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

A Look Back at 2011

At the start of 2011 I did a post about My Goals for 2011. Before I do the same for 2012, I wanted to look at how I did last year.

Feature Scripts

A year ago I decided that one goal in 2011 I would rewrite the three scripts I did in 2010 and write two new scripts. I didn’t do that. Early on I decided that I would write some “longer” short stories to practice writing for a longer format. I did start to convert a couple of my short stories, The Abattoir Project and The Crying Woman, into scripts.

My First Feature

I didn’t set a goal to start a feature this year and I didn’t make one.

Short Films

I set a goal to complete a short film in 2011. I did better with this goal. I completed two shorts for the $100 Film Festival. It is the 20th annual festival and the organizer asked me if I could do a film. I shot both on 16mm. I still need to do a little more work on them before they are ready to screen. The festival runs in early March, so need to get that done early in the year.

I wanted to finish My Most Difficult Case and submit it for distribution. At first I made progress, but then a person I hired to help took my money and didn’t do the work. I sued him in small claims court. I got some of the money back, but all distracted me from the film. Patrick Aull gave me some good advice that will help me get it done.

I did a sound track for Extra Special Care and put it on my website.

Short Stories

My goal for 2011 was to complete three short stories I had started in 2010, and if that turned out well, I would try to do enough to publish another book. I published five stories:

The Abattoir Project: A Ken Walker Adventure,

The Glencoe Project,

The Gladstone Barrier,

The Crying Woman and

Book Review: Sharkbiter - The Secret to Success.

The Glencoe Project and The Gladstone Barrier were part of a larger project idea to do a book or movie about transportation planning. I hoped that it would be easier because I had 30 years experience in the field. It proved to be more of a challenge than I expected. I’ve put it on hold for a short time so I could work on other projects.

I stopped posting my short stories on Triond and Wikinut. I decided that in the long run I would be better off with them on my own site.

Articles

I published 13 articles this year on Triond, 11 articles on Bukisa and 8 articles on Wikinut. That is more than I planned to do. Actually, I didn’t plan to write any. I didn’t make much money. I did better early in the year, but then views dropped off later.

Part way through the year I decided not to post to Wikinut anymore. I get a lot of people who read my posts there, but it doesn’t pay very well. I feel that posting there just undercuts views on my other pages. I haven’t posted much to Bukisa recently. I intended to report reworked versions of some of my blog posts, but never got around to it.

Blog

My 2011 goal was the same as 2010, to post at least one blog a week. This will be blog post number 78. I would like to have more people read my blog.

Writing Skills

Several people had suggested that I work on my characterisation and dialogue, so I made that a goal for 2011. I did some reading on the subject and did some exercises. I think I improved my dialog a bit.

Website and Promotion

I’ve done made some changes to my website. I enjoy the work on my website, but I don’t think it helps draw people to the site.

My Goals for 2012

Next week, after New Years Day, I’ll do a new set of goals for 2012. The results this year were mixed, but I still felt it was worthwhile to set the goals.

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