against empires like Pixar or DreamWorks with a handful of centuriae.

And brazenly broadening my conceited critique to an equally fatal failed component:
You enlist either Tom Hester, Raman Hui or Buck Lewis, who are each a virtuoso in rendering hideous yet sympathetic characters, to consult on how to create anthropomorphic protagonists who are both exotic AND accessible. Hell, Farzad Varahramyan. Your art director already worked for him. (Or hey, get a twofer on Sanders.)
Seriously, what's with the TSR b-side character design?

Original intellectual property is the most exciting, and gradually the rarest. Believe in yourself and your vision to the max. But no matter how many advertising accolades you receive, when you enter feature animation your creative clout is Shrek green. So assume you don't know jack.
You cannot afford NOT to second guess your artistic decisions, and not with your circle of colleagues and industry contacts. But off a seasoned veteran who already paid dues when you were a fetal blueprint.
I'm not saying follow blindly. New blood is the best blood. But always keep a merlin in your court. At least until you get reasonably handy with the wand yourself.

I know it's easy as hell to find faults in a failure. And if I seem a bit mad it's probably because I'm a bit mad.
Fathom Studios were carrying the banner of an indie revolution which resulted in such an unprecedented resounding destruction it will no doubt resonate with potential investors of similar future projects. Indie feature animation has just taken a slight step back.

And it's really not about the cast or the animation quality as so many others take a whack at. Because both Woody Allen and Albert Brooks, who aren't exactly Zac Effron or Miley Cyrus, still headlined two animated features which made a kill.
And kids don't hold production value as the highest priority. Case in point: Power Rangers.

It's about humility and objectivity.

Hopefully, I one day prove to be a cool young dad, with fresh ideas and a long term vision on how to raise my child. But it doesn't mean foregoing the aid of seasoned experts regarding the health and education of my kid.

It's about playing your cards right, and it's about being wiser than yourself.

Rant vented. I hope somebody listened. And I hope Delgo breaks even via international sales. This was a very courageous venture for Marc Adler, which doesn't deserve an extinction level event I wouldn't even wish on the Transformers. But that's another story...

Synthetic Saccharine and Melancholy

2008-12-15T10:54:00.005+02:00

Just the way I love it.

Ladyhawke - Magic

Listen to more Ladyhawke.

Camerimage 2008

2008-12-09T10:08:00.003+02:00

Daniel Pearl just dropped us a line at the MV mailing list, informing Kasper Tuxen Andersen has won the music video cinematography award this year for Dave Gahan's Kingdom.

Very glad to hear, as I think he had it coming, being all talented and shit. Only one year my senior and beating out powerhouses like Cronenweth.

Me? Bitter?

I kid, I kid.

The Stalker Overture

2008-12-08T18:02:00.005+02:00

If only this was a Tarkovsky reference...

I have written an adrenalin laden sequence to start off the story and introduce what my main characters are usually up to, and throw the ~~audience~~ prospect reader into the world with urgency and velocity.

This all played out quite nicely and wrapped up quite in time for the turn of the infamous page 10. Or did it?

Apparently, my subconscious felt so bad about simply stirring up inconsequential shit, that it proceeded to hostilely take over my fingers and tie the opening sequence into the main plot in reverberating pulses.

That's all very nice of my id, but what started as a simple linear story I deliberately chose as my feature foray, has now turned into a complex conundrum, the resolution of which my brain doesn't want to let me in on.

What. The. Fuck.

Putting up cards on the board in a grid just won't cut it as it is. It should be tree view flowchart if I'm gonna make any sense of it. And I really don't have the wall space.

Scrap it?
I'm not sure going ahead with the Johnny Gossamer twistorama will accommodate my plans of not having an ulcer.
All I wanted to write was just... argh. Can't say it. Damn it.
Of course a more elaborate story will enrich the impact, but can also create a fine mess in my rookie hands.
So what? Rewrite a new, detached opener?

Compromise?
Diminish the role of the opening chapter? Of course, it's probably the optimal choice, but also the trickiest one. Hard to flash your audience and then say "Fshew, crazy, wasn't it? Now forget about it. Has nothing to do with the stuff going on right now."
Plus, the id monster isn't going to let it slide very smoothly.

Advice, anyone?

Lebbeus Woods on the visual composition of words

2008-12-07T20:38:00.002+02:00

Pagespace.
Nothing new, but nicely put.

Lebbeus Woods is (mostly) an architecture theorist whose cinematic contributions can be seen in 12 Monkeys and Alien³.

Foetus Interruptus

2008-12-05T21:17:00.005+02:00

I'm barely in the beginning of my angst ridden quest to even become a bottom feeding baby writer. I'm aware of at least that much.
But still, I can't get it into my thick skull. The fact the I lack skill and experience. And that all writers churned out shitty first drafts for shitty first screenplays before they got to the version even their spouses were allowed near.

Self censorship is probably my main supervillain. Tied into that godawful bible syndrome - the fear that once I write something, it's compiled and sealed. And it's hard as hell to go back to it and force yourself to see the code through the blondes, brunettes and redheads.
And deconstruct it.
And revise it.
While trying my best not to look at the text as a foreign mass I no longer identify with.

And all the brain food from The Mann et al and all the Tharpisms I know to be true just can't seem to get through the BBB in big enough dosage.

So here we come back to square one. Telling yourself it's OK.
That shitty first drafts and rewrites are a part of life.
And that guilt and frustration aren't really the best building blocks for productivity.
And that it's also OK that you haven't internalized it yet.

And that weed would most probably make the transition period a lot smoother.

Oh, there you go... Damn you, Apatow!

Guilt Reduced Procrastination

2008-12-05T13:47:00.008+02:00

is what it is, really. But at least I can tell myself I'm still writing. At least I'm not grinding in Azeroth.
Of course, minimum guilt procrastination would be writing another screenplay while trying to pretend like you don't feel the Final Draft icon staring you in the back like a half erect guy who just got cockblocked by the girl on the edge of his bed, following 30 pages of foreplay.
And I was so happy I had a first act. Never show god you're happy, kids.

The short backstory is, I'm a 29 year old guy from Israel, who quit his job as a web content and product manager to do world class crazy shit like trying to break into Hollywood via spec screenplay.
And may god have mercy on us all.

Well, fuck all the Koepps and Goyers with their "Writer's block? What's that?" rap. Every time I foolishly watch a CS interview, it's like the impotence syndrome. "Oh sure, I hear it happens to a lot of folks. Nope. Sorry, never had a problem there."

I keep checking Snopes for an entry on this "writer's block" so I don't embarrass myself blurting out this preposterous urban legend, with the prompt response of "nonsense, you're probably just lazy."

Can't argue there. Goddamnit.

If my Doc Brown calculations are correct, my savings are gonna last me around 3-4 months, after which I will need to whore my cubicle ass out again.
And I'm not letting the fact that it took me two months to get this far scare me. The sweat on my hands is just the gallons of alcohol I used to drown the stress, see?

To my knowledge, there are no more than five Israeli screenwriters who have successfully
sold a script in Hollywood. Half of them (that's right, 2.5) grew up in the states anyway and ALL of the scripts were crap. None genre, BTW. Unless you include half assed political thrillers (which they didn't even write the actual screenplay for) a genre.
And please, don't.

I'm babbling, aren't I? I can already see Mystery looking at me on the monitor, shaking his head, analyzing the fact that the babe is looking around uncomfortably over my shoulder, like you need a Pick Up Artist, Ph.D. to John Madden it to death.

But if I had something interesting to write, I wouldn't be here, now would I?

Lesson learned from screenwriting thus far:
Robert McKee is a genius.

In making so many people buy his crap.

Seriously, I'm fast forwarding through this thing like Atonement mislabeled as porn, and all I took from the first half is a couple of anecdotes that are not even his and perhaps four catchphrase style rules which may sometime come in handy.
I swear I could cut this down to fit your wallet and keep all the substance.
I guess if this is your only education...

But man, this guy can texturbate like 10 Woody Allens on pot. (Shivers.)

Speaking of wordwanks, I should probably end this session, and decide to do something if I'm not writing instead of dragging the entire day on Shyftr. Pineapple Express it is.

Mini goal: get on Rogers' spec monkey sidebar. Epstein next.

I didn't really say anything about my (pretend) script. Surprise, surprise it's high concept, how else. And somewhat genre bending (*cough*pretentious ass*cough*). The premise can be basically summed up in two pretty cool standalone words, which I've actually never seen or heard being juxtaposed. (YA RLY.)

Later.

P.S. No current music thingie here? Should I LJ like Javi?