JAWS - Just Another Wannabe Screenwriter

Here we go again...

2011-05-20T22:04:00.001+01:00

http://www.thedarkknightrises.com/
http://bit.ly/jClOkp

Zombie stories: the proof

2011-04-29T18:38:00.001+01:00

http://tinyurl.com/6yw5kkm

See? I'm not making it up. That's me eating jerk chicken. Also, with green hood on.

Michelle Ryan is a competent driver (AKA Zombies: Day 2)

2011-04-13T22:28:00.000+01:00

Day two's Zombie extra experience was kind've like a party.
Unfortunately it was the sort of party you arrive at to realise you've been invited because someone has to hold the coats, and dang if you don't have the longest arms...

I was sat in the green room. It's early, but for some reason I hadn't stormed to the front of the make-up queue this time. Sarah was nowhere to be seen today. Perhaps that threw me; what if the other make-up ladies weren't as competent? What if they weren't even awake? They moved, and spoke, and seemed to be doing rudimentary things, but what does that actually mean at 6 in the morning? Nobody was too chatty this time; for most of us the novelty of rising this early must have worn off. What, I thought, is the point of going in first just to spend two hours in cold, sugary goop waiting for the rest to get done? Nobody was going anywhere before the last of us was ready. Any less than day one's amount of Zombie was no good to anyone.

So I waited. Mistake. (The first.)

Because once again, Ted loomed over me.
Would I like to be the body in the road today? Apparently the stuffed plastic bags had been difficult to work with. The collective had experienced creative differences and gone their separate ways. One wanted to go back to regional theatre, one had landed a recurring role on Hollyoaks. Insert your own joke. They can't be worse than those.

Being a helpful sort, I said yes. Mistake. (The second.)

I try to be a helpful sort, but truth be told, I'm also somewhat insecure, like most writers. I didn't want to be the guy who said no to this crew. Who let them down.

I didn't want them to hate me.

So I spent most of the day on my back. I'm not the first person in the movie biz to experience that. Trouble is, it was on cold concrete, with a tight, green lycra cowl pulled over my head, the same on my left leg and one armed pinned beneath me. Unfortunately this does not constitute a weird sex game.

The instant I pulled the cowl on I started to panic. The sensation was like drowning. All I want was to rip the thing off and breathe. Which I did. Fortunately, we weren't rolling at that point. I had to force myself to relax, close my eyes and pretend it wasn't happening. I was still warmer than last week, thanks to a puffa jacket so large I could almost generate my own gravity.

Around me, my ex-fellow zombies shuffled and moaned. All I could do was listen to them. I couldn't see a damned thing but extremes of light and shade.

But I wasn't in every shot, and this was where my experience differed from the others. Because when you're not in the shot, you have nothing to do. You're behind the camera. You get to watch, and to watch is to learn.
Weapons, props, lighting, A camera, B camera, steadicam harnesses, the video village, rehearsals, blocking out sequences... the list of educations is endless. There is so much going on, such a collective effort behind every single tiny sequence that it boggles the mind. Making good movies is hard, like catching lightning in a bottle, and this is why. It requires such precision, such confluence of random factors with well-honed skill and artistry, that it's a wonder we ever get great ones at all. For that miniscule education I am truly grateful. Those moments alone made it all worth it. I think I earned them.

During the course of the day, some Zombies got up close and personal with "the talent", some got weird blue contact lenses, some got socked around the head with rubber wrenches, expiring in spectacularly-conceived orgies of bloody destruction...

I got to lie on the floor, blind and panicking, while Michelle Ryan drove a clapped-out BMW at me.

To be fair, she did it all rather well and seems a nice lass. She promised not to drive over my head, which was all I could ask for really, and thanked everyone at the end of the day, which I would not have asked for but was very sweet anyway.
I have to give a shout out to my Zombie bollard, whose name I never caught. He stood by my "invisible" green head so that Ms. Ryan couldn't possibly drive over it without having to admit she'd been aiming for me all along. If you're the guy from the University of East London studying film, and reading a book on it at lunch, that's you, that is. Cheers!

Nevertheless, all day I had the nagging feeling I'd done something to be relegated to dead body duty. Not just dead, but headless and dead. And not just headless and dead, but headless and one-armed and one-legged and dead. When you've been a key shuffler in the zombie apocalypse on day one, that kind of demotion is hard to swallow (as are most things when you have no head.)
Had I not shuffled to their satisfaction? Was my dribbling not effervescent enough? Perhaps my loosely-twitching arms hadn't met Zombie kite-mark standards? It's a big step up in class from domestic zombieing to the international scene. I convinced myself I was the Matt Le Tissier of Zombies. The Ian Wright of the undead.

Or maybe, just maybe, they had no recollection of who I was, or what I had or hadn't done on day one. Maybe I was just the only average sized male who hadn't been through make-up yet.*

*This is a pragmatist's view. I'll stick with my paranoid conspiracy if you don't mind.

It was lonely inside the cowl. I now know largely how Batman feels, except he has the physique of a gymnast, the mind of a genius and massive personal wealth. I had a sore back, one cold foot and a £13 Primark hoodie.

At some point mid-afternoon I started to feel a touch annoyed. (Not because I'm not Batman, but I'll be honest, it didn't help.) As amazing as the experience was, I was now a bit cold and a bit sore. I'm the sort who takes it on the chin, generally, but the Zombies were being directied. Because, well, they had something to be directed towards. There's not much directing you can do of a headless dead zombie unless you're well-steeped in the metaphysical. I'm not sure Matthias Hoene is that sort of Director yet.

When it came time to get back down, nobody seemed able to decide where I was lying in the previous shot. There was no reference to hand. Matthias moved me, whereupon someone else showed up and complained that I'd moved. Several times I lay down, cowl on, only to realise I was behind the camera. I needed a headless Zombie attache but there seemed to be none on the payroll by this point.

As the day drifted by I seemed to be largely forgotten about, trusted to know where to lie, and when. It was like being the invisible man; you can do pretty much anything you please unless you're doing something obviously wrong, whereupon all hell lets loose. None was, so I assume I was playing dead to a reasonable standard. I wondered if I should try a little leg jerk, but decided that might be a bit "method".

Shot after shot after shot, it went on. I was in, I was out. I was dead, I was alive. My back was sore, my back was slightly less sore. I lay dead, I watched magic created by dozens of dedicated people.

And then, after twelve hours that made day one seem like a breeze, it was over.

The zombies wrapped for the day and proceeded to loop some groaning. I declined, seeing as I technically had no larynx. The truth was, the zombie camaraderie I felt on day one had floated away on the breeze. Everyone was still friendly, but I didn't feel I was one of them anymore. I was neither alive nor undead. Just dead. The fallen.

I gathered my things and went home, glad not to have to rid myself of the make-up again.

At some point in the day a Zombie remarked that for the amount these people are paid, they ought to get things right first time. I couldn't disagree more. For a start, most of them aren't paid that well. Below-the-line folks do it for love, not money, and could probably earn more in an office, in the warm and with shorter hours. After that, we come down to a simple truth of the business, as made famous by William Goldman: Nobody knows anything. It's both art and science, and to expect it to be quantifiable in those terms is ridiculous.

Already, I look back with rose-tinted specs. It's damned hard work, this movie lark, but if you love telling stories, whether if it's through make-up or lighting or writing words or saying those words, if it twists and growls inside you like a monster straining to get out, this is the most fun you can have in the world.

Zombies - Day one, Part two

2011-04-08T23:51:00.065+01:00

So there we were. Finally at the gate. Leaning on it, straining with all our undead weight...

The gate broke open. The gate's supposed to break open, but not that easily. As far as I know the script didn't call for us to think "that was a bit easy. Can't really be bothered now", and shuffle huffily off into the dawn. So we did it again.

Another reality of the movie biz. The underlying profession is the creation of illusion. They're paid liars, if you want to be blunt. Space contracts and expands, ordinary people become ubermenschen, and sturdy-looking metal gates turn out to be secured by something you wouldn't trust to keep a packet of frozen veg secure.

The sheer scale, even of a movie this small, is pretty amazing. Watching them work out solutions to these kinds of problems (because there's sod all else to do while you wait) is fascinating. The solution in this case was some poor guy with his feet on the gate below the level of the shot, holding up 15 people with more piling in. Who needs the gym?

Hours 2-4 basically ran like hours 0-2. Act like a zombie, rinse, repeat until everyone gets it right. That is, everyone gets it right at the same time, on camera. It's like herding kittens but with less mewing.

This time there was more blood, squirted into mouths just before every take. We were encouraged to drool; not hard because after the 4th application this stuff tastes like toothpaste.

We spent hours at that (literally) bloody gate. Spilling through, starting again, spilling through, ad nauseum. By lunch (jerk chicken, since you ask, and quite nice too) everyone was sick of the thing.

We brightened up during lunch. A few brave souls stole out to the local corner shop, while I developed my soon to be patented method for meeting members of the opposite (or same) sex (for, well, sex):

Stand at gate dressed as a Zombie.
Wave.

They usually wave back*. And smile. If I weren't happily attached, this would be my ice-breaking method of choice. I promise you it works.

After lunch, we were back on the gate, spilling through again from a different angle, then for a steadicam shot, then for a dolly shot, slouching up and down on the spot to create the illusion of movement where there was none. I see that gate in my dreams. Terrible dreams...

It's hard to describe the fatigue that set in about this point. I'm pretty sure we were all having a blast, but walking like a zombie does nothing for the knees. No wonder the bloody shamblers break down so quickly. At one point I actually lay down on the gravel and nearly drifted off while the tech guys set up the last tracking shot. At which point my destiny breifly flashed before me.

"Excuse me."
My eyes snapped open, like the hero in a movie when he's having a rough dream. Fortunately I didn't slam bolt upright, because looming above me was Ted.
Now, I couldn't recall what Ted does. I could probably find him on IMDB, but I can't be bothered. If you're that bothered, you do it. All you need to know about Ted is that he was everywhere. He was important in a below the line way. One of those guys who has a hand in most on-set stuff but doesn't get the red carpet treatment when it's time to traipse down to Leicester Square. Ted was Antipodeian. He probably still is.

I'm in trouble. That was my first thought. I'd fallen asleep and tripped the 2nd unit Director up. Or called out something ridiculous in the throes of a nightmare. Or snored.

He wanted to know if I'd been featured.
That's right. Featured. A close up, or gesture, something to define me from the massed horde. I'd done one earlier take where I spun towards the camera in profile, drooling. One take. That meant either:

A) I'd got it spot on first time.
B) I had buggered it so spectacularly they believed there was no hope for me.

My mind wasn't leaning towards A. So in essence, I hadn't been featured. And yes, I WAS ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille... (It's amazing what being on a movie set can do to the ego. Even when you're so low on the totem they couldn't give your Zombie a number to distinguish him from the next.)

But I'm getting off the point. Ted wanted to know if I'd like to be the dead body lying in the road 20 feet beyond the gate. Clearly, trying to catch 40 winks I'd inadvertantly auditioned for the role. But this was progress! This was a role... beyond the gate. Zombie nirvana, baby.

Of course I said yes.
He took me over to some prop/make-up people. They conferred intensely for a few minutes and decided they would use a dummy mock-up instead. This mock-up seemed to consist of plastic bags stuffed inside empty clothes. That's right. I was being upstaged by a mass of plastic bags.

"So you won't be needing me then?"

They would not be needing me. Back to bed it was until the last shot was set up. After jam baguette sandwiches (strangest mid-afternoon nibbles ever), we did the tracking shot from the side, lumbering towards the dolly rig. Then we changed clothes so that we all looked like different zombies. Then we did it again with yet more clothes, so that in the final shots we would look like 300+ flesh-hungry super fiends, and not 30-odd cold, bored plebs with nothing better to do than hang out playing undead all day in clothes we only wear around the house.

The last job for day one was a quick half hour in twos in front of green screens practicing our zombie walks for a high-angle shot. More composite stuff, basically, for the CGI guys to construct a heaving mass of flesh-eaters.
"Remember the walk!" Our Zombie-trainer descended into his trademark shuffle. I did remember the walk, but my left knee was now physically incapable of performing it. I had a feeling I was shuffling in circles. Our two minutes in front of the screen was briefer than everyone else's, and I wondered if this was the cause. Had my left knee sabotaged a potentially glorious career in cinematic shuffling?

The last pair spun and veered in front of the green screen. A saturday night closing-time vignette...

"Zombies are wrapped."

That was it. An involuntary cheer went up. I've never been so knackered by a day's work in my life. It was by turns boring, cold, and repetitious. But I loved it. It sounds like proper work but it's much, much more fun, and much, much less paid. Nevertheless I was really looking forward to day two...

Poor fool.

*Unless of course, they're driving, and sometimes even then.

Zombies* - Day one, Part one

2011-03-27T11:52:00.019+01:00

This was the week I became a zombie, and I only half mean being bored with my job some days.

The long and the short of it is that they were looking for Zombie extras on James Moran's Cockneys Vs Zombies, filming just half an hour down the road. I couldn't really say no. (Which ignores the fact that I asked them, but there you go.)

So having got everything set up with the amazingly organised casting director Johnny Lynch, I rocked up at 6.40am at London's oldest continuously-producing brewery (it might have been England's oldest, I forget and can't be bothered to chase this on a Sunday morning. It's old, it's still producing, that's all you need to know.)

Signs that read *Zombies this way* led to the Zombie green room, just as someone prodded the first nine would-be undead into make-up. I'd stormed to the front of the room anyway so I thought "fuck it" and plopped myself down in front of the lovely Sarah, who grafted a face wound onto me whilst making small talk, a feat considering she'd been up since 4.20am.
I expected make-up to take longer, but we swapped out after basic greying up and wound application, rotating back in for blood and gore later. All told it probably took no more than 30 mins.
We passed the time with a crash course at zombie school, which was basically a DVD (don't know whether it was specially made or cribbed from someone else's DVD extras). This included all the basic stuff:

stumbling walk
limp, flailing arms
inability to handle complex physical tasks

None of which is a problem when you get up at 5.30am.

Just to be on the safe side, we had some practical training, traipsing outside in the cold spring morning and walking around like complete spazzes until we'd developed a "lift from the hip and pretend you're going to fall over, but don't" rhythm. While shivering. Combining the two is harder than it sounds.

The place was starting to buzz by now. Cameras were set, weak sunlight began flooding the compound. A charge filled the air. Blood was up. Ready, set...

For the next two hours we stood behind a truck.
This the reality of the movie biz. You think it's going to be glamorous, exciting and hyper-paced. What you actually get is two glacial hours behind a truck, shivering, covered in red sugar.
Occasionally we broke out to shoot some footage of us shuffling around a corner. Thankfully the sun got stronger and warmed us from "shivering" to "nippy".

We did the shot again, and again, and again, each time slightly altered from the last. Some of us broke out and volunteered for more up-front zombie duty attacking a gate. (By attacking, I mean "leaning pathetically on".)
I was not one of these. It didn't matter. We were zombies. Sooner or later we were all getting to the gate.

*I wish I could think of clever titles for these blog posts. You'd think I'd be better at it given the time between the damned things.

Predators

2010-07-12T22:24:00.001+01:00

SPOILERS

The short version: it's not as good as Predator. It's probably not even as good as Predator 2.
BUT it's better than either of the Alien vs Predator movies. No bullet-time, a semblance of characterisation, and it's fun. Congratulations, Litvak and Finch; you are officially better writers than Paul W.S. Anderson and Shane Salerno...

Yes guys, I damn you with faint praise. The ticks and mannerisms of some of the writing still annoy me. Quoting pop culture dialogue annoyed the hell out of me in Medieval, and its repetition here, down to the same quotes, is like being jabbed with a stick by an annoying child. You can construct a genre movie. We don't need to be reminded that you've seen a lot of them; just concentrate on making this one better, because there's still some dumb stuff here.

Hanzo is a disgraced Yakuza. So why does he turn to face the last Predator alone? Was there something hinted at in the character which made this the right, inevitable decision for him? I didn't see it. Did he have nothing left to live for? It was needless, too close an echo of Billy's last stand from Predator, though at least this time we get to see the poor bastard buy it. Billy's demise somehow seemed inevitable, though exactly how they pulled that off I'm not sure. The same trick doesn't work here because there's no obvious ground laid. Losing two fingers is not a precursor to wanting to die.

A few of the story beats are what we'll generously call homages to the original, and though they're pretty scattered they'll be noticeable to fans. Having said that, Predators never starts to become a hacked up, reverse engineered collection of Greatest Hits in the same way as Terminator Salvation.

Lawrence Fishburne channels his best Colonel Kurtz as an isolation-mad survivor, and does surprisingly well with it, because Noland is a plot-point, a late second-act crisis escalation in human form. That Fishburne takes this device and makes him almost a character is something of a feat, and makes his demise feels like a short-change. It's cheap and it's too darn soon. I'll repeat my assertion that the character could have been rewritten as Dutch from Predator, a man so isolated and traumatized by what happened to his friends that he's no longer able to work with others. It would have fit nicely with the themes of the movie and generated serious conflict with Royce. As it stands, everyone simply follows Royce. Seven of the world's nastiest people; amoral egotists, rapists and murderers, and not one of them bats an eyelid when Royce takes charge.

Brody as Royce is fine without ever having to stretch himself, and Topher Grace is not horribly miscast a la Spider-Man 3, in which his Eddie Brock/Venom carried all the threat of a baby rattle. His arc is flare-firingly obvious but he does a bit with it and makes the character likable. There's even a decent riff on the old "photo of the kids means you're going to die" cliche.

The script draft I read last year included an alternative ending with Arnold's "Dutch" Schaefer de-cloaking Predator-style and pretty much inviting Royce to join the hunting party. Obviously Arnold nixed that by declining to cameo, but what they've replaced it with is not the original ending as written but the nothing line "Let's get off this planet" as Royce and Isabelle disappear into the jungle.
Er... how exactly? There's leaving things open for a sequel and there's just not finishing your movie properly. It's not such a good film that a poor ending is going to undermine it but it still feels tacked on.

Predators was never going to be one of the movies of the year, but it's a fun, partial rescue of a mythology which has been dragged through the mud by sloppy sequels. The problem is there's nothing surprising or new. As an audience we've been here before and, like the Predators, we're two steps ahead all the time. Whether there's anything fresh that can done with the idea is something for Fox to ponder before they greenlight another.

*** (out of *****)

Maybe you can hire the A-Team...

2010-07-09T22:09:00.000+01:00

I know the Orange mobile ads with the "creative" executives had gotten very weak of late, but to replace them with this A-Team related product placement sequence...

Is it supposed to be post-modern? Or is it such a ridiculously over the top, in your face marketing tie-in that you think it's post-modern because it can't possibly be this shameless?

Resident Evil: Reloaded

2010-07-09T22:03:00.000+01:00

Maybe they can use that title for the next movie.
Just saw the trailer for the fourth(?) installment in the "franchise".

Guys, The Matrix was ELEVEN years ago. You can quit paying visual homage. It wasn't clever when it was new.
I thought we'd passed that phase when every action movie had to have a bullet-time style sequence. Sigh...

Paranormal Activity...

2009-12-02T08:36:00.000Z

So first off, thanks to the yobs who ruined Paranormal Activity for everyone on Saturday night. I won't waste too much breath because you obviously don't think you could have behaved any better, which is why you didn't. One day you might have an idea - just an inkling - that you can.

I have to say, Paranormal Activity blows its metaphorical load in the trailer. If you've seen that, you've seen most of the scares the movie has in store, and you can pretty much guess how it ends. After all Peli's struggle to get his film noticed, it's ironic that it was pretty much spoiled - in the sense that the trailer gives away the ending - by the very thing Hollywood was supposed to bring to the party: marketing.

I kinda like it; it's stayed with me, that's for sure. It wasn't flat-out scary, but that might have had more to do with the group of rioting tweenies. Not exactly conducive to the escalating sense of terror that the movie skillfully builds.

But oh, that ending.
I have issues here. Having spent 85 and something minutes building the fear with gradually ratcheted phenomena, the last two seconds are a cop-out, pandering to Hollywood sensibility and more-is-more excess. There's just no need for the demon-face. Oren Peli spends the entire film metaphorically sketching a skeletal, creepy picture with charcoal and paper, using the limited tools at his disposal with a good degree of skill and pluck, only to start slapping on the oil paints as they're handed to him at the last. Not only does it look garish, it obscures some of the artistry in what went before.

Just as important as the first ten pages of a screenplay are, the final frames of a film stay with you; they're what you take out into the night, and that ending has stayed with me, simultaneously creeping and annoying.
In short, the ending would have resonated without demon-face.

The original and alternate endings weren't to Paramount's liking. That doesn't make them right. The new ending was suggested by Steven Spielberg.
Let that sink in for a second.
That's the man who, because it looked like shit and didn't work properly, accidentally discovered that seeing less of the shark in Jaws meant it was a darn sight scarier.

As described, the two alternate endings offer marked tonal shifts. The "Katie Myers" ending is, as some have noted, a bit slasher. A bloodbath would have jarred with the rest of the film's quiet escalation just as badly as demon-face.
I like the idea of the throat slit ending, especially if it happens right in front of the camera but above the line of sight. Yes it's bloody, but it isn't graphic. We see, but we don't see, and it maintains the spirit of the movie, because for 85 minutes, what have we actually seen? Effect without cause.

But even with the theatrical cut ending, which is undoubtedly effective, I think there are subtler ways to do things than unleashing the CGI paintbox.

Alternative one: Micah has been flung at the camera. Damaged, it cuts to static with Katie lurking ominously in the doorway, covered in blood, maybe beginning to look a little more like the possessed girl in the internet footage. You never know see what happens next, but the coda plays out as before; Micah found dead, Katie never seen again. The mind does the work for you.
Alternative two: Cut to static right after Katie looks into the camera and begins to approach it, almost as if this demonic force is affecting the technology. Again, the coda works just as well. Our minds fill in the blanks and the terror is as much from within as without.

Would either of these cuts have worked? Maybe, maybe not. You'd be hard-pushed to argue the current ending - and I mean the final two seconds - doesn't, having scared up in excess of $100 million dollars in the US alone. But it feels out of place, a glinting Hollywood diamond peaking out of the rough.

It's reminiscent of that classic email in which you're invited to scour a picture or web page for evidence of a "ghost".
You can't see shit. So you get closer.
Still nothing. Closer.
You start to hold your breath, suspecting something's not quite right here.
But you can't see a damn thing, so you lean in closer. You're almost kissing the screen now when...

BANG!

You knew it was coming. You just didn't know what it was or quite where it was coming from. You jump, feel like a fool. It works. It's effective because the tension builds slowly, almost unbearably so that by the time that axe falls you're on tenterhooks.
In that sense, Paranormal Activity works wonderfully. But the bang is in Micah flying at the camera, not demon-face, and Paramount effectively shot itself in the foot by not only using it's big reveal shot in the trailer but slapping on two seconds of silicon-processed makeover after the fact.

Writers helped create Ripley, believe it or not...

2009-10-14T10:07:00.000+01:00

Disappointed that Xan Brooks' generally excellent Alien anniversary article in Tuesday's Guardian failed to hype any of the writers in favour of the usual star-f*cking.

Ridley Scott? Natch.
Sigourney Weaver? But of course.
Dan O'Bannon and Ron Shusett? Ahem... Didn't catch that.
Walter Hill and David Giler? Nervous coughing.
Alan Ladd Jr? Er... who?

The sidebar does quote O'Bannon and Shusett on the shooting of the chestburster scene, but that's extracted from Empire magazine. In the context of the feature article, where's the love for the guys who actually sat down and wrote it?

Admittedly, it mainly focuses on Ripley as feminist cultural icon, but the writers belong here too.
Despite the widespread assertion (not in the article but evident in Smith and Ximena-Gallardo's Alien Woman: The Making of Lt. Ellen Ripley) that Alien was written for an all-male cast, the 1976 draft of the script by O'Bannon and Shusett states:

"The crew is unisex and all parts are interchangeable for men or women."

There is no Ripley per se in the '76 draft, but MARTIN ROBY is clearly her progenitor. Described as "cautious but intelligent - a survivor", he does just that; he escapes, in much the same manner.

By the 1978 draft credited to Hill and Giler, based on O'Bannon's, Ripley has appeared as a woman, allegedly at the suggestion of Alan Ladd Jr., then President at 20th Century Fox.

So while Scott and Weaver no doubt had input by the 1978 draft, and thoroughly deserve their props, let's not forget that O'Bannon and Shusett wrote the thing from scratch, then Hill and Giler refined it. Everyone's always banging on about how film's a collaborative medium. Wouldn't it be nice if media coverage reflected that too?

Long time no blog

2009-10-14T08:25:00.001+01:00

Just realised there was more than a year between the last blog and the one before. This writing lark is hard work. Even the Homebase episode was more than a year ago. I've been real bad at this. Now work is slowing down and I'll have to ration my load for the next 10 weeks maybe I'll have a bit more time.
Or maybe I should look for another job...
Nah.

Suspicious minds

2008-10-12T17:13:00.000+01:00

"I don't want to touch you, mate."

I've had some knock-backs in my time, but that's just rude. I wasn't all that keen on this guy touching me either, but when someone accuses you of stealing Stanley knives the least they can do is have the courage of their convictions and bloody well search you.

It started with an average, acne-ridden, home superstore Sales boy asking if I need help. He's followed by a man I suspect is his boss. We have a conversation about cutting carpet with Stanley knives. The excitement! My suspicion is yet to be aroused. It's probably training. You know, a go out there and meet the customers kind of thing.

I thank them and turn to walk away when I notice another one behind me. That's three, and suddenly something's wrong. In an orgy of self-belief I wonder if I can take them all out with a Bourne-like flurry of kung-fu bad-assery.

Then it happens. Head guy asks me if I'm carrying any more of their products. He does it in that officious, smug way that means he thinks he's caught me on the hop. The kind where every sentence could potentially end in the word "sonny".
I don't really get what he means because I'm not a shoplifter by trade. (I dabbled. When I was small I stole some bubblegum from Tesco and a chocolate football from the local sweet shop. I've just about worked out the guilt.)

Then it hits: he wants to know if I'm stealing from them.

Apparently some sharp-eyed customer has seen me stuffing things up my shirt. I know this is a lie because there hasn't been anyone in this aisle but me.

And this, believe it or not, is where it gets embarrassing. Because I'm five minutes out of an eight mile run. How do you admit to Mr Homebase that eight mile runs aren't good for the nipples? That what passes for shoplifting craft knives is actually stemming the blood with a hankie? You can't. You keep quiet, empty your pockets and then offer to let them search you, in the nicest possible way a sweaty, innocent man can when surrounded by homebase staff in the stanley knife aisle.

But head guy doesn't want to.

I mutter something about running, though why I did is beyond me. I think I'm worried my sweatiness is a sign of guilt. But still none of them push it. They're convinced that I'm bristling with the kind of arsenal you find on an average council estate but none of them care so much that they want to pat down a man carrying his own weight in sweat. So they shuffle away, wittering about not being too careful, probably to check the CCTV so they can re-descend at the first indication that I'm making it up.

In a fit of high-mindedness I wonder whether I actually need wood glue and a stanley knife. But then carpet never gets cut, and the floorboard-sized lump of wood hanging off the living room door never gets glued.

They never came back to nail me, but they didn't apologise either. Maybe they were scarred for life by the sight of me blotching my nipples on CCTV.

The episode revealed three things:
1) When jogging, nipples must be covered.

2) Superstore staff don't care if you're not a shoplifter. They only care when you are.

3) Worst case scenario, I reckon I could have had the lot of 'em.

Bay - Faced Cheek

2008-02-13T20:00:00.000Z

'scuse the punny, crappy title, I need to get to my point quickly.

"I've been writing Transformers 2. We've got our characters all designed. I always write all my scripts, my movies anyway so at least I've got something to give the writers. It's like a template. We have a really good outline so I worked on that." Michael Bay

And that, my friends, is why screenwriters went on strike. Not just because of money, but the generally disgusting way in which the craft (and it is a craft) is treated by those who cannot do it.
There are many, many bad screenwriters out there. Some of them are earning a living from it. But none of them deserve to be shit on by the likes of Bay. This is the man who was happy to give Joe Public the chance to write a line in his movie for an online promo competition. If someone had offered Joe a chance to direct just one fucking shot of Transformers he'd have been up at his DGA Rep's door quicker than you can say $100 million weekend.

Writers, however, even the staggeringly inept ones, take this shit for no other reason than that they do. That's it. They take the hits. They shrug their shoulders and resolve themselves to these realities. Because most of us don't feel like we should be at this party. We feel like interlopers, crashers at this grand occasion, when the truth is we should feel like the hosts.
We originate the work. Regardless of whether it's based on an existing property, whether it's good, bad or indifferent, original or derivative, writing leaves us vulnerable to crushing lows and soaring highs. The difference is that we take the flak for the lows and thank everybody else for the highs.

Bay is representative of corporate Hollywood and all that is wrong with it, all that has provoked the WGA's ire. The Director calls all the shots and the writers bow and scrape, kow-towing graciously when someone deems we can do our jobs and actually write something we might have thought up. Ourselves.
And it's wrong.

It's absolutely disgraceful that he should make comments like this. For one thing, if he's been writing, he's metaphorically crossed the picket line. I have no idea if he's a member of the guild or not (I really fucking hope not), but if the like of Tom Hanks can refuse to cross the line, what price a little solidarity from the likes of Bay?

But apparently writers are merely slaves to flesh out his own ideas.
Here's a suggestion, Mike; if you're such a writer, start, draft, redraft, redraft, redraft, take studio notes, redraft again, and then finally finish the goddamned thing yourself. Join the WGA if you haven't already.
Then, and this is the important bit, take the flak when it tanks. If Transformers 2 does business on a par with The Island, go tell it to the mountain. Remind everyone that you write all your movies... I don't remember a whisper of that post-The Island. Wasn't that also "written" by the two guys who helped you craft Transformers? It didn't make any money, did it? In fact, it sank like a brick. Transformers does stellar biz and suddenly you write all your movies. Way to go motivating Orci and Kurtzman for the sequel. I'm sure they'll be thrilled that you've told everyone they're essentially your bag men.

Let me reiterate something for you, Michael. Transformers stank, no matter how much money it made. And you're taking credit for it. The only point to the entire spectacle was seeing just how freaking awesome ILM are when they're doing their best work. Do you honestly think you can pull the same blindside on that many people a second time? It was vapid, puerile tripe of the first order. LARGE parts of it made no sense, and... ah hell, I'm gonna say it-
I enjoyed Premonition more.

Did I step over the line?

Good. On with the show.