The Value of Hulu

Fringe is my new favorite show.

Of course I tried it for an episode when it first began to air--but I kept forgetting when it was on, and the episodes I happened across were a little hit or miss.

When I ran out of House and Bones episodes on Hulu, however, I decided to give it another shot.

That episode was all right, though disgusting. But it was the only thing on Hulu that I was at all interested in, and the TV schedule is overstuffed with Xmas specials at the moment (blah).

So I watched the Season 2 winter hiatus finale--and it was AWESOME.

And it made me want to find out more about the show's mythology, so I bought Season 1 on iTunes.

It's great! The writers run their concepts right to the wall (such as: if someone lets out an thermo-electric charge when he's upset, it would create a ghastly snowball effect. Or, if you want to do a Monster-in-the-House plot, what better "house" than a plane? It's a microcosm of people, and you CAN'T escape!). And the acting is *phenomenal*, esp. from the three leads.

It's also fascinating for a Lost-o-phile like me, because the two shows have a lot of shared motifs: daddy issues, obviously, but also the "knowlegable older (maybe evil?) woman" and a certain back-alley depiction of medical science. There's also the first season's soundtrack which was apparently stolen from Lost wholesale--that's kind of annoying actually.

Of course, the scenes are super-efficient, the dialogue disarmingly good, and the show's found a perfect balance between procedure and mythological/character growth. Though it can be a little too light or slightly derivative at times, I'm hooked.

So here goes my third Fringe episode of the day!

Steppin Up

Yesterday, my collaborator and I made our version of a step-sheet.

We started out with a long walk in which we argued about pacing (Me: FAST! BIG! Her: SLOW! UNDERSTATED!), and character (Me: specific motivation! Her: theme!)

Talked about the few scenes we'd discussed previously and wrote one-sentence summaries for each, which we put on note-cards and taped to a foam-core board.

Looked at them and tried to put them into a three-act structure. Found out we were writing a detective story.

I said: don't detective stories follow five-act structure? And, as a tv writer wanna-be, five act is actually sort of my thing.

We brainstormed for a while, and made a lot of random cards and finally (FINALLY!) found a solid, interesting, specific motivation for our main character. He came to life!

I went back to an old plotline we'd liked, and a five-act version of it sprung out of my mind. It worked!

We re-configered the cards on the board so they were in five acts.

Act by act, we talked about what happened to the main character. At the end of each act, he had to make a decision.

In my head, and a book on mystery writing (I *think* it's based on the act structure in You Can Write a Mystery by Gillian Roberts, but if not--someone please correct me?) the five-act structure for mysteries is:

1. Problem/Decision
2. Easy solution--FAILS!
3. Discover *real* problem
4. Figure out how to solve it
5. Solve it! (or not)

We went through all five acts, and got extremely happy with our main character's journey/the A-story. YAY!

We went back through each act and planted clues that would later be important, or added scenes with characters that had slipped out of sight for a time (for instance, the love interest is kept from the hero for the length of an act, and we'd almost lost sight of her. Likewise, one character is important at the end, so we had to show him for a bit at the beginning).

I wrote it all down in a word document, and we had a forty-scene, five-act stepsheet.

Wow, a whole movie officially plotted, and it only took five hours.

The plan now is: we each have three scenes from the first act (the entirety of the first act, put together) that we're writing today. Tonight we'll put them together and see how they look. Talk about how we felt the first act went, and if we have any changes we want to make to the second and third acts before we assign and write them. At the end of the third act, I have the feeling we'll have a major plotting session again to hammer out every little detail of the fourth and fifth acts, which are bound to change in the drafting process. Then we'll write the rest, and celebrate that we'll have a FULL DRAFT OF A FABULOUS SCREENPLAY!

So, it was a hard, exhausting, but definitely productive day. My favorite kind.

Farty Arty

I was in a high school art room all day, making the BIG BUCKS, and trying to throw together five new scenes for my stop animation.

The process with this movie has been long and convoluted and fascinating, but the most unexpected thing about it is how conventional the whole route to production has been.

1. Premise
2. Brainstorm the plot and character arcs
3. Sketch out the characters (literally in this case, since I had to build them)
4. Build the characters (again, literally)
5. Build the backdrops
6. Test shots
7. Change lighting/location to work better, tweak the characters
8. Write the entire script
9. More test shots
10. Storyboard (20 pictures/3 minute movie!)
11. Revamp the storyboard to add scenes that actually show the characters' inner lives
12. Revamp the script
13. Build new sets/add props

Still need to:
14. Finish all props (ie, make rain. Claymation rain)
15. Finalize lighting and equipment (ie, wires for all the dangly things)
16. SHOOT!
17. Edit the visuals
18. Record sound effects
19. Write soundtrack
20. Record soundtrack
21. Final edit
22. Production icon.

Have I left anything out?!

Now, albeit, I haven't done everything in conventional order...which has cost me a lot of time and effort, but which is unavoidable in a learning experience like this. The point is: I've since learned the conventional process is probably the fastest way a newbie can get from point A to point B still all in one piece

I'd figured that because this was a three minute short, it could be throw together--in other words, that it wasn't a real movie. Figured, this was a week, two-week process. It's been months! My only "excuse"? Hubris...

But, on the other hand, I LOVE IT! Making things with my hands again, thinking in visuals, being on the path to a *finished* product, as opposed to a draft (even a "final" draft! Everyone knows those are never final...). This is right. It's for me. And even after going through this long, convoluted process, I love my vision, and believe I can do it justice. I still know: this is worth it.

Nerves of Aluminum Foil

Problem:

I'm in a rut.

Solution:

Throw myself out there, and see if anybody can help me get to the next level.  "Anybody" meaning: grad schools, (television) studio fellowships, (book) agents.

So Far:

I turned in my NBC fellowship application on Tuesday, and my ABC/Disney (the biggie-- this is the fellowship that pays, and it's a year long, instead of ten weeks) application yesterday.

My goal was to stick to a deadline and complete/polish my first professional style television script (including brads and card stock and 50 pages of other people's characters talking and acting in ways that makes sense for them AND are interesting to me).  

I'm very proud of myself for doing it, and celebrated last night.  In some ways sending in an application may seem like a small victory, but I think making a goal and achieving it is DEFINITELY worth celebrating :D

My reasons for making this particular goal were:

1.  "Going to Pages"- induced paralysis had set in.  The professional stakes seemed high, and every perfectionist button in my brain was pushed.  But if I didn't apply, I'd have no shot of getting in, and no experience writing television scripts.  So, I decided my goal was: get it done!

I'd been freezing up on my personal statements/autobiography, too, trying to think of this or that *perfect* angle.  But then I realized-- this is art, and an artist's greatest tool is her humanity.  I decided to just be myself-- totally and absolutely myself-- in the essays.

There are a lot of things wrong with me: I'm raw, and young, and still working on the "professional" thing.  BUT, there are a lot of things *right* with me, too: I'm raw, and young, and  happy to experiment, work hard, and learn.  I decided to put myself-- warts AND halo-- out there, and let the fellowship committees decide if I'm right for them.  

2.  Which they would do anyway.  Because: I can't control getting in, and obsessing over things one can't control is the path to brittleness and breakdown.  So, I decided that once the packet left my hands, it was no longer my problem.  If good things come of it being out in the world, all the better-- but in this case, the *journey* was the important part. 

Sure, I can't stop re-thinking everything.  Why are my statements of interest and autobiography so chatty?  Did I explain X plot development enough?  Even though Disney claims they want serialized shows to be current as of July 1, which for me meant up to the season 3 finale..... what if I should have included a "Previously on..." (like Warner Brothers wants)?  

The thing is-- my goal is complete!  The stakes and my control over the outcome are both at zero by now.  I'm going to put the script away for a week, and go back to it in time to send it off for Warner Brothers, hopefully even stronger.  But I'm not going to get down on myself, I'm not going to worry, I'm going to push every negative thought out of my brain, because

I ACCOMPLISHED MY GOAL!!!!! :D  

Which just makes me more confident I can accomplish the next one, too. 

Next Step:

This month, I'm going to send query letters out to agents.  Yes, maybe not a single agent will want to represent me.  Yes, maybe I'll lose the chance to publish this book, despite loving it/slaving away at it.  BUT, once again-- if I don't query agents, I have no chance of publishing.  And if not query now, when?  I'm still polishing, but the re-writing is done, and the story/characters have been set in stone for a while.  

My goals this month are: query 50 agents/get an agent (whichever comes first :D), start another novel I have a fantastic idea for, apply to the Warner Brothers fellowship, and study for the GRE.  

All those goals are within *my* power, and all of those goals will help me feel that even if I'm not climbing out of my rut completely, I'll at least be digging footholds in the walls.  

ZOMBIFICATION OF THE NATION!

Here's my article on The South Wing.

http://thesouthwing.com/a/?p=768

And why yes, it *is* the feature. ;)

As you can tell, I've proud of this baby.