First Draft of “Bright Freedom” Done

I finished the first draft of Bright Freedom yesterday. It came in at just under 68 pages, which is a couple pages shorter than the first drafts for Then the Phone Rang and My Detective Story. It is about a page longer than my first draft of The Doorman’s Sacrifice.

Before I started to write, I made estimates of how long each scene would be. I came up with 91 pages. In the first half of the script, my scenes were shorter than I estimated by about one third. In the second half, I was still short, but not by as much.

I took some time off between the first half and the second half to revise The Doorman’s Sacrifice for Amazon Studios and write the first draft of my Lester Dent style adventure story. I think those experiences helped improve my writing, which is why I had longer scenes. I read up on how to write dialog and that helped too.

I have a short description for the story now.

Throughout her legal career, Bright Freedom has helped the weak against the strong. One day she sees a face from a past she wanted to forget. While she struggles with two difficult cases and the problems of her assistant, Bright must risk her life to reconnect with those she left behind.

I need to do more research on the background to this story before I can finish it. I may use my draft to approach some people who can help me with background.

In the mean time, I want finish My Most Difficult Case and my Lester Dent style adventure story.

How Many Scripts Do You Have to Write Before You Learn How to Write a Script?

At the start of this year, I set a goal of writing three feature scripts by the end of the year. I’ve done two and am a little over half way through the third. I think I’ll get it (Bright Freedom) done this week.

The reason I picked three was that in Dov Ss Simens book From Reel to Deal he said you needed to do three. Or least I think he did, it’s been a while since I read it now.

This week I watched an interview with Robert McKee about script writing.

He says that you need to finish 10 scripts before you have mastered the art. He also says that part of that is a matter of maturing, which can take 10 years!

I felt discouraged about this, but then I have a lot of experience in other types of writing, which I hope will cut down the time I need to develop. In any event, I have had the attitude that I needed to learn more about the art of script writing. I know that I still have much to learn. I may need to write a few more scripts before I write one that really is good.

Another point McKee makes in the interview is that the writer should not expect that the dialog he writes would make it to the screen unchanged. That makes me feel better, because it is similar to what I said in my article How to Write a Feature Movie Script Part One.

Mad Dash to Finish “Bright Freedom”

I want to get back to work on my script Bright Freedom this week. I’m confident that I will meet my goal to finish three scripts this year.

The script sat idle for a month. I started to reread what I’ve done so far, and review the outline. It will take me a day or two to get back into the story. The script is almost half way through and is shorter than I want it to be. I won’t try to fix that in the first draft.

While I think I have a good story, I don’t plan to make the film and want to do it to learn more about writing. My experience tells me that I still need to learn more about plotting so that my stories don’t come out s short. Another area I need to focus on is dialog.

I found this video about dialog that I found helpful: http://www.ehow.com/video_2390566_write-dialogue-movie-script.html

When I read From Reel to Deal by Dov S-s Simens, he suggested that reading legal dispositions was a good way to learn how natural dialog looked. I haven’t done that. I’m not sure where you would find legal dispositions. I think there must be other sources for natural dialog, but I’m not sure where to find them either. I’ll have to get onto Google one of these days.

Along the same lines, I started to analyse the words I use in my writing. I worry that I over use some words, like anything, something and nothing. I did a word frequency count with the website: http://www.csgnetwork.com/documentanalystcalc.html . I compared some of what I wrote to the Doc Savage book Fear Cay. I noticed some differences, but some reflected that he wrote it in 1933. It might be a good idea to compare my writing to a more recent book, or script.

I want to have my characters use slightly different vocabularies, which is true of real people, so I need to be more aware of the words I use.

First Draft of “Adventure” Story Done

I finished the first draft of my story based on the Lester Dent Master Fiction Plot formula.

It came in at 6,463 words, or somewhat longer than the 6,000 words that the formula targets. I will need to rewrite the story to fix some inconsistencies, and I can likely tighten up the story when I do that. I have some other projects I need to take care of. That will give me some distance when I rewrite in a week or two. I don’t have a title for the story yet, or titles for the subsections.

I found the story easy to write; the outline made a big difference. It didn’t perfectly though, several times I had to modify the outline. I also had trouble with some details that I didn’t plan out in advance. I thought of them as McGuffins, so I didn’t put much effort into their development. That was a mistake. I changed my mind about a couple of them half way through and that caused the problem with inconsistencies.

What I’m not sure about now, is how readable the story is. I can’t evaluate my own work very well. The characters are not very deep and there isn’t much in the way of a message. However, the characters are very busy as they run from crisis to crisis, so casual readers may not notice those limitations.

I would like to try a similar approach to a different kind of story. A while back, someone suggested I do a film like Before Sunrise. My efforts in that direction haven’t gone very far. Maybe I could write a short story with a variation of this formula.

The Master Fiction Plot: http://www.paper-dragon.com/1939/dent.html

MacGuffin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin

The Lester Dent Master Fiction Plot Test Drive

After I read over Lester Dent’s story formula, I wanted to try it out.

I developed a spreadsheet that I could use to organize the outline. I added some modifications of my own that I thought would help me write. This week I did an outline. I wanted to leave the project until later because I want to finish my Bright Freedom script first.

However, last night I decided to take a stab at it. The formula is supposed to produce a 6,000-word story. The formula is set up in four parts, each 1,500 words long. The longest short story I’ve done, Distraction is 2,700 words, so this would be considerably longer than any of the stories I’ve done so far.

It took me only an hour and a half to get the first part done. It came in at 1,703 words. That is a little longer than 1,500 words, but it needs some editing and that should shorten it down. I am a little unsure if I should finish this story or the Bright Freedom script first. I’m kind of on a roll with the formula story, so I think I will finish it first.

Links

The Master Fiction Plot: http://www.paper-dragon.com/1939/dent.html 

Bright Freedom: http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog/?cat=14

Distraction: http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/distraction.php

Comment (2011 February 22): I published this story here:  http://authspot.com/short-stories/the-abattoir-project-a-ken-walker-adventure/

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

“The Doorman’s Sacrifice” Reviewed on Amazon Studios

This week I finished my changes to The Doorman’s Sacrifice and uploaded it to Amazon Studios. http://studios.amazon.com/scripts/show/2171

So far, I’ve had three people download the script and two people posted reviews.

One controversy about the site is that writers are worried about people stealing their ideas. When I did a quick check today, they had about 1,500 projects. Of those, over a fifth hadn’t had anyone download the script, another fifth had only one download. With just three downloads, I have had more than 60 per cent of the projects. If nobody reads your script, nobody is going to steal your ideas.

Another controversy about the site is that some people are getting friends and family to post five star ratings for their films and scripts. My friend and family gave me three stars, so no one can accuse me of stacking the reviews. ;-)

"The Doorman’s Sacrifice" Posted on Amazon Studios

I finished my changes to The Doorman’s Sacrifice and uploaded it to Amazon Studios: http://studios.amazon.com/scripts/show/2171

Please have a look. You need to sign up, but it is free. Don’t feel obligated to read it or comment on it, but I would appreciate your support if you did.

When I did a quick check through the script before I submitted it, it struck me that some readers might see the story as a political allegory. I have worked on this story since 2005 and never noticed that aspect of the script before. Maybe it resonates with recent political developments. I didn’t want to have a political thriller, so I tried to shift the script away from that interpretation.

As I read through of the script, I fixed some typos and removed references to events that I had cut out of the script earlier. I changed the last line of the script in line with my empty apple juice can motif. Today I decided that it went too far, so I switched it back.

Doc Savage, Lester Dent, and Formula Writing

When I was young, I read every Doc Savage book I could get, and reread the ones I had several times. I learned later that the writer, Lester Dent, had turned out one 50,000-word Doc Savage book a month for over 14 years. Not only that, but Doc Savage accounted for about a quarter of his output.

Just the other day I stumbled across an article he wrote about the “formula” he used to write so much material. http://www.paper-dragon.com/1939/dent.html

Since I aspire to be a writer, I cogitated on what he wrote. I wanted to avoid formula writing and I know many writers are critical of formulas. But, as I read more on writing, I start to see the value of a formula. Ultimately, I don’t want to be a formula writer, but I realized that it takes time to develop your writing skills, and a formula can help you develop those skills.

I also have a new view of what a formula is. Since my background is in the sciences, I tended to think of a formula as something very mechanical in nature. The writing formulas I’ve heard about are not really like that. I would describe them as structures. When people talk about formula writing, I think they have in mind the few standard structures that get used. Many other structures exist, but most writers rarely use them.

I found out that all the Doc Savage books are available for download: http://www.stealthskater.com/DocSavage_01.htm

Script Preparation for Amazon Studios

Over the last week, I prepared my script The Anger Trap to submit to Amazon Studios. I’m not quite done yet, but I’m close. It was much more work than I thought it would be.

To start, I converted the script from MS Word to Celtx. In MS Word, my script ran to 93 pages, but in Celtx it came out at 80 pages. Amazon Studios won’t accept a script under 85 pages, so I had to expand the script.

I had planned to do just a minor reformat, but in the end, I made quite a few changes.

• Changed the title back to The Doorman’s Sacrifice.


• Changed the names of nine of the seventeen characters and added three new characters.


• Restructured the first half of the script. One nice thing about Celtx is that it is very easy to move scenes around.


• Added three new scenes,


• Expanded a few scenes,


• Split one scene into two scenes and


• Split another scene into three scenes

The revised script came in at 86 pages.

When I checked out the submission requirements in more detail, it turned out that they want the script as a Rich Text Format file. Celtx doesn’t output an rtf file. I didn’t want to go back to MS Word again, because I thought the template I used didn’t reproduce the standard script format. I tried a couple of other script writing programs, Page2Stage and Scriptmaker. They both output rtf files, but I couldn’t import files from Celtx.

I downloaded a script from Amazon Studios and studied the format they used. That convinced me that MS Word was the way to go, but I wanted to develop my own template. I found several “Official” script format descriptions on the Internet, none of which agreed with any of the others. I picked one that gave me a 93-page script.

Steve Hanon told me I use too many “ing” verbs in my writing, so I replaced most of them. I noticed I use “anything” and “something” a lot. Maybe I should change some of those too. I reformatted some “hidden” shots, into the proper shot format. When I went through the script, I fixed a few other minor problems I spotted. The script is 94 pages now.

Amazon Studios wants a synopsis and a log line that I still need to prepare, but I think I should have the whole package ready to post in a few days. Of course, that is what I thought last Sunday.

Should I Submit “The Anger Trap” to Amazon Studios?

Amazon has started a movie studio called Amazon Studios http://studios.amazon.com/ . Their idea is to crowd source scripts. People post their scripts on-line and then other people try to rewrite them to win prizes. They expect that eventually they’ll get a script they can make into a blockbuster.

I read a good discussion of the issues with the plan at http://johnaugust.com/archives/2010/on-the-amazon-film-thing . Many professional writers think it is a dumb idea that won’t work. Over all, it doesn’t sound too promising.

On the other hand, that doesn’t mean it won’t be worth my while to try it out. For example, I don’t think I’ll go back to The Anger Trap script and I certainly don’t plan to make it. If I submit it, there is the possibility that I’ll win a prize. I may also generate some visits to my website, which could help me gain some followers.

I haven’t decided to go ahead with a submission yet because I do have some ideas for the script. I could turn it into a short novel/novelette. I also have notes for changes to the script.

If I do submit it, I’ll need to decide if I submit it as it is, or if I do some revisions before I do. At the least, I want to switch the title back to the original The Doorman’s Sacrifice. I want to move at least one scene, and I want to split up another. Some of the dialog would embarrass me now, so I want to fix that.

I don’t want to make too many changes, and I don’t want to cut out too much. The script runs 97 pages now, and the minimum to submit is 85 pages. That does give me the opportunity to cut out some material.

Earlier I created a Celtx file of the script, but I see now that I only have the first four scenes formatted. That is out of 69 scenes. It may take quite sometime to get it ready to submit. Maybe I’d be better off if I worked on other projects.

More Scenes or Longer Scenes?

I finished the outline for Bright Freedom last week, and wrote 14 of the 42 scenes I identified. I expected that I would have a 90-page script by the end, but the scenes are shorter than I thought they would be. I may only get a 50-page script. I’ve had similar problems with my earlier scripts, but this seems even worse.

I’ve asked myself should I try to make my scenes longer, or add more scenes? Do I add more events to the film, or to make the events bigger?

I’ve read that the average scene should be about 3 pages and a page typically translates into about one minute of screen time. My average scene is 1.4 pages, so I would need 65 scenes to get a 90-minute film.

I think that I should develop my scenes more. I tend to write scenes very focussed on plot and don’t make much effort to portray the characters. If I did that more often, my scenes would be longer. I hope it would make the characters more interesting to the audience.

When I did the rewrites for The Anger Trap, only about 20 per cent of the increased length of later drafts was due to adding scenes. The rest came from longer scenes.

In Defence of "Blink" and "Outliers"

I enjoyed reading Malcolm Gladwell's books Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking and Outliers: The Story of Success. I was disappointed when I read some criticism of these books. I wrote a short article to counter the criticism.

In Defence of Blink and Outliers

http://bookstove.com/book-talk/in-defence-of-blink-and-outliers/

How Long is “Then the Phone Rang”?

Someone who read my script Then the Phone Rang, told me they thought the script was too short to be a feature. I planned to get some actors to do a read through sometime to get a better idea.

This week I decided to try Natural Reader,  a text to audio program (http://www.naturalreaders.com/ to time it. The paid version allows you to create an mp3 file, but not the free version I have. After a little trial and error, I found I could record the audio with Audacity http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ .

The audio file came in at 83 minutes. I didn’t clean up the script to remove things like the names of which characters were talking, so an actual film based on the script would be somewhat shorter. Still, I think it still comes to about a minute a page. At 71 pages, it is still on the short side for a feature.

One thing that caught my attention was that it was much easier to catch typos while listening. I had a character named Brian, and everyone else in the script kept calling him Brain. I didn’t try to make any corrections this time, but I want to go back to do that.

I would still like to make a trial version of the film with Xtranormal’s text-to-movie software http://www.xtranormal.com . I think that would give me a better idea how my script will translate to the screen. It might also help me come up with a more visual approach to the script.

I feel I should buy the paid versions of Xtranormal and Natural Reader, but I am not quite ready to do that.

Bright Freedom

I started on a new movie script this week. My other projects: My Most Difficult Case and Then the Phone Rang are hanging fire while I get some other people involved. I wanted to get to work on something, so I went back to a project, called Bright Freedom, which I’ve been playing with off and on for a long time.

I’ve been stalled on the story because I really need to do a lot of background research to do a proper job of it. I kept finding excuses to put off the research. I did manage to determine that the basic premise of the story is plausible. I decided that was good enough to start writing. I will still need to do more research before I can do a final version of the script. I think it may be easier to do the research once I have a draft of the script. I hope that doesn’t sound like famous last words.

I am not sure if I want to make Bright Freedom into film in the end. Right now, I see it as a development exercise. The more scripts you write, the easier it is to write. I also believe that the quality of my writing will improve. It will be a challenge because the protagonist is not only a woman, but is a woman from a very different culture than I’m familiar with. That is the reason why I expect that I will need to do more research to finish it. Either that, or find someone to collaborate with.

Someone told me I made my female characters more self confident, strong and independent than they should be. I’m not sure if that is true. The protagonist in this story isn’t someone to wait around for a big strong man to come save her. I’ve meet people like her, so I think that is realistic.

I got about halfway through the outline this week. I am doing a more detailed outline than I did for Then the Phone Rang, but less detailed than what I did for The Anger Trap or my detective story. I expect it to take longer to write. I am also confident that the first draft of the script will come in longer. Certainly closer to feature length than the other projects I’ve done.

Trying New Site for my Stories and Articles

Trying New Site for my Stories and Articles

I started to publish my stories and articles on Wikinut.

http://www.wikinut.com/author~sonpm/DynamicLethargyFilms/

I’m getting a decent number of people reading my stuff, but I’m not making much money from it. So far they pay much less than what I get on Triond.

http://www.triond.com/users/James+Beattie+Morison

My own site has been getting a few visitors, but no revenue yet.

http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/writing.php

wikinut, writing, Triond, money, revenue, short stories

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

I started to publish my stories and articles on Wikinut.

http://www.wikinut.com/author~sonpm/DynamicLethargyFilms/

I’m getting a decent number of people reading my stuff, but I’m not making much money from it. So far they pay much less than what I get on Triond.

http://www.triond.com/users/James+Beattie+Morison

My own site has been getting a few visitors, but no revenue yet.

http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/writing.php

Then the Phone Rang – Second Draft Done – Looking for Readers

I got the second draft of my Then the Phone Rang script done. I didn’t make too many changes and I liked what I had written before. Maybe I am still too close to the material.

My next step is to ask some people to read the script and tell me what they think. If you are interested in reading it, get in touch with me.

I added four pages to bring the total to 71 pages. I added a scene that I realized was missing. I’m not sure how I missed it the first time. I added some dialog and fixed some problems here and there.

At 71 pages, it is on the short side for a feature. However, when I did Line of Taxis and My Most Difficult Case I added more material during pre production, production, and postproduction. I’m sure I can add some flourishes and filigrees to this project.

I am tempted to dive into casting and production right now. Although, it may be better to try some script readings and test scenes before I commit.

Another thought I had was to use Xrtanormal’s text to script software to do a quick animated version. www.xtranormal.com I haven’t looked at it in too much detail yet, so I’m not sure it has the flexibility to do what I want. The actors are rather wooden, but it should at least give me an idea how long the film will run.

Image Cleanup and Composites for My Most Difficult Case

I did a little clean up work on My Most Difficult Case. I noticed some visual glitches in the film: spots, dust, light flashes, and stuff like that. I used the composite feature to replace the parts of the image where the problems were. I’m not sure that anyone would notice, but since I did, I wanted to do something.

One thing that had bothered me was that there was a picture on the wall that I didn’t have a release for. I don’t have any information on the picture, so I can’t even contact the person who did the picture to ask for a release. That is a lesson that’ll I’ll need to take to heart on my future projects. Next time I will contact some local artists to get some of their pictures on loan.

A few weeks ago, I tried to superimpose a different picture, but I wasn’t happy with how it looked. This week I replaced the shots where you could identify the picture with other shots where you couldn’t. I did it primarily to cover up the picture, but I think it improves the film as well. The shots I replaced were wide-angle shots and the replacements are tighter. I think that makes the film more intense.

I wanted to replace another shot I didn’t like, but I didn’t have a shot that would work. I decided to try a composite shot. I combined images from several different shots, eight shots altogether, to create the new shot. I can see that it is a composite, but I do have to look closely. It is only on screen for a three or four seconds, so I don’t think anyone will notice.

I have been at a bit of a loss about what to do next on the project. I think I’m pretty much done with the images, so I should start on the music and sound. I still have some releases and other paperwork I need to do.

Then the Phone Rang

I set a personal record for writing a feature script this week.

Last Saturday morning before I crawled out of bed, I had an idea for a movie. I wrote some notes and left them for later. Monday I started to organize my notes into an outline. My plan was to go back to it later when I had time. Instead, I had some ideas for the actual script, so I started to write it. I worked on it every day and had the first draft done by Friday evening. It came in at 66.5 pages, which is a little short for a feature, but I think I can develop it further.

After I finished the script, I came up with this description for the story: “He had money, prestige, a beautiful wife, and a bright future in politics. Then the phone rang.” My working title is Then the Phone Rang.

The whole film takes place in one room and only four characters appear on screen. Two others appear only as voices.

I was surprised at how fast it all went. It took me three weeks to do the first draft of The Anger Trap, after a period of preparation. It took me eleven weeks to get the first draft of My Detective Story done, and that was after planning on it for four months before that.

I am going to leave the script for a week or so and do other things. Then I will do a revision before I ask other people to read it. I had the same plan with My Detective Story, and it has been five months since I finished the first draft and I haven’t gone back to it.

When I decided what I wanted to accomplish this year, I planned to finish three feature scripts. I had kind of given up on that, but now I think I might get one more done.

Right now thought, I feel very good about this project. I think it is a very doable project and yet I believe I can make it into a film that people will want to watch.

The Thoughtless Tank

I am mulling over an idea for a story set in a Think Tank.

I read an excerpt from Massimo Pigliucci’s book Nonsense on Stilts in the latest issue of Skeptic Magazine http://www.skeptic.com/. It is a critique of the Think Tank industry. He says that many Think Tanks have become advocates rather than providing independent advice.

A few years ago, I started to notice that trend. I also noticed that many “Think Tanks” were one-person operations. I even considered starting my own Think Tank because I felt that so many of their “research reports” were things that I could knock off in an afternoon. I came to my senses though.

I am now starting to see the potential for an interesting story along with some social commentary about Think Tanks. I can see a protagonist who is torn between the desire to advocate a position he believes in, and yet wanting to be intellectually honest. There could be conflict with others at the Think Tank as they pressure him to toe the party line. There could be internal conflict as he questions whether his has seen what he wants to see, and ignored reality.

One problem I foresee in writing this story is coming up with a suitable topic for the conflict to be over. If I pick a real topic, like global warming or terrorism, some people will take sides for or against the character depending on their views on the topic.

In The Spanish Prisoner, David Mamet never does reveal what “The Process” is. I think this story would have to do the same thing. However, just because David Mamet can do is successfully, doesn’t mean I can. I tried this approach in my short story Billy’s Big Discovery http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/Billys_Big_Discovery.php.

I’ll need to let this idea brew for a while before I tackle it.

More Thoughts on Villains

Some years ago, I saw an interview on TV with the warden of a jail. He said that in his experience the only thing that reformed criminals was time and “growing up”.

I mention this to a lawyer I knew and he agreed. He added that you could see the different stages.

In first stage, the criminal was very resentful that the police caught them. They saw the police and courts as oppressors. They blamed the police for all their problems.

In the second stage, they blamed themselves when they were caught. They no longer saw the police as the cause of their problems. They blamed some mistake they made for their problems.

In the third stage, they blamed themselves for falling back into the criminal behaviour. They recognized that what they did was wrong. They saw it as their own failure. Their regret was not that they would have to “pay the price”, but that they recognized their own responsibility.

There is a fourth stage where they do not succumb to criminal behaviour.

Of course, different people progress along these lines at different speeds. Some never reach the final stage. Some don’t make it out of the first stage.

From the perspective of a writer creating a villain, this pattern provides a path for the growth of the villain. We have a temptation to create a villain who stays evil right to the end. It would be more realistic to show that the villain does develop through the course of the story.

Walk in the Snow with 15% off with coupon code

Purchase Walk in the Snow with 15% off with coupon code FALLREAD305 until October 15, 2010.

Walk in the Snow by James Morison - Dynamic Lethargy Films in Literature & Fiction

The Singing Mountie

One of the old clichés of Hollywood movies is the singing mountie. Rose Marie with Nelson Eddy http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028207/ is the best-known example.

I had an idea for movie about a very different kind of singing mountie. A true story I read about back in high school in Winnipeg about 1970 or 1971 inspired my idea.

Members of a local bar band was arrested in a drug investigation. It turned out that the lead singer of the band was, in fact, an undercover mountie. The band was just about to break out big when the arrests came. One detail I remember was the drummer said that he would still like play in the band with the mountie.

I thought that a standard rock band rise to success story could use this as a twist ending. Maybe someday I will follow up on this idea.

Cuts, Composites, 16:9 and My Next Film

Louie Koutis, who played the judge in My Most Difficult Case http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/my_most_difficult_case.php , came over for a visit this week. I showed him the most recent cut of the film and he had some suggestions. I had been thinking along the same lines, so I went ahead and did the cuts.

I tried to replace a picture on the wall in some shots of My Most Difficult Case with the composite tools in Premiere Pro. I have had some success with that, but it is a long slow process, and I haven’t been able to get something good enough to use. I think I can do that if I put more time into it, but I wonder if it is really worth the effort.

One of my ideas was to do a widescreen (16:9) version of My Most Difficult Case. I tried that out this week, and it was easier than I expected it to be.There are still a lot of tweaks I can make to it. I am not sure about the image quality though.

My distribution contract with Ouat Media http://www.ouatmedia.com/ for My Next Film http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/my_next_film.php comes to an end next week. I haven’t heard anything from them about it. I am not sure just when I can start selling it on my own. I did some work this week to create a good quality version of it that I can use.

My New Book is Available Now

My new book Walk in the Snow is a collection of my short stories and articles. You can buy the book at: http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/walk-in-the-snow/9192996

I must admit that I published the book mainly to establish my copyright, so I am not expecting many sales. The book cost $8.99 plus shipping, but there is a download available for $2.99. You don’t have to buy it because all the stories and articles are already available on-line for free at the websites below.

Links to my stories: http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/writing.php

Articles I published on Bukisa: http://www.bukisa.com/people/DynamicLethargy

Stories and articles I published on Triond: http://www.triond.com/users/James+Beattie+Morison

Triond had a promotion on in August, so I published five new articles (plus one story) during August.

My Most Difficult Case 2010 September 12

I contacted some of the people who worked on the film to sign releases. Not everyone has gotten back to me, so I still need to follow up on this.

I read Michael Ondaatje’s book “The Conversations” recently. It is a series of conversations with Walter Murch.

In one section, Murch talks about using music to help a visual transition. There were a couple of transitions in My Most Difficult Case where I thought that might help. I added some music. It’s in the place where I want it, but the music isn’t quite right. I think it will work eventually.

I tried some experiments with compositing. There is a picture on the wall in one scene, and I have no way to contact the person who did the picture to get a release. I want to cover it up some how. I made some progress and I have something that looks OK. It is finicky business and it will take me a while to get it looking good enough to use.

My Most Difficult Case Progress Report – September 5, 2010

I got back to work on My Most Difficult Case (http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/my_most_difficult_case.php) this week. I didn’t do much in August, because I decided to write and post some articles on Triond. I did six altogether.

My first goal was to recreate what Vildo Sturam did when he did a re-edit a few years ago. I got that done this week. While I worked on the recreation, I got inspired.

I cut some of the Judge’s lines and I want to rerecord some of them with different emphasis. With the defence lawyer’s presentation, I only made a few minor changes. I redid most of the prosecutor’s talk from scratch. Besides that, I did several small tweaks through out the film.

Overall, the film is about nine seconds shorter. There is still more I can do with it.

The sound needs more work. I've done some stuff, but I think it is better to get an experienced sound person to help me on the sound. Someone suggested I add more music too.

When I sold My Next Film, I had to scramble to get all the releases in place. I have most of the releases for My Most Difficult Case in place, thanks to the production manager Tyler Shandro. Still, I have several more that I need to get. Mostly from people who worked on the later shoots.

It's Obvious - Isn't It?

I have often heard the expression “It’s Obvious”, and over the years, I have thought about what it meant. I finally tried to organize those thoughts and wrote a short article about it.

http://scienceray.com/philosophy-of-science/its-obvious-isnt-it/

Can a Conservative Also be a Liberal?

Most people think of conservatives and liberals as the opposite ends of the political spectrum. Until recently, so did I. While conservatism and liberalism have a history of conflict, they are not opposites.

http://socyberty.com/politics/can-a-conservative-also-be-a-liberal/

Rules for Making Films Cheaply

I came across a good article about making movies cheaply.

http://letsmakebetterfilms.hopeforfilm.com/2010/08/writing-for-a-low-budget-the-disappearance-of-alice-creed.html

Since I got into making films, I have been very concerned about finding ways to do it without spending much money. I’ve talked about some of my thoughts on this in a couple of articles I’ve posted:

http://www.bukisa.com/articles/284215_making-a-movie-about-the-fear-of-losing-a-job

http://www.bukisa.com/articles/81388_rick-schmidts-feature-filmmaking-at-used-car-prices-a-review

Like J. Blakeson (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2128335/ ), who wrote this article, I don’t expect someone else to give me money to make my movies.

I like his comment that writing a film, then trying to scale it down to save money hurts the quality of the final film. A film that looks bad doesn’t help you advance. I think that most filmmakers are like me, in that they want to make something they can point to with pride.

One rule is to shoot 90 per cent of the film at one location. This is more drastic than anything I have thought of doing. I shot 100 per cent of My Next Film (http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/my_next_film.php ) in one location, but when I’ve thought about doing a feature I felt that I needed to have at least four or five locations.

I worry about the limitations on the story of having only one location. Alfred Hitchcock did Rope on a single set, and it turned out well. I am no Alfred Hitchcock though. On the other hand, I feel that it is the limitations that decisions like this put on you that force you to be creative.

The Tragedy of Ankhesenamun

Most people have heard of King Tutankhamun, buy fewer people know of his wife Ankhesenamun. When I first learned about her, I thought her life would make a good story for a movie. From Tutankhamun’s birth to his death, Ankhesenamun was by his side. With his death, her life became a tragedy.

http://socyberty.com/history/the-tragedy-of-ankhesenamun/

Some Curious Stories from the Discovery of the Solar System

It took thousands of years for people to discover the true nature of the Solar System. The road to understanding was not straight and along the way, some curious things happened. The search, after all, was by people, who can be quite curious.

http://www.bukisa.com/articles/337525_some-curious-stories-from-the-discovery-of-the-solar-system

Same Idea - Different Authors - Different Stories

Whenever people talk about plagiarism and copyright, some one always points out that you can’t copyright and idea. What the author can copyright is how they express that idea in a story. Many years ago, I came across a good example of how two authors took the same idea and did very different things with it.

The first book was one of my favourites 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey_%28film%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke

The second book was Space Visitor by Mack Reynolds.

http://www.amazon.com/Space-visitor-Mack-Reynolds/dp/B00005XXI5/ref=sr_1_19?s=STORE&ie=UTF8&qid=1281915921&sr=1-19

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mack_Reynolds

Both of these stories develop from the discovery of an alien artefact on the moon. Very quickly, the two stories diverge. After I read more about the two authors, I could see the reasons for this in the differences between the two.

Arthur C. Clarke’s main interests were in science, technology, and religion. It may seem strange that religion was an interest of his, given that he was an avowed atheist. These interests show up in the story of 2001. Much of the story is about the technological feat of space travel. Scientific curiosity drives the characters to make the space trip. The story ends with what people have described as a spiritual or religious experience.

Mack Reynolds had quite different interests. When I first read his stories, I thought of him as a “social” science fiction writer. When I checked his Wikipedia entry today, I was surprised to learn that he had been an active member of the American socialist movement throughout his life. The focus of Space Visitor is on how society reacts to the news. It has been a long time since I read the book and my memory of the details has faded. There is little attention paid to the nature of the aliens or the artefact on the moon, until the end, but I don’t want to spoil it for you.

When I read Space Visitor back in 1977, I recognized the similarity with 2001. I was not all that perceptive at the time, but it did open my eyes to how the same idea can be expressed in different ways. When I look at the stories I have written, I can see how my personal attitudes come through, even though I did not always consciously put them there.

Rationality Versus Irrationality in The Movie "Agora"

I published a short comentary on the movie Agora

http://cinemaroll.com/cinemarolling/rationality-versus-irrationality-in-the-movie-agora/

After I saw the movie "Agora" I felt that, while I enjoyed the movie, it would a movie that I would quickly forget. Since then however, I have started to see more to it. I think this movie needs a second look.

"My Next Film" on Moviola in August 2010

Moviola will show my film "My Next Film" during August 2010.

These are the remaining show time and dates:

August 15 12:23 pm Eastern Standard Time (11:23 am Mountain Daylight Time)

August 18 6:08 pm Eastern Standard Time (5:08 pm Mountain Daylight Time)

August 31 8:54 pm Eastern Standard Time (7:54 pm Mountain Daylight Time)

You can find out more at:

http://www.movieola.ca/search.php?searchBy=0&keyword=My+Next+Film

If you do not get Moviola, they stream some programs on their website. http://www.movieola.ca/

I would like to make this short story into a movie, what do you think?

I just published a new short story:

Hello, My Name is Bob http://authspot.com/short-stories/hello-my-name-is-bob/

A young man, alone in a new city, tries an unusual tactic to meet someone new, but it doesn’t work out quite the way he thought it would.

As I wrote it, I thought that it might be a good story to turn into a short movie. It would help me if you could read it and let me know if you think it would make a good move.

My Experiment with Advertisements

Recently I tried out Google AdWords to see if I could get more people to view my movies. I ran an advertisement for Line of Taxis http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/line_of_taxis.php for 30 days. Before I started, I signed up for Google Analytics to track how many people visited my site. It also gave me some interesting stats on who they were.

The ad ran from June 13 to July 12. During that time, the ad showed up 1,634,721 on web pages. Out of those, the ad was “clicked” 789 times. The cost to me was a little over $28 (Canadian). AdWords allows you to choose key words that help determine where you wanted your ad posted. The indication was that the key words I chose were ineffective.

Google Analytics reported that people visited the Line of Taxis page 762 times during the trial period. I thought that should be the same as the number of “clicks”. The average time spent on the page was a little over two minutes, which is shorter than the film. However, I think that is an underestimate of the length of time someone is on the site, since if the viewer closes the window rather than visiting another page, I can’t see how you can tell how long they were on the page.

Almost 1 in 10 people who visited the Line of Taxis page then went on to visit some of my other movie pages. The undonate page was also a popular choice. There were actually fewer visits to my blog during the advertizing period.

Overall, the average number of daily visits to my site were 566 per cent higher during the campaign that after the campaign.

My site was most popular in Vietnam and China with both accounting for over 10 per cent of visits each. Canada ranked third at 8 per cent, but I suspect that most of those were my visits to the site. Iran, Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Egypt, and Thailand each accounted for more than 5 per cent of visits. The United States ranked 21^st with one per cent of visits.

Calgary ranked first in cities, although I think that was mostly my visits. Ho Chi Minh City, Bangkok, Hanoi, and Cairo also ranked high. The second ranked Canadian Cities were Winnipeg, Vancouver, and Toronto, with one visit each.

I think what I learned from this experiment is that advertising is an effective way to get people to my site. I do need to improve my ads, since the one I used wasn’t very effective. Only one of every 2,000 people who saw the ad clicked on it. No one donated money or bought any of my films. That could be for any of a number of reasons. The web page may need changes, or I need to drop the prices of my movies. It could also be that nobody wants to buy them. All of my films, except for Who Shot the President http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/who_shot_the_president.php are free to view on-line, so that could undercut any sales.

The Accessible Channel buys "My Next Film"

I just found out today that the Accessible Channel bought My Next Film for broadcast in February 2010. I don't when it will be shown, or if it has already been shown. If I learn any more I will pass it along.

Links

The Accessible Channel
http://www.theaccessiblechannel.com/

My Next Film
http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/my_next_film.php

One Per Cent Inspiration

The other day I was reading Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient, when I came to a passage that reminded me of the movie Last Year at Marienbad. I saw it years ago, or at least I think I did. Maybe it was someone else that saw it.

Through some convoluted path that led me to think about what a friend told me once about her divorce. This, in turn, got me thinking about the movie Memento. Of course, that naturally suggested the short story Flowers for Algernon. The author later rewrote Flowers for Algernon as a novel. I’ve read the short story, but not the novel.

At this point, the beginnings of a story began to form in my mind. Some time ago, someone suggested that I make a movie like Before Sunrise, so I threw that into the mix. Finally, I started to see parallels between my idea and The Third Man.

My working title for the story is A Memento of Flowers for the Third English Patient Before Sunrise in Marienbad. It needs some work.

Tomas Alva Edison, the inventor, once said that genius is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration. I have the one per cent inspiration, all I need is the ninety-nine per cent perspiration.

I wonder if I can get way with just forty-nine per cent perspiration, or would that leave the story half baked?

Don’t Let Your Heroes be Stupid

It is all too easy for writers to make their heroes do something stupid to move their story forward. If the writer cannot give the audience a good explanation why, they may not buy into the story. I thought of several ways to explain why the hero would do something stupid.

Read the whole article: http://www.bukisa.com/articles/319794_dont-let-your-heroes-be-stupid

My Most Difficult Case Progress Report - July 18, 2010

I started to edit My Most Difficult Case. http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/my_most_difficult_case.php Several years ago, I decided to reedit the film before I tried to distribute it. Vildo Sturam did a new cut for me that was a big improvement over what I had done.

However, other parts of my life intruded and the project went on the back burner. Last month I got the video transfers of my negatives converted to computer files and this week I started to reedit those to conform to the edit Vildo did.

Progress has been good. I am about half way through the film, although I have left the transitions, music and some of the sound until later.

When I matched up the video from the negative transfer with the video from the final film, I was struck by how much more detail I can see in the negative transfer. These two images illustrate this quite well. I haven’t decided how far I will go to match the old look because I like the additional detail.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="480" caption="Example of film image"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="480" caption="Example of negative image"][/caption]

Another problem I need to consider is that I wasn’t able to get a release for the picture on the wall behind the judge. I asked Vildo to obscure it when he did the reedit. What I would like to do is replace it with another image. I know it can be done, but I’ve never done it myself.

How Can Fiction Compete with Reality?

This is a thought that first came to me years ago while I watched the O.J. Simpson “low speed chase” on TV.

I was at my cousin’s wedding. We all sat and watched the “chase” for hours that evening while we waited at the hotel for the wedding the next day. Other people have told me similar experiences of that event. As I watched, I thought that nobody would go to a movie and watch someone drive down the road for hours on end. Yet many people did exactly that.

I thought about this question again when I saw part of the movie Human Trafficking http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0461872/ . This was a fictional movie, but, as I watched, I was more frightened by it than any horror film I had ever seen. The movie is about criminals who transport women around the world for prostitution and the police who chase them.

I think the reason I was so frightened was, that, while the depiction was fictional, I knew that it showed what millions of real people experienced in their lives. I don’t think there are any real people who have been chased around by a mummy or bug-eyed monster.

I am not sure I have a real answer to my question. Reality will always be of more immediate interest to people than any entertainment can be. The question then is, what do people want from works of fiction? It must be something that they can’t get from reality.

"The Lure" and "Sad No More"

After talking about myself a lot, I think its about time to point out some interesting things that other people are doing.

The Lure

The Lure http://www.members.shaw.ca/moonpics/lure.html , a film by Neil Gordon and Kelly Eshpeter, has been selelcted for the "Los Angeles All-Sports film festival".  http://www.allsportslafilmfest.com/sched.htm

Both Neil and Kelly have been supportive of my film making. The Lure demonstrates that they are great film makers themselves.


Sad No More

Dr. Ted Jablonski will run, cycle and speak across Canada in 2010, raising awareness of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and inspiring action to overcome it. http://www.sadnomore.ca/

Dr. J., in addition to being my personal doctor, is a consummate musician. www.gogetm.ca

The Best Movies I’ve Seen

Earlier today, Joie Schmidt, http://makethemostofyourtime.blogspot.com/, posted a question on her FaceBook page about which movies people thought we the best. She asked why people liked them. After I posted a response to her, I decided that I wanted to share some of my thoughts on my blog. I’ve edited and expanded my comments below.

I think these are the best movies I've seen:

•    2001: A Space Odyssey,
•    Koyaanisqatsi,
•    The Third Man,
•    Casablanca,
•   Fog of War,
•    La Strada,
•    The Draughtsman's Contract,
•    City Lights, and
•    Blade Runner

2001: A Space Odyssey

I first saw 2001 when I was 15. I went to see it for the special effects, but after seeing it, I knew that I had missed something important. I went back to see it again, maybe 20 times, read the book 3 or 4 times, and even wrote a high school essay on it. I eventually decided that I understood it. Years later, I keep seeing more in it that I didn't see earlier, so now I am not so sure that I really understand it. It changed my whole view of the world.

Koyaanisqatsi

I first saw Koyaanisqatsi when my brother showed me a videotape he had rented. It wasn’t until many years later that I saw it in a theatre. I saw it three times on the big screen, once at a live performance of the score by Philip Glass. The movie seemed to me to be completely abstract, yet it held my fascination every time I watch it. It does have a "story" and a "message", but I'm not sure you can really put them into words.

The Third Man and Casablanca

I find that both of these movies have somewhat sad endings, in that the protagonists don't get what they really wanted. Even so, they survive and maybe grow as people. I just wrote a blog where I talked about my fascination with this kind of plot. http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog/?p=170

I’d heard of both of these movies many years before I watched either of them. I never saw either on the big screen. I find both movies affect strongly at an emotional level.

I noticed that Roger Ebert has an image from The Third Man on his Twitter page.

Fog of War

Fog of War is an extended interview with Robert S. McNamara, who was the US Secretary of Defence during the Vietnam War. Sometimes it could be a horror movie, and other times a philosophical discussion.

La Strada

Federico Fellini’ La Strata is the only movie of his that I really like. I saw it first in a movie appreciation course. It is about a brute of a man and the woman that travels with him. The end is both sad and surprising. This is another movie that I never saw on the big screen.

The Draughtsman's Contract

I wanted to see this after seeing the review on Siskel and Ebert, but I didn’t see it for many years after. The first time I saw it was in a theatre. The woman I took to see it did not like it, and she asked me to apologize to her for taking her. I’ve seen it several times since and it grew on me. It is a sort of mystery, but one that isn’t really solved. I think it is that uncertainty that draws me to the movie. The director has crammed this movie full of many little details. I am sure there is still much more to see in this movie than I have so far.

City Lights

I saw this the first time in the mid 1970s when they rereleased several of Charlie Chaplin’s movies. It didn’t stick in my mind too much at the time, but years later I watched a documentary about Chaplin which showed out cuts from the movie. I think nearly an hour was devoted to City Lights. It was after that experience that the movie began to touch me emotionally. The last scene is devastating once you understand how the characters reached that point.

Blade Runner

I didn’t appreciate this movie until I began to talk to other people about it. Blade Runner asks what does it mean to be human. The movie uses hints at the nature of the hero to ask this question. These hints have fuelled many a long discussion. It is something of an intellectual and philosophical puzzle to be solved.


Reflecting on these thoughts, I see that most of these movies appeal to my intellect. They ask questions that get me thinking.

What Do I want to be Special about My Work?

“They” say that there are really only seven stories. Anyone can tell a story, but if you want to make a difference, you need to add something special that only you can give.

I have been working on several projects over the last year or so and I have started to think about what is special about my work. My big fear is that there isn’t anything special. My main objective now is to focus on gaining better mastery of the creative skills, but I know that eventually I do need to have something special.

Just the other day I saw a program about the writer Richard Matheson. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Matheson He said he didn’t realize what some of the key themes of his own work was until a long time after he began writing. I got the impression that it was only after others started to talk about what they found in his work that he began to see it too. I hope that is the case with me. I know that the things you care about show up in your work, even when you don’t consciously put it there.

I have noticed some things about my own work that I think may reflect something that distinguishes me from other film makers.

• I see in some of my work a conflict between respecting authority and rebelling against it. This is a conflict in much of my thinking. I believe that it is important to accept that we are all part of a greater whole, but I also want to be free from the constraints of being a part of a greater whole.

• In some of my work, I am consciously trying to send the message that things are not the way we expect them to be. The world is a complex of interacting systems, and systems often behave in ways that are not intuitive. What seems obvious is often misleading. This sounds somewhat “new-agey”, but it comes from my work as an engineer studying complex systems. There is a paradox recognized by transportation planners that sometimes adding a road can make traffic worse.

• Many of my ideas come from my feeling that sometimes merely surviving is victory. There is a cliché in “race” stories where the runner falls, then gets up and comes back to win. My inclination is to have him try to win and fail, but in his trying he becomes a survivor and ultimately more of a winner than if he had “won” the race.

• I often use the image of someone walking down a corridor, either toward or away from the camera. This kind of image is often given as an example of bad film making, because it doesn’t tell you anything important. In my case though, I feel that it is a symbol for something being inevitable. In a corridor, you can only go forward or retreat. I am attracted to the image of a train running along the tracks for the same reason.

• In many of my story ideas the protagonist is very passive, which runs contrary to what a protagonist should be. Maybe this reflects my own reluctance to admit it when the time has come to act when faced with a challenge. Often I delay until it is too late and the opportunity has passed. I will need to learn much more about story telling before I can make this work.

• My experience is that success comes from a long series of small victories, while failure comes from taking one big gamble. I want to make this a message in my work, but I am not sure how to do this and still have an interesting story to tell.

Many of the things I want to do “break the rules” of good story telling. Before you can break the rules, you need to know what they are and why they are rules. That is going to be the challenge for me.

Spreading Myself Too Thin – Again

I haven’t produced much in the last couple of weeks, even though I have been busy. When I get working on too many different projects, I don’t get anything done. That has been my problem lately.

I had the Digital Beta tapes from the My Most Difficult Case converted to digital files. I can edit them on my computer. Now all I have to do is edit it.

I have done some enhancements to my website. I created standard page formats, but I focussed on changes to make updating the site easier for me. I started to experiment with advertizing on the internet using Google AdWords. I started with an advert for “Line of Taxis”. Since I started running the ad, I’ve been getting more page views. No revenue generated yet.

Other story ideas, movie ideas, and article ideas keep distracting me. One article I am thinking about is “how can fiction compete with reality?” It has been floating around in my head for a long time. When O.J. had that low speed chase before the police arrested him, millions of people sat and watched a car driving down the highway for hours. You could never do that is a fictional movie.

Recently my wife and I travelled to China, the west coast, and Edmonton. Between the three of them, I shot 7 or 8 hours of video. I am still sorting through that. It is mainly home movie stuff, but I have some shots that I think I can turn into a couple of short documentaries to post on the internet.

My Most Difficult Case Re-Edit

I made a small step forward on My Most Difficult Case this week. I arranged to get my Digital Beta tapes converted to computer files by Digital Video Masters so I can start the re-editing.


They will be converting the tapes into 10-bit uncompressed format. The files from that are large, but they are better quality. I read on-line that because they are uncompressed, the processing time is much faster too.


When I shot the film back in 2002 and 2003 I had all my negatives transferred to video. While I planned to complete the film on film, and did so, I always had in my mind that I wanted the option to go back later.


When I was looking at the tapes at Digital Video Masters, one of the shots caught my eye. Due to a technical glitch, some shots wee out of focus and we had to reshoot them. Looking at the out of focus shots, I thought they had a look that might work well in the film.

Web Page Changes

I have converted most of the pages on the website from HTML to PHP. PHP will allow me to do some fancy things with the website. My main motivation was that I could create standard elements that individual pages can pull in. I am doing this with the pages header, so I only need to change one file rather than all of them.

While I was making the conversions, I standardized the look of the individual pages. When I created the pages, I used a slightly different approach each time. I now have a couple of templates to use. I made more variations in the standard than I had planned to, but I think that they were all justified.

A New Story and Some New Articles

New Story

I published a short story A Homicide Detective's Rude Awakening http://authspot.com/short-stories/a-homicide-detectives-rude-awakening/ this week. I think it is a departure from what I’ve done in the past, but the idea has been haunting me for years. The inspiration came from a Law and Order episode.

New Articles

I compiled my blogs about my detective story into three articles that I posted on Bukisa. http://www.bukisa.com/people/DynamicLethargy

Film Festival

I submitted Line of Taxis to an on-line film festival. http://www.yourindiefilm.com/node/495 If I get the most votes, then I will win $5,000. I don’t think that is about to happen though. The idea for the festival is interesting, so I would encourage you to have a look at it. Don’t feel obligated to vote for my film.

My Most Difficult Case

I started to work on My Most Difficult Case this week. When I made the film back in 2004, I got all my negatives transferred to DigiBeta tapes. There are a couple of shots I used in the final film that I didn’t gete transferred. I do have alternate takes that will work as well.

The first order of business is to get my footage converted to computer files so I can work with it. I contacted several places this week and will be selecting one next week.

A Co-operative Video Website?

I have been mulling an idea for a while now.

Video websites like YouTube have been very successful financially by selling advertizing. Meanwhile, most of the people who post their videos on the sites get little or no money for their contribution.

I thought about creating a website for my own videos, where I would get all the money from advertizing. Doing this would be a challenge with my level of internet programming skills.

However, I think the biggest problem would be finding an audience. People go to sites like YouTube looking for videos to watch. They are not likely to go wandering the internet in search of my films. It makes a lot of sense to be on a video website with lots of other videos. People drawn to other videos may very well find yours as well.

I think one way to get around that is to create a co-operative video website.

The website itself would just provide a common front end, links to the videos and a search function. Members would provide their own video, while the co-operative would provide them with templates and advice on setting up their own sites. Members would pay to be on the website, or could volunteer to help run the site instead.

With a co-operative, no one member would need to have all the skills to set up and run the site. There are many details to work out, but I think this could work.

Do I Have the Right to Say What I Want to Say?

I’m one of those people who always thinks of a good comeback, the day after the conversation. One of the nice things about doing a blog is that you can talk about what you would have said.

About nine years ago, I did a workshop talking about my films. In the workshop, I wanted to explain what I was trying to accomplish with my films and what I learned from making them.

With the workshop, I wanted to encourage people to try to make films. I had started to make films in High School, but then stopped when I was in University. I didn’t try to make any films for another 14 years. The main reason I stopped was that I had reached a point where I felt I couldn’t go any further unless I felt I had something to say that people would listen to.

This was a big barrier to my creativity, and I got stalled on several projects because I was worried if what I had a worthy of sharing. I was able to overcome these fears and complete several films. This was one lesson I wanted to share in the workshop.

When I was talking about the struggles, one of the people taking the workshop interrupted me. They told me that I shouldn’t let that stop me because everyone had a right to say what they wanted to. I wasn’t an experienced public speaker and their comment caught me by surprise. I wasn’t sure how to respond, and so I just continued with my talk.

Looking back on this incident, I see that the person did not understand the point I was making. As I recall, some of the others in the workshop did react in a way that made me feel they had understood.

What I wish I had said was to point out that, I had in fact gone on to complete several films.

I would have liked to point out that I felt that if you don’t at some point in your filmmaking question if you should be saying what you are saying, then you are not pushing yourself to your limit. When I talked to Steve Hanon about this issue, he agreed that questioning if you should say what you want to is a necessary part of being creative.

I got thinking about this episode after I posted a comment to a LinkedIn forum on script writing.

I read that Alfred Hitchcock was asked why he remade "The Man Who Knew too Much". His reply was that a talented amateur made the first version, while a seasoned professional made the second. What I keep in mind was that when he made the first version he had already made over 20 features and many people saw him as one of the best movie directors in the world.

If Hitchcock was only a talented amateur after 20 films, then I need to be much more humble about how good my work is. Several other posts agreed that the really good filmmakers and writers are always worried if their work is good enough.

This is another good reason to worry that your work is not worthy. That fear will drive you to higher goals. Someone who never worries if their work is good, will always be just a hack.

Detective Story: Creating my villain

I was reading Sue Grafton’s book T is for Trespass and noticed similarities between the villain in her story and the one I created for mine.

I suppose that I really should not have been too surprised. When I started to create my villain, I didn’t want to base it on anyone I knew. None of them was villainous enough. Instead, I drew on some of the characteristics identified in the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare_Psychopathy_Checklist

This list is comes from a test psychologists use to identify psychopaths. In particular, I used three traits from the list.

• Grandiose sense of self-worth,


• Cunning/manipulative, and


• Failure to accept responsibility for own actions

My villain is entirely convinced of his own superiority. This leads to him over estimating what he can do, and under estimating what others can do. Most normal people do get upset when they make mistakes. Sometimes this is fear of others labelling them a failure. In this villain’s case, exposure of a mistake strikes much deeper, since his whole sense of self worth comes from his view that he is never wrong.

In order to cover for his mistakes, my villain relies on his skills at manipulating others to avoid. One of the reasons he is so skilled, is that his hubris over the years has often resulting in situations where he had to be manipulative to escape.

His need to maintain his sense of self worth leads to his refusal to accept responsibility for his own actions. Rather than admit that he has made a mistake, he finds ways to blame his failings on others. In the story the link to the person he blames is very irrational, but in his need, he overlooks this minor detail.

Taken together, these traits make my villain a dangerous person to deal with. Especially since few people would be able to spot those traits. On the other hand, though, they also make him vulnerable, since his is not omnipotent. He makes mistakes. He underestimates others.

I know I wouldn’t want to meet this guy in the real world.

Detective Story – First Draft Done!

I got the first draft of the script done today. It came in at 71 pages. That is still too short for a feature. When I do the next draft, I will see what I can do to enhance the story to make it a feature.

I had skipped a couple of scenes part way through because I wasn’t happy with my original ideas for them. I got back to them today and came up with a couple of scenes that I think are better than average. Both of them were a little longer than what I had been doing. That makes me think that when I do the second draft it will turn out longer. I started to feel I was getting into the writing more than I had been.

I plan to put the script aside for a while, maybe two weeks, and then do the second draft. I haven’t decided what I’ll work on next. I am sure that I will be working on the recut of My Most Difficult Case, but there are several stories and articles I would like to pick up on too.

Detective Story Week Ten

This was a very good week for my script. I finished 34 scenes and I have 6 or 7 left to do. At one point I thought I would have the script finished this week.

I’m debating if I should replace two scenes that aren’t working with a single scene. I skipped those two scenes for now. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with them. Maybe I can just drop them altogether. Another possibility is to expand then into a longer sequence with a little more meat.

The script is 61 pages now, and I think I will end up with about 70. That is too short for a feature, but I think that when I rewrite it will end up longer.

My scenes were a little longer this week. I think that as I get more into the rhythm of writing the words flow easier. I got over 6,500 words written this week.

I had some trouble with my blog this week. At one point, I thought I had lost everything. Something was wrong with my host’s server. They got that fixed and everything is good now.

Getting Feedback for your Movie Script

After I have finished the first draft of my detective script and polished it a bit, I want to get someone else to read it. I know that I have my blind spots when I go over my own work, and I suspect that there are not many writers who don’t. Hearing someone else’s opinion is a valuable reality check.

I also need some kind of audience response to my work. That tells me when I am connecting.

One time I paid to have a professional reader review my script “The Anger Trap”. It was more money than I wanted to pay, and I felt a little disappointed by the review. It was fairly positive, but it didn’t have a whole lot of advice on what I could do to improve my script.

Another issue with a hired reviewer is that they are looking at the script from the point of view of getting it accepted by a reader at a big studio. Since I am looking at making my own film, I am not sure that I need to convince a reader to recommend my script.

Another time I sent “The Anger Trap” to one of those script competitions. The reviewers didn’t like it, but their comments were even briefer. One of the comments made me realize that the reviewer had never read past the first 10 pages. I couldn’t use any of the comments to understand how to improve my script.

Mostly though, I have friends review my scripts. They tend to be very supportive, which is a double edged sword. While some of my friends had some valuable advice, I do think I need to have broader input. I do think my friends are more likely to react the way a real audience would.

What I am thinking about now is to find other people writing script and get them to do a script review swap. I would review their script, and they would review mine. Now all I have to do is find people willing to do that. I did review one script for someone and I found it helped me see problems with my own script.

"Line of Taxis" Article Posted

I wrote and posted an article on my movie Line of Taxis this week. In it I talk about what inspired me to make the movie and how I developed these ideas.

You can read it at either of these two sites:

http://cinemaroll.com/cinemarolling/making-a-movie-about-the-fear-of-losing-a-job/

http://www.bukisa.com/articles/284215_making-a-movie-about-the-fear-of-losing-a-job

Detective Story Week Nine

I was making good progress the script this week but other things came up later in the week that distracted me.

Most of the work I did was restructuring the script. I replaced one scene, but I think I can use the original scene somewhere else. I am about a third of the way through the script, based on the number of scenes. I had created a new scene last week, and this week I got I sketched out and written. Working out the background took a while.

I got almost 1,900 words written, but that makes this my least productive week so far. I’m finished 20 scenes and 23 pages. My scenes are still running short.

Priming the Audience

Recently I watch a TV program about some psychological research where they mentioned something they called “priming”.

The gist of the idea was that getting a person to think about something in advance of making a decision would affect that decision. Usually the person is unaware that the priming had anything to do with the experiment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priming_%28psychology%29

One experiment they mentioned got me thinking about how this might be important for filmmakers to know. In the experiment, they primed some people to think about their own mortality. They found that people primed to think about death were less willing to be charitable to others than people who were not primed.

At first, this sounded a lot like Subliminal Seduction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson_Bryan_Key, which is highly questionable. But when I looked at it closer, it looked legit.

In the script I am writing I have someone killed on page 2. I want the audience to care about people later in the story, which would be harder if they have shifted into a more self-centered frame of mind.

I would certainly want to check out this claim further before I start revising my script. Maybe it is just that I am not an experienced fiction writer (yet). Maybe more experienced writers are already aware of this, even if they don’t think about it consciously.

Detective Story Week Eight: Restructuring and Short Scenes

The week started out well. I started in on writing the script. Monday I got six scenes written. My current outline has 59 scenes planned. Tuesday I got three scenes done and Wednesday I got four more done.

Thursday I ran into a snag though. I realized that I needed to move one of the scenes I had written to earlier in the script, and add another scene in its place. The move wasn’t too hard, but I haven’t worked out what I want to happen in the new scene.

Right now, the new scene is there to put some space between two other scenes that can’t go back to back. It needs to be more than that. It is the next scene I was going to write, so that is stopping me from going ahead. I think I may skip over that scene and come back to it later.


The scenes are coming out shorter than I thought they would. Most books I’ve read on script writing suggest about 3 pages per scene. The average length of the first 14 scenes I wrote is 1.1 pages. If that average holds, the whole script will be about 66 pages, which is too short to be a feature. The average scene length in The Anger Trap was 1.4 pages.

I haven’t decided what to do about the scene length. One possibility is to add more flourishes to the character’s behaviour to make the scenes longer. It may be better to add some more twists to the main plot so that I have more scenes. I could also add more scenes by adding a subplot or two.

I plan to continue writing the script, then deal with the problems in the second draft.

Censorship: What happened to “Who Shot the President”?

Recently I removed my film “Who Shot the President” from YouTube and the other on-line video sites where I had it posted. It is still available for those who would like to see it, but they will have to buy it from my website. (See: http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/who_shot_the_president.htm )

I had been getting some nasty comments about the film since I first posted it. A while back, I wrote an article about the criticism I got about this film: Why Do People Hate My Film.
( See: http://www.webupon.com/Video/Why-Do-People-Hate-My-Film.534095 )

These comments didn’t bother me and I never considered removing my film from view. Then I got a very disturbing comment on YouTube where the poster threatened to “beat me down”.

My first thought was to report the comment to YouTube, since I didn’t think they would approve of people making threats to the people who post videos on their site. Instead, I decided to remove the film from the web. After I had done it, I thought I should have reported it to YouTube anyway, but it was too late.

I know some people will disagree with my decision, because it looks like I am giving I giving in to people who want to suppress my views. This disturbs me as well. I don’t like my work being censored, even if I do the censoring.

What I kept in mind, though, is that I want to communicate my philosophy in my films. The question for me then, does the controversy over my film help or hurt my ultimate goal?

While I would like more people to see “Who Shot the President”, I felt that keeping it widely available was a diversion of my energies away from my real goal. What the anger people were expressing told me was that I would need to become more subtle in my films.

Detective Story Week Seven: Light at the End of the Tunnel

I got the new version of the outline done this week. I added about 2,500 words. One of my scenes started to look redundant, so I removed it. I did some other cleaning up of the file and it is easier to read now.

This coming week I start on the script. There is one more thing I want to do before I start though. I have extensive back-stories for my characters now, but I haven’t given any thought to how they talk. Knowing their personalities will help make the characters distinct, but I know from writing “The Anger Trap” that each person’s way of talking needs to be different.

Scriptwriting: Avoid the Page 10 Rejection

I came across this posting (http://candidcoverage.blogspot.com/2010/03/avoid-page-10-rejection.html) on James Jordan’s Candid Coverage Blog (http://candidcoverage.blogspot.com/).

This posting explains why moviemakers reject many scripts within the first ten pages. He then provides 20 tips to avoid that. His focus is on selling a script to a Hollywood studio, but I think many of the tips are useful, even if you are going to be making your own movie.

A few years ago, I submitted my script The Anger Trap to a screenplay completion. I was disappointed with the comments I got back because it seemed to me that the reader hadn’t read past the first ten pages. After reading this blog, I can see what I was doing wrong.

I have taken two of the tips to heart so far.

Tip 9 says that you should introduce your protagonist by page three.

I am still working on my outline, so it is too soon to know how long each scene will be, but I did make some estimates. My protagonist shows up in the third scene, so I need to keep the first two scenes to less than a minute each. I was planning to have the first two run longer than that, but I know that I have to keep them short.

His tip doesn’t say anything about the antagonist, but I assume that introducing him early is a good idea. I already have him showing up in the first scene.

Tip 11 says that by page ten the script should have revealed the main issues of the story.

This is where I think The Anger Trap went wrong. I don’t give any indication of where the story is going until page six, and it doesn’t really become obvious until page 20. I had already been thinking of moving a later scene to the beginning of the film for a possible rewrite.

When I went over my outline, I felt that I had the main issues on the table by the end of the seventh scene. I will need to keep the first few scenes very short to have that done in the first ten pages. I may need to move some of the minor events to later in the script.

All of my major characters, except for one, do show up in the first ten pages. I revised an early scene to introduce Lucas’ boss, James Wilson, within the first ten pages. Introducing the last character in the first ten pages would be a problem though. I think I can leave her introduction until later in the script. I saw it done in The Night of the Generals (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062038/).

Week Six: When do I start on the actual script?

The question of when I would start writing the actual script was on my mind this week. I had hoped that I would get the revision of the outline done, so I could start on the script next week. I only got about 2,000 words written and still have a ways to go yet.

I have been following Screenplay-Tip ( http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Screenplay-Tip/112581738752369 ) on Facebook for a while and they had a relevant idea this week.

"Don't edit as you go along. This will overwhelm you. Finish the story and then go back and revise structural issues."

I am having some problems with the plot now and was considering whether to work on those first, or write the script and deal with them later. The advice Screenplay-Tip has is to get the script written first, and then work on the problems.

When I wrote The Anger Trap, I ended up wishing I had spent some more time working on the outline before I started on the script. I can see the other side of the issue though. Starting on the script will bring out the characters more. Understanding the characters should make it easier to solve the plot problems.

I worry about having some underwhelming clues for my detective, but then I don’t think that details like that should stop me from going forward. Usually these are details that can be brought out later.

Detective Story Week Five: Developing Character

I finished revising the character descriptions. I had to change some of the characters because of what I had learned about them while doing the outline. Late in the week, I got back to expanding the outline.

I added some pieces to the story that I think will make my main character, Lucas Martin, easier for the audience to empathise with. One of the mistakes I felt I made with “The Anger Trap” was that the main character was hard to identify with.

I changed the name of one character, William Williams, to Billy Clark. He is a suspect in the case. I decided that the name was too cute. I have been using photos of actors to help me visualize the characters. I changed three of the photos this week. Mostly it was because the actors were too old for the parts.

I am starting to expand the outline by providing more detail on what happens in each scene. I went back and reread parts of my outline for “The Anger Trap” to remind me how I did it last time. I’m finding that my scenes seem to be shorter, with less happening. While doing the revisions I added two new scenes for a total of 58.

I moved one scene to a different location. That may have created a little problem for the following scene, but I think it will work out OK. What I felt good about was that it was a scene where I had a loose end that I was able to tie up. In it, the detectives find a clue, but I had no clue what the clue would be. I have similar problems in other scenes later in the script and I have been worried about coming up with good solutions. Finding a solution for this one gives me more confidence.

This was my most productive week so far. I added 3,569 words to my character descriptions and 2,116 words to the outline. That brings the outline to just about the same length as the outline for “The Anger Trap”. I do need to do some house cleaning on the outline since I have a lot of duplication. That would make it shorter. I am about a third of the way through the revisions to the outline. I should be able to get that done next week. I want to do another run through both the outline and character descriptions before I start on the script.

Detective Story Week Four: Lucas opens up

My protagonist, Lucas, is starting to develop. I finished going through my outline and have described what each of the characters want in each scene. I am finding that Lucas often has conflicting desires. This is a good thing from the point of having a good story. Through out the story he is torn between wanting to “solve” the case or to just walk away from it.

I started to write up more detailed character descriptions. Mostly I was transcribing from my notes, but I also drew some ideas from what I learned about the characters while doing the outline. I’ll need to do a lot more work on the descriptions before I go back to the outline.

I went through an exercise where I used a system of personality factors I found on Wikipedia to develop descriptions of each character’s personality. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16_Personality_Factors ) I’m not sure how helpful this will turn out to be, but I find that all my characters were coming out differently.

While going through my notes I found some good ideas for scenes that I had forgotten about. I added a couple to my outline. In one case, I replaced a similar scene that was weak. In the other, I added the scene. That disrupts the structure I had created for the story. I decided not to worry about that for now. When I am further along I will know if that is a problem or not.

I added 2,717 words to my out line, bringing it to 10,369 words. I added 1,389 words to my character description, but most of that was copying character information from my notes.

Detective Story – Week Three

I got back to work on my detective story this week. I have been working on it for three weeks now. When I did “The Anger Trap” I had a first draft done in three weeks, but I’m not that far along on this one. I think I will get a better script this time though.

I have been working mostly on a detailed outline. I want to focus on the main plot. When I was trying to write an earlier script, “The Caregiver” I got lost when I started adding subplots before the main plot was really fully developed.

The out line now runs to 7,652 words after I wrote 4,842 words this week. When I wrote “The Anger Trap” my outline ended up at 12,679 words. If I was using the same approach I would about 60% done, but I’m doing things differently and I expect the outline to end up longer than that.

In “The Anger Trap” outline I only described what was happening and a little about what the characters were thinking. This time I am starting by writing down what each character in the scene wants before I start on detailing what happens. I have done that for most of the scenes. I should have that done in another day or so.

By doing it this way, I realized that some scenes might not have much to contribute. I deleted a couple of scenes and added a couple to replace them.  There are still some weak scenes, but maybe I can develop them more as I work on them.

My characters are developing. My protagonist, Lucas Martin, is turning out to be a private person. I think he has something to hide. That makes it harder to get to know him, but it is an important factor in what he ends up doing.

Some interesting contrasts have shown up between Lucas’ personality and his partner Mike Johnson. Mike is a more open person and maybe even a little irresponsible at times. While there is a potential for conflict between the two, I see the differences as a source of strength for them as a team.

Lame Excuses

I accomplished very little on the detective story script this week. My excuse is that I got sick. I am recovering and I hope to dive back into it this coming week.

I did revise the outline some more. I deleted some scenes that I didn’t think added much and I added some that I feel are much better. I also expanded the role of the detective’s wife.

A couple of weeks ago I gave all of my characters names. I’m calling my detective Lucas Martin now.

What I see as the biggest challenge now is losing continuity. When I wrote “The Anger Trap”, I had no real interruptions while I was writing. Each day when I started, the characters and story were already clear in my mind. I fear that having taken a break of a few days, I have somehow “lost the characters” and it will take me while to find them again.