I’ve made no secret that I wanted to be a screenwriter before. It’s something that I’ve wanted to do as long as I can remember and I have a lot of ideas. The problem with my ideas though is that they are all movies I would want to see. Most of the movies that I end up loving are ones that don’t make millions and millions of dollars. I have been trying to change my thought process of late to think of the kind of movies that Hollywood actually buys and makes into movies and the kind of movies that become hits. This is actually a really difficult exercise.
I came up with one idea, called “When We’re 30 (or 40)” (or “The Marriage Pact”). It’s about a guy and a girl who are best friends in high school or college and after one breaks up with their girlfriend/boyfriend the two of them make a pact that if they don’t find anyone by a certain age that they will get married. Well, what if when they got to be that age one of them actually tried to take the other up on it. What would happen then? My thought process was that this is a familiar idea among people. I think it was on Friends and I know I have seen it somewhere else before too. Also, romantic comedies are cheap and one seemingly comes out every single week for the entire year. Some are good, most are bad, but almost all of them turn a profit. It speaks to the entire point of movie theaters in the first place, so people have a place to take their dates. Now, the problem with this idea is that I would never want to write this movie because I would never want to see this movie and even if I did write it I would be viewed as a bad writer because this movie probably wouldn’t be that good. It would most definitely star Kate Hudson and she is incapable of making a good movie. Still, I think I am on the right track with thinking about the kind of movies that are actually made in Hollywood.
What I am trying to do now is think of something more “high-concept”. A BIG idea, if you will. When I think high-concept I think about Brian K Vaughn selling a spec script for a million dollars after a bidding war. It was an incredible idea that went something like this: read more »
April 14, 2010 – 12:33 am
SPOILERS FOR SEASON ONE EPISODE 14 “Hell-O”
The “spring season” or the second half of Glee season one started tonight and it really kind of pissed me off. I mean, the humor was still there and the songs were good but the decisions they made with the characters just completely baffled me. The more I’ve heard about the show during it’s hiatus, the more I worried that it had serious “jump the shark” potential (I really hate that term, btw). Sometimes a show can become a victim of it’s own popularity, you know? Tonight’s episode didn’t do much to quell my fears and here is why.
The first half of the season was built on the following major points:
- The glee club’s quest for sectionals and Sue Sylvester’s quest to destroy to the glee club.
- Mrs. Schuster lying about being pregnant and thus keeping Will from leaving her to get with Emma, the girl the audience knows is right for Will and really wants him to be with.
- Quinn being pregnant with Puck’s baby, but convincing Finn that the baby is his. Finn then stays with Quinn despite his obvious attraction to Rachel.
The first half of the season ended with sectionals. The glee club won their sectional, Sue tried to sabotage them but got caught and suspended, Will found out about his wife’s lie and left her for Emma (who also left Mr. Tanaka to be with Will) and Finn found out that the baby was Puck’s, Puck and Quinn got together as did Rachel and Finn got together. Everyone was happy and the audience got all the payoffs that it wanted. They built the season around the audience wanting these things to happen and then paid them off tremendously. Sure, the pregnancy stuff was pretty stupid but in the end we got what we wanted. It was a good ending and some could argue that they didn’t have anywhere to go from there. A good writing staff would have found new angles and worked off of those. Maybe found a new foe for Sue (like a student she wanted to destroy instead of the whole Glee club program), played with relationship stories with Rachel/Finn and Will/Emma and built towards regionals. Did they do any of this? No.
Instead they hit the reset button. The show opened with Sue Sylvester getting her job back and within like two scenes she is back trying to destroy the glee club. Then ty broke up Rachel and Finn and put a pretty sizable wedge in their relationship. They’ve stopped and started so many times with these two (in just 14 episodes) that it’s going to be really hard to get people to care about them getting back together if they ever go there again. Basically, in just 14 episodes they Ross and Rachel’d them. Not a good move (just ask Scrubs). They also broke up Emma and Will because Will wasn’t ready. (Earlier they even teased dissension with Puck/Quinn. I mean, why? Can no one be happy except the black girl and the gay kid, who are only really happy because they get no screen time? I don’t get it.) It makes sense story-wise, but it really felt forced here. And why did they have to do all three of these things in the first episode? Couldn’t they have given them a couple happy episodes before breaking them up? It’s ridiculous. The one thing they did do right was introduce the “big bad” (to use a Buffy term) of the rest of the year, the opposing school and it’s evil teacher and star, but overall I was not a big fan of this episode.
Everything they did made sense, I guess, and you could argue that they didn’t really betray their characters, but I thought this was some pretty lazy writing. They didn’t know what to do with these people next so they are just going to have them do what they did before again, but in a different way. I don’t get it.
January 25, 2010 – 12:36 am
I was going through my closet and came across an old notebook. On one of the pages it says “go beyond the obvious” and that’s it. Why? I couldn’t tell you. On another page is this opening scene from a kung fu movie I was thinking about writing. The easiest premise I can break it down to is Jet Li vs the Wu Tang Clan. Creative, I am.
METHOD
Alright y’all listen up. I don’t care why the fuck you came here. Don’t matter if you played too much Mortal Kombat, saw The Matrix too many damn times. Ain’t none of that matter now. You’re in our world now. And you will learn or get the hell out. Kung Fu ain’t about movies and videogames. Kung Fu aint even bout figtin. Kung Fu is about one thing. Yourself. It’s a motherfuckin’ art form. If any of you motherfuckers doesn’t get this, believe me you will. We ain’t gonna teach you to kill motherfuckers. You wanna kill motherfuckers get a gun. Because believe me, this ain’t a fucking game.