how original
Aug. 29th, 2011 07:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
inmyriadbitsSo I am sick, which is fun, and perhaps an explanation for why I've been sleeping like a narcoleptic zombie for most of the past week. Yay.
Anyway, I've been wandering around my computer aimlessly, and I stumbled across this, and decided to post it for kicks -- it's sort of interesting, in a brain-archaeology kind of way. It started as me keeping a "director's notebook" for a production class (fuck, two years ago now) -- basically, our teacher had us just jot down whatever popped into our heads that was even vaguely related to our exercises, films and/or stories, and/or whatever we felt like -- and then I just kept jotting things down after that (it was easier once I had a place for it; usually I just ended up with a pile of little scraps of paper). Mine mostly tended towards untethered thoughts and intriguing concepts, sometimes little moments I witnessed in RL, sometimes just images that I liked. Anyway, the first half is the notebook; the latter is my current "original stories" file (I also have ones for fic ideas, vid ideas, and other observations [which crosses over with the original file sometimes]). Enjoy?
[1/22/09]
we like to see characters get hurt not because we're sadists, but because it makes it that much better when they deal with it/triumph over adversity
slasher movies: killing off minor characters -- extension of the main character (family, friends); anthropological concept of identity not as an individual but as a composition of all your relationships/kinship--relationality (see D&tB notes, fall '08)
on the subway, a guy from a group of construction workers talking about some guy they work with, probably a higher-up who is often wheeling and dealing on his cell: "I want to just take his phone and break his nose with it."
[1/23/09]
"Farmer In Chief"
[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html]
I wonder how hard it would be to make an interesting story about revolutionizing the farming industry. Farmers, riding high on their noble steeds/tractors...
I'd never heard of the Victory Garden movement before.
Story centered around a community garden; appeal of DIY/revitalization/makeover stories -- remaking your environment as remaking your self (Under The Tuscan Sun)
visual depiction of horniness - flashes of fantasy upon meeting someone attractive - Thoughtcrimes; Adaptation -- in film, gives a kind of visceral realism to the spectacle of desire/sexual thoughts that is so present in reality. Determining POV very important for this.
[1/24/09]
C's story -- meet-cute in a tattoo shop. Romantic comedies are not just for the generic Meg Ryan types or the quirky-indie-college student types; weirdos, nerds, and anarchists can still just as sentimental
story about people being afraid of a big scary-looking guy who's secretly a teddy bear (as most big scary-looking guys actually are; if they don't become bullies, they have to learn early and often to be careful with their strength and size, which makes them more considerate than most guys)
"I feel like a camel kicked me in the head and then spat in my mouth" - could be a good way to have someone (a crude someone) describe a hangover
In noir, it seems like things are always just /known/. Everyone knows how things work, or what it means when the detective tells them s/he spoke to so-and-so or that s/he knows what's going on. You don't get truly clueless or innocent people like you sometimes do in crime dramas/procedurals; everyone's guilty, everyone knows more than they'll say, unless forced. They know the lay of the land; they know more about the way things are than how they should be. There's no mystery, which means no room for speculative idealism to fill in the unknown spaces of naivete; mystery in noir is destined to be broken down, as the detective turns over every rock and fills the garden with worms. Noir detectives are cynics because they've seen everything, and even when they haven't seen it personally, they usually know what they're likely to find anyway. They don't expect to be pleasantly surprised, because it just hasn't happened yet.
It's nice on one level purely because there's so much less blah blah exposition.
"I don't get it, but I'll take it" -- line from Dead Reckoning
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail-order_bride
what's life like for a modern mail order bride? I'm sure there's a Harlequin romance about it out there somewhere; I know they must have the Old West versions, at least. A serious rather than fluffy take on the subject could be interesting; claustrophobic lifestyle, controlling husband, language and culture barriers -- see Gaslight (Ingrid Bergman), Sleeping With The Enemy (Julia Roberts)
personal tragedies
Is losing everything possible? You always have yourself left. It's just whether the self you're left with is what you've always defined yourself as; maybe some people can't deal with the loss of everything that defines them, because they must then define and rely only on themselves. That's exhausting.
[1/29/09]
the elevator on the left in my building has an infinity sign drawn on the button for 8 after the original ink wore off. I wonder what happens if you press it. I trust it would take me to the 8th floor, but what if it didn't?
An embodiment of language and generation divide seen on the subway: a little girl, Asian and a little accented, fumbling the pronunciation of "Avada Kedavra" to her mother, who corrected her with "no, Abracadabra," to which the girl pulled out her copy of Harry Potter and pointed to the word, saying "You kill people with it!"
Life episode 2.08 "Black Friday": "If you run, you'll only die tired" - played for comedy in the show, but could also be great coming from someone like Clint Eastwood.
[1/29/09]
rich private collectors -- get fascinated with all kinds of things and have the money to pursue that to the bitter end; what kinds of collections could there be and what do they say about the owners? (e.g. Life ep: mass murder memorabilia)
It's easier to make a promise than keep it for most people, because they don't consider the act of making it as significant as the follow-through.
from As You Like It--
Touchstone: Mistress, you must come away to your father.
Celia: Were you made the messenger?
T: No, by mine honour, but I was bid to come for you.
Rosalind: Where learned you that oath, fool?
T: Of a certain knight that swore by his honour they were good pancakes and swore by his honour the mustard was naught: now I'll stand to it, the pancakes were naught and the mustard was good, and yet was not the knight forsworn.
C: How prove you that, in the great heap of your knowledge?
R: Ay, marry, now unmuzzle your wisdom.
T: Stand you both forth now: stroke your chins, and swear by your beards that I am a knave.
C: By our beards, if we had them, thou art.
T: By my knavery, if I had it, then I were; but if you swear by that that is not, you are not forsworn: no more was this knight swearing by his honour, for he never had any; or if he had, he had sworn it away before ever he saw those pancakes or that mustard.
It's funny, the things that always remind you of a certain person. I just made guacamole, and I wonder if avocados will forevermore remind me of my friend Jenny. Another one: my friend Leigh and the Jet song "Are You Gonna Be My Girl." It's not even like these things are a defining characteristic--I don't think of Jenny and immediately think of avocados; I encounter avocados and think of Jenny.
[1/30/09]
suspense--can be derived out of one character's obliviousness rather than something hidden to all the characters; coffee scene in Shock To The System
noir: often uses closer shots that reveal only parts of things/people/places; serves practical purpose of not giving up the mystery too soon, but should also create the mysterious effect aesthetically
[1/31/09]
classic fairytales--the questing prince/whoever encountering someone in need of help who turns out to be a witch/someone helpful in disguise, and rewards them for their virtue; could be interesting translated into a modern setting, esp. New York, where the culture is so heavily weighted against helping strangers
>>exercise planning:
1. girl walks into her kitchen, book obscuring face [pan from door to stove area; reveal kettle/cup setup as her goal]
2. picks up steaming kettle, pours into waiting mug w/teabag and spoon, all while reading (want to see her eyes reading over top of book, teabag tab over cup edge, water pouring all in same frame -- high angle? we see everything; she doesn't)
3. grabs box off shelf (baking soda instead of sugar, but we don't see which yet)
--[see white substance poured into mug] / [turns page one-handed, pouring in bg--sm/out of focus? both?]
4. puts box back; see sugar box on shelf, and then her hand slides the baking powder box back on the shelf in front of it (reveal!)
--[stirs mug, touches drips off spoon]
5. picks up mug, walks back out again (without drinking/realizing)
maybe have her bump into doorway/put out guiding hand?
[2/1/09]
Shooting: takes a lot longer than you think. Continuity can be tricky even if you only have a few props. I hate in-camera editing because I'm a ridiculous perfectionist. Acting is kind of fun, although a lot of hurry-up-and-wait. It's hard to be attentive to actors and figure out a shot at the same time; I spent a lot of time muttering to myself as Julie waited patiently, and vice versa. The pacing in my sequence is Not Right, which means it doesn't fly, because timing is everything in comedy. I'm not quite sure what would make it right, though; I just know it isn't. It's too slow in general. Maybe I should've directed Julie to move faster on the whole? But that doesn't quite fit with the absent-minded character. Maybe it could've been funny to have her doing it all really fast.
[2/4/09]
http://notalwaysright.com/ = awesome resource for story ideas. Also:
http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/
http://www.myfirsttime.com/ (see play)
"Fastidious spelling snobs pushed over the edge: Books, blogs and obsessiveness mark a brand-new war of the words"
[http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28900351]
--Try our Sweat and Sour Chicken!
--stress makes people less forgiving about spelling/grammar/punctuation errors; also perfectionism, certitude about right and wrong -- pass judgement and assign blame
--“Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks [http://quotation-marks.blogspot.com/]
--vigilante (or OCD) sign-corrector: "Self-proclaimed grammar vandal Kate McCulley took up her standard — or rather her Sharpie pen and sheath of press-on commas — a year and a half ago, determined to fix the pesky punctuation errors she encountered along the streets of her native Boston." (her blog: http://www.thegrammarvandal.wordpress.com/)
--"Christopher Kenton, chief executive of a social media software company from Fairfax, Calif., says his late father, a former New York Times editor, simply could not let a mistake go uncorrected.
“He carried five pens in his pocket at all times and would edit his morning paper at the breakfast table,” Kenton says. “My worst embarrassment was when he corrected someone’s bumper sticker in a public parking lot with passers-by staring.”"
"Last August, two self-proclaimed grammar vigilantes were charged with conspiracy to vandalize government property after they fixed punctuation errors on a historic hand-painted sign in Grand Canyon National Park. The pair was sentenced to a year’s probation, banned from national parks, prohibited from making any more corrections to public signs and ordered to pay more than $3,000 in restitution."
"And while there are myriad motivations behind the impulse to correct — perfectionism, eagerness to please, payback for eight long years of the word “nucular,” and perhaps even rampant unemployment — diehard spelling and grammar snobs insist they’re only trying to help."
Lincoln's First Inaugural, ending: "I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
I misremembered the line as "the better demons of our nature," which is an interesting variation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hat
Black Hats are apparently malicious hackers as well as Western film archetypes
[2/7/09]
first meeting for Fran's movie -- 2nd assistant cameraperson, very glamorous. Jason (DP) will be showing us the ropes on his gorgeous camera, which is awesome. Talked to Max about getting an internship at Scott Rudin, too -- have to write a cover letter, fuck me, but hopefully worth it.
[2/7/09]
good way to spend downtime at bartending jobs: coming up with concise descriptions of people (good practice for screenwriting). Plotting on the subway ride = also of the good
camera department (ha, "department" -- three people) meeting w/Fran
Yolanda's bf Matt's story about his cat who accidentally ate a piece of string and, shall we say, had trouble processing it -- leading to the image of a cat chasing a piece of string trailing from said cat's unmentionables... ; reminded me of the story with the ducks in Errol Flynn's autobiography (My Wicked, Wicked Ways) -- half the fun of that book is trying to figure out what's true and what he just made up. The ones that feel half-true are the most interesting.
[2/8/09]
Bones 4.14 -- wasn't as good as I was hoping; half the appeal of a buried-alive plotline is the fact that you're *buried alive*, and a) Booth wasn't buried, they b) had him escape after about five seconds, and c) went off on this weird ghost/hallucination/Booth ex-sniper-angst tangent. Which, fine, it's not an awful character note (unlike Zach-the-surprise-serial-killer thing), but you don't waste a buried alive episode on that particular kind of character episode. The first Gravedigger episode was so much fun because it took the aspects of the show that make it appealing (the science, the team dynamic) and used them to play with the buried alive trope. Ditto for the CSI take on it (although of course Tarantino writing, directing, and insisting they cut out the science-montages-to-techno-music naturally helped), which felt free to embrace its own melodrama to nice effect. This episode...it was just like, what? abandoned ship? weird ghost/hallucination? totally uninspiring climax to the villain-rivalry? Really? The best thing about it was the last scene -- I really liked the way they bounced the interaction between the three characters when one of them was a ghost: Teddy (ghost) waving to Booth while standing next to unknowing Brennan, Booth analyst-saluting back, Brennan waving back to him, Teddy disappearing. It felt like a transfer of responsibility/relationship, too, implying a changing-of-the-guard situation without feeling too heavy-handed or schmoopy.
The fires in Australia are terrifying -- over 108 people are dead at this point; I read some stories about people trying to get away in their cars being overtaken by firestorms, which is awful -- like one of those dreams where you're trying to run and you just can't move, or you can but it's like running through drying concrete. Only with a giant firestorm chasing you. I donated some money, but there's not a lot else I can do. I know Jaydeyn's okay since she's a Tasmania girl, so that's one blessing.
Some of the eyewitness footage I've been watching, some of which is from other large fires (the other two biggest ones in Australia's history were the Jan 13, 1939 "Black Friday fires" and the Feb 16, 1983 "Ash Wednesday fires," which actually happened on Ash Wednesday, in what seems to be the universe's worst attempt at humor ever):
--http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlovOPanNKU
(this one is interesting because a little kid keeps asking questions in the background, like "Is the fire really big? Is it that big?")
--http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zVj3r5JQ7w
The really sick thing is that there are reports all over the place of arsonists setting these damn fires, and then re-setting ones that have already been put out. That just makes me want to punch them in the face and then set the bastards on fire myself.
Emily: (after watching a clip-show thingy of scenes in Psych involving ridiculous dancing/physical humor, which happens a LOT on that show) "If I watched Psych, it might spoil the illusion I now have that it's an epic musical about some sexy policemen who have to go to dance classes in order to be ready for a big fancy dress party with multiple costume changes (a wedding? the policeman's ball? WHO KNOWS?) and fall in love along the way."
Write or Die = a true gift to the lazy writer (or writer best motivated by desperation. Kamikaze mode is the way to go.
http://lab.drwicked.com/writeordie.html
[2/15/09]
Silences are both natural and unnatural. We're always thinking but not always speaking our minds, but when we talk or withhold speech it's just as much a perversion
[2/21/09]
The afternoon's slowly unwinding around them --> The afternoon's slow unwinding around them
[2/23/09]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%AAl%C3%A9e_weapon
"A melee weapon . . . is any weapon that does not involve a projectile — that is, both the user and target of the weapon are in contact with it simultaneously in normal use"
Seems obvious, but the fact that both user and target are in contact with a weapon at the same time makes for a dramatically different physical/psychological effect on the wielder of said weapon -- or should. How can physical/psychological distinction be visually depicted? Are depictions similar even despite differences in melee/ranged weaponry because psychological effect of causing physical pain/harm to another person is similar?
[2/27/09]
"Mermaid dream comes true thanks to Weta"
[http://www.stuff.co.nz/4858855a11.html]
That is SO COOL. I wonder what it's like to go from not able to walk to mermaid.
[2/28/09]
Relationships never really end or begin, they only change; it's about people in relation to each other rather than contact. A stranger may have a relationship with another stranger, if only in that they have never met, and people once in love can vow never to meet again but carry the other with them for the rest of their life...
film versus painting -- film does not reward the contemplative viewer; it does not hold still and let itself be examined. Time waits for no one, and the passing of time as you watch is what separates the painting from the moving picture.
[3/1/09]
"painterly" directors like Ford, Ang Lee -- use people moving through landscapes -- impression of what is unmovable, what is unaffected by the passage of time on a human scale; Monument Valley
[3/16/09]
Observe and Report (2009, dir. Jody Hill) -- girl vomiting on pillow during sex //s with scene in HUG: used for full-on absurd situational comedy rather than more serious tone; female character's established grotesque personality and her response/comment to the situation important, undercuts sense of her being used that the scene in HUG gave. Isolation; disturbing juxtaposition
use of explicit violence in a comedy
[3/19/09]
The Way We Get By -- old people talk with a kind of matter-of-factness; resignation perhaps? the ends of phrases and sentences go down or round off. Young people talk like a question, going up at the ends and trailing off
[3/24/09]
exchange students; two different kinds of alienation developing in two different places, simultaneously; parallel and complementary stories with a penpal relationship connecting them
[3/25/09]
how do you make a courtroom drama interesting or visceral if it's intellectual/yap-yap-yap? bring in the physical; the heat in Twelve Angry Men; a witness shifting uncomfortably on the hard wooden seat; the lawyer rubbing a kink in his neck; the defendant wincing as the handcuffs go on too tight; the bailiff standing on tired feet; the lady in the audience fiddling with the scorch mark in her skirt from her last cigarette break; the poor guy crushed next to that person who forgot to wear deodorant; the coffee drinker desperate for a mint. Brains and words alone will only get you halfway there.
can use phonebook to come up with names, locations (types of businesses)
[3/27/09]
SPN 3.10 -- dream sequence; use audio bridges--bring in sound of following action before previous shot done; abrupt jumps of dream consciousness
[3/29/09]
stories from a phone booth -- if these walls could talk, what stories they would tell
***[end of director's notebook for class/start of current file]***
5/20/09
from old LJ post: "[Just read a vampire book]. It was delightful. I have moved on to David Maurer's The Big Con. Vampires and con men -- life does not get much better. Ooh, I bet vampires would be great con men. Somebody write that."
6/10/09
literally soul-sucking debt; people get into debts without thinking about paying them off (they want something else), and collection time thus becomes a terror. What if the debt doesn't stop at your money? escalation along lines of "We Can Get Them For You Wholesale"
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/10/business/economy/10leonhardt.html?_r=1&em
radio play -- POV of blind person
6/13/09
three people grab onto a subway pole and react differently upon discovering someone has covered it in [~some substance -- superglue? chocolate? lube?]
6/15/09
image: white gloves stained dark red with blood on the palms
Hitler Gets Into Art School
http://youactuallysaidthatonline.tumblr.com/post/122161420/logic
6/17/09
Ad exec by day, pro wrestler by night!
http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/features/72155/my-secret-life09-iam-an-ad-exec-and-a-pro-wrestler-features-time-out-new-york
[meets up with ______ -- together, they fight crime! :D]
6/18/09
image: girl's palm holding broken chess pieces up in front of her face
7/6/09
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_London#Aftermath
modern equivalent of Decameron/Canterbury Tales? ; //s with Lost?
7/8/09
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_Pass_incident
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_Epidemic_of_1518
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Monster
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mad_Gasser_of_Mattoon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Molasses_Disaster
7/10/09
"they were looking for God and all they did was find a monster" (from Numb3rs 3.12) -- horror film concept?
modern equivalent of Lina Lamont? as hero, as villain
7/11/09
amnesiac H.M.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/05/us/05hm.html?_r=1
7/16/09
http://calathea.livejournal.com/338982.html?thread=3725862#t3725862
Calathea: "I did have the delightful experience of looking out the window to see two young men in full graduation gear (suits, gowns, mortarboards) making out in the little courtyard just outside the window of my office. *writes them an epic love story* <3"
Tazical: "Clearly their love story would include crazy emo graduation break-up heartbreak and then, five years later, one of them is cycling to work and gets accidentally hit by a car that the other one's driving, and they get back together, but one of them is working as a spy and there's comic shenanigans and a kidnapping plot and a case of mistaken identity and it all ends with them living happily ever after on a cheese farm in Tuscany."
7/17/09
Andrea's ghost story -- idea of a character who is a liar -- to friends, boyfriend, herself, even
http://brooklinegirl.livejournal.com/213754.html?style=mine
story of young couple who /actually/ run off together -- how would that really happen?
"Hutch smiled and Bobbie smiled back, and the deep lines around her eyes and her mouth said she did that a lot, in spite of the guy missing half his face and a waiting room full of little kids with bandages on little arms and legs. It wasn't all about scotch in the middle of the afternoon."
"She lifted the file and brought it down on Hutch's knee so that the cover slipped out of her gloved hand and opened. The neatly typed forms flapped from their staples, and the photographs poured out over the side of Hutch's leg, one after the other like a broken film strip, Anita Spender falling apart in precise black and white for the coroner's camera."
short film -- someone enjoying food; pure gastronomic, sensual experience conveyed on film?
dog fetishist. Goes around asking "Can I pet your dog?" :)
short film idea: sci fi concept, person gets a song stuck in their head and it slowly overpowers all other thoughts
girl-Holmes and Watson
hands gripping a subway pole can tell a story -- size, shape, order bottom to top, gloves, rings, sleeves, bracelets
she was a woman of few inches, but carried herself with perfect posture to make the most of those she had
http://arsenicjade.livejournal.com/698079.html?format=light
--write a short about this
7/20/09
Hush Sound "Lighthouse" -- ghost story "she saved me, I was swimming" "three ghosts in a lighthouse"
7/23/09
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/31927152?gt1=43001&pg=6#TDY_Pets_Survival
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/32107283/ns/today-today_pets/
7/27/09
short film idea: [title: The Card] detective gives card to survivor/family member of murder victim/etc. and says "if you need to talk..." -- follow after that moment; kid/woman/man lies in bed and holds the card, runs fingers around edges and over words, grief and aftermath; ends with phonecall
7/31/09
short film: "The Year of Ninja Spiders" http://weirdtales.net/wordpress/2007/10/23/the-year-of-ninja-spiders/
8/10/09
short: people arguing in a quiet hotel room while a parade/Mardi Gras/celebration is heard outside, filling the angry silences
http://chromeandgunmetal.com/chrome/archive/1/pretender.html
8/20/09
image: pile of sand in an hourglass shifting, a wave of sand sliding, as the last grain too many falls
9/9/09
"A Journey of 1000 Miles Begins With An Elevator Trip"
-ppl getting waylaid on journeys; destination-oriented New Yorkers
short film: stay on feet as enter elevator; entire time stay on feet, use sound editing, dialogue to show rest of inter/actions
[eta 8/8/10: "Up and Then Down" http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/04/21/080421fa_fact_paumgarten?currentPage=all]
Poem Shop - docu?
http://milkcratedigest.com/2009/05/02/the-poem-shop/
http://adrianshirk.com/archives/208
http://www.poemshopnyc.com/Welcome.html
Jorogumo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jor%C5%8Dgumo
9/13/09
Zombie Ants Controlled by Fungus
http://www.livescience.com/animals/090812-ant-fungus.html
interesting motivation for zombie-ism?
9/14/09
hugger busker (author of “Hugging Life”, Martin Neufeld)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_ifl9IZBaU
short film: story he recounts about the girls' choir group
pair with Poem Shop?
9/21/09
"it's better to go through life trusting than always questioning"
--matters of trust; people like above (me) versus the opposite
9/23/09
image of skeleton hand + umbrella and testing for rain // image of skeleton hand below surface, knife in hand, mourner kneeling/lying on grave (turn vertical, view profile) // image of mourner reaching into ground, into grave, to grasp skeleton hand
skeleton of a house, burned // and the skeleton key that fits its door (what does it unlock? the skull on the end wants to tell you, tell everyone, but no one can hear and it screams as it twists in the lock and the snap of the lock sounds like bone breaking) // the single pane of glass left in the window pane, one rectangle in the middle of emptiness, slowly grows a spiderweb of newborn cracks
a bird flies into the water and does not come out again (http://wanttobeatree.livejournal.com/748625.html) // flies into the ground and the earth closes around it // lands on a tree and is swallowed while the knoteyes watch you. You turn and see the forest for what it is
6/20/10
some kind of parody short film? using genre style differences to tell story -- sort of like The Royal Society in the sense of a space allowing for crossovers; only, rather than specific crossover characters interacting, multiple storylines are going on at the same time in the same place, each a distinct genre done in their own style and tone: like a bar/restaurant in somewhere like New York, where a romantic comedy is having dinner at one table, and a noir drama at another, a gangster movie, a sci-fi film, a superhero story, etc
things like a tray of food being knocked over at the romantic comedy table makes the gangster twitchy and lets one get the drop on the other (Han Solo-Greedo style); the sci-fi people are seriously trying to figure out the time travel fiasco they're in, and the superhero is having a discussion about his/her secret identity; etc.
7/25/10
[inspired by J2 Haiti bigbang wank]
Hwood prejudice that white audiences won't watch movie if protagonist is not white // Psycho strategy of killing off the POV character twenty minutes into film
-> so start with stereotypical white volunteer off to make a difference in the world/discover self; intro local/native character who would traditionally be "guide" type; then kill white lead off in disaster
-bonus: establishes a nice Anyone Can Die precedent
-issues: look at how Hitch manages switch? anyone ever tried this gambit after him (successfully/failed)?[maybe see for discussion of "alienation effect"]
how to write fights:
- purposeful/deliberate; with resolution (convenient revelatory rom-com type fights)
- long, pointless, frustrating (building to cumulative revelation in final of series, or tragic end like couple divorcing)
you didn't hang the moon
but you won my heart
set of stories based on communication? chronological. letters, telegram, telephone, radio, cell phone, internet
short film: set in sex ed class during school, oh the horror and comedy
short/film: "I Love You" - usually meant as pure, devotion, affection, tenderness, protection, warmth, etc; what about the dark flip side of that coin? possession, violent protection, jealousy, need, desire, etc.
Usually shown as either/or, but why can't have dark without ruining/negating light? (Drop Dead Gorgeous, Diplomatic Relations ch.8; High Tension)
someone who works at a hotel with photographic memory for faces (and who is otherwise pretty normal; maybe a bit of a slacker/artist/stuck in small town caring for sick relative, since is working in a hotel despite very cool ability?); one of the things about having meetings in hotels is that the sheer volume of people is supposed to overwhelm the ability of people to recognize you -- but this girl, of course, would recognize everybody regardless
"Well, you think it'd be cool, but really it just means I can remember, in exquisite detail, the exact faces of
[flashes of faces as she describes]
every drunken frat boy who tried to grope me in college
every hilarious orgasm face my last boyfriend ever made
and my third grade math teacher and his hideous wart
etc
7/31/10
http://arielchan.livejournal.com/752176.html
"A few months ago I saw the first trailer for Buried. From that trailer, it looked to be a movie about a guy who is buried alive. He wakes up in the coffin underground with only a lighter and a cellphone and has to try to use this to get out.
It looked like a cool concept of a creepy movie. I mean, that would be kind of neat - to make a movie about a guy buried alive, reaching out over the phone (with only so much battery) to people who believe him dead, trying to get someone to save him."
-> make a good short film?
8/18/10
image: in a dream, billiard balls breaking, and all rolling into pockets
doppelgangers -- clones and identity; if identity is based on experience, even a carbon copy of someone (physically and mentally identical), then the two are different people from the first moment of even having different angles of view on the same events. But what if the double was also sort of a drone, like their mind was yours in its place? like DW ep "Midnight"
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/identity
root of identity meaning "the same"
Or what if there are twins, and then a doppelganger of ONE of them?
9/21/10
character who vocally narrates her own life with stream-of-consciousness commentary (like Clare's friend at the lake)
any genre(/genre fusion) + mind games = better? like Inception: scifi/noir + mind games; the entire con/heist genre. So how would rom com + mind games work? Or Western + mindgames? (hmm...time to rewatch original 3:10 To Yuma)
10/16/10
Ernest Hemingway -- stolen suitcase of manuscripts; use in a film?
an obsessed college professor? called in / kidnapped to verify? or seeking it out on own ?
shady dealings in shady places
[title: A Little Mad Sometimes]
Wow:
"It's like I have a loaded gun in my mouth and my finger's on the trigger, and I like the taste of the gunmetal." -RDJ
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,98373,00.html
"...he was cited for trespassing and being under the influence of a controlled substance after wandering into a neighbour's house and passing out in a child's bedroom." http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2003/nov/08/features
--I wonder how that scene went? what did he see in the room, what would make someone stop there
title: Moment of Clarity (short film?)
"Defending your choices by attacking mine isn't a very effective strategy."
spy gadget: piece of lint that's like memory fabric--run electricity through it and it regains its shape; use to carry information somehow? like a cut-out?
memory fabric? if this real or just something made up for Batman Begins, sigh
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
film The Summoner--description in Susan Downey wikipedia article as an "apocalyptic Western" --> what would that be like
An all-girl gang of teenage apartment burglars has been arrested in Santiago, Chile -- AWESOME
http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2006/11/to-catch-thief.html
Also:
http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/crime-is-way-to-use-city.html
http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/nakatomi-space.html
[10/5/09] weird dreams last night: roommate Verna painted a mural of a bunch of fictional chararacters in one place
disasters; remember how I was terrified of natural disasters as a child? disaster movie following a little girl left alone in the aftermath of a disaster (see: Let The Right One In, Pan's Labyrinth; c/c 28 Days Later, Spirited Away,...etc?)
modern Jeeves & Wooster adaptation? what would the modern parallel for a valet be, a personal assistant? hmm...
From ScriptFrenzy generation:
- Forced to wear a grass skirt
a washed-up actress
gets drunk with a stranger
- Where reality and fantasy intersect
a group of retired superheroes
buys an unreliable time machine
- After waking from a 100-year nap
a bored serial killer
10/29/10
from Sean at ISFA:
- multi-character/narrative thread ensemble centered around (connected by?) room service guy, sort of like Pulp Fiction? Play with that - what kind of drama could center around room service? Could something vital be utterly ruined just by something like room service being late? Or maybe someone pretends to be room service to gain access to a room, and this causes other people to seek out the *real* room service guy mistakenly in revenge or in search of info or whatever; a very wacky cast of characters is possible, of course. :)
- kicker on a football team: high stress job, kinda separated from the rest of teammates by nature of position/training at professional level
10/30/10
"I'm going to write a space opera novel and name the characters Jaypeg and Giff, then see how long it takes people to figure it out. Aye aye, Captain Pinge!"
[http://poisonivory.livejournal.com/533319.html]
11/16/10
[from note: "break in shoes" (abt breaking in my new shoes for work)] --> title: Break-in Shoes. What kind of shoes do you wear on a break-in, if you're not a professional thief? short film - maybe just the contemplation of the closet
11/21/10
[from old note inspired by misread title of short film competition in SXSW]:
title -- "Extramarital Shorts"
1/13/11
story: talking to trees (like I used to talk to Mr. Needles at Zilker) -- only it actually works. Horror story?
1/30/11
[from old note] scene: husband & wife - wife notices lipstick smear on his [cheek]; doesn't say anything, just starts packing while the husband spins excuses --
"Say something"
"So you can reply? I can't (won't) believe anything you say anymore"
-parting line: "By the way, you have something on your face."
- how to make husband more sympathetic, or wife not so cold?
3/20/11
While passing that house on Bluebonnet with the fantastic porches: short film all about people-watching from one's front porch; slow and thoughtful tone; starts in medias res (off-screen v.o., you see what they do); something else going on between them despite the comfortableness of the situation, which comes out via conversation about other things
"It'll be like the director's cut of Wes Craven's The Little Mermaid."
http://www.anyroad.org/merry/leagues.html
- creepy-fairytale version of TLM would be kind of interesting -- not at all like the Disney version, but more like the original story -- without the Christian moralising at the end and the passive-woman-lets-man-go bullshit (if she really wanted him, she would fight for him, none of this I-love-him-so-I-let-him-go nonsense; also, she's a fucking *princess*, girl's gotta have some kind of command presence and nobility, not to mention the bravery to leave everything she knows to go after what she wants), but with the pain and the inability to communicate and the pining and lack of neat resolution and fish-out-of-water aspect. Could do fun stuff with sound -- main character can't talk but would still be driven to communicate; silent film techniques? And creepy, like the way Pan's Labyrinth is -- ooh, also, instead of the prince/his kingdom just being cut-out representations, what is is *really* like getting the reality of something you've been longing for and having put too much into getting it to back out once the shine wears off? (like every disenchanted young-artist-goes-to-LA/NY story ever) Is there violence and lying and betrayal in both kingdoms?
7/8/11
from old note:
- water rationing and neighbor-informants [ETA 8/29/11: recently heard a story about people who were being hassled by the local homeowners' association, despite the fact that they were legally not allowed to water their lawns any more; tension between legality and peer pressure; would make a great ridic short film?]
- someone singing an altered version of "Sixteen Candles" at a 60th birthday, aww
7/27/11
from Natl. Geographic article "Under Paris" (see saved; also http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/02/paris-underground/shea-text/1)
- something set in/utilizing the Paris underground? anything from a heist movie (tunneling into a bank vault!) to a indie drama about escaping from the world above to the Parisian version of Neverwhere
8/23/11
from notes:
- thought sparked by "What Passing Bells" in the A Deeper Season series: in the "man leaps out of a crowd to attack VIP" situation, why does it never happen that someone from the crowd takes action? would be fun -- I'm picturing a young man, fresh off military duty (maybe returned home injured?), maybe there to keep company/keep care of a friend/younger sibling who wants to see the VIP; tackles the rampaging madman, but then of course gets dragged into the investigation as the guarding types must take him in and check out his story, make sure he wasn't involved, etc.
Subsequent interactions with VIP can take many forms -- slash fic, romance novel, thriller (conspirators who set up the assassination attempt rear their ugly heads!), sci-fi (um...the VIP is an alien?), etc.
- entitlement is such a prominent mindset these days -- would make for a good bitterly dark comedy, somehow
- story inspired by the Laudatio Turiae -- wife who solves/avenges her own parents' murders, hides husband from enemies, selfless divorce offer, etc.; maybe murder mystery based around solving parents' deaths?
http://www.stoa.org/diotima/anthology/wlgr/wlgr-publiclife168.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laudatio_Turiae
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curia_%28wife_of_Quintus_Lucretius%29
- I wonder what it's like to have a mentor. I've never had one; most people don't.
- How to keep things interesting -- just add:
time travel
zombies
ninjas
a gun
8/29/11
Retreat: movie about a group of people who go on a retreat from technology - comedy? shamelessly sappy/preachy drama?
(idea from while reading story set during a Regency England house party, with all the various clever ways people used to have of passing the time that seem to be mostly gone now)
Anyway, I've been wandering around my computer aimlessly, and I stumbled across this, and decided to post it for kicks -- it's sort of interesting, in a brain-archaeology kind of way. It started as me keeping a "director's notebook" for a production class (fuck, two years ago now) -- basically, our teacher had us just jot down whatever popped into our heads that was even vaguely related to our exercises, films and/or stories, and/or whatever we felt like -- and then I just kept jotting things down after that (it was easier once I had a place for it; usually I just ended up with a pile of little scraps of paper). Mine mostly tended towards untethered thoughts and intriguing concepts, sometimes little moments I witnessed in RL, sometimes just images that I liked. Anyway, the first half is the notebook; the latter is my current "original stories" file (I also have ones for fic ideas, vid ideas, and other observations [which crosses over with the original file sometimes]). Enjoy?
[1/22/09]
we like to see characters get hurt not because we're sadists, but because it makes it that much better when they deal with it/triumph over adversity
slasher movies: killing off minor characters -- extension of the main character (family, friends); anthropological concept of identity not as an individual but as a composition of all your relationships/kinship--relationality (see D&tB notes, fall '08)
on the subway, a guy from a group of construction workers talking about some guy they work with, probably a higher-up who is often wheeling and dealing on his cell: "I want to just take his phone and break his nose with it."
[1/23/09]
"Farmer In Chief"
[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html]
I wonder how hard it would be to make an interesting story about revolutionizing the farming industry. Farmers, riding high on their noble steeds/tractors...
I'd never heard of the Victory Garden movement before.
Story centered around a community garden; appeal of DIY/revitalization/makeover stories -- remaking your environment as remaking your self (Under The Tuscan Sun)
visual depiction of horniness - flashes of fantasy upon meeting someone attractive - Thoughtcrimes; Adaptation -- in film, gives a kind of visceral realism to the spectacle of desire/sexual thoughts that is so present in reality. Determining POV very important for this.
[1/24/09]
C's story -- meet-cute in a tattoo shop. Romantic comedies are not just for the generic Meg Ryan types or the quirky-indie-college student types; weirdos, nerds, and anarchists can still just as sentimental
story about people being afraid of a big scary-looking guy who's secretly a teddy bear (as most big scary-looking guys actually are; if they don't become bullies, they have to learn early and often to be careful with their strength and size, which makes them more considerate than most guys)
"I feel like a camel kicked me in the head and then spat in my mouth" - could be a good way to have someone (a crude someone) describe a hangover
In noir, it seems like things are always just /known/. Everyone knows how things work, or what it means when the detective tells them s/he spoke to so-and-so or that s/he knows what's going on. You don't get truly clueless or innocent people like you sometimes do in crime dramas/procedurals; everyone's guilty, everyone knows more than they'll say, unless forced. They know the lay of the land; they know more about the way things are than how they should be. There's no mystery, which means no room for speculative idealism to fill in the unknown spaces of naivete; mystery in noir is destined to be broken down, as the detective turns over every rock and fills the garden with worms. Noir detectives are cynics because they've seen everything, and even when they haven't seen it personally, they usually know what they're likely to find anyway. They don't expect to be pleasantly surprised, because it just hasn't happened yet.
It's nice on one level purely because there's so much less blah blah exposition.
"I don't get it, but I'll take it" -- line from Dead Reckoning
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail-order_bride
what's life like for a modern mail order bride? I'm sure there's a Harlequin romance about it out there somewhere; I know they must have the Old West versions, at least. A serious rather than fluffy take on the subject could be interesting; claustrophobic lifestyle, controlling husband, language and culture barriers -- see Gaslight (Ingrid Bergman), Sleeping With The Enemy (Julia Roberts)
personal tragedies
Is losing everything possible? You always have yourself left. It's just whether the self you're left with is what you've always defined yourself as; maybe some people can't deal with the loss of everything that defines them, because they must then define and rely only on themselves. That's exhausting.
[1/29/09]
the elevator on the left in my building has an infinity sign drawn on the button for 8 after the original ink wore off. I wonder what happens if you press it. I trust it would take me to the 8th floor, but what if it didn't?
An embodiment of language and generation divide seen on the subway: a little girl, Asian and a little accented, fumbling the pronunciation of "Avada Kedavra" to her mother, who corrected her with "no, Abracadabra," to which the girl pulled out her copy of Harry Potter and pointed to the word, saying "You kill people with it!"
Life episode 2.08 "Black Friday": "If you run, you'll only die tired" - played for comedy in the show, but could also be great coming from someone like Clint Eastwood.
[1/29/09]
rich private collectors -- get fascinated with all kinds of things and have the money to pursue that to the bitter end; what kinds of collections could there be and what do they say about the owners? (e.g. Life ep: mass murder memorabilia)
It's easier to make a promise than keep it for most people, because they don't consider the act of making it as significant as the follow-through.
from As You Like It--
Touchstone: Mistress, you must come away to your father.
Celia: Were you made the messenger?
T: No, by mine honour, but I was bid to come for you.
Rosalind: Where learned you that oath, fool?
T: Of a certain knight that swore by his honour they were good pancakes and swore by his honour the mustard was naught: now I'll stand to it, the pancakes were naught and the mustard was good, and yet was not the knight forsworn.
C: How prove you that, in the great heap of your knowledge?
R: Ay, marry, now unmuzzle your wisdom.
T: Stand you both forth now: stroke your chins, and swear by your beards that I am a knave.
C: By our beards, if we had them, thou art.
T: By my knavery, if I had it, then I were; but if you swear by that that is not, you are not forsworn: no more was this knight swearing by his honour, for he never had any; or if he had, he had sworn it away before ever he saw those pancakes or that mustard.
It's funny, the things that always remind you of a certain person. I just made guacamole, and I wonder if avocados will forevermore remind me of my friend Jenny. Another one: my friend Leigh and the Jet song "Are You Gonna Be My Girl." It's not even like these things are a defining characteristic--I don't think of Jenny and immediately think of avocados; I encounter avocados and think of Jenny.
[1/30/09]
suspense--can be derived out of one character's obliviousness rather than something hidden to all the characters; coffee scene in Shock To The System
noir: often uses closer shots that reveal only parts of things/people/places; serves practical purpose of not giving up the mystery too soon, but should also create the mysterious effect aesthetically
[1/31/09]
classic fairytales--the questing prince/whoever encountering someone in need of help who turns out to be a witch/someone helpful in disguise, and rewards them for their virtue; could be interesting translated into a modern setting, esp. New York, where the culture is so heavily weighted against helping strangers
>>exercise planning:
1. girl walks into her kitchen, book obscuring face [pan from door to stove area; reveal kettle/cup setup as her goal]
2. picks up steaming kettle, pours into waiting mug w/teabag and spoon, all while reading (want to see her eyes reading over top of book, teabag tab over cup edge, water pouring all in same frame -- high angle? we see everything; she doesn't)
3. grabs box off shelf (baking soda instead of sugar, but we don't see which yet)
--[see white substance poured into mug] / [turns page one-handed, pouring in bg--sm/out of focus? both?]
4. puts box back; see sugar box on shelf, and then her hand slides the baking powder box back on the shelf in front of it (reveal!)
--[stirs mug, touches drips off spoon]
5. picks up mug, walks back out again (without drinking/realizing)
maybe have her bump into doorway/put out guiding hand?
[2/1/09]
Shooting: takes a lot longer than you think. Continuity can be tricky even if you only have a few props. I hate in-camera editing because I'm a ridiculous perfectionist. Acting is kind of fun, although a lot of hurry-up-and-wait. It's hard to be attentive to actors and figure out a shot at the same time; I spent a lot of time muttering to myself as Julie waited patiently, and vice versa. The pacing in my sequence is Not Right, which means it doesn't fly, because timing is everything in comedy. I'm not quite sure what would make it right, though; I just know it isn't. It's too slow in general. Maybe I should've directed Julie to move faster on the whole? But that doesn't quite fit with the absent-minded character. Maybe it could've been funny to have her doing it all really fast.
[2/4/09]
http://notalwaysright.com/ = awesome resource for story ideas. Also:
http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/
http://www.myfirsttime.com/ (see play)
"Fastidious spelling snobs pushed over the edge: Books, blogs and obsessiveness mark a brand-new war of the words"
[http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28900351]
--Try our Sweat and Sour Chicken!
--stress makes people less forgiving about spelling/grammar/punctuation errors; also perfectionism, certitude about right and wrong -- pass judgement and assign blame
--“Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks [http://quotation-marks.blogspot.com/]
--vigilante (or OCD) sign-corrector: "Self-proclaimed grammar vandal Kate McCulley took up her standard — or rather her Sharpie pen and sheath of press-on commas — a year and a half ago, determined to fix the pesky punctuation errors she encountered along the streets of her native Boston." (her blog: http://www.thegrammarvandal.wordpress.com/)
--"Christopher Kenton, chief executive of a social media software company from Fairfax, Calif., says his late father, a former New York Times editor, simply could not let a mistake go uncorrected.
“He carried five pens in his pocket at all times and would edit his morning paper at the breakfast table,” Kenton says. “My worst embarrassment was when he corrected someone’s bumper sticker in a public parking lot with passers-by staring.”"
"Last August, two self-proclaimed grammar vigilantes were charged with conspiracy to vandalize government property after they fixed punctuation errors on a historic hand-painted sign in Grand Canyon National Park. The pair was sentenced to a year’s probation, banned from national parks, prohibited from making any more corrections to public signs and ordered to pay more than $3,000 in restitution."
"And while there are myriad motivations behind the impulse to correct — perfectionism, eagerness to please, payback for eight long years of the word “nucular,” and perhaps even rampant unemployment — diehard spelling and grammar snobs insist they’re only trying to help."
Lincoln's First Inaugural, ending: "I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
I misremembered the line as "the better demons of our nature," which is an interesting variation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hat
Black Hats are apparently malicious hackers as well as Western film archetypes
[2/7/09]
first meeting for Fran's movie -- 2nd assistant cameraperson, very glamorous. Jason (DP) will be showing us the ropes on his gorgeous camera, which is awesome. Talked to Max about getting an internship at Scott Rudin, too -- have to write a cover letter, fuck me, but hopefully worth it.
[2/7/09]
good way to spend downtime at bartending jobs: coming up with concise descriptions of people (good practice for screenwriting). Plotting on the subway ride = also of the good
camera department (ha, "department" -- three people) meeting w/Fran
Yolanda's bf Matt's story about his cat who accidentally ate a piece of string and, shall we say, had trouble processing it -- leading to the image of a cat chasing a piece of string trailing from said cat's unmentionables... ; reminded me of the story with the ducks in Errol Flynn's autobiography (My Wicked, Wicked Ways) -- half the fun of that book is trying to figure out what's true and what he just made up. The ones that feel half-true are the most interesting.
[2/8/09]
Bones 4.14 -- wasn't as good as I was hoping; half the appeal of a buried-alive plotline is the fact that you're *buried alive*, and a) Booth wasn't buried, they b) had him escape after about five seconds, and c) went off on this weird ghost/hallucination/Booth ex-sniper-angst tangent. Which, fine, it's not an awful character note (unlike Zach-the-surprise-serial-killer thing), but you don't waste a buried alive episode on that particular kind of character episode. The first Gravedigger episode was so much fun because it took the aspects of the show that make it appealing (the science, the team dynamic) and used them to play with the buried alive trope. Ditto for the CSI take on it (although of course Tarantino writing, directing, and insisting they cut out the science-montages-to-techno-music naturally helped), which felt free to embrace its own melodrama to nice effect. This episode...it was just like, what? abandoned ship? weird ghost/hallucination? totally uninspiring climax to the villain-rivalry? Really? The best thing about it was the last scene -- I really liked the way they bounced the interaction between the three characters when one of them was a ghost: Teddy (ghost) waving to Booth while standing next to unknowing Brennan, Booth analyst-saluting back, Brennan waving back to him, Teddy disappearing. It felt like a transfer of responsibility/relationship, too, implying a changing-of-the-guard situation without feeling too heavy-handed or schmoopy.
The fires in Australia are terrifying -- over 108 people are dead at this point; I read some stories about people trying to get away in their cars being overtaken by firestorms, which is awful -- like one of those dreams where you're trying to run and you just can't move, or you can but it's like running through drying concrete. Only with a giant firestorm chasing you. I donated some money, but there's not a lot else I can do. I know Jaydeyn's okay since she's a Tasmania girl, so that's one blessing.
Some of the eyewitness footage I've been watching, some of which is from other large fires (the other two biggest ones in Australia's history were the Jan 13, 1939 "Black Friday fires" and the Feb 16, 1983 "Ash Wednesday fires," which actually happened on Ash Wednesday, in what seems to be the universe's worst attempt at humor ever):
--http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlovOPanNKU
(this one is interesting because a little kid keeps asking questions in the background, like "Is the fire really big? Is it that big?")
--http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zVj3r5JQ7w
The really sick thing is that there are reports all over the place of arsonists setting these damn fires, and then re-setting ones that have already been put out. That just makes me want to punch them in the face and then set the bastards on fire myself.
Emily: (after watching a clip-show thingy of scenes in Psych involving ridiculous dancing/physical humor, which happens a LOT on that show) "If I watched Psych, it might spoil the illusion I now have that it's an epic musical about some sexy policemen who have to go to dance classes in order to be ready for a big fancy dress party with multiple costume changes (a wedding? the policeman's ball? WHO KNOWS?) and fall in love along the way."
Write or Die = a true gift to the lazy writer (or writer best motivated by desperation. Kamikaze mode is the way to go.
http://lab.drwicked.com/writeordie.html
[2/15/09]
Silences are both natural and unnatural. We're always thinking but not always speaking our minds, but when we talk or withhold speech it's just as much a perversion
[2/21/09]
The afternoon's slowly unwinding around them --> The afternoon's slow unwinding around them
[2/23/09]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%AAl%C3%A9e_weapon
"A melee weapon . . . is any weapon that does not involve a projectile — that is, both the user and target of the weapon are in contact with it simultaneously in normal use"
Seems obvious, but the fact that both user and target are in contact with a weapon at the same time makes for a dramatically different physical/psychological effect on the wielder of said weapon -- or should. How can physical/psychological distinction be visually depicted? Are depictions similar even despite differences in melee/ranged weaponry because psychological effect of causing physical pain/harm to another person is similar?
[2/27/09]
"Mermaid dream comes true thanks to Weta"
[http://www.stuff.co.nz/4858855a11.html]
That is SO COOL. I wonder what it's like to go from not able to walk to mermaid.
[2/28/09]
Relationships never really end or begin, they only change; it's about people in relation to each other rather than contact. A stranger may have a relationship with another stranger, if only in that they have never met, and people once in love can vow never to meet again but carry the other with them for the rest of their life...
film versus painting -- film does not reward the contemplative viewer; it does not hold still and let itself be examined. Time waits for no one, and the passing of time as you watch is what separates the painting from the moving picture.
[3/1/09]
"painterly" directors like Ford, Ang Lee -- use people moving through landscapes -- impression of what is unmovable, what is unaffected by the passage of time on a human scale; Monument Valley
[3/16/09]
Observe and Report (2009, dir. Jody Hill) -- girl vomiting on pillow during sex //s with scene in HUG: used for full-on absurd situational comedy rather than more serious tone; female character's established grotesque personality and her response/comment to the situation important, undercuts sense of her being used that the scene in HUG gave. Isolation; disturbing juxtaposition
use of explicit violence in a comedy
[3/19/09]
The Way We Get By -- old people talk with a kind of matter-of-factness; resignation perhaps? the ends of phrases and sentences go down or round off. Young people talk like a question, going up at the ends and trailing off
[3/24/09]
exchange students; two different kinds of alienation developing in two different places, simultaneously; parallel and complementary stories with a penpal relationship connecting them
[3/25/09]
how do you make a courtroom drama interesting or visceral if it's intellectual/yap-yap-yap? bring in the physical; the heat in Twelve Angry Men; a witness shifting uncomfortably on the hard wooden seat; the lawyer rubbing a kink in his neck; the defendant wincing as the handcuffs go on too tight; the bailiff standing on tired feet; the lady in the audience fiddling with the scorch mark in her skirt from her last cigarette break; the poor guy crushed next to that person who forgot to wear deodorant; the coffee drinker desperate for a mint. Brains and words alone will only get you halfway there.
can use phonebook to come up with names, locations (types of businesses)
[3/27/09]
SPN 3.10 -- dream sequence; use audio bridges--bring in sound of following action before previous shot done; abrupt jumps of dream consciousness
[3/29/09]
stories from a phone booth -- if these walls could talk, what stories they would tell
***[end of director's notebook for class/start of current file]***
5/20/09
from old LJ post: "[Just read a vampire book]. It was delightful. I have moved on to David Maurer's The Big Con. Vampires and con men -- life does not get much better. Ooh, I bet vampires would be great con men. Somebody write that."
6/10/09
literally soul-sucking debt; people get into debts without thinking about paying them off (they want something else), and collection time thus becomes a terror. What if the debt doesn't stop at your money? escalation along lines of "We Can Get Them For You Wholesale"
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/10/business/economy/10leonhardt.html?_r=1&em
radio play -- POV of blind person
6/13/09
three people grab onto a subway pole and react differently upon discovering someone has covered it in [~some substance -- superglue? chocolate? lube?]
6/15/09
image: white gloves stained dark red with blood on the palms
Hitler Gets Into Art School
http://youactuallysaidthatonline.tumblr.com/post/122161420/logic
6/17/09
Ad exec by day, pro wrestler by night!
http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/features/72155/my-secret-life09-iam-an-ad-exec-and-a-pro-wrestler-features-time-out-new-york
[meets up with ______ -- together, they fight crime! :D]
6/18/09
image: girl's palm holding broken chess pieces up in front of her face
7/6/09
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_London#Aftermath
modern equivalent of Decameron/Canterbury Tales? ; //s with Lost?
7/8/09
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_Pass_incident
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_Epidemic_of_1518
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Monster
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mad_Gasser_of_Mattoon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Molasses_Disaster
7/10/09
"they were looking for God and all they did was find a monster" (from Numb3rs 3.12) -- horror film concept?
modern equivalent of Lina Lamont? as hero, as villain
7/11/09
amnesiac H.M.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/05/us/05hm.html?_r=1
7/16/09
http://calathea.livejournal.com/338982.html?thread=3725862#t3725862
Calathea: "I did have the delightful experience of looking out the window to see two young men in full graduation gear (suits, gowns, mortarboards) making out in the little courtyard just outside the window of my office. *writes them an epic love story* <3"
Tazical: "Clearly their love story would include crazy emo graduation break-up heartbreak and then, five years later, one of them is cycling to work and gets accidentally hit by a car that the other one's driving, and they get back together, but one of them is working as a spy and there's comic shenanigans and a kidnapping plot and a case of mistaken identity and it all ends with them living happily ever after on a cheese farm in Tuscany."
7/17/09
Andrea's ghost story -- idea of a character who is a liar -- to friends, boyfriend, herself, even
http://brooklinegirl.livejournal.com/213754.html?style=mine
story of young couple who /actually/ run off together -- how would that really happen?
"Hutch smiled and Bobbie smiled back, and the deep lines around her eyes and her mouth said she did that a lot, in spite of the guy missing half his face and a waiting room full of little kids with bandages on little arms and legs. It wasn't all about scotch in the middle of the afternoon."
"She lifted the file and brought it down on Hutch's knee so that the cover slipped out of her gloved hand and opened. The neatly typed forms flapped from their staples, and the photographs poured out over the side of Hutch's leg, one after the other like a broken film strip, Anita Spender falling apart in precise black and white for the coroner's camera."
short film -- someone enjoying food; pure gastronomic, sensual experience conveyed on film?
dog fetishist. Goes around asking "Can I pet your dog?" :)
short film idea: sci fi concept, person gets a song stuck in their head and it slowly overpowers all other thoughts
girl-Holmes and Watson
hands gripping a subway pole can tell a story -- size, shape, order bottom to top, gloves, rings, sleeves, bracelets
she was a woman of few inches, but carried herself with perfect posture to make the most of those she had
http://arsenicjade.livejournal.com/698079.html?format=light
--write a short about this
7/20/09
Hush Sound "Lighthouse" -- ghost story "she saved me, I was swimming" "three ghosts in a lighthouse"
7/23/09
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/31927152?gt1=43001&pg=6#TDY_Pets_Survival
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/32107283/ns/today-today_pets/
7/27/09
short film idea: [title: The Card] detective gives card to survivor/family member of murder victim/etc. and says "if you need to talk..." -- follow after that moment; kid/woman/man lies in bed and holds the card, runs fingers around edges and over words, grief and aftermath; ends with phonecall
7/31/09
short film: "The Year of Ninja Spiders" http://weirdtales.net/wordpress/2007/10/23/the-year-of-ninja-spiders/
8/10/09
short: people arguing in a quiet hotel room while a parade/Mardi Gras/celebration is heard outside, filling the angry silences
http://chromeandgunmetal.com/chrome/archive/1/pretender.html
8/20/09
image: pile of sand in an hourglass shifting, a wave of sand sliding, as the last grain too many falls
9/9/09
"A Journey of 1000 Miles Begins With An Elevator Trip"
-ppl getting waylaid on journeys; destination-oriented New Yorkers
short film: stay on feet as enter elevator; entire time stay on feet, use sound editing, dialogue to show rest of inter/actions
[eta 8/8/10: "Up and Then Down" http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/04/21/080421fa_fact_paumgarten?currentPage=all]
Poem Shop - docu?
http://milkcratedigest.com/2009/05/02/the-poem-shop/
http://adrianshirk.com/archives/208
http://www.poemshopnyc.com/Welcome.html
Jorogumo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jor%C5%8Dgumo
9/13/09
Zombie Ants Controlled by Fungus
http://www.livescience.com/animals/090812-ant-fungus.html
interesting motivation for zombie-ism?
9/14/09
hugger busker (author of “Hugging Life”, Martin Neufeld)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_ifl9IZBaU
short film: story he recounts about the girls' choir group
pair with Poem Shop?
9/21/09
"it's better to go through life trusting than always questioning"
--matters of trust; people like above (me) versus the opposite
9/23/09
image of skeleton hand + umbrella and testing for rain // image of skeleton hand below surface, knife in hand, mourner kneeling/lying on grave (turn vertical, view profile) // image of mourner reaching into ground, into grave, to grasp skeleton hand
skeleton of a house, burned // and the skeleton key that fits its door (what does it unlock? the skull on the end wants to tell you, tell everyone, but no one can hear and it screams as it twists in the lock and the snap of the lock sounds like bone breaking) // the single pane of glass left in the window pane, one rectangle in the middle of emptiness, slowly grows a spiderweb of newborn cracks
a bird flies into the water and does not come out again (http://wanttobeatree.livejournal.com/748625.html) // flies into the ground and the earth closes around it // lands on a tree and is swallowed while the knoteyes watch you. You turn and see the forest for what it is
6/20/10
some kind of parody short film? using genre style differences to tell story -- sort of like The Royal Society in the sense of a space allowing for crossovers; only, rather than specific crossover characters interacting, multiple storylines are going on at the same time in the same place, each a distinct genre done in their own style and tone: like a bar/restaurant in somewhere like New York, where a romantic comedy is having dinner at one table, and a noir drama at another, a gangster movie, a sci-fi film, a superhero story, etc
things like a tray of food being knocked over at the romantic comedy table makes the gangster twitchy and lets one get the drop on the other (Han Solo-Greedo style); the sci-fi people are seriously trying to figure out the time travel fiasco they're in, and the superhero is having a discussion about his/her secret identity; etc.
7/25/10
[inspired by J2 Haiti bigbang wank]
Hwood prejudice that white audiences won't watch movie if protagonist is not white // Psycho strategy of killing off the POV character twenty minutes into film
-> so start with stereotypical white volunteer off to make a difference in the world/discover self; intro local/native character who would traditionally be "guide" type; then kill white lead off in disaster
-bonus: establishes a nice Anyone Can Die precedent
-issues: look at how Hitch manages switch? anyone ever tried this gambit after him (successfully/failed)?[maybe see for discussion of "alienation effect"]
how to write fights:
- purposeful/deliberate; with resolution (convenient revelatory rom-com type fights)
- long, pointless, frustrating (building to cumulative revelation in final of series, or tragic end like couple divorcing)
you didn't hang the moon
but you won my heart
set of stories based on communication? chronological. letters, telegram, telephone, radio, cell phone, internet
short film: set in sex ed class during school, oh the horror and comedy
short/film: "I Love You" - usually meant as pure, devotion, affection, tenderness, protection, warmth, etc; what about the dark flip side of that coin? possession, violent protection, jealousy, need, desire, etc.
Usually shown as either/or, but why can't have dark without ruining/negating light? (Drop Dead Gorgeous, Diplomatic Relations ch.8; High Tension)
someone who works at a hotel with photographic memory for faces (and who is otherwise pretty normal; maybe a bit of a slacker/artist/stuck in small town caring for sick relative, since is working in a hotel despite very cool ability?); one of the things about having meetings in hotels is that the sheer volume of people is supposed to overwhelm the ability of people to recognize you -- but this girl, of course, would recognize everybody regardless
"Well, you think it'd be cool, but really it just means I can remember, in exquisite detail, the exact faces of
[flashes of faces as she describes]
every drunken frat boy who tried to grope me in college
every hilarious orgasm face my last boyfriend ever made
and my third grade math teacher and his hideous wart
etc
7/31/10
http://arielchan.livejournal.com/752176.html
"A few months ago I saw the first trailer for Buried. From that trailer, it looked to be a movie about a guy who is buried alive. He wakes up in the coffin underground with only a lighter and a cellphone and has to try to use this to get out.
It looked like a cool concept of a creepy movie. I mean, that would be kind of neat - to make a movie about a guy buried alive, reaching out over the phone (with only so much battery) to people who believe him dead, trying to get someone to save him."
-> make a good short film?
8/18/10
image: in a dream, billiard balls breaking, and all rolling into pockets
doppelgangers -- clones and identity; if identity is based on experience, even a carbon copy of someone (physically and mentally identical), then the two are different people from the first moment of even having different angles of view on the same events. But what if the double was also sort of a drone, like their mind was yours in its place? like DW ep "Midnight"
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/identity
root of identity meaning "the same"
Or what if there are twins, and then a doppelganger of ONE of them?
9/21/10
character who vocally narrates her own life with stream-of-consciousness commentary (like Clare's friend at the lake)
any genre(/genre fusion) + mind games = better? like Inception: scifi/noir + mind games; the entire con/heist genre. So how would rom com + mind games work? Or Western + mindgames? (hmm...time to rewatch original 3:10 To Yuma)
10/16/10
Ernest Hemingway -- stolen suitcase of manuscripts; use in a film?
an obsessed college professor? called in / kidnapped to verify? or seeking it out on own ?
shady dealings in shady places
[title: A Little Mad Sometimes]
Wow:
"It's like I have a loaded gun in my mouth and my finger's on the trigger, and I like the taste of the gunmetal." -RDJ
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,98373,00.html
"...he was cited for trespassing and being under the influence of a controlled substance after wandering into a neighbour's house and passing out in a child's bedroom." http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2003/nov/08/features
--I wonder how that scene went? what did he see in the room, what would make someone stop there
title: Moment of Clarity (short film?)
"Defending your choices by attacking mine isn't a very effective strategy."
spy gadget: piece of lint that's like memory fabric--run electricity through it and it regains its shape; use to carry information somehow? like a cut-out?
memory fabric? if this real or just something made up for Batman Begins, sigh
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
film The Summoner--description in Susan Downey wikipedia article as an "apocalyptic Western" --> what would that be like
An all-girl gang of teenage apartment burglars has been arrested in Santiago, Chile -- AWESOME
http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2006/11/to-catch-thief.html
Also:
http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/crime-is-way-to-use-city.html
http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/nakatomi-space.html
[10/5/09] weird dreams last night: roommate Verna painted a mural of a bunch of fictional chararacters in one place
disasters; remember how I was terrified of natural disasters as a child? disaster movie following a little girl left alone in the aftermath of a disaster (see: Let The Right One In, Pan's Labyrinth; c/c 28 Days Later, Spirited Away,...etc?)
modern Jeeves & Wooster adaptation? what would the modern parallel for a valet be, a personal assistant? hmm...
From ScriptFrenzy generation:
- Forced to wear a grass skirt
a washed-up actress
gets drunk with a stranger
- Where reality and fantasy intersect
a group of retired superheroes
buys an unreliable time machine
- After waking from a 100-year nap
a bored serial killer
10/29/10
from Sean at ISFA:
- multi-character/narrative thread ensemble centered around (connected by?) room service guy, sort of like Pulp Fiction? Play with that - what kind of drama could center around room service? Could something vital be utterly ruined just by something like room service being late? Or maybe someone pretends to be room service to gain access to a room, and this causes other people to seek out the *real* room service guy mistakenly in revenge or in search of info or whatever; a very wacky cast of characters is possible, of course. :)
- kicker on a football team: high stress job, kinda separated from the rest of teammates by nature of position/training at professional level
10/30/10
"I'm going to write a space opera novel and name the characters Jaypeg and Giff, then see how long it takes people to figure it out. Aye aye, Captain Pinge!"
[http://poisonivory.livejournal.com/533319.html]
11/16/10
[from note: "break in shoes" (abt breaking in my new shoes for work)] --> title: Break-in Shoes. What kind of shoes do you wear on a break-in, if you're not a professional thief? short film - maybe just the contemplation of the closet
11/21/10
[from old note inspired by misread title of short film competition in SXSW]:
title -- "Extramarital Shorts"
1/13/11
story: talking to trees (like I used to talk to Mr. Needles at Zilker) -- only it actually works. Horror story?
1/30/11
[from old note] scene: husband & wife - wife notices lipstick smear on his [cheek]; doesn't say anything, just starts packing while the husband spins excuses --
"Say something"
"So you can reply? I can't (won't) believe anything you say anymore"
-parting line: "By the way, you have something on your face."
- how to make husband more sympathetic, or wife not so cold?
3/20/11
While passing that house on Bluebonnet with the fantastic porches: short film all about people-watching from one's front porch; slow and thoughtful tone; starts in medias res (off-screen v.o., you see what they do); something else going on between them despite the comfortableness of the situation, which comes out via conversation about other things
"It'll be like the director's cut of Wes Craven's The Little Mermaid."
http://www.anyroad.org/merry/leagues.html
- creepy-fairytale version of TLM would be kind of interesting -- not at all like the Disney version, but more like the original story -- without the Christian moralising at the end and the passive-woman-lets-man-go bullshit (if she really wanted him, she would fight for him, none of this I-love-him-so-I-let-him-go nonsense; also, she's a fucking *princess*, girl's gotta have some kind of command presence and nobility, not to mention the bravery to leave everything she knows to go after what she wants), but with the pain and the inability to communicate and the pining and lack of neat resolution and fish-out-of-water aspect. Could do fun stuff with sound -- main character can't talk but would still be driven to communicate; silent film techniques? And creepy, like the way Pan's Labyrinth is -- ooh, also, instead of the prince/his kingdom just being cut-out representations, what is is *really* like getting the reality of something you've been longing for and having put too much into getting it to back out once the shine wears off? (like every disenchanted young-artist-goes-to-LA/NY story ever) Is there violence and lying and betrayal in both kingdoms?
7/8/11
from old note:
- water rationing and neighbor-informants [ETA 8/29/11: recently heard a story about people who were being hassled by the local homeowners' association, despite the fact that they were legally not allowed to water their lawns any more; tension between legality and peer pressure; would make a great ridic short film?]
- someone singing an altered version of "Sixteen Candles" at a 60th birthday, aww
7/27/11
from Natl. Geographic article "Under Paris" (see saved; also http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/02/paris-underground/shea-text/1)
- something set in/utilizing the Paris underground? anything from a heist movie (tunneling into a bank vault!) to a indie drama about escaping from the world above to the Parisian version of Neverwhere
8/23/11
from notes:
- thought sparked by "What Passing Bells" in the A Deeper Season series: in the "man leaps out of a crowd to attack VIP" situation, why does it never happen that someone from the crowd takes action? would be fun -- I'm picturing a young man, fresh off military duty (maybe returned home injured?), maybe there to keep company/keep care of a friend/younger sibling who wants to see the VIP; tackles the rampaging madman, but then of course gets dragged into the investigation as the guarding types must take him in and check out his story, make sure he wasn't involved, etc.
Subsequent interactions with VIP can take many forms -- slash fic, romance novel, thriller (conspirators who set up the assassination attempt rear their ugly heads!), sci-fi (um...the VIP is an alien?), etc.
- entitlement is such a prominent mindset these days -- would make for a good bitterly dark comedy, somehow
- story inspired by the Laudatio Turiae -- wife who solves/avenges her own parents' murders, hides husband from enemies, selfless divorce offer, etc.; maybe murder mystery based around solving parents' deaths?
http://www.stoa.org/diotima/anthology/wlgr/wlgr-publiclife168.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laudatio_Turiae
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curia_%28wife_of_Quintus_Lucretius%29
- I wonder what it's like to have a mentor. I've never had one; most people don't.
- How to keep things interesting -- just add:
time travel
zombies
ninjas
a gun
8/29/11
Retreat: movie about a group of people who go on a retreat from technology - comedy? shamelessly sappy/preachy drama?
(idea from while reading story set during a Regency England house party, with all the various clever ways people used to have of passing the time that seem to be mostly gone now)