Oh good grief. Update.
Trouble with successful TV companies - they're busy.
What's on the turntable? Nuffink.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Q versus A
Now then, my Running script.
Interesting.
I was looking at my notes on the train this evening (I didn't get to it last night after all). I had a male protagonist and a female protagonist, brother and sister. I knew this was one character too many but that's how I had originally envisioned it.
Cut to interview with Joss Whedon that I watched last week.
Joss has developed this simple idea about the difference between TV and Film: A TV series is a Question, while a film is an Answer. I'm not going to dwell on this, I shall leave it as an exercise for the reader to understand what he means.
For me it wasn't exactly a revelation, more of a "yeeeeees ... yes ... I see. That's right."
And that's what was wrong with Running and the "one character too many".
If this is to be a film, it has to be an Answer. It runs its course and ends at a satisfying conclusion. But having these two protagonists sets up a dynamic - a conflict - between the two that isn't resolved. Which means it would be remain a Question.
I don't mean, of course, that I think everything in a movie has to be resolved, nor do I think that you can't have an ensemble cast in a film (Joss did it himself in Serenity). But for this film, for Running, the additional character results in this unresolvable conflict.
So I lose a character but do I lose the brother or the sister? That's an easy one for me. I'm like Joss Whedon, I like writing interesting female characters (even Une Nuit a Paris, which is about a stag weekend, has two ... no ... three strong female characters), so the brother is thrust into limbo.
Once that was resolved I had to think about the opening scene, I like to thrust the audience straight into the action, and have them just a little bit confused. I went through various scenarios, and eventually hit on one where the characters began to live, including the apparently dead one. At which point I knew I had it sorted.
The opening scenes await.
But I'll have to wait until Celtx 2.0 downloads and I can get cracking with my exciting new soft toy - I mean software toy.
What's on the turntable? "Blue Motel" by Joni Mitchell from "Hejira"
Interesting.
I was looking at my notes on the train this evening (I didn't get to it last night after all). I had a male protagonist and a female protagonist, brother and sister. I knew this was one character too many but that's how I had originally envisioned it.
Cut to interview with Joss Whedon that I watched last week.
Joss has developed this simple idea about the difference between TV and Film: A TV series is a Question, while a film is an Answer. I'm not going to dwell on this, I shall leave it as an exercise for the reader to understand what he means.
For me it wasn't exactly a revelation, more of a "yeeeeees ... yes ... I see. That's right."
And that's what was wrong with Running and the "one character too many".
If this is to be a film, it has to be an Answer. It runs its course and ends at a satisfying conclusion. But having these two protagonists sets up a dynamic - a conflict - between the two that isn't resolved. Which means it would be remain a Question.
I don't mean, of course, that I think everything in a movie has to be resolved, nor do I think that you can't have an ensemble cast in a film (Joss did it himself in Serenity). But for this film, for Running, the additional character results in this unresolvable conflict.
So I lose a character but do I lose the brother or the sister? That's an easy one for me. I'm like Joss Whedon, I like writing interesting female characters (even Une Nuit a Paris, which is about a stag weekend, has two ... no ... three strong female characters), so the brother is thrust into limbo.
Once that was resolved I had to think about the opening scene, I like to thrust the audience straight into the action, and have them just a little bit confused. I went through various scenarios, and eventually hit on one where the characters began to live, including the apparently dead one. At which point I knew I had it sorted.
The opening scenes await.
But I'll have to wait until Celtx 2.0 downloads and I can get cracking with my exciting new soft toy - I mean software toy.
What's on the turntable? "Blue Motel" by Joni Mitchell from "Hejira"
Celtx 2.0 Released
Yes indeedy.
They done some nice work to it but now they've added versioning in their Celtx Studios.
What the buggery does that mean?
It's like this: Let's say you write a draft of your script. Then you write the second draft. The first draft still exists on the Celtx system.
Now you think - what if I completely get rid of that character? Well, you can. The previous versions exist PLUS you can back to an earlier version while still keeping the one with the removed character.
You can compare them to see where the actual differences lie, cut and paste between create as many different "branches" of your script as you want and so on.
But remember Celtx isn't just a screenwriting system (it's also an AV writing system, Comic writing ...) but more than that. It's a complete movie production control system. And every element of it has the same version control.
It does all sort of clever stuff that you need when you produce a film of any length - down to scheduling, prop lists and call sheets, and other stuff you need that I don't know about. All integrated so that your work is kept to a minimum. It also does collaboration so you can have different people working on different aspects of the whole project. Or you can have multiple authors on the same script.
What else? Oh yes, Celtx Studios allows you to create web "views" of your project so that you can give other people access to see parts of your project (like the script perhaps). But still maintain security on your whole project.
The downloadable Celtx software is still free. The new versioning (et al) option, through Celtx Studios, costs $50 per year. I'll pay that just for the versioning, and these guys have been doing all this work for free for a very long time, I don't begrudge them a subscription.
I don't get a commission.
What's on the turntable? "Song for Sharon" by Joni Mitchell from "Hejira"
They done some nice work to it but now they've added versioning in their Celtx Studios.
What the buggery does that mean?
It's like this: Let's say you write a draft of your script. Then you write the second draft. The first draft still exists on the Celtx system.
Now you think - what if I completely get rid of that character? Well, you can. The previous versions exist PLUS you can back to an earlier version while still keeping the one with the removed character.
You can compare them to see where the actual differences lie, cut and paste between create as many different "branches" of your script as you want and so on.
But remember Celtx isn't just a screenwriting system (it's also an AV writing system, Comic writing ...) but more than that. It's a complete movie production control system. And every element of it has the same version control.
It does all sort of clever stuff that you need when you produce a film of any length - down to scheduling, prop lists and call sheets, and other stuff you need that I don't know about. All integrated so that your work is kept to a minimum. It also does collaboration so you can have different people working on different aspects of the whole project. Or you can have multiple authors on the same script.
What else? Oh yes, Celtx Studios allows you to create web "views" of your project so that you can give other people access to see parts of your project (like the script perhaps). But still maintain security on your whole project.
The downloadable Celtx software is still free. The new versioning (et al) option, through Celtx Studios, costs $50 per year. I'll pay that just for the versioning, and these guys have been doing all this work for free for a very long time, I don't begrudge them a subscription.
I don't get a commission.
What's on the turntable? "Song for Sharon" by Joni Mitchell from "Hejira"
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Getting the reference
It was 1 hour and 28 minutes ago that I sat down to write this blog. How do I know? Because I wrote the "What's on the turntable" entry below. Then I killed the blog and have just restarted it, and it's the same song - and I have exactly 1:28 hours of Steely Dan music.
What have I been doing in the last hour and a half? I have been writing the Table of Contents for the planned reference book. It's a programming manual for a large and well-known publisher of such reference books.
I had sent some notes on what I thought should be in it to my co-author, he'd responded by expanding it with his stuff. So I took the TOC suggested by the company, and his notes on my notes and ran them all together, sorting them out into some semblance of a logical sequence and incorporating the headings of the publisher, just to show them that we're not ignoring them.
I had this rather nifty idea, since we need a website to demonstrate the principles we will be describing in the book why not build a website that will potentially make us some money? Along with the free advertising from the book. Mercenary, moi? (Hey! I'm 50, and though I'm not planning on retiring [what a waste of time that would be] I'd like to have lots of pennies rolling in so that I can live in the style I wish to become accustomed ... to.)
Speaking of plans. You might like to try this: A couple of years ago I sat down and worked out how much money I would need to generate in order to handle all my debts and do everything I wanted to do. The figure came out at about £300,000. Then I multiplied by 3.3333etc to round it up to a million. (I had my reasons.)
Then I picked a date which seemed a reasonable target: End of 2012. So I decide that by that date I would make £1m and handle all my debts and so on. Then I sat down and started working out ways that I could make the money required.
Last year was a good start but I mishandled the money and ended up back where I started. So this year I'm doing it better and getting more long-term money generating plans off the starting blocks. Obviously I'm never going to make a million if I go on doing what I'm doing, you need to continue to make the money to live on plus devise sensible schemes that can deliver in the future.
I actually made this plan before I discovered I had some screenwriting talent.
I don't really believe in coincidences, I do believe we are responsible for what goes on around us, both directly and indirectly (why can't I win the lottery then? Because there are millions of other people trying to as well). And just by making the plan, as I did all that time ago, my life began to change around me (like discovering I had a highly valuable programming skill and now having the opportunity to write a book).
I'll do some set-up work for Running this evening, get my notes out and have look over them, probably change them. And get some writing in wednesday evening.
Oh! I'm going to the Toby Whitehouse thing set-up by the BBC Writersroom - are you going?
What's on the turntable? "Barrytown" by Steely Dan from "Roaring of the Lamb"
What have I been doing in the last hour and a half? I have been writing the Table of Contents for the planned reference book. It's a programming manual for a large and well-known publisher of such reference books.
I had sent some notes on what I thought should be in it to my co-author, he'd responded by expanding it with his stuff. So I took the TOC suggested by the company, and his notes on my notes and ran them all together, sorting them out into some semblance of a logical sequence and incorporating the headings of the publisher, just to show them that we're not ignoring them.
I had this rather nifty idea, since we need a website to demonstrate the principles we will be describing in the book why not build a website that will potentially make us some money? Along with the free advertising from the book. Mercenary, moi? (Hey! I'm 50, and though I'm not planning on retiring [what a waste of time that would be] I'd like to have lots of pennies rolling in so that I can live in the style I wish to become accustomed ... to.)
Speaking of plans. You might like to try this: A couple of years ago I sat down and worked out how much money I would need to generate in order to handle all my debts and do everything I wanted to do. The figure came out at about £300,000. Then I multiplied by 3.3333etc to round it up to a million. (I had my reasons.)
Then I picked a date which seemed a reasonable target: End of 2012. So I decide that by that date I would make £1m and handle all my debts and so on. Then I sat down and started working out ways that I could make the money required.
Last year was a good start but I mishandled the money and ended up back where I started. So this year I'm doing it better and getting more long-term money generating plans off the starting blocks. Obviously I'm never going to make a million if I go on doing what I'm doing, you need to continue to make the money to live on plus devise sensible schemes that can deliver in the future.
I actually made this plan before I discovered I had some screenwriting talent.
I don't really believe in coincidences, I do believe we are responsible for what goes on around us, both directly and indirectly (why can't I win the lottery then? Because there are millions of other people trying to as well). And just by making the plan, as I did all that time ago, my life began to change around me (like discovering I had a highly valuable programming skill and now having the opportunity to write a book).
I'll do some set-up work for Running this evening, get my notes out and have look over them, probably change them. And get some writing in wednesday evening.
Oh! I'm going to the Toby Whitehouse thing set-up by the BBC Writersroom - are you going?
What's on the turntable? "Barrytown" by Steely Dan from "Roaring of the Lamb"
Monday, February 23, 2009
I was writing, honest
I had had a run of good Internet recently, meaning I could wrap up any business I had that involved e-mail, reading blogs and so on nice and quickly.
Until tonight. Old Rubbish Internet was back ... although I think I've solved it (by heavens).
But this evening while Rubbish Internet was trying to load a page (and taking about an hour) I managed to write the instructions for my "it'll make me rich one day" website so that my testers could have the run of it.
So that's another job done.
Must admit I'm a little bit worried about this reference book project: It's not insignificant, we're talking at least 400 pages of which I will do at least half (as well as editing the other half for my co-author - and him me). It worries me because it's going to get in the way of the screenwriting.
So I better hurry up and get Running written. Time for a new Progress Bar.
(And welcome to Elinor who's following me - why? I don't know where I'm going.)
What's on the turntable? "Duchess" by Genesis from "Duke" - I don't care what anybody says, I like Genesis and Phil Collins, together and apart, then and now.
Until tonight. Old Rubbish Internet was back ... although I think I've solved it (by heavens).
But this evening while Rubbish Internet was trying to load a page (and taking about an hour) I managed to write the instructions for my "it'll make me rich one day" website so that my testers could have the run of it.
So that's another job done.
Must admit I'm a little bit worried about this reference book project: It's not insignificant, we're talking at least 400 pages of which I will do at least half (as well as editing the other half for my co-author - and him me). It worries me because it's going to get in the way of the screenwriting.
So I better hurry up and get Running written. Time for a new Progress Bar.
(And welcome to Elinor who's following me - why? I don't know where I'm going.)
What's on the turntable? "Duchess" by Genesis from "Duke" - I don't care what anybody says, I like Genesis and Phil Collins, together and apart, then and now.
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