Rathan Krueger's Blog, page 9

Tiny Victory

I was looking back on how prolific artists were and thought about why they were able to do so much as opposed to now. Figured that it was because they didn’t waste time with touring and interviews. I love the concept of fan interaction and don’t wanna be the asshole who rarely shows up to things, but I’ve got many things to create. I’ll find a way to perfectly manage my time. Someday. I also don’t wanna come off as a workaholic. I believe in work and rest and 12-hour workdays with six-day workweeks are fucking stupid. That’s when you get to the point of diminishing returns. I just wanna prove that the workhorse mentality in the current art industries is broken and that there are better ways to work. Time-management and proper preparation and stuff. Someday.

I finished the Doctor Who short story yesterday. Well, almost. Well, it’s more of a superfluous addition. Well, it’s what I had in mind since the beginning. Little world-building and character details need to be added… three, actually. Plus a few time-traveling tricks that made me wanna tell the story in the first place. I’ll add them before the day’s out and e-mail it to the proper folk and hope it gets selected. It was my first test of a few things. Telling a light-hearted story, telling a story with a plot, telling a story with no elaborate fights, and telling a Doctor Who story. According to a few folk who’ve read it, I did a good job. I wish I could share it but rules of the contest say that I can’t. My training helped, though. I knew that I could do a good plot back when I decided to be a storyteller, but I was worried that I couldn’t do good characters. Not to say that I thought my writing was weak, but characters are almost more important than plot so I wanted to make sure that characters flowed easily. You could watch a film with a shitty story if the characters were interesting, but the most beautiful tale ever told is worth jack and shit if no one cares about the characters (and Jack left town). But they’re fine so that’s great.

Gonna apply for Kickstarter Tuesday. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and I bought new shoes.

I thought up a fucked-up way to add zombies to “Academia”. I wasn’t thinking about adding zombies. I’m actually not a big fan of them (vampires, yo). But I was watching “Doc of the Dead” and remembered how much I missed the zombies of the Evil Dead trilogy, or Deadites. Undead creatures that exist solely to torment those around them. So I’ll be modifying the concept of Deadites so I don’t get sued and putting one in “Academia”. Hooray!

Thought Wrangler

With, hopefully, “Quagmire” being shot in January, I realized that even with casting and rehearsing, I’m gonna have a lot of time on my hands. The idea started to creep in to write a script and have that script be “Murderhounds”. Then I started thinking about the first script I wrote: “Academia”. I thought that it’d be something I’d get around to in the distant future, but I feel that it should be next. It was originally about a group of down-on-their-luck women, but the concept of “Murderhounds”, punishing those who deserve it, remarkably translates. Plus, the only thing that REALLY made “Murderhounds” for me was its title. And a scene involving one of the killers. I can put the scene away and I already found a way to use that title in “Academia”. Another reason for the migration is that I noticed I accidentally wrote one character in it and “Quagmire”. Actually, it’s more of a character type and look. Instead of trying to think up another character, I embraced the similarities and made them the same character.

Now to get a little technical. I was researching camera lenses and was deciding twixt regular ones and anamorphic ones. Movies that have flares whenever a light is shown is shot with an anamorphic lens. There’s more to it but essentially, anamorphic lenses make films look more expensive. They also are expensive. And after thinking about it intensely, getting anamorphic lenses would restrict me visually. I’ll get around to getting them someday. Maybe for “Academia”.

The 28th is getting closer which means I have to write that “Doctor Who” short story soon. It’s plotted now, and I made it a four-part story instead of a five-part story. Divides nicely into a 40-minute format, which happens to be the average length of an episode…

When it comes time for auditions, I’m gonna write specific scripts. Usually, performers are given scenes from the film to act out. Many, many people audition. The scenes are stale by the time the film’s cast. Then there are rehearsals. By the time the scene’s shot, everyone’s so bored by it. So, remembering that I’m a writer, I thought that I could/should write scripts specifically for the actresses. Auditions are meant to find the right performers, anyway, not show parts of the script.

An article that explains how I wanna handle fame better than I can right now.

I’m thinking about opening a Tumblr account when rehearsals start. Gotta keep tearing down the wall that says only certain people can make films, right? Unobtrusive pics of the preparing process would help. Would help me learn photography, too.

I thought up a simple, effective trailer and poster idea. Studio marketing departments will either love or hate me and my hands-on nature, but I’ll have to live with my films longer than anyone else. So I have to make sure they’re presented well.

I’ve been thinking of backer incentives for my eventual Kickstarter campaign and one was a DVD with special features only the backers would get. Then I fell in love with the idea.

Wrote a song while brainstorming that short story that has nothing to do with that short story: “A Whore Named Irene”

Walking down the street

In her bookmarked feather boa

Not a care in the world

Except for where she parked her car

The street’s a dangerous place

And a streetwalker should drive to work

At least this one does

A whore named Irene

Her hair in a bun

Of cinnamon

Of flair

She fixes her bra

Smells like licorice

Tastes like sweat

Hasn’t washed it in days

Enough money for either a sandwich

Or soap

Johns don’t care about that

She’s gotta last to her next job

And she can’t eat her bun

Don’t worry, you can hide that rash

A whore named Irene

Made twenty pucks in the last hour

Goes to her light bill

She’s gotta watch her stories

The latest razzle-dazzle reel

An escape from her pain

Her pain from her need

Her need to escape

A guy pays extra for anal

She can get some ice cream

A whore named Irene

Her night’s almost over

She’s tired so she goes home early

A tally from the ticket man

Sways on the windshield

Tire on the curb

She didn’t plan for that

The bar crowds are let out

A drunk girl stumbles to a fence

It’s not rape if she pays

A deep breath and she’s off

A whore named Irene

The Story So Far

The top of the week, I put my producer hat on for the first time. Looks suspiciously like a black fedora. The rest of the month will be dedicated to forming a budget so I can properly apply for a Kickstarter on the 30th. Also gives me a chunk of time to figure out incentives.

This week was about finding the location for my film. It takes place onstage in a theater (clever, clever me). I was looking for an all-encompassing one, a place that’d allow me to shoot as well as rehearse and audition. I could only get one of those, but it’s the most important so, yay. My plan was to shoot at Summer’s end, but the location won’t be available until January. In the bigger picture, that’s great because it’ll give me more time to find actresses and rehearse and junk.

Until I found out about January, I was thinking about which film festival to go to. Sundance is the more prestigious, but Slamdance gave Christopher Nolan his start. When I saw that I’d be too late for Sundance, I didn’t feel bad. Then I saw that because of January, I wouldn’t be able to go to Slamdance, either. Sucks but saves me the train ride and snowy mountains (the two festivals take place near the same time in Colorado). I’m not gonna wait for the next year to go so I might try distributing it myself online. With the eventual goal to get it on DVD. I have a few ideas for DVD special features, too, and another one has come to me as I type this.

I’m still looking for a rehearsal space. I’ve decided to have auditions online. Not quite sure how I’m gonna go about it but I have time.

My “Doctor Who” short story is almost finished, in terms of world-building. Knowing the (made-up) history and landscape of a place helps me write. I’m amazed at the sort of details I focused on. Next week, I’ll start breaking down the plot.

That’s all for now. Off to watch “Enter the Dragon”.

And Mistakes… I’ve Made a Few

OK, now to get a bit more routinely.

“Nostalgia Season” is tucked away in a binder. It’s not complete, but it will be someday. However, it won’t be a novel. It’ll be a graphic novel, also known as a really thick comic. I’ve already written a novel and the process of going through that again was a bit boring. Coupled with the need to draw again, turning it into a comic sounded like a great idea. But that’s not for a while. A long while.

Early last month, I decided that I was a filmmaker above anything else. The pit stop into novel-writing started turning into the journey. The war drums of “Quagmire” began beating intensely as I was working on chapter four of “Nostalgia Season”. It got to the point where I had to stop fooling myself and just write the damn thing. So I spent a few days plotting it out with my handy-dandy corkboard. What I had in mind and what I ended up with were two slightly different things. My original idea was to write a 140-page script because a page equals a minute of screentime and I liked the idea of a 140-minute film about the subject in “Quagmire”. It was also gonna slowly turn into a horror film, and I was gonna write it in three weeks. Two weeks into writing, the film told me that it was finished on page 100 and that it was gonna throw out being a horror film. Which was fine. Plenty of stories to tell and plenty of life to tell them. Anyone who says that life is short is wrong: it’s the longest thing you’ll ever do.

I feel proud of what I’ve written. I’ll look back on it with more refined eyes someday with a slight bit of embarrassment for a few reasons, but I’ll stay proud for a while. A few losses aside, I managed to do what I set out to. I also see a few faults o’ mine. Scripts are supposed to be descriptive about certain things. Actually, I don’t think it’s a fault. The eventual film takes place in one location and it’s a pretty standard one, so I felt that I didn’t need to constantly detail it. And I feel that actors and actresses need to stick to the words in a script but are free outside of that to do what they want, so why should I detail their actions? They’re gonna get enough of me banging the words and camera angles into their heads, I don’t need to cripple their acting choices completely. I can always write a novel or comic, or make an animated something, if I want complete and utter control over acting.

I love how different the characters are and how their dialogue flows. Talking like this, it seems like I’m full of myself, but I can easily separate myself from my material. I can jump from creator to audience and critique myself, or enjoy the end product. I know that rehearsals are gonna be important because there are some parts that will be actor-dependent, and they can easily fall apart if I’m not careful. But that’s all part of the fun, right?

Once I copyright the script today, I’m gonna quickly dive into getting it made. I’ve learned a lot from my first filmmaking experience that was “Dirty Thoughts”. Next week and the week after, I’m gonna look into two places for actresses and a location. One place I’ve passed for years driving to Indiana, but the other is in the city where my favorite writing-directing team came from. After that gets settled, I’m gonna set up a crowdfunding thing. I wear too much black to go outside for money. But seriously, I tried the door-to-door thing before and it left me with a whole lotta nothing. The thing I’m not looking forward to is thinking up rewards. If I was established or had things to give, great. But I’m a nobody (for now) with nothing (ditto). Luckily, I’m also a researcher. I have an interesting idea to get people interested, too. Sadly, there’s a good chance that it’ll work because my script’s a tad too topical these days. I hope to be in at least preproduction by the end of August. With many more blog posts along the way. Hopefully happy ones.

Next week, I’ll also be working on my Doctor Who short story in earnest. It’s due on the 28th. I have a great concept and, given a day, I’ll have enough of it plotted to blaze through it soon.

Outside off all this productivity, I’m reading “The Art of Neil Gaiman”. It’s a sorta history a book about the author with photos, clippings, and excerpts. Just made it to the “Sandman” section. I’m also getting back into anime with “Hell Girl”. It’s about a site that allows you to send someone to Hell, but you also go there when you die. The other anime I’m watching is “Kill la Kill”, about a girl fighting her way through a high school to get to her father’s killer. It’s A LOT goofier than it sounds. I’ve also rewatched “Attack on Titan”. Gotta love my depressing stories. Gonna try to watch “Orange is the New Black” over the weekend, between making-of docs about filmmaking. Never stop learning, kids.

I should try doing the social black-clad thing more and go to those clubs, buy those magazines, etc…

Mischief of a Débutante

Chapter three’s almost halfway done now. It’s been fun getting into Sadie’s head and using her voice instead of the narrator’s. Descriptives are new and interesting because I’m used to the narrator explaining as much as possible. Sadie wouldn’t bother with all that, so her descriptions of things are more broad. If she bothers to describe at all. I came up with a better ending for the chapter. Much more heartfelt without being sappy. My goal, at least with this novel, is to make the reader feel emotions, strong emotions, but to not make them cry. It’s easy to make someone cry. But to bring them as close to crying as possible with any leakage is a challenge. I have nothing against something making the reader cry, it’s just not challenging to me. Plus I feel that too many things go for the tears these days. So yeah, the non-sappy ending. I want Sadie to open up in a way to Luciana that she hasn’t to anyone before, in a way that Luciana recognizes as a resemblance of herself. I have that moment and I’m well on my way to earning it, but presenting it is another matter. If I write it the wrong way, it’ll get laughed at and that’s something I do not want. I’ll figure it out when I get there, though.

With my recent review and the reviews I’ve gotten, I realized that I’m one of those love-or-almost-like sort of artists. The “fun” will be to see which side of the scale will be more weighted.

As I was writing chapter three, I found out that, among other things, I was writing a Chicago novel. To the point where Sadie essentially gives directions to certain places. It’s been harder to write because of that, but I’m not quite sure why. I almost settled on it being because I’m more inclined to fantasy, fiction, and made-up places. “Lie” was easy to write because although it took place in England, the part of England was made-up. “Nostalgia Season” being a Chicago novel means that people can do tours of chapters. I’ll have to be sure to warn people to not go to certain places, though. They’re a bit… seedy.

I think I found a way to get “Quagmire” made.

New Review, Courtesy of Fresh Coffee Blog

Thanks to Tracy, and… spoilers.

A Success and a Side-Quest

Chapter two’s been finished as of last week. I’m proud of it, but I’m REALLY proud of the musical number at the end of it. It’s the first time I’ve written a song and was completely satisfied with it. I was listening to a lot of Amy Winehouse at the time. Not for inspiration, but because I liked listening to her. The musical number was always meant to be a little bitter, and Ms. Winehouse helped with that unconsciously. Ditto Ms. Morissette. There was a lot of planning that went into writing the musical number, in terms of lyrics. I wanted to give Luciana and Sadie specific points of view and singing styles. I figured that Luciana was ultimately singing about mortality and Sadie was ultimately singing about freedom. Because of that, Luciana’s lyrics became very structured (as everyone’s life is structured by ending in death) and Sadie’s lyrics became very free. Luciana had rhyming patterns and an iambic structure, and dealt with wordplay. Sadie was free verse and didn’t rhyme, and was more visual. What’ll probably amuse me later is the second half of the musical number and how committed I was to making it seem as if you were listening to it instead of reading it. The musical number was also a test in seeing if I could write with themes, and I passed. It’s good to try on something small-scale like a song because I’d rather screw up with that than something that has more than a hundred pages.

The goal of the second chapter was to show how close Luciana and Sadie are. This is a friendship-at-first-sight story and I wanted them to be super-close. So I did things like get them drunk and burst into song and dance, and the waxing. I get the feeling that some people will find the two giving each other bikini waxes stupid or superfluous, but they’re only taking the action at face value. I had to show that they’re closer in friendship than most friends while also saying that their relationship isn’t sexual. And the waxing story is true, like a lot of unbelievable things in life. In any case, I felt that I did a good job with writing it and not making it seem at all gratuitous. If you take that interaction out, you lose a dreadfully important set of character detail. And since my stories so far are more character than plot, I need all the detail I can get.

I’m taking a break this week to write a short film script, “For Irony’s Sake”.

I feel sometimes like I’m the Iron Chef of storytelling, taking a bunch of story elements that shouldn’t work and finding a way to. I just need a big hat and an announcer.

Howdy-Do. Almost Through with Chapter Two

I’ll be finished by Friday, which is fantastic. There were supposed to be three more cards but that last one was breaking two of my rules, so I chucked it. I wanted the gals to imagine a fight scene for no other reason than me wanting it, and I wanted to make it another Intermezzo even though I wanted to use them sparingly. Why did I want the fight scene? To show off, basically, and show that I can do more than have two people talk. But that was the author trying to slap the story around instead of let it be. The story tells you what it does and doesn’t need, and the best creatives listen. There’ll be plenty more times to show off my violent urges.

The novel’s becoming a scrapbook of memories, more than I intended it to be. It fits in perfectly with the theme of the novel, and I’ll never reveal which too-personal parts are more fact than fiction, so I’ll survive. Keeping with my plan for getting “Nostalgia Season” published the traditional way, I’ve made my first professional step to making that happen. It’s gonna be very time-consuming, but it has to happen this way unless something easier falls into my lap. Writing the second chapter has been slightly more of a chore than I’d like because it’s been predominantly in Luciana’s apartment. The next chapter takes place outside, but I wanted to spend more time out of Room 2B. So the fourth chapter will take place at Luciana’s gay friend’s house. That was gonna end up in a bunch of different places, and it still might, but I’ve at least settled on the town.

Something I wasn’t expecting to happen was to give a history lesson in the novel, but the opportunity presented itself. I wanted Sadie to ramble about Prohibition but when I got to that point, it didn’t feel right. Her referring to Prohibition was fine, but she was too drunk to wax poetical about it. But I knew I had some things to say about it, so I made the narrator do it. It was supposed to simply say one or two sentences, but it grew into this long and beautiful humanizing of Prohibition by focusing on its true cause. Hurt women.

Sometimes, getting the day’s writing done is like having to finish a set of push-ups when your arms are noodly. You know you have to do them, but it’s SO HARD, so you take little breaks and, bam, done. Finishing the last card was like that, so I’ve learned to not write while exhausted yet don’t allow myself to put the pen down for the rest of the day.

Crumbs, it would’ve been horrible to have Luciana live in a loft.

No artist should want to be “the next x”, they should want to be “the first me”. Taking inspiration from others is fine, but don’t try to be them. Why do what someone else did? With that said, I wanna do for women in fiction what Neal Adams has done for comics. Neal Adams, among many other things in the field, made it so that comic book people got the rights and respect they deserved from their bosses. For instance, the creators of Superman would’ve been happily forgotten by DC Comics if Neal Adams didn’t change things. I’m not a big fan of Superman but it’s fucked-up to not be known you created something as massive as him. But now if you open a comic or look at the credits on a TV show or film, you’re gonna see that Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created him. Much like I just did to see how to spell Siegel. I’m not sure how that’ll translate to female characters, or rather, I’m not sure how to explain yet. But you’ve gotten a taste of it in “Lie” and will continue to taste in in “Nostalgia Season”… and everything else, really.

Other creative ideas– Two creative ideas have been nagging at me for a while, which means that I really wanna finish “Nostalgia Season” because they’re two GREAT creative ideas. The threat of distractions are a fine way to find out if you really want something. And I keep making the characters richer. Luciana and Sadie are gonna be billion-dollar characters when it’s all over. Not in terms of how much they’ll make me, but in terms of how full of life and details they’ll be. Without seeming cluttered or like someone tried too hard.

IT WON’T STOP GROWING!!

“Nostalgia Season” is becoming beautifully unwieldy. Chapter one is, I think, twice as long as the longest chapter in “Lie”. And I know it’s gonna get longer in the edit like the rest of the chapters. Chapter two is looking to be twice as long as chapter one, and it seems that the following chapters will be about that length. That’s fucking nuts, in the best way. My goal for this novel was to make it around 320 pages, a decent novel length and about a hundred pages longer than my first novel. Now, pre-edit, it could easily get to 400. That’s astounding to me because it’s basically two people talking with no real plot. I come from the Scorsese and Kubrick school of thought. Stories about characters are more important than stories about doing something, to me. You tend to be able to figure out the plot of a story before the characters do these days, but you’ll rarely be able to predict a stranger. I’ll do a few plot-driven stories someday, unpredictable as your death, but I’m more interested in characters right now.

Something about “Nostalgia Season” that’s making me a little nervous is that there’s so much talking. Nervous because I haven’t heard about too many stories like this unless they involved talking about intrigue, politics, or that thing that should not be. Luciana and Sadie are just two women who live in a lower-middle class town. They’re very unique women in this town, though. It’s a fun challenge, though, making sure that they justify the pages they’re on. The Edit’s also gonna be fun because I get to add details of them doing things while they talk. People just don’t sit and talk. They look at things and play with things and so on, so I get to add that sort of garnish. Like the bit I wrote last night. I gave Luciana a laptop and Sadie her cat so I had something to play with during the edit.

I’ve started using things from the surveys I made for the gals before I started writing. Those things were too good to just leave there. There’s something Sadie said that I’ve been agonizing over, trying to find the perfect place for it. And it has to be the perfect place, I don’t want it to seem like it’s there because the writer wanted it there, fuck how outta place it is. Something I realized after yesterday, besides realizing that I need a new word besides “realize”, is that writing for the stage will be incredibly easy after this. Not that the next thing I write will be for the stage. No, I’m jumping back into cinema. This director needs a camera.

Luciana will be the prelude to the moratorium I’m putting on what I’m calling the Tank Girl character. She comes so easily to me and although Luciana isn’t Idette, they’re not as far apart as I’d like. So I’m getting Tank Girl outta my system and building a circus of character types for the future. The third chapter’s gonna be oh so welcome because it’ll get me out of Luciana’s damn apartment. I love how I’ve designed it (and earlier this week, I saw that the layout looks like a uterus), but there are only so many ways you can lounge around for pages at a time. It does make you creative, though. The gals are having a very exciting conversation while one’s in bathroom and the other’s at the door, and I don’t think I would’ve had that idea if I wasn’t trapped in Room 2B. With that said, I’m very much looking forward to putting them on the streets of downtown Chicago next chapter. Another thing I’m looking forward to is using just one voice in that chapter. It takes place from Sadie’s perspective, and I’m excited about translating how minds work into a chapter. I haven’t seen this done before and that’s delightful.

Something I read earlier this week stuck with me. You’re the average of the five people you’re around the most. I’ve always been selective about friends, but now I’m obsessive. I don’t need someone mucking up my creativity pool. I wonder if it counts if I’ve watched lots of documentaries and interviews, and listened to lots of commentaries of my favorite directors. I had the chance to talk about “Nostalgia Season” to people recently, and it felt fantastic. I probably came off as slightly psychotic, but all creatives do when they’re talking about people they made up.

Chapter Two’s First Volley

Although this is being posted midday, I’m writing this just before bed. I point that out because I’m about to say that I hope I’ll be  almost done with the first third of the second chapter by the time this is posted. Or rather, have just said. Semantics. Before I get into that, I wanna introduce you to my new tablet. My laptop’s motherboard melted last week. Luckily, my years of work and fandom were tucked away on the external so there’s no real loss. Especially since I can hook it up to my Blu-ray player. However, I was forced to join the times by begrudgingly getting a tablet since I couldn’t find an affordable laptop within driving distance. I say “begrudgingly” because I was fine with laptops. I love laptops. They’re portable and close like a clamshell. But I couldn’t get one and NEEDED something computery because my career and future as an artist depended on it. So I went to Best Buy and got the only thing I could afford (and was glad it wasn’t an iPad).

I was immediately struck by how much desk space I had and how streamlined my day-to-day became with the apps. There was a learning curve: how to tap things, how to get apps, finding out that tablets don’t need to defrag, finding out that I still needed to monitor memory by clearing out caches, and as of this moment, getting comfortable with typing. This last one is important because it looks like I’ll be typing “Nostalgia Season” on this once I’m done writing it. Self-promoting’s been interesting because of this thing and Twitter. I’ve given up on bloggers for the time being because I wanted to try a more direct approach. And because most use Blogspot and those sites loaded horribly on the laptop. I don’t wanna throw the tablet in frustration my first month of having it. So I chose Twitter to bang the “Lie” drum with and something amazing happened within the first few seconds of loading its app. I couldn’t see how many followers I had. Because of that, I could lose what little restraint I had when it came to what I had to say. I could self-promote and act au naturale because I couldn’t see a number attached to me. Little things go a long way. Since I started, I’ve gotten new followers and have been added to a few lists.

But back to chapter two. It’s been a great ride so far. Luciana has been surprising me and allowing me to address a few things… and gave me the chance to think of the male equivalent of my favorite line from both seasons of “Rome”, “I hope she fucks like her ass is on fire.” I’m probably prouder of that than I should be, but it’s been nagging at me for years. Through Luciana and Sadie, I was able to talk about the woes of women with large breasts. I’ve heard complaints about them for a while and thought it’d be fun to talk about them instead of treating breasts as sex objects. Sadie… I know that she’s been getting the short straw in terms of character development, so this chapter’s gonna be more about her. Luciana comes easily to me, but not Sadie. To the point where I hit a creative wall because I couldn’t see what her room looked like. Everything in Room 2B was so vivid to me save that place, and I can’t write something I can’t see. But that problem’s been taken care of and I found out more about her in the process. She loves art in all its forms, and Amy Winehouse. That second thing helped me out more than I expected when I thought of it.