Why Do I think “Line of Taxis” is my Best Movie?

I think that “Line of Taxis” is the best movie I've made. If I want to improve as a filmmaker, I need to understand why.

Just before I made “Line of Taxis”, I went through a bad period in my life. Initially, I didn't want to make a movie about it. It was still too close for me. There were also the possibility that a movie could reignite the situation.

I wanted to make a more challenging movie, but was stuck for an idea. One day I over heard someone talking about the mass layoffs we had in Calgary in the early 1980s. His phrase, “line of taxis”, stuck in my mind.

What I realized quickly was that in a movie about layoffs, I could draw on my own experience. Not in the sense of a story line, but in the emotions I felt. I could create a situation where the character would feel the same emotions I had.

There were several advantages to going this way.

It was a way I could deal with the residual emotions I felt. A way to exorcise them. I felt it would help me distance myself from the emotions that were still gnawing at me.

It would allow me to avoid the specifics of the situation. I was still afraid of the consequences if I made it too close to what actually happened.

It would shift the focus of the film from the story to the emotions of the character. This is something I realized later. It wasn't something I was aware of at the time.

I began work on the movie with a focus on the emotions of the main character. Then I developed situations and events that would bring out the same emotions I had felt. A relentless drip drip drip of minor events, that would force the main character to give in to the emotions.

In retrospect, I think that it was this focus on the emotions rather than the story is what made the movie as good as it was.

In the movies I made since then, I really have not had that focus on emotions. I think this has undercut the effectiveness of these movies. I know that I should focus on the character's emotional journey before I dive too deep into the story. I find that hard to do.

People often assume that writer's stories are autobiographical. “Line of Taxis” is, in a way, but in another way it isn't. While the emotional journey of the character is based on my own journey, none of the events in the movie reflect anything that happened to me in real life. I feel that I need to use the emotions from my experience but not the specific events.

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

Revealing Comments About Character Development

As I contemplate some new projects, I've thought about how to develop characters. I've thought about this before, but it never hurts to revisit my approach.

Character Tags

I've found Lester Dent's formula helped me a lot with my writing. I added his article to one of my earlier posts: http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/the-lester-dent-master-fiction-plot-test-drive/

In his article, Lester Dent talks about giving characters tags so people can recognize them when they show up. Tags can be based on appearance, disposition, mannerisms and so on. I thought this would create superficial characters, although I also thought they would create the impression of more depth to the character than there actually is. I've found it much easier to write dialogue for more fully developed characters. At times it almost feels like they dictate their own lines.

My thoughts on this has evolved somewhat though. While the tags can be superficial, as you develop them, you look for tags that will define the characters. The exercise of developing the tags, causes you to get into the mind of the character.

Verbal Catch Phrases

To be more specific, I feel that a character's unique verbal catch phases give clues to who the character is. For example, it is common to say “hello” when you meet someone, but people use a wide variety of variations. Some examples include: hi, hey, howdy, top o' the morning, give a silent nod, or say the person's name. Which word a person chooses to use tells you something about their personality and mood at the time.

In my own case, I usually just smile and nod, but say nothing when I meet someone. The reason I do that is that I don't have a lot of confidence in my memory for names and I worry I'll get their name wrong. That would embarrass myself and might insult the other person. I wouldn't want to do either. The word, phrase, or action a character adopts would reflect a similar thought process.

People tend to associate certain expressions with types of people, and you need to be aware of that when you choose. An example of this is the word “howdy”. This is usually associated with a “folksy” or rustic person. Or, someone who wants to appear that way. Of course some people make their choice based on what people around them use. Of course that tells you something about the people they associate with, which tells you something about them.

The verbal catch phases people use can include how they say “yes”, “no”, “goodbye”, “but”, “thank you”, “I think”, and of course, the expletives they use when surprised or angry. Some catch phrases have no meaning and are used just to make a noise; an alternative throat clearing.

At the end of a conversation, I usually said, “I should let you go”. Recently, I realized that it was way for me to end the conversation and make it seem it was the other person's idea. Now I try to say something where I accept that I want to end the conversation. I haven't a standard phase yet, but I would use something like, “I have some things I should do.”

Expletives can very often reflect a person's character very explicitly. Some examples of words and phrases can include: damn, drat, golly, holy characterization batman, and the wide variety of four letter words that are available. For myself, I usually don't say anything out loud. When I do, it is usually something like darn, or damn, depending on the intensity of my feeling. I don't verbalize anything stronger than that. These choices reflect my desire to remain calm, or at least appear to be calm.

What comes first, the catch phase or the character?

In my, limited, experience, it can happen both ways. When I used Xtranormal to make “The Barrier”, I had to choose the voices and appearances of the characters before I began to write. I also had some preliminary ideas for dialogue. As I wrote and rewrote the scenes, the voices, the appearance and the words they said began to define their character. As the characters developed, they generated ideas for dialogue, which further developed the characters.

Character Traits and Tags List

Some writers have developed lists of words that can be used to describe emotions. I'd like to have a similar list that linked character traits to verbal catch phrases and other types of character tags. While I have found that I can sometimes get a sense of the links without a formal process, I think a list and a process would make it go faster. I haven't come across that kind of list, but maybe there is one out there I don't know about.

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

Why do People Visit My Website?

After a long period away from my blog, I was somewhat surprised to see a rather big jump in visits over the last three months. I wonder why my website gets more views now. WordPress says I get much more views than Google Analytics says. I like what WordPress says better.

Part of the discrepancy between WordPress and Google was that the Google script wasn't working. I fixed that, but Google still doesn't record as many visits. I wondered if WordPress was in error. Despite an increase in views, there was no increase in comments.

The pages viewed according to WordPress seemed reasonable. The top three pages (Home, Blog and Archive) remain the same.

There are a few long term favourites that are always in the top 20 pages viewed. Over the last few months, they have remained in the top 20.

• “2001: A Space Odyssey” and H. P. Lovecraft http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/2001-a-space-odyssey-and-h-p-lovecraft/
• “My Most Difficult Case” http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/filmlist/my-most-difficult-case/
• “Contingency” http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/filmlist/contingency/
• How Would Proportional Representation Change Canadian Politics? http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/articles/how-would-proportional-representation-change-canadian-politics/
• Experiments With the Trial Version of nawmalMAKE http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/experiments-with-the-trial-version-of-nawmalmake/
• “The 89th Key” (my Doc Savage story) http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/stories/the-89th-key/
• “My Most Difficult Case” – Cast and Crew http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/filmlist/my-most-difficult-case/my-most-difficult-case-cast-and-crew/

These pages and posts have been quite popular for some time, so it is no great surprise to see that they are still popular. “2001: A Space Odyssey” and H. P. Lovecraft have been popular topics elsewhere on the Internet for a long time. Proportional Representation, nawmalMAKE and Doc Savage have become popular topics recently. I don't really understand why the Cast and Crew page for “My Most Difficult Case” is popular.

A few of my older posts and pages have become more popular recently.

• “Make ’em Squirm: The Sharkbiter Way” http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/filmlist/make-em-squirm-the-sharkbiter-way/
• The History of the $100 Film Festival http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/articles/the-history-of-the-100-film-festival/
• “The 89th Key” – ePub Version http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/stories/the-89th-key/the-89th-key-epub-version/
• “Our Wedding Vow” http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/stories/our-wedding-vow/
• “The 89th Key” – HTML Version http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/stories/the-89th-key/the-89th-key-html-version/
• “My Next Film” http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/filmlist/my-next-film/

The $100 Dollar Film Festival recently celebrated its 25^th year, which is likely why my history of the festival would become more popular recently. The increased popularity of our wedding vow is linked to the recent death of my wife. I think about her often and our vow is very important to me.

I haven't posted much on my blog recently, but two of the posts did make it to the top 20.

• Back to Writing and Filmmaking http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/back-to-writing-and-filmmaking/
• Could Automation Replace the One Percent? http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/could-automation-replace-the-one-percent/

The popularity of my first post after my hiatus shows the kind of support I get from my friends and family. The fear of automation replacing people has become a hot topic recent, as has the one percent.

Over all, I don't see any clear reason why I had the increase of views on my website. There is no one post or page that stands out as drawing in more readers. Many of the same pages and posts remain at the top, but have gotten more views. The indications are that most of the visitors are not people who know me personally, so they wouldn't visit just to support me. While the relative popularity of some pages and posts can be explained for the most part, that doesn't explain why the number of views increased.

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