Long Delayed Update - 2026 May 28

I haven’t updated my website for a while. It isn’t that I had nothing to report, but I am in severe procrastination mode. As I get older, it seems that things get harder to do.

Scripts Posted

I posted a bunch of my scripts on my website. I’ve had a page for my scripts but had only posted one script on it. Recently I posted eighteen more. Mostly they were short scripts I did for the Script Dreams group’s writing challenges. I posted a couple older scripts as well. I have a few more short scripts and some longer ones that I intend to post. Someday. https://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/scripts/

While preparing the files to upload, I came across short scripts I had forgotten about.

CSIF Older Filmmakers Club

I am still involved with the club, but I have struggled to organise meetings over the last year. Someone else volunteered to run some meetings, which is much appreciated. They’ve done a couple so far. I hope to recruit some other people to run meetings. Many hands make light work. I will be setting up a meeting on documentary films.

Script Dreams Group

I joined this writer’s group back in 2018. We’ve been meeting a couple times a month. One meeting devoted to writing our scripts, while the other we read the scripts aloud and we talk about writing, film, and other things that come up. Every month we get a writing prompt for a short script. Many of the scripts posted on my script page come from those prompts.

Shut Up and Write Group

I joined this writer’s group several years ago. The focus of the group is to not talk and to write instead. I’ve found it a big help in fighting my procrastination. We meet every week, although we do have the occasional gap.

Unfinished Animation Projects

I have several unfinished projects, which I try to pick up and finish off now and then. I used NAWMAL to do the animation.

“The Audience for AI Films” is my critique of AI generated films. I felt that it was too short and was stuck for ways to make it longer.

“The Dread of the Daring Rocketeer” is a sort of Science Fiction story. I ran into problems with some of the images and got stuck.

“Time Enough for the Anxious Social Media Manager” is pretty much what the title says. I recorded the audio, but I haven’t done any of the animation.

“The Urgent Phone Call”

We finished this film early last year and I have been entering it into film festivals. I think it has run its course there, so I am considering what to do with it next. https://filmfreeway.com/TheUrgentPhoneCall

Years ago Ouat Media (https://ouatmedia.com/) distributed “My Next Film” (https://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/my-next-film/), so I have thought about approaching them about “The Urgent Phone Call.” So far I’ve done nothing about that. I’ve also thought about posting it on my YouTube channel.

 

Someday I’ll stop procrastinating and get all this done.

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

Project Updates - 2023 December 24

I made progress on a few small projects recently. One was one that has been hanging around for nearly two years. The others are a response to a script writing challenge to the CSIF Older Filmmaker’s Club.

“The Dread of the Daring Rocketeer”

I did a little work on my video “The Dread of the Daring Rocketeer.” I’ve been working on it, off and on, for almost two years. I really want to get it out of the way and move on.

Older Filmmaker’s Scripts

I’ve been a member of the CSIF Older Filmmaker’s Club for almost two years now. https://csif.org/clubs/

At the November 2023 meeting, we were challenged to write a short script in time for out next meeting in January. I made a list of issues that older people face. This gave me a couple story ideas. I joined the Shut Up and Write group I’ve been attending and wrote out the two ideas as short stories.

One I call “The Isolation of Arthur,” focusses on the isolation that some older people feel. I didn’t finish it and wasn’t too happy with what I wrote. It is kind of an experimental film idea. I haven’t gone back to it.

The other I call “The Old Lady and the Urgent Phonecall,” is about an older person dealing with a scam caller. This went better and I finished a draft of the story during the session. It was partially inspired by a scam call I got. Note: The scammer didn’t fool me. This time. The next day I revised it into the form of a film script. I made some changes as I revised it. Another “old person” issue kind of developed in the story as I worked on it. I worried that it might make the script problematic. However, I came up with a few changes that I think take care of that.

I want to finish off “The Isolation of Arthur” before I share both scripts with the other Older Filmmakers.

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

"The Barrier", "The Disruptors", and Relationships

This week, besides work on "The Barrier", and "The Disruptors", I also thought about how I should develop the relationship back-stories for characters.

"The Barrier"

My rewrite of "The Barrier" has gone quite slowly, but I managed to finish 5 of the 39 scenes I plan to rewrite. Once do I get started it goes smoothly, but I find it far too easy to put it off.

So far all of the revised scenes run longer. Version 0.6 of the movie runs about 86 minutes. If all of the scenes I rewrite end up longer by the same amount, it looks like the new version could run almost 2 hours. That is longer than what I'd like it to be.

There several existing scenes that seem repetitious to me. Maybe I can shorten the movie if eliminate those. It can get tricky when you try to cut stuff out though. I read somewhere recently that it is much easier to add material to a script than take it out. On the other hand, I've found with some of my earlier movies, that cutting out material would often improve the movie.

"The Disruptors"

I had planned to leave "The Disruptors" until later, but I had a bunch of ideas about the characters that I had to write down before I forgot them. I have a plot in mind, but after I did "The 89th Key" I decided I needed to put more effort into creating the characters before I develop the plot in more detail.

Relationships

Another thing I learned from "The 89th Key" was that it is important to define the relationships between the characters. Relationships develop during the course of a story, but what I have in mind is to develop a back-story for the relationships. I am not sure how I should go about that. I've seen questionnaires writers have set up to help them develop their characters. I haven't seen any to help you develop your characters' relationships.

I came up with a few ideas:

§         Are they friends, enemies or neutral?

§         Are they rivals or team mates?

§         Do they trust each other?

§         Do they like each other?

§         How strong is the relationship?

§         When did they meet?

§         How did they meet?

§         Was it one event that brought them together, or did it develop slowly over a longer period?

§         What do they have in common?

§         What do they normally talk about?

§         What do they disagree about?

§         What aspects of the other are they unaware of?

I'll need to give this list some more thought. It seems to me that there must be many other important questions to ask. Some of questions seem to duplicate others.

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

Sharkbiter Update 2012 August 12

I finished a new version of The Sharkbiter Interview. I split the video, which runs 9:16, into 14 parts.

My goal with the new version is to cut it into parts that run about one to one and a half minutes long. I read that videos longer than that are less popular. The audience retention statistics on YouTube showed that the audience for Make 'em Squirm: The Sharkbiter Way had dropped to under fifty percent by one minute into the video. http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/filmlist/make-em-squirm-the-sharkbiter-way/

My first attempt was in early July. I ended up with seven parts, which ran between 1:24 and 2:22. The average was 1:45. I thought that worked OK, but the videos were still longer than I wanted.

I watched the videos several time before I decided where to cut them. Some I left as they were, while others I cut into two parts and, in one case, into three parts. The 14 parts ranged in length between 0:45 and 1:33. The average was 1:11.

I found Part 1 difficult to do and I had to redo it several times before I had it the way I wanted it. Part 5 came in too short, so I had to add some dialogue to bring it closer to the average. I did new introductions and closes for all of the videos. Beyond that I found I needed to add or change a few words so each part could stand on it’s own.

Over all I’m happy with them, but there were a few that I think don’t work as well as separate episodes. I will think more about those and I may recombine some of the parts.

When I first wrote the script, I thought of it as a single video and I think that made it harder to split up the way I did. If I had that idea from the start, I could have avoided that problem. I suppose I could do a more drastic rewrite now, but I think it is better to finish this off and move on to other projects.

I plan to start posting them next week.

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

My Goals for 2012

Last week I went over what I did last year. Now it is time to look at what I’ll try to do in 2012.

Make Better Use of My Time

Time and again I find myself with too many projects on the go, and I can’t make headway on any of them. This year I will try to keep my focus on one major project at a time.

Last year I had a bunch of goals for the year, but that leads me to try to do them all at the same time. This year I will try to set deadlines for each of the major projects I want to do. That way, I can space them out over the year.

Another way to focus is to stick to longer projects. When I do short small projects, I tend to want to just get them done and work on the next one. With a longer project I don’t think there would be the same pressure and I will create something that will catch people’s fancy.

Somedays . . . and Contingency

I need to have final versions of these films ready in time for the $100 Film Festival. The festival starts the first week of March. That pretty much sets the deadline for me.

My Most Difficult Case

This film has been on my back for far too long. I don’t think I really have all that much more I need to do before I have it done. I want to leave it until after I’m done with Somedays … and Contingency. I think I can safely set a deadline of April 1 for this project.

The Crying Lady

I did three feature scripts in 2010, but right now, none of them really seems to get people excited. The idea I feel best about now is The Crying Lady. I did it as a short story in 2011, but didn’t get much feedback on it. I think that the idea has potential and I want to do more work on it.

One way to get more feedback is to do a video based on the story. The website Xtranormal allows you to easily create animated videos. I believe I can use it to make an animated storyboard from my story. That will give me, and others, a better idea how the story would translate into a film. I will shoot for completion my mid May.

The story is still too short for a feature film, so I want to expand it somewhat. To do that I plan to do some blog posts and maybe short articles about the themes and details of the story. I did something like that for my transportation planning stories. This would help build and audience in addition to help build up the story. I won’t set any specific deadline for these, just let them happen as I develop the ideas.

Transportation Planning Story

I would like to develop one of my transportation planning stories into a longer form. The two stories I did last year run about 6,000 words. I’d like to build that up to at least 20,000 words. I have some ideas about how to do that and have several pages of notes.

Given my other priorities, I don’t think I can get to it until May. I’d like to set a deadline of July 1, although, that leaves me about six weeks and it took me that long to write the 6,000-word version. I’ll revisit this goal in April.

Small Projects

I have a bunch of ideas for small projects, but as I noted before I don’t want them to be a big part of my goals this year.

I have several ideas for short stories and articles lying about. I would like to get some of the short stories done. Articles, except those related to my major projects, are not a priority for me. I do make some money from them on Triond, but it isn’t so much money that I would lose out if I didn’t do any. Half the money I get comes from one article I wrote three years ago.

I enjoyed making the two shorts for the $100 Film Festival, so I’d like to do some more along those lines.

I won’t set any deadlines for this kind of project.

The Unexpected

My experience has convinced me that ideas can just pop up at any time. I’ll keep that in mind and try to stay flexible in my plans. If something catches on fire, I will want to run with it

I plan to do a review of my progress several times throughout the year: April 1, July 1 and October 1. That will help keep me on track.

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