Per the title: Merriweather Post Pavilion, the new album from Animal Collective is absolutely destroying me. This is a very good, very defined band hitting apotheosis--this is their Kid A, and I couldn't be happier for the challenge. Buy this as soon as humanly possible.
I'm into the Boarding phase on Apartment Hunting: this is where I take my Scene Log and convert each individual scene into notecards (NC's). The NC's not only delineate location, but short and extended descriptions, specific conflicts (further demarcated by +'s and -'s, ><, conflict is an important backbone even in the less harrowing scenes) and other important tidbits. Then--I'll arrange them chronologically on a large tack-board (divided into act 1, 2 and 3) hanging on the wall directly in front of my desk. This is totally the Bees-Knees of Screenwriting tools serving a myriad of purpose: I can make sure everything is flowing succinctly, where there's gaps in the story, if certain parts of story are too Top-Heavy (what Blake Snyder calls Laying Too Much Pipe) and generally just see the Story for what it is BEFORE we get into the writing process. Because immersing yourself in the writing before having all this shit sorted out, then going back to the drawing board is the equivalent of locking your keys in the car, in a less than desirable neighborhood, wearing a sandwich-board covered in racial epithets... So afterwards I'll go into the Treatment phase and then the actual writing will begin. For fans of the word Pang, there can be Pangs of redundancy orbiting around, but I find it essential (and fun) to hammer out the Fictional-Culture you're willingly obsessively-compulsively building, brick by narrative brick.
As we're less than three weeks (my 29th Birthday, February 16th) from the first complete (by complete I mean one that will be registered with the Writers Guild and sent out for critique) draft, I'm going to (for fucks' sake I hope more consistently) include some entries on me and my personal backstory/motivations/tastes when it comes to film. But for now, I have some notecards to fill out.
Cheers!
xoxoxoxo
1 comment:
Michael,
My friends and I pick a blog at random to discuss, sort of like a book club, I guess, and this particular time, we've picked/stumbled across yours. I hope this doesn't sound creepy. Well, I guess it is sort of creepy, as we've been secretly peering into your life a bit.
Well, regardless, I've been nominated to write and tell you to please start posting more frequently, otherwise we'll have to change our focus blog, as the updates simply aren't frequent enough to warrant our discussions, as much as we love the content when you do update. Thanks for the consideration. Good luck with Apartment Hunting. We look forward to hearing more about it.
Isaac
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