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wakefresh

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Posts posted by wakefresh

  1. Posted

    About the question of whether the Hollywood timing structure is intrinsically what we want from movies or just what we've learned through decades of movies like that--I think it's definitely the latter, because of Bollywood. The average Bollywood movie is like 2.5 to 3 hours, with an intermission halfway through. And Bollywood movies are as popular in South Asia as Hollywood movies are here.

     

    Three hours with an intermission?! That's like a play, almost. I also like that in the rural parts of India, people treat the new releases as really big deals. Everyone gets dressed up and goes to the theater, flirt with each other, catch up with people in the other town across the way. Its like a big party.

  2. Posted

     

    Well, first off, good point about the Obi-Wan/mentor character. You're right in that the way they explained it does apply to more movies in general.

     

    Second of all... I don't know if I remember that much from my classes ;) I GRADUATED from college almost six years ago... so I must've taken it, gosh, in 2007? 2006? That doesn't sound right... but it's around there. I do remember learning that Hero's Journey as a sort of graph. You start with a big exciting event (like the Blockade Runner in front of the Star Destroyer), so you should have a large swell right off the bat. Than it settles down and slowly builds the world & action (from C3PO & Artoo walking around on Tatooine all the way up until Han and the group ESCAPE the Death Star), so there's a slow climb. The "All is Lost" Moment where everything just gets more and more hopeless... this causes the curve to take a steep dive (the setup for the Battle of Yavin/The Death Star Trench Run)... which is similar to the "uncanny valley" effect (something far more pertinent to game design, btw). And then you pull up for the big, flashy, crowd-pleasing "Snatch victory from the claws of Defeat!" type finale. But this is all basic, I feel like.

     

    I only remember a little bit more; stuff about a 3-act structure, for instance. But my teacher, who WAS for the Game Art major, did his best to apply it to our career. He was just working with, and adapting, content for another major. So what I learned, again, doesn't quite apply to screenwriting in general. I mean, it's a different timing/flow in a video game. I remember reading a few books on it, and picking up a book called, "The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics" at a local Barnes & Nobles. But I remember learning more from that than the borrowed content from the screenwriting course since - if you think about it - comics/graphic novels and video games have more in common. Both are built from the ground-up to use a combination of visuals & writing to tell a story, for instance. Whereas a script kinda starts the ball rolling, then the storyboard starts thinking out how that script should be visualized... not to mention pre-production in general is it's own thing, etc.

     

    A good comic has the art tell a certain part of the story - you don't need the sentence, "I'm leaving!" if the artist draws a character walking out the door during a fight with another character, right? Just as the action in a game can - and should - move a story forward without needing a redundant cutscene or a triggered line of dialogue. And both storytelling mediums don't have to be squeezed into a certain length to be satisfying, like with movies here.

     

    I remember looking at scripts, and OUTLINING the story for a game in detail, with tons of visuals naturally. Still, I think I wrote 30+ pages before ever adding in visuals. Alas, the class had to be cut short, so we didn't actually get to any serious writing. Well, I'm sure for some classmates, just coming up with an outline was a brutal amount of work, but I'm pretty decent at writing so I didn't mind. But I didn't actually write any scripts. Sorry I can't remember more :P

     

    I can talk a little more about scripting/localizing duties for Japanese cartoons aimed at kids though! At least, from bad companies that hire college students to write stuff for them on the cheap. I may have only had a tangential brush with screenwriting, but I am close to two people who made it their careers. My roommate for most of college is now a director of short films & music videos, and I picked up a ton from him. My sister too majored in it at Tisch School of the Arts in NYU. It's through connections such as these (won't say which), that I ended up ghostwriting at least 2 episodes of an anime aimed at kids that came out a few years ago. I thought it was neat and was roughly familiar with the property (plus I assume the process is similar for localizing Japanese games). However, I shouldn't speak about it because a) I assume there were NDA's in place, and... I kinda forgot what it was called :P I remember the "Umbrella series" property, but cannot remember the name of the specific offshoot.

     

    Here's an analogy: It wasn't Dragonball (I wish it was, but it was before I went to college), but it would be like knowing I wrote for a Dragon Ball show, but forgetting if it was for an episode of Dragon Ball, DBZ, Dragon Ball GT, or Dragon Ball Z: Kai -- that's what I'm talking about.

     

    For a little while, I lived with a friend from high school who was in L.A. doing the struggling screenwriter thing. I didn't stick with it, he did, and is in pre-production for a film he wrote. Can't wait to see it and scream my ass off when his name shows up in the credits. The little I know about screenwriting comes from him and hanging around those UCLA extension classes.

     

    You're right about comics an video games -- they have the visuals front and center, while in a movie, the visuals are tacked on after the words are written. And I even remember my friend saying that no one wants a script that has heavy visuals; they want a script that is a good read. The director is going to put together the visuals and add that stuff in during rewrites. If you think about it, the screenplay is a very rough draft of a movie -- all of the other elements come together on set where I'm sure there are quick changes made here and there to account for the actors portraying the character, the director, the location where you are filming, and the technical limitations of special effects. Its a crazy dynamic with alot of cooks in the kitchen, which is why a lot of movies aren't that good (I'm hoping my friend's movie bucks this trend though).

     

    With comics and video games there are less cooks in the kitchen, but not necessarily less people working on the project. Like, the game producer doesn't have to listen to the creative input of the senior tools programmer. No one cares to hear about their ideas on the game's theme. Just make sure the asset pipeline is working, dude. The writer and the artist don't need to listen to the inker's story ideas. Just make sure those cross hatches are good, dude.

  3. Posted

    I think there's better uses of your time (listen to us, overexplaining a superhero movie). People refer to it with terms like "landmark film" but through the lens of history, it's worth as a piece of cinema is more weighed towards what it paved the way for rather than the object itself. Now it would seem like a parody of European art house cinema because its influence was fairly considerable and certain tropes have become shorthand for silly, snooty foreign films -- black & white, a naked person smoking, speaking in Swedish, themes of sex & death, etc.

     

    I think any film is worth a shot but if you're going "I want to watch a fun, erotic, artsy film" then I think stuff like Radley Metzger (The Opening Of Misty Beethoven, The Lickerish Quartet), Jean Rollin (Fascination, Requiem For A Vampire), Jess Franco (Venus In Furs, Female Vampire), or even some of the Emmanuelle movies offer more entertainment value. But sometimes we want more than to just be entertained; I dunno. I Am Curious (Yellow) is on Hulu, like many Criterion movies.

     

    Thanks, Cat & Beard. I say you have an encyclopedic knowledge of movies across all genres, whether foreign or domestic. Were you a film student at one time (or currently)? Are you involved in the film industry in some capacity?

  5. Posted

    When trying to find the exact one they were talking about, I stumbled across these too, as well as several articles that talk about what a fucked-up comic it was. Again, it comes down to making Lois look like a fucking idiot at every turn. Apparently, there was also one where her and Supes were also incredibly racially insensitive in one of those stories that addresses a societal injustice in such a misguided way that really does more damage than good.

     

    Oh yeah, and that first cover there reminds me of one for World's Finest or Secret Origins or something where it proclaimed "The Origin of the Jimmy Olsen and Robin Super-Team!", and then you open it, and the very first page is Batman and Superman standing at the graves of Jimmy Olsen and Robin. Today, that would have been a good joke, but since it was back then when they almost certainly didn't see it with those eyes, it was a MASTERPIECE of unintentional comedy. Of course they weren't dead though, but later on, it did inspire me to do a project for some class or another that I was taking in college where I pitched a comic called "Kid Crossfire and the Fantastic Union of Costumed Kids Evading Demise" ("F.U.C.K.E.D. For Life!" for however long that was going to be...) that featured a sidekick character that wore a bright green and yellow costume with targets all over it and a mask that really didn't disguise his identity at all, as well as a (constantly) revolving roster of supporting characters. Jeez, I need to get that idea rolling again...

     

    Yeah, all the spinoff covers scream "PICK ME UP! LOOK AT THIS! SOMETHING WEIRD IS HAPPENING! DON'T YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY THIS WEIRD THING IS HAPPENING?!" So, if you were to revive the adventures of the F.U.C.K.E.D. crew, you would have to follow this time-honored tradition. Maybe have Rush Limbaugh in a schoolgirl outfit with a crown of dildos while Godzilla is leans against a building smoking a blunt. And then have one of the F.U.C.K.E.D. crew exclaim, "Gee, who would have ever thought voting for Ross Perot would have turned the world into this?! We have to do something!"

     

    I'd pay more than 15 cents to see how that story turns out.

  6. Posted

     

     

    I'm a proud owner of the entire Lois Lane run. It's one of my all-time favorite comics. They're so glorious schlocky, they're brilliant. How can you not love a cover like this:

     

    22068_20051230175656_large.jpg

     

    I bet you $100 that the plot of that issue is that Superman won't give her any super-loving while she's a black woman, so Lois tries to change back, but something goes wrong, and she asks Superman can he love her, even though she's black (like its a genetic malady of some kind)...

     

    At which point, Superman throws her from a cliff.

    • Like 1

  7. Posted

    There was a site called superdickery.com that had a bunch of these old covers on there. Apparently there was a spin-off comic for Jimmy Olsen as well. I remember seeing a cover for that comic where Superman is using his eye-rays to melt a present that Jimmy had given him for his birthday. The speech bubble from Superman was something like, "I should have never adopted you as my son, Jimmy. You're a failure!" I don't know why, but that one cracked me up something good. The caption by the webmaster was funny as hell too.

     

    BTW, don't go to superdickery.com. It's full of viruses and they got a lot of infestation going on there. There's a tumblr that I pulled those previous two from with the same name.

    • Like 1

  8. Posted

    I wish I could remember what site it was on, but I remember a pretty hilarious interview with Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction (who were co-writing Uncanny X-Men at the time) where they talked about the Lois Lane comic from the 50's-60's, like how it was the most hateful book ever and that they were surprised how every other issue didn't end with a suicide attempt. Apparently, most of the stories were about how Lois was thiiiiiiis close to proving that Clark was Superman, Supes would catch wind of it, and then he'd drag half the superhero community into his scheme to publicly embarrass her. In one issue in particular, she's going to marry Clark/Superman, and as they're about to tie the knot, "Superman" (really Bruce Wayne or somebody in disguise) shows up at the wedding, and she's all the "What the FUUUUUUCK?!?!? Wedding's off!" and everyone's like "Lois, Clark isn't Superman! You're just a stupid, stupid woman with a small woman brain!", and everyone laughs while a sad trombone almost certainly plays in the background.

     

    I don't know the interview you're talking about, but where these the comics that they were referencing?

     

    tumblr_lqi6ip7RSf1r2ntbyo1_400.jpg

     

    To me, this is the funniest one.

     

    tumblr_lqi0o9mZ4b1r2ntbyo1_400.jpg

    • Like 2

  9. Posted

    I'm only 46 minutes in, just about. I'm expecting a big, dramatic moment in about 14 minutes... ;)

     

    I am genuinely surprised that Joseph Campbell's Journey of Heroes (or Hero's Journey) was never namedropped. That's exactly the template they're talking about, the thing pulled from myths and whatnot for hundreds (thousands?) of years. Especially since they mentioned screenwriting 101 - all screenwriting classes mention this thing. Learned a ton here that I never heard in a screenwriting class though (not that I was going into screenwriting, but the Game Design class at the Art Institute included it when I went through there because they cobbled together the first half of the course from other majors). That 60 minute rule especially seems mind-blowing. Definitely gotta check that out! Also, I had no idea Harmon script-doctored Kung Fu Panda. That's one thing he's worked on that I like :D

     

    Also, the blue & orange thing. First off, I love that, because I grew up in NYC and a lot of our teams use those colors. Always seemed natural to me, never knew there was a rather... nefarious purpose behind it all. Maybe there's a subconscious reason why our loser teams like the Mets will always have fans. Or the Knicks, or Islanders, etc. We, apparently, just love those colors. Secondly, not just movies use that stuff. It seems to infect big budget, creatively bankrupt, mainstream video games just as badly. If not worse.

     

     

    Yeah, Joseph Campbell's Monomyth comes into play, but I don't see the "threshold guardian" character in alot of movies -- this is the character that sort of mentors the hero leads them up to the threshold of the new world and then is never seen again until the end of the story (or never, if they die). In Star Wars, the threshold guardian is Obi Wan, but who is the threshold guardian in a movie like Elysium? What about How To Lose A Guy in 10 Dates?

     

    I never heard of the 60 minute rule either. I looked at some movies yesterday, and it was freaky how well it was applied. There are so many methods and ways people teach screenwriting, I'm interested in hearing how they explained it to you in your classes. They told us that there should be three turns in a screenplay -- the first turn transitions into what the actual story is going to be about; the second turn raises the stakes/ hero makes a decision; and the third turn closes up the story. First five pages or so should introduce characters and the last five pages or so should act like an epilogoue, giving people a hint as to how the actions in the movie are going to alter the character's lives (for good or bad).

    • Like 1

  12. Posted

    eh idk if it is too similar, going back to andy from parks. the dude thru the first five seasons (i havent caught up on the new episodes ;_; ) was a fat slobby bro who would pass out in his tighty whiteys from running a mile. i assume he got the role then got ripped for it. the idea of female perfection tho is probably that you need to have it to get the roles in the first place

     

    I didn't know that he played a slob on that show (I never watch it, so how could I?) In "Moneyball," he looked like he was in-shape. He played the replacement first-baseman.

  13. Posted

    Yeah, have you seen pics of Chris Pratt getting beefed up for Guardians Of The Galaxy? Parks & Rec's Andy is more ripped than Superman. I think it was on last week's Indoor Kids, they were talking about the literal arms race. When the first Thor came out, everyone was like "damn"; then Captain America, everyone was all "Damn"; Man Of Steel's Superman (movie aside), everyone was like "DAMN" -- maah wife was fanning herself like she had the vapors.

     

    Cat & Beard, if you love your wife, beg her not to see the Guardians of the Galaxy movie. She will literally explode.

     

     

    Also: something something about some male actors being held up to impossible standards of perfection similar to how every female in Hollywood is, but that's not equality, it's just more of the same but not exactly, I'm not articulate enough for this.

     

    It is sort of equality and sort of not, imho. The males on screen are portraying power, so they gain size. The females in movies are the love object, so they are not really allowed to have muscle, but instead are expected to have exaggerated sexual organs and to be much smaller than the men. Gaining lots of size and losing lots of size are both physically draining, but the end goal of them is very different.

     

    In addition to having Werner Herzog and Arnold Schrawanegger do audio commentary for each other's movies, if I had a lot of money, I would bankroll a film with Gina Ginaro(sp? from Fast and Furious 6) as the action star lead and have her love romance be someone like Micheal Cera. The villain in this movie would be a female bodybuilder (not those fitness model contestants, but a real-life woman bodybuilder). In fact, all of the villian's lackeys would be other women MMA or bodybuilders that Gina would have to fight off, Game-of-Death style.

     

    And at the end, when the Gina and the main villain are fighting, one of the lackeys would show up with a beaten Cera. His eye is black and his shirt is ripped. Gina asks what happened to him and the villain does a creepy, slow laugh. This gives Gina the final push of energy overcome and defeat the villain.

     

    Plus there would be plenty of one-liners ala "Raw".

    • Like 3

  17. Posted

    Holy shit, I just looked at the wikipedia to get a refresher of what this movie was as I remember bits and pieces from when I was a kid, and I saw this thing was a HUGE FUCKING HIT at the box office, I mean this puts the financial success that Cobra was to shame. And reading up on this, I really don't know what could have garnered that kind of audience response, I mean were the leads really that hot in '93? Yeah Harrelson was coming off of White Men Can't Jump, but this movie was a completely different beast from what that was. Demi Moore was in A Few Good Men so it seems natural she would do well in another drama, but she wasn't the big pull for Men, and Redford was just in Sneakers, but his role in this was completely different than what people were used to seeing him as. I mean it is really mind-boggling how this movie did so well, but was almost completely panned by critics.

     

    I don't get it, but maybe there was some sort of big adultery scandal in the news at the time? This movie's marketing was great though. I remember all of the talk shows, morning shows, radio shows, etc asking the same question: "would you let your spouse have sex with another person for one million dollars?" I put this movie in the same category as "Fatal Attraction" -- it's a movie that captures some innate fears that people have of vulnerability, partnership, marriage, etc.

    • Like 1

  18. Posted

    I'm trying to think of WHEN exactly it was that they finally got CGI under control to a point where it didn't stand out so bad, because there's a lot of post-"Phantom Menace"/turn of the century stuff that didn't look terribly believable at the time that looks even WORSE now. I'm thinking that at some point, filmmakers became less concerned about the "Look what I can do!" aspect and more concerned with integrating it with the real world because there really wasn't anything new under the sun. I could be wrong. Maybe it was when it became affordable on the cheap and EVERYONE started doing it.

     

    Anyway, Daredevil was always a guy that could kick your ass that didn't LOOK like he could kick your ass (the blindness thing helped a bit too) that seemed more like he'd be the size of a middle weight boxer or something. Not a huge dude, but really athletic and in great shape. Spidey was like a gymnast, DD was like a boxer, and a guy like Captain America seemed more like an old school bodybuilder or professional wrestler, which is probably more where Affleck falls. This reminds me of another HDTGM miscast, where Topher Grace played Venom in "Spider-Man 3". Venom should have been bigger, especially if they were ever to bring Carnage into the picture (who is sort of a Topher-sized mini Venom). Using THIS logic, Topher Grace could have made a good Daredevil, and Ben Affleck would have been a fine Venom. BAM. Casting problems solved...a decade late...

     

    Well, what does that mean for the Batman movie? It seems like there is a literal arms race to make sure the guy playing the superhero has 25-inch biceps, washboard abs, and shoulders the size of watermelons. And Topher Grace is miscast in everything where you don't want a likable, quippy, semi-nerdy dude. If you can't see Micheal Cera being in that role as well, then its not good for Grace either. They should have made Brock more of an asshole instead of a pathetic hanger-on. Chris Evans would have been great in that role, but it would have broken the Marvel Universe --- The Human Torch and Venom are the SAME PERSON!!!!!

     

    I always thought they shot around them being the same height, but I haven't re-watched the movie yet. I will do that tonight.

  20. Posted

    Ironically, it was probably the high point for it's leading man, Gabriel Macht. I mean, it fuckin' bombed, no doubt, but it looks like the first and only time that anyone tried to build a big budget movie around the guy. He's on that show "Suits", so good for him, but it looks like his highest profile leading role since then was in the straight-to-video SWAT sequel. I wonder if even HE remembers that one time where he could have almost been a star?

     

    Oh shit! I forgot he was in this. I think he was on his way to being a big star. He was in that movie "The Farm" or "The Recruit" with Colin Farrell and Al Pacino. And I would bet good money that he considers "The Spirit" a low point as well -- that bomb probably set back his career a bit more than Sam Jackson or Scarlett Johannsen.

    • Like 1

  21. Posted

    Also have to say, everyone should check out How Did This Get Made podcast because they have reviewed a couple of "passion" projects that directors wanted to do that turned out to be complete shit. In the case of Toys, the director had been tinkering with the script for 10+ years. Obviously, the director/actors/crew/etc have to want to do a good job, but if you are too into a particular story, you can't see how the material plays to other folks. And in some cases, don't give a shit as to how it plays to other folks.

  22. Posted

    Loved this episode! Just want to say that in my writing classes and books, they always call screenplays "dramatic shorthand". The format isn't fit to do a lot of things that novels can do (enter character's minds and thoughts) or that live theater can do (the audience's senses aren't hindered by the frame of the camera). That's why for the most part the book is much better than the movie, and the play is more exciting than the film.

     

    I do disagree with one section when it seemed that Jason was boo-hooing the very idea of hope. If someone is at a low point, the hope of something better is the very thing that is driving them to make attempts to change their situation. And let's face it, the attempts to change are the only way that they are ever going to turn thing around; without it, they will just resign themselves to their conditions.

  25. Posted

    Ooh Boy, now I remember the two reasons why this movie sucked, and they're called Jen Garner and Colin Farrell

     

    Garner is just as bland as she was in Elektra. I still find it hard to believe that she won critical acclaim for Alias (Note: Never Seen Alias). And Colin Farrell is just so gleefully dark it's upsetting, and I know June must have fainted at Grandma's Death. (I also need to hear June's Take on the Rape Case, because was there REALLY no other evidence to convict that guy other than HIS TESTIMONY?)

     

    Also, Genuine Question for the Forum; Who's Sex was More Disgusting? Bennifer Garner or Bennifer Lopez?

     

    The best parts about this movie are Jon Faverau and Micheal Clarke Duncan. If it had just been Ben Affleck and M.C.D. fighting each other with Jon throwing in funny quips, it would have been a great movie.

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