The advantage of having focusing theme when beginning a creative project is amazing.

Try this: Sit down and write a story. No limits, you can write about anything.

Then try: Sit down and write a story that in some way has to do with “Restraint.” You can take it any way you want, it just has to be about the theme of Restraint in some way.

Powerful difference right? (Tell me if its not.)

My brain starts working on a whole different level with this technique. I don’t have to get caught up thinking about the infinite possibilities, instead I can focus on creating something in the context of the theme.

So if this works for you, use it often, but note, not all themes are created equal.

For a theme to work, I find it must have a metaphorical quality to it, it must present the territory of the creative work, rather than being merely a detail within the story.

For example, “obsession” is a great focusing theme, and it can be used to create many different creative works, where as “a salt shaker” is not. Yes I can put a salt shaker in a story, but it is unlikely a story could be defined by this theme. It would merely be an included detail and therefore not very helpful in focusing the creative process.

More examples:

• Monster is a detail. Monstrous is a focusing theme.
• Heart surgery is a detail. Death is a focusing theme.
• A penny is a detail. Luck is a focusing theme.

A good theme contains the context of a story within it, where a bad theme is just an included detail to a story.

Note that a good theme can become a bad theme if used incorrectly. For example, the color blue could be powerful if the creative work is centered around the emotion of sadness, but if blue is just the color of a coffee cup in the story, the effect is less useful.

I feel like I’ve talked disparagingly about Theme before, because they can encourage empty retelling of similar stories over and over, however, I think if you pick a good theme (as noted above) and then strive to express it in a unique and personal way, the results can be remarkably positive.

If you find yourself straying into generic territory, pick a theme that is difficult to link to cliched material. Instead of Envy, try “Tactile.”

Give it a shot, and post the results!

I don’t like screenwriting gurus. Because they suck. But I came across something that I find amazingly useful. The Blake Snyder Beat Sheet. I’m not going to explain it, except that its a list of beats 15 beats in a movie. Google it.

Okay lets get to this.

Question: Why does this blake snyder beat sheet encourage me, while all other attempts to create a formula piss me off.

Answer: The Blake Snyder Beat Sheet strikes the right balance of specificity.

I’ve read books that talk about formula; on the 3rd page you make a character state the theme – boring generic shit, and it really doesn’t fit because you’re basically just forcing these elements in there. The audience looks at film and goes, yes you included all the right elements, and there is a story happening around them, bravo, bravo! No they look at the screen and go, why are there pieces of shit in my cereal. The moral of the story is, great cereal and great fertilizer do not create great cereal/fertilizer.

On the other hand, I’ve read books that go the other way and talk about arcs and theme. Theories that are so top down and overhead that all the characters look like ants. You can’t see what the hell they’re doing there, but somehow this is supposed to help you divine your story. It doesn’t help.

Both these ends of the spectrum inspire nothing from me.

But for some reason this beat sheet, is inspirational material. I feel like I can take any rough story idea that I want, put it next to this list, and the combination of the new story and the set structure would just spark ideas as if by magic.

This is the first thing I’ve read that made me think that story and structure can be separated. And because they can be separated, you are free. You can take a story, and give it several different structures. Or you can take a structure and apply it to several different stories. All with different awesome outcomes.

But do I think this blake snyder beat sheet is THE WAY to make films? No. But it points at this idea: you can take structure from whatever story you want, and apply it to your story to get a new way of telling a story.
Structure helps you think of where to take the story next. And you need that when working on a feature film. It’s either that or instincts. Relying on your own instincts to write a screenplay isn’t just wishful thinking, its lazy.

Unless it works – and that’s the real test of any theory.

Sometimes when I don’t know what to write, I start off typing these 3 little words:
“Drugs, Sex, Violence”
I don’t know what that means.  I’m not sure if there’s a significance to the order, but that’s how it comes out.

Probably it’s an unconscious homage to Hunter Thompson, a man who made his life a testament to craziness and spontaneous behavior. And I don’t entirely understand why he’s a role model. I appreciate his priorities, but there seems something vaguely desperate in his fantastic lifestyle.  As if he felt that life on it’s own wasn’t really all that great, and required fantasy and fiction to make it interesting; at least tolerable.

And in the same way, I feel like there is something false behind these 3 words.  Something idealized.  Fantasized.  Hollow.  Can one bet their existence upon hallucination, hedonism, and death?  Or is this missing the point?

Watch this video about life in the digital age:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/view/

Okay here’s my thoughts:

On Drone Attacks

I had never thought about the people who pilot the drones in Pakistan.  That is seriously fucked up.  And while it’s great that we’re developing technologies that prevent our people from getting killed, I can’t see the end result as anything good.  In conventional warfare these would be great tools, but we’re using them for, going into neighborhoods half a world a way, spying on and killing the residents, it’s going to accomplish the opposite effect we’re looking for.  Great, we can precisely target a single terrorist and take them out without endangering a single American.  But we are endangering all the civilians in those areas, and all at the push of a button.  By some guy in a cubical in Las Vegas.  I imagine how I’d feel if that happened here.  If another nation decided to enforce it’s law in my country, and they didn’t even have to send people to do it.  There’s not even anyone to complain to, or to look in the eye, to plead with, to fight.  Where does all that helplessness get directed?  Do you just go about your day?  Or do you feel outrage, frustration, and anger?  Isn’t this exactly the opposite reaction we want? Read more

This video was shot Jan 5th… It was freezing.  There were points where I was just gritting my teeth, trying not to shiver.  Maddy seemed to fair better, but that may have been the beer.  In any case, despite being rushed -not wanting to die of frostbite and all- we got the shots we needed.  The edit was trickier and more time consuming than the last video, but I’m extremely pleased without how it came out.