Ahh Mother@#$!!!

If I could add audio to this post, it would be a deafening scream. At myself.

So, have you ever done that thing where you just waste so much time preparing to do work that you feel this deep, sinking sense of disappointment about yourself? And then you just dont even care anymore and just straight up want to kill yourself? Well, Im there right now. Its been 6 hours and I haven't written A LINE of dialogue. I have been procrastinating like crazy thanks to this stupid internet. And right now, while I write this blog, there is more procrastination happening. I am so mad right now, at myself.. I need to turn this script in by SATURDAY. That's the absolute latest.. and I dont care how that happens, its happening.

An amazing quote I came across today: Words dont have the power to fully express what they mean. Now that makes me chuckle, and not in a pretentious, fartsy way. I have to go back to writing... or I am just going to loose my mind.

Song: Nick Drake's One of these things first... (Ithaca today was a total Garden State soundtrack day)
Movie on my mind: I am Cuba. Why? Because a documentary about the film is playing at Cornell later this week.
Regret: I did not go see Peter Kubelka, so I could write more of my film. Shame on me!

Calm down, Expect Chaos

Writing a script? Very good. Here's your share of chaos, Sir!

I hate it but its a part of the process I think. So, I am sitting in my ACP:Experimental class, watching this amazing film Nostalgia by Hollis Frampton and suddenly I got an idea and, as per previous post: The Big Bully, I had to write. In the middle of this amazing movie, whoomp, the laptop comes out and I start writing.

Cut to two hours later and I have murdered seven of my ten characters in the screenplay I had two hours later. I have completely destroyed their story lines. The point of view of the film has changed, its no longer ensemble and the conclusion is much more self-exploration than it was before. Its a whole new experiment in terms of temporality and structure. Well, no harm done because if anything, its a move in the discovering-my=characters and seeing-other-views-into-their-world right?

A BIG FAT NO. Because now I dont know what the hell I should do and since no one else has read the script, no one can seriously give you advice... so should I write two feature length screenplays just to choose which structure I likke better... God Knows! At this point, I start dry-heaving a little bit and me mouth goes DRY... This happens a lot so dont dial 911 just yet.

Started writing tonight and figured out that for the story to work, it has to be told from both points of view... Gah! I still am not sure.. Writing is a time consuming process and its kind of like cleaning out your ear with VERY expensive Q-Tips. Take a Q-Tip. Clean out your ear. Now analyze the dirt. Clean it out again. Analyze. Clean it out again, and again, and again till you are damn sure there is nothing else in there... NOW throw the Q-Tip away. Do not start writing until you are damn sure youve squeezed every idea out of your head.... because if you haven't, you'll need a couple of Q-Tips and since the Q-tIps in this scenario are very expensive, that is not a good thing my friend.

Helpful Site: John August's site about screenwriting.
Book I'm reading: Shooting to Kill (signed copy!)
Movie on my mind: Anthony Ng's 212.

New York New York

Okay, the New York Film Festival just happened and, in a way, is still happening. The biggest highlight for Ithaca College in this festival (apart from the fact that none of the students probably sent in a film for even consideration) is the Views from the Avant Garde section of the festival where our dear and lovely Professor David Gatten is screening not just his most recent films, but an entire program that is dedicated to his name... Sure he is a luminary in the field and is mentioned in most of the books I read for my experimental class, but the fact that he has the future of cinema (read: the world of Avant Garde) watching an entire program of his films at THE most prestigious film festival avant-garde program is pretty cool. And also, you might run into him while you're stealing coke from the vending machine in Park. Pretty cool, pretty cool.

Also, worth watching are some of the short films in this year's NYFF. Actually, disclaimer: no one is allowed to judge their work against the films they see here, and pre-judge their films as not being worthy of the festival... because we all hate our films. That said, you can go to the New York Times website and watch six of the films there. My favorite: Blue Tongue. The cinematography seems to stand out in all of them, the stories: welll.. the day I get into the NYFF short film section, we'll talk.. until then, these are excellent films. :)

Also, the rate of my blog posting is directly proportional to how motivated I am feeling to write my script at the moment... so going by the postage rate... not so motivated... BLA!! GOTTA GET BACK TO Wurrkkin!

Ensemble Tremble

Go to Cornell Cinema on Thursday people: An afternoon with Peter Kubelka is on and this time round, procrastination or not, its GOOD for you. Just be there, its an event in Ithaca cinema. You can read some of the kick-ass folks in experimental film talk about him here. Other films to see at Cornell Cinema are (1) The Best of Youth, part 2 which plays tomorrow (as in Wednesday) and Saving Face come October 1. There are others but you should just look up the schedule here.

Work on the script continues to happen... The script is non-linear and ensemble so its like me hitting up against a wall all the time. I am trying to work out the flow of action on screen. Now some people will tell me: but you should just write the whole script and worry about the non-linear part later... except, I want to ask them to try doing it. The stories are really boring if I dont juxtapose things... for example, there is this sequence where one couple are listening to a song that describes failed love and are almost crying to it, while on the screen we see images of this other storyline where a couple's marriage is falling apart. Now there are tons of sequences like that where the dialogue should draw meaning from the scenes preceeding it except everytime I change one thing, its a domino effect on the story. NO GOOD!!



The other question I am wrestling with is the idea of an ensemble story with major and minor character and story lines. Maybe it doesnt have to be all perfectly balanced with every character speaking the exact same number of lines, but I am attached to the idea of the film being about a socio-economic world that is complete with its diversity and culture.

Back to writing... o, something else, its decided. I AM going to give my script in to Cathy on Thursday... Nervousss!!!

In Expert Opinion

Early morning procrastination blues... Well, something I really enjoy and recommend to other people is going to the Fox Searchlight's Searchlab website. There are all kinds of pros on there who give out free master classes that you can tune in to. Now I know a lot of us have nice shiny noses we like to turn up at Hollywood with, but trust you me there are many reasons for actually tuning in to these lectures:

1) It's excellent if you want to procrsastinate
2) Sometimes you get to contradict, and that's always good if you're going through a self-depracating, i-feel-so-dumb-i-think-i-go-to-I.K mode...
3) Sometimes it contains useful everyday tips that make you go: huh! definitely never thought about that. For example: Ron Bass the writer of Rain Man who is speaking at the site right now (wow, really creepy image) says that he never tries to write the scenes in the film right away, instead he waits to finish the organization adn the basic blocking so that he is not committing to the first ideas that come to his head... I'm sure Clnt Eastwood would disagree but that's actually interesting to think about.
4) Seriously, you would go to these lectures if they were on campus right? So, why not.
5) What the hell better are you going to do with your time boy!?

Aight, having berated and shouted, Im out-y. ~Suds

Late at Night

We had a pot luck at our place today with folks from Park Productions As always it was a lot of fun.. Kiehl totally saved my ass by cooking dinner for the potluck because I was running very late, I kind of arrived as the guests were coming home!! Talk about excellent timing! Anyway, the reason I was late is because I have been throwing this idea around of doing something fun with these master-classes that people in Park have... Word is around the corner that this pretty cool, young, award-winning director is coming to Ithaca so instead of packing them in classes, I was thinking how much cooler it would be if we could make a film in 24 hours... with this director and three teams of students.. all hands on, deep in there.. no sleep, sweet deal!!

Back to: ilau (i, love and you - i.e. my senior thesis film), its a little bit on hold because I've been ignoring all the other school work for so long and I have like a bajillion papers due tomorrow... let me get these out of the way and I wil be all set.

Nothing eventful, more character building. Till then, Suds

Film on my mind: Magnolia
Book still reading: Portrait of a Director

Pen: The Bully

Since I am in the writing phase right now, I am such a slave of the pen. Well, not really, its more like my laptop, but you know, figuratively its still the pen. I have to carry my laptop every where with me, because you never know when the urge to write shows up and then its like a two year old with his pee-pee time, you just have to go or else bad things could happen. This means, Im not a reliable friend or employee... or sleeper or eater or student. It's a little bit ridiculous how much this urge to write can control your life - it can make you really happy (Was I or was I not grinning like an idiot and dancing to myself when I figured out this one scene?) and it can get you DOWN (people around me see this happening a lot, mostly to their amusement).

I am currently living with Kiehl Christie, senior philosophy major at Ithaca, on South Aurora Street in Ithaca, NY. Its outside of campus and so I need to play house a little bit more often than I am used to. For example, you're writing till 3 in the morning when you had every intention of going to sleep early and suddenly you are maxed out, all ready to go to bed and you remember: Ding Dong! You did not do the dishes or clean the kitchen like you had promised earlier... and since Kiehl will wake up early in the morning, you cant leave it off until tomorrow either.. so BAM! you get up and go do that at like 4 in the morning at this ridiculous hour when all you want to do is sleep... but it has more advantages than disadvantages.. and I am sure if I wasn't living with Kiehl, I would be eating my own byproducts and sinking deeper into a trash dispopsal plant every day.

The script is all over the place right now. I just keep writing scenes in new documents and saving them to this folder but I dont really have a master document which has all the scenes, I think I need to now create that.. teh time for consolidation is upon me.. and then we can start re-arranging the scenes again. Which means, rewriting them, and re-doing all the transitions... doing pre-production on this film will be very interesting because I want to get the transitions right.

PS: Saw THE BEST OF YOUTH last night at Cornell Cinema: so amazing! The cinematography was really breathtaking in parts, even though the budget was telling in certain scenes - esp the riots where they had to work inside one confined space and of course, all the green screen car scenes - terrible!! But the story was riveting and the acting was especially good... Fantastic! Its a six hour film so the part two of it needs to be seen this Wednesday.. watching movies is the only time when I dont feel guilty about not writing, because sometimes I pick up tips on how to write better by watching a film... :) Sweet! Adios!

The First One

Oh, this first one is always fun. If you are coming over from semesterinla.blogspot.com, welcome to this new guy... This is going to chart my journey as I make my next film: i, love and you. I am going to try and be regular with the updates. My style of writing is very stream-of-consciousness but I will try and be a tad more readable than I have been in the past :)

There are too many things to write about in regards to where I am with the film right now but let me start by saying that its not a cheesy, romantic comedy or even a love story. The film tries to question the two (not necessarily bi-polar) views of love: romantic love (Reese Witherspoon, Hugh Grant, Western society) and relationship love (my parents, Eastern society). I love ensemble films, so I try and take a cubist approach with this one too. The one other thing is that its non-linear to add a little more suspense and race... This way, I get to contradict characters even as they are earnest about a relationship in one scene and completely different with a different partner in the scene right after; thereby completely undercutting the plot and making the story be really about the philosophy behind these characters.

The thing with writing a non-linear film is that it takes forever to complete. You can keep writing scenes and with every fresh scene you write, the possibilities of the way the film could go together completely multiplies itself... but if this happens, you should know its a good scene youve written.. because the possiblities for the meaning of four other scenes you had written begin to show... which is a good thing. A movie I love to watch in this context is 21 grams. I enjoy thinking about what a scene would have meant to me if I had not scene it in the first 10 minutes and instead towards the end... Seeing Naomi Watts in that vulnerable position with Sean Penn right in the first scene of the movie creates a certain suspense. You know she is going to be with him but how are they going to get there? God only knowwws...

The other thing that is a bit of a problem with this next film is that its turning out to be pretty damn long.. Im talking feature length long. Now nobody in their right minds would want to direct a feature length film with the kind of funds and time restraints that we have in college. I am fully aware that it is a question of flexing muscle or proving a point of some sort for some people... well, more power to them but as far as I am concerned, Id rather do it well than just make it because I am in my senior year and must go out with a bang.. Cathy Crane, in our first Thesis class said, this could be your super duper senior thesis or this could be your next film in a line of many.. I think that is a very important decision to make.

Enough said for today. Comments are always there.. questions can be directed to iamsuds@gmail.com. If anyone is interested in working on this film, it will be shot entirely in Ithaca, NY... contact me if you have the time or an interest in the subject. Peace out!