My First Farce

That je ne sais quoi

2010-02-20T12:53:00.000-08:00

I was curious to see "Away we go" (Sam Mendes, 2009) because it deals with some of the materials my story deals with, mainly with the "young couple vs. everyone else" theme.

I found the film boring, the characters dull, and the overall story problematic, but it took me some time to figure out why.

My first thesis was that the movie suffers from genre confusion. To me, it seemed like the two main characters live in a drama, while many of the supporting characters (especially the guy's parents, and Maggie Gyllenhaal's character) live in a comedy. It could be funny if it was intentional, but it seems to be accidental.

Then I watched "The puffy chair", and it hit me.

"Away we go" is about a couple expecting its first baby. They decide to move to a new city and build a home for their future family. So they go on a trip to decide where they want to move to, checking out different locations, different lifestyles, and at the end of the movie they choose their new home.

"The puffy chair" (Jay Duplass, 2005) is a road trip movie. It's about a guy who was planning to buy a puffy chair he found on EBAY, and drive it to his parents' house as a present for his dad's birthday. He was planning to go on his trip alone, but his girlfriend and later his brother both join him. Change of plans: instead of the trip being about him getting a present for his dad, it becomes about his relationship with his girlfriend and with his brother.

That's what's missing on "Away we go". So trivial, yet it makes all the difference - going on a trip, not knowing what its outcome will be.

Latest developments

2009-12-12T03:27:00.000-08:00

I started writing. I find out that when I have a scene where I know exactly what I want, where I feel I have all the essentials ingredients, it's really fun to write it. But I also realized that there is still something big I have to solve if I want to go on writing. I tried to understand what it was that was missing, or unclear. Most of all I felt like I have a bunch of strong main scenes, but nothing strong enough yet to connect them. The main story is very tight, but there is still something loose hovering above it.

What I first realized was that the supporting characters are clearer to me than the two main characters. This led me to a more important realization: my two main characters (a couple) share the same dramatic need. The reason they are weak is that they are not distinct and separated enough. So I decided this dramatic need, which is actually the heart of the story, will belong only to the woman, and that I will find a different need for the man. He will still take part in whatever she's up to (because the story is basically them vs. everybody else), but this won't be the thing that defines him. He will have his own thing.

So now I have two heroes with two different dramatic needs. I already know what the guy's thing is, but I do have a little more work on his character.

Talking about male characters:

Talking about female characters:

Reading "Woody Allen on Woody Allen"

2009-10-19T01:38:00.000-07:00

I was planning to read Christopher Vogler's "The Writer's Journey", but it seemed a bit heavy, so I decided to hold it, and turn to a lighter reading material. So Im currently reading this book of conversations Stig Bjorkman had with Woody Allen. They discuss each film chronologically, but also go over general questions and ideas.

I watched "Interiors" for the first time after reading the chapter about it in the book. I loved it. In the book, Allen says he's very intrigued by female relationships, be it sisters or friends. He also mentions how much he admires and respects Diane Keaton, stating if she loves a new film he's made, he doesn't care what anybody else thinks.

This remindes me that a friend back in film school used to tell me I reminded him of Annie Hall. I'm just saying.

Christoph Waltz / Rob Brydon

2009-10-05T10:52:00.000-07:00

I finally saw "Inglourious Basterds". I won't write a review here, but I will say that I loved it, and that it made my heart beat like no other film ever did. It actually went BOOM - BOOM - BOOM throughout the last act.

While watching the movie, the brilliant Christoph Waltz (Col. Hans Landa) kept reminding me of Rob Brydon, one of my favorite current British comedians. I'm not sure what Brydon is up to these days (the last time I saw him was as a guest on "Little Britain"), but I do know that watching his TV shows "Human Remains" and "Marion and Geoff" somewhere around 2001 was really an eye-opener.

Both shows were mockumentaries. "Human Remains", starring Brydon and Julia Davis, featured 6 episodes, 30 minutes long. Each episode focused on a different couple, usually an unhappy one. "Marion and Geoff" had 17 episodes, 9 minutes long, and always had Brydon as a loser, driving his car, talking about his ex wife Marion and her new husband Geoff, with whom his kids live.

These shows didn't invent the genre of course, but I think it was my first encounter with a mockumentary that wasn't only funny, but also very dark and cruel. Needless to say, this was a few years before Ricky Gervais came along.

So here are a few videos, to honor this talented and funny man (mind you, some of the accents are hard to follow):

Saved by the beet

2009-09-24T15:26:00.000-07:00

Two and a half weeks into my new diet, I'm glad to say that I'm feeling a lot better. In the last 5-6 days I've been much more energetic, and didn’t feel the need to sleep during the day (which I did throughout most of the summer). I was so energetic I started cleaning the apartment, throwing away old stuff, and reorganizing the stuff I don't want to through away.

Not only that, but I also had a comeback dream to the nightmares I've had in my bad week. Back then, I dreamt every night that I'm in physical danger and I'm helpless – there's no way to escape, or even convince anyone that I'm in danger. It was usually conspiracy-movie-type situations. Well a few days ago I dreamt someone was trying to enter my house and hurt me, and I overcame him! I sprayed some stuff on him and he ran away! Always go for the spray when you're in danger.

About the diet itself - I find that the hardest thing about it isn't what I can or can't eat or drink, but the social meaning of it. If I can't drink coffee and can't drink alcohol, and can't really eat outside, this basically means going out with friends is quite difficult. Sure I can sit with them and drink water or carrot juice, but it's not the same.

When this month is over I'm supposed to receive an updated diet for the following month. I'm mostly curious to see how long this energetic phase will last. I hope it's here to stay, but I'm also used to experience the migraines and fatigue in cycles, so I'm trying to be realistic about it. In the meantime, I plan to dedicate this long weekend of Yom Kipur to my script.

Be good, eat healthy stuff.

Case study: La Cage Aux Folles vs.The Birdcage

2009-09-19T12:56:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned my love for "La Cage Aux Folles" (Edouard Molinaro, 1978) before. Written originally as a play by Jean Poiret, and later adapted to the screen by Poiret, Molinaro, Marcello Danon and Francis Veber, this movie is definitely one of my all time favorite comedies.

Before writing this case study, I watched the American version of the film for the first time (Mike Nichols, 1996). What a sad and interesting experience that was. Sad - to see such a great story translate into such a (I thought) mediocre film. Interesting - to try and understand what it is exactly that makes it mediocre. I guess for someone who hadn't seen the French movie, the American one might be hilarious, but for me, a devoted fan of the French version, it wasn't. I guess it's s little like watching the American version of "The Office" after adoring the British one.

The plot (you can skip this if you've watched the movie)

The American "Birdcage" is very similar to the French in terms of story, with some adjustments to the American society of course, and a few original scenes that were written especially for it. So here is the basic plot of both films:

The son of a gay couple (owner of a drag shows club and his life partner, the main performer) is set to get married with the daughter of a member of the government's conservative party. The son has no relationship with his birth mother. The fiancée, scared of her conservative father, lies to him and says the boy's father is a diplomat (cultural attaché) and his mother is a house wife. The girl's parents decide to drive up and meet the boy's parents. The boy asks his father, just for that night, to pretend that he's a diplomat, remove any signs of him being gay from the house, and get rid of his partner for the day. While the media is following every step of the girl's father, whose party just gone through a major scandal, the girl's family enters the boy's parents' house. And the mess continues.

What makes the French movie so much better:

Music
First difference that comes to mind is the beautiful soundtrack by Ennio Morricone (the American movie begins and ends with the cheesy "we are family"). Here's one of Morricone's beatiful melodies:

Screams
In both films, the boy's adopting father is an insecure, neurotic, high maintenance type of gal. One of his main comic features is a hysteric high-pitch scream that comes out of his mouth once in a while. But while the American character seems to scream only when he encounters an alarming or surprising situation, the French one does it as a general attitude. He screams when he's scared or alarmed, but also out of joy and enthusiasm. Watch the magnificent Michel Serrault (sorry, no subtitles on this one, but that's a scene where he enters the dinner with the girl's parents dressed as a woman, pretending to be the boy's mother, even though the boy and his father asked him not to take part in the dinner):

Attitude
In the French film, when the boy tells his father he's marrying a girl, the father immediately calls her a "whore", then asks him what’s the whore's name. The next day, the father tells his partner that the boy will marry a girl, and he too replies by calling her a whore. In the American film, both fathers are also upset by the news of the marriage, by they don’t use the word "whore". It might sound like a small detail, but to me it definitely sets a different comic mood.

Fear
In the French film, it is well established that both the girl and her mother are afraid of the father. In the American version, set in a different year, most of the time it seems like deep inside, the girl (Calista Flockhart) doesn’t really care what her father thinks, and has an ironic approach towards her parents – which makes the whole encounter between the families a bit less dramatic.

Resolution
Both movies end the same way: two mothers arrive to the dinner in which the parents of the boy and the girl meet for the first time, both of them claim they are the boy's mother. The first mother to arrive is the father's male companion, dressed as a woman, playing the part of a woman. The second mother to arrive is the boy's actual mother, whom he hasn't seen since he was a baby. At this point the girl's father asks: how many mothers does he have?

In the French version, it's his father who removes the wig from his partner's head, and says: he has two fathers. Us. In the American version it's the boy himself who removes the wig, saying: I have two fathers.

For me, the French resolution is more natural – the main characters are the two fathers, they didn't want to lie in the first place, so it makes sense that the father reveals the truth. In the American version, the boy becomes a character who has gone through some change during the day, coming to terms with his family, deciding not to lie anymore. It seems a bit forced and out of context, not to say educational.

A word about female characters

The only thing I don’t like about "La Cage Aux Folles" is the pour female characters. There are two couples of parents in the story. The two gay fathers are funny. The girl's father (at least in the French version) is hilarious. And only the girl's mother has hardly any comic depth. They could have played with her dreams of a wedding with a diplomat's son, make her more pathetic, but they chose to make her anemic.

I had the same issue with "Meet the Fockers", that has more female characters in it to begin with. And I want to declare here again, that I will try as hard as I can to make the female characters in my movie just as bold, funny and pathetic as the male ones.

Guilty and weak

2009-09-12T13:23:00.000-07:00

I wasn't sure what to write here in the last couple of weeks. I guess it's because I can't make myself sit down and write my screenplay. I feel bad about not writing the screenplay, I feel bad generally, so I lose interest in the blog. It's the first time I'm trying to write a screenplay. I have no experience in planning such a long story/text, so I've been mostly avoiding doing it. My plan was to use this summer for writing, and I feel that I have failed at that.

Other than that, I've been tired and weak all summer, which I thought might have something to do with the Tel Aviv heat, or with the no-job situation (you're at home, there's no obligation to do anything, so why would you do anything?). Along with the weakness, I've been suffering from occasional headaches. Headaches and migraines are not new to me, but in the last 4-5 months came a new phenomenon: a headache that lasts a few days. You wake up with the headache, you go to sleep with it, and you wake up with it again. It doesn’t matter how many headache/migraine pills I take, or how many naps I take – it just stays there, until one day it disappears. I found it alarming, so I went to the doctor. The doctor took some tests and said there's nothing wrong with me. So I decided to go to a nutritionist, who also does iris Diagnosis. She was much more understanding than the doctor. She looked at my blood tests, looks at my pupils, and said the comforting words: "of course you're tired".

So now I'm on a new diet, which is supposed to make me feel better. There's a green powder I'm supposed to drink every day, and there are many things I shouldn't eat or drink (alcohol, milk, coffee, sugar, wheat, few vegetables, and most of the fruits that I love). I will say, though, that the nutritionist told me that in fact I should digress from the menu from time to time, because (her words) I'm a perfectionist and I should learn to fight my perfectionism.

It's been 6 days since I started the new diet. I was actuallly very weak these last 3-4 days, and had one of those long headaches again, which I still have, but hopefully will be gone by tomorrow. To make it even more interesting, every night in the last few days I had at least one dream in which I'm in phisical danger - in most of them I forced myself to wake up because the dream was too scary or stressing to handle.

Speaking of perfectionism, I had a minor revelation today. I understood that the biggest mission ahead of me is not to write the greatest screenplay I can, but first to write a screenplay at all. Once I've written my first full screenplay, I can worry about making it perfect, or making my future screenplays perfect. Hopefully I can execute that.

Make it work! September deadlines

2009-09-02T14:56:00.000-07:00

I'm beginning to question my deadlines method. In other words – I'm not making it work. I'm trying to figure out how to make the necessary leap in my story's structure. I have a rather established structure, but it's not complete, and it's hardly developed since I started this blog.

I know that I'm good in editing and arranging material, so I'm pretty sure that when I'll have my structure, the writing process will become easier. But at this stage, when I'm still working on the story itself, I'm stuck. It’s not yet playing with material – it's coming up with the material.

What I did find is that talking about the story with someone (my boyfriend, to be exact) is much easier than thinking about it in my head. Sometimes he'll have good ideas, and other times just saying something aloud helps me get it to the next level. It's as if until I don't say it aloud, I can't think what happens next, or as a result of it, or what will make it better. Once I said it, I automatically come up with new ideas.

So I guess my major mission for September is to have as many script conversations with my boyfriend, and force myself to finish working on my movie structure.

As in the previous make-it-work posts, I'm leaving you with a Tim Gunn video. This time, you get to see the inside of his closet:

It must have been awkward

2009-08-27T13:12:00.000-07:00

I finished reading "Screenplay". As Field suggests, I copied 10 pages of a script ("There's something about Mary"), as an exercise to help me get used to writing in proper screenplay form. I think I'll do it more than once. It's not only helpful, it's also fun. I enjoy technical exercises. It's much easier to copy a few pages of script than to write biographies for my leading characters. The thing is, I know how the characters behave today, but I'm not sure how I should go about inventing their history, inventing major events in their childhood etc.

As I'm writing this, I suddenly realize that the key for my characters' past is their parents. I mean, their parents also star in the movie, so I already know what kind of people their parents are. So what I should do, given the leading characters' behavior and their parents' characteristics, is imagine what kind of (funny) situations could have happened between them while they were growing up. So hopefully this will get me somewhere. And if this doesn't help, maybe going over awkwardfamilyphotos will serve as inspiration:

Lara Stone vs. Liv Ullmann: The eyebrows effect

2009-08-22T10:15:00.000-07:00

I was watching "Scenes from a marriage" (Ingmar Bergman, 1973) a while ago, and during its 167 minutes I kept thinking that Liv Ullmann reminds me of Lara Stone – or should I say vice versa. There's a prominent vulnerability in Liv Ullmann's eyes and eyebrows combination, that sometimes makes it seem like she's about to cry even when she's not. Lara Stone's bleached eyebrows create a similar effect. Anyway, Lara Stone has just gone brunette for Vogue Paris, so this Liv/Lara adventure is over, at least for now.

Here's Liv Ullmann:

Here's Lara Stone:

And here's Lara Stone as a bruntte:

Home is where the road is

2009-08-19T13:26:00.000-07:00

Following John Hughes' death, I decided to watch "Planes, trains and automobiles" (1987) for the first time. Though the movie's strong 80's vibe holds it from being a timeless piece, I did enjoy it. I especially enjoyed:

- Steve Martin and John Candy

- The opening scene, in which Page (Steve Martin) sits in an office meeting, anxious to leave so he can catch his plane, while his boss takes his time to conclude the meeting. This scene has almost no dialogue, mainly face gestures, and it's remarkably funny.

- The bromance atmosphere, which is so dominant in comedies nowadays. When Page and Dell find themselves sharing a hotel room (and a bed) for the night, they keep making sure there's nothing gay about it. The climax is the moment when they wake up in each other's arms, and jump out of bed, terrified (watch video below). Of course today it's ok for guys to say "I love you" in comedies ("Wedding crashers", "Superbad", "I love you, man").

- The moment when Page understands that Del (John Candy) has nowhere to go to for Thanksgiving. After he hated him throughout the entire movie, you really get the feeling that now he loves him. And in terms of transformations, it's nice that the film offers a minor change, not drastic. Page is not a whole new person when the movie ends, but he did learn to enjoy the presence of someone different, and to accept that things don’t always go as planned.

A day after watching "Planes", "Something Wild" (Jonathan Demme, 1986) was on TV, and I sat down and watched it. I remembered watching it as a young girl, and had a vague recollection of what it was about. I remembered the sex scene at the beginning (the bob haircut and the handcuffs are too iconic to forget). I also remembered the scene where Lulu (Melanie Griffith) leaves the restaurant without paying, forcing Charlie (Jeff Daniels), who has no money either, to run out without paying. However, I did not remember the radical shift in the middle of the movie, when it stops being a comedy and becomes a dark drama, thriller almost.

What's interesting, though, is the similarity between the movies. Both "Planes" and "Something Wild" are road movies, in which one of the main characters has no home to return to (either physically or emotionally). In both movies, the character keeps her "no home" situation a secret, and the secret is revealed towards the end of the film.

Del (John Candy) doesn't tell Page (Steve Martin) that his beloved wife had been dead for 8 years. Page finds it out by himself only at the end of the movie, by adding up all the small clues that were dropped along the way.

Charlie (Jeff Daniels) doesn't tell Lulu (Melanie Griffith) that his wife left him a few months earlier. Lulu's husband, who just got out of jail and tries to get Lulu back to him, tells her the truth about Charlie.

So I guess that in both movies, the primary idea is you can only truly dedicate yourself to a road trip if you have nothing (no one) to lose. In "Planes, trains and automobiles", Del craves Page's company because he's lonely, and his loneliness explains why, unlike Page, he only wants the trip back home to be longer. In "Something Wild", we first think Charlie joins Lulu to escape his boring family life, but it turns he's lost his wife and kids to another man. Hence, he joins Lulu because he has no family.

Don't tell Syd

2009-08-14T14:34:00.000-07:00

I'm currently reading Syd Field's book, "Screenplay". Like I already wrote, among the many examples he brings up, Field returns quite often to scenes from "Lord of the rings". He also gives examples from other movies I either haven't seen, or I saw yet I don’t care for. When I come across these paragraphs (and sometimes full pages), I find myself in a dilemma. I want to skip them, but I feel bad. Thinking about it, I found that the bad feeling is in fact a combination of two sub-feelings:

- I might miss something. Yes, it looks boring, but maybe it's worth the effort, maybe there's some magical moment of revelation hiding in there.

- I'm cheating. My nerdy soul won't let me say I read the book knowing that I skipped a few pages in the middle.

When I was reading "Writing the comedy film" (Stuart Voytilla and Scott Petri), I did allow myself to skip some chapters. A big part of the book is dedicated to different comedy genres. I decided it was ok for me to read only about genres that are relevant for my screenplay (ensemble comedy, farce) or genres that interest me (fish out of water, romantic comedy), and skip other genres (sports comedy, military comedy).

But in Syd Field's case, it's different. It's not that easy to let go. The book's subtitle is "the foundations of screenwriting". Can I really allow myself to miss a foundation? Finally, I decided - yes. It's ok. I can read the chapter titled "plot points" and skip the three pages about "Matrix". I can read the "sequence" chapter and skip the two pages about "Seabiscuit". And I'll sleep well.

And another thing: Syd is quite strict about his screenplay paradigm. On one hand, he says there are no rules. On the other hand, he says you should use 14 cards to write the first act. If you only have 12-13 cards that usually means your first act is too thin, and if you have 15-16 cards then your first act is too long. That's pressure right there. I mean, his whole approach to the first act is very helpful – stressing how important it is, looking at it as if it was an independent story with a beginning, middle and an end – but when it comes to having exactly 14 cards, that's a bit too much for me. He also says you should have 14 cards for the first half of act II, 14 for the second half of act II, and another 14 for act III. He mentions films that used less or more than that, but he definitely gives you the impression that you won't be able to pull that off yourself. I have to say I like Robert Mckee's looser approach to the cards: No numbers. Just write all your scenes on cards and shift them around till you're happy with the order.

Anyway, yesterday I went out and bought a stack of cards. I feel like soon I'll be able to fill them.

Writing tips, courtesy of Stuart Beattie

2009-08-12T15:57:00.000-07:00

I'm happy to join filmforthesoul's COUNTING DOWN THE ZEROS project. For the year 2004, I wrote a piece about "Collateral" (Michael Mann). You can click here to read it.

While working on my piece, I found this rather long conversation with screenwriter Stuart Beattie, who wrote "Collateral". I'm not a fan of all his films, nor have I seen all of them, but I did find the interview very interesting, screenwriting-wise. Beattie was born in Sydney, Australia. He moved to Los Angeles at 21, first to study and later to work as a screenwriter, and he has lived there since. He wrote the first draft for "Collateral" when he was 19, in 1991. The movie was shot 13 years (and a few drafts) later. Here are some points he brings up:

About screenwriting

He usually thinks about a story for at least 6 months, refining the idea, and then it takes him 6-7 weeks to actually write it. The more he thinks about it before setting it on paper, it gets easier and quicker for him to write it.

When asked what he had learned throughout years of writing scripts and reading scripts, Beattie mentioned these two squeals:
- Starting a scene as late as possible and ending it as early as possible.
- Writing cinematic dialogues – short and light.

About Collateral

Beattie recorded a commentary for the "Collateral" DVD but it was edited out

He discusses the procedure of making scenes believable. The interviewer asks specifically about the credibility of scenes such as Max taking Vincent to visit his mother in the hospital. I personally had no problem with that scene's likeliness – I found that Vincent's back seat philosophical outbursts need much more explanation than that scene (and I think I managed to explain them, too).

About Hollywood

He explains about the writers' credits arbitration procedure in Hollywood, which involves sending all the different movie drafts to three anonymous readers who decide which writer deserves which credit. He also mentions no one is ever happy with the final decision.

For beginning writers, he recommends submitting your screenplay to screenwriting competitions as a way to get your name out there.

When asked if he ever feared that by letting others read his scripts, his ideas might get stolen, he simply answered no: you can't control that anyway, so there's no point worrying about that. A screenwriter's strategy, he says, should be to always have more than one script he's working on, more than one he's trying to sell, because you can't bet all your money on only one specific screenplay. That's too much pressure.

Read the full interview with Stuart Beattie at shootingpeople.org

Going to the movies

2009-08-08T09:17:00.000-07:00

"This is a working city, where people go to their jobs and raise their kids and live their lives. In Hollywood, I’d be hanging around with a lot of people who don’t have to pay when they go to the movies".

The late John Hughes explains why he chose to live and shoot films in Chicago and not move to Los Angeles. Via rogerebert.com

Beginnings and endings: The graduate

2009-08-04T16:12:00.000-07:00

I'm launching this series of "Beginnings and endings" posts with Mike Nichols' 1967 classic, "The graduate". Based on a novel by Charles Webb and written for the screen by Calder Willingham and Buck Henry, "The graduate" has a great opening, and a tremendously iconic ending. (By the way, this post turned out to be very long. my apologies).

The beginning of "The Graduate"

What I like about this beginning is that it dives directly into the story – it's not the common "short story that precedes the actual story" kind of beginning, that's meant mainly to establish the characters and context of the story (Like the high-school sequence in "Something about Mary", or the beginning of "Tootsie" that shows Dustin Hoffman's life before he starts impersonating as a woman). In "The graduate", the characters and the context are established as the story happens. I realize that not every story can begin this way, but I enjoy stories that do.

The first twenty minutes of "The graduate" take place in three different locations: airport, Ben's parents' house, the Robinsons' house. Interestingly enough, all following scenes are built "by the book" (Robert Mckee's book) in terms of conflict: the different characters in each scene have conflicting desires, which means that every scene has a conflict or several conflicts in it:

0:00:00 - 0:02:40 , Opening credits
Ben is at the airport, back home after he graduated college.

0:02:40 - 0:04:07 , Ben tries to avoid his parents' party
Ben sits in his old room at his parents' house. There's a party celebrating his coming home from college. All the guests are Ben's parents' friends and he doesn't want to get out of the room and face them. He feels bothered and confused about his future. His parents make him get out of the room.

0:04:04 - 0:06:15, Ben runs away from his parents' party
Ben joins the party. Different guests congratulate him for the different awards he got in college. They ask about his plans for the future. He's embarrassed. He tries to avoid them. Eventually he runs back to his room.

0:06:15 - 0:08:26, First encounter with Mrs. Robinson
Ben is alone in his room. Mrs. Robinson enters, says she's looking for the bathroom. He tells her where to find them it she stays in the room. After a short conversation in which Ben asks her to leave him alone, she asks him to drive her home because her husband left earlier with their car. Ben unwillingly agrees to take her home.

0:08:26 - 0:12:50, Mrs. Robinson starts seducing Ben
Ben and Mrs. Robinson arrive at her house. She demands he will accompany her inside because she's afraid to enter a dark empty house. He unwillingly agrees. They enter the living room .He wants to leave, she demands he stays till her husband comes home. She pours him a drink, puts on music and tells him she was an alcoholic. Ben panics, accuses her of seducing him, he wants to leave. She tells him to relax, denying any seduction attempt. She offers to show him her daughter's (Elaine) portrait.

0:12:50 - 0:15:57, Mrs. Robinson officially seduces Ben
They're up at Elaine's room. Ben admires the portrait. Mrs. Robinson asks him to unzip her dress because she wants to go to bed. He unwillingly agrees. After opening her zipper he starts heading towards the door. Mrs. Robinson is left with only a bra and a slip on. She asks what is he afraid of, still claiming she is not seducing him. He says if anyone walked in on them, they might get the wrong idea. She walks towards him, asking if he's trying to say that he wants her to seduce him. He says goodbye, walks out of the room and starts getting down the stairs. She asks him to bring up her purse from the living room before he leaves. He unwillingly agrees. He's back upstairs with her purse, in Elaine's room. Mrs. Robinson enters the room naked, blocking the door. He panics. She says she's available to him anytime if he wants to sleep with her, and that she finds him very attractive. He feels nervous and uncomfortable. There's a sound of a car stopping outside the house. Ben understands her husband has come back home, he pushes her from the door, and runs downstairs.

0:15:57 - 0:20:00, Mr. Robinson comes home
Ben is in the living room, holding the drink Mrs. Robinson poured him earlier. Mr. Robinson enters the house. Ben quickly explains he's there because Mrs. Robinson asked him to drive her home, and to wait for him to arrive. Mr. Robinson thanks him. Ben starts to leave, explains he is concerned about his future. Mr. Robinson insists he stays for a drink. He unwillingly stays. Mr. Robinson tells Ben he should take things easier, have a few flings this summer. Mrs. Robinson joins them (dressed). Ben starts leaving. Mr. Robinson asks his wife if she agrees with him that Ben should have some flings this summer. She says yes. They escort him out of the house. Mr. Robinson tells Ben that Elaine is supposed to come for a visit from Berkley, and suggests Ben will call her. Mrs. Robinson reminds Ben to think about her offer. Ben enters his car.

Actions and dialogues

I like that the films starts right at the crucial night of the inciting incident (Mrs. Robinson's act of seduction), and that the dialogues and situations give all the needed information about the characters without drawing attention to it. The opposite would be, for example, the beginning of "The Royal Tenenbaums", where a voice over tells the family history before the actual story begins.

Here are a few examples for dialogues and action that demonstrate character in "The Graduate":
When Ben's father asks him to join the party, he says "these are all our good friends, Ben", which tells us that his parents see him as an extension of themselves, rather than an autonomic entity. Their friends, as they see it, are his friends.

When Mrs. Robinson visits Ben's room and attempts having a conversation with him, she notices he is bothered. She asks him "Is it a girl?", while looking to her left. As a respond, Ben looks at the same direction as she did, searching to see what it is she's looking at: "Is what a girl?". Ben is not only stressed, but he's obviously not squealed enough in conversation nor in flirtation, to understand her.

Seeing his panic and embarrassment during the entire interaction with Mrs. Robinson, the climax being when she enters the room naked, you understand he is basically an inexperienced and clumsy nerd, calculated (what will people think) rather than passionate (young men tend to be horny, so I hear).

The ending of "The Graduate"

The end of the film finds Ben much more assertive. If at the start he had no idea what he wanted (in terms of career), now he knows what he wants – he wants Elaine (he doesn't care about his future career anymore).

He drives to Berkley and asks her to marry him. She almost agrees , though she already agreed to marry another guy. Then Mrs. Robinson (who forbade Ben to see her daughter) tells Elaine that Ben raped her. Elaine believes her and tells Ben she never wants to see him again. Her parents arrange for a quick wedding with that other guy she planned to marry, in order to get Ben out of her life. When Ben finds out about the wedding he drives up to the church to stop it. When he runs out of gas, he starts running. When he get there and realizes they are already married, he still doesn't give up, banging on the church windows, calling "Elaine!". To her parents' and husband's surprise, she answers by crying back "Ben!". She runs towards him, while her parents try to block her and block Ben from reaching her. They manage to escape and run together from the church after leaving everybody else locked in it. They stop the first bus they see and get on it.

A quick search on YouTube shows just how popular this ending scene is. In part, I guess, because it answers Francois Trufaut's advice (as brought by Robert Mckee) - end with memorable images, that incorporate the movie's story and message. The church and the bus scenes both answer that.

"The Graduate" also offers a good example of Sid Field's argument (mentioned previously here), that the beginning and the end should reflect one another. There are a few themes that appear both at the beginning and the end of the film.

The theme of motion and transportation, that demonstrates Ben's transformation: from a naïve and lost young man, to a decisive man who goes publicly against his family and after his own desire.

The movie begins with a shot of Ben sitting in a plane, a face in the crowd (close up of his face, followed by a long shot of him surrounded by other indifferent passengers), traveling back home after graduating college. After landing in L.A., alongside the movie credits ad Simon and Garfunkel's "Sound of silence", we see Ben riding the airport's automatic sidewalk for 2 minutes. This opening sequence shows Ben as someone who's being led automatically rather than initiating any action.

At the end, Ben is driving a car, then running, and finally boarding a bus to an unknown destination – all of the above are actions he initiates for himself, not designed by anyone else.

The theme of aquarium and glass: Ben sitting next to the fish aquarium in his room at the beginning vs. Ben hitting the church glass walls at the end, and looking back from the bus window. At the beginning he's clinging to his fishes, avoiding life, while at the end it's his life (or the life he doesn't want) that he's looking at through the glass after defying them.

Mike Nichols' terror

At the very final shot of the movie, Ben and Elaine sit on the back seats of the bus, all the other passengers staring at them with astonishment. Ben and Elaine first laugh, then smile, then just sit there with serious, almost concerned, faces.

When Mike Nichols was a guest at the actors studio, he spoke about the movie's final scene, stating the significant role the unconscious has in making films. Nichols says he actually wanted Dustin Hoffman and Katharine Ross to laugh all the way till the end of that bus scene, only he had been obnoxious to them that day, yelling at them to laugh (since they stopped traffic for that scene they didn't have time for many takes). As a result, Hoffman and Ross were so afraid of Nichols that they couldn’t manage to maintain the laugh, and so laughter was replaced by terror. When he saw the footage the day after, Nichols understood that this is what the end was really supposed to be like, realizing he unconsciously made them do that.

Make it work! August deadlines

2009-08-01T18:10:00.000-07:00

I'll begin with a quick summery of July's deadlines: I studied "Meet the Fockers " and "There's something about Mary". I started but haven’t finished both my characters mission, and my "beginnings and endings" mission. but I now know that there's still work left for me to do in order to be able to finish them. Mainly: I realized I can't understand my leading characters without diving into some serious research. And if I don't have my characters, how can I know my beginning and end? I won't elaborate on the research details because I'm maintaining a story ambiguity policy. I can only say that the research will involve searching for reading material, and then reading that material.

My missions for August are:

1. Start serious research in order to deepen my leading characters' study.

2. Finish reading "Screenplay" by Sid Field, start reading "The writer's journey" by Christopher Vogler.

3. Study "La cage aux folles". I already mentioned this movie as a major inspiration. This time I want to study its structure, as I did in my previous case studies. I guess this means also watching the American version, "The Birdcage", for the first time.

I'd like to continue my tradition, and seal each deadlines post with a Tim Gunn video. So this time it's Santino, from seasom 2 of "Project Runway", doing an imitation of Tim Gunn (he's actually throwing in some Nine Inch Nails lyircs). Season 2 was a good one.

A writer's greatest leap of imagination

2009-07-30T03:23:00.000-07:00

I'm currently reading Syd Field's "Screenplay: the foundations of screenwriting".

It has interesting parts, for example when he discusses
Robert Town's original ending for "Chinatown" (Evelyn kills her father, she goes to jail, her sister/daughter is safe), and the process, led by Roman Polanski's different vision of the story, that brought to the actual, much darker, ending of the film (Evelyn dies, her father gets away with his crimes and regains control over his daughter/granddaughter).

On the other hand, Field keeps referring to "Lord of the Rings" in his examples, which I can't relate to at all.

I just read the "Endings and beginnings" chapter. Field argues that the first 10 minutes of a film are the most important ones – especially in terms of creating engagement so that your script gets read at all and not tossed aside. He also says that the ending should be a reflection of the beginning, and vice versa. In "Story" (which I read a few months ago), Robert McKee argues that the most important part of a movie is its end: it should be a satisfying and meaningful climax; a memorable image that captures the entire story (he quotes Francois Truffaut on that one); the writer's greatest leap of imagination. I guess they both know what they're talking about.

In retrospect, after having read other books, I see that some of McKee's strength comes from using expressions like "leap of imagination" - expressions that respect the readers (potential writers), and can truly inspire. That, and his massive eyebrows. You have to respect a man with such glorious eyebrows.

Since I'm still battling to find my own ending and beginning, I decided to do a series of posts about movie beginnings and endings that I love. I'll try to look both at my genre, comedies, and at films generally. Coming soon to a blog near you.

Transformers?

2009-07-25T11:17:00.000-07:00

I'm entering the last week of my July deadlines - studying my leading characters, thinking of beginnings and endings. My goal is not to solve both missions completely by the end of the month – they require much more time than that. My goal is to spend enough time tackling them in ways that will get me deeper inside my story.

Both missions are related. Understanding how my movie ends implies understanding whether my characters succeed or fail in achieving their goals, and also implies understanding what kind of change my characters go through, or whether they change at all.

It's conventional for a leading character to go through a certain change or transformation, to learn something about him/herself. But what does that mean exactly?

Does it have to be that redemption type change that Melvin (Jack Nicholson) goes through in "As good as it gets"? A misogynic lonely man with a bad OCD case who's ready to let go of his habits for the chance of loving and being loved? There are also the Dustin Hoffman cases: The chauvinist actor who finds sensitivity after experiencing the everyday life of women by pretending to be one in "Tootsie"; Or the man acquiring fatherhood squeals, and fighting for his right to be a full-time father in "Kramer vs. Kramer". And then there's Jack (Robert de Niro) in "Meet the Fockers", who learns that in order to make peace with his family he must let go of his obsession to control them.
As opposed to the examples above, my characters are not the "problematic" types you automatically accept to be transformed by the end of the movie. Must transformation be so obvious, so easy to put in words? Do Jack Lemon and Tony Curtis experience a transformation in "Some like it hot"? Clearly, they go through a significant experience pretending to be women - but is it so easy to sum up their transformation in words?

This sends me browsing through film history, looking for characters who don't change. One of the strongest examples is Trevor (Tim Roth) in "Made in Britain" (Alan Clarke, 1982) – the teenage skinhead who ridicules the authorities' attempts to make him a better, civilized man. On the other hand, there's Nola Darling in "She's gotta have it" (Spike Lee, 1986), who almost changes but at the end chooses to stay true to herself and not to commit to one man. Nihilism, feminism. These two characters win by not changing. They choose not to change though society tells them to, and they are happy with their choice – even if for Trevor this choice means a life of going in and out of prisons, even if for Nola it means forever being referred to as "freak".
And then there are Woody Allen's characters in "Annie Hall" and "Manhattan". Both movies are love stories in which the woman, his love interest, is the one going through changes, maturing, and he stays pretty much the same. He doesn't want to change. He wants to change them, educate them – but doesn’t want them to go through any autonomic changes. Both movie endings are melancholic. He had the girl, and the girl moved on.

I feel that in this specific screenplay I'm writing, a comedy, I'm more drawn to characters who refuse change. Doesn't change make comedies less funny, more didactic?

J'adore: Agnès Jaoui and Jean-Pierre Bacri

2009-07-23T14:28:00.001-07:00

If I were a curator of a film festival, one of the first things I'd do is dedicate a soiree to this French duo. Jaoui (born 1964) and Bacri (born 1951) started working together in the theatre, and continued to co-write and co-star in four films: "Same old song", or in French "On connait la chanson" (directed by Alain Resnais, 1997), and later three films that Jaoui directed herself: "The taste of others" (2000), "Look at Me" (2004) and "Let's talk about the rain" (2008).

In this interview with the couple, Bacri talks about their writing process: "When we get an idea, we start exploring the theme; we start out with characters we need, then we'll say, 'OK, now we need someone who such-and-such...', 'Yes, but we also need someone who...', 'Yes, but then what about someone else who...', and we end up with five or six interlocking stories. That's why it's so hard to sum these films up."
Jaoui and Bacri specialize in ensemble comedies, filled with smart dialogues and bitter-comic moments, some of them are almost as cruel as the cruelest moments in "Extras" (Ricky Gervais' TV series about two movie extras who lack any tact and consistently get humiliated by others. See video below). Such is "Look at me", that tells the story of a successful and egocentric writer (played by Bacri) who prefers his angelic young daughter from his second marriage over his older fat daughter from his first marriage. Like in Ricky Gervais' merciless world, in "Look at me" the egocentric father doesn’t change his ways - he stays egocentric and insensitive till the end.

"Same old song", homage to Dennis Potter's work, was very popular for its use of old French chansons. But I personally think that Jaoui and Bacri's best collaboration so far is "The taste of others", mainly because it demonstrated a perfect combination of humor and emotions. The main character in "The taste of others" is an over-confident, married factory owner (Bacris, in the picture below) who has to take English lessons to present himself better in business meetings. His teacher is a theatre actress (Anne Alvaro) whom he gradually falls in love with. In her company, and her intellectual-bohemian friends' company, he feels ignorant and incompetent for the first time in his life. It's a beautiful story, and both characters – the factory owner and the actress – go through funny, surprising and touching metamorphosis.

Jean-Pierre Bacri, to my opinion, is one of the strongest comedians of the past two decades. And what's so fascinating about him is that he co-writes his parts – which means he truly enjoys playing either the loser ("The taste of others", "Let's talk about the rain") or the obnoxious guy ("Same old song", "Look at Me"). I only recently found out that Agnès Jaoui and Jean-Pierre Bacri are married. This revelation filled with me with joy, that was only replaced a couple of weeks later with the deep disappointment of finding out that they'd already separated. In any case, I thought it's extremely funny that she directs her husband playing such unflattering characters. It's also interesting that they always co-star in their films, but never as a couple - always as other actors' partners.

I watched "Let's talk about the rain" (their latest collaboration) for the first time a few days ago, for the purpose of writing this post – and was quite disappointed. There are many funny/cute moments, but the story itself is much weaker than it was in "The taste of others" and in "Look at Me". Disappointed as I was, I'm still anxious to watch Jaoui's future films.

In this scene from "The taste of others", the main character reads to his English teacher an exercise he wrote, in which he confesses for the first time about his feelings for her. She doesn't like him at all, there for she chooses to ignore the gesture, and go over his grammar mistakes.

And here is a scene from "Extras". In each episode there's a guest star, playing supposedly as himself, but actually displaying an ugly/mean/egocentric/perverted grotesque character that makes fun of show biz people. In this episode it's Clive Owen, who's being very nasty towards female extra Maggie.

Mama reincarnated

2009-07-21T14:29:00.000-07:00

There's a post I had in mind long before I had this blog, and now that I've mentioned Clyde Barrow it seems like a decent opportunity to write it. What I want to discuss here is the reincarnation of a mother's character who first appeared in "Bonnie and Clyde" (Arthur Penn, 1967) and later in "No country for old men" (Ethan and Joel Coen, 2007). Both of them are mothers of young women who are involved with outlaws.

Bonnie fell in love with Clyde, a bank robber, and became his partner. They formed a gang who not only robbed money but also killed people - so that both Bonnie and Clyde were outlaws.

Llewelyn Moss, Carla Jean's husband, is a hunter who comes across a satchel with two million dollars left behind at the location of a drug deal that went bad. He takes the money, and since the money is not his, Llewelyn now has to run both from merciless hitman Anton Chigurh, a group of Mexicans, and sheriff Ed Tom Bell.

Both mothers make only one major appearance, at a late stage of the film. Both are referred to as "mama". And most importantly, both do not approve of their daughter's man, keep a frown face throughout the scene, and predict bad outcomes.

"You'd best keep runnin' and you know it, Clyde Barrow" (Bonnie and Clyde)

Bonnie's mother (played by Mabel Cavitt) enters the story after Bonnie misses her so much that she runs away from Clyde and the gang. They quickly find her, and Clyde promises her she will see her mother. They arrange for a secret meeting with their families, in a deserted place. It's a poetic dream-like scene. Everybody seems to be enjoying themselves, except for the mother, who stands distant from the group, bothered. Bonnie Notices her mother's worry, she's nervous about it and wishes to calm her. At the end of the scene, when the family is about to leave, Bonnie, her mother and Clyde share this dialogue:

BONNIE
(to Clyde)
Sugar, make mama stay a while yet.

MOTHER
...you know, Clyde, I read about
y'all in the papers and I'm jes'
scared.
CLYDE
Now Mrs. Parker, don't y'all
believe what you read in the papers!
That's the law talking there. They
want us to look big so's they'll
look big when they catch us.
--and they can't do that. Why, I'm
even better at runnin' than robbin'
banks--aw shoot, if we done half
the stuff they said we did, we'd be
millionaires, wouldn't we, old
sugar. And I wouldn't risk Bonnie here
just to make money, uncertain as
times are. Why one time I knowed
of a job where we could of make
$2000 easy, but I saw the law
outside and I said to myself, why
Bonnie could get hurt here. So I
just drove right on and let that
money lay.
MOTHER
...Maybe you know the way with her,
then. I'm just an old woman and I
don't know nothin...

CLYDE
We'll be quittin' this just as soon
as the hard times is over, Mother
Parker, I can tell you that. Why
me and Bonnie were just talkin' the
other day and we talked about when
we'd settle down and get us a home,
and Bonnie said, "I couldn't bear
to live morn'n three miles from my
precious mother." Now how'd you
like that, Mother Parker?
MOTHER
Don't believe I would. I surely don't.
(to Bonnie)
You try to live three miles from me
and you won't live long, honey.
(to Clyde)
You'd best keep runnin' and you
know it, Clyde Barrow.
(to Bonnie)
Bye, baby.

"Three years ago I said them very words. No and Good" (No country for old men)

Carla Jean's mother (played by Beth Grant) enters the story shortly before Llewelyn, Carla Jean's husband, is killed. Both of them drive to El Passo Texas to meet up with him. Carla Jean is quiet during most of the ride. Her mother does all the talking, mostly complaining about her son in law, and the situation he got them in. Carla Jean is too worried for her husband's life to care about what her mother says. This is a shorter and lighter scene than that in "Bonnie and Clyde". The mother, like most of the characters in "No country", is a real comedian - especially when she says harsh things. This is the conversation they have at the back seat of a taxi, on their way to El Passo.

Mother
And I always seen this is what it would
come to. Three years ago I pre-visioned it.

Carla Jean
It ain't even three years we been married.
Mother
Three years ago I said them very words.
No and Good.
Now here we are? Ninety degree heat. I
got the cancer. And look at this. Not
even a home to go to.
Mother

(to driver)

We're goin to El Paso Texas. You know
how many people I know in El Paso Texas?

Driver
No ma'am.

(She holds up thumb and forefinger curled to make an O.)
Mother
That's how many. Ninety degree heat.

The cab is stopped outside the depot. Carla Jean and her mother and the driver are at the trunk struggling over bags.

Carla Jean
I got it Mama.

Mother
I didn't see my Prednizone

Carla Jean
I put it in, Mama.

Mother
Well I didn't see it.

Carla Jean
Well I put it in. That one. You just
set there. I'll get tickets and a cart
for the bags.

As Carla Jean goes to the station a man emerges from a car pulled up be-
hind. He is a well-dressed Mexican of early middle age.

Mexican
Do you need help with the bags, madam?

Mother
Well thank god there's one gentleman
left in West Texas. Yes thank you. I
am old and I am not well.
Mexican
Which bus are you taking?

Mother
We're going to El Paso don't ask me
why. Discombobulated by a no-account
son-in-law. Thank you. You don't often
see a Mexican in a suit.

Mexican
You go to El Paso? I know it. Where
are you staying?

Every time I watch that scene from "No country", I immediately think of Bonnie's mother. I love how both films managed to show a character for such a short time, just talking – no real action - and still make it so memorable. By the way, Beth Grant was actually only 58 years old when they filmed that scene, so they did quite a job with her make up. I'll leave you with Faye Dunaway's pretty face:
Dialogues were taken from here and here.

Jacques Mesrine/Vincent Cassel

2009-07-19T05:33:00.000-07:00

This weekend was dedicated to watching "Death Instinct" and "Public Enemy number 1" (both by Jean-François Richet, 2008), a two-part movie based on the life of French gangster Jacques Mesrine. Above are Jacques Mesrine himself (left) and Vincent Cassel as Jacques Mesrine (right).

I'm always a little agitated before embarking on a movie longer than 120 minutes, and in this case it was two movies longer than 120 minutes, but there wasn't a dull moment. I won't get into details and spoilers, I'll just say it's a breathtaking story, as thrilling and violent as gangster movies get, and excitingly and unbelievably based on a true story.

Mesrine's character is a combination of a cold-hearted gangster, a charming Clyde Barrow (with more than one Bonnie on his side), and a self-acclaimed and self-marketed megalomaniac revolutionary. Some of his actions are inspiring, others are horrifying, but always fearless. What I especially loved about him, and about Vincent Cassel's performance, are the humorous ego-tripping moments in which he indulges in his portrayal by the media (he was titled 'Public Enemy number 1'). I will definitely use it as inspiration for the main character in my screenplay (who's not a criminal in any way, but is an aspiring revolutionary).
Here's Jacques Mesrine in a series of photos taken by Alain Bizos in 1979, a few month before Mesrine's death. See the rest of the photos here.

I wrote this post

2009-07-18T05:34:00.000-07:00

I caught "Contempt" (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963) on TV the other night. When it comes to the Truffaut-Godard battle, I will forever be a Truffaut girl. I can appreciate what Godard does, but too often I can't truly enjoy it. At times, though, I can both appreciate and really feel exhilarated, like in the case of "Contempt"'s intro, in which Godard reads the credits, or in fact tells the credits - instead of showing them on screen. Of course the music (by Georges Delerue) plays a big part here too.

By the way, I'm starting to consider changing my blog's layout, so there will be room for bigger youtube players. I had to shrink this one so it won't run over my sidebar. Any thoughts about that, anyone?

Case study: "There's something about Mary"

2009-07-16T11:27:00.000-07:00

Just to get started, here's a quick look at the film's main characters:

Mary Jensen (Cameron Diaz) - Miami based, beautiful, kind and compassioned orthopedic surgeon who men tend to fall in love with.
Ted Stroehmann (Ben Stiller) - awkward and naive man who's been in love with Mary since high school.
Pat Healy (Matt Dillon) - sleazy private detective who's sent by Ted to find Mary, falls in love with her and tries to keep her for himself.
Dom "Woogie" Woganowski (Chris Elliott) - Ted's best friend, who later turns out to be Mary's creepy stalker from college.
Tucker (Lee Evans) - Mary's disabled British architect close friend who later turns out to be a pizza delivery boy who fell in love with Mary and created this persona to woo her.

I already mentioned "There's something about Mary" (1998) as a primary inspiration for my screenplay – not in terms of story, but in terms of comic voice. I love this movie's approach to comedy:

- Memorable slapstick scenes: Ted getting his dick caught in his zipper; Mary's hair standing up; Healy trying to wake a dog from a coma.

- Distinct physical characteristics: Ted's hair and braces in high school; Tucker's exaggerated limp; Woogy's face rashes.

- Surprising, exaggerated and unlikely turn of events. I'm not talking here about "crazy" situations like the dog being in a coma, or the dog being on speed. I'm more interested in formalistic exaggerations such as: After Ted's dick is caught in a zipper and Mary's parents try to help him, suddenly a cop enters through the window, joined later by a fireman – just to make the scene more ridiculous; Ted not knowing his married best friend is obsessed with Mary too; Tucker making up that false persona for so long and winning Mary's trust.
About Mary's trust: I remember after watching the movie for the first time, years ago, I noted to myself how comic Mary's character. She might not be a "crazy funny" character, but her reactions to whatever happens around her have a big part in making this movie funny (I've argued before that she's a reincarnation of Sugar from "Some like it hot").

"There's something about Mary" structure analysis:

Like in my previous case study, I watched "There's something about Mary" and broke it down to a list of all the movie's scenes - just actions, not dialogue. Then I started analyzing it.

First, I looked for the movie's "inciting Incident". An inciting incident is basically what gets the story started. It's an event that (usually) happens at the beginning of a movie and (usually) turns the protagonist's world upside down, creating a certain desire, and triggering him to embark on a journey, at the end of which he will hopefully fulfill that desire. Other simple way to describe it, is an event that disrupts the balance in the protagonist's life, forcing him to actively bring the balance back. Every screenwriting manual will tell you it's a crucial part in every (mainstream) movie.

On "Meet the Fockers" there was no inciting Incident, but since it's a sequel, it seems understandable: It relies on the first movie's inciting Incident. On "Meet the parents", the inciting Incident was Gaylord finding out that he needs his girlfriend's dad's approval if he wants to marry her, which makes him abort his planned proposal operation, and go on a "make her dad like me" mission. On the sequel, Gaylord is still on that same mission, only now it's extended: "make her dad like my parents" – and in fact, as I argued, the actual mission is reduced back to the original "make her dad like me".

Examining "Mary", I found that (surprise!) there's no prominent inciting Incident. There's an 18 minutes long setup of Todd and Mary's high school failed romance, and then cut to the present (13 years later): It was actually a memory Ted was telling his shrink. But the shrink wasn't really listening. Ted then tells his best friend that Mary was his only love and that he can't forget her. His friend tells him – why don't you look her up? So Ted goes looking her up.

The only thing resembling an inciting Incident can be found in what Ted tells his shrink. The shrink is out of the room during Ted's entire story about meeting Mary, going to pick her up to the prom, getting his dick caught in his zipper, missing the prom, never seeing Mary again. Ted doesn't notice he's gone, because he sits with his back to the shrink. When the shrink gets back to the room, this is their conversation:

TED
Anyway, it's not something you exactly
forget about, but I guess I must've blocked
it out of my head. Then about a week ago
I'm driving on the highway and I got to
thinking about Mary and suddenly I couldn't
breathe...I couldn't keep up with the flow
of traffic anymore I felt like I was
going to die. I pulled into a rest area,
parked the car, and just started shaking.

PSYCHIATRIST
You know...rest areas are homosexual
hang-outs.

So apparently Ted forgot all about Mary until suddenly, one day while driving, he got to thinking about it and got a panic attack. So the panic attack is the inciting Incident - except it's hardly noticeable. It is never shown on screen - it is just told about, and then completely ignored by the shrink. It's the movie's way to show (once again) how naive and clueless Ted is (he has no idea that the shrink left the room), but it's also the movie's way of saying - fuck the inciting Incident. Ted is going to look for Mary. Why now? Because we're filming now.
Now that we've established that, let's look at the entire picture. Here are the main plot's turning points:

0:18:05
What happens: Ted (reportedly) gets a panic attack when he thinks about Mary for the first time in years.
Consequence: This is the inciting Incident, after which Ted is going out on a journey to find Mary and win her love again.

0:30:54
What happens: The private detective tells Ted that Mary is a fat wheelchaired single woman, who has 4 children from 3 different fathers.
Consequence: Ted lets go of his dream of finding Mary.

0:41:13
What happens: Ted's friend tells him he saw Mary a few months earlier, and that she was hot.
Consequence: Ted understands the detective was lying. He decides to continue looking for Mary.

1:02:05
What happens: Ted finds out that Mary got involved with the detective.
Consequence: He will have to compete over Mary's heart.

1:32:28
What happens: After she's already dating Ted, Mary gets an anonymous letter telling her he send that private detective to watch her.
Consequence: Mary loses her trust in Ted. She doesn't want to see him again. How will he get her back?
If we put aside the unconventional lack of proper inciting Incident, the rest of the film's structure is pretty conservative. I'm not sure that I have much to say about it, except that it's easier for me to do these technical exercises than actually work on my screenplay.

I switched my deadlines around so I did one case study after another, instead of mixing them with my writing assignments. So now I'm left with only writing assignments until the end of the month.

"Is this a CD or a movie?"

2009-07-15T08:08:00.000-07:00

This indie movie trailer spoof starring Alicia Silverstone and Alanis Morissette is pretty funny. It's also an easy post.

via funny or die

DIY Miuccia

2009-07-13T06:58:00.001-07:00

More than a month after seeing Prada's 2010 resort collection, I'm still trying to figure out how I can adopt these beautiful ankle ribbons. Simply taking a piece of fabric and tying it around my ankle brought poor results. Instead of a fancy ribbon shape, the fabric gets deflated and shrivels and the whole thing loses its appeal.

Case study: "Meet the Fockers"

2009-07-11T05:28:00.000-07:00

Following the doctor's orders (Robert Mackee), and my own deadlines, I took on myself the exercise of analyzing the structure of "Meet the Fockers". My main purpose here is to study the rhythm of a comedy and see how a movie develops step by step. "Meet the Fockers" is not the most classic choice because it's a sequel – which means that a lot of the setup was actually done in a previous film. The reason I chose this movie after all is that like in my own screenplay, "Meet the Fockers"'s story revolves around the dynamics between a couple and the parents of each side. It isn't on my funniest comedies list, but considering its story and its success, it's certainly a must for my research.

A quick reminder before we dig in: "Meet the Parents" was about a male nurse meeting his girlfriend's parents for the first time, and struggling to get her strict father's approval. "Meet the Fockers", the sequel, sees the same couple when they are already engaged. In order to plan the wedding, their parents meet for the first time: the girl's conservative parents vs. the guy's free minded and spirited parents.

The main characters are Gaylord "Greg" Focker (Ben Stiller); his fiancée Pamela "Pam" Byrnes (Teri Polo); Gaylord's parents: Bernard "Bernie" Focker (Dustin Hoffman) and Rosalind "Roz" Focker (Barbra Streisand); Pam's parents: Jack Byrnes (Robert De Niro) and Dina Byrnes (Blythe Danner).

"Meet the Fockers" structure analysis:

I timed the movie, wrote down all the scenes, and tried to find the turning points. A turning point is usually defined as a surprising development that ends an act, by radically changing the hero's positioning.

While studying the film, I realized that although the relationship between the two couples of parents take a big part of the story's time and jokes - which gives the impression of an ensemble comedy – it is not truly the center of the movie. The main plot, as in "Meet the Parents", is the relationship between Gaylord and Jack: Gaylord's efforts to make Jack accept him, and Jack's continuous tests that are meant to break Gaylord and prove that he's not worthy of entering Jack's "circle of trust" and marrying Pam.
Here are the main plot's turning points, as I see it:

0:10:05
What happens: Gaylord finds out that Pam's parents had planned for the 4 of them (+ Pam's nephew) to travel in a trailer (instead of by plane), thus arriving earlier than Gaylord has intended, and spending more time with his parents than he wanted.
Consequenc: Gaylord lost control over this weekend, Jack took over.

0:34:49
What happens: Gaylord finds out Pam is pregnant. He panics because he knows her father will hate him for getting her pregnant before they got married. They decide not to tell Jack till after the wedding, and to try to have the wedding earlier than planned. Gaylord panics again because this means he will have to hide something from Jack, thus betraying Jack's "Circle of trust".
Consequence: Till now, this weekend was focused on making sure the parents get along. Now there's a new threat on Jack's and Gaylord's relationship – what will happen when he finds out she's pregnant?

1:04:01
What happens: Jack meets Jorge, the 15 year old son of the Fockers' house keeper, who Gaylord lost his virginity to 15 year earlier. He sees a physical resemblance, and decides Jorge is Gaylord's son.
Consequenc: Jack has a new weapon he can use against Gaylord: the 15 year old son he's been hiding from Pam and her family

1:26:21
What happens: At the engagement party Gaylord's parents organized, just before Gaylord's speech, Jack injects him with a truth drag. Jack does it to make Gaylord confess that Jorge is his son, which he does, but he also announces that Pam is pregnant in front of a room full of party guests.
Consequenc: Jack succeeded in proving that Gaylord betrayed his trust. Not only did he hide a 15 year old child, but he also got Pam pregnant and kept it a secret. Jack gives up on Gaylord and is ready to abort the wedding. He's leaving the next day.

1:38:18
What happens: Jack gets a phone call from a lab, telling him the results for the DNA test he ordered: Gaylord is not Jorge's father.
Consequenc: He realizes his instincts were wrong in this case, and if he was wrong here – maybe he was wrong all along with the way he handled his family. He turns the trailer around and goes back to the Fockers' house.

The conflict between the two couples of parents, as I see it, is only a subplot in "Meet the Fockers". As crazy as it gets, it's only a sidekick in Gaylord's and Jack's relationship. This basically means that the main plot is somewhat hidden in a louder commotion – or at least that's how I see it.
What did I learn here? It mostly gave me a sense of what a list of movie scenes looks like, that is, how a screenplay looks when it's compressed to actions only, without dialogue. I'm sure that studying the scenes order and timing, and the main plot-subplot dynamics, will be helpful later on when I finalize my own scenes list. Also, the more movies I study this way, the bigger the benefit will be. It also got me thinkng about my characters.

Reflecting on the female characters in "Meet the Fockers"

This movie has six main characters: all three male characters are comic, while on the female side only one character is: Roz (Barbra Streisand, Gaylord's mother) is funny, but Pam (Teri Polo, the fieancee) and Dina (her mother) are extremely dry and dull.

This gets me thinking: Must there be a "dull" character in every comedy, as some sort of balance to the "crazy" characters? And if so, must it be a woman?

My conclusion: My leading female characters are all going to be funny and eccentric. No nice and characterless women in my screenplay.

Appendix

As a young girl I used to hate Ben Stiller because he was the bad guy on "Reality Bites". Living outside of the US, I wasn't aware of the Ben Stiller show, so for me Stiller was simply the guy from "Reality Bites".

When I think of it today, he wasn't the bad guy, he was the uncool guy. Ethan Hawk, the guy with the shitty attitude, who wouldn't shower but would break your heart, he was the cool guy, right? I haven't seen "Reality Bites" for years, but I did see it many times as a teenager, so I think I remember enough of it to know I wouldn't enjoy it today (especially Winona Ryder's mannerism). But I did love the movie back then, and loved Winona and what she wore in it, so had I realized that Stiller directed it, I'm sure that would have changed my attitude towards him.

As I grew up, I realized that Ethan Hawk is not the heart breaker movies told us (girls) he was, and that Ben Stiller is in fact a very uniquely funny guy. Plus, he's been going through a serious makeover lately. This is Ben Stiller looking very dandy at Wimbeldon last week.

Speaking of (stuffed) animals

2009-07-08T14:51:00.001-07:00

I just stumbled upon this Moschino couture teddy-bears dress on ebay. $2,999 and it's yours!

You might remember this dress from a W magazine feature taken back in August 2007, titled "into the woods". This is how Doutzen Kroes wore it (Photographed by Marcus Piggott):
To see more pictures from that feature, visit run for the hills.

All this bears and woods atmosphere takes me back to Bjork's Human Behavior video, directed by Michel Gondry. I've actually become allergic to Bjork's music over the years, but I decided to post the video anyway.

An animal I totally identify with

2009-07-06T11:03:00.000-07:00

I just read an interview with Claude Lanzmann about his autobiography, "Le lièvre de Patagonie". I don't think the book has been translated yet. The title means "The rabbit from Patagonia". Asked about the title, Lanzmann explained he once drove in Patagonia, when a giant rabbit appeared in front of his car and then disappeared between the bushes at the side of the road.

"That rabbit filled me with joy, seeing his courage to jump in front of the wheels with such strength, energy… it's an animal I totally identify with".

Here is Lanzmann on a visit to Egypt with Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir (whom he had an affair with when she was 44 and he was 27). Lanzmann is tall, but not as tall as that giant pyramid behind him. And Simone de Beauvoir looks very chic. She must be wearing something out of Moschino's resort collection. Or is it Bottega Veneta? Here are more pictures from that 1967 journey.

Make it work! July deadlines

2009-07-05T05:27:00.000-07:00

So honestly, I've been very lazy with my screenplay, and so far this blog hasn't been helpful in that department. I write about other films, instead of working on my own. Since this blog has a public presence, I feel an obligation to write – just in case someone looks, be it even one person, be it just the possibility of one person. But when it comes to my screenplay, it's just me. No deadlines, no one to check how many pages I wrote this week, no Tim Gunn telling me to make it work.

So I've decided – if I do feel obligated to this blog, I should use that as a force of discipline; my anonymous readers will serve as my Tim Gunn.

At the beginning of each month I will publish my deadlines for the following weeks. If I don't make them - come the next month, I will have to write about it and explain why.

So without further ado, here are July's deadlines.

July 5 - July 18:

1. Study my 2 leading characters (it's a couple).
Write a list of questions I should know about them and answer it. Know everything about their personality (their ambitions, their weaknesses, what makes them laugh, what gets on their nerves, what clothes they wear) and about their relationships (Do they fight with each other? Do they get along with their parents? Their partner's parents? Who are their friends?)

2. Case study: "Meet the fockers"
Watch the movie again and time it. How many scenes? How long are the scenes? How many acts and turning points? Analyze the structure of the strong scenes and the weak scenes. What makes a scene strong and what makes it weak?

July 19 - July 31:

1. Write 12 optional beginnings. Write 12 optional endings
I basically know how my story develops. I have the basic plot, and the major turning points. What's missing is the beginning and the end. 12 is an arbitrary number. I just need to force myself to come up with as many ideas as I can, even if some of them are lousy. I'm sure just by coming up with ideas I will find more questions I have to answer about the story and the characters in order to understand what my beginning and end should be, so this will surely get me somewhere – even if none of these 12 options will end up in the screenplay.

2. Case study: "There's something about Mary"
Same as with "Meet the fockers": time it and analyze it.

I'm happy. I feel like these public deadlines are really gonna make me sit down and write. I'm going to work now. I'll leave you with Tim Gunn.

Research and inspiration: a study of form, content and antagonism

2009-07-04T14:42:00.000-07:00

Speaking of dance/music numbers in films: I was watching "Rachel Getting Married" (Jonathan Demme, 2008) lately (since it's about a family, it was on my to-watch list). Many people I know loved this movie. Even those I know who didn't love it, praised the soundtrack; the fact that all of the music numbers are diegestic, that is, the music always originates from the cinematic world: a band rehearsing for the wedding inside the family house, and playing at the event itself.

Watching the movie, I found myself indifferent towards the characters and somewhat antagonistic. Thinking about it later, I realized I especially didn’t enjoy that the dialogues so bluntly tell the audience: "there are things we're talking about that you still can't understand. They're meant to intrigue you. It's a secret for now, you'll understand later". It's always a challenge to manage how much you reveal to the audience and when to reveal it, and I felt that in "Rachel Getting Married" I was too aware of this mechanism being pulled.

What I'm getting at here, is that I didn't experience any intellectual exhilaration just knowing that the music I hear is the music the characters hear. And I guess it annoyed me that that's even an option, to not enjoy the movie, and at the same time marvel at the music.

Which brings me to "the Royal Tenenbaums" (Wes Anderson, 2001) – another family centered movie, hence on my watch list. And another movie that leaves me antagonistic, today even more than when I watched it for the first time. The reason for the antagonism here is the feeling of self Indulgence that's present on every frame; the feeling that the art and costumes replace emotional depth; the fact that some of the people I know who love this film lack emotional depth themselves. But most of all it's the fact that I didn't care what happens next, and was willing to stop the DVD at any minute. I hate the term "love it or hate it" artwork, but I guess it applies on this film, so maybe I love this term after all.

Anyway, Wes Anderson debates are so 1834. This post is just an excuse for me to show clips from "Zatoichi" (Takeshi Kitano, 2003). "Zatoichi" is the story of a blind masseur and former samurai, an old woman who lets him sleep at her house, and 2 geishas (a brother and a sister), who are chasing after the killers of their parents. This is my example for form and content reinforcing one another, instead of annulling. This movie has both emotional depth, and great story and characters, as well as wonderful use of music.

First, let's go back to this scene, in which the soundtrack is a harmony of diegestic sounds (men building a house) and non-diegestic music:

And I'll leave you with the ending scene of "Zatoichi": the mob tap-dance. After you go through the movie's emotional journey, watching this scene can be truly cathartic (Or not, if we learned anything from this post). How beautiful is the bit where the adult brother and sister become young again for a few seconds?

Rosie Perez and Mira Sorvino do the right thing

2009-06-30T10:23:00.000-07:00

Last night saw the 20th anniversary of "Do the Right Thing" (1989) in New York. I saw the photos of the cast arriving over at jezebel, and was automatically thrown back to one of my favorite moments of this movie: Rosie Perez dancing to the sound of Public Enemy's "fight the power", alongside the opening credits. That’s such a powerful intro: making the connection between protest and dancing.

I love good dancing scenes in movies, and Spike Lee is consistently one of the best directors of dancing/clubbing scenes. Another favorite of mine is Mira Sorvino dancing with John Leguizamo in "Summer of Sam" (1999). Not only does Mira Sorvino look amazing, and dances beautifully - this scene really shows the conflict between them: a woman who wants to act sexy near her husband, and a husband who cheats on her, and doesn't think it's ok for a wife to be sexy. Here are Sorvino and Leguizamo going at it:

There's also a major clubbing scene in "25th Hour" (2002), where all the main characters get together at a club. I'm sad to say I couldn't find a video of Anna Paquin dancing with Rosario Dawson, but here is a picture. I love how Anna Paquin sweats there. Story of my life.

Research and inspiration: Family dramas

2009-06-29T09:23:00.000-07:00

And now for a quick study of families in dramas. Indeed, I'm writing a comedy, but I want my screen family to capture the true ingredients and textures of a family. So here are a few films that excel in that department.

1. Ordinary People (Robert Redford, 1980)

This film deals beautifully and sensitively with a family who lost her eldest son and hasn't rehabilitated since: a guilt eaten brother, a mother who can't love her only living son, and a father who desperately tries to keep the family together.

Not that we haven't seen cold, abusive or neglecting mothers at the movies before, but this mother seems to be different. She's not the cliché of a self-absorbed retired from the show-biz mom ("September", "Short Cuts", "Postcards from the Edge"), nor is she a woman who's not satisfied with family life, and decides to look for excitements outside. Beth (Mary Tyler Moore) is a woman who simply can't (or won't) adapt to the tragedy and the changes her family has gone through, and can't find compassion for her son and her husband. She wants a family, but she wants the family she had.

Also, there's something about Donald Satherland as a father that brings me to tears – not only in this movie, but even in "Pride & Prejudice" (my secret is out now).

2. You Can Count on Me (Kenneth Lonergan, 2000)

This is the film that made me love Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo. What's special about "You Can Count on Me" is that it does a defamiliarization of a brother-sister relationship, presenting them like a turbulent lovers' relationship. For Samantha (Linney), reuniting with her brother Terry (Ruffalo) is much more emotional than any other relationship she has with men at the same time (an old flame who asks her to marry him, and a married boss she an affair with). I think it's a brilliant way to tackle a siblings' relationship.

3. The Squid and the Whale (Noah Baumbach, 2005)

Here's another movie with Laura Linney. "The Squid" is rather funny, but in a brutal way. It's about a Brooklyn family, back in the 80'. The parents (Linney and Jeff Daniels), both writers, get a divorce, and their 2 boys get dragged between the two homes, witnessing their parents' weakest and most selfish moments. It's a mocking and painfully realistic portrait of neurotic intellectual parents, and the pain and heartaches they bring on their kids. I love the dialogues, and the absurd and unfortunate situations this family brings on itself.

Research and inspiration: TV families

2009-06-25T17:23:00.000-07:00

This is not a list of all the TV shows I love that revolve around families. I chose 4 sitcoms that I both love and feel that are relevant to my screenplay, either in terms of comic voice or subjects they approach.

1. The Royle Family (1998-2000)

This British sitcom takes place in the living room of a working class family in Manchester. They don't have money, all they do is watch TV, talk about their day, mock and insult each other (especially the father). Much like "The Office", it plays on the tension between cruelty and humor – except "The Royle Family" came first.

In each episode, the family sits in front of the TV. Everything happens in front of the TV, whether it's on or off. The dad wears the same t-shirt every day, makes rude remarks and farts. The mother smokes like a chimney. They have a spoiled lazy girl who always comes over with her loser dj fiancée (played by Caroline Aherne and Craig Cash, who also created and wrote the show). In later seasons they are married and have a baby, who the girl does not care about and hardly takes care of. There's also a boy who goes to high school, and a grandma that sometimes comes to visit.

I guess you could say it's reminiscent of "Married with children" (1987-1997), but it's much more raw and nerve racking to watch, and there are never any fantasy leggy girls around. It's just the family.

I get the feeling that not enough people have watched this masterpiece, so here's a taste (taken from the Christmas special).

2. Arrested Development (2003-2006)

Here we have all the ingredients for a family farce: selfishness, apathy, lies, revenge, doing things for spite, not learning from mistakes, never over-sentimental, not to mention great cast. I especially love the Mother's character (Lucille Bluth) played by Jessica Walter.

Things to look out from: I found that watching "Arrested Development" episodes for the first time is pure joy, but if I get to see an episode for the second time, I usually find myself bored. Why is that?

3. Everybody loves Raymond (1996-2005)

As opposed to the other shows I mention here, this one is a proper mainstream, genre-obeying, cheesy sitcom. And yet, I have a thing for it. I guess it's because it's down to earth, and it deals effectively with everyday situations you can imagine a co-worker telling you about (I'm talking about a specific married man I used to work with, a web developer who was constantly joking about marriage life. You'd say to him "Hey, that thing stopped working", and he'd say, grinning, "That's what my wife tells me").

4. Flight of the Conchords (2007-)

Jemaine and Bret are not a proper family, but since they are a band, and they sleep in the same room, there's sufficient intensity and dependency to their relationship to qualify as a family-model. Add to that their relationship with Murray, the band's manager, and you do get a sort of alternative family. Things to watch here: funny brawls, and great dialogue.

Research and inspiration: back to basics

2009-06-21T14:26:00.000-07:00

The tricky part about writing this blog is that I don't plan to share my actual idea for the screenplay, at least not for now. I'm sure my anonymous readers will understand. All I can say for now is that I'm writing a comedy about a family, and that it involves some unlikely situations.

I've read 3 books so far:
- "Story" by Robert Mckee
- "Writing the Comedy Film – Make 'Em Laugh" by Stuart Voytilla and Scott Petri
- "Conversations with Wilder" by Cameron Crowe

"Writing the Comedy Film" had me focusing on my film genre: farce. This book isn't as elegantly written as Robert Mckee's "Story", but it does offer some good basic exercises to get you started. Both books tell you to research your genre. Watch over and over films you love. Study them. Watch over and over films you don't love. Study them. Write down a list of comedy films you love; scenes you love; characters you love; directors you love; actors and actresses you love.

So I feel I have to start with setting my territory. In terms of general plot and atmosphere, I chose 4 films that I feel I relate to, and should learn from.

1. Some like it hot (Billy Wilder, 1959)

Reading "Conversations with Wilder", I learned "Some like it hot" is based on the 1951 German film "Fanfaren der Liebe", which is also about 2 out-of-work musicians who dress as women in order to get jobs in an all-girl band. I found this piece of information very encouraging: even Billy Wilder used other people's ideas.

What I love best in "Some like it hot" is how Jack Lemon's character gets caught up in his lie, till the point where the lie takes over. Memorable scenes here are the ball room scene, where Jack (Daphne) has a wild tango with her Millionaire suitor, Osgood Fielding III, and of course – the last scene of the movie, in which Daphne, trapped on a boat with Osgood who's going over their wedding plans, finally tells him he can't marry her, because she's a man, followed by Osgood's famous comeback - "nobody's perfect". This is exactly where I'm going in my script – lies and secrets that evolve into a presence that is much stronger than the truth.

2. The apartment (Billy Wilder, 1960)

Wilder and Lemon again. After watching many films in the past couple of months, what stood out for me the most is that comedies used to be much less cheesy than they are today. I'm really aiming for a lack of cheesiness in my script.

I only saw this film for the first time a few months ago. I heard the name, but I didn't even know that it was about a nice guy that lets his bosses use his apartment as an after-work free of charge motel to bring their mistresses to. I love the freshness of the story – a story that is funny on its own, before you get into its details, I love how it's an extreme situation but still believable, and I love Jack Lemon's character – the archetype of a man who can't say no.

3. La Cage aux Folles (Edouard Molinaro, 1978)

I just love this film so much. I didn't see the American version, and I don't know if it's as chic as the original. Again, the story itself, of a gay couple - one of whom owns a drag club, the other performs there – who pretend to be straight to impress their son's fiancee's family, is funny as is. On top of that, the dialogues are exquisite, as are both leading actors. My favorite character here is Albin (played by Michel Serrault) – the extremely vulnerable drag performer, who is almost cast off the family because he can't pass as straight.

Here's a scene in which the two men go to a restaurant, discuss the straight performance they plan to display in front of the fiancee's family, but can't even manage to lift their cups without holding their little finger in the air.

4. There's something about Mary (Farrelly brothers, 1998)

What I love about this film is the great rhythm, and the genuine farce atmosphere: Anything crazy can happen but life/story goes on; every character has a selfish motive; no one is who he seems to be; and opposed to all that there's Mary (Cameron Diaz) - a calm rock of compassion, kindness and inner peace, in the midst of all this commotion. I find that Mary somewhat resembles Suagr (Marilyn Monroe in "Some like it hot"). It has something to do with both characters' friendliness, willingness to accept whomever and whatever happens around them and blonde hair.

Unemployed, with nothing better to do

2009-06-19T12:32:00.000-07:00

Back in 2001, I studied film in Tel Aviv University. At the end of the first year, I applied and got accepted to their scriptwriting program. After the first excitement, I realized this will entail a reality of me reading my writings in front of a class of students. I panicked and immediately switched my BA to film theory, philosophy and literature.

Then about a year ago, I got an idea for a movie. I thought it's a great idea, I knew it's never been done, I knew I wanted to write it, but I was working in a crazy job at the time - so I decided I'd wait for the right moment to sit down and write it.

And now here I am – unemployed, with nothing better to do than write that screenplay. Today there's no classroom of students holding me back. Instead, I find I have much more elusive barriers.

So this is me, my journey of writing my very first screenplay, and the distractions I encounter on the way.