Film
A Thought On Method
As a writer for any medium, you often get asked (or are made to ask yourself), “What’s your method?” Some people respond with a very complex list of how they get into the mood to write and then how they go about building their magnum opus while others go at great lengths to explain how they just do things in bursts. I tend to fall into that latter category. My writing inspiration seems to come and go, usually without much warning. I could be sitting in the classroom arguing the semantics of storytelling when this “need” will rise to the surface and eat away at me until I scribble something down. Or, I could be sitting at the local Starbucks drinking a Grande White Mocha when this happens, oftentimes in mid-sip. If I’m lucky, I’ll have a pen nearby. If not, I resort to my laptop.
There was a period of time where I tried to maintain a more organized writing method, what some might call a regimen if you will. I put this into practice during the summer, since I chose not to take any classes, and went to a coffee shop to spend a few hours a day writing. I would ask for a real “froofy” drink and then sit down and write until the battery died. I was able to get a decent amount of work done in around two to three hours (I need a new battery for the ole macbook pro). After about a week or so of this, though, I stopped and went back to my more sporadic method of writing every couple of days or whenever I felt like it.
And then I had a conversation with the Chair of the Film and Video Department at Columbia College. I (alongside a producer from our Practicum class) had pitched a story I was working on and he gave some excellent advice on how to go about fixing the then incomplete story. Later on, we bumped into each other in the hall and talked about the process of writing. I explained my exasperation at the process and he chuckled. He told me that it was a day to day process, and that in this business you need to continually write. It’s a competitive business and if you aren’t writing, you won’t make it. That hit home with me, and I decided to work on my method some. Now, I try to write something every day, whether it be my scripts, Twitter, Friendfeed, this site, or for Generation Tech. But I don’t force myself, either. If I don’t have anything, I don’t write anything.
That’s pretty much my method, explained in a bunch of barely strung together paragraphs. Hopefully the insight was helpful, and gave you something to take away. So, I turn the question to you. “What’s your method?”
Thanks goes out to Kent Nichols for making me think. 
An Edit To My Nick & Nora Post
I was informed that Nick didn’t have sex with Nora, but rather fingered her.
WHAT?!
WHAT THE….
That makes the damn film WORSE!!!
Sorry. Was watching the latest TRS episode and their review of the Nick and Nora film and am surprised at their love of the film. For once, I violently disagree. I don’t think I can really put much stock in their reviews anymore.
Good Playlist; God-Awful Film
I mistakenly thought, upon seeing the advertisements for Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist, that this film was aimed at my age demographic, and that it would try to evoke some kind of feeling that Garden State (see: one of my favorite films) did earlier. Admittedly, I did no real research on the film going in, and just knew that it starred stereotypical nerd Michael Cera and some gal I didn’t recognize (EDIT: but now remember quite well from “40 Year Old Virgin”). The commercials had music in it that I liked, and I knew from reading You Ain’t No Picasso that Bishop Allen had a brief cameo in it as themselves. You can imagine my disappointment, then, when I finally got to see the film.
Here’s a brief (and convoluted) summary of the film, as brought to you by wikipedia:
After seeing his ex-girlfriend, Tris, with a new boyfriend at his band’s gig, Nick O’Leary, a member of The Jerk Offs, is asked by college-bound Norah Silverberg to be her boyfriend for five minutes to prove something to her friend Tris. Little does Norah know, Nick is Tris’s ex-boyfriend, who Norah has developed a crush on even before seeing him. This is due to his mix CDs he had made for Tris after she broke up with him. Nick’s friends then attempt to set them up, thinking it would help Nick get over Tris.
The problem with this film, for me at least, lies in the sum of it’s parts. There are some great moments in here, ones that still stick with me since I saw it a few weeks back. But when combined with all the rest, it makes me realize how little anyone cared whether or not this reached an audience.
Right away in the film we’re introduced to the characters as they converge on a music venue in Manhatten. Nick and his band “The Jerkoffs” open for Bishop Allen. Herein lies the first issue that takes me out of the film. I’ve seen Bishop Allen and bands like them live and to get into the venue they were playing at, I had to prove to the scary guy at the door that I was of legal drinking age. So, even if this is an 18+ venue, why the hell is one of the characters drinking? How did this slip by the bartenders? I’m pretty sure that people in these venues aren’t THAT careless, are they? As we traverse the film further, we end up in more clubs and we see more young high schoolers getting it on with the liquid courage. Really?
I know that high schoolers drink. It’s one of those facts of science, like gravity and Thetans. But what I don’t get is how they can be so careless about it in a big city and not get any flak for it, or at least get picked up by the police. How is it that these morons can get away with so much shit and come out unscathed? Take the character of Caroline, the wasted partier / comedic relief of the film. Not a moment went by in that film where I didn’t wonder how the hell she survived. Granted, this is a comedy and things like this can’t really be challenged, but it did take me out of the film.
And then there was the overt “I’m cool because I listen to x” motif that really turned me off. At times, it was like watching a PR push from hipster central. We see a list of bands in the opening credits, and each of the characters echo the other’s tastes in music. In fact, it was hard to tell the characters apart because of this. Nick likes x, and Nora agrees, and “The Jerkoffs” agree, and the ex agrees, and they all agree that the fictional band “Where’s Fluffy” is where it’s at. They all decide to find “Fluffy” and they all turn on the same damn songs on their car rides to the potential hiding places. The whole music aspect to this film felt like it came from the point of view of someone out of touch with the current generations and their differing tastes in music.
And then there’s extremely awkward sex scene, which you can see being set up a mile away. It’s lame, uninspired, and feels very much like a ripoff of the flashback sex scene in Juno. We don’t see anything happen but still experience the awkwardness of it. They’re young, so this must be how it goes down..so to speak. Right?
But there are good things about this film. I’m not ALL doom and gloom. The way in which Nick and Nora’s feelings grow for each other doesn’t feel fake or forced. They genuinely seem attracted to each other. The acting on everyone’s part is energetic and no one feels like their just doing this for the hell of it. The side characters are colorful, and I believe them all (with the exception of the aforementioned Caroline). There’s a moment in the end of the film where Nick and Nora kiss while on an escalator. It’s all in slow motion and they glide off screen as the music swells. It’s a good moment.
If I had to give this film some kind of grade, I’d give it a C+. The filmmakers never quite figured out who to market this one to, and the end result is that it’s quite the forgettable little flick.
P.S. I don’t think I’ll ever chew gum again.
My Life As An Intern At A Failed Startup, pt 2
There’s a specific moment in any new job or situation when the honeymoon officially “ends” and for me it happened when we started doing group pitches. I remember being quite excited about this at first. In theory, pitches sounded like a really good idea. A chance for me to prove I had ideas, that I could truly contribute to the company, so to speak. When I found out that they had scheduled them for Wednesdays (my class time), I was bummed but I gave them my ideas anyway. I’d skip classes next week and make sure I was there to be heard and to give my ideas.
Well, that second week turned out to be something special, alright. I entered the office first thing in the morning, and felt the nervous excitement of everyone around me. A few people were running back and forth between their computers and the printer, making sure they had enough copies of their scripts to go around.
“Scripts?” I asked no one in particular as I went to find my desk. When I got to the place where I usually sit, I found someone sitting there, typing away at the keyboard. Not one to make or want a scene I simply chilled around the office. At first I wandered around the little island of computers in the middle of the office, and then I moved over to the animators and chatted with them for a bit, awkwardly seeing what was up and making sure to get enough “drool time” in regards to the Cintiq. I moved along and eventually found myself back near my station. One of the guys looked up from his computer and gave a double take.
“Oh, um,” he said. “We’ll figure out something for you to do after the pitches.” I nodded, and repressed a little unease. I sat down at the computer desk which would eventually become my main station in the final months of working there and made light chit-chat with Caitlin, who I hadn’t talked to much before then.
One of the guys finished printing his copies early and started stapling them together. Thinking fast, I took over his station and printed my ideas out for the pitch. There weren’t many of them (much like the ones I had handed in the week before) so the process ended just as quickly as it had started. I certainly didn’t have any scripts prepared, a fact which stayed with me until the meeting started. Had I missed something here? Was I supposed to have written a script? As everyone gathered into the room, I tried to rack my brain to see if I had blatantly missed what had been said to me a week before, or if something had been said to me a week before.
Um, nope.
I hadn’t missed anything.
Hmm. Weird.
I guess they had spent some time on these ideas. An emotion not unlike awe and respect crept up on me. I thought, (and I cringe at this nowadays) “My god, these guys are real writers. This is what it’s all about.” Suddenly, my puny little education at Columbia College felt small time. Here I was going to school to learn how to one day write an amazing script, and these guys were actually writing these on a week to week basis.
These feelings of awe and respect went away within the first ten minutes of the pitch session. By the end of it all, I felt sick to my stomach. What had happened certainly wasn’t a pitch session in any traditional sense. The guys with the scripts passed theirs around and we read them one by one and voted. Only one person talked about each story, with the writers of the ideas pitching in every now and then to correct or try and win everyone’s vote. As it turned out, my ideas were panned on account of not being fully fleshed out.
“There’s just not enough here,” at least one person mentioned. Another gave me a look, which I took to be that of condescension. I had seen it before in my previous internship from the regular, full time staff, so I picked up on it almost instantly. It’s that look of “Oh, you’re new at this. It’s okay. We appreciate your help.” Oddly enough, it’s not that dissimilar of a look to the one you get when you tell a real bomb of a joke at a party before anyone starts drinking.
The scripts that made it through the pitch session weren’t all that great. I remember stepping out of that room feeling a mix of agitation, confusion, irritation wish just a dash of embarrassment. Didn’t I just consider these guys writers not an hour or so ago? Hadn’t I been ready to discount my education completely because they had printed out scripts? Now that I think about it, I was probably more embarrassed than anything else.
A sirloin steak with a giant penis?
Really?
This was going to get us our hits?
“What the fuck is this place?” I remember whispering to myself at the end of my shift.
Who You Gonna Call
If you’ve been around the net some, you’ve no doubt heard the rumors about Ghostbusters 3 being made. It started with a video game, which got put on hold, and then fleshed out into a full on film rumor. Being ever the skeptic with properties so dear to my childhood, I kind of chuckled it off and went about my business. This latest news bit from Ain’t It Cool News, however, got me excited. From the very mouth of Harold Ramis himself, Ghostbusters 3 is pretty much a go. I don’t know about you, but this is the coolest news “evar.” This is one of those properties I’ve always wanted to see more from, and if there’s anyone who could pull it off, I suspect it would be these guys.
If Only CL Crew Gig Ads Were This Honest
Found this hilarious (and true) gem first through Kent Nichols and then through the CL posting he linked from. I don’t really care if it’s bad form to re-re-re post something like this. It’s good and you should read it.