Writerling

2011-04-08T12:28:00.000-07:00

Geez. 2 years. I never blog anymore, do I?

I do tweet, though. And tumble.

I'll come back here someday, and update you all on my goings on of being a script coordinator. Then a directors assistant. Then freelance (read: unemployed) for almost a year. And now, back at the illustrious position of Production Assistant in the great city of New Orleans.

Geez. 2 years really is a long time.

I'm gonna update this blog someday.

2009-08-31T10:58:00.000-07:00

The last time I updated, I had just got my first movie job. Now the job is over, and the movie is gonna come out in two weeks. I'm seeing billboards for it all over the place, and it's the most surreal thing ever.

Now I'm working as a script coordinator on another animated movie for the same company. I'm way busier, doing the work of three people, but the production has less hours allotted for overtime, so I'm making less money overall. I'm pretty happy where I am, however. There's cool people, a fun environment, and I'm actually helping to make a movie.

Of course I have no idea what to blog about. I finished writing a Chuck spec, and sent that off to the Disney fellowship/NBC workshop. So while I'm waiting to see if anything comes from that (nothing will), I'm delving into various other projects. Including: actually reading a book for once, plodding through my netflix queue, watching DVR'd episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, going to see The Hurt Locker alone because it was popular several months ago and no-one wants to see it anymore, rediscovering my love for Star Wars CCG and consequently how bad I am at it, and re-analyzing what exactly I hated so much about my Homeschooled pilot (and trying to make it better, somehow).

Hmm. So maybe I can blog about 1) a book review 2)Thoughts about Wonderfalls/Solaris/The Hurt Locker 3)How amazed I am at how much I remember about season 5 of The Next Generation, considering it was 18 YEARS AGO, and I was SIX YEARS OLD!! 4) What decks I'm making to play at the SWCCG Cali states, and why I won't win any games with them at all, and 4)How hard writing is.

As usual, lest you have forgotten...I am a huge nerd.

Walk the line

2009-01-06T09:49:00.000-08:00

Hi internet. It's been a while.

Since we last spoke, I've eaten unspeakable amounts of turkey and holiday ham, conquered countless nations in CivIII, undergone several major repairs to my car, stopped working at starbucks, and (drumroll) got my first real industry job.

Yes, in a strange twist of fate, I seem to have been the only person in the country to have actually GAINED employment in the month of december. I'm now working for Unnamed Big Animation Studio--which coincidentally enough is under the same umbrella company as the Unnamed Big Studio of my summer internship days. In fact, I'm only about 5 blocks away from my old stomping grounds at UBS.

I'm a PA on the feature, and it's a pretty great gig so far. Cool people all around, a great working environment, and already lots of stories to tell--which I'm not sure if I'll end up telling to you, internet.

I'm not sure about the whole "blogging from work" thing--it's good on the one hand that it gives me something concrete to blog about, something that changes every day constantly providing new material. But it's bad on the other hand that if I say too much, and the right (or wrong!) person discovers said blog, I'll no longer have a job to blog about. Or to be paid for.

It's a fine line, one I'm not yet sure if I can walk.

Worf '08

2008-12-16T10:19:00.001-08:00

Woah, apparently my Vote Worf campaign finally succeeded.

Gah! I’ve been memed!

2008-09-10T12:57:00.000-07:00

So it seems that Josh and Adam have prodded me out of my apathetic oblivion, and forced me post again. It was bound to happen sooner or later. The meme in question:…Why do I write TV?

Let me start by answering a different question: why do I love TV?

Watching TV was something I always did. Usually it was a family thing; every Sunday night, we would always gather around the television for the latest episode of Alias, tense with excitement at every commercial break. The commercial break was one of the most important times for us; we’d use the time to process the events of the episode so far, and trade theories for what would happen next. My mom was usually right.

As an aside, this is why I’ve never bought the argument that television is bad for you. I certainly think it has the potential to be bad, but it all depends on how it’s used. We never vegged out on the couch and channel surfed—TV was something that was always scheduled, and always done together. Some families have game night. Some families go out to sports games. But for my family, we watched TV together—whether it was the Cosby Show and Full House, Alias and the West Wing, or the big granddaddy of them all: Star Trek.

Some of my best Childhood memories were spent on the couch—and I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. I know for a fact that I’m much closer to my mother especially because of television. Even now, every time we talk on the phone, after we get past the part about my siblings and old friends, the conversation always turns to the latest episode of Battlestar or Lost, and we do the same thing that we did long ago: trade theories…except now I’m usually right.

Even though I’d always loved TV, but it wasn’t until college that I realized I wanted to pursue it as a career. I had come in to college with some sort of nebulous ambition to be a director or writer or something—just so long as it was in film. And so I spent almost two years watching and making films, and even went through a short-lived pretentious film student phase. If you’d heard of it, I didn’t like it. But after a while I wised up and began watching television again, on the wondrous invention known as DVD.

There are two particular TV-watching moments in college that were specifically defining. The first came while watching “firefly” during my freshman year. Like everyone else, I didn’t hear about the show until it was already cancelled and on DVD, and also like everyone else, once I sat down and started watching it, I couldn’t think about anything else. It was smart, it was funny, it was exciting—I hadn’t loved anything this much since I’d been at college, even though I was being exposed to mind-blowing movies every week in film class. It was the point when I decided to watch another episode rather than work on a film paper due the next morning that I realized: I liked TV more than movies.

Which begged the obvious question: if I liked TV more than movies, then why was I going to school for film? Well, strictly speaking, I wasn’t. My school didn’t (and still doesn’t) have a film major—the degree I am patiently waiting for even now is a B.A. in Communication, with a concentration in film studies. But regardless, why wasn’t I learning about television? I eventually finished the film paper, but that question continued to bug me for a while. Until I reached the other defining TV-watching moment. I’ll give you a hint: it involves single-malt scotch and high-class cigarettes.

Battlestar Galactica seemed like a show made specifically for me, and only me. While there were other people who watched it, I knew that it wasn’t really their show. It was mine. It had everything that a show should have: all of the complex character-centered storylines that my film-concentration-educated brain wanted to see, while miraculously joining that with all the spaceships, robots, and military campaigns that my 12-year-old brain desperately needed to see.

I devoured the first season—only to find that it was over after 13 episodes. I had to wait over 2 months before new episodes aired, and that simply wouldn’t do. So, partly as an excuse to re-watch the episodes, I downloaded this new-fangled thing called a “pod-cast”.

And it quite literally changed my life.

I don’t say that to be overly dramatic, although it does come off that way. I just mean that I would most likely not be doing what I’m doing right now were it not for that podcast. Listening to Ron Moore’s frank discussion of the actual business of making a show— discarded story elements that didn’t make the final cut, the proper placement of this act break or that plot revelation, and most of all the act of “breaking a story” in “the room”—is what made me decide to write for TV. And the more I read about the process of television writing (especially from Jane, Alex, and Lisa), the more I realized that it was what I needed to do.

So basically, I blame it all on my mom, Joss Whedon, and Ron Moore. When I’m penniless and sleeping on the street, with only a “House” spec to keep me warm, I’ll lay three equal portions of blame at their feet. Until then, I’ll keep writing, I’ll keep blogging (no really, I will!), and I’ll keep living the dream.

And now for the tagging.
1. Carlo Conda
2. Peter Rowley
3. Jill Golick
4. Jane Espenson

And last, but not least:

5. Ron Moore. I know he doesn’t read my blog, but on the off chance that he does, it could get him to update some time this year.

....politics?

2008-09-08T07:59:00.000-07:00

How did I not notice this before?

p.s. yes, the meme-answering post is coming. As is general life update, and UBS wrap-up. Today's my last day at the seemingly neverending internship. I like it a lot, but it's definitely time to move on to something else. Now I just need something else to move on to...

In which too many nerds descend on an ill-fitting back room

2008-07-18T08:07:00.001-07:00

The writers meetup was a great success--if you gauge success by how many people you can cram into a hot, sweaty back room of a pub. Which I do.

Probably the most surreal part of the night was being recognized by people who read this blog. I'm using the word "read" very liberally, since this blog is not updated nearly enough to garner regular readers. Also nice was meeting people who I know through their blogs, which made me realize that the internet is now at the point where the people you meet in real life are more or less like their online personas. Which means Amanda is actually a twenty-something college graduate that looks like the picture on her blog, and not a 40-year-old pervert who enjoys pretending to be one.

That's all I can really blog right now. Between my UBS internship (which is going swimmingly), apartment hunting, the inevitable crushing sense of failure and despair that apartment hunting brings, Spanish homework, working at Starbucks, and finding time to write my infamous Chuck spec, blogging has sort of fallen by the wayside recently. Hopefully things will settle down soon.

For every action there is a vague and underwhelming reaction.

2008-06-21T20:35:00.000-07:00

KIRK reacts.

At my internship, I’ve been reading a lot of scripts (mostly TV pilots), and writing lots of coverage. In just three weeks at UBS, I’ve written about 36 pages worth of coverage—I’ve been writing at a rate of about one end-of-the-semester film analysis paper per week. Needless to say, some scripts were good, some were shit, and most were somewhere in-between (or as we like to say at UBS: CONSIDER, PASS, and CONSIDER WITH REVISIONS).

And in my short time of reading spec pilots, I’ve found one word that I have now sworn to never use in a script ever again. Ever. And if any of you catch yourselves using it, you need to get down on bended knee and pray to the Cylon God to forgive you of your sin. And then burn the script.

What is this most hated of words, you might ask?

The word is “react”.

Perhaps an example is in order:

INT. FORENSICS LAB - NIGHT

MIKEY

We finished analyzing the blood sample.

GRETCH

And…anything interesting?

MIKEY

It’s AB Positive, and whoever it belongs to

(dramatic pause)

…has AIDS.

As Gretch REACTS…

END OF ACT

Why is this bad? Because it tells us exactly nothing. We don’t know if what Mikey said surprises Gretch or if he saw it coming. We don't even know if it makes him angry, sad, perplexed or jubilant. Literally all it tells us is that one character (Gretch) understood another (Mikey).

Part of why this annoys me is that it really isn’t that hard to make the description a little more specific (or a little more descriptive, maybe?). I'd much rather see something with a little more flavor, like Gretch reels. His entire case is crumbling before him. or even Gretch smiles. Looks like he was right all along. I mean, obviously not that, that’s the bad version. But give it something to liven up the description, and make it not so vague and ambiguous.

I know some people hate wordy description like this—usually saying something to the effect that it isn’t “actable”. But for my money, description like that makes the script much more enjoyable to read. And if the person reading your script is enjoying it, then you’ve already won half the battle.

What about you? Is there ever a word that you just can’t stand in a script? (or fiction, or poetry, or whatever is your particular cup of tea) Something that you find yourself writing, and then immediately taking out?

In and out

2008-06-19T22:40:00.000-07:00

I think this about every girl I ever meet.

In other news, a real post is forthcoming, I just thought I'd take a break from the four coverages I need to finish for tomorrow. Yeah, and I was afraid I'd be stuck just getting coffee.

This is me, keeping my job and not getting sued.

2008-06-15T22:05:00.000-07:00

This could have been me. What with UBS's super-advanced circa-2015 technology.

Josh brought to my attention that mentioning the Unnamed Big Studio that I'm interning at may not be the best idea, even when I have nothing but great things to say about it. So, after careful consideration lasting no more than 30 seconds, I deleted every reference to the actual name of Unnamed Big Studio, and replaced it with the more benign "Unnamed Big Studio" (Or UBS, which is cool for other reasons).

But regardless, my internship at UBS has been pretty great thus far, if a little taxing at times. I had three TV pilots to read and write coverage on last weekend, and then three more for this weekend. Add to that my initial Barista training, the online Spanish class I have to finish, and the great quantities of people that have been visiting me in California, you have no free time for Matt. Poor Matt.

Which is why I don't have that much more to say. I have two more scripts to read before I go to bed tonight. So sorry, this space may stay boring for a little while longer now. I'll try to blargh sometime next week.

I'm just happy to be a corporate whore.

2008-06-05T09:51:00.000-07:00

I now officially love my internship.

Yesterday was my second day at Unnamed Big Studio, and much to my glee, we had our first development meeting. Sure, it we were supposed to meet at 11:30, and it didn't actually start until 6, but I was having so much fun in the meeting I didn't notice that it ended well past 8 o'clock at night. Am I weird because I describe meetings as "fun"?

No, I'm weird because I play Dungeons and Dragons, and babble on about the Star Wars: CCG when I'm drunk.

Anyway.

We had 2 pitches for Russian shows that, as it turns out, were both take-offs of a certain mid-nineties show. I had joked about the similarities in my coverage, but my supervisor informed me that in reality they were both attempts to make an updated version of the show that would work for Russian audiences. Hey, so long as they can find an adequate Russian version of Kyle Chandler, I'm game for anything.

Anyway, we spent about an hour or so doing exactly what I love to do: talking about TV. Sure, it was about translated russian pitches, and not actual shows. But as I sat there, talking about how to strengthen the episodic conflicts, ramp up interpersonal tension, and set up season-long story arcs for the shows, I realized that I was loving it. And it felt like the most natural thing in the world.

I'd like to think that it's what a writers room feels like at its best. Arguing about character motivations, complicated plot holes, and even squeezing in a discussion of the most recent LOST finale.

And on top of that, Starbucks called me back on my lunch break. Yes, my caffiene-laden dreams have risen from the ashes, and as of next Thursday, I will sell my newly christened Barista-Soul™ to the corporate hegenomy that is Starbucks Coffee.

Of course my soul is already part-owned by the corporate hegenomy that is Unnamed Big Studio, so they'll have to work out between the two of them which one is my primary corporate pimp.

I cannot confirm or deny this post

2008-06-03T23:09:00.000-07:00

My first day at Unnamed Big Studio went pretty well, thank you very much. I got there early, so I had to wait around in the lobby for about a half-hour. This was fine with me, since the lobby was filled with movie memorabilia, which I have chosen to not name in order to not reveal the identity of Unnamed Big Studio.

Then it was off to the exciting world of Human Resources, where I got to sign my very first non-disclosure agreement. Which probably means I'll be fired for blogging about this. Well, not really, but I'm gonna play it safe, just in case.

From now on, I'm going to leave out any thought or opinion that could possibly be construed as a derogatory or disparaging statement about the company, its parent companies, or any of its products. Which means that if I don't like the [redacted] I got for my birthday, or if I have less than glowing thoughts about [big summer movie from Unnamed Big Studio], or if I ever see these scenes in context [left in because it's just too funny], then none of these things will ever make it into this blog.

So in a general sense, leaving out anything remotely confidential, it was a pretty good first day. I wrote my first coverage, which I'm sure will get much less exciting as the summer goes on.

Also, Starbucks never called me back, so I'm assuming that's dead in the water. I guess I'll just have to apply to any of the other THREE Starbucks that are within walking distance from my house.

My three jobs (hopefully)

2008-06-01T05:42:00.001-07:00

I have my first LA job today.

One of my dad's friends called me up a few days ago, asking if I'd like to be a camera assistant for a day. I gave him the nice-Christian-man version of "hell yes, sign me the fuck up.", and here I am. It's $150 for the day, which is a bit less than the going rate, but I'm happy with whatever I can get at this point.

There's an old steam engine that's going from Los Angeles to San Diego and back, which it apparently hasn't done for over half a century. We're the official video team for the trip, with one crew on the train, and the other following it down the freeway, getting exterior shots. Thankfully, I'll be on the train, helping the cameraman, and also passing out cards to the passengers. It's also a very beautiful view from what I'm told.

So that's exciting.

Also, it's just occured to me that I haven't said really anything about my internship at all. And since it starts on Monday (oh God, tomorrow, I guess I'll just fill you guys in.

For those who don't know, I'm going to be interning at an Unnamed Big Studio, in the International Development department. It's an exciting opportunity, even though it's not exactly what I'm looking for. I'm looking to make my mark on domestic television rather than international television, but hey at least it's TV, right? The basic principles should be essentially the same. And I'll be doing the same thing anyway: writing coverage, making copies, filing, and just in general being everyone's bitch.

I can't wait.

As a final note on my employment situation, I had an interview for a part-time job at my local Starbucks yesterday. And when I say local, I literally mean a block and a half from my apartment. It takes me two minutes to walk to it, and less than two minutes to walk to the one a block and a half from that one. I never realized that the "Starbucks on every block" cliche was based on something real (of course, I never realized until I moved out here that Weinerlicious from Chuck was based on something real). Go figure.

Anyway, the interview went well, and I'll find out what happens tomorrow.

I've got a big couple days ahead of me.

The Foot Fist Way

2008-05-27T08:53:00.000-07:00

In the one-and-a-half weeks that I've spent in LA, one question has been asked more than any other. Not "How's the weather?" or, "When is your internship actually going to start" or even "How are you going to pay your rent?" No, what seems to be on everyone's minds is "Met any celebrities yet?"

Which is good, because unlike the other questions, I actually have an answer for this one. The answer is "yes, but you probably wouldn't be impressed".

My definition of "celebrity" may not match most people's. I watch a lot of TV, and a lot of movies, and furthermore spend hours trolling on IMDB. I think I'd be able to recognize more C-list celebrites than the run of the mill boy hot off the bus from Virginia. Specifically Keith Powell (aka Toofer from "30 Rock"), and Sam Witwer ("The Mist", Crashdown from BSG), whom I saw trolling the cheese aisle at Pavilions and chatting up a lady friend at the midnight showing of Indy at the Arclight, respectively.

But neither of these should really count. The question was "met any celebrities yet?" not, "casually passed by any celebrities yet?".

Well, yesterday, I attended my first-ever Creative Screenwriting Q&A, for the Foot Fist Way, featuring the cast/screenwriters of the film. The film was hilarious, and shot for about $70,000 on Super 16. It goes to show that movies do NOT need to be multi-billion dollar adventures to be entertaining. This was Super-cheap, and super-funny. And the guys who made it were really funny as well, both in the film and the post-film Q&A. Turns out they all met at school (and lived next door to David Gordon Green), and none of them had any interest in acting, but just put each other in their films because the film kids and the theater kids at their school didn't really get along. Imagine that.

Afterwards, Brian and I went up front and talked to them about the film, about David Gordon Green (who apparently made it through college by cutting hair), and about moving out to LA and getting shit P.A. jobs (Jody Hill described it as the most depressing part of their lives). We then got a picture with them.

To be honest, it was actually more exciting to me that I was actually at a Creative Screenwriting Q&A than that I got to meet the cast. Not to diss those guys at all, they were awesome, but me and my friends have been listening to the podcast since our freshman year of college. And as my friend Brian likes to say, we learned more about film from the podcast than we did in school.

In other words, I was more excited about this picture than the last one.

I am such a tool.

My 6 word (non-spoiler) Indy review

2008-05-23T00:22:00.001-07:00

I feel eight years old again.

EDIT: And anyone who disagrees, I direct you to The Rule of Cool

Raiders of the Lost Childhood

2008-05-19T22:13:00.000-07:00

The exciting one-day-a-week internship didn't work out (it was with Peter Berg's company, if you care), but it looks like I'll have an internship on the Sony lot three days a week. That is, provided that I pass the background check. I just hope that they don't find out about that one time that I blew up the orphanage full of blind amputees. Or that my dad works for Pat Robertson.

So I've got that, I'm moving into my apartment tomorrow, I've got to find a part-time job so that I don't starve when the summer's over, and I've got to straighten out tuition at messiah, so they don't think I have to pay $6,000 more than I do.

And yet, all I can think about is 12:31 at the Arclight on Sunset.

There's something in my brain that just cannot process the fact that there is a NEW INDIANA JONES MOVIE. Much less that I'm SEEING it Wednesday night. See, the Indy movies are the movies that I associate the most with my childhood, more than Star Wars Back to the Future, and the Muppet Movie combined (although all of those would probably be up there as well). I feel like seeing a new installment will literally make me feel 8 years old again, watching the old VHS copy of The Last Crusade that my Dad taped off of television.

And it seems that at least Roger Ebert agrees with me.

I'm here

2008-05-18T08:09:00.000-07:00

Right now, I'm sitting in my Uncle's living room in Thousand Oaks. My cross-country trip is now essentially over, but I'm far from finished.

Looks like I will be getting a room in Santa Monica for the summer, at about half what I really should be paying. I have an internship in Culver City that's all but official, and a really exciting one-day-a-week internship that may also end up happening.

Wow. Real life. This is what it's like.

Writing what you know

2008-05-12T05:49:00.000-07:00

I was starting to write a comment on Amanda’s site, and it turned into a blog post. Amanda’s post was about “writing what you know”, and how that may or may not be a great idea.

But I do think that writing what you know can be a good place to start. The whole reason I started writing a pilot about a college radio station is that for my last TV writing class in college I wrote a pilot about law interns - basically Grey's Anatomy, but law. And I still think it's a good idea...but I quickly realized that I'm not David E Kelley, and I know nothing about law. It became a tortuous semester of research and the discovery that law interns do not have the same juicy involvement in cases the way medical interns do. So my structure of serial personal relationship dramas set against episodic cases did not work. I ended up writing 60 pages of well-developed characters doing very little.

For my Senior project I was writing a TV pilot, this supernatural/Sci-Fi thriller, that eventually just proved to be too much. There was too much mythology, too much plot, too much intensity for my little brain to handle. So I ditched it halfway through the semester and wrote what I knew: a pilot about homeschoolers. Sorta. I was homeschooled through high school, and I attended a program two days a week that taught classes like Spanish, choir, speech & debate, etc. I knew the situation, I knew the characters (I went to school with them), I knew the conflicts. Or so I thought.

When I got to the end of it, it all seemed to fall flat for me. There was no tension, nothing at stake for the characters, and like Amanda said it was really just a lot of people sitting around doing nothing. Turns out there isn’t much conflict in a conservative Christian homeschool program, and so what made me think that there could possibly be a pilot in there…much less 5 seasons of stories?

I think that's why we have so many shows about Lawyers, Doctors, and Police: their jobs have built-in stakes. They deal with life and death, with crime and justice. And if they have relational strife on the side, it’s just icing on the cake. A show like Friday Night Lights can work only in a small Texas town, where high school football is the most important thing. The West Wing was tense and engaging because the protagonist was the leader of the free world, but Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip failed because the protagonist was a showrunner, and most people (i.e. people who aren’t me) don’t care about the lives of television writers.

But then there’s a lot of other reasons Studio 60 failed.

In the end, I think that's the problem with "writing what you know". For a lot of people, living a comfortable, middle-class life in suburban America, what they know is boring. If you work in politics, a hospital, or a courtroom, maybe not. But if you grew up playing video games and watching television, maybe you’re better off doing research on something else. Or just write Sci-fi.

Piloting

2008-05-10T22:10:00.000-07:00

So I suppose that the pilot to my L.A. spinoff just aired. Or maybe I’m in the “promotional” webisode series that only exists to fill in the gaps between where interesting things happen. Or maybe I’m just in hiatus right now, waiting for the new series to premiere. Or maybe I should just stop modifying this metaphor before it ceases to make any sense.

All I really meant to say was that I’m currently in a hotel room in Cookeville, TN, blogging while my dad watches the World Poker Tour on the Travel channel. And I must say, even after thinking about it non-stop for the past few months, it feels incredibly weird to actually be on this journey from one side of the country to another. My family wasn’t one that really moved around much: I can only remember living in three houses, all of which were within a 1-mile radius. Even college was only a few hours away, close enough to drive back the same day.

But now I’m on a week-long, one-way, cross-continental roadtrip. I packed my life into the back of my station wagon, and within a week, I’ll be LA. I’ve spent the past couple of weeks saying goodbye to my old life, and all that it entailed: friends, parents, siblings, Yeungling. And now I’m at the point where I’m ready to say hello to whatever it is that comes next.

I still don’t know where I’m going to live. I know some people who may know some people that need a roommate, but I don’t know anything for sure. I’m a little more certain about the internship, but still: nothing final. There’s so much that’s up in the air right now, so much that isn’t certain, that I really should be freaked out of my mind. I’m not the kind of person who likes uncertainty, normally this sort of stuff scares me to death.

But for some reason I feel like it’ll all be okay. Maybe because of God. Maybe because I’m just dumb.

Probably a little bit of both.

I'm also very tired right now, and I'd like to write more, but I simply do not have the energy. I know all four of you who read this blog will be sorely disappointed that I'm not explaining my adventures in more detail, but fear not: I'll sleep, and blog more tomorrow. Promise.

My series finale

2008-05-03T00:08:00.000-07:00

I just got back from Messiah, where I was saying goodbye to all my friends. It was a really strange feeling, saying "see you later" to these people when I knew in my mind that I would never see again. Some I will, some are even moving to LA with me, but the vast majority of them will never come into contact with me again. Yeah, a little wierd, and it honestly became much more emotional for me than I thought it would be.

The most interesting part though, was how everything in the past couple days felt like the last episode of a television show. Not the kind where everything's been building to one final climactic battle or (if it's NOT science fiction) conflict to be resolved. The stuff that happens AFTER that. You know what I'm talking about, the Dominion's already been defeated, the A plot is resolved, now we just want to see Worf go off to Quo'nos, O'Brien go back to teach at the Academy, and Bashir to stay with Dax on Deep Space Nine. It's the part where everyone gets sappy and sentimental, there might be a montage, some things get closure, some things are left open and ambiguous, everyone goes off in different directions, hopefully there's some thematic ties to the beginning of the series, and all of this happens while simultaneously reminding us why we loved the show to begin with.

The last night at Messiah, I saw Iron Man with almost all of my geek guys accounted for: Chad, Dan, and Andrew as well as Brian and Joel (who apparently is not cool enough to have a blog). Then we went to the union and had one final scholarly debate about superheroes (it was kind of a draw: Marvel has better ongoing storylines, whereas DC is better at standalones). It was the absolute perfect way to end my stay, because geeking out with those guys is probably what I liked most about college. In five years, I doubt I'll remember that great paper I wrote for New European Cinema, but I'm sure that I'll remember the plans Dan and I made for the impending Zombie infestation. I can only hope that I'll find something to replace the hour-long dinner conversations about Expanded Universe Star Wars novels, the constant Galaxy Quest quote contests, and of course the heated discussions over the havoc that toast wrecks on our American society (allegedly, that is. I still hold firm on my belief that every American has the right to toast their bread to their desired level of crispyness).

Also cool was having lunch with my friend Laura on Friday, who was actually the first person I met at Messiah. Senior year of high school, we were both visiting for our interviews. We talked about C.S. Lewis. And now, Senior year of college, we had breakfast, and talked about Exes and what the hell real life means. I felt like it gave such a great symmetry to my stay at Messiah, because she also turned out to be the very LAST person I saw at Messiah as well. Literally, all my stuff was packed in my car, and as soon as we were done, I drove away, never to return.

Even now, it feels incredibly weird talking about college in the past tense. I was JUST THERE. And saying all of those goodbyes, I realize now how much it all really meant to me. I think I've become somewhat callous over the past few months at home--mostly because that made it easier to deal with certain things I've been going through. But if there was anything that could bring me out of that, it was being back at school, with my best friends in the entire world.

That and Season 4 of Battlestar Galactica.

And now I'm home. In a week, I'll be moving to LA, which is still freaking me the frak out. I don't have a confirmed place to live, nor a confirmed internship at which to work. I'm still moving out, staying with my Uncle for a few days, and interviewing with the companies that have replied to my emails. But after that, after the first week, I have no idea what I'll be doing. It's hard for me to trade such security for such uncertainty, but I know it needs to be done. So I just grit my teeth and deal with the uncertainty.

Besides, LA is the spinoff. It probably needs a couple episodes to find its own feet. Hopefully it's just a few episodes, though. We don't want another Voyager, please.

Spoilers for Friday Night Lights Season 2 ensue

2008-04-29T08:44:00.000-07:00

So I’ve been in Pennsylvania for the past week or so, watching the second season of Friday Night Lights on DVD. I didn’t mean to buy it, really, there was just sort of a perfect storm that descended on me that led me to that end. It involved a senior communication banquet that I half-remembered to go to, a $20 Barnes & Noble giftcard from that meeting, and a trip to the local Barnes and Noble on the same day - which happened to be on the exact day that the show came out on DVD. All in all, I only paid 8 bucks and change.

I hadn’t watched it since the first episode of the second season, when I quasi-gave up on the show. The murder annoyed me to no end, and I couldn’t imagine how the show could recover from it. It didn’t seem at all to be like the show I loved so much for the first season. But I had heard from several sources that the show got better after that, and it recovered from that misstep rather well to become one of the finest shows on television once again.

Now I’m about halfway through the second season, and I have to say: the show doesn’t really need to get better, it’s still great from the moment the season starts. It’s strange: absolutely everything else seems completely unaffected in quality, it’s JUST the murder subplot that’s annoying. I’ll be watching the same sort of real-life drama that was so engrossing for 22 episodes in the first season, and then all of a sudden it’ll go over to the murder subplot, and I’ll just have to roll my eyes and press on. It’s not that it’s bad per se, just terribly out of place.

In some ways, it almost works, too. The action itself seems larger-than-life, and very much like something that would happen on just any TV show. But the way the characters react to it, and the actors performances are all so realistic, it almost succeeds in selling me on the whole idea. Almost. It’s just that the original act still seems so out of place for the show that it’s hard to swallow a lot of what comes after.

But I’ll deal with it. Landry and Tyra are great, and if you’ve got to bend the rules of the universe a bit to get them together, then so be it.

The Geek Elite and the Information Super-highway.

2008-04-24T07:41:00.000-07:00

Oops, I guess I took that week off.

I'm up at Messiah College now, seeing a lot of old friends for the last time. I've got a pretty jam-packed week-or-so, since it seems like every single day one of my friends has a senior project presentation to give. Already went to a reading of an original epic poem written by an atheist about Judas Iscariot's escape from Hell, today I've got a collection of Zombie short stories (i think?), and I'll be wrapping it all up with a screenplay reading about an aborted fetus...that lived. Yes, I have awesome friends.

But you don't come to this blog to read about my friends, or even my plans for the week. You come to this blog for endless Battlestar Galactica analysis!

...But not today.

I've just seen this article floating around, usually on much bigger and more important blogs than mine, and it makes me smile. Not just because of the mental image of Ron Moore drinking straight bourbon* with Javi, and the CSI guy (who used to be a Trek guy! who knew?). But it really does make me feel like we're living in the most exciting time for TV, and it's because of the internet.

I was gonna post this whole rant about the internet, but I just deleted it because it kind of devolved into rambling. Suffice to say, I think we take what we have for granted. Twenty years ago, if someone wanted to write for TV, they didn't have Alex, John, or (gasp! horror!) Lady Jane.

I didn't learn anything at all about TV writing from school. I did read one or two books about it, but the large bulk of what I know (which, granted, isn't all that much) was amassed from reading blogs. If I didn't have those resources, I really don't think I would have (or could have) written my first spec script.

So I guess this is a salute to all those out there in the scribosphere. Keep abiding. Taking her easy for all us sinners

* Come on, Ron. What happened to the single-malt scotch?

The best way to watch Beowulf

2008-04-18T13:10:00.000-07:00

NOTE: This entry is very long. But it’s also 100% true, so believe me, it’s worth it.

Stephen Colbert was a bust. Not the man himself, of course, just my attempt to get into his audience. I went at 10 to sign up for standby, and arrived at 6 only to find that they wouldn’t be able to let all the people who had REAL tickets inside. Thus, my place as number 15 on the waiting list was as futile and frivolous as The 1/2 Hour News Hour. Oh well.

But thinking about my near-contact with a celebrity reminded me of the last time I was in Philadelphia, and the celebrity encounter of legend that ensued.

Now, I’m sure something like this is downright boring in LA, where running into Bruce Campbell at Trader Joes or Martin Scorcese at the In-N-Out Burger is about as novel or exciting as seeing an old man take his dachshund for a walk. But for someone from Virginia Beach, where the closest thing we have to a celebrity is Rudy from the first season of Survivor, this was a big deal.

The year was 2007, around the time the end-of-the-year movies started to come out. My film major friends and I decided to take a weekend away from the po-dunk town of Grantham, and drive to the City of Brotherly Love to see movies that you can’t see at Messiah College. Specifically: No Country for Old Men, and Beowulf…in IMAX 3D.

And man, let me tell you, Beowulf was awesome. But it had nothing to with the IMAX, the 3D, or even the Beowulf.

The place was the huge AMC IMAX theater in King of Prussia (right outside of Philadelphia). I only say that because after going into the city to buy our tickets for No Country (the theater didn’t have online ticketing), we were running late for Beowulf (which we bought online). We made it just in time, and the three of us jumped out as my friend Mr. Wells parked the car. At the Fandango machine, I glanced over to my right and saw a slightly over-weight, disheveled looking man with glasses. My first thought was “heh, it’s Peter Jackson”, because as we all know, there are a million slightly over-weight, disheveled looking men with glasses that kinda-sorta look like Peter Jackson.

Then I saw Fran Walsh. The color drained from my face as I slowly realized that it wasn’t just any slightly over-weight, disheveled looking man with glasses…it was the director of King Kong and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

Suddenly stories I’d read online about how he was shooting the Lovely Bones outside of Philadelphia with Mark Wahlberg came rushing into my head. We watched in a trance as he and Fran walked inside with the kids. Wells came, and we frantically tried to tell him what happened. He too thought we were talking about just another slightly over-weight, disheveled looking man with glasses until he saw the teller tearing Mr. Jackson's ticket. Then he froze and could not breathe. This experience really could not have happened to a better set of nerds.

We still hadn’t really recovered from the shock when we got in the theater and realized that the only seats available were in the front. If you’ve ever tried to watch an IMAX film from the front of the theater, you know how much front seats suck. But it didn’t matter—because PJ and company were sitting in the second row. Yes that’s right, I saw Beowulf in IMAX 3D…in front of Peter Jackson.

Don’t worry. The best part is coming up.

It really was a surreal experience. A trailer for I Am Legend came on, and we could hear Fran Walsh whisper “Oh yeah…Andrew shot that”. I’d see the amazing motion-capture imagery on screen, and realize I was sitting in front of the man who essentially pioneered performance capture to begin with. I mean, the movie I was watching probably wouldn’t even have been greenlit if it weren’t for the success of Lord of the Rings telling studios that Epic Fantasies could make money now. Forget Will Smith (and Andrew Lesnie). This guy was Legend.

Anyway, about 20 minutes into the PG-13 movie’s R-territory violence, one of the kids said he was getting scared. So the kid and Fran left, leaving poor PJ to see the film by himself.

Then a funny thing happened. I started to hear a snoring sound from behind me. I looked at my friends, to make certain they were all hearing what I was. Sure enough, they were all also restraining laughter. I turned around, and yes: Peter Jackson, director of some of the longest movies of all time, FELL ASLEEP during Beowulf in IMAX 3D.

Later, after thinking about it, I came up with a scenario I like to think is what happened. He was up all night with Mark Wahlberg, working on some very complex and emotionally draining scene. Finally, around 6 in the morning, he gets a cut he’s satisfied with, and he turns in for his 90 minutes of sleep. Fran and the kids are coming in for the weekend, and he’s gonna show them around, and take them to a movie that he’s already seen a few times (while visiting Robert Zemeckis—the man who brought his films to America).

But none of that matters, because Peter Jackson still fell asleep during Beowulf in IMAX 3D. It almost makes me wish Beowulf was a really bad movie, because that would be the perfect capsule review. “You wanna know how much Beowulf sucks? Peter Jackson makes 4 hour movies, and even HE couldn’t stay awake for it!”

It kind of helped to balance the "legendary" view I had of the man, and really of celebrity in general. This wasn't PETER JACKSON: THE MAN WHO MAGICALLY SPINS EPIC FANTASY FILMS FROM HIS FINGERTIPS, this was Peter Jackson, the slightly over-weight, disheveled looking man with glasses who falls asleep in the movie theater. He's human. There's nothing magical about what he does. He just has many, many more opportunities than I do, and—more importantly—he’s taken full advantage of all them.

I think that’s really what I took away from the whole experience: success is attainable for real people, because everyone who has success is themselves a real person. Pretty basic, I know. Even with how much I make this seem like a big huge important event, it really wasn’t. All that happened was that I sat in front of a guy who fell asleep in the theater. A guy who just happened to make awesome movies.

And, before you ask: Yes. I decided I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t take the opportunity, so yes, I did shake his hand. We kinda had to wake him up to do it, and he probably wasn’t really conscious at all, but still. I shook his hand.

The artist formerly known as Agnax

2008-04-16T12:52:00.000-07:00

New design! Let me know what you guys think. I’d felt for a while that it was time for a change, and since I’m getting ready to move out to LA, it seems like as good a time as any. So I opened up photoshop, made a banner by using the erase tool on several layers, and boom! New design.

It also feels pretty good to get rid of my whole “Agnax” domain. It was kind of a hold-over from high-school, where I got sick of Xanga, so hence I named my new blog Agnax. Yes, I know. Very creative. Now that that's over with, one would think that I'd be able to get around to changing my painfully high-schooler Instant Messenger name…

Personally, I like the name “writerling”, and how it implies my baby-writer status. I realize it doesn’t exactly flow off of the tongue (no really, try to say it), but I figure most people won’t be saying it out loud anyway. Oh well, one day when I finally understand what I’m doing and move out of baby-writerdom (thus having a blog that people would even want to tell other people about), I can change the name again.

Anyway, I’m up in Philly for this week, ostensibly so that I could go to the mandatory meeting for the Temple University Summer Internship Program. It was incredibly boring, and I already knew virtually everything they said: you need a car. Traffic is terrible. No, you can't rent a car if you're under 21. No, there isn't any public transportation. No, biking is not particularly effective. Yes you really do need to have a car. Temple students can ask some pretty dumb questions.

The meeting didn’t really serve any purpose except for me to find out that the professor never got my application. Which is aggravating times two because it had already been lost once when I tried to send it to my Messiah prof. All could do was to fill out another application, and pay 15 bucks to overnight it to the Temple prof. When I returned with him to his office, I noticed that it was sitting on his desk, unopened. Problem solved.

But the real reason I'm in Philly this week: Stephen Colbert.

Oh yes. This will be amazing.

Excitement trumps fear.

2008-04-14T18:06:00.000-07:00

I wrote a short screenplay the other day.

It wasn’t great by any means, but it was unusual for me in that I got an idea, sketched out the basic idea, and pumped out a first draft in an hour. See, what I normally do is get an idea, get excited, throw some ideas on paper, and then… “let it simmer”. Which is really just my way of rationalizing the fact that I’m scared to death of writing. Because, as some of you may know, if you “let it simmer”…it—whatever “it” is—never gets done.

Emily Blake just blogged about something similar, when people are terrified of writing garbage, so they just don’t write.

If I never try, I can always suffer under the delusion that I am awesome, I just never had an opportunity to prove it. But if I try and fail, then I'll have to face the fact that my lifelong dream was a fantasy.

And I think my problem is essentially the same. I’ll have an idea, love the idea, sketch out the idea, maybe even make a detailed outline of the idea, but I’ll never actually make it into something more than an idea.

So what do you do to defeat the crippling fear of sucking? How do you move your idea from just being an idea to something more than that, be it book, short story, or screenplay?

Well, I think I may have finally figured it out: Get excited, and try as hard as you can to stay that way.

Most of the time, the reason why I stop working on something is because I forget what it was that made me excited about it in the first place. The fun drains out of it, and it becomes something I have to do, rather than something I’m excited that I get to do.

Excitement trumps fear.

And since excitement fades as time passes, you’ve got to get as much done on an idea while it’s still fresh in your mind. You know what it’s like when you’re making an outline. You write down the basics of the scene, and probably even hear snippets of dialogue in your head, the different beats and how they all play out. But if you’re me, you never think to write these out, because you just assume that when you sit down to write it, the ideas’ll be flowing in the same way. But then when you actually sit down to write it, all that’s gone.

This time, I decided it would be different. When I got the idea for the short and outlined the idea, I looked at the clock and realized I had an hour to kill. So I wrote it.

When I finished, I wasn’t sure if it was really great or a piece of shit. Now, having looked over it a few days later, I know that it’s somewhere in between. But now I know for sure which one it is. And I think it’s better to have a mediocre reality, especially one that I can work on to make better, than an imaginary masterpiece.

Maybe we should Dump them into the Atlantic

2008-04-13T05:06:00.000-07:00

DVICE: We dump old subway cars into the Atlantic, and it's a good thing

This article is pretty interesting, but for my money, the fun doesn't begin until the comments section:

BY MURC AT 7:13 PM ON 04/11/08
I'm assuming you just found this out and then assumed that nobody else must know. :/

they have been doing this for many years now. I've known about it for a long time, and I live in the middle of the country.

in other words...stick to tech.

BY STEVE AT 7:15 PM ON 04/11/08
How does it feel being smarter than everyone Murc?

BY MURC AT 9:31 PM ON 04/11/08
it feels good.

BY TEDINASIA AT 4:17 AM ON 04/12/08
Ahh Steve, don't give him a hard time.. anyone named "Murc" must be ... challenged...

BY TRAVELER AT 6:50 PM ON 04/12/08
Maybe sinking large ships makes sence, but it'd be much better to to crush this small stuff and recycle.

BY MRLANGUAGEGUY AT 1:33 AM ON 04/13/08
Shouldn't that be 'sinking subway cars makes cents'?

BY DANZARA AT 7:49 AM ON 04/13/08
I wanna who you people are in the world.

As do I, Danzara. As do I.

The President and the Colonel

2008-04-10T11:16:00.000-07:00

So, I was hoping I could blog about the spectacular adventures we had during the President's visit to Pizza Hut. No, not that President. This one. Man, I would really like to make a political joke here, but Bush jokes haven't been funny since 2004. Thanks a lot, Comedy Central...and President Bush's approval rating. Hey-oh! (see? not funny.)

Anyway, Mr. Bergren and his private jet were unfortunately held up (no doubt because of the obscene amounts of cocaine, hookers, and white collar crime they had to do), and were left without enough time to see everything in the area. So something had to be cut, and that something (surprise!) was us.

What surprised me the most about the whole thing was that I actually felt let down. Somehow, I'd let myself become emotionally invested in the visit, and when it didn't happen, I felt like I'd been robbed of an important life experience. I'm not sure what I expected to happen, was he going to put his arm around me and say "You've got talent kid, you're gonna go places..." before ? Or perhaps treat me like one of Michael Bay's countless unpaid interns on the set of Transformers, and verbally berate me before swallowing me whole? Or...quiz me on the FOUR MOMENTS OF CUSTOMER TRUTH?

Oh well, didn't happen. But you know what DID? THE SEASON PREMIERE OF BATTLESTAR GALACTICA!

Man. It's been too long. A year is a very long time. A lot can happen in a year.

I'd blogged previously on my reactions from the season finale, and there were a lot of things I loved, but also quite a few things I was very wary of. Specifically the revelation of the four Bob Dylan cylons. It wasn't the song that annoyed me, it was a more basic complaint about what they'd done with the characters. I believe my exact words were:

How can they be Cylons? I've read on boards that "we need to redefine what what we think a Cylon is...", but even with a LOT of redefining, we still have to redefine who we think Tyrol is, or who we think Tigh is, or who we think Anders is. I mean, it's obvious that the writers didn't know this from the beginning of the show, and it was put in here to keep with their tradition of earth-shattering season finales. To use comic book terminology, they've retconned their backstories--masters of revisionist history that they are, they've changed what we thought we knew about our favorite characters, and to me, it all feels fake. It's fake, and it's a lie to the audience, because they didn't write them knowing this, and they don't have a believable rationalization for it. At least not where I'm standing. To me, it just seems terribly convenient that "a switch went off, just like that", and they're Cylons now. That way, we don't have to worry about things like continuity and character arcs.

Ouch. I was pretty harsh.

Tigh specifically was who I had a problem with. Over the course of three seasons (but especially the third) he had become my favorite character by far, and a lot of that was due to the very dark times he'd been through, and his very true, natural human reaction to them. From his alcoholism, to his missteps while in control of the fleet, to his quasi-retirement on New Caprica, the resistance, and of course, poisoning his wife and the huge guilt that reverberated from that act, his arc was so tragic, so dark, that I felt that in many ways, he captured in miniature what the show was really all about.

And then he's suddenly a Cylon. Wait, really? I had my doubts. Huge ones.

Luckily, after giving me a year to let those doubts fester, Mr. Moore and Company gave me this scene:

Wow. Just...wow. Give Michael Hogan a motherfrakking Emmy now. Please.

Thank you Ron. I for one am glad as hell to have you guys back.

The best way to spend the next 1 minute and 39 seconds of your life.

2008-04-04T14:02:00.000-07:00

Not much to post today, only because it's incredibly hard to think about anything else when hope lies just on the horizon...specifically tonight at 10/9c.

Why I hate this man.

2008-04-03T06:03:00.000-07:00

Okay, truth be told, I don’t actually hate this man. I’ve never actually met him. Of course, come Saturday that will change.

This man is Scott Bergren, and he is (as far as the internet can tell me) the President of Pizza Hut. On Saturday Morning And if you hadn’t guessed yet, he and his entourage will wedge themselves into two minivans, and come pouring into MY pizza hut this Saturday morning, where they will roam free to watch my every move and quiz me on the dreaded FOUR MOMENTS OF CUSTOMER TRUTH (Greeting, Order Taking, Delivery, Payment and Thanks. Yeah, they kinda squished two into the last one. It's corporate math.). This of course has resulted in nothing but cleaning for every waking moment until then.

It’s become absurd. People are working overtime just to scrub floors, dirty walls are being covered with a new coat of off-white paint, and those of us who have the pleasure of working this Saturday have been given bright new uniforms with the instruction not to wear them until THE BIG VISIT. All of this for a visit that will last - at the maximum - all of 15 minutes.

They nearly even had me shave my beard. Listen, I like my beard. Probably more than I like this job. If I don't have a beard, I look about 14 years old. This is not a good thing. Our district manager (who sports a neatly-trimmed goatee) narrowly saved my facial hair, saying that the beard is fine as well as it's well kept.

But the worst part is that I used to read at Pizza Hut. A lot. But since this whole thing started I haven’t been able to get but 3 chapters into the Yiddish Policemen’s Union. I need my Chabon(slash-future Coen Bros.), and Lord knows that won't happen at HOME.

So this is why I hate this man. He takes me away from my Chabon.

This needs to stop. And it needs to stop now.

Or at least it needs to stop by Saturday.

As Joss said through his Prophet Alex...

2008-03-27T21:11:00.000-07:00

If it looks like that progress bar to the right hasn’t moved in a while...well that’s because it hasn’t. After finishing the teaser for my Chuck spec, I realized that the plotting of my outline needed a lot of work. But no matter how long I scribbled at it, or how many yellow legal pads I filled up, it just seemed like newer versions of the same thing. Different, yes. Better, no.

I had a decent hook, a funny B-story, and even a pretty good Act 3 twist (If I may say so myself), but none of that seemed to matter. Each thing was fine if it stayed alone by itself, but they all refused to play nice with each other. As a result, they just stayed as story elements and didn't really add up to anything more.

And then, I remembered the Rule of Joss (or at least, Alex Epstein’s Rule of Joss). Ahem.

...Don't start with the sf&f antagonist. Start with where is the hero emotionally? What is Buffy's real-world emotional problem this week? Now, what is the sf&f antagonist that best catalyzes that emotion or problem?

Of course. I had been looking for the coolest spy villain, or perhaps the best possible set-up for the Act 4 action sequence, but completely forgotten about how that stuff affects Chuck.

So now I know what’s not working, and I’m setting out to fix it. I think, however, that I may commit blasphemy and do it backwards: finding an emotional state for Chuck that would be the most dramatic in this particular situation. I sure hope Joss (and Alex) would approve.

A guy, a middle-aged lady, and a pizza place

2008-03-26T10:40:00.000-07:00

So I work at Pizza Hut. Not many people at Pizza Hut know that I write...I'm just that guy who doesn't mind delivering School Lunch on Mondays and Wednesdays. But the other day, during one of the many times when there’s nothing to do, I was working on the outline for my Chuck spec. My manager Betty asked what I was doing.

Now, Pizza Hut isn’t the greatest job, but there are positives. It’s a decent job, money-wise. Some not understand the prestige that comes with driving a white Honda station wagon topped with a Pizza Hut sign, but my reply to those sayers of nay: “Fuck you, it pays better than waiting tables, and any job that lets me sit my ass in my car and listen to NPR all day long is just fine with me.”Also, it’s worth it almost solely because of the characters I meet—whether they’re the overweight men in tiny tank tops ordering the pizzas, or my middle-aged, midget manager Betty who makes them.

Let me tell you about Betty. Betty was born with an irrational, compulsive need to speak. I don’t say this in the typical male “MAN those womenfolk can talk. Am I right? Am I right?” way. With Betty, it doesn’t really matter to her whether you’re listening, or if you even remotely want to hear about what she has to say, she’ll spout sound at you like an old webpage with an embedded MIDI that just won’t turn off. Her subject matter is diverse, including stories from the trenches of her ongoing battle with menopause, the details of her most recent bladder infection, as well as harrowing tales of her 20-year-old sexual exploits.

Anyway, Betty and I get to talking about Television, and I mention my senior project about homeschoolers. I try to say that I thought it was pretty okay, there were just some things about it that didn’t really work for me, and it still needs a lot of work. But she doesn’t hear that, because she’s inexplicably become excited about the idea. “No, I think that could work. You know, you can have the kids be the characters, you know and show them interacting…you can have their parents or their grandparents...you know maybe some kids have grandparents, some kids don’t...(5 minutes later) Yeah, I think that could work."

She went on, never mentioning any details about her newly created characters, or even what they would DO. But completely confident that she was providing some insight into the craft of writing, she went on to talk about all of the TV characters she’s liked through the years: Archie Bunker, Fred G. Sanford (and Son), and Rudy from Survivor. Again, she didn’t mention at all anything they DID that was particularly memorable, but really just that they existed, they sometimes said funny things, and they related to other characters.

I don’t say (blog?) this to make fun of someone not familiar with the craft of writing, just to say (blog?) that it made me realize one of the truths about television: with TV, people don’t remember the plot, or the exciting action sequences, or even the special effect sequences*. Sure, those’ll draw them in, make them watch the show, but what they’ll remember is the Characters.

What do you think people in 10 years will remember about today’s shows? I think even with a show as plot-heavy as Lost, I doubt it will be the slowly-revealed mystery of the Island as much as the infamous Jack-Kate-Sawyer love triangle.** Or with the Office: will people remember or care whether Michael got the corporate job, or will they only remember Jim’s pranks on Dwight...as well as his knowing glances from Pam?

Of course, you have to have the characters do something. If it was just Kate, Jack and Sawyer sitting around on the Island, I for one probably would get bored real quick. But the opposite is true: if there never doing anything but cool plot things all the time, you may enjoy the ride of the show, but in 10 years, will anyone care?

When I leave Virginia Beach, I doubt I’ll remember any specific day of delivering pizza to rotund single men, but I know that I’ll remember Betty. And also every detail from her post-strip-poker threesome story. That image is burned into my mind.

* Except the Galactica jumping into the atmosphere in “Exodus pt. 2” I think I still have goosebumps from that one.
** although, granted, they’ve certainly tried to make it a good deal more complicated than a triangle. It’s at least a quadrilateral now, or maybe a pentagon.

Life, Love, and other Mysteries

2008-03-13T12:49:00.000-07:00

Okay, I’m making a pact with blogger. I am going to get out of this one-post-a-month rut I’ve been in for far too long. I’m a writer, so I should write…right? Right.

Despite what you may think from this humble blog, I actually have still been writing, even blogging/journaling fairly regularly. But it’s not exactly the sort of thing I'd want to share with everyone. Or anyone, come to think of it. Yeah, Long story. Not really that interesting, to be honest. Or important, because now, I’m back. To blogger, at least. So what’s happened?

I finished my senior project, which if you didn’t know, was a TV pilot about Homeschoolers. People at school say it’s good, but I’m not really convinced. I think there’s a lot of work still to be done on it. We had a staged reading of the entire thing at the end of January, and I intentionally haven’t looked at it since then. I’ll come back to it eventually, but right now I think I need distance. Besides, there are plenty of other things to occupy my time.

Like applying for internships! It’s that time, finally. The time when I realize that real life is coming, and that it’s coming VERY SOON. I have two, maybe three months left of this life living at home (more on that later), and then I’ll be moving out to Los Angeles, for an internship in the Film/Television industry. Notice how specific that description was, and in particular how many details there are about where I’ll be interning. Exactly. At this point, I have no earthly idea what I'll be doing, and where I'll be doing it. Hence the applying.

My dream internship (and what I’m currently concentrating on) is the Television Academy Summer Internship in Screenwriting. It’s hugely competitive, and I’m not sure I really have a shot, but that’s what dreams are for. In the end, I know I’ll probably end up doing the internship program through Temple University. It’s stable, not competitive at all, and I would guaranteed an internship that lets me graduate. But that isn’t stopping me from trying to get any internship, any internship at all that puts me in a writers room. So, armed with glowing recommendation letters, and the beginnings of a Chuck spec script, I’m out to fight that battle.

Meaning, of course, that I am now speccing a Chuck episode. Taking a page from Josh’s book, I’ve watched and broken down several episodes, and whipped up a pretty quick, but (I think) a pretty sharp outline. I’ve even begun to write it; I’m about 4 pages in so far. More updates on that as it happens. And if there’s any interest, I can post my break-downs of the Chuck episodes for all to see.

There’s more I could say, but it’s not really that interesting. So I’ll just bullet point it.
• I’m living at home this semester, with my mom, dad, siblings, cat and dog. It’s all an attempt to save money (otherwise, believe me. I would not be in this state).
• Also in a money-saving attempt, I have a job. Currently, I am a delivery driver. For Pizza Hut. Yup. I'm that cool.
• I’m currently taking Spanish 3 over the mail (the ONLY thing I need to graduate apart from the internship), and I’m ready to kill myself over it. Not really. But it’s ever so boring.

And that’s me. Good. Now that we’re all caught up, I can blog again.

And I WILL blog again.

Brian Duffield beats Barack Obama

2008-02-09T06:25:00.000-08:00

In other words, I'm going to Messiah this weekend, even though the future president of the United States is going to be in Virginia Beach.

You better be worth it.

In honor of our robot overlords...

2008-01-12T16:38:00.000-08:00

In The Know: Are We Giving The Robots That Run Our Society Too Much Power?

I'm still ~~procrastinating on~~ revising my senior project. So yeah. Back to that.

Just popping in for a bit to say...

2008-01-05T07:44:00.001-08:00

This gives me the biggest boner I've had in a good long time.

...and this nearly kills it.

In other news, I'll be realistic this time. Don't expect constant updating for a while, at least not until I finish up my Senior Project script. Should be the end of January. Then, I'll need to decide on a new writing project. I know no-one reads this blog anymore, but any great ideas?

Not Dead

2007-10-03T18:31:00.001-07:00

Sorry, school started, and I'm still trying to recover from that. A lot is going on, most of which I probably won't blog about. That's what my moleskine is for (the new one's name is Jean-Luc).

Don't worry, though. I'm approaching a place where I think I'll be able to blog again. I'll tell you about how my FNL outline went for the online class, why I'm not making the Superhero film anymore (at least not for my senior project--shooting it on the side is always a possibility), and how my new senior project(a TV pilot) is going. And who knows, maybe I'll vent about how I'M doing, too.

Could this possibly mark a return to personal blogging? Tune in to find out!

10 things?

2007-08-08T20:55:00.000-07:00

I always inwardly made fun of the whole internet meme of “tagging”. I thought it was a cop-out from people who couldn’t write a real blog entry. But I think that was really just because I was never cool enough to get picked.

But no more, thanks to this douchebag.
“Once you’ve been tagged, as I have, you must write a blog post with ten weird, random things, little-known facts or habits about yourself. At the end, choose at least 5 people to be tagged, list their names and why you picked them. Don’t forget to leave a comment that says “you’ve been tagged” and tell them to read your latest blog.”

Okay. A lot of this is common knowledge to my real-life friends, but even for those of you who know me well, there are probably some surprises in there. Without further ado:

1. I hate cockroaches. Spiders, ants, mosquitoes…I have no problem with. But cockroaches just chill my skin in the way I imagine my skin would feel right before I die of skin being frozen off my body. I don’t know how this started or where it comes from. Maybe it’s because they feed on trash. Maybe it’s because I know they’re going to survive our extinction when the nuclear holocaust comes. Or maybe it’s the way that they don’t die when you step on them, they just kind of spring back with their tough hide and scuttle to hide behind the couch.

Seriously. They’re probably the best argument against Intelligent Design. If evolution is true, they’re truly a marvel of natural selection. But if it’s not, why would an intelligent, loving, God create something that…icky?

2. It’s hard for me to buy nice, expensive things, but way too easy for me to buy a billion cheap, disposable things. This has always been a problem for me. It’s way too easy for me to just eat out, see a movie, or buy a pack of Tangerine Altoids. They’re all gone within minutes (Seriously, you’d be surprised how fast I can throw back a pack of Tangerine Altoids), and I’ll forget that I even spent money at all.

But as soon as I buy something permanent, the guilt sets in. I don’t want to buy a movie, because I’ll know it’ll just sit on my shelf, unwatched. I don’t want to buy a new pair of jeans, because every time I wear them, I’ll remember how much they cost me, and how I should have just gone to the thrift store instead.

It’s something I’m working on, I think I’m getting better. I forced myself to buy Final Draft, and while it was completely worth it, it still was like pulling teeth.

3. Speaking of pulling teeth, I’ve never had my wisdom teeth out. Nor have I had braces. I am the only person in my family that can say both of those things. What can I say, I got the good teeth genes of the family.

(of course, I also got two fillings last Friday. Not sure what that means.)

4. Furthermore, I have 20/20 vision, and kind of wish that wasn’t the case. Ever since I was a kid, I thought that glasses were awesome, and wanted to wear them. But my vision was never bad enough to warrant a prescription. I wore fake glasses for a short (short, short time), but couldn’t bring myself to do it with any consistency. Probably with good reason; everyone hates a poser. Since then, I’ve learned to accept my place in the world as someone with good vision.

5. I was homeschooled. A lot of people know this; it’s not really a secret. But I needed something else to round out the list, and there are probably some other people out there that still don’t know this about me. It was a good experience, and definitely shaped the person that I am today.

I have a notion to one day put my homeschooling experiences on screen, either on TV or in Film. Or maybe even a play, I don’t know. But in any event, it’s a section of the population that has no real accurate representation, and I’d like to do that someday.

6. I played piano in my church band. I liked it a lot. Well, I like it a lot, actually. Because…I’m actually going to play next Sunday. 10AM, Sovereign Grace Church, Chesapeake, VA. Be there.

7. I wrote my first script at the age of 14. It was a spy spoof, ingeniously titled “A Spy Movie”. In truth, it’s really a bit generous to call it a “spy” spoof, since it really just referenced any movie that was popular at the time (Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, etc). And it’s also generous to call it a “spoof”, since it wasn’t…actually…funny.

But I was really excited about it for a time, and was planning to make it with my friends—although I never quite figured out how I was going to make buildings explode, and giant chasms appear on screen (I think I just said to myself “I’ll just get After Effects. It’ll be okay). As you could probably guess, I never actually made the movie. I DID make a trailer, which was enough to get other people excited about it. But our camera never worked, and we could never get schedules to coincide or locations secured.

Also, I was 14, and thus couldn’t drive.

But we got a trailer. Maybe I’ll show it to you guys sometime…

8. I legitimately LOVE the Marx brothers. I hate pretentious film dicks who put every movie made before 1940 on their favorite movie lists, because they’re a FILM major, and should obviously like that stuff. I mean, I can respect and even enjoy the films of Orson Welles, John Ford, Howard Hawkes and the like, but I would never list any of them among my favorite movies.

Not so with the Marx brothers. Duck Soup is probably one of my favorite movies, and I can sit down and enjoy almost any Marx brothers movie as an afternoon’s entertainment. I legitimately laugh at Harpo’s physical comedy, Groucho’s wit, and whatever Chico did that was funny. Honestly, Zeppo was BOOOORING, but that doesn’t stop the Marx brothers from rocking hard.

9. My Dad works for Pat Robertson. Yes, that Pat Robertson. The one that called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez, claimed that 9/11 and Katrina were God’s punishments for the homosexuals, and the one that talks to God everyday. My dad’s worked at the Christian Broadcasting Network for 20+ years. He’s a remote cameraman, which means that he travels the country (and the world), shooting testimonies, news stories, whatever Pat Robertson happens to need for his daily broadcast.

Furthermore, I’ve been ON the 700 Club. This happened a lot when I was younger, and they needed kids for the re-enactments. I’d usually get paid in ice cream, but every once in a while I’d get a check for my trouble. This also happened recently. During a school vacation at home, my Dad needed a rebellious college-age kid to smoke and booze it up in the background of some person’s sinful past life. And I was more than happy to oblige. And this time I was paid in pizza.

10. I have recently decided that my greatest desire in this life is to see the Earth from Space. Honestly, this has always been true, but it’s really become much more real within the past couple of months. It started when I saw the IMAX 3D film “Space Station”, narrated by Tom Cruise. The giant, two-story tall, three-dimensional images of the Earth were simply awe-inspiring…even more so with the realization that these images were completely absent of CGI. This was real. And ever since then, I’ve just become more emotional whenever I see a picture of Earth from space, or think about space travel in general.

The most exciting thing is that space tourism may just be a reality within my lifetime. I might someday get the privilege to pay a years’ salary to go into space for 15 minutes, be weightless, and see the fucking earth.

What an exciting world.

Now, for tagging:

1. Josh – Because he’s commented on my past 3 posts, and that tickles me.
2. Peter – because he gave me kickass notes on my script (see below).
3. Amanda – because she’s moving to LA, and really gonna try to make this whole TV thing work. Best of Luck.
4. Andrew - Because he’s an interesting guy, and I’d like to see what 10 things I don’t know about him...
5. Mackenzie – because she went to Italy. Probably TONS of things I don’t know about her.

Go, DO IT!

Kickin Ass in Final Draft

2007-07-31T19:29:00.000-07:00

Man, I finally just kicked my BSG Spec's ass. More or less.

I got some kickass notes from Peter, which more or less tore my script a new one (in the most positive way imaginable), and I immediately set to work re-writing it. Thankfully, I had a week of vacation coming in which to do nothing but write. Unthankfully, I was going home for said vacation, away from the computer lab - and thus away from final draft.

So, I finally forced myself to bite the bullet and I bought the durned thing. And let me tell you, it is kickass. I mean, it was kickass before, but now it's on my mac, so it's obviously kickass x2 now.

Anyway, I had to re-write a lot of scenes, and add in a couple more. And it's the new scenes that were giving me trouble. One in particular. The scene in question was necessary in order to develop the C plot (which was almost non-existant in the last draft), but I couldn't find a way to make it work. I did 3 different versions with different configurations of characters, locations, and tones for the scene. They were all definitely not kickass. They actually kind of sucked. Characters just kind of came out and stated the theme, or started to talk about their dramatic back-story with no real motivation to do so. Basically, there was no subtext to speak of, everything was on the nose, and it was all incredibly cheesy. And if you've ever gotten cheese stuck in your nose, you know how much that sucks.

But then, at around 9:30 tonight, I finally realized what I needed to do. I intercut the scene with another one, and now, everything is inexplicably fixed. The things that were totally cheesy when spoken out loud were now inferred by the other scene. And there's this great tension between the two scenes that I really love.

Basically I kicked it's ass.

And it feels good.

And I'm ready to move on to something else now. (like the superhero script? Andrew, are you still there?)

The Emmys!

2007-07-22T12:19:00.000-07:00

The Emmys totally got it right this year. The new changes to the system were a long time coming, and completely shut up all those with doubts about how well they'd represent the best of the medium. Remember last year when "24" and "Grey's Anatomy" were allowed to make the list when shows like "Lost" and "The Wire" were completely snubbed?

Well no more. The "Critics Circle" replacing the "Blue Ribbon panels" was a great idea. Now people who actually WATCH the season's run of shows will help to decide the nominations. Now long-term, serial driven dramas like "Friday Night Lights" and "Battlestar Galactica" can be recognized, instead of formulaic shows like "House" or "Boston Legal" which can come out with an occasionally touching stand-alone episode submission for the win. And the 3-year nomination limit really freed up the field, too. The Sopranos could easily have gotten a swan song pity-vote this year, when there are so many other deserving shows on now.

I just hope that this is Battlestar's year, they've only got one more year to make it work, and with the new and improved rules, it might actually happen.

P.S. Here's what really happened.

P.P.S. In all seriousness, congratulations to Ron Moore on his writing nomination. I'm sure he doesn't read this blog, but if he does, just know that I'll be watching on the off-chance he kicks some mobster ass.

P.P.P.S. I'm not really that mad about the Emmys. It's about what I was expecting. This post was really just so I could photoshop that picture..

It is finished...

2007-07-06T22:01:00.000-07:00

Well, I did it. I sent my Battlestar spec off to the Carl Sautter Memorial Television Outreach Program. I wish I had finished it a week ago, because saying that I just sent it off to the Disney Fellowship sounds a lot better. Well, it is a lot better. But whatever. I finished it.

And that's a first for me. For once in my life, I feel like I can legitimately call myself a writer. Because I've actually written something. And finished it. It feels good.

It's kind of a relief to have it done. I'm probably gonna submit to some other ones, like the AAA Competition, and the Screenwriting Expo competition. If you guys know of any good ones, let me know. And if anyone wants to take a look at it, just shoot me an e-mail at matthew.samuel.thornton [at] gmail.com.

P.S. Because I was in such a rush to get it out, I didn't think to snap a picture for the blog. So the picture above is my reciept for paying for postage. Yeah, I know. Lame.

P.P.S. In other news: because of the Jewish conference, I've had the soundtrack to This stuck in my head all week.

P.P.P.S I got off work an hour ago. It's 1:30. I'm working tomorrow at 7:30. And for some reason, I'm blogging. One of these days, I swear, I will sleep.

Overheard at the Jewish conference...

2007-07-05T15:32:00.000-07:00

INT. FALCON EXPRESS - DAY

A LARGE JEWISH MAN with a bushy beard is eating his meal of chicken tenders and fries. He talks to a SKINNY JEWISH MAN, who wears a Yamulke on top of his bald head.

They are in the midst of an argument.

LARGE JEWISH MAN
Yeah...when non-kosher, even-toed
ungulates can fly...

SKINNY JEWISH MAN
(confused)
What, you don't think cows'll ever fly?

LARGE JEWISH MAN
(irate like only large
jewish men can be)
No, Pigs! I said non-kosher, even-toed ungulates!

Sometimes I wish I could write dialogue like this.

In other words, I'm taking a break from the rewrite that's had me holed up in Hess computer lab all day.

The highs are great, if you can survive the lows

2007-07-01T17:09:00.001-07:00

Well, I'm gonna take the UCLA Extension class. It starts July 11th, which works well for me, since I have until July 7th to finish my Galactica spec. That gives me a couple of days to watch the entire run of Friday Night Lights (current choice for my next spec), and whatever amount of Lost I can sprinkle in.

And yes, I finally succumbed to pressure, and started watching Lost. I've finished the first season so far, which has some of the most excellent writing I think I've seen on television. Then, I started season 2, and after the first two incredibly frustrating episodes, I was kind of depressed. It didn't make sense that a show whose greatest strength was delivering wonderful unexpected-yet-inevitable twists (both in flashbacks and A-stories) would serve up such predictable and, well, boring stories for their opening episodes. (Brian the roomate said that he feels the Raft episode "Adrift" is the series' worst. I haven't seen as much as him, but at this point, I'm inclined to agree). But it got better. Once it settled into something of a status quo, it got much more enjoyable.

In othervwords, I am quickly turning into a Lost fanboy. The hardest part is staying unspoiled. Watching shows on DVD is a great experience, but it doesn't come without its risks.

I've finished my "draft 2.5" of Galactica, and about ready to start on the next one. I should have the script printed, holes punched, brads in, and in the mail by Friday (I work on Saturday). So I'm definitely down to The Wire. Which, coincidentally, is another show I should probably start watching.

And while I'm updating in every part of my life, the Messianic Jewish Association of America has descended upon the campus of Messiah College. This is by far the largest and most stressful conference of the summer, so obviously it happens the week where I realistically need to do nothing but write.

Oh, and we're seeing Transformers tomorrow.

This should be an interesting week.

Warning, this post contains a lot of quote marks.

2007-06-27T17:46:00.000-07:00

I'm taking a break from my re-write to blog for a bit. Half because I need something to do in the space between re-writing the teaser and act one, and half because of the immense guilt I have for such a long space between real updates.

If you have no life and you've been visiting regularly, You might have noticed that my status bar went from "Galactica spec" to "Galactica spec, 2nd draft" to the now puzzling "Galactica spec, draft 2.5" Allow me to offer a feeble explanation. The original draft of the Galactica Spec was outlined on Spring Break, and went to teleplay on Easter break. I finished it about 2 1/2 weeks ago.

For those who were keeping count, that was 9 weeks. Damn

And, like all of Ernest Hemingway's first drafts, it was shit. There were a lot of space battles, which I found exciting, but when I re-read it, I realized that they really didn't add up to anything. The conflict was weak, and poorly defined, the characters reacted in convinient and inconsistent ways, and there were subplots that went absolutely nowhere.

So, for my "second draft" I did something really smart. I threw it all out. Except for the three scenes I had for the "C Story" (which promptly became my new "A Story"), I repeatedly and happily pressed the "delete" key. And then I wrote a quick "second draft" (quote-unquote), which focused more on people than space battles. Okay, people and robots. Sue me.

I "finished" that draft about 5 days ago. I put that in quotes because there were a lot of holes, and places where I needed to write real dialogue, or even entirely new scenes. But I had something to print out, and set in front of me and my Pilot G2 click gel-pen. And now, after almost a week of analysis and planning, and scribbling all over the script, I've just started on an actual re-write. The first of many.

I was shooting for the Disney Fellowship deadline, which is July 1st, but it doesn't look like I'll be able to scramble it together in that time. Oh well. There's always next year.

Right now I'm aiming for 2 deadlines: The Scriptwriters Network Television Outreach which is July 7th, and the Creative Screenwriting Expo Competition which I'll have until July 31st for the normal deadline, and August 14th for the last minute deadline. The Scriptwriters Network is appealing because all entries recieve feedback - and I'm kind of hungry for feedback.

Speaking of which, any of you guys (real life friends or not) is more than welcome to take a look at it when it's done. Just let me know via comments or e-mail. I'm out for as much feedback as I can get.

And I'm not really sure how to segue into this request, so here goes. I'm out for some advice:

I'm thinking about taking a UCLA extension class online over the summer semester. I've heard things about how UCLA classes are a great way not only to get feedback on your scripts, but also an opportunity to make contacts within the industry. The class I'd like to eventually take is an intermediate TV writing class, which results in writing a full spec (with notes from the professor and the class). And of course, it has a prerequisite: *gasp* a beginning TV Writing class. It results in a complete outline for a TV episode, which is something that'd definitely be useful for me. A solid outline would have saved me a lot of grief with this spec.

So I'm thinking: I'll take the prerequisite now, while I'm not doing anything (except working on my final project script with Andrew. Oh, and working. heh, yeah that), and when I move out to LA and get settled, I take the intermediate class. I get a spec, and contacts. And guided experience, which isn't that bad of a deal.

The summer class starts July 11th, and it costs $575. What do you guys think? is it worth it?

I am 8 years old again

2007-06-22T03:40:00.000-07:00

http://indianajones.com/community/news/news20070621.html

Oh man. 2008 cannot be farther off. (farther off? further off? farthing off? furlong off?)

Oh yeah, and I'm still alive, I promise.

This is me not acknowledging that my last post was a month ago.

2007-05-23T18:03:00.001-07:00

I've noticed (quite obviously) that I don't blog nearly as much as I used to, or at least my posts are not as personally revealing as they used to be. Most of that I keep in my little moleskines. They're such a trendy thing to have nowadays, but I honestly only started buying them because I had a Barnes and Noble card at the time, and I wanted a notebook that wouldn't fall apart in my pocket. And man, are these sturdy notebooks.

Anyway, ever since I bought one nigh on two years ago, I've always had one at my side. At first they were just there to capture inspiration as it came to me (a purpose they still serve), but they eventually became the place that I would write just to figure stuff out. Sometimes this meant free-writing a rant inside it, sometimes it meant that I'd write a stream-of-consciousness short story in there. I even liked some of the stories, not enough to publish them, but enough to develop them into ideas that would actually work.

Also, I've developed the habit of naming them. After fictional characters, of course (and then, later, actual people)*. My first one was "Toby", followed by "Malcolm", "Gordon", and my newest addition, "Edgar". Yes, they're all men's names. Feel free to speculate as to the meaning behind that.

Anyway, I've been filling them up more and more quickly. Toby took me almost a year, Malcolm about 9 months, and Gordon was less than a semester. And I, inexplicably am proud of that fact. Probably because it means I'm writing more (even if it doesn't show on this blog.**

But don't worry. I'll try to keep blogging, whether it's about screenwriting, my favored notebook brands, or fine wine selections. Or people that piss me off. Whatever it is, I'll be here.

...Sorry.

* Bonus points to whoever guesses to whom each refers. Hint: most are pretty geeky, and all refer to more than one person i.e. If one's name was "Kara", then it would refer both to "Kara Thrace (Starbuck)" as well as "Kara Zor-El (Supergirl). Got it?

** Except of course for my progress bar. 45 pages! Aren't I such a big boy?

Just links.

2007-04-20T07:37:00.000-07:00

This is the sadddest/funniest thing I've read in a while regarding verbal child abuse. Especially since from the sound of it, he was apparently still in character as Jack Donaghy from 30 Rock.

Also, interesting thing number two.

That is all for now. I'm off to Hollidaysburg, PA to spend the weekend at the home of the illustrious Matthew Wells. A lot of people are gonna be crammed into his house - it should be a fun time.

Getting into the habit

2007-04-11T13:34:00.000-07:00

If you've been paying attention to my little progress bar over there to the right, then you may have noticed that I've actually been writing recently. I know, weird.

I've been trying to get into a habit of doing this for a while, but it's always been difficult for me to balance writing on top of both work and school. I know, I know. That's kind of pathetic, seeing how many people do so much more in much more difficult situations. If I were honest,I would say it's just because I'm naturally lazy. Just getting up the motivation to get off of the internet and into Celtx is half the battle. (thank God I'm not honest, then)

But now that I actually have an outline, and have a specific goal to achieve, I find that I can usually crank out 2-3 pages a day, which satisfies me. I wrote a ton over Easter break (since I wasn't really doing anything else), and it's leveled out to about a scene a day since then.

Also, I've been writing in the computer lab instead of my room. This is for 2 reasons: (1) They have Final Draft, which is way better than Celtx. It's weird, because it's really just little things that are different, but it's a lot simpler and a lot more intuitive. And it's on every computer on campus, so as long as I have my outline, I can write virtually anywhere.

And (2) I just can't write in my room. I don't know what it is, but everytime I sit down to write on my laptop, with Dan and Andrew around, my mind wants to do anything but write. This usually results in me breaking my high score in Quinn yet again, or just checking out facebook/aintitcool/blogs incessantly. For some reason, it's easier for me to focus in a computer lab, even though there are tons of people around (there are 11 other people in my lab right now - every computer is taken).

Eh. You gotta do what you gotta do. And I'm doing it.

19 Pages so far. Apollo and Hotdog have both just launched into space to do battle with toasters.

Hoo-rah.

What I did last weekend

2007-04-06T17:34:00.000-07:00

Last week was crazy, otherwise I would have blogged about this sooner. But now I have time, and I can tell you: last Friday night, myself and a few of my fellow freedom fighters engaged in some culture jamming on the behalf of Governor Worf.

Let me explain. Last semester, in Philly, my roomate Brian gave me a most thoughtful christmas present: a Governor Worf action figure from Tower Records. (Tower Records was also going out of business at the time, and thus the figure only cost him $2.) For those unfamiliar with Star Trek:The Next Generation, allow me to give a short history of the character.

Lieutenant Commander Worf was the first Klingon in Starfleet, and served on board the Enterprise (and later on the the Defiant as First Officer, and Deep Space Nine as Strategic Command Officer), and had a repuation as a ruthless warrior and all-around badass. But that is not the action figure I recieved. No, This figure was based the character as he appeared in the series finale ("All Good Things..."), where he was shown in the future as an old man, a greying bureaucratic Governor of an obscure Klingon colony . Essentially, it is the least bad-ass action figure you could possibly imagine.

But I, being the nerd that I am, loved it and kept it for the treasure that it is.

Fast forward to this semester. Back in Grantham, I move in with Dan. Upon seeing the glory of Governor Worf, we unanimously decide that something needs to be done with him. So we elected him Governor of our dorm room; and thus Miller 212 became Worfengrad. Using the Legos I had brought with me from home, we constructed a throne for him--complete with an ear-level stand for Prime Minister Yoda (a must for every scheming power-behind-the-throne).

Fast forward (again) to a few weeks ago. I get a mass e-mail that elections for the Student Government Association are coming up. For those who don't know, SGA elections are kind of a joke. Almost all of the people running were completely unopposed, thus making the act of voting for them utterly pointless. I mean, you might as well vote for a fictional character, it'll make about the same amount of difference.

And so, taking a page from Defective Yeti's book, I decided to launch an election campaign for our dear Governor. Or, more specifically, a propaganda campaign. What follows are the results:

I think the funniest thing is that there were several people who thought that they were for an actual candidate. If only. There's no write-in on the ballots, otherwise I have no doubt that we would have actually won the election.

Oh well, there's always "Worf 2008"

I'm going to be novel, and NOT quote Bob Dylan lyrics in my title.

2007-03-26T16:22:00.000-07:00

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD FOR BATTLESTAR GALACTICA SEASON THREE FINALE. CROSSROADS, PT. 2

I really should be doing homework, but I can't stop thinking about the Battlestar Finale last night. And since I've built up to it so much the past couple of posts, I figured I might as well bring my Galactica blogging to a close (at least for the next 9 months).

Like I said, I really can't stop thinking about it. I woke up at 6 this morning, and throughout the course of the day, I have been turning it over and over in my mind, letting it all sink in, and I'm still not close to any sort of final conclusion about the episode. I mean, there are things about it that I'm absolutely in love with. The trial ended well, and Lee's speech was surprisingly effective - it seemed to bring everything that's happened so far in the series full circle, without feeling explanatory in any way.

And, unlike some, I completely bought the whole "All Along the Watchtower" part. For some reason, I didn't have a problem with the newly-discovered Cylons mysteriously hearing Bob Dylan, and I certainly didn't have a problem with the awesome, Bear McCreary-ized cover of the song. I think that it drove home the eerie idea all of this really is happening in our universe. You get so used to these characters and situations existing in an entirely separate sci-fi/fantasy world, one that doesn't have any real relation to ours, that when you get slammed with a song you recognize and/or the above image of our own little ball of water, it reminds you that, oh yeah...they are looking for Earth, aren't they?

Speaking of the song, I must admit--to my shame--that I was not as well-versed in Dylan (or Hendrix, or Dave Matthews, or a billion other bands) as I really should have been. The song seemed strangely familiar, but I had to Wikipedia it before I got. I'm sorry, Ron. I'll be sure to brush up on my classic rock before Season 4.

(As an aside: that wikipedia page said something very interesting that I had previously forgotten: "The 10th chapter, 'Two Riders', of the classic comic book series Watchmen concludes with the superheroes Nite-Owl and Rorschach riding their hoverbikes to the villain's Antarctic base to confront him. As the villain watches them approach, his pet wildcat growls at the sight in a scene that corresponds to the final lyrics of the song — lyrics which are quoted in the last panel of the chapter." All that to say, that this song is, I think, inherently a "3rd act" song--something which has a sense of a previous history of events, and a strong indication of something ominous to come. And also: Zack Snyder is a moron if he doesn't put this song in his upcoming Watchmen movie. A Frakking moron, I tell you.)

And even the return of Starbuck was happy for me (even if it does ruin my spec script). I had always assumed she was coming back, although I really didn't think is was going to be this soon. And I don't think she's a Cylon--she's something more than that (and she better not be inside Lee's head. That would make me angry. And I'm rather unpleasant when I'm angry). But her "death" and subsequent return all felt planned to me, and I don't mean just by the writers. There's obviously something more going on for Kara Thrace, and that's something that I'm very interested in to see how it pans out.

And speaking of pan out, it was worthwhile to bring her back even if only for the whiplash-inducing, Men-in-Black-style zoom out that followed. Hoo-boy. Made my fanboy nerves tingle.

That's the good stuff. That's the stuff that makes me excited for next season. But the thing that's bothering me, and the thing that I can't decide whether I like or not, is--obviously--the revelation of the final five. Or four of the final five, whatever. Maybe it's just because I need time to accept that, yes, they really are Cylons. And yes, they really are Cylons. Otherwise, the writers are lying to us. And nobody likes liars. Partly because they go to Hell. Right next to the child molesters and people who talk in the theater.

How can they be Cylons? I've read on boards that "we need to redefine what what we think a Cylon is...", but even with a LOT of redefining, we still have to redefine who we think Tyrol is, or who we think Tigh is, or who we think Anders is. I mean, it's obvious that the writers didn't know this from the beginning of the show, and it was put in here to keep with their tradition of earth-shattering season finales. To use comic book terminology, they've retconned their backstories--masters of revisionist history that they are, they've changed what we thought we knew about our favorite characters, and to me, it all feels fake. It's fake, and it's a lie to the audience, because they didn't write them knowing this, and they don't have a believable rationalization for it. At least not where I'm standing. To me, it just seems terribly convenient that "a switch went off, just like that", and they're Cylons now. That way, we don't have to worry about things like continuity and character arcs.

But like I said, I go back and forth on this point. Tomorrow, I may very well be fine with it, and be cheering for our newfound Bob Dylan Cylons to save and protect humanity against their evil mechanical brethren. Like I said, we have to redefine what we think a Cylon is, and looking back from the end of the series, I may see this as one of the highest points of the entire show. It all depends on how they pay it off.

I think the real reason that I feel disappointed was that this wasn't a "normal" Galactica finale (if there is such a thing). Usually, after a good finale, I'm excited, the characters are in danger, and I can't wait to see what happens next. This wasn't a "Oh my gods, what's going to happen next" finale. This was a "Oh my gods, what the frak just happened?" finale.

Let me say it this way: Imagine if season 2 ended with just "One Year Later". The story jumped a year, but the Cylons didn't come. You'd be thrown, for sure, but would you HAVE to see what happened next? What made Season 2 was one of the greatest cliffhangers of all time was that not only were we catapulted into a new and unfamilar world, but the writers then gave us a half-hour to see it. We had time to recover from the paradigm shift, to get used to this new arrangement of characters, and understand the new basic structure of the world. And THEN, only once we had figured out "what the frak just happened", did we hail the conquering Cylons. They let us turn a corner only to put a wall in front of us. A wall with poison spikes.

And this finale had no spikes. We turned a corner. That's great, but do I really have to wait 9 months before I can go further into the maze?

And like I said before, I could change my mind. Hindsight is 20/20; I might just be saying all this simply because it's new and unfamiliar. A year ago, I had complained about the finale for season two, but looking back on it now, I see it as one of the most daring moments in television. And that's something that Battlestar Galactica is, if nothing else: daring. It's not a perfect show, but it reaches really high. And when it really hits those high points, it frakkin' nails them, and nails them like no other show can. And, loyal fanboy that I am, you can bet your ass that I'll be there in January, watching along with the rest of you.

If only so I can figure out what the frak actually did happen...

No, not this one...

2007-03-24T15:53:00.000-07:00

Well, as you might have guessed by looking at my sidebar, I finished the outline for my Galactica spec. It took me pretty much the whole week, but I was able to hammer out every beat of the story, and put it into a six-page document. I was hoping to start writing pages this week, but that outline would just not let me leave it alone. But, according to Alex Epstien, one week is the preferred amount of time to beat out the story. And that's working full time. I'd like to get this thing written in 2 weeks, but I'm not sure how possible that'll be with school and work and such trivialities. I will be staying at school for Easter break, which should give me a few extra days to write. Or is it day? how many days do we get off for Easter, again?

Oyg, and that reminds me--I have to go back to school tomorrow. I haven't even thought about school for the past week. And I have a paper topic due on tuesday, a monologue due sometime this week, and I'm sure there's other stuff that I can't think of at the present moment. But instead, I'll blog about writing a Battlestar Galactica spec script.

Speaking of which, I'd really like to get my hands on some produced scripts of the show. I've looked all over the internet, and found nothing. No free .pdf downloads, no semi-legal scripts for sale, not even eBay turned up anything useful. Unless, of course, I was interested in finding scripts from the 1978 Glen Larson version; there's tons of those. So, on the off-chance that someone is reading who has the means and know-how to get me one (or a couple), then by all means: help a brother out.

I only mention it because I tried to start writing pages today, and I realized I don't know how any of it looks on the page. What do you say for "instert that one stock effects shot of the fleet here"? Or, what's been annoying me more, is what are all the characters called? I'd assume Adama isn't "Bill", and Lee would just be "Lee" (not Apollo), but what do you call Lt. Anastasia Dualla? Especially now that she's married to Lee, which means her name isn't even Dualla anymore. Or is it? (I don't think it's something they've really addressed in the show yet. I mean, is Starbuck "Kara Anders"? I don't think so. But then, Sharon is now "Sharon Agathon")

It's a little thing, yeah. And I'll just press on and write whatever seems right to me, but I'd sure like to see how they do it for real.

And all this talk of Galactica reminds me that we've got one more episode left of the season. I probably don't even have to say that I am extremely excited--these past couple episodes all seem like they've been building toward something. Something BIG. I've worked really hard to not be spoiled this time around--no BBoards, no Aint It Cool articles...I even took my "Battlestar Galactica" newsfeed off my Google homepage (oh yeah. I have a Battlestar Galactica newsfeed on by Google homepage. As if you didn't already know how much of a nerd I am) I only hope that I get back to school in time to watch it live with Chad and company.

And I hope to the gods that whatever happens tomorrow night doesn't mess up my spec.

This post brought to you by your friendly neighborhood fanboy

2007-03-17T12:22:00.000-07:00

Okay. Updating. I'm going to get into the habit of doing this again. That wasn't a declarative statement, by the by--it was an imperative, a command directed towards myself. I am GOING to get into the habit of updating.

But yes, much has happened since last post, although most of it was not of consequence. I saw movies, dropped classes, watched Battlestar Galactica, stopped watching Studio 60 (Gods, it was getting so boring) saw more movies, worked a lot (a LOT), started to GM a Star Wars RPG campaign, and managed to write a good bit somewhere in between.

But now I'm home on spring break (you know, spring break? That one where it SNOWS. Frakking schitzo Pennsylvania weather), and so I've got a chance to breathe.

More on the writing part, I've recently decided to shelf the spec TV pilot that I've been working on off and on for the past year or so. I still like the concept and I hope to come back to it someday, but it really just didn't seem to be going anywhere. I feel like it's pretty good, but there's just something missing in it that I can't quite put my finger on. Something that would push it over the edge from being pretty good to awesome.

That and I just can't figure out how to end the damn thing. Either it resolves way too much and seems cliche and convenient, or it resolves next to nothing, and you wonder why you would want to go through all of that just to end up where you started.

So yeah, instead I've started work in earnest on my very own Battlestar Galactica spec. It's my first real stab at speccing an existing TV show, so I decided to go for the jugular, and write the one that I know the best. And by that I of course mean that the one I travel off campus each week to watch, the one that I always download from BitTorrent immediately after watching, just so I can listen to the podcast commentary, the one that I own every available DVD, despite having all the episodes on my hard drive and watching them first-run on TV, and yes, the same one as the poster that's currently fastened securely to my Dorm room wall. That one.

I just finished breaking one of the subplots, and I'm still interested and excited about it. There are problems to overcome, of course, but they're much more fun problems. Because they're on Galactica. That's really what I like most about the show, and what made me want to write for TV in the first place. They've got all this great stuff going on, with complex and realistic character motivations and relationships, deep political commentary, an amazingly intricate soundtrack (which I just happen to be listening to right now. Bear McCreary is a genius), all of which that rivals any other drama on the air right now.

But what makes Galactica better than Lost, or 24, or Rome or Deadwood, is that they do all of that IN SPACESHIPS. And as any twelve-year old Matt Thornton would tell you, spaceships are in actuality the coolest thing ever.

But now 21-year-old Matt Thornton has to get back to doing what Spring Break was really meant for. WRITING!

2007-02-08T19:17:00.000-08:00

Dreadfully sorry. I realize I've had an extreme case of not posting as of late. And since my last post was this thing about not posting in a while, that makes it sting all the more. But just know I've been busy. Well, except when I was home. Then I wasn't so much busy as I didn't have a stable internet connection. Which, like being busy is strangely anathema to posting.

(P.S. Did I use anathema right? I'm really not sure)

Anyway, I spent all of January in a creative writing class, where we were FORCED to write everyday. It was torture. Well, not really--it was actually a lot of fun. It was really a great experience to be writing so much that I had almost no free time to myself. I can only hope that one day I'll be paid to have a similar experience.

Anyway, I wrote about 30 pages of poetry and fiction, about 15 of which is actually good. And one of the stories turned out to be a beginning of a larger work that I may even go out and finish one day.

And now the spring semester has begun, and I have even less time to do anything. I spent about an hour writing, planning for that 2nd pilot I talked about last time, planning out characters, relationships, possible plotlines and such. I think I have a lot more work to do on it, but it seems to be coming along well.

Okay. Now I have to read poetry. Later

Whew.

2006-12-15T20:38:00.000-08:00

Well. That's that.

I had this whole huge diatribe explaining why I hadn't posted since...well, I guess since the Colonials got off of New Caprica...but the whole thing was really only half true, and not even half interesting. Essentially, the power cable for my laptop finally gave out, after almost 2 years of me having to cajole it into place every day. I love Apple, but their power cords suck (The new MagSafe adaptors seem like a huge step forward, though). Anyway, I bought a 3rd party adaptor, but there were problems with the site I bought it from, and they didn't ship it until almost 2-3 weeks after I bought it. Problems with the website. Whatever. The important thing is I had no power, and now I do.

But even after I got the cord, I couldn't bring myself to post. So that whole explanation kind of falls flat. Although, in my defense I WAS busy with end of the semester things (Papers, Finals, shooting Films, writing Spec Pilots, etc.). Anyway, that's all over now, and I'm sitting comfortably in Chad and Amy's house for the weekend, before heading back to Virginia.

A lot has happened in the intervening time, and I hate it when people try to sum up absolutely everything that's happened, so I won't bore you. There's probably some stuff I really wouldn't talk about anyway. But the things that are of importance to the people reading this blog are as follows:

I shot a movie. A short project for Screen Directing, I regrettably hadn't prepared or even thought about it until it was almost too late, and I was forced to come up with an idea, cast it, and shoot the thing in less than a week. Exciting, to be sure, but not the best way to come out with something good. I decided to rely mostly on improvisation from the actors--which worked at times, and really didn't in others. It got to be very aggravating and honestly quite scary as a director, because half the time I didn't really know, nor was I in control of what was going on.

I think the end product came out alright, but it's definitely not my best work out of all my college films. All I know is that from now on I want to do as little improv as possible. Next time, I'm going to have a finished, polished, well-written script based on a solid concept ready before I even think about filming.

Also, I wrote a Pilot. Kind of. I finished a first draft, but it is - as most all first drafts are - a piece of shit. I'm pretty sure that I'm only gonna keep about 15 total pages from it, and I'm restructuring and rewriting the other 40+ pages. I turned in the first 30ish pages of the second draft - which is all I have at this time. And since I didn't have a computer at the time, I was forced to write it in Final Draft in the Tech Center. Which turned out to be a blessing in many ways. It turns out that Final Draft is WAY better than Celtx, which I had been using. It's weird, because the specific differences are pretty small, but somehow, it just seems so much easier and much more effortless than other writing programs. Or maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm on crack.

Anyway, it was also good for me just to get out of the room, and into a different environment to write in. Being in the Tech Center made it much easier to focus than before, especially when I was listening to the Fountain soundtrack (which I really enjoyed, by the way. Both the album and the film).

So it's my goal for the break to finish the second draft of it (even if all I have is Celtx), and then let it sit for a while. I think I want to do something a LOT lighter than this, maybe another spec pilot that's been percolating in the back of my mind for a while. Maybe I'll also make another short film, just to prove to myself that yes, I can plan out and shoot a decent film, instead of just riding off of the ability of my actors.

I actually really want to do this next Pilot, to sit down and figure out the characters, the relationships, etc. It takes a lot from my own experience and my own life, which is something that I thought was missing from most of this Pilot. I'm pretty excited at this point, and I'm looking forward to finishing "Gone" (which needs a new title, by the way), so I can start on this as yet untitled project.

What do you writers out there think? Am I crazy to just write two spec Pilots one after another? Conventional knowledge says that I should focus on speccing existing shows, but recently I've been hearing stuff about how Showrunners also like reading your original material for a feel for how you express your own individual voice. I'll definitely spec existing shows at some point, but I think this is what I need to do right now. I'm still a relatively new writer, who's still trying to find his voice, and working with original material might be more helpful at this point than messing with someone else's world.

Spec Pilots also have the added benefit of never getting out of date. I could spec a show like the Shield, but I have a feeling that by the time I actually got to show that spec to anybody, the show would be cancelled or at least on it's way out.

So what do you guys think?

P.S. Also, what do you guys think about the brand-spanking-new layout? Eh? Ehhhhh?

What a day!

2006-11-09T19:20:00.000-08:00

Just found this on teh internets. At least as good as the recut shining trailer, I must say.

Oh, and I wrote 13 more pages, and I still can't get the progress bar to work, and I'm in Grantham, and Liz is writing a novel in a month, and she's being awesome at it, and I feel like I should probably be writing too, so I'm gonna get on that.

P.S. Oh yeah, andI voted for Jim Webb, (Sorry to all my republican friends, I'm sure you love me anyway. Go ahead, you can blame me for the democratic control of the senate.) and Rummy's gone! And Britney and Kevin broke up! what a day!

EDIT: Also, THIS is one of the coolest things I've ever seen.

and...breathe

2006-10-26T17:06:00.000-07:00

It's Thursday. I can breathe again.

And...breathe.

I had a lot of work this weekend through wednesday, and today the only thing I had to do got cancelled, so today was a nice breather. I had to shoot my next 2 projects for Screen Directing on Saturday, finish the first third of my Pilot for class by Monday and come up with a treatment for another class by Tuesday. All while finishing Eco-Urban Hell homework by Wednesday at 4:30.

Oyg. With all of this schedule crunching, I sometimes I wonder what life will be like post-college when I have a set schedule--doing the same basic thing every day monday through friday.

INT. DORM - NIGHT

MATT is laughing with friends, with a red cup of authentic Frathouse beer in his hands. He is very much enjoying himself.

MATT
(laughing)
Oh man. Good thing that day won't
come for years and years and years...

He trails off. Everyone is suddenly silent as they stare at him. Matt puts his head in his hands.

MATT
...Crap.

He begins to weep

I just looked at my degreeworks page on our college portal, and found (as I'd assumed) that I've only got 2 semesters of school left. I was debating shortly on which 2 semesters to take, but I think I'll end up doing the obvious thing: go to school Spring and Fall of '07, leaving Spring of '08 open for an internship in LA.

Damn. That's a scary idea. I may be in Los Angeles in a little over a year. And if not then, then I'd be there in summer of '08. Still...Damn. It's scary in an incredibly exciting way. I'll be out there, probably living in some crappy apartment with Matt Wells (we're both gonna be done a semester early), and doing some really menial grunt job...but I'll be out there. Which puts me much closer to where I want to be than sitting here.

And I guess all of this thought of my future must have put me in a reflective mood, because I looked through all of my blog posts the other day. I was surprised at how incredibly immature I was in high school--and how oblivious I was to it all. I criticized people and ideas, and (in the old Xanga comments, which you can't read) bickered endlessly with friends about things that were ultimately inconsequential. All while trying to be witty--which I'm fairly certain I didn't succeed at. (or is it "at which I'm fairly certain I didn't succeed"? I can't decide.)

At college, I didn't seem to get much better. As a preface for those who don't know, Messiah is NOT a Bible school, and definitely not Bob Jones University. Far from it, it is one of the most liberal Christian colleges on the planet (Case in point: www.gayatmessiah.org). Anyway, I reacted to the liberalness of Messiah College in a very simplistic way, and mostly wrote half-thought-out posts regurgitating traditional Christian or Republican rhetoric I'd heard before and agreed with at the time. And don't get me wrong, I still do believe a lot of it (well, on the spiritual/religious side anyway), but now I feel like most of what I said then was very reactionary, and not really representing the truth of what I thought about it.

When I got to posts from last year, though, I started to find someone much closer to the individual I am today. I have memories of being much more at peace with everything that year. I made friends with Homosexuals and Socialists, and began to be more open-minded about other worldviews. Now I find it kind of absurd the hold that Christians seem to have about postmodern thinking. Of course, most of postmodernism is pretty absurd in and of itself, but there's nonetheless a lot of useful things that come out of it. But that's neither here nor there.

I suppose my point is (if I have a point, which I'm not sure I do) that the most important thing I've learned in my two-and-a-half years at college is honesty. And I hesitate to say "I've learned" as if it's something I've accomplished and now can move on with my life. It's something I'm still learning how to do. I used to think that honesty just meant not lying--it meant telling your mommy the truth when you broke the window, and not trying to cover it up. I never really understood what people meant when they said "You've got to be true to yourself"; in fact I always thought it sounded really cheesy. But now I'm starting to understand that there's all of these walls we hide behind, all of these things that block who we really are and what we're really trying to say. Political Correctness. Peer Pressure. Legalism. Political Parties. Being "Cool" or "Edgy" or "Having an Image".

Basically, all of the artifice boils down to one question: "What will people think of me?" In Christianese, we have a name for that: "Fear of Man". For all of modern religion's foibles, there's something deep inside Christian belief that says "Don't worry about what others think of you. Be honest before God about who you are and what you believe."

Wow. I totally did not mean for this to become a post about Christianity. But...that's where it ended up, and I think It'd be dishonest of me to change it now.

In any event, the most recent way this has been coming out is through my writing. My writing professor was pretty critical of my idea (“Gone”) within my past 2 projects--he was concerned that I'd write too much to the high-concept idea, and not treat the characters in an honest way. And he was right. So I went back, wrote 13 pages of Character backstory, and re-wrote the scene of Stephen waking up in the hospital. And I nailed that bitch. Not because of snappy dialogue, or because of great structure, but because of honesty.

Now, I know. Honesty doesn't sell scripts. Concepts sell scripts. And snappy dialogue makes it interesting. As do car chases and space battles (speaking of which, HOW ABOUT THAT BATTLESTAR GALACTICA EPISODE LAST WEEK!! all I have to say is OMFGWTF AWESOME!). But if you're not being honest to yourself and to the character, and hell, to the whole human race, then is it worth writing at all? I say no, but I may just be a sappy idealist.

Well, unless I'm getting paid. Then it's totally worth it.

Mmmkay. Enough epiphanies for today.

And...breathe.

P.S. And so...I tried to add a status bar so I could brag about finishing 16 pages in my pilot...but technology thwarted me again. On my browser, it shows up at the far left of the screen, rather than the far right of the screen like a good little progress bar should. If those of you who have these (a.k.a. Emily), could give me a hand of what to do, that'd be great.

Well, duh...

2006-10-17T12:28:00.000-07:00

You Should Be a Science Fiction Writer

Your ideas are very strange, and people often wonder what planet you're from.
And while you may have some problems being "normal," you'll have no problems writing sci-fi.
Whether it's epic films, important novels, or vivid comics...
Your own little universe could leave an important mark on the world!

What Type of Writer Should You Be?

..But as for me and my house, we will watch Battlestar Galactica

2006-10-13T13:27:00.000-07:00

Oyg. I haven't blogged in a while. There's always something I want to say, but I never really want to say it here. I sometimes want to write about real life, but I don't feel motivated to actually write a post about it, or even if I do, I decide that this really isn't the right forum for those things. And I'm probably right--it probably isn't. Thus, I will leave real life aside, and take the easy way out: blogging about Writing/TV/Film!

"Gone" is no longer a screenplay. Well, strictly speaking, it was NEVER really a screenplay, but now it never will be. It will be a PILOT! I've been going over the premise and the characters over the past couple of weeks, and I realized that it would really work much better as a TV pilot than as a film. I finally made the decision this past week, and my writing professor was cool with it. He said you can learn writing just as much from writing TV as from writing films; the writing is still essentially the same.

I think this is a better decision in several different ways. First, I think the way that I was thinking about the story, the situation and the characters lends itself much more to an ongoing form of storytelling. And today, ongoing storytelling means TV. Second, writing for TV is what I think I want to do eventually (at this point in my life, anyway), and I'd learn more, and it'd be better for me to have an original pilot under my belt as opposed to a feature. I remember hearing that more and more people in Hollywood are looking for original material in addition to spec scripts--so this makes sense creatively AND professionally.

In any event, yes. That is exciting. Also under the exciting category: I finished my long-take, locked-down-camera exercise, for Screen Directing and KICKED it's ASS. We had to take a scene from a play (or a film we hadn't seen), and cast it, rehearse it, and film it without moving the camera or cutting away from the shot. I chose a scene from "Proof" (good play--haven't seen the movie anyone know how good it was?). Mine went over really well in class (due in large part to my two amazing actors - one of whom I'm dating); the professor had good things to say about it, as did the graduate students, and they all had useful suggestions that they offered as well.

So I'm feeling pretty good in the Writing/Directing category. I just hope I can pull off my projects in those respective classes.

And finally in the exciting category: Battlestar Galactica. As I'm sure you all know, Battlestar (reciever of a 94 percent on Metacritic, I might add) is my favorite show, and had a 2 hour premiere last friday. I was on the edge of my seat for those two hours last week, and am waiting with bated breath for 9 PM tonight. I could fill up a post three times as large talking about this, so I'll just leave it there, but suffice to say, Ron Moore and company continue to not disappoint. I approve.

P.S. Liz and I went to see the Gate theater's production of "Waiting for Godot" last night. It was supposed to be the definitive version of the play, since it was the long-running Irish production taken on tour, and only in Philly for 3 days. But despite all of the hype (both for the play and this production in particular) it left both Liz and I unsatisfied. We both decided it was more due to Beckett than to the Gate theater, however. The acting and directing was certainly top notch, but the play is just not my cup of tea. I can see why people think the play is amazing, and I can see why this production is supposed to be amazing, but it was just too entirely obtuse. Symbolism and metaphor are indeed interesting things, but if that's all that's there it completely loses all connection with the viewer.

I dunno, maybe I need to take more english or theater classes so I can appreciate its significance. Although I'm pretty sure that'd be a futile effort. You may enjoy Waiting for Godot, and think it's the greatest thing since Steve Buscemi (sorry, I just really didn't want to say "Sliced Bread")...but as for me and my house, we will watch Battlestar Galactica. Frak yeah.

Losing....will....must...blog...

2006-09-29T15:26:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm back.

Just dropping in to say: no, I'm not dead - only resting.

False. I'm actually pretty busy. Turned in two projects last week: I performed a waiting for Godot scene with Matt (Wells) - and kicked it's ass, if I (along with some GRAD STUDENTS) may say so myself. I think I like directing, and (perhaps even more surprising) I think I like acting too. And apparently I'm pretty okay at it. Go figure.

As if that wasn't enough, I also turned in the first scene from "Gone" in class. Which - perhaps for reasons of Karma - kicked my ass. The dialogue was much too sparse, and didn't translate very well to a public reading in front of class. And it also flowed way too quickly, and didn't leave enough room for the emotion to really resonate. And on top of all that, I need to know my characters a lot more. All of which are very valid points, and hopefully ones I can use when I rewrite the scene for next monday.

Also: Liz is gone this weekend for auditions in Grantham - along with Katie Behrens, Steve Kirsh and Steph Leh. Which makes this "common text immersion weekend" that much harder to bear. I'm trying to find ways to cope. Apparently blogging is one of them.

sorry, all other weekends. I'm the best.

2006-09-11T21:28:00.000-07:00

Okay, I promised I wouldn't do this again, but this one'll be short. This weekend blew the other three out of the water. Really just cause of what happened at about 9:30 on September 10th. Yes, dear blogging world, as of Sunday night, myself and a certain Liz (with three letters) are now officially "a couple", or "going out", or "boyfriend and girlfriend" or whatever nomenclature you prefer. Except courting (Let's just get this straight now, we are NOT courting. Sorry, Josh Harris. I'm sure you'll get over it).

Apologies to all my screenwriting bloggers out there. I promise I'll start blogging my progress on Gone soon. Truth is, I just need to be working on it a lot more than I currently am, because as of now I'm just relying on the screenwriting class to motivate me to work. Which is fine, except we haven't started to write yet.

But not now. Right now I need to read for Eco-Urban hell.

The Once and Future Weekend.

2006-09-04T13:39:00.000-07:00

I seem to be in a routine where I update once a week - but I only to write about the preceeding weekend. I'll have to break this habit eventually. But not right now.

Due to my awesome schedule (of only having classes 3 days a week), combined with the extra day off for Labor day, I found myself with a 5 day weekend this week. I said to myself, "Gee, what am I going to do with all this FREE TIME." And then, I remembered that Temple's schedule does not allow for a fall break of any kind (except for Thanksgiving). And so I decided on relatively short notice to go home this weekend. At my dad's suggestion, I rode the Chinatown bus. It goes from Philly's Chinatown to New York's Chinatown, to...Virginia Beach. I'm still not quite sure how that last one works, as Virginia Beach does not have a Chinatown (although they have enough of a Filipino population to have a Philippinestown if they wanted to) - we ended up at a strip mall, in the parking lot of a Subway. Meh. It was 60 bucks, round trip. Way cheaper than the Train.

And what better way to spend my first day back than taking my sister to get her wisdom teeth ripped from her head? The operation went pretty smoothly, it wasn't until post-op that trouble arose. She didn't react so well with the anesthesia, and I ended up playing the good brother role and held back her hair as she repeatedly threw up blood into a trashcan (I really hope Lenee doesn't read this...she'd probably kill me if she found out I was telling this to the world).

Now, some of you may already know this about me, but due to some freak accident in my genetic structure, I have no wisdom teeth. "No," you may be saying, "you can't possibly mean that, can you? They just haven't come in yet, right?" Well, you would think so, my friend, but the truth is that they just aren't there. According to my local dental professionals, I am one of those few lucky bastards that will never have to go through the expensive, painful, and psychadelic ordeal that is oral surgery. For the longest time, I felt slighted, like I'd somehow been cheated out of an integral episode of life that everyone else shared, but I would never experience. Well, after staying with my sister as she yarked up blood all over her brand new white shirt, I think I'll choose to pass on the extra wisdom for now. I'll just chalk it up as a loss and move on.

Anyway, I spent most of the weekend either hanging out with my family, or with Chris and Marybeth (and newly deported former Richmonder Zach). I realized something about my friends this weekend: as I get older and older, the number of my "home" friends shrinks more and more. This is both because I tend fall out of touch with people, and just can't really keep up the friendship without regular contact, and also because many of the people I DO continue to keep in touch with ultimately end up moving away. It gets to the point where I can only call 3 people to see while I'm home: One I end up hanging out with, One doesn't call me back, and One is currently moving out to Seattle (and by currently, I mean "in the car driving along the interstate in with her roomate". No joke).

It makes me feel both popular and lonely at the same time. I looked at a map of the United States today, and counted all of the states where my friends live. As it turns out, I have friends not only in Virginia and Pennsylvania, but also in New York, New Jersey, Ohio, North Carolina, Georgia, Wisconsin, Texas, Colorado, Washington, California, and Alaska. That's not even counting friends I have from school that who go home to New Hampshire, Maryland, Hawaii, Alabama, etc.

But as my circle of friends grows more national, the less Virginia feels like home. I mean, sure; my family still lives here, and so do a couple of friends from church, but by and large most of my friends from High School are gone. In a way that's good, because I end up spending much more time with my family than I would otherwise, but still... I miss being able to go Starbucks with old friends, laughing, drinking coffee, and catching up on what's going on in their lives.

Sigh. I suppose that's what High School reunions are for. Do homeschooling groups even have reunions?

Well, anyway. After a few short days of wisdom teeth, some used DVD action, Settlers of Catan, Sushi, Yard Sales, and Greek food, it came time to do the homework I'd been putting off. I'd like to take this moment to let everyone know my complete and utter disdain for my Messiah Philly class. Yes, Eco-Urban Footprints of Post-Metropolis Life: examining the integral relationship of natural and social ecologies in the urban environment will most likely be the least enjoyable class I've ever taken. Way too much reading (in badly-written textbooks), pointless reading responses, on a subject I have next to no interest in, and all taught by a professor way too scholarly and intellectual for his own good. Oyg.

In other news, I've been reading Stephen King's "On Writing" for my screenwriting class, and that is heaven compared to that OTHER class. That book's been my refuge for when my brain gets all tied up from too much Urban Ecology scholarly bullshit.

Okay. Next time, no weekend update. I'll update on, like, a Thursday or somthing. Deal? deal.

UPDATE: As Sharon so insightfully brought to my attention, in my angry exposition of my class, I seem to have forgotten to mention the single saving grace of that class: I'm taking it Pass/Fail. Which means I only have to do 70% of the work, at C-level quality. It's still f*cking annoying.

Okay, no snake trailers this time, but...

2006-08-27T22:08:00.000-07:00

Well, kids...I've been busy. I am now the resident of 2018 Broad Street, room 1831 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and it's pretty sweet in here. Haven't had time to breathe in the past couple of days with all the orientation things they've been throwing at us. It's been cool, though, I'm starting to get to know the city. Took public transportation, ate Indian, went on a bus tour of Philly's murals, painted part of the mural myself (along with about 90 other Messiah Philly students), watched (yes, just WATCHED) a crazy frat party happen next door, went to the Philly Sovereign Grace church, and saw Little Miss Sunshine at the Ritz (AND I enjoyed it, in case you were interested).

I think I like Philadelphia. I've been doing so much, I almost forget that I have to go to classes tomorrow. But Temple seems pretty cool, and I've got a frakking awesome schedule lined up. NO classes on Thursday/Friday, bee-yotches! Also: I'm in Screen Directing (which was very hard to get into, and I'm honestly still not sure how I got in), 60s/70s New Wave Cinema (which should be fun), and (drumroll please) it looks like I'll also be able to take the advanced screenwriting class! (Well, the actual name of the class is "Writing for Media II", but that makes it sound like I'll be writing scripts for flash cartoons or something. In reality, It's a screenwriting workshop) This is really good for me, because I was wondering if I'd be able to write consistently with the school year going on. Now I'll be able to do it for homework! And unless I'm completely mis-understanding the class description, we should come out of the class with a completed screenplay (or at least a completed draft of a screenplay).

So needless to say, I'm excited. But right now, I've got a first day of class that starts tomorrow at 9. And I should probably get my sleep. It's funny how 9 o'clock seems early to me, especially since it hasn't even been a week since I had to get up at 6:30 to clean toilets every morning.

Oh school. You took way too long getting here.

Motherfcking Superlatives on a Motherfcking Weekend

2006-08-20T17:22:00.000-07:00

This weekend was probably the best of my summer. Perhaps my life. Let me 'splain...no, there is too much. Let me sum up. No, wouldn't be cool enough...let me 'splain, THEN let me sum up the boring parts.

Friday
(1) Snakes on a plane. I could write a whole post on why this movie is awesome, but I feel like you'd either (a) agree, which would mean you've already seen it, or (b)disagree, in which case you have no soul. In short, It was easily the most fun I've had at the movies this summer - and possibly my entire life. It was completely shameless in giving the audience (aka ME) what it wanted: Sam Jackson killing snakes (via Tazer, makeshift flamethrower, and speargun), snakes killing people (Biting a girl's boob, a guy's pecker, and a python [unhinged jaw and all] swallowing a man WHOLE), and - of course - "The Line" (you know which one I'm talking about). Now, it might just be the hype and all of the anticipation of that line due to it being added in during re-shoots, but lordie...that line (and the whole build-up to it) really might be the best line in any movie EVER.

In any event, I just think it's amazing that this is the first movie in the history of cinema where most of the audience is really only paying 8 bucks to see ONE LINE. And it's worth it. it's that satisfying. Anyway, moving on.

(2) (this one is probably the best part) After the movie, we all went to Denny's, mostly due to the fact that it's the only place around here that's open after midnight on a Friday night. Now, I've been served by a lot of waiters and waitresses in my time, even been one myself, so I feel like I know what I'm talking about when I say: Our waitress, the one that served us at Denny's at 1 o'clock in the morning was the best waitress I've ever had. That might not sound so great, since I just made a similar superlative statement in the last paragraph, but it's true. Here's why, sequentially.

1. She was hot.
2. She had a great attitude. Not a "great attitude" in that she was perky and chipper all the time. She had an attitude. and it was great. Adds to number 1.
3. She complimented my striped shirt. At least I think she did - her attitude (see number 2) made it harder to tell. In any event, adds to number 1.
4. She had dreds (or really, the beginnings of dreds), adds to number 1.
5. Her name was Jena. yeah, with one N. Adds to number 1.
6. She swore. This was when two of our plates dropped to the floor (not really her fault), and she said "F*ck" in quite a loud voice. adds to number 1.
7. She stole other people's food from the line to make up for the spilled ones. adds to number 1.
8. (the kicker - and hence why it's the longest)

She heard us talking about Snakes on a Plane, and mentioned that one of her friends who works for a movie theater had given her a 35mm print of the trailer of the movie, and she had it sitting out in her car. She jokingly said that the bidding would start at $20. I happened to drop the fact that I worked in the projection booth at our college, and if I could get my hands on one, I would play it in front of every movie (the truthfulness of which is debatable, but nobody knew that).

True story: not 15 minutes go by before she comes back to the table with a small roll of film in her hand. "Because I believe the support of the arts, I want you to take this", and hands me the trailer. My knees go faint. My mouth drops. And I motherf*cking took it.

So I am now the proud owner of a 35 millimeter print of the Snakes on a Plane Teaser Trailer. And Jena probably got the biggest tip of her life.

Oh yeah. Adds to number 1.

Saturday
Hard to believe there was more, but there was. I'll keep it short, because I think this is long enough as it is.

1. Hamburgers from the grill at Chad's house.
2. Playing Dead Rising at Linaburg's (The Zombie Mall video game. one of the funnest times you can have on a console [yeah, that's right. Another Superlative])
3. Sushi. Only my second time, and the kind I got (that everyone was raving about) really wasn't that great. But it was good, all the same.
4. I bought my first pipe. And we smoked it. A good time was had by all. I would say it was the BEST time I've smoked that pipe, just to add another superlative, but that'd be cheating.

Sunday
1. Last pre-Philly church service. Said goodbye to people. Two of my good friends (who are 6 and 5), presented me with pages from their coloring book to remember them by. I almost cried.
2. Watched a Deep Space Nine episode on my computer. Not a great one, ("The Darkness and the Light"), but not a terrible one, either. It's pretty representative of how chill my afternoon was.
3. Finished outlining Act I.

And that's all kids. That was my superlative weekend. And I of course capped it off by writing a blog entry about it while listening to Johnny Cash.

Although out of curiosity...how many scenes are customarily in Act I of a screenplay? I finished Act I, but I feel like I did it too quickly (in the movie. In real life, I feel like I should have finished it ages ago. But that's just my self-loathing coming in). What do you guys say? Eh? Anybody?

Anyway, Be well, all y'all.

Obstacled course

2006-08-17T18:59:00.000-07:00

I just ran into my first obstacle in "Gone" (and by "obstacle", I mean MY obstacle in writing, not my protagonist's obstacle to overcome in order to achieve his object of desire. And all of those other words they taught us in screenwriting class). It's kind of comforting in a way - that the initial thrill has worn down, and now it's down to the nitty gritty of actually writing the durned thing. Makes me feel more in tune with the reality of writing it; it's not just some abstract thing anymore, it's something I have to wrestle and work with in real life.

I'm hard-core into outlining right now - which is something different that I'm trying. I'd always heard of people just trudging through the dreaded first draft to get it all down on paper, and then go through re-write after re-write: one for structure, one for dialogue, et cetera, et cetera. I've tried that a couple of times, but it didn't work for me (and by "didn't work for me" I mean, "didn't get very far before I gave up, sobbing that I'd never write again"). Part of it might have been pure and simple lack of motivation on my part, but I think at part of it was the resistance I had to just getting through a bunch of stuff just to get through it, since I knew I would re-write it all. So, when I started on this, I figured: if I'm just going to re-write every word in the first draft, why not just make a really, really detailed outline of everything, and treat THAT as a first draft? Then when I'm "rewriting" it, I'll just type it out and it'll all be one big happy screenplay.

Anyway, that's what I'm trying for right now. It's turning out pretty well for the most part; I end up writing just what happens in a scene - whether it's a summary of actions, or actual dialogue written out. You guys tell me if you think what I'm doing is completely crazy and stupid, or actually makes sense. Anyway, moving on...

As for the problem, I was having trouble deciding how to depict the Aliens, or whether to depict them at all. As it's written right now, I have the old sci-fi standard of "Aliens pull images out of guy's mind to represent themselves" as what he encounters onboard the craft. I like this a lot more than having him inside an actual physical craft - which would probably look cheesy no matter how big the budget was. But more than that, it wouldn't get across the mystical/angelic quality about the Aliens that I'm trying to convey. The problem is, I don't think the "memory representations" really work in that respect either.

So, what am I doing? I'm biting the bullet and leaving it as it is (which, I know, essentially means doing the same thing as if I were writing a first draft normally. This way feels better. leave me alone) I really want to make this screenplay the screenplay that I finally get through, and so I'm going to make it through this outline if it kills me. You probably don't know how hard this is for me to do. I'm someone who likes to get things right, and will very often stop and work on something until I get it just the way I want it. Unfortunately, experience has shown me that this is NOT the way to get screenplays done.

So I am leaving it for the re-write.

Which I WILL get to, godsdammit.

motherfrakker.

"Gone" has arrived.

2006-08-15T15:55:00.000-07:00

Okay, so partly because of Greg's comment about it being "Sci-Fi on a budget", and partly because of Emily's comment of just doing what I feel strongly about, I think I chose "Gone". I say "think", because I just started outlining it last night on a whim, and - wonder of wonders - it really seemed to fit together well. A lot of what I write seems to have strong emotional resonance, but not a lot going on, or vice versa. I think (so far, at least), that this seems to be a good balance of both.

And although I'm still getting used to the idea of people that are essentially strangers commenting on my blog, apparently they give good advice. But don't worry, I still love you, all of my real-life friends. I even put up that "comrades in blogging" sidebar all of you love so much. See? See?

In other news, I realized that I - similarly to Liz - seem to have four obsessions that I go back and forth between. Although rather than liking Theater or Dance (if my memory of that conversation serves) my list goes a lot more like this: Reading, Writing, Watching, and Gaming. "Reading" usually meaning Sci-Fi or Fantasy, "Writing" meaning screenplays, fiction, or blogging, "Watching" meaning TV or Movies (or even YouTube clips at times), and Gaming including PC gaming, Tabletop RPG gaming, or board gaming. Most of this summer I've been in a Reading rut (well, "rut" is probably far too negative a word to use, but I like it, so I'm using it anyway), with a bit of watching thrown in. Recently I seem to be in a Gaming/Writing mood, having played Risk and Settlers of Catan within the past week, and finally starting work on "Gone". In addition, I feel very little motivation to finish the Harry Potter book I have sitting on Chad's coffee table, or the copy of "Sunset Boulevard" I have out from Netflix. Meh. I'll get around to that sometime.

Well, in any event, I'm probably gonna go work on the outline now. Either that or play StarCraft.

I've taken my first step into a larger world...

2006-08-13T18:58:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure, but I think I've made my first foray into real blogdom. On a whim, I left a few comments on some screenwriting blogs (I actually frequent a large number of those. It makes me feel like more of a writer without actually doing anything hard like, you know, writing. I'm actually a very bad person). But, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, this caused other people to come here and visit my site (hence the comments from new people on earlier posts). So now, for the first time ever, I've got readers that I don't actually know in real life.

I'll be honest, it's kinda scary. But again, this makes me feel like more of a writer without actually writing. Well, I suppose that's not strictly true, since I'm writing right now, in this blog. And this blog pretty much makes up about 80% of my entire body of work. Is that sad? I feel like it probably is.

In any event, I feel more motivated to get back to work on writing something. My only question is: what?. I'm constantly plagued by having too many projects/stories that I'm working on, and not being able to focus my energies on just one. This results in having many half-completed, or even half-started stories lying around. The current dangling-plot-threads-of-my-life are:

1. "Duck Hunt". I've told many of you about this one before, since I started work on it freshman year. It's basically a low-concept story about a guy who is trying to hold on to his past; everything has changed from where it was a few short years ago (or even many long years ago). The embodiment of this (and the structure of the main plot) is his search to find a Nintendo Entertainment System, which his mother sold at a yard sale years ago.

2. "Gone". A different spin on an Alien abduction. A man is abducted from a cabin in the Poconos on his wedding night. 10 years later, he is returned exactly as he was, to a world that has aged ten years without him. He has to deal with a wife who thought he had run off, a 10 year old son who doesn't know him, and trying to readjust to life in a hard world, all while having full memory of his abduction. Interestingly enough, the Aliens didn't prod and probe him as has always been reported - his stay on the Alien craft was euphoric, the Aliens almost angelic. Which makes the transition to the cold, hard world that he came from all the harder.

3. "Tiberius". This is the "Sci-Fi epic" that I always said I've been working on for the summer (although I started it a while ago). I'm trying to write out a synopsis here, but it's honestly pretty hard - I'm realizing as I write it that the story really is all over the place. I've got tons of themes, a lot of color added in, but nothing hard and fast to point to as "that's what the story's about". It's got a lot of plot problems, but I really like the characters and their backstories, as well as the backstory for the universe I have. Just throwing this out there.

4. "Altair Netch". Not so much a real project as something I write when I feel bored/writer's-blocked. It's the ongoing story of Altair Netch, private eye, who lives in New New York in 2278 trying to eke out a living taking pictures of illicit affairs for clients. When, one day...she walks in. I think, at least - I haven't really got that far yet. I think I'm gonna throw in something about parallel universes eventually, cause those are always fun. Like I said, this is just a "for fun" project, nothing really serious, probably nothing that'd ever get sold.

5. "The Office spec". This is my "Hey, I wanna be a TV writer...I really should write a spec script". I think most of you know what a spec script is, but it's a script written "on speculation" - basically it's a fanfic that you write to show off your l33t writing sk1llz in hopes of getting a job someday. I'm trying to spec "The Office" - which is one of my favorite shows (as I have previously mentioned) - but I really haven't got much farther than starting on the outline.

Okay, so there you have it. What do you guys think? I won't make this a voting contest, cause I think that's kind of silly. Let me hear what you think, and I'll make the executive decision. In the meantime, I think I'll catch up with Altair Netch. Or maybe watch an old episode of The Office.

So yeah, that was Chad, he's a jerk.

2006-08-13T17:53:00.000-07:00

Real life update: I moved into Chad and Amy's house yesterday (my ex-roomate and his wife) because Messiah College housing, in it's infinite wisdom and knowledge saw fit to kick me out without a place to stay. All normal summer workers are just moving to whatever room they're in for the Fall (an extrodinary amount of which happen to be in Kelly, by the way). Of course if you're cool like me, or Dan, or Matt, or Brian and living abroad/in Philly next semester then you are, in a very specific sort of way, effed up the a-hole.

But thanks to my benevolent ex-roomate (and now current housemate), I've got a place to stay, a ride to work, and food for eating. Not to mention all the geek talk I could possibly want.

I just hope they can keep the sex noises down across the hall.

Silly Matt

2006-08-13T06:44:00.000-07:00

Matt left blogger open, sitting on my living room coffee table. Silly Matt.

All of his various monkies now belong to me...

So it's official...

2006-08-01T18:49:00.000-07:00

Warner Bros. announces Batman Begins Sequel, titled "The Dark Knight". Cool. Bale set to return as Batman, and Chris Nolan set to return as director. Cool. With me so far? good. And the curveball is... who's the Joker?

If you were too lazy to click the link for whatever reason, then you missed out on the fact that the actor portraying the most legendary comic book villain is none other than everyone's favorite oscar nominated gay cowboy: Heath Ledger. Please, let's hold off on such clever witticisms as "Brokebat mountain" or similar tomfoolery. I must admit, when I first heard I definitely thought it was a joke. Then I got a little upset. Then I got a lot upset.

But then I cooled down. He's a good enough actor (or so I'm told. I still haven't seen Brokeback Mountain, so I can't really judge that). And I wasn't so sure about Christian Bale or the entire first movie when I heard about it, but he turned out to be spectacular. But one thing's certain: nobody (and I mean nobody) was expecting this. Which tells me that Nolan has something up his sleeve.

I've got faith in Christopher Nolan, and I pray for his personal safety if he screws this one up (as every other Batman director has done on his follow-up film). Now let's just hope that those Phillip Seymour Hoffman as the Penguin rumors are true (2006: competing for Best Actor Academy Award. 2008: competing for Batman's disaffections. oh the irony)

I love good TV

2006-07-21T20:19:00.000-07:00

"Lost" + "Battlestar Galactica" + "The Office" = This.

I love it. Mostly just the fact that it's two of my favorite shows are combined with another one that I very much respect, and - all things considered - should really start watching someday.

Yeah. That's all for now.

A Phinal Philippic

2006-07-19T17:12:00.000-07:00

(warning: do not click on the link below if you haven't seen the Season 2 finale of Battlestar Galactica, and have any intention of doing so. If you do, you will spoil one of the most "Oh. My. God." moments in all of television.)

Oyg. They just released the Season 3 trailer for Battlestar Galactica, and October has never seemed more far off. They show so much and yet so little in the trailer (which is what teasers are supposed to do), and I haven't been more pumped about a premiere in a long time.

But, at the same time I am also incredibly disgusted by the schmuck at the SCI FI network who decided to attach a nickelback song to the trailer. (for those who can't remember why Nickelback sucks, click here). And not only is it a crappy song, but it's also completely opposite of the look and feel of the show. Keep to the instrumental tribal-influenced Bear McCreary orchestrations, guys. geez.

(and yes, I know the name of the guy who writes the music for my favorite science fiction show. I am that much of a nerd.)

And I just realized that my posts have been rather condemning recently. First the Emmys, then Daniel Wheatley, and now the stupid SCI FI channel exec. Oh well, I promise my next post to be cheery and uplifting. Seriously, there may be bunnies involved.

I'm gonna go play some Settlers.

EDIT: Oh yeah. And Dune. I also hate Dune.

My complaint about Daniel Wheatley

2006-07-16T13:05:00.000-07:00

I just want a little editorial balance here. Perhaps before going on, I should describe Daniel Wheatley to you. Daniel is obtrusive, inarticulate, and sick. Furthermore, he yearns to drive us into a state of apoplexy. I frequently talk about how we can't just sit around and do nothing. I would drop the subject, except that I have a message for him. My message is that, for the good of us all, he should never lock people up for reading the "wrong" classes of books or listening to the "wrong" kinds of music. He should never even try to do such a snappish thing. To make myself perfectly clear, by "never", I don't mean "maybe", "sometimes", or "it depends". I mean only that we must remove our chains and move towards the light. (In case you didn't understand that analogy, the chains symbolize Daniel's short-sighted litanies, and the light represents the goal of getting all of us to present a noble vision of who we were, who we are, and who we can potentially be.)

When I'm through with Daniel, he'll think twice before attempting to turn me, a typically mild-mannered person, into a moonstruck vat of imperialism. I have this advice to offer: The world has changed, Daniel; get used to it. Are you beginning to get the picture here? Let me mention again that I am tired of listening to his rummy, wrongheaded bilge. But that's not all: There's something fishy about his ventures. I think Daniel's up to something, something satanic and perhaps even drugged-out. Daniel's ploys are a crazy-quilt patchwork of the most offensive types of plagiarism you'll ever see. Although others may disagree with that claim, few would dispute that Daniel is the type of person that turns up his nose at people like you and me. I guess that's because we haven't the faintest notion about the things that really matter, such as why it would be good for him to reduce us to acute penury.

Daniel thinks that his decisions are based on reason. However, his conception of "reason" still remains a good deal less clear than we would wish. He hates people who have huge supplies of the things he lacks. What Daniel lacks the most is common sense, which underlies my point that he yields to the mammalian desire to assert individuality by attracting attention. Unfortunately, for Daniel, "attract attention" usually implies "hijack the word 'theoanthropomorphism' and use it to turn positions of leadership into positions of complacency".

Now, I'm going to be honest here. If anything will free us from the shackles of his longiloquent, homicidal op-ed pieces, it's knowledge of the world as it really is. It's knowledge that Daniel seizes every opportunity to sentence more and more people to poverty, prison, and early death. Just glance at the facts: The impact of Daniel's loathsome dogmas is exactly that predicted by the Book of Revelation. Evil will preside over the land. Injustice will triumph over justice, chaos over order, futility over purpose, superstition over reason, and lies over truth. Only when humanity experiences this Hell on Earth will it fully appreciate that it's easy enough to hate Daniel any day of the week on general principles.

But now I'll tell you about some very specific things that Daniel is up to, things that ought to make a real Daniel-hater out of you. First off, we must understand that by the next full moon, his lies will be exposed and the truth can be spread. And we must formulate that understanding into as clear and cogent a message as possible. The recent outrage at Daniel Wheatley's ideas may point to a brighter future. For now, however, I must leave you knowing that Daniel's plaints are exemplary of the forces minorities must fight in their struggle to achieve equal footing with the rest of the community.

P.S. I really have no problem with Daniel Wheatley

Philly, Jesus, Pirates, and Kitler

2006-07-09T18:44:00.000-07:00

Went to see half of the family this weekend. Lenee and Ian were at a music camp near Philadelphia, and Mom was working there (really just so they could go for free), so I took a train after work on friday, stayed with them all day Saturday (and saw their concert - pretty sweet), and they drove me back to Messiah today. It really was a good time, and it was nice to see them all, since I may not see them again til thanksgiving (or maybe even Christmas).

I read C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity" the other week (inbetween Fahrenheit 451 and Snow Crash), and the last part in the book kinda stuck with me. Pretty much it was how when we put our faith in Christ, there must be a real giving up of the self - to the point of forgetting about yourself in what you do. As he says: "As long as your own personality is what you are bothering about you are not going to Him at all. The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether. Your real, new self ... will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him."

I've been thinking of this as a guide for normal life, but also - strangely enough - in my writing. I've been struggling to write this summer; I've started two or three projects: a Sci-Fi epic screenplay, a few short stories, and (most recently) trying to write a spec script or two (maybe I'll tell you guys about that sometime). I always seem to falter somewhere along the way, whether creatively or just actually sitting down to write the durned things. Later on in the same passage, Lewis wrote, "Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it." And that's kind of comforting. Too much in writing (as well as the rest of life) I try to think of how what I'm doing will be recieved, and letting my focus stray from what it is that I'm doing in the first place.

Well, now that the deep part of the post is concluded, I can continue on to books and movies. I saw the new Pirates with Mom (Lenee and Ian were apparently too good for it and chilled at a friends house). I must say, it was amazing, all of the praise it's getting is not unwarranted. More fun than the first, in my opinion, and has a lot more going on. Enough new stuff to keep it interesting, but still enough of what made the first one so enjoyable (read: swashbuckling, Johnny Depp). There's really no reason to not see this movie - unless of course you haven't seen the first one, in which case you should go rent it now, and THEN go see the new one.

I put Snow Crash on hold because Ender's Game arrived on InterLibrary Loan the other day. I read half of it on the train ride to Philly, and I've got tomorrow off so I'll probably be finishing it up then. I'm enjoying it so far, although the children talking like adults thing pushes believability a bit. Meh, I suppose that's what it's supposed to do (it IS sci-fi, after all).

but now for the real reason I posted. I've found an incredibly haunting/amazing website: catsthatlooklikehitler.com. No joke. Completely real site.

Look at their top Kitler:

May be the creepiest thing I've ever seen.

rather film-majory post ahead...

2006-07-06T16:15:00.001-07:00

As I mentioned before, I had set out at the beginning of the summer to read the so-called "Lord of the Rings of Science-Fiction": Dune by Frank Herbert. Having finished it a few months ago, I can understand the comparison. I don't think it's nearly as good as Lord of the Rings, but there are several things about it that Herbert did well. The level of worldbuilding is almost unparalleled; the entire society was entirely planned out seemingly to the most minute detail. The different sectors of religion, economy, politics and ecology all interacted and played off of one another to an extent that I'd never seen before. There's also a great deal of mysticism in the book - owed mostly to the supernatural spice that seems to fuel everything in the universe. There were other things that I found annoying about the book, but the things it did well, it did very well.

So anyway, I figured I owed it to myself to actually watch the earlier mentioned bad/mediocre sci-fi movie of the same name. If I was going to make my summer reading theme "classic sci-fi novels that were later made into bad/mediocre movies made by directors who have, all things considered, made much better films", then I should probably watch the films before I make such a judgement.

Or so I thought.

Dune came in the mail the other day from Netflix, and I watched it in Parmer along with Heidi and Alicia (who for some reason had a childhood attachment to it, and was bubbling over with joy for every frame of the movie). And honestly, I had expected it to be bad, but I didn't expect it to be as much of a train wreck as it was. I don't think I'm overstating things when I say that this film was one of the worst films I've ever seen. It should stand as a shining example of how NOT to adapt a book to film.

The filmmakers changed some things for no apparent reason, only to contradict themselves and show the way it was in the book. Hey Paul, guess what? You know that really mystical martial art you know? It's now a big blocky techno-weapon that shoots out sound waves (oh, and did I mention how sound waves apparently glow now?). But halfway through the film, We're going to show another character using the same mystical martial art which apparently only consists of grabbing someone by the neck until they scream uncle. But don't worry, we'll promptly switch back to the glowy-sound-wave weapon (which resembles a brown, blinking toaster worn on the wrist) for the final climactic battle scene.

But what's even worse, there are some things that they take directly from the book that unnecessarily muddied up the film. There were several places where the film would have greatly benefitted from NOT following the book so closely. Almost the whole first HOUR is spent on exposition. And when I say exposition, I don't even mean awkward explainlines clumsily placed in normal conversation. I mean entire scenes of actors only looking at each other and uninspiredly quoting lines from the book at each other. It makes the first hour incredibly tedious and laborious to sit through.

But once all of the exposition is out of the way, the filmmakers switch gears, and spend the other half of the movie just falling all over themselves. Instead of formulating a flowing storyline of scenes logically following one from another, they obviously decided that causality is for pussies, and it would be much more fun to just treat us to an hour of random scenes instead. The one thing I heard people say to me beforehand is that "if you haven't read the book, you won't know what's going on", and this is true. This is because they choose to take only the scenes from the book that were "filmable", show you those, and let you fill in the rest with your mind. And even after reading the book, I was pretty lost.

Having no concept of foreshadowing or "setup-payoff", the filmmakers seem to wait until the last possible second to introduce anything. They would introduce seemingly major characters in one scene, only to have them killed two scenes later. You find out how precious water is on Dune five minutes before you see a huge pool of it underground. Any sort of emotional weight is robbed by poor timing and poor writing.

But hey, the sets look pretty cool. Also, there's an impressive cast, including Patrick Stewart, Brad Dourif, Max Von Sydow, Dean Stockwell, Virginia Madsen, et al. One wonders how actors of their caliber were roped into doing something like this.

But anyway, yeah. Dune sucks.

On another note, I went to check out the Princess Bride from the Library the other day, only to find that it had been checked out, even though I had just looked up the Call number on my computer. Somewhere between the time that it took me to walk from my room to the library, someone had beaten me to the ONLY book I was trying to get. Pfhhh. Stupid books.

I got Snow Crash instead, and I'm enjoying it immensely so far. Pfhhh. Wonderful, wonderful books!

And I'm actually thinking that it would make an amazing movie. Granted, I've only been reading it for one day, and I'm not that far into it, but my film-major gears are working overtime from seeing such a terrible movie the other night. I feel like I need to make up for the downright injustice of Dune by someday making an incredibly awesome sci-fi movie of Snow Crash. So far, I'm imagining it as Blade Runner meets the Matrix meets Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Eh? any takers?

In other news...

2006-07-04T17:16:00.000-07:00

Homestarrunner updated.

'Bout freaking time.

...it tells me that Goosestepping Morons such as yourself...

2006-07-04T14:44:00.000-07:00

...should try reading books instead of BURNING them!

In other words, yes I am reading Fahrenheit 451. Or, more accurately, I have read Fahrenheit 451, seeing how I am now finished with it, and am ready to start the next book of the summer. Somehow Ray Bradbury's classic had escaped my High School reading curriculum, which I think ended up being for the best, because I would not have enjoyed that book nearly as much in High School. For anyone who's not read it: do yourself a favor, and do so as soon as possible. It's a very short book, at only 150 pages, and can be knocked out in an afternoon if you try hard enough.

Many wouldn't actually classify it as sci-fi, but I think that's mostly just because it's well written. To some, the idea that something as well written and engaging as Fahrenheit 451 could be in the same type of fiction as Battlefield Earth, completely blows their mind. At the risk of being cliched, the best advice is probably to not judge a book by it's cover (both figuratively and literally). I think Theodore Sturgeon said it best: "Sure, 90% of science fiction is crud. That's because 90% of everything is crud.”

While I'm on the subject of the 10% of Science Fiction that's not crud, I realized a couple of months ago that, despite having talked about it conversation all the freaking time, I'd never blogged about Battlestar Galactica. Well, I suppose now's as good a time as any. Basically, It's the best show on television. And the Emmy nominations are coming up in a couple of days, and I'm getting preemptively dissappointed, because I can already tell you who will be on the list.

(Oh, and before I go any further, just be warned, this IS a rant, so beware.)

There was a lot of buzz surrounding a new voting system for the Emmys, where the top 10 vote-getters for best program, and the top 15 for best actor/actress would be screened in front of a panel who would then decide the top 5 to be voted on by the academy as a whole. It was implemented to give smaller shows a chance, and mixing it up so you didn't have a contest between the same five shows every single year. Shows like "The West Wing", "The Sopranos", and "Six Feet Under" would now have to fight for their spot on the Outstanding Drama ticket, where before they were almost guaranteed the nod.

So the new system was basically to make sure that the eyeballs of the voters actually find themselves on the shows that end up being nominated. The majority of Emmy voters are working professionals, and since they're working so hard in their own little corner of Television, they very rarely have the opportunity to watch OTHER people's shows. In the end, they wind up voting based on buzz and/or ratings, and not actually viewing the shows that they vote for.

So the intentions of the new system are in the right place, although the implementation definitely leaves something to be desired. Instead of the 100-120 person panels they were expecting, many had only 30-40 members show up. And after being shown three of the nominated episodes one after another, they were asked to vote on the overall quality of each, not comparing them to the others. How on earth can you expect them NOT to compare one to the other two when you've just sat through all three of them? This is of course made worse by the fact that the only choices are "A" Excellent, "B" Superior, or "C" Fair. That's right, the scale is 1-3. Quite a wide margin of error, if you ask me.

But ultimately, I think that the most defeating aspect of the new system is that it still decides the top 10 by total popular votes. Even though I can't think of a better alternative, it certainly is a shame that some shows that are on Emmy-unfriendly networks (such as WB, UPN, or ...wait for it.... the Sci-Fi Channel) will still have a hard time breaking the top 10. Emmy voters need to wake up and realize that the "netlets" as they're called aren't just for crap anymore. There is some very high-quality and well-made programs on the smaller networks that will never see the light of Emmy day.

But despite their impressive emmy campaign, my own beloved Battlestar Galactica failed to crack the top 10 (at least according to teh internets), as did Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell in the acting categories. Adding insult to injury, "Boston Legal" - one of the most unengaging, uninspired shows I've ever seen (and has no excuse for existence apart from William Shatner) - is in the top 10. The fact that Lauren Graham (of Gilmore Girls) and Kristen Bell (of Veronica Mars, which - by the way - is my new obsession. Feel free to mock me endlessly), and even "Rescue Me" made their respective ballots shows some glimmer of hope. If they make any of the ballots come thursday, I'd be extremely happy for them (who doesn't like the underdog?).

So basically my opinion is about the new system: not perfect, but a step in the right direction. Maybe the Emmys don't honor the quality of the work so much as the ratings/buzz of a particular show, but maybe, someday (with a couple more nudges in the right direction) we'll see real quality being honored.

And by "quality", I of course mean Sci-Fi.

there are a lot of parentheses in this post

2006-07-01T17:31:00.000-07:00

I said I'd post in a month. This'll have to do.

Work is...okay. Or at least as okay as one could expect for cleaning bathrooms and vacuuming halls. I'm a dorm worker in the wonderful little abode of Grantham Dorm, where I can be found from 7:30am-4:15pm most days (with a 45 minute break for lunch). I also get two 15-minute breaks that are good for going back to the room and having some bible-reading time, and plus the job is lax enough that I can bring a book along and read during work if it's slow that day. I've fallen into a pretty good schedule, where the time from work until dinner at 5 is used watching downloaded TV, then I go to dinner, and then I come back to the room, where I usually piddle around on the internet before I get around to writing.

Although I have to confess that I haven't been incredibly consistent at using the writing time to actually write and not just to extend my internet piddling time (or downloaded TV time, or [more rarely] reading time). But I've gotten a good amount written, mostly on random things. Nothing so great to be able share with anybody, but I'll keep working on them and see what comes of them.

I've read 4 books so far, 2 novels and 2 non-fiction, and I seem to have themes running in both. My theme for non-fiction is TV writing, because I read a book of interviews with "TV's top show creators", and a book about the art, mechanics and the business of TV writing. If I haven't told you before, I think that's what I want to do. Write for TV. I like the medium, and I like the way it's created (stories decided by a small group of people, given to specific person to write a draft, and then read-over and critiqued by the same small group of people).

As for novels, my theme (unintentionally) turned out to be "Classic Sci-Fi novels that were later made into bad/mediocre movies by directors who have, all things considered, made much better films". Thus far, these have been Dune by Frank Herbert (made into the 1984 movie by David Lynch - Dir. Mulholland Drive, The Elephant Man, etc.), and Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein (made into the 1997 movie by Paul Verhoven - Dir. Robocop, etc. [yeah, it's not a masterpiece but is it BETTER?]). I've started reading a third selection in this series, and I will give a cookie to whoever can guess what it is.

Just to clarify: 1) Classic Sci-Fi novel 2) Made into a movie by a 3) director who has, all things considered, made much better films. Fire away.

EDIT: Oh yeah, the Haloscan comments were giving me trouble, and I couldn't figure out how to fix them (after several tries), so I just opted for a whole new design, and normal blogger comments again. The old picture of my eyes at the top always seemed a bit egotistical anyway.

New Attitude

2006-06-03T15:09:00.000-07:00

So I got back to Messiah on Thursday, and I'm now full swing into post-Conference mode. Normal life has restarted, monotony and all, and I'm left to sort out everything that happened at New Attitude. It was a great experience all around, and I feel almost like I'm going into withdraw (gotta get my fix, gotta get my fix).

A lot of it may have to do with the spectacle (see previous post), but I think a lot more of it had to do with the people. Being around cool people both from Virginia Beach and Harrisburg (as well as Richmond, Wytheville, and many others) was just a great time, especially considering that I won't see some of them until Thanksgiving/Christmas or later. I felt kinda sad telling them all that I was staying in Grantham, Pennsylvania for the rest of the summer ("Oh, summer classes?" "Well, no. Actually, I'm...cleaning...dorms..."), but it was good to see them nonetheless.

Tangent: isn't it weird how the connotations of "summer school" change from high school to college? If you take summer classes in High School, it's because you failed classes, and need to re-take them in order to graduate on time (at least from my understanding, non-homeschooled friends can help me out with this...). But in college, more often than not, people taking summer classes do so because they want to finish up their credits early (or on time, because they have so MANY of them). In summation, then: High school summer school student=slacker, College summer school student=overachiever/just regular achiever. Tangent over, continuing:

But even more than the people, I feel rejuvenated from all that was said at the conference. I may not agree with Sovereign Grace (my denomination--oh wait, I mean "family of churches") on absolutely everything, but one thing I am very thankful for is their emphasis on the gospel. The gospel is at the center of everything we do, and this conference was no different. The theme was "Humble Orthodoxy", and the whole conference was basically about how we don't need to reinvent Christianity to make it cool, we need to rediscover the truth of the gospel--which is already cool enough. Of course, there's nothing wrong with dressing the gospel in a different way (whether that means acoustic guitars or house churches or circular screens [again, see previous post]), but if we reinvent to the point of changing what we believe, what have we accomplished?

I could go on about all the specific messages, and which ones were meaningful to me, but I could seriously do a whole blog post about each of them. Ask me if you're really interested (no really, I'd love to talk about it sometime. Let me know). But I'll leave you with this thought, that has in reality nothing to do with the conference except that we saw it driving home from Loiusville:

Because obviously putting the bike in the truck would have just been too easy.

Okay, that's all for now. Be well! Jesus loves you! (and died just to prove it to you)

(...Eh, I'll probably post again in a month or so.)

UPDATE: Oh yeah, and in addition:

Luther is the man.

Stargate SGM

2006-05-28T22:12:00.000-07:00

Just a warning, for those of you not Sovereign Grace-minded, this post may mean nothing to you at all.

Anyway, I'm at New Attitude, and it's really good so far. The worship, the messages, the family groups, and just hanging out with people: it's all great. But I there was something that I felt needed more attention that was currently drawn to it.

Okay, so the conference is about embracing a "humble orthodoxy", and thus the obligatory tagline for the conference is "save the wheel" (as in don't reinvent it). Anyway, when I get here yesterday I see that keeping with the whole "wheel" theme, all of the screens are circular. Observe:

Anyway, the middle one caught my eye, for some reason...especially with this picture that was on the new attitude website:

I suppose this means that Captain Picard will no longer be the sole Sci-Fi icon that CJ is mistaken for:

moving, playing and wedding

2006-05-19T05:00:00.000-07:00

Well, me and Dan (Dan and I) are completely moved into Hess 101, and I must say, the room looks pretty sweet (even if it is amazingly small). Yeah, we're half a campus away from everybody else, but we make our own fun--and I'll leave that last statement open to interpretation.

Chad's bachelor party was on wednesday, and it was probably the geekiest bachelor party I've ever been to (out of the two I've ever been to). After kidnapping him and going out to dinner (at a kickass place in Harrisburg called Appalachian Brewery Co.), we went bowling and then had the biggest Starcraft Orgy I've ever been a part of. Like seriously, 6-way teamed Starcraft can (and does) take HOURS. And then in the morning came the highlight: the one-shot D&D adventure with the craziest characters we could come up with. Sadly, however, neither my +1 Greatclub wielding Half-Ogre and Andrew's swashbuckling construct were put to much use, as our party spent the majority of the time wandering around an island in an airship, instead of smashing things like we should have been. Oh well.

In that vein, you'd be surprised how long people like that can keep up conversations with only World of Warcraft and Dungeons and Dragons as subject matter. It's honestly kind of sad. For my part, I tried to inject other subject matters at the Rehearsal dinner. We started talking about TV shows and movies--which quickly turned from subjects such as Indiana Jones and Stargate SG-1 to some random anime where a guy pulls people's hearts out. I gave up.

Anyway, the rehearsal was yesterday, and the wedding is today. While this isn't the first of my friends to get married, they are the first bride and groom that are this close to my age (in fact, I'm actually OLDER than the groom). It's kind of weird, too. They've been essentially engaged the entire time I've known them, but now that they're getting married...I dunno. I'll still have to get used to the fact that more and more of my friends are having sex on a regular basis.

Hoo-rah.

Hoo-rah

2006-05-05T18:56:00.000-07:00

Well, the film festival was pretty good, and my film, "Projecting" got a pretty good reception. It didn't win any of the all-new "audience awards" --most of those went to Jim and Matt--but I got some positive comments by people whom I respect, so I'm happy. Expect to see it online--or at least on one of the servers--fairly soon.

I feel pretty good about film now (as I usually do after I finish one). I'd say more, but I'm uber tired. maybe some other time.

In other news, today (aka Hell Day) is over. Which, incidentally means that most of my stress is as well. I've just got a paper to re-write over the weekend, as well as a portfolio to get ready for, and an exam to study for on tuesday. And then I'm starting my new job on the 10th. Hoo-rah. And then moving in with Dan. Hoo-rah x2.

Good, good, and suck

2006-04-26T16:57:00.000-07:00

The shoot went rather swimmingly, a huge thank you to all involved. I now only have about 3 shots left, which I'll take care of tomorrow night.

I was in kind of a good mood after that, even after I had a job interview at 8:30 today. Which I nailed, by the way. Yes, it is now official. I will be staying in PA over the summer. I will also be staying in Hess Dorm (apart from everyone else in Bittner), as a "first responder" a.k.a. they'll pay me to help out any of the conference goers who need random crap. Meh. I'll live.

Of course, after those two ups, karma was bound to catch up with me. I've got a presentation to do for tomorrow, and I'm incredibly unmotivated to do anything about it. We've got our powerpoint together, but my notes are a jumbled mess. Eh. I'll get it together.

Re: Call to arms

2006-04-25T11:17:00.000-07:00

Scratch that, reverse it. The shoot will start tonight at 9pm, not 8pm. Turns out there's gonna be a poetry reading in Parmer tonight from 7:30 until 8:30 or 9:00. So, I am going to reschedule the shoot tonight for after that. We'll be shooting the crowd scenes first, so that we can be done and the majority of you will be out of there as soon as possible. I can't say how long it'll take, but I can guarantee we'll get you guys out of there by 10.

Thank you all, and please, no matter who or where you are..show up. And bring a friend. Or two. or eight.

A call to arms

2006-04-24T12:17:00.000-07:00

I haven't updated in a while (which, by the way is the absolute WORST way to begin a post after a long hiatus), but I'd feel guilty spending too much time updating, so this'll be short.

I think...I'm okay. I had a film shoot last night, and got through probably 75% of the movie. I'm planning two more shoots, and then it should be over with. Let's hope that all the stressing out pays off in the end.

Oh, and on that note, I'm planning to shoot a crowd scene in Parmer Cinema at 8pm on Tuesday, and I think I need everyone reading this blog to be there if at all humanly possible. Come, bring a friend, and be prepared to act like angry theater patrons. I'm about 80% sure I'll be doing this, and if I don't, I'll post a warning on here. So do yourself a favor and check my blog before you head over.

See you there!

In other news, percentages take up 01.5% of this post (including that one)

Now to read that history homework...

2006-03-28T21:17:00.000-08:00

I have spent the last 2 hours in Miller first lounge fighting with Brice, Dan, Joel, Andrew, and Michael with Shinai (harmless bamboo swords). We then sat around, and talked about airsoft guns and double Uzis.

I have never felt more like a man than I do right now.

2006-03-16T20:04:00.000-08:00

So did you know that if you look at the imdb page for "Tag der Freiheit" (Day of Freedom), the 1935 Nazi Propaganda film by Leni Riefenstahl, then at the bottom it says:

I've gone through several permutations, and none of them make any sense.

P.S. And oh yeah, I'm home.

The obligatory Oscar post

2006-03-07T10:28:00.000-08:00

Crash won...Brokeback mountain didn't...

(...somewhere, a gay cowboy is crying.)

let's see, how do you work this thing again?

2006-03-01T20:39:00.000-08:00

Since the last time I posted was right after my birthday, and since I'd hate to miss my "one update per month" quota, here's my top 10 movie list of 2005. I hesitated to put these up at this late date (it's already freaking march of 2006), but I promised so...here they are.

1. Munich
2. Murderball
3. Batman Begins
4. King Kong
5. A History of Violence
6. Crash
7. Junebug
8. Thumbsucker
9. Serenity (well, duh...it's me)
10. Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Honorable mention(s):
Everything is Illuminated
The 40-Year-Old Virgin
The Chronic(what?)cles of Narnia

Now I know none of you really care about this, but I didn't feel like I could do anything else until I posted these like I said I would. I was intending on writing a blurb for each of them, but each blurb I started ended up being way too long, and I could never get through all of them.

So there. Let's just hope that my internal anguish will stop bugging me about it now.

Happy ballsday

2006-02-03T11:00:00.000-08:00

Yesterday (and certain parts of today) have, I think, been a pretty good cap to my first two decades of life. And I must say, I feel pretty loved. First, my mommy sent me a present or three: a jazz CD, some candy, and these sweet gloves with fleece on the inside, wool on the outside, and leatherish pads on the palms; pretty much the most perfect pair of gloves that there can be. Now if only the weather would go ahead and be cold, I could use them.

Then, I got like a billion facebook messages, and that made me feel loved--even though that's probably the most superficial way to wish someone a happy birthday. Higher than that is phone calls/messages, of which I got quite a few--some even with singing. Then, after watching one of my favorite movies (Duck Soup), came the communal gift from my college friends of Settlers of Catan, something I said that I wanted on SUNDAY. Only college students. We then proceeded to play the game until probably about 11:30. A good time was had by all.

This was followed by a quasi-creeking involving Joel, Chad, and Michael bringing the yellow breeches to me--by lying in wait in the bathroom with buckets of creek water until I came to brush my teeth. A good time was had by all. The capstone to all of this came this morning when "Happy Ballsday" was written on my forehead by a visiting Greta C. Wink. And although it's already beginning to fade, the balls will always live on in my heart.

Anyway, it's been a cool 20 years so far, and let's hope you all aren't dead by the time I hit 40.

P.S. I meant on the first of the year to put up a "best movies of 2005" list, but I didn't have it finished in time. I then decided that I'd convert it to a "best movies of my 20th year" list, so that I could still have some semblance of a reason for posting it, but I still didn't get all of the blurbs done in time. So I'll turn it into a "best films of the indeterminate time period between the beginning of the 2005 calendar year and the present" list, and put it up whenever I feel like finishing it.

Is Hell Exothermic or Endothermic?

2006-01-23T06:36:00.000-08:00

As you study for exams, remember its not the quantity it's the quantity. And remember there is no substitute for pure unadulterated bullshit.

-----
Dr. Schambaugh, of the University of Oklahoma School of Chemical Engineering, Final Exam question for May of 1997. Dr. Schambaugh is known for asking questions such as, "why do airplanes fly?" on his final exams. His one and only final exam question in May 1997 for his Momentum, Heat and Mass Transfer II class was: "Is hell exothermic or endothermic? Support your answer with proof."

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following:

"First, We postulate that if souls exist, then they must have some mass. If they do, then a mole of souls can also have a mass. So, at what rate are souls moving into hell and at what rate are souls leaving? I think we can safely assume that once a soul gets to hell, it will not leave.

Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for souls entering hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, then you will go to hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and souls go to hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in hell to increase exponentially.

Now, we look at the rate of change in volume in hell. Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in hell to stay the same, the ratio of the mass of souls and volume needs to stay constant. Two options exist:

1. If hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter hell, then the temperature and pressure in hell will increase until all hell breaks loose.
2. If hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until hell freezes over.

So which is it? If we accept the quote given to me by Theresa Manyan during Freshman year, "that it will be a cold night in hell before I sleep with you" and take into account the fact that I still have NOT succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then Option 2 cannot be true...Thus, hell is exothermic."

The student, Tim Graham, got the only A.

Not By Andrew

2006-01-06T23:27:00.000-08:00

Hey, this is Matt.

I just wanted to tell you all that I am stoopid.

This is not Andrew on Matt's blog.

Or is it?

The saga of a lost music collection

2006-01-03T16:59:00.000-08:00

So I’m back at school again.

Woo hoo.

It’s kind of clichéd to say it, but it’s really true that when I’m at home I want to be at school, but as soon as I get here I want to be back home. It’s an old truth, but it has practical significance for me right now. I am speaking, of course, of the fact that half of my music collection is now safely nestled on my dad’s hard drive, yet strangely absent from my own computer.

The story of this sad tale is as follows: My little brother’s iPod had been wiped one way or another (a.k.a. human error [a.k.a. human stupidity]), and I—being the benevolent older brother that I am—allowed him to take all the music he wanted from my computer. He dragged it to a folder on the desktop, and we transferred it to the other hard drive. Unfortunately, a backup was not made and by a strange series of occurances (a.k.a. human error [a.k.a. my own stupidity]) the folder was deleted.

Translation: it’s dead, Jim. Everything’s gone: Ben Folds, The Postal Service, Sufjan Stevens, and even The Arcade Fire. I’m not sure how I’ll live without The Arcade Fire.

Well, all is not lost. I do have about half of my music left, mostly the obscure stuff that Ian doesn’t like, as well as a good selection of Jazz and almost the complete discography of Radiohead.

I will survive (which reminds me…I need some cake).

EDIT: It just occurred to me that the new year went completely by me without me making a post about the year. I've been cataloguing movies/everything into an obligatory top ten, although it's only in my head at this point. Perhaps if you're lucky enough (and I'm feeling un-lazy enough) you'll be treated to my all-encompassing reflections of 2005 next time on: AGNAX.

Happy(?) Holidays!

2005-12-25T08:05:00.000-08:00

Best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most joyous traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, but with respect for the religious persuasion of others who choose to practice their own religion as well as those who choose not to practice a religion at all;

Additionally,

a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the generally accepted calendar year 2005, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions have helped make our society great, without regard to the race, creed, color, religious, or sexual preferences of the wishes.

(Disclaimer: This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others and no responsibility for any unintended emotional stress these greetings may bring to those not caught up in the holiday spirit.)

Partly cloudy with a chance of crazy.

2005-12-22T20:24:00.000-08:00

Taken from my Google homepage:

Good heavens, I do believe someone has turned the earth upside down...

Oh Howie....

2005-12-20T17:16:00.000-08:00

Why, oh why, Mr. Mandel? Why did you feel it necessary to rid yourself of those wonderful curls we came to know and love on Bobby's World? Does America REALLY want to see a bald Howie Mandel hosting Deal or No Deal?" (the newest reality-game show on NBC?).

Let the masses now shed a collective tear for the passing of howie mandel's hair.

Fall

2005-11-18T17:59:00.000-08:00

I’ve come to a realization, as I often do around this time of year, that I freaking love fall. I love the earlier nights. I love the brisk, cold days (within reason, that is). And I love how the changes in people’s clothes reflect the changing colors of the trees. It’s been making me reflective lately—which I suppose is why I’m blogging again.

Do you ever have an experience where life just seems like a work of art? Not in a big overarching sense, but in the sense of little isolated day-to-day experiences. You’re just there, living your little life, like you normally do. You’re doing homework, working at your job, talking to people, and the like when it just all of a sudden hits you. For some inexplicable reason, the exact same things that just a moment before seemed completely normal and routine now strike you as being incredibly beautiful, stunning, works of art.

This happened to me the other day. It was a warm, fall day (or at least as warm as fall days can be). The rust-red building stood in stark contrast to the graying blue sky. Next to it was a walkway, bricked black and red; deep green bushes separated the two. The walkway wound down the green grassy hill: Forest green—you know, like the crayon. But I didn’t notice any of that, I was focusing on the book I was reading for school.

Then, seemingly out from an orange amoeba-esque tree walked a girl. She seemed to be completely enveloped in autumn—in fact...she was autumn incarnate. Her dark auburn hair draped over her tasteful pink blouse, which hovered over her dirt brown knee-skirt. She walked briskly up the pathway. I noticed her skin tone, and realized that she was from the wrong time period. This fair skin wasn’t the product of tanning salons and bronzing creams, of superficiality and skin cancer. She was a time-traveller, come from the sixteenth century to stand in opposition to our faulty perception of beauty.

I know that all sounds cheesy, and kind of out-of-character for me (and just the slightest bit stalkerish), but art is often unexplainable—and most explanations end up lacking in one way or another. People often say that life imitates art, but I think that misses the point entirely. Life IS art, we’re usually just too caught up in it to notice.

And that’s why I love fall.

EDIT: Sometimes, Google ads can be incredibly ironic. I think it's very telling of our society that after I put up a post mentioning how I dislike tanned skin, 3 ads appear to the right advertising spray-on tans. Silly Google.

Fina-frickin--lly

2005-10-06T22:26:00.000-07:00

Okay, let's get this biznatch out of the way, in two really-really-rapid-fire movie reviews in which I will attempt to do in the shortest whole sentences possible:

The Island
I saw two different movies. The first one was a really bad sci-fi movie. it sucked. The second one was a pretty fun Michael Bay action movie. Come to find out they were both actually the same movie. This kind of cheapened the second one, making it feel slightly mediocre. But you aren’t seeing this movie for the sci-fi, are you? Just do yourself a favor, and come to the showing an hour late.

Murderball
Murderball will either sound like a very base, immature, jackass-esque film best for it’s power to offend, or an overly sappy, melodramatic “triumph-of-the human spirit” film. It’s neither. Rather, it’s one of the best films of the year. For those of you who don't know (which I'm assuming is most of you), it's a non-fiction film about quadriplegics playing wheelchair rugby (also known as Murderball). Don't bother re-reading that last sentence...you read it right. Despite what you may think, I cannot stress how amazing this movie was. Perhaps it was just in comparison to how it sounds, but still--highly recommended.

Crash
(this was scribbled on a piece of paper in the projection booth during the second showing of this movie, so it may be a bit longer than the other ones. I’ll just put word-for-word what I wrote there.)

I don’t usually like movies with “political” themes. And from what I had heard about Crash, it sounded like a politically themed movie. But I went to see it anyway—just because literally EVERY person I met who had seen it was completely gushing about it from the moment it was mentioned (that, and I happened to be projecting it at Parmer Cinema).

And let me tell you—Crash is one of the best movies this year so far (up there with Batman Begins and Murderball). It deals with a quote-unquote “political” theme, racism, but deals with it in a very non-political way. You don’t feel like you’re being sledge-hammered over the head with the director’s political views, rather you feel much more like you’re watching an accurate representation of REAL LIFE. You feel that these people are just so incredibly real, and simply reacting to their environment in a realistic way. Racism is more or less just shown here; and shown for what it is.

Also, I can’t talk about this movie at any length without mention it’s resemblance to another little multi-protagonist film called magnolia. There are many similarities, as far as no specific protagonist, and the presence of a large ensemble cast, but I feel that crash does an infinitely better job at this than Magnolia did. Both films supposedly show the interconnectedness between seemingly random people, but Crash does it much less confusingly, much less heavy-handedly, and—in my opinion—much less pretentiously.

Final Verdict
See this film as soon as humanly possible. Heads up: there is violence, a whole lot of language, and some nudity, so I wouldn’t recommend this film for absolutely everybody. But I think that this may turn out to be a very important film for this generation, and I would highly recommend a viewing.

CODA:And of course, I just saw another movie--Junebug. I liked it, but I really don't feel like writing a whole assesment of it right now. Maybe some other day. In other news, I just saw Fargo again and decided it's now on my top list of movies. For now, I'm hoping to actually WRITE on this blog. As opposed to putting off boring you all with my thoughts on movies. Cheerio!

Arrg!

2005-09-19T07:21:00.000-07:00

Dost ye be talkin like a pirate today? Ye better be, lest ye be wantin' me ta run ye through with me dagger! Don't ye knowin that today is more important than all other days, fer today be International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

And don't ye forget it, lest I "forget" to post me rapid-fire-movie-reviews yet again...

TLAPD on Wikipedia
Official TLAPD website

Rapid-fire... uhh what?

2005-09-07T12:47:00.000-07:00

Okay…here we go…

War of the Worlds:

THOUGHTS: War of the Worlds was, in one word, uneven. It had some very good moments, but it also had some very awkward and clunky moments. In my opinion, the moment we first see a tripod come out of the smoke works really well…in fact, I think that very well may be the best movie moment of the summer so far.

But for every part that worked very well, there were just as many that fell flat. And by flat, I mean FLAT. I don’t care what anybody says, the tentacle in the house was boring and tedious. Perhaps if I cared about the characters more, my disbelief could be suspended enough to actually be scared for them. But despite major acting talent, the movie is flawed by terribly uneven writing. It’s not even that the writing is BAD. It’s very dark and gruesome at times, but also unnecessarily cheery at others.

FINAL VERDICT: Go see it anyway. Sure, it’s uneven. Sure, some of the things the characters choose to do won’t make the slightest bit of sense. Sure, the ending employs dues ex machina(which, I admit, I wouldn’t have known the meaning of if it weren’t for the inside cover of a video game.). But the good moments are good enough it warrants at least one view.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory:

THOUGHTS: This movie was the one I looked forward to most expectantly at the beginning of the year. My excitement had waned in recent months, but I’m not quite sure why. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was wonderful. It outdoes the 70s movie in many ways, and yet it doesn’t ruin the experience of watching the old one. Johnny Depp plays quite a different character than Gene Wilder did, but it works perfectly for this particular film. I love Gene Wilder Wonka dearly, but that character wouldn’t have fit in with this film at all.

What I liked: the oompa loompa songs (which, unlike the old one, were the ones actually written by Roald Dahl [and sung by Danny Elfman]). The ending. I’m told it’s closer to the book’s ending, which I’ll admit I’m not qualified to say.

Also, I found the title quite ironic. The old one, named “Willy Wonka” was—in actuality—about Charlie. But the new one, named “Charlie” delves much more into the character of Willy Wonka than of Charlie. I very much liked the way Tim Burton dealt with it, and liked even more seeing Christopher Lee on screen (yeah, you’d think it’d get old after a while…).

(And as a sidenote: I think that it is scientifically proven that Christopher Lee will never die. If this were to happen, the universe would simply cease to exist.)

FINAL VERDICT: See it. Have fun. Repeat as desired

Okay, I know that that’s only two movies. I’ve got 2 left to be written (plus one for crash that I wrote shortly after seeing it.) So bear with me. They’ll all be up eventually for all of my adoring fans to read and gush over my glorious movie-analyzing and writing ability. Cheerio.

2005-08-17T20:29:00.000-07:00

so yeah. My hard drive crashed. so no rapid-fire movie reviews for a little while at least. I'll try to post something at least before school, but don't be heartbroken if I don't.

(and thus ends the shortest and most pointless post ever to exist on Matt's humble blog...)

P.S. to give this post some semblance of meaning, here's some interesting information and such things on my former self:

http://www.rebelswithavision.com/MatthewThornton.net/
http://www.colonialhall.com/thornton/thornton.php

Auckgh, I'm getting veclempt! talk amongst yourselves, I'll give you a topic...

2005-08-03T18:27:00.000-07:00

I’ve been wondering something:

Do I not update because my life is boring?

Or is my life boring because I don't update?

No seriously, stop and think about it. I think there may just be something to that idea. I think that maybe the act of updating my blog helps make my life less boring. Or rather, it makes me more aware of why my life isn’t really so boring after all.

In updating my blog, I normally write about something that happened in my life recently. And writing about something in my life forces me to think about my experiences, in whatever mundane way that may be (be it reviewing movies I’ve seen [—which I’m seriously behind in, by the way… -ed.], talking about people I’ve waited on, or just saying what I did that day). And thinking about it, whether I realize it or not, makes me evaluate my life as a whole.

And I suddenly appreciate all the little things in life, insignificant without proper perspective. But when looked upon in their entirety, at least provide enough material for a fairly interesting blog post. (At least. At most, they give me deep existential truths about mankind and existence—truths that, when properly organized, can be written into book form, sold to millions of people, thus giving me enough money to finally put into play my master plan for world domination!)

Woah. I never realized updating my blog was so important.

Meh. Maybe I’m just making things up, being overdramatic and shizz—but if I want an epiphany, I’m gonna have an epiphany, dangit!

P.S. Expect a post full of rapid-fire movie reviews soon. I’ve seen three movies since I’ve last posted, and with each one, I feel more and more guilty about not reviewing them. So I’m gonna get all my guilt out in one fell swoop, so be watching out for the proverbial swooping scythe/scimitar/machete/katana/some other exotic weapon/sharp object.