Woke up this morning completely hung over. Ended up doing nothing productive on the writing front. However did have some funny ideas.

I know a Mexican place that has such good Mexican food that their chicken burrito has the same effect on you as a good movie. You think about it for hours after you're done with it. You walk around with the thought of it in your head. Wondering how all the elements came together so well. You have a tough time sleeping after it because the theme and plot and characters are running through your head. Finally, you wake up in the middle of the night and discover something new about it; I woke up at four in the morning in a cold sweat because of the Cilantro...

Was sent a late night email, from a good friend and a Gemini-award winning writer late last night: "Dude.Clear your calender. We have a pilot to write." I replied "You know I'm always doen to battle a script with the Reid brothers." Hopefully something comes of this...

C

Film Journal Jan. 7th, 2010

Today spent a great deal of time working on Shilas and the Tomb. Everything went smooth. This project is going to be great, because I get to work with a lot of new people.

This will work as a silent film, Chaplin-esque, but a humours narrator, would really make it come to life. Almost like a video game narrator who comments on everything the character is doing. Like the voice in Space Quest. Also a very heavy sound design and score would work nicely.

Spent the whole day trekking along working perfectly with this script, then went and had a very productive meeting regarding it...

The next step on this script is distrubuting a shooting script/directors script, in which I describe the action and, roughly the shots needed. We plan on shooting this film tight and static, with stylized cut-aways and close ups. Also trying to decide whether to use a dolly or a steady-cam. This film, could potentially be the first in a series of 'From Beyond the Grave' tales in which our main character, Shilas, keeps getting new jobs in which he short cuts and ultimately gets punished for his lazyness. Maybe need to introduce a love interest that is always waiting for him, but he keeps getting stuck.

Shallow Glen...

Didn't touch today....although feel good about where we are going. Tomorrow I will look at all the notes and begin to compile a few rough plot lines that we can use, but overall it is going to need a major re-write.

C

Film journal, Jan 6, 2010

Spent a great deal of today trying to wrap my head around Shallow Glen, the first 4 hours I spun my wheels endlessly looking at the network notes and re-reading all of our outlines and notes. Finally, after re-reading the 1st chapter of the Agassi book, 'Open', we were able to have a break through...maybe the biggest yet for the script. By taking the 5 elements of tennis that Agassi says also apply to life (service, love, advantage, break, and fault) we were finally able to make think of a way to relate tennis to life. I really feel today that we learned something about our style as well. Since I have a great deal of experience in Sociology and social situations, it appears fitting that I should focus more on exposing subcultures and trends in society. Make projects from a sociologists perspective, or better yet, comedic fictional ethnography. W/Shallow Glen we hope to focus more on the 'club-life' we are so familiar with, and less on the trials and tribulations of a failed ex-pro trying to get back on the pro tour. We hope to focus on the service of a tennis club. The faults people make in tennis club life. The advantages some members/people have over others whether born or earned. The love that blossoms in tennis club life, and the origin of the expression love in tennis (actually l'euff or egg). And the breaks, whether good or bad, that can happen in life. Using these sub-heading we should hopefully be able to chapter our script. Also, after our recent trip to Mexico, and the constant hilarious dialogue from Dillon in which we would all interact and talk as different characters, it makes sense to focus on the characters we are able to bring to the table. The characters we know dwell in the tennis club environment because we can imitate them all and know them well. This script will come together...now that we have an idea of how to keep it in one location. And Andre Agassi saved out ass....at least today....and I was always a Sampras fan.

Shilas...meeting tomorrow. Going to continue to focus on the bucolic Yankee Shilas...bucolic means of country-side or rural habitat....I hope to use this word in a sentence tomorrow. Hope to get a feel for the POVs of the crew..I don't really know them all so should be fun. Plan on doing a lot of listening.

C

Film Journal

Jan. 5 2010

Yesterday's film journal helped. The second I finished it, I re-read it, and instantly got ideas on 'Shilas and the Tomb'. I haven't though on 'Shilas' today, but already I am excited to make it more of a narrative. By introducing Shilas' money issue of wanting to get the most out of the land that he has purchased, I was able to find an ACT 1 OUT - Shilas has a body that is too big for the final coffin in his graveyard. What is he going to do?

Shallow Glen

Today we compiled our notes on the feature film script, 'Shallow Glen'. We have been working on the idea that it is a film about 'talent'. The main character, RUSSELL, is a busted talent, who never lived up to the potential everyone prophecied he was capable of. A character who was one of the best in the whole world as a junior, (18) and one day got the yips. Through helping a young tennis player get a scholarship Russell comes to realize that although he is great at coaching and his over analysis techniques actually help others, Russell prefers to go back to the tour where he would rather die unsuccessful living the dream, then stay home coaching. Now at 28, at the end of his troubled career Russell is suspended off the tour for an illegal blood doping trade. Russell hides out at his old home club of Shallow Glen, after having lived out of a suitcase for the last 15 years while traveling, waiting for his suspension to expire. Gerry, Russell's lifelong friend, allows him to use the club, as long as he gives tennis lessons and plays with some of the members.

This idea has been tough to write, because the producers we are writing it for aren't fully sold on it yet. They keep wanting to know what other movie it's like...The Wrestler meets CaddyShack meets Bottle Rocket meets Role Models meets Clerks meets Match Point meets Napoleon Dynamite meets Eastbound and Down.... A big fish thrown back into a small pond.

It is tough trying to find the style..the voice...I want to make a movie about a tennis club exploring the minutia, but it seems now that I am working on a talent expose...I should really stick to my personal experiences and my thought on talent...relationships with ex players...relationships with coaches...ideas on what makes an athlete... comedic way...- players excuses, outbursts on the court, crazy tennis club members, characters.

Need to keep grinding with it.

C

Film Journal Jan 4. 2010

Jan 5th, 2010
Most used joke today...
'Ola, I just got back from Mexico and I think I'm still sweating Dos Equis.'

Beginning pre-production on next short film "Shilas and the Tomb", a BravoFact short film with a 20,000+ budget....a comedic, eerie horror, romantic, emulate(?), Tales from the Crypt meets Evil Dead meets Monkey Island meets Oscar Wilde meets Edgar Allan Poe meets Tim Burton meets Final Destination meets Scanner Darkly meets Vincent meets Ed Wood. Right now having a tough time wrapping my head around what meets what and when they met. I need to read it again and plot all the story points, then try to give it an arc, as right now there are some cool looking shots, but no plot points, dialouge, or sequences of suspense. A lot of tolls and carpentry...maybe I'll investigate that shit some more. A grave digger that mutalates his victims to fit them into Coffins that were made for grave plots. Fit the body to the casket, not the casket to the body. This screams business man to me. This enterpaneur is visted by a spirit when he decides to mutilate the wrong body. It gets revenge!!! Hmmm...maybe this film is about revenge on the cheap? If so what would that be?
Watched the short film 'Vincent', by Tim Burton. A dark eerie calling card short that captures everything Tim Burton is in 6 minutes. It was dark, comedic and complete imaginative genius. I learned from it that, mis-direction can be funny and used in my next short. Maybe use misdirection of emotional shifts (from quick building fear to relief of tension over and over building bigger each time! Also flashing light works nicely. Either way I need to capture my directing style. This means trying to find out what my style is. Also I am going to create a dialogue for a narrator...just to get a feel for what is being said and the humor.

Also...
Need to think about Shallow Glen tomorrow...thinking about the quote from Chuck Klosterman's latest book, 'Eating the Dinosaur'..something about how we love to see talent fail because it makes us feel better about our average-ness...talent without diligence is the opiate of the bitter chatterboxes? Does each type have their opiate? I dunno...

First sip of Coffee in the New Year

The first sip of your first coffee when you sit down at your desk on your first work day back in a new year... a holy moment. It is the official lighting of your internal Olympic torch, but instead of igniting a journey across a country, you are running into your future. A new country that hasn't been explored...

Not to mention this is probably the best quality coffee you will drink all year as well. The clerk at your local beanery has most likely decided to get his/her head out of her ass starting today and as such, came in to work early fresh and eager to perform. Grab a Ventie and inhale.

DOS C

FAILURE IS THE ONLY PATH TO SUCCESS

In 2009. I had one goal. To fail, and fail and fail, in order to succeed. At the beginning of the year I decided that I was going to put myself into as many 'sink or swim' situations as possible. I wanted the ability to make a complete ass of myself and fall face first into a steaming pile of rejection as much as I could. I wanted to know what it felt like to be thrown out of town into the mud, and told to "...And Stay Out". I wanted to do all this, with the ultimate goal of learning from it.

OKAY. I know this one. You're just saying 'failure ultimately leads to success, as long as you learn from the failure'... Heard that before Conor...even if you're saying 'don't make the same mistake twice'...I've heard that one too---Actually, if I may interrupt...

By living each day to fail, one has to put themselves into a position to fail. This begs the question what exactly is failure? If I think the Toronto Maple Leafs are going to win, but they lose, did I fail at predicting the future? Am I a failure? The answer in no. Failure, by my definition, can only occur when one puts one's self into a position where their emotional and personal status are at risk. Situations in which things could go very well or very bad; like attempting to lure a vivaciously sharp featured hipster sex -tress into joining you for 'Taco Tuesday' back at your place. In this situation, if she dismisses your advancements and throws you to the curb like the last three Chew gum pieces from the 25 cent machine in the limbo shopping cart area of a Fortino's, you will feel like the gum that Chews are made of; mashed up and insignificant. You will have failed at your attempt and be greeted with a burn much worse than the burn of that random chew candy that has a hint of mint or cinnamon in it. Your emotions and confidence can suffer. If you succeed you may be in for one of the greatest sexual nights of your life and your personal stock and confidence could triple overnight. Thus, in order to truly succeed you have to put yourself into a situation where failure is not only a possibility, it is a likely possibility. A situation where, on paper, it looks like you want to fail.

So what about the lottery? If I win that my personal stock goes up----No it doesn't. You just become an 'undeserving newbie richo' who is forced to make up a fake reason as to why he can afford three jet skis and has them all parked in his Burlington duplex driveway. Ya see...

Losing at the lottery is a not a failure. Personal investment and emotion investment is huge on one side; if you win, your life is thrown into a completely different realm, yes. But, if you lose you experience no remorse, guilt, or embarrassment. You do not learn anything from losing the lottery. A true failure situation, usually causes frustration, embarrassment and other emotion pains. All situations, that we learn to avoid. If one can apply the lessons learned from great, and small failures, than one will inevitably succeed. In fact, large leaps forward in confidence, monetary gain, and power can happen, all with one success. But much like the saying 'An overnight success in ten years', one success isn't just the result of one lucky night. It is usually the result of numerous attempts and failures. Finally by succeeding, one's past failures are re-programed and remembered differently. As if you were watching the board game Jenga in reverse, your failures go from a collapsed tower of disappointing memory blocks chaotically toppled one on top of the other without any rhyme or reason, into a strong and sturdy tower of blocks that are no longer failures; but learning experiences.

I hate philosophies with no graphs. You're basically full of shit Conor.----Okay, here is a graph.

THE LEVY FLIGHT GRAPH OF SUCCESS

Above is a Levy Flight graph (the graph below). A Levy Flight graph in this scenario is best imagined if you think of the graph line as the flight path of a seagull looking for a fish. Lets assume that the beginning straight line is the seagull flying towards the lake. Once he gets to the lake, his hunt for fish begins. The seagull tends to hover and circle specific plots of water, scanning the surface for activity, ready to pounce. These circlings are represented by the bunches and clusters of sharp turns. As you can see a seagull has the tendency to fly around in circles and tight bunches, but every now and then will go for a long journey. These long journey's account for the noticeably long straight lines. Ultimately this is how a seagull survives.

That's actually kind of cool. --- No shit. Now....

THE HAPPY SEAGULL EFFECT (brand new!) TOP GRAPH

Imagine if this seagull was you. Rather than looking for a large mouth bass, you're fishing for a sexy land-shark in the form of a beautiful woman (or any other item, job or thing that represents a success you wish to acquire). Every time you take a chance to fail or succeed at obtaining your land-shark, and fail, your graph line moves in a tight bunch, like the seagull hovering in a plotted area. Every time you succeed, you take a huge jump, resulting in a straight line. Now imagine that up was the direction of success. The difference in your graph compared to the Levy Flight graph above is that yours would progress upwards, like the graph on top.

(due to poor examples from the Internet these were the best graphs I could find, but I think my point is clear.)

I think you're making some sense here..-- I might be.

But even if I'm not, I will learn from this potential bullshit I just made up, and try not to make the same mistake twice.