Am I crazy or just screwed

From an interview on the popular blog scriptshadow:

SS: What is the biggest mistake you see writers make?

Beware of the faux masterpiece. What is that? That’s when you try to tackle something huge like a critical piece of history – the Holocaust, slavery, World War II – or try to set an expensive politically-charged love story against that sort of backdrop. You might be a deep thinker and have an unparalleled understanding of the subject, but as a beginning writer, your craft is not going to be able to do the story justice.

You don’t write The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Schindler’s List, Sophie’s Choice or even Atonement as your third or fourth script. When a writer aims for that sort of script – one that only works if it’s a masterpiece – then whether they achieve 50% or 75% of their goal, it’s sort of irrelevant. They haven’t crossed the tipping point where the script has any viability.

SS: Great point about the faux masterpiece. I see a lot of those. But does that mean writers shouldn’t try? Aren’t you the guy who is supposed to be championing people? Ore you are contradicting yourself…you said writers should write whatever they want when starting out.

JM: Fair enough. If you are writing your attempted masterpiece to learn about screenwriting, go for it. And get it over with ASAP. The skill you need to pull off the masterpieces come from finishing several non-masterpieces.


And I'm writing a script about slavery...

Alas, I may not sell it, but I WILL get something out of it.

GAL #2

Jacob keeps walking, as if with a destination in mind, his emotions coming to the surface without shame.

From the script WATER FOR ELEPHANTS, going into production soon.

Get your Freak on

Haven't posted in a while. Been pretty insanely busy. Here's the updates:

Got my first official 'film industry job' at Anonymous Content as a office PA/floater. This is a management/production company and a great place to get my foot in the door. I told one of the managers I wanted to be a screenwriter. He told me I was in the right place.

Stoked on that.

Another great thing that happened full of possibility: the comedy pitch I sent to someone I knew in the industry was liked by her boss above many others they were receiving. Seems the story idea I started working on in my UCLA class paid off. The script is called 'How to Hide a Boner' and while I won't share the premise on this blog, it is a story I am very passionate about, so I believe I will enjoy working on it enough to push through it. That is of course, if I'm hired and possibly PAID to do it. Even if they don't go through with it, I still may write it since I just spent a hardcore week completing a thorough outline on it after 12 hour days at
Anonymous Content.

Say YAY for me. And Yay for small steps in the right direction. I keep telling myself, if I get paid to write a script before I'm 25 then I will be satisfied.

Freed Men is in great shape on the new draft I've been working on, hopefully that'll be done within a month.

A great quote

"Every time I write, I find myself going through a form of self-examination that is almost a kind of therapy. By creating and examining my characters I find myself questioning my own motivations, my own character. By creating problems for these characters, I look at my problems--and sometimes find solutions. If I get angry at something, the way teachers are treated in this country, the low opinion of women in combat (despite a few thousand years of history stating otherwise), I write about it and get Mr. Holland's Opus or Courage Under Fire. Trying to come to terms with my own combat experience, I delved into those subjects in Courage..., 84 Charlie Mopic and War Story: Vietnam.

Every story and every character has a part of me, good guy or bad, and I share their emotions, good or bad. I vent rage, weep, laugh, and all without exposing anyone else to my angst and dramatics. I take my worst psychological problems and work them out on paper. I think writers, like other artists, go into dark corners where most people have hidden the dangerous parts of their lives. Writers go into these closets in their minds, pull out something most people don't want to discuss or admit, and say, 'Look at this. This is how I feel, how I think.' And the wonder of it all is that no matter how despicable, dreadful, or embarrassing that thought or deed may be, it is often universal. The audience recognizes it and experiences that same emotion vicariously, safely."

-- Patrick S. Duncan (Courage Under Fire, Mr. Holland's Opus)

I like to write my problems and tell them to other people

Daily quote:

"IT'S JUST A COUCH!"

-Lester Bernham
American Beauty

Great Action Lines : GAL

I'm starting a new recurring post. It's going to be clever ways of wording things in screenplay action lines. This one comes from Joe Carnahan's 'The Grey', apparently being developed.


Flannery’s eyes seize Ottway’s, he reaches for him.

Love it.

Plot Character Theme

I know what good writing is. I can see it directly. I can see metaphors around me in life. I read life like a screenplay now.
It's like in the matrix, where Neo can see the numbers floating down, the code that makes up life. I look around me, I talk to people close to me, strangers and I see it. The language of story everywhere, within everything.

The three things that make up the screenplay: plot, character and theme. They relate to each other. They relate to life. The plot is the things that happen in your life, the events, the locations, the props. The characters are everyone around you, everyone you know, everyone you don't. The theme is...

The theme is you. What you are. What you deal with. What your destiny is. What the destiny of this world is. Emotions.

I will never right something not character-driven. I want to explore the depths of the soul. I want to explore my problems and show them to the world without them noticing.

And I know I can do it. I have faith in that.

Freed Men is just the beginning.