Cryptic: The Screenplay

Having completed one feature length screenplay to my satisfaction and enjoying the act of writing it very much, I have begun a new script, starting today, in the hope that I might do it more often, and also the hope that it wasn't a one-off fluke.

It's called Cryptic, and it is an adventure movie, with traps and puzzles and chases and good guys and bad guys and epic locations and exotic lands and ancient cultures.

So far I have completed the synopsis. This is so I have some structure to follow as I write, and so I don't forget anything as I go. It's a remarkably useful aspect to writing, as it's easier to keep in mind where it's going, and therefore whenever I get stuck I am armed with information on how things need to go, which is where I need to get the ideas that fill in the blanks.

My biggest strengths in writing are dialogue, and filling in the gaps between major scenes. I'm really good at keeping the story moving along. And that's key to making a good movie - you don't want people sitting around talking about nothing, each scene needs to move along. This can be as simple as travelling to a new location, or as complicated as explaining exposition in a creative way so it doesn't sound artificial (really difficult).

I don't like films that are not paced in this way. Writers who tend to be all about character, and ignore any semblance of plot, are the worst. This is why I don't like Kevin Smith. His films have about five minutes of plot, and two hours of irritating socially inadequate nerds ranting about Star Wars. Horrible crappy nonsense, and yet unfeasibly popular amongst geeks who seem to tolerate anything that has mention of Star Wars in it.

Anyway, what this means is a genre like adventure movies, which are all about going from place to place, exciting action sequences one after the other, and a lot about characters who are willing to take risks and leap into dangers, should be within my capabilities.

But there is a problem. This is a genre that is becoming increasingly more common, and therefore is often done badly. This in itself makes it a challenge, and I don't pretend I have the magic for this kind of film. I'm not as confident with this genre as I am with mediaeval fantasy. Though I've seen a lot of adventure movies, the idea is to switch off and enjoy the ride, which I do, and therefore they aren't something I've thought about much past the superficial. This may mean either that I completely miss the nuances that go towards making it a good example of the genre, and so will make a very superficial script, or it may mean that, as I haven't over-analysed things, I won't get too bogged down in details that don't really matter, and should create something relatively fresh.

One thing I have decided is to have no supernatural elements in the story. I think that's part of what makes the idea unique, so I shall stick with it to the end. But it is easy to see how that might be a good way to spice it up. The biggest of these epics these days tend to have huge armies of CGI warriors erupting out of the sand, which makes for exciting spectacle, but you risk losing your connection with the characters. It's a fine balancing act that you have to keep in order to make a movie fun, within budget, but also fresh and new. The National Treasure movies are great and don't have masses of CGI armies. The Librarian movies are low budget but try to squeeze in supernatural elements at every stage of the story. The Mummy movies are all about dazzling imagery, but not so great at a coherent story. And the Indiana Jones movies are strong on every level, unless George Lucas starts listening to his kids for inspiration, in which case they rapidly turn to crap.

I learned so much when writing my last (first) screenplay, there's a good chance this one will be written faster, because I will avoid a lot of the first-timer mistakes. But having said that, I can't be complacent. Check and double check. Improve at every draft. Don't finish until I'm completely satisfied it's the best it can be.

The first one may have been a fluke. Perhaps I'm not cut out for screenwriting. If so, this will be the real test for me. Can I push myself to write something as good as, or better than, my first? And can I make it a good example of the genre?

Should be fun to find out.

Horizon: The Future

I started this short film because I saw others around me making their films, and it looked like a fun creative exercise. I had been afraid to take this step in the past because I'm so bad at making decisions, organising things, and being in charge, so I came up with a story idea that would hopefully have minimal organisation and be a relatively simple production.

Well, for a start, that idea didn't exactly work out the way I intended.

And now the film is in a bit of a crisis state, and it's not a very nice feeling to have things slip out of my tenuous control.

The main location for the film, that we agreed on months ago and had permission to use, was suddenly yanked from under our feet when they found out it was going to be on a weekend, when they have minimal staff on. Only weeks before shooting was meant to start, they told us "No".

I am being evicted from my apartment, right smack dab in the middle, of my pre-production, of a global economic crisis, and of an apartment rental shortage.

The main prop being built, the jet fighter cockpit, has gotten off to a late start, and though there were lots of promises that it would be completed on schedule, I had my doubts, so ideally it needed extra time.

Therefore, to deal with all of those issues, we have postponed the shooting dates. The originals of 21st and 22nd of February have been moved to the 21st and 22nd of March.

Though I came away from this meeting feeling a little bit more enthusiastic than when I went in, I'm still not very confident about the whole thing. This isn't my element, I feel out of place and I hate the lack of control I have. And this is probably how it goes for all productions. While some people deal with those situations better than others, I am not one of those.

So I think this will be the only film that I make all on my own. In the future I will happily work alongside others on their films, pre- and post-prod, but as for being the top dog for an entire production, I don't see it happening again.

Heatwave

We just had the hottest and longest heatwave in Melbourne's recorded history, with three days of over 43°C temperatures, and overnight lows of over 27°C.

It sucked.

I couldn't really concentrate on anything for any length of time, I couldn't sit still, I was sweating and overheating. Because my apartment doesn't have air conditioning, all I had were my electric fans, but they just pushed hot air around so didn't do that much. So because my head was completely full of cotton wool for the whole week, I just spent it doing nothing much beyond finding new ways to cool myself down.

So it's a bit crap that I have to find a new place to live, that I was told we've been denied permission to use the main location we'd sourced for my short film, and that I wanted to write a treatment for a new script, but couldn't sit down long enough to concentrate.

Big stupid waste of a week.

What Will I Write Next?

Ever since I started writing my first screenplay, which I have since completed to my satisfaction, and enjoyed thoroughly while doing so, I have had a rather unexpected onslaught of ideas for other scripts.

Normally I am not much of an ideas kind of person, I'm better at assembling other people's ideas into a good story, especially with my knack for dialogue and for keeping the plot moving along, than coming up with the ideas myself.

But lately I've formulated several plot concepts, and am now inspired enough to choose the one I should write next.

I won't list the ideas here, for fear of someone stealing them, but I will say they include:

• An adventure story in the vein of Indiana Jones or National Treasure.
• An action story full of car chases and explosions.
• A comedy road movie.
• A thriller about an escaped wild animal menacing a small town.
• An espionage adventure set in the past.

After some thought, I think I've decided which one to do, but I may change my mind before I get properly started, depending on how well the ideas flow. I have the Maguffin already, which is to say what drives the plot, now I just need the motivation behind the characters, and that can be an effort. So I'll establish the different personalities, and a few of the moments of interaction that might occur, and see what develops.

I have some amount of faith in my abilities, so I think it will all work out. I hope so, anyway, because figuring things out leads to the actual writing, and that's the part that makes it all fun.

Well, This Sucks

I got a letter through Registered Post today. It's rarely good news when you get one of those. And it wasn't good news this time.

I have been evicted from my apartment!

Argh!

It isn't because I did anything wrong. It's because the owners' son is moving to Melbourne to work, so they want him to live here.

Admittedly I was getting a little bit anxious about living here. It's starting to feel a little small, and the lack of private outdoor space is something that disappoints me a lot. And the new downstairs neighbours are a bit of a noise issue that I will be happy to be rid of. So the forced move is sort of nearly a good thing. Almost.

But there are many bad things too. The Housing situation in Melbourne is really crappy, especially for rental properties; they're in demand. My rent is currently pretty decently low, but an upgrade will increase it significantly. And of course, I am still unemployed, so I have no income to deal with the extra rent and the moving costs.

I have until mid-March to vacate, and my current Real Estate agency looking after this place will help me find a new one, so it's not too overwhelming. It's just that packing and relocating sucks.

Bloody Hell, It's Hot Out There

I was going to wander down to the shops today. To a shopping centre I'd not visited before. I wanted to buy something before the weekend that's only available in one shop in town, and that's where it's located.

Rather unexpectedly, because yesterday did not suggest this might occur, today was really seriously hot. It hit 36°C today, which isn't exactly pleasant to have to suffer through, especially for a long trek through the streets. So I stayed in.

I rescheduled for tomorrow.

Only, now it turns out it's going to be 40°C tomorrow.

Bugger.

Heat in itself isn't often a big problem. My home gets a lot of sun, but as I'm on the middle floor it's usually indirectly, and because I'm in a U-shaped block, I only get it on two sides and most of the time the walls are in shadow.

But the bricks heat up on a very hot day, while the indoors stay cool. Until the second day of heat, when the indoors start to warm up considerably. Then if it cools down outdoors on the third day, it will stay warm indoors, but not too badly, and will cool down quite pleasantly.

However, if there's a third day of heat, then the indoors gets even hotter, and remains so for several insufferable days no matter what happens outside.

That's summer in Melbourne.

Snail's Pace Start To The Year

Even though a year is something of an artificial construct, and even though I am not employed nor have any kind of personal commitments, there's something about the slowdown at the end of a year, that causes an equal amount of slow build up back to speed at the start of a new year.

I have many things to complete sometime in the next few weeks, and yet I feel like I'm not making any progress.

Checkpoint effects are still rendering. It's taken aaaaaages to render the 150 frames, it's been three weeks and still a few days yet to go.

Horizon is beginning to kick in, as new decisions are being made, and some events are being scheduled. Cast, shooting schedule, shot list, wardrobe, camera, all making progress. The rest, things like the cockpit, locations, catering, and the actual shooting of it all, are still to be figured out. Money spent so far - nothing, it's still all only potentially spent.

Pegasus Rampant, my screenplay, has gone through a couple of superficial improvements, like brushing up on descriptive text, and adjustments to dialogue to re-emphasise different character and plot points. And I have gotten some more feedback on it, which has helped me look at some of the things I have done in it in a new light. I've just sent it off to a relative of a friend, who is apparently experienced in the world of entertainment, so may have some special insight. If nothing else it's a new set of independent eyes to give it a once-over.

Money, also known as employment. I am reaching a point where my abundance of spending cash is not as big as it once was, and it's starting to almost reach a point where it's going to be a worrisome and stressful factor that will need addressing. Basically, I may have to get a job soon. Typically this coincides with a global economic crisis that is causing a downturn in employment numbers. Bugger. As well as the fact that I like my life as it currently is, where I have the freedom to live as I wish and do what I like at my own pace, something which, as soon as you get a job, is robbed from you. It sucks I will have to one day say goodbye to this. If only money fell on me from out of the sky - but I can't hope for that kind of nonsense, it won't get me anywhere. So needs must.

All other things. There's lots of stuff going round in my head, that could be fun to do in potentia but I don't know if or how I should begin it all. I ought to finish all of the above first.

It sounds like a lot of things, when I list them out like this, but they are each going at a very stately pace, and some aren't moving much at all. It's an illusion. And I still feel kind of in a daze and lack motivation.

Frankly, I need a kick up the bum to get me enthusiastic again.

Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor Has Been Chosen

The New Doctor Who for 2010 onwards has been cast, and Matt Smith is his name.

And as 99.99% of the world will say at this news: "Who?" Well, it turns out I have seen his work, he was in the adaptations of Philip Pullman's Sally Lockhart books (Ruby In The Smoke, Shadow In The North) on the BBC, and he played a very likeable character in them.

It's easy to cast judgement on him, he's very young, the youngest ever to be cast as the Doctor, and has a bit of a youthful tearaway look in most photos. But in his acting roles he plays all sorts of different characters, so will be able to carry the dramatic mantle quite competently.

We have about three or four special hour-long episodes of David Tennant's Doctor yet to come, and the regeneration won't be happening until early 2010, more than a year away, so no need to get too excitable yet. But I am curious, and hope that the complete changing of the guard (actor, writers, producers, showrunner, etc) won't fuck the whole thing up somehow.

Things What I Have Liked In 2008

I have seen many movies and TV shows this year, many of which I have greatly enjoyed. Some I have not enjoyed, and most are somewhere in the middle.

I have also done some cool personal things which are of note.

Here are my lists of those things for 2008.

Firstly the movies.

These are the ones I liked, the ones I thought were acceptable, and the ones I haven't yet seen but certainly plan to, with the expectation that they'll be fun. I have not listed the bad movies, because I tend to weed them out before I watch them. I have a pretty good radar for that sort of thing.

COOL MOVIES:
The Dark Knight
Wall-E
The Spiderwick Chronicles
Prince Caspian
Kung Fu Panda
The Incredible Hulk
Get Smart
Hellboy II: The Golden Army

AVERAGE MOVIES:
Iron Man
Horton Hears A Who
Nim's Island
Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull
Wanted
Hancock

NOT YET SEEN MOVIES:
Valkyrie
The Tale of Despereaux
The Day The Earth Stood Still
Transporter 3
Bolt
Quantum Of Solace
City Of Ember
Igor
Death Race
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
Speed Racer
The Forbidden Kingdom

+++

Next are the TV Shows.

As well as the shows that debuted this year, I have also watched a whole bunch of shows from previous years that I missed at that time, having discovered the magic of downloading them, while also experiencing the crap of premature cancellation of some great stuff. And of course, seeing more of my favourites.

COOL TV SHOWS:
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Chuck
Reaper
Pushing Daisies
The Mentalist
Burn Notice
Eureka
Kyle XY
Lark Rise To Candleford
Merlin
My Own Worst Enemy

AVERAGE TV SHOWS:
Eleventh Hour
Crusoe
Torchwood

OLDER TV SHOWS I LOVE:
NCIS
Monk
Numb3rs
Doctor Who
Battlestar Galactica
Heroes
Lost
Mythbusters
Time Team

+++

And then there's my personal stuff.

I've done some things this year that are new and I've not done before, and some other things that I have done before but were the best ever so far.

COOL STUFF I DID:
Started a blog
Rob's WWII short film: Checkpoint
Began my short film: Horizon
Wrote my first feature length screenplay: Pegasus Rampant
Visual Effects for Dags's short film: Reality Check

3D MODELLING ACHIEVEMENTS:
Railway Locomotive
Jet Fighter Plane
Dragon
Judge Dredd and his Lawmaster Bike
PigeonMan's Car
French Cafe Exterior
French Cafe Interior
DC3 Plane
Space Shuttle

+++

Gee. When you list it all out like that, it seems like a hell of a lot!

Pegasus Rampant - The Third Draft

About six weeks ago, I started receiving reviews of my first feature length screenplay, Pegasus Rampant. They had lots to say, a lot of it good, but also a lot of it critical.

But the good kind of criticism, the kind that was helpful. Pointing out the weak spots, the technical mistakes, and what to concentrate on in the next draft.

Well, the next draft has been completed. It meant going through it carefully and tightening up the dialogue, to eliminate repetition and extraneous words, and to make the pace speed up considerably. It surprised me how much of it was long and unwieldy and could be reduced to sometimes only a third as long.

One particular character was not intended to have a very strong arc to his story, but they drew my attention to how important it was for him in paticular to have one, so I added that in. It didn't take much to do it, and it really did make the story better and the relationships between the characters more realistic.

The fight and battle scenes needed to be expanded on. Just saying "they fight" and letting the stunt arranger fill in the blanks is not acceptable in a spec script, so I had no choice but to put in the additional detail that they needed. They're possibly still a little too thin, but they are good enough to show the main beats of the fight, and they add some character motivation too, so that's good. And another thing it did, unexpectedly, was let me add in an extra plot point that wasn't there originally, and which adds an interesting texture to the whole story and the world it's set in.

There was a lot more I did to fix it up too, but they were subtle things like changing a single word in the dialogue or description to help emphasise some character beats or add visual imagery to the scene.

There is still room for improvement. I recently bought a book about scriptwriting, and reading it will give me new insight into how characters can and should behave in a story to make it zing, so I will read through that and hopefully it will inspire me, perhaps to formulate character moments, and give it some energy where it needs it.

But the plot is just where I want it. I don't anticipate much of that changing in any further drafts. Most of my emphasis will be on strengthening the dialogue and characters.

One day I will figure all this story writing business out, and approach it already knowing what I'm doing. Who knows, I may even sell one some day.

Pegasus Rampant - The Characters

Because I am writing a movie screenplay, I can't help but think of it as though it was a movie playing out in my mind. This means a fairly clear image of the characters should be in my head.

Unfortunately, finding the right words to describe the characters so that, when others read it, they see them in their head the same way, is not a skill I particularly excel at. I can certainly write their behaviour very clearly, as the story plays out, and I do write a simple physical description upon their introduction, with additions as and when new plot situations require it. But they aren't really very vivid.

For example, one of the main characters in Pegasus Rampant is Wren, who I describe thus:

A young woman, dressed in light leather armour. Lean and strong, her hair is dirty and cut short, though under the rough appearance she is boyishly attractive.

Well, that's broad enough to give an idea of who she is, but I don't specify too many details. Casting would already be limited enough to find an actor who fits the absolute requirements, no need to specify the negotiable ones.

Is that enough of a description for you to imagine what she might look like? When I go on to describe her as a Mercenary, in this Mediaeval era film, does that add to the image?

I am a visual person, an artist, and when I think of characters I like to firm them in my mind with a sketch. But my drawing skills are rudimentary, and lately under-practised, so my attempts to sketch an image of Wren have not been very successful so far.

I am consistently disappointed by the way most Fantasy artists portray female warriors. They always have them in impractical clothing, sometimes only bikinis, with exposed flesh everywhere! No armour to speak of, no sense that they're trying to protect against a weapon. That's just absurd!

I don't mind a little bit of exposed skin, but that should be for showing off muscle tone and scars, and maybe a tribal tattoo. They shouldn't be looking like beauty contest finalists parading on a catwalk!

So when I draw my warriors, I try to give them more realistic layers of armour, chainmail, leather jerkins, bracers, boots, etc. They have to be something you can walk around in, be flexible enough to fight in, be comfortable in all weather conditions, and protect you against weapons. Not expose you to the cold, be too heavy to stand up in, or let you be vulnerable to blades!

The other day I was in a Video Rental store, wandering around, and I saw a cover of a DVD that I really liked. The movie isn't anything to write home about, though. I looked at the image of the kick-boxing woman and thought "that's a great image with the perfect pose and build for Wren. If only she wasn't wearing those modern clothes..."

I looked up the image when I got home, and thought about drawing over the top of her to give her a Wren-like look, but soon realised I could do better than that - I could source each individual element of her clothing and distort and recolour them to fit the figure, creating a more photorealistic kind of conceptual art.

After a few hours work (I was up until 2am tweaking it) I came away from it pleased with the result. It's not perfect, but for a quick collage of disparate elements it's pretty good, and a close representation of the character's appearance.

The adjustments I would make, looking at it now, are things like perhaps a slightly prettier face, and a happier expression (I was trapped by the fact that the original image was of someone recently beaten up in a kickboxing fight) and a few more period-ish items of clothing, such as lacings for the jerkin, or some studs on the chain-mail. But that's just being picky.

I am often surprised with what I'm capable of doing when I put my mind to it. Things that seem daunting or unlikely to work often turn out a lot better than I had realistically initially hoped, and this is one of them.

Checkpoint: The Edit

My mate Rob's short film, set in WWII, which I have talked about several times this year, from shoot through to visual effects, is nearing an important stage of completion.

About a month ago, he invited me and some of our mutual movie-related friends over to view an edit of his film, and to give suggestions on how to tidy it up. Editing was a daunting task for him: with five or six hours of footage; sometimes as many as ten or fifteen alternatives for some scenes; and ten minutes to fill. He was finding the task exhausting, and overwhelming, so after the viewing, and the suggestions we threw at him, he called me in to help him out with finishing the edit. I was more than happy to participate!

Rob uses Final Cut Pro on his Mac. I'm more familiar with Adobe's Premiere Pro for PC, but they are very similar in most respects, so though I wasn't at the keyboard doing the physical work, I knew what options were available to us. Rob's method of working was not too different to mine, we both are very familiar with movies and their styles, plus we were mostly on accord with what we wanted to achieve with each scene. When we didn't agree on anything, I deferred to the Director's choices, because I knew he definitely knew what he was doing, and when his ideas worked, they were better than mine anyway.

So, we sat down together and figured some things out. Firstly, what was wrong, and why. That was relatively easy. Rob's first try was apparently very choppy, with too many close-ups. His second edit, which was the one the group of us had viewed, went in the opposite direction, with too many long takes that were Wide. For a movie that has tension and some amount of action, slow pacing can be a killer. But for a movie with some interesting dramatic beats and an extended dialogue, fast cuts are not good.

So secondly, we needed to figure out how to fix it. Easier said than done, we decided to go in step by step, and address each scene from start to finish. Some editors claim starting from the beginning in chronological order is a bad idea, and perhaps that's true. But bollocks to them. We'll learn the mistakes our own way.

You have to pick and choose the right places to put each shot. Wide shots establish location, position of characters, physical points of view from off-screen characters, isolation and vulnerability. Close up shots increase tension, show emotive facial expressions, allow for reactions. Mid shots are normally a good in-between, where you can orientate characters, see hand gestures, introduce a third character, and are good to cut to when you've had too many close ups already.

What we discovered, as we worked through the movie scene by scene, is the power you can have to change and create. I really was thrilled by some of the tricks we managed to do. I was afraid we'd not be able to achieve some of the ideas we were going for, because there is often a risk a lack of the right angle or a bad camera motion or line reading can ruin an otherwise usable shot. But what we discovered was not only could we cheat some shots, because two locations looked very similar to each other so we could mix and match, but that because we are also visual effects artists, we could assemble several different elements from various places (still images, different scenes, Behind-The-Scenes footage on a lower resolution camera) and manufacture a whole new shot to suit our needs!

And this is the part that really astonished me, though I don't know why because I hear of how this goes on a lot when editing. If you need an emotional beat, but aren't sure about where to place it, it's an incredible thing to see how a single shot can make a difference. If you don't have it, you feel like it's missing. If you do have it, and put it too early, it ruins the flow of a scene. If you put it in the right place, it completely transforms a scene into magic. If you shorten it by just a couple of frames, it can feel flat. If you lengthen it by a few frames it can change the emotional tone of the whole moment.

It's amazing.

We finished the edit, but there are many effects shots to do to complete it. We also are going to go back in, in a few days, and look at it afresh, to tidy up some of the rough edges that inevitably will be there. Especially since the morning we began, we were kind of floundering a little, but by the end of last night we were on a roll, and that difference may have affected how the edit flows.

Exciting stuff, and a lot of fun. I would be very happy to sit in on an edit with my mate Rob any time.

Neither Rhyme Nor Reason

A limerick is not hard to write.
Given time, I could write ten tonight.
   The bit at the start's
   Not the difficult part.
It's the line at the end that has to make sense in context of what the poem's about, but also fit the rhyming structure, that makes it such a struggle.

Horizon: Casting

As this is my first proper short film, I am finding myself having to make the kinds of decisions that I have long heard about when others do it, but now are inevitably my own to make. It's somewhat surreal, as well as imposing. I'm a little bit worried, but also excited.

Casting has always been something I have been afraid of. When I wrote Horizon, I deliberately eliminated all the spoken dialogue, to avoid the fear of having to deal with bad acting ruining my film, something I see very often. Dialogue performance in an Australian accent always sounds bad to me, and you have to be really seriously amazing to make it work. It's the difference between Neighbours and The Castle; One sounds like lame boring line recitation, and the other sounds like real people. Coupled with the fact that my idea of good acting rarely coincides with what others think is good (a strange situation, I thought), I had to do something, and the answer was to eliminate the need for dialogue at all.

But I also was worried about going through the full audition process when there's no dialogue - how do you audition people for that? Ask them to cry on demand? Impossible. I was painting myself into a corner. The single thing that mattered to me more than anything was that you'd believe the romance between the two characters; accept that they really loved each other. A good actor can do that, but if I'm not auditioning or requiring great actors, then that limits my options - and the answer to that conundrum I set myself was to cast a real life couple.

Crikey, that's a big ask! In my attempt of making things easier for myself, was I really making things more difficult?

We've been working with Alex Sheedy, who is the girlfriend of a casual crew member Andy Scott, on a side project. She's proven herself to be excellent at taking direction, and enthusiastic in taking part in our crazy ideas. To the point where every new project idea Rob and I come up with, we slot her into it, imagining her in our heads to see if she fits. Sometimes she does.

What's that you say? Girlfriend of Andy Scott? Why yes indeed, that's rather convenient, isn't it? Andy is just the right age and look to play a fighter pilot! So I contacted them both, we've discussed it some, and they have signed on.

That's a big weight off my shoulders. I now have my cast, about two thirds of my locations, and most of my crew. All that's required now is to compile a shot list, book some equipment, and commit to actually filming it.

Easier said than done.

Panda-Monium

How's that for an original title. Oh well.

Dreamworks Animation has, in my estimation, a bit of a chequered history when it comes to originality. Its very first production was 2D, based on the Biblical story of the Exodus of the Jews, better known as the Ten Commandments, and was called Prince of Egypt.

It was pretty good, but a bit dour and dramatic. Not really a movie for kids, though I'm sure they got something out of it. It's one of those Bible myths that probably has a fair amount of truth to it, somewhere amongst the miracles and epic absurdity. If you ignore the talking to God, burning bushes, and parting of the Red Sea, the story comes down to two brothers who diverge in their beliefs and have a bit of an argy-bargy over ruling their people.

Anyhoo, they soon realised that kind of movie wasn't going to bring in the moolah, so they immediately took a leaf out of Disney's book, and headed down a family friendly comedic route.

The Road To El Dorado which was based on the Bob Hope & Bing Crosby "Road To..." movies, was clearly stolen from what Disney had planned originally for Emperor's New Groove (which had started out as the more dramatically themed Kingdom of the Sun).

Sinbad, which wasn't as good as it ought to have been, was very similar in style to Disney's Treasure Planet.

As Pixar started to make a real impact, Dreamworks shifted its focus to CGI animation, believing that those movies make more money than traditional 2D animation. A load of baseless nonsense, of course. Pixar's success is based entirely on great characters in fun stories with hilarious humour. All things that do not impact the style of art used to create them.

But as the CEO of Dreamworks Animation, Jeffrey Katzenberg, used to work for Disney, he had some insight into what was being developed by Pixar. And though he denies it, he clearly was stealing their concepts and then trying to rush them through to release first. I have always resented that about Dreamworks.

Equivalent movies include:
Antz = A Bug's Life
Shrek = Monsters Inc
Shark Tale = Finding Nemo
Madagascar = Into The Wild

Now, plot-wise they aren't really similar (except for that last one) but if you were to hear on the grapevine that Pixar's next film was going to be about fish, or about monsters, then you can definitely believe Katzenberg would then say "Hey, lets do a movie about monsters". Even worse, they have a new movie out in the new year called Monsters vs Aliens and the character design is so similar to Monsters Inc it's highly suspicious. Though it does look like a funny film.

I watched Dreamworks's new feature last night, Kung Fu Panda. It stars Jack Black as a panda who unexpectedly is chosen as being the greatest warrior of legend and prophecy despite being an incompetent clumsy boob. It is an excellent movie. Really funny, brilliantly animated, and highly recommended.

And best of all, as far as all the plagiarising of ideas that I have just accused Dreamworks of partaking in, this is a wholly original concept, that I can only praise them for.

And this is the thing - when they forego the pop culture references, and choose a story that is not based on another company's production, Dreamworks do amazing stuff, the top of their game. Though the sequel is inevitable, I hope they continue to make original product, one-offs like Over The Hedge (admittedly based on an existing comic strip) and Bee Movie, and don't run ideas (like Shrek) into the ground. They deserve better, and deserve to be seen.

Blowing Shit Up

List some of the best ways to spend a weekend. You might have some sexual escapade with your loved one, or a great holiday to some exotic locale. Perhaps a sporty day where your team won. Possibly going to a big spectacular stage show.

Well, I got them all beat. We spent the weekend blowing shit up.

We needed some background plates for a film that involved a big ba-da-boom, so we had a miniature and simplified version of the building built, and got the pyrotechnic "experts" from our team to make some explosives. We spent the whole day watching fireballs and flames and things going bang and crash! Woohoo!

Haven't had a day of so much fun in a very long time!

Checkpoint: Hadrian's Wall

Sometimes you never know just how complicated things can get.

Whenever I'm called on to do a visual effects shot for someone, my normal reaction is to say "Sure, I can do that" and about two thirds of the time it's true, I know exactly how to do it and that I'm capable of it with my current level of skills and software. But the other third of the time, I am secretly thinking "I have no idea how to do this!" and will rush out to do some research to figure some things out - can the software do it, do I need additional resources, am I really able to do this, how complicated will it be?

There's a shot in Checkpoint that I've been working on, off and on, in various pieces, over a period of six months. It's a simple shot - we filmed our hero on a bridge over a railway track, and had planned to do a crane shot over the wall of the bridge showing a train on the tracks, with a railway gun. So my original plan was to comp in the train, maybe replace the gumtrees with European pine.

Our attempts to do a crane shot handheld were a bit of a disaster, we really ought to have thought it through a bit better and borrowed a crane to achieve the shot. And we ought to have picked a day with nicer weather, too. But our hands were tied, as is so often the case, and we got what we could, as best we could.

So now it's my job to fix it.

The train model was already long completed, so that wasn't a problem, though it did take me a long time to build.

The first thing we knew we had to do was stabilise the shot as we follow our hero crawling along the wall, because it shakes all over the place. The problem is, with stabilisation comes distortion and motion blur. We can't really do anything about that, though, so I have reduced the shake down gradually as the shot progresses, so that the distortions are minimal.

Next thing we knew was that we would need a 3D representation of the railway line and valley, which had to be a matte painting including distant fields of the French coast, a complete replacement of the trees with European pine, and a French village. So I assembled the elements into a 2D matte image, using the best shot we had of the railway line, but it wasn't good enough for the final shot, and we knew we had to go back to the location to photograph high resolution images of the valley.

The day we arrived was a beautifully sunny day, and the shots of the valley we took were great, but as it turned out, not perfect, because as we crane over and tilt the virtual camera in the 3D environment, it distorted the verticals and all the trees looked like they were leaning over. The answer was to go back again and re-photograph the valley from a slight angle, so that the distortion would be eliminated, achieved by having the final angle of the shot match the actual angle the image was taken, and not fake it like the first try.

One of the issues I had with the crane move through the valley, though, was getting the sense of distance for the French coastal part of the shot. In reality it was a photo of a farm in Holland, but I had it comped in and needed it to move relative to the camera so it felt like it was miles away, and not a flat image. This meant finding ways to have the fiddly crinkly edges of the trees blend in with the background without distorting or obscuring it as it moved. So I had to mask them out using alpha masks, careful to keep the bleeding edge suitably coloured to blend, and move all elements to give a sense of depth. Rendering each layer separately was the only way to achieve this.

The good thing with this approach, though, is that I didn't need to use a tracking program to recreate the environment, and 'lock' the train model onto the real tracks. Instead I am able to apply the train actually to the virtual environment, because they're both 3D models in the same program, and are fixed entities. That is a relief, because 3D tracking is still not perfect, and is a bitch to get right.

The next thing I realised we needed was the wall of the bridge. It isn't enough to use a 2D image and animate it, I needed to have a 3D representation of the wall so that the depth as we craned over it felt realistic. I tried to find a way around this, because I was afraid it wasn't going to work, but in the end it was unavoidable. I built the wall, and the uneven rocky surface it possessed, and applied the textures of the real location that I took pics of. The end result is the wall looks completely convincing, and the crane move is seamless, so it was well worth it.

However, big problem. The original footage was taken on a grey overcast day, and the other photographs we took at later dates were in glorious sunlight. They don't match. I have to apply this footage onto the surface of my wall, while the virtual camera watches it and cranes over it. If the footage and the wall photos don't match exactly, it will look wrong.

I had to alter the colour of the wall image so it matched a grey day, then mask around it with a soft edged blend to overlap with the original footage, so you cannot see the mix between them.

Then I have to render the bridge part of the shot separately to the valley part of the shot, so that when Rob colour grades the two, he can either reduce the vibrancy of the sunny day valley, or increase the vibrancy of the grey day bridge, so that they blend seamlessly. I also have to provide him with an alpha channel mask of the footage so that he can separate the two shots when he grades them.

The train has to be rendered at high resolution. Soldiers have to be added, probably digital ones because we don't have any footage of live ones. Steam coming from the train, smoke from one of the stacks, atmospheric haze, and birds flying, all will add life to the finished shot and give it the energy to make it convincing.

It is the most complicated thing I have ever done. So many elements, so many techniques, so much preparation, and yet every single part of it I was absolutely confident about being capable of achieving it. Individually, anyway. If I'd realised just how complicated I was making it for myself, I would've come up with a different idea for the shot and convinced Rob to do that instead.

Like hire a real train.

Bass From Beneath

The guy who lived below my apartment was a very mysterious fellow. He lived alone, with two little dogs, but I barely ever saw him. He always had his blinds closed, 24 hours a day, and appeared to only be home about half the year, the rest of the time he was who-knows-where.

Usually the only times I got a glimpse of him was when he went out to walk his dogs. Though now that I think about it, they were only ever in the car with him, so I wonder if they ever did actually walk anywhere at all.

He appeared to have a girlfriend. Certainly I did see a very very attractive young woman with him once, but several times I heard them arguing very loudly about something, though I only ever heard her voice and never his. He always seemed the calm rational one, and she was a squealing shrew.

I invented in my head an explanation of the behaviour I observed of him, including a job and lifestyle that sort of made sense. I figured he was a Fashion Photographer, and the girlfriend was pretty because she was a Fashion Model. She certainly looked like one. And he was always away during winter, because his work took him to exotic places where it's summer.

It fit the profile, but it's based on nothing but my own observation. I can't recall if it was winter he was most absent, hey, I don't even know his name. And apart from the girlfriend on only a couple of occasions, and apart from the dogs yapping for about ten minutes a week, he was a completely silent, perfect neighbour. For all I know I was the bothersome one, shouting at the TV, verbally abusing the computer, generally stomping around, acting the idiot up here in my apartment. But I never heard a complaint from him at all.

Then one day he was gone. I didn't notice his absence as anything out of the ordinary, I didn't see him actually make the move, but one day the industrial strength cleaning crew came in and restored his apartment to pristine condition, and a "For Sale" notice was placed out in the street, so he had definitely moved out.

Where did he go? Why didn't I notice? Who the hell was he anyway? I thought maybe he had died, hence the invisibility of his leaving (they chucked out his furniture and effects, he didn't move any of it out himself). But there was never a Police Investigation, or a Family Visit, so probably that isn't what happened at all.

Whatever the case, new people inevitably were going to move in. And, after three months or so of auctions and contract signing, a few weeks ago they did.

They're a young couple, I think they both work full time, and so far I have met only the male half, whose name is Stan. But the circumstances of the meeting bothers me - because I was complaining about the noise they were making.

Now I don't like confronting people, and even though I know I'm rapidly turning into a grumpy old bugger, I don't like to come across as a whinger. But inevitably that is probably going to be my fate, it seems to be a deeply embedded part of my nature.

So what do I do? Do I complain every time they make a noise? Do I bottle it up and hope they'll figure out the error of their ways independently? Do I let it pass and just carry on, because after all it's never after midnight, or keeping me awake? Do I invite them up so they can hear what I hear? Maybe to their ears it's barely worth bothering about, and I'm just being overly sensitive.

I'm just so used to perfect silence from my neighbours. I love silence. I hate deep bass noise. This is at odds with most of the rest of the world, where volume and bass seem to be what everybody else wants in their entertainment.

I'm never going to escape that particular insanity, am I?

Eventually I will move, as we all do, but that's not happening any time soon, as I do not have an income. When I do move I'll be sure to choose to live in such a way as to not have potential neighbour noise to interrupt my evenings.

Until then, I have to suffer through it.

Pegasus Rampant: The Reviews

I mentioned my intention to write a screenplay on a messageboard website, and someone there pointed me to somewhere online that reviews them, with the intent to learn how to improve technique and storytelling, rather than just to be criticised.

When I visited there, they also suggested various different pieces of software to help with accurate formatting. This included a new program that was open source, and therefore free, so I thought "that's just within my budget!" and downloaded a copy.

It's called CeltX, and is an excellent way to get things looking professional, without having to labour over the small details. Basically you just keep writing, and it does the rest for you with barely any need for you to look up from your keyboard.

It also has scheduling tools, space for meta information like notes and tags, output to PDF, and loads more features than I could possibly want. Outstanding.

Having completed my second draft of Pegasus Rampant to my own satisfaction, I uploaded it to the reviews website. In order to get a response I need to review other scripts also, as that's a way to engender a positive and helpful community. It also meant I could learn from experienced writers how to do it properly.

Though it also showed what not to do, because a couple of the scripts I've reviewed so far are not especially well written. I personally thought my own script was much better than those, though admittedly not as good as the others I've read so far.

But then, probably most writers think that about their own work. Now that I have had some encouraging reviews of my script, I can also see what their suggestions and hints and guidance has shown me - that my first attempt really was full of first-time amateur's mistakes.

Having said that, they mostly seem to like the story, and enjoy the characters, but I did write them sometimes too inconsistently, and there are a few loose ends that ought to be tightened up or rewritten. It just needs more impact. I think it is a very even script, but that means dull and monotonous. It needs higher peaks, lower troughs, and more of them. I'm cool with that. I can see that most of what they said is spot on, and definitely needs addressing.

The key technical mistake I made is that there's a difference between a shooting script and a speculative script. A shooting script is for the director, cast, and crew to read, so it has camera information, shot angles, scene numbers, sound effects, music cues, etc. But it's not my job to put those in when there's no director to read it yet - my job is to write a script that entices and interests people, so that they read it to the end, and are desperate to sign me up as their screenwriter. Therefore a spec script must have no camera angle information, and instead concentrate entirely on the story, the characters, the action; basically the imagery and the emotional beats. My problem was I was mixing the two kinds of script up, which is a classic beginner's mistake.

One of the reviewers said "I note it is an early draft. You will find by about draft six that significant changes will have been made!" Draft six! Crikey!

But she is most likely right. In my next draft I probably will change a few plot points, but in doing so I will have to wrangle them into line with my main story, which is a thread I hope I won't have to change too much. But even if I do, and reading their ideas I think it's inevitable, then it will turn into something quite different. I'm actually quite excited about that, though, as it means I get to create some new stuff. I hope it won't collapse into a struggle for me to deal with, and it will flow as easily as it did originally.

One thing that is a little bit hard to explain to them, though, is that as I was inspired to write this by watching a low budget TV movie from the Sci-Fi Channel that I thought I could do a better job with, I'm intentionally not aiming very high. It's not meant to be an epic fantasy like Willow or NeverEnding Story, it's really meant to be filler for a Sunday evening's TV viewing. I'd be happy if it went straight to DVD and was only available in the bargain bin.

Not that I don't have some amount of pride in the effort, because I most definitely do. It contains characters and situations that I love, and I put a lot of effort in making them feel like the kind of things that I enjoy seeing, in the hope that people like me would have a good time watching it.

But I also know that it is no literary masterpiece or visual spectacle. It's just a bit of a laugh.

I will work on draft 3 over the next few weeks, and see if I can address all the criticisms so that I have a better spec script, and a better film, at the end of it.

Checkpoint: Wheely Good

As usual, instead of doing the work I ought to be doing, I find excuses to do other work instead. Though at least this is tangibly related.

The opening scenes of Checkpoint, under the credits, will be of a C-47 plane heading to France, and I've been roughing the shots together one-by-one to show Rob. He's had suggestions on each shot so far, so it's a back-and-forth exercise to get it right.

To distract me from obsessing over one shot too much, I'm breaking it up by doing some higher detail modelling of the plane, piece by piece, in between each shot update. I've done the propellors, the engines and cowling, and a little bit on the fuselage so far, and this week I've been working on the landing gear, which is arguably the part of the plane with the most mechanical intricacy.

I'm adding physical detail to this part because one of the shots is of a close up of the wheel beginning to turn on the tarmac, and there's also a wider shot of the plane taxiing where the wheels are likely to be seen. It's best to have real detail on things like this, rather than using 2D tricks to give the illusion of detail (such as projecting a wheel hub texture on a flat disc), or hoping it won't be seen.

And anyway, I enjoy doing the modelling, as I learn new techniques and improve my skills every time I do it.