Dashing* towards the Script Frenzy deadline

*By dashing I am referring to my hopes and dreams.

Ok, so unless I start typing in my sleep, it's fairly unlikely that I'm going to knock out the 80+ pages remaining to be scripted in my magnum opus for Script Frenzy by the end of the month.

Script Frenzy is a month long screenplay writing exercise intended to get dusty screenplays out of drawers (real or mental) and onto paper.

In spite of my failure to get the writing done, I'm actually feeling pretty good about the work that I have managed to get done over the last 28 days.

I have completely reshaped the story behind the first draft of the script that I put together, incorporating virtually all of the good ideas I've had in the last #cough11yearscough#.

I've learnt how to use a very nifty piece of screenwriting shareware called Celtx that has freed me from the onerous script formatting conventions and I've also (eventually) got a sense of the best way for me to work on my writing. (Funnily enough, it's not a million miles away from the process that I developed to write uni essays over the last two years. I just need to develop a process for actually staying put in my seat during writing time now.)

All in all, it's coming together. I have a nagging suspicion that this draft will come in at somewhere around 3 hours long and with a $100 million budget, but that's for the producer to worry about, right?

Taking the spycam pen for the bikeride

A few lessons learnt from this - the pannier clips on the front of the bike are at more of an angle than I thought and the noise of the rubber hitting the road is surprisingly loud. The camera also appears to quit after 30 mins filming, which is good to know.

Anyway, this is the first 30 mins of the ride (which is approx 45 mins), compressed to a bit over 3 mins. (Which by rudimentary mathematics suggests that this is what it might look like if/when I ride my bike at 200km/h.

(Oh and the music in the clip is just some generic production music from the Ulead video editing software package)

Nice and elevating - Lost Generation

I'm not normally one to post motivational/inspirational stuff - indeed I'm far more comfortable cynically decrying it - but I was quite taken with this short video. It's a remake of an Argentinian political advertisement called "The Truth" by RECREAR and was placed second in the AARP U@50 video contest.

It's only about 2 minutes but has to be watched right to the end. 



(Thanks to Sue at work for sending this around)

Whatchootalkinbout? Mr Drummond gets creepy

Fantastic example of how much different music can make to setting the mood. I know find the opening credits of Diff'rent Strokes entirely unsettling - thanks Internetz

The most awesome fun ever - indoor skydiving

No doubt this guy is a seriously practiced professional indoor skydiving and a schmuck like you or I would spend the majority of our time slamming into the glass walls at the side, but how much would you like to find out?

It truly is a golden age that we live in.

I am not an upskirter

I got a little geeky yesterday when a gadget arrived for me in the post - it's a spypen - the MP9 Digital Video Pocket Recorder to be precise.

It came from gadget-bargain-a-day site Zazz.com.au and cost around $30 if memory serves.

The picture quality is surprisingly good, considering that it comes from a lens no bigger than the head of a pin. (That's it above the metal clip in the picture above). This clip was the first thing I filmed - it's a little all over the shop but gives some idea of the image.



The sound is a little problematic and appears to have gotten a tiny bit worse in subsequent filming but I think that running it through some audio software might help.

It connects to the computer using an inbuilt USB connection.

What I find most interesting is that the first reaction of the first two guys I showed it to was "oh, upskirting"
Not in a "that's a good idea" way or an "I assume that is what you got it for" way - at least I hope not, as the thought had and has never crossed my mind - I guess these kinds of gadgets have different associations than my somewhat naive mind gives them.

I just asked a female friend of mine what she would think if I told her I got a pen/spy camera and she was simply unsurprised - no aspersions cast at all. (She did also think about people cheating in exams but that's an occupational thing)

So maybe there's hope for me yet.

Me fail English - that's unpossible

(Click image for full size version)

Thanks to Matt for this one.

This is apparently an ad in South Africa.

It's like the Internetz heard my prayers

One of my first tweets (twits?) this morning told me that The Onion has put Close Range - The Game up online. (They're also selling a poster but I'm not that crazy about it)

It plays pretty well exactly as you would expect, with some great cutscenes to expand on the story in between.

As I played it, I was fully aware of how disturbed it was and what it says about our society but I couldn't help smiling. 

Hooray for the Internetz

Protest drummer get theirs

I realise that I might as well just turn this blog into a direct link to The Onion but this story appealed to me far more than it probably should. (I can't stand hippy drummers)

I know they're mocking me but I don't care.

The Onion folks have this nifty video up taking the piss out of videogames and gamers but I don't care, it's pretty funny and a small part of me still wants to play this game.  Hasta la vista, pony.


Hot New Video Game Consists Solely Of Shooting People Point-Blank In The Face

Oh dear

Update: Apparently this was an April Fools joke - nice story though.

Good deeds

It's probably just the tiredness talking but if a complete stranger does you a good deed, without being asked, does it take something away from them to give them a reward?

I mean, if someone does something because it's the right thing to do (and perhaps also they get to feel like a good person) and then you give them something for doing it, does it create a hidden subtext that the receiver assumes they did it for gain - even if this isn't the case?

To get a little less abstract, I took $500 out of the ATM at the Canberra mall this afternoon - or rather I asked the ATM for that money and then in the middle of the transaction it flashed up a "Can't issue receipt, do you wish to continue?" message.

I said, yeah, sure, just display the balance on the screen afterwards. Now apparently this is some kind of funky whiz-bang silent ATM because I didn't get the whoosh whoosh whoosh sound of the money being dispensed, just a display on the screen that said account balance $168.

Now I've been juggling money around between accounts in the last few days so I assumed that this was the machine telling me that I didn't have sufficient funds for that withdrawal and to go away. Not entirely sure why I thought this but there was a queue behind me and I figured that I'd just do my shopping on the other card, that I must have transferred this money to instead.

Twenty minutes later, heading away from the counter at JB Hifi, some bloke stops me and asks if I was just using the ATM. I had no idea what I had done so I said yes, waiting for enlightenment. He paused for a while - I guess he was trying to make sure that I was the right guy - and asked me if I had completed my transaction.

Suddenly the penny drops and I realise that I've just left $500 sitting in an ATM and presumably this guy has it. So I tell my story and after a few moments he opens his wallet and starts counting out the cash. (Knowing how much money it was meant to be was a help to me here I'm guessing).

I am feeling so relieved and grateful at this time that I tell him that he can keep 50, figuring that if it wasn't for him that I would be out 500 bucks having 450 is a whole lot better than that.

He asked a few times if I was sure and mentioned that he was just trying to do the right thing. Anyway, he took (and I was happy for him to have it) but now I'm wondering if that might have cheapened the moment for him a little.

Oh well.

How do you defend yourself against a man with two dildoes?

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Borat when it came out so I'm holding more hope out for Sacha Baron Cohen's new film Bruno



I actually get the feeling that this isn't one of those trailers that gives away every good joke in the film (a rare occurrence these days)

We don't want zombies on the lawn

Coming soon from Popcap, the insanely successful developers of casual games like Bejewelled and Peggle, is Plants vs Zombies.

It looks somewhat like a Tower Defense style game, where you add different sorts of cannons and other weapons to a winding path that advancing enemy hordes stream down but who can say for sure.

All I know is that they have a hella catchy promotional music video which is rather cute (and features zombies with butter on their head)

Computer says we're doomed

Terminator over-watcher that I am, I like to keep an eye on our robotic and computational friends for signs of imminent uprising and Judgement day.

The top entries on my feedreader this morning didn't exactly fill me with confidence.

(Click image for full size version)



Two separate instances of robots and computers learning things under their own steam. Riiight.

And by the way, what is going on with the Google ads - are they being written by neo-cons now?
Two stories about President Obama and in the same space, two ads for the National Security Hotline - dob in a terrorist service.

Implying much?

A what-now peeler?

(Kudos to Shane for tweeting this when it first happened and leading the way to the Facebook group dedicated to this moment)

3.6 pages in the red and counting

 

(Image by Aaardvaark )

Got up early this morning and managed to write 3 fairly decent pages. 3 handwritten pages anyway - not really sure how this will translate to typed pages but I'm hoping it's around 1:1.

I've had a few realisations about my writing - I'm better than I was afraid I would be, I can be a somewhat twisted motherfrakker at times and so far I have struggled to write a line of dialogue without a "fucken" in it. (In fairness, pretty well all of these were justified by the action).

Where previously I would write ideas down and almost always pop a question mark after them, when ideas are coming to me now, I'm tossing them in to see where they might lead.

I have only a scant idea as to what the next scene is but I'm on the way and feeling a little buzzed about it.

(Ooh and I just found an image of self-bite wounds on a cockatoo, which may actually be kind of useful)

3.3 pages in the red and counting

It's now been around 11 or 12 years since I completed the first draft of my zombie movie screenplay (working title Boonsville) and I'm thinking that I've now had (way more than) enough time for new ideas to percolate and mature.

Enter Script Frenzy. 

This is a month-long writing activity, brought to you by the people behind NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) which is intended to provide the impetus for people (such as myself) to blow the dust off old ideas (or bring forth new ones) and write one hundred pages of script by the end of the month.

By my calculations, this means 3.33 pages per day.

I did take a look at some of my notebooks yesterday in search of ideas that I've jotted down over the intervening years but didn't quite get to writing anything.

I must admit that I'm rather terrified of this process, particularly the possibility that in spite of the plethora of brilliant ideas I have and the artistic vision, it will come out rather crap,

Just need to keep remembering that this is only a second draft, each draft gets easier and good films often run through 20 or 30 drafts.

Inappropriate for the workplace

I'm wearing a black t-shirt inside out today.

I hadn't intended to wear it inside out but faced with a choice between that or my sweaty bikeride-to-work top, this is the better option.

This is what it looks like around the right way.

Now personally, I think that this image is a celebration of a woman's right to celebrate the more sexual side of life - it was a gift from a (female) friend who went to (and loved) a Peaches concert a few years back.

Funnily enough though, it's not considered "appropriate" in a snaggy PC ACT public service workplace - and in fairness, on first glance without understanding the underpinning philosophy, I admit it could be confronting or discomfiting to some.

So I'm wearing it inside out to play nice and counting how many people notice. (Just one so far)

Ironically, the tshirt that I thought I had grabbed and which I had considered appropriate enough, had this rather grotesque depiction of a slobbering diseased heavy metal looking fly.

 

Go figure. 

Update: One of my cluey co-workers asked me if my t-shirt was inside out because there was something inappropriate on it - clever woman.

Hanging on The Wire

I came to The Wire a little late - the 5 series of this show had long finished by the time I found it but this kind of works for me anyway as it makes it available to pick up a season and plough through it in big slabs, without having to wait for the next episode. (This has its own excitement - the current season of Battlestar Galactica for instance, but waiting is so 20th century)

Last night I finished watching season 3 and while I've been hugely impressed with the show since the start (seriously from the first episode), I hit a new point last night where I thought to myself, this is actually better than Goodfellas.

TV has the advantage of being able to take its time in developing stories and characters, dropping tiny details here and there that form a full, rich viewing experience. The Wire brings this like virtually no programme I have seen before (and you'd better believe I've watched my share of good tv).

The show itself is a gritty cop show set in Baltimore. This description alone was enough to provoke a big Meh in me the first few times I heard/read people raving about it but the chorus of raves grew louder and louder (particularly from British TV critic Charlie Brooker) and eventually I grabbed a copy and checked it out.

From the first episode I knew that this show was something special. It drops you right into the middle of the police department (and the corresponding ghetto drug trade), they're all doing their thing and speaking their fairly distinctive jargon heavy language and you are expected to keep up. The writing is sharp and intelligent and most importantly, it's real.

The characters are the real core of the show - there isn't anyone who gets more than half a dozen lines that you don't feel some measure of sympathy towards and interest in and they all behave like real people.

Rather than focus on crime of the week, The Wire tells a story (or rather several stories) across the span on a whole series. You get the perspective of the crims, the cops and some of the people living on the periphery of these worlds. From Bubs, the hapless but likable junky informant to Omar, the ultra-cool robber of dealers, from McNulty, the talented and slightly self-destructive detective to Stringer Bell, the sharp, business studying head of the dealing operation - everyone has a life and a soul.

There's a lot of twisting and turning in the story so I'm not going to dig into that but each season is underpinned by a theme/location - the housing projects in the first, the docks and the wharf unions in the second and city hall/politics in the third. (This is nicely reflected in tweaks to the opening titles each season) This included a serious examination of the drug war as a whole, including a possibly quasi-legalisation scenario that played out over most of the series.

It also maintains its own universe - there was a nice moment in the last episode last night where a guy (nearly said who but avoiding spoilers) threw some guns off the pier and a faded election poster for one of the main union characters from season 2 flapped sadly on a pole - just for a second but long enough.

As I mentioned at the start, I'm no huge fan of cop shows but The Wire is so much more than that - it truly does deserve the critical acclaim.

(And oh yeah, it's an HBO series as well, so you know it brings the awesome)

Here are a couple of clips, including a funny one where Bunk and McNulty examine a crime scene using only swear words.