So You Want To Be A Screenwriter?

From what I've read, screenwriter's (both TV and movie) should focus on three things:

1. Persistence
To be a good screenwriter, or a good anything, you need to throw all of your weight into the activity. If it's your full-time job, that means working at least forty hours a week. Whether that's brainstorming, first drafts, editing, storyboarding, put lots of quality time into it.

2. Write
Is one screenplay good enough? Probably not. How about five? Definitely a lot closer. Before thinking about selling a single screenplay, write a library of them. And polish them. Make them perfect. If you go to an agent with one great screenplay, that's a start. If you can go to the same agent and give him five quality screenplays, not only are you five times as likely to making it big, but you've had a lot of practice and you can really showcase your work.

3. Genre
Explore. Pick one. Stick with it.

Oscars With or Without the Strike

According to the Associated Press, the Oscars will be held regardless of the Writer's Strike. Of course, an Oscars with the Writer's strike will probably cost the AMPTP and the industry quite a bit of money, leveraging more weight for the writer's.

Preparing for Battlestar Galactica Season 4

In preparation for the Season 4 of Battlestar Galactica (coming in March), I'm re-watching all of the episodes to freshen up. After watching it over for a second time, the tightness of the storylines, character development, dialogue is all beautifully done.

I'm very impressed by the screenwriting and overall visuals of the series. And of course, the screenwriting is the most important aspect of creating the series. Hopefully the writer's strike didn't push back the deadline for this series. It being the last one, I can't help but guess what will be coming up.

Since I'm not up to snuff on where the series ended, here are the guesses I'[m giving for Season 4:

1) They will find Earth
I know a previous interview (unsourced) stated that they will never find Earth, I think they will eventually come upon it.

2) Cylon Fracture
I believe that some of the Cylons will defect and eventually fight the factioning Cylons and live on Earth together. Or such factioning will weaken the strength of Cylons, leading to their destruction.

I'm not going to say much more without spoiling some of the information given in later seasons.

Jurassic Park 4 : Dinosarmageddon

Remember how great Jurassic Park 2 and 3 were? No? Well, they milked in enough money to warrant Jurassic Park 4 to be created.

At last check, the synopsis was essentially some Swiss company got a hold of some genetically altered raptors and connected them to military weapons to wage war.

I'm not even joking. Read a little info about it on the Jurassic Park franchise's Wikipedia page.

Repo: The Genetic Opera

Imagine you're in the future. Your organs are failing, but you can afford replacements. Obviously, you need to purchase them from the genetic manufacturer. You missed a few payments. Well, now your organs are repossessed. This is the basis of Repo! The Genetic Opera. I'm really psyched for this horror musical. I suggest you check it out as well.

The Peculiar Fate of the Ames Strangler

I have named my movie for the Res Hall Film Fest for 2008. All that's left now is for me to get to filming it. I'm a little sad they didn't update the site with last year's entries, but here's the site for the Res Hall Film Fest. If you're in the Ames area, come check it out.

Usually only students go, but I've never seen them turn anyone away. Also, the crowd gets to vote for favorite movie. I'm sure the competition will be pretty fierce this year, as I know a couple of different people are doing pretty good films.

I'll get around to posting up the script later, probably after the movie is shot. This way I don't ruin it for anyone.

The Webs Are Down ... Due to Illness

I apologize, but I won't be updating as often the next few days, if it all. Because of an illness I recently caught, I'm going to try and stay in bed as much as possible, outside of school work and my actual job, which means less time for blogging.

On the other hand, here are a few tips I should've followed to stay healthy:

1. Air out your living space : Crack a window, get some fresh air in there. I know it's unpleasant during the winter, but it'll clear out a lot of the germs too. I was doing this until about 4 inches of snow drifted on my second story apartment window.

2. Multivitamins : When mom always told me to take my vitamins, I should have.

3. Exercise : Physical fitness increases stamina and the immune system, either preventing illness or curbing the effects and length of it.

I'm not a doctor, but I think these can help quite a bit. Ciao.

Free XBox 360 Game

If you own an XBox 360, Microsoft is giving you the arcade game Undertow for free. I guess this is the thanks we get for poor XBox Live performance all of this time.

Really fucking flammable

After watching the 150th episode of Seinfeld, the Pothole, I noticed a very interesting NFPA hazard diamond.



Towards the end of the episode, Kramer is carrying the above barrel. The number in the flammability (red) part of the diamond is completely false. According to NFPA hazard diamond information, the flammability only goes from 0 to 4. With 4, according to Wikipedia meaning:

Will rapidly or completely vaporize at normal atmospheric pressure and temperature, or is readily dispersed in air and will burn readily (e.g., propane). Flash point below 23°C (73°F).

This leads me to believe that Kramer may have found the most flammable substance on the planet, labeled at an 8 on the flammability portion.

WGA Resumes Talks

The WGA and the AMPTP have went into unofficial talks today to try and settle the strike. The last talks between the studios and the writers was on Dec. 7th, 2007.

Read the full AP Story here.

Five Best Games We've Never Had

Here is a collection of the best games I've seen from TV shows and movies that we should have, yet don't.



5. Don't Whiz on the Electric Fence

A Ren and Stimpy classic, thought I think children would have more fun playing with Log.





4. Unknown from Children of Men



Not exactly sure what the point of this game, but I guess in a future where everyone is depressed as hell, just about anything can entertain you. Even a 5x5x5 cube.



3. Blernsball



Anyone who's seen Futurama knows as much about Blernsball as may be humanly possible.



2. Nukem

Nukem, get them before they get you. A game that teaches you mutually assured destruction in a consequence free environment. I think if more people played this game, we would've been in trouble.





1. Pro Thunderball



Appearing in the final season of the final episode of the Upright Citizen's Brigade, Pro Thunderball is described by the Wikipedia page as:

Rules of Thunderball:
1. Bring the walls in closer to allow for more home runs. Make home runs worth two points.

2. Have a five foot drop off between the infield and outfield. In other words, the outfield is five feet lower than the infield.

3. Instead of one ball, there are three balls, in constant motion.

4. Nine multi-shaped targets with varying point values are placed throughout the infield. A baserunner can attempt to throw his bat at these targets as he rounds the bases.

5. Defenders are allowed to tackle the runners as they round the bases; however, the runner is allowed to keep his bat. [Thunderball players are equipped with full pads and a helmet.]

6. The batter may choose to take six strikes instead of three, but this allows the pitcher one free throw at the batter. A hit by such a throw does not count as a free walk.

7. Honeys and Hounds. Cheerleaders and dogs are allowed to roam the field freely and affect play as they wish. During the seventh inning, however, players are allowed to tackle the Honeys as they please, for bonus strikes.

8. Team mascots will alternate innings driving a Honda Accord anywhere on the field except for the pitcher's mound, the batters box, and the dugout. Players can use this car as part of their offensive or defensive strategies.

9. The Gun Circle - a loaded hand gun is placed within a clearly marked circle to be placed ten yards behind second base. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES IS THE GUN TO BE TOUCHED AT ANY POINT DURING THE GAME.

10. Each team's pitcher is allowed to throw three ceramic baseballs a game when he so chooses.

Any games that you've seen in TV or the movies that you liked, make sure to share them in a post.

Father Ted Festival

Priests aren't infaliable. This is the lesson one of my favorite BBC TV shows Father Ted taught me. To learn more about this TV show, check out the Father Ted Wikipedia page.

I found out that there is a Father Ted Festival, featuring the milk cart from the show. To read more about the festival, check out the BBC news article.

Res Hall Film Fest 2008

Today and last night, I've spent a good amount of time writing the screenplay to a currently untitled movie for the Residence Hall Film Festival at Iowa State University. Making this process easier is proper screenwriting software. A lot of people use Final Draft and the software is, as far as I can tell, an industry standard. I however am a big fan of CeltX.

CeltX is open source screenwriting software compatible with Mac, Win and Linux OS. There are a few things that's hard to do in it (like add speech subtext in the middle of dialogue), but for the most part does a high quality job. Collaboration servers can be set up for use in collaborative writing and I used this software through my screenwriting class. The importer was good enough to pull in plain text versions of poorly formatted Microsoft Word screenplays.

I suggest looking at the CeltX Wikipedia page to get a little more info if you're unsure what software to use. Otherwise, you can download the software at www.celtx.com.

RIAA Owned For A Change

With all the recent lawsuits sent out by RIAA, I think it's refreshing to see some of the flack going back their way. According to TorrentFreak, the RIAA website has been hacked. As of 12:30 PM CST, it still appears to be down.

This is great news, and combine it with the fact that the EMI is considering pulling out of RIAA. Overly aggressive legal tactics combined with lack of knowledge over the technology can allow fast talkers to get by with almost anything they want.

Mechatronic Defense Systems Are Go

For the a student film festival last March, I wrote a short screenplay, filmed, and edited the movie. The movie was nominated for Best Soundtrack and Best Movie and won Best Visual Effects. I wrote it with a DV camcorder and edited the video with iMovie HD.

Below is the movie:



I mention this as news because I'm working on the screenplay for the next film festival coming up in two months. I will put up excerpts soon and add the film when it's finally shot.

Screenwriting and Engineering, Closer Than You Think

Becoming recently involved with screenwriting (around a year) and interested in the mechanics and form of the craft, I came across a surprising article in IEEE's Software journal. The article is Screenwriting for Requirements Engineers (Norden, Barbara, "Screenwriting for Requirements Engineers," Software, IEEE , vol.24, no.4, pp.26-27, July-Aug. 2007).

This article draws a remarkably accurate parallel between writing scripts for a screenplay and writing use cases for software requirements.

If you're interested more in screenwriting and want to dive into the craft, I'd suggest getting a copy of Syd Fields Screenplay : The Foundations of Screenwriting.

Another great resource is A Crash Course in Screenwriting (PDF).

Portal Parody

I am a huge fan of the game Portal and found a video containing two of the turret droids, just living another shift in their work-a-day lives. If you haven't played Portal yet and own a XBox 360, I highly recommend purchasing Orange Box.

Super Mario Galaxy : Not the Greatest

I've heard quite a few raves about Super Mario Galaxy, and one I bought the game all my friends were excited to see me play it. However, about thirty minutes into the game I realized that I had a few issues with this platformer.



I was originally happy to have another incarnation of Mario 64, a childhood favorite. A few of the problems I had:

1. Storyline
Though I should say "storyline". I know the Mario platformers have never been strong in the story department, but this seems completely contrived. I feel they started with a physics engine and decided, "Hey, let's do this in space." So Bowser captures Princess Peach and takes her into space. You need to chase Bowser's minions across planetoids, asteroids and galaxies. Collect stars, move on, same Mario 64 concepts included there.

2. Races
You lose a race, you lose a live. Even though the life paradigm for home console games has evolved to a pointless concept, because you can always keep playing, I have a big problem with being penalized for not actually dying.

3. Controls
Because of the camera angles and the ever changing perspective of Mario on various spheres, Mario moves in directions which are unintuitive to what I want to move. This mental hurdle can eventually be overcame, but the conceptual curve varies (hopefully lower for you than me).

4. Black Holes
I do applaud them for their physics engines, though some surfaces provide gravity and grab Mario back and some of them don't and he falls into oblivion.

I think the game is decent over all, but there's nothing fantastic about it and I think there's plenty of great games out there, but for the Wii's limited collection of great titles, this is definitely one of the better ones.

Directors Won't End WGA Strike

Speculation that the Director's Guild of America contract renegotiations could turn into collective bargaining for the Writer's Guild of America doesn't look promising. The director's have tentatively accepted the offer from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.
Full story here

Looks like the writer's strike will continue for the time being. Take a look at the cost counters on the AMPTP website. With the boycott of the Golden Globes costing an estimated $60,000,000.00 and with over $212 million of writer's income lost, I can only hope the AMPTA is hurting more than the WGA.

Edit: The DGA strike may have given the writer's some leverage. The WGA may go into unofficial talks with the AMPTP soon.

Full story here

Cloverfield Opening Night

Well, I have to say, it wasn't the best movie I saw and probably not the best movie of 2007. The first fifteen minutes, Hudson (the person controlling the camera) mentions every inane comment that comes to mind. You know that friend of yours you want to choke for talking to much? On top of that there's a monster attack.

A number of visual elements were well composed, and there are some very nice full body shots of the creature. A few of the plot elements seemed forced or contrived, besides the obvious fact of the monster.

The theater was less than a quarter full and it was a decent experience in the end.

When you see the movie, remember the Flood (Halo series).

Komondor: The Pet For Me

Large and inactive dogs that are loving and intelligent. That's the dog for me.

iPhone Incongruity 1

A while ago, I was watching an episode of Journeyman (imdb) when I noticed an issue with one of the elements of the TV show, the iPhone. The main character has an iPhone and there are many close ups of it throughout the series. This, however, is the first close up of the screen:



The screenshot shows the iPhone upside down (notice the only hard button on the top center). The top bar of the GUI has a battery and signal strength bars. The other issue with this screenshot, is I've never had my iPhone say "No Service..." when I have no service.

As a note, I planned to make a post about this a while ago, but doing a little searching showed me it was also mentioned here. Eventually, I hope to watch the entire series again with the note on why it's an invalid iPhone screenshot.

Aside from the part that I own an iPhone and seeing stuff like this in TV drives me crazy (imagine seeing a computer with a Windows Vista start up screen and then it goes to black and white Linux command line), I really enjoy the show and urge others to check it out.

As a note, the iPhone has to be running at least before 1.1.3.

My Internet Channel

After watching 4 Zelda games in 48 hours and seeing a slew of other such activities, I've acquired a similar internet video channel for myself, in case we ever do Etan's fly through of Wind Waker.

The channel is ran by Mogulus.com and interfaces directly with my MacBook Pro's built-in iSight.

We're hoping to do our own run through of the games at some point and hope it'd turn out better with one of our roommates who loves Majora's Mask fairly thoroughly.

The only thing better than playing video games, is sitting idly by your computer watching others having fun.

Tying Up Loose Ends

Myself, as have many other people, are guilty of the same crime I've committed -- not finishing the projects we've started. I realized this particularly in video games, I'd be hard into one game and either get to a frustrating point and take a break, never to visit it again, or a newer game floated my way and I needed to play it instead. Sadly, this leaves the number of video games I've left undefeated quite high.

I've decided to do my best to take down a video game each week. They'll range from PS2, Wii, GC, Xbox360 and Gameboy Advance/DS. There are definitely more PS1 games I haven't gone through, but those are far away from college.

The following games are:
Wii
Red Steel
Trauma Center
Super Mario Galaxy
Guitar Hero 3

XBox 360
Call of Duty 4
The Orange Box

PS2 (Get ready)
Robotech Invasion
Shinobi
Oni
Ghost in the Shell : Stand Alone Complex
Disgaea
Skygunner
MS Saga
Katamari Damacy
Kingdom Hearts
Castlevania : Lament of Innocence
Killzone
Wild Arms 4
Wild Arms 3
Medal of Honor Frontline
Ring of Red
Sub Rebellion
Gungrave
.hack//Infection
Mobile Suit Gundam : Journey to Jaburo
Zone of the Enders
Growlanser Generations

GameCube
Zoids : Battle Legends
Auto Modelista (not sure if there's a way to "beat" this per se)

I'll post up DS and Advance games later. My current task however is Pokemon Diamond, which I started last Sunday. 4 badges done, hopefully will finish by Friday.