The Travels of My Script

Well this week... I did another script reading... hell I did 2 of them. I met a bunch of cool people who I would love to thank... Keanen (thats right... I can't spell), Ashley, Steph, Lauren... guy whos name I don't remember... girl who didn't get introduced to me (wich is weird... since it is my house). I also have to thank Todd (who as producer organised the whole thing) and Dave (who was nice enough to come... he is tons of fun). It went well... but to be honest, I felt that there were points where we lulled... and not just because we couldn't do it once (with feeling) with out taking a small talking break.

This got me thinking, it may be time for some huge revisions on the script. So I started editing my script down. I cut out crap. I added crap. I now added new twists... well, as many twists as a character peice can have... so the next time any one (other than me) reads the script it should be (bigger) and better than before. I will give you a hint... I will be adding a scene that I removed before.

But with all these changes I figure I should give you an idea of where my script has been.

It started off as a drunken dream... actually it started off as a bunch of funny sayings written down in my "World Perspectives" class. It was all down hill from there, as I started to write them into scripts for a comic strip I was considering working on. This althought nice, was slow going. So I began to write a movie, wich began to be known as tripple threat. I realised soon enough that I liked TV more than movies... so I started writing Tripple Threat as a TV show... but this project fell through when I realised how many scripts it takes to make a TV show. Quickly I returned to the idea of movie making, it apealed to me, and kept me almost sane... wich was a nice change. I got to the summer, where drunken dreams did infact effect my script writing... wich was nice... during the day, at summer school, I would scribble down the script.

Thats when it hit me... "The Mary Men" would be an awsome name of a band. That spawned the ledgend that is The Mary Men.

Serious work on the Mary Men began when I got my laptop (that thing that seems to grow out of my legs while I am sitting down). It may infact be first thing I wrote on my laptop... but I could be quite wrong. Once the script had been written, it needed to be transcribed... a long task I undertook with no knoledge of how long it would take.

Once it got done, it was PDFed (a new verb... I swear), and sent to Todd. Todd gave it to his mother, who while being insulted by my degrading language, printed and coppied my script. Tranported in a back pack, it came to my house and was received with open hands for the first ever full reading of the script (thats right... no one had read it before... not even me). The script then stood (or more matter of factly, lay in a folder) in my dining room till the next script reading.

now all of this is normal actions for a script. But after that second reading, I realised that my script was mostly trash... sure there were a few good lines here and there... but most of the time it was just bad writing and swear words. So it traveled with me to work... on the way there I edited out a bunch of crap. I continued at lunch... but I forgot it at home so I couldn't edit it more on the way home. I did work on it at lunch the next day... wich was nice (lots of shit... GONE). Again, it was left forgoten... so now I am forced to go into work tomorow, and pull it out from beside the CD player... so I can take it home and fix up the bad parts.

and that my friends is the story of the travels of my script.

Thank you and Bob bless.

Once more with feelings!

Althought it has been a long time coming, I have to tell you it feels amazing to have your script handed to you... DONE! Thats right baby, the final lenght comes down to 91 pages, and still retains all of its original glory. While transcribing the script I got a chance to cut out a lot of the crap that just didn't need to be in there, so it sounds twice as good.

Now like I said, I had my script handed to me. I typed it all up over the last week (finishing on thursday) and I sent it off to my good buddy (and awsome producer) and he printed it off and brought it to me... so I could read it.

Once it was in the script format, there was only one thing to do... have a script reading!

Excelent producer, Tod, got together some rocking gents to come read my peice of trash script, inexchange for some food. Alex and David joined up to show us how a real script reading is done. Dispite a rocky starts (and watching some comedy on my laptop) we got all the way throught the script before finishing up all the food I bought for the ocasion.

There is something about hearing your creation read allowed for the first time that is odly exilerating. To be honest, before that point, I had never heard the whole thing read from start to finish (nor had I honestly read it all in one go), so yes there were some points in the reading where we all went, "What the fuck were your drinking, Brendan," when it was read.

When it was all said and done, I have one hell of a script... and we are going to have one hell of a movie. Wooo!

Last Thursday I wrapped up my article on how to make a movie. To be honest, it isn't so much a how to guide, as much as a satire on the whole process. Now that isn't to say there arn't instences of real intelegence. Hell, there are some real gems in there... so if it makes sense to you... I may have intended it to make sense.

Here is an excerpt:

DON'T CALL US, WE'LL CALL YOU

"Independent" filmmaker Kevin Smith was once told by a studio executive that movie making "This isn't about making a movie with your friends." Well, thankfully, since they aren’t giving you any money, unless you frequent them while wearing your hooker boots, you don't have to listen to them. So call up every one you know, your mother, your grandmother, your friends from grade school that you hadn't talk to in 10 years. Call every one. Tell them you have a part that is perfect for them (even if you don't) and so long as they are willing to work for nothing (Or something as little as a cheese sandwich when ever they are on set), then feel free to cast them.

That said, I have bigger fish to fry...

I have some important movie (industry) news. This has nothing to do with me, so I will keep it short and sweet, but only because I like other movies too.

Ghostbusters 3 - Dan Aykroyd recently wrote a new ghostbusters script that my actually see production. Akroyd co-wrote the first two films, so this is a good thing. Production is rourmored to include Rick Moranis, Dan Aykroyd, and BEN STILLER. I am interested in seeing how Stiller will work out.

Disney and Pixar - We may be seeing Disney and Pixar kiss and make up at some time in the near future. Since Michael Eisner left the film giant, the two companies have grown closer.

Clerks 2 - They have been filming for 3 weeks now. *Spoiler* Dante and Randal are working at Mooby's now... I know so long as it retains the movie "flare" that the last ones had, I will be happy.

Okay... I am late, and lazy... and have no big news to tell (hell... I don't think I worked at all this week) so I will cut this one short, and leave now.

Welcome to the madness

This week I would like to welcome the first member of the Mary Men production team, a mister Todd. Todd will be coming on board as my producer.

Now I have no idea what a producer would do on other productions, but Todd has some very big jobs on this production. The biggest thing is he needs to keep me on task. Thats right, it will be a hard job, but he is forced to keep me from taking to much time on any one thing.

The second job is of course to find me money... I love money. but mostly this is to make our movie kick ass... since with out money it is just me pointing a camera at kids in their own clothes.

Okay, not that the introductions are over...

Last week I mentioned that I was transcribing my script, page by FREAKING page.

This is a long and painful process. Now, I may have been done the actual script over a month ago, but that doesn't mean that the process was over. There have been many edits that have been needed to be made, most of them have been made. The real issue is that when written in the script format, one page of dialague runs about one minute on film. In order to be able to tell how long my movie will actually run, I need to make sure to put it in script format.

Thankfully there is a great program that will allow me to do it with out even having to think about the process. The aptly named Script Maker is a free download... wich makes it my favorite thing in the world... FREE IS AWSOME.

The problem is that after writing the script for 2 months it is a pain in the god-damn ass to write it ALL OVER AGAIN. So, as a warning to all future film makers... if you are going to do it, DO IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME.

Is it over? No! I still have more to write... so untill next week. Aw, god... fuck off, all of you.