I kinda thought I was done talking about Idol, but I got a request to chatter about it from a good friend of mine.
I left a few of my thoughts on Facebook, with a promise to expand on them here. So… here we go.
First, I should probably deal with who we’ve lost.
Casey: My newest theory on Casey? I think he got tired of the grind. He knew he would never win, and so he sang an anti-song and got dropped.
Why do I think that?
Here goes: Casey almost got dropped pretty early because it seems no one likes the Casey growl. Casey seemed well aware of that fact, if you look at his next couple of performances.
First, he did a nice Elton John song, sitting on a stool like a sweet little boy doing something cute so you’ll give him cake. He did well in the voting arena.
He followed that up by doing CCR, in a way that would offend pretty much no one. It was sort of dull, but he pulled out the bass to remind people of how much they loved this adorable and quirky dude.
The next week, he did “Nature Boy,” and he whipped out the jazz. He was toeing a line, and watching him, it seemed obvious to me that he knew he was doing it. He had the game worked out, and he knew just how far he could carry it.
Then he whipped out the growl again. He might as well have walked onstage with a live grenade.
I said up-top he was tired of the grind, and that sounds kind of right to me. Or maybe he just knew he wasn’t going to win, and he knew he had his fans, so he pulled the pin and walked.
Or, perhaps the rumors that he and Haley are together are true, and he went, “Eh, I’ll throw my votes towards her,” and exited stage left.
So now, let’s talk bottom four:
Haley: I’m putting her here, and maybe it’s wishful thinking, but I swear she’s trying to get eliminated as well.
I’ll give her some credit. When she picks the right song, she can put on a really terrific performance. But she either doesn’t understand how the game is played, or she’s trying to get cut at this point.
I’m not much of a Jennifer Lopez fan, but she seems to be trying to help Hayley, and Randy’s been pretty straight-up about his feelings as well – Hayley doesn’t seem to have any idea what she’s doing. She picks random songs (A Michael Jackson non-hit? A Lady Gaga song almost no one’s heard?) and then ARGUES with the judges when they try to give her advice.
I’d feel better about what she’s doing if she seemed to have a pattern. But starting back when she sang “Blue” (why?) it’s clear she has no real identity as a performer. Maybe she really is just that random. But it’s doing her no favors, and makes for some agonizing song choices.
So, yeah. I’d say she was going this week, if not for:
Lauren: People seem to really like Lauren, which is sweet and all, but she spent a lot of last night explaining to people that she isn’t, you know, evil. My wife and I have picked up on the fact that she’s sixteen, and doesn’t have a ton of life experience, but…
I think she’s either just TOO eager to please, or kind of dumb.
Some of that might be age. When she’s 26, and has actually lived life a bit, she might take on some emotional depth. But, yeah… no. She’s a little lost puppy-dog child who sings pretty, and that’s nice.
That gets you votes on AI, I guess. But I’d feel better about her if the only time she opened her mouth was to sing.
So we’re up to:
Scotty: Yeah, he’s going to have a career, and a nice one. I still think they should get him and Lauren together, put out a couple of CDs, and put them on tour starting in the fall.
Someone who wants to make money, and a lot of it.
Of all the survivors up to this point, Scotty has grown the most. He’s still doing his all-country, all the time thing, but he’s learned to relate to an audience instead of squatting and holding his microphone oddly.
If he wins, I won’t buy his records. They won’t be my thing. But I won’t be hurt if he wins.
James: I called it WAY WAY WAY back. James is going to take this, because he can sing anything. He has a huge heart as well, and he shows it to the audience, and they eat it up.
When he stops singing, the audience in the studio takes FOREVER to shut up, so the judges can talk.
Yeah. He’s going to take it. And if he doesn’t, he’s still going to sell better than anyone else on Idol this year.
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
How to Make a Movie: Tech Stuff
I'll be honest - if you're coming to me for tech advice, you're already in trouble.
When it comes to technical stuff, my thoughts are pretty brood, but they relate to how I feel about actors:
Hire good people, and this will take care of itself.
Or do it yourself, and expect to screw up a lot. Sometimes, you can work around your screw-ups. Sometimes, you can't.
If you're going to tackle making a movie yourself, try shooting a short film, or a scene, and then edit it and look at it and see what mistakes you made and then correct them in future projects.
In my case, I had my students shoot the same movie twice, once with a really cheap, off-the-shelf camera, and once with a prosumer camera. They made a ton of mistakes the first time.
And you know what? They learned a ton.
So, yeah. If DIY, then try. On the cheap. In a way that no one can see your mistakes. So you can do better next time.
I spent the better part of four months reading up on equipment, secure in the knowledge that I would have to work as cheaply as possible. It makes sense. I teach a high school class.
But! I think our movies came out looking pretty good, and most importantly, you can hear what everyone is saying.
If you're making an indie movie, that's the most important stuff right there: You should be able to see and hear everyone clearly.
So, if you're going to tackle shooting on your own, here's what worked for me:
Go here and check out their video on the $25 light kit. Also, buy a copy of El Mariachi on DVD or Blu-Ray and watch the 10 Minute Film School on there. 95% of my lighting tricks came from those two videos.
The information you find might seem aggressively simple, but... One of my students used it to light a for-pay industrial video right after taking my class. Trust me, check those out.
One key thing - if you're shooting on video, chances are you need to worry a lot less about your lighting, and more about how your camera reacts to it. Check out your white balance options, and make sure that you're white-balanced for the light you're in.
Next, sound. This video covers most of the things you need to know. (Please be warned, there is some spicy language in it. But it tells you what you need to know.)
My only real thought here is, use a microphone, and make sure it's a good one. My students used a shotgun mic because that's what we had to use. It was great, and 98% of the time only picked up what we were pointing it at.
Imperfect solutions, yes, but we could hear and see everyone. And that's a win, in my book.
And that's everything I know, more or less. Tomorrow: Directing!
When it comes to technical stuff, my thoughts are pretty brood, but they relate to how I feel about actors:
Hire good people, and this will take care of itself.
Or do it yourself, and expect to screw up a lot. Sometimes, you can work around your screw-ups. Sometimes, you can't.
If you're going to tackle making a movie yourself, try shooting a short film, or a scene, and then edit it and look at it and see what mistakes you made and then correct them in future projects.
In my case, I had my students shoot the same movie twice, once with a really cheap, off-the-shelf camera, and once with a prosumer camera. They made a ton of mistakes the first time.
And you know what? They learned a ton.
So, yeah. If DIY, then try. On the cheap. In a way that no one can see your mistakes. So you can do better next time.
I spent the better part of four months reading up on equipment, secure in the knowledge that I would have to work as cheaply as possible. It makes sense. I teach a high school class.
But! I think our movies came out looking pretty good, and most importantly, you can hear what everyone is saying.
If you're making an indie movie, that's the most important stuff right there: You should be able to see and hear everyone clearly.
So, if you're going to tackle shooting on your own, here's what worked for me:
Go here and check out their video on the $25 light kit. Also, buy a copy of El Mariachi on DVD or Blu-Ray and watch the 10 Minute Film School on there. 95% of my lighting tricks came from those two videos.
The information you find might seem aggressively simple, but... One of my students used it to light a for-pay industrial video right after taking my class. Trust me, check those out.
One key thing - if you're shooting on video, chances are you need to worry a lot less about your lighting, and more about how your camera reacts to it. Check out your white balance options, and make sure that you're white-balanced for the light you're in.
Next, sound. This video covers most of the things you need to know. (Please be warned, there is some spicy language in it. But it tells you what you need to know.)
My only real thought here is, use a microphone, and make sure it's a good one. My students used a shotgun mic because that's what we had to use. It was great, and 98% of the time only picked up what we were pointing it at.
Imperfect solutions, yes, but we could hear and see everyone. And that's a win, in my book.
And that's everything I know, more or less. Tomorrow: Directing!
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
How to Make a Movie: More Screenwriting Thoughts
As I've been writing up my class notes as blog posts, I've been a little uncertain where to insert certain thoughts.
Screenwriting is, after all, a very broad topic, and trying to fit every little idea into one post seems a little haphazard.
Unfortunately, putting them in this second post still seems haphazard. I guess I could create a numbered list, but that just seems so official.
So, here are a few random things I've learned about screenwriting over the last 12 years.
(Yes, that's how long I've been writing screenplays.)
First, make sure that the movie you're writing is going to be interesting.
Most people, when they go to write their first script, forget that there needs to be a story. While I love Tarantino, and people love to debate whether his dialogue is really great, or merely very good, most people take the wrong lesson from his work.
They figure, "Oh, I have interesting conversations. I'll just transcribe those, and that'll be what the characters say, and later there will be scenes with guns. It'll be awesome."
Don't do that.
In every scene, something needs to be happening. Your characters shouldn't just sit down and have a friendly chat. It has to be a chat with a purpose.
It has to further the story. It has to tell the audience something about the character speaking.
So remember how I made you write out that beat sheet? The two or three pages that tells your entire story. Make sure you go back to it, all the time, and follow it.
This brings me to another thought: Don't say, "I'll fix it when I'm making it."
The other day, one of my students asked if, since they had made movies already first semester, if they could just improvise their dialogue second semester.
I told the student no.
When they asked why (sorry for the odd pronouns, but I refuse to tell you anything about my students... I think they're awesome, but who they are is none of your business) I explained that when you show up to shoot a movie, you need to have something to shoot.
A lot of actors like to brag that they improvised their dialogue, or made changes on the set. And that sounds like a lot of fun, doesn't it?
Except at the end, when you have to cut the movie together, and suddenly the movie doesn't make any sense any more.
Don't get me wrong, there ARE actors who can improvise their words from the first scene to the last, and make it work. They get hired by Christopher Guest. If your actors aren't in his movies, chances are good the stuff they come up with on the day isn't going to be all that funny.
Don't get me wrong, your cast and crew will probably laugh. But when you start editing, and see what you actually shot, you'll realize your story wanders, your scenes go on forever, and you can't cut anything out because everyone talks over each other and you can't cut from shot to shot.
If you want to improvise on the set, go ahead. If you want to make changes to the dialogue on the set, go ahead. But before you decide to wing it, write great dialogue, shoot that dialogue, and then do a few takes where your actors play around.
Just trust me.
While I'm at it:
Don't write your script as a platform for your political beliefs. If you can slip some ideas in while telling a great story, give it a shot. But I promise you, they'll stick out like a sort thumb.
And by the way, don't do this even if you're going to shoot the movie yourself. A boring political screed is just as dull on the screen as it is on the page.
Same goes for your "poor tortured artist" story. Don't write that one either, because the story is, of course, loosely based on your life. No one wants to read it. Trust me. And if you make it yourself, no one will want to watch it.
If you're thinking about making an indie film, don't do a coming of age story. And it would probably be wise to avoid writing a drama of any kind. A good drama is awesome, but a bad drama is just painful to deal with. And even if you have a great scene in there somewhere, chances are no one will remember it, because they'll fall asleep in the first 20 minutes or so.
The two best (not easiest, but best) genres to tackle when writing a script are horror or comedy.
Why?
Because both of them can get to the screen mistake-and-weakness filled, and still be considered entertaining.
To my mind the two classic examples here are "Clerks" and "Phantasm."
"Phantasm" looks cheap in a lot of places. The acting is so-so. There are a ton of dream sequences that are freaky, but don't really lead up to anything. And the ending is a gotcha out of nowhere.
But it's given people nightmares for years, and spawned three sequels. Why? It might have been cheap, but it's got a lot of little things that stick with you, and creep you out.
And then there's "Clerks." Made for less than fifty grand. Shot at night, because they could get the place for free. Long takes because Kevin Smith wasn't much of a director. Really long scenes that take a while to get anywhere. Iffy editing.
But the movie is memorable, and launched a career. Why? It's funny, it's quotable, and people remember it.
People let the flaws go because the films are entertaining. Chances are, if Kevin Smith had made a drama, we would never have heard from him again.
This post has gotten long and wandered around a bit, so a couple more thoughts and then I'll call it finished.
If you're writing a movie to make on your own, you need to both think big and ask yourself, "What can I really accomplish?"
If you work at a University, and can get access to a marching band, go for it. Use what you've got to make the biggest movie you can.
But if you live in the middle of a farming community, and the nearest large school is 100 miles away... hold the band. Come up with an awesome scene in a grain silo instead.
If you're writing the movie for Hollywood, on the other hand... think really big. The bigger the better. Don't just write a little drama about two brothers who can't get along. Write a story about two brothers, one that's a pirate, and one that's a ninja.
Give them a dragon for a dad. Think really, really, really, really big.
Make a splash in whatever way you can.
Most importantly, have fun. Because if you didn't have fun writing, people aren't going to have fun reading and shooting.
Screenwriting is, after all, a very broad topic, and trying to fit every little idea into one post seems a little haphazard.
Unfortunately, putting them in this second post still seems haphazard. I guess I could create a numbered list, but that just seems so official.
So, here are a few random things I've learned about screenwriting over the last 12 years.
(Yes, that's how long I've been writing screenplays.)
First, make sure that the movie you're writing is going to be interesting.
Most people, when they go to write their first script, forget that there needs to be a story. While I love Tarantino, and people love to debate whether his dialogue is really great, or merely very good, most people take the wrong lesson from his work.
They figure, "Oh, I have interesting conversations. I'll just transcribe those, and that'll be what the characters say, and later there will be scenes with guns. It'll be awesome."
Don't do that.
In every scene, something needs to be happening. Your characters shouldn't just sit down and have a friendly chat. It has to be a chat with a purpose.
It has to further the story. It has to tell the audience something about the character speaking.
So remember how I made you write out that beat sheet? The two or three pages that tells your entire story. Make sure you go back to it, all the time, and follow it.
This brings me to another thought: Don't say, "I'll fix it when I'm making it."
The other day, one of my students asked if, since they had made movies already first semester, if they could just improvise their dialogue second semester.
I told the student no.
When they asked why (sorry for the odd pronouns, but I refuse to tell you anything about my students... I think they're awesome, but who they are is none of your business) I explained that when you show up to shoot a movie, you need to have something to shoot.
A lot of actors like to brag that they improvised their dialogue, or made changes on the set. And that sounds like a lot of fun, doesn't it?
Except at the end, when you have to cut the movie together, and suddenly the movie doesn't make any sense any more.
Don't get me wrong, there ARE actors who can improvise their words from the first scene to the last, and make it work. They get hired by Christopher Guest. If your actors aren't in his movies, chances are good the stuff they come up with on the day isn't going to be all that funny.
Don't get me wrong, your cast and crew will probably laugh. But when you start editing, and see what you actually shot, you'll realize your story wanders, your scenes go on forever, and you can't cut anything out because everyone talks over each other and you can't cut from shot to shot.
If you want to improvise on the set, go ahead. If you want to make changes to the dialogue on the set, go ahead. But before you decide to wing it, write great dialogue, shoot that dialogue, and then do a few takes where your actors play around.
Just trust me.
While I'm at it:
Don't write your script as a platform for your political beliefs. If you can slip some ideas in while telling a great story, give it a shot. But I promise you, they'll stick out like a sort thumb.
And by the way, don't do this even if you're going to shoot the movie yourself. A boring political screed is just as dull on the screen as it is on the page.
Same goes for your "poor tortured artist" story. Don't write that one either, because the story is, of course, loosely based on your life. No one wants to read it. Trust me. And if you make it yourself, no one will want to watch it.
If you're thinking about making an indie film, don't do a coming of age story. And it would probably be wise to avoid writing a drama of any kind. A good drama is awesome, but a bad drama is just painful to deal with. And even if you have a great scene in there somewhere, chances are no one will remember it, because they'll fall asleep in the first 20 minutes or so.
The two best (not easiest, but best) genres to tackle when writing a script are horror or comedy.
Why?
Because both of them can get to the screen mistake-and-weakness filled, and still be considered entertaining.
To my mind the two classic examples here are "Clerks" and "Phantasm."
"Phantasm" looks cheap in a lot of places. The acting is so-so. There are a ton of dream sequences that are freaky, but don't really lead up to anything. And the ending is a gotcha out of nowhere.
But it's given people nightmares for years, and spawned three sequels. Why? It might have been cheap, but it's got a lot of little things that stick with you, and creep you out.
And then there's "Clerks." Made for less than fifty grand. Shot at night, because they could get the place for free. Long takes because Kevin Smith wasn't much of a director. Really long scenes that take a while to get anywhere. Iffy editing.
But the movie is memorable, and launched a career. Why? It's funny, it's quotable, and people remember it.
People let the flaws go because the films are entertaining. Chances are, if Kevin Smith had made a drama, we would never have heard from him again.
This post has gotten long and wandered around a bit, so a couple more thoughts and then I'll call it finished.
If you're writing a movie to make on your own, you need to both think big and ask yourself, "What can I really accomplish?"
If you work at a University, and can get access to a marching band, go for it. Use what you've got to make the biggest movie you can.
But if you live in the middle of a farming community, and the nearest large school is 100 miles away... hold the band. Come up with an awesome scene in a grain silo instead.
If you're writing the movie for Hollywood, on the other hand... think really big. The bigger the better. Don't just write a little drama about two brothers who can't get along. Write a story about two brothers, one that's a pirate, and one that's a ninja.
Give them a dragon for a dad. Think really, really, really, really big.
Make a splash in whatever way you can.
Most importantly, have fun. Because if you didn't have fun writing, people aren't going to have fun reading and shooting.
Monday, May 9, 2011
How to Make a Movie: Screenwriting
Hoo boy.
Okay, here's the truth. There are WHOLE BOOKS that tell you how to write a screenplay.
Does it take an entire book? No.
I think what it takes is a screenplay.
The problem is, this doesn't work great in handout/blog format.
What I usually do in class is, I show my students my short film, Meaningful Touches. It's about seven minutes long, and the script is about 7 pages.
They watch the movie, and read the script, and in the end, they know how to write a screenplay. In theory.
In practice, they make mistakes. Which is understandable, because, as I said, there are whole books devoted to the subject. Format errors happen, and they happen all the time.
At a university level, professors will spend a whole semester teaching their students how to write a script.
When I teach, I don't have that kind of time. I have a week. Maybe two. And at the end, my students need to have a working functional screenplay to shoot.
So what I do is, I throw them in the water, hope for the best, and then show them where they're making errors, and when we're done they're writing screenplays almost completely correctly.
But how to teach this online?
Like so:
First, check out this article on the subject of screenwriting style.
Read that article twice, then print it out and keep it on the desk next to you while you write. If you're not sure of something, format-wise, check the article.
Second, read a few screenplays while watching the movies they turned into. You can probably Google the name of your favorite movie and the word screenplay and find one you'd be interested in reading. For that matter, a lot of production houses make their award-nominated scripts available online, for free.
But if you need to find something that sparks your interest, I recommend checking out The Weekly Script. Why them in particular? Lots of scripts, lots of genres, lots of good movie choices.
And most importantly, they seem to be pretty strict about making sure they're using the correct/original formatting. Trust me, this is important.
If I were you, I'd print a script or two out. Just for reference. It'll be much easier to look at it that way, and when you first start writing scripts, you'll do that a lot.
At this point, I usually create a sample script on the blackboard and use it to show my students about 95% of the stuff they'll use when writing. The only problem is, screenplays don't usually show up correctly on blog sites.
Oh, there are ways to make it work, but it's a serious pain, and I could spend a whole day trying to get it right to give you a bad example of what a script should look like.
So read a script or two. And read the article I linked. And then remember this:
Sluglines look like so:
INT. BOB'S LIVING ROOM - DAY
That tells you where you are and what time of day it is.
Action looks like so:
BOB, a fat dude in small pants, picks up his remote.
TED walks into the room, holding a gun. Ted is just as fat as Bob.
(Did you see that? The name is only capped the first time it appears in a screenplay.)
TED
Say adios!
BOB
(whatever)
No.
That's dialogue. It should be short and to the point. If you really, really, really (and I mean really) need to explain how dialogue should be said, you use a parenthetical, like you see under Bob's name, but over his line.
And that's most of what you need to know. Now it's all just practice.
For what it's worth, you can get free screenwriting software here: CeltX
That'll make it a LOT easier to do your formatting, trust me.
So practice. Write your script. Then read a script or two (while watching a movie!) and re-read the article I linked, and go over your script and correct all those formatting errors you made.
There will be plenty.
And then you're on your way!
Okay, here's the truth. There are WHOLE BOOKS that tell you how to write a screenplay.
Does it take an entire book? No.
I think what it takes is a screenplay.
The problem is, this doesn't work great in handout/blog format.
What I usually do in class is, I show my students my short film, Meaningful Touches. It's about seven minutes long, and the script is about 7 pages.
They watch the movie, and read the script, and in the end, they know how to write a screenplay. In theory.
In practice, they make mistakes. Which is understandable, because, as I said, there are whole books devoted to the subject. Format errors happen, and they happen all the time.
At a university level, professors will spend a whole semester teaching their students how to write a script.
When I teach, I don't have that kind of time. I have a week. Maybe two. And at the end, my students need to have a working functional screenplay to shoot.
So what I do is, I throw them in the water, hope for the best, and then show them where they're making errors, and when we're done they're writing screenplays almost completely correctly.
But how to teach this online?
Like so:
First, check out this article on the subject of screenwriting style.
Read that article twice, then print it out and keep it on the desk next to you while you write. If you're not sure of something, format-wise, check the article.
Second, read a few screenplays while watching the movies they turned into. You can probably Google the name of your favorite movie and the word screenplay and find one you'd be interested in reading. For that matter, a lot of production houses make their award-nominated scripts available online, for free.
But if you need to find something that sparks your interest, I recommend checking out The Weekly Script. Why them in particular? Lots of scripts, lots of genres, lots of good movie choices.
And most importantly, they seem to be pretty strict about making sure they're using the correct/original formatting. Trust me, this is important.
If I were you, I'd print a script or two out. Just for reference. It'll be much easier to look at it that way, and when you first start writing scripts, you'll do that a lot.
At this point, I usually create a sample script on the blackboard and use it to show my students about 95% of the stuff they'll use when writing. The only problem is, screenplays don't usually show up correctly on blog sites.
Oh, there are ways to make it work, but it's a serious pain, and I could spend a whole day trying to get it right to give you a bad example of what a script should look like.
So read a script or two. And read the article I linked. And then remember this:
Sluglines look like so:
INT. BOB'S LIVING ROOM - DAY
That tells you where you are and what time of day it is.
Action looks like so:
BOB, a fat dude in small pants, picks up his remote.
TED walks into the room, holding a gun. Ted is just as fat as Bob.
(Did you see that? The name is only capped the first time it appears in a screenplay.)
TED
Say adios!
BOB
(whatever)
No.
That's dialogue. It should be short and to the point. If you really, really, really (and I mean really) need to explain how dialogue should be said, you use a parenthetical, like you see under Bob's name, but over his line.
And that's most of what you need to know. Now it's all just practice.
For what it's worth, you can get free screenwriting software here: CeltX
That'll make it a LOT easier to do your formatting, trust me.
So practice. Write your script. Then read a script or two (while watching a movie!) and re-read the article I linked, and go over your script and correct all those formatting errors you made.
There will be plenty.
And then you're on your way!
Blood Calling: The FAQ
Q: Hey, what happened to the movie-making posts?
A: They'll resume tomorrow, I promise. I just need to get the word out about my new novelette.
Q: Which would be?
A: Baby Teeth: A Blood Calling Novelette
Q: That's quite the name.
A: Yeah.
Q: Sooo... what's Blood Calling?
A: Blood Calling is my next novel. The plan is to get it out in the summer of 2011. Hopefully early summer, as opposed to later summer.
Q: So why the tie-in novelette? Also, what's a novelette?
A: Well, a novelette is a story that's too long to be a short story, but too short to be a novella or a novel. It's about 12,000 words, in this case.
Q: Why put out the novelette first?
A: There's a long answer to that, but I'll try to sum it up.
I started writing Blood Calling (under another title) sometime last year. I got about 8,000 words in, and stopped, because I had other things that needed taking care of, and also, the book felt slow to me. At the time, I thought the novel would be about 80,000 words.
In my estimation, you shouldn't have to wait 1/10 of a book for interesting stuff to happen.
So I stopped writing. Then I had an idea that sped up the story a bit, and wrote more. Then I stopped, because I had other things going on in my life.
I started an unrelated short story that had a vampire in it, because I had an idea for the saddest vampire story in the world. (Okay, not really, but it's pretty sad. And also disturbing.)
I wrote about half that story and got stuck.
Then I realized that both stories would improve if they had the same kind of vampires in them.
With that in mind, I finished up the novelette... without finishing the novel it was tied to.
I realized, however, that they both stood on their own - two sides of the same coin, really, and with a shared character - so I put the first chapter of Blood Calling at the end of the story, and put it up for sale.
Q: So Blood Calling is about vampires?
A: Oh sure. But a kind of vampire you've probably never seen before. (No, they don't sparkle. It has to do with their purpose.) Also, there are ancient enemies, hand-to-hand combat, and some twists and turns. And emotions. Lots of emotions.
Q: So you've got the novelette, and the novel. Is this going to be a series of some sort?
A: I have plans. We'll see how they play out. The title of the first novel will be Blood Calling, with each subsequent entery being "A Blood Calling _______" (Novel, short story, poem. Whatever.)
Q: What else do I need to know?
A: Not much. If you want to read the start of Baby Teeth, click on the link. You can get the rest of the story on the Kindle or nook, and it includes the first chapter of Blood Calling.
A: They'll resume tomorrow, I promise. I just need to get the word out about my new novelette.
Q: Which would be?
A: Baby Teeth: A Blood Calling Novelette
Q: That's quite the name.
A: Yeah.
Q: Sooo... what's Blood Calling?
A: Blood Calling is my next novel. The plan is to get it out in the summer of 2011. Hopefully early summer, as opposed to later summer.
Q: So why the tie-in novelette? Also, what's a novelette?
A: Well, a novelette is a story that's too long to be a short story, but too short to be a novella or a novel. It's about 12,000 words, in this case.
Q: Why put out the novelette first?
A: There's a long answer to that, but I'll try to sum it up.
I started writing Blood Calling (under another title) sometime last year. I got about 8,000 words in, and stopped, because I had other things that needed taking care of, and also, the book felt slow to me. At the time, I thought the novel would be about 80,000 words.
In my estimation, you shouldn't have to wait 1/10 of a book for interesting stuff to happen.
So I stopped writing. Then I had an idea that sped up the story a bit, and wrote more. Then I stopped, because I had other things going on in my life.
I started an unrelated short story that had a vampire in it, because I had an idea for the saddest vampire story in the world. (Okay, not really, but it's pretty sad. And also disturbing.)
I wrote about half that story and got stuck.
Then I realized that both stories would improve if they had the same kind of vampires in them.
With that in mind, I finished up the novelette... without finishing the novel it was tied to.
I realized, however, that they both stood on their own - two sides of the same coin, really, and with a shared character - so I put the first chapter of Blood Calling at the end of the story, and put it up for sale.
Q: So Blood Calling is about vampires?
A: Oh sure. But a kind of vampire you've probably never seen before. (No, they don't sparkle. It has to do with their purpose.) Also, there are ancient enemies, hand-to-hand combat, and some twists and turns. And emotions. Lots of emotions.
Q: So you've got the novelette, and the novel. Is this going to be a series of some sort?
A: I have plans. We'll see how they play out. The title of the first novel will be Blood Calling, with each subsequent entery being "A Blood Calling _______" (Novel, short story, poem. Whatever.)
Q: What else do I need to know?
A: Not much. If you want to read the start of Baby Teeth, click on the link. You can get the rest of the story on the Kindle or nook, and it includes the first chapter of Blood Calling.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Baby Teeth: A Blood Calling Novelette - An Excerpt
This is the night I’ll finally kill my baby.
I have to. I’ve been alive a long time. A lot longer than I should have been. The baby has something to do with that, I think. My mind has been sharp for decades more than anyone else’s I know. And my body more firm, more flexible. More reliable.
A surprising number of people make it past the century mark. But it’s a smaller number that make it to my age, and still live in their own homes. Alone.
Well. Alone except for the baby.
I’m listening now. The baby is consistent. The sun sets, night falls, and I hear movement in the baby’s room. But it takes a while for the baby to pull itself out of the crib. So I listen for the thump.
The thump, which always is followed by the THUMPTHUMP THUMPTHUMP THUMPTHUMP of the baby coming down the hallway.
The baby will come. The baby will feed. Just like always.
And just like always, I will cry, and rock the baby, and coo to it. Because it is, after all, my baby.
My dead baby.
***
Things were different when my baby was born. Today, dads stand by their wives, encourage them to breathe, and give them ice chips. At least, that’s what I read.
In my day, we sat in a waiting room. Maybe we smoked, or played cards, or paced, or talked to the other dads. Some of us were nervous, a few were old pros, and there always was a crier.
Me.
Why is that, you ask? Roots. I had none.
It became a cliché when movies were introduced, the baby left on the doorstep of the orphanage. But that was my story. In my 90s, I tried to retrieve the papers that might have told me anything of my youth, only to discover that the building that housed them burned down decades ago.
Today, of course, everything is in fireproof safes, copied in triplicate, and often in electronic form so if you want ten or twenty or a hundred copies, you can have them in minutes.
But that’s not how things were at my first turning of the century.
So I lived in an orphanage, and got a job selling papers on the corner, and managed to get through high school even though that wasn’t something people expected back then. And I worked my way through college, too, which was rare.
Got my first job, as an accountant.
There were a lot of pretty girls at the firm. I dated a few, married one. We were happy, until the night she was murdered.
At least, that’s what I spent months trying to prove. But it’s nearly impossible to convince anyone your wife was murdered when you’re behind bars yourself.
I digress. I was talking about the waiting room. And my roots.
Both of my wife’s parents were alive, and they seemed to approve of me. Though our courtship was whirlwind, and our pregnancy quick, no one ever questioned whether we had raced to the altar to cover up an indiscretion, which was as common then as it is now.
The thing is, they weren’t my family, if you get what I mean. Divorce is nothing new – you find rules about it in the Old Testament – and when families break up for whatever reason, the in-laws don’t cry and moan and wail for their lost kid. They move on.
But your blood is your blood. Don’t I know it?
There was no such thing as an intercom system when my wife was wheeled off in the dead of night to bring our baby into the world.
So I sat, and I cried, and I waited. And waited. And waited.
Like I said, it was a different time.
I listened to the hallway as tears slid down my face. I tried to keep from sniffling, just so I could hear the doctor or the nurse or the receptionist or whoever it was going to be as they padded down the hall to tell me that my baby was born.
I never got to hear that. Instead, I heard screaming.
I don’t consider myself a man of action. Growing up, I gave copious thought to how I was going to live my life. The schooling I would get, the job I would take. And while the meeting, marrying, and impregnating of the woman I loved might seem quick to you, in the world where people meet and marry in a week in Vegas, well… that’s all I have to say about that.
But when the screams pierced my eardrums, I stood and ran down the hallway.
I’m still not certain what happened over those next three minutes. Even when I went over the story with my lawyer, again and again and again, he constantly caught me moving events back and forth a few seconds. So I hope the universe will forgive me if my brain tells this story wrong.
The first thing I saw was a nurse, standing outside the doorway, hands clasped over her mouth. She was screaming, though the sound was muffled by her fists. I ran to her, and pushed her to the side so I could see in the doorway.
I’d like to say that I did it gently and kindly. But her cracked elbow said otherwise in court.
Inside the room was my wife, lying on the bed, unconscious, surrounded by pools of deep red. The doctor stood over her for a moment, his back to me. And then he leaned over and sunk his teeth into her neck.
My lawyer and the opposing lawyer both asked me later: Did I see my baby anywhere?
This is another area where events become confused for me. At first, I could have sworn I never saw the baby. Then I remembered I had seen it on the floor, lying in a crimson puddle. Then I remembered that was on its back, off to the side, away from the table. Like someone or something had carelessly tossed it there, as if it was so much trash.
Is any of that true? Of all the people who were there, I am the only one alive to tell the story, and I say it was. Perhaps if my baby could speak, it would tell a different story.
Or perhaps I should say if it could speak well.
I felt my body tense up, as though I had developed lockjaw in every limb. And yet, I pushed one muscle against another and sprang forward. I grabbed the doctor, yanked him off my wife, and flung him to the floor.
If the doctor’s coat had even a patch of white remaining on it, I couldn’t see it. The coat was rose-colored and slick, as was his face. His eyes were human, but with an animal gaze.
He recovered instantly from his fall to the floor, springing up like the men you see in martial arts movies. I may be the only man alive who can’t watch two men Kung Fu fight without wanting to throw up.
I heard a soft gurgle behind me, which I realized later was my wife, trying to talk through the gaping wound in her throat. If she was saying something to me, whether it was “Love you,” or, “Kill him,” I never will know.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a wooden chair, and my still-tense muscles creaked as I grabbed and lifted it.
According to my lawyer, the chair weighed nearly 30 pounds. The weight made no impression on me.
The doctor sprung at me, faster than my eyes could register, but slower than my instincts could deal with. I slammed the chair into him with so much force, he flew across the room into the wall, and the chair shattered like a balsa-wood plane crushed under the heel of an angry ten-year-old.
The wall cracked. The “doctor” kept moving.
Though the chair was in pieces, my hands still gripped the back of it, the splintered ends pointing at the thing that had torn out my wife’s throat.
What happened next isn’t a fluid memory. It’s like a series of pictures. Maybe it all happened so fast, that snapshots were all my brain ever was able to process.
I saw the thing move. I saw my arms move. I saw the “doctor” impaled on the sharp, broken wood. I saw the thing fall. I heard a scream. It was my own.
The doctor fell to the ground. Thrashing, but not screaming. His features shifted, slightly. Became less animal. More human.
My limbs unlocked. I fell to the ground. It was only later that I realized the thing I had killed wasn’t lying flat.
It was on top of my baby, oozing life liquids.
I closed my eyes.
***
When I woke up, there were policemen all over the hospital. Different stories flying through the air.
Today, of course, they read you that Miranda thing, and then you ask for your lawyer. But as I’ve said, things were different then.
There’s an old saying, that there are three sides to every story: Yours, mine, and the truth.
Things don’t work that way when there is a cadre of eyewitnesses. Based on what they got from the nurse with the broken elbow and the handful of dads-to-be that got to the door behind me, this is what they pieced together:
It seems my wife was having a very normal, uncomplicated labor, which was more than the nurse could say for the rest of the hospital. Of the nine women giving birth that night, six of them were having complications, including a too-early delivery to a breech birth. On top of all those complications, the second doctor on duty and one of the nurses hadn’t shown up for work.
It was later revealed in court that the two of them were having an affair, and had overslept in a cheap hotel when the alarm clock had failed to rouse them. It ruined both of their marriages to other people, but allowed the illicit couple to finally marry each other, something they had always dreamed of.
When they told this story on the witness stand, it was all I could do not to wish them both cancerous tumors.
The nurse returned to the delivery room, where she saw that my wife had, in her words, “hemorrhaged.” Something had gone wrong with the delivery. That was why she screamed.
The rest of the “official” story, the one they tried to make stick in court, went like this:
The baby had been stillborn. My wife had hemorrhaged. The doctor tried to save her. The nurse screamed. I shoved the nurse to the side, raced into the room, and the sight of my dead baby and dying wife drove me right to the brink of madness. So I killed the doctor in a rage.
As for my wife’s torn throat, well, with blood everywhere, it was impossible to tell whose was whose. They figured I did it with some portion of the broken chair.
The hole in her neck was so ragged, I could see how they would miss the teeth marks. Especially if they didn’t want to believe they were there.
You can continue the story by picking up a copy of Baby Teeth: A Blood Calling Novelette:
Kindle version
nook version
At Smashwords
And if you have an iPad, Smart Phone, PC or Mac, you can read the story by downloading on of the following apps:
Kindle Apps
I have to. I’ve been alive a long time. A lot longer than I should have been. The baby has something to do with that, I think. My mind has been sharp for decades more than anyone else’s I know. And my body more firm, more flexible. More reliable.
A surprising number of people make it past the century mark. But it’s a smaller number that make it to my age, and still live in their own homes. Alone.
Well. Alone except for the baby.
I’m listening now. The baby is consistent. The sun sets, night falls, and I hear movement in the baby’s room. But it takes a while for the baby to pull itself out of the crib. So I listen for the thump.
The thump, which always is followed by the THUMPTHUMP THUMPTHUMP THUMPTHUMP of the baby coming down the hallway.
The baby will come. The baby will feed. Just like always.
And just like always, I will cry, and rock the baby, and coo to it. Because it is, after all, my baby.
My dead baby.
***
Things were different when my baby was born. Today, dads stand by their wives, encourage them to breathe, and give them ice chips. At least, that’s what I read.
In my day, we sat in a waiting room. Maybe we smoked, or played cards, or paced, or talked to the other dads. Some of us were nervous, a few were old pros, and there always was a crier.
Me.
Why is that, you ask? Roots. I had none.
It became a cliché when movies were introduced, the baby left on the doorstep of the orphanage. But that was my story. In my 90s, I tried to retrieve the papers that might have told me anything of my youth, only to discover that the building that housed them burned down decades ago.
Today, of course, everything is in fireproof safes, copied in triplicate, and often in electronic form so if you want ten or twenty or a hundred copies, you can have them in minutes.
But that’s not how things were at my first turning of the century.
So I lived in an orphanage, and got a job selling papers on the corner, and managed to get through high school even though that wasn’t something people expected back then. And I worked my way through college, too, which was rare.
Got my first job, as an accountant.
There were a lot of pretty girls at the firm. I dated a few, married one. We were happy, until the night she was murdered.
At least, that’s what I spent months trying to prove. But it’s nearly impossible to convince anyone your wife was murdered when you’re behind bars yourself.
I digress. I was talking about the waiting room. And my roots.
Both of my wife’s parents were alive, and they seemed to approve of me. Though our courtship was whirlwind, and our pregnancy quick, no one ever questioned whether we had raced to the altar to cover up an indiscretion, which was as common then as it is now.
The thing is, they weren’t my family, if you get what I mean. Divorce is nothing new – you find rules about it in the Old Testament – and when families break up for whatever reason, the in-laws don’t cry and moan and wail for their lost kid. They move on.
But your blood is your blood. Don’t I know it?
There was no such thing as an intercom system when my wife was wheeled off in the dead of night to bring our baby into the world.
So I sat, and I cried, and I waited. And waited. And waited.
Like I said, it was a different time.
I listened to the hallway as tears slid down my face. I tried to keep from sniffling, just so I could hear the doctor or the nurse or the receptionist or whoever it was going to be as they padded down the hall to tell me that my baby was born.
I never got to hear that. Instead, I heard screaming.
I don’t consider myself a man of action. Growing up, I gave copious thought to how I was going to live my life. The schooling I would get, the job I would take. And while the meeting, marrying, and impregnating of the woman I loved might seem quick to you, in the world where people meet and marry in a week in Vegas, well… that’s all I have to say about that.
But when the screams pierced my eardrums, I stood and ran down the hallway.
I’m still not certain what happened over those next three minutes. Even when I went over the story with my lawyer, again and again and again, he constantly caught me moving events back and forth a few seconds. So I hope the universe will forgive me if my brain tells this story wrong.
The first thing I saw was a nurse, standing outside the doorway, hands clasped over her mouth. She was screaming, though the sound was muffled by her fists. I ran to her, and pushed her to the side so I could see in the doorway.
I’d like to say that I did it gently and kindly. But her cracked elbow said otherwise in court.
Inside the room was my wife, lying on the bed, unconscious, surrounded by pools of deep red. The doctor stood over her for a moment, his back to me. And then he leaned over and sunk his teeth into her neck.
My lawyer and the opposing lawyer both asked me later: Did I see my baby anywhere?
This is another area where events become confused for me. At first, I could have sworn I never saw the baby. Then I remembered I had seen it on the floor, lying in a crimson puddle. Then I remembered that was on its back, off to the side, away from the table. Like someone or something had carelessly tossed it there, as if it was so much trash.
Is any of that true? Of all the people who were there, I am the only one alive to tell the story, and I say it was. Perhaps if my baby could speak, it would tell a different story.
Or perhaps I should say if it could speak well.
I felt my body tense up, as though I had developed lockjaw in every limb. And yet, I pushed one muscle against another and sprang forward. I grabbed the doctor, yanked him off my wife, and flung him to the floor.
If the doctor’s coat had even a patch of white remaining on it, I couldn’t see it. The coat was rose-colored and slick, as was his face. His eyes were human, but with an animal gaze.
He recovered instantly from his fall to the floor, springing up like the men you see in martial arts movies. I may be the only man alive who can’t watch two men Kung Fu fight without wanting to throw up.
I heard a soft gurgle behind me, which I realized later was my wife, trying to talk through the gaping wound in her throat. If she was saying something to me, whether it was “Love you,” or, “Kill him,” I never will know.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a wooden chair, and my still-tense muscles creaked as I grabbed and lifted it.
According to my lawyer, the chair weighed nearly 30 pounds. The weight made no impression on me.
The doctor sprung at me, faster than my eyes could register, but slower than my instincts could deal with. I slammed the chair into him with so much force, he flew across the room into the wall, and the chair shattered like a balsa-wood plane crushed under the heel of an angry ten-year-old.
The wall cracked. The “doctor” kept moving.
Though the chair was in pieces, my hands still gripped the back of it, the splintered ends pointing at the thing that had torn out my wife’s throat.
What happened next isn’t a fluid memory. It’s like a series of pictures. Maybe it all happened so fast, that snapshots were all my brain ever was able to process.
I saw the thing move. I saw my arms move. I saw the “doctor” impaled on the sharp, broken wood. I saw the thing fall. I heard a scream. It was my own.
The doctor fell to the ground. Thrashing, but not screaming. His features shifted, slightly. Became less animal. More human.
My limbs unlocked. I fell to the ground. It was only later that I realized the thing I had killed wasn’t lying flat.
It was on top of my baby, oozing life liquids.
I closed my eyes.
***
When I woke up, there were policemen all over the hospital. Different stories flying through the air.
Today, of course, they read you that Miranda thing, and then you ask for your lawyer. But as I’ve said, things were different then.
There’s an old saying, that there are three sides to every story: Yours, mine, and the truth.
Things don’t work that way when there is a cadre of eyewitnesses. Based on what they got from the nurse with the broken elbow and the handful of dads-to-be that got to the door behind me, this is what they pieced together:
It seems my wife was having a very normal, uncomplicated labor, which was more than the nurse could say for the rest of the hospital. Of the nine women giving birth that night, six of them were having complications, including a too-early delivery to a breech birth. On top of all those complications, the second doctor on duty and one of the nurses hadn’t shown up for work.
It was later revealed in court that the two of them were having an affair, and had overslept in a cheap hotel when the alarm clock had failed to rouse them. It ruined both of their marriages to other people, but allowed the illicit couple to finally marry each other, something they had always dreamed of.
When they told this story on the witness stand, it was all I could do not to wish them both cancerous tumors.
The nurse returned to the delivery room, where she saw that my wife had, in her words, “hemorrhaged.” Something had gone wrong with the delivery. That was why she screamed.
The rest of the “official” story, the one they tried to make stick in court, went like this:
The baby had been stillborn. My wife had hemorrhaged. The doctor tried to save her. The nurse screamed. I shoved the nurse to the side, raced into the room, and the sight of my dead baby and dying wife drove me right to the brink of madness. So I killed the doctor in a rage.
As for my wife’s torn throat, well, with blood everywhere, it was impossible to tell whose was whose. They figured I did it with some portion of the broken chair.
The hole in her neck was so ragged, I could see how they would miss the teeth marks. Especially if they didn’t want to believe they were there.
You can continue the story by picking up a copy of Baby Teeth: A Blood Calling Novelette:
Kindle version
nook version
At Smashwords
And if you have an iPad, Smart Phone, PC or Mac, you can read the story by downloading on of the following apps:
Kindle Apps
Friday, May 6, 2011
How to Make a Movie: Writing Links and Books
I give this handout to my students when I get into screenplay writing. It's a quick list of books and links I think are worth knowing about, though not always reading about.
You'll see what I mean:
Writing Links
http://www.wordplayer.com/
This website is run by Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio, the two guys who wrote all three Pirates of the Caribbean movies. They have a bunch of articles up about the screenwriting process, all of which are pretty great. They also have a message board, where they (and others) talking movie-writing.
http://johnaugust.com/
This guy writes a LOT of movies, including a bunch for Tim Burton (Corpse Bride, Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). He also wrote and directed a very trippy movie called The Nines, which he financed himself.
http://www.scriptsecrets.net
William Martell writes cheap (VERY cheap) action movies for cable and video. He’s not very famous, but he has 19 movie credits to his name.
Writing Books
Screenplay: Syd Field
Written by a guy with almost no actual writing credits to his name, this did not prevent him from being the guy everyone used to read, years ago. His book is terrible, avoid it.
Story: Robert McKee
The “it” guy for writing in Hollywood. I’ve never read his book. His most recent “writing” job was consulting on some animated Barbie movies (really!).
Screenwriting 434: Lew Hunter
In 1998, most of the top ten movies that came out that year were taught by this guy. And he really does know his stuff. I don’t agree with everything he says, but if you follow his methods, you will end up with a pile of paper resembling a screenplay.
Crafty Screenwriting: Alex Epstein
More of a TV writer than a movie writer, but he still knows what he’s talking about. As a bonus, he has a web site and blog, both of which are worth a look:
http://www.craftyscreenwriting.com/
You'll see what I mean:
Writing Links
http://www.wordplayer.com/
This website is run by Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio, the two guys who wrote all three Pirates of the Caribbean movies. They have a bunch of articles up about the screenwriting process, all of which are pretty great. They also have a message board, where they (and others) talking movie-writing.
http://johnaugust.com/
This guy writes a LOT of movies, including a bunch for Tim Burton (Corpse Bride, Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). He also wrote and directed a very trippy movie called The Nines, which he financed himself.
http://www.scriptsecrets.net
William Martell writes cheap (VERY cheap) action movies for cable and video. He’s not very famous, but he has 19 movie credits to his name.
Writing Books
Screenplay: Syd Field
Written by a guy with almost no actual writing credits to his name, this did not prevent him from being the guy everyone used to read, years ago. His book is terrible, avoid it.
Story: Robert McKee
The “it” guy for writing in Hollywood. I’ve never read his book. His most recent “writing” job was consulting on some animated Barbie movies (really!).
Screenwriting 434: Lew Hunter
In 1998, most of the top ten movies that came out that year were taught by this guy. And he really does know his stuff. I don’t agree with everything he says, but if you follow his methods, you will end up with a pile of paper resembling a screenplay.
Crafty Screenwriting: Alex Epstein
More of a TV writer than a movie writer, but he still knows what he’s talking about. As a bonus, he has a web site and blog, both of which are worth a look:
http://www.craftyscreenwriting.com/
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