Confession #3

Why did I pick movies?

The internet told me too.

You Should Be a Film Writer

You don't just create compelling stories, you see them as clearly as a movie in your mind. You have a knack for details and dialogue. You can really make a character come to life. Chances are, you enjoy creating all types of stories. The joy is in the storytelling. And nothing would please you more than millions of people seeing your story on the big screen!

What Type of Writer Should You Be?

God. You have no idea how hard it was to sign up for fall classes when I was searching for film writing courses.

Confession #2

I find that blogging is an excellent way to fulfull my incessant urge to write without actually accomplishing anything of any real purpose or merit. I waste so much time staring at this blank screen instead of the blank screen of Final Draft. But I console myself with the technicality that they are, in fact, the same screen.

I like the immediacy of blogging. Writing anything else comes with the opposite of instant gratification. Except possibly internet news articles that spring on to the web moments after Paris gets out of jail or Anna Nicole Smith dies, but somehow I wonder if the people who get stuck writing those stories feel very gratified at all. Anyway, my point is that it sucks to spend four hours are crafting some beautiful action lines and dialogue, but find yourself with no one to show it too. And then inevitably you read it a few days later and think, "I am a hack. That is terrible. I wish I were dead. Where are my girl pants? I need to scream."

So instead I send my thoughts out into the blogosphere. Or scribosphere as I believe these writing-bent blogs are called. I love that as technology progresses we have to keep making up more and more nonsense words to make sense of things. Its like the entire nation has started talking like the character of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

The interesting thing, however, is that its really just a false sense of gratification. By the time I garner enough readers to actually recieve true gratification, I will probably have had enough time to write like 12 screenplays. But I let the internet have its way with me. It can lull me into a false sense of gratification if it wants to. Anything to avoid actually bleeding my soul onto a computer screen in a way that might garner me the praise and adoration of my girlfriend. (Because I have this little problem of being too shy too show it to anyone else.)

Personal note: When I refer to my girlfriend, what I really mean to say is the-girl-I've-loved-for-all-my-life-but-who-breaks-up-with-me-three-times-a-year-to-find-herself. You can't be a writer without one. I feel very strongly about this. However, she clearly is my girlfriend so I'm only telling you this useless bit of personal info because otherwise she - the only person actually reading this so far - will eventually get freaked out by my constant referall to her as my girlfriend and somehow manage to break up with me while we are already in a supposed state of broken up-ness. So please. Anyone out there who might read this please do not assume from the use of the simple term girlfriend that I do actually have a girlfriend. Just the fact that you, dear stranger, think this could set her off and ruin my life. *shrugs* She's an actress.

Back to the point.... Ok, no, I think I'm done actually. I might should mention that I'm not so great at making cohesive posts. I start out with a good point I think and then towards the end I just kind of meander off and forget what I was talking about and realized I need to pee so I stop.

Confession #1

Technically, I'm not a film student yet.

I was at one point in time. Then I took a three year break, which we refer to as "Gaining Valuable Life Experience" rather than "Wasting Three Precious Years of Being Young and Beautiful Nearly Starving to Death."

But starting this fall, I will be a film student for another two years.

So perhaps, saying that my first confession is that I am in between film studies is probably a bit of a dud. You were hoping for something more like "I have three penises and I use one of them to run the camera, one of them to hold the boom, and one of them to fuck my leading lady." All of which is true, but hardly worth mentioning on a serious blog such as this.

This is not my first blog so hopefully there won't be any first blog awkwardness. I have another blog on which I make emo posts about toast and stuff like that. But ever the screenwriter, I like my blogs to have a consistent tone. So using one blog to write about my tortured soul AND my profound thoughts on filmmaking just seemed like a bad idea. Besides, only like 10 people read my personal blog, and I want like 1,000,000,000 people to read this one so even if I never sell or independently shoot one of my screenplays, my perverse writerly desire to express myself will be fulfilled by writing about how I am not getting paid for it to be fulfilled.

And that, dear readers who don't exist yet, is the point of this new blog.

Ok, no, not really. The point is that I've wanted to make movies for 10 years, but I'm not one of those dudes who never bathes and works at a video store and borrows money from mom and dad to pay rent because he spends all his waking hours watching movies. I don't have a witty film reference for every life situation. In most case, if you ask me if I've seen (Insert Movie Title Here) my answer will probably be no. I'm really not that well-versed in film history and I have little to no use for film theory. I hate Hollywood for never making anything original these days, and I hate emo Indie kids who write stuff so shitty and sad and well, emo, that no one but themselves and a few other guys wearing girl pants can get it.

I like movies that make you feel, not think. Its fine if they make you think, but they should make you think about what you're feeling. Thinking for thinking's sake is generally the best way to become overbearingly pretentious fast. I'm not into the Hollywood machine these days because so much of what it churns out is just a sequel or a remake or a lame ripoff of something else. Its too watered down by test screenings to really make you feel anything. But I respect the Hollywood of yesteryear, both the old classics and the modern classics because they made huge movies that made lots of money AND made you feel something - whatever that might be - strongly. And I respect the indie world (the REAL indies, not the faux indies we largely have today) for having strong unique visions and getting them done on their own even I don't really relate to a lot of that stuff.

That's why my goal is to walk the line. I want to make movies like the old Hollywood, movies that kids and adults can both enjoy and understand and not have to think too hard just to figure out what it was about. I want them to leave FEELING something, not pondering it to death. I don't care what they feel, as long as they feel it as strongly as I feel it during those movie moments that left me breathless and knowing that I had to be able to do THAT for the rest of my life. But I want to do it on my own. I don't want anyone watering down my vision or telling me I need more tits and violence to get the teenage boys in the seats. Teenage boys borrow money from their parents who half the time don't have a thing to go see at the movies because it was written for their moron sons. Not that I want to make movies for old people. But I want that old Hollywood way of making something fresh and original that the whole family can enjoy and take something away from. And you can't make those movies in or out of Hollywood anymore.

So I'll have to do it myself.