Iron Bitters

Scriptin' Fancy-Like - Part 3
Right then, as I have not finished writing Archbrook we are now moving from a sort of guide into an exposition on what I am currently trying.

As I started to go on about last time, I simplified a lot of aspects of "Tonight..." because I knew darn well that I was still something of a beginner at script writing and that if I tried to overcomplicate things then I was likely to make more mistakes as well as probably lose focus of the main idea I was trying to explore in the first place.

With that experience behind me, as well as a few multi-page forays into a half dozen ideas I've tried to develop between "Tonight..." and my starting "Archbrook", I feel that I can get away with ratcheting the difficulty up a few notches. This includes...

• Sets: Instead of "The Lounge", "The Bar", "Paul's Apartment" etc. I am now trying to fully imagine sets which do more than provide a background to dialogue - or are at least more integral to the mood of the scenes which take place in them.
• Setting: Inspired during a trip to Broadstairs, yes, but I am not just mentally setting this there. I have actually done a couple of simple sketches of the fictional town ("Bethwick") to order things in my mind. I'd like to think this will lead to more consistency, particularly when it comes to lengths of time between happenings and when characters can "realistically" arrive in one place after being at another. Aside from Bethwick there will definitely be at least mention of London as well as the possabilty of the opening scene taking place in Wales.
  
• Characters: For reasons I'll expand upon later, I'm making the entire main cast between the age of 40 and 60. Guess what? I'm not that old. But maybe I can draw upon what life experience I have (particularly my interaction with the middle-aged set) as well as common sense and thoughtful extrapolation?. Also, the characters are mostly English and I am dabbling with one being of Armenian heritage. This might not be relevant past the names, but we'll have to see what is useful to the story and what isn't.
• History: As I am having a millenia-old cult/religion in this script, I have had to do some research. Though I'm not worried about achieving a remarkably high level of accuracy, I don't want to come off as some fool who is just spouting off whatever comes to mind.
• Inventing a religion: This is both easy and hard. Yes I can make up whatever I feel like, but not so much if I want it to be believable (within the context of the story!). Believablity isn't enough as I have to make sure that the religion also allows the story to function as I want it to while not feeling too convenient or forced.

These are the new challenges. Next time I'll expand upon how I am trying to meet them as well as some thoughts upon the handful of binary oppositions which need to be perpetually managed in the (my) writing process.

In other news, life is pretty okay! A tad lonely, but then that is to be expected when you go to a big city and have to build an entirely new social life. However I am investigating more interesting places to go to - I've found Time Out magazine to be very helpful and I recommend it to anybody even passing through London, let alone moving here. Work is still pleasantly free of stress, but damn I want to try and find something where I don't just try to hurry up the day. I guess we'll see where I land when the contract ends in April. Finally, here are two pictures I took of a great rooftop reading area at The British Library.

We all live inside "the environment"

This is a good thing to remember! I think that an awful lot of people forget that, somehow.

This is a brilliant idea on how to spread an incredibly important and timely film. If you haven't seen the film or want to show it to someone you know, you can have a copy of it sent to your home for free with no strings attached, again thanks to this goddamn magnificent website. This is absolutely necessary because we still live in a world where people come out with shit like...

"Condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He's not a schoolteacher," said Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven who also said that he believes the Earth is 14,000 years old. "The information that's being presented is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is. ... The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn't in the DVD."

Meanwhile, as Rome (and everywhere else) continues to get closer to burning...let's have a jolly old laugh at Hitler, that wacky bastard.

But seriously? SERIOUSLY take your hand out of your pants and go to http://sharethetruth.us/

Then and only then, treat yourself to Posterchild's great lil' short "The Departed Astronaut".

Racist outbursts are basically not a good career move...

...but it at least gives some clever editors the chance to put together a great lampoon.

SCRIPTIN' FANCY LIKE - PART 2
When last we left off, I had just gotten the ball seriously rolling with "Tonight...". From there to the tenous finish is easily summed up. Whenever I could, I would just sort of will myself to write more. Seriously, that is it - willpower. If I had it in me that day, then I would write...otherewise...

This is by no means what I advise, it's just what happened!

I definitely didn't write it in chronological order and if I had tried to I'd probably still be writing it. I just had to throw down whatever was flowing freely out of me, before I forgot it. Eventually my writing sessions were one part writing to one part joining up the jigsaw pieces. Two parts Hennessey.

The reason I describe the finish as "tenous" is because I feel that I could keep coming back to expand upon and refine that script until kingdom come. I don't claim to be the first to point this out, but I think it is worth saying you can go back to a script almost an infinite amount of times. Eventually you have to say "It's DONE" even if adding an ominous "for now..." at the end of that exclamation. Though I have half an additional scene for "Tonight..." which I sometimes tweak and add to, I feel fine in saying that script is done because:

1. I've done enough proofreads to feel that the spelling, grammar and continuity are tight enough to give the impression that I am a fellow who is capable of being capable.
   
2. The story feels complete and the characters more like people than a collection of cute lines. Though I have an urge to flesh out somebits here and there, I wouldn't say there are any outright gaping holes which would lend a viewer/reader to ask questions such as "But wait? Isn't that dude a secret abortionist? Wouldn't he, of all people, know not to have unprotected sex with that pilot's wife in the apple orchard?" or "Didn't the humans think in the long term about their decision to block out the sun to stop the 100% solar powered robots?".

This being said, I have periodically given it another proofread when posessed of ample spare time (like my recent unemployment in Reading). Just because the car is built and working doesn't mean you never clean it or check for rust!

Being my first attempt at writing a feature-length script, "Tonight..." was a lot of fun and a lot of messy forcing it out onto the page. I paid for this at least twice with continuity problems that cost me a lot of aggro in going back over the script to resolve them. The upside of my full steam ahead approach was that it was easier for me to stay focused on the main idea of the script and so I'm pleased to say that despite featuring a wide variety of conversational topics in the dialogue, the story itself stays on track from beginning to end.

Something else that definitely eased the process for this script was that it was set in "A Metropolitan City" around about "Modern Times". Not to mention that the cast was composed entirely of North Americans in their early to mid-twenties, so I certainly could not be accused of writing what I didn't know. Not that I'm being down on myself, I think it's important to mention these things because I have met so many people who feel too intimidated to start writing. Well let me tell you folk in particular, it's only as terrifying and challenging as you make it. With "Tonight..." I felt that I was up to the task of conveying the themes and ideas I wanted to explore, but not on top of an exotic setting, characters which were outside my realm of personal experience or some ambitious high concept.

I think it is also important to point out that there is no shame in taking the simple approach - particularly in concept. I mean, a lot of classic movies can wind up sounding either daft or boring (or both) when summed up in the original notion. Just becuase hearing your idea in a single sentence doesn't immediately moisten the genitals of every human being within a city block doesn't mean it isn't worth pursuing.

I've also had to devote very little brainpower to coming up with the exactitudes of how the society of "Tonight..." worked or any other abstract systems as one would encounter in, say, a horror story which takes place in a fictional English town and involves a fictional religion. Like, say, the script I am trying to write now - Archbrook. For this I have definitely set the bar higher than what I have tried to write before and so I'm trying to take a more organized, less just do it, just write something so you ain't some chump who says he is a writer but he ain't written nothin' no good approach. We'll get into that next time!

Please note, your server has full creative control of your cocktail pleasure

Hello all you guys and dolls out there in internet land. This humble reporter needs a good nights rest and so this shall be a short one. These last two evenings have been mostly spent attending to a deal of the mundane...lord but it takes time to acquire all the little things that let you focus on activities other than acquiring all the little things! Like lamps.

But you can expect, maybe even dare to look forward to, the second installment of "Scriptin' Fancy-Like" tomorrow night. Between now and then, may I suggest that you make for yourself the following. Also, be sure to enjoy it!

Mercury (Martini)
2 1/2 oz
-Absolut Vodka
-Apple Liquer
-Strawberry Juice