Over the weekend with smart & dumb
My daughter is smart – really, amazingly smart. It’s her final year at school and she’s in line to be due. On top of that, she’s been identified by the state education department as one of a handful of students statewide who have a real chance of achieving over 99% in the leaving exams (apparently now called ATAR – Australian Tertiary Admissions Rank; in my day called TEE – Tertiary Entrance Exams). Because of her potential to bust the curve, she’s been given the chance to be in a number of special seminars in different subjects to improve her chances of blitzing the exams. The first two of these – one for Geography and one for History – she had on the weekend.
The seminars were held at a university about 50 km from our house (Curtin University, for those who know Perth) so I spent a large portion of the time driving my daughter across the city and back again, hanging out reading and drinking coffee while her impressive brain was further stuffed with clever knowledge stuff. As regular readers will know, I have a false tooth (see here for how that happened). I can’t eat with my tooth in, so I take it out and lay it on a napkin or saucer or something when I eat at a coffee shop. SO, after finishing my delicious waffle and flat white coffee yesterday afternoon, I left the coffee shop and headed back to the university campus to wait for the end of my daughter’s seminar. Half an hour later I noticed that my tooth wasn’t with me – don’t laugh, it’s easier to forget than you might think. I rushed back to the coffee shop, but as one might predict, the tooth was gone, the rubbish was thrown out and the staff had changed shift. The one guy there had just come on and no one had handed a tooth in. So needless to say I returned to my car sat in the driver’s seat and proceeded to swear at myself with passion and volume. Replacements for this kind of thing are not cheap – it’s not an off the shelf kind of item.
So, at the end of a weekend when I am immensely proud of my daughter’s brilliant intelligence, I’m also trying to figure out where she gets it from. Must be her mother, because her dad does some dumb things sometimes!
Restart, reboot, resurrection?
It’s five months since I was last here – that’s a scary thought. The main excuse is that the script I’m writing has been coming out in a crawl. Writer’s block has been so excruciating and heavy this time around that the idea of doing any other writing (such as this blog) has been just about more than I can face. However, I’m going to try to reverse the circumstances and push myself to write things here (and elsewhere) in the hope I break the block and get things to flow again. We will see…
My take on politics
While jogging this morning (I’ve started jogging again – I say jogging because English doesn’t have any other single verb which means wheezing while staggering in sneakers) I had an insight, a clarification of my position on the major political parties in Australia (btw I think this extends to the Republicans & Democrats in the USA – see what you think).
In Australia, the Labour party, the left, want to be in power because they think they can fix what’s wrong with society.
The right wing (in Australia known as the Liberal party – I know it’s confusing) want to be in power because they believe that their not being in power is what’s wrong with society. They want power because they believe themselves the only ones worthy to have it.
Anyway, that’s just how it looks to me. YMMV
You don’t come around so much anymore
Well it’s been weeks since my last post. I don’t know why I’m letting my blog slip so much – maybe because the in crowd seems to have moved on to Facebook (which I really do not like) and so I wonder if people even read this anymore. Plus bot-hell is a pain; and, of course, my actual life has been all over the place.
One thing I’m pleased to report is I’m still writing. I have a comedy script underway and while writing it is proving to be like pulling teeth (not in humour terms, but in output). It’s the one that I’ve got a producer interested in from earlier this year. At the moment the script is forty pages long. I wanted to have a draft finished by the end of October (no joy); then I hoped for the end of November (not a happening thing either). So at this rate, if I can get a draft by the end of the year I’ll be happy.
I think the delay comes from experiences in my youth. I love comedy – I mean genuinely love it. I collect comedy television series and can recite numerous whole stand up routines that I haven’t seen or heard since the 1980′s. I think that comedy was important to me because it was something I could share with my dad. Looking back on my childhood I realise that one of the few instances where he and I shared relaxed moments in front of the television (a contentious experience usually) was watching comedy. Dad hated science fiction, which I loved, and he really only enjoyed complex dramas of the sort that were on late at night or were too boring for a kid. The only thing we both enjoyed was comedy.
I was raised on Dave Allen, the Goodies and the Two Ronnies. Moving into the 1980′s I got to share Alas Smith & Jones and similar English sketch comedy. And Australia put up some great offerings – like Australia You’re Standing In It, the Gillies Report and the like. When the television version of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy was released, it was a godsend (ironic considering Douglas Adams’ avowed religious position), because here was science fiction my dad laughed at and enjoyed with me. In the years that have followed, dad has often said this was the show that made him think that maybe not all this science fiction stuff was rubbish.
So why is writing comedy so hard? I guess because I’m terrified of failure. Anytime I tried to be funny as a young person I bombed – I could be funny and often got a laugh, but not when I tried; I had to do it off the cuff, so to speak. A script is not off the cuff, it’s the exact opposite. So I’m writing and working through childhood issues at the same time; and as many submissions editors will tell you, you don’t want your therapy on the page. So I have to work to keep the script and my ‘personal growth’ separate. Gee, when I put it like that, it doesn’t sound too bad. For a moment there I thought I was just a procrastinating slacker. Yay blog, you made me feel good about myself and my work!
(re)Writing the classics
Since the only computer in the house is my iMac, it should come as no surprise that the iTunes accounts in our house are dominated by my music choices. Obviously my daughter downloads her own modern songs (which I have come to reflexively ignore); but mostly it’s me and my tastes that run the show. I have stuff mostly from the sixties, seventies and eighties, with an eclectic mish mash of other stuff thrown in eg. Carmina Burana.
One piece of music which, for reasons I cannot fathom, has especial resonance for my nine year old son is ‘Axel F’, the electronic music masterpiece from the original Beverly Hills Cop movie, the film that launched Eddie Murphy as an international star. This morning, as I was blearily trying to poach eggs for my breakfast, my boy announced he was ready for his own morning repast by entering the kitchen singing “Food, food! Foodie-food, food food!” to the tune of Axel-F. Teenage me, who loved Beverly Hills Cop, groaned unpleasantly.
Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose
My favourite French expression, ever since I read it as a teenager in Uncanny X-Men #200 (of all places). For those who don’t know it means, “the more things change, the more they stay the same”.
So I figured out today that I didn’t make the long list for the fellowship to which I applied. Frustrating? Of course. Each time I apply to anything, try to get my work noticed, I feel hope and that hope seems to lead only to disappointment. I was helping my daughter with a poetry assignment this week and so my mind is thinking in a more poetical turn of phrase. When I realised I hadn’t even made the long list, let alone the short list, my internal response was “How many doors do I knock on until my knuckles start to bleed?” Melodramatic? Probably! Adolescent? Maybe, but heartfelt for all that. I think the worst part is how lonely disappointment feels.
However, all is not bitterness, loss, misery and other stuff that teenagers think they have a copyright on…
On the up side of plus ca change, my son has discovered Asterix. I still remember when I was pointed to the Asterix books in my first primary school’s library in grade 3 (which made me about eight or nine). I fell in love with the silly stories immediately. The mighty and crazy Gauls having their ongoing conflict with Julius Caesar and his roman legions. Now, at the age of nine, my son is reading them. For weeks now he’s gone to the library with his mum and returned with armloads of stories, just as I had so long ago. It’s wonderful, because not only is my son developing a love of reading (which I think is a foundation to learning) but he’s doing it through a series of books that lead me into the same process. I know the characters and the stories, I can talk about them with him and share the stories. It’s one of those wonderful fatherhood moments.
So, while the disappointments come around again, so do the joys. I am blessed and my striving is not without results and worth.
Not dead yet
I’ve been starting to wonder if I would ever come back to this blog, perhaps you have too. Basically, I’ve been too busy trying to make other things work for me to invest too much in this as well. Which is dumb really, since this should support everything else I’m doing, building my momentum.
So, to catch up those of you who might still be checking in, I’ve been working through a scriptwriting book called Million Dollar Screenwriting, by a screenwriter named Chris Soth. This guy did a screenwriting course at UCLA and had to submit a completed screenplay for his final assignment. The day after he submitted it for his course he sold it to a studio for $750K. The made a film of it, called Firestorm, which I’ve seen and actually enjoy. So, this guy’s opinions seem worthy of listening to. I’m using his guide to write my own script for Dead Peasants. So scriptwriting apace.
I’ve also been persistently ill – like for months. Regular followers of this blog will know that I’ve been sick with infections of various sorts for the last two to four years and frankly it’s becoming wearying. I pray for a solution, since the frustration I’m feeling is a real creativity killer. Since I’m looking to succeed in a creative industry, that’s a kiss of death I’m talking about right there.
On the up side, I realise a little more every day what a blessing my family is – they fill me with joy. Just tonight my son helped me to prepare the leg of lamb that we roasted for dinner. It turned out great and I had one of those moments of father son bonding that make life special. I was able to show my son the proper technique for trimming and preparing meat, a technique I learned from my Dad. A real heritage moment.
Getting old
Recently I bought a cheap dvd of an old classic Australian film, Breaker Morant. For those who don’t know it’s a story about three Australians in the Boer War (circa 1902) who are put on trial for warcrimes. While they are guilty, it’s clear from the outset that the three men were all following orders and were far from the only ones responsible for such actions. The film portrays them as being set up for appearances so that it would become easier for Great Britain to negotiate a peace treaty – ostensibly by showing some kind of even handedness in dealing with their own men and prisoners of war.
The film was made in the late 1970′s and I remember it being a huge success in its day. It starred a swathe of great Australian actors just entering their prime, including Jack Thompson & Brian Brown. What was scary was to look back and realise how young they were. Here are these actors at a moment of great achievement, a moment imprinted in my memory and now I’m older than them. It was weird and disturbing. Where am I going and how much longer will it be until I get there? Have to wait and see.
In other news, I put myself in for the Kit Denton (Dis)Fellowship, which would mean I would be getting paid to develop my next script, so, once again, watch this space. Maybe this time I’ll pull it off.
PAC – not so much
Well I showed my little film last night and it was pretty soundly hammered by the critics. Part of the workshop structure is to show the short you’ve made and Annie Murtaugh-Monks and two industry pros watch and evaluate and (most joyfully of all) provide feedback. I really thought this was the best film work I’d done to date and it was made to feel like something I’d thrown together for a high school film club – a JUNIOR high school film club.
The feedback was so harsh that someone in the audience behind me who arrived late – so that he missed the film but heard the critique – said “Gee, it must have been really bad, huh?”
Now, I was first up for the night and after my film’s mauling I felt pretty wounded myself, so maybe I wasn’t in the best frame of mind, but I swear every film that followed was given at least fifty percent positive feedback and often much of it was undeserved.
So, needless to say, I’m reviewing my plans for the second half of the year based on last night’s outcomes. Even if I tell myself that those three opinions last night were just that (three opinions) and maybe funding application boards may see my little short differently, I just don’t have the confidence at the moment to use this piece to sell myself. What I think I’ll do is aim a little lower, make a couple more small shorts and see what happens then.
Back to work
Family has been nightmarishly sick the last two weeks, ever since the PAC filmshoot Saturday May 28. Finally though I’ve got some time free and have cut together a rough cut. It’s got full dialogue and now only needs colour grading and some sfx, such as swords clashing, some magic and bodies being cut up (yep, it’s my kind of film).
I have to have it ready to show the workshop this Thursday night, so it looks like I’m on schedule. Once that’s done I roll over into writing my Hyperlink grant application. So busy, busy, busy.
Once I’ve got a fine cut I might post it to You Tube and everyone can see it.