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one for the calendar
IFTN mentions an event that should interest Irish screenwriters, playwrights, and film aficionados. A new play by New York playwright and Oscar-winning screenwriter John Patrick Shanley (Moonstruck, Alive) will debut in Ireland on Thursday 26th October at the Abbey Theatre. The Tony-winning play is called Doubt, and is set in a Bronx Catholic school in 1964. Following the premier of the play there will be a free post-show event, which will start around 9.30pm. Oscar nominated Irish writer/director Jim Sheridan (My Left Foot, In America) will be “In Conversation” with John Patrick Shanley, and the two men will discuss the play, Hollywood, and filmmaking. It should be an event well…
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it could be bunnies
Finally, I got around to watching Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. I had high expectations and I wasn’t let down; the film is utterly charming. I’ve been a big Wallace and Gromit fan since I saw The Wrong Trousers. I’ve always been entranced by Nick Park’s ability to convey emotion via plasticine models. The Penguin in The Wrong Trousers is evil, yet all it does is blink! Gromit can go from looking sad to scared with a subtle tweak of his unibrow. Park’s films are enchanting, entertaining and good natured even when there’s tension in the scenes. It’s a very British kind of humour: cups of tea,…
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dialogue is not uncinematic
Last night our screenwriting group watched the black and white classic 12 Angry Men (1957)–which was directed by Sidney Lumet, and written by Reginald Rose. Afterwards we had a great discussion about a variety of subjects, including what makes one project work for television but not for cinema, and vice versa. What’s lovely about our group is that when we don’t have material to assess we like to mix things up. So we can watch a film, or examine a topic of interest, or, as in the case of our next meeting, go to the theatre to see a play. As I’ve said before, being able to spend time in…
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illustrated stories
I may be doomed. For the first time I’m collecting a series of Superman comics. This 12-part non-continuity series, published bi-monthly, is titled All-star Superman, and is written by Grant Morrison and drawn by Frank Quitely. The Morrison/Quitely tag team have produced the goods in the past, most notably in the final volume of the The Invisibles, as well as for my favourite mini-series of last year: WE3 (it made me cry!). I’ve never been a massive fan of the Man of Steel, or “the boy scout” as Batman refers to him. Sure, I’ve seen the movies, and I’ve started to watch the current series of Smallville–in the past I…
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respect the early masters of the genre
Yesterday, much to my delight, I got delivery of The Val Lewton Horror Collection (region 1 only). For those of you unfamiliar with the man, Val Lewton was appointed head of the Horror unit in RKO in 1942. He proceeded to commission a series of films that only had to conform to three rules: 1. The budget had to be under $150,000. 2. The film could not run more than 75 minutes (each film was shown as half of a double feature). 3. The title of the film was supplied by Lewton’s supervisors. The obvious 4th rule that is not normally mentioned is that it had to be scary. Horror…
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I may explode
I found out, about an hour ago, that I have been awarded a 1st Class Honour in my MA in Screenwriting. I’m past the numbed shock and now I’m speeding into hysterical gibbering excitement. For the Americans out there, this is the highest grade you can obtain in any degree in Ireland. It is also very difficult to obtain (I’m not trying to toot my own horn here, but that’s the reality of the situation for Arts degrees in Irish Universities). The degree was part academic (film theory, history, etc.), and part creative writing, but the completed screenplay was a significant portion of the mark, so as you can imagine…
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creepy films
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about horror. For the next meeting of my screenwriting group I’ve agreed to discuss the horror genre, and show a classic horror film. Since this is for the purposes of writing, I picked a film that would be well-known by everyone, had a script online that everyone could read in advance, and I decided that I’d go with a movie that was not based on previous material (book, comic, short story, etc.). If we’re trying to flex our writing muscles to generate new concepts I figured we might as well look at how an original idea was developed for the screen. So, I chose…
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this I suspect…
Today I started reading Playwriting: Writing, Producing, and Selling Your Play by Louis E. Catron. So far it’s a good read. I like Catron’s direct no-bullshit approach. He’s not trying to work New Age marketing crap into his book. From what I’ve read so far it’s a solid introduction to the basics of writing for theatre. He has a number of early suggestions about how to develop as a writer long before he gets to the concrete advice about constructing a stage play. For instance he advises writing a journal. He has some nifty ideas for establishing a private journal that is designed to keep random dialogue, story lines, characters,…
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"To take an idea and translate it into something material is a beautiful process."
I’ve been a fan of David Lynch‘s films for a long time. I’m not sure when his work first registered on my consciousness. I think it was probably his TV series Twin Peaks–and I only got into it during the second season. However, it was when a friend of mine showed me Lost Highway years later that Lynch popped up firmly on my radar. It’s a film about psychosis and the slipperiness of identity, and I found it a profoundly disturbing, and scary, film. Despite its flaws, Lost Highway is an extraordinary film and one that the viewer does not forget–even if s/he dislikes it. I should back up at…
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not quite a Tanka; to remember
Little Boy dropped On Hiroshima, in ’45. Buddha’s heart melted As Enola Gay swept by, Leaving the thunder of apocalypse’s hooves In its wake.
