The Rough Draft

Hey All.

Steve at Centova has upgraded the site options to include a new BLOG feature. He’s also integrated a podcast broadcast feature as well but I figure, my writing is annoying enough not to have to add the grind of my voice to the mix.

So, I’m going to be going through The Rough Draft, cutting and pasting the bulk of the articles (minus the ones where I was really drunk or too angry to make a cohesive argument. The good news is that you can finally post comments if you so wish as there are anti bot controls in place (Yippee!).

The new blog is located Here

Please check it out.

Thanks

Steve Abbott

Yes my friends, I’ve been terminated.

Thank God.

Because life is too short to waste your time on morons but a contract has a way of dragging that sort of shit out. To make a long story short, the dialogue punch up that truned into a full page one rewrite wasn’t appreciated. It was apparently too novelistic at times. That would be where I tried to put description of the ongoing action within the scene in the action slugs. Go figure? I guess the producer wanted more exposition through dialogue or something.

I’ll never know, I was fired before given notes. I’d like to care but I really just… don’t. I got paid promptly for my efforts, the cheque cleared. Good enough for me.

There’s no need for haranguing or wringing of hands at being fired from a project like this. It was a shittly little “C” film the producer felt was really an “A” film (don’t they always?) and so put way more ridiculous thought than was required into the characters. Because at its heart, this was a chase film and the dirty little secret of chase films is, they’re light on dialogue, light on plot and heavy on running away.

Here’s another tip for would be producers of horror. Horror and by that I mean real and effective horror is based on social commentary. It may be light on the ground and campy at times but it is there. For horror to strike a chord, it’s got to make you sit up and notice something. Take, “The Hitcher,” for example (the original). It focuses on a really basic idea. We all want to help our fellow man. Unfortunately, our fellow man in this case is a homicidal maniac but the subtext is, we try to do good but evil has a way of insinuating itself into the equation. People who make effective horror actually like the genre. They’re not making a horror film to just get one in the can. I might not have cared too much for Rob Zombie’s, “House of a Thousand Corpses,” but his second effort, “Devil’s Rejects,” was top notch. Neither film was a throwaway, you can feel his love for the genre and the subjects in every frame and anybody who stages a climactic gun battle to, “Freebird,” has my vote (Devil’s Rejects has one of the best scores I’ve ever heard).

I’m guilty here as well. I saw money and like all writers, I jumped at the chance to whore myself out. Disregarding my gut once again and again being burned in the process. So, as this is my second go round in a horror project with people who don’t give a crap about horror just about getting something made (no matter how ridiculous). I’m saying no more. Time to write something solid, that people can care about. I’m hooking up with a director friend of mine who I trust and who has excellent chops. This way, we can help each other. I’m not going to talk about what the project is yet, I’m still working out the outline but I can tell you this, it’ll make sense and you’ll care.

You will care.

Finally an article on writing or at least one on the brainspace of a writer. I’m sort of halfway through a project. It’s been a bit of a shocker for me. Usually, I’m brought on board for my unique set of talents. I know all writer’s say this but lets just for agument’s sake sake my skill set is, “Rare.” This is a bit of a double edged sword. On the one hand, family comedy is pretty much out for me as a writing track but anything with a bit of darkness to it is very much up my alley. So, a dark family comedy with easy access to firearms would probably be ok.

So, I’m usually brought on board at the last minute to punch up or completely rewrite a script, allowing there to actually be something in front of the camera when it’s that time. This has actually kept me pretty busy for the last few years. Sometimes the money has been not too bad and other times, well, not so much.

Ironically, more money does not translate into more control. However, past experiences have been, you get hired, you do the story meeting thing and then you go off and write for a bit, come back, get more notes and off you go again. This cycle will be disrupted only when they go to camera and the last scene is in the can and you’re at the wrap party. At least, that’s how it goes for the writer. Now this current half finished gig is a bit more… Annoying. Many story roadblocks thrown into the mix and some very weird requirements. It’s as if the producer thinks it’s just about putting ingredients into the mix in alphabetical order as opposed to putting them into the mix in the proper order.

A good producer gives you an idea they wish to explore, some basic rules and guidelines and then lets you the writer run wild with it. The more insecure the producer, the less room you will have to run. It’s a lot like a safety meeting, “Nobody moves, nobody get’s hurt.” The otherside of that coin is, “Anything can get you killed, including doing nothing.”

Me, I like to move. So, it’s a good feeling that now the current draft is in, I’m feeling unshackled as it were. I’ve got all the room in the world to run and a Director friend of mine that wants a little horror film written ASAP. We’d already fleshed out the idea of the story but I want to reign it in a bit. Good man that he is, he’s letting me have a go at it my way.

So, out of a bad experience, a good one is rising.

I’ll keep you posted

Write what you know. How many times have we heard that. “But I can’t fly a fighter plane or kill a man with my bare hands.” Relax, it’s a metaphor. Really, it doesn’t use like or as in its statement.

It’s a contentious statement. Nothing is more likely to set off a real tug of war between writers than those four words. What it really means is, write from a position of truth and strength (one will give you the other). There are two ways to to feed this into your writing. One is research. Need to know it? Read about it, experience it if you can or simulate it close enough to extrapolate the required emotion and experience. The other way is more of a method and relies on the acting technique of sense memory. You have a wealth of experience available to you in your life. The trick is to tap into those experiences closest to what you know. Meditate and extrapolate them to fit your story or scene. Because the one thing I’m discovering as I get older is just how resistant to experience people really are.

For example, I’m Scottish, born there in fact. We emigrated to Canada in the mid 70’s so I’m for all intents and purposes a Canadian even though I still speak and understand Scots (no argument here, it’s it’s own language and that’s that). My Scotish Grandfather was proud of the fact he’d never read a book, only newspapers. He also lived his life eating well done (blackened) beef and mince and tatties, with the odd sausage thrown in for good measure. He was what I’ll categorize as a class one scot. A class one scott travels little and is very happy with things as they are. He will rise to the occasion if pushed but prefers to be left alone. Then there’s the class two scot or the wayfarer. He’s not happy unless he know what’s over the next horizon, be it physical or mental. These are the guys that invented the modern world and the way we think about it. Seriously, read up on it and you’ll see it’s true.

But back to the whole what you know thing. The reality is you have to sit yourself down and have a good chat with yourself. The question you must ask is, “How far am I willing to go?” This is also a question at some point you character must ask themselves as well. Don’t pass it off, you must fully commit to the question. Just how far are you willing to go? What is the depth of your commitment. Many have asked this of themselves and others, some for good, some for bad but at its core, it is the most honest thing you can broach.

Right now I’m working on a project where I’ve been given an outline to create a script from. It’s obvious to me that the individuals involved have never asked themselves the question or are too afraid to answer it truly. Therefore they are all facade with nothing underneath to back it up. So they do not know, nor do they listen to the guide. Which never leads to paradise.

So, the trick here is write what you feel. Tell the truth, the emotional truth, the real truth. It’ll take you further.

And if that doesn’t work, give them the flavor of the truth (it works almost as well).

Good luck and good writing.

I find it interesting that China, a country and culture that has a rich Astrological tradition sees fit to lump everybody born in one year into a single category. I’m a Snake if you’re curious, so’s my wife. I guess China was populous enough even in ancient times that the Astrologers guild got together and said, “Why don’t we just issue a blanket statement and get it all over with.

For those of you that are interested…

People born in the Year of the Pig are chivalrous and gallant. Whatever they do, they do with all their strength. For Boar Year people, there is no left or right and there is no retreat. They have tremendous fortitude and great honesty. They don’t make many friends but they make them for life, and anyone having a Boar Year friend is fortunate for they are extremely loyal. They don’t talk much but have a great thirst for knowledge. They study a great deal and are generally well informed. Boar people are quick tempered, yet they hate arguments and quarreling. They are kind to their loved ones. No matter how bad problems seem to be, Boar people try to work them out, honestly if sometimes impulsively. They are most compatible with Rabbits and Sheep.

I thought of starting this article with a provocative image but then I rethought it. After all, the web for the last few days has been awash in provocative content. But then some would say, old Saddam had it coming. I’m not going to comment here nor there on that, other than to say I haven’t watched the video. I’ve seen enough people die up close, it’s never pretty and if I don’t have to see it, all the better.

It amuses me how these days everything is a conspiracy and the Govt. is always in on it. That’s big, “G,” Govt. meanins any Govt. Maybe this for and by the people thing is getting out of hand. Conspiracy’s have their place though, they make people feel safe. They rather believe in a sinister plan than in simple human failure or more to the point, inattention to detail.

9/11 was a conspiracy, a criminal one in which a large number of Saudi Nationals undertook a plan to fly commercial airliners into a series of targets. They planned, they trained and for the most part, they executed the plan. As no terrorist group had ever done that with planes before (they had more of a tendency to seize hostages and then negotiate settlements) it’s understandable that intelligence services could have overlooked the signs. Understandable, but not forgivable. It’s a long known issue that the CIA, NSA, and FBI don’t always get along due to their own budget seeking wars within the beltway.

So yeah, I’m sick of conspiracies, I’ve read enough history (especially 20th Century history) to know that you really don’t ever know all of the facts even decades after an event. Cause now the US is involved in a costly war in Iraq and We (Canada) thanks to our Govt. and the UN are involved in a costly war in Afghanistan. And while I support the troops in both situations, I’d like clarification of our mission objectives in Afghanistan. Iraq’s a fucking disaster but then anybody who reads a history book every now and again could have figured that one out.

Do you think Bush ever found out how, “My Pet Goat,” ended?