"A Sideline In Vengeance" update #5...

So, here we are, the best part of two months since the last update post on "A Sideline In Vengeance" - and the script is complete! It clocks in at 100 pages (ooh, what a lovely round number).

These last few weeks I have been going back and forth, skimming around the script tweaking specific scenes or characters, or elements of the plotting and overall story, as well as going through it from the first to last page seeking out little changes and improvements to make...

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"A Sideline In Vengeance" - update #4...

It's been a while since the last update (which was at the arse end of January), but here we are: another draft was completed towards the end of February, and now I'm cracking on with the next draft.

Just a few changes ... *ahem* ...

At this point it's all about small tweaks, nitty gritty details, and generally an awful lot of fettling and fiddling about. I love this point in the journey of writing - you've got a solid script a few drafts in and finally you can focus on all the small details that add extra layers and provide little details that flesh out the story, characters, and scenes even further...

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"A Sideline In Vengeance" is off to a good start...

A quick update on the screenwriting front: Four days into the process and already I've got the first act done - and tweaked into a third draft for good measure.

So things are off to a good start - hopefully this vibe continues! Thus far I'm pleased with how the scenes are coming out, I'm able to navigate (with the help of numbered record cards for clear reference) the myriad of hand-written pages of notes from December (which laid out all the characters, their journeys, and the overall plot), and I'm still feeling good about the whole endeavour.

Next week I'll be heading into the belly of the beast - Act II.

"A Sideline In Vengeance" is underway...

After getting the bulk of the planning done during December (and a little bit of last minute tinkering in the first few days of 2016), I've started writing my new screenplay called "A Sideline In Vengeance".

It's a conspiracy thriller inspired by some dark and twisted stories that have been hitting the headlines in the UK over the last couple of years...

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Favourite TV show title sequences...

Television shows are often well known for their opening title sequences, indeed they clue you into the whole tone of the show in anywhere between 30 and 90 seconds. However, you don't always watch the intro sequence, oftentimes you might skip them entirely, but there are some that you find yourself watching every single time - and in this day-and-age when DVD boxsets are ever-so popular, that really shows true quality. Indeed, a really good title sequence makes you want to be a part of the world you're about to enter, whatever that world may be.

So without further ado, off the top of my head, some of the opening title sequences that I watch every single time without fail are:

The A-Team:
One of the greatest theme tunes for a television show ever, even people who have never watched a single episode know exactly how it goes and where it came from, but as someone who has poured over all five seasons on DVD (after watching the show as a child), you can't help but dig the fun-loving, boy's-own-adventure sense of fun this intro sequences inspires. Even the re-vamped season five intro grew on me.




The A-Team: Season 5 intro here.

Deadwood:
An excellent show that I came to very recently, but which sports an opening titles sequence that perfectly got me into the mood for a fresh episode. The choice of shots, almost all of which are in seductive slow motion, perfectly define the atmosphere of the setting of the show - a gold rush pioneer settlement where money, power, sex, corruption, gold, and booze run free and cross borders with each other routinely.




Continue reading after the jump...

Flavours of the Month: August 2010...

A bit earlier this month, and I'm trying out a new style of doing this monthly blog post.

LOOKS:

Blade Runner - finishing off that 5-disc DVD box set.

Everybody Loves Raymond - repeats during lunch time.

Creature Comforts - repeats recorded from late night ITV2.

Friday 13th: Parts 2, 3 and 4 - what with it being a Friday 13th, they showed several of the films from the franchise. I'd forgotten how relatively tame the second movie was, with its really brief moments of violence, I finally got to see the third movie in its full 2.35:1 original aspect ratio (rather than the grainy Pan & Scan 4:3 VHS I've been used to), and to round things off I got to see the uncut version of the fourth movie.

SOUNDS:

Alan Wake OST by Petri Alanko - the perfect compliment to thinking about the game a lot (and giving the prequel short film Bright Falls another viewing).

The Black Angels "Passover" - linked to Alan Wake with the opening track "Young Men Dead", I've really gotten into this 'rock dirge' album.

VIBES & FLAVOURS:

I finally got around to, and finished, reading "Driven to Distraction" by Jeremy Clarkson. As is customary at Christmas, any self-respecting Top Gear fanatic will end up with one or more books written by one or more of the presenters. "Distraction" was an epic tome; a weighty hardback too large for comfortable reading ... but once I got back into the style of Clarkson's aritcles I enjoyed it as I always do.

I've been getting some good prep work done on "Allen Bridge" - my next script - but there's plenty left to think about. Speaking of scripts, "Summer Road" was finished off and posted off to the BBC Writersroom.

Finally there's been a lot of summer time painting and decorating going on (a task I'm good at, but find utterly mind-numbing), as well as some rather late (or rather early) spring cleaning - I've been digging through my chock-full cupboard, weeding out junk for recycling and items for charity shops. On top of all that my entertainment centre in the corner of my room has changed significantly. My trusty 21 inch Samsung CRT has been replaced with a 24 inch Goodmans HDTV ... my Naiko VHS player has been swapped-out for a 12 year old Sony monster chock-full of bells and whistles ... and to cap it all off the hand-me-down DVD player that had been gradually going on the fritz has been replaced by a Samsung Blu-Ray player. I've even got a new cable for my Xbox360 so I can game in HD.


It was the announcement - after three years of waiting - of the home video release of the theatrical version of Grindhouse that pushed me over the edge. The 2-disc DVD has no new extras, whereas the Blu-Ray has all the existing ones and a whole shedload of new content ... and as a huge Grindhouse fan, it was the straw that broke the camel's back - I had gotten utterly fed up of home video releases of movies I was most looking forward to buying getting shafted on DVD in favour of Blu-Ray. Some other examples would be Cop Out, Kick Ass, and Iron Man 2. I'm an extra features whore (especially for making ofs, particularly if they're feature length), and so that Grindhouse announcement was the last straw and more than three hundred quid later, here I am!

Endings ... the TV kind ...

After getting back from the hospital, following my surgery (did I mention I had surgery yet? ha!), at the arse-end of June I ended up watching repeats of Friends - a show which I watched from the beginning when it originally aired, and one of my favourite sitcoms. It's wonderfully acted, is genuinely funny, and the actors being real friends with each other really translates onto the screen.

If it's not your thing, fair do's, but I can't be doing with folk who diss it just because it was popular (insanely popular, even) - anyway, I'm getting off topic here.

Point being, I got back into the show - which had conveniently looped back to the beginning of the series' run a couple of days prior to me finding myself laid-up in bed with not a whole lot to do.

As such, I ended up getting into full-on Friends mode, and with not having much to watch on telly anyway (Big Brother was utterly shit this year from the very beginning, so stuff that), I've been chuntering through the entire run again ... I've missed a few here and there with E4's schedule, and then what-with the previously blogged about censorship of the entirely innocuous on E4, I went back to my own copies and viewed them at my own pace.

Finally - after burying the lead under a mountain of set-up - the point of this blog is ... I finished my re-run-through of Friends the other day, and it got me thinking about the endings of TV shows.

Friends "The Last One"...

It's odd, even re-watching it years later (after having seen it a number of times already), it still feels the same as when I first saw it in 2004. It's like a mad dash to the finish, like when leaving to go on holiday and having to make sure everything is just-so before you leave.

Then the final shot, after the six of them disappear down the corridor blissfully happy, where we pan through the empty apartment - seeing the six door keys laid out - and ending on the picture frame around the eye-hole, with Jefferson Airplane's "Embryonic Journey" (a wonderful acoustic track) playing in the background, you can't help but succumb to the wistfully melancholly feeling of the end of a televisual era. It's just a perfectly pitched way to close a television phenomena.

Fortunately - there's always repeats though, eh?

Six Feet Under "Everyone's Waiting"...

This is a show that was really great in the first season and was situated ideally between serious and blackly comic. Unfortunately it became increasingly stuffed up its own arse with pretensious moments and overly depressing, never-ending plot lines.

However, come the final few episodes it rediscovered it's groove - and the closing montage was the best the show had been in a very, very long time. A truly stand-out ending to a TV show, backed-up by Sia's "Breathe Me" (another wonderful piece of music), we get to see all the major characters at various key moments in their life beyond the end of the show - and, suitably for a show about death, how they all die.

It's honestly touching and powerful, even when just viewed on its own, and is one of the most powerful endings to a TV show since my next example...

Blackadder Goes Forth "Goodbyeee"...

While Blackadder has not had anywhere near as many episodes as either Friends or Six Feet Under over the years, it's how we British often do things - in short supply, but perfectly pitched throughout, and getting out while the going's good.

The ending to the final series of Blackadder - "Goes Forth" - set in the World War One trenches is an incredible finale, and nothing short of absolutely haunting. After the hilarity, daftness, cunning plans and pencils being shoved up one's nose, it is astonishing how the tone shifts so effortlessly into a completely different territory - one that can elicit tears from practically anyone ... and serious pause for thought from everyone.

When I was at university, one of the course I took was about sitcoms - a far more detailed and serious examination of structure and trends, rather than "just watching The Simpson's" (like a number of scoffing know-nothings would tell me whenever the topic came up in conversation) ... bitterness to that snide misunderstanding aside, we covered the final episode of "Goes Forth" on this course.

Every week we would have a screening, which were always filled with plenty of laughter, and a usually raucus banter when the screening was over as we left. This time however, it was very different, and an experience I shall I always remember.

Naturally, we all chuckled heartily at the myriad of jokes and generally japery, and while I would wager all of us had seen the episode before (more than once), our collective reaction to the final moments was quite something.

The characters come together, their faces crushed by a realisation that they're finally being ordered to go "over the top" and engage the enemy, and that - without really saying it to each other - they know they're not going to be coming back. After episodes filled with these same characters taking the piss out of each other, berating one another, and generally being unkind, the sudden shift in their fortunes shows their actual respect for each other deep down, writ large on the screen.

The whistle is blown, the men yell, clamber over the top and then we cut to a slow motion pull-out - the sound fades away, leaving just the gentle-but-sad music to play us out - the men charge, still in ever-increasing slow motion, as explosions burst around them and they become lost in flying debris ... then we dissolve to the peaceful scene of a poppy field accompanied only by the peaceful sound of birdsong.

Just writing about it sends shivers up my spine and gives me pause for thought.

However, back at uni at the screening of this episode, at that very moment you could hear a pin drop among us students. Nobody spoke, nobody began packing their bags early (as was so often the case during more frivilous fare), and after the final shot faded out and the screen was turned off, we all sat there for a moment in total silence - all of us stunned and shocked - then still without a word being uttered, we quietly got our bags and filtered out of the room as you might a funeral wake.

I'll never forget that experience - such a stark shift in reaction written so tangibly across everyone's faces and actions - all brought on by a piece of TV perfection. One of the best moments of television ever committed to tape.

...

I've been meaning to blog about that Blackadder screening for a while, but have never had the cause to until now, just getting into the mindset of TV show endings that leave a real impression...

Pause for thought, most definitely.

Movie Madness (2003)...

During my time at UEA we got to do some practical courses, the first of which was Television Studio Production. By the end of the semester we (teams of two – one editor, one director) had to put together a 15 minute long ‘live’ magazine-style show. We decided to set ours in a world where events in movies were happening in real life. I co-wrote the script and acted as editor, while my team partner co-wrote and acted as director.


During the course I discovered that I was far happier not directing multi-camera ‘live’ stuff – I guess it’s the whole problem of multi-tasking thing inside a male brain. Instead I took better to editing multi-camera ‘live’. This said I do prefer to shoot and direct single camera, or multi-camera non-‘live’ depending on the project.


Of course this was several years ago now and I’ve grown as a filmmaker a hell of a lot since then, and would no doubt be much better suited to such a task if I was presented with the challenge – even though my preferred style of filmmaking is single camera – it’s more film rather than studio television, and that’s what I dig the most.

The Lone Gunmen...

As I've mentioned before, I've recently had an absolute X-Files marathon (it essentially replaced the vast majority of my TV and film viewing for more than two months), so as part of said marathon it was my aim to get my mits on The Lone Gunmen spin-off, which I'd never seen before.

After some cheeking price raising (after retailers caught on that X-Files box sets were selling well after the recent release of the second flick - which is the reason for my epic marathon), I got my mits on a copy of the box set and finished watching it the other day.

Simply put - enjoyable enough, but far from the excellence of The X-Files, indeed it's a completely different show, almost entirely so. Despite being lighter fair, it still doesn't rise to the heights of the lighter episodes of The X-Files (which were, honestly, superb). It's not complete trash - far from it - but they never really figured out what the show should be, never quite got the tone right. A good idea, unfortunately not a fully successful one.

Some people quite liked it, and fair play to them. Perhaps I was still bowled over by the awesomeness of The X-Files (even though the last two seasons weren't quite up to the standard of the first seven seasons) ... I think I can best sum it up this way.

When I was watching The X-Files, the most episodes in one day I managed was seven (hey, don't judge me, we all have our DVD box set splurges from time-to-time), whereas the most episodes of TLG I managed in one day was two. What now though? Why, Band of Brothers of course - I finally got my mits on it for cheap, it's been over thirty quid for feckin' years!

Life on Mars...

Well, over the past month I've been absolutely Life on Mars mad, and by mad I mean my usual obsessive nature when I find something I really dig. I get completely into it, hard and fast and in a big, bad way. The music gets into my head, quotes keep popping up, the theories (when applicable) get whirring around the old noggin ... so aye, obsessed would be a good way to put it.

I never got into it when it first showed on BBC One, so I've been watching them on the box sets (which is a great way to watch something, if you're as obsessively minded as I am, it really lends to that way of viewing).

Bloody great it most certainly is ... all of it, bloody brilliant - especially the episode 2x05 Camberwick Green 'skit' (if you will). Absolutely hilarious, really well observed (and yet loving too), but most importantly bloody entertaining. Everybody involved did a superb job. It's got great acting, great directing, great writing, great cinematography, great editing - the whole shebang is bloody great.

Next up - obsessing over Ashes to Ashes - the LoM follow up, oh yes indeedy.

...

Since writing this post, I've started in on Ashes to Ashes, two episodes in so far, and I'm really enjoying it too. Jolly good show!

Oh memory lane...

I've recently discovered 12 episodes of "Round the Bend" on YouTube, gawd bless it, and have been watching my way through those gradually...well, I've done 3 so far. Anyway, oh the memories that came flooding back, some quality kids TV with a real anarchic bite - moreso than I remember - plus it's quite politically incorrect and has a lot of toilet humour, which is just what you want as a kid ... then that bitch Mary-fucking-Whitehouse came along and spoiled everyone's fun and it got shafted off the air, thanks a lot.

Still - "False Teeth from Beyond the Stars" - how could you not love this show?!

Oh well, "A Bridge Too Far" has been polished off, very good indeed, next up I'm going to go on a "Rambo" bender with all three films...

...

Otherwise, I've been in a bit of a creative dip these last couple of weeks, the muse has escaped me. After ploughing through to the end of the first act in my feature script, I took a break and started thinking of another script idea - for a short I'd wanna film - it's called "Signing Off", and I started writing it, but again, the muse fucked off home. So I forced myself to plan some of it out, and I'm going to make a concerted effort in the next few days to sit down and right the damn thing, it's only a short piece, so I just want to get it written and "in the bank" so-to-speak.

Then I can go back to the feature script, after which I've got another feature to write, as well as an alternate version/sequel/follow up to "Signing Off"...in fact, the short idea I'm writing is actually a prequel/alternate version of the original idea in fact. The original idea being of quite a large scale (I was thinking of it in terms of animation too), but the version I'm trying to get written at the moment would be live action.

Let's just hope I can get that bloody muse to get off her arse and lodge back in my brain...oh delicious...

Now though - new My Name Is Earl and Danny's Underground Slacker blogcast.