Dec 4, 2017
Journey to Less Shittiness (week 10)
Hey! I think I finally, after a string of mediocre weeks, had a pretty good week! Ehh so this work log got pushed into Monday, but I got lots of Pomodoro Cycles in, maybe only missed 2 this week, rewrote some good pages, helped out a friend on his script. Felt pretty good.
Work Log
1 script: DEADPOOL (screenplay by Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick) One of the more fun Marvel movies of the past several years and told in an actually interesting, non-linear form that served the story in a funny way, I didn’t decide to read DEADPOOL for anything in particular; just wanted to see what jumped out at me, if anything. A big formatting thing I noticed was that Reese and Wernick would include additional punch lines and one-liners as “ALT” lines (see below)
Kind of an interesting idea to add some additional comedic options, though it did hurt my absorption into the story. For a shooting script, which this was, I can see how these lines can be valuable in order to get multiple shots with lines that have been pre-scripted and thought about by the writing team rather than just ad-libbed on set by an actor. I’d be curious to know whether these were in some of the earlier drafts or if they were added in during a rewrite. My guess is the latter.
At any rate, to top of being fun to watch, the DEADPOOL script was a fun read, too; no big surprises here.
2 movies:
- ORDINARY PEOPLE (screenplay by Alvin Sargent) First time I’d seen this Robert Redford directorial debut and man, it was a good one. Lots of great performances in this, Timothy Hutton, to Judd Hirsch, to Mary Tyler Moore, to Donald Sutherland. All really deep and nuanced acting pulled out by Redford; this was my biggest observation. As far as the story goes, it was not flashy by any means but it did a beautiful job of telling about a tragedy befalling a family that doesn’t know how to recover on its own, a task they end up finding impossible to achieve by the end. Hirsch as Hutton’s character’s psychiatrist was great, and he gave us a lot of guidance, almost like a chorus or narrator, as we progressed through the movie.
- THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS (screenplay by Caroline Thompson) With December here, I thought it would be festive to give this one a rewatch. Now in the classics category for holiday movies, though this is one of the non-typical ones, like DIE HARD. It’s a brilliant concept for the world: that every holiday has its respective town, though I couldn’t help but think these folks would’ve gotten into some hot water in regards to the holidays they chose to include (where’s Hannukah Town!?). Nevertheless, which being extremely creepy, the film manages to tell a surprisingly heartwarming story of a guy who’s sick of being the best at something and is looking for a new challenge.
7 pages: Pretty sure I got these done in my rewriting! These were tough slogs, doing a lot of punching up for a comedy, and I started to realize I needed to flesh my characters out a bit further because the dialogue and humor wasn’t coming that easily. After doing that and thinking about what I want them to do more clearly, I’ve got a bit more momentum.
14 pomodoros: As I mentioned, I DID get through most of these! Very pleased with that. This week, I made a point of recording the times and keeping up on my Streaks app when I did actually finish the cycles. I did spend some of this time working on projects that weren’t mine, but I’m going to count it because it involved doing some rewriting work that I can count as practice towards my own developement. A good week.
NEXT WEEK: Alright, for real this time, I’m going to try (again) to see 3 BILLBOARDS, then a film from the AFI Top 100, though I missed this last time because I wasn’t sure where to find them (any ideas, please let me know in the responses!). Reading-wise, I’m going with THE JERK this week.
