Tag: screenwriting

Fixing Star Wars

A lot of ink has been spilled by people complaining about Disney’s handling of the Star Wars franchise. They’re slowly getting better, but that improvement has come largely on the edges. The main franchise continues to be a shit show of half-measures and muddled movies that seem to be just crap put together in a hap-hazarded way.

The last few franchise movies have been so God-awful that I have simply walked out of them. The issue is not Kathleen Kennedy being “woke,” is that apparently Disney on an institutional level is not fans of the franchise and have no idea what to do with them.

For me, Disney has not one, but several existential problems they have to fix with the main franchise of Star Wars. All of these are extremely difficult to fix because of what Star Wars has become as a cultural and, most importantly financial standpoint.

Off the top of my head, the biggest problem of Star Wars is what you might call the “Bloatware Problem” Disney looks at Star Wars and sees dollah bills — selling toys — and also an opportunity to sell the “woke” agenda to a fan base of mostly center-Right men. Disney has done this to the point that the whole thing is unwatchable now.

But it gets worse.

Star Wars has always been camp for little kids. Despite the best efforts of middle-aged fanboys, Star Wars has no internal logic that functions. Things just happen for no fucking reason. They have begun to try to fix this problem by using the rubric “A Star Wars Movie” for some of the darker films, but Disney wants to sell toys, so it’s difficult to have sex or gore in a Star Wars movie.

There are no ready fixes to these problems.

I do think if they just would cool it with do ANY Star Wars movies for a few years, it might help to clear the air. Then I would really lean into using the massive universe that Star Wars has and explore the stories of lesser known characters.

Go to a planet that doesn’t have just one type of climate, for instance. Anyway, whatever. Until Star Wars gets its act together, I’m going to try to make my own interesting worlds for people to play in.

Hollywood, Or Bust –Distracting Myself With Screenwriting


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

But for my broken ankle, I would probably be zoning out at a bar somewhere on the Eastern Seaboard on one my regular “Writer’s Retreats.” But, alas, I’m hobbled for the moment, so I have to make do with what I have.

And what I have is Syd Field’s “Screenplay.”

I have more than that, obviously, but this weekend, I’m trying to study that book so I can get some sense of how to properly structure the screenplay outline I’m half-assed working on as my current creative “second track.” I have a really compelling movie concept that I want to do something with as an method to “distract” myself from the main track of writing four novels.

But the only way I could get to this point was a lot of hard work on those four novels. Now that I know how *I* develop a big, overarching story, I can just reuse what I have discovered and use it in a different way — the different way of outlining a screenplay.

I still don’t know how to use Final Draft, though.

But that’s the second stage in all of this. The first stage is to game out the story as well as possible, then turn around and learn Final Draft.

I’m well aware that I probably need three solid completed screenplays to my name before I think about doing what I want to do — simply fly to LA for a few days and walk around, hoping my natural larger-than-life extrovertedness will “somehow” get me near a producer or something.

This IS EXTREMELY DELUSIONAL.

But it’s also how, as I understand it, Hollywood really works. You do your hard prep work, then hope for the best. It’s all in who you know, not what you know. I’m also well aware that 99% of the people in LA are writing scripts and have exactly the same idea I do.

My mom always told me I was special, though. Wink.

I’ll put a move on you.

Right now, I have a strong scifi movie idea, a strong Wedding Crashers-like movie idea and MAYBE a screenplay based on The Impossible Scenario that I’ve been mulling a lot of late on this site. Maybe. I’m going to have to think some more about that third one. I also have the idea for a movie that I might be able to pitch to Seth Rogen because it deals with a film concept that he, also, is interested in. I just know how to actually pull it off, something he, to date, has not (apparently.)

The only problem with the Wedding Crasher’s style movie I have rolling around in my mind is, well, I’m not THAT funny. But I really like the concept — which I find hilarious — and maybe just by writing it, it could be the basis for a new version I wrote with someone else that was, like, actually as funny as the movie deserves to be.

Anyway, I’m kind of overwhelming myself with creativity, which is how I like it.

How Big Would Your Build-Out Settlement On A New Habitable Planet Need To Be To Accommodate 1 Billion Earth Refugees?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One of the core struggles I have with The Impossible Scenario is how many people would you need to successfully build out the planetary infrastructure for the, say, 1`billion people about to follow to the planet?

This, only on an livable planet and 1 billion people.

I have gone back from about 1 million to about 60 million over and over in my mind. Remember, a Galactic Empire has told humanity that it’s going to zap 1 billion humans to a new “homeland planet.” So, in this case, 1 billion people being saved from doomed earth isn’t as laughable as you might assume. No space ships would be involved. People would just wake up in some sort of re-animation pod on the other planet as if nothing happened.

The more people you use, the better the story telling because then you have the jarring image of people snapping back to normal life on a whole different planet. The fewer people, the longer it takes to colonize the planet and the less people have an emotion connection to the story.

Anyway.

I honestly don’t know.

And, what complicates matters even worse is if things were really all that existential, then the 10(ish) major nuclear powers would jump to the front of the line and demand they get more people to settle in the first few waves or they threaten to blow the world up.

Here’s my thinking — even though under the conditions of the scenario the first settlers to this new “homeland” planet would have to work their asses off, they would be in a position to become fabulously wealthy once all was said and done. And incredibly politically powerful.

So, there would be a huge crush of wealthy, powerful people who would, if nothing else, want their offspring to be among the first group of build-out settlers, no matter how many you might come up with.

Of course, if you’re writing the script, you find a way where your Everyman or Everywoman finds themselves among this first wave of settlers and the plot would be how they rise through the ranks to become a global leader.

This is a massive universe I’ve come up with, but there’s catch — it’s much more of a movie universe than a novel universe and I’m working on four novels right now. What’s more, I love those four novels I’m working on so much that I just don’t feel like pulling mental energy away from them to start from scratch to tell the story of all of this.

But I might at some point in the future. And I’m aware from my Webstats that people are growing interested in this scenario. I’m such a nobody that if someone scooped this idea up and made a movie or movies out of it I would be flabbergasted. I would be angry that they did it at first, but, lulz, I did explain it to them.

And, yet, I dunno.

Just because someone is interested in this doesn’t mean they’re willing to throw the huge amount of money at this idea necessary to create a Star Wars or The Matrix sized franchise out of it.

But, at least in my mind, the universe is fascinating. Imagine if we learn that not only are we not alone in the universe, but 1 billion of us can survive earth’s impending doom — if we’re just willing to work together.

The Curious Case Of ‘Red Notice’ — A $200 Million ‘Cheap’ Movie


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m going through my “Rear Window” phase where everything is a lot more complicated because, well, lulz, I broke my right ankle. My life is a mess at the moment. Even the most basic of things are extremely difficult or impossible without someone giving me some help.

So, I found myself stuck in front of my TV, forced to watch Netflix’s “Red Notice.” I was mildly curious about watching it before, but now I was nearly forced to watch it.

Red Notice / The Internet

Within seconds in to the movie, I knew was going to be bad. Or, more specifically, it was cheap. I think the movie itself had a budge of $200 million but it definitely seems as though all that money was put in to the casting of the three leads.

The Rock, Gal Gadot and Ryan Reynolds were all very pretty to look at and did a great job of acting in the context of the movie they were expected to be in. But otherwise, the movie felt cheap. It felt like a b-movie that took the Captain America growth serum.

At its heart Red Notice was a b movie.

It wasn’t a bad movie, it was just a b-movie that had outgrown itself.

Anyway, the whole thing began to grate on my nerves to the point that I got my caretaker of the moment to allow me to grab the remote and stop watching it.

Idle Musing About Developing A Screenplay


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I’m essentially using the method of development for the structure of a big story that I have formulated over the last three years to now work on a screenplay. The scifi movie concept is set in the far future and has is very much a warning about both the threat of MAGA and global climate change.

One thing I’ve noticed as I actually develop this screenplay’s outline is how much more native and organic outlining a screenplay is for me than a novel. There is a very strict rule when developing a screenplay — more screen time equals more attention directed to a concept or theme.

This also exists for novels, of course, but the whole dynamic of how you handle this is different for a screenplay. Because it’s on the screen, there are all these tricks you can use to really stress to the audience in a subtle way that this or that thing is REALLY IMPORTANT.

As such, I find myself flexing a different part of my creative mind as I go through the scenes of the outline. It’s a lot of fun.

And now that I’ve severely broken my right ankle and I’m literally unable to do anything but sit in front of my laptop every waking hour, it’s at least possible I’ll be able to focus a lot more attention on my various side projects over and above the four thriller novels I’m working on.

All that is the goal, at least.

I’m struggling to find a silver lining in this dumb, freak accident. And, if nothing else, if I ever reach my “potential” I can look back and all of this will be a funny story I can tell on the TV talk show circuit.

So, I Severely Broke My Right Ankle: A Coming 3 Month Spurt Of Creativity


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, I severely broke my right ankle a few days ago and just came back from surgery today. As such, I’m at the beginning of a three month period where I pretty much can’t do anything but just sit on the couch with my laptop.

I’m thinking that this is now a great opportunity for me to throw myself into a wide range of writing, developing and reading. Unless I’m missing something, I can now have a very, very intensive spurt of creativity where I focus on an array of novels, screenplays and short stories that I have either been working on already or have been lying around in my mind.

It is only three months, of course, so there’s only so much I can do. But I’m hoping that I given how far I’ve gotten with thriller one and thriller three, that this added focus will help me really plow through the less developed thrillers two and four.

I’ve already figured out part 1 (three chapters) of Part 1 of the second thriller. It’s meant to be an almost literal retelling of the events leading up to, and immediately following the fall that precipitated this dumb accident in the first place.

And my involvement with the medical field as a result of this freak accident has me thinking AGAIN of the pandemic scifi novel I’ve been mulling. It’s a great concept that would be written in a first person POV. I first thought the concept up when I was in South Korea, but it’s only been since COVID19 struck that I’ve realized I could do something with it.

The concept is meant to make the idea of a pandemic very personal and intimate in a number of ways. Having gone through a real pandemic has made me understand a number of practical issues that would have previously escaped me.

Of Screenwriting & Novel Development Management


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have a pretty good system for management of the development of a big storytelling project established. It’s taken me about three years to get here, but I finally have a pretty good system.

One of the reasons why I find myself interested in screenwriting is it should be easy for me to retool that system from writing novels to writing screenplays. The hardest part at the moment will be learning Final Draft. The actual development of the story is far easier than that I know how *I* develop a longer-style story.

I already have a general idea of the plot of this screenplay and its themes tap into my general, lingering rage over MAGA that the same dynamic that was at work with the initial development of the four thrillers I’m working on should be in play with this screenplay.

But, as of the moment, all I have for sure down pat with the outline is the very beginning and the climax. Other than that, I’m at a loss right now.

And that doesn’t even begin to address the issue of learning Final Draft. But I hope that I’ll be so excited with a finished outline that when I get to the point where I want to start writing on the screenplay, I’ll be able to use brut mental force to learn Final Draft.

At least, that’s the hope.

I have a huge amount going on creatively at the moment, which is what I want. The main focus has to be on the thrillers, though. It’s just, sometimes, I need to let of some steam doing something totally different that uses a slightly different part of my mind.

I’m still very interested in fashion photography, but getting the equipment has been far, far slower than I expected. So, for the moment, occasionally dabbling in screenwriting is it.

My Screenwriting ‘Secret Weapon’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One of my favorite books is “The World According To Garp” and in it, we learn that Garp’s literary agent has a “secret weapon” — his office’s cleaning lady. She’s the person who read Garp’s mom’s feminist manifesto and loved it so much, giving the agent some sense of its potential.

I’ve kept that plot point in my mind since I first read it many, many moons ago as a young man and I’ve gone out of my way to find just an average person to bounce novel and movie ideas off of to see what they think. The latest incarnation of this secret weapon is the young woman who cuts my hair.

I told her the plots of the four thrillers I’m working on and she was quite impressed. This made me very happy. So, I decided to try again when I got my hair cut today and gave her a broad outline of the screenplay I’m currently mulling.

She really liked the third act, which is currently the most developed part of the story. I’m even more determined to see if I can develop this specific concept into something I at least won’t be embarrassed by — the same metric I have been using for the thrillers I’m working on.

She liked the premise of the story even though it subtly belies my liberal-progressive leanings on an existential basis.

But I still have a lot — A LOT — of work to do. And I am going into this side project knowing I have the severe headwinds of Hollywood agism, where I live and also my general Twitter reputation as nothing more than a crank.

And, yet, so what.

Of Gender Determinism & The Screenplay I’m Developing


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, I’ve got my McGuffin and I’ve got a general plot. Now, the thing I’m struggling with it how I might toy with gender expectations with the characters I’m thinking up in my mind.

I like the idea that that my Hero has a lot of “potential” as the story opens — much like Luke Skywalker — but his Princess starts off as a tough as nails broad who helps him become the man he always could be. I guess that’s pretty much every Hero’s Journey, but I like to think I’m following the old saw of “Tell an old story in a new way or an new story in an old way.”

I’m really trying to follow the beat structure of A New Hope with this first attempt to write a screenplay. Since I have four –4! — thriller novels to work on, for the time being, this screenplay is just what I work on when I need to burn off some steam.

I’m not going to get too wrapped up in making the first draft perfect. In fact, at the moment, I don’t even know how to use Final Draft at all. That’s something I’m going to have to work towards. But I do actually own it, so once I figure out how to use the software, I can hopefully just sit down and start writing.

But to get that point, I need to flesh out the outline I have. I really like how with a screenplay you have some very strict beats you need to meet. I find that very freeing. I don’t have to re-invent the wheel. I just think up my beats for the outline and when I get to them, I pull the trigger.

The universe I’ve come up with is pretty cool. The screenplay itself has elements of Alien, Logan’s Run, The Time Machine, Star Wars and any thriller movie where a McGuffin is involved. But it’s also meant to have a pretty strong romantic element to it which would be the heart of the story.

But I have noticed, even this early in the process of development, that by making gender expectations more modern, the story is flowing a lot easier. The trick is, of course, not to be so “woke” that no one wants to watch it. You see, Olivia Wilde, there is this thing call “subtext” where you can preach all you want to and not alienate every CIS white male in existence.

As such, my Hero starts off a lot like Luke Skywalker, but by the end of the story he and his love interest throw themselves into the future as equals. I think audiences will really like that.

I hope.

Fleshing Out My Screenplay’s Outline


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As of right now, things are moving really fast with the development of this first screenplay. A lot of this comes from my white hot fucking rage against MAGA and how this screenplay, like the four thrillers I’m working on, help me feel some agency when it comes to striking back at those fucking fascists.

I’m not a violent man, so, like the Little Drummer Boy, I can use my one talent — the ability to tell a damn good story – to fight MAGA at least in my own mind, if nothing else.

I’ve stumbled across a minor obstacle –what to do at the midpoint.

At the midpoint in your story, you’re supposed to have a false victory or false setback for your Hero.

At the moment, I honestly don’t have either one of those. But I still have time. I like the dynamic I’ve established between my Hero and his love interest. My Hero is very much inspired by Luke Skywalker, but in such a way that he feels a lot more modern.

It helps that the character is pretty much based on ME, too, but not in a bad way. I’m just taking elements of my own personality and running with them in such a way that hopefully it’s interesting and entertaining.

Your Hero is NOT SUPPOSED TO BE YOU. So. that’s another element of development I need to think about. I really like the universe I’ve constructed, now I need to figure out how to force my hero and love interest to be forced to run around it in a way that helps the audience see it.

I’m beginning to dread having to write a sex scene. But, I think as my first screenplay I’m going to grade myself on a curve when it comes to things like that.