M.D. Presley's Blog, page 6

September 15, 2016

Breca the Bear and the Birth of the Glassmen

[excerpt from Myths of Old, collected by David Hooper]Long ago in the time before glass, the king of the Vitska tribe died. But the king had two sons, Atl and Breca. And Atl was strong, wearing the skin of a bear he strangled with his own hands, while Breca was weak, with a turned foot. But Atl loved his younger brother and said, “Let us split the tribe, you taking the north, while I shall rule the south. This way we shall be equal and have no reason to quarrel.”And though Breca knew the sout...
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Published on September 15, 2016 07:42

September 8, 2016

What All The Biggest Summer Blockbuster Disappointments All Had In Common

I'm working offthe /film postabout this, which is in turn going offThe Hollywood Reporter, but breaks down like this:Ben Hurwilllose $120 million($70-75 mil expected off a $100 mil budget)The BFGtolose$90 milAlice Through the Looking Glass:$65 mil lossGhostbusters: Answer the Call:$70 mil lossPete's Dragon,Star Trek BeyondandIndependence Day: Resurrectionall round out that list of loses or barely breaking even when video/ TV rights are factored in.Now I'm sure I don't have to point out that a...
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Published on September 08, 2016 13:28

September 6, 2016

Structure pt II - Note Cards and Cork Boards: Screenplay Techniques Adapted for the Novel

So here we are for another session of Screenplay Techniques Adapted For the Novel, and I still can’t think of a better introduction than pretty much just restating the title. I considered a pithy anecdote, but I lead a pretty uneventful life, so you get this fumbling intro paragraph instead. All three of you who read this (hi, Mom and Dad!).Butlike arriving early to a party whereyou don’t know anyone but the host, now that the awkward introduction is out of the way we can get down to serious...
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Published on September 06, 2016 22:54

Screenplay Techniques Adapted for the Novel: Structure part II - Note Cards and Cork Boards

So here we are for another session of Screenplay Techniques Adapted For the Novel, and I still can’t think of a better introduction than pretty much just restating the title. I considered a pithy anecdote, but I lead a pretty uneventful life, so you get this fumbling intro paragraph instead. All three of you who read this (hi, Mom and Dad!).Butlike arriving early to a party whereyou don’t know anyone but the host, now that the awkward introduction is out of the way we can get down to serious...
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Published on September 06, 2016 22:54

August 31, 2016

Old 97's Drinking Game

In honor of my friend Chris' birthday today and the mariachi drinking game we used to play in our youth, I came up with a drinking game for my favorite band, the Old 97's. I should probably note that this game is meant to be playedSIPPINGon a drink rather than taking shots. Because if you took shots, you would flat out die.How to PlayPut together a playlist of your favorite Old 97's songs and then put it on shuffle/ random.Take a swig when:You get some sweet, sweet banjo action (once per song is enough unless you're especially hard core)A phone is mentionedCigarettes/ booze/ drugs are mentionedA person's name is mentionedx2 swigs if it's one of the band membersx3 swigs if you know the person mentioned personallySomeone breaks out some falsetto or yodelling (best played with live albums in the mix)A place name is mentionedx2 if you've been therex3 if you're currently thereMarriage is mentioned (fairly rare)Infidelity is mentioned (more frequent)Murder/ death is mentioned (more frequent still)Rhett is not the lead singerx2 if it's not MurryThey sing a coverx2 if you didn't know it was a cover until someone pointed it out just nowYou hear a curse word (this used to be a lot less frequent)The game continues until everyone's too drunk to remember the rules. The winner is the host of the event if no one boots on his/her things.There are seldom winners.Optional a-hole rule:If you know a factoid about the band that just came up in the song, say that Melt was the original name of Funland, or the real reason why they wouldn't be there if the Athenia hadn't sunk; point to someone and say "factoid" (or a-hole, or whatever). If no one challenges you on it, the person you pointed to has to take three sips.But if anyone accepts your challenge and gives the same factoid, you must chug whatever drink you have in hand with extreme prejudice.This may sound like a fun little twist on the game, but I assure you it devolves into fistfights rather quickly. Mainly because there's always one a-hole who thinks he's impressing everyone with his knowledge when all he's doing is pissing them off. Usually this a-hole is me.Anyways, happy birthday, Chris.
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Published on August 31, 2016 06:54

August 21, 2016

Structure, Structure, Structure: Screenplay Techniques Adapted for the Novel

For our first actual foray into Screenplay Techniques Adapted for the Novel, we’re going to look at screenplay structure. And we’re going to look at it a lot. Like for the next two installments after this as well. Because it’s really important.And yes, I can actually hear your eyes roll through the ether of the internet when I invoke the specter of structure. Why? Because it’s boring. Like paint-drying boring. There’s no way around this. And although the smirking nerd in me disagrees with wha...
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Published on August 21, 2016 22:57

Screenplay Techniques Adapted for the Novel: Structure, Structure, Structure

For our first actual foray into Screenplay Techniques Adapted for the Novel, we’re going to look at screenplay structure. And we’re going to look at it a lot. Like for the next two installments after this as well. Because it’s really important.And yes, I can actually hear your eyes roll through the ether of the internet when I invoke the specter of structure. Why? Because it’s boring. Like paint-drying boring. There’s no way around this. And although the smirking nerd in me disagrees with what I’ve just wrote, I’m not going to argue with you. Structure is effectively basic math, the multiplication tables you are forced to memorize as a child. And while no one likes being forced to learn something boring, there’s a reason our teachers drill this into us. Because it’s a foundation of mathematics; a basic building block other concepts are built upon. Which means you can’t do other math like algebra or geometry (and let’s not even mention the dreaded calculus) without a stable foundation of multiplication.Yes, structure is this important in my mind.But it wasn’t always this case. I, like dozens of young screenwriters I’ve met over the years, thought structure was something for lesser writers; that my inherent genius meant I didn’t have to sully my hands with it. Structure was “the rules” that “the man” was trying to impose on me, and I, like a petulant child, refused to abide by (I added the “quotation marks” because I’m sure at that age I was incapable of saying either of those phrases without adding “air quotes” with my fingers).I believe I wrote about six screenplays before reality eventually forced me to learn structure, and I regret those years I spent wandering in the wilderness. Long story short, I had won a few awards with those screenplays and somehow attached a big-name director and bluffed my way into a producer’s office, a man who instantly recognized me for the fraud I was. But instead of throwing me out, he was kind enough to try to find something nice to say about my abomination of a screenplay. So he offered “well, you adhere to the 3-act structure really well.” And, since I was a young, ignorant idiot, I decided to flaunt my ignorance further by asking “what’s a 3-act structure?” Again this producer went against the stereotype we writers portray producers as by kindly explaining the basics of structure, which turned out to be an eye-opening moment for me.Mainly because I discovered, much to my chagrin, that I was unconsciously writing 3-act screenplays all the while without being aware of it. I mention this anecdote because I think it illustrates that structure is so important that we do it without even being aware of it. That’s because structure isn’t an arcane set of rules created by some unnamed authority up above, rather an observation of how we, as humans, instinctively tell stories. I like to think of structure as Newton’s theory of gravity: He formulated his rules not based on what he wanted the world to be like, or even logic (I mean, isn’t it freaking obvious that a 10 pound rock would fall 10xs as fast as a 1 pound rock?), rather from what he observed through experimentation.Structure is like this. Almost as immutable as gravity.It’s also the skeleton that you build the muscles of your story around. Without a strong skeleton creating a feasible foundation (there’s that word again), the story cannot stand on its own. And yes, you can argue that many successful screenwriters ignore conventional structure, but I would argue that they’re not doing this in a vacuum. And to illustrate this, I’m going to tell my favorite joke in the whole wide world:The bartender says, “We don’t allow faster than light particles in here.”A neutrino walks into a bar.*Okay, I admit, that’s pretty esoteric and requires a few key bits of information, the first being that neutrinos are faster than light particles that can travel backwards through time. Which is why the punchline comes first. That’s the joke.And the only reason that joke works (at least for me, my wife just informed me yet again that joke sucks) is because it inverts the common structure of the joke: Setup followed by a punchline. This joke only works (again, debatable) because of its awareness of the structure of jokes. The creator could only break the rules because s/he was aware of the rules.But enough setup, let’s get to the punchline of structure. And to do that we’ll look at its history.I’m sure everyone’s aware of Freytag’s dramatic arc from high school, and if you aren’t, you should have gone to a better high school. This type of structure isn’t our focus here, but it does illustrate nicely how there’s a rise and fall to stories. Other astute high school students can also tell me that Shakespeare wrote within a 5-act structure, and kudos to them though we’re not really talking about that. No, we’re discussing the 3-act structure today.Though it predates the concept of 3-act structure, the true origin story lies with the mythologist Joseph Campbell and his 1949 bookThe Hero with a Thousand Faces, which explored what he called the monomyth. Much like Newton observing his falling objects, Campbell observed myths from all over the world and discovered they shared a similar pattern. This pattern could be structured into phases, including The Call to Adventure, Refusal of the Call, Supernatural Aid, Crossing the Threshold, Road of Trials, Apotheosis, The Ultimate Boon, Refusal of the Return, Crossing the Threshold, Mastering the Two Worlds, and Freedom to Live. I won’t dig into all of these (and while I love Campbell, I wouldn’t recommend reading his book unless you really want to dive into myths), but I know that George Lucas specifically kept this book in mind when he wrote the original Star Wars trilogy (and, as far as I’m concerned, the only three movies in the Star Wars universe). **But Campbell wasn’t examining film theory, and the 3-act structure as a concept wasn’t born until 1979 when Syd Field publishedScreenplay: The Foundation of Screenwriting. It cannot be stressed enough how important this book was to the field of screenwriting. It was the tectonic shift sort of moment, one that I tried to get across in my anecdote about the producer schooling me on 3-act structure in that it was the first time screenwriters had the vocabulary to talk about why they were doing the things they were. This is a seminal work and probably should be read by anyone serious about structure.That said, the most useful book I’ve read on structure was Blake Snyder’sSave the Cat. I know this book is frequently derided by screenwriters as being simplistic, and, to a certain degree, it is. But it was also the most effective book on learning about film structure because it was the least theoretical and most focused on real-world rules I could apply. Snyder is actually pretty draconian as to where he believes his beats should take place, like right down to the specific page number. And while I disagree with him and believe the beats have a little leeway as to where they can lay (lie?), I do definitely agree with him in that they NEED to take place in the order he lays (lies?... no, that can’t be right) out. Mainly because they completely coincide with the beats laid (la--… no, I’m not going to abuse that joke again) out from Campbell many decades before.I seriously suggest picking up this book for a more in-depth understanding of these phases and what they entail, but for now I’m just going to give the briefest of overview.Setup: As the name entails, this is the establishment of your protagonist, his/her everyday life, as well as the world in which the story takes place. This includes Snyder’s eponymous “save the cat” moment where the protagonist establishes empathy with the audience by doing something to endear him/her with said audience.Catalyst/ Inciting Incident: This is the event that disrupts the everyday life of the protagonist, the moment s/he realizes something is wrong with the world that has to be set right. But the protagonist doesn’t immediately rise to the challenge, instead rejecting the call to adventure (I’m using Campbell’s terms here now) until s/he can’t anymore. This leads to the…Break to Act II: …when the hero takes DECISIVE ACTION to try and overcome the catalyst/ problem upsetting the status quo. This fires the story off in an obvious new direction and really kicks the story into gear. In terms of Star Wars (the REAL Star Wars), Luke has decided to rescue Princess Leia and had boarded the Millennium Falcon to leave his status quo home.Fun and Games: This is where everything is still going well for the hero in that his/ her adventure is still pleasant and not too harrowing.Midpoint***: This is the second shift in that the adventure is no longer fun for the protagonist, rather that something has happened to add a time-specific deadline to the protagonist’s initial goal. In screenplay theory, this is often referred to as “the ticking clock.”Bad Guys Close In/ Dark Night of the Soul: If the Fun and Games section is things going well for the protagonist, this section is the inverse in that nothing seems to go right. In Star Wars this includes the death of Obi-Wan Kenobi (I hope I don’t have to include “spoiler” there) as they try and escape the Death Star.Break to Act III/ Finale: Much like the Break to Act II was kicked off by the protagonist taking DECISIVE ACTION, this is where the protagonist takes the lessons learned over the course of the second act to decide to overcome the original problem established way back in the catalyst/ inciting incident section via the finale. This is basically Luke learning to trust the Force (as he learned from Obi-Wan over the course of act II) to defeat Darth Vader by destroying the Death Star.Yeah, you have the falling action/ denouement after that, but really the important beats in the 3-act structure are:Setup,Catalyst,Break to Act II,Midpoint,Bad Guys Close In, andBreak to Act III/ Finale.And yeah, I know that was a crash course in terms of structure, and I firmly believe you should go read a book or two about it. Like right now. Because this stuff is how successful stories are told efficiently. Yes, you can muddle your way through a story that hits many of these beats without being aware of them. I know this because I did it. But there’s also no reason to ever be ignorant, and if someone finds a pattern that can improve your life or writing, you’re really a fool not to at least take those patterns into consideration.And while this structural paradigm is definitely focused on screenplays rather than novels, I strongly maintain that the core story structure is actually universal, as demonstrated by Campbell’s exhaustive examination of myths dating back before recorded time. So, again, if someone (namely Campbell) has demonstrated that stories in their purest form adhere to this structure, one can assume that the structure would hold true despite the medium that the story takes place in.So that’s it for now. Return in two weeks to learn how these basics of structure can be applied on a macro scale, be it a TV series or a novel. Or even a series of novels.Footnotes:* I learned this joke from one Matt Duffy, and am deeply indebted to him to this day.** And don’t even get me started on the fact that there are only THREE Indiana Jones movies.*** It could be argued, and I would definitely be among the ones to argue it, that this moment actually makes the traditional 3-act story a 4-act story, but will refrain from doing so for now for simplicity’s sake.
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Published on August 21, 2016 22:57

August 15, 2016

Holyas Toth and the Claiming of Caburn

[Compiled and translated from mid-Bancel by Malorie White]Long ago when glass was still new, King Uetas ruled the land of Che. But Uetas was forlorn, for he only had one daughter, Morien, who was a Weaver. So, as old age overtook him, Uetas forsook his wife and took a servant to bed. And the servant bore him a son, who he named Holyas. And as Holyas grew, Uetas took great joy in him.But Morien became jealous of her brother and called out to Sol for aid. But it was not Sol who answered her, rather Waer in the guise of the beguiler. And Waer found a kindred spirit in the treacherous heart of Morien, and taught her new ways to weave hitherto unknown before on Ayr. So Morien wove a creature to kill Holyas. And that night the creature stole into the boy’s bedchamber.Though the creature was bound to Morien, and should have done her bidding, the infant Holyas spoke to the creature, for he was a Render. And upon hearing Holyas’ voice, the creature realized it could not murder the boy who was Blessed by Sol. So it bore Holyas away, to the far reaches of the kingdom, where it found the lowly knight Rance. And there it left the child at Rance’s doorstep, fading back into Sol’s flow once Rance took the child in.Upon finding Holyas’ empty crib in the morning, Uetas was sorely distraught and his heart was nearly torn in twain. And Morien concealed her joy behind a mask of tears.But in Uetas’ court there dwelt a clever Listener named Wylit, who acted as Uetas’ advisor. And Wylit Listened upon Morien’s thoughts and gave voice to her treachery. Upon hearing of his daughter’s murder of his rightful son, Uetas’ heart gave way. And the king died, Morien taking the throne.Wroth at Wylit, Morien wove a creature to blind him. And she exiled the Listener, her creature at his heels. But the creature would not kill Wylit, instead tormenting him and giving him no rest until it faded back into Sol’s flow. So Morien summoned a new creature, day after day, to torment Wylit, who was forced to blindly wander the kingdom. And so the blind Wylit suffered, none in the kingdom willing to give him succor and thus earn Morien’s wrath.But Morien was a cruel ruler, and her subjects’ hearts turned upon her. The people rose up against her, and so Morien summoned hundreds of her creatures and smote them terribly. And so Morien ruled for six and ten years.In that time the blind Wylit roamed the land, tormented by Morien’s creatures that refused to let him rest. Nor would they let him die. And the people turned their backs to Wylit, the Listener forced to live as a beggar and sleep in the fields like a beast.But one day Wylit’s roaming delivered him to the home of the knight Rance, who had raised Holyas beside his son Cei. Cei he trained to be a knight, while Holyas served as his squire. And when Wylit came to their door, Rance turned him away so as not to displease Morien.But Holyas took pity upon the blind Wylit, and drew him away so that he might spend the night in the cowshed. And as he did, Wylit touched the boy’s mind, recognizing him for who he was. And Wylit cried, “behold Holyas, the lost heir to Uetas.”Upon hearing Wylit, Rance disbelieved, but Cei knew the truth to the Listener’s words. So Cei knelt beside his squire, proclaiming Holyas to be the rightful king. And the creature that had been tormenting Wylit that day also heard his words, returning to his creator Morien to inform her.At this, Morien was sorely wroth, and wove a terrible creature to put an end to Holyas and Wylit. And so the two fled, Cei with them, the creature at their heels. And though Cei was a knight, he could not harm the creature with his iron sword. Only Holyas’ Blessed influence over Breath kept the creature at bay, but it still hounded them. So they fled, deeper and deeper into the forest.Holyas’ flight took them to the heart of the wood. And there an emet with the head of a heron dwelt beside a vast nodus. Though Wylit and Cei wished to pass the emet by, Holyas knew it to be an engel, for he was a Render. And so Holyas beseeched the engel for aid.Hearing the boy’s words and the depth of his need, the engel knew Holyas was the one it had been waiting for. So the engel reached into the heart of the nodus and drew forth Caburn, a sword with a blade of glass. And the engel gifted Caburn to Holyas.Seeing the glass sword, Cei was sorely dismayed, saying, “This blade will surely shatter.”But Holyas knew the true gift the engel gave, and waited for Morien’s terrible creature. And with Caburn, Holyas smote the creature.Though Cei’s iron sword passed through the creature like a knife through wind, Caburn’s edge cut the creature and scattered its Breath to the four winds.Upon bearing witness to Caburn, a weapon able to slay Morien’s monsters, Cei again knelt beside his former squire, declaring Holyas the king that would end the rule of the murderous Morien.
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Published on August 15, 2016 08:35

August 12, 2016

Method Acting, Masculinity, and Make Believe

A very interesting article by Angelica Jade Bastién today in the Atlantic on why “Hollywood Has Ruined Method Acting.” Using Jared Leto’s performance in Suicide Squad, she makes the point that method acting has taken on a masculine slant for the actors, and not so much actresses, to prove their commitment to their craft through suffering.As a screenwriter, I have often wondered about the importance given to actors and actresses in film/ TV. True they are the face of the product, with the directors, writers, and producers being relegated to the background. But I also find it interesting that when you purchase movies in iTunes (as we do in my household), they list the people involved in the film in the following order: Actors, Director, Producers.Yep, nowhere on the purchase screen, where you get your synopsis as well as the important people involved, do they mention the screenwriter. The actors being mentioned, I sort of get. They are the face of the movie/ show after all. And the director makes sense as well since s/he is running the show.The producers are incredibly important as well, but I never hear any of my friends saying “oh, did you hear a new Brian Grazer film is coming out? Let’s drop what we’re doing now and go see that!” No one mentions the producer any more than they do the screenwriter because those individuals are behind the camera while the actor is out in front of said camera.What Angelica Jade Bastién hits upon in her article with the quote from Christian Bale is that acting can be considered a “sissy” profession, one where you have your hair and makeup done while everyone else is scrambling to have the scene ready for when you arrive to say a few lines that you didn’t even write.All children love dressing up and acting out imagined roles, which means in effect the actor is living out a childhood fantasy of playing make believe for a living. This is in direct opposition to the American concept of work, which can best be summed up by a quote from my father: “If you liked what you did for a living then it wouldn’t be called work.”So, to justify their success to themselves, according to Bastién’s article, actors employ method acting to prove they have suffered for their craft by enduring self-inflicted hardships. You’d think they’d be happier getting paid to do what every child dreams of when they grow up.I know I’d be.
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Published on August 12, 2016 11:33

August 10, 2016

Screenwriting Techniques Adapted For the Novel: Arts & Crafts

As I sit down to write this, I can hear my old high school teacher (old as in I had several after her, not in that she herself was old) saying “always start with a broad general statement and then move on to your thesis sentence.” But since I am incapable of coming up with a clever BGS, I’m just going to use the previous sentence and inelegantly barrel right into my thesis sentence:  There are numerous skills and techniques from the field of screenwriting that can be applied to writing a novel.But before we delve into them in this series of forthcoming articles, we should probably define the differences between screenplays and novels. Screenplays, if you’re not aware, are the 100-120 page outlines that the producers and director use to film the movie they’re working on. 99.9% of all screenplays adhere to the same format and most follow the same story template when telling their stories (we’ll get to that in another installment).Also, screenplays are NEVER meant to be read directly by their audience. I like to think of them as the composer’s sheet music to a symphony: No one but the members of the orchestra are meant to ever see them, and the audience experiences what the composer wrote indirectly via the finished product of the performance of the symphony.Novels are an entirely different beast in that they are meant to be consumed directly by the audience with no metaphoric middlemen. This means the author is speaking directly to the reader without a director, producer, actor, costume designer, sound department, etc. interpreting his/ her words. This makes it a much more intimate experience than screenwriting, which is never meant to be read.It was this filtered interaction with my audience which initially drew me to screenwriting. Mainly because my prose has always been my greatest weakness as a writer, but by writing in the screenplay medium the audience would never firsthand witness my prosaic weakness. As such, I took a 15 year hiatus from writing prose out of fear.This may sound rather silly in retrospect, but I think this has a lot to do with that direct and personal interaction with the reader. It also has a lot to do with the fact that the novel can fall into the category of “art” while screenwriting is more of a craft.Although I’m aware there are as many different forms of the novel as there are writers, I generally break it down into either genre fare (horror, fantasy, sci-fi, chic-lit, etc.) or literature. And it was from the latter category of literature that my fear of exposing my prose came from. That’s because literature seems intent on defining itself as “high art,” which is striving to be the best of culture by elevating said culture. There’s a pretention that comes with high art, which I think focuses more on the form and beauty of the prose. But, to distill it down to intention, I believe the artist of literature is intent on creating something that will change the culture as a whole, while the craftsman (or woman, obviously) wants to create something useful; in this case entertaining to the audience.Because screenwriting is more based on entertainment, and therefore more story-focused than execution-of-the-prose-focused, it has many more agreed upon techniques and skills for the craftsman to use. In screenwriting these techniques includes structure, treatments, character arcs, pacing, and knowing your genre; just to name a few.Not all of these skills will be applicable to everyone, but they’re all probably good to know for writers of all mediums. I’m also a big fan of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), and a guiding tenant of that form of combat came from its godfather, Bruce Lee: “Absorb what is useful. Discard what is not. Add what is uniquely your own.”So that’s pretty much the goal of this series of articles, to highlight some specific screenwriting skills and demonstrate how I used them. To belabor my MMA metaphor a moment more, these individual skills are the 1-2 combination punches, the single-leg takedown, and omoplatas I employed in my fight with my novels. Please take the ones that work for you and incorporate them. Ignore the ones that don’t fit with your practice.And if you’ve found a technique you think I’ve overlooked, please let me know. I’m always looking to improve.
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Published on August 10, 2016 12:20