I'm in Savannah, Georgia at the moment enjoying the fine weather and sunny beaches. Actually, I've been flown down here by my company to work. 52 hours of work a week for two weeks. I did have a couple of days off and was able to swim in the Atlantic Ocean for a bit, lay out on the Savannah beach and get an annoying sun burn on my back.
What is of interest to people out there in MovieLand is Savannah is the place where many movies are filmed. The most notorious being Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil. If you've seen the movie you know Savannah is beautiful. It's even more spectacular in person.
Let me be frank. the movie wasn't really that great. I don't know why my free time has been consumed with the movie. But I found it at Best Buy for $7.50 and picked it up. I enjoyed watching the movie and then seeing the actual scenery that was filmed in person. I can imagine the only thing better would be to see a movie actually being filmed at the time. No wait. Even better would be to see your own script being filmed live on location.
I wanted to see the Bird Girl, the statue that graces both the movie poster and the book. But they've moved it out of the cemetery and placed it in a museum that was going to charge me ten bucks to see it. I didn't think it was worth that much at the time. Maybe later. Really, I was only going to look at it just so I can say I've seen it live in person. I did buy the book and a post card of the Bird Girl. So that will have to do.
I did stop at a shop that calls itself the official store of the Midnight book and movie. If I wanted to I could have walked out with a small statue of Bird Girl for a Hundred Bucks. Maybe next time, also.
I had an interesting conversation with the lady who worked there. She was one of those people who love to tell stories and had a ghost story to tell us relating to the nearby city we working in. When I told her I was from Kalamazoo she said it sounded like a song. So I told her about the old song with the same name, which she was familiar with. I asked her about the Savannah Art College because we were seeing a lot of buildings with their name on it. She city was behing taken over by the college. It turns out she was a graduate of the college along time ago. She got her degree and probably never left the city. She said she survived cancer twice and now was working at a tiny gift shop. I'm assuming since she went to college and works at a gift shop she never achieved anything with her art degree. And that she is a struggling artist who devoted her entire life to art with nothing to show for it. But she did seem very happy. I can only hope that after I've lived a long life, whether or not I have achieved any success in screenwriting, that I can be doing something I love associated with my passions in life and be just as happy as she seemed.
I was asked the other day by a good friend how much am I willing to put into this to achieve success in screenwriting. My answer was if I live the rest of my life writing screenplays and I achieve nothing, it will still be worth it because I am having that much fun reading screenplay books and watching and studying movies now. My answer reminds me of the old lady working in that gift shop. Maybe living in Savannah just being surrounded by great art is enough for her to be passionate about life. Just like how I would perceive living in Hollywood being surrounded by movies and artists passionate about movies would be.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Office Memo #1
They say you should treat your screenwriting career like a business. The sooner you can take it that serious enough, the sooner you'll be on your way to making the necessary steps to success. Well, I created an inter-office memo to myself to do just that.
To: Myself
From: Myself, CEO & Chairman of your career
Date: 7/05/07
Subject: Morning Habits
We'd like to thank you for your commitment and dedication to screenwriting. We feel your accomplishments in the not-too-distant future will have a positive effect financially for our organization. We'd like to take this opportunity to challenge you to remain steadfast in our company policy.
It has recently come to our attention that you have been "sleeping in" instead of rising early enough to perfect your craft. Although your alarm clock is set at 4 a.m. eastern/standard time, pressing snooze for an hour and a half and awakening at the last possible minute before being taken away to your other job is counter-productive and goes against your better judgments as a screenwriter. Please make all necessary changes to keep your account in good standing with our firm.
To: Myself
From: Myself, CEO & Chairman of your career
Date: 7/05/07
Subject: Morning Habits
We'd like to thank you for your commitment and dedication to screenwriting. We feel your accomplishments in the not-too-distant future will have a positive effect financially for our organization. We'd like to take this opportunity to challenge you to remain steadfast in our company policy.
It has recently come to our attention that you have been "sleeping in" instead of rising early enough to perfect your craft. Although your alarm clock is set at 4 a.m. eastern/standard time, pressing snooze for an hour and a half and awakening at the last possible minute before being taken away to your other job is counter-productive and goes against your better judgments as a screenwriter. Please make all necessary changes to keep your account in good standing with our firm.
Monday, July 2, 2007
The Bathroom Reader Of Screenwriting
Book Review: Zen And The Art Of Screenwriting Vol. 1 & 2
It's not that these were awful books full of toilet humor or anything like that. It just happens to be the time that I chose to read this books. I needed something screenwriting related to read while taking a massive a dump only a man can be proud of (I ripped that off of John From Cincinnati). These books were the perfect opportunity to do so. The insights were usually only a couple of pages long and offered plenty of good food for thought. The interviews were also informative. Not Like, "Holy-shit, I need to know this stuff!". But more in retrospect of your favorite movies and authors. The first volume was published in 1996, with volume 2 in 2000. So most of the interviews from author William Froug are with the legends of screenwriting and seem to be a bit dated. So anybody looking for fresh perspectives on the industry today might do better with a current copy of Creative Screenwriting.
Another problem I have with the book is the misinterpretation with the title. There is no chapter on Zen philosophy and how it relates to screenwriting. But that's fine. I understand it was just a clever title. I pretty much try to pattern the titles of my blogs in a similar fashion. Hell, the title "Philosophy Of Screenwriting" was inspired by these books. I just wish they had picked something else so I could use the title for a true journey into Zen and screenwriting. But I digress.
So these books, along with Joel Engel's "Screenwriters On Screenwriting", have become my choice for bathroom reading. I have a few other books by Engel and Froug that will later take their place on top of the magazine rack in my bathroom full of old Playboy's and men's magazines. If it has to be all screenwriting all the time, then I need to keep my priorities straight. So that Playboy will have to wait. Right now, my current bathroom reader is "Screenwriters: America's Storytellers In Portrait." Hey, what do you know? It's got pictures. Who needs those Playboy's after all.
It's not that these were awful books full of toilet humor or anything like that. It just happens to be the time that I chose to read this books. I needed something screenwriting related to read while taking a massive a dump only a man can be proud of (I ripped that off of John From Cincinnati). These books were the perfect opportunity to do so. The insights were usually only a couple of pages long and offered plenty of good food for thought. The interviews were also informative. Not Like, "Holy-shit, I need to know this stuff!". But more in retrospect of your favorite movies and authors. The first volume was published in 1996, with volume 2 in 2000. So most of the interviews from author William Froug are with the legends of screenwriting and seem to be a bit dated. So anybody looking for fresh perspectives on the industry today might do better with a current copy of Creative Screenwriting.
Another problem I have with the book is the misinterpretation with the title. There is no chapter on Zen philosophy and how it relates to screenwriting. But that's fine. I understand it was just a clever title. I pretty much try to pattern the titles of my blogs in a similar fashion. Hell, the title "Philosophy Of Screenwriting" was inspired by these books. I just wish they had picked something else so I could use the title for a true journey into Zen and screenwriting. But I digress.
So these books, along with Joel Engel's "Screenwriters On Screenwriting", have become my choice for bathroom reading. I have a few other books by Engel and Froug that will later take their place on top of the magazine rack in my bathroom full of old Playboy's and men's magazines. If it has to be all screenwriting all the time, then I need to keep my priorities straight. So that Playboy will have to wait. Right now, my current bathroom reader is "Screenwriters: America's Storytellers In Portrait." Hey, what do you know? It's got pictures. Who needs those Playboy's after all.
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