Vienna is beautiful.
Three in a row, I’m really proud, I can’t remember the last time my writing was this consistent and organized1. I’m going to keep the numbers short though because I want to focus a bit on some work I did for my #ProjectMomentum project “Down Under”.
One Screenplay: As I mentioned in my last post I lined up “Before Sunrise” in my reading queue. I’m not going to write too much about that now, I’m going to write an entire post about that one since it serves as an inspiration for “Down Under” but there are a few important take aways I’m going to mention.
Two Movies: I went to see “The Hateful Eight”. It was long but I really enjoyed it. It’s almost like a play but the energy is palpable and everything you expect from a Tarantino movie is there. I was particularly
impressed with the narrative structure. I don’t want to spoil anything but QT just knows how to tell a story. The second thing I want to mention is not really a movie and I didn’t even finish it this week but Netflix’s “Making a Murder” is so good I just have to mention it. If you haven’t watched it yet, go now.
Seven Pages and Seven hours of development: I’m still waiting for some news from Orlindo and his Project, so I couldn’t comment or wok on his. Instead I focused on my Idea: Down Under
Back in August 2015 I wrote about my summer and how I got inspired to write again.
So, when I say that I got inspired, I really mean that. Since that summer in Cambridge I always wanted to write an ensemble piece about people traveling and experiencing something together and in Australia I realized, that this is it. If I combine my time in Cambridge and my time in Australia with all the people I had the honor the meet and get to know, I end up with a great story, a story about people who are looking for something. Some are looking for adventure, some love, others are searching themselves but all of them are looking for friendship.
It took me 30 hours to get home from Australia but that was enough time to finish an outline and I’m almost 20 pages into the screenplay and so far, I really like what I’m reading. It’s far from perfect and I have to figure out the exact tone of the script but I’m in love with the characters and that’s what excites me the most.
It’s time to give you a longer update and to tell you what problems I’m currently facing. In my last post I told you about my strange process. I decided to take a step back and focus and the outline and make sure that all my nice moments and characters turn into a coherent story. The problem is, that I only have moments but no plot. I think I have to focus on that. I have some ideas for some plot points in the second half and I think I need to move those plot points into the first half. There are too many characters to juggle and I need to make sure that each and everyone of them not only gets a moment to shine but also an interesting arc or at least some form of journey.
I’m going to try to make sure that those arcs fit the theme but since I haven’t settled on a theme yet I’m flying blind here. I have some ideas but I need to pick one. While reading “Before Sunrise” it struck me how early and how clearly the theme/mission statement of the movie is spoken out loud.
JESSE
Do you have any idea what they’re arguing about? Do you speak English?
CELINE
Yes. But no, I don’t know. My German is not that good. (a beat) Have you ever heard that as couples get older they lose their ability to hear each other?
JESSE
Really?
CELINE
Supposedly men lose their ability to hear higher-pitched sounds and women eventually lose hearing on the low end. I guess they sort of nullify each other or something.
JESSE
Must be nature’s way of allowing couples to grow old together and not kill each other, I guess.
These are the first lines spoken by our two main characters and for me, it’s the movie in a nutshell2 and it’s exactly the thing I’m looking for. Obviously my movie isn’t about love, it’s about making new friends and coming to terms with who you are in the process. It’s about growing up and finding that spark, we all have as kids, again. But right now I’m looking for that spark myself, not the one you lose growing up but the light bulb one. I’m still waiting for that moment I described in “A (Hi)story Lesson”. I know that I can’t force that moment to happen and in the meantime there’s a lot I can do so I’m not complaining, I just wish the solution would present itself rather sooner than later. Until then I keep churning out pages with short brakes of playing “Assassin’s Creed – Black Flag” in between.
So stay tuned. Now playing: The Hateful Eight – Ennio Morricone.
- During the heyday of Skyscraper and Saber Rider I was really in the zone a couple of times. It’s about building momentum, a critcal mass of pages that gets your creative juices flowing, so basically everything #ProjectMomentum is about. ↩
- If you really think about it, it’s all three movies in a nutshell. ↩
Diesmal bist du mir zuvorgekommen. Aber ich bin in deinem Rückspiegel, dann gibts auch wieder was zu tun!
Hateful8 werd ich mir ev. erst im Heimkino geben. In Berlin gibt es zwar ne Road Show, aber die analoge Projektion ist so mies ist, dass man eine Kotztüte neben dem Sitz benötigt. Hatte mir bereits Interstellar vermiest. Und irgendwie bin ich aktuell nicht in der Stimmung für einen Tarantino.