On-Going Activities
I took a week off from editing Lens Flare and instead spent some time on my screenplays - both works-in-progress and those in the queue. Some of this was done in order to test out Celtx for the iPad, which I finally broke down and bought (now that they lowered the price by 50% and added a syncing function with the desktop app).
In order to test this, I exported the current incomplete draft of A Grand Delusion (the one I’m writing based on my short story of the same name) from Final Draft into text format and then imported it into Celtx desktop. It took a bit of time to format it properly (that is, to assign the correct elements to each piece of text), but once I completed, I sent it over to my iPad and it looks great! Definitely a plus, especially since I recently purchased a Bluetooth keyboard for my iPad. Much better taking that to bed to write on than my MacBook Pro.
Then I decided to use Celtx for the iPad to begin the opening scenes for a script I’ve had in on my to-do list for several years. I’ll call it Project X for now, as I think the title is too intriguing to give away at this time. The app worked wonderfully and after I synched it back to my desktop, I was able to easily pick up where I left off.
There are a couple of other screenplays I have in progress (unnamed for now as well) that I started in Celtx which now reside on my iPad. This will make it so much easier to write & edit them as time permits. Once I have first drafts completed, I’ll move them over to Final Draft to polish and prep. How cool is that?
Ricochet Man - The One That Got Away
Whenever someone’s about to tell a joke, they say “Stop me if you’ve heard this one.” I’ll ask the same indulgence in the (re)telling of this story.
Back in 2005, I wrote my first screenplay called The Rebound Guy. I don’t remember the original logline (it’s in my notes somewhere), but here it is now:
After spending a lifetime bedding women on the rebound, a lothario finally falls in love and finds himself in competition with his own brother for her heart.
The idea for this came to me in a dream. We were living in our downtown LA loft apartment (our 18-month bohemian period) and I woke up one Saturday summer morning with this idea fully formed in my head. I had just bought a Toshiba tablet PC and remember writing the treatment longhand on it (forty pages worth), even including music that would work perfect at various points in the movie. I already knew who would play the main roles and everything.
I next bought Final Draft and proceeded to write the screenplay in about two weeks time. After several drafts, I asked my wife to edit it for me - she was a creating writing major, after all - but alas, she procrastinated. Summer turned into fall, fall turned into winter and finally I couldn’t wait any longer and did the final review & edit myself, then posted it on Inktip (around February 2006) and waited.
Not too long after, I got a call from a producer - the wife of a well-known DC, in fact - who expressed interest in working with me. I met her and her husband at Starbucks near their home and long story short, they wanted to option the script. Naturally, I was thrilled. This was my first screenplay and it was possible someone was going to turn it into a film!
I hired an entertainment lawyer - I didn’t have an agent - and he edited the contract. I sent it to the producer who, to my surprise, had no objections with any of the changes. We were ready to sign.
Then I got the brilliant idea to secure the domain for the movie - and when I did the look-up, I saw that Twentieth Century Fox Films already took it. No!! More research showed that they announced the pitch for a movie with that title in Variety in December 2005 - long after I wrote mine, but before I posted it to Inktip. Clearly, this was a coincidence, but the loglines at the time looked almost identical! Their script hadn’t been written yet, though the writers were chosen, and Seed Productions was going to produce it. Their executive producer happens to be Hugh Jackman, who would also be the star of the movie.
I guess I’m too honest - when I told my producers about this, they decided to pass on the opportunity and I was left high and dry. I retitled my script to Ricochet Man (a play on “rebound guy”) and altered it a bit to distinguish it from Fox’s - my producers recommended I make it about a pair of brothers instead of a guy and his best friend. Even though I’ve had interest from others in making this film since then, I’ve not gotten past the negotiations stage with any of them.
A few interesting tidbits:
- Three years ago, I sent Seed Productions a letter and told them I had the completed script and wrote it before they did (if they every did). They sent a succinct reply back telling me they had no interest.
- Fox’s movie has yet to be made. IMDB Pro lists it as being released in 2012 - this has changed virtually every year since it got on the site. Since it doesn’t appear that any talent is yet attached to this project, I predict it will be pushed out again.
- Seed Productions no longer appears to be associated with the movie, nor is Hugh Jackman, for that matter.
Short Stories - New Idea
This was also one of those weeks where I had ideas that I had to start working out or I would bust. This snippet began with the opening scene just tripping in my head - I think I was daydreaming while waiting for my turn to be questioned during my recent jury duty service. I couldn’t wait to get home to capture it and then kept it going, the entire plot sketched out to complete. Here it is (so far), raw and unedited:
Harvey Biscombe stumbled and limped his way along the uneven sidewalk, stopping at short intervals to observe the most mundane things: a bird gripping a styrofoam cup in its beak, a plastic bag held aloft by the updraft from a passing car. The world's small dramas still mesmerized him, despite his diminishing eyesight and failing attention span.
Other pedestrians strode by him, almost toppling him in the wake of their got-to-get-to-work passage. Sometimes he used his cane like a bullfighter with his cape and issued a full veronica after each passing body, artistry that left no lasting impression on his conquests, but instead elicited sneers of derision. After each torrent of abuse, Biscombe would chuckle in that way old men do, dry and throaty, with a hint of a rasp from tired lungs.
At stoplights, he stood with the others, waiting for the signal to cross, but as soon as the signal changed, the sea of humanity pressed him forward and caused him to dig in until the crowd pushed past him. He then stepped off the curb in two full steps and inched across the street, just making it to the other side before traffic continued. Without fail, he would turn toward the passing cars and wave as though thanking them for the privilege of letting him share their street with him.
After walking several city blocks in this manner, the cityscape changed from busy and bright metropolis where pedestrians outnumbered the vehicles to the gray outskirts, devoid of crowded sidewalks and dense auto traffic. Instead, Biscombe would have to walk around or over the occasional transient that lay in his path. Ancient Fords and Chevys, blue smoke billowing from rusted tailpipes, snuck past him, heads and eyes turned, watching his every move, suspicious of his odd presence in their neighborhood.
Do you want to guess where Harvey is going and what happens next? You may be surprised at where this story leads him.
Next Week
I didn’t cover everything I thought I would this week, so I’ll tee them up again for next time:
- Some unlikely plots I’ve dreamt up
- A silly TV series idea
- Doc On Loan - results from the first ScriptFrenzy
- Another short story snippet
Michael
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