A rewrite for “The Gladstone Barrier”

I started to rethink my short story The Gladstone Barrier this week. I came up with several ideas that I think I can use to develop it into a longer and, hopefully, better story.

Description

In some of my stories, I do have a lot of description of the people and the locations, but have very little in The Gladstone Barrier. It is very much a plot driven story. I think there a couple of good reasons to add more.

First, I can use it to develop the characters more. How they dress, how they move and how they present themselves all tell you something more about them. I think that my characters need that additional depth.

Second, I can use description to create a mood for each scene. A cramped room and a cosy room are physically the same thing, but the description creates a different feeling for the location that will affect readers in how they interpret what happens.

Bits of Business

I feel I need to add some little “bits of business” for my characters. I mean little things that he does that reveal something of his personality. A neat person will pick up loose papers on a desk and arrange them. A sloppy person won’t. I can use these to make the main character, Arthur Macdonald, easier to identify with. I would want to do the same for the minor characters, but not to same extent, since I want the focus on Arthur.

Along those lines, I want to rewrite the opening scene so that Arthur avoids the collision through his own actions. As it is now I don’t think that is clear. That would make him a stronger character and not just some one who is blowing in the wind.

Ling the Mentor

I intended the character Ling to be Arthur’s mentor. I thought that was clear in the story, but some people commented that I should make her his mentor, so I guess it isn’t that obvious. I would need to expand her role quite a bit.

Some people might think it is odd to have a woman as the mentor. The term mentor refers to a story from Greek mythology. The goddess Athena wanted to help Telemachus find his father Odysseus. She disguised herself as a man named Mentor and encouraged Telemachus to seek out his father. In her guise as Mentor, she travelled with him to provide guidance and advice. So, I think it makes perfect sense. Maybe I can use that parallel in the story.

Technical Details

Some of the comments I had about the story focussed on some technical details that they didn’t think I had right. I want to fix those, which will change the plot somewhat. Currently the boss assigns Arthur to do the priority project on short notice. That doesn’t leave him time to do all the consulting and hoop jumping that the project would normally involve.

For the rewrite, I think it would be better for him to take over the project at the last minute because the person who had done the work can’t complete it for some reason. This would put him in a position where he has to defend decisions that he was never involved with and doesn’t always agree with.

Subplots

I also would like to add a subplot about Arthur and a girlfriend or maybe a wife. This would serve to round out his character. It also occurs to me that it would ensure that readers would realize that his relationship with Ling is not romantic. Maybe I can add other subplots, like a conflict between the priority project and the project he had been doing.

The Danger of Delay

I got quite enthusiastic about the rewrite, but I have so much else on my plate now that I have to put it off until later. I wish I could dive into it while my mind is still churning out ideas. I worry that if I leave it to later, that I will lose the inspiration. That happens some times, but usually I can pick it up.

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

Films Submitted to the 20th $100 Film Festival

This week was the dead line for entries into next year’s $100 Film Festival. I submitted my two films just in time. Somedays . . . is a short one-gag film. Contingency runs longer and is an experimental film about the history of the $100 Film Festival. I hope they are accepted.

I still have some work to do before they are ready to screen. I have until March to get that done. Some of the shots I did turned out poorly and I want to reshoot them.

My plan was to do the 16mm films in the same way that I would have done a Super 8 film, but use the work print. I could still go back to a negative cut or transfer if I wanted to later. Now I’m starting the think it might be better to use the CSIF’s optical printer. That would give me a complete negative of the film, so I could do multiple copies.

I’ve never used the optical printer myself, but I went to a workshop on it. I think I can figure it out, although maybe I need to find someone who has to give me some guidance.

The CSIF is closed until January, so I have some time to plan where I go from here


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

$100 Film Festival Film Update – 2011 November 13

My film is closer to completion now. I’ve even given it a title: Contingency. Not really that original, but descriptive none the less.

My original plan was to include some shots of me editing some film on at Steenbeck at the CSIF. They are moving at the end of the month, so the time was tight. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get in touch with the guy I wanted to help me, so I came up with a plan B.

I will used some outcuts from my earlier films. That is one reason I picked the new title. I think this forced improvisation will make for a better film. I pulled out some of my old Line of Taxis files to see what I have that I can use. It looks promising. I documented my more recent films quite well. Some of my older films are not, so I am not sure what I have.

I shot another roll of film with a few more images I wanted and some titles. I wanted to include shots from my earlier Super 8 movies and I don’t have 16mm blowups I can use. I do have digital versions of those films, so I shot short bits of them off the computer screen.

I included two films that I did before the $100 Film Festival. The Smiling Corpse was a film I did back in 1974. In many ways, it was the original inspiration for the Festival. I copied two “cool” shots from the film. I can only include one of them though. The other film I used was Extra Special Care, which I did as a student project at SAIT in 1989. It was another example of the type of film I had in mind for the festival.

While I was at it, I short another short short film I call Somedays I just Can’t Get Started. If it turned out OK, I’ll submit it to the $100 Film Festival too.

I mailed the film to the lab Friday. I have some “Exposed Film” tape that I use to wrap the exposed film, but I couldn’t find it. Until, of course, after I’d gone and used some other tape. I still have quite a lot of tape and I don’t think I will find much use for it now.

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

“My Most Difficult Case” Update 2011 October 9

My progress on My Most Difficult Case has been slow. A while back, I started to think of it as My Most Difficult Film, and it has certainly earned that moniker.

Last March I arranged with someone to do the sound postproduction. Unfortunately, they didn’t deliver, so I’ve had to cancel that agreement. That was a big disappointment for me.

I turned to Pat Aull for help. He helped me earlier with My Next Film. He came over one day and in an hour he taught me enough to do the sound myself. Obviously, you don’t learn to be an expert sound technician so fast, but I only need a competent sound track.

A major problem I had with the sound was that the sync sound recording had a lot of noise. My attempts to clean it up were not very promising. I used Audacity for my sound work. With it, I could remove the sound, but it also changed the voices in ways I didn’t like.

Pat suggested I retransfer the sound from the original tape. I didn’t think that would help, especially since the original recorder, a Sony Walkman modified with Chrystal Sync, was no longer available.

Nevertheless, I went ahead and redid the transfer. Much to my surprise the sound turned out much better. I really should have more faith in Pat. There was still a problem with noise, but I found that in my tests I could remove the sound without adversely affecting the voices.

The only problem with the new transfer was that the speed drifted a bit. Over the length of the 44-minute recording, it shifted about 15 seconds. I did a speed adjustment in Audacity. I found that the drift varied and in some places, it was still up to two frames off. I adjusted that after I replaced the sound in Premiere Pro.

I see what I’ve done so far as an experiment. I will go back and redo the noise removal and time adjustment before I move on to the rest of the sound work.

I see three more steps I want to do before I feel I’m done with the sound.

First, I want to do some adjustments to the voices. I think that if I add some room ambience and adjust the tone a bit, they will sound much better.

Second, I want to add in some background noises. For example, Bryson closes some books, but there is silence. The screech when a chair moves as people stand would add some realism. I could use some noises, like a coughs to emphasize the dialog at appropriate places. I could do the same with bits of music.

Finally, I need to balance out the sounds, so the voices are all the same level. The background noises should be in the Background.

I had hoped to have this film all wrapped in 2011, and I still might do that. However, with two other movies on the go for next years $100 Film Festival, that may be too optimistic.

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

$100 Film Festival Film Update 2011 October 2

The weather was good this week, and I didn’t expect that to keep up, so I decided I’d better get the outdoor shots I wanted. Wednesday I signed out a Scoopic from Yvonne Abusow at the CSIF and then I was committed. I had a hectic couple of days. I wanted shots of the various locations associated with the festival over the years. Thursday afternoon I hopped into my car and headed out.

I started at The Garry Theatre, where we held the festival from 1997 to 1999. That didn’t take long, but I was shooting into the sun, so I decided that if I could, I’d reshoot it later.

My second stop was Fort Calgary, where we held the festival from 1993 to 1995. That was another easy shot. I had thought I’d take about a half hour at each location, but I had the first two done in less than a half hour.

Stop three was the 4^th Street office of the CSIF from 1997 to 2002. Parking was a bit of a challenge, but it only took a couple minutes to get the shot.

Stop four was the Uptown Theatre. We held the festival there in 1996 and then again from 2000 to 2003. Again, parking was a challenge. It took me less time to do the shoot than it took me to take care of parking.

Next stop was the Unitarian church on 16^th Avenue NW. It was the CSIF’s office when I joined in 1990 and we stayed there until 1997. We also held the first $100 Film Festival there in 1992.

I drove by the Alberta College of Art and Design and the Plaza Theatre but couldn’t find a place to park, so I left them for Friday.

Friday morning I packed the Scoopic into a back pack and took the bus to SAIT, where I got my shot of ACAD. We held the festival there in the Stanford Perrott Theatre from 2004 to 2006.

I took the LRT to Sunnyside and walked over to the Plaza Theatre. We’ve held the festival there since 2007. We also screened Donna Brunsdale’s film Cheerful Tearful there in 1998. Some guy walked into shot, so I kept shooting until he got out of the way. I was a little annoyed, but then I came up with a way to use that shot of him in the movie.

On every film I’ve done I’ve discovered that filmmaking is a physical challenge. I did a lot of walking around with a heavy camera. Well, the camera wasn’t that heavy, but after I carried it around for a couple of hours it started to feel heavy.

I went back to The Garry Theatre and got a better shot this time. It was the same time of day, but the clouds softened the light.

My last stop was the CSIF offices at Currie Barracks. I got a shot of that too. I returned the camera as well.

I think I see where I will go with this film. Up to now it as just a bunch of shot ideas, now I see a structure to it.

Now I just hope the film turns out OK.

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

Painting the Tiger

Back when I was young I spent a couple weeks in the summer at “Art in the Park.” It was a program at Assiniboine Park in Winnipeg. We would go to different parts of the park and paint what we saw. We also went to Kildonan Park, where I did a picture of the Chief Peguis statute.

My memory of that time is rather vague, but one incident does stick in my mind.

One day we were at the tiger enclosure in the Zoo. I strove mightily to do a realistic picture of the tiger. The teacher (coach?) came by and looked at what I’d done. I can remember exactly what he said, but it was to effect that I was too conventional.

After he had gone I decided, OK, I’ll show you unconventional. So I did a more abstract painting. I just did the orange stripes of the tiger. It wasn’t the realistic image I wanted, but more of an impression of a tiger. When I look back, it doesn’t seem so unconventional now. At the time, for me, it was.

When the teacher came back he was very impressed with it. At the end of the program, he selected that painting for the showing they did. I remember seeing it up on the wall at the Kildonan Park pavilion. That was the old pavilion, not the one they have now. I never got the painting back.

As I’ve struggled with my rewrite of The Crying Woman, my thoughts went back to that teacher’s advice. Am I too conventional in my approach? I do recognize that I often fall into a set pattern. I reuse the same phrases, words and structures.

If I really want my movie to stand out, I must find a way to break out of my conventional thinking. Over the last eight or nine months I have looked for a writing formula to help me move to longer and more substantial stories. That taught me more about how to write, but it also constrained my creativity.

I’m not sure how to shift mental gears just yet. Maybe, like the tiger, my work needs to be abstract and impressionistic. I use a similar approach when I created Line of Taxis and I feel that worked well.

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

A Feature Movie is Difficult to Make in Many Different Ways - Version 1.0

Back in 2004, after I shot My Most Difficult Case, I decided that my next movie would be a feature. I felt I was ready for it, but seven years have gone by and no feature yet. I’ve started to consider some of the difficulties I’ve run into. I hope that will help me overcome them.

I expect that my knowledge and views will change and become better organized. That is why I call this version 1.0.

The Crying Woman and the Art of Listening

The Crying Woman

I got back to The Crying Woman this week. I got about 850 words done Thursday. The next day I couldn’t write if my life depended on it. I find this is a very hard story to write.

I’m about 80 per cent through the story now. I hope to get the first draft done next week. It will need a lot of rewriting though. Of course, since I plan to turn it into a film eventually, I’ll rewrite it many more times before I’m done.

The Art of Listening

The Evolution of My Transportation Planning Story

I have embarked on a project to make a movie about transportation planning. This idea has been percolating through my mind for a long time and has a long way to go yet.

 

Early Efforts

I worked for over 30 years as a transportation planner. When I started to make films in the early 1990s, many of my co-workers encouraged me to make a film about transportation planning. I was reluctant to do that.

Issues in Transportation Planning #4: It’s All Bad News

“I never gave them hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.” – Harry S Truman

I don’t know why I didn’t think of this earlier. After all, all through my career I was frustrated by how people reacted to bad news. Time and again I ran into a lot of flack about my “negative” attitude.

First Film Shot on My $100 Film Festival Film

After substantial procrastination, I’ve taken a break from my transportation planning stories to work on my short film for the 20^th annual $100 Film Festival.

Wednesday I picked up a camera (a Canon Scoopic) from the CSIF’s new production coordinator Yvonne. It’s been a while since I used a 16mm camera, so I had to practice loading the film. I had a heck of a time with the practice film, but when I loaded the actual film, it worked just fine.

Character Names

Over the years I tried several different approaches to character names. I’m still not sure which the best way is.

When I started I just picked names “out of the air.” It turned out that wasn’t always easy to do, and some of the names were uninspired. Later I developed names that were similar to mine, like Jack Gilmore in Line of Taxis. I thought this was a little too cute, so I dropped that.

New Short Story “The Gladstone Barrier” Posted

I just posted a new short story.

The Gladstone Barrier

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

This story is set a traffic operations office, but has some of the same characters as The Glencoe Project. Although I wrote it later, The Gladstone Barrier happens before The Glencoe Project.

I found this story much harder to write. It could be because I drew more of the story from personal experience. That means I have to relive some events that still affect me.

The story is part of an ongoing project that I hope will lead to a film about transportation planners. I've created a page to bring together all the stories, posts and articles I've been doing on transportation. http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/transportation.php

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

Gladstone: Struggles with Dialogue

I got a second draft of my short story The Gladstone Barrier done this week. I think it is much better, but I still think I’ll need two or more drafts before I think it is ready to post. I wish I could do it faster.

I have trouble with some of the dialogue. While I took a break from this story I read a book on dialogue and they suggested that the dialogue should be in short sentences. When I rewrote the story I tried to do that.

The book suggested that longer passages could be split up with short descriptions of action between parts of the dialogue. In the story I gave a lot of my characters long bits of dialogue and I wanted to break them up with bits of action. I wasn’t happy with the result. Partly it was because I used the same bits of action description over and over.

When I rewrite it next time I want to fix that, but I am not sure just how to do that. I don’t have the dialogue book anymore, so I can’t easily check it again. I feel that in some cases a long “speech” works OK. At least better than if I put artificial breaks in.

Another change I would like to make is to put more emphasis on how the protagonist feels. From my experience with Line of Taxis, this is the way to connect with the audience. I haven’t put enough of that into the story. I think the story does have a strong emotional core, but I’m not sure that it will be clear to readers.

I want to plan out what to look for in my next rewrite before I start.

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

Issues in Transportation Planning #2: The Limitations of Models

I am almost finished with The Gladstone Barrier, my second “transportation planning adventure story.” I continue to explore the field of transportation planning for story ideas. This post draws on my experience with transportation models.

Most of my career in transportation planning was spent on models and forecast. Much of the rest of my efforts went to surveys and other data collection. Over the years I developed a view of their proper use, which a lot of people don’t agree with.

There is a conflict between what transportation planners want from models and what they can actually deliver. In the movie Coal Miner’s Daughter, or maybe it was the movie Sweet Dreams, a character said “People in Hell want ice water, that don't mean they get it.” This is the way it is with transportation models.

It became clear to me over the years that models could not predict the future like we hoped they could. Henry Minzberg’s book The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning helped me understand the complexity of this problem. In the book he focuses on business planning, but many of his suggestions can apply to transportation planning. The article From Strategic Planning to Strategic Thinking by James L. Morrison (no relation) has a good short description of Minzberg’s ideas.

We don’t have the luxury of waiting and seeing. We must make decisions now. But we must recognize that often we will be wrong. The goal then is to be aware that we can be wrong. We need to recognize when we are wrong and act in a timely manner to correct.

The approach I strongly favour is to link forecasts to a robust monitoring program. Periodic “reality checks” of forecasts will catch forecast errors sooner and allow plans to be modified. This is not a new idea. When I looked at technical manuals from the 1950s and 1960s they all talk about the importance of monitoring. They explicitly assume that models and their forecasts are fallible.

I think the main barrier to successful monitoring is that people don’t like to be exposed as wrong. They fear the personal consequences of the perception of failure. This fear is not unfounded. Many people use examples of failure as excuses to discount other people’s opinions.

Admitting that a forecast is wrong can become a political issue. Politicians work out compromises between different interest groups to reach their decisions. When transportation forecasts turn out to be wrong some interest groups won’t get what they bargained for. This undermines the compromise and may impact the resolution of other issues. Often it is easier to deny the problem rather than correct it.

I don’t like the idea that interpersonal and political issues can conflict with technical issues, but this is the reality we face.

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

The Gods Conspired Against Me

Well, not really the gods and it wasn’t really all that bad.

My website got migrated last week. For some unknown reason the version they migrated was from two weeks earlier. I didn’t want to post a blog until that had been fixed. It wasn’t done until late Monday, so I decided to wait and post Tuesday.

Tuesday I decided to print some forms I needed before I did my blog. When I did, the printer got corrupted and I had to clean up the registry and reinstall the printers. That strained my limited technical expertise. The problem kept recurring and I spent much of the day fixing it. In the end I discovered that the problem would only crop up when I tried to print some PDF files. Other PDF files worked fine. The PDF files that caused the problem were created by my scanner’s software.

At least it gave me something to blog about. I haven’t made much progress on any of my projects.

I thought I’d finished the first draft of The Crying Woman, but it turned out that I’ve got about a third of it to do yet. I plan to rewrite The Gladstone Barrier first and get it published, and then go back to The Crying Woman.

With both these stories I used a variation of the Lester Dent Master Fiction Plot. I did a couple of stories, The Abattoir Project and The Glencoe Project and they were fairly easy to write. I find these two new stories are much harder to write. In part I think it is because his plot is an adventure story, while my new stories are not.

The Glencoe Project isn’t really an adventure story either, although I call it that, but it wasn’t so hard to write. I want to put more emotion and character into the two new stories and I find that hard to do. I know it is something I need to do, but I wish it were easier.

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

“The Crying Woman” and My $100 Film Festival Film Updates - 2011 July 3

The Crying Woman

I had one very productive day on The Crying Woman this week. The whole story should run about 6,000 words and I wrote 2,600 in one session. I have another 2,000 to do.

I was optimistic that I could finish it off the next day but I got stuck. Before I started to write I read over the last bit I wrote the day before. I was disappointed because the woman sounded like a whiner. The story requires her to share how she feels, so I have to let her open up about how she feels. I do need to find a way for her to do that and not sound whiny.

I didn’t feel like writing after that. I gave it a shot, but just couldn’t get started. It is kind of foolish of me. I know that I can fix the problem in the rewrite and I should get on with the first draft.

This story is a substantial departure from what I’ve done in the past, so I will run into snags as I feel my way forward. I see this project as an opportunity to learn and grow. Some years ago I decided that with every project I would push the limits of what I feel comfortable with. It looks like this project will do this.

$100 Film Festival Film

I took another little step forward on my film for next year’s $100 Film Festival. Last week I checked on film processing.

This week I met with Murry Smith, the acting production coordinator at the CSIF. We talked over what equipment I would use on the project. I was quite happy to learn that they still have the camera I like to use.

While I’ve used the ARRI M and the Bolex, I much prefer the Canon Scoopic. I’m sure that more experienced cinematographers would say it is not as good a camera as the ARRI or Bolex, but I found it easier to use. Ease of use is important to me when I’m the camera operator. It has been a while since I have used it. For some reason I thought it was a Panasonic camera.

When I looked up more information on the camera just now, I was surprised to learn that the camera was introduced in 1965! The camera at the CSIF must be a later model, but it could still be 30 to 35 years old.

I talked to Steve Hanon, who shot Line of Taxis and My Most Difficult Case for me. He thought he could help me with this project. Howard Horwitz has already agreed to help. I hope that over the next couple of weeks I’ll get a test roll shot, and then I can move on to the project proper.

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

Issues in Transportation Planning #1: What I Want to Say

My goal is to make a film about transportation planning. There are many things I want to accomplish with the film. This is the first of a series of blog posts about what I want to say about transportation planning in the film.

I worked for many years in transportation planning, mostly in modelling and forecasting. It shouldn’t be any surprise that this is the area where I have the strongest opinions. It is also, I hope, the area where I most know what I am talking about.

In an earlier on-line article I talked about the problems between transportation modellers and transportation planners. See Transportation: Planners Versus Modellers. A good story has some conflict and I see a lot of conflict in this relationship.

Another on-line article I wrote, A Review of "Future Babble: Why Expert Predictions Fail - and Why We Believe Them Anyway", is not so directly related to transportation planning, but does talk about some of the limitations of models and forecasts. I want to explore this issue in more detail, in large part because I have a strong belief that even flawed models can be valuable if used correctly.

I looked at the political side of transportation in my blog post Transportation Infrastructure as Status Symbol. Many times I’ve heard people complain about political interference. My thought is that one person’s “political interference” is another person’s “democracy in action.” The relationship between the technical sphere of transportation planning and the political sphere can be very complicated.

In preparation for writing my film, I started to write a series of short stories. So far I have only finished and posted one, The Glencoe Project: A Transportation Planning Adventure Story. I thought it was a good start, although I do realize that the villain was a bit over the top.

I’ve done outlines for other stories, but have only started on one other, The Gladstone Barrier, which has some of the same characters as The Glencoe Project, but they work in a traffic engineering office. This story is a prequel to The Glencoe Project. I have a first draft of the story and hope it will be ready to post in the next couple of weeks. I’ll post updates on this project on my blog. A list of related posts can be found at http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog/?cat=17

I would like to get feedback from people. I want to ensure that people who work in transportation planning will feel that my work is a realistic portrayal of the field. I also want to find out what aspects of transportation planning are of interest to people who are not transportation planners.

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

Faltering Steps Forward on Two Stories and a Film - 2011 June 26

The Crying Woman

I did a little writing on The Crying Woman this week. I’m about a quarter of the way through the first draft. I haven’t really filled in the outline yet. I have done most of the easy stuff. My original plan was for a film similar to Before Sunrise. I’ve decided to do it as a short story first.

The idea is for a long conversation. It is a challenge for me to do that. I want to maintain interest for the audience so I need characters they can have empathy for. I think I’ve got two good characters that change in the course of the story. They also both have secrets that they may or may not reveal.

I am stuck on what they will talk about. I know the general thrust of what they want to say, but for most of the story they talk around what they really want to say. I need to come up with topics that allow them to say what they want to with out actually saying it. I did that in the part I’ve written and I think it worked well.

The Gladstone Barrier

I got the first draft of the story done this week. I’ll need to revise it quite a lot though. Overall it is longer than I want it to be, but the last part of the story is shorter than I want it to be.

It has been a hard for me to write it. Partly it is because I draw on some personal experiences. I’ve done that before in other projects, like Line of Taxis, but I usually find a way to distance myself. This is much closer to me.

While I wrote it I started to apply some of the techniques I’d read about writing dialogue. As a result, some of the early parts of the story are really in a different style. I think I’ll need to toss some of the early parts out and rewrite from scratch.

$100 Film Festival Film

In 2012 the $100 Film Festival celebrates its 20^th year. Melanie Wilmink at the CSIF contacted me about making another film for the festival. I hadn’t planned to do that again, but since I have 800 feet (244 meters) of 16mm film in my fridge I decided I’d give it a shot.

I got in touch with Howard Horwitz, who was one of the other filmmakers in the first festival. We agreed to collaborate on a project. We’ve come up with some ideas and I expect that as we progress the project will evolve. I used a similar approach when I made The Fence.

This week I started to get ready to shoot some film. I contacted the Niagara Custom Lab in Toronto about to make sure I could get the film I have developed and printed. I got a bit of a scare, until I realized that I’d sent them the wrong information about the film I have. Next week I’ll be in to the CSIF to talk about equipment. I plan to shoot a test roll first. It has been a long time since I last shot film.

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

Progress Report on “The Crying Woman”: I Want Some Advice

I started to write The Crying Woman this week and I got about 900 words done. I first got the idea more than a year and a half ago and I spent quite a while in thought about the first part of the story, so it went quite easily.

The next part proved harder. The woman wants to tell the man about a problem she has, but she isn’t quite ready. I want to have her talk about the problem indirectly, as if it isn’t really her problem. I felt the best way to do that was to have her talk about a book. I thought it would be a good idea if the man had not read the book, but had seen the movie.

The problem is: I couldn’t think of a book/movie that would be appropriate. The woman wants to express the sense of betrayal she feels. The first movies I thought of, Double Indemnity and The Maltese Falcon, don’t really fit. Especially since the stories have a woman who betrays a man. I need one where the man betrays a woman. I’m sure there must be some thing out there that would work.

If anyone has any suggestions please pass them along to me.

One possibility is to create a fictional book. I did that for The Doorman’s Sacrifice. An advantage of this approach is that the book can fit the needs the story exactly. It would also avoid any copyright issues. I’d need to come up with at least an outline for the book and note differences between the movie and the book.

Another problem I have is with the woman crying. As the Four Seasons said, Big Girls Don’t Cry.

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