Archive for February, 2010

Cainestorm

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

…just a little late, but never the less… Caine.

Mr. JQP himself has opened up the forum for me to ramble off on whatever comes to mind. Humbly accepted of course. Then I wondered what to write about. I realized that often when I write, I skip around from thought to thought and idea to idea until the start and end are unrecognizable to each other. Sort of like all the parts of an engine each working faster individually than as a whole. I call it a Cainestorm. Usually it happens when I have too much to say. I do the same thing when I’m telling a story. I want to fit in all the little details and side notes so i end up bouncing all over the place. Hard to keep peoples attention with that sort of format. I’m sure everyone knows someone like that. I’m that guy… Until the next

Movie to see: I’m a Cyborg But That’s Ok

Introducing- Caine Crockett

Friday, February 12th, 2010

Caine Crockett will now be posting here.  I’ve pretty much given him the freedom to talk about whatever he wants to.  You may have seen him in some of the shorts on the website (Censored, Not Walter, Bad Girlfriend, etc…).  He’s mostly an actor.  So, it should be interesting to get experiences from an actors perspective on shoots.
Sometimes, as a little treat to myself, I enjoy wallowing in the pits of human existence.  Where would I go to do that?  YouTube of course.  YouTube in this case is sort of like the dealer and sometimes, I need a fix badly.  So, I start my search for street fights in the basement of human civilization.  Once you wade through the crap where middle schoolers are just trying to get views by staging an obvious fake fight, you get to the good stuff.
“Hmmmm, Skater vs Rollerblader?  OK.  Punk vs Gangster?  Yes please.  Two Drunk Girls Fighting?!  Hello subscribe button!”
I’m not really looking to see someone get hurt.  Well, maybe a little, but really what I’m looking for is awkward situations that I can laugh at.  During one of my kicks I came across this gem:

I’m not sure if this is staged or not, I pray that it’s not, because I would really like to believe that life really is this awesome.  I don’t know what’s funnier, the fact that a fight breaks out right in the middle of a wedding or the fact that all of the other wedding guests just stand around watching as the bride gets what appears to be sexually assaulted.  Of course, I can’t blame them.  The only thing I would probably be able to do was lean to the person closest to me and say “Holy shit!  This is awesome!”  I love how the groom just kind of stands there with a not so bright look on his face as this biker chick just grabs his bride and pulls her off stage to kick the crap out of her.  Then there’s the photographer snapping pictures in the background.  Because that’s something you would want to remember on your wedding day.
“Hey honey, you remember when that butch chick dragged me off stage and beat the shit out of me in the middle of the ceremony?” 
“No, I don’t remember that.  Was that our wedding?”
“Yeah, hold on, let me pull out the wedding book, I’ll show you.  Better yet, go get your lap top, fire up YouTube.”
Absolutely amazing.

A Movie Script in Under 10 Days

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

I’ve been writing a lot lately.  I’ve written 47 pages in roughly 5 days.  I had an idea and I just started writing it.  I didn’t do an outline or anything like that.  Which I’m sure is a mortal sin in the world of script writing, but whatever.  I’m really enjoying this so far.  It’s kind of fun to lay out the story this way.  It’s almost like reading a book.  Especially because I’m not sure how this script is going to end yet.  Writing an outline seemed to be very detrimental to me in the past.  It just made me over think everything.  Maybe this is what will work for me.  Just writing and then going through to revise later.  I wonder if any other writers use that same process.  I’m not letting anything stop me either.  I always just go with my gut, weather I think it’s bad or not.  I figure when I’m done, I’ll go through it a million times and revise it every time.  Right now it’s sort of a sci fi action comedy.  By the end of my revisions it will probably be a tragedy about pie.  Whatever, I like what I’ve written so far.  I’ve been telling people the story as I develop it and they seem to genuinely be interested.  They’ve been asking me “have you written any more of your script yet?  What happened?”  I think that’s a good sign.  Weather it’s good or not, I’m having a really good time writing it.  At first I was averaging about 2 pages a night.  Then I started averaging 5 pages a night.  Now I’m doing between 8-10 pages a night.  If this trend continues, I’ll probably hit about 15 pages a night before I’m done.  An average movie script (according to a Google search) is 95 – 125 pages.  If my script were going to be 95 pages I’m half a page shy of being half way done.  A movie script in less than 10 days isn’t too shabby.  Granted, it will be a shitty movie script that needs revision, but still.  I think that’s kind of an accomplishment.  Not really though.  I’m sure anyone could write a shitty script in 10 days.  When I finish it, I’m going to enter it in to as many script writing festivals as I can find.  Seriously, those are so freaking easy.  You sign up, pay the $15 entry fee and then E-Mail them a PDF.  I could enter 10 festivals in like 20 minutes.  I’ve never entered a script writing festival, only short film festivals.  Film festivals are kind of a pain in the ass.  You have to sign up online, pay online, and then get the tracking number.  Print out a DVD label with the tracking number on it, affix it to the DVD.  Then you have to print out a label and put it on the case that the DVD is in.  Then you have to print out another label to ship it.  I suppose you don’t have to print it, but when I was a programmer, nothing made me more skeptical about a short like a hand written DVD cover that I could barely read.  I didn’t even mention the part about burning the DVD and making sure that it’s the right region and that it actually plays correctly.  Then there’s the worry that the festival will have a picky DVD player and it won’t even play.  Even if I have to ship a script out, it’s already 10 times easier then shipping out a short film.  It’s paper, you read it.  Not much can go wrong with that.  Unless someone spills a cup of coffee on it or something, but that’s hardly my fault.