Mar 31 2009

Off again…

Published by Andy Coughlan under Screenwriting


Good luck to everyone doing Script Frenzy this year! If you haven’t quite sorted yourself out yet, get on over to their web site and get registered now…

I wasn’t sure what I should do for it, but thankfully the amazing Lucy Hay produced for me an incredible development report for Return to Earth, so I’ll be cracking on with Return to Earth Draft 3.

Lucy’s report is balanced, fair and honest; exactly what I needed. It’s brought so much clarity to what Return to Earth should be about, I can’t wait to get started on the next draft.

I can’t recommend her script reading services enough. When you get to April 30th and you’re pounding out those last few words, you could do a lot worse than letting your attention, and consequently your script, wander in her direction.

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Mar 20 2009

Darwin and Dadd


The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke by Richard Da...

Image via Wikipedia

These past few weeks have mainly seen me flitting between three writing projects. The first, Return to Earth draft 2 - still not quite complete (six pages to go!); the second, developing an idea for a TV series based on the bits I’ve cut out of the first draft of Return to Earth; and thirdly, the just-for-fun adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s ‘The Wee Free Men’.

Now, it just so happened that at the beginning of the week I found myself working my way through the scene in The Wee Free Men where Tiffany finds herself in a dream not too dissimilar to Richard Dadd’s “The Fairy Feller’s Master Stroke”.

Being a bit of a fan of the painting (and the song by Queen) I decided I’d do a bit of research to get a better feel for it, and thanks to the nice, relatively hi-res, image on Wikipedia, I printed myself off a few copies, sticking them up next to my desks at work and at home.

This morning, my good friend and work colleague, Adrian Phipps, and I were making a fresh cup of tea and chatting about the painting. Being the knowledgable chap he is (part of his degree was in Art History) we discussed the curious nature of the painting, the precision with which Dadd has placed everything and the strange deformities of some of the Fairy’s depicted in the scene.

Two in particular jumped out at him. If you take a look at the painting you’ll see the Fairy Feller, his axe held aloft waiting for the sign from the Patriarch, the grey haired man watching him with the huge hat. Just below the Patriarch are two fairies with very squashed heads. ‘Hmm’, says Adrian, ‘those heads look like eyes. And the folds of that fairy’s cloak looks like a nose and the Fellers hat looks like a mouth’.

I looked closely and pointed out that the mound upon which Oberon and Titania stand (just above the Patriarch), looks like the curve of the top of a head, and the coat of the fairy to the left of the pinky-red cloaked fairy looks like an ear.

Click for bigger picture and compare it with the full size original at Wikipedia.

Click for bigger picture and compare it with the full size original at Wikipedia.

As soon as we’d seen it, it seemed obvious that Dadd must have intended the face to be there, perhaps just for fun, but it felt too prominent to be a coincidence. All I could see when I looked at the picture was the face and wondered why I hadn’t noticed it before. We found some other possible faces elsewhere in the painting, but none were as clearly defined as this one.

So this evening, I threw the image into Photoshop and messed around with the levels a little. A few things started to bug me:

  • Firstly, the pinky-red cloak of the (female?) squashed head fairy, directly below the Patriarchs beard, lacks detail (which doesn’t match the clothes of the rest of the Fairies).
  • Secondly, if her head is meant to be an eye, it doesn’t quite tie up with the eye/head of her partner.
  • Thirdly, what’s with her partner’s foot? He’s crossing his legs at a very awkward angle.
  • Fourthly, the hidden face is almost at the centre of the painting but not quite, it felt a little too far to the right and off balance.

Then I noticed the gold curve that stretches round the right hand side of the Patriarch’s hat.

And I saw it.

The profile of an Ape!

fairy-feller-ape

What’s more it’s the profile of an Ape overlaid over the profile of a man’s face, much like Apple Finder Icon.

Suddenly, it all made sense.

  • The cloak is the smooth pink part of the Apes face.
  • The Eyes don’t match as the Ape’s eye is looking to the right, and the man’s eye is looking forward.
  • The awkwardly placed foot of the partner makes up the Ape’s nose.
  • When you put the outline of the Ape and the Man together it’s right, slap bang in the middle of the picture, thusly:

fairy-feller-man-ape

Whoah, thinks I. What’s that about? Ape and Man? Evolution?

Now there’s been a lot in the papers and on the radio recently about Charles Darwin, so I knew that he would have been a contemporary of Richard Dadd. I did a bit of digging on t’interweb and found quite a few similarities between the two men.

  • They both travelled extensively in their early careers.
  • They both apparently suffered from Bi-polar disorder.
  • Both had strong links with Kent.
  • (You might even argue that they were both murderers, one of his father, the other of religion)
  • Dadd painted The Fairy Feller’s Master Stroke between 1855 and 1864, Darwin published Origin of the Species on the 22 November 1859.

So would Dadd, locked away in Bethlem in Beckenham, Kent, have known of Darwin’s ideas, perhaps even known Darwin, who after all lived a mere seven miles away in Downe?

Dadd painted The Fairy Feller’s Master Stroke for one George Henry Hayden, the head steward at Bethlem Royal Hospital at the time.

A quick Google search revealed records of correspondence between George Henry Hayden and Charles Darwin at darwin-online.org.uk. I have no idea what was in those letters, but it’s not the greatest leap of logic to think that Hayden knew Darwin, possibly treated him, and spoke to Dadd about Darwin and his theories. As a gift, Dadd hid the image of the man and the ape in the painting for Hayden. Perhaps the hidden man is Hayden? Who knows? Pure speculation.

But great fun.

I’m with Neil Gaiman, who suggests that the ‘Pedagogue’ - the little bald, bearded chappy (or Sneebs as Terry Pratchett calls him), is in fact an old version of Dadd himself. I like the way he’s sat right on the shoulder of both the Ape and the Man.

I feel like one of those diabolicals from Umberto Eco’s ‘Foucault’s Pendulum’, which, incidentally, will be my next just-for-fun adaptation.

What do you think?

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Jan 19 2009

Attack of the Work-Shy Fop.

Published by Andy Coughlan under Filmmaking, Screenwriting


S103-E-5037 (21 December 1999)--- Astronauts a...
Image via Wikipedia

With the festive season (and all the family going down with flu) now a dim and distant memory, my thoughts have turned fully to Return to Earth (R2E). The second draft is slowly, much more slowly that I’d like, coming together, mainly because;

a) I’ve been working on a host of potential money-making ideas in order to at least part-fund R2E. More details of these to follow in future posts…

b) I’m having to do loads of research to make sure my ideas for R2E are realistic. I can’t abide Sci-Fi that ignores the laws of physics. An occasional bending of the rules for narrative brevity or style I can live with, but blatant disregard is right out.

and c) I had this great idea that I should take it upon myself to see how practical it would be to adapt Sir Terry Pratchett’s ‘The Wee Free Men’*.

But, pre-production on R2E rolls ever onwards - I’ve now got myself a provisional Cinematographer and Editor in the shape of the inimitable Will Docherty (@mejo).  We met up at Tuttle a couple of Friday’s ago to chew the cud and talk all things film, tech and geek (with the very tall Derek Mantle (@delboydare)).  A good time was had by all.

I’ve also had my nose deep in Adam Davies and Nicol Wistrechs’ Film Finance Handbook: How to Fund Your Film, which, quite frankly, if you want to make films and haven’t read can only mean that you’re a complete dimwit hell bent on financial ruin**. The book is an absolute goldmine of useful info. Buy it! Read it! Now!

In other news; there’s a rather useful resource page of the top 100 blogs for film and theatre students, and this humble blog has been selected along with the likes of John Augusts and Fun Joel to be on there. Chuffed to pieces I was when I got the e-mail telling me. If you’re here from clicking through from that page, welcome!

* Because Sir Terry is reported to have been less than impressed in the draft that Sam Raimi’s screenwriter came up with, and I’m convinced it can’t be that hard to do - he follows the STC! formula almost to the letter.

** The same could be argued if you still want to make films after you’ve read it! Ah, the Indie spirit…

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Dec 20 2008

Check out Phreadz!

Published by Andy Coughlan under New Media


Phreadz

Those of you who’ve followed this blog for a while will probably have heard me spout off about Phreadz, the threaded multimedia video chat system, and how excellent it is.

It allows you to discuss all manner of topics under various headings - music, politics, books etc, and drag in video content from most of the main video providers; YouTube, Vimeo, 12seconds, Seesmic etc. to illustrate, entertain and illuminate.

It’s been in closed Beta since the beginning of the year, but now the creator of the site, Kosso, is opening it up.  

Just this week he’s opened up the site for new signups in the Movies section, so if you want to see what all the fuss is about, head on over to http://movies.phreadz.com where among other things, TV writer and social media guru, Sizemore, will be posting some of his recent interview with Michelle Yeoh about Asif Kapadia’s new film, Far North.

Check it out, it’s a fabulous system.  See you on there!

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Dec 16 2008

Soth vs. Snyder!

Published by Andy Coughlan under Screenwriting


Return to Earth, which I’d put on the back burner for NaNoWriMo is now back in the forefront of my mind, especially after the interesting news I got from Ben the other day. 

While I was working through all my notes for the second draft, I came to the realisation that even with one and half drafts under my belt, which more or less hit the Blake Snyder Beat Sheet note for note, I really wasn’t happy with it.  

Some of the reasons I could put my finger on - mainly cost and complexity of production, but there was something else… it felt flabby.  Perhaps there were too many characters not doing enough?  Some got given the heave-ho, but still no joy.  

As chance would have it, I’d randomly signed up for Chris Soth’s ‘Screenplay by Phone’ call about his Mini Movie method which, whilst not mad enough to stay up ’til half past three in the morning to dial in, I did listen to via download later that week.

And inspiration struck!

I’m not saying Chris has struck gold with his Mini Movie method; I don’t think he gave enough detail away on the call to say either way, but what he did impart was enough for me.

Now, I love Blake Snyder’s STC! methodology.  It works - some of the best films and books hit the beats spot on. But both of the screenplays I’ve completed in the past year or so just didn’t do it for me.  They needed something more.

So I started pondering whether Soth and Snyder couldn’t snuggle up in bed together, see if the two models didn’t overlap a little.  And whaddayaknow?! They do. Kind of.

It’s not a perfect marriage, but for me, using Soth’s Mini-Movie method (effectively splitting the story up into smaller sub-movies) means my little brain can get a much better grip on the story as a whole.

Now, as much as I like it, I do find the STC! methodology a bit lacking in the middle.  Blake says a lot about how to start and how to end, but I’ve always struggled with the whole ‘Discussion - Break Into 2 - Fun and Games’ bit.  Soth’s method gives that area a little more structure, enough for me to get my head round better.

By adding Chris to the mix, along with my own take on Dramatica, Blake’s key beats are still there, but rather than trying to just satisfy story logic, the story is now looking after itself, driving itself forward with purpose that I’d never been able to capture with STC!s 40 beat structure alone.

It’s worth checking both methodologies out (along with Dramatica), but I guess this kind of proves that there is no panacea for Screenwriting, no magic pill for the perfect screenplay.

It’s just a case of keep doing it until you find what works for you, and then keep going… and going… and going…

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Nov 02 2008

It’s NaNoWriMo Time Again

Published by Andy Coughlan under Writing


BIC cristal pen

Image via Wikipedia

It’s that time of year again, where we all go nuts and try to write 50,000 words in 30 days.  I did it last year and loved it, so I’m having a go again this year.  

But this year, I’m doing it all a bit different.

In honour of two of my favourite authors, Robert Rankin and Neil Gaiman, I’ll be doing it with a pen and paper (it also gets me away from the computer and this darned distracting interweb).

I was a bit unsure of this approach at first - how would I cope without being able to check my tweets every five minutes?

As it turns out, it was great, but it still left me with a couple of unresolved issues.

Firstly; which type of pen to use?

I met Robert Rankin a few years ago when he was one of the speakers at a comedy writing workshop. Here he espoused the virtues of the Bic Biro.  For him, no other pen came close - he even complained when I asked him to sign my book with my fountain pen.  

No such complaints I feel would issue forth from Mr Gaiman, who takes writing with an ink pen to a whole new level.

So what to do? Easy - 25000 words with a Biro, followed by 25000 words with my trusty parker fountain pen (I think a straight ink pen is probably a bit ambitious for someone as clumsy as me). 

Sorted.

My second, and possibly more significant quandary, was what to write.  After much deliberation (more than was probably necessary) I’ve decided that, rather than go for a straight novel, I should try something a little different.  

I went up to London last week to the very cool Tuttle Club at the ICA (see me here at the bar getting a coffee) and met a very splendid man who goes by the moniker of Sizemore (he’s the one in the checked shirt, sat down).  He told me about a project he’s working on which inspired me (along with Adrian Mead’s very excellent Making It As a Screenwriter) to write something for television.

So what I shall do for NaNoWriMo is write out a six episode TV series in long hand prose, with the intention of then adapting it directly to screenplay format afterwards.  

I’ve done all the calculations to try to keep me on track both with NaNoWriMo itself, and the pacing of the screenplays.  It’ll be a six chapter book, with 8500-9000 words per chapter; each chapter = one episode. I’ve no idea if it will work, but I’m 1758 words in so far (roughly, manual counting is a pain) and all feels good.

See you on the other side… and good luck to @missread, @ricgalbraith, @warriorgrrl and @splinister and everyone else doing it.

(Yes I know, I’m halfway through Return to Earth draft 2 but I’m following Adrian Mead’s advice and trying to get a wider variety of work into my portfolio - and I have no TV scripts in the bank at the moment)

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Oct 27 2008

This month I are been mostly…


…writing and thinking hard about Return to Earth - and making reasonable progress.  Nothing startling, but it’ll do me. With the million and one other things on at the moment, I’m not expecting miracles.

I have set up a separate blog and Twitter feed for the Return to Earth project, http://returntoearth.at/once/ and @returntoearth respectively.  Feel free to check out and follow (and donate!), I’ll no doubt update that site more than this one, with my recent track record of updates.

In case anyone was wondering what the previous post was about it was all part of a big game run by the the creator of Moblog, Alfie Denning, where forty or so bloggers were provided with geo-cache type clues which would lead people to various points around London where they would find photographs by the talented James Nachtwey and a letter.  Find the photos, collect the letters and work out what the question was. 

It was all to raise awareness of Extremely Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis - which you can read more about at http://www.xdrtb.org/

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Oct 12 2008

Andy Coughlan says: Find Me

Published by Andy Coughlan under Uncategorized


Fifty-One people have pointed out that the new concept for the Peugeot 506 looks absolutely amazing. I can’t find a negative thing to say about it, either. However, none of them point out that of the eleven concepts that have been revealed by Peugeot since 91, only 2 have been made and eight had funding scrapped even before the concepts were unveiled.

http://moblog.net/map/blog/findme/

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Oct 02 2008

Drawing the Screenplay


Inspired by Tim Clague’s post about how Marvel write their comics, I’ve been inspired to take hold of an idea that has been bubbling about in my head for some time now; namely that I should write the next draft of Return to Earth initally as a StoryBoard, and then, once I’m happy with the structure, write it back to screenplay format.

I have no idea if it will work, but it seems to make so much sense to work this way, primarily to force myself to think in images and structure the story visually.  

The notion struck me a few years ago while I was reading The Conversations, Michael Ondaatje’s superb book where he discusses the art of editing with Walter Murch.  Walter describes how he likes to take screenshots of takes and line them up to see how they cut together. 

Now I’m straight from the Murch school of editing and think the key to any film is the cut, the juxtaposition of the images has enormous power.  So it got me thinking, why not apply this process to the writing process, it may even free up the right brain a bit more?

We’ll see.  

I still don’t know quite how I’m going to do it.  I have StoryBoard Quick 5, but I suspect this might be a bit limiting.  FrameForge is tempting, purely because I can build the moonbase as a virtual construct and set the characters free in there.  Drawing it freehand also seems like a sensible idea, it would have a quicker turnaround, though I may end up drowning in paper.

Whatever, I’ll post up some of the results on here…

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Sep 19 2008

Alternative Feature Funding

Published by Andy Coughlan under Uncategorized


Image of the 1902 film

Image via Wikipedia

We all want to make films but none of us have any money.  Well, I don’t anyway.

So what to do?

Think like a businessman…

Give poeple something they need. 

What do they need?

They need to know if they are going to have to take their umbrella out with them.

http://brollyornot.co.uk

Tell all your friends (in the UK, anyway).  If we can make it go viral, perhaps we’ll be able to make a film!

Next stop -  the Moon…

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