Point of Attack / Wasting Creative Energy / Space (not that kind)
I spent most of last week prepping for two separate pitches.
I had one on Wednesday for an open writing assignment on the feature side. On Thursday, I did a practice pitch with the studio and the producers for the series we're taking out to buyers starting Monday afternoon.
After memorizing, rehearsing, and actually doing the pitches I was mentally and creatively drained. By the time I sat down to write this newsletter there was nothing left in the tank.
Part of that is because I’ve talked a lot here about my process for putting together and doing these pitches. I didn’t really do anything new over the course of the week, except for briefly trying out a program called Virtual Teleprompter Pro that you can use to put a transparent overlay of your notes onto a Zoom window. I tried it, it might be great in an emergency situation, but I’d still rather know the entire thing backwards and forwards so that I can be prepared for any questions or curve balls that might come my way. I fell back on my regular system.
Once my brain had a little time to rest I was able to write down a few things that have been on my mind this week. As always, this is not a "how-to" but more of a "how I'm currently" doing what I do. I'm always in search of a new idea or creative angle. I hope the ten minutes or so you spend reading this shakes loose something new for you too.
I also wanted to say that I'm a little behind on answering the very nice messages from last week because of said brain drain. I will respond soon.
Thanks, I hope you're having a great weekend!
Point of Attack
After I turned in the first draft of my series pitch one of the big notes was about the opening sequence of my pilot. I had written a scene that was a final test of the lead character’s abilities before she gets sent on a real mission by her boss and it just wasn’t quite working.
The scene was on theme and it planted a flag for her emotional state at the beginning of the story that would stand in clear contrast to where she would end up at the end of the first season. But in the section just before I said this series was going to be fun and unfortunately that opening sequence wasn’t all that much fun, nor did it give the character (and, by extension, the actor) a chance to really show her stuff. The notes were right on so I went back to the drawing board.
I remembered this quote about opening scenes from The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri, “A good point of attack is where something vital is at stake at the very beginning of the play.” I needed something fun that would establish clear stakes for this character and get people leaning in.
I spent a day coming up with a seemingly impossible problem for this character to solve, amped up and clarified the personal stakes of why she needed to solve it, then mapped out all the fun moves she would take to get it done. It’s a scene that I think any actor would be psyched to play. I pitched it to my creative partners and it was a hit.
While I was working on this pitch I watched the first few episodes of ANDOR, which I love. I won’t spoil it if you haven’t seen it yet but the opening of the pilot is a great example of this idea. Not only does it set the dominoes falling for the character, it tells you who he is and what he’s willing to do in order to achieve his goal. It's a perfect point of attack.
Last word from Lajos, “It is pointless to write about a person who doesn’t know what he wants, or wants something only halfheartedly. Even if a person knows what he wants, but has no internal and external necessity to achieve this desire immediately, that character will be a liability to your play.”
And your pitch will stumble out of the gate.
Wasted Days and Wasted Nights
2022 has been a roller coaster.
I have a few check marks in the win column, like this series I’m taking out.
But there were a lot of checks in the “L” column as well. I had two staffing meetings that didn’t lead to a job. I lost out on a couple of OWA’s, one studio passed on a feature and a series idea I spent tons of time on.
Now it's getting late in the year, a time when things traditionally start to slow down, and not long after that the guild will enter into tough contract negotiations that could very well lead to a strike.
It’s easy for me to look back on this year and think about when and where I might have made key mistakes that set me back. "Why didn't I put more things in motion last summer so that I wasn't caught on my heels when I lost my job?" It's just as easy to look ahead and worry about the future. "What if I manage to sell this show but then it’s pencils down before I ever turn in a first draft?"
Going down those rabbit holes is a waste of time and energy. Imagining worst case scenarios about my future drains me of the creative energy it takes to imagine those scenarios for my characters.
Thinking about past mistakes is just as bad. Sometimes I have imaginary discussions with people over things that happened six months ago. I will workshop the dialogue as if getting it right in my head will somehow change the past outcome. A much better use of my time would be revising the dialogue in my current work-in-progress. Making it better is something that's actually in my control.
How do I make sure I don't spiral out and waste that energy?
For me, the solution has been the same for nearly thirty years.
When those feelings come up I get them out of my system and into my journal. Sometimes my morning pages are about connecting with my subconscious, making sure the channel is clear, that impulse and intuition are flowing from my brain to the page. But sometimes I just have to throw a giant pity party for myself before getting on with the work of the day.
I pulled out a journal from exactly twenty years ago and found this entry, titled “October something, 2002”:
“Started to take a real downturn today. Everything grim. My life, my movie, my health. A year and a few months after coming home and I’m still here, still stuck. I have grand dreams, I’ve even called them missions. Lots of plans for my life. And here I am. 29, still huddled away in the corner of the house. I’ve got to get out of here. My allergies are knocking me out every day, making me miserable, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I don’t have enough money to go to the doctor, or health insurance, so that’s keeping me from getting the medicine I need. I sold my guitar for this movie, borrowed money from friends, been a complete loser to get this thing made. It’s consumed a year of my life so far and it’s not even close to being done.”
I mean, Jesus, that guy is a wreck, right? But here’s the next page…
“I know there are a lot of good things that have come out of being home. Being with Shawn, being here for Macy’s birth day, my friendships with Bryce and Eric. And all of that fed into the movie. I apologize for complaining and getting down on myself and this opportunity you’ve opened up. I want you to know I’m not some ungrateful child. This has been an amazing year.”
That's my trick.
I let it ALL OUT, unfiltered, until there's nothing left to say. Then I look for something, anything, positive and shift my focus to gratitude. By doing this I clear away that negativity so I can approach the creative work with a more positive energy.
I’m sure I’ve said this before but my first and most important tool is my journal. If you’ve never tried it I can’t recommend it enough.
Thinking About Space
I had a dream the other night.
Julie was in the living room, using a poker to move some logs around in the fireplace. She said, “Honey, come here, quick.”
I ran over to where she was standing and she pointed to a hole in the floor of the fireplace where some tiles were missing. I could see down into another level, a hidden basement that we never knew existed. Inside, I saw the lower half of a woman’s body standing near the opening. She was wearing pajama pants and long wool socks and she was frozen in place, as if she knew we were on to her and she didn’t want to make any noise.
Julie said, “There’s someone living in our house.”
Then I woke up.
I think the thing that was most unsettling about that dream wasn’t the terror of seeing a strange woman in our house. It was the idea that after four years of living here there was a whole other level I had yet to discover.
I read a book last year called The Poetics of Space, by Gaston Bachelard. I wrote down this phrase, “The spaces you inhabit also take up space in you.” It makes sense that part of my current understanding of who I am is tied to this house and that it had the power to rattle me in my sleep.
Our sense of self is formed not just by the people in our lives and our relationships with them but also our relationship to the physical spaces where we live or have lived. It can influence our behavior for decades.
The very first house I remember living in was my Granny Carol’s house on 3rd Street. My first memory as a human being (aside from seeing STAR WARS) was the day my parents brought my youngest sister, Traci, home from the hospital. I remember standing on the steps with my grandma and my sister, Amy, watching them carry her from the car to the house. I was three years old.
I also know I was three years old because that’s when I met my oldest friend in the world, Justin Wilson, known to everybody in town as “Bubby.” He and his family lived in the house down the alley. We learned to ride bikes together and we rode together for our first day of Kindergarten.
The first space I think of when I think of my grandma’s house is the basement. She had one of those cellar doors that came out at an angle from the house. If you were small enough you could use it for a slide, provided the sun hadn’t heated up the aluminum covering.
I can still smell that cellar to this day. The damp earth, musty and moldy. It was unfinished, with dirt floors and cinder block walls. There were shelves lined with vegetables she and other relatives had canned. If you kept moving through the tiny space you would reach a little nook at the end of the right wall, the perfect spot if you were playing hide and seek and brave enough to withstand the potato bugs and spiders.
To this day I love cellars and attics and old sheds used for storage. I love the vague sense of danger. The promise of secrets and adventure.
I have a terrible memory for events. I have conversations with friends from high school or college and they bring up things that I have no recollection of. But if you gave me a pen and paper I could sketch (poorly) the layout of every house or apartment I’ve ever lived in, starting with Granny Carol’s house and that basement.
Given a little more time I could write a list of ten things you would have found in my bedroom at each stage. When I was in elementary school I had Pittsburgh Steelers sheets and a plastic, football shaped toy box. In high school there would have been hair metal posters on the walls next to the plastic PHANTOM OF THE OPERA mask I bought at One Shubert Alley (RIP) on my first trip to New York. In college there were candles shoved into wine bottles, incense on the windowsill, black sheets. A stack of Tori Amos cd’s on the dresser.
At every stage there were outward expressions of who I was (or thought I was) at the time. And it never occurred to me that those things would change every few years. Five years ago I never would have guessed I’d be obsessed with playing pinball and making pizzas at age 49, and that I’d have all the accoutrements to match. I could try to guess what my personal space might look like five years from now but really I have no idea. Maybe I’ll get hard core into Pickleball, or I’ll be one of those middle-aged men who gets super into World Wars and painting miniature tanks and artillery.
At some point those artifacts get moved out of the bedrooms to make way for the new you. Some of it gets thrown away, some of it donated, or sold at a yard sale. But some of it ends up packed away in cellars and attics and old sheds used for storage. Entire epochs under dust and cobwebs.
Of course, I couldn’t help but think about how this relates to imaginary spaces and the characters who inhabit them.
I’m remembering that scene in CASTAWAY after Tom Hanks has been rescued from the island. They put him up in a luxury hotel room where there’s a seafood platter from room service. If I remember correctly, he picks up a cold lobster claw and tosses it back down, disgusted. Later that night, he has trouble falling asleep in the comfy bed so he takes the covers and sleeps on the floor. That moment was heartbreaking and so powerful. The space that he inhabited was still taking space in him.
What would that look like for someone who spent years in prison? Or a convent? Living on a boat? For people who grew up in houses with a ton of kids versus someone who was an only child? It's easy to focus on past traumas of our characters and put a lens on big events without zooming out wider to think about the space where those things occurred.
I’m always thinking about how a character’s current living situation or work space is a reflection of who they are but I’ve never really thought about how those prior spaces might still be living inside of them. It's like me with this house. I think I know everything about them but if I just pulled up a couple of tiles maybe there's a whole other world waiting to be discovered underneath.
Great Article About BARBARIAN
No One in Hollywood Wanted to Make ‘Barbarian’ — www.vulture.com Director Zach Cregger pitched his passion project ‘Barbarian,’ co-starring Bill Skarsgard and Justin Long, to nearly every studio in Hollywood, including A24 and Neon.
Yoda of the Week
Brandi Carlile just released a new record and I think it's a masterpiece. Speaking of my Granny Carol, there are little moments that brought me back to being a kid and hearing Patsy Cline coming over the radio while she was making dinner. And then there's this song which feels like it should be the anthem playing over a badass modern western.
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